Las personas somos absolutamente diferentes de las cosas, no cabe ninguna duda al respecto. No obstante, sí debemos diferenciar nítidamente entre los individuos y el concepto de “persona”. Así pues, la persona posee un “horizonte interior”, absolutamente novedoso y que le caracteriza como ser en aproximación a la Verdad y a la Libertad, las cuales no sólo son específicas del propio humano, sino que le son necesarias en cuanto remedios contra la desolación y la tiranía. Asimismo, una sociedad puede ser (...) tiránica en varios sentidos, pero Manuel Mindán sostiene que, para que no lo sea, el individuo entendido como “persona” debe primar siempre sobre el grupo gregario y cerrado. (shrink)

L'étude de la communication nous oblige à aborder l'articulation entre individu et société. Tout en dépassant les métaphores «postales» ou télégraphiques de la transmission de l'information supposant l'existence d'individus isolés, le sociologue Yves Winkin parle d'un «collège invisible» d'auteurs qui nous indiqueraient une approche nous aidant à mieux comprendre les dynamiques concrètes et les enjeux sociaux de la communication. Il faudrait élargir ce «collège» et montrer l'intérêt de l'approche des représentations sociales pour comprendre la construction du sens commun, se rattachant (...) aussi aux travaux d'Alfred Schutz. L'étude de la communication peut ainsi devenir l'analyse d'une ou de plusieurs arènes òu se joue une bataille de conquête et d'influence sociale visant à la «bonne définition» d'un sens partagé.In the study of communication one must deal with the relationship between the individual and society. The sociologist Yves Winkin suggests the idea of an "invisible college" where different authors converge with the intention of overcoming the "postal" or telegraphic model of communication based on the idea of isolated individuals.They turn instead towards a constructivist and interactionist approach. In this paper, following Alfred Schutz’s ideas, I propose to extend this "college" to include the study of social representations to help understand the construction of common sense. I then suggest that the analysis of communication can be regarded as the study of the multiple arenas where social groups compete to achieve more opportunities or more power to influence the "right definition" of sense that is socially approved. (shrink)

Passage 228a7-8 of Plato’s Sophist has been the object of a broad debate by reason of a number of subtle interpretative problems. The present work attempts to take stock of this passage and to put forward a satisfying solution from both a philological and an exegetic perspective. I seek to show that the reading cited by Galen and adopted in the editions of the Sophist (τὴν τοῦ φύσει συγγενοῦς ἔκ τινος διαφθορᾶς διαφοράν) cannot be preferred to the variant found in (...) the manuscripts of the dialogue (τὴν τοῦ φύσει συγγενοῦς ἔκ τινος διαφορᾶς διαφθοράν). As for the interpretation, both readings stand out as problematic. I propose to reconsider the interpretation of the syntagma τοῦ φύσει συγγενοῦς and to translate it as “the natural kinship” rather than as “what is naturally kindred”. The paper continues with an analysis of the role played by kinship in Plato’s philosophy, showing how its sundering can be identified with stasis. (shrink)

How did social communication evolve in primates? In this volume, primatologists, linguists, anthropologists, cognitive scientists and philosophers of science systematically analyze how their specific disciplines demarcate the research questions and methodologies involved in the study of the evolutionary origins of social communication in primates in general, and in humans in particular. In the first part of the book, historians and philosophers of science address how the epistemological frameworks associated with primate communication and language evolution studies have changed over time, and (...) how these conceptual changes affect our current studies on the subject matter. In the second part, scholars provide cutting-edge insights into the various means through which primates communicate socially in both natural and experimental settings. They examine the behavioral building blocks by which primates communicate, and they analyze what the cognitive requirements are for displaying communicative acts. Chapters highlight cross-fostering and language experiments with primates, primate mother-infant communication, the display of emotions and expressions, manual gestures and vocal signals, joint attention, intentionality and theory of mind. The primary focus of the third part is on how these various types of communicative behavior possibly evolved, and how they can be understood as evolutionary precursors to human language. Leading scholars analyze how both manual and vocal gestures gave way to mimetic and imitational protolanguage, and how the latter possibly transitioned into human language. In the final part, we turn to the hominin lineage, and anthropologists, archeologists and linguists investigate what the necessary neurocognitive, anatomical and behavioral features are in order for human language to evolve, and how language differs from other forms of primate communication. (shrink)

Obedience: a simple term. Stanley Milgram, the famous experimental social psychologist, shocked the world with theory about it. Another man, Pol Pot, the infamous leader of the Khmer Rouge, showed how far the desire for obedience could go in human societies. Milgram conducted his experiments in the controlled environment of the US psychology laboratory of the 1960s. Pol Pot experimented with Utopia in the totalitarian Kampuchea of the 1970s. In this article, we discuss the process through which the Khmer Rouge (...) regime created an army of unquestioningly obedient soldiers — including child soldiers. Based on these two cases, we advance a framework on how obedience can be grown or countered. (shrink)

We consider finite partitions of the closure F¯ of an ωα-uniform barrier F. For each partition, we get a homogeneous set having both the same combinatorial and topological structure as F¯, seen as a subspace of the Cantor space 2N.

We uncover fundamental dimensions of the process through which organizations embed the practice of fraternity through embarking on an organizational journey in the direction of the common good. Building on the latest encyclical of Pope Francis, _Fratelli Tutti_, about fraternal and social friendship, we offer insight into the understanding of what it means to become a fraternal organization and reflect on the key ethical and paradoxical challenges for organizations aiming at collectively contributing to the common good. We add to previous (...) work by characterizing this journey as a process involving unique ethical challenges that emerge from the paradoxes associated with this process and how this might change the nature of the relationships between organizations and others within the organizational landscape. (shrink)

What do we mean when we refer to the world? How does the world relate to the human person? Are the two interdependent and, if so, in what way? What does world mean for an ethnographer or an anthropologist? Much has been said of worlds and worldviews, but do we really know what we mean by these words? Asking these questions and many more, this book explores the conditions of possibility of the ethnographic gesture, and how these shed light on (...) the relationship between humans and the world in the midst of which they find themselves. As Pina-Cabral shows, recent decades have seen important shifts in the way we relate human thought to human embodiment--the relation between how we think and what we are. The book proposes a novel approach to the human condition: an anthropological outlook that is centered around the notions of personhood and sociality. Through a rich confrontation with ethnographic and historical material, this work contributes to the ongoing task of overcoming the theoretical constraints that have hindered anthropological thinking over the past century."--Page 4 of cover. (shrink)

Fichte once described the first principle of his philosophical system as a globe or attractor point which rests on nothing else but its own power, and which – as by the inception of a gravitational field – thereby simultaneously sets the conditions for the groundedness of all the components of the edifice of knowledge which follow. This description suggests his philosophical enterprise is articulated in accordance to the linear structure of foundationalism. At the same time, however, Fichte’s enterprise is unequivocally (...) transparent regarding its many circularities, the most interesting of which is described by the relation between the I under philosophical observation and the I of the transcendental philosopher who undertakes the observation. Indeed, such a relation – which Fichte called not only a circle but a circuit – is what explains his assertion that the task of the transcendental philosopher is to be a pragmatic historiographer rather than a legislator of the mind. The philosopher’s task is historical insofar as the I who undertakes the examination is at every move trying to repeat its genesis in a conscious manner. It is circular, in turn, insofar as the activity of the examined I is supposed to culminate in precisely the point where the examining I stands, but not forgetting that it has to account for the possibility of the latter’s very examination. To map the horizon and grounding capacity of such circumvolutions of the mind is what this paper aims to do. (shrink)

Business firms have been explained as internal markets or as communities. To be sustainable, however, they need to reconcile these two constituting elements that have mainly been touted as opposite and part of a dualistic relationship. We suggest that organizations may, in alternative, view market and community as part of a duality, interdependent and mutually constituting processes that may not only contradict each other but also enable one another. The implications of a duality view for business ethics, which articulates market (...) and community elements in a fruitful, mutually enabling relationship, are considered, and duality is presented as a way of transcending what is commonly viewed as opposition, moving organizations both in the direction of humane and competitive finalities. (shrink)

A la luz del relato de Carolina María de Jesús, una temprana cartonera de la favela de Canindé, en Sao Paulo, quien escribiendo su diario de vida en las mismas hojas que recogía en sus calles termina ofreciendo el más crudo y vívido relato de la vida en ellas, en este artículo se examina su testimonio y la escritura de él como una otra modalidad de práctica política, ello a partir del concepto de campos de acción social y política, y (...) su problematización a propósito del carácter colectivo de su contenido, el explícito interés de su autora de hacerlo público y la inadecuación, entre otros elementos, de las categorías con que se observa y distingue el fenómeno de la participación entre hombres y mujeres. (shrink)

A partir das formulações de Gramsci sobre ideologia, intelectuais e hegemonia, este trabalho realiza um debate teórico com intelectuais que defendem a inclusão social e a sociedade inclusiva. O texto aborda limitações da inclusão social e situa a difusão desse paradigma como um procedimento que reforça a hegemonia burguesa.On the basis of the concept of Gramsci about ideology, intellectuals and hegemony, this work make a theoretical debate about social inclusion and the inclusive society. The text explain limitations of the social (...) inclusion and explain that the diffusion of this paradigm is a procedure that strengthens hegemony of the block on the power. (shrink)

El presente trabajo se propone identificar los rasgos específicos del marxismo de Antonio Gramsci en la lectura realizada por Juan Carlos Portantiero a partir de las categorías de «coyuntura» y «primacía de la política» en su ensayo “Gramsci y el análisis de coyuntura (algunas notas)”. Para ello, en un primer momento, se revisan críticamente los desarrollos de Louis Althusser, cuyos tempranos aportes teóricos son recuperados por Portantiero para caracterizar a Gramsci como “teórico de la coyuntura”. En un segundo momento, se (...) reconstruyen las posiciones del propio Portantiero, mostrando que su invocación de los aportes althusserianos le permiten aprehender elementos nucleares de la propuesta gramsciana de interpretación del marxismo como una “ciencia de la política”, especialmente en función de la especificación del concepto de «política», así como de la estructuración de lo social como una trama de relaciones de fuerza condensada en el Estado, entendido como «sistema hegemónico». El trabajo concluye con una retorno a la polémica althusseriana sobre la relación Hegel-Marx desde la perspectiva gramsciana de la «traducibilidad». (shrink)

This volume assembles supporters and critics of situated cognition research to evaluate the intricacies, prerequisites, possibilities, and scope of a 4E methodology. The contributions are divided into three categories. The first category entails papers dealing with a 4E methodology from the perspective of epistemology and philosophy of science. It discusses whether to support explanatory pluralism or explanatory unification and focuses on possible compromises between ecological psychology and enactivism. The second category addresses ontological questions regarding the synchronic and diachronic constitution of (...) cognitive phenomena, the localization of cognitive processes, and the theoretical issue of mutual manipulability. The third category analyzes how the theoretical and practical commitments of 4E approaches lead to empirically supported investigations of different phenomena, such as research on affordances and (chronic) pain. The book renews attention to the possible adverse consequences coming along with methodical fragmentation, as found among 4E positions. It provides an overdue first step towards a systematic and positive answer to methodological concerns in situated cognition research. Without this and further steps in the future, the growth of 4E ́s significance for the scientific study of the mind might stall or even decrease. With such steps, situated cognition research could realize its frequently highlighted but so far not comprehensively accessed potential to change radically the modalities of how cognitive phenomena are studied. This volume is of interest to scholars of the philosophy of mind. (shrink)

The concept of shared mental models refers to the shared understanding among team members about how they should behave in different situations. This article aimed to develop a new shared mental model measure, specifically designed for the refereeing context. A cross-sectional study was conducted with three samples: national and regional football referees (n = 133), national football referees and assistant referees and national futsal referees (n = 277), and national futsal referees (n = 60). The proposed version of the Referee (...) Shared Mental Models Measure (RSMMM) has 13 items that are reflected on a single factor structure. The RSMMM presented good validity evidence both based on the internal structure and based on relations to other variables (presenting positive associations with team work engagement, team adaptive performance, and team effectiveness). Such promising psychometric properties point to an optimistic outlook regarding its use to measure shared mental models in futsal and football referee teams. -/- . (shrink)

Central figures in the phenomenological tradition, such as Aron Gurwitsch, Jean-Paul Sartre, and Maurice Merleau-Ponty, drew extensively on gestalt psychology in their writings. The dialogue between phenomenology and psychology they began continues today in the field of embodied cognitive science. We take up this conversation starting from Aron Gurwitsch’s rich phenomenological analysis of the perception of the cultural world. Gurwitsch’s phenomenological descriptions of the perception of the cultural world bear a striking resemblance to work in embodied cognitive science that takes (...) its inspiration from Gibson’s ecological psychology. Gibson coined the term “affordance” to refer to the possibilities for action that can be directly perceived by persons [Gibson 1979]. However, Gibson from his earliest writings made a distinction between a universal, strictly individual and nonsocial form of perception and a perception of the world that was subject to social and cultural influences. We use Gurwitsch to argue against Gibson’s individualist understanding of direct perception. Each affordance that can be selected as an object of perception refers to a wider sociocultural context, which Gurwitsch called an “order of existence”. We end our paper by taking up the question of the relation of phenomenological description of the perceptual world and explanations of perceptual experience provided by embodied cognitive science. (shrink)

This article tests the waters concerning a possible integration of Gurwitsch’s theory of consciousness into 4E research. More specifically, it is suggested that radical embodied approaches can bene...