According to the "enactive" approach in philosophy of mind and cognitive science, mental states are neither identical with, nor reducible to, brain activity. Rather, the mind is enacted or brought forth by the whole situated living organism in virtue of its specific structure and organization. Although increasingly influential in cognitive science, the enactive approach has had little to do with psychopathology so far. This chapter first outlines this approach in some detail, and then illustrates its conceptual and methodological connections to (...) psychopathology. It also provides some indications on how to develop a more explicitly "enactive psychopathology.". (shrink)

A proposal that extends the enactive approach developed in cognitive science and philosophy of mind to issues in affective science.

Self-disorders in depression and schizophrenia have been the focus of much recent work in phenomenological psychopathology. But little has been said about the role the material environment plays in shaping the affective character of these disorders. In this paper, we argue that enjoying reliable (i.e., trustworthy) access to the things and spaces around us — the constituents of our material environment — is crucial for our ability to stabilize and regulate our affective life on a day-today basis. These things and (...) spaces often play an ineliminable role in shaping what we feel and how we feel it; when we interact with them, they contribute ongoing feedback that " scaffolds " the character and temporal development of our affective experiences. However, in some psychopathological conditions, the ability to access to these things and spaces becomes disturbed. Individuals not only lose certain forms of access to the practical significance of the built environment but also to its ​ regulative​ significance, too — and the stability and organization of their affective life is compromised. In developing this view, we discuss core concepts like " affordance spaces " , " scaffolding " , and " incorporation ". We apply these concepts to two case studies, severe depression and schizophrenia, and we show why these cases support our main claim. We conclude by briefly considering implications of this view for developing intervention and treatment strategies. (shrink)

The idea for _Philosophy in a Time of Terror_ was born hours after the attacks on 9/11 and was realized just weeks later when Giovanna Borradori sat down with Jürgen Habermas and Jacques Derrida in New York City, in separate interviews, to evaluate the significance of the most destructive terrorist act ever perpetrated. This book marks an unprecedented encounter between two of the most influential thinkers of our age as here, for the first time, Habermas and Derrida overcome their (...) mutual antagonism and agree to appear side by side. As the two philosophers disassemble and reassemble what we think we know about terrorism, they break from the familiar social and political rhetoric increasingly polarized between good and evil. In this process, we watch two of the greatest intellects of the century at work. (shrink)

We show that a statement HIL, which is motivated by a lemma of Hilbert and close in formulation to Hindman’s theorem, is actually much weaker than Hindman’s theorem. In particular, HIL is finitistically reducible in the sense of Hilbert’s program, while Hindman’s theorem is not.

In this paper we adopt Sterelny's framework of the scaffolded mind, and his related dimensional approach, to highlight the many ways in which human affectivity is environmentally supported. After discussing the relationship between the scaffolded-mind view and related frameworks, such as the extended-mind view, we illustrate the many ways in which our affective states are environmentally supported by items of material culture, other people, and their interplay. To do so, we draw on empirical evidence from various disciplines, and develop phenomenological (...) considerations to distinguish different ways in which we experience the world affectively. (shrink)

A presente pesquisa tem como escopo analisar como as denominadas “razões de segurança” enquanto justificadoras de medidas excepcionais e a existência de uma peste são visualizadas por Giorgio Agamben enquanto paradigmas de governo. O objetivo é demonstrar como esses dois fatores, com a pandemia do coronavírus, se uniram e se transformaram no que o filósofo italiano denomina biossegurança. Para tanto, tratando-se de pesquisa essencialmente bibliográfica, de abordagem qualitativa, serão exploradas obras de Agamben sobre seu método, textos anteriores ao COVID-19 e (...) seus alertas acerca dos dispositivos de controle adotados no combate ao vírus. A partir disso, conclui-se pela importância da tarefa do filósofo em lançar constantemente seu olhar crítico sobre os fenômenos atuais, momentos de seu tempo e história, enquanto esta ainda está em curso. (shrink)

"In her introduction, Borradori contends that philosophy has an invaluable contribution to make to the understanding of terrorism. Just as the traumas produced by colonialism, totalitarianism, and the Holocaust wrote the history of the twentieth century, the history of the twenty-first century is already signed by global terrorism. Each dialogue here, accompanied by a critical essay, recognizes the magnitude of this upcoming challenge. Characteristically, Habermas's dialogue is dense, compact, and elegantly traditional. Derrida's, on the other hand, takes the reader on (...) a long, winding, and unpredictable road. Yet unexpected agreements emerge between them: both have a deep suspicion of the concept of "terrorism" and both see the need for a transition from classical international law, premised on the model of nation-states, to a new cosmopolitan order based on continental alliances.". (shrink)

For many years emotion theory has been characterized by a dichotomy between the head and the body. In the golden years of cognitivism, during the nineteen-sixties and seventies, emotion theory focused on the cognitive antecedents of emotion, the so-called “appraisal processes.” Bodily events were seen largely as byproducts of cognition, and as too unspecific to contribute to the variety of emotion experience. Cognition was conceptualized as an abstract, intellectual, “heady” process separate from bodily events. Although current emotion theory has moved (...) beyond this disembodied stance by conceiving of emotions as involving both cognitive processes (perception, attention, and evaluation) and bodily events (arousal, behavior, and facial expressions), the legacy of cognitivism persists in the tendency to treat cognitive and bodily events as separate constituents of emotion. Thus the cognitive aspects of emotion are supposedly distinct and separate from the bodily ones. This separation indicates that cognitivism’s disembodied conception of cognition continues to shape the way emotion theorists conceptualize emotion. (shrink)

In this revised edition, two distinguished philosophers have extended and strengthened the most authoritative text available on the philosophy of law and jurisprudence. While retaining their comprehensive coverage of classical and modern theory, Murphy and Coleman have added new discussions of the Critical Legal Studies movement and feminist jurisprudence, and they have strengthened their treatment of natural law theory, criminalization, and the law of torts. The chapter on law and economics remains the best short introduction to that difficult, controversial, and (...) influential topic.Students will appreciate the careful organization and clear presentation of complicated issues as well as the emphasis on the relevance of both law and legal theory to contemporary society. (shrink)

This study explores the effects of two different kinds of text addressed to young Italian students, which convey past in-group war-crimes either in a detailed or in an evasive way. After completing a first questionnaire (and confirming the social amnesia on these crimes) a sample of Italian university students (number: 103; average age: 21.79) read two versions (factual vs. evasive) of a same historical text on Italian invasion of Ethiopia (1935–36). The results show that participants reading a detailed text feel (...) react more emotionally and feel more involved. However, the more negative reactions linked to the detailed text were also associated to a stronger will to repair intergroup relations with the descendents of ancient victims of the in-group crimes. Positive consequences of negative emotions linked to detailed text that challenge a widespread collective amnesia of war crimes are discussed. (shrink)

In this lively look at current debates in American philosophy, leading philosophers talk candidly about the changing character of their discipline. In the spirit of Emerson's The American Scholar , this book explores the identity of the American philosopher. Through informal conversations, the participants discuss the rise of post-analytic philosophy in America and its relations to European thought and to the American pragmatist tradition. They comment on their own intellectual development as well as each others' work, charting the course of (...) American philosophy over the past few decades. Giovanna Borradori, in her substantial introduction, explains the history of the analytic movement in America and the home-grown reaction against it. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, American philosophy was a socially engaged interdisciplinary enterprise. In transcendentalism and pragmatism, then the dominant currents in American thought, philosophy was connected to history, psychology, and public issues. But in the 1930s, the imported European movement of logical positivism redefined philosophical discourse in terms of mathematical logic and theory of language. Under the influence of this analytic view, American philosophy became a professionalized discipline, divorced from public debate and intellectual history and antagonistic to the other, more humanistic tradition of continental thought. The American Philosopher explores the opposition between analytic and continental thought and shows how recent American work has begun to bridge the gap between the two traditions. Through a reexamination of pragmatism, and through an attempt to understand philosophy in a more hermeneutical way, the participants narrow the distance between America's distinctly scientific philosophy and Europe's more literary approach. Moving beyond classical analytic philosophy, the participants confront each other on a number of topics. The logico-linguistic orientations of Quine and Davidson come up against the more discursive, interdisciplinary agendas of Rorty, Putnam, and Cavell. Nozick's theory of pluralist anarchism goes face-to-face with the aesthetic neo-foundationalism of Danto. And Kuhn's hypothesis of paradigm shifts is measured against MacIntyre's ethics of "virtues." Borradori's conversations offer an unconventional portrait of the way philosophers think about their work scholars and students will not be its only beneficiaries, so will everyone who wonders about the current state of American philosophy. (shrink)

Humble leadership can be described as a positive psychological feature that allows leaders to admit their limitations, be open to new ideas, and give a voice to others while also recognizing their merits. The present study (n = 268 participants) explored the persuasive effects of a female politician communicating a humble stance by considering the role emotional displays at play (joy, calmness, sadness, and anger) when discussing a moral issue (hosting immigrants). The results revealed that the politician elicited positive emotions (...) and evaluations of her competence and benevolence, especially when exhibiting a sad facial display, by contributing to the intention to accept the moral gist of her persuasive message. Overall, these ‘gendered’ effects are discussed in relation to the ‘political authenticity’, which can be perceived as high especially when the humble message is connected with several social reasons, as is the case with gender or social status. (shrink)

For over forty years, Leland Ryken has championed and modeled a Christian liberal arts education. His scholarship and commitment to integrating faith with learning in the classroom have influenced thousands of students who have sat under his winsome teaching. Published in honor of Professor Ryken and presented on the occasion of his retirement from Wheaton College, this compilation carries on his legacy of applying a Christian liberal arts education to all areas of life. Five sections explore the background of a (...) Christian liberal arts education, its theological basis, habits and virtues, differing approaches, and ultimate aims. Contributors including Philip Ryken, Jeffry Davis, Duane Litfin, John Walford, Alan Jacobs, and Jim Wilhoit analyze liberal arts as they relate to the disciplines, the Christian faith, and the world. Also included are a transcript of a well-known 1984 chapel talk delivered by Leland Ryken on the student's calling and practical chapters on how to read, write, and speak well. Comprehensive in scope, this substantial volume will be a helpful guide to anyone involved in higher education, as well as to students, pastors, and leaders looking for resources on the importance of faith in learning. - Publisher. (shrink)

In an interesting experimental study, Bonini et al. (1999) present partial support for truth-gap theories of vagueness. We say this despite their claim to find theoretical and empirical reasons to dismiss gap theories and despite the fact that they favor an alternative, epistemic account, which they call ‘vagueness as ignorance’. We present yet more experimental evidence that supports gap theories, and argue for a semantic/pragmatic alternative that unifies the gappy supervaluationary approach together with its glutty relative, the subvaluationary approach.

One of the earliest applications of Cantor's Normal Form Theorem is Jacobstahl's proof of the existence of prime factorizations of ordinals. Applying the techniques of reverse mathematics, we show that the full strength of the Normal Form Theorem is used in this proof.

The thesis of the extended mind (ExM) holds that the material underpinnings of an individual’s mental states and processes need not be restricted to those contained within biological boundaries: when conditions are right, material artefacts can be incorporated by the thinking subject in such a way as to become a component of her extended mind. Up to this point, the focus of this approach has been on phenomena of a distinctively cognitive nature, such as states of dispositional belief, and processes (...) of planning and calculation. In this paper, we aim to expand the scope of ExM by considering the case for extended affectivity. We begin by clarifying the central commitments of ExM, before investigating its applicability to a range of affective phenomena, both dispositional and occurrent. We argue that proponents of ExM should also accept that the vehicles of emotions, moods, sentiments, temperaments, and character traits can extend beyond skull and skin. (shrink)

‘Valence’ is used in many different ways in emotion theory. It generally refers to the ‘positive’ or ‘negative’ character of an emotion, as well as to the ‘positive’ or ‘negative’ character of some aspect of emotion. After reviewing these different uses, I point to the conceptual problems that come with them. In particular, I dis- tinguish: problems that arise from conflating the valence of an emotion with the valence of its aspects, and problems that arise from the very idea that (...) an emotion (and/or its aspects) can be divided into mutually exclusive opposites. The first group of problems does not question the classic dichotomous notion of valence, but the second does. In order to do justice to the richness of daily emotions, emo- tion science needs more complex conceptual tools. (shrink)

The experience of agency refers to the feeling that we control our own actions, and through them the outside world. In many contexts, sense of agency has strong implications for moral responsibility. For example, a sense of agency may allow people to choose between right and wrong actions, either immediately, or on subsequent occasions through learning about the moral consequences of their actions. In this study we investigate the relation between the experience of operant action, and responsibility for action outcomes (...) using the intentional binding effect as an implicit, quantitative measure related to sense of agency. We studied the time at which people perceived simple manual actions and their effects, when these actions were embedded in scenarios where their actions had unpredictable consequences that could be either moral or merely economic. We found an enhanced binding of effects back towards the actions that caused them, implying an enhanced sense of agency, in moral compared to non-moral contexts. We also found stronger binding for effects with severely negative, compared to moderately negative, values. A tight temporal association between action and effect may be a low-level phenomenal marker of the sense of responsibility. (shrink)

In the case of an actual proper name such as ‘Aristotle’ opinions as to the Sinn may differ. It might, for instance, be taken to be the following: the pupil of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great. Anybody who does this will attach another Sinn to the sentence ‘Aristotle was born in Stagira’ than will a man who takes as the Sinn of the name: the teacher of Alexander the Great who was born in Stagira. So long as the (...) Bedeutung remains the same, such variations of Sinn may be tolerated, although they are to be avoided.. (shrink)

Cet article se propose d’étudier quelques chapitres du Centheologicon d’Heymeric de Campo consacrés aux doctrines de Nicolas de Cues. La relation d’amitié entre les deux philosophes rend compte de leur mutuelle influence doctrinale et de la convergence de leurs perspectives philosophiques. L’analyse de cinq chapitres du Centheologicon, dont la source est Nicolas de Cues, permettra d’évaluer la correspondance théorique réelle entre ces chapitres et les ouvrages cusaniens. L’étude met en avant la consonance doctrinale des deux auteurs qui partagent la même (...) conception unitaire et universelle du savoir humain. (shrink)

In this case-report we describe an experience where alternative places – rather than the classroom – are exploited to implement learning processes. We maintain that this experience is a good example of materiality because it focuses on a project where students had the opportunity to re-design a public space. To this aim, various objects and tools are used to support discussions and exchanges with new stakeholders. Our theoretical vision combines Piaget’s and Vygotsky’s tradition with an innovative framework called the Trialogical (...) Learning Approach (TLA). From such theoretical background an idea of materiality emerges, that refers to material in combination with the social relationships developed around the material. Our case-report concerns a participatory project run by Rete Dialogues, a national school network focusing on global citizenship education. Our research question is: how can this project highlight the connection between the TLA and socio-materiality? Since 2017, around 200 students (age 7-16) and 20 teachers from different schools have been engaged in tackling the degradation of an important square in Rome. The project – “Dialogues in the Square” (DiS) was developed with several stakeholders that contributed to the understanding of critical issues influencing the maintenance of the square, in the perspective of planning, and possibly implementing improvements proposed by students. Crucial is the cooperation with two important urban art projects: i) the pilot-project MACRO-ASILO, run by the MACRO museum in Rome and aimed at connecting the world of art with the city life; ii) the “building sites” of the Rome Rebirth Forum, inspired by the world-known artist Michelangelo Pistoletto’s “third paradise” methodology, that encourages responsibility and action taking on sustainability through art. Drawing on data collected through direct observations and video recordings, we aim to show and make sense of the connection between the TLA and socio-materiality, highlighting three key elements: the flexible use of mediation tools, the overcoming of the dichotomy between individual and collective learning through reflection, and the re-shaping of social practices. (shrink)

One of the main challenges in group therapy with drug-addicted patients is collective pseudomentalization, i.e., a group discourse consisting of words and clichés that are decoupled from any inner emotional life and are poorly related to external reality. In this study, we aimed to explore the phenomenology of pseudomentalization and how it was addressed by the therapist in an outpatient group for drug-addicted patients. The group was composed of seven members, and the transcripts of eight audio-recorded sessions were rated and (...) studied. The interventions of the therapist were measured with the mentalization-based group therapy adherence and quality scale by independent raters. Two sessions, one with the highest and one with the lowest adherence, were selected, and the clinical sequences of pseudomentalization were analyzed in a comparative way. The findings revealed that pseudomentalization does occur as a collective phenomenon, akin to “basic assumptions” of Wilfred Bion, which we reconceptualized in this study. Any pseudomentalization seemed to be reinforced by the therapist when she was presenting frequent and long interventions, when abstaining from the management of group boundaries, when providing questions focused more on content than on the mental states of the group members, and when not focusing on emotions. However, the ultimate source of collective pseudomentalization seemed to be the fear of the group members of being overwhelmed by painful emotions, mental confusion, and a loss of identity. The findings also indicated that the principles of MBT-G may be a good antidote to pseudomentalization. (shrink)

The aim is to describe which persuasive tool from the triad of Aristotle (Ethos, Pathos and Logos) is most commonly used in editorials to convey visions and ideas in the nursing journals of the last 5 years (2014–2019). A descriptive qualitative study, based on content analysis, was performed in 2020 and summarized according to the COnsolidated criteria for REporting Qualitative research principles. Two hundred and eighty‐five editorials were included in the study, all of which were published in the top‐five nursing (...) journals, specifically, the International Journal of Nursing Studies (5‐years Journal Impact Factor [5‐Y JIF] = 5.022), the Journal of Nursing Scholarship (=3.374), the Journal of Advanced Nursing (=3.010), the Worldviews on Evidence‐Based Nursing (2.990) and the Nursing Outlook (=2.867). Logos was the most widely used tool in 148 editorials (51.9%). Ethos was used in a quarter of them (n = 72, 25.3%) and the Pathos tool was used to a similar extent (n = 65, 22.8%). Logic is the most used tool for persuasion in nursing editorials; however, nurses who would capture the attention of the nursing community by writing an editorial should also consider the profiles of the potential readers, who might be attracted in different ways by logical‐objective, ethical–moral, or emotional discourses. (shrink)

This paper presents the results of an experiment on mutual versus common knowledge of advice in a two-player weak-link game with random matching. Our experimental subjects play in pairs for thirteen rounds. After a brief learning phase common to all treatments, we vary the knowledge levels associated with external advice given in the form of a suggestion to pick the strategy supporting the payoff-dominant equilibrium. Our results are somewhat surprising and can be summarized as follows: in all our treatments both (...) the choice of the efficiency-inducing action and the percentage of efficient equilibrium play are higher with respect to the control treatment, revealing that even a condition as weak as mutual knowledge of level 1 is sufficient to significantly increase the salience of the efficient equilibrium with respect to the absence of advice. Furthermore, and contrary to our hypothesis, mutual knowledge of level 2 induces, under suitable conditions, successful coordination more frequently than common knowledge. (shrink)

Introduction. Murder, some may suggest, is to be defined as the intentional and uncoerced killing of the innocent; and it is true by definition that murder is wrong. Yet wars, particularly modern wars, seem to require the killing of the innocent, e.g. through anti-morale terror bombing. Therefore war must be wrong.

In the article I discuss the philosophical premises of Kleist's literary work, focussing on the relationship between his conception of moral conscience and Kant's ethics.