The study of reciprocal altruism, or the exchange of goods and services between individuals, requires attention to both evolutionary explanations and proximate mechanisms. Evolutionary explanations have been debated at length, but far less is known about the proximate mechanisms of reciprocity. Our own research has focused on the immediate causes and contingencies underlying services such as food sharing, grooming, and cooperation in brown capuchin monkeys and chimpanzees. Employing both observational and experimental techniques, we have come to distinguish three types of (...) reciprocity. Symmetry-based reciprocity is cognitively the least complex form, based on symmetries inherent in dyadic relationships (e.g., mutual association, kinship). Attitudinal reciprocity, which is more cognitively complex, is based on the mirroring of social attitudes between partners and is exhibited by both capuchin monkeys and chimpanzees. Finally, calculated reciprocity, the most cognitively advanced form, is based on mental scorekeeping and is found only in humans and possibly chimpanzees. (shrink)

Henrich et al. describe an innovative research program investigating cross-cultural differences in the selfishness axiom (in economic games) in humans, yet humans are not the only species to show such variation. Chimpanzees and capuchin monkeys show signs of deviating from the standard self-interest paradigm in experimental settings by refusing to take foods that are less valuable than those earned by conspecifics, indicating that they, too, may pay attention to relative gains. However, it is less clear whether these species also show (...) the other-regarding preferences seen in humans. (shrink)

Pork producers in Western Europe moreand more encounter a variety of societalconcerns about pork and pork production. Sofar, however, producers predominantly focusedon low consumer prices, therewith addressingjust one concern. This resulted in an intensiveand large-scale production system, decreasinglyrelated to the area of farm land, andaccompanied with increasing concerns aboutsafety and healthiness of pork, animal welfare,environmental pollution, and others.An overview was given of possible concernsabout West-European pork production with theconsumers, citizens, and producers, and thoseconcerns are traced back to the pork productionsystem. (...) The various kinds and qualities ofinformation about the pork production system onwhich possible concerns are based have beenworked out extensively in this paper. Knowledgeabout the aspects of pork production that cangive rise to concerns can be used in two ways.First, the communication about those aspectstowards consumers and citizens can be adjustedor extended to give them better possibilitiesto make food choices or to develop their ownopinions about pork production. Second,producers could change the pork productionsystem such that it better satisfies consumersand citizens. Such adaptations are wellpossible, as three pork quality schemes, whichhave been evaluated, illustrate. However, mostof these adaptations can only be carried out atthe cost of the present low consumer prices andwill not occur spontaneously on a large scale.Therefore, accounting for the type andrelevance of the concerns, legislation isnecessary to address societal concerns in abalanced way such that pork production systemsbecome acceptable for the majority of oursociety. (shrink)

The modern concept of ‘style’ – from which ‘stylistics’ is derived, a discipline that witnessed the quarrel between Linguistics and Literary studies in the 20th century – has inherited from Ancient Rhetoric its substance (figures and tropes) and was largely used as a direct translation from the Latin concept ‘elocutio’ (especially in Demetrius’ treatise De elocutione [Περὶ ἑρμηνείας]) and also as a translation for Greek concepts (usually indirectly), such as ἑρμηνεία, λέξις and φράσις. There are still some other concepts that (...) seem intimately connected to ‘style’, for instance ‘ornatum’ and ‘decorum’. Considering that classical references of ‘style’ present themselves essential to write the history of this modern concept, this paper seeks to present a catalog of ancient concepts that have found in ‘style’ (in English and French) their traditional translation, as well as attempting to build a short history of each of these translation paths. (shrink)

In this paper, we aim to bring to discussion the concept of locus amoenus, a common denomination of locus communis (topos, for the greeks), that makes reference to the ideal landscape according to the norms of the ancient idyllic poetry. We will describe and analyze the locus amoenus from an 18th century Italian poetry perspective, more specifically from the fables of Luigi Fiacchi, a poet and Catholic priest of that century. The analysis will focus on the references, either direct or (...) not, that the author, known by the epithet ‘Il Casio’, does to the Classical Antiquity. (shrink)

Grossmann's intriguing proposal can benefit from a more thorough integration of the primate literature, particularly on neophobia. Moreover, it directly leads to strong predictions in callitrichids, the only other cooperatively breeding primates beyond humans, which may indeed be met: Being more likely to signal distress than independently breeding monkeys, and responding to such signals with approach and affiliation.

Desde o Problema XXX, atribuído a Aristóteles, uma longa tradição de filósofos, artistas e escritores vê a melancolia como afeto positivo ligado ao “homem de gênio” e à criação intelectual em geral. Do ponto de vista da teoria dos afetos de Espinosa, o problema da melancolia coloca um outro: como é possível que de uma tristeza profunda possa nascer a atividade intectual, artística, literária? Toda atividade é uma produção, uma alegria, aumento da potência de agir e pensar: como ela poderia (...) nascer da melancolia? Nossa hipótese é que o problema se explica pela “alegria eufórica”, a outra face da melancolia, que nasce como reação do desejo contra a própria tristeza. Por ser alegria, afasta a tristeza profunda; mas por ser eufórica, mantém o “melancólico” preso à sua própria doença. Assim, a reação não cura o “doente” de seu “mal”, o mantém num círculo interminável de euforia e estado melancólico. (shrink)

Wenmackers and Romeijn (2016) formalize ideas going back to Shimony (1970) and Putnam (1963) into an open-minded Bayesian inductive logic, that can dynamically incorporate statistical hypotheses proposed in the course of the learning process. In this paper, we show that Wenmackers and Romeijn’s proposal does not preserve the classical Bayesian consistency guarantee of merger with the true hypothesis. We diagnose the problem, and offer a forward-looking open-minded Bayesians that does preserve a version of this guarantee.

Advancing second-person neuroscience will need strong theories, as well as the new methods detailed by Schilbach et al. I assess computational theories, enactive theories, and cognitive/information processing theories, and argue that information processing approaches have an important role to play in second-person neuroscience. They provide the closest link to brain imaging and can give important insights into social behaviour.

Spatial and temporal scales are essential components of geological sciences; both are almost always imbricated in complex ways, challenging geoscientific knowledge among nonspecialists and students. The present paper focuses on the efforts made by the French naturalist Simon-Suzanne Nérée Boubée (1806–62) regarding popular education on geology. Though Boubée is poorly known nowadays, he experienced some prestige during his lifetime. He worked as an independent teacher, offering private as well as free public courses. Boubée, as a nineteenth-century science popularizer, repeatedly insisted (...) on his disposition for “spreading science for all.” He extensively published books and journals on geology, all aimed at popularizing geological scientific knowledge, considered to be of paramount relevance. This paper analyzes three visual examples extracted from his works: the Tableau Mnémonique des Terrains Primitifs, destiné au géologue voyageur, avec son explication (1831), the Tableau de l’État du Globe à ses différents âges (1832), and the Tableau figuratif de la structure minérale du globe, ou résumé synoptique du Cours de géognosie de M. N. Boubée (1839), supplemented with images from the travel guide Deux Promenades au Mont Doré (1834). Our goal is to understand Boubée’s efforts to synthesize information, scaling down geologic time and space into foldable materials that made geological knowledge cognitively and materially accessible to laypeople. (shrink)

The present paper explores, theoretically, and empirically, whether compliance with the International Code of marketing of breast-milk substitutes impacts on financial performance measured by stock markets. The empirical analysis, which considers a 20-year period, shows that stock markets are indifferent to the level of compliance by manufacturers with the International Code. Two important issues emerge from this result. Based on our finding that financial performance as measured by stock markets cannot explain the level of compliance, the first issue refers to (...) what alternative types of mechanisms drive manufacturers who comply the least with voluntary codes such as the International Code. Conversely, from our finding that stock markets do not reward the most compliant, the second issue raised is an inherent weakness of stock markets to fully incorporate social and environmental values. (shrink)

We first show that a theorem by Cartan that generalizes the Frobenius integrability theorem allows us (given certain conditions) to obtain noncurvature solutions for the differential Bianchi conditions and for higher-degree similar relations. We then prove that there is no algorithmic procedure to determine, for a reasonable restricted algebra of functions on spacetime, whether a given connection form satisfies the preceding conditions. A parallel result gives a version of Gödel's first incompleteness theorem within an (axiomatized) theory of gauge fields.

In this paper we study in details a system of two weakly coupled harmonic oscillators from the point of view of Bohm's interpretation of quantum mechanics. This system may be viewed as a simple model for the interaction between a photon and a photodetector. We obtain exact solutions for the general case. We then compute approximate solutions for the case where one oscillator is initially in its first excited state (a single photon) reaching the other oscillator in its ground state (...) (the photodetector). The approximate solutions represent the state of both oscillators after the interaction, which is not an eigenstate of the individual hamiltonians for each oscillator, and therefore the energies for each oscillator do not exist in the Copenhagen interpretation of Quantum Mechanics. We use the approximate solutions that we obtained to compute Bohmian trajectories and to study the energy transfer between the oscillators. We conclude that, even using the Bohmian view, the energy of each individual oscillator is not well defined, as the nonlocal quantum potential is not negligible even after the coupling is turned off. (shrink)