A number of previous studies have documented the link between media literacy and civic or political participation, and some researchers argue that the advancement of media literacy may encourage citizens to take part in addressing various issues of societal concern. However, the previous studies tend to include relatively few civic or political activities in the measurements and do not demonstrate in detail how different dimensions of media literacy are related to particular forms of participation. This study addresses these issues using (...) survey data from Latvia (N = 871). The results show that a link between media literacy and civic participation exists, but media literacy explains a relatively small variance in civic participation activities. We advocate caution when considering whether media literacy itself promotes civic participation, because other phenomena, which further studies should explore, could contribute to both media literacy and civic participation. While acknowledging the general importance of media literacy, this paper argues that individuals with these skills do not necessarily use them for civic participation, and that increased levels of media literacy may not offset the structural reasons for low civic activity in a society. (shrink)

In a recently published study combining transcranial magnetic stimulation and electroencephalography (TMS-EEG), an early component of TMS-evoked potentials (TEPs), i.e., M1-P15, was proposed as a measure of transcallosal inhibition between motor cortices. Given that early TEPs are known to be highly variable, further evidence is needed before M1-P15 can be considered a reliable index of effective connectivity. Here, we conceived a new preregistered TMS-EEG study with two aims. The first aim was validating the M1-P15 as a cortical index of transcallosal (...) inhibition by replicating previous findings on its relationship with the ipsilateral silent period (iSP) and with performance in bimanual coordination. The second aim was inducing a task-dependent modulation of transcallosal inhibition. A new sample of 32 healthy right-handed participants underwent behavioral motor tasks and TMS-EEG recording, in which left and right M1 were stimulated both during bimanual tasks and during an iSP paradigm. Hypotheses and methods were preregistered before data collection. Results show a replication of our previous findings on the positive relationship between M1-P15 amplitude and the iSP normalized area. Differently, the relationship between M1-P15 latency and bimanual coordination was not confirmed. Finally, M1-P15 amplitude was modulated by the characteristics of the bimanual task the participants were performing, and not by the contralateral hand activity during the iSP paradigm. In sum, the present results corroborate our previous findings in validating the M1-P15 as a cortical marker of transcallosal inhibition and provide novel evidence of its task-dependent modulation. Importantly, we demonstrate the feasibility of preregistration in the TMS-EEG field to increase methodological rigor and transparency. (shrink)

In this paper, I focus on teachers’ lived experiences during the COVID-19 outbreak. Specifically, I explore the emotional impact the abrupt shift to online teaching had on teachers’ work and life throughout the various phases of the lockdown. I develop my argument by analyzing teachers’ everyday work, using a qualitative approach, and constructing a small-scale empirical study. Philosophically, my attempt is phenomenologically developed and is framed by Heidegger’s and Arendt’s thoughts. Methodologically, my attempt falls within an emerging research horizon that (...) combines educational philosophy with empirical research. Drawing from research data, I argue that teachers’ experience bears witness to a deep modification of the schooling space-time, namely, the horizon in which the very perception of students, themselves, and teaching arise. In the case of teachers experiencing discomfort, fear, and even angst, the totality of their gestures and emotions was, as it were, swallowed by this unknown and disquieting horizon; teachers in distress were experiencing the collapse of any projecting without being freed by projecting itself. In the case of teachers experiencing feelings of fulfillment and even joy, a different horizon was allowed to emerge. Such a different space-time, rather than producing a sense of distance and alienation, created a new intimacy and nearness, which allows for a different attitude toward the topics and the educational community. Students became more sensitive, susceptible to transformation, and open to what was being said. At the same time, relationships were caught in a new web of meanings that transcended them, thus giving birth to an educational experience in its own right. I conclude with some remarks about the building of the educational community. (shrink)

The results of the European elections 2014 in Spain were characterized by the outstanding rise of a new party, Podemos, which obtained five seats in the European Parliament, despite being founded few months before the elections. The present study analyzes both the content and the presence of emotions in Podemos’ discourse on Facebook during the European electoral campaign. In particular, the affective content of both the party’s discourse and the comments of its followers will be analyzed through a pragmatic linguistic (...) approach applied to a corpus of 163 posts and 215 followers’ comments. Results show an insistence on positive emotions in the party’s discourse and a prevalence of negative emotions in the comments of the citizens.Los resultados en España de las elecciones al Parlamento Europeo de 2014 se caracterizaron por el surgimiento de un nuevo partido, Podemos, que, a pesar de haber sido fundado pocos meses antes de las elecciones, obtuvo cinco escaños en el Parlamento Europeo. En este trabajo analizamos el contenido y la presencia de emociones en el discurso de Podemos en Facebook durante la campaña electoral europea. Concretamente, se analiza el contenido afectivo del discurso del partido y de los comentarios de sus seguidores mediante una aproximación lingüística pragmática aplicada a 163 posts y 215 comentarios. Los resultados muestran una insistencia en emociones positivas por parte del partido y una prevalencia de emociones negativas en los comentarios de los internautas. (shrink)

El estudio del bilingüismo es una de las áreas más dinámicas en la investigación en psicolingüística . A pesar de la gran cantidad de estudios realizados en esta disciplina, sigue habiendo relativamente poca investigación que analice el procesamiento del lenguaje figurado. Esta misma falta de estudios se encuentra también en la glotodidáctica, puesto que la mayoría de estudios conciernen la enseñanza de idioms en inglés como lengua extranjera . Tras una revisión de los principales debates sobre el estudio del procesamiento (...) de expresiones idiomáticas y su comprensión en la L2, el presente trabajo analiza las estrategias empleadas por usuarios de un foro lingüístico virtual en la comprensión y producción de expresiones no literales en castellano e italiano como lenguas extranjeras, valorando especialmente la importancia de la conciencia metalingüística del hablante. Se esbozarán finalmente algunas posibilidades para la aplicación de los resultados del estudio a la enseñanza de lenguas extranjeras. (shrink)

The issue of skepticism emerges in Experience by Ralph Waldo Emerson. In Finding as Founding Stanley Cavell reads Emerson's essay as a contribution to the idealistic debate in order to recuperate Kant's 'thing in itself'. Placing that question in the ordinary space of everyday life makes Emerson a precursor of the attacks by Austin and Wittgenstein particularly regarding philosophy and skepticism. The possibility of redeeming our linguistic praxis and gaining some intimacy between language and world rises through a conversion of (...) our position in the world. However, this strategy of self-redemption seems to lack a warranty: the issue of skepticism still shows all its tragic relevance. (shrink)

In relationships ‘I’ and ‘you’ become ‘we’; despite individual differences, couples obtain an interdependent identity due to their shared interactions. During a serious illness, biological and biographical disruptions can put any reciprocal relationship under strain. Through intermedial analysis of Judith Fox’s photographic project, I Still Do: Loving and Living with Alzheimer’s, I will explore ways the couple make sense of illness, how illness is communicated through text and image and also to identify the limits of representation. Here the photographs, I (...) argue, solidify their relationship and echo the stuck-in-the-present state of mind brought on by Alzheimer’s. (shrink)

The status of photography within medical arts or humanities is still insecure. Despite a growing number of published photographic essays that disclose illness experience of an individual and how illness affects close relatives, these works have received relatively little scholarly attention. Through analysis of Joshua Lutz’s Hesitating Beauty which documents his mother who was suffering from schizophrenia, this article will explore how the photographic essay attempts to reconstruct a dialogue between mother and son out of fragmented, broken and undeveloped communications, (...) and in the process how it challenges representation itself, on which it is dependent. The focus of the analysis is on identifying and illuminating the intimate space that opens between the photographer and the photographed person and that provides new forms of communication as well as uncovers existing forms of knowledge that is shared between them. This paper will also assess the political and cultural significance of such representation. (shrink)

The Essential Davidson compiles the most celebrated papers of one of the twentieth century's greatest philosophers. It distills Donald Davidson's seminal contributions to our understanding of ourselves, from three decades of essays, into one thematically organized collection. A new, specially written introduction by Ernie Lepore and Kirk Ludwig, two of the world's leading authorities on his work, offers a guide through the ideas and arguments, shows how they interconnect, and reveals the systematic coherence of Davidson's worldview. Davidson's philosophical program is (...) organized around two connected projects. The first is that of understanding the nature of human agency. The second is that of understanding the nature and function of language, and its relation to the world. Accordingly, the first part of the book presents Davidson's investigation of reasons, causes, and intentions, which revolutionized the philosophy of action. This leads to his notable doctrine of anomalous monism, the view that all mental events are physical events, but that the mental cannot be reduced to the physical. The second part of the book presents the famous essays in which Davidson set out his highly original and influential philosophy of language, which founds the theory of meaning on the theory of truth. These fifteen classic essays will be invaluable for anyone interested in the study of mind and language. Fascinating though they are individually, it is only when drawn together that there emerges a compelling picture of man as a rational linguistic animal whose thoughts, though not reducible to the material, are part of the fabric of the world, and whose knowledge of his own mind, the minds of others, and the world around him is as fundamental to his nature as the power of thought and speech itself. (shrink)

Development of methods to reawaken the semi‐dormant regenerative potential that lies within adult human tissues would hold promise for the restoration of diseased or damaged organs and tissues. While most of the regeneration potential is suppressed in many vertebrates, including humans, during adult life, urodele amphibians (salamanders) retain their regenerative ability throughout adulthood. Studies in newts and axolotls, two salamander models, have provided significant knowledge about adult limb regeneration. In this review, we present a comparative analysis of salamander and mammalian (...) regeneration and discuss how evolutionarily altered properties of the regenerative environment can be exploited to restore full regenerative potential in the human body. (shrink)

In recent decades, the shift towards the “learnification” of educational discourse has de facto reframed educational purposes and schooling practice, thus reframing what students should know, strive for, and, in a sense, be. In this paper, given the efforts to disrupt the dominance of learning discourse, I seek to engage regarding a specific concern, namely, the progressive removal of imagination within educational official framework. Indeed, imagination has virtually disappeared from the documents, publications, web pages and recommendations of major educational agencies (...) and institutions worldwide, with important and potentially damaging consequences for schooling, teaching and learning. Employing a Deweyan perspective, I argue that imagination plays a crucial role in the creation of pivotal educational features and phenomena, such as knowledge, inquiry, choice and deliberation, critical agency, meaning creation, and, importantly, the openness of possibilities. Therefore, the eclipse of imagination becomes, at the very same time, the eclipse of education; nurturing imagination is about nurturing education. (shrink)

Drawing on insights into the philosophies of Dewey and Heidegger, this book moves forward the greater philosophical discourse surrounding education. It illuminates deep affinities between the corresponding traditions of Dewey and Heidegger, broadly labeled hermeneutics and pragmatism, and in doing so reveals the potential of the Dewey-Heidegger comparison for the future of education. To accomplish this task, Vasco d’Agnese explores the Deweyan and Heideggerian understanding of existence and experience. Both thinkers believed that humans are vulnerable from the very beginning, (...) delivered to an uncanny and uncertain condition. On the other hand, such an uncanniness and dependency, rather than flowing in nihilistic defeat of educational purposes, puts radical responsibility on the side of the subject. It is, then, educationally promising. The book explains that for both Dewey and Heidegger, being a subject means being-with-others while transcending and advancing one’s boundaries, thus challenging the managerial framework of education that currently dominates educational institutions throughout the world. (shrink)

In this paper, I analyse the Deweyan account of thinking and subject and discuss the educational consequences that follow from such an account. I argue that despite the grouping of thinking and reflective thought that has largely appeared in the interpretation of Deweyan work, Dewey discloses an inescapable uncertainty at the core of human thinking. This move is even more challenging given Dewey's firm faith in the power of intelligent action, and in education as the means by which human beings (...) grow and create meaningful existence. I argue that throughout his work, Dewey dismantled the understanding of the subject as a detached and self-assured centre of agency. In Deweyan understanding, on one hand, the subject is empowered to reflect on experience and to use this reflection to evolve new ways of acting, thus pushing experience forward. On the other hand, by acting, the subject can create new points of interaction within experience. This understanding of thinking and subject has far-reaching consequences for education, which must be conceived not so much as the attempt to master and control experience but as the means to create new, unpredictable experience by putting new points of interactions into our relationship with the environment, changing our being-embedded-in-the-world. Dewey repositions educational, intentional agency away from control and mastery and in the direction of growth and openness. (shrink)

In this paper, I analyse the Deweyan account of thinking and subject and discuss the educational consequences that follow from such an account. I argue that despite the grouping of thinking and reflective thought that has largely appeared in the interpretation of Deweyan work, Dewey discloses an inescapable uncertainty at the core of human thinking. This move is even more challenging given Dewey's firm faith in the power of intelligent action, and in education as the means by which human beings (...) grow and create meaningful existence. I argue that throughout his work, Dewey dismantled the understanding of the subject as a detached and self-assured centre of agency. In Deweyan understanding, on one hand, the subject is empowered to reflect on experience and to use this reflection to evolve new ways of acting, thus pushing experience forward. On the other hand, by acting, the subject can create new points of interaction within experience. This understanding of thinking and subject has far-reaching consequences for education, which must be conceived not so much as the attempt to master and control experience but as the means to create new, unpredictable experience by putting new points of interactions into our relationship with the environment, changing our being-embedded-in-the-world. Dewey repositions educational, intentional agency away from control and mastery and in the direction of growth and openness. (shrink)

The necessity of reconsidering and rethinking the aesthetics of a literary genre is not a novelty. Now that the traditional distinction between argumentative theory patterns and narrative styles of thinking has blurred, the relationship between philosophy and literature raises a principal question: the definition of philosophy itself and of philosophical activity. Modern literature, and in particular the novel of the last century, embodies a polyphonic, complex cognitive enterprise which includes both original uses of language and sophisticated patterns of moral reflection. (...) Modern literature thus represents a new model of paradigmatic thinking for philosophical activity, and both philosophy and literature can be.. (shrink)

Since Plato, Western thought has framed knowing as a method within ‘some realm of what is’ and a predetermined ‘sphere of objects’. The roots and the consequences of this stance towards reason and truth were noted by Heidegger, who equates the history of Western thought with the history of metaphysics. Since Plato, truth has relied on definition, hierarchy and mastery. Discourse on the truth begins to be discourse on the limits of things and, thus, on who is able to set (...) these limits and discourse. This dominant position erases its own traces, presents itself as unique and unavoidable, and excludes all other ways of thinking. This exclusion includes violence, and this violence is not merely a philosophical matter. It is written in the history of the West, which is a history that includes conquest, genocide and war. However, we can also identify in Heidegger ways to transcend this inner violence by returning to the originating stance towards truth, namely, truth as aletheia, or world disclosure. This article provides the groundwork to argue that Heidegger's thought, based on a call for existential responsibility, requires education to remake our existence. (shrink)

Patient-and-family-centered care (PFCC) is critical in end-of-life (EOL) settings. PFCC serves to develop and implement patient care plans within the context of unique family situations. Key components of PFCC include collaboration and communication among patients, family members and healthcare professionals (HCP). Ethical challenges arise when the burdens (e.g., economic, psychosocial, physical) of family members and significant others do not align with patients’ wishes. This study aims to describe the concept of vulnerability and the ethical challenges faced by HCPs in these (...) circumstances. Further, it assesses the contribution of clinical ethics consultation (CEC) in assisting HCPs to face these difficult ethical conundrums. Two clinical cases are analyzed using the Circle Method of CEC. The first regards the difficulty faced by the doctor in justifying treatments previously agreed upon between the patient and his/her friends. The second regards the patient’s concern about being a burden on their family. Family burdens in EOL settings challenge PFCC in that patient autonomy may be disregarded. This compromises shared decision-making between the patient, family and HCPs as a core component of PFCC. In their ability to promote a collaborative approach, CECs may assist in the successful implementation of PFCC. (shrink)

Davidson attacks the intelligibility of conceptual relativism, i.e. of truth relative to a conceptual scheme. He defines the notion of a conceptual scheme as something ordering, organizing, and rendering intelligible empirical content, and calls the position that employs both notions scheme-content dualism. He argues that such dualism is untenable since: not only can we not parcel out empirical content sentence per sentence but also the notion of uninterpreted content to which several schemes are relative, and the related notion of a (...) theory ”fitting the evidence’, can be shown to lack intelligibility too. Davidson argues further that belief in incommensurable schemes or non-intertranslatable languages is possible only on violating a correct understanding of interpretability : if we succeed in interpreting someone else then we have shown there is no need to speak of two conceptual schemes, while if we fail ”there is no ground for speaking of two.’. (shrink)

In this article I argue that Dewey, throughout his work, conducted a systematic dismantling of the concept of rationality as mastery and control. Such a dismantling entails, at the same time, the dismantling of the auto-grounded subject, namely, the subject that grounds itself in the power to master experience. The Deweyan challenge to Western ontology goes straight to the core of the subject’s question. Dewey not only systematically challenged the understanding of thinking as a process consciously managed by the subject (...) but also conceived of thinking as an event rather than a process—something that occurs in us rather than something intentionally staged by a reflective subject. Such a twofold dismantling of rationality and subject rather than a flow in a nihilistic/relativistic account of education results in a reinforcement of education that must be understood not so much as the attempt to understand and predict experience but as the means to create new, unpredictable experience. As a result, education, for Dewey, is grounded on, moved by, and directed at uncertainty. Education, in a sense, engenders uncertainty. (shrink)

Now in a new edition, this volume updates Davidson's exceptional Inquiries into Truth and Interpretation (1984), which set out his enormously influential philosophy of language. The original volume remains a central point of reference, and a focus of controversy, with its impact extending into linguistic theory, philosophy of mind, and epistemology. Addressing a central question--what it is for words to mean what they do--and featuring a previously uncollected, additional essay, this work will appeal to a wide audience of philosophers, linguists, (...) and psychologists. (shrink)

Taking as our starting point Plato'smetaphor of the doctor as philosopher we reflect on some aspects of the epistemological status of medicine. The framework to this paper is the hermeneutics of Hans-Georg Gadamer which shows the paradoxical nature of Western medicine in choosing the body-object as its investigative starting point, while in actual fact dealing with subjects. Gadamer proposes a model of medicine as the art of understanding and dialogue, which is capable of bringing together its various constituent parts, i.e. (...) knowledge, knowing how to do and knowing how to be, in medical practice and in the physician'straining. The paper concludes with a brief discussion of the dyadic figure of the physician as Platonic master of the living totality and wounded healer, capable of activating the patient'sself-healing capacity. (shrink)

The premise that underlies this volume is that there are strong interconnections between wonder, education and human flourishing. And more specifically, that wonder can make a significant difference to how well one's education progresses and how well one's life goes. The contributors to this volume--both senior, well-known and beginning researchers and students of wonder--variously explore aspects of these connections from philosophical, empirical, theoretical and practical perspectives. The three chapters that comprise Part I of the book are devoted to the importance (...) of wonder for education and for human flourishing. Part II contains four chapters offering conceptual analyses of wonder and perspectives from developmental psychology and philosophy (Spinoza, Wittgenstein, philosophy of religion). The seven chapters that form Part III contain a wealth of ideas and educational strategies to promote wonder in education and teacher education. This volume not only underlines and articulates the importance of wonder in education and in life but also offers fresh perspectives, allowing us to look with renewed wonder at wonder itself--Page 4 of cover. (shrink)

Taking as our starting point Plato'smetaphor of the doctor as philosopher we reflect on some aspects of the epistemological status of medicine. The framework to this paper is the hermeneutics of Hans-Georg Gadamer which shows the paradoxical nature of Western medicine in choosing the body-object as its investigative starting point, while in actual fact dealing with subjects. Gadamer proposes a model of medicine as the art of understanding and dialogue, which is capable of bringing together its various constituent parts, i.e. (...) knowledge, knowing how to do and knowing how to be, in medical practice and in the physician'straining. The paper concludes with a brief discussion of the dyadic figure of the physician as Platonic “master of the living totality” and wounded healer, capable of activating the patient'sself-healing capacity. (shrink)

In this paper, I wish to offer insight into the role of paradox in teaching. I will do so by analyzing teachers’ everyday work, taking a qualitative approach and constructing a small-scale empirical study. Philosophically, my attempt is framed by Heidegger’s thought. Drawing from research data, I argue the following: paradoxes and dilemmas are the very basis of teaching, and a teacher cannot see paradoxes and dilemmas if she/he has already made an choice of disengagement from the profession. Stated otherwise, (...) the sense of dependency, laceration, and even helplessness experienced by teachers I met and interviewed are not occasional or unwanted outcomes, but rather the very nature of the ethics of teaching. The rationale of teaching – curricula, objectives, and learning outcomes – is framed by teachers’ intentionality, namely, by teachers’ ‘being thrown’ and involved in leaving teaching situations. Teachers are simultaneously thrown into the projecting and understanding that co... (shrink)

In his 2012 article Philosophy of Education for the Public Good: Five Challenges and an Agenda, Gert Biesta identifies five substantial issues about the future of education and the work required to address these issues. This article employs a Heideggerian reading of education to evaluate ‘Biesta’s truth’. I argue that Biesta’s point of view underestimates knowledge’s predominance and relativism; frames intentionality in pre-Heideggerian terms, which—although not a problem in itself because an individual is free to choose a particular perspective on (...) the concept—raises the issue of consistency in Biesta’s theoretical framework; and a final criticism concerns Biesta’s choice of tools for engaging with the identified challenges: The primary tools Biesta uses are intrinsic to the perspective he challenges. The use of a ‘first person perspective’ to frame pedagogy that focuses on the subject and ‘subjectification’ reaffirms the fundamental Western gesture that makes human beings subjects who ‘stand-over-and-against’ the world. I argue that it is possible to penetrate Plato’s ‘theoretical gaze’ and find a ‘weak’ alternative to an all-encompassing point of view of education through a Heideggerian approach that regards intentionality and thinking as ‘hearing’. (shrink)

The concept of metaphor as primarily a vehicle for conveying ideas, even if unusual ones, seems to me as wrong as the parent idea that a metaphor has a special meaning. I agree with the view that metaphors cannot be paraphrased, but I think this is not because metaphors say something too novel for literal expression but because there is nothing there to paraphrase. Paraphrase, whether possible or not, inappropriate to what is said: we try, in paraphrase, to say it (...) another way. But if I am right, a metaphor doesn't say anything beyond its literal meaning . This is not, of course, to deny that a metaphor has a point, nor that that point can be brought out by using further words. . . . My disagreement is with the explanation of how metaphor works its wonders. To anticipate: I depend on the distinction between what words mean and what they are used to do. I think metaphor belongs exclusively to the domain of use. It is something brought off by the imaginative employment of words and sentences and depends entirely on the ordinary meanings of those words and hence on the ordinary meanings of the sentences they comprise. Donald Davidson is University Professor of philosophy at the University of Chicago. He is the author of many important essays, including "Actions, Reasons and Causes," "Causal Relations," and "Truth and Meaning," coauthor of Decision-Making: An Experimental Approach, and coeditor of Words and Objections, Semantics of Natural Language, and The Logic of Grammar. (shrink)

Dr. Davidson is a William James and Vilas Research Professor of Psychology and Psychiatry at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He received his Ph.D. from Harvard University in Psychology and has been at Wisconsin since 1984.