Prism Adaptation is a useful method to study the mechanisms of sensorimotor adaptation. After-effects following adaptation to the prismatic deviation constitute the probe that adaptive mechanisms occurred, and current evidence suggests an involvement of the cerebellum at this level. Whether after-effects are transferable to another task is of great interest both for understanding the nature of sensorimotor transformations and for clinical purposes. However, the processes of transfer and their underlying neural substrates remain poorly understood. Transfer from throwing to pointing is (...) known to occur only in individuals who had previously reached a good level of expertise in throwing, not in novices. The aim of this study was to ascertain whether anodal stimulation of the cerebellum could boost after-effects transfer from throwing to pointing in novice participants. Healthy participants received anodal or sham transcranial direction current stimulation of the right cerebellum during a PA procedure involving a throwing task and were tested for transfer on a pointing task. Terminal errors and kinematic parameters were in the dependent variables for statistical analyses. Results showed that active stimulation had no significant beneficial effects on error reduction or throwing after-effects. Moreover, the overall magnitude of transfer to pointing did not change. Interestingly, we found a significant effect of the stimulation on the longitudinal evolution of pointing errors and on pointing kinematic parameters during transfer assessment. These results provide new insights on the implication of the cerebellum in transfer and on the possibility to use anodal tDCS to enhance cerebellar contribution during PA in further investigations. From a network approach, we suggest that cerebellum is part of a more complex circuitry responsible for the development of transfer which is likely embracing the primary motor cortex due to its role in motor memories consolidation. This paves the way for further work entailing multiple-sites stimulation to explore the role of M1-cerebellum dynamic interplay in transfer. (shrink)

The story of conqueror South African historiography relies on the ebbs and flows of narrative clichés and tropes. The main narrative arcs relate to historiographies that frame the understanding and analysis of conqueror South Africa. These historiographies interpret history as forming part of an epistemological paradigm of conqueror South Africa: a historiography that does not question the ethical right to conquest. This article focuses on the interpretations of African Nationalism by proponents of the liberal and Marxist historiographic traditions and critiques (...) the way in which these historiographies depict and characterise African Nationalism. This historical characterisation bears an influence in current political and social discourse in conqueror South Africa: African Nationalism is relegated to a misguided moment in history, something to be reflected upon from a distance, an irrelevant phase in the long walk to a multiracial and cosmopolitan South Africa. (shrink)

From the time of Plato’s proposed expulsion of the poets, tragedy has repeatedly proposed a challenge to philosophical and theological certainties. This is apparent already in early Christianity amongst leading figures during the patristic age. But this raises the question: Why was the theme of tragedy still accepted and deployed throughout the history of Christianity nevertheless? Is this merely an accident or is there something more substantial at play? Can Christian theology take the tragic seriously? Must Christianity ultimately deny the (...) tragic to be coherent, or might it be able to sustain its negativity? Some like George Steiner, David Bentley Hart, and John Milbank have doubts about such a coherency, but others think differently. This book aims to examine this debate, laying out the lines of disagreement and continuing tensions. Through a critical examination of the work of Donald MacKinnon and the eminent Christian thinker Rowan Williams, the book aims to show that there is a path for reconciling the claims of Christian orthodoxy and the experience of tragedy, one that is able to maintain a metaphysical foundation for both real transcendence and unfolding historicity, without denying either. (shrink)

This article explores Professor T.F.J. Dreyer's definition for preaching that he developed for preaching in the Netherdutch Reformed Church of Africa (NRCA) three decades ago. Dreyer's own homiletical perspective towards preaching developed continuously through numerous philosophical paradigm shifts since 1989. His basis theory plays an important role in the theological training of the church's students today. The aim of the research is to reflect on the changes, following Dreyer's homiletical development over three decades. The research discovers a strong prophetical character (...) in the homiletical approach of Dreyer and concludes by asking how a kairos moment of prophetical speech can benefit the NRCA. CONTRIBUTION: This research hopes to contribute to the existing research that was done in the homiletical field of traditional Afrikaans-speaking churches in South Africa. The research also contributes by identifying some homiletical perspectives that can help the church to proclaim the gospel in times of transition. (shrink)

Publié initialement en 1982, l’ouvrage de Marco Bianchini Alle origini della scienza economica : felicita pubblica e matematica sociale negli economisti italiani del settecento (1711-1803) est désormais accessible au public français dans une traduction proposée par Pierre Crépel. En première approximation, ce travail a le grand mérite d’interroger quelques pratiques traditionnelles de l’histoire de la pensée économique. Il rappelle opportunément que des épisodes significatifs, révolutionnaire..

Neste artigo, tentamos mostrar que um problema comum aos capítulos XVI e XX das Observações filosóficas é o da aplicabilidade dos conceitos e «proposições» da geometria à realidade física e perceptiva (visual, em particular), e que o modo pelo qual Wittgenstein aborda esse problema nessa obra difere radicalmente, a despeito de aparentes similitudes, daquele que caracteriza as teorias semânticas do a priori visual em termos de estipulações (notadamente, o de Carnap em 1922). O esclarecimento do estatuto dos enunciados sobre os (...) objetos do espaço visual como regras de sintaxe e a abordagem do problema da aplicação de nossos conceitos geométricos à realidade perceptiva em termos de condições práticas de emprego permite a Wittgenstein dissolver, não sem alguma ambiguidade no vocabulário empregado, as falsas aparências ontológicas suscitadas pelas teorias que postulam a existência de um universo de discurso intermediário entre os corpos físicos e os números. (shrink)

By combining state‐of‐the‐art approaches in ancient genomics, Meyer and co‐workers have reconstructed the mitochondrial sequence of an archaic hominin that lived at Sierra de Atapuerca, Spain about 400,000 years ago. This achievement follows recent advances in molecular anthropology that delivered the genome sequence of younger archaic hominins, such as Neanderthals and Denisovans. Molecular phylogenetic reconstructions placed the Atapuercan as a sister group to Denisovans, although its morphology suggested closer affinities with Neanderthals. In addition to possibly challenging our interpretation of the (...) fossil record, this study confirms that genomic information can be recovered from extremely damaged DNA molecules, even in the presence of significant levels of human contamination. Together with the recent characterization of a 700,000‐year‐old horse genome, this study opens the Middle Pleistocene to genomics, thereby extending the scope of ancient DNA to the last million years. (shrink)

This paper considers one of the most significant and controversial attempts to account for the meaning of pejoratives as lexical items, namely Hom and May’s. After outlining the theory, we pinpoint sets of pejorative sentences that come out true on their account and for which the question as to whether they are compatible with the view advocated by them (so-called Moral and Semantic Innocence) remains open. Helping ourselves to the standard model-theoretical framework Hom and May (presumably) work in, we prove (...) they are compatible with the view. Given that the issues of both the moral import of pejoratives and the practical effects of their utterance are not settled by the proof, we then highlight unwelcome moral and pragmatic implications for some of the pejorative sentences under scrutiny, thereby showing that the view, broadly understood, is not as morally and semantically innocuous as it is meant to be. (shrink)

In this essay I consider Kaplan’s challenge to Frege’s so-called dictum: “Logic (and perhaps even truth) is immune to epithetical color”. I show that if it is to challenge anything, it rather challenges the view (attributable to Frege) that logic is immune to pejorative colour. This granted, I show that Kaplan’s inference-based challenge can be set even assuming that the pejorative doesn’t make any non-trivial truth-conditional (descriptive) contribution. This goes against the general tendency to consider the truth-conditionally inert logically irrelevant. (...) But I take it that Kaplan is right and take his examples to show that truth-conditional inertness need not entail inferential inertness. I end up assessing the Kaplan-Frege “debate” as giving edge to the former to the extent that clarity is achieved through Kaplanian inferences on what should be considered part of the explanandum. (shrink)

The question of the Hegelian heritage within the Marxian dialectic is a classic one that is still an open one, after more than a century of fruitful and various inquiry. In order to tackle the issue from a new perspective, we must first distinguish between, on the one hand, the subjective dialectic, or logic of Marxian thought, which is clearly inherited from Hegel, and, on the other hand, the objective dialectic, or logic of reality itself, which Marx arrived at by (...) way of a frontal opposition to his master, even as he took up the latter’s “rational kernel” in order to invert it, substituting for Hegel’s idealist philosophy of creation a materialist conception of production and replacing the logic of negativity by a logic of produ-activity. Thus conceptualized by Marx, the gnoseological dialectic and dialectical materialism interact rationally. This enables us to renew the foundations of a dialectical materialism. Unrelated to stalinist « diamat », such a conception is well equipped to demonstrate its effectiveness for the knowledge and understanding of realities, both in terms of their irreducible material singularity, apprehended according to their constitutive historicity, and as elements of a certain real totality which is in process. (shrink)

Here, we propose that bidirectionality in implicit motor coordination between humanoid robots and humans could enhance the social competence of human–robot interactions. We first detail some questions pertaining to human–robot interactions, introducing the Uncanny Valley hypothesis. After introducing a framework pertinent for the understanding of natural social interactions, motor resonance, we examine two behaviors derived from this framework: motor coordination, investigated in and informative about human–human interaction, and motor interference, which demonstrate the relevance of the motor resonance framework to describe (...) human perception of humanoid robots. These two lines of investigation are then put together to “close the loop” by proposing to implement a key feature of motor coordination, bidirectionality, in robots’ behavior. Finally, we discuss the feasibility of implementing motor coordination between humanoid robots and humans, and the consequences of this implementation in enhancing the social competence of robots interacting with humans. Keywords: interpersonal interaction, motor resonance, motor coordination, motor interference, social robotics, anthropomorphism. (shrink)

The key to this study lies in my own identity as a researcher who specializes in the fifteenth century and Franciscan reforms, especially the confrontation in eastern Central Europe between the theory of the via media based on a return to the Martianian Constitutions, and the Observance sub vicariis brought by Giovanni of Capistrano when he crossed the Alps in 1451.2 The major aspect of this is a view on the “pre-history” of the Libellus ad Leonem, which was written in (...) 1513 by Paolo Giustiniani and Pietro Quirini in preparation of the Fifth Lateran Council. This “pre-history” concerns a century of transformations of the links between the Observant reforms, humanist culture and the.. (shrink)

Quoique l'on ne trouve qu'un nombre limité de références à Nicod dans les manuscrits de la période dite « intermédiaire » de Wittgenstein, une lecture attentive de La Géométrie dans le monde sensible s'avère pourtant décisive pour comprendre la nature du projet phénoménologique de Wittgenstein de la fin des années vingt. Nous nous proposons de montrer que la prise en compte ainsi que la reformulation du problème posé par Nicod en 1924, celui de la nature de la relation d'inclusion spatiale, (...) conduit Wittgenstein à remplacer dès 1929 l'ancien critère logique du simple et du complexe (celui du Tractatus logico-philosophicus) par un critère phénoménologico-grammatical inédit et désabsolutisé applicable à toute donnée visuelle quelle qu'elle soit. Plus généralement, la priorité donnée par Wittgenstein au visuel dans son « investigation phénoménologique des impressions sensorielles » trouve sa meilleure justification dans l'esquisse par Nicod d'une géométrie de la vision à la fois complète et indépendante. Nous montrons en particulier que les propriétés structurales du champ visuel mises au jour par Nicod dans sa construction (diversité et simultanéité des places sensibles, coloréité) sont tacitement utilisées par Wittgenstein pour justifier la possibilité d'une description phénoménologique conçue, précisément, comme description des places ou « localités » constitutives de cet espace perceptif. (shrink)

To Aristotle, spoken words are symbols, not of objects in the world, but of our mental experiences related to these objects. Presently there are two major strands of interpretation of Aristotle’s concept of the linguistic sign. First, there is the structuralist account offered by Coseriu (Geschichte der Sprachphilosophie. Von den Anfängen bis Rousseau, 2003 [1969], pp. 65–108) whose interpretation is reminiscent of the Saussurean sign concept. A second interpretation, offered by Lieb (in: Geckeler (Ed.) Logos Semantikos: Studia Linguistica in Honorem (...) Eugenio Coseriu 1921–1981, 1981) and Weidemann (in: Schmitter (Ed.) Geschichte der Sprachtheorie 2. Sprachtheorien der abendländischen Antike, 1991), says that Aristotle’s concept of the linguistic sign is similar to the one presented in Ogden and Richard’s (The meaning of meaning: A study of the influence of language upon thought and of the science of symbolism, 1970 [1923]) semiotic triangle. This paper starts off with an introductory outline of the so-called phýsei-thései discussion which started during presocratic times and culminated in Plato’s Cratylus. Aristotle’s concept of the linguistic sign is to be regarded as a solution to the stalemate position reached in the Cratylus. Next, a discussion is offered of both Coseriu’s and Lieb’s analysis. We submit that Aristotle’s concept of the linguistic sign shows features of both Saussure’s and Ogden and Richards’s sign concept but that it does not exclusively predict one of the two. We argue that Aristotle’s concept of the linguistic sign is based on three different relations which together evince his teleological as well empiricist point of view: one internal (symbolic) relation and two external relations, i.e. a likeness relation and a relation katà synthéken. (shrink)

Lors d’un entretien récent Natalie Zemon Davis soulignait opportunément : « […] the study of the past provides rewards for moral sensibility and tools for critical understanding. No matter how evil the times, no matter how immense the cruelty, some elements of opposition or kindness and godness emerge. No matter how bleak and constrained the situation, some forms of improvisation and coping take place. No matter what happens, people go on telling stories about it and bequeath them to the futu..

The integration of learning cognitive agents in the research agenda is an important step in the evolution of economics. However, relying on a retrospective analysis of the treatment of decision making in economics, this article argues that the cognitive programme aims to justify rational behaviour in an equilibrium framework rather than to integration an interpretative conception of agents' behaviour. As a consequence, the level of generality of analytical results remains limited and economists miss the opportunity to establish a discussion with (...) other social sciences. In particular, it fails to analyse a class of situations related to the problem of knowledge creation and the subsequent learning paradox. Building on recent advances in heterodox cognitive science, we suggest a behavioural approach that discriminates different learning situations. If applied, this approach would permit a better understanding of human behaviour and a richer analysis of coordination mechanisms in unfamiliar environment with no loss of rigour. (shrink)

Elie Halévy's later works have made him one of the most renowned French liberal thinkers of the twentieth century. I want to argue, however, that there exists another facet of the man, more republican than liberal, to be found in his pre-Great War papers. Halévy reveals himself as a man with reformist tendencies, concerned with the concrete aspects of freedom, both for individuals and peoples, and therefore holding more qualified views on the project of a political and social control of (...) the economy. My analysis focuses on Halévy's unpublished first series of lectures on the history of European Socialism, delivered in 1902 at the Ecole Libre des Sciences Politiques, in which the major features of this early Halévy can be best identified. (shrink)

"À une époque où la cinéphilie n'est plus qu'une paraphilie parmi les autres, aussi estimable et inoffensive qu'une autre, en un temps où la sédition installée tient lieu d'horizon, il y a sans doute quelque naïveté à prétendre se démarquer de la modernité en se réclamant d'une "cinéphilie dissidente". Pourtant sous l'insurrection permanente, des règles intangibles et des principes incontestables demeurent, qu'il est nécessaire d'enfreindre. Derrière l'équivalence des opinions et la relativité des goûts, de nouvelles hiérarchies se sont bâties, qu'il (...) importe de renverser. Cette attitude d'opposition serait à son tour éminemment moderne s'il ne s'agissait par ce refus, de promouvoir une autre attention aux faits, une autre rapport à autrui, que ceux que notre époque favorise. Lorsque nous aurons admis que le cinéma moderne nous a dépossédés de nos mots, en y substituant les siens, qui décrivent de mille feux ce qui s'éteint, lorsque nous aurons saisi que nous ne parlons qu'en son non, ne répétons que ses désordres, ne prions que ses décalogues rafraîchis, nous aurons alors tout le temps de regretter notre silence. Dans ces conditions, c'est bien par l'écriture qu'il s'agit d'instaurer une relation cette fois intempestive avec l'image cinématographique. À travers le prisme de plus de deux cents films, mêlant la critique cinématographique et le journal intime, l'analyse et l'aphorisme, cet essai se propose de résister à la cinéphilie officielle, absolument indolore, qui n'est plus qu'une technique parmi d'autres d'embrigadement. Sous la forme d'abécédaire, de A comme Artifices à Z comme Zombies, en passant par l'Enfance, la Honte, le Messie, les Nazis ou la Pornocratie, il n'est autre qu'une tentat. (shrink)

Every function over the natural numbers has an infinite subdomain on which the function is non-decreasing. Motivated by a question of Dzhafarov and Schweber, we study the reverse mathematics of variants of this statement. It turns out that this statement restricted to computably bounded functions is computationally weak and does not imply the existence of the halting set. On the other hand, we prove that it is not a consequence of Ramsey’s theorem for pairs. This statement can therefore be seen (...) as an arguably natural principle between the arithmetic comprehension axiom and stable Ramsey’s theorem for pairs. (shrink)

Wittgenstein a abondamment critique l'idee qu'il serait necessaire d'admettre l'existence d'un medium spatial alternatif ( l'espace visuel) pour rendre compte des differentes applications possibles de nos concepts geometriques et spatiaux. Notre objectif ici est de montrer la pertinence de cette critique. Pour ce faire, nous proposons une relecture des remarques qu'il consacre aux exemples visuels d'analyse dans les Carnets, aux aspects spatiaux de la theorie de l'image dans le Tractatus, a son propre projet phenomenologique de description de l'experience visuelle en (...) 1929, ainsi qu'a la maniere, philosophiquement fallacieuse, de poser le probleme de l'application en termes d'interpretations semantiques. (shrink)

Nous présentons une étude fondée sur un corpus de transcriptions de consultations médicales, dans le cadre d’un projet interdisciplinaire qui explore la question des inégalités sociales de santé. L’objet de cet article est de montrer comment, en tant que linguistes familiers du traitement outillé des corpus, nous avons choisi d’aborder ce matériau qui fait l’objet de questionnements disciplinaires complémentaires, et quels éléments de caractérisation spécifiques nous sommes en mesure d’apporter en réponse à une demande émanant de la sphère médicale.

Nous présentons une étude fondée sur un corpus de transcriptions de consultations médicales, dans le cadre d’un projet interdisciplinaire qui explore la question des inégalités sociales de santé. L’objet de cet article est de montrer comment, en tant que linguistes familiers du traitement outillé des corpus, nous avons choisi d’aborder ce matériau qui fait l’objet de questionnements disciplinaires complémentaires, et quels éléments de caractérisation spécifiques nous sommes en mesure d’apporter en réponse à une demande émanant de la sphère médicale.

Découverte en remploi dans l’angle du mur d’un bâtiment monumental d’époque impériale, au Sud‑Ouest de l’agora d’Amathonte, cette dédicace inédite en l’honneur des souverains lagides Ptolémée X et Bérénice III, désignés comme « dieux sauveurs », est un cas unique à Chypre. D’abord en raison de la rareté des attestations épigraphiques de ce couple royal qui gouverna depuis Alexandrie l’Empire lagide entre 101 et 88 ; ensuite, parce que l’épithète θεῶν Σωτήρων ne leur est que très rarement attribuée dans la (...) documentation, y compris dans les sources papyrologiques. Enfin, une étude de l’autel et de sa fonction comme élément de remplissage d’un mur à double pare­ment met aussi en lumière certaines caractéristiques de construction du monument où fut trouvé le document. (shrink)

Conformément au protocole défini avec les autorités chypriotes, une opération d’étude et de fouille de la zone du bassin naturel, à l’emplacement supposé du port interne d’Amathonte, a débuté en 2014. Une première campagne de fouilles s’est tenue du 15 septembre au 10 octobre 2014. Elle fut précédée d’une enquête géomorphologique au printemps de la même année. La seconde fouille a eu lieu du 31 août au 25 septembre 2015. Des campagnes intermédiaires d’étude du matériel, essentiellement sur le...

Ramsey’s theorem asserts that every k-coloring of $[\omega ]^n$ admits an infinite monochromatic set. Whenever $n \geq 3$, there exists a computable k-coloring of $[\omega ]^n$ whose solutions compute the halting set. On the other hand, for every computable k-coloring of $[\omega ]^2$ and every noncomputable set C, there is an infinite monochromatic set H such that $C \not \leq _T H$. The latter property is known as cone avoidance.In this article, we design a natural class of Ramsey-like theorems encompassing (...) many statements studied in reverse mathematics. We prove that this class admits a maximal statement satisfying cone avoidance and use it as a criterion to re-obtain many existing proofs of cone avoidance. This maximal statement asserts the existence, for every k-coloring of $[\omega ]^n$, of an infinite subdomain $H \subseteq \omega $ over which the coloring depends only on the sparsity of its elements. This confirms the intuition that Ramsey-like theorems compute Turing degrees only through the sparsity of its solutions. (shrink)

In this article, I show and discuss the relevance of Wittgenstein's arguments as to the spatial structure of sight to recent issues in the philosophy of mind. The first, bearing upon the dimensionality of the manifolds at play in depiction, plays a critical role in Clark's attempt to provide an independent account ofqualiaand of their differentiative properties. The second, pertaining to the properly spatial structure formed by the data of sight, is explicitly appealed to in the debate on the realistic (...) character of any genuinely spatial scheme. I argue that if Wittgenstein rightly assumes that the simultaneous presence of sensible places in vision is a key condition for objectivity, he fails nevertheless to warrant the allegedly realistic character of the scheme employed in his own search for a phenomenological description of the visual field. (shrink)

The horse was essential to past human societies but became a recreational animal during the twentieth century as the world became increasingly mechanized. As the author reviews here, recent studies of ancient genomes have revisited the understanding of horse domestication, from the very early stages to the most modern developments. They have uncovered several extinct lineages roaming the far ends of Eurasia some 4000 years ago. They have shown that the domestic horse has been significantly reshaped during the last millennium (...) and experienced a sharp decline in genetic diversity within the last two centuries. At a time when no truly wild horses exist any longer, this calls for enhanced conservation in all endangered populations. These include the Przewalski's horse native to Mongolia, and the many local breeds side‐lined by the modern agenda, but yet representing the living heritage of over five millennia of horse breeding. (shrink)

I take issue with Glezakos’s explanation of why Frege’s puzzle is un-puzzling. On her view, Frege’s statement – how can sentences of the form a=a and a=b, if true, differ in cognitive value if they express the same semantic content/are made true by the same object’s self-identity? – should not be considered any puzzling either because it is on the whole circular, or because, neutrally stated, it cannot even be set up. I argue against this that if, as she takes (...) it, Frege’s statement is “problematic” it is not for the reasons she gives, but because it rests upon a couple of questionable assumptions: i) there is no ambiguity as to which aspect of the sign (in its relation to the referent) is relevant to a neutral statement of the puzzle ii) it is of the (sentence) forms themselves one may sensibly say they differ in cognitive value. (shrink)

Ce travail s’inscrit dans un champ de recherche qui a pour objet les évolutions de la modernité et, ici, les effets de l’accélération du changement (définissant la postmodernité) sur l’économie psychique et les pratiques éducatives et de soin. On rencontre aujourd’hui fréquemment en clinique infanto-juvénile des parents en difficulté pour soutenir une position éducative consistante face à leur enfant. À la fragilité de la posture éducative semble répondre la multiplication des agirs, qu’ils soient du côté de l’enfant ou de celui (...) des adultes. L’auteur adopte comme angle d’étude la question de la temporalité psychique en tant qu’elle est affectée par l’accélération du changement. Il montre qu’elle contribue à éclairer la fragilité des positions subjectives et développe l’hypothèse que l’évolution contemporaine, en promouvant la responsabilité de l’individu en substitution de l’autorité institutionnelle, conduit paradoxalement à une déresponsabilisation du sujet. (shrink)