This article examines the cameraless negatives revealing the imprints of four fingers obtained in Turin in February 1907 during the second of two séances with renowned medium Eusapia Palladino organized by physiologists Alberto Aggazzotti, Carlo Foà and Amedeo Hertlizka. By looking at the material and performative components of the séance, it presents spiritualist cameraless photography as a productive tool for rethinking and reframing the photographic medium from a cross-disciplinary perspective questioning medium specific histories and dominant genealogies.

Quine is one of the most influential of contemporary philosophers, whose work has ranged broadly across a great number of topics and issues in a career spanning some fifty years. In this collection a group of distinguished philosophers offer a sustained critical evaluation of the full range of Quine's writings. Amongst the topics addressed are interpretation, epistemology, ontology, modality, and mathematical truth. This collection will certainly influence all future discussion of Quine. The contributors include: George Boolos, H-N. Castaneda, Donald Davidson, (...) Umberto Eco, Dagfinn Follesdal, James Higginbotham, Charles Parsons, Hilary Putnam, Barry Stroud, and Bas van Fraassen. However, Quine is given the last word, responding to the essays in the final contribution. (shrink)

According to a widespread interpretation, in the Investigations Wittgenstein adopted a deflationary or redundancy theory of truth. On this view, Wittgenstein’s pronouncements about truth should be understood in the light of his invocation of the equivalences ‘p’ is true = p and ‘p’ is false = not p. This paper shows that this interpretation does not do justice to Wittgenstein’s thoughts. I will be claiming that, in fact, in his second book Wittgenstein is returning to the pre-Tractarian notion of bipolarity, (...) and that his new development of this notion in the Investigations excludes the redundancy-deflationary reading. Wittgenstein’s thoughts about truth are instead compatible with another interpretative option: Wittgenstein remains faithful to his methodological pronouncements, and he merely presents us with platitudes about the notions of “true” and “false”. (shrink)

In the present meta-analysis, we examined the effect of cognitive training on the Executive Function (EF) of preschool children (age range: 3-6 years). We selected a final set of 32 studies from 27 papers with a total sample of 123 effect sizes. We found an overall effect of cognitive training for improving EF (g =.352; k = 123; p <.001), without significant difference between near and far transfer effects on executive domains. No significant additional outcome effects were found for behavioral- (...) and learning-related outcomes. Cognitive training programs for preschoolers are significantly more effective for developmentally at-risk children (ADHD or low socio-economic status) than for children with typical development and without risks. Other significant moderators were computerized versus non-computerized training, individual versus group sessions, and length of training. The number of sessions was not a significant moderator. This is the first demonstration of cognitive training far transfer effects among different executive processes. We discuss this result in relationship with the lower level of modularization of EFs in younger children. (shrink)

Introduction: The two sections of this volume present theoretical developments and practical applicative papers respectively. Theoretical papers cover topics such as intercultural pragmatics, evolutionism, argumentation theory, pragmatics and law, the semantics/pragmatics debate, slurs, and more. The applied papers focus on topics such as pragmatic disorders, mapping places of origin, stance-taking, societal pragmatics, and cultural linguistics. This is the second volume of invited papers that were presented at the inaugural Pragmasofia conference in Palermo in 2016, and like its predecessor presents papers (...) by well-known philosophers, linguists, and a semiotician. The papers present a wide variety of perspectives independent from any one school of thought. (shrink)

I emphasize the general character of the central claim made by Terrence Deacon about the necessity of complementary description of evolving cognitive systems. Next, I clarify and augment one of the claims made in the paper about the tools offered by information theory. Finally, I point to the need of further clarification of some central notions, which should help to make connections across discourses.

Several studies have testified to the importance of a responsive linguistic input for children’s language acquisition and development. In particular, maternal use of expansions, imitations, interpretations, and labels has been shown to promote both children’s language comprehension and production. From this perspective, the present study examined the semantically contingent linguistic input addressed to very preterm children’s comparing it to that directed to full-term children observed during a semi-structured play session when the children were 24 months of age. The relationships between (...) maternal contingent utterances and children’s communicative repertoires were also investigated. The main results showed that mothers of full-term children produced a higher proportion of semantically contingent utterances than those of very preterm children; moreover, this variable was associated with children’s more advanced communicative-linguistic outcomes. Overall, this study supports the interdependence between mothers’ use of certain linguistic strategies and children’s communicative-linguistic repertoire, extending this evidence to children born very preterm and suggesting the importance of considering the semantic contingency aspect of child-directed speech to support the communicative and linguistic development of these children. (shrink)

This article analyses the Swedish TV series Hållbart näringsliv (HN) to study hegemonic discursive formations over the meaning of the climate crisis. Combining new materialist approaches in discourse studies with a political ecology understanding of the socio-ecological entanglement, we propose the concept of technocratic solutionism to understand how the neo-liberal green economy secures instrumentalist discourses on nature in the Swedish context. The discourse-theoretical analysis of nine HN episodes identifies four nodal points which articulate the technocratic solutionist discourse: capital’s leading role, (...) Nordic exceptionalism, substitutionalism and long-termism. We argue that the climate crisis can be understood as a materiality that dislocates capitalist assemblages, which then, in response, deploy a techno-solutionism discourse to protect the core principles of economic growth and profitability while marginalizing potential radical alternatives. (shrink)

Standard models of visual perception hold that vision is an inferential or interpretative process. Such models are said to be superior to competing, non-inferential views in explanatory power. In particular, they are said to be capable of explaining a number of otherwise mysterious, visual phenomena such as multi-stable perception. Multi-stable perception paradigmatically occurs in the presence of ambiguous figures, single images that can give rise to two or more distinct percepts. Different interpretations are said to produce the different percepts. In (...) this paper, I argue that a non-inferential account of visual perception is just as capable of explaining multi-stable perception. I propose an embedded understanding of vision, and show how the embedded account can, after properly qualifying them, use the explanatory resources of the inferential view to explain just what such a view explains. (shrink)

Ambiguous figures pose a problem for representationalists, particularly for representationalists who believe that the content of perceptual experience is non-conceptual (MacPherson in Nous 40(1):82–117, 2006). This is because, in viewing ambiguous figures, subjects have perceptual experiences that differ in phenomenal properties without differing in non-conceptual content. In this paper, I argue that ambiguous figures pose no problem for non-conceptual representationalists. I argue that aspect shifts do not presuppose or require the possession of sophisticated conceptual resources and that, although viewing ambiguous (...) figures often causes a change in phenomenal properties, this change is accompanied by a change in non-conceptual content. I illustrate the case by considering specific examples. (shrink)

In this work we try to distinguish five levels of the constitution of reality in Conrad Martius’ Realontologie (1923) (Real Ontology). The difference between “existential autonomy” and “existential relativity” seems to be the first one. The second level of the constitution of reality concerns the problem of “whatness” (Washeit) and the substantial reality (Realität). We can find the third level in the materiality from the eidetical point of view. The fourth level of the constitution of reality concerns the material formation (...) as presupposition of a personal essence. Finally we can distinguish a fifth level of the constitution of the reality in the essential stratification. (shrink)

Can one see one thing as another without possessing a concept of it? The answer to this question is intuitively negative. This is because seeing x as F is usually taken to consist in the application of the concept F to x . Seeing the duck-rabbit figure as a duck figure, for instance, involves applying the concept DUCK to the figure; thus, one cannot see the figure as the figure of a duck unless one has the concept of a duck (...) and is able to deploy it when looking at the figure. Nearly by definition, then, one cannot see x as F without possessing a concept of F. Contrary to this line of reasoning, this article treats the question of whether we can see x as F without possessing a concept of F as an open and partially empirical question. Seeing x as F involves seeing x in a certain way, namely as F, and whether concepts are required in order to see something in a certain way is an open question. Accordingly, what follows offers a proposal for an alternative way of understanding seeing–as that does not appeal to concept application. (shrink)

L'origine dell'atto intenzionale e la reattività psichica e spirituale -- La costituzione genetica dell'Io personale e la scelta della relazione autentica -- L'intreccio tra volontà e dovere morale : la scelta di divenire un Sé e la dimensione dell'ascolto -- Dalla formazione personale al senso della comunità : la Bildung etica e l'etica della Bildung.

Phenomenology, New Materialism, and Advances In the Pulsatile Imaginary: Rites Of Disimagination brings together scholars from art history and image theory, literary studies and philosophy. Chapters of this volume engage with the overarching theme of imagination as a pulsatile force embedded in words, images, and all imaginative modes of instantiation of the work of art in their elemental aspects, expressed in visual arts, and literature, as well as bodily schemata of choreographic and musical performances. The papers employ contrasting and complementing (...) methods from literary studies and image theory, especially phenomenology and new materialism, such as G. Bachelard and M. Merleau-Ponty, G. Bataille, J. Kristeva, P. Lacoue-Labarthe and J. Sallis, G. Didi-Huberman, H. Belting and A. Warburg, J. Bennett and Jason M. Wirth, as well as performance studies. Chapters in this volume inquire into the imaginative forces that disrupt and disinhibit the traditional habits of imagination to create pulsatile imaginaries, i.e., a dynamic process of “emergence-resurgence” of image manifested in the act of creation and in perception. This process does not properly imply a destruction of image, but rather a withdrawal of image from the realm of representation to give way to new images and new imaginative experiences. The newly coined term “rite of disimagination” points out to this operation, consecutively implying imagining and disimaging that both denies, as well as validates image – it valorizes matter. The affirmation of the materiality of image is “the re-incarnation of image.”. (shrink)

This paper explores the issue of performative spaces in the medieval Latin Church, examining the mindsets of the time and the ways practitioners adopted the Platonic notion of world harmony. We then look at the Palatine Chapel of Aachen in the light of the Plato’s doctrine. At the heart of this analysis will be the cosmological drama at the creation of the world, described by Ambrose as a chorus of the constitutive elements. It is from this image that the proto-model (...) of the Christian Church as ‘moving waters’ was derived, a vision shared by both the Eastern and the Western world. To this day, the Palatine chapel of Aquisgranum conveys the appearance of the Ambrosian vision of the primordial waters, with its renewed marble revetments imitating the cosmic waters. The church is designed according to propria dispositione, i. e. modularity. Augustine’s concept of modularity and his psychology of sound, space, movement, and time will be explored in the hypothetical inquiry into the dramatization of space at Aachen. Here, we find that the Chapel has two choreographies which unfold in the space like-stage set up as a synthesis of the arts shaped according to numbers. Relevant concepts to our topic will emerge in the analysis, such as concord, consonance and agreement, measure and movement – metaphors of the idea of a ‘dance’ that exceeds the character of a mere performance. (shrink)

In this paper we present a theoretical framework to understand the underlying psychological mechanism involved in human-Companion Robot interactions. At first, we take the case of Sexual Robotics, where the psychological dynamics are more evident, to thereafter extend the discussion to Companion Robotics in general. First, we discuss the differences between a sex-toy and a Sexual Robots, concluding that the latter may establish a collusive and confirmative dynamics with the user. We claim that the collusiveness leads to two main consequences, (...) such as the fixation on a specific and atypical type of sexual interaction, called paraphilic, and to the infantilization of the user, which we explain through the theoretical framework of “object-relation theory”. We argue that these dynamics may degrade to an infantile stage the relational abilities of users, extending this argument to Companion Robots in general. Then, we enquire if and how the relational dynamics enacted in HRI may shift to human relations: we discuss the analogy with virtual reality concluding that, under certain condition, a symbolic shift might happen. In the last part of this work, we propose an experimental setup to verify if a collusive and confirmative interaction with a Companion Robot can, over time, impact on the user’s ability to manage relational frustration. (shrink)

Philosophers of perception widely agree that sensory properties, like color, are represented in perceptual experience. Arguments are usually needed to establish that something other than sensory properties, for example three-dimensional objects or kind properties, are part of perceptual content. Call the idea that sensory properties are represented in perceptual experience the Sensation View (SV). Given its widespread acceptance, we may expect to find strong reasons for holding SV. In this paper, I argue that we lack such reasons: SV is largely (...) unjustified. We have surprisingly poor justification for thinking that sensory properties are represented in perception. By focusing on the case of vision, I show that an embedded understanding of visual perception, and empirical evidence in cognitive psychology, indicate that SV is far from warranted. (shrink)

This article seeks to advance a way of being in the world of the hu-man person that encompasses both the truest sense of freedom of choice and its result, namely, happiness. Starting from the proposal of a relational ethics in Stein I intend to show how, in the authentic relationship through Einfühlung, it is possible to arrive at the “revelation” of what is deeper in ourselves, i.e., the personal core that characterizes us as unique and unrepeatable entities. The growth and (...) development of our personalities occurs coherently with who we are. But the “choice” to adhere to the authenticity of a deep self is a choice of freedom that also leads one to harmony, to the acceptance of one’s finitude and weaknesses, and thus to living well with who one “really” is. This result coincides with being happy. (shrink)

Nel breve spazio del presente lavoro, intendo dar conto dell’“habitus teologico” che caratterizza lo stile filosofico di Alasdair MacIntyre : “religiously musical” è infatti — a mio avviso — il più insolito, e allo stesso tempo il più suadente, epiteto attribuito al filosofo scozzese dai teologi James Gustafson e Stanley Hauerwas. Tale habitus è altresì esaltato dalla diffusa propensione a saldare insieme — senza apparente soluzione di continuità — il modus philosophandi macintyriano e alcune recenti figure della teologia cristiana post–liberale (...) e post–moderna, di cui ci occuperemo in seguito: soprattutto la “teologia narrativa” di Hans Frei, George Lindbeck, et. al., ma anche la “radical orthodoxy” di John Milbank, Catherine Pickstock, Graham Ward, et. al. Sebbene MacIntyre non abbia replicato direttamente a simili tentativi di “appropriazione teologica” del suo pensiero, ritengo, comunque, che i tempi siano maturi per riconoscere — a lui e al “tomismo analitico” — un ruolo sui generis nell’evoluzione della tradizione aristotelico–tomista del XX secolo : ruolo distinto, ma non separato, rispetto a quello coevo di quanti — in ambito continentale — hanno tenacemente proseguito la ricerca filosofica e teologica nel solco di Tommaso, come ad esempio Marie–Dominique Chenu, Yves Congar, Cornelio Fabro, Etienne Gilson, Jacques Maritain, Edith Stein, et al. (shrink)

Albert Hirschman's possibilism originated from his work on development and democracy; at the same time, it offered tools for evaluating projects that Judith Tendler innovatively utilized in her professional work, where she interweaved theory and practice, methodology and ethics. Starting from observation in the field, comparisons, linkages, inverted sequences and unexpected consequences are really key elements in a type of evaluation that works toward improvement, "for a better world." The enduring vitality of the thinking of these forerunners is what motivates (...) the reconstruction of their intellectual trajectories: from the way of learning from the successes and failures of programs, to how to deal with such themes as complexity, mechanisms, uncertainty, change, that are at the core of current debates. The book aims at showing both the relevance of practical work for the advancement of social theory, and the need for a theoretical attitude - based on a capacity of being surprised - for the strengthening of democratic professionalism and the attainment of sound results. It will constitute a basic reading for social scientists, decision-makers, policy implementers, evaluators and students. (shrink)

Approaches to foster motor creativity differ according to whether creative movements are assumed to be enacted creative ideas, or solutions to emerging motor problems that arise from task and environmental constraints. The twofold aim of the current study was to investigate whether an enriched physical education intervention delivered with a joint constraints-led and cognitive stimulation approach fosters motor creativity, and the responsiveness to the intervention is moderated by baseline motor and cognitive skills and sex; the intervention may benefit motor creativity (...) through gains in motor coordination, executive function, and creative thinking. Ninety-five children, aged 6–9 years, participated in a 6-month group randomized trial with specialist-led enriched PE vs. generalist-led conventional PE. Before and after the intervention, Bertsch’s Test of Motor Creativity, Movement Assessment Battery for Children, Random Number Generation task and Torrance Test of Creative Thinking were administered. Linear mixed models were run accounting for the random effects of data clusters. Multiple mediation analysis was performed to assess whether motor coordination, executive function and creative thinking mediated any improvement of motor creativity. Results showed that specialist-led enriched PE, compared to generalist-led conventional practice, elicited a more pronounced improvement in all motor creativity dimensions independently of baseline levels of motor and cognitive skills and sex; and improved motor creativity was partially mediated by improved motor coordination and, as regards motor flexibility, also by improved inhibitory ability. In conclusion, enriching PE with tailored manipulations of constraints and variability may enhance the ability to create multiple and original task-pertinent movements both directly and through indirect paths. The results are discussed extending to motor creativity a theoretical framework that distinguishes different creativity modes. The intervention may have fostered the generation of creative movements directly through the exposure to variation in constraints, activating the sensorimotor ‘flow’ mode of creativity that bypasses higher-order cognition, but also indirectly through a systematic and conscious convergence on solutions, activating the ‘deliberate’ mode of creativity that relies on inhibition to reject common or task-inappropriate movement categories. (shrink)

The final part of Kitarō Nishida’s first major work, An Inquiry into the Good (Zen no kenkyū 善の研究) (henceforth IG), is devoted to religion, famously defined in the preface to the book as the “consummation of philosophy” (哲学の終結) (Complete Works, vol. 1, p. 6).1 Though Nishida did not explicitly deal with the topic for many years, religion made a comeback in his late years, becoming the theme of his last published essay, The Logic of Logos and the Religious Worldview (Bashoteki (...) ronri to shūkyōteki sekaikan 場所的論理と宗教的世界観) (henceforth LLRW).2 In these two essays on religion, written respectively at the beginning and at the very end of Nishida’s philosophical career, one can find explicit references to mysticism, which .. (shrink)

This paper argues that there are three reasons why we should regard Wittgenstein's Tractatus as a forerunner of formal semantics: Wittgenstein is convinced that we can apply formal notions to natur...

What is the proper unit of analysis in the psycholinguistics of dialog? While classical approaches are largely based on models of individual linguistic processing, recent advances stress the social coordinative nature of dialog. In the influential interactive alignment model, dialogue is thus approached as the progressive entrainment of interlocutors' linguistic behaviors toward the alignment of situation models. Still, the driving mechanisms are attributed to individual cognition in the form of automatic structural priming. Challenging these ideas, we outline a dynamical framework (...) for studying dialog based on the notion of interpersonal synergy. Crucial to this synergetic model is the emphasis on dialog as an emergent, self-organizing, interpersonal system capable of functional coordination. A consequence of this model is that linguistic processes cannot be reduced to the workings of individual cognitive systems but must be approached also at the interpersonal level. From the synergy model follows a number of new predictions: beyond simple synchrony, good dialog affords complementary dynamics, constrained by contextual sensitivity and functional specificity. We substantiate our arguments by reference to recent empirical studies supporting the idea of dialog as interpersonal synergy. (shrink)

In the sentence “Tom sits,” the name distinguishes Tom from anyone else, whereas the predicate assimilates Tom, Theaetetus, and anyone else to whom the predicate applies. The name marks out its bearer and the predicate groups together what it applies to. On that ground, his name is used to trace back Tom, and the predi- cate is used to describe and classify what it applies to. In both cases, the semantic link is a direct link between expressions and particulars. Here, (...) I will explore the workings of predicative names along the direction just hinted at. The analysis of predication has been less central to philosophical investigation than that of referen- tial expressions. Some problems have concerned the unity of the sentence—what makes us understand “The baby cries” as a sentence rather than a list of words? Other problems have been what a predicate was taken to stand for, properties and relations, and the understanding of either at the ontological level. If a predicate refers to a property or a relation, yet predication, which is central to our understand- ing of predicates, applies it to one or more particulars. On the background hinted at, these problems might be differently viewed. (shrink)

Noyau de la future Articella, l’ Ars medicine est une collection de textes médicaux qui fut à la base de l’enseignement salernitain au xii e siècle ; en matière d’urologie ce programme prévoyait la lecture du Liber urinarum Theophili, traduction gréco-latine d’un texte byzantin à visée pratique. Lors de leur lecture de cet opuscule, les maîtres de Salerne utilisèrent aussi le Liber urinarum Isaac, monographie assez complète dont existait une version arabo-latine par Constantin l’Africain (fin xi e s.). Cet article (...) se propose d’évaluer l’importance doctrinale que recouvre l’œuvre d’Isaac dans les commentaires de Barthélemy et Maurus de Salerne. (shrink)