Cognitive Science, Volume 46, Issue 4, April 2022.

Introduction -- 1e Intermed consid -- Marx -- Simmel -- Weber -- Lukács -- 2e intermed consid -- Horkheimer -- Adorno -- 3e intermed consid -- Habermas I -- Habermas II -- Habermas III -- Conclusion -- Postscript -- Bibliography.

" Les réflexions de Frédéric Schiffter, qu'on les tienne pour philosophiques ou anti-philosophiques, sont inséparables d'une humeur portée sur le scepticisme et le pessimisme, un peu à la manière de Cioran. Frédéric Schiffter fait de l'ennui une composante essentielle de la vie humaine (tel Schopenhauer) ; mais en même temps il défend sans cesse la réalité contre les utopies qui en interdisent une vision lucide et qu'il range dans deux catégories philosophiques qui lui sont personnelles : l'ordre du (...) blobla et l'ordre du chichi. L'homme du blabla vante l'irréel : c'est un charlatan. L'homme du chichi décrie le réel : c'est un précieux dégoûté. Mélangeant comme Montaigne anecdotes et considérations philosophiques, écrit dans une langue simple et élégante, ce livre se lit d'une traite et très agréablement. " Clément Rosset. (shrink)

The train has stopped in the night. It is the end of winter, 1920; it is very cold, about 25 degress below zero, some hundred kilometers west of Irkutsk. Along the train soldiers mount guard; ahead, a party of the detachment is clearing the track. Many of the soldiers have makeshift bandages around their wrists and feet: the Siberian frost has taken its toll. There is no question, however, of withdrawing the guard or stopping the work. This train is the (...) most precious treasure of the Soviet. Republic, transporting the greater part of the State gold reserves: 355 m. tons. Previously housed in the vaults of the Kazan Bank in Tartary by the Tsarist government, it was removed in 1918 by admiral Kolchak; the greatest coup in history! Not that it brought the admiral any good luck: in Siberia, at the height of the civil war, the richest man in the world was only able to get a few shipments of gold through to Vladivostok, to pay his debts to the Americans and buy arms from them. And then Kolchak died: he was shot on February 7th, the gold now returning to Kazan. (shrink)

This book is a guide to working with social science concepts. Concepts are the prisms through which we see the social world. They are foundational to the social science enterprise, and the quality of investigations hinges in part on how well researchers make use of them. Most social science concepts are drawn from ordinary language used in everyday ways; however, many social scientists "reconfigure" ordinary words to meet their research needs. They tinker with the meanings of words to fit their (...) theoretical aims and make them precise, useful tools of measurement and comparison. This book examines social science concepts through an interpretivist lens with the aim of providing concrete conceptual guidance for future research. Specifically, this book seeks to: 1) identify characteristic dangers that attend the making and use of reconfigured concepts; 2) lay out ways in which a select number of interpretivist approaches have been used to mitigate these dangers; 3) introduce practical tools that rework these interpretivist approaches into explicit and useable research methods; 4) show concretely how these elucidation tools can be gainfully used by social scientists working both within and outside of the interpretivist tradition. It will be an essential guide for social science research. (shrink)

Henry’s concept of transcendence is highly paradoxical. Most often it seems as though he had simply borrowed Husserl’s classical description of intentionality, as the act of aiming‐at‐something as an independent object, at something given or posited by consciousness outside itself, in the status of a worldly outwardness. This determination of transcendence belongs to Henry’s usual critique of what he calls the ‘ontological monism’ of classical metaphysics and ‘historical phenomenology’. Nevertheless, when Henry endeavours to define the ontological difference between life itself (...) and the living incarnate ego within the sphere of radically subjective immanence, particularly in his last works on truth and on Christianity, he cannot but refer to another concept of transcendence, the theological and metaphysical one. This is a transcendence which claims absolute ontological exteriority, as the being‐in‐itself of the ‘substance’, altogether free of any intentional dependence on the transcendental activity of consciousness. And he uses this last concept to assert, of course, that divine transcendence, as true to the Absolute, is none other than the most radical and deep immanence: the immanence of life itself. (shrink)

The study of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder addresses variables related to three core symptoms: inattention, hyperactivity, and impulsivity. However, it has been suggested that in recent years emotional difficulties and subsequent social challenges have not received sufficient attention. This study had two objectives: 1) to compare the performance of participants (age range: 8-14 years) on facial emotion recognition tasks using the Affect Recognition subtest of the Children Neuropsychological Battery II; and 2) to assess the perceptions of family members in relation (...) to variables associated with emotional problems, difficulty in regulating emotions, and anger management using the Spanish Assessment System for Children and Adolescents. Assessments were conducted before and after applying an emotion regulation intervention designed for this study. Following the intervention, there was a significant decrease in scores associated with emotional regulation, and an improvement in the identification of affect on facial recognition tasks. The results suggest that despite Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder children and adolescents having social and emotional deficits secondary to the core symptom triad, emotional regulation in this group can be improved by the application of socio-emotional intervention programs. (shrink)

Etudes de morale / par F. Rauh,...; recueillies et publiees par H. Daudin, M. David, G. Davy... [et al.]Date de l'edition originale: 1911Collection: Bibliotheque de philosophie contemporaineCe livre est la reproduction fidele d'une oeuvre publiee avant 1920 et fait partie d'une collection de livres reimprimes a la demande editee par Hachette Livre, dans le cadre d'un partenariat avec la Bibliotheque nationale de France, offrant l'opportunite d'acceder a des ouvrages anciens et souvent rares issus des fonds patrimoniaux de la BnF.Les oeuvres (...) faisant partie de cette collection ont ete numerisees par la BnF et sont presentes sur Gallica, sa bibliotheque numerique.En entreprenant de redonner vie a ces ouvrages au travers d'une collection de livres reimprimes a la demande, nous leur donnons la possibilite de rencontrer un public elargi et participons a la transmission de connaissances et de savoirs parfois difficilement accessibles.Nous avons cherche a concilier la reproduction fidele d'un livre ancien a partir de sa version numerisee avec le souci d'un confort de lecture optimal. Nous esperons que les ouvrages de cette nouvelle collection vous apporteront entiere satisfaction.Pour plus d'informations, rendez-vous sur www.hachettebnf.frhttp: //gallica.bnf.fr/ark: /12148/bpt6k5622683z. (shrink)

The author attempts to encompass the self, or a self, that, while at some times appears to be his own, at other times not, thus encompassing and continually morphing. It is a mixture of poetry and prose.

The idea that deep brain stimulation (DBS) induces changes to personality, identity, agency, authenticity, autonomy and self (PIAAAS) is so deeply entrenched within neuroethics discourses that it has become an unchallenged narrative. In this article, we critically assess evidence about putative effects of DBS on PIAAAS. We conducted a literature review of more than 1535 articles to investigate the prevalence of scientific evidence regarding these potential DBS-induced changes. While we observed an increase in the number of publications in theoretical neuroethics (...) that mention putative DBS-induced changes to patients’ postoperative PIAAAS, we found a critical lack of primary empirical studies corroborating these claims. Our findings strongly suggest that the theoretical neuroethics debate on putative effects of DBS relies on very limited empirical evidence and is, instead, reliant on unsubstantiated speculative assumptions probablyin lieuof robust evidence. As such, this may reflect the likelihood of a speculative neuroethics bubble that may need to be deflated. Nevertheless, despite the low number of first-hand primary studies and large number of marginal and single case reports, potential postoperative DBS changes experienced by patients remain a critical ethical concern. We recommend further empirical research in order to enhance theoretical neuroethics work in the area. In particular, we call for the development of better instruments capable of capturing potential postoperative variations of PIAAAS. (shrink)

La Kantkrise (« crise kantienne ») est un des aspects les plus étudiés de la pensée de Heinrich von Kleist, aussi bien par les historiens de la philosophie que par les germanistes. Au cours de presque un siècle de recherches sur ce thème 2, les interprètes ont identifié différemment l’œuvre de Kant – ou l’auteur, autre que Kant 3 – qui aurait déclenché cette crise 4. Pour la première fois, le présent article cherche à identifier le motif déterminant de la (...) crise dans un concept et permet de réviser l’idée même d’une « crise », entendue comme un événement ponctuel et isolé, pour lui restituer son sens d’événement intérieur, appartenant à un itinéraire intellectuel déjà engagé. Il s’agit d’un concept central pour la réflexion théologique et philosophique de la seconde moitié du XVIII e siècle, qui se trouve aussi en plusieurs textes littéraires : la « destination de l’homme » ( Bestimmung des Menschen ). (shrink)

The phenomenological effects of deep brain stimulation (DBS) on the self of the patient remains poorly understood and under described in the literature, despite growing evidence that a significant number of patients experience postoperative neuropsychiatric changes. To address this lack of phenomenological evidence, we conducted in-depth, semistructured interviews with 17 patients with Parkinson's disease who had undergone DBS. Exploring the subjective character specific to patients' experience of being implanted gives empirical and conceptual understanding of the potential phenomenon of DBS-induced self-estrangement. (...) Our study concluded that (1) the more patients preoperatively felt alienated by their illness, the more they experienced postoperative self-estrangement, and (2) the notion of self-estrangement seems to exist in association with certain common qualitative characters, namely, loss of control, which reflects a deteriorative estrangement, and distorted perception of capacities, which reveals a restorative estrangement. These findings indicate that subjective self-reports help us to understand some aspects of the potential phenomenon of DBS-induced self-estrangement. (shrink)

Why and how do norms emerge? Which norms emerge and why these ones in particular? Such questions belong to the ‘problem of the emergence of norms’, which consists of an inquiry into the production of norms in social collectives. I address this question through the ethnographic study of the emergence of ‘norms against violence’ in the political collective Occupy Geneva. I do this, first, empirically, with the analysis of my field observations; and, second, theoretically, by discussing my findings. In consequence (...) of two episodes categorized as sexual assaults that occurred in their camp, the members of Occupy Geneva decided to tackle those issues in a general assembly. Their goal was to amend their first charter of good conduct in order to reform its norms and complete it with norms aiming to regulate ‘facts’ of ‘unjustified violence’. During a collective deliberation, new norms were devised, debated and consensually adopted. The writing of the new charter took place in a second general assembly during which the wording of the written norms was collectively decided. I show that indignation over the sexual assaults was the main motive that led to the collective deliberation, and that the entire process of the making of these norms was characterized by different collective emotions. Indeed, indignation, contempt and fear played major roles in the emergence of norms prohibiting violence, allowing punishment and exclusion of wrongdoers, and prescribing collective intervention against an aggressor to neutralize the threat represented. These findings prompt me to hypothesize that social norms emerge from emotions thanks to the latters’ internal structure; and that emotions provide causal and grounding explanations for this emergence. Thus, emotions allow us to answer the questions: ‘Why do norms emerge?’ and ‘Why do they have their specific forms?’ In short, I argue that social norms have emotional foundations. (shrink)

Cet article s’intéresse au problème de la maintenance, c’est-à-dire au moment où les membres d’un collectif social tentent d’assurer dans le temps l’existence de leur collectif en instituant des règles pour réguler leurs comportements. Ce problème se pose avec acuité lorsque certains membres ne respectent pas ces règles communes. Pour maintenir la coopération sociale, les membres peuvent décider d’instituer des règles secondaires visant à sanctionner les transgressions des règles primaires déjà établies. La maintenance d’un collectif peut ainsi reposer sur l’émergence (...) de pouvoirs déontiques qui donnent aux membres l’autorité de légitimement punir et expulser les transgresseurs. Mais d’où viennent ces règles ? On peut penser qu’elles émergent des émotions éprouvées par les membres envers les transgresseurs. Je le démontre à l’aide d’une étude de cas qui établit que, dans le collectif Occupy Geneva, l’institutionnalisation de normes pour punir, exclure et réintégrer les déviants s’ancraient respectivement dans l’indignation, le mépris et le pardon. -/- This article focuses on the problem of maintenance; that is the moment when the members of a social collective attempt to ensure the existence of their collective over time by instituting rules to regulate their behavior. This problem becomes critical when certain members do not respect the common rules. To maintain social cooperation, members can decide to institute secondary rules aimed at sanctioning the transgressions of the already established primary rules. The maintenance of a collective can thus rely on the emergence of deontic powers that give members the authority to legitimately punish and expel transgressors. But where do these rules come from? The hypothesis is that they emerge from the emotions felt by the members towards the transgressors. I show this with the help of a case study, which establishes that the institutionalization of norms allowing the punishment, the exclusion, and the reintegration of deviants within the “Occupy Geneva” collective, was grounded in indignation, contempt, and forgiveness respectively. (shrink)

Children and adolescents are not indifferent to the dramatic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, and the need to be forced to live in confinement. The change in life to which they have been abruptly subjected forces us to understand the state of their mental health in order to adequately address both their present and future needs. The present study was carried out with the intention of studying the consequences of confinement on anxiety, sleep routines and executive functioning of 1,028 children (...) and adolescents, aged from 6 to 18 years, residing in Spain to; assess if there are differences regarding these consequences in terms of sex and age; how anxiety affects executive functioning in males and females; and to examine the possible correlations between the measured variables. For this purpose, an online questionnaire containing five sections was designed: the first section gathers information on sociodemographic and health data, while the following sections gather information from different standardized scales which measure anxiety, sleep and executive functions, whose items were adapted in order to be completed by parents, and/or legal guardians. The statistical analyzes carried out highlights significant differences in executive functioning between males and females. In turn, in regards to age, greater difficulties were detected in anxiety in the 9 to 12 age group and greater sleep disturbances between 13 and 18 year olds. On the other hand, significant differences were found in intra-sexual executive functioning depending on whether they presented greater or lesser anxiety, with executive functioning being more tendentiously maladjusted in males than in females, revealing a significantly relevant effect size. Positive correlations are obtained between state anxiety and sleep and executive functioning alterations. Finally, through Path Analysis, it is verified that state anxiety is the variable with the greatest weight within the model that would explain the alteration in the executive functioning of the present sample. (shrink)

Ribosome biogenesis includes the making and processing of ribosomal RNAs, the biosynthesis of ribosomal proteins from their mRNAs in the cytosol and their transport to the nucleolus to assemble pre‐ribosomal particles. Several stresses including cellular senescence reduce nucleolar rRNA synthesis and maturation increasing the availability of ribosome‐free ribosomal proteins. Several ribosomal proteins can activate the p53 tumor suppressor pathway but cells without p53 can still arrest their proliferation in response to an imbalance between ribosomal proteins and mature rRNA production. Recent (...) results on senescence‐associated ribogenesis defects (SARD) show that the ribosomal protein S14 (RPS14 or uS11) can act as a CDK4/6 inhibitor linking ribosome biogenesis defects to the main engine of cell cycle progression. This work offers new insights into the regulation of the cell cycle and suggests novel avenues to design anticancer drugs. (shrink)

We argue that a fashionable interpretation of the theory of natural selection as a claim exclusively about populations is mistaken. The interpretation rests on adopting an analysis of fitness as a probabilistic propensity which cannot be substantiated, draws parallels with thermodynamics which are without foundations, and fails to do justice to the fundamental distinction between drift and selection. This distinction requires a notion of fitness as a pairwise comparison between individuals taken two at a time, and so vitiates the interpretation (...) of the theory as one about populations exclusively. (shrink)

The traditional international law of self-defense provides little indication about how far states should be willing to defend. That choice is better understood as constrained, beyond the jus in bello and the jus ad bellum, by human rights norms that implicate responsibilities of the sovereign vis-à-vis its own population. Different conceptions of human rights, however, underscore different possible theories of the extent of self-defense. The main polarity is between a conception of self-defense as protecting bare life and a conception of (...) self-defense as protecting collective self-determination. In the practice of justifying particular uses of self-defense, these foundations are constantly and dynamically rearticulated to justify fighting on, surrendering, or negotiating. This raises questions about the impact of conditions of uncertainty, different conceptions of agency, and the role of the international community. Ultimately, the article suggests that self-defense radicalizes anxieties about the foundation and finality of rights. (shrink)

At the phenomenal level, consciousness can be described as a singular, unified field of recursive self-awareness, consistently coherent in a particualr way; that of a subject located both spatially and temporally in an egocentrically-extended domain, such that conscious self-awareness is explicitly characterized by I-ness, now-ness and here-ness. The psychological mechanism underwriting this spatiotemporal self-locatedness and its recursive processing style involves an evolutionary elaboration of the basic orientative reference frame which consistently structures ongoing spatiotemporal self-location computations as i-here-now. Cognition computes action-output (...) in the midst of ongoing movement, and consequently requires a constant self-locating spatiotemporal reference frame as basis for these computations. Over time, constant evolutionary pressures for energy efficiency have encouraged both the proliferation of anticipative feedforward processing mechansims, and the elaboration, at the apex of the sensorimotor processing hierarchy, of self-activating, highly attenuated recursively-feedforward circuitry processing the basic orientational schema independent of external action output. As the primary reference frame of active waking cognition, this recursive i-here-now processing generates a zone of subjective self-awareness in terms of which it feels like something to be oneself here and now. This is consciousness. (shrink)

This is an important new book about human motivation, about the reasons people have for their actions. What is distinctively new about it is its focus on how people see or understand their situations, options, and prospects. By taking account of people's understandings, Professor Schick is able to expand the current theory of decision and action. The author provides a perspective on the topic by outlining its history. He defends his new theory against criticism, considers its formal structure, and shows (...) at length how it resolves many currently debated problems: the problems of conflict and weakness of will, Allais' problem, Kahneman and Tversky's problems, Newcomb's problem, and others. The book will be of special interest to philosophers, psychologists, and economists. (shrink)

This volume brings together contributions from leading researchers in the field of agent-based modelling and simulation. This approach has grown out of some recent and innovative ideas in the social sciences, computer sciences, life sciences, physics and game theory. It is proving helpful in understanding complexity in many domains. The opportunities it offers to explore the experimental approach to social and human behaviour is proving of theoretical and empirical value across a wide range of fields. With contributions from researchers whose (...) work has served to define this new field such as Nigel Gilbert, Robert Axtell (in economics and social science) and Jacques Ferber (in multi-agent systems), as well as practitioners who are working at the cutting edge of the new domain, this collection of essays has been assembled by two of its leading exponents: Frédéric Amblard and Denis Phan. The research, case studies and theoretical approaches discussed in this book are designed to introduce beginners and experts alike to the current state of play in this new and exciting field of social science. (shrink)

From an evolutionary perspective, both atavism and somatic evolution/convergent evolution theories can account for the consistent occurrence, and astounding attributes of cancers: being able to evolve from a single cell to a complex organized system, and malignant transformations showing significant similarities across organs, individuals, and species. Here, we first provide an overview of these two hypotheses, including the possibility of them not being mutually exclusive, but rather potentially representing the two extremes of a continuum in which the diversity of cancers (...) can emerge. In reviewing the current literature, we also discuss the criteria that should be applied to discriminate between the two competing theories and to determine their relevant contributions to oncogenesis and cancer progression. Finally, we deliberate on the potential applications of this conceptual framework in developing novel treatment strategies. (shrink)

In this article, we explore the implications of a Rawlsian theory for intergenerational issues. First, we confront Rawls's way of locating his `just savings' principle in his Theory of Justice with an alternative way of doing so. We argue that both sides of his intergenerational principle, as they apply to the accumulation phase and the steady-state stage, can be dealt with on the bases, respectively, of the principle of equal liberty and of the difference principle. We then proceed by focusing (...) on the implications of applying maximin to his steady-state stage. One central claim is that, in principle, Rawlsians should consider not only generational dissavings, but also generational savings, as unfair. This principle suffers a series of exceptions on which we focus in the fourth section of the article. In some cases, growth can be maximin compatible. (shrink)

Although an invasive medical intervention, Deep Brain Stimulation (DBS) has been regarded as an efficient and safe treatment of Parkinson’s disease for the last 20 years. In terms of clinical ethics, it is worth asking whether the use of DBS may have unanticipated negative effects similar to those associated with other types of psychosurgery. Clinical studies of epileptic patients who have undergone an anterior temporal lobectomy have identified a range of side effects and complications in a number of domains: psychological, (...) behavioural, affective and social. In many cases, patients express difficulty adjusting from being chronically ill to their new status as ‘treated’ or ‘seizure free’. This postoperative response adjustment has been described in the literature on epilepsy as the ‘Burden of Normality’ (BoN) syndrome. Most of the discussion about DBS postoperative changes to self is focused on abnormal side effects caused by the intervention (ie, hypersexuality, hypomania, etc). By contrast, relatively little attention is paid to the idea that successfully ‘treated’ individuals might experience difficulties in adjusting to becoming ‘normal’. The purpose of this paper is (1) to articulate the postoperative DBS psychosocial adjustment process in terms of the BoN syndrome, (2) to address whether the BoN syndrome illustrates that DBS treatment poses a threat to the patient’s identity, and (3) to examine whether the current framework for rehabilitation after DBS procedures should be updated and take into account the BoN syndrome as a postoperative self-change response. (shrink)

Ecological fitness has been suggested to provide a unifying definition of fitness. However, a metric for this notion of fitness was in most cases unavailable except by proxy with differential reproductive success. In this article, I show how differential persistence of lineages can be used as a way to assess ecological fitness. This view is inspired by a better understanding of the evolution of some clonal plants, colonial organisms, and ecosystems. Differential persistence shows the limitation of an ensemblist noncausal understanding (...) of evolution. Causal explanations are necessary to understand the evolution by natural selection of these biological systems. †To contact the author write to: Department of Philosophy, University of Montreal, P.O. Box 6128, Station Centre‐Ville, Montreal, Quebec, H3C 3J7 Canada; e‐mail: [email protected]. (shrink)

Despite growing evidence that a significant number of patients living with Parkison’s disease experience neuropsychiatric changes following Deep Brain Stimulation treatment, the phenomenon remains poorly understood and largely unexplored in the literature. To shed new light on this phenomenon, we used qualitative methods grounded in phenomenology to conduct in-depth, semi-structured interviews with 17 patients living with Parkinson’s Disease who had undergone DBS. Our study found that patients appear to experience postoperative DBS-induced changes in the form of self-estrangement. Using the insights (...) from patients’ subjective perceptions of postoperative self-change provides a potent explanation of potential DBS-induced self-estrangement. (shrink)

Michel Henry has renewed our understanding of life as immanent affectivity: life cannot be reduced to what can be made visible; it is – as immanent and as affectivity – radically invisible. However, if life (la vie) is radically immanent, the living (le vivant ) has nonetheless to relate to the world: it has to exist . But, since existence requires and includes intentional components, human reality – being both living and existing – implies that immanence and intentionality be related (...) to one another, even though they are conceived at the same time as radically distinct modes of appearing in Henry’s phenomenology of life. Following this line of thought, we are faced with at least two questions: First, what reality does immanent appearing have for us as existing and intentional beings? And second, from an ethical point of view, what does Henry’s opposition of “barbarism” and “second birth” mean in terms of existence? As will be shown, it follows from the standpoint of radical phenomenology itself that immanent affectivity has reality for us only insofar as it finds its expression or translation in the realm of the intentionally visible and that, with regard to ethics, both “barbarism” and its overcoming in “second birth” are effective only insofar as they are mediated through representations. Henry’s critique of representation and intentionality needs therefore to be revised, especially in the field of practical philosophy, where the essential role played by intentionality has to be acknowledged even by radical phenomenology. (shrink)