An important international discussion began because of some pioneer studies carried out by Young (1996a) on the internet addiction disorder (IAD). In the fifth and most recent version of the Diagnostic, and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) there is no mention of this disorder and among researchers there are basically two opposite positions. Those who are in favor of a specific diagnosis and those who are claiming the importance of specific criteria characterizing this behavior and the precise role it (...) has in the patient’s life. The aim of the present paper is to answer the question whether it is possible or not to formulate diagnoses of internet-related disorders. We revised literature on the history of diagnostic criteria, on neurocognitive evidence, on the topic debate and on IAD instrumental measures. We found that the disorder was not univocally defined and that the construct was somehow too broad and generic to be explicative for a diagnosis. Indeed, the models are borrowed from other addiction pathologies and they are often formulated before the development of internet as intended in current society. In conclusion, we think we need a more innovative, integrated and comprehensive model for an IAD diagnosis. (shrink)

This work focuses on the relational dimension of the encounter between teacher and students meant as a structural element for teaching practice. By using theoretical group-analytical and anthropo-analytical coordinates, the authors psychodynamically problematize some relational conditions that may influence learning. This research concentrates on the circumstances that limit and allow the birth of a group arrangement capable to learn from experience, rather than on a perspective to teach-learn in a perfect agreement with planning. Intercultural education is pointed out and located (...) as a horizon and ideal term to guide educational practice. (shrink)

The relationship between traumatic life events and increased suicide risk has been well reported in literature. However, the complex nature of suicidality phenomena still hinders our ability to comprehend the mediation mechanism underlying this association. In this study, we examined the mediating role of adult attachment and reflective functioning in the relationship between traumatic life events and suicidal ideation. Nine hundred and fifty Italian adults completed an online survey evaluating traumatic life events, adult attachment, reflective functioning and suicidal ideation. The (...) path analysis showed that the positive relationship between traumatic life events and suicidal ideation was partially mediated by attachment anxiety and reflective functioning. From a clinical point of view, these results support the relevance of evaluating and improving patients’ ability to mentalize as a part of psychotherapeutic intervention aimed at reducing suicidality in people with a history of traumatic experiences and attachment anxiety. (shrink)

During the COVID-19 outbreak, individuals with or without mental disorders may resort to dysfunctional psychological strategies that could trigger or heighten their emotional distress. The current study aims to explore the links between maladaptive daydreaming, psychological symptoms of depression, anxiety, and negative stress, and COVID-19-related variables, such as changes in face-to-face and online relationships, during the COVID-19 lockdown in Italy. A total of 6,277 Italian adults completed an online survey, including socio-demographic variables, COVID-19 related information, the 16-item Maladaptive Daydreaming Scale, (...) and Depression, Anxiety, and Stress Scales-21 Items. Based on an empirically derived cut-off score, 1,082 participants were identified as probable maladaptive daydreamers. A binary logistic regression revealed that compared to controls, probable MDers reported that during the COVID-19 lockdown they experienced higher levels of anxiety and depression, decreased online social relationships, and, surprisingly, stable or increased face-to-face social relationships. Given the peculiar characteristics of the pandemic context, these findings suggest that the exposure to the risk of contagion had probably exacerbated the tendency of probable MDers to lock themselves inside their mental fantasy worlds, which in turn may have contributed to further estrangement from online social relationships and support, thus worsening their emotional distress. (shrink)

TikTok has one of the most advanced algorithm systems and is the most addictive as compared to other social media platforms. While research on social media addiction is abundant, we know much less about how the TikTok information system environment affects users’ internal states of enjoyment, concentration, and time distortion, which in turn influences their addiction behavior. To fill this gap, this study collects responses from 659 adolescents in China aged between 10 and 19 years old, and the data is (...) then analyzed using Partial Least Square. We find that the system quality has a stronger influence than information quality in determining adolescents’ experience with TikTok and that the flow experience has significant direct and indirect effects on TikTok addiction behavior. Notably, this study finds that TikTok addiction is determined by users’ mental concentration on the medium and its content. Several theoretical insights from the stimulus–organism–response model and the flow theory are used to explain the findings. (shrink)

We reviewed literature to understand when a spatial map for time is available in the brain. We carefully defined the concepts of metrical map of time and of conceptual representation of time as the mental time line (MTL) in order to formulate our position. It is that both metrical map and conceptual representation of time are spatial in nature. The former should be innate, related to motor/implicit timing, it should represent all magnitudes with an analogic and bi-dimensional structure. The latter (...) MTL should be learned, available at about 8–10 years-old and related to cognitive/explicit time. It should have uni-dimensional, linear and directional structure (left-to-right in Western culture). We bear the centrality of the development of number cognition, of time semantic concepts and of reading/writing habits for the development of ordinality and linearity of the MTL. (shrink)

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to better understand the characteristics of the language-related skills of bilingual children with specific learning disorders. The aim is achieved by analyzing language-related skills in a sample of bilingual and Italian monolingual children, with and without SLD.Patients and methods: A total of 72 minors aged between 9 and 11 were recruited and divided into four groups: 18 Italian monolingual children with SLD, 18 bilingual children with SLD, 18 Italian monolingual children without SLD, and (...) 18 bilingual children without SLD. Each child underwent tests to evaluate different aspects of language skills: lexical and grammar, metalanguage and executive functions.Results: With regard to lexical and grammatical skills, the conditions of SLD and bilingualism both impact naming in terms of total number of errors for words with low frequency of use, while the condition of SLD has an effect on semantic errors for words with low frequency of use. The condition of bilingualism impacts on the total errors for words with high frequency of use and on circumlocution-type errors for words with low frequency of use. There were significant effects of bilingualism and SLD on the metalinguistic test for understanding implicit meaning, and an impact of SLD on phonological awareness was also found.Conclusion: The results suggest that both SLD and bilingualism have an effect on some lexical skills, in particular for words with low frequency of use. Both conditions, bilingualism and SLD, seem to impact on metalinguistic abilities that depend on lexical knowledge. These findings reinforce the importance of improving understanding of the neuropsychological profile of bilingual children with SLD. (shrink)

Some studies highlighted that patients with narcolepsy type-1 experience high lucid dream frequency, and this phenomenon has been associated with a creative personality. Starting from the well-known “pandemic effect” on sleep and dreaming, we presented a picture of dream activity in pharmacologically treated NT1 patients during the Italian lockdown. Forty-three NT1 patients completed a web-survey during Spring 2021 and were compared with 86 matched-controls. Statistical comparisons revealed that: NT1 patients showed greater sleepiness than controls; controls showed higher sleep disturbances than (...) NT1 patients, and this result disappeared when the medication effect in NT1 was controlled; NT1 patients reported higher lucid dream frequency than controls. Focusing on dreaming in NT1 patients, we found that nightmare frequency was correlated with female gender, longer sleep duration, higher intrasleep wakefulness; dream recall, nightmare and lucid dream frequency were positively correlated with sleepiness. Comparisons between low and high NT1 lucid dreamers showed that patients more frequently experiencing lucid dreams reported a greater influence of dreaming during wakefulness, especially concerning problem-solving and creativity. Overall, our results are consistent with previous studies on pandemic dreaming carried out on healthy subjects. Moreover, we confirmed a link between lucidity and creativity in NT1 patients. Considering the small sample size and the cross-sectional design, our findings cannot provide a causal relationship between lucid dreams and the COVID-19 lockdown. Nevertheless, they represent a first contribution to address future studies on this issue, suggesting that some stable characteristics could interact with changes provoked by the pandemic. (shrink)

Narcolepsy type 1 deeply impacts on quality of life, especially during adolescence, with NT1 children and adolescents that frequently report difficulties in integration with peers and decreased participation in after-school activities. Here we describe the case of NT1 teenager girl presenting with severe physical and social withdrawal, fulfilling the proposed diagnostic criteria for hikikomori, together with the classic NT1 symptoms. Social withdrawal is an overlooked phenomenon among NT1 children and adolescents that, if present, require a multidisciplinary approach and personalized interventions, (...) but patients can benefit from NT1 pharmacological treatment. (shrink)

During the twentieth century, the view that assertions and norms are valid insofar as they respond to principles independent of all local and temporal contexts came under attack from two perspectives: the partiality of translation and the intersubjective constitution of the self, understood as responsive to recognition. Defenses of universalism have by and large taken the form of a thinning out of substantive universalism into various forms of proceduralism. Alessandro Ferrara instead launches an entirely different strategy for transcending the (...) particularity of context without contradicting our pluralistic intuitions: a strategy centered on the exemplary universalism of judgment. Whereas exemplarity has long been thought to belong to the domain of aesthetics, this book explores the _other_ uses to which it can be put in our philosophical predicament, especially in the field of politics. After defining exemplarity and describing how something unique can possess universal significance, Ferrara addresses the force exerted by exemplarity, the nature of the judgment that discloses exemplarity, and the way in which the force of the example can bridge the difference between various contexts. Drawing not only on Kant's _Critique of the Power of Judgment_ but also on the work of Hannah Arendt, John Rawls, Ronald Dworkin, and Jürgen Habermas, Ferrara outlines a view of exemplary validity that is applicable to today's central philosophical issues, including public reason, human rights, radical evil, sovereignty, republicanism and liberalism, and religion in the public sphere. (shrink)

As people look for a way to ground their judgments of moral, political, aesthetic claims in the face of the postmodernists who claim nothing can be grounded, Reflective Authenticity attempts to rescue some of the critical ideals of the Enlightenment without falling prey to those who say that the Enlightenment's tenets of objectivity, reason, liberalism makes this impossible and in the face of multiculturalism, difference, and the death of subject, are outdated. Alessandro Ferrara suggests that the notion of reflective (...) authenticity offers the key to a new kind of exemplary universalism which, different from the generalizing universalism typical of modern thought, does not fall under the critique of foundationalism articulated by postmodernist thinkers. (shrink)

Philosophers have rightly condemned lookism—that is, discrimination in favor of attractive people or against unattractive people—in education, the justice system, the workplace and elsewhere. Surprisingly, however, the almost universal preference for attractive romantic and sexual partners has rarely received serious ethical scrutiny. On its face, it’s unclear whether this is a form of discrimination we should reject or tolerate. I consider arguments for both views. On the one hand, a strong case can be made that preferring attractive partners is bad. (...) The idea is that choosing partners based on looks seems essentially similar to other objectionable forms of discrimination. (In particular, the preference for attractive partners is arguably both unfair and harmful to a significant degree.) One can try to resist this conclusion in several ways. I consider three possible replies. The first has to do with the possibility of controlling our partner preferences. The second pertains to attractiveness and “good genes”. The last attempts to link certain aspects of attractiveness to a prospective partner’s personality and values. I argue that the first two replies fail conclusively, while the third only amounts to a limited defense of a particular kind of attractiveness preference. So the idea that we should often avoid preferring attractive partners is compelling. (shrink)

We discuss potential biorisks from large language models (LLMs). AI assistants based on LLMs such as ChatGPT have been shown to significantly reduce barriers to entry for actors wishing to synthesize dangerous, potentially novel pathogens and chemical weapons. The harms from deploying such bioagents could be further magnified by AI-assisted misinformation. We endorse several policy responses to these dangers, including prerelease evaluations of biomedical AIs by subject-matter experts, enhanced surveillance and lab screening procedures, restrictions on AI training data, and access (...) controls on biomedical AI. We conclude with a suggestion about future research directions in bioethics. (shrink)

According to a widespread view in metaphysics and philosophy of science, all explanations involve relations of ontic dependence between the items appearing in the explanandum and the items appearing in the explanans. I argue that a family of mathematical cases, which I call “viewing-as explanations”, are incompatible with the Dependence Thesis. These cases, I claim, feature genuine explanations that aren’t supported by ontic dependence relations. Hence the thesis isn’t true in general. The first part of the paper defends this claim (...) and discusses its significance. The second part of the paper considers whether viewing-as explanations occur in the empirical sciences, focusing on the case of so-called fictional models. It’s sometimes suggested that fictional models can be explanatory even though they fail to represent actual worldly dependence relations. Whether or not such models explain, I suggest, depends on whether we think scientific explanations necessarily give information relevant to intervention and control. Finally, I argue that counterfactual approaches to explanation also have trouble accommodating viewing-as cases. (shrink)

A great deal of work in analytic philosophy of art is related to defining what counts as art. So far, cognitive approaches to art have almost entirely ignored this literature. In this paper I discuss the role of intuition in analytic philosophy of art, to show how an empirical research program on art could take advantage of existing work in analytic philosophy. I suggest that the first step of this research program should be to understand how people intuitively categorize something (...) as art. Drawing on results from cognitive science and analytic philosophy, I show that the intuitive categorization of an artifact as art rests on the intentions attributed (frequently implicitly) to the creator of the artifact based both on its appearance and on background knowledge. I discuss how the issue of categorization is related to other empirical issues concerning our relationship to works of art, such as perception, appreciation, interpretation and evaluation. (shrink)

The problem of truth in fiction concerns how to tell whether a given proposition is true in a given fiction. Thus far, the nearly universal consensus has been that some propositions are ‘implicitly true’ in some fictions: such propositions are not expressed by any explicit statements in the relevant work, but are nevertheless held to be true in those works on the basis of some other set of criteria. I call this family of views ‘implicitism’. I argue that implicitism faces (...) serious problems, whereas the opposite view is much more plausible than has previously been thought. After mounting a limited defence of explicitism, I explore a difficult problem for the view and discuss some possible responses. (shrink)

How and to what extent do people take into account the intentions of others? Alessandro Duranti sets out to answer this question, showing that the role of intentions in human interaction is variable across cultures and contexts. Through careful analysis of data collected over three decades in US and Pacific societies, Duranti demonstrates that, in some communities, social actors avoid intentional discourse, focusing on the consequences of actions rather than on their alleged original goals. In other cases, he argues, (...) people do speculate about their own intentions or guess the intentions of others, including in some societies where it was previously assumed they avoid doing so. To account for such variation, Duranti proposes an 'intentional continuum', a concept that draws from phenomenology and the detailed analysis of face-to-face interaction. A combination of new essays and classic re-evaluations, the book draws together findings from anthropology, linguistics and philosophy to offer a penetrating account of the role of intentions in defining human action. (shrink)

Much recent work on mathematical explanation has presupposed that the phenomenon involves explanatory proofs in an essential way. I argue that this view, ‘proof chauvinism’, is false. I then look in some detail at the explanation of the solvability of polynomial equations provided by Galois theory, which has often been thought to revolve around an explanatory proof. The article concludes with some general worries about the effects of chauvinism on the theory of mathematical explanation. 1Introduction 2Why I Am Not a (...) Proof Chauvinist 2.1Proof chauvinism and mathematical practice 2.2Proof chauvinism and philosophy 3An Example: Galois Theory and Explanatory Proof 4Conclusion. (shrink)

O presente artigo pretende homenagear o texto “O futuro ausente: para a crítica da política e o resgate da emancipação humana”, de José Chasin, resgatando e desenvolvendo suas análises da obra marxiana, no que se refere à crítica da política. Parte-se do caminho de pesquisa aberto por Chasin, registrados sobretudo em Marx: estatuto ontológico e resolução metodológica e Marx: a determinação ontonegativa da politicidade, procurando mostrar, por meio da análise imanente da obra marxiana, como o reconhecimento da determinação ontonegativa da (...) politicidade permanece central para a crítica de Marx em sua obra madura, aprimorada pela análise que o filósofo alemão desenvolve sobre a forma valor. (shrink)

Keenan (1987) observed that trivial determiners built from basic existential determiners (e.g.,either zero or else more than zero) are allowed inthere-insertion contexts, and that trivial determiners built from basic non-existential determiners (e.g.,either all or else not all) are not. This result is unexpected under the analyses ofthere-sentences proposed in Barwise and Cooper (1981), Higginbotham (1987), and Keenan (1987). I argue that the class of NPs barred from the postverbal position ofthere-sentences (strong NPs) is correctly characterized in presuppositional terms, as suggested (...) in de Jong and Verkuyl (1985) and Lumsden (1988). According to this characterization, strong NPs share one of the defining components of definiteness proposed in Heim (1982), namely the Descriptive Content Condition (DCC). How to derive the prohibition against strong NPs inthere-insertion contexts (definiteness effect) from the fact that strong NPs meet the DCC is not obvious, however. I argue that accounting for this prohibition involves regarding the XP-coda in [there be NP XP] as providing the contextual domain for the interpretation of the postverbal NP. (shrink)

Philosophers of science since Nagel have been interested in the links between intertheoretic reduction and explanation, understanding and other forms of epistemic progress. Although intertheoretic reduction is widely agreed to occur in pure mathematics as well as empirical science, the relationship between reduction and explanation in the mathematical setting has rarely been investigated in a similarly serious way. This paper examines an important particular case: the reduction of arithmetic to set theory. I claim that the reduction is unexplanatory. In defense (...) of this claim, I offer evidence from mathematical practice, and I respond to contrary suggestions due to Steinhart, Maddy, Kitcher and Quine. I then show how, even if set-theoretic reductions are generally not explanatory, set theory can nevertheless serve as a legitimate foundation for mathematics. Finally, some implications of my thesis for philosophy of mathematics and philosophy of science are discussed. In particular, I suggest that some reductions in mathematics are probably explanatory, and I propose that differing standards of theory acceptance might account for the apparent lack of unexplanatory reductions in the empirical sciences. (shrink)

Gauss’s quadratic reciprocity theorem is among the most important results in the history of number theory. It’s also among the most mysterious: since its discovery in the late 18th century, mathematicians have regarded reciprocity as a deeply surprising fact in need of explanation. Intriguingly, though, there’s little agreement on how the theorem is best explained. Two quite different kinds of proof are most often praised as explanatory: an elementary argument that gives the theorem an intuitive geometric interpretation, due to Gauss (...) and Eisenstein, and a sophisticated proof using algebraic number theory, due to Hilbert. Philosophers have yet to look carefully at such explanatory disagreements in mathematics. I do so here. According to the view I defend, there are two important explanatory virtues—depth and transparency—which different proofs (and other potential explanations) possess to different degrees. Although not mutually exclusive in principle, the packages of features associated with the two stand in some tension with one another, so that very deep explanations are rarely transparent, and vice versa. After developing the theory of depth and transparency and applying it to the case of quadratic reciprocity, I draw some morals about the nature of mathematical explanation. (shrink)

semantic minimalism and moderte contextualism.

Mathematicians distinguish between proofs that explain their results and those that merely prove. This paper explores the nature of explanatory proofs, their role in mathematical practice, and some of the reasons why philosophers should care about them. Among the questions addressed are the following: what kinds of proofs are generally explanatory (or not)? What makes a proof explanatory? Do all mathematical explanations involve proof in an essential way? Are there really such things as explanatory proofs, and if so, how do (...) they relate to the sorts of explanation encountered in philosophy of science and metaphysics? (shrink)

Proseguendo nella rilettura della fisica iniziata con il volume Una storia della fisica classica, l'autore tenta di tracciare una storia delle teorie della relatività e di quelle quantistiche. -/- Il taglio è quello del precedente volume: cercare di riscoprire le cose così come apparvero all'atto della loro scoperta e presentarle cercando di essere il più fedele possibile ai lavori originali, utilizzando ampie citazioni tratte da questi e mettendone in evidenza le motivazioni e i limiti. -/- Questa via, una via più (...) "storica" che "filosofica", che evita sia gli approcci di tipo formale che le ricostruzioni di fantasia, permette una comprensione più matura del corpo delle varie discipline, consentendo di recepirle in modo non assiomatico, e nella complessità di una costruzione che non si esaurisce nel presente. (shrink)

The field of AI safety aims to prevent increasingly capable artificially intelligent systems from causing humans harm. Research on moral alignment is widely thought to offer a promising safety strategy: if we can equip AI systems with appropriate ethical rules, according to this line of thought, they'll be unlikely to disempower, destroy or otherwise seriously harm us. Deontological morality looks like a particularly attractive candidate for an alignment target, given its popularity, relative technical tractability and commitment to harm-avoidance principles. I (...) argue that the connection between moral alignment and safe behavior is more tenuous than many have hoped. In general, AI systems can possess either of these properties in the absence of the other, and we should favor safety when the two conflict. In particular, advanced AI systems governed by standard versions of deontology need not be especially safe. (shrink)

A number of companies allocate ownership rights to stakeholders different from shareholders, despite the fact that the law attributes these rights to the equity holders. This article contributes to an understanding of this evidence by developing a contingency model for the allocation of ownership rights. The model sheds light on why companies, despite pressures from the law, vary in their allocation of ownership rights. The model is based on the assumption that corporations increase their chance to survive and prosper if (...) the stakeholders supplying “critical contributions” receive the ownership rights. According to the model, “critical” contributions involve (1) contractual problems due to specific investments, long-term relationships, and low measurability; (2) the assumption of the uncertainty resting on the company; and (3) the supply of scarce and valuable resources. The model is dynamic because it also provides a basis for understanding why the allocation of ownership rights changes with time. Finally, the article presents the strategies companies can use to realize an efficient distribution of ownership rights among their stakeholders. (shrink)

In this paper, I try to expatiate on the poetic function of language on the basis of considerations by Jakobson and Waugh. I try to bring in the consideration that pragmatics plays an important role in elucidating the poetic function of language. Contextualism allows us to interpret a poem: referents must be fixed or need not be fixed due to the requirements of the discourse; citations are brought in through pragmatic ways; polyphony is achieved by taking into account the context (...) of previous analyses of a poetic text; the vicinity of a certain word, or concept or line is likely to affect the interpretation of a certain expression; the poetic text can take different forms, from graffiti to discourse at the market place, to discourse between lovers. All these forms of poetic text would not exist if the notion of poetry did not include the idea of semantic/pragmatic compression which is matched, in interpretation, by expansions. (shrink)

An influential theory has it that metaphysical indeterminacy occurs just when reality can be made completely precise in multiple ways. That characterization is formulated by employing the modal apparatus of ersatz possible worlds. As quantum physics taught us, reality cannot be made completely precise. I meet the challenge by providing an alternative theory which preserves the use of ersatz worlds but rejects the precisificational view of metaphysical indeterminacy. The upshot of the proposed theory is that it is metaphysically indeterminate whether (...) p just in case it is neither true nor false that p, and no terms in ‘p’ are semantically defective. In other words, metaphysical indeterminacy arises when the world cannot be adequately described by a complete set of sentences defined in a semantically nondefective language. Moreover, the present theory provides a reductive analysis of metaphysical indeterminacy, unlike its influential predecessor. Finally, I argue that any adequate logic of a language with an indeterminate subject matter is neither compositional nor bivalent. (shrink)

The role of personal background knowledge—in particular knowledge about the context of production of an artwork—has been only marginally taken into account in cognitive approaches to art. Addressing this issue is crucial to enhancing these approaches’ explanatory power and framing their collaboration with the humanities (Bullot and Reber 2012). This paper sketches a model of the experience of artworks based on the mechanisms of intention attribution, and shows how this model makes it possible to address the issue of personal background (...) knowledge empirically. I claim that the role of intention attribution in art experience has been incorrectly accounted in the literature because of an overly narrow definition of “intention.” I suggest that the observer can recover not only the artist’s abstract projects, but any kind of mental states that have played a causal role during the production of the work. In addition, I suggest that this recovery occurs in large part unconsciously and/or implicitly. I provide support for these claims by distinguishing three families of psychological mechanisms of intention attribution that are activated by artworks: one involved in the cognition of artifacts, one devoted to communication, and one involved in action perception. (shrink)

This article addresses the issue of how to develop a theory of interpretation of social action that takes into consideration culture-specific claims about intentions while simultaneously allowing for a pan-human, universal dimension of intentionality. It is argued that to achieve such a goal, it is necessary to agree on a basic definition of intentionality and on the conditions that allow for its investigation. After briefly discussing the limitations of applying an ‘narrow’ notion of intention to the analysis of other languages (...) and cultures, a more general and basic analytic notion of intentionality is proposed, that is, as aboutness. By applying this more general notion of intentionality, we can then examine both the content of intentional acts and the conditions that allow for their study across cultural contexts through ‘bracketing’. This is made possible by the social ontology of intentions, which is what enables the analysis of human conduct and its interpretation. Our methods and hypotheses must be evaluated over and against such an existential premise. (shrink)

The way we represent the world in thought and language is shot through with indeterminacy: we speak of red apples and yellow apples without thereby committing to any sharp cutoff between the application of the predicate ‘red’ and of the predicate ‘yellow’. But can reality itself be indeterminate? In other words, can indeterminacy originate in the mind-independent world, and not only in our representations? If so, can the phenomenon also arise at the microscopic scale of fundamental physics? Section 1 of (...) this Element provides a brief overview of the question of indeterminacy. Section 2 discusses the thesis that the world is comprised of indeterminate objects, whereas Section 3 focuses on the thesis that there are indeterminate states of affairs. Finally, Section 4 is devoted to the case study of indeterminacy in quantum physics. (shrink)

John Searle’s account of collective intentions in action appears to have all the theoretical pros of the non-reductivist view on collective intentionality without the metaphysical cons of committing to the existence of group minds. According to Searle, when we collectively intend to do something together, we intend to cooperate in order to reach a collective goal. Intentions in the first-person plural form therefore have a particular psychological form or mode, for the we-intender conceives of his or her intended actions as (...) singular contributions by means of which – or: by way of which – a collective goal is pursued. Accordingly, we-intentions are held to have a psychological mode with a “collective goal by means of singular contribution” structure, which makes them primitive and irreducible to intentions in the I-form. It is further contended that, albeit primitive and irreducible, we-intentions are not the mental states of an alleged group mind but always of an individual’s mind. This paper targets Searle’s claim of irreducibility by developing an argument whose aim is to show that, pace Searle, it is possible to track the idea of intentions with a psychological mode structured in terms of “collective goal by means of singular contribution” back to the concept of intentions in the I-form. The argument mainly relies on the idea that Searle’s technical expressions “being a collective goal by means of singular contribution intention in action” or “being a collective goal by way of singular contribution intention in action” are susceptible to conceptual analysis. The upshot of this analysis is that we-intentions can be reduced to complex bundles of mental states, all of which come in the first-person singular form. If this argument is sound, Searlean we-intentions do not belong to a primitive kind of mental states. (shrink)

Este artículo presenta un enfoque del problema de la relación entre abducción y percepción en la filosofía de C. S. Peirce, tratando de mostrar la percepción y la abducción, o hipótesis, como procesos creativos capaces de introducir una novedad en el conocimiento. En primer lugar se muestra cómo cada conocimiento, incluso el lógico, está fundamentado en la experiencia de la percepción, y cómo esta presupone una continuidad cosmológica entre la mente y el mundo para poder funcionar. Sucesivamente se pone en (...) evidencia cómo la hipótesis no es nada más que aquel procedimiento que reconoce, como un relámpago, esta continuidad cosmológica de experiencia entre la mente y el mundo. Finalmente, la abducción se configura como un razonamiento que, libremente, obstruye y modifica el flujo continuo de. (shrink)

Elaborating on the notions that humans possess different modalities of decision-making and that these are often influenced by moral considerations, we conducted an experimental investigation of the Trolley Problem. We presented the participants with two standard scenarios (‹lever’ and ‹stranger’) either in the usual or in reversed order. We observe that responses to the lever scenario, which result from (moral) reasoning, are affected by our manipulation; whereas responses to the stranger scenario, triggered by moral emotions, are unaffected. Furthermore, when asked (...) to express general moral opinions on the themes of the Trolley Problem, about half of the participants reveal some inconsistency with the responses they had previously given. (shrink)

This contributed volume aims to reconsider the concept of individuation, clarifying its articulation with respect to contemporary problems in perceptual, neural, developmental, semiotic and social morphogenesis. The authors approach the ontogenetical issue by taking into account the morphogenetical process, involving the concept of individuation proposed by Gilbert Simondon and Gilles Deleuze. The target audience primarily comprises experts in the field but the book may also be beneficial for graduate students. The challenge of the genesis and constitution of "units" has always (...) been at the center of philosophical and scientific research. This ontogenetical issue is common to every discipline but it is articulated in different ways: in phenomenology of perception the constitution of perceptual units is at the base of gestalt field theories, in theoretical neuroscience synchronized neural assemblies are considered as correlates of conscious processes, in developmental embryogenesis the constitution of organs is the principle outcome of morphodynamic evolution while in social morphogenesis the constitution of coherent units is common to segmentary, gerarchic and functional differentiation. (shrink)

In 2011, van Dijck and Fias described a positional SNARC effect: the SPoARC. To-be-remembered items presented centrally on a screen seemed to acquire a left-to-right spatial dimension. If confirmed, this spatialization could be crucial for immediate memory theories. However, given the intricate links between visual and spatial dimensions, this effect could be due to the visual presentation, which could have probed the left-to-right direction of reading/writing. To allow a generalization of this effect, we adapted van Dijck and Fias's task using (...) an auditory version of Sternberg's paradigm. Lists of five consonants were auditorily presented at a rate of 3 s/item. A SPoARC effect was observed. The consequences are discussed first from an immediate memory perspective, putting forward the view that order could be coded through spatialization, and then in terms of similarities between SPoARC and SNARC. (shrink)

Mood profiling has a long history in the field of sport and exercise. Several novel mood profile clusters were identified and described in the literature recently (Parsons-Smith, Terry, & Machin, 2017). In the present study, we investigated whether the same clusters were evident in an Italian language, sport and exercise context. The Italian Mood Scale (ITAMS; Quartiroli, Terry, & Fogarty, 2017) was administered to 950 Italian-speaking sport participants (659 females, 284 males, 7 unspecified; age range = 16–63 yr., M = (...) 25.03, SD = 7.62) and seeded k-means clustering methodology applied to the responses. Six distinct mood profiles were identified, termed the iceberg, inverse iceberg, inverse Everest, shark fin, surface, and submerged profiles, which closely resembled those reported among English-speaking participants (Parsons-Smith et al., 2017). Significant differences were found in the distribution of specific mood profiles across gender and age groups. Findings supported the cross-cultural generalizability of the six mood profiles and offer new research avenues into their antecedents, correlates and behavioral consequences in Italian-language contexts. (shrink)