An overview on archaeological evidence, provided by Colagè and d’Errico, reveals that the timing, location, and pace of cultural innovations are more consistent with scenarios that take culture, rather than genetic evolutionary processes, as the key driving force for human cognition. The authors elaborate on those mechanisms by which cultural evolution operates, with a specific focus on cultural exaptation and cultural neural reuse.

Is property-awareness constituted by representation or not? If it were, merely being aware of the qualities of physical objects would involve being in a representational state. This would have considerable implications for a prominent view of the nature of successful perceptual experiences. According to naïve realism, any such experience—or more specifically its character—is fundamentally a relation of awareness to concrete items in the environment. Naïve realists take their view to be a genuine alternative to representationalism, the view on which the (...) character of such experiences is constituted by representation. But naïve realists must admit qualities or property instances as items of awareness if they are to remain wedded to common sense, and the nature of property-awareness may smuggle constitutive representation into the naïve realist account of character. I argue that whether property-awareness involves representation, and consequently whether naïve realism is distinct from representationalism or not, depends on what qualities are fundamentally. On universalist and nominalist accounts, property-awareness turns out to involve representation. Not so under tropism. (shrink)

If we are to believe the proponents of the Theory of Practice and of Rational Choice, the gap between these two paradigmatic approaches cannot be bridged. They rely on ontological premises, theories of motivations and causal models that stand too far apart. In this article, I argue that this theoretical antinomy loses much of its edge when we take as objects of sociological investigation processes of historical change, that is, when we try to specify in theoretical terms how and in (...) which conditions historical actors enact and endorse shifts in patterns of relations as well as shifts in the symbolic and cognitive categories that make these relations significant. I substantiate this argument in light of the distinction between two temporalities of historical change: first, the long waves of gradual change and, second, the short waves of moments of breaks and ruptures. Along the way, I develop an argument about the conditions of emergence of self-limiting norms and the centrality of epistemic beliefs in situations of high disruption. (shrink)

Orthomodular posets form an algebraic formalization of the logic of quantum mechanics. A central question is how to introduce implication in such a logic. We give a positive answer whenever the orthomodular poset in question is of finite height. The crucial advantage of our solution is that the corresponding algebra, called implication orthomodular poset, i.e. a poset equipped with a binary operator of implication, corresponds to the original orthomodular poset and that its implication operator is everywhere defined. We present here (...) a complete list of axioms for implication orthomodular posets. This enables us to derive an axiomatization in Gentzen style for the algebraizable logic of orthomodular posets of finite height. (shrink)

ABSTRACTPeople hiss and swear when they make errors, frown and swear again when they encounter conflicting information. Such error- and conflict-related signs of negative affect are found even when there is no time pressure or external reward and the task itself is very simple. Previous studies, however, provide inconsistent evidence regarding the affective consequences of resolved conflicts, that is, conflicts that resulted in correct responses. We tested whether response accuracy in the Eriksen flanker task will moderate the effect of trial (...) incongruence using affective priming to measure positive and negative affect. We found that responses to incongruent trials elicit positive affect irrespective of their accuracy. Errors, in turn, result in negative affect irrespective of trial congruence. The effects of conflicts and errors do not interact and affect different dimensions of affective priming. Conflicts change the speed of evaluative categorisation while errors are reflected in categorisation accuracy... (shrink)

During the 1980s Illich added another dimension to his thought through the study of Medieval history. In the current volume he aims to demonstrate the extent to which the groundwork for the institutions that characterize our world today was laid in the twelfth century.

Is self-deception something that just happens to us, or is it an intentional action of an agent? This paper discusses intentionalism, a theory claiming that self-deception is intentional behavior that aims to produce a belief that the agent does not share. The agent is motivated by his belief that p (e.g. he is bald) and his desire that not-p (e.g. not to be bald), and if self-deceiving is successful, the agent will end up believing not-p. Opponents of intentionalism raise two (...) different objections: it seems that self-deceiver should then simultaneously hold two incompatible beliefs (namely, that p and not-p), as well as simultaneously intend the deception and be unaware of it. This paper reviews possible answers to anti-intentionalist objections (temporal partitioning, psychological partitioning, and the attentional strategy account) and offers guidelines to strengthen intentionalist claims. (shrink)

El texto explora el papel que juegan los argumentos de naturaleza filosófica y religiosa en la razón pública, trayendo a colación el debate acerca del aborto, tema en el que John Rawls pone a prueba su propuesta. La tesis es que en el liberalismo rawlsiano, los argumentos filosóficos y religiosos juegan un papel semi-público, es decir, están referidos básicamente a la razón social, la cual se encuadra en la sociedad civil.

The purpose of this paper is to review Foucault´s problematization of method within the framework of his conception of philosophy as a critical diagnostic activity of the present. First, we will reconstruct the way in which the philosopher problematizes the critique as a diagnostic activity and focuses repeatedly on archival work on thediscourse of the human sciences. Then, we will focus on the archaeological problematization of method and what we call "archaeological echoes of genealogy". Therefore, we will show the way (...) in which the problematization of thehuman sciences as knowledge enables a form of criticism articulated by the concern to diagnose the present. Forthis reason, we will focus on the displacement introduced by Foucault`s perspective from the normative question about the cognitive objectivity of the human sciences towards an ontological-political critique. Mode of criticism that, concerned with diagnosing the present, we characterize as an archeo-genealogy of the forms of objectification. (shrink)

El propósito de este trabajo es analizar la crítica foucaultianade la gubernamentalidad liberal como marco de racionalidad de la biopolítica. Particularmente, colocaremos el foco de la lectura en la problematización que Foucault despliega respecto de la formación de la economía política en tanto saber estratégico de la racionalidad liberal. Por ello, en el primer apartado, nos detendremos en la grilla de la gubernamentalidad como herramienta que la permite a Foucault elaborar una arqueo-genealogía de las formas de objetivación. Luego, dirigiremos la (...) lectura hacia la arqueo-genealogía de las formas de objetivación inmanentes a la constitución del discurso de la economía política en tanto saber estratégico de la gubernamentalidad liberal. (shrink)

A lo largo del presente artículo se pretende analizar la problematización foucaulteana de las ciencias humanas elaborada en el contexto de sus trabajos sobre biopolítica y gubernamentalidad. En ese sentido, la biopolítica y la gubernamentalidad en cuanto tales no constituyen el objeto de nuestra indagación, sino que más bien es a través del abordaje foucaulteano de dichas problemáticas que buscaremos revisar su lectura respecto de los saberes acerca de “lo humano”.

Like any other regime, authoritarian regimes mutate. Many of these mutations depend upon the upshot of internecine elite conflicts. These condition the ability of a ruler or would-be ruler to seize state resources and acquire the capacity to exercise violence. It is therefore crucial to investigate the factors that shape the dynamics and outcomes of contention among elite groups in authoritarian regimes. This article pursues this line of investigation by examining from a micro-analytical, process-oriented, and phenomenological perspective how institutions of (...) collective leadership affect power struggles in oligarchic power configurations. Drawing on the case of Serbia in the late 1980s, the following inquiry lays bare three institutional effects. First, collective organs of deliberation and decision-making channel intra-elite contention by defining the arenas in which elite members expect contention to take place (channeling effect). Second, by exacerbating actors’ mutual awareness and coordination dilemma, the forum setting of these collective organs lends itself to the emergence of open-ended situations (indeterminacy effect). Third, the verdicts delivered by institutions of collective leadership shape elite members’ expectations about group allegiance (collective alignment effect). In conjunction with this sequential argument about impact, the present article engages the conceptualization of authoritarian regimes, the analysis of institutional effects, and the study of delegitimation in an interactional setting. (shrink)

In 1976, Richard Dawkins coined the term meme as a way to metaphorically project bio-evolutionary principles upon the processes of cultural and social development. The works of Dawkins and of some other enthusiasts had contributed to a rise in popularity of the concept of memetics (“study of memes”), but the interest to this new field started to decline quite soon. The conceptual apparatus of memetics was based on a number of quasi-biological terms, but the emerging discipline failed to go beyond (...) those initial metaphors. This article is an attempt to rebuild the toolkit of memetics with the help of the more fundamental concepts taken from semiotics and to propose a synthetic conceptual framework connecting genetics and memetics, in which semiotics is used as the transdisciplinary methodology for both disciplines. The concept of sign is used as the meta-lingual equivalent for both the concepts of gene and meme. In the most general understanding, sign is a thing which stands for another thing. In genetics, this translates into gene that is a section of DNA that stands for the algorithm of how a particular biomolecule is built. In memetics, the similar principle works in meme that is a thing that stands for the rules of how a particular cultural practice is performed. (shrink)

¿Estuvo la cultura de autoría impresa fuera del alcance de las mujeres antes de 1887 en Costa Rica? El propósito principal de este artículo es ofrecer una primera respuesta a dicha pregunta con base en una revisión preliminar de periódicos y revistas que permiten considerar el problema planteado desde una perspectiva más amplia.En breve, el argumento central que se va a desarrollar es que la construcción de esa autoría pasó por tres etapas: en la primera, durante las décadas de 1840 (...) y 1850, tal proceso se basó en la redacción de anuncios comerciales; en la segunda, centrada en los decenios de 1860 y 1870, predominaron los discursos de alumnas y maestras relacionados con actividades de enseñanza; y en la tercera, ubicada a partir de 1885, se dieron dos tendencias paralelas. Por un lado, algunas docentes comenzaron a dar a conocer sus producciones literarias; y por el otro, el Estado, en vísperas de la reforma educativa de 1886, implementó una política para que las educadoras oraran informes de sus actividades escolares y los enviaran a una revista especializada para ser publicados. (shrink)

The paper analyses John Stuart Mill’s harm principle and its proper application in the process of drafting and evaluating laws, political decisions, and measures used to prevent the spread of contagious diseases. By interpreting Mill as an epistemic democrat and an epistemic liberal, the paper focuses on Mill’s thoughts regarding the decision-making procedures appropriate for legislation in a pandemic. Additionally, it discusses the proper division of epistemic and political labor, one of the most important mechanisms Mill uses to filter the (...) public will, and demonstrates how Mill’s arguments can help us balance between epistemic and moral virtues, i.e. between democratic and expert-oriented decision-making. (shrink)

In this work, we propose a meaningful extension of description logics for non-monotonic reasoning. We introduce \, a logic allowing for the representation of and reasoning about both typical class-membership and typical instances of a relation. We propose a preferential semantics for \ in terms of partially-ordered DL interpretations which intuitively captures the notions of typicality we are interested in. We define a tableau-based algorithm for checking \ knowledge-base consistency that always terminates and we show that it is sound and (...) complete w.r.t. our preferential semantics. The general framework we here propose can serve as the foundation for further exploration of non-monotonic reasoning in description logics and similarly structured logics. (shrink)

This paper attempts to compare the positions of Jan Patočka and Pavel Kouba concerning Friedrich Nietzsche and thus to show the role of his philosophy in the Czech phenomenology. The difference between Patočka and Kouba is that Patočka (in a similar way as Heidegger) understands Nietzsche still as a representative of traditional metaphysics (although brought to the utmost frontier), whereas Kouba succeeds to incorporate Nietzsche in the corpus of phenomenological thought and adopt his basic ideas for the specific understanding of (...) the world and of the position of Man in the world. In Kouba’s concept, Nietzsche is not just a figure from the history of philosophy, but an interesting focus around which phenomenological self-reflection can gravitate. (shrink)

This essay follows the strategy of Kant’s »Copernican Turn« bearing pragmatic features. It tries to show that this strategy is unjustified, that it forms theses about the character of reality and that it cannot provide the basis for »antirealism« developed – following Kant – by Richard Rorty. These problems indicate deficiencies of nominalist empiricism which Kant hasn’t managed to refute, and which today calls for further critical analyses of experience. Phenomenology in this context proves to be of particular importance.

In a decisive episode of Quentin Tarantino’s Django Unchained a former slave, Django Freeman, and his patron Dr. Schultz finally manage to buy Broomhilda, Django’s wife, and thus to free her from t...

¿Estuvo la cultura de autoría impresa fuera del alcance de las mujeres antes de 1887 en Costa Rica? El propósito principal de este artículo es ofrecer una primera respuesta a dicha pregunta con base en una revisión preliminar de periódicos y revistas quepermiten considerar el problema planteado desde una perspectiva más amplia. En breve, el argumento central que se va a desarrollar es que la construcción de esa autoría pasó por tres etapas: en la primera, durante las décadas de 1840 (...) y 1850, tal proceso se basó en la redacción de anuncios comerciales; en la segunda, centradaen los decenios de 1860 y 1870, predominaron los discursos de alumnas y maestras relacionados con actividades de enseñanza; y en la tercera, ubicada a partir de 1885, se dieron dos tendencias paralelas. Por un lado, algunas docentes comenzaron a dar a conocer sus producciones literarias; y por el otro, el Estado, en vísperas de la reforma educativa de 1886, implementó una política para que las educadoras elaboraran informes de sus actividades escolares y los enviaran a una revista especializada para ser publicados. (shrink)

Статтю присвячено дослідженню радянської політики щодо німецьких релігійних конфесій на території Криму в 20-30-ті рр. ХХ ст. Проаналізовано законодавство, висвітлено етапи ліквідації церкви, антирелігійну пропаганду, поведінку німців у нових історичних реаліях.