Mood has varied effects on cognitive performance including the accuracy of face recognition . Three experiments are presented here that explored face recognition abilities in mood-induced participants. Experiment 1 demonstrated that happy-induced participants are less accurate and have a more conservative response bias than sad-induced participants in a face recognition task. Using a remember/know/guess procedure, Experiment 2 showed that sad-induced participants had more conscious recollections of faces than happy-induced participants. Additionally, sad-induced participants could recognise all faces accurately, whereas, happy- and (...) neutral-induced participants recognised happy faces more accurately than sad faces. In Experiment 3, these effects were not observed when participants intentionally learnt the faces, rather than incidentally learnt the faces. It is suggested that happy-induced participants do not process faces as elaborately as sad-induced participants. (shrink)

In this article we present a qualitative analysis of empirical findings from an international project on intergroup attitudes and contact in five Central European countries specifically concerning language use. The project concentrated on the interplay of intergroup contact and perception between the members of national groups in the borderlands between the Czech Republic and Austria, Germany, Poland and Slovakia. The open statements analysed here about the contact situations and the ensuing evaluation of the Others were collected as part of an (...) online questionnaire (N=1959). After a short theoretical introduction we reveal the intertwined nature of construing language use: first in each specific borderland, then in the triads speaking together either in the native language of one of the groups (Czechs with Austrians and Germans) or with each speaking their own native languages (Czechs with Poles and Slovaks). Finally we highlight several effects we have observed as a result of being able to compare the situation in more than one neighbourhood, for instance, the effect of the different statuses of the languages involved, or the connection between the language used in contact and a feeling of proximity. (shrink)

Social media is an endless source of texts and images about almost everything. Accordingly, the number of analyses based on this source increases daily. Among the numerous methods social media can be analysed by, our attention focusses on discourse analysis. DA is a complex approach which makes it possible to capture not only the linguistic characteristics of given texts, but also their socially constructive and socially constructed features. Therefore, we carried out a systematic examination of the articles at one of (...) the largest academic databases, EBSCO available in 2019 which used DA in social media research. Our investigation studies not only the geographical distribution of this corpus, but the different self-proclaimed DA approaches. Furthermore, we developed a three-level scale in order to capture the methodological complexity of the collected articles. At one end of the scale there are those research papers where discourse appears only as a label for the textual material gathered, without further indication of any DA theories or methodologies. The other end, however, refers to those research projects which applied DA both in their theoretical and methodological frameworks, providing complex discourse analytical investigations of social media texts. This way we were able to demonstrate the wide array of DA perspectives employed in social media research. (shrink)

Employing a time-lagged sample of 371 North American individuals working full time in a wide range of industries, occupations, and levels, we contribute to research on employee outcomes of corporate social responsibility attributions as substantive or symbolic. Utilizing a mediated moderation model, our study extends previous findings by explaining how and why CSR attributions are related with work-related attitudes and subsequent individual performance. In support of our hypotheses, our findings indicate that the relationships between CSR attributions and individual performance are (...) mediated through person–organization fit and work-related attitudes. Additionally, when CSR is perceived as important, substantive CSR is positively related to, and symbolic CSR is negatively related to, perception of fit with the organization. These findings contribute toward our understanding of the complex effect CSR has on employees’ work outcomes. Practical implications and future research directions are discussed. (shrink)

This volume is devoted to Lewis's work in metaphysics and epistemology. Topics covered include properties, ontology, possibility, truthmaking, probability, the mind-body problem, vision, belief, and knowledge. The purpose of this collection, and the volumes that precede and follow it, is to disseminate more widely the work of an eminent and influential contemporary philosopher. The volume will serve as a useful work of reference for teachers and students of philosophy.

This book explores how the practice of art, in particular of avant-garde art, keeps our relation to time, history and even our own humanity open. Examining key moments in the history of both technology and art from the beginnings of industrialisation to today, Charlie Gere explores both the making and purpose of art and how much further it can travel from the human body.

This book is a defense of modal realism; the thesis that our world is but one of a plurality of worlds, and that the individuals that inhabit our world are only a few out of all the inhabitants of all the worlds. Lewis argues that the philosophical utility of modal realism is a good reason for believing that it is true.

This study examines the first two years of a tactical innovation that emerged in 2012 in Egypt, which involved activist groups organizing patrol-type "intervention teams" to combat sexual violence against women in public spaces. Findings reveal that the new tactic took different forms in the two places in which it was deployed, even though the same actors employed it. I argue that the place in which a new tactic emerges shapes the form it takes. When coming up with a new (...) collective action tactic, activists elaborate visions about how to carry out their actions based on their collective identities and taste in tactics. But as they start experimenting with the new tactic on the ground, they learn about the places' material affordances, symbolic valence, and power relations, as well as the constraints and opportunities that they represent. The material properties of places shape activists' possibilities of movement, patterns of communication, field of vision, and capacity to escape repression or reach safe spaces. The configuration of actors in a place shapes the nature of their interactions with others on the ground, possible alliances, and sources of conflict. The symbolic meanings of places shape the resonance of a group’s actions and the degree of resistance that actors face. Place in part determines the ability of activists to develop a tactic in the form that best fits their preferences. (shrink)

An indispensable guide to the major work of one of the twentieth century's most influential thinkers.

The intellectual history of the last quarter of this century has been marked by the growing influence of Africana thought--an area of philosophy that focuses on issues raised by the struggle over ideas in African cultures and their hybrid forms in Europe, the Americas, and the Caribbean. Existentia Africana is an engaging and highly readable introduction to the field of Africana philosophy and will help to define this rapidly growing field. Lewis R. Gordon clearly explains Africana existential thought to (...) a general audience, covering a wide range of both classic and contemporary thinkers--from Douglass and DuBois to Fanon, Davis and Zack. (shrink)

Political obligation refers to the moral obligation of citizens to obey the law of their state and to the existence, nature, and justification of a special relationship between a government and its constituents. This volume in the Contemporary Anarchist Studies series challenges this relationship, seeking to define and defend the position of critical philosophical anarchism against alternative approaches to the issue of justification of political institutions. The book sets out to demonstrate the value of taking an anarchist approach to the (...) problem of political authority, looking at theories of natural duty, state justification, natural duty of justice, fairness, political institutions, and more. It argues that the anarchist perspective is in fact indispensable to theorists of political obligation and can improve our views of political authority and social relations. This accessible book builds on the works of philosophical anarchists such as John Simmons and Leslie Green, and discusses key theorists, including Rousseau, Rawls, and Horton. This key resource will make an important contribution to anarchist political theory and to anarchist studies more generally. (shrink)

La ciudad de Antigua, en Guatemala, ha sido y continúa siendo evocada a través de la palabra diluida en la historia y la memoria. Prueba de ello es el libro Poesía-documento, titulado Antigua Luna (2017), de la escritora costarricense Magda Zavala, publicado en 2017 por la editorial Letra Maya, dentro de la Colección Kayab, en Costa Rica. Este poemario, dividido en tres secciones; I. Capital de los Confines, II. Espacios y voces y III. La visitante, recoge entre sus versos (...) los resabios coloniales de un pasado épico, que convive con un presente transnacional y postmoderno. Ahí es donde los cimientos indígenas sostienen identidades en permanente reconstrucción, aprendida a través de cinco siglos de sobrevivencia en la desigualdad. (shrink)

This paper argues that the ‘brain’ has become a frequently invoked and symptomatic source of metaphorical imagery in our current technologically mediated and dominated culture, through which the distinction between the human and the technological has been and continues to be negotiated, particularly in the context of the increasing ubiquity of electronic and digital technologies. This negotiation has thrown up three distinct, though interrelated, figures. One is the ‘Brain in a Vat’, in which the brain can connect to and even (...) operate solely through electronic technologies. Another is the ‘Electronic’ or, more archaically, ‘Giant Brain’, in which the brain’s functions can be reproduced and exceeded by electronic computing technology. A third is the ‘World’ or ‘Global Brain’, in which the connectivity enabled by information–communications technologies produces and fosters forms of distributed intelligence. This paper will trace the development of these figures and show how they have developed in lockstep throughout the two or three centuries of exponentially accelerating technological advance. (shrink)

Language is more than a source of information for accessing higher-order conceptual knowledge. Indeed, language may determine how people perceive and interpret visual stimuli. Visual processing in linguistic contexts, for instance, mirrors language processing and happens incrementally, rather than through variously-oriented fixations over a particular scene. The consequences of this atypical visual processing are yet to be determined. Here, we investigated the integration of visual and linguistic input during a reasoning task. Participants listened to sentences containing conjunctions or disjunctions and (...) looked at visual scenes containing two pictures that either matched or mismatched the nouns. Degree of match between nouns and pictures and between their expected and actual spatial positions affected fixations as well as judgments. We conclude that language induces incremental processing of visual scenes, which in turn becomes susceptible to reasoning errors during the language-meaning verification process. (shrink)

David Lewis (1941-2001) was Class of 1943 University Professor of Philosophy at Princeton University. His contributions spanned philosophical logic, philosophy of language, philosophy of mind, philosophy of science, metaphysics, and epistemology. In On the Plurality of Worlds, he defended his challenging metaphysical position, "modal realism." He was also the author of the books Convention, Counterfactuals, Parts of Classes, and several volumes of collected papers.

This text was written after hearing a childlike question about voice, a question asked by Lara, a girl at a “basic” school in a rural area of the Azores islands that resulted in a diferent way of understanding the motives and intentions that are implicit in the way we practice community of philosphical inquiry with children and adults. This question also unveiled important aspects of the way we construct ourselves as adults who believe in the importance of teaching philosophy in (...) elementary school. This text describes an attempt to follow the trail of inquiry triggered by Lara’s question, and documents three moments or possibilities of re-questioning. These moments – which are not understood as forming an orderly sequence, but rather represent inroads into the initial question – emerge as possibilities marked by the rhythm of inquiry that followed. Those questions were: What do we hear when we talk about voice? What do we say when we talk about listening? And what do we think about when we share voices and listen actively? The text invites us to focus on voice as a concept aligned with a certain paradigmatic model of thinking commonly referred to as “philosophy,”and also invites us to consider the concept of listening as a construct that returns us to the origins of western philosophy. Finally, the text invites us to consider different ways of understanding voice and listening as based on the idea of thinking as an in-between space of sharing, focusing specifically on activities centering philosophical dialogue with children. (shrink)

A lineage of prominent philosophers who have discussed the second-person relation can be regarded as advancing structural accounts. They posit that the second-person relation effects one transformative change to the structure of practical reasoning. In this paper, I criticise this orthodoxy and offer an alternative, substantive account. That is, I argue that entering into second-personal relations with others does indeed affect one's practical reasoning, but it does this not by altering the structure of one's agential thought, but by changing what (...) reasons can become available. The importance of second-personal thought for action is heterogenous. Second-person relations make possible the emergence of a wide variety of different kinds of practical reasons: creating some, revealing others. Recognising this diminishes the appeal of the traditional, structural accounts of the practical significance of such second-personal relations. Moving away from structural accounts facilitates a more thorough understanding of the intersubjective form of action. (shrink)

The aim of this article is to present empirical findings about language use and attitudes in intergroup contact from one of the European borderlands along the former Iron Curtain more than twenty years after it fell. The data was collected as part of an international research project Intergroup attitudes and intergroup contact in five Central European countries, which concentrates on the interplay of intergroup contact and perceptions between members of neighbouring nations in the border regions of the Czech Republic and (...) each of the neighbouring states—Slovakia, Poland, Austria and Germany. The main data collection method used is an online questionnaire with different attitude and evaluation scales, as well as a feeling thermometer of emotional relations and open statements (N=2900). In this text I use thematic and basic critical discursive analysis only on the open statements from the Czech (N=210) and German (N=152) borderlands about the situations of contact and the following evaluation of the Others. I show how the linguistic competence and also the interest in the language of the Other are distributed very unevenly; the implicit norm almost always being that the Czechs should speak German. Of course, this situation has in some cases strong emotional consequences. (shrink)

Respondents from Austria (N = 146) and the Czech Republic (N = 165) noted down their experiences with people from their neighbouring country and their attitudes to their own country and the neighbouring nation on feeling thermometers. The quantitative content analysis and qualitative critical discourse-inspired analysis of the open statements focused on the role of language in the construction of Czech-Austrian relations. Using qualitative analysis we enquired as to which themes were intertwined with the topic of language, and as to (...) the ways in which the participants perceived themselves, the Others, behind the border, and the relations between the two sides. We looked not only into what participants said but also how they said it. Using statistical analysis we tested the link between language-related topics in the descriptions of intergroup contact and the evaluation of the neighbouring nation as a whole. Throughout the article we compare the findings obtained by the two kinds of analysis and comment on (dis)agreement as well as on the (dis)advantages of both approaches. (shrink)

In this paper we investigate the relations between cross-border mobility, national categorization and intergroup relations in a changing Europe. It focuses on young adults (N=34) commuting on a regular basis between the city of Bratislava (the capital of Slovakia) and the city of Vienna (the capital of Austria). Our study draws on the social identity perspective, however, we consider social identity as a discourse of (not) belonging, similarity and difference, which is continually (re)negotiated within a given social context. Semi-structured qualitative (...) interviews, focus groups and drawings of the border area were used as research instruments. We have identified different types of experience in various subgroups of participants framed by (1) age at the time of arrival in Austria; (2) different mobility motivations and goals; (3) interaction setting; (4) the political and economic situation in Slovakia at the time of arrival to Austria linked to perceived status differences. On the individual level, the motivation to integrate or its lack seems to be a crucial element in the ingroup construction and perception of intergroup relations. (shrink)

In his note "can there be vague objects?" ("analysis", 1978), Gareth evans presents a purported proof that there can be no vague identity statements. Some readers think that evans endorses the proof and its false conclusion. Not so. His point is that those who put vagueness in the world, Rather than in language, Will have no way to fault the proof and no way to escape the false conclusion.

Artist Rod Dickinson’s work engages in a highly intelligent and provocative manner with the conditions of mediation and delusion that appear in the brain in a vat scenario. Over the last decade he has put together an impressive body of work about the apparatuses of social and informational control with which we are surrounded, involving an eclectic range of subject matter, including crop circles, Jim Jones and the suicides at the People’s Temple in Guyana, Stanley Milgram’s ‘Obedience to authority’ experiments, (...) and James Tilly Matthews’ imaginary ‘Air loom’, an eighteenth-century mind-influencing device. He is now involved in a number of projects, including a recreation of the Waco siege and a piece based on Joseph Conrad’s The secret agent. In this conversation with Charlie Gere he discusses questions of social control, brainwashing, truth, and knowledge in relation to his work. (shrink)

Tato studie se zabývá zobrazováním alchymie v malbách, knižních ilustracích i v architektuře v období raného novověku. Na jednotlivých příkladech obrazů či ilustrací prezentuje různé aspekty alchymistova života i jeho práce. Nezabývá se symbolickou alchymickou ikonografií, ale zaměří se především na zobrazování prostředí a vybavení alchymických dílen i osobností samotných alchymistů. Soustředí se zejména na vyobrazení zařízení alchymických laboratorií, s nimiž se lze setkat jak u renesančních malířů, tak v ilustracích alchymických rukopisů a poměrně ojediněle i v české architektuře. Poskytuje (...) také pohled na vyobrazení vzniklá v souvislosti s literární kritikou alchymie. Alchymisté byli zejména v dílech předních evropských humanistů často záměrně zesměšňováni, kritizováni a označováni za blázny a zloděje. V závěru se zabývá vybranými příklady ze žánrového umění, kde byli rovněž alchymisté zobrazováni často satiricky, ale i s určitou úctou, jako vzdělaní učenci. Výtvarné umění raného novověku nám představuje různé aspekty života alchymistů a je v dnešní době jednou z možností, jak se přiblížit porozumění jejich vědeckým aktivitám. Jak však studie ukazuje, k těmto obrazovým materiálům je třeba přistupovat kriticky. (shrink)

Enhanced by many innovative exercises, examples, and pedagogical features, The Power of Critical Thinking: Effective Reasoning About Ordinary and Extraordinary Claims, Second Edition, explores the essentials of critical reasoning, argumentation, logic, and argumentative essay writing while also incorporating material on important topics that most other texts leave out. Author Lewis Vaughn offers comprehensive treatments of core topics, including an introduction to claims and arguments, discussions of propositional and categorical logic, and full coverage of the basics of inductive reasoning. Building (...) on this solid foundation, he also delves into areas neglected by other texts, adding extensive material on "inference to the best explanation" and on scientific reasoning; a thorough look at the evaluation of evidence and credibility; and a chapter on the psychological and social factors that can impede critical thinking. Additional notable elements are a chapter on moral reasoning, advice on how to evaluate Internet sources, and guidelines for evaluating occult, paranormal, or supernatural claims. The Power of Critical Thinking, Second Edition, integrates many pedagogical features including hundreds of diverse exercises, examples, and illustrations; progressive, stand-alone writing modules; numerous text boxes; step-by-step guidelines for evaluating claims, arguments, and explanations; a glossary of important terms; and many reminders, summaries, and review notes throughout. The text is supplemented by a companion website at www.oup.com/us/criticalthinking (offering a student study guide and more), and an Instructor's Manual with Test Questions (available both in print and on a CD). This unique text features a modular structure that allows instructors to teach the chapters in almost any order. Written in a student-friendly style and enhanced by humor where appropriate, it is ideal for courses in critical thinking, introduction to logic, informal logic, argumentative writing, and introduction to argumentation. New to the Second Edition * Full-color throughout and an expanded art program (37 more photos and illustrations) * A new writing module--an annotated sample student paper--and five additional essays for analysis * A new section on evaluating news reports and advertising * Timely discussions of intelligent design and population (nonintervention) studies * Expanded coverage of experts and authors and reasons to doubt their reliability * More "Field Problems" and exercise questions * Chapter objectives and key terms with definitions for each chapter. (shrink)

This essay reflects on some aspects of the brain in a vat problem through a consideration of the work of the sculptor Annie Cattrell. Cattrell’s series of sculptures ‘Sense’ render in three dimensions MRI scans of different sensory functions in the human brain. These objects—which could be said to represent thought itself stilled and suspended in a transparent medium—make dramatically visible the doctrine of the localization of brain function. The essay argues that the brain in a vat problem in philosophy (...) is an outcome of the same neural ‘mapping’ project as made Cattrell’s ‘thought in a vat’ possible. An interview with the artist reveals a moral dimension to her preoccupation with the localization of function. The article therefore goes on to consider the brain in a vat in the context of some of the history and ethics of the localizationist paradigm. (shrink)

Cet article propose une analyse des traductions roumaines, parues dans les quotidiens de Roumanie, de trois séquences extraites de la conférence de presse donnée par Jacques Chirac le 17 février 2003, lorsque la « mini-crise » irakienne provoquée par l'alignement des pays est-européens, parmi lesquels la Roumanie, sur les positions américaines, battait son plein. Les traducteurs étant en même temps les auteurs des éditoriaux où sont insérées ces traductions, la fidélité au texte source est lourdement mise à mal. Tiraillé entre (...) deux désirs contradictoires, d'une part, la fidélité au texte source, de l'autre, le désir de venir au devant de ses récepteurs, le traducteur finit par faire le deuil de l'éthique de sa profession.This article provides an analysis of Romanian translations, published in newspapers in Romania, three sequences extracted from the press conference given by Jacques Chirac on 17 February 2003, when the "mini-crisis" caused by Iraqi aligning country -Europe, including Romania, the U.S. position, in full swing. Translators same time being the authors of the editorial are inserted where these translations, fidelity to the source text is heavily undermined. Torn between two conflicting desires, on the one hand, fidelity to the source text, the other, the desire to come to the front of its receptors, the translator finally mourn the ethics of his profession. (shrink)

According to a recent paper by Tim Maudlin, Bell’s theorem has nothing to tell us about realism or the descriptive completeness of quantum mechanics. What it shows is that quantum mechanics is non-local, no more and no less. What I intend to do in this paper is to challenge Maudlin’s assertion about the import of Bell’s proof. There is much that I agree with in the paper; in particular, it does us the valuable service of demonstrating that Einstein’s objections to (...) quantum mechanics have nothing to do with its indeterminism. But I do think that Maudlin’s conclusion is overly cut-and-dried. Quantum mechanics is far from a unified edifice, and what Bell’s theorem shows depends on what version of quantum mechanics you look at. In particular, I’ll try to make the case that there’s an interesting, if ultimately uncompelling anti-realist construal of the import of Bell’s theorem. And I also want to suggest that locality isn’t quite as decisively defeated as Maudlin claims. (shrink)

Shows that many of our understandings about scientific thought can be corrected once we realise just how unnatural science is. Quoting scientists from Aristotle to Einstein, the book argues that scientific ideas are, with rare exceptions, counter-intuitive and contrary to common sense.