The processes underwriting the acquisition of culture remain unclear. How are shared habits, norms, and expectations learned and maintained with precision and reliability across large-scale sociocultural ensembles? Is there a unifying account of the mechanisms involved in the acquisition of culture? Notions such as “shared expectations,” the “selective patterning of attention and behaviour,” “cultural evolution,” “cultural inheritance,” and “implicit learning” are the main candidates to underpin a unifying account of cognition and the acquisition of culture; however, their interactions require greater (...) specification and clarification. In this article, we integrate these candidates using the variational (free-energy) approach to human cognition and culture in theoretical neuroscience. We describe the construction by humans of social niches that afford epistemic resources called cultural affordances. We argue that human agents learn the shared habits, norms, and expectations of their culture through immersive participation in patterned cultural practices that selectively pattern attention and behaviour. We call this process “thinking through other minds” (TTOM) – in effect, the process of inferring other agents’ expectations about the world and how to behave in social context. We argue that for humans, information from and about other people's expectations constitutes the primary domain of statistical regularities that humans leverage to predict and organize behaviour. The integrative model we offer has implications that can advance theories of cognition, enculturation, adaptation, and psychopathology. Crucially, this formal (variational) treatment seeks to resolve key debates in current cognitive science, such as the distinction between internalist and externalist accounts of theory of mind abilities and the more fundamental distinction between dynamical and representational accounts of enactivism. (shrink)

In his paper “Has Austin Refuted the Sense-Datum Theory?” A. J. Ayer contends that the argument from illusion calls attention to perspectival distortion, perceptual misidentification and elusive perceptual belief only in order to establish the possibility of perceptual error. Pointing to our occasional perceptual failures reminds us that perceptual error is always logically possible—that any particular perceptual belief to the effect that one is perceiving a physical surface could be mistaken. This in turn is thought by Ayer to show that (...) the ordinary belief that we perceive physical surfaces requires qualification—along lines urged by sense-datum philosophers—to the effect that even in those situations properly described for non-philosophical purposes as perceptions of physical surfaces it cannot be physical surfaces that are literally present to one's senses. Ayer believes that this can be established, for any given case, by the possibility of perceptual error alone. (shrink)

The heme‐containing cytochromes P‐450 are a ubiquitous family of monooxygenase isozymes responsible for the oxidative metabolism of a wide variety of endogenous as well as exogenous compounds. Many of the compounds metabolized by this enzyme system are effectively detoxified and converted to derivatives more easily eliminated from the organism. However, some compounds can be activated to reactive species capable of eliciting a cascade of toxic lesions, including cancer. Since its discovery nearly 30 years ago, the cytochrome P‐450 enzyme system has (...) received a great deal of attention, particularly in the areas of their mechanisms of metabolism, range of substrate specificity, the purification and characterization of the multiple isozymes and, more recently, the regulation of expression of specific forms. This review will discuss current notions concerning the expression of at least one cytochrome P‐450 isozyme and future directions that should lead to a more complete understanding of cytochrome P‐450 gene expression in general, particularly as it impacts upon biochemical pharmacology. (shrink)

The article by Academician P. L. Kapitsa published below is devoted to problems of the utmost importance, which have come to be termed "global." The Twenty - fifth Congress of the CPSU pointed to the need to study them scientifically and solve them practically, emphasizing that they touch on the interests of humanity as a whole and will exercise an increasingly marked influence on the lives of every people and on the entire system of international relations. In their social philosophical (...) aspects they have been discussed more than once in the pages of Voprosy filosofii. Discussions of these problems took place at the round tables entitled "Man and His Environment" [See translation in our Fall-Winter 1974 number. — Ed., Soviet Studies in Philosophy], "Social Philosophy Problems of Demography," and "Science and Global Problems of Our Time," and numerous articles have been published in such series as "Science and Social Progress," "The Peace Program and the Dialectics of International Relations" [See translation in our Fall 1975 issue. — Ed., Soviet Studies in Philosophy], and "Man — Society — Nature." The editors of the journal, guided by the directives of the Twenty-fifth Party Congress on the need for further investigation of such global problems of our time, are inclined to continue the discussion of them in the future; another round table devoted to these problems is being planned now. The article by Academician P. L. Kapitsa, it seems to us, will provide fruitful stimuli for discussion at this round table, which will probably be published in several installments. As the author himself emphasizes, certain positions in his article are debatable and require discussion. The journal invites philosophers, demographers, economists, and representatives of the natural sciences to take part in discussions of the problems posed. Certain questions examined in Kapitsa's article are also treated in articles by Howard L. Parsons, A. D. Ado, and Iu. A. Kirshin published in this issue of the journal. (shrink)

The fragmentary columns of the Fourth Book of Philodemus' περ μονσικς were the first-fruits of Herculaneum, published in 1793, with venturesome reconstructions and learned notes, by the Academici of Naples. Fragments of the other books occur in four volumes of the Collectio Altera of 1862–5. A. Teubner Text by J. Kemke, a pupil of Bücheler, appeared in 1884, upon which Gomperz made a number of improvements in a pamphlet published in the following year. Otherwise, save for a few pages in (...) H. Abert's Die Lehre vom Ethos in der griechischen Musik published in 1899, the work has attracted very little attention; which is scarcely surprising in view of the state of the text and the peculiar awkwardness of Philodemus' Greek. (shrink)

In Britain doctors and others concerned with the treatment of offenders in prison may consult the Butler Report (see Focus, pp 157) and specialist journals, but these sources are concerned with the system in Britain only. In America the situation is different, both in organization and in certain attitudes. Dr Peter L Sissons has therefore provided a companion article to that of Dr Paul Bowden (page 163) describing the various medical issues in prisons. The main difference between the treatment of (...) offenders in prisons in America and in Britain lies in the nature of the federal system which means that each state may operate a different system in a variety of prisons and prison medical services are as various. Nationally, the prison systems are 'structured to treat and cure the offender'. Therefore it follows that the prison medical officer is only one of the professionals concerned with this 'cure' of the offender. This principle also applies to any form of research: medical research in prisons is part of a programme which covers a wide field of social and judicial research. The prison medical officer (where there is one) has of course to look after sick prisoners, and the American idea of 'cure' is also expressed in the need for more corrective surgery where, for example, it is necessary to remove physical impediments to social rehabilitation. But a doctor is only found on the staff of those institutions which are large: in the smaller prisons there may be only first-aid facilities, and no specially appointed doctor in the community. Moreover medicines are often dispensed by medical auxiliaries who are sometimes prisoners themselves. Finally, in America prisoners are regularly invited to volunteer as subjects for medical and social research for which they are paid. In short, although it is hoped to 'cure' a prisoner he is a criminal first and a patient second. (shrink)