Riassunto: Al centro di questo lavoro è l’analisi di due disturbi acquisiti del linguaggio: l’afasia di Broca e l’afasia di Wernicke. Tradizionalmente, tali disturbi sono stati interpretati come deficit che colpiscono le funzioni legate, rispettivamente, alla produzione articolatoria e alla comprensione del parlato in seguito a lesioni in due specifiche regioni cerebrali: nel caso dell’afasia di Broca, la terza circonvoluzione frontale sinistra; nel caso dell’afasia di Wernicke, la porzione posteriore del giro temporale superiore sinistro. (...) Per tale ragione, queste due regioni cerebrali, a cui ci si riferisce anche nei termini di area di Broca e area di Wernicke, sono state considerate le sedi neuroanatomiche della produzione e comprensione del linguaggio. Questo articolo mostra che, alla luce delle ricerche condotte negli ultimi decenni: non è più possibile sul piano dei deficit linguistici continuare a considerare l’afasia di Broca e l’afasia di Wernicke come disturbi unitari; non è più possibile continuare a sostenere l’esclusiva localizzazione delle funzioni di produzione e comprensione del linguaggio nelle due regioni cerebrali ad esse classicamente associate. Parole chiave: Afasia di Broca; Afasia di Wernicke; Area di Broca; Area di Wernicke; Disturbi del linguaggio; Localizzazione cerebrale; Neuroscienze Broca’s and Wernicke’s Aphasias in the Light of Contemporary Neuroscience: This paper analyzes two acquired language disorders: Broca’s aphasia and Wernicke’s aphasia. It has been commonly suggested that these disorders respectively affect functions related to speech production and language comprehension and they have been understood to result from two specific types of brain lesions: Broca’s aphasia from lesions in the third left frontal convolution; Wernicke’s aphasia from lesions in the posterior section of the left superior temporal gyrus. For this reason, these cerebral regions, also known as Broca’s area and Wernicke’s area, have long been viewed as the neuroanatomical correlates of language production and comprehension. This paper shows that in light of current research: with regard to language disorders, it is no longer possible to conceive of Broca’s and Wernicke's aphasias as unitary disorders; with regard to the cerebral localization of linguistic functions, it no longer possible to suggest that Broca’s and Wernicke’s areas are the only regions involved in speech production and comprehension. Keywords: Broca’s Aphasia; Wernicke’s Aphasia; Broca’s Area; Wernicke’s Area; Language Impairments; Cerebral Localization; Neuroscience. (shrink)

This book offers an exciting re-interpretation of Auguste Comte, the founder of French sociology. Following the development of his philosophy of positivism, Comte later focused on the importance of the emotions in his philosophy resulting in the creation of a new religious system, the Religion of Humanity. Andrew Wernick provides the first in-depth critique of Comte's concept of religion and its place in his thinking on politics, sociology and philosophy of science. He places Comte's ideas in the context of post-1789 (...) French political and intellectual history, and of modern philosophy, especially postmodernism. Wernick relates Comte to Marx and Nietzsche as seminal figures of modernity and examines key features of modern and postmodern French social theory, tracing the inherent flaws and disintegration of Comte's system. Wernick offers original and fascinating insights in this rich study which will attract a wide audience from sociologists and philosophers to cultural theorists and historians. (shrink)

Philosophy and conception of Divine authority in legal terms.

By illuminating the striking affinity between the most innovative aspects of postmodern thought and religious mystical discourse, Shadow of Spirit challenges the long established assumption that western thought is committed to nihilism. This collection of essays by internationally recognized scholars explores the implications of the fascination with the "sacred," "divine" or "infinite" which characterizes much contemporary thought. It shows how these concerns have surfaced in the work of Derrida, Baudrillard, Lyotard, Kristeva, Irigaray and others. Examining the connection between this postmodern (...) "turn" and the current search for a new discourse of ethics and politics, it also stresses the contribution made by feminist thought to this unexpected intellectual direction. (shrink)

This chapter takes the form of a discussion between the editors of this volume and Steven Lukes, one the most eminent critics of methodological individualism. The focus is on Lukes’ interpretation of methodological individualism in terms of linguistic exclusivism (i.e., naive reductionism), the multiple-realization problem, Boudon’s and Elster’s micro-foundationalist approach, ontological individualism, and the rationality of human action.

Los cinco estudios que componen este volumen estan dedicados a mostrar que es posible abordar el estudio de un film y por extension del cine en su conjunto a partir de fragmentos minimos extraidos de una obra concreta. Concebidos con una metodologia unitaria intentan, limitando al maximo el uso de esa jerga especializada que suele hacer de muralla entre el analista y el lector, proporcionar instrumentos operativos para todos aquellos que conciben el cine como territorio donde saber y placer no (...) solo no estan renidos sino que se refuerzan mutuamente. Los ejemplos han sido tomados, conscientemente, de obras al mismo tiempo muy conocidas y suficientemente representativas de determinadas maneras de hacer. Se ha huido de toda normatividad con la finalidad de hacer buena la frase de S.M. Eisenstein cuando recordaba a sus discipulos que el no podia ensenarles nada, pero ellos si que podian aprender mucho. Equidistante del moderno analisis formalista y de la tradicion clasica que reivindicaba la primacia del contenido, el tipo de trabajo patente en estas paginas reivindica el lugar central del texto filmico y sus texturas singulares en los nuevos estudios cinematograficos. (shrink)

The article offers a critical but sympathetic reflection on the development of classical and post-classical French sociology. From Comte onwards, I suggest, the modern French treatment of the social has been preoccupied with socio-theological questions; and even with the radical deconstruction of any society-god, this continues to be the case. There are distinctive historical reasons for this (including the Catholic inheritance and an enduring legitimacy problem for the Republican state); but the significance of the issues raised by this intellectual tradition (...) as a result goes beyond the limits of national context. In an age of post-histoire and the `death' of everything, the `French' travails of social ontology, including the quasi-religious register in which these have occurred, have deep and continuing import for any would-be progressive social theory as such. We need to rethink the `we'. With such considerations in mind, the body of the article considers Comte's concept of Humanity and Baudrillard's `end of the social' as exemplifying key aspects of the beginning (reconstructive) and ending (deconstructive) phases of the French sociological story. What began as a detour in the `death of God', I argue, has terminated in a `second death of God' in which a replacement divinity and the rationalist faith associated with it have disintegrated and become impossible to think. But the logic of this development has not been straightforward. It is marked by a double paradox. An interrogation of Comte's `Humanity' reveals it to be a semi-conscious exercise in simulation, haunted by the implications of its own emptiness. On the one hand, then, the attempted religious founding founded nothing (it made a transcendent of its own intended re-socializing effects). On the other hand, as exemplified by Baudrillard's pronouncements about the end of the social, the moment of disintegration has itself seemed to offer a new socio-theological opening. Rather than mourn the anomic or hyper-real impossibility of a transcending `we', Baudrillard would shift terrain in a quasi-Nietzschean (or Bataillian) transvaluation. This implies (against Baudrillard himself) not the definitive end of the French `sociological' project, but the possibility of its continuation, albeit under erasure and in a new key. (shrink)

Activism undertaken by CEOs has been on the rise in recent years. Research on this practice has been primarily concerned with determining the conditions under which a CEO’s public statements on sociopolitical issues are beneficial or detrimental to her firm’s business performance. We complement this instrumental perspective on CEO activism with an ethical investigation of the implications of CEO activism for the democratic process. Drawing on political philosophy, we show that the answer to the question of whether CEO activism is (...) conducive to the democratic process depends on the view of democracy that is adopted. From the perspective of liberalism, the sole requirement that an instance of CEO activism must fulfill is that it is lawful, provided that the applicable law sufficiently protects people’s essential rights. However, from the viewpoint of republicanism, this is not a sufficient condition. Besides being law-abiding, CEOs should be “civic-minded” when intervening in public debates, i.e., concerned with the quality and fairness with which those debates are conducted. Based on the literature on republicanism, we suggest four possible criteria that civic-minded CEOs can apply to gauge the democratic conduciveness of a possible public intervention: added insight, timeliness, constructiveness, and transparency. Our article complements the predominantly instrumentally oriented literature on CEO activism and contributes, more broadly, to the literature that explores the normative dimensions of corporate political involvement, as well as to a growing strand of research that draws on philosophical theory to inform business leaders’ ethical decision-making. (shrink)

A major, but too-little-considered problem for Software Engineering is a lack of consensus concerning Computer Science and how this relates to developing unpredictable computing technology. We consider some implications for SE of computer systems differing scientific basis, exemplified with the International Standard Organisations Open Systems Interconnection layered architectural model. An architectural view allows comparison of computing technology components facilitating a view of computing as a continuum. For example, at one layer of computer architecture, components written in Turing-complete machine language can (...) be seen as deterministic and consistent with a theoretical paradigm of CS. At another layer, components closer to the human sphere have been seen as non-deterministic and inconsistent with theoretical CS. We compare unpredictable development of computing technology against the cyclic legacy of technological advance and scientific discovery, and suggest that SE indicates an enabling cycle, discernible in previous scientific revolution, is stalled or possibly hidden. The CS consequence of divorcing technological advance from scientific consensus is particularly concerning. For example human/computing events could be seen as unpredictable virtual phenomena that somehow extend the ontology of CS. Our approach challenges practical and philosophical boundaries by investigating if applying scientific method resolves any SE/Science dichotomy. (shrink)

Normative notions are central to Husserl’s account of intentionality: intending an object is a normative achievement, essentially admitting of fulfillment or disappointment. So is teleology: intentional conscious life is inseparable from a horizontal orientation toward “ideas in the Kantian sense.” How are they related? Is teleology essential for intentionality as a normative achievement? Or, in Husserl’s way of putting it, do relative truths “demand” ideal truths? This article explores some reasons for agreeing with Husserl that this is indeed the case. (...) In Sec. 2, I will identify a “normative turn” in Husserl’s account of the basic structure of perceptual intentionality and spell out the teleological character of this normative account. This sense of teleology is a minimal one. A more robust teleology, in the sense of an orientation toward infinite ideality, is then justified in Sec. 3 by virtue of its function in the constitution of genuine objectivity. In Sec. 4, I will turn to the noetic, especially the ego-oriented side of Husserl’s analysis, in order to clarify the normative force of infinite telos. All in all, I will argue that the normative and the teleological sides of the story are inextricably intertwined in Husserl’s account of intentional conscious life. (shrink)

Against the current background of renewed publisher interests in encyclopedias, the article examines the modern genealogy of the Encyclopedia project. The article focuses particularly on three moments: Bacon’s ‘Great Instauration’ and attempted fashioning of a ‘New Organon’, the Encylopedia of 1751 and its revolutionary-era successors, and Comte’s ‘system’ of positive philosophy. D’Alembert and Diderot’s classificatory tree, with its secularized capture of moral and political philosophy, was an attempt to improve on Bacon. Comte’s grand systematizing was an attempt to cap their (...) efforts by being entirely ‘positive’. For this, a science of society and a social standpoint were essential. His effort to fulfill Bacon’s totalizing dream of fully scientific systematization of knowledge, was a heroic and perhaps absurd failure. But, the article argues, Comte’s critique of Diderot and d’Alembert, with respect to what he took to be the radical incoherence of their classificatory ‘tree’ of knowledge, and his more general critique of both Bacon and 18th-century ‘encyclopedism’ for holding out the possibility of an objective synthesis of knowledge, touch on ‘metaphysical’ features of the epistemic landscape that, in new forms, are still with us. Comte’s forthright articulation of the technocratic and religious dimensions of the Baconian project also illuminates elements of the Enlightenment and derivatives from it that have not received sufficient attention, particularly in relation to one another. (shrink)

The university is an archaic institution and can claim to have a more or less continuous history over more than two millennia and, at least in the forms that prevail today, could be regarded as a ‘Western’ institution. However, the combination of globalization and cybernation will set the parameters for the next round of the university's development. A trend will be the growth of global universities, both virtual and land-based. At the same time, the growth of professional life outside of (...) and between institutions has lessened dependency on them, and the academic intelligentsia has become interconnected as never before. (shrink)

Excerpt from Zur Psychologie des Asthetischen Genusses Die erste Erfahrung, auf der uberhaupt die Existenz berechtigung einer Wissenschaft wie der Asthetik beruht, ist die, da durch Einwirkung gewisser Objekte auf unsere Sinne ein Wohlgefallen in uns erzeugt wird, das wir unmittelbar und mit ziemlicher Sicherheit von allen anderen Arten des Wohlgefallens unterscheiden. Wenn wir versuchen, diesen zunachst nur gefiihlten Unterschied zu begrifi'licher Klarheit emporzuheben, so bemerken wir, da das asthetische Wohl gefallen durch zwei Eigenschaften charakterisiert und von allen anderen Arten (...) des Glucksgefiihls geschieden ist: erstens knupft es sich nicht an Elementarvorstellungen also ein fache Empfindungen sondern an Vorstellungskomplexe, und zweitens setzt es nicht die reale oder gedachte Erfullung einer zielsetzenden Tatigkeit voraus, sondern hat sein Ziel allein in sich selbst. Durch die erste Bestimmung unterscheidet es sich von sinnlichen Lustgefuhlen, durch die zweite von allen anderen Arten des Wohlgefallens, die wir aus leicht ersieht lichen Grunden als praktisch bezeichnen wollen. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works. (shrink)