A number of experiences have demonstrated how digital solutions are effective in improving quality of life (QoL) and health outcomes for older adults. Smart Health Age-Friendly Environments (SHAFE) is a new concept introduced in Europe since 2017 that combines the concept of Age-Friendly Environments with Information Technologies, supported by health and community care to improve the health and disease management of older adults and during the life-course. This chapter aims to provide an initial overview of the experiences available not only (...) in Europe, based on the research work of the participants of the International Interdisciplinary Network on Health and Well-being in an Age-Friendly Digital World (NET4Age-Friendly), which could be of interest to preventive, health and social authorities. The chapter reports good practices, pain points, and bottlenecks that may require a collaborative, interdisciplinary research approach to facilitate the transformations towards smart, sustainable, health and age-friendly cities and communities. (shrink)

8 March, now known as International Women’s Day, is a day for feminist claims where demonstrations are organized in over 150 countries, with the participation of millions of women all around the world. These demonstrations can be viewed as collective rituals and thus focus attention on the processes that facilitate different psychosocial effects. This work aims to explore the mechanisms involved in participation in the demonstrations of 8 March 2020, collective and ritualized feminist actions, and their correlates associated with personal (...) well-being and collective well-being, collective efficacy and collective growth, and behavioral intention to support the fight for women’s rights. To this end, a cross-cultural study was conducted with the participation of 2,854 people from countries in Latin America and Europe, with a retrospective correlational cross-sectional design and a convenience sample. Participants were divided between demonstration participants and non-demonstrators or followers who monitored participants through the media and social networks. Compared with non-demonstrators and with males, female and non-binary gender respondents had greater scores in mechanisms and criterion variables. Further random-effects model meta-analyses revealed that the perceived emotional synchrony was consistently associated with more proximal mechanisms, as well as with criterion variables. Finally, sequential moderation analyses showed that proposed mechanisms successfully mediated the effects of participation on every criterion variable. These results indicate that participation in 8M marches and demonstrations can be analyzed through the literature on collective rituals. As such, collective participation implies positive outcomes both individually and collectively, which are further reinforced through key psychological mechanisms, in line with a Durkheimian approach to collective rituals. (shrink)

Raffaella De Rosa discusses the theory of sensory perception, especially color perception, offered by Ren Descartes. She offers a detailed overview of the recent literature on the topic and provides a new reading of Descartes' theory; she also raises questions of great interest in the contemporary philosophy of mind and cognitive science.

Martin Heidegger postula a recuperação da potência criativa da palavra como sendo a tarefa fundamental da fenomenologia, identificando na poesia a conservação dessa forma privilegiada de relação com a linguagem. O presente trabalho trata da linguagem como via de acesso às esferas primordiais do ser através de uma interpretação das experiências místicas como ocasiões para o rompimento do automatismo linguístico que impede ver na palavra algo além de um mero instrumento para a transmissão de informações. A partir das reflexões sobre (...) o símbolo desenvolvidas por pensadores como Gaston Bachelard, Paul Ricoeur, Mircea Eliade e Gershom Scholem, propomos uma conceituação fenomenológica do símbolo como entidade de sentido aberto, cuja origem remete ao positivamente indeterminado que constitui o “objeto” das experiências místicas. Positivamente indeterminado é a nossa expressão para dizer o divino, interpretando-o como fonte de todo sentido que é, por isso mesmo, ausente de qualquer sentido determinado, não por uma falta, mas por um excesso de significação. O excesso de significação se apresenta, então, como a chave para uma forma de relacionamento com a palavra concebida como força de criação. (shrink)

This paper discusses the role of attention in the phenomenological analysis of intentional experience in light of the problem of the relation between consciousness, intentionality, and transcendental subjectivity. Are these concepts equivalent? Or should we rather say that there is more to intentionality (and subjectivity) than consciousness? Does subjectivity embrace an unconscious domain? And, if so, how does this unconscious, yet intentional, life of subjectivity operate and how is it related to consciousness? In order to answer these questions, the paper (...) tracks the development of Husserl’s conception of attention from the Logical Investigations to genetic phenomenology, by focusing on his analyses of temporality in the Bernau Manuscripts, on the relation between activity and passivity in the Analyses Concerning Active and Passive Synthesis, and on the issue of the self-constitution of subjectivity. (shrink)

In Aristophanes' Male and Female Revolutions author Kenneth M. De Luca offers a detailed study of two of Aristophanes' plays and reveals how each illuminates the other and the question of the rule of law through the lens of democracy. De Luca uses classical thought to clarify contemporary and foundational issues in political theory.

The topic of this dissertation is a discussion of the seventeenth century debate between Descartes and Locke over innate ideas. I propose a novel approach to the study of this debate. I argue that their disagreement over innate ideas is directly related to their differing views of how the content of ideas is determined and of what counts as having an idea in the mind. Approaching the controversy between Descartes and Locke from this perspective has allowed me to conclude that (...) Descartes' nativist argument prevail over Locke's arguments to the contrary. ;I begin the discussion, in Chapter One, by examining the anti-nativist arguments offered by Locke in Book I of his Essay concerning Human Understanding and by clarifying the nature of Descartes' dispositional nativism. I conclude that since Locke's arguments rely on a principle whose denial is implied by Descartes' Dispositional Nativism, his arguments at best beg the question against Descartes. I suggest then that discussion of the controversy between Descartes and Locke should shift to the arguments they provide, respectively, for and against the awareness principle. ;In Chapter Two, I argue that Locke's argument for the awareness principle is to be found in the empiricism of Book II of his Essay and, hence, that the anti-nativist arguments of Book I are question-begging since they presuppose the very empiricism they aim to prove. ;In Chapters Three and Four, I argue that Descartes' argument for the denial of the awareness principle is to be found in his rationalist theory of idea-individuation according to which the content of ideas is determined by an intellectual and implicitly known presentation of the object. ;In the final chapter, I argue that Descartes' arguments for nativism are a version of what is known in the literature as "Poverty-of-the-Stimulus Arguments" and conclude that, interpreted this way, they have an edge over Locke's anti-nativist arguments. I contend that whereas Locke's argument for the awareness principle depend on an empiricist theory of idea individuation that assumes that principle, Descartes' argument for the denial of the awareness principle depends on a rationalist theory of idea individuation that argues for the denial of that principle. (shrink)

Jesse Prinz has argued that a proxytype theory of concepts provides what he calls the 'intentionality' and 'cognitive content' desiderata better than any current competitor, and that the hybrid nature of proxytypes allows his theory to combine the informational component of informational atomism with the view that concepts are semantically structured entities. In response, I argue that the hybrid character of proxytypes, far from delivering the advantages Prinz claims, generates a threatening dilemma: either his theory is novel but fails to (...) deliver the intentionality and cognitive content desiderata, or it delivers these desiderata but is not novel. (shrink)

Entre 1843 e 1844, em dois textos polêmicos, Sobre a questão judaica e Glosas críticas ao artigo “O rei da Prússia e a reforma social”. De um prussiano, Karl Marx empreende sua crítica ao Estado e à sociedade civil-burguesa, após seu acerto de contas com o pensamento de Hegel, mas antes de seu estudo mais profundo de economia política. De um lado, o pensador faz a crítica da política, ainda que sem condições de fazer uma profunda crítica da economia política. (...) De outro, ele reconhece a impossibilidade de analisar o Estado sem adentrar a sociedade que lhe confere base, de maneira que não se furta de tentar compreender as determinações da sociedade civil-burguesa, esforço que tem início já nos textos em questão. (shrink)

Alison Simmons, in Simmons (1999), argues that Descartes in Meditation Six offered a teleological account of sensory representation. According to Simmons, Descartes’ view is that the biological function of sensations explains both why sensations represent what they do (i.e., their referential content) and why they represent their objects the way they do (i.e., their presentational content). Moreover, Simmons claims that her account has several advantages over other currently available interpretations of Cartesian sensations. In this paper, I argue that Simmons’ teleological (...) account cannot be sustained for both theoretical and textual reasons and that it does not have the advantages it is claimed to have. (shrink)

The standard view of Cartesian sensations is that they present themselves as purely qualitative features of experience. Accordingly, Descartes view would be that in perceiving the color red, for example, we are merely experiencing the subjective feel of redness rather than seeming to perceive a property of bodies. In this paper, I establish that the argument and textual evidence offered in support of SV fail to prove that Descartes held this view. Indeed, I will argue that there are textual and (...) theoretical reasons for believing that Descartes held the negation of SV. Qualia aren't Descartes legacy. (shrink)

Raffaella De Rosa discusses the theory of sensory perception, especially color perception, offered by René Descartes. She offers a detailed overview of the recent literature on the topic and provides a new reading of Descartes' theory; she also raises questions of great interest in the contemporary philosophy of mind and cognitive science.

The old and recent debates on Cartesian essences have focused on the question of whether Descartes is a Platonist or a conceptualist about essences. I argue that this is a false dichotomy. An adequate account of Cartesian essences must accommodate and reconcile two central doctrines and texts in Descartes' philosophy. I will argue that recent conceptualist and Platonist interpretations neither accommodate these doctrines nor reconcile these texts. Such failures are not accidental since Descartes' doctrines of divine creation and simplicity render (...) it impossible for Descartes to be either a conceptualist or a Platonist. Failure to notice this fact explains why there has been no progress on this exegetical issue. (shrink)

Jesse Prinz has argued that a proxytype theory of concepts provides what he calls the 'intentionality' and 'cognitive content' desiderata better than any current competitor, and that the hybrid nature of proxytypes allows his theory to combine the informational component of informational atomism with the view that concepts are semantically structured entities. In response, I argue that the hybrid character of proxytypes, far from delivering the advantages Prinz claims, generates a threatening dilemma: either his theory is novel but fails to (...) deliver the intentionality and cognitive content desiderata, or it delivers these desiderata but is not novel. (shrink)

The paper proposes a reflection on mathematical beauty, considering the possibility of aesthetic qualities for formal language. Through a concise overview of the way this question is understood by some famous scientists and mathematicians, we turn our attention to Gian-Carlo Rota’s theoretical proposal: his reflections as a mathematician and philosopher offer a perspective, of phenomenological matrix, fruitful for looking at the question. Rota’s contribution allows us to focus on the role of competence, acquired through effort, sedimentation and habit of repetition, (...) in cultivating the potential to recognise the aesthetic quality of formal language. Finally, we draw on some contributions from Gestalt theory, closely connected to twentieth-century phenomenology for chronological and conceptual reasons, applying the idea of gestalt wholeness to the mathematical product and proposing some reflections that may help to clarify some of the dynamics underlying the attribution of qualities of beauty to formulas or the detection of its lack. (shrink)

It is a common view that Descartes' causal principle is to be understood in light of a similarity condition that accounts for how finite causes contribute to an explanation of their effects. This paper challenges this common view and offers a sui generis reading of Descartes' views on causation that has also the advantage of solving the two exegetical issues of whether Descartes thought of the body-to-mind relation in occasionalist or causal terms and of whether Descartes regarded sensory ideas innate (...) or caused by bodies. (shrink)

Descartes seems to hold two inconsistent accounts of the ontological status of mathematical essences. Meditation Five apparently develops a platonist view about such essences, while the Principles seems to advocate some form of “conceptualism”. We argue that Descartes was neither a platonist nor a conceptualist. Crucial to our interpretation is Descartes’ dispositional nativism. We contend that his doctrine of innate ideas allows him to endorse a hybrid view which avoids the drawbacks of Gassendi’s conceptualism without facing the difficulties of platonism. (...) We call this hybrid view “quasi-platonism.” Our interpretation explains Descartes’ account of the nature of mathematical essences, dissolves the tension between the two texts, and highlights the benefits of Descartes’ view. (shrink)

Advance care planning (ACP) is considered a pivotal aid in the decision‐making process, especially for many people living with dementia, who inevitably will lose the capacity to make decisions at the end of life. In Italy, ACP has been recently regulated by law 219/2017, leading to the investigation of how physicians deal with ACP in dementia. In order to comprehend the perception of physicians who provide care for patients with dementia regarding ACP and to describe their difficulties and needs, this (...) study presents the results of a qualitative research study performed within a local health authority in northern Italy. Data were collected by semi‐structured interviews with 11 physicians dealing with patients with dementia and were analysed using interpretative phenomenological analysis. Four superordinate themes were identified, describing both the difficulties and challenges perceived by physicians in performing shared ACP in their daily activities. This study demonstrates that physicians experience troubles synchronizing the time of shared ACP with the more rapid development of dementia. Results also suggest that further training about communication on ACP is urgently required to ease the implementation of shared ACP. A broader involvement of institutions and other professionals is also important in spreading ACP among healthcare institutions. (shrink)

This chapter clarifies the different varieties of dispositional nativism (DN) that John Locke addresses. In the light of this clarification, the chapter then identifies the basic structure of Locke's arguments and assesses their strengths and weaknesses. It points out that Locke's polemic fails to undermine nativism. The chapter analyzes Locke's reasoning for dismissing nativism in its cognitive form. It explains Locke's arguments against the postulation of innate ideas. The chapter examines three problems with Locke's argumentative strategy. In light of the (...) three problems, the chapter concludes that Locke's attack on non‐cognitive dispositional nativism (NCDN) fails because it either establishes that nativism and empiricism are indistinguishable but it has the undesired effect of collapsing empiricism into nativism; it fails to establish that empiricism and nativism are indistiguishable and, hence, Locke's polemical strategy is undermined. Consequently, Locke's arguments neither undermine nativism nor shift the burden of proof on the nativists’ shoulders. (shrink)

Descartes maintained that sensations of color and the like misrepresent the material world in normal circumstances. Some prominent scholars have argued that, to explain this Cartesian view, we must attribute to Descartes a causal account of sensory representation. I contend that neither the arguments motivating this reading nor the textual evidence offered in its support is sufficient to justify such attribution. Both textual and theoretical reasons point in the direction of an (at least partial) internalist account of Descartes' views on (...) sensory representation. (shrink)

Descartes endorses the two prima facie inconsistent claims that sensory ideas are innate and caused in us by bodies. Most scholars believe that Claims A and B can be reconciled by appealing to the notion of occasional or triggering causation. I claim that this notion does not solve the theoretical problems it is introduced to solve and it generates additional difficulties. I argue that these difficulties result from conflating two questions that need to be kept distinct while inquiring about the (...) origin of ideas: the psychological question of the mechanisms by which we acquire ideas and the metaphysical question of how the content of these ideas is determined. I conclude by proposing a new way of reconciling Descartes's Claims A and B in light of this distinction. On my account, Descartes's very views on innateness explain why bodily states must be causes of sensory ideas. (shrink)

In this paper I argue against the received view that the anti-nativist arguments of Book I of Locke’s Essay conclusively challenge nativism. I begin by reconstructing the chief argument of Book I and its corollary arguments. I call attention to their dependence on (what I label) “the Awareness Principle”, viz., the view that there are no ideas in the mind of which the mind either isn’t currently aware or hasn’t been aware in the past. I then argue that the arguments’ (...) dependence on this principle is question begging on two counts. Unless this principle is defended, Locke’s arguments beg the question against Descartes and Leibniz because their nativism implies the denial of the Awareness Principle. And even when Locke defended the principle, his arguments remain question begging because they presuppose the empiricism they aim to prove. The disclosure of the question-begging status of these arguments debunks a seemingly powerful way of attacking nativism. (shrink)

This book aims to overturn the common view of materially false ideas , which is that Descartes’s discussion in Meditation Three generates confusion about his views on truth and falsehood and is irrelevant to the rest of the argument in the Meditations.After introducing MFIs and then criticizing previous interpretations, Wee provides her own account in chapter three. Since a proper understanding of why MFIs fail in their representational function allows Wee to revisit their role in the Meditations, this chapter occupies (...) a central place in the book. She attributes to Descartes two theories of representation, the “Accurate Causal Account” and the “Alternative Account” . According to ACP, “an idea represents truly only if the idea comes from the cause from which it purports to come, and the idea accurately represents that cause” . According to AA, an idea is true “if it represents a thing with objective being ” .Since Descartes, in Meditation Three, is “unable to determine the causes of his . . . ‘adventitious’ ideas, far less to determine whether his ideas accurately represent their causes” , the claim that MFIs “represent no-things as things” is to be explained in light of AA as follows: “Under AA, all ideas purport to. (shrink)

Jerry Fodor has argued that Classical Empiricists are as committed to the innateness of ideas as Classical Rationalists. His argument, however, is proven inconclusive by an ambiguity surrounding “innate ideas”.Textual evidence for this ambiguity is provided and the “Dispositional Nativism” that, prima facie, makes Empiricist and Rationalist views similar dissolves into two distinct views about the nature of both the mind’s and the environment’s contribution in the process of concept acquisition.Once the Empiricist’s Dispositional Nativism is not conflated with the Rationalist’s, (...) it becomes evident that the Empiricist can accept the premises of Fodor’s argument without accepting his conclusion and, hence, remain unmoved in her conviction that no ideas are innate. (shrink)

Book Information What's Within. Nativism Reconsidered. What's Within. Nativism Reconsidered F. Cowie New York/Oxford Oxford University Press 1999 xvii + 334 Hardback US$35.00 By F. Cowie. Oxford University Press. New York/Oxford. Pp. xvii + 334. Hardback:US$35.00.