In mathematics education, students' difficulties with negative numbers are well known. To explain these difficulties, researchers traditionally refer to obstacles raised by the concept of NEGATIVE NUMBERS itself throughout its historical evolution. In order to improve our understanding, I propose to take into consideration another point of view, based on Vygotsky's principles, which define a strong relationship between signs such as language or symbols and cognitive development. I show how it is of great interest to consider students' difficulties with negatives (...) in the light of the use of symbols, in particular the minus sign. I describe the results of an empirical study about students' strategies in solving arithmetical equations with negatives. My analysis shows that the problems raised by the presence of negatives in the equations are attributable to students' very restricted and often inadequate use of the minus sign, which prevents them from finding a negative solution or making sense of it. (shrink)

Corporate crises call for effective communication to shelter or restore a company's reputation. The use of corporate social responsibility (CSR) claims may provide an effective tool to counter the negative impact of a crisis, but knowledge about its effectiveness is scarce and lacking in studies that consider CSR communication during crises. To help fill this gap, this study investigates whether the length of company's involvement in CSR matters when it uses CSR claims in its crisis communication as a means to (...) counter negative publicity. The use of CSR claims in crisis communication is more effective for companies with a long CSR history than for those with a short CSR history, and consumer skepticism about claims lies at the heart of this phenomenon. (shrink)

Corporate crises call for effective communication to shelter or restore a company's reputation. The use of corporate social responsibility claims may provide an effective tool to counter the negative impact of a crisis, but knowledge about its effectiveness is scarce and lacking in studies that consider CSR communication during crises. To help fill this gap, this study investigates whether the length of company's involvement in CSR matters when it uses CSR claims in its crisis communication as a means to counter (...) negative publicity. The use of CSR claims in crisis communication is more effective for companies with a long CSR history than for those with a short CSR history, and consumer skepticism about claims lies at the heart of this phenomenon. (shrink)

The paper contends that neoclassical ideology stems, to a great extent, from mathematical analysis. It is suggested that mainstream economic thought can be comprehensively revisited if both histories of mathematical and economic thought are to be taken collaboratively into account. Ideology is understood as a 'social construction of reality' that prevents us from evaluating our own standpoint, and impedes us from realising our value judgments as well as our theories of society and nature. However, the mid-19th century's intellectual controversies about (...) the validity of mathematical thought, truth and knowledge can procure new interesting insights concerning the ideological stance of the first marginalists. In this respect, the methodological categories of analysis and synthesis serve as the basis for the crucial distinction between old geometry and mathematical analysis, indicating that the discipline of mathematics has its own history of fundamentally unresolved disputes. Lastly, this may also shed some light on Alfred Marshall's peculiarly reluctant attitude towards the use of mathematical analysis in his work. (shrink)

Granting that various mental events might form the antecedents of an action, what is the mental event that is the proximate cause of action? The present article reconsiders the methodology for addressing this question: Intention and its varieties cannot be properly analyzed if one ignores the evolutionary constraints that have shaped action itself, such as the trade-off between efficient timing and resources available, for a given stake. On the present proposal, three types of action, impulsive, routine and strategic, are designed (...) to satisfy the trade-off above when achieving goals of each type. While actions of the first two types depend on non-conceptual appraisals of a given intensity and valence, strategic intentions have a propositional format and guide action within longer-term executive frameworks involving prospective memory. (shrink)

Controlling one's mental agency encompasses two forms of metacognitive operations, self-probing and post-evaluating. Metacognition so defined might seem to fuel an internalist view of epistemic norms, where rational feelings are available to instruct a thinker of what she can do, and allow her to be responsible for her mental agency. Such a view, however, ignores the dynamics of the mind–world interactions that calibrate the epistemic sentiments as reliable indicators of epistemic norms. A 'brain in the lab' thought experiment suggests that (...) an internalist view of epistemic feelings is unable to account for the contrast between norm-tracking, educated sentiments, and illusory feelings. (shrink)

As part of their corporate social responsibility, many organizations practice cause-related marketing, in which organizations donate to a chosen cause with every consumer purchase. The extant literature has identified the importance of the fit between the organization and the nature of the cause in influencing corporate image, as well as the influence of a connection between the cause and consumer preferences on brand attitudes and brand choice. However, prior research has not addressed which cause composition most appeals to consumers or (...) the impact of cause choice on corporate image. A between-subjects field experiment in the Netherlands examines the influence of three core cause attributes—cause type, cause scope, and cause acuteness—on consumers’ perceptions of corporate image. Furthermore, this experiment examines the extent to which consumer identification with the cause mediates the influence of the cause attributes on corporate image. The findings indicate that identification with the cause leads to more positive evaluations of marketing campaigns for cause type and cause scope. Also, however, our results uncover a negative direct relationship between cause scope and corporate image. Cause acuteness is only marginally influential in corporate image perceptions. By proposing and testing a comprehensive model of the influence of cause attributes on corporate image in cause-related marketing, this article provides important implications and suggests avenues for further research. (shrink)

As part of their corporate social responsibility, many organizations practice cause-related marketing, in which organizations donate to a chosen cause with every consumer purchase. The extant literature has identified the importance of the fit between the organization and the nature of the cause in influencing corporate image, as well as the influence of a connection between the cause and consumer preferences on brand attitudes and brand choice. However, prior research has not addressed which cause composition most appeals to consumers or (...) the impact of cause choice on corporate image. A between-subjects field experiment in the Netherlands examines the influence of three core cause attributes—cause type, cause scope, and cause acuteness—on consumers’ perceptions of corporate image. Furthermore, this experiment examines the extent to which consumer identification with the cause mediates the influence of the cause attributes on corporate image. The findings indicate that identification with the cause leads to more positive evaluations of marketing campaigns for cause type and cause scope. Also, however, our results uncover a negative direct relationship between cause scope and corporate image. Cause acuteness is only marginally influential in corporate image perceptions. By proposing and testing a comprehensive model of the influence of cause attributes on corporate image in cause-related marketing, this article provides important implications and suggests avenues for further research. (shrink)

This article discusses the triage response to the COVID-19 delta variant surge of 2021. One issue that distinguishes the delta wave from earlier surges is that by the time it became the predominant strain in the USA in July 2021, safe and effective vaccines against COVID-19 had been available for all US adults for several months. We consider whether healthcare professionals and triage committees would have been justified in prioritising patients with COVID-19 who are vaccinated above those who are unvaccinated (...) in first-order or second-order triage. Given that lack of evidence for a correlation between short-term survival and vaccination, we argue that using vaccination status during first-order triage would be inconsistent with accepted triage standards. We then turn to notions of procedural fairness, equity and desert to argue that that there is also a lack of justification for using vaccination status in second-order triage. In planning for future surges, we recommend that medical institutions base their triage decisions on principles meant to save the most lives, minimise inequity and protect the public’s trust, which for the time being would not be served by the inclusion of vaccination status. (shrink)

D’un versant à l’autre des Alpes, les règles universitaires et éditoriales diffèrent beaucoup, et c’est une aubaine pour les chercheurs et les érudits. Voici Théon de Smyrne, élégamment propulsé sur le devant de la scène par un jeune chercheur de 27 ans, dans une traduction italienne actualisée, commentée au fil du texte à la mode antique, avec une volonté non dissimulée d’exhaustivité dans les références, les parallèles, les contrastes et les variantes, les interprétations divergentes. Les n...

Cet article se penche sur les rapports entre les politiques de réparation et la perception du temps après un crime de masse. Il cherche à démontrer que les mesures réparatrices prises parfois dans le but de rétablir la justice et le dialogue entre les groupes agissent sur la perception du temps. Elles sont dotées d’un pouvoir de reformulation qui vient modifier la mise en récit du passé, et donc sa perception. Elles contribuent notamment à faire le récit des responsabilités et (...) celui de la souffrance des victimes.Pour le montrer, l’article s’appuie sur un cas, celui des réparations ouest-allemandes destinées à Israël et à la Claims Conference entre 1945 et 1980. Cette période relativement longue permet d’observer un changement dans les modes de réparation : la RFA eut d’abord recours au droit civil, puis au droit pénal, et enfin aux symboles. Chacun de ces modes reformula à sa manière l’histoire des crimes et changea par conséquent la perception du passé qui ne cessa d’évoluer au fil du temps, en intégrant au fur et à mesure davantage le point de vue de la victime. (shrink)

This contribution aims to examine the dynamics that have emerged from a collaborative research-training approach having relied on collective interviews, in order to shed light on the growing phenomenon of the professional integration of foreign-trained teachers in Quebec schools which seems problematic in various aspects. A conversation analysis was used to identify how the expertises of a research culture and professional cultures come together to serve a knowledge co-production process that seems relevant by the two communities concerned. Three dynamics have (...) been identified : the development of a comprehensive posture, the production of new adjusted interpretations, and the affirmation of its actor’s competency. Their highlighting leads us to reflect on collaborative design and animation strategies that served the co-production of knowledge process. (shrink)

A prominent but poorly understood domain of human agency is mental action, i.e., thecapacity for reaching specific desirable mental statesthrough an appropriate monitoring of one's own mentalprocesses. The present paper aims to define mentalacts, and to defend their explanatory role againsttwo objections. One is Gilbert Ryle's contention thatpostulating mental acts leads to an infinite regress.The other is a different although related difficulty,here called the access puzzle: How can the mindalready know how to act in order to reach somepredefined result? A (...) crucial element in the solutionof these puzzles consists in making explicit thecontingency between mental acts and mentaloperations, parallel to the contingency betweenphysical acts and bodily movements. The paper finallydiscusses the kind of reflexivity at stake in mentalacts; it is shown that the capacity to refer tooneself is not a necessary condition of the successfulexecution of mental acts. (shrink)

Building on a model of the biological, socio-psychological, and structural drivers of luxury consumption, this article explores when and why luxury consumers consider ethics in their luxury consumption practices, to identify differences in their ethical and ethical luxury consumption. The variables proposed to explain these differences derive from biological, socio-psychological, and structural drivers, namely, consumers’ (1) age, (2) ethicality, (3) human values, (4) motivations, and (5) assumptive world. A cluster analysis of a sample of 706 U.S. adult luxury consumers reveals (...) five segments of luxury consumers, each reflecting a specific persona, that engage in both ethical and ethical luxury consumption to varying extents. The five segments differ in the extent to which they exhibit features related to four discriminant functions (immorality, ego-orientation, and strain; altruistic-orientation; conservation, in control, and positivity; and youth and luxury savvy), which vary across the biological, socio-psychological, and structural drivers. The findings thus indicate which segments of luxury consumers are most relevant for luxury firms pursuing a long-term sustainability agenda and suggest practical actions to reach those goals. (shrink)

It has recently been argued that the following Rule should be part of any characterization of science: Claims concerning specific disputed facts should be endorsed only if they are sufficiently supported by the application of validated methods of research or discovery, and moreover that acceptance of this Rule should lead one to reject religious belief. This paper argues, first, that the Rule, as stated, should not be accepted as it suffers from a number of problems. And second, that even if (...) the Rule were to be acceptable, it should not lead one to reject religious belief. (shrink)

Given disagreements about the architecture of the mind, the nature of self-knowledge, and its epistemology, the question of how to understand the function and scope of metacognition – the control of one's cognition - is still a matter of hot debate. A dominant view, the self-ascriptive view (or one-function view), has been that metacognition necessarily requires representing one's own mental states as mental states, and, therefore, necessarily involves an ability to read one's own mind. The self-evaluative view (or two-function view), (...) in contrast, takes metacognition to involve a procedural form of knowledge that is generated by actually engaging in a first-order cognitive task, and monitoring its success. The comparative and developmental arguments supporting, respectively, each of these views are discussed in the light of Hampton's operational definition of metacognition. New arguments are presented in favor of the two-function view. Recent behaviorial and neuroscientific evidence suggests that metacognitive assessment relies on dedicated implicit mechanisms, which are wholly independent, and indeed dissociable, from theory-based self-attribution. The two-function view is claimed to be the best interpretation of these findings. (shrink)

Although providing aid in conflict is implicitly political, involving humanitarian actors and aid in conflict resolution initiatives, as Weiss advocates, risks diluting the primary responsibility of humanitarian aid to alleviate suffering.

This chapter examines whether, and in what sense, one can speak of agentive mental events. An adequate characterization of mental acts should respond to three main worries. First, mental acts cannot have pre-specified goal contents. For example, one cannot prespecify the content of a judgment or of a deliberation. Second, mental acts seem to depend crucially on receptive attitudes. Third, it does not seem that intentions play any role in mental actions. Given these three constraints, mental and bodily actions appear (...) to have a significantly different structure. A careful analysis of the role of normative requirements, distinguishing them from instrumental reasons, allows the distinction between mental and bodily forms of action to be clarified. Two kinds of motives must be present for a mental act to develop. The first kind is instrumental: a mental act is performed because of some basic informational need, such as the need to "remember the name of that play". The second kind is normative: given the specific type of mental action performed, there is a specific epistemic norm relevant to that act. These two motives actually correspond to different phases of a single mental act. The first motivates the mental act, i.e. makes salient the corresponding goal. The second offers an evaluation of the feasibility of the act, on the basis of its constitutive normative requirement. Conceived in this way, a characterization of mental acts avoids the three difficulties mentioned above. The possibility of pre-specifying the outcome of epistemic mental acts is blocked by the fact that such acts are constituted by strict normative requirements. That mental acts include receptive features is shown to be a necessary architectural constraint for mental agents to be sensitive to epistemic requirements. Finally, the phenomenology of intending is shown to be absent in most mental acts; the motivational structure of mental acts is, rather, associated with error- signals and self-directed doubtings. Mental acts need to be recognized as a natural kind of action meant to normatively control and enhance cognitive efficiency according to current processing needs. (shrink)

What is a person, and how can a person come to know that she is a person identical to herself over time ? The article defends the view that the sense of being oneself in this sense consists in the ability to consciously affect oneself : in the memory of having affected oneself, joint to the consciousness of being able to affect oneself again. In other words, being a self requires a capacity for metacognition (control and monitoring of one's own (...) internal states). This view is compatible with the hypothesis that the self is a dynamic representation emerging out of a higher level control system, - valuation control - whose articulation with control of plans and perceptual/motor control is discussed in the context of normal and pertrubed agency. (shrink)

This paper defends the view that knowledge about one's own intentions can be gained in part through perception, although not through introspection. The various kinds of misperception of one's intentions are discussed. The latter distinction is applied to the analysis of schizophrenic patients' delusion of control.

Newborn screening for genetic diseases has developed rapidly in Western countries. These biopolitics raise the question of birth as a sociological “knot” insofar as it is the threshold between the child and the fetus. The question therefore addressed in this text, based on a field study of newborn screening for cystic fibrosis in France, is that of the link between the quest for good health and the elimination of poor health. Do they reinforce each other or, on the contrary, are (...) they contradictory? I analyze the positions of both mothers of screened children and clinicians regarding the following three points: prenatal diagnosis to preclude sets of sick siblings, identification of heterozygous individuals, and generalized prenatal screening. This study shows how increasingly attentive patient care and an increasingly demanding approach to prenatal diagnosis reinforce one another. It also analyzes the role of taking action early on and evaluating the lives of sick or disabled people in this process. In conclusion, I engage a more general discussion about what I suggest calling a “quality life.”. (shrink)

Pour celles et ceux qui prisent le grand large, la lecture de l’ouvrage de F. Thébaud, Une traversée du siècle. Marguerite Thibert, femme engagée et fonctionnaire internationale, s’impose. Dans cet ouvrage au long cours (près de 700 pages), l’auteure, spécialiste de l’histoire des femmes et du genre, nous convie en effet à partager un impressionnant périple temporel : celui d’une inconnue illustre, Marguerite Thibert (1886‑1982). Inconnue du grand public, Marguerite Thibert était déjà une per...

A prominent but poorly understood domain of human agency is mental action, i.e., thecapacity for reaching specific desirable mental statesthrough an appropriate monitoring of one's own mentalprocesses. The present paper aims to define mentalacts, and to defend their explanatory role againsttwo objections. One is Gilbert Ryle's contention thatpostulating mental acts leads to an infinite regress.The other is a different although related difficulty,here called the access puzzle: How can the mindalready know how to act in order to reach somepredefined result? A (...) crucial element in the solutionof these puzzles consists in making explicit thecontingency between mental acts and mentaloperations, parallel to the contingency betweenphysical acts and bodily movements. The paper finallydiscusses the kind of reflexivity at stake in mentalacts; it is shown that the capacity to refer tooneself is not a necessary condition of the successfulexecution of mental acts. (shrink)

L’éthique de Philodème de Gadara est aujourd’hui accessible, en langue anglaise, dans une présentation thématique qui met en perspective toutes les œuvres actuellement publiées de l’épicurien d’Herculanum, protégé du beau-père de César, Calpurnius Piso Caesoninus, et ami de Virgile et d’Horace. Les trois cent cinquante pages du livre de Voula Tsouna, The Ethics of Philodemus, offrent en effet enfin au public la réorganisation et le commentaire, en un seul volume, de larges et très nombreux ex...

_Border-crossing in Education_ comprises a series of case studies covering a variety of cultural areas, in order to reveal the density of connections and exchanges that inform educational practices, policies, and systems. It attaches particular importance to individual and collective actors that govern these flows – initiating, promoting, or reconfiguring transfers of policy models. The contributors explore various aspects of the circulatory mechanisms that have been deployed in the field of education during the modern and contemporary period. Varying the observation (...) scales, from local to international, they demonstrate the multilateral character of the circulatory dynamics observed. The implementation of rich and varied approaches to these complex processes offers a perspective that complements and renews our knowledge of the genesis and evolution of educational policies and systems, most notably highlighting their foreign inspirations. However, these studies do not merely evoke borrowings and hybridization, as if national borders proved porous or non-existent. Instead they show that the phenomena of resistance, reinterpretation, and rejection are also an integral part of transnational mechanisms of exchanges. The book thus demonstrates the relevance of a historical approach in addressing these transnational mechanisms in the field of education and childhood policy. This book was originally published as a special issue of _Paedagogica Historica. _. (shrink)

Le volume édité par Christian Promitzer, Sevasti Trubeta et Marius Turda, Health, Hygiene and Eugenics in Southeastern Europe to 1945 a été publié en 2011 par le Central European University Press dans sa collection d’études consacrées à l’histoire de la médecine. Le volume, divisé en deux parties, propose un tour d’horizon diversifié de la façon dont les États et sociétés de l’Europe du Sud-Est ont perçu les enjeux de santé propres à leurs territoires ; il s’interroge sur les paradigmes scien...

With rapidly spreading extractive practices on a global scale, the amount of residue generated raises the question of waste management and economic externalities. Are humans, and most crucially the Earth, equipped to welcome such an exponentially increasing quantity of restants? Artworks, as inexhaustible in their readings, are congenial to this idea of irreducible remains. In this paper, I argue Derrida’s treatment of remains might provide a waste-based approach to ecocriticism which, in turns, can be leveraged to articulate an insightful reading (...) of some artworks in times of extractive overconsumption and environmental destabilisation. Lee Bae’s Issu du feu (2000) and House of Moon (2014), Emerson Pontes’s Mil Quase Mortos: Boiúna, and Rochelle Goldberg’s Cannibal Actif (2018) are three contemporary artworks that directly challenge those externalities by explicitly engaging with remains ranging from charcoal, human-made waste and oil. Through a formal analysis of these artworks and a close reading of Derrida’s Feu la cendre, ‘Biodegradables Seven Diary Fragments,’ and the seminars Manger l’autre and Rhétorique du cannibalisme, it appears that eco-deconstruction is perhaps above all a matter of engaging with the structure of remains. (shrink)

This articles examines three ways in which the connection between semantic and pragmatic representations of a single action can be tightened up in order to remedy the puzzle of deviant causation. A first move consists in making the feedback process, i.e. the dynamics of the relationship between both representational components, a central element in the definition of an action. A second step brings in the action-effect principle, emphasizing the teleological relation of each pragmatic representation type with its external effects. A (...) final step consists in elucidating the constitutive character of demonstrative reference for the contents of working memory states. (shrink)

Given disagreement about the architecture of the mind, the nature of self‐knowledge, and its epistemology, the question of how to understand the function and the scope of metacognition – the control of one’s cognition – is still a matter of hot debate. A dominant view, the self‐ascriptive view, has been that metacognition necessarily requires representing one’s own mental states as mental states, and, therefore, necessarily involves an ability to read one’s mind. The main claims of this view are articulated, and (...) the difficulties that they raise are discussed. An alternative view of metacognition, the ‘self‐evaluative view’, is then examined. It is argued that this view provides an account of metacognition that is both empirically and conceptually more adequate than the self‐ascriptive model. Particular attention is given to the problem of transferring self‐evaluative judgments to the case of others. (shrink)

Paru pour la première fois en 1933, dans une revue lituanienne disparue durant la Seconde Guerre mondiale, l’article de Levinas que l’on va lire a été republié récemment par Andrius Valevicius, professeur à l’Université de Sherbrooke.