Our approach is based on a tri-partite method of integrating psychodynamic hypotheses, cognitive subliminal processes, and psychophysiological alpha power measures. We present ten social phobic subjects with three individually selected groups of words representing unconscious conflict, conscious symptom experience, and Osgood Semantic negative valence words used as a control word group. The unconscious conflict and conscious symptom words, presented subliminally and supraliminally, act as primes preceding the conscious symptom and control words presented as supraliminal targets. With alpha power as a (...) marker of inhibitory brain activity, we show that unconscious conflict primes, only when presented subliminally, have a unique inhibitory effect on conscious symptom targets. This effect is absent when the unconscious conflict primes are presented supraliminally, or when the target is the control words. Unconscious conflict prime effects were found to correlate with a measure of repressiveness in a similar previous study (Shevrin et al., 1992, 1996). Conscious symptom primes have no inhibitory effect when presented subliminally. Inhibitory effects with conscious symptom primes are present, but only when the primes are supraliminal, and they did not correlate with repressiveness in a previous study (Shevrin et al., 1992, 1996). We conclude that while the inhibition following supraliminal conscious symptom primes is due to conscious threat bias, the inhibition following subliminal unconscious conflict primes provides a neurological blueprint for dynamic repression: it is only activated subliminally by an individual's unconscious conflict and has an inhibitory effect specific only to the conscious symptom. These novel findings constitute neuroscientific evidence for the psychoanalytic concepts of unconscious conflict and repression, while extending neuroscience theory and methods into the realm of personal, psychological meaning. (shrink)

Este artículo se propone examinar la caracterización ficcional de la mujer filósofa durante el siglo XVIII, concentrándose en la novela Histoire de Juliette, ou les prospérités du vice de Donatien Alphonse François de Sade. Sostendremos como hipótesis que las heroínas filósofas de Histoire de Juliette se habrían construido a base de la exaltación de la figura de la hetaira de la Grecia Clásica. Analizaremos dos referencias a las hetairai que aparecen en la obra: la caracterización de Clairwil, una de las (...) tutoras libertinas de Juliette, y la participación de Aspasia, Phryné y Lais como parte del séquito de libertinas de la protagonista de la novela. (shrink)

Resumen: Este artículo se propone examinar la caracterización ficcional de la mujer filósofa durante el siglo XVIII, concentrándose en la novela Histoire de Juliette, ou les prospérités du vice de Donatien Alphonse François de Sade. Sostendremos como hipótesis que las heroínas filósofas de Histoire de Juliette se habrían construido a base de la exaltación de la figura de la hetaira de la Grecia Clásica. Analizaremos dos referencias a las hetairai que aparecen en la obra: la caracterización de Clairwil, una de (...) las tutoras libertinas de Juliette, y la participación de Aspasia, Phryné y Lais como parte del séquito de libertinas de la protagonista de la novela.: This article aims at examining the fictional characterization of women philosophers during the eighteenth century, focusing on Donatien Alphonse François de Sade’s novel, Histoire de Juliette, ou les prospérités du vice. We seek to show that the marquis’s heroines philosophers in Histoire de Juliette are modeled after the figure of the hetaira in Classical Greece. We analyze two sets of references to the hetairai that appear in the aforementioned novel: the description of Clairwil, one of Juliette’s libertine tutors and partners, and the participation of Aspasie, Phryné and Lais in Juliette’s libertine entourage. (shrink)

The most fascinating aspect of human language is grammar. Grammar is a computational system that mediates a mapping between linguistic form and meaning. Grammar is the machinery that gives rise to the unlimited expressibility of human language.

Learning in natural environments is often characterized by a degree of inconsistency from an input. These inconsistencies occur, for example, when learning from more than one source, or when the presence of environmental noise distorts incoming information; as a result, the task faced by the learner becomes ambiguous. In this study, we investigate how learners handle such situations. We focus on the setting where a learner receives and processes a sequence of utterances to master associations between objects and their labels, (...) where the source is inconsistent by design: It uses both “correct” and “incorrect” object‐label pairings. We hypothesize that depending on the order of presentation, the result of the learning may be different. To this end, we consider two types of symbolic learning procedures: the Object‐Label (OL) and the Label‐Object (LO) process. In the OL process, the learner is first exposed to the object, and then the label. In the LO process, this order is reversed. We perform experiments with human subjects, and also construct a computational model that is based on a nonlinear stochastic reinforcement learning algorithm. It is observed experimentally that OL learners are generally better at processing inconsistent input compared to LO learners. We show that the patterns observed in the learning experiments can be reproduced in the simulations if the model includes (a) an ability to regularize the input (and also to do the opposite, i.e., undermatch) and (b) an ability to take account of implicit negative evidence (i.e., interactions among different objects/labels). The model suggests that while both types of learners utilize implicit negative evidence in a similar way, there is a difference in regularization patterns: OL learners regularize the input, whereas LO learners undermatch. As a result, OL learners are able to form a more consistent system of image‐utterance associations, despite the ambiguous learning task. (shrink)

Since the cognitive revolution, psychologists have developed formal theories of cognition by thinking about the mind as a computer. However, this metaphor is typically applied to individual minds. Humans rarely think alone; compared to other animals, humans are curiously dependent on stores of culturally transmitted skills and knowledge, and we are particularly good at collaborating with others. Rather than picturing the human mind as an isolated computer, we can imagine each mind as a node in a vast distributed system. Viewing (...) human cognition through the lens of distributed systems motivates new questions about how humans share computation, when it makes sense to do so, and how we can build institutions to facilitate collaboration. (shrink)

A variety of studies show that parental absence early in life leads to deleterious effects on the developing CNS. This is thought to be largely because evolutionary-dependent stimuli are necessary for the appropriate postnatal development of the young brain, an effect sometimes termed the “experience-expectant brain,” with parents providing the necessary input for normative synaptic connections to develop and appropriate neuronal survival to occur. Principal among CNS systems affected by parental input are the monoamine systems. In the present study,N= 434 (...) rhesus monkeys (233 males, 201 females) were reared in one of two conditions: as mother-reared controls (MR;n= 269) or without adults with 24-h access to same-aged peers (PR;n= 165). When subjects were six-months-old, they underwent a separation paradigm involving 4, sequential, four-day social separations from their mothers or peers, with each separation followed by three-day reunions with their mothers or their peers. Prior to the separation paradigm, baseline cisternal CSF samples were obtained, as well as at the end of each the four social separations, and after final separation, during a recovery period. CSF was assayed for concentrations of monoamine metabolites and a blood sample was genotyped for the serotonin transporter (5-HTT) genotype. Replicating earlier landmark findings, PR subjects with thesallele exhibited lower baseline concentrations of the serotonin metabolite 5-hydroxyindoleacetic acid (5-HIAA), when compared to PR subjects homozygous for theLallele. MR subjects were undifferentiated by genotype. PR subjects exhibited lower CSF 5-HIAA concentrations during baseline, but higher CSF 5-HIAA during social separations, when compared to MR subjects. There were rearing effects for the dopamine metabolite homovanillic acid (HVA) and for the norepinephrine metabolite 3-methoxy-4-hydroxyphenylglycol (MHPG), with PR subjects showing higher HVA and lower MHPG when compared to MR subjects. These findings indicate that there are long-term deficits in the response of monoamines following early maternal absence. The results of this study confirm and extend earlier findings that early parental absence has deleterious consequences for the development of the monoamine systems, and that these consequences are modulated by the 5-HTT genotype. (shrink)

The lockdown resulting from coronavirus disease 2019 has had a huge impact on peoples’ health. In sport specifically, athletes have had to deal with frustration of their objectives and changes in their usual training routines. The challenging and disruptive situation could hold implications for their well-being. This study examined the effect of the COVID-19 lockdown on changes in athletes’ reported eudaimonic well-being and goal motives over time. The relationship of resilience to changes in subjective vitality was also determined, and changes (...) in athletes’ goal motives were examined as potential mediators. Participants were 127 Spanish university athletes aged between 18 and 34 years. Approximately 4 months before the start of the lockdown in Spain, athletes responded to a questionnaire assessing their resilience, goal motives, and subjective vitality. Around 6 months later into the lockdown period, athletes’ goal motives and subjective vitality were assessed again. Growth modeling using hierarchical linear models revealed a significant decrease of autonomous goal motives and subjective vitality during the lockdown, but athletes did not show change over time in controlled goal motives. Path analysis, adjusting T2 measures for their corresponding T1 measures, showed that resilience significantly predicted changes in athletes’ autonomous goal motives, which then accounted for changes in subjective vitality. The indirect effect was significant. Resilience did not predict changes in athletes’ controlled goal motives. However, changes in controlled goal motives negatively predicted changes in subjective vitality during lockdown. The findings suggest negative impacts of the COVID-19 lockdown on athletes’ goal motives and eudaimonic well-being. Results also support the hypothesized mediational role of autonomous goal motives in the relationship between resilience and subjective vitality during the lockdown. As such, findings confirm the relevance of resilience to a key feature of athletes’ eudaimonic well-being and the importance of enhancing their autonomous goal striving. (shrink)

Cognitive Science, Volume 46, Issue 6, June 2022.

Au début du xxe siècle, les pratiques physiques d’entretien s’organisent autour du culte de la force, tant dans les sociétés militaires que dans les gymnases de culture physique. Le choix d’une telle pratique permet alors de se conformer aux normes de la masculinité hégémonique. La gymnastique d’entretien pour les femmes se développe en marge mettant en avant des valeurs plus conformes aux attendus médicaux et sociaux, sous contrôle masculin. Dans les années soixante-dix la Gymnastique Volontaire offre des caractéristiques structurelles et (...) idéologiques proches de cette conception. La transformation est inéluctable d’un territoire masculin à un territoire féminin. Malgré la permanence d’une tutelle masculine au plus haut-niveau de responsabilités, le dynamisme de ces femmes au niveau local en fait les véritables actrices d’une pratique développée alors par et pour elles. (shrink)

Recevoir l’œuvre de Jacques Derrida n’a pas la même signification selon les pays, et il n’est pas rare que cette réception prenne une forme inattendue. Aux États-Unis, il est lu et admiré, plus qu’en France ; en Inde , son nom est connu même de l’homme de la rue ; dans les coins les plus divers de la planète, ses séminaires..

Неопределенность общих параметров социальной ситуации в современной России нередко приводит в тупик работу рефлексивного самосознания. Западные читатели склонны интересоваться религиозной стороной русской мысли. Однако в ней есть также и вполне «светская» философия в своих классических формах - эпистемология, этика, политическая философия и др. Постсоветская философия в России характеризуется значительной открытостью к Западу и, в частности, к современной французской философии. Le caractère assez confus de la situation générale actuelle en Russie y engendre une atrophie de l’activité réflexive. Les Occidentaux s’intéressent souvent (...) au côté religieux de la pensée russe. Mais il y a aussi, actuellement, une philosophie « laïque » , et cela sous les formes classiques : épistémologie, éthique, philosophie politique, etc. La philosophie de la Russie postsoviétique se caractérise par une grande ouverture à l’Occident, et en particulier aux philosophes français actuels. The somewhat confused character of the general situation in Russia leads to an atrophy of reflexive activity. Westemers are often interested in the religious side of Russian thought. But there also exists today a “secular” philosophy, developed according the classical canon: i.e., epistemology, ethics, political philosophy, etc. The philosophy of post-Soviet Russia is characterized by a great openness towards the West, and particularly with respect to contemporary French philosophers. (shrink)

La traduction peut jouer un rôle fondamental dans la création des concepts philosophiques. C'est ce qui se passe depuis 1990 en Russie, après l'effondrement de l'idéologie soviétique. Mais le fait n'est pas radicalement nouveau. Dès l'époque de Pierre le Grand, Vassili Trediakovski travailla à créer en russe des concepts correspondant à ceux de la philosophie européenne. On rencontre un processus semblable à l'époque postnapoléonienne, ainsi qu'au début du XXe siècle. De nos jours, ce sont des auteurs comme Foucault, Derrida, Deleuze, (...) Lacan et Lyotard qui, chacun à sa manière, sont accueillis en Russie, où se créent ainsi des concepts philosophiques spécifiques. Translation may play a fundamental part in the creation of philosophical concepts. Such is what happens in Russsia since 1990 after the collapse of Soviet ideology. But the fact is not radically new. As early as Peter the Great times, Vassili Trediakovski worked at creating inRussian quite a few concepts corresponding to those of European philosophy. A similar process is also to he come across during the post-Napoleonic days and at the beginning of the 20 century. Presently, authors such as Foucault, Derrida, Deleuze, Lacan and Lyotard, every one in his own way, are welcomed in Russia where specific philosophical concepts are thus created. (shrink)

The relevance of the research is due to the interest of modern science in the successful experience of comprehending social reality and of social forecasting in forms nontrivial for systematic rational thinking. T topic is especially important in the context of global instability, in which human civilization has been living for the last decades. The main question is the possible existence of a critical philosophy in terms of the ideological pressure of the Soviet period. The author substantiates the hypothesis that (...) children’s literature could be a form of free development of philosophical thinking, permissible in these circumstances. The research is of practical value to humanities scholars studying Soviet and post-Soviet period Russian culture, literature, philosophy, regardless of their theoretical and ideological orientations, since it examines the philosophical aspects in the works by the Soviet children’s writer Nikolai Nosov, author of trilogy about Dunno (rus. Neznajka), and not well-known abroad. The article justifies the opinion that Nosov’s creative heritage is underestimated both in Russian and foreign humanities and not sufficiently analyzed. Through the analysis of N. Nosov’s texts, undertaken by Russian and foreign scholars and publicists (among which L. Abdel-Rahim and L. Karawan deserve a special mention), implicit social and philosophical ideas are revealed, and the basic social forecasting is determined in relation to the society of ‘developed socialism’. Marxist philosophy had a significant impact on N. Nosov’s worldview; however, the writer is alien to the ideological blinders of the dominant forms of Soviet philosophy. Nosov’s Marxism in the form of popular ‘children’s’ discourse suddenly finds itself able to effectively implement critical and prognostic function of philosophy. Being decades ahead of Soviet ideologists and philosophers in this respect, N. Nosov convincingly showed the problem nature of ‘developed socialism’. An important diagnosis of this society and a forecast for its future is possible ‘breakdown’ of the historical process (despite scientific and technical achievements) due to the insufficient level of culture and consciousness, the immaturity of social relations. (shrink)

Cet article présente une approche quantitative appliquée à la concurrence suffixale dans la formation des adjectifs dénominaux en russe. Le but est, dans un premier temps, d’étudier les adjectifs de haute et basse fréquence et d’établir les propriétés phonologiques, morphologiques et sémantiques des noms de base qui déterminent le choix entre les suffixes -n- et -sk- dans les deux ensembles de données grâce à des méthodes statistiques. Dans un second temps, l’objectif est de mesurer à quel point la connaissance des (...) particularités des adjectifs de haute fréquence est applicable pour prédire le suffixe des adjectifs issus des basses fréquences. (shrink)

¿Qué evocan Andalucía y en concreto la bellísima Granada en el imaginario de Ultra mar? ¿Qué imágenes reverberan las retinas extranjeras? ¿Y particularmente, la de los quebequenses? En este artículo escucharemos las sensaciones y sentimientos que tienen hacia nuestro país varios autores canadienses. Qu’évoquent l’Andalousie et la magnifique ville de Grenade dans l’imaginaire d’outre-Atlantique? Quelles sont les images qu’elles réverbèrent dans la rétine des étrangers? Et en particulier dans celle des Québécois? Dans cet article, nous écouterons plusieurs auteurs canadiens raconter (...) leurs sensations et sentiments envers notre pays et notre culture. (shrink)

Cet article poursuit un triple objectif : en premier lieu, compléter, dans la mesure du possible, l’ apparatus fontium correspondant aux sections 64-82 de l’édition critique du De angelo perdito de Gilbert Crispin ; ensuite, expliquer son contenu ; enfin, contribuer à une meilleure compréhension du corpus crispinien, en proposant, en regard de l’historiographie traditionnelle, une interprétation visant à réévaluer l’influence des Pères de l’Église en général et celle d’Anselme de Cantorbéry en particulier.

When J. L. Austin first presented his work on speech acts, it concentrated primarily on explaining how our utterances can change the non-linguistic reality around us. A new fruitful area of study explaining how saying something can constitute doing something else than saying was established, and for a very long time—in fact, until this day—philosophers debate what makes a promise a promise and not just a plan, what distinguishes an assertion from a conjecture, and what kind of mental states are (...) required of a speaker for her illocution to be successful. The original framework, as presented by Austin’s colleague, John Searle, has shaped a vast landscape of many very different research projects, such as explaining the normative structure underlying performing speech acts, exploring the connections between illocutions and other pragmatic phenomena such as implicature and presupposition, or investigating how speech acts influence the conversational scoreboard, to name just a few. Yet another area of research centres on applying speech act theoretic devices to tackle apparently distant problems in philosophy of language, such as reference, disagreement or lying. (shrink)

This paper analyses different retrospective links between the scientia generalis by Leibniz and the three key traditions of the Renaissance and Early Modern Europe – the philosophical, the rhetorical and the encyclopaedic one. The issue demonstrates the insufficient charachter of the two influential interpretations of the idea of scientia generalis by Leibniz – as a project of elaborating a a method of mathematical calculations for non-mathematical subjects (L. Couturat, J. Mittelstraß, V. Peckhaus etc.) and as a project of an encyclopaedic (...) synthesis combining ideas of the Lull’s Ars magna and humanistic rhetoric by M. Nizolius with the philosophical-theological encyclopaedism of J. Alsted and B. Keckermann (P. Rossi, W. Schmidt-Biggemann, T. Leinkauf etc.). The author presents the thesis that the formation of Leibniz’s idea of scientia generalis as well as some other concepts of the universal science in 17th century philosophy are the result of rethinking and expanding of the concept of the “first philosophy” delivered by Aristotle in his “Metaphysics”. (shrink)

Prologue Ce projet de numéro thématique intitulé « Approches temporelles du développement durable » a été lancé fin 2017. L’appel à articles questionnait notamment le rôle des actions politiques dans les transitions, la perception des temporalités et le changement de comportements. Depuis le lancement de ce numéro, de nombreux événements ont eu lieu, illustrant la complexité et l’imprévisibilité des dynamiques sociales en lien avec le développement durable. En France, la démission de Nicolas...

Este artículo aborda el concepto de «isolisme» en dos obras de Donatien Alphonse François de Sade, La nouvelle Justine y L’Histoire de Juliette, estudiando los distintos sentidos que este término adopta y las argumentaciones que los distintos personajes filósofos y filósofas despliegan a propósito de él, favorable o críticamente. Nuestra propuesta consiste en realizar este análisis reparando en el insoslayable diálogo que plantea Sade con la tradición de pensamiento contractualista, mostrando cómo se interpretan, se discuten y se representan conceptual y (...) literariamente nociones claves de esta tradición en los dos textos elegidos. (shrink)

Traducción del artículo originalmente publicado como Sorgner, S. L. (2017). Immortality as Utopia and the Relevance of Nihilism. En Y. Tuncel (ed), Nietzsche and transhumanism. Precursor or enemy? (pp. 248-261). Cambridge Scholars Publishing. Este texto ha sido Publicado con la autorización de Cambridge Scholars Publishing. Agradecemos a Stefan Lorenz Sorgner por autorizarnos a realizar la traducción de este texto.

Everyday life is a central theme of Hong Kong poetry. Many Hong Kong poets use the quotidian as a starting point for the exploration of history and alternative imaginings. This mundane focus, unlike the colonial dreamscape of Hong Kong as an economic miracle, allows writers to reflect upon Hong Kong as a post-colonial and global space. The Hong Kong writer Natalia Chan examines the complex nature of everyday life within the space of the global and post-colonial city. Chan’s poems (...) deal with the essence of everydayness and use commodities to conjure up the vivacity of the urbanscape of Hong Kong. Unlike the political and economic discourse that is usually used to define Hong Kong, Chan’s work portrays Hong Kong as a city that offers the possibility of daily re-creation against the background of history. In this article, we will examine Chan’s use of the circulation of commodities in the global world and explore the way fashion becomes a point where high and popular culture, private and public domains, and local and global interests clash, negotiate, and fertilize each other. Chan’s works do not conform to the economic and prosperity discourse that has repressed Hong Kong; rather, she guides her readers to re-experience the everydayness of routines, to celebrate alternate ways of understanding the urbanscape, and to open themselves to the potentialities of art and the everyday. (shrink)

L’intento del presente studio è gettare maggiore luce sull’opera drammaturgica di Ginzburg, tenuta a lungo in ombra rispetto al resto della sua produzione letteraria, per collocarla all’interno della drammaturgia italiana, cercando di capire come avviene il suo esordio a teatro. Si prende in esame la prima opera drammaturgica della scrittrice Ti ho sposato per allegria che dà avvio a un’attività di autrice teatrale talmente intensa, che copre il periodo dal 1965 al 1991. Lo studio evidenzia come il teatro per la (...) scrittrice sia la continuazione della vena narrativa con altri mezzi e la possibilità di dare voce a punti di vista diversi. Inoltre si cerca di spiegare perché il teatro dell’autrice sia definito ‘di parola’ o ‘della chiacchiera’ e per quale motivo l’uso delle didascalie nei suoi drammi sia limitato. Si arriva a constatare che il suo è un teatro-cronaca che tende a processare il presente in chiave domestica. (shrink)

Interview of Amina Kkhelufi, Kseniia Myroshnyk, Nataliia Reva with Natalia Viatkina.

Globalization has now become an integral part of our lives. One of the basic components of globalization is the integration process that involves all areas of human life including language evolution. We consequently look at this problem in terms of language and natural language processes influenced by a complex variety of factors—both interlinguistic and extralinguistic-focusing mainly on the linguistic contacts with emphasis on areal aspects.

There are two traditions of thinking about idealization offering almost opposite views on their functioning and epistemic status. While one tradition views idealizations as epistemic deficiencies, the other one highlights the epistemic benefits of idealization. Both of these, however, identify idealization with misrepresentation. In this article, we instead approach idealization from the artifactual perspective, comparing it to the distortion-to-reality accounts of idealization, and exemplifying it through the case of the Hodgkin and Huxley model of nerve impulse. From the artifactual perspective, (...) the epistemic benefits and deficiencies introduced by idealization frequently come in a package due to the way idealization draws together different resources in model construction. Accordingly, idealization tends to be holistic in that it is not often easily attributable to just some specific parts of the model. Instead, the idealizing process tightly embeds theoretical concepts and formal tools into the construction of a model. (shrink)

In this paper we aim to think systematically about, formulate, and begin addressing some of the challenges to applying theories of moral responsibility to behaviors shaped by a particular subset of unsettling psychological complexities: namely, implicit biases.

Natalia Carrillo and Tarja Knuuttila claim that there are two traditions of thinking about idealization offering almost opposite views on their functioning and epistemic status. While one tradition views idealizations as epistemic deficiencies, the other one highlights the epistemic benefits of idealization. Both of them treat idealizations as deliberate misrepresentations, however. They then argue for an artifactual account of idealization, comparing it to the traditional accounts of idealization, and exemplifying it through the Hodgkin and Huxley model of the nerve (...) impulse. From the artifactual perspective, the epistemic benefits and deficiencies introduced by idealization frequently come in a package due to the way idealization draws together different resources in model construction. Accordingly, idealization tends to be holistic in that it is not often easily attributable to some specific parts of the model. They conclude that the artifactual approach offers a unifying view into idealization in that it is able to recover several basic philosophical insights motivating both the deficiency and epistemic benefit accounts, while being simultaneously detached from the idea of distortion by misrepresentation. (shrink)

Nursing is at the same time a vocation, a profession and a job. By nature, nursing is a moral endeavor, and being a ‘good nurse’ is an issue and an aspiration for professionals. The aim of our qualitative research project carried out with 18 nurse teachers at a university nursing school in Brazil was to identify the ethical image of nursing. In semistructured interviews the participants were asked to choose one of several pictures, to justify their choice and explain what (...) they meant by an ethical nurse. Five different perspectives were revealed: good nurses fulfill their duties correctly; they are proactive patient advocates; they are prepared and available to welcome others as persons; they are talented, competent, and carry out professional duties excellently; and they combine authority with power sharing in patient care. The results point to a transition phase from a historical introjection of religious values of obedience and service to a new sense of a secular, proactive, scientific and professional identity. (shrink)

In philosophy of science, abstraction tends to be subsumed under representation, often being described as the omission of a target’s features when it is represented. This approach to abstraction sidesteps cognitive aspects of abstraction processes. However, cognitive aspects of abstraction are important in understanding the role of historically grounded epistemic criteria supporting modeling in science. Drawing on recent work on the relation between metaphor and abstraction, we introduce the concept of paths of abstraction, and use historical and contemporary examples to (...) point to their role in guiding the development of relevance criteria which support modeling strategies in science. (shrink)

New mechanical philosophy posits that explanations in the life sciences involve the decomposition of a system into its entities and their respective activities and organization that are responsible for the explanandum phenomenon. This mechanistic account of explanation has proven problematic in its application to mathematical models, leading the mechanists to suggest different ways of aligning abstract models with the mechanist program. Initially, the discussion centered on whether the Hodgkin-Huxley model is explanatory. Network models provided another complication, as they apply to (...) a wide number of materially diverse systems. In this article, we examine the various attempts to integrate abstract models within the mechanist program, also presenting a further challenge: the Heimburg-Jackson model, which was introduced as an alternative to the Hodgkin-Huxley model. We argue that although the notion of abstraction as the omission of irrelevant mechanistic details appears to give a mechanistic solution for accommodating abstract models, this notion does not suit models whose epistemic strategy is not decompositional. As a result, the mechanist has to choose whether to dilute the mechanistic approach nearly beyond recognition or to claim that many, if not most, abstract theoretical models do not deliver mechanistic explanations, or qualify as explanatory at all. (shrink)

Sympathy is a powerful principle in human nature, which can change our passions, sentiments and ways of thinking. For the 18th century Scottish philosopher David Hume, sympathy is a working mechanism accountable for a wide range of communication: the ways of interacting with the others’ affections, emotions, sentiments, inclinations, ways of thinking and even opinions. The present paper intends to find a systematic reading of Hume’s Treatise of Human Nature from the point of view of what the mechanism of sympathetic (...) communication implies in terms of strengthening our action of understanding, of being sensitive to, and vicariously experiencing the feelings, thoughts, and experience of others. Hume’s description of the sympathetic mechanism appears to suggest that sympathetic passions come upon us purely by natural means in a passive manner, without the active use of any of our faculties. Consequently, scholarly attention is drawn to the mechanistic character of the sympathetic process; its automatic nature is emphasized to such an extent that some experts even find it to be completely void of any reflective process. The current study investigates to what extent the sympathetic process can actively be modified and in what manner sympathetic feelings can be generated as described in Hume’s system of emotions. The paper identifies at which points the otherwise mechanically and passively operating process of sympathetic feelings is open to be modified by actively altering or strengthening certain skeletal points of the mechanism. I argue that the alterations can be initiated by the person who receives the sympathetic feelings and also by the person whose passions are transmitted, moreover even by a third party. In a seemingly mechanic model, there is room for altering or at least amplifying one’s sympathetic feelings. (shrink)

In this paper, we present a new questionnaire for the assessment of self-control as an individual trait. We describe the process of construction of this assessment tool. We also report the results of relevant validation studies. The questionnaire has two independent versions, one based on self-reports and another one based on other-reports. The first version consists of five subscales, called Initiative and Persistence, Proactive Control, Switching and Flexibility, Inhibition and Adjournment, and Goal Maintenance. Seven samples of participants took part in (...) the validation study. The second version has not been split into subscales. Both versions obtained satisfactory indices of internal consistency, assessed with Cronbach’s alpha. The NAS-50 and NAS-40 scores were highly correlated with other measures of self-control, including Tangney, Baumeister, and Boone’s self-control scale. They also proved to be entirely independent of general intelligence. In conclusion, both versions can be regarded reliable and valid enough, and therefore suitable for the assessment of trait self-control for research purposes. (shrink)

The subject of the study is Bernardo Bertolucci's film "The Last Emperor", in particular, the coloristic of the film and the psychology of the image of the main character, which is largely revealed through the color palette and individual artistic details. The object of research is the language of cinematography, cinematographic artistic techniques. Despite the sometimes shocking images and plots, Bertolucci's films were highly appreciated by the international community and domestic film critics due to their artistic solution and topical issues (...) affecting the problems of class struggle and anti-fascist themes. The author of the article examines the image of the main character of the film, Aisingero Pu Yi, the last emperor of China and Manchukuo. The film is based on real historical events taking place in the first half of the 20th century, so the dramatic collisions of the character are not perceived by the viewer as some kind of abstract problem. Against the backdrop of the complex historical changes that China has faced, many questions of the formation and self-determination of the individual are being raised. The image of Emperor Pu Yi is revealed gradually through a comparison of two storylines and the color scheme of the film, since it is the color palette that helps to subtly and meaningfully convey the psychological content of the character. The main research methods are analytical and comparative-historical. The composition of the film and the dynamics of the change in the color palette of individual episodes are analyzed, which makes it possible to trace the evolution of the image. The author comes to the conclusion that it was the coloristic solution of the film that allowed the creators to convey the national color and historical atmosphere of China of a certain historical period and show a vivid image of the protagonist on the screen. (shrink)

“Heidegger and Ethics” remains a controversial topic among Heidegger scholars. What appears particularly troublesome is the conjunction itself, [which hints on a link between] Heidegger and ethics. Heidegger proposes to consider ethics in its original source, distinguishing it from morality and from “ethics” as a “philosophical discipline,” which often concerns with social or political issues. Heidegger distinguishes ἔuο6 from ἦ?uο6, preferring to discuss “ethos” instead of “ethics.” Heidegger's main “hero” here is Aristotle. When referring to Aristotelian texts, Heidegger attempts nothing (...) less but to rethink the “first” part of first philosophy. The leading question in interpretation of Aristotle is the question of the objectness of Being, in which both Being of human and Being of life are interpreted. Heidegger asks himself what the phenomenological foundation for explicating the [meaning] of man is, and what categories evolve from this foundation. This article focuses on the same question. It begins wi... (shrink)

Access can either be first-order or second-order. First order access concerns whether contents achieve representation in phenomenal consciousness at all; second-order access concerns whether phenomenally conscious contents are selected for metacognitive, higher order processing by reflective consciousness. When the optional and flexible nature of second-order access is kept in mind, there remain strong reasons to believe that exclusion failure can indeed isolate phenomenally conscious stimuli that are not so accessed. Irvine’s [Irvine, E. . Signal detection theory, the exclusion failure paradigm (...) and weak consciousness—Evidence for the access/phenomenal distinction? Consciousness and Cognition.] partial access argument fails because exclusion failure is indeed due to lack of second-order access, not insufficient phenomenally conscious information. Further, the enable account conforms with both qualitative differences and subjective report, and is simpler than the endow account. Finally, although first-order access may be a distinct and important process, second-order access arguably reflects the core meaning of access generally. (shrink)

Access can either be first-order or second-order. First order access concerns whether contents achieve representation in phenomenal consciousness at all; second-order access concerns whether phenomenally conscious contents are selected for metacognitive, higher order processing by reflective consciousness. When the optional and flexible nature of second-order access is kept in mind, there remain strong reasons to believe that exclusion failure can indeed isolate phenomenally conscious stimuli that are not so accessed. Irvine’s [Irvine, E. . Signal detection theory, the exclusion failure paradigm (...) and weak consciousness—Evidence for the access/phenomenal distinction? Consciousness and Cognition.] partial access argument fails because exclusion failure is indeed due to lack of second-order access, not insufficient phenomenally conscious information. Further, the enable account conforms with both qualitative differences and subjective report, and is simpler than the endow account. Finally, although first-order access may be a distinct and important process, second-order access arguably reflects the core meaning of access generally. (shrink)