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.

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 book provides a major new cross-disciplinary framework for thinking about poverty and human rights. Drawing on the fields of ethics, economics, and international law, Vizard demonstrates how the work of Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen has expanded and deepened human rights discourse across traditional disciplinary divides.

It is a commonly expressed sentiment that the science and philosophy of well-being would do well to learn from each other. Typically such calls identify mistakes and bad practices on both sides that would be remedied if scientists picked the right bit of philosophy and philosophers picked the right bit of science. We argue that the differences between philosophers and scientists thinking about well-being are more difficult to reconcile than such calls suggest, and that pluralism is central to this task. (...) Pluralism is a stance that explicitly drives towards accommodating and nurturing the richness and diversity of well-being, both as a concept and as an object of inquiry. We show that well-being science manifests a contingent pluralism at the level of methodology, whereas philosophy of well-being has largely rejected pluralism at the conceptual level. Recently, things have begun to change. Within philosophy, conceptual monism is under attack. But so is methodological pluralism within science. We welcome the first development, and bemoan the second. We argue that a joined-up philosophy and science of well-being should recognise the virtues of both conceptual and methodological pluralism. Philosophers should embrace the methodological justification of pluralism that can be found in the well-being sciences, and scientists should embrace the conceptual reasons to be pluralist that can be found in philosophical debate. (shrink)

The concept of cooperative communities that enforce norm conformity through reward, as well as shaming, ridicule, and ostracism, has been central to anthropology since the work of Durkheim. Prevailing approaches from evolutionary theory explain the willingness to exert sanctions to enforce norms as self-interested behavior, while recent experimental studies suggest that altruistic rewarding and punishing—“strong reciprocity”—play an important role in promoting cooperation. This paper will use data from 308 conversations among the Ju/’hoansi (!Kung) Bushmen (a) to examine the dynamics of (...) norm enforcement, (b) to evaluate the costs of punishment in a forager society and understand how they are reduced, and (c) to determine whether hypotheses that center on individual self-interest provide sufficient explanations for bearing the costs of norm enforcement, or whether there is evidence for strong reciprocity. (shrink)

People who have not experienced diseases and health conditions tend to judge them to be worse than they are reported to be by people who have experienced them. This phenomenon, known as the disability paradox, presents a challenge for health policy, and in particular, healthcare resource distribution. This divergence between patient and public preferences is most plausibly explained as a result of hedonic adaptation, a widespread phenomenon in which people tend to adapt fairly quickly to the state they are in, (...) good or bad, and adjust their baseline utility accordingly.If patient utilities can be shown to be inappropriate for use in public policy decision making, the disability paradox fades away. This paper offers a critique of one such attempt: the idea that adaptation leads to adaptive preferences. I argue that none of the main accounts of adaptive preferences in fact characterise adapted patient preferences as irrational. Adapted preferences should not, therefore, be treated as synonymous with adaptive preferences. I suggest that much patient adaptation should be understood as a form of the ubiquitous human ability to respond to environmental change. Consequently, we ought not to discount patient preferences. (shrink)

This ground-breaking book is designed to raise awareness of human rights implications in psychology, and provide knowledge and tools enabling psychologists to put a human rights perspective into practice. Psychologists have always been deeply engaged in alleviating the harmful consequences human rights violations have on individuals. However, despite the fundamental role that human rights play for professional psychology and psychologists, human rights education is underdeveloped in psychologists' academic and vocational training. This book, the first of its kind, looks to change (...) this, by: raising awareness among professional psychologists, university teachers and psychology students about their role as human rights promoters and protectors providing knowledge and tools enabling them to put a human rights perspective into practice providing texts and methods for teaching human rights. Featuring chapters from leading scholars in the field, spanning18 countries and six continents, the book identifies how psychologists can ensure they are practising in a responsible way, as well as contributing to wider society with a clear knowledge of human rights issues in relation to culture, gender, organisations and more. Including hands-on recommendations, case studies and discussion points, this is essential reading for professional psychologists as part of continuing professional development and those in training and taking psychology courses. (shrink)

This book examines the success of Frederick Schauer’s efforts to reclaim force as a core element of a general concept of law by approaching the issue from different legal traditions and distinct perspectives. In discussing Schauer’s main arguments, it contributes to answering the question whether force, sanctions and coercion should be regarded as necessary elements of the concept of law, and whether legal philosophy should be concerned at all with necessary or essential properties. While it was long assumed that legal (...) norms are essentially defined by their force, it was H.L.A. Hart who raised doubts about whether law and coercion are necessarily connected, referring to the empowering, or more generally enabling, character exhibited by some legal norms. Prominent scholars following and refining Hart’s argument built an influential case for excluding force as a necessary element of the concept of law. Most recently, however, Frederick Schauer has made a strong case to reaffirm the force of law, shedding new light on this essential question. This book collects important commentaries, never before published, by prominent legal philosophers evaluating Schauer’s substantive arguments and his claims about jurisprudential methodology. (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)

Evaluation, as the expression of a writer’s attitudes, opinions and values, has become a key term in discourse studies in recent years and has proved to be a particularly fruitful way of analysing academic texts. But while studies have shown the importance of evaluation in research genres, its role in seemingly more promotional academic genres has been largely neglected. This article examines the journal description, a brief but ubiquitous feature of all journals, whether online or in print. Situated at the (...) academic—commercial interface, the JD provides information for prospective readers and authors while endorsing a particular view of the field and positioning the journal in the academic community. Drawing on a corpus of 200 JDs in four contrasting disciplines, we show how evaluation is a key feature of this genre, influencing both lexical choices and rhetorical structure. The analysis contributes both to our understanding of a neglected academic genre and the evaluative resources of language. (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)

Patient safety is a central aspect of healthcare quality, focusing on preventable, iatrogenic harm. Harm, in this context, is typically assumed to mean physical injury to patients, often caused by technical error. However, some contributions to the patient safety literature have argued that disrespectful behavior towards patients can cause harm, even when it does not lead to physical injury. This paper investigates the nature of such dignitary harms and explores whether they should be included within the scope of patient safety (...) as a field of practice. We argue that dignitary harms in health care are—at least sometimes—preventable, iatrogenic harms. While we caution against including dignitary harms within the scope of patient safety just because they are relevantly similar to other iatrogenic harms, we suggest that thinking about dignitary harms can help to elucidate the value of patient safety, and to illuminate the evolving relationship between safety and quality. (shrink)

The paper aims to assess the theory of mind of sexual offenders. We administered to 21 sexual offenders and to 21 nonoffenders two classical first- and second-order ToM tasks, a selection of six Strange Stories, and a semi-structured interview, the Theory of Mind Assessment Scale , which provides a multi-dimensional evaluation of ToM, investigating first- vs. third-person and egocentric vs. allocentric perspectives. Results show that sexual offenders performed worse than controls on second-order ToM tasks, on Strange Stories and on each (...) of the Th.o.m.a.s dimensions, whereas they did as well as the control group on first-order ToM tasks. A detailed analysis of participants’ performance on Th.o.m.a.s. showed that sex offenders performed worse on the third-person than on the first-person ToM scale, and worse on the allocentric than on the egocentric perspective; these findings did not apply to the controls. Implications for future research and treatment are discussed. (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)

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)

Images and Power: Rock Art and Ethics addresses the distinctive ways in which ethical considerations pertain to rock art research within the larger context of the archaeological ethical debate. Marks on stone, with their social and religious implications, give rise to distinctive ethical concerns within the scholarly enterprise as different perceptions between scholars and Native Americans are encountered in regard to worldviews, concepts of space, time, and in the interpretation of the imagery itself. This discourse addresses issues such as the (...) conflicting paradigms of oral traditions and archaeological veracity, differing ideas about landscapes in which rock art occurs, the intrusion of "desired knowledge", and how the past may be robbed by changing interpretations and values on both sides. Case studies are presented in regard to shamanism and war-related imagery. Also addressed are issues surrounding questions of art, aesthetics, and appropriation of imagery by outsiders. Overall, this discourse attempts to clarify points of contention between Euro-American scholars and Native Americans so that we can better recognize the origins of differences and thus promote better mutual understanding in these endeavors."--Publisher's website. (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)

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)

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)

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)

'Quality' is a widely invoked concept in healthcare, and 'quality improvement' is now a central part of healthcare service delivery. However, these concepts and their associated practices represent relatively uncharted territory for applied philosophy and bioethics. In this paper, we explore some of the conceptual complexity of quality in healthcare and argue that quality is best understood to be conceptually plural. Quality is widely agreed to be multidimensional and as such constitutively plural. However, we argue that quality is plural in (...) two further senses. First, quality is competitively plural : that is, different high-level conceptions of quality can be appropriately invoked in different contexts and serve... (shrink)

This study investigates whether the host personality and the primary alterpersonality of a woman with multiple personality disorder are controlled by the left and right hemispheres, respectively. Results support the hypothesis. Behavioral and preference measures indicate that Pe is strongly right handed and Pa is left handed. Verbal and musical dichotic tests show significantly greater accuracy for stimuli presented to the left ear for Pa and to the right ear for Pe. It is concluded that shifts in hemisphericity involve redistribution (...) of attentional resources and callosal suppression. “Conditional handedness” is proposed as a handedness subtype, characterizing persons who alternate personalities and consistently display alternate hand preferences linked to specific personality characteristics. (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 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)

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...

This research aims both at filling the gap in the literature on the psychological research carried out at Würzburg at the beginning of this century, and at showing plausible analogies between some concepts assumed in contemporary research to explain mental processes and those advanced by the psychologists working on thinking at Würzburg. The analysis of the research produced there between 1901 and 1908 highlights the peculiar holistic approach devised for understanding thinking. It was such an approach that allowed Marbe and (...) Orth to discover the so called imageless thought which was found in the associations linking abstract mental contents as well as in judgements and affects. From 1904 on, the research focused mainly on the way in which thinking processes take place: Watt theorized the role of the so called determining tendencies in orienting the course of thinking, and Messer acknowledged the existence of thinking processes of which subjects are unaware. Bühler's most relevant contribution was the systematization in a general framework of the interpretations advanced by the several researchers in explaining the interplay of the different elements responsible for the dynamic course of thinking processes. (shrink)