Noted psychologist and philosopher develops his own brand of pragmatism, based on theories of C. S. Peirce. Emphasis on "radical empiricism," versus the transcendental and rationalist tradition. One of the most important books in American philosophy. Note.

The Old Javanese Rāmāyaṇa Kakawin, the earliest known Javanese literary work, is based on the sixth-century Sanskrit Bhaṭṭikāvya. It is an outcome of a careful and thorough project of translation and adaptation that took place at a formative moment in the cultural exchange between South and Southeast Asia. In this essay we explore what it was that the Javanese poets set out to capture when they rendered the Bhaṭṭikāvya into Old Javanese, what sort of knowledge and protocols informed their work, (...) in what way the outcome was different from the original, and what the Old Javanese Rāmāyaṇa can teach us about Bhaṭṭi’s poem and the nascent poetics of kakawin literature. In particular, we show how Sanskrit figures of speech, or ornaments were understood, commented upon, expanded, and reconfigured. A close look at these texts allows us insights into this remarkable moment of cultural exchange. (shrink)

Navigational performance responds to navigational challenges, and both decline with age in Western populations as older people become less mobile. But mobility does not decline everywhere; Tsimané forager-farmers in Bolivia remain highly mobile throughout adulthood, traveling frequently by foot and dugout canoe for subsistence and social visitation. We, therefore, measured both natural mobility and navigational performance in 305 Tsimané adults, to assess differences with age and to test whether greater mobility was related to better navigational performance across the lifespan. Daily (...) mobility was measured by GPS tracking, regional mobility through interview, navigational performance through pointing accuracy and perspective taking in environmental space, and mental rotation by a computerized task. Although mental rotation and spatial perspective taking declined with age, mobility and pointing accuracy remained high from mid-life through old age. Greater regional mobility was associated with greater accuracy at pointing and perspective taking, suggesting that spatial experience at environmental scales may help maintain navigational performance in later adulthood. (shrink)