The inconsistent relation between word frequency and free recall performance and the non-monotonic relation found between the two cannot all be explained by current theories. We propose a theoretical framework that can explain all extant results. Based on an ecological psychology analysis of the free recall situation in terms of environmental and informational resources available to the participants, we propose that because participants’ cognitive system has been shaped by their native language, free recall performance is best understood as the end (...) result of relational properties that preexist the experimental situation and of the way the words from the experimental list interact with those. In addition to this, we borrow from predictive coding theory the idea that the brain constantly predicts “what is coming next” so that it is mainly prediction errors that will propagate information forward. Our ecological psychology analysis indicates there will be “prediction errors” because the word frequency distribution in an experimental word list is inevitably different from the particular Zipf’s law distribution of the words in the language that shaped participants’ brains. We further propose the particular distributional discrepancies inherent to a given word list will trigger, as a function of the words that are included in the list, their order, and of the words that are absent from the list, a surprisal signal in the brain, something that is isomorphic to the concept of Bayesian surprise. The precise moment when Bayesian surprise is triggered will determine to what word of the list that Bayesian surprise will be associated with, and the word the Bayesian surprise will be associated with will benefit from it and become more memorable as a direct function of the magnitude of the surprisal. Two experiments are presented that show a proxy of Bayesian surprise explains the free recall performance and that no effect of word frequency is found above and beyond the effect of that proxy variable. We then discuss how our view can account for all data extant in the literature on the effect of word frequency on free recall. (shrink)

Cette contribution réfléchit aux conditions d’une approche déformalisée de l’intersubjectivité, susceptible de nourrir le projet d’une anthropologie phénoménologique d’inspiration husserlienne. Nous interrogeons d’abord la place architectonique qui revient au problème de la différence sexuelle au sein de la phénoménologie de Husserl, pour montrer qu’il relève du champ thématique de la « générativité ». C’est ensuite la signification de la phénoménologie générative qui est discutée, en dialogue avec les commentateurs qui lui ont accordé une attention particulière (Steinbock, Perreau). Enfin, nous nous (...) penchons sur l’intérêt de Husserl pour la genèse du lien intersubjectif, en privilégiant la référence à la maternité qui est étonnamment présente sous sa plume. L’examen conjoint de ces trois questions vise à faire apparaître l’une des directions que pourrait suivre une entreprise de déformalisation de l’intersubjectivité, et donc une approche plus concrète de celle-ci, sur la base même du traitement qu’en a proposé Husserl. (shrink)

Pour une approche phénoménologique de la vie, ce qui est en question, ce n’est pas le quid, mais le comment : comment la vie s’éprouve elle-même. Le phénomène de la vie est donc de prime abord son expérience, car c’est là que la vie non seulement apparaît, mais s’apparaît à elle-même. Le préalable méthodologique d’une telle enquête est le va et vient constitutif entre la première et la troisième personne, entre le vivant que je suis et qui éprouve la vie (...) en soi-même, et cette vie dont je fais... (shrink)

Si nous avons placé notre examen du traitement théorique que Michel Henry a réservé à l?intentionnalité sous le signe du fondement qu?il cherche à lui assigner, c?est parce que l?une de nos principales ambitions sera de montrer que la critique que le philosophe français fait de ce leitmotiv de la phénoménologie husserlienne ne doit pas être comprise comme une tentative d?expulsion de l?intentionnalité hors du champ des recherches phénoméno­logiques, mais comme une entreprise de fondation. Dans cette perspective, le point de (...) départ de Michel Henry réside dans une question très simple : l?intentionnalité est-elle susceptible de se fonder elle-même, trouve-t-elle son fondement en elle-même ? Ou sinon, quelle est sa condition de possibilité ? Ainsi, plutôt que de se contenter d?une attitude descriptive à l?égard d?un comportement intentionnel qui serait à chaque fois déjà donné, déjà opérant, il s?agit de soumettre l?intentionnalité à un questionnement de type trans­cendantal, pour la reconduire vers ce « qui la rend ultimement possible » 1 . Le trajet suivi par cette reconduction de l?intentionnalité à son fonde­ment est esquissé par Michel Henry de façon exemplaire dans son article, désormais célèbre, de 1995, « Phénoménologie non intentionnelle : une tâche de la phénoménologie à venir » 2 ; c?est ce texte qui nous donnera la première assise de notre analyse. Toutefois, précisément. (shrink)

Pour comprendre la célèbre formule de Heidgger dans Etre et temps, "plus haut que l'effectivité se tient la possibilité", il fallait mettre en perspective la doctrine de 1927 avec les thèmes qui, chez Husserl puis Heidegger, la préparaient et la rendaient inévitable. Il fallait surtout montrer comment la remise en cause de l'opposition standard entre possibilité et impossibilité (qui définit le concept métaphysique d'étant) fait concevoir un dépassement possible de la métaphysique. C'est ce qui est fait dans cet ouvrage, d'abord (...) suivant Husserl (le monde réduit, entre effectivité et possibilité ; les potentialités de la conscience ; les possibilités de l'expérience), puis suivant Heidegger (la vie facticielle ; l'angoisse et l'existencial ; la possibilité temporelle). A partir de quoi sont abordés de manière systématique et non plus historique les deux points centraux : le dépassement de la métaphysique au profit d'une possibilité événementiale et la phénoménalité de l'impossible et du possible. (shrink)

The increasing application of network models to interpret biological systems raises a number of important methodological and epistemological questions. What novel insights can network analysis provide in biology? Are network approaches an extension of or in conflict with mechanistic research strategies? When and how can network and mechanistic approaches interact in productive ways? In this paper we address these questions by focusing on how biological networks are represented and analyzed in a diverse class of case studies. Our examples span from (...) the investigation of organizational properties of biological networks using tools from graph theory to the application of dynamical systems theory to understand the behavior of complex biological systems. We show how network approaches support and extend traditional mechanistic strategies but also offer novel strategies for dealing with biological complexity. (shrink)

À partir la distinction des trois sens de la conscience dans la Cinquième Recherche logique de Husserl, nous tâchons d'évaluer les rapports entre conscience, impression et réflexion. Seule la prise en compte de la temporalité immanente de la conscience permet de comprendre l'articulation des trois. Mais on souligne la fonction de connaissance et d'unification égologique qui confère à la réflexion un poids méthodologique considérable dans la phénoménologie de Husserl comme dans la pensée du jeune Fink. Enfin, la critique de Michel (...) Henry permet de préciser à quelles conditions le niveau préréflexif ou impressionnel peut acquérir une teneur propre, voire une relative autonomie. This study has its departure point in Husserl's distinction of three concepts of consciousness ; it seeks to evaluate the relationship between consciousness, impression and reflection. Their articulation requires that the immanent temporality of consciousness be taken into account. At the same time, this paper stresses the cognitive function and the egological meaning of reflection, which explain its considerable methodological weight in Husserl's phenomenology and in the early thought of Fink. Finally, Michel Henry's objections enable us to establish to what extent the pre-reflective, impressional level can be credited with consistency and autonomy. (shrink)

The transcendental turn of Husserl's phenomenology has challenged philosophers and scholars from the beginning. This volume inquires into the profound meaning of this turn by contrasting its Kantian and its phenomenological versions. Examining controversies surrounding subjectivity, idealism, aesthetics, logic, the foundation of sciences, and practical philosophy, the chapters provide a helpful guide for facing current debates.

Parole coupée, bouche bée, yeux grands ouverts, sourcils levés... Plutôt que langagière, l'expression de la surprise serait d'abord le fait du corps. On se propose dans cet ouvrage d'interroger de manière critique, voire de contrebalancer cette tendance habituelle à ranger l'expérience de la surprise du côté du silence et de l'indicible : au lieu de faire signe vers les éventuelles limites du langage et des différentes langues naturelles, la surprise ne fait-elle pas plutôt ressortir la richesse des ressources du langage (...) et la plasticité du fonctionnement des langues? Comment se dit donc la surprise? Dans quelle mesure son expression varie-t-elle d'une langue à l'autre? Le dire de la surprise est-il en lui-même un agir, à son tour producteur d'effets? Ces interrogations nous ont invités à réfléchir tant au lexique de la surprise qu'aux formes d'expression au moyen desquelles la surprise peut être non seulement exprimée mais aussi décrite, racontée, ou bien encore rationalisée, dans la langue courante, dans la logique comme dans la littérature. (shrink)

Philosophical Perspectives on the Engineering Approach in Biology provides a philosophical examination of what has been called the most powerful metaphor in biology: The machine metaphor. The chapters collected in this volume discuss the idea that living systems can be understood through the lens of engineering methods and machine metaphors from both historical, theoretical, and practical perspectives. In their contributions the authors examine questions about scientific explanation and methodology, the interrelationship between science and engineering, and the impact that the use (...) of engineering metaphors in science may have for bioethics and science communication, such as the worry that its wide application reinforces public misconceptions of the nature of new biotechnology and biological life. The book also contains an introduction that describes the rise of the machine analogy and the many ways in which it plays a central role in fundamental debates about e.g. design, adaptation and reductionism in the philosophy of biology. The book will be useful as a core reading to professionals as well as graduate and undergraduate students in courses of philosophy of science and for life scientists taking courses in philosophy of science and bioethics. (shrink)

Philosophical accounts of scientific explanation are broadly divided into ontic and epistemic views. This paper explores the idea that the lexical ambiguity of the verb to explain and its nominalisation supports an ontic conception of explanation (Salmon 1989; Craver 2007). I analyse one argument which challenges this strategy by criticising the claim that explanatory talk is lexically ambiguous (Wright, European Journal of Philosophy of Science 2(3), 375–394, 2012). I propose that the linguistic mechanism of transfer of meaning (Nunberg, Journal of (...) Semantics 12(2), 109–132, 1995) provides a better account of the lexical alternations that figure in the systematic polysemy of explanatory talk, and evaluate the implications of this proposal for the debate between ontic and epistemic conceptions of scientific explanation. (shrink)

In the first half of the 2000s, one project to restore the former Danube floodplain was carried out in Belene, a marginal town on the Bulgarian Danube. The aim of this article is to record the practices that were already in place before the interventions on the Danube, as part of a heterogeneous local knowledge that had an alternative vision to the scientific knowledge of experts involved in the restoration project. The data comes from qualitative interviews with locals and experts (...) implicated in this project, as well as ethnographic observations from the fieldwork I carried out in 2013–2014, 2020 and 2022. The conclusion is that without attempting to replace the scientific knowledge, the locals aim to impose, through their local knowledge, a sort of slow ecology that eases the pace of the restoration of the former Danube floodplains. (shrink)

An adequate theory of rights ought to forbid the harming of animals to promote trivial interests of humans, as is often done in the animal-user industries. But what should the rights view say about situations in which harming some animals is necessary to prevent intolerable injustices to other animals? I develop an account of respectful treatment on which, under certain conditions, it’s justified to intentionally harm some individuals to prevent serious harm to others. This can be compatible with recognizing the (...) inherent value of the ones who are harmed. My theory has important implications for contemporary moral issues in nonhuman animal ethics, such as the development of cultured meat and animal research. (shrink)

Professional attire has traditionally been regarded as a sign of ethicality. However, recent trends towards a more casual workplace may have altered the general public’s attire-based perceptions. To determine whether these trends have rendered the association between professional attire and ethicality obsolete, we draw on signaling theory and we examine, in two laboratory studies with working samples, the main effects of attire style (i.e., business formal, business casual, casual) on perceptions of employee ethicality. We also assess the mediating effects of (...) attire appropriateness, the moderating effects of context (industry type), as well as their combined moderated-mediation effects in the relation between attire style and the outcome of interest. We find that casual attire is perceived as less ethical than business casual attire in both studies but is perceived as less ethical than business formal attire in the first study only. Moreover, the effect of attire style on perceptions of ethicality is mediated by perceptions of attire appropriateness. Lastly, we found inconclusive results for the moderated-mediation model, which suggest a more intricate effect of industry type than originally proposed. Three subsequent focus groups with working professionals provided additional insights into our findings and revealed workplace-relevant outcomes associated with perceptions of ethicality. Theoretical and practical implications, study limitations, and future research avenues are discussed. (shrink)

An increasing number of philosophers have promoted the idea that mechanism provides a fruitful framework for thinking about the explanatory contributions of computational approaches in cognitive neuroscience. For instance, Piccinini and Bahar :453–488, 2013) have recently argued that neural computation constitutes a sui generis category of physical computation which can play a genuine explanatory role in the context of investigating neural and cognitive processes. The core of their proposal is to conceive of computational explanations in cognitive neuroscience as a subspecies (...) of mechanistic explanations. This paper identifies several challenges facing their mechanistic account and sketches an alternative way of thinking about the epistemic roles of computational approaches used in the study of brain and cognition. Drawing on examples from both low-level and systems-level computational neuroscience, I argue that at least some computational explanations of neural and cognitive processes are partially independent from mechanistic constraints. (shrink)

In The Case for Animal Rights, Tom Regan argues that although all subjects-of-a-life have equal inherent value, there are often differences in the value of lives. According to Regan, lives that have the highest value are lives which have more possible sources of satisfaction. Regan claims that the highest source of satisfaction, which is available to only rational beings, is the satisfaction associated with thinking impartially about moral choices. Since rational beings can bring impartial reasons to bear on decision making, (...) Regan maintains that they have an additional possible source of satisfaction that nonrational beings do not have and, consequently, the lives of rational beings turn out to have greater value.. (shrink)

The phenomenological problem of the body (Leib) goes further than its treatment as a theoretical object, insofar as it concerns the meaning and the accomplishment of the phenomenological method itself. Both reduction and intuition, the two major poles of this method, imply in their specificity the reference to an operative corporeity (fungierende Leiblichkeit). The primordial sphere of absolute givenness cannot thus reduce the body proper without sacrificing the very principle that allows delimiting it. But this seems to lead to an (...) unavoidable subjectivation of the phenomenological experience, whose model remains the object of perception (internal or external) and its ideal of intuitivity. In the last part of the paper it is however argued that corporeity is more than the resort of such a subjectivation, appearing also to be, within the framework of expression, the key to intersubjective comprehension. (shrink)

The main aim of this article is to analyse the relationship between two innovative concepts—the technoself and process identity—from a perspective inspired by process ontology. The working hypothesis is that industrialized and mass societies entered into a post-industrial or informational sphere of capitalism, becoming networking societies—also known as knowledge-based societies—which closely followed their role in approaching the plural identity of the digital Subject and the surveillance practices exercised in its governance as correspondent models for the changes of the current reality. (...) The first section of the article is devoted to research on the technoself, a concept recently introduced by Luppicini in 2013. Criticizing the technoself in terms of process ontology and as a result of digitalization, subjectivity, and technical rationality, I will argue that the constitution of digital subjects, as well as their interactions, should be defined in terms of processes. Therefore, I introduce the concept of process identity—which includes the technoself—and explain how this approach contributes to the development of different research fields (such as speculative realism and object-oriented ontology) and how it affects Floridi’s distinction between digital ontology and informational ontology. The second section focuses on the effects of the digital environment on self-constitution practices and techniques, virtual worlds experiencing what Foucault recognizes as the aesthetics of existence. In the final part, I confront Bentham’s and Foucault’s panopticism, arguing that based on what is accomplished by process identities, networking societies represent societies of control, not disciplinary ones, and consequently this distinction should be applied in governing virtual communities. In the end, I will explain why notions such as digital personae or databased selves are insufficient, and should be replaced by the concepts of process identity and technoself, respectively, in order to improve the models of governing networking societies. (shrink)

The main aim of this article is to examine the contrast between humanism and anti-humanism as two different modern paradigms of considering the individual’s relationship with nature. My thesis is that ecology, as an ideological discourse, reshaped the both the democratic and totalitarian perspectives on humanism and anti-humanism by addressing liberties, self-care, and authenticity in terms of normative laws for environment, health, and the idea of naturalness. Reconsidering Luc Ferry’s analysis from The New Ecological Order: Tree, Animal, Human, I will (...) explain how a social-critical theory of modernity might be conceived in the terms of humanism and anti-humanism, represented by different ecological discourses whose main contribution was to add to the modern social contract the value of non-human beings, including animals, plants, and natural objects as subjects of law (in their most democratic versions) or to discount the value of humans (in their totalitarian structures), viewing racism, for example, as a clinical, biopolitical, and hence “ecological” discourse. I will argue that this condition is a cultural symptom of the anti-natural attitude of the modern individual. (shrink)

The following study presents some considerations on different subjects regarding the field of art, from the art of using sounds in theatre and the importance of the Greek tragedy to the subtle differences between opera and theatre. The sound experiment is to be approached knowing that the audience is, in some way, deaf. The renewal of the sounds, even of those coming forth from the remote ages, is part of the author’s lust for a theater that celebrates real contact and (...) real feeling, with a unique expression of force, of intense colors and sharp energies. The main goal is to discover the actor’s or the opera singer’s work with the sounds, with the vibration of the words in his body, thus investigating the “meanings” of the pure sound. (shrink)

In the context of increased movement across borders, this book examines how key cultural texts and concepts are transferred between nations and languages as well as across different media. The texts examined in this book are considered fundamental to their source culture and can also take on a particular relevance to other cultures. The chapters investigate cultural transfers and differences realised through translation and reflect critically upon the implications of these with regard to matters of cultural identity. The book offers (...) an important contribution to cultural approaches in translation studies, with ramifications across different disciplines, including literary studies, history, philosophy, and gender studies. The chapters offer a range of cultural and methodological frameworks and are written by scholars from a variety of language and cultural backgrounds, Western and Eastern. (shrink)

Анотація. У статті проаналізовані досягнення Соціального Вчительства Католицької Церкви, репрезентовані працями Лева ХІІІ, Пія ХІ, Пія ХІІ, Івана Павла ІІ, що розкривають змістовні характеристики поняття «принцип субсидіарності», його роль і значення в системі християнських цінностей. Принцип субсидіарності робить можливими такі взаємовідносини в соціальному житті, коли спільнота вищого порядку не втручається у внутрішнє життя спільноти нижчого порядку, перебираючи на себе належні тій функції; заради спільного добра, спільного блага вона надає їй у разі потреби підтримку й допомогу, узгоджуючи у такий спосіб її (...) взаємодію з іншими соціальними структурами. Принцип субсидіарності скеровує соціальну практику на утвердження спільного блага в людському співтоваристві. Поширення і застосування принципу субсидіарності протистоїть небезпеці «одержавлення» суспільства та найзагрозливіших проявів колективізму, обмежує абсолютизацію влади, бюрократизацію державних і соціокультурних структур, стає одним із гарантів дотримання прав і свобод громадян своєї країни. (shrink)

The reassessment of intentionality as “tendency” or “drive,” already important when the intentionality at stake designates the directedness of lived experiences toward a particular object, might be even more crucial when the orientation toward others is concerned. How do drives and affects intermingle within our intersubjective life and fashion our relations to others? The present paper will address this question by focusing on a particular or even primary kind of intersubjectivity: the mother–child relationship, that received a particular, yet still insufficiently (...) noticed attention in early phenomenology. Scheler and Husserl both analyse this relationship, indeed, in terms that imply drive intentionality as well as affective intentionality (that is, for what concerns the mother, maternal instinct and maternal love). In their view, this relation also has a crucial ethical significance, and may even be taken to be paradigmatic for ethical relationships as such. Accordingly, drive intentionality is understood as an instinctive orientation toward others, that love takes up and develops, thus providing an affective and even instinctive ground for ethical behaviour. All this imples the depart from an ethics grounded on the primacy and sufficiency of reason. (shrink)

La question que nous souhaitons soulever et qui motive les analyses proposées dans cet article est stratifiée, car elle recoupe de fait plusieurs interrogations connexes. La première est celle de savoir si, lorsqu’elle parle de l’événement dans une acception tellement généralisée qu’elle va jusqu’à l’identifier à la notion même de phénomène, la phénoménologie contemporaine conserve encore une référence fondamentale à l’événement historique. L’événement historique détient-il une fonction pro...

This volume assesses Friedrich Schleiermacher s contribution to the theory and practice of translation two hundred years after his classic text "On the Different Methods of Translating". It brings together scholars from Philosophy and Translation Studies who offer close readings of Schleiermacher s ideas, placing them in the context of his hermeneutics and examining their relevance today as well as their potential to inspire further work.".