Resumen Se estudia comparativamente el desempeño de adultos mayores y de adultos jóvenes en una tarea concurrente que consiste en leer oraciones ecuacionales mientras, al mismo tiempo, se retienen en la memoria tres palabras. El propósito del experimento es averiguar si existe un efecto de las variables edad, memoria operativa, complejidad sintáctica e interferencia de una carga concurrente de memoria en el procesamiento y comprensión de oraciones de sintaxis compleja. El análisis estadístico multinivel realizado revela que tanto el procesamiento en (...) línea de las oraciones ecuacionales como su comprensión se ven afectados significativamente por la edad de los participantes cuando opera una carga de memoria concurrente. Las variables memoria operativa y complejidad sintáctica, por su parte, afectan también significativamente el desempeño de los sujetos, pero independientemente de su edad.The performance of older and young adults in a concurrent task -to read equational sentences while at the same time the subjects retain in memory three words- is comparatively studied. The purpose of the experiment is to find out if there is an effect of the variables of age, working memory, syntactic complexity and interference of a concurrent memory load processing on the comprehension of syntactically complex sentences. The multilevel statistical analysis reveals that both online processing of cleft sentences as their understanding is significantly affected by the age of participants when operating a concurrent memory load. The working memory variables and syntactical complexity, meanwhile, also significantly affect the performance of subjects, but regardless of age. (shrink)

Unos de los temas más queridos por Giovanni Piana fue el de la imaginación. Retomando los estudios de Husserl sobre este argumento, contenidos en el band XXIII de la Husserliana, Piana dio vida a una interpretación que trata intersecar la fenomenología con otros plantea-mientos como aquel psicoanalítico clásico y el de Bachelard. En este ensayo se busca eviden-ciar primero el método con el cual Piana trató de comprobar las características específicas de la estructura de la imaginación en comparación con otros (...) actos de experiencias como la per-cepción; por otra parte, una vez que se ha alcanzado determinar los actos de imaginación por el carácter específico de “como si” en el cual se enmarcan, estos se comparan con el recuerdo y finalmente se lleva a cabo un analisis especifico del material de la imaginación, con base siempre en la propuesta filosófica de Giovanni Piana. (shrink)

Background:The acquisition of experience is a major concern for nurses in intensive care units. Although the emotional component of the clinical practice of these nurses has been widely studied, greater examination is required to determine how this component influences their learning and practical experience.Objective:To discover the relationships between emotion, memory and learning and the impacts on nursing clinical practice.Research design:This is a qualitative phenomenological study. The data were collected from open, in-depth interviews. A total of 22 intensive care unit nurses (...) participated in this research between January 2012 and December 2014.Ethical considerations:The School of Nursing Ethics Committee approved the study, which complied with ethical principles and required informed consent.Findings:We found a clear relationship between emotion, memory and the acquisition of experience. This relationship grouped three dimensions: (1) satisfaction, to relieve the patient’s pain or discomfort, give confidence and a sense of security to the patient, enable the presence of family members into the intensive care unit and provide family members with a realistic view of the patient’s situation; (2) error experience, which nurses feel when a patient dies, when they fail to accompany a patient in his or her decision to abandon the struggle to live or when they fail to lend support to the patient’s family; and (3) the feel bad–feel good paradox, which occurs when a mistake in the patient’s care or handling of his or her family is repaired.Conclusion:Emotion is a capacity that impacts on nurses’ experience and influences improvements in clinical practice. Recalling stories of satisfaction helps to reinforce good practice, while recalling stories of errors helps to identify difficulties in the profession and recognise new forms of action. The articulation of emotional competencies may support the development of nursing ethics in the intensive care unit to protect and defend their patients and improve their relationships with families in order to maximise the potential for patient care. (shrink)

La obra de Piana se caracteriza por el amplio interés en la música. La experiencia perceptiva del material sonoro representa para el filósofo italiano un misterio que debe indagarse en to-dos sus diferentes aspectos. Los sonidos, los materiales de la música, vehiculan expresividad gracias a su propia materialidad fenomenológica y difícilmente podríamos apenas abrir el tema de la expresividad musical, si la materia prima pudiera entenderse como algo expresivamente neutro. Esta declaración apunta a una serie de problemas que deben resolverse (...) en relación con las distinciones elementales que se aplican en este plano, y en el plano de la terminología que les corresponde. El objetivo de este artículo es introducir a los análisis de Piana sobre el soni-do y la experiencia de la escucha. (shrink)

Gran parte de la elaboración filosófica de Giovanni Piana tiene como objetivo construir una filosofía de la experiencia; ésta proviene de una reinterpretación crítica de la tradición empiris-ta. La experiencia es para Piana por un lado la percepción como capacidad que nos coloca en presencia de objetos y justo en los modos y las formas en los cuales aquélla se diferencia y por el otro, son experiencia todos aquellos “modos” que nos ponen en presencia de los obje-tos. Por lo tanto, (...) precisamente si ampliamos la definición, también son experiencia “recordar”, “imaginar” etc... De todas experiencias es posible determinar los modos de operar, los que Piana considera verdaderas estructuras. El objetivo de este ensayo es aclarar la manera en la cual se desarrolla la teoría de la experiencia de Giovanni Piana en el marco de su estructura-lismo fenomenológico. (shrink)

La percepción como lugar originario de la aclaración en las lecciones husserlianas sobre las síntesis pasivas.

Os anos que passamos na graduação geralmente costumam ser marcante em nossas vidas, afinal de contas, esses momentos formativos que compartilhamos com os colegas de curso e com os professores/as, ao longo de quatro anos, são fundamentais para nos tornarmos os profissionais que somos hoje. A leitura dos textos, as discussões em sala, as relações de afeto que construímos nesse período, o papo com os professores, a preparação e apresentação dos seminários, as madrugadas em claro fazendo os trabalhos das disciplinas, (...) as reflexões que guardamos na consciência após uma reunião dos grupos de estudo, as confraternizações que costumamos realizar no termino das disciplinas, isto é, todos essas vivências que um estudante universitário costuma ter marca de maneira definitiva a nossa história. E arrisco a dizer, sem receio de ser injusto, que essas experiências passam a ter um significado ainda maior quando nos tornamos efetivamente professores/as. (shrink)

Considering José Cadalso’s Noches Lúgubres [Lugubrious Nights], the article reflects on the possibilities ofrecognizing the other as a condition for an effective process of alterity. In Tediato, the main character and whois plunged into darkness, it is possible to recognize an existential condition pushed to the limit, which needs thepresence of the other to unveil another possibility of meaning. A reunion with oneself is, then, the condition for anopening to the other, which appears as a new existential possibility because (...) the vital meaning of existence dependslargely on our relationship with others. Hence, the relevance of understanding that human beings become humanas long as they have the ability of coming out of themselves to give themselves without reciprocity. (shrink)

Hipólito Unanue. Bartolomé Herrera. Manuel González Prada. José de la Riva Agüero. José Carlos Mariátegui César Vallejo.

This paper argues that, while there is a difference between personal and sub-personal explanation, claims of autonomy should be treated with scepticism. It distinguishes between horizontal and vertical explanatory relations that might hold between facts at the personal and facts at the sub-personal level. Noting that many philosophers are prepared to accept vertical explanatory relations between the two levels, I argue for the stronger claim that, in the case of at least three central personal level phenomena, the demands of explanatory (...) adequacy require postulating horizontal explanatory relations. (shrink)

This paper explores the relation between two ways of thinking about the sources of self-consciousness. We can think about the sources of self-consciousness either in genetic terms (as the origins or precursors of self-conscious thoughts) or in epistemic terms (as the grounds of self-conscious judgements). Using Christopher Peacocke's account of self-conscious judgements in Being Known as a foil, this paper brings out some important ways in which we need to draw upon the sources of self-consciousness in the genetic sense for (...) a proper understanding of the sources of self-consciousness in the epistemic sense. (shrink)

Empirical reports on scientific competition show that scientists can be depicted as self-interested, strategically behaving agents. Nevertheless, we argue that recognition-seeking scientists will have an interest in establishing methodological norms which tend to select theories of a high epistemic value, and that these norms will be still more stringent if the epistemic value of theories appears in the utility function of scientists, either directly or instrumentally. (Published Online July 11 2006) Footnotes1 The author gratefully acknowledges financial support from DGI grant (...) BEC2002-03715 (Ministerio de Educación y Cultura). 2 The author gratefully acknowledges financial support from grants PB98-0495-C08-01 and BFF2002-03656 (Ministerio de Educación y Cultura). (shrink)

Recent Descartes scholarship has revised the traditional view of the Cartesian project as one of strictly deductive rationalism. This revision has particularly stressed the role of science in Descartes’ thought. The revisionist conception of Descartes also downplays the significance of the sceptical arguments offered in the First Meditation, seeing them as tools for ‘turning the mind away from the senses’ in the interest of Cartesian science, rather than as reflecting genuinely epistemological concerns. This paper takes issue with this aspect of (...) the revisionist reading of Descartes. It argues that seeing scepticism as critically important for Descartes is independent of interpreting him as a canonical rationalist. In fact, it is precisely Descartes’ scientific thought and practice which make scepticism such a problem for him. (shrink)

How precisely to understand and evaluate counterfactuals can be an intricate issue. The aim of this article is to examine a new set of difficulties for evaluating counterfactuals that arise in the context of the dynamical spacetimes described by the theory of general relativity (GR). The initial value formulation provides us with a methodology to pin down the specific combination of features of the theory at the origin of the difficulties, namely, non-linearity and certain non-local aspects (typically captured by ellipticity (...) at the analytical level), in particular when combined with the global and/or quasi-local character of physical quantities in GR. Finally, we connect the philosophical question about counterfactuals with concrete applied physical issues in GR about extracting meaningful predictions by constructing appropriate initial data sets, leading us to question the very suitability of the Cauchy approach to fully account for the explanatory power of the theory. (shrink)

This reflection on Ethics in One Hundred Years of Solitude is divided in two main parts and issues. In this, the first one, thanks to the intertextual method, the author makes a journey throughout the structure, the characters and the focus of the novel to argue that ethics described there by Gabriel García Márquez is rooted in biblical myths, and how its use is a tool that gives unity to the work, and allows the author to openly reveal the human (...) condition. (shrink)

How precisely to understand and evaluate counterfactuals can be an intricate issue. The aim of this article is to examine a new set of difficulties for evaluating counterfactuals that arise in the context of the dynamical spacetimes described by the theory of general relativity. The initial value formulation provides us with a methodology to pin down the specific combination of features of the theory at the origin of the difficulties, namely, non-linearity and certain non-local aspects, in particular when combined with (...) the global and/or quasi-local character of physical quantities in general relativity. Finally, we connect the philosophical question about counterfactuals with concrete applied physical issues in general relativity about extracting meaningful predictions by constructing appropriate initial data sets, leading us to question the very suitability of the Cauchy approach to fully account for the explanatory power of the theory. (shrink)

Recent work on Descartes has drastically revised the traditional conception of Descartes as a paradigmatic rationalist and foundationalist. The traditional picture, familar from histories of philosophy and introductory lectures, is of a solitary meditator dedicated to the pursuit of certainty in a unified science via a rigourous process of logical deduction from indubitable first principles. But the Descartes that has emerged from recent studies strikes a more subtle balance between metaphysics, physics, epistemology and the philosophy of science. There is much (...) to be praised in this revaluation, but a dangerous amount of over-compensation has gone on, particularly in the reinterpretation of the role of sceptical doubt in Descartes' thought. This reinterpretion plays down the epistemological reasons for worrying about scepticism, suggesting that Cartesian physics is what ultimately drives the introduction of scepticism in the First Meditation. (shrink)

Empirical reports on scientific competition show that scientists can be depicted as self-interested, strategically behaving agents. Nevertheless, we argue that recognition-seeking scientists will have an interest in establishing methodological norms which tend to select theories of a high epistemic value, and that these norms will be still more stringent if the epistemic value of theories appears in the utility function of scientists, either directly or instrumentally.

Philosophers have often argued that ascriptions of content are appropriate only to the personal level states of folk psychology. Against this, this paper defends the view that the familiar propositional attitudes and states defined over them are part of a larger set of cognitive proceses that do not make constitutive reference to concept possession. It does this by showing that states with nonconceptual content exist both in perceptual experience and in subpersonal information-processing systems. What makes these states content-involving is their (...) satisfaction of certain basic conditions deriving from a general account of representation-driven behaviour that is neutral on the question of concept possession. It is also argued that creatures can be in states with nonconceptual content even though they possess no conceptual abilities at all. (shrink)

Table of Contents Acknowledgments 1 Self-Consciousness and the Body: An Interdisciplinary Introduction by Naomi Eiland, Anthony Marcel and José Luis Bermúdez 2 The Body Image and Self-Consciousness by John Campbell 3 Infants’ Understanding of People and Things: From Body Imitation to Folk Psychology by Andrew N. Meltzoff and M. Keith Moore 4 Persons, Animals, and Bodies by Paul F. Snowdon 5 An Ecological Perspective on the Origins of Self by George Butterworth 6 Objectivity, Causality, and Agency by Thomas (...) Baldwin 7 At Two with Nature: Agency and the Development of Self-World Dualism by James Russell 8 Ecological Perception and the Notion of a Nonconceptual Point of View by José Luis Bermúdez 9 Proprioception and the Body Image by Brian O’Shaughnessy 10 Awareness of One’s Own Body: An Attentional Theory of Its Nature, Development, and Brain Basis by Marcel Kinsbourne 11 Body Schema and Intentionality by Shaun Gallagher 12 Living without Touch and Peripheral Information about Body Position and Movement: Studies with Deafferented Subjects by Jonathan Cole and Jacques Paillard 13 Bodily Awareness: A Sense of Ownership by M. G. F. Martin 14 Bodily Awareness and the Self by Bill Brewer 15 Introspection and Bodily Self-Ascription by Quassim Cassam 16 Consciousness and the Self by Naomi Eilan Contributors Index. (shrink)

Cognitive Science combines the interdisciplinary streams of cognitive science into a unified narrative in an all-encompassing introduction to the field. This text presents cognitive science as a discipline in its own right, and teaches students to apply the techniques and theories of the cognitive scientist's 'toolkit' - the vast range of methods and tools that cognitive scientists use to study the mind. Thematically organized, rather than by separate disciplines, Cognitive Science underscores the problems and solutions of cognitive science, rather than (...) those of the subjects that contribute to it - psychology, neuroscience, linguistics, etc. The generous use of examples, illustrations, and applications demonstrates how theory is applied to unlock the mysteries of the human mind. Drawing upon cutting-edge research, the text has been updated and enhanced to incorporate new studies and key experiments since the first edition. A new chapter on consciousness has also been added. (shrink)

Decision Theory and Rationality offers a challenging new interpretation of a key theoretical tool in the human and social sciences. This accessible book argues, contrary to orthodoxy in politics, economics, and management science, that decision theory cannot provide a theory of rationality.

It is now 25 years since Gareth Evans introduced the distinction between conceptual and nonconceptual content in The Varieties of Reference. This is a fitting time to take stock of what has become a complex and extended debate both within philosophy and at the interface between philosophy and psychology. Unfortunately, the debate has become increasingly murky as it has become increasingly ramified. Much of the contemporary discussion does not do full justice to the powerful theoretical tool originally proposed by Evans (...) and subsequently refined by theorists in the late 1980’s and early 1990’s – most effectively, I think, by Christopher Peacocke (particularly in his 1992). Even worse, significant parts of the discussion are somewhat confused. This paper makes a start on clarifying what I think ought to be the central issues in debates about nonconceptual content. I begin in §1 by pointing out how narrowly focused contemporary discussion is relative to Evans’s original discussion. We are not making as much use as we should of nonconceptual content as a tool for understanding subpersonal information processing and the complexities of its status relative to perception and thought at the personal level. In §2 I turn to what is the central focus of contemporary discussion, namely, the content of perception and identify a “master argument” for nonconceptualism based on the relation between conceptual capacities and capacities for perceptual discrimination. The aim of §3 is to clarify the relation between the claim that perception has nonconceptual content and some superficially similar claims discussed by philosophers of perception. Finally, in §4 I explain why the attention recently focused on what is sometimes called the state version of the nonconceptualist thesis seems to me to be misdirected. (shrink)

This article argues that bodily awareness is a basic form of self-consciousness through which perceiving agents are directly conscious of the bodily self. It clarifies the nature of bodily awareness, categorises the different types of body-relative information, and rejects the claim that we can have a sense of ownership of our own bodies. It explores how bodily awareness functions as a form of self-consciousness and highlights the importance of certain forms of bodily awareness that share an important epistemological property with (...) canonical forms of self-consciousness such as introspection. (shrink)

Philosophical accounts of self-deception can be divided into two broad groups – the intentionalist and the anti-intentionalist. On intentionalist models what happens in the central cases of self-deception is parallel to what happens when one person intentionally deceives another, except that deceiver and deceived are the same person. This paper offers a positive argument for intentionalism about self-deception and defends the view against standard objections.

Frames and framing make one dimension of a decision problem particularly salient. In the simplest case, framesprimeresponses (as in, e.g., the Asian disease paradigm, where the gain frame primes risk-aversion and the loss frame primes risk-seeking). But in more complicated situations frames can function reflectively, by making salient particular reason-giving aspects of a thing, outcome, or action. For Shakespeare's Macbeth, for example, his feudal commitments are salient in one frame, while downplayed in another in favor of his personal ambition. The (...) role of frames in reasoning can give rise torational framing effects. Macbeth can prefer fulfilling his feudal duty to murdering the king, while also preferring bravely taking the throne to fulfilling his feudal duty, knowing full well that bravely taking the throne just is murdering the king. Such patterns ofquasi-cyclicalpreferences can be correct and appropriate from the normative perspective of how one ought to reason. The paper explores three less dramatic types of rational framing effects: (1) Consciously framing and reframing long-term goals and short-term temptations can be important tools for self-control. (2) In the prototypical social interactions modeled by game theory, allowing for rational framing effects solves longstanding problems, such as the equilibrium selection problem and explaining the appeal of non-equilibrium solutions (e.g., the cooperative solution in the Prisoner's Dilemma). (3) Processes for resolving interpersonal conflicts and breaking discursive deadlock, because they involve internalizing multiple and incompatible ways of framing actions and outcomes, in effect create rational framing effects. (shrink)

In a recent paper, Fredérique de Vignemont has argued that there is a positive quale of bodily ownership . She thinks that tactile and other forms of somatosensory phenomenology incorporate a distinctive feeling of myness and takes issue with my defense in Bermúdez of a deflationary approach to bodily ownership. That paper proposed an argument deriving from Elizabeth Anscombe’s various discussions of what she terms knowledge without observation . De Vignemont is not convinced and appeals to the Rubber Hand Illusion (...) to undercut my appeal to Anscombe. Section 1 of this article restates the case against the putative quale of ownership. Section 2 explains why de Vignemonts’ objections miss the mark. Section 3 discusses in more detail how to draw a principled distinction between bodily awareness and ordinary perceptual awareness. (shrink)

The author challenges the view that birth cannot be a morally relevant fact in the process of development from zygote to child. He reviews specific arguments against giving any moral significance to the fact of birth. Drawing on recent work in developmental psychology, he contends that the lives of neonates can have a level of self-consciousness that confers moral significance but can only be possessed after birth. He shows that the position he has argued for provides a framework within which (...) the move from the moral validity of aborting sentient fetuses to the moral validity of infanticide might be resisted. He concludes that arguments suggesting that birth can be morally significant support the view that the acquisition of moral significance is a gradual and multilayered phenomenon. (shrink)