Between Nightmare and Reality: Dystopian Reflections on the Contemporary Society Resum: Per mitjà de la narració de fantasia i de ciència ficció, la utopia i la distopia promouen una anàlisi crítica de la realitat. En particular, la distopia ens alerta de les possibles conseqüències catastròfiques derivades de problemes sociopolítics existents i contribueix a la reflexió constructiva sobre les amenaces antidemocràtiques que posen en perill la nostra societat. Aquest article examina la representació de l’autoritat, la coacció, la propaganda, la plasmació, l’espai (...) i el llenguatge en distopies sociopolítiques seleccionades i reconegudes, com Nosaltres de Zamiatin, Un món feliç de Huxley, La nit de l’esvàstica de Burdekin, 1984 d’Orwell i El conte de la serventa de Atwood, i compara aquestes ficcions amb esdeveniments històrics i contemporanis, amb l'esperança d’il·luminar la manera real en què el poder opera sobre els cossos i les ments en sistemes tant repressius com liberals.: Through fantasy and science fiction storytelling, utopia and dystopia promote a critical analysis of reality. In particular, dystopia warns against the possible nightmarish consequences of factual socio-political issues, as well as it fosters a constructive and thought-provoking reflection on the undemocratic threats that jeopardize our society. This article examines the representation of authority, coercion, propaganda, embodiment, space, and language in selected and renowned socio-political dystopias, including Zamyatin’s We, Huxley’s Brave New World, Burdekin’s Swastika Night, Orwell’s 1984, and Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale, and it subsequently compares these fictional depictions with historical and contemporary events, hoping to shed light on the real way that power operates on bodies and minds both in repressive and liberal systems. Paraules clau: distopia, utopia, control, violència, realització Keywords: Dystopia, Utopia, Control, Violence, Embodiment. (shrink)

The present work discusses the complex nature of the term ‘gender’ in legal discourse, in the wake of the recent pushbacks that the 2011 Istanbul Convention has received from anti-feminist movements and nations that have not signed/ratified the document or have withdrawn from it. Though its original aim was to protect women’s rights, the debate has eventually surfaced deeply-rooted problems linked to gender-related vocabulary. For this reason, the study will analyse the use of the terms ‘gender’ and ‘sex’ in the (...) 1995 UN Beijing Declaration, the 1998 Rome Statute, and the 2011 Istanbul Convention, from a synchronic and diachronic perspective. It aims to provide a critical comparison of the definitions, translations, and interpretations of the term ‘gender’, in an attempt to overcome some of the issues involved in the harmonisation of EU documentation, which could certainly help guarantee fundamental rights and convince more states to sign/ratify the Convention, or at least, not allow them to use issues not related to women’s rights to not accept the document. The interpretation of gender-related violence is still ‘in progress’, and the lack of harmonisation could eventually hinder fundamental human rights instead of helping the Istanbul Convention save lives. (shrink)

This article investigates some main characteristics of TED talks, a new popularizing genre. In particular, it examines the process that recontextualizes scientific speeches into TED talks presented by their own authors, using several discursive conventions to negotiate their role as experts and to establish a closer relationship with their audience. Through a quantitative and qualitative analysis of the 2012 TED talks, the article will draw upon Hyland’s concept of ‘proximity’, and the five elements that he takes into account when illustrating (...) proximity in popularizing texts: organization, argument structure, credibility, stance and reader engagement. It will be observed that the linguistic techniques used to enhance comprehensibility, the use of evaluative and emotive adjectives, and the direct involvement of the audience through the use of inclusive pronouns help the speaker breach the expert/audience barrier, establishing an ‘alignment’. Rather than focusing on proximity of membership, these talks emphasize proximity of commitment, by concentrating not on the speakers’ identity and reputation, but rather on how they are personally involved in the topic of the speech. These techniques reveal TED’s idea that science should be ideas to be discussed rather than information to be passively received. (shrink)

The present article is part of a preliminary study concerning the discursive manifestations of US President Trump’s sexist beliefs. While many studies have focused on Trump’s usage of hostile sexism, this work examines the linguistic strategies utilised by Trump to convey benevolent sexism, a form of discrimination based on the idea that women are weak and need to be protected, that they should respect traditional male-centric gender roles, and that they should be idolised by men. Drawing upon Fiske and Glick’s (...) Ambivalent Sexism Theory, the study will analyse a corpus of all the positive tweets addressing women tweeted by Trump since the beginning of his 2016 campaign. The study sheds a light on how President Trump’s usage of hostile and benevolent sexism are actually two sides of the same coin: they both confirm the idea of women as an inferior sex. (shrink)

L’auteur, psychologue clinicienne, explore à partir d’une situation clinique le champ des violences intrafamiliales extrêmes impliquant ici un inceste à la fois paternel, maternel et fraternel. C’est au décours de la maternité que ce passé traumatique (et non dit) fut ravivé, nécessitant du sujet d’importants remaniements psychiques pour ne pas sombrer dans la dépression profonde. Le suivi clinique engagé montre les limites du processus thérapeutique, lorsque l’impensable et a fortiori l’irreprésentable provoquent une incapacité d’élaboration du trauma et son dépassement. Enfin, (...) l’auteur propose d’éclairer les enjeux déterminants de la dynamique transférentielle et contretransférentielle, pour le travail d’historicisation et d’inscription du trauma par le sujet, qui vont s’inaugurer par des modalités inédites de création subjective présageant d’un véritable processus de subjectivation. (shrink)

L’auteur, psychologue clinicienne, explore à partir d’une situation clinique le champ des violences intrafamiliales extrêmes impliquant ici un inceste à la fois paternel, maternel et fraternel. C’est au décours de la maternité que ce passé traumatique (et non dit) fut ravivé, nécessitant du sujet d’importants remaniements psychiques pour ne pas sombrer dans la dépression profonde. Le suivi clinique engagé montre les limites du processus thérapeutique, lorsque l’impensable et a fortiori l’irreprésentable provoquent une incapacité d’élaboration du trauma et son dépassement. Enfin, (...) l’auteur propose d’éclairer les enjeux déterminants de la dynamique transférentielle et contretransférentielle, pour le travail d’historicisation et d’inscription du trauma par le sujet, qui vont s’inaugurer par des modalités inédites de création subjective présageant d’un véritable processus de subjectivation. (shrink)

The past twenty years have witnessed extensive collaborative research between computer scientists, logicians, linguists, philosophers, and psychologists. These interdisciplinary studies stem from the realization that researchers drawn from all fields are studying the same problem. Specifically, a common concern amongst researchers today is how logic sheds light on the nature of information. Ancient questions concerning how humans communicate, reason and decide, and modern questions about how computers should communicate, reason and decide are of prime interest to researchers in various disciplines. (...) _Words, Proofs and Diagrams_ is a collection of papers covering active research areas at the interface of logic, computer science, and linguistics. Readers of the volume will find traditional research on process logics, issues in formal semantics, and language processing. In addition, the volume also highlights a particularly new area where all three disciplines meet—the study of images and graphics as information carriers and the diagrammatic reasoning supported by them. (shrink)

This paper will discuss the role of modality in UN Security Council resolutions. As a work in progress on whether the use of strategic vagueness in UN resolutions has contributed to the outbreak of the second Gulf war, this work proposes a qualitative and quantitative analysis on the role of vagueness of the central modal verbs shall, should, and may in the institutional language of the UN, drawing upon Wodak’s Discourse-Historical Approach and Jenkins, Gotti, and Trosborg's theories on modality. Observing (...) the semantic and linguistic values of these modals, the analysis investigates their double-faced strength: though they can be used to guarantee a wide degree of applicability of the resolutions, their subjective interpretability might become a source of manipulation and elusiveness, supporting a legislative intent of using vagueness as a political strategy. (shrink)

This work attempts to understand whether it is possible to talk about the emergence of specific recurring linguistic patterns in UN resolutions, used as a political strategy. The paper presents a comparative analysis between a corpus of resolutions related to the Second Gulf War and to the 2011 North Korean nuclear crisis, focussing on ethic adjectives and preambulatory and operative phrases used in these resolutions. It is attempted to show how vague and weak expressions can be used either to lead (...) to intentionally biased interpretations of the law as was supposed in the Iraqi case, or to mitigate international tensions, though maintaining a firm position against international threats, as supposed for North Korea. (shrink)

Cet article comporte, outre l'élaboration d'un système de notation des gestes, un inventaire descriptif des gestes et des mimiques utilisés par les artistes lyriques, une définition des différents paramètres gestuels ainsi qu'une étude des rapports geste/parole et geste/mimique. Les gestes et les mimiques sont classés selon leurs fonctions. On distingue deux catégories de gestes : les gestes à valeur de signal, autrement dit les gestes faits avec intention de communiquer et qui ne sont pas spécifiques aux chanteurs d'opéra puisqu'on les (...) retrouve dans le théâtre parlé, et les gestes à valeur d'indice, c.à.d. des gestes faits sans intention de communiquer : ce sont les gestes idiolectaux, (c.à.d. des gestes spécifiques au chanteur et qui sont conditionnés par de multiples facteurs : origine sociale ou géographique, sexe, morphologie, psychologie, etc...), les gestes esthétiques qui sont des accompagnements purement plastiques du texte chanté, les gestes imposés par les contraintes théâtrales (costumes, accessoires) et les gestes inhérents à la technique vocale. En ce qui concerne les mimiques, on peut les classer également en deux catégories : les mimiques à valeur expressive, qui ne présentent pas d'intérêt particulier et les mimiques sans valeur expressive regroupant les mimiques d'accompagnement (crispations musculaires, grimaces ou rides qui correspondent à un effort vocal et n'ont aucune raison d'être particulière) et les mimiques fonctionnelles, c.à.d. les mimiques liées à la technique vocale. L'application des méthodes linguistiques et notamment de la commutation, permet de dégager des traits pertinents aussi bien au niveau des gestes qu'à celui des mimiques. (shrink)

This study aims at investigating vagueness in Security Council Resolutions by focussing on a selection of nouns and phrases used as the main casus belli for the Second Gulf War. Analysing a corpus of Security Council Resolutions relating to the conflict, the study leads a qualitative and quantitative analysis drawing upon Mellinkoff’s theories on “weasel words”, which are “words and expressions with a very flexible meaning, strictly dependent on context and interpretation”. Special attention is devoted to the historical/political consequences of (...) such vague and indeterminate expressions. The findings indicate that excessive vagueness might have led to biased or even strategically-motivated interpretations of the Resolutions, triggering the Iraqi conflict instead of a diplomatic solution. The analysis of the “weasel words” used in the Resolutions suggests the double-faced strength of such expressions: though they can guaranteed a wide degree of applicability of the Resolutions, their subjective interpretability might become a source of manipulation and elusiveness, with the overall legislative intent of using intentional vagueness as a political strategy. (shrink)

Over the last few years the diplomatic language of UN resolutions has repeatedly been questioned for the excessive presence of vagueness. The use of vague terms could be connected to the genre of diplomatic texts, as resolutions should be applicable to every international contingency and used to mitigate tensions between different legal cultures. However, excessive vagueness could also lead to biased or even strategically-motivated interpretations of resolutions, undermining their legal impact and triggering conflicts instead of diplomatic solutions. This study aims (...) at investigating intentional vagueness in Security Council resolutions, by focussing on the analysis of the resolutions relating to the second Gulf war. Using the qualitative Discourse-Historical approach (Wodak in Rhetorics of racism and antisemitism, Taylor & Francis Ltd., London [2000]) and quantitative analysis tools (Antconc and Sketch Engine), special attention is given to the historical/political consequences of the vagueness and indeterminacy used in that framework and to the study of vague ‘weasel words’ (Mellinkoff in The language of the law, Little, Brown & Company, Boston [1963]), modals, and adjectives contained in the corpus. The hypothesis of intentional vagueness is further reinforced through an analysis of the US legislation related to the outbreak of the war, to reveal how the US has legally interpreted UN legislation and to understand the purposes and consequences of vague language contained in it. The findings indicate that vagueness in resolutions has triggered the Iraqi conflict instead of diplomatic solutions with the overall legislative intent of using intentional vagueness as a political strategy. (shrink)

This paper is based on a doctoral thesis which aimed at investigating on whether the use of strategic vagueness in Security Council resolutions relating to Iraq has contributed to the breakout of the 2002–2003s Gulf war instead of a diplomatic solution of the controversies. This work contains a linguistic and legal comparative analysis between UN and U.S. documents and their drafts in order to demonstrate how vagueness was deliberately added to the final versions of the documents before being passed, and (...) thus strategically used vagueness has played a crucial role in UN resolutions related to the outbreak of war in Iraq, and in relevant legislation produced by the United States for its Congressional authorisation for war. The comparative analysis between S/RES/1441(2002) and US legislation has evidenced that that there would have been diplomatic solutions to the Iraq crises which were not synonymous of light-handed intervention against Iraq, but deliberately vague UN wording allowed the US to build its own legislation with a personal interpretation implying that the UN did not impede military action. (shrink)

Hannah Arendt has been one of empathy’s most formidable and influential critics among contemporary political theorists. In this article, I suggest that her argument against empathy is no argument at all. The line she draws between empathy and imagination is arbitrary, and imagination cannot – in and by itself – sustain the work of representative thinking, which Arendt assigns to it. With this critique of Arendt, and the introduction of an alternative view of empathy put forth by Karl Jaspers, Arendt’s (...) mentor and friend, I hope to open the way for a reconsideration of the distrust with which empathy is met among many political theorists. (shrink)

The coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic has strongly affected oncology patients. Many screening and treatment programs have been postponed or canceled, and such patients also experience fear of increased risk of exposure to the virus. In many cases, locus of control, coping flexibility, and perception of a supportive environment, specifically family resilience, can allow for positive emotional outcomes for individuals managing complex health conditions like cancer. This study aims to determine if family resilience, coping flexibility, and locus of control can mitigate (...) the negative affect caused by the pandemic and enhance positive affect in breast cancer patients. One hundred and fifty-four female patients with breast cancer completed the Walsh’s Family Resilience Questionnaire, the Perceived Ability to Cope With Trauma Scale, the Positive-Negative Affect Schedule, and the Mini Locus of Control Scale. Family resilience and internality of locus of control contribute significantly to positive affective responses. Family resilience is responsible for mitigating the negative affect perceived during the pandemic and is enhanced by external locus of control. Evidence suggests that clinical psychologists should develop and propose programs to support oncology patients’ family resilience, coping flexibility, and internal locus of control, allowing for decreased stress and improved adaptability for effectively managing cancer treatment during the pandemic. (shrink)

The second part of Philosophical Investigations and other contemporary writings contain abundant material dedicated to the examination of visual perception, along the lines of similarities and differences manifested in the use of concepts such as “seeing as”, “seeing aspects”, “noticing the aspect”, “aspect blindness”, among other, related ones. However, the application of these concepts to phenomena such as face perception and word perception has not received proper attention in the literature. Our interest lies in identifying the features pertaining facial perception (...) and recognition of its content in order to understand how and to what extent they contribute to shed light on perceptual (and experiential) relationships we have with language, in particular with its written form. In other words, we will try to show in what ways the “phenomenology of facial perception” or “physiognomy” helps to understand the “experience of meaning” and the “phenomenology of reading”. My interpretative hypothesis is that, in Wittgenstein’s view, the features shared by face and word perception are more profound than a mere analogy, and that, in the case of words, these features can explain specific semantic (perhaps, semantic-pragmatic) phenomena that should be included in an appropriate reconstruction of the varieties of use in natural languages. (shrink)

En la Revolución Francesa, la extensión del ideal de una comunidad política de ciudadanos libres e iguales va acompañada de una nueva concepción del trabajo. El trabajo se convierte en el principal medio de integración social, sea a través del esfuerzo individual que conduce a la propiedad, sea a través de la asistencia a los pobres. Esta transición de una sociedad feudal a otra basada en la libertad de trabajo y el Estado asistencial sienta las bases para el surgimiento de (...) la noción del derecho al trabajo. En 1848, este derecho es entendido inicialmente como condición indispensable para el disfrute de cualesquiera otros derechos, pero la marcha descendente de la Revolución acaba provocando su expulsión de la Constitución. La importancia de este recorrido histórico reside en que nos ayuda a entender mejor el significado del derecho al trabajo en el constitucionalismo contemporáneo. Nos permite comprender que, a pesar de su imposible configuración como derecho subjetivo, su reconocimiento jurídico no es un brindis al sol, sino un recordatorio del vínculo existente, en toda sociedad democrática, entre la libertad política y las actividades productivas. (shrink)

The wide presence of the right to work in national and international legal texts contrasts with a lack of agreement about the concrete content of this right. According to the hegemonic interpretation, it consists of two elements: extension of wage labour and significant improvement of working conditions. However, if we study the history of right to work claims, especially from the French Revolution to 1848, we can notice that the meaning of this right was rather wider in the past. Rescuing (...) the historical significance of the right to work may help to face the problem of the future of work. In particular, and unlike what might seem at first sight, the claim that everyone should have his or her right to work guaranteed can be a way of articulating and concretizing issues such as workplace democracy, the organization of domestic work or the transition to a sustainable society. (shrink)

Identifico la naturaleza y el estatus epistémico de un sub-tipo de intuiciones lingüísticas que llamo intuiciones icónicas (IIs). Por medio de estas intuiciones, los hablantes son capaces de detectar correspondencias icónicas consistentes entre formas lingüísticas y significados. En primer lugar, identifico los principales rasgos del fenómeno lingüístico detectado por las IIs: el sonoro-simbolismo. Las correspondencias en las cuales consiste son icónicas porque están conformadas por diferentes tipos de semejanzas percibidas o asociaciones basadas en similitudes entre estímulos -uno de los cuales (...) es lingüístico. Luego analizo las principales caracterizaciones filosóficas y psicológicas alternativas de las intuiciones, y su rol evidencial, centrándome en las intuiciones lingüísticas. Sobre estas bases, concluyo que las intuiciones tendrían que ser concebidas como un constructo heterogéneo. En segundo lugar, argumento que las IIs no son ni creencias, disposiciones a la creencia, juicios o pareceres intelectuales con contenidos proposicionales, sino más bien pareceres perceptuales. Ellas consisten en la capacidad o sensibilidad para detectar correspondencias o asociaciones icónicas. En otras palabras, los inputs sonoros “rastrean” directamente los significados transmitidos por ellos. Se caracterizan por su peculiar fenomenología presentacional y su componente evaluativo. Ahora bien, de acuerdo al tipo de contenido y de procesamiento cognitivo involucrado, se puede distinguir entre las más puramente perceptuales, basadas en procesos asociativos y aquella que involucran experiencia acumulada, procesos analíticos y manipulación conceptual. Después de revisar la literatura psicolingüística experimental basada en intuiciones acerca del sonoro-simbolismo, argumento que las IIs son intuiciones de primer nivel, y como tales, una fuente confiable de evidencia directa y prima facie acerca de los rasgos icónicos en el lenguaje. Finalmente, argumento que estas IIs ofrecen una “ventana” privilegiada para explorar las relaciones entre lenguaje y percepción (y afecto/emoción). Concluyo argumentando que esta clase de intuición es un input no prescindible para la reflexión filosófica y la investigación científica sobre el lenguaje. Así, aunque defiendo la relevancia de las intuiciones para entender el significado lingüístico, las IIs no son de la misma clase ni requieren los mismos métodos para estudiarlas que aquellas que interesaron más a los filósofos. (shrink)

Resumen: Marx lleva a cabo dos críticas a los derechos. Por un lado, muestra las limitaciones emancipatorias de los derechos de ciudadanía, resultado de la (no reconocida) subordinación del Estado con respecto a la sociedad civil. Por otro, desvela el egoísmo que se esconde detrás de los llamados derechos humanos (libertad, propiedad, igualdad y seguridad), los cuales son en realidad una forma de naturalizar la forma de vida de la sociedad burguesa. Termina por relacionar una crítica con otra, señalando que (...) la emancipación política (el reconocimiento de los derechos de ciudadanía) y el egoísmo sin trabas de la sociedad civil (sancionado a través de los derechos humanos) son dos procesos que tienen lugar a la vez, en el momento en que el ascenso de la burguesía rompe con los mecanismos de la vieja sociedad feudal.Abstract: Marx carries out two critiques of rights. On the one hand, he shows the emancipatory limitations of citizenship rights, resulting from the (unrecognized) subordination of the State in relation to civil society. On the other hand, he reveals the selfishness that hides behind the so-called human rights (liberty, property, equality and security), which are actually a form of naturalizing bourgeois society lifestyle. He ends up connecting this two critiques, noting that political emancipation (the recognition of citizenship rights) and unfettered selfishness of civil society (sanctioned through human rights) are two processes taking place simultaneously, at the moment when the bourgeoisie social climbing breaks with the mechanisms of old feudal society.Palabras clave: Marx, crítica, derechos humanos, ciudadanía, emancipación.Keywords: Marx, critique, human rights, citizenship, emancipation. (shrink)

En este artículo examinaremos un caso de aplicación de la hipótesis de la relatividad lingüística : la influencia del género gramatical de las lenguas sobre la cognición o el pensamiento de los hablantes. Dado que las lenguas difieren tanto en sus repertorios léxicos como sobre todo en sus gramáticas de género para referir a las personas, a otras entidades animadas e incluso a entidades inanimadas, nuestro propósito será, en primer lugar, revisar la evidencia experimental reciente que avalaría la HRL en (...) este dominio, al comprobar una variedad de impactos cognitivos y psicológicos, variables según las lenguas de los hablantes. En particular, identificaremos cuáles son los “efectos relativistas” en el caso de los rasgos morfosintácticos de las lenguas con carga de género, y en relación con la universalización del género masculino. Sobre la base de la evaluación realizada e incorporando los aportes de los estudios de “género y lenguaje” de los enfoques feministas, concluiremos señalando de qué diversas maneras es viable e importante promover usos inclusivos del lenguaje e incluso cambios más profundos hacia un lenguaje inclusivo, con especial referencia al español. (shrink)

This article aims to make a philosophical contribution to the understanding of the communicative dimensions and functions of faces and facial expressions. First, I will refer to the expressivist and socio-communicative theories of FEs, and to a proposal to unify them under a pragmatic approach based on the theory of speech acts. Subsequently, I will examine the characterization of faces and FEs as social and behavioral affordances, and I will identify their characteristics and communicative functions, especially in “conversational displays”, to (...) justify why they are functionally special. I will then insert facial signals into the framework of a pragmatic perspective on human communication, both verbal and non-verbal, which is broader than speech act theory: a Pragmatics-First Approach to Human Communication. I will argue that it provides an adequate understanding of the pragmatic-interactive foundations of human communication, where Facereading is a central component. Finally, I will refer to the relationship between Facereading and the Second-person Perspective of social cognition. (shrink)

Psychological understanding is a required capacity for moral competence in the sense that understanding the intentions, beliefs, and interests of others is a critical input for evaluating the responsibilities involved in their behaviors and understanding, in turn, how to interact with them to achieve our purposes. For its part, interaction with others is at the heart of both capacities, since both are essential and closely related components of human social life. My aim in this paper, in relation to both assumptions, (...) will be to highlight a structural similarity between ordinary psychological cognition and moral cognition, showing as certain differentiated types of explanations on one domain and the other allows to identify a theoretical framework consistent that, in turn, it can account for the relationships between the two. For this, I will refer first, synthetically, to the _Social Intuitionist Model_ (MIS) of J. Haidt (2001), as it exemplifies a non-classical and dual approach to moral cognition in which moral intuitions play a more basic role than reasons. In the field of psychological cognition, I will refer with more detail to _the interactive or second-person approach_, enriched by the dual approach to cognition, in particular by the proposals on implicit or “minimal” varieties of mental attribution. In this context, I will identify the so-called _expressive behaviors: _their nature and role in human behavior and interactions, and their significance as the evidential basis for psychological understanding. They constitute the primary objects of psychological intuitions. I hope to show that expressive signals are “readable” through the intuitive abilities that detect them and understand their psychological significance in efficient ways. Having exposed the theoretical affinities between the MIS and the interactive-dual approach, I will emphasize that, just as for the first, moral intuitions come first, and reasons later, also for the interactive-dual approach of psychological understanding, psychological intuitions come first, and reasons later. (shrink)

Psychological understanding is a required capacity for moral competence in the sense that understanding the intentions, beliefs, and interests of others is a critical input for evaluating the responsibilities involved in their behaviors and understanding, in turn, how to interact with them to achieve our purposes. For its part, interaction with others is at the heart of both capacities, since both are essential and closely related components of human social life. My aim in this paper, in relation to both assumptions, (...) will be to highlight a structural similarity between ordinary psychological cognition and moral cognition, showing as certain differentiated types of explanations on one domain and the other allows to identify a theoretical framework consistent that, in turn, it can account for the relationships between the two. For this, I will refer first, synthetically, to the _Social Intuitionist Model_ (MIS) of J. Haidt (2001), as it exemplifies a non-classical and dual approach to moral cognition in which moral intuitions play a more basic role than reasons. In the field of psychological cognition, I will refer with more detail to _the interactive or second-person approach_, enriched by the dual approach to cognition, in particular by the proposals on implicit or “minimal” varieties of mental attribution. In this context, I will identify the so-called _expressive behaviors: _their nature and role in human behavior and interactions, and their significance as the evidential basis for psychological understanding. They constitute the primary objects of psychological intuitions. I hope to show that expressive signals are “readable” through the intuitive abilities that detect them and understand their psychological significance in efficient ways. Having exposed the theoretical affinities between the MIS and the interactive-dual approach, I will emphasize that, just as for the first, moral intuitions come first, and reasons later, also for the interactive-dual approach of psychological understanding, psychological intuitions come first, and reasons later. (shrink)

En su discurso del 10 de mayo de 1793 sobre la Constitución, Robespierre combina una concepción fiduciaria de los representantes públicos con una defensa de las virtudes de la democracia, el único sistema político en el que los gobernantes, al ser parte del pueblo, tienen los mismos intereses que este. Es esta defensa de la soberanía popular, así como de la primacía del poder legislativo, lo que constituye la esencia de su “economía política popular”, una expresión que toma de Rousseau. (...) Para Robespierre, solamente esta clase de economía es compatible con una República cuyo primer objetivo sea la garantía de los derechos naturales del hombre. In his 10th May 1793 speech on the Constitution, Robespierre combines a fiduciary conception of public representatives with a defence of the virtues of democracy, the only political system in which the rulers, being part of the people, have the same interests as the latter. It is this defence of popular sovereignty, as well as of the primacy of the legislative power, what constitutes the essence of his “popular political economy”, an expression he takes from Rousseau. For Robespierre, only this kind of economy is compatible with a Republic whose first objective is to guarantee the natural rights of man. (shrink)

Important theories about the attribution of mental contents and/or linguistic meanings propose a theoretical characterization about mental and linguistic understanding. As one of the consequences of this, they cannot account for instances of genuine conceptual diversity: the exotic expressions and their conceptual repertoires must be re-describe by means of a theory, articulated in our conceptual repertoire, that eliminates that diversity. Wittgenstein, on the other side, has argued that understanding of the linguistic and non linguistic behavior of other creatures is based (...) on primitive ways of reciprocal understanding, settled on practical agreements. Consequently, he has characterized our relationship towards radically estrange behaviors as a form of “instinctive uncertainty”. On these bases, I will attempt to show how it is possible to dissolve skeptical problems and elude contrived solutions about other “forms of life”, recognizing that genuine conceptual diversity is possible. (shrink)

Background: The role of personality in cancer incidence and development has been studied for a long time. As colorectal cancer is one of the most prevalent cancer types and linked with lifestyle habits, it is important to better understand its psychological correlates, in order to design a more specific prevention and intervention plan. The aim of this systematic review is to analyze all the studies investigating the role of personality in CRC incidence.Methods: All studies on CRC and personality up to (...) November 2020 were scrutinized according to the Cochrane Collaboration and the PRISMA statements. Selected studies were additionally evaluated for the Risk of Bias according to the Newcastle-Ottawa Scale.Results: Eight studies met the inclusion criteria and were eventually included in this review. Two main constructs have been identified as potential contributors of CRC incidence: emotional regulation and relational style.Conclusion: Strong conclusions regarding the influence of personality traits on the incidence of CRC are not possible, because of the small number and the heterogeneity of the selected studies. Further research is needed to understand the complexity of personality and its role in the incidence of CRC and the interaction with other valuable risk factors. (shrink)

I argue against Appel's recent proposal – in this JOURNAL – that there is a fundamental human right to sexual pleasure, and that therefore the sexual pleasure of severely disabled people should be publicly funded – by thereby partially legalizing prostitution. I propose an alternative that does not need to pose a new positive human right; does not need public funding; does not need the legalization of prostitution; and that would offer a better experience to the severely disabled: charitable non-profit (...) organizations whose members would voluntarily and freely provide sexual pleasure to the severely disabled. (shrink)