¿Qué hacer cuando el matrimonio quiere tener un hijo y éste tarda en venir, o simplemente no viene? La naprotecnología, como estudio médico de la fertilidad masculina y femenina, ofrece una respuesta válida para afrontar esta situación de infertilidad/esterilidad. Seguimos como camino el método triangular propuesto por Elio Sgreccia: ver los datos científicos para realizar un análisis antropológico y una valoración ética que oriente el actuar concreto.La naprotecnología, como ciencia médica, constituye un abordaje médico y científico que busca resolver los (...) trastornos reproductivos y ginecológicos del varón y de la mujer, identificando las principales causas que afectan a la verdadera salud reproductiva. A partir de este diagnóstico, busca corregir las posibles alteraciones y restaurar la salud y fertilidad. Este modo de afrontar la infertilidad/esterilidad se ilustra con varios casos clínicos y los resultados obtenidos en España durante los años 2015 a 2021. A continuación, realizamos un análisis antropológico del modo de afrontar la infertilidad, analizando el sujeto que la padece: ¿Quién es el ser humano? ¿Cómo es su sexualidad? ¿En qué entorno se realiza primordialmente la procreación? Con esta base esbozamos un juicio ético ante este modo de afrontar los problemas de infertilidad/esterilidad. (shrink)

Se analiza, en este estudio, la sintáctica, la semántica y la pragmática del conflicto en una muestra de 359 profesores de enseñanza no universitaria en España. Se establece la vinculación entre las dimensiones de la sintáctica del conflicto y los modos o estrategias de afrontamiento del conflicto propuestos por Kreidler, 1984. Los resultados apuntan hacia una visión negativista de la realidad del conflicto como fruto de la cultura, aunque con ciertos indicios de positividad en cuanto a la pragmática del conflicto.

El objetivo del trabajo es mostrar que la teoría tradicional sobre los conceptos dogmáticos es incapaz de dar cuenta de todas las funciones que tales conceptos cumplen en el discurso de los estudiosos del derecho positivo. Para resolver el problema, propongo distinguir, desde un punto de vista realista, entre dos tipos de conceptos dogmáticos: los legales y los científicos. Procederé mediante cinco pasos. En primer lugar, aclararé a qué me estoy refiriendo con conceptos dogmáticos. En segundo lugar, propondré cómo creo (...) que debe ser una teoría realista de los conceptos dogmáticos. En tercer lugar, presentaré la distinción entre los conceptos dogmáticos legales y los conceptos dogmáticos científicos. En cuarto lugar, señalaré cuáles son las funciones de las que no puede dar cuenta la teoría tradicional de los conceptos dogmáticos como conceptos legales. Finalizaré con unas breves conclusiones. (shrink)

The processes mediating dynamic and flexible responding to rapidly changing task-environments are not well understood. In the present research we employ a Stroop procedure to clarify the contribution of context-sensitive control processes to online performance. In prior work Stroop interference varied as a function of probe location context, with larger Stroop interference occurring for contexts associated with a high proportion of congruent items [Crump, M. J., Gong, Z., & Milliken, B. . The context-specific proportion congruent stroop effect: location as a (...) contextual cue. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 13, 316–321.] Here, we demonstrate that this effect does not depend on awareness of the context manipulation, but that it can depend on attention to the predictive context dimension, and on the relative salience of the target and predictive context dimensions. We discuss the implications of our results for current theories of cognitive control. (shrink)

We deal with situations incongruent with our automatic response tendencies much better right after having done so on a previous trial than after having reacted to a congruent trial. The nature of the mechanisms responsible for these sequential congruency effects is currently a hot topic of debate. According to the conflict monitoring model these effects depend on the adjustment of control triggered by the detection of conflict on the preceding situation. We tested whether these conflict monitoring processes can operate implicitly (...) in an implicit learning procedure, modulating the expression of knowledge of which participants are not aware. We reanalyze recently published data, and present an experiment with a probabilistic sequence learning procedure, both showing consistent effects of implicit sequence learning. Despite being implicit, the expression of learning was reduced or completely eliminated right after trials incongruent with the learned sequence, thus showing that sequential congruency effects can be obtained even when the source of congruency itself remains implicit. (shrink)

Human nature has always been a foundational issue for philosophy. What does it mean to have a human nature? Is the concept the relic of a bygone age? What is the use of such a concept? What are the epistemic and ontological commitments people make when they use the concept? In What’s Left of Human Nature? Maria Kronfeldner offers a philosophical account of human nature that defends the concept against contemporary criticism. In particular, she takes on challenges related to social (...) misuse of the concept that dehumanizes those regarded as lacking human nature (the dehumanization challenge); the conflict between Darwinian thinking and essentialist concepts of human nature (the Darwinian challenge); and the consensus that evolution, heredity, and ontogenetic development results from nurture and nature. After answering each of these challenges, Kronfeldner presents a revisionist account of human nature that minimizes dehumanization and does not fall back on outdated biological ideas. Her account is post-essentialist because it eliminates the concept of an essence of being human; pluralist in that it argues that there are different things in the world that correspond to three different post-essentialist concepts of human nature; and interactive because it understands nature and nurture as interacting at the developmental, epigenetic, and evolutionary levels. On the basis of this, she introduces a dialectical concept of an ever-changing and “looping” human nature. Finally, noting the essentially contested character of the concept and the ambiguity and redundancy of the terminology, she wonders if we should simply eliminate the term “human nature” altogether. (shrink)

Cuando la profesora y directora de la revista Problema, Sandra Gómora Juárez, nos propuso a la profesora Marina Gascón Abellán y a mí llevar a cabo una discusión acerca de las teorías y doctrinas del precedente en nuestro contexto, no me pude sentir más contento. Al indudable y reconocido prestigio de la revista Problema se sumó la posibilidad de volver a trabajar con la profesora Marina Gascón y hacerlo por primera vez con Sandra Gómora. Además, surgió la oportunidad de volver (...) a discutir con viejos amigos —como Flavia Carbonell, Fabio Pulido, Silvia Zorzetto— sobre cuestiones relativas al precedente, y poder contrastar opiniones con otros nuevos, como Rodrigo Camarena. En esta ocasión, me corresponde comentar, en particular, los trabajos del profesor Fabio Pulido Ortiz y de la profesora Silvia Zorzetto. Ambos trabajos son de una indudable calidad. El del profesor Pulido Ortiz, de la Universidad de La Sabana de Colombia, es un trabajo de finura y sutileza analítica que entra a discutir, al calor de la teoría del precedente, algunos problemas fundamentales de la teoría del derecho. La profesora Silvia Zorzetto, de la Università Statale di Milano, ha llevado a cabo un reconocimiento analítico y metalingüístico de la práctica de los precedentes en Italia, con especial atención a le Sezioni Unite Civili della Corte di Cassazione italiana, de incalculable valor. Ello no sólo por el valor que pueda tener para el estudio de la cultura jurídica (interna) italiana, sino porque su análisis puede ser, al menos en parte, generalizado para dar cuenta de cómo son usados los precedentes en los ordenamientos de civil law. (shrink)

"Dr. Montessori was par excellence the great interpreter of the child; and though she herself has passed on from the scene of her labours her work will still go on."-- Westminster Cathedral Chronicle One of the landmark books in the history of education--and one of the least expensive editions now available--this volume describes a new system for educating youngsters. Based on a radical concept of liberty for the pupil and highly formal training of separate sensory, motor, and mental capacities, the (...) system enabled youngsters to master reading, writing, and arithmetic rapidly and substantially. Included are discussions of scientific pedagogy; discipline; the importance of proper diet, gymnastics, and manual labor; and many other topics. Unabridged reprint of the classic 1912 edition. (shrink)

L'unité de la philosophie chez Descartes est pensée au moyen de la figure de l'arbre de la philosophie, dont l'examen soulève un double problème : d'une part, l'arbre n'est pas enraciné, ce qui conduit à interroger le lieu d'où il pourrait tirer sa subsistance ; d'autre part, la position de la branche morale est ambiguë.

El contexto social actual está protagonizado por una ciudadanía diferenciada o multicultural. La titularidad de derechos fundamentales de los sujetos integrantes y el valor de la dignidad humana como valor cualif icado debe regir las relaciones, incluso en el caso de que tales derechos deban ser limitados. Para Ferrajoli son derechos fundamentales todos aquellos derechos subjetivos que corresponden universalmente a todos los seres humanos en cuanto dotados del status de ciudadanos o personas con capacidad de obrar, entendiendo por derecho subjetivo (...) cualquier expectativa positiva o negativa adscrita a un sujeto por una norma jurídica positiva. Los derechos fundamentales son universales y ese universalismo puede relacionarse, según Ferrajoli, con el multiculturalismo. Dicha universalidad no debe entrar en contraposición con la identidad cultural. (shrink)

This paper addresses whether the often-bemoaned loss of unity of knowledge about humans, which results from the disciplinary fragmentation of science, is something to be overcome. The fragmentation of being human rests on a couple of distinctions, such as the nature-culture divide. Since antiquity the distinction between nature (roughly, what we inherit biologically) and culture (roughly, what is acquired by social interaction) has been a commonplace in science and society. Recently, the nature/culture divide has come under attack in various ways, (...) in philosophy as well as in cultural anthropology. Regarding the latter, for instance, the divide was quintessential in its beginnings as an academic dis-cipline, when Alfred L. Kroeber, one of the first professional anthropologists in the US, rallied for (what I call) the right to ignore—in his case, human nature—by adopting a separationist epistemic stance. A separationist stance will be understood as an epistemic research heuristic that defends the right to ignore a specif-ic phenomenon (e.g., human nature) or a specific causal factor in an explanation typical for a disciplinary field. I will use Kroeber’s case as an example for making a general point against a bias towards integration (synthesis bias, as I call it) that is exemplified, for instance, by defenders of evolutionary psychology. I will claim that, in principle, a separationist stance is as good as an integrationist stance since both can be equally fruitful. With this argument from fruitful sepa-ration in place, not just the separationist stance but also the nature/culture di-vide can be defended against its critics. (shrink)

This paper argues that indexical reference is a species of discourse reference, just like anaphora. Both varieties of discourse reference involve not only context dependence, but also context change. The act of speaking up focuses attention and thereby makes this very speech event available for discourse reference by indexicals. Mentioning something likewise focuses attention, making the mentioned entity available for subsequent discourse reference by anaphors. Empirical evidence is presented from grammatical centering in Kalaallisut and "shifty indexicals" in Slave attitude reports.

This paper reflects on the notion and structural components of two concepts: the human condition and human nature. Likewise, it is proposed that both concepts should be included in the basic themes not only in the field of Educational Philosophy, but also in all disciplines where the human being occupies a privileged place. Human condition is understood as a state of subjection to everything with which human beings interact and represents the starting point to ascend to three natures that correspond (...) to human beings. Hegel emphasizes two natures of man. The first is characterized by having a biological structure governed by instincts. The second is culture and to ascend to it requires processes of intellection that can be objectified through consciousness. The third human nature proposed in this paper is rooted in Ernst Bloch’s principle of hope. It is materialized by human actions tending to the construction of the future from the discovery of what is not-yet-conscious that, when identified, is achieved through actions. (shrink)

This paper revisits Donnellan’s distinction between referential and attributive uses of definite descriptions and argues that it is not exhaustive. Donnellan characterizes the distinction in terms of two criteria: the speaker’s intentions and the type of content the speaker aims to express. I argue that contrary to the common view, these two criteria are independent and that the distinctive features may be coinstantiated in more than two ways. This leaves room for nonattributive and nonreferential uses of definite descriptions. Kripke’s notions (...) of general and specific intentions provide a framework that accommodates such cases. Additionally, it proves useful for the analysis of the use of proper names with specific nonsingular intentions. The paper also discusses how the interpretation of the use of definite descriptions as attributive or referential (or neither) is sensitive to which theory of singular thoughts one adopts. (shrink)

Julián Marías (1914-2005) è un pensatore ancora poco conosciuto al lettore italiano, spesso oscurato dall’ombra del suo celebre maestro, José Ortega y Gasset. Filosofo indipendente e coraggioso, offre una proposta più coerente rispetto a Ortega sul tema essenziale comune a entrambi: il poter “dare ragione” della vita evitando gli opposti scogli del razionalismo e del vitalismo. “Dare ragione” della vita significa comprenderla nella sua “condizione morale” che trova espressione nel desiderio di felicità, nell’esigenza di amore e di amicizia, nei differenti (...) vissuti di ciascuna età. Significa riconoscerne la dimensione elettiva: vivere è preferire, saper fornire ragioni per l’opzione di qualcosa rispetto a qualcos’altro. Per questo motivo, più che alla categoria del bene, l’attenzione è rivolta a quella del meglio, fondamentale per comprendere il senso pieno delle proprie scelte e dell’intera trama della propria biografia. (shrink)

La integración de la tecnología en el ámbito del derecho penal plantea desafíos significativos debido a la falta de regulación de la inteligencia artificial (IA), lo que podría comprometer los derechos fundamentales. Este estudio se centra en abordar estos desafíos y proponer soluciones mediante un análisis exhaustivo de la situación actual y las posibles implicaciones de la IA en el sistema jurídico penal. El objetivo principal de esta investigación es analizar los problemas, desafíos y oportunidades que surgen con la implementación (...) de la inteligencia artificial en el ámbito penal. Se busca identificar la necesidad de una regulación específica para la IA en el derecho penal, con el fin de proteger los derechos fundamentales de las personas y garantizar un sistema jurídico justo y equitativo. Para abordar esta problemática, se adoptó un enfoque metodológico cualitativo. Se llevó a cabo una revisión bibliográfica detallada para examinar los antecedentes, problemas y desafíos asociados con la IA en los sistemas jurídicos, especialmente en el ámbito penal. Además, se realizaron análisis de criterios y opiniones de expertos en derecho para obtener una comprensión más profunda de la situación y las posibles soluciones. Los resultados de este estudio revelan la necesidad urgente de establecer una normativa específica para regular la aplicación de la inteligencia artificial en el ámbito penal. Se destaca que la falta de regulación representa un riesgo significativo para los derechos fundamentales, especialmente en lo que respecta a la configuración de delitos con el apoyo de la IA. Además, se identifican diferentes dimensiones que deben abordarse en la regulación, incluyendo principios y reglas básicas del derecho, supervisión humana de los sistemas de IA y la promoción de la innovación responsable en este campo. Este artículo subraya la importancia de establecer una regulación efectiva para la inteligencia artificial en el ámbito penal. Esta regulación no solo protegerá los derechos fundamentales de las personas, sino que también promoverá un uso responsable y progresivo de la IA como una herramienta valiosa para los profesionales del derecho. Es crucial que la regulación sea integral y adaptable para garantizar un sistema jurídico justo y equitativo en la era digital. (shrink)

Drawing on a rich variety of Indian texts across multiple traditions, including Vedanta, Buddhist, Yoga and Jain, this collection explores how emotional experience is framed, evoked and theorized in order to offer compelling insights into human subjectivity. Rather than approaching emotion through the prism of Western theory, a team of leading Indian philosophers showcase the unique literary texture, philosophical reflections and theoretical paradigms that classical Indian sources provide in their own right. From solitude in the Saundarananda and psychosomatic theories of (...) disease in the Yogavasistha to female lament in Greek, Sinhala Buddhist and Sanskrit epic tales, their chapters reveal the range and diversity of the phenomena encompassing the English term 'emotion'. In doing so, they contribute towards a more cosmopolitan, comparative and pluralistic conception of human experience. Adopting a broad phenomenological methodology, this handbook reframes debates on emotion within classical Indian thought and is an invaluable resource for researchers and students seeking to understand the field beyond the Western tradition. (shrink)

Spectroscopy is a scientific topic at the interface between Chemistry and Physics, which is taught at high school level in relation with its fundamental applications in Analytical Chemistry. In the first part of the paper, the topic of spectroscopy is analyzed having in mind the well-known Johnstone’s triangle of chemistry education, putting in evidence the way spectroscopy is usually taught at the three levels of chemical knowledge: macroscopic/phenomenological, sub-microscopic/molecular and symbolic ones. Among these three levels, following Johnstone’s recommendations the macroscopic (...) one is the most useful for high school students who learn spectroscopy for the first time. Starting from these premises, in the second part of the paper, we propose a didactic sequence which is inspired by the historical evolution of spectroscopic instruments from the first spectroscopes invented by Gustav Kirchhoff and Robert Bunsen in 1860 to the UV–vis spectrophotometers which became common since the 1960s. The idea behind our research is to analyze the conceptual advancements through the history of spectroscopy and to identify the key episodes/experiments and spectroscopic instruments. For each of them, a didactic activity, typically an experiment, is then proposed underlining the relevant aspects from the chemistry education point of view. The present paper is the occasion to reflect on the potentialities of an historical approach combined with a laboratorial one, and to discuss the role of historical instruments and related technological improvements to teach spectroscopy. (shrink)

The last few years have seen the emergence of critical phenomenology as an exciting paradigm in phenomenology and beyond, spanning disciplines such as anthropology, urban studies, gender studies an...

This edited collection considers how feminist strategies and philosophies might initiate, reshape, and critique approaches to library reference services.

Anxiety versus fear, wonder versus curiosity are some of the ways in which philosophers have described encounters with nothing. What does it mean to be anxious in the face of nothing in particular, and to wonder at the mere fact that anything exists, rather than nothing? For Kierkegaard anxiety opens freedom, for Heidegger wonder is a distress and for Wittgenstein wonder and anxiety are deeply connected to the ethical.

During the past century, an enormous effervescence of events changed the sociopolitical configuration of the world. The interpretation of these facts helped further deepen the crisis in which modern thought already found itself--and it generated the uncertain and unstable environment in which we live today, the so-called postmodernity, late modernity, or hypermodernity. In this context, one of the most profound impacts is most certainly the one on religion. During the twentieth century, religion proved not to be banished from the human (...) horizon as the masters of suspicion intended. Known as the godless century, the twentieth century saw also a resuscitation of the search for the sense of life and spirituality. With the crisis of modern reason, humankind turned toward consumerism and provisional and "light" practices. The last century represents not only the height of the postmodernization process but also the rescue of the transcendent and absolute, even if it is an absolute without face and identity. It is in this scenario that religious experiences, apparently exiled by modern rationality, begin to occur and multiply again. Mystical experiences will be, then, the basis for highlighting recurrent characteristics with universal import. But they will show a different configuration than before. One will be able to find them not in so-called sacred spaces but in very secular ones; not so much within institutions but at the borders, or even outside them; not configured by a specific tradition but in an interface that makes more than one tradition meet and dialogue. (shrink)

This book addresses the need to create an "axiological epistemology". This term refers to knowledge of what is axiological, id est everything related to human values, and the know-how on how to manage the study of values. In knowledge societies, we know and live axiological projects that we do not receive from anyone, but that we must construct ourselves in a situation of continuous change. In view of the fact that the axiological crisis in which we are immersed is the (...) most serious one that humanity has suffered over its long history, the seriousness and urgency of the issue in question is evident. Adequate knowledge is required to solve this problem, which is at the root of all the problems we are experiencing. This work offers a potential solution that, in contrast to the past, cannot be definitive, but must be transformed throughout the continuous changes to ways of life as a result of technoscience. It will prove of great value to all those who must operate within human values and motivate groups, as well as to those interested in spirituality. (shrink)

This book is the first collective volume specifically devoted to the multifaceted phenomenon of intensification, which has been traditionally regarded as related to the expression of degree, scaling a quality downwards or upwards. In spite of the large amount of studies on intensifiers, there is still a need for the characterization of intensification as a distinct functional category in the domain of modification. The eighteen papers of the volume contribute to this aim with a new approach (mainly corpus-based). They focus (...) on intensification from different perspectives (both synchronic and diachronic) and theoretical frameworks, concern ancient languages (Hittite, Greek, Latin) and modern languages (mainly Italian, German, English, Kiswahili), and involve different levels of analysis. They also identify and examine different types of intensifiers, applied to different forms and structures, such as adverbs, adjectives, evaluative affixes, discourse markers, reduplication, exclamative clauses, coordination, prosodic elements, and shed light on issues which have not been extensively studied so far. (shrink)

In der gegenwartigen Auseinandersetzung mit dem Thema Tierschutz fehlt es an uberzeugenden Begrundungen; ungenugende Argumente fuhren zu uneinlosbaren Forderungen und schaden der Sache mehr als sie ihr nutzen. VOn entscheidender Bedeutung ist dabei die Frage, welches Verstandnis wir vom Tier haben. DIe philosophische Herausforderung einer Tierschutzethik beginnt mit der Einsicht, daSS das Tier weder als Sache noch als Person begriffen werden kann. DIe vorgelegte Tierschutzethik diskutiert das Thema auf philosophischem Niveau, bedenkt den Umgang des Menschen mit dem Tier in seiner (...) Vielschichtigkeit und leistet eine fundierte Begrundung der notigen Beschrankungen menschlicher Willkur zugunsten des Tieres. (shrink)

Current technology and surveillance practices make behaviors traceable to persons in unprecedented ways. This causes a loss of anonymity and of many privacy measures relied on in the past. These de facto privacy losses are by many seen as problematic for individual psychology, intimate relations and democratic practices such as free speech and free assembly. I share most of these concerns but propose that an even more fundamental problem might be that our very ability to act as autonomous and purposive (...) agents relies on some degree of privacy, perhaps particularly as we act in public and semi-public spaces. I suggest that basic issues concerning action choices have been left largely unexplored, due to a series of problematic theoretical assumptions at the heart of privacy debates. One such assumption has to do with the influential conceptualization of privacy as pertaining to personal intimate facts belonging to a private sphere as opposed to a public sphere of public facts. As Helen Nissenbaum has pointed out, the notion of privacy in public sounds almost like an oxymoron given this traditional private-public dichotomy. I discuss her important attempt to defend privacy in public through her concept of ‘contextual integrity.’ Context is crucial, but Nissenbaum’s descriptive notion of existing norms seems to fall short of a solution. I here agree with Joel Reidenberg’s recent worries regarding any approach that relies on ‘reasonable expectations’ . The problem is that in many current contexts we have no such expectations. Our contexts have already lost their integrity, so to speak. By way of a functional and more biologically inspired account, I analyze the relational and contextual dynamics of both privacy needs and harms. Through an understanding of action choice as situated and options and capabilities as relational, a more consequence-oriented notion of privacy begins to appear. I suggest that privacy needs, harms and protections are relational. Privacy might have less to do with seclusion and absolute transactional control than hitherto thought. It might instead hinge on capacities to limit the social consequences of our actions through knowing and shaping our perceptible agency and social contexts of action. To act with intent we generally need the ability to conceal during exposure. If this analysis is correct then relational privacy is an important condition for autonomic purposive and responsible agency—particularly in public space. Overall, this chapter offers a first stab at a reconceptualization of our privacy needs as relational to contexts of action. In terms of ‘rights to privacy’ this means that we should expand our view from the regulation and protection of the information of individuals to questions of the kind of contexts we are creating. I am here particularly interested in what I call ‘unbounded contexts’, i.e. cases of context collapses, hidden audiences and even unknowable future agents. (shrink)

Autism has been defined as a disorder of social cognition, interaction and communication where ritualistic, repetitive behaviors are commonly observed. But how should we understand the behavioral and cognitive differences that have been the main focus of so much autism research? Can high-level cognitive processes and behaviors be identified as the core issues people with autism face, or do these characteristics perhaps often rather reflect individual attempts to cope with underlying physiological issues? Much research presented in this volume will point (...) to the latter possibility, i.e. that people on the autism spectrum cope with issues at much lower physiological levels pertaining not only to Central Nervous Systems (CNS) function, but also to peripheral and autonomic systems (PNS, ANS) (Torres, Brincker, et al. 2013). The question that we pursue in this chapter is what might be fruitful ways of gaining objective measures of the large-scale systemic and heterogeneous effects of early atypical neurodevelopment; how to track their evolution over time and how to identify critical changes along the continuum of human development and aging. We suggest that the study of movement variability—very broadly conceived as including all minute fluctuations in bodily rhythms and their rates of change over time (coined micro-movements (Figure 1A-B) (Torres, Brincker, et al. 2013))—offers a uniquely valuable and entirely objectively quantifiable lens to better assess, understand and track not only autism but cognitive development and degeneration in general. This chapter presents the rationale firstly behind this focus on micro-movements and secondly behind the choice of specific kinds of data collection and statistical metrics as tools of analysis (Figure 1C). In brief the proposal is that the micro-movements (defined in Part I – Chapter 1), obtained using various time scales applied to different physiological data-types (Figure 1), contain information about layered influences and temporal adaptations, transformations and integrations across anatomically semi-independent subsystems that crosstalk and interact. Further, the notion of sensorimotor re-afference is used to highlight the fact that these layered micro-motions are sensed and that this sensory feedback plays a crucial role in the generation and control of movements in the first place. In other words, the measurements of various motoric and rhythmic variations provide an access point not only to the “motor systems”, but also access to much broader central and peripheral sensorimotor and regulatory systems. Lastly, we posit that this new lens can also be used to capture influences from systems of multiple entry points or collaborative control and regulation, such as those that emerge during dyadic social interactions. (shrink)

The term ‘human nature’ can refer to different things in the world and fulfil different epistemic roles. Human nature can refer to a classificatory nature (classificatory criteria that determine the boundaries of, and membership in, a biological or social group called ‘human’), a descriptive nature (a bundle of properties describing the respective group’s life form), or an explanatory nature (a set of factors explaining that life form). This chapter will first introduce these three kinds of ‘human nature’, together with seven (...) reasons why we disagree about human nature. In the main, this chapter focuses on the explanatory concept of human nature, which is related to one of the seven reasons for disagreement, namely, the scientific authority inherent in the term ‘nature’. I will examine why, in a number of historical contexts, it was attractive to refer to ‘nature’ as an explanatory category, and why this usage has led to the continual contestation of the term within the sciences. The claim is that even if the contents of talk about ‘nature’ varied historically, the term’s pragmatic function of demarcation stayed the same. The term ‘nature’ conveys scientific authority over a territory; ‘human nature’ is a concept used to divide causes, as well as experts, and thereby conquer others who threaten to invade one’s epistemic territory. Analysing this demarcation, which has social as well as epistemic aspects, will help us to understand why the explanatory role has been important and why it is unlikely that people will ever agree on either the meaning or the importance of ‘human nature’ as an explanatory category. (shrink)

Philosophy in the 20th century witnessed a schism between so called ‘analytic’ and ‘continental’ schools of philosophy. One of the aims of the IJPS from its inception was to provide a space for articles attempting to overcome, or at least foreshorten, that divide. This paper critically examines the various understandings of the divide and takes a quick glance at some of the attempts to bridge it.

Émilie Du Châtelet is the only French woman author of a work included in the corpus of clandestine philosophical literature: a set of treatises, dissertations, or letters that circulated in Europe, and especially in France, mainly in manuscript form, during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the main purpose of which was to subject religion to rigorous rational criticism (philosophical, historical, scientific). These Examens de la religion, one of the most controversial works in this corpus, circulated during the eighteenth century and (...) gave rise to a form of legend: sometimes said to be the work of Émilie Du Châtelet, sometimes the result of a form of collaboration between Du Châtelet and the one whose life she shared for a long time: Voltaire. If the feminine point of view on the Bible played a role in the recent attribution of this text to Émilie Du Châtelet, the existence of a properly feminine writing in the wider context of clandestine philosophical literature can now be discussed. This article aims to put this debate into perspective, at both the methodological and philosophical level. (shrink)

Hilary Putnam is one of the world’s leading philosophers. His highly original and often provocative ideas have set the agenda for a variety of debates in philosophy of science, philosophy of mind and philosophy of language. His now famous philosophical thought experiments, such as the ‘Twin earth’ and ‘the brains in the vat’ have become part of the established canon in philosophy and cognitive science. _Reading Putnam_ is an outstanding overview and assessment of Hilary Putnam’s work by a team of (...) international contributors, and includes replies by Putnam himself. Divided into clear sections, it contains chapters on key aspects of Putnam’s large body of writing, including: Scientific realism and the changes that Putnam’s thought has undergone on this topic analyticity and ontology, including the important interconnections between the views of Putnam and Quine Putnam’s arguments concerning externalist views of meaning and reference, questions of conceptual relativity, and his preoccupation with ethics through a denial of the fact–value dichotomy Putnam’s developing views on perception. Offering an excellent survey of Putnam’s work, _Reading Putnam_ is essential for those studying philosophy of mind, philosophy of language, and philosophy of science, as well as for anyone interested in contemporary philosophy. (shrink)