The ability of using a large variety of tools is important in our daily life. Behind human tool-use abilities lays the brain capacity to incorporate tools into the body representation for action (Body Schema, BS), thought to rely mainly on proprioceptive information. Here we tested whether tool incorporation is possible in absence of proprioception by studying a patient with right upper-limb deafferentation. We adopted a paradigm sensitive to changes of the Body Schema and analysed the kinematics of free-hand movements before (...) and after tool-use, in three sessions over a period of two years. In the first session, before tool-use, the kinematics of the deafferented hand was disrupted. Similarly, the first movements with the tool (a mechanical grabber elongating the arm by ∼40cm) showed an abnormal profile that tended to normalize at the end of the session. Subsequent free-hand movements were also normalised. At session 2, 6 months later, the patient exhibited normal free-hand kinematic profiles, additionally showing changes in grasping kinematics after tool-use, but no sign of tool incorporation. A follow-up two years later, further confirmed the normalized kinematic profile but the absence of tool incorporation. This first description of tool-use in absence of proprioception shows the fundamental role of proprioception in the update of the Body Schema. These results provide an important further step in understanding human motor control and have implications for future development of rehabilitation programs for patients with sensory deficits. (shrink)

Common sense dictates that cannibalism—eating another person—is immoral whether because of the harm done to the other person or because of a violation of human sanctity. Some Christian traditions interpret the Eucharist as the actual flesh and blood of Jesus Christ. Hence, on its face, communion would involve a form of cannibalism. As human beings, is it morally permissible for us to eat the flesh of another in a sacred ritual? According to many Christian theologies, this is one of the (...) most important ways that human beings relate to the divine. This constitutes a conflict between what is ethical (to not commit cannibalism) and what is divine (to participate in a sacred ritual). Søren Kierkegaard’s _Discourses at the Communion on Friday_ illuminates the ethical tension between communion and cannibalism. For Kierkegaard, communion is an exception to the ethical, ‘a teleological suspension of the ethical.’ There is no resolution to the fact that Christianity calls its members to commit spiritual cannibalism, but the ethical is suspended by a higher power, a direct divine mandate. Furthermore, Kierkegaard’s understanding of the human-divine relation emphasizes that cannibalism is necessary in order to maintain a right relationship with God. It is through the act of communion that humans affirm their relationship with God, and to reject this relationship leads not only to despair but to auto-cannibalism. While other forms of cannibalism may be unethical, ritualistic cannibalism, in which the human and divine come into relation, supersedes any moral rule against cannibalism. (shrink)

The coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic had a negative psychological impact on the population at scale, yet it is possible that vulnerable patient populations may experience a heavier burden with increased feelings of anxiety and distress. Cancer patients have to trade-off between the fear of exposing themselves to the virus and the need to continue life-saving medical procedures. The present study investigated the prevalence of generalized anxiety and post-traumatic stress symptoms in a population of Italian cancer patients and healthy participants in (...) the months following the COVID-19 outbreak. Using standardized measures of PTSS and generalized anxiety, we found that patients experienced higher levels of adverse mental health outcomes. Several variables were found to negatively affect PTSS and anxiety in this population, including the younger age of respondents, having children, and the impossibility to attend regular medical check-ups. These findings stress the importance of maintaining a clear and regular communication with patients throughout future waves of the pandemic and ensure continuity of care in this vulnerable population. Furthermore, this study indicates the need to establish psychological interventions aimed at patients with cancer, targeting especially younger generations who are more likely to experience adverse psychological outcomes. (shrink)

A dissolução (ou morte) estatal é uma preocupação comum a todos os autores contratualistas. Na sua maioria, eles consideram o estado um corpo mortal que, bem ou mal constituído, está inevitavelmente condenando a dissolver- se. E quanto a Espinosa? Acaso pensa o autor que o corpo político, tal como o corpo humano, tem uma morte certa, inevitável; ou julga, pelo contrário, que o estado pode ser eterno? Esta é a questão a que aqui se procura responder, analisando, para isso, várias (...) passagens dispersas do Tratado Teológico-Político e do Tratado Político em que o assunto é (direta ou indiretamente) tratado. Da interpretação que apresentamos, deverá resultar claro que o problema da morte estatal não tem apenas um interesse teórico, mas está relacionada com aqueles que são, para Espinosa, os limites práticos da ciência política. (shrink)

With the redefinition of the origin and function of the state by the contractarian theories, the problem of resistance ceased to be subsumed to the medieval discussion of tyrannicide. Spinoza was one of the authors that gave a greater political significance to the right of resistance - despite the dispersed and often cryptographic way in which this theme emerges in his work -, connecting it directly to the sovereign power of the multitude. This article thus aims to make explicit the (...) theory of resistance implied in Spinoza’s approach and sketched, particularly, throughout the Political Treatise. In addition to showing how the representation of the right of resistance as right of war reflects the replacement of the legal figure of contract by consensus, we will also try to underline the constitutive role assigned to resistance within the framework of the political ontology developed by Spinoza. (shrink)

This volume, edited by Lucilla Guidi and Thomas Rentsch, establishes the first systematic connection between phenomenology and performativity. On the one hand, it outlines the performativity of phenomenology by exploring its enactment and the transformation of attitude it effects; this exploration is conducted through a number of parallels between phenomenology and the ancient understanding of philosophy as an exercise and a way of life. On the other hand, the volume examines different notions of performativity from a phenomenological perspective, so (...) as to show that a phenomenological understanding of embodied experience complements a linguistic account of performativity and can also offer a ground for bodily practices of resistance, critique, and self-transformation in our own day and age. (shrink)

Saul Kripke cuestionó el enfoque de la justificación de la lógica provisto por el modelo de Quine de la red de creencias sobre la base de un resultado que Romina Padró llamó “Problema de la adopción”. Sugiero una solución al problema de la adopción y una defensa de la estrategia quineana para la justificación de la lógica.

Se exponen algunas de las reflexiones de Alberto Moretti acerca del carácter trascendental de la lógica, poniendo especial atención en cierta evolución que parece haber en sus ideas sobre este asunto entre la publicación en el año 2006 de “Lógica y semántica” y “la Lógica y la trama de las cosas”, del año 2016. Se presentan los rasgos más generales de una versión del naturalismo lógico que podría sobrevivir a los cuestionamientos trascendentalistas de Moretti.

The article intends to analyse the notion of Church in Clement of Alexandria’s thought. The analysis begins with the biblical images used by the author, i.e., those of the body, mother and spouse, before dwelling on its essential dimensions. The notion of ecclesial tradition emerges as a central theme in this reflection in its formal aspects as well as in its contents. They find their definition and codification in the ecclesiastical canon which makes reference to a correct orthopraxis and, therefore, (...) to a confrontation with heterodoxy. Such an aspect, even though it was only mentioned, allows the onto-logical-atemporal dimension of the Church to express itself in the visible-temporal dimension, thereby showing the unity of the Church “in its essence, its thought content, its origin and its preeminence as a whole.”. (shrink)

The paper discusses Martin Heidegger’s account of the anyone in Being and Time in connection with his reinterpretation of Aristotle’s categories of poiesis and praxis, carried out in his Lecture on Aristotle’s Ethics. The main purpose of the paper is to rethink the relation between production and action developed in Hannah Arendt’s Vita Activa, by understanding them as two different ways of enacting our relation to the world. By showing the inseparability between anyone and self in Heidegger’s account, and therefore (...) by drawing a parallel between these two different ways of existing and Heidegger’s phenomenological interpretation of poiesis and praxis, the paper aims at reformulating Arendt’s distinction between work and action. The purpose is to show – with and against Arendt’s conception – that there is no authentic action without a transformation of the sphere of production. Furthermore, by analyzing the constitutive ambivalence of the activity of building, the paper describes – with and against Heidegger’s perspective – the possibility to transform the self-assurance involved in each making, i.e. in our productive way of being. This transformation points to an ongoing process and lies in facing our self-assurance, thereby acknowledging our constitutive groundlessness and building a public and political place. (shrink)

In this paper I will examine the embodied dimension of emotions, and of inner life more generally, according to Wittgenstein’s anti-subjectivistic account of expression. First of all, I will explore Wittgenstein’s critique of a Cartesian disembodied account of the inner life, and the related argument against the existence of a private language. Secondly, I will describe the constitution of inner life as the acquisition of embodied ways of expressing oneself and of responding to others within a shared context, against the (...) background of an inherited weave of cultural expressive practices. Here, I will analyze Wittgenstein’s embodied account of expression, the ‘modified concept of sensing’ and ‘seeing’ which is involved in seeing the emotions of others as their expressions, and consequently Wittgenstein’s critique of an epistemological account concerning our ‘knowledge’ of others’ minds. Finally, with reference to Cavell’s and Mulhall’s readings, I will reflect on the figure of the ‘aspect-blind’, one who ‘just knows’ the emotion of others but cannot acknowledge it, and accordingly is not able to see it as the embodied expression of the other’s inner life. In this way, I wish to argue that Wittgenstein not only calls into question a disembodied account of the inner life from a theoretical point of view, but also shows the ethical consequences of a disembodied account of self through the figure of the aspect-blind. (shrink)

The paper analyzes the ontological meaning of mood in Heidegger’s conception of Attunement, in order to relate this notion of Stimmung specifically to our “attunement” to a form of life, as conceived in Wittgenstein’s philosophy of language. It claims that moods spell out the constitutive impossibility to grasp and found the human experience as such. However, this impossibility is not a lack of human knowledge, but rather corresponds to the necessary opacity, indeterminability and groundlessness of every human experience, which make (...) it possible as such. The paper argues that the ontological mood of anxiety in Heidegger’s thought cannot be understood as a dark feeling, since it points to a constitutive sense of disorientation, which involves the impossibility to found and ensure the very familiarity of our ordinary experience. Moreover, the paper claims that the same impossibility is also involved in our “attunement” to language and to a form of life, as described by Wittgenstein in his Philosophical Investigations. By analyzing the mood of trust sketched out by Wittgenstein in On Certainty, the paper suggests that the ontological mood of trust, as the groundless certainty of our praxis, points to the very impossibility to found and ensure every human experience. From this perspective, moods reveal the groundlessness of human experience and make us acknowledge it. (shrink)

French philosopher Helene Cixous stressed the importance of feminine writing. She believes that women should take part in sharing their experiences from their own novel points-of-view. We discuss that while pregnancy is an experience unique to women, it has been misappropriated by patriarchal structures throughout the years. The pregnancy bump, which is more than just evidence of the uterus stretching to accommodate the fetus, is a symbol of a woman's triumphs and struggles all throughout conception, pregnancy, and childbirth. We show (...) that women have already gone beyond the bump and challenged existing patriarchal systems through different means, as Cixous has enjoined women to do. With this, it is asserted that the philosophy of pregnancy be reconceived as well, in order to escape existing boundaries that constrict the discourse to ethical issues of rape, abortion, and medical interventions, making it face issues that surround women's experience of pregnancy, as well as deeper meanings the pregnant body itself represents. (shrink)

ABSTRACT This article, about the Areruya religion of the Ingarikó people in the village of Manalai, located in the state of Roraima, Brazil, compares the discourse of two myths about the origin of the current Areruya. One of the myths was transcribed by Audrey Butt Colson (1960) in the 1950s, and the other by the anthropologist Maria Virgínia do Amaral (2019) between 2014 and 2017. The objective of comparing the two discourses was to present the articulations of each one for (...) a new cosmological and social configuration, following the arrival of the colonizer. To achieve this, we used the idea of the “in-between” from the studies of Homi Bhabha (1994) in The Location of Culture because it allows for the use of text analysis as discourse without fixing any intrinsic meaning to them, creating a sliding space. (shrink)

Cet article a pour objet de mettre en perspective, selon une approche épistémologique, les théories du _blending _(ou « intégration conceptuelle ») et de l’analogie. Il se situe dans le cadre de la sémantique cognitive (Fauconnier, 1985 ; Fauconnier et Turner, 1996, 1998 et 2002), de la linguistique analogique (Monneret 2004, 2014, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2021, 2023) et de la psychologie cognitive (Gentner 1983 ; Gentner _et al_., 2001 ; Hofstadter 2001 ; Hofstadter et Fluid Analogies Research Group 1995; Hofstadter (...) et Sander 2013). Plus spécifiquement, la question posée est celle de savoir si le processus analogique est sous-jacent à la formation et à la structuration de l’IC ou si ce dernier n’est qu’un cas particulier de processus analogique. L’article se développera en trois points i) une introduction aux espaces mentaux et à l’IC visant à examiner la place de l’analogie dans le modèle ; ii) une présentation du modèle analogique en linguistique ; iii) une comparaison entre les deux modèles. (shrink)

In an effort to address the image of the nude as a concern of both feminist aesthetics and existentialism, this paper shall provide a critique on the male gaze in visual art by means of Jean-Paul Sartre’s analysis of the image and the imagining consciousness. This paper aims to reassess not only the aspects surrounding the male gaze but the nature of its image. In this sense, while objectification is part of the nature of the nude, both the representation and (...) the imagining consciousness of its spectator play a part in the objectification of the nude as image. This paper argues that through Sartre’s account of the nature of images, the male gaze misconstrues the represented nude through her image in most works of art. I will show that as an act of the imagination, the male gaze elicits the sexually objectified representations of the nude and that the reality of the nude is conflated with its image thereby producing irreal, objectified and prejudiced representations of women. (shrink)

The article aims at investigating in depth the idea of revelation expressed in the works of Clement of Alexandria. In particular, it focuses on the biblical-philosophical foundations; namely, how Clement, starting from an openness to the Greek cultural world, incorporates Greek philosophy into Christian revelation, albeit with some variations, thus making it part and parcel of his way of under-standing the relationship between Holy Scripture and Tradition.

This article intends to highlight the idea of revelation that Clement expresses throughout his work. Drawing both from Greek philosophical culture and biblical thought, Clement shows how supernatural revelation, on the level of both faith and gnosis, corresponds to select ‘places’ of Scripture and the Church’s Tradition, culminating in the embodiment of gnosis by men who have reached the highest degree of knowledge and holiness of life. A comparison with the theme of revelation in Gnostic texts sheds more light on (...) the peculiarities of Clementine thought. (shrink)

Este texto objetiva mostrar no contexto das mídias digitais em rede, a experiência de interação baseada no diálogo entre a Rádio Comunitária Cidadã FM e o programa Vaidapé na Rua que integra a programação semanal da emissora localizada na região Oeste do município de São Paulo. Partindo da compreensão das dinâmicas dialógicas e discursivas inerentes aos processos comunicacionais e estudadas pelo jornalista e teórico Vilém Flusser, o texto objetiva evidenciar as possibilidades que um ambiente comunicacional pode desencadear para uma prática (...) efetivamente comunitária. Para a compreensão sobre a rádio comunitária na conhecida “sociedade em rede”, o texto situa brevemente o surgimento e desenvolvimento do movimento das rádios comunitárias no Brasil, iniciado nas últimas duas décadas do século XX, quando motivadas pelas experiências das rádios livres, atuaram na luta contra a opressão dos poderes estatal e econômico e pela democratização do acesso aos meios de comunicação de massa. Além da pesquisa bibliográfica, o estudo recorre à pesquisa documental e de campo na realização de entrevistas qualitativas. Conclui-se que além da necessária desmitificação tecnológica e sua apropriação popular, a dinâmica dialógica em equilíbrio com a discursiva atua para o surgimento de ambientes comunicacionais propícios para o compartilhamento de conhecimentos e prática da cidadania. (shrink)

High blood pressure (HBP) is a multifactorial clinical condition characterized by high and sustained levels of blood pressure (BP), and the presence of elevated BP in childhood is predictor of hypertension in adult life. Studies have shown a positive correlation between sodium chloride ingested in the diet and blood pressure values. This study aims to evaluate the consumption of added salt before and after awareness of risk, by high school students. This occurred for three days in the refectory, where students (...) received illustrative brochure with information about sodium intake; exhibition of a poster illustrating foods with their respective equivalent amount of sodium and sodium chloride, exemplifying the maximum recommended amount of consumption per day. For five days, before and after gaining awareness, it the amount of consumption of sachets of salt was accounted. Statistical analyzes were performed by Student's Test, with a confidence interval of 95%. During the study period were served on average 128.3 meals. Before the awareness of sodium consumption of risks, of 820mg and 330mg sodium salt was consumed an average per individual, and thereafter, 640mg and 260mg, respectively (p=0,043). Simple Nutrition Education Strategies in short term were effective for improving the consumption of added salt in adolescents. (shrink)

The implementation of online technologies to promote wellbeing is increasingly becoming a worldwide priority. This study includes secondary analyses of data and examined drop-out rates in an online guided self-help intervention for patients with anorexia nervosa. Specifically, rates of drop-out at end of treatment (i.e. six-week assessment), as well as intervention adherence (minimum of four of six online guided sessions) and differences between completers and drop-outs were examined. Motivation to change and associated patient variables were assessed as predictors of drop-out (...) using structural equation modelling. Ninety-nine patients were randomised to the intervention arm of the trial. Data were available for 82 individuals, 67 of whom completed the six-week assessment and attended a minimum of four online sessions. No significant differences were found between completers and drop-outs at baseline. At the end of the first week of participation, drop-outs from the six-week assessment or the intervention reported less satisfaction with their work with the mentor delivering online guidance. Greater confidence in own ability to change and higher controlled motivation (willingness to change due to pressure from others) predicted lower drop-out rates from the six-week assessment. Stronger alliance with the therapist at the treatment centre and lower psychological distress were associated with greater autonomous motivation (self-directed motivation) and importance and ability to change. Data demonstrate that a novel online guided self-help intervention for patients with anorexia nervosa is feasible. Early satisfaction with the program and external pressure to change have a protective role against drop-out rates. (shrink)