Designers’ intentions are important for determining an artifact’s proper function (i.e., its perceived real function). However, there are disagreements regarding why. In one view, people reason causally about artifacts’ functional outcomes, and designers’ intended functions become important to the extent that they allow inferring outcomes. In another view, people use knowledge of designers’ intentions to determine proper functions, but this is unrelated to causal reasoning, having perhaps to do with intentional or social forms of reasoning (e.g., authority). Regarding these latter (...) social factors, researchers have proposed that designers’ intentions operate through a mechanism akin to social conventions, and that therefore both are determinants of proper function. In the current work, participants learned about an object’s creation, about social conventions for its use and about a specific episode where the artifact was used. The function implemented by the user could be aligned with the designer’s intended function, the social convention, both, or neither (i.e., an opportunistic use). Importantly, the use episode always resulted in an accident. Data show that the accident negatively affected proper function judgments and perceived efficiency for conventional and opportunistic functions, but not for designers’ intended functions. This is inconsistent with the view that designers’ intentions are conceptualized as causes of functional outcomes and with the idea that designers’ intentions and social conventions operate through a common mechanism. (shrink)

The causal view of categories assumes that categories are represented by features and their causal relations. To study the effect of causal knowledge on categorization, researchers have used Bayesian causal models. Within that framework, categorization may be viewed as dependent on a likelihood computation (i.e., the likelihood of an exemplar with a certain combination of features, given the category's causal model) or as a posterior computation (i.e., the probability that the exemplar belongs to the category, given its features). Across three (...) experiments, in combination with computational modeling, we offer evidence that categorization is better accounted for by assuming that people compute posteriors and not likelihoods, though both probabilities are closely related. This result contrasts with existing analyses of causal-based categorization, which assume that likelihood computations give a good approximation of human judgments. We also find that people are able to compute likelihoods in a closely related task that elicits judgments of consistency rather than category membership judgments. Our analyses show that people do use causal probabilistic information as prescribed by a Bayesian model but that they flexibly compute likelihoods or posteriors depending on the task. We discuss our results in relation to the relevant literature on the topic. (shrink)

In the property listing task (PLT), participants are asked to list properties for a concept (e.g., for the concept dog, “barks,” and “is a pet” may be produced). In conceptual property norming (CPNs) studies, participants are asked to list properties for large sets of concepts. Here, we use a mathematical model of the property listing process to explore two longstanding issues: characterizing the difference between concrete and abstract concepts, and characterizing semantic knowledge in the blind versus sighted population. When we (...) apply our mathematical model to a large CPN reporting properties listed by sighted and blind participants, the model uncovers significant differences between concrete and abstract concepts. Though we also find that blind individuals show many of the same processing differences between abstract and concrete concepts found in sighted individuals, our model shows that those differences are noticeably less pronounced than in sighted individuals. We discuss our results vis‐a‐vis theories attempting to characterize abstract concepts. (shrink)

Presenta a grandes rasgos su tesis doctoral. Dentro del marco de la teoría de los afectos, Spinoza sostiene una tesis sobre la alienación a partir de la imaginación y del tiempo, para ello produce una teoría del tiempo y, fundamentalmente, una teoría de las intensidades que sirve para explicar la ilusión.

This paper studies the concept of memory as understood in Spinoza’s body of work, focusing mainly on E 2P18. The main features of memory’s functioning are explained across three conceptual axes: affectio, vestigium and concatenation. These shape Spinoza’s own argumentation in the cited proposition and also recall Aristotle’s theory on memory’s function and functioning. The link between both theories helps transversely to elucidate Spinoza’s position regarding the problem of the identity of the individual.

La soledad condensa tanto una esperanza de vivir según su propio criterio, como el miedo de no poder defenderse. Se trata de una condición que está en los márgenes de la constitución de una sociedad. Este modo de aislamiento del individuo permite pensar el conflicto y la polarización en la democracia. El texto analiza las concepciones de soledad en la filosofía de Spinoza para alcanzar un análisis de la utilidad. La fortaleza de ánimo, virtud y condición del ánimo que corresponde (...) a cierto entendimiento de la mente, es el modo para buscar sobreponerse al conflicto. (shrink)

Historically, entities with a vested interest in a product that critics have suggested is harmful have consistently used research to back their claims that the product is safe. Prominent examples are: tobacco, lead, bisphenol A, and atrazine. Research literature indicates that about 80–90% of studies with industry affiliation found no harm from the product, while only about 10–20% of studies without industry affiliation found no harm. In parallel to other historical debates, recent studies examining a possible relationship between mercury exposure (...) and autism spectrum disorder show a similar dichotomy. Studies sponsored and supported by industry or entities with an apparent conflict of interest have most often shown no evidence of harm or no “consistent” evidence of harm, while studies without such affiliations report positive evidence of a Hg/autism association. The potentially causal relationship between Hg exposure and ASD differs from other toxic products since there is a broad coalition of entities for whom a conflict of interest arises. These include influential governmental public health entities, the pharmaceutical industry, and even the coal burning industry. This review includes a systematic literature search of original studies on the potential relationship between Hg and ASD from 1999 to August 2015, finding that of the studies with public health and/or industry affiliation, 86% reported no relationship between Hg and ASD. However, among studies without public health and/or industry affiliation, only 21% find no relationship between Hg and ASD. The discrepancy in these results suggests a bias indicative of a conflict of interest. (shrink)

This is one more edition of Voltaire's "Candide", meant to highlight the wealth of philosophical and theological discussions hidden behind the apparently innocent veil of the most renowned fable of modernity. The rather extended apparatus accordingly consists of a series of short chapters by Filippo Bruni on the Enlightenment and Metaphysics, and in more detail, on theology, Free choice, the problem of evil, and happiness in an imperfect world and another by Sergio Cremaschi on the Enlightenment and morality, and (...) in more detail on moral universalism, on religion without metaphysics, toleration, and pacifism. -/- Table of contents I. Before the text A trick for priests A scandalous book Garden with view -/- II. Text Candide or optimism -/- III. Context Biography 1. The seven years war 2. Calvinists and Socinians 3. Jiansenists and Gesuits 4. Marranos and inquisitors 5. Conquistadores and slave-traders 6. Paraguay under the Jesuits -/- IV. Co-text 1. Enlightenment and Metaphysics 1.1. Theology 1.2. Free choice 1.3. The problem of evil 1.4. Being happy in an imperfect world -/- 2. Enlightenment and morality 2.1. Universal morality 2.2. Religion without Metaphysics 2.3. Toleration 2.4. Pacifism -/- 3. Enlightenment and the images of other places 3.1. The image of Eldorado 3.2. The image of Paraguay 3.3 The image of the Islamic world 3.4. The image of the Jew -/- 4. The conte philosophique -/- Bibliography Lexicon Index of names and concepts -/- V. Reader’s guide. (shrink)

Le site d'éditeur indique : "Se il reale fosse semplice, non avremmo molto da pensare, saremmo di fronte alle parti ultime, agli elementi fondanti dell'essere; la complessità è dunque la vera causa, e il vero oggetto, del pensiero umano, sfida indefinitamente aperta per ricondurre il caos amorfo ad una máthesis universale. Non si può dunque fare la storia della complessità, si dovrebbe ripensare tutto il pensiero. Il non potere dire tutto non ci esime, tuttavia, dal dire qualcosa. Il tema della (...) complessità è attualmente oggetto di molte riflessioni da parte di studiosi di discipline tanto scientifiche quanto umanistiche. Il termine è utilizzato con sempre maggiore frequenza e di-mestichezza in diversi contesti di discussione e in numerose pubblicazioni, scientifiche e non, che negli ultimi decenni hanno trattato il tema, rischiando anche, talvolta, di contribuire a generare incertezza sulla corretta accezione. Sebbene l'uso 'popolare' del termine, riferito a situazioni di vita quotidiana, sia normalmente associato a problematiche di difficile se non di impossibile soluzione, l'accezione tecnica, propria degli studiosi di questa o quella disciplina, realizza invece un gradiente ampio di significati, non sempre sovrapponibili, e difficilmente riconducibili ad un comune denominatore. L'opera, nell'auspicio di offrire uno stimolo al lettore, sollecitandolo soprattutto a lasciarsi coinvolgere nell'appassionante dibattito che mette a confronto matrici culturali diverse, intende, innanzitutto, riconoscere la rilevanza del contributo di ogni singola prospettiva disciplinare, la cui capacità di andare in profondità e di cogliere aspetti particolari rimane insostituibile; d'altra parte, intende intercettare elementi di comunanza e di convergenza che consentono il recupero di una unitarietà dei fenomeni che sempre più spesso si vede frammentata nella separazione disciplinare, ma che rimane una realtà e forse soprattutto un valore.". (shrink)

The editor's introduction discusses Clarence I. Lewis's conceptual pragmatism when compared with post-empiricist epistemology and argues that several Cartesian assumptions play a major role in the work, not unlike those of Logical Positivism. The suggestion is made that the Cartesian legacy still hidden in Logical Positivism turns out to be a rather heavy ballast for Lewis’s project of restructuring epistemology in a pragmatist key. More in detail, the sore point is the nature of inter-subjectivity. For Lewis, no less than for (...) the Logical Positivists at the time of the Protocols Controversy and Husserl in the Cartesian Meditations, this is a problem without a solution. The reason is that all these philosophers are apparently unable to realize that the existence of a plurality of knowing subjects cannot be treated at once both as a speculative problem and a methodological one. Lewis, thanks to his pragmatist approach both comes closer to the right answer and offers an even more naïve unsatisfactory solution to the pseudo-problem under discussion. The fact that he has clear in mind that inter-subjectivity means not only a plurality of linguistic utterances but also a co-existence of different kinds of practical behaviour. Eventually, the very idea of mind, the key-idea in the book, suffers from the above mentioned tension. In fact, if inter-subjective communication and action is considered at a methodological level, the very idea of mind would not need an analysis, and no kind of ‘reflexive’ analysis. Methodology might be limited to a ‘naïve’ level where the existence of the world and a plurality of subjects be taken as a bedrock of uncritically accepted evidence. Philosophical reflection on ultimate evidence, instead, would take a different approach, maybe the one Wittgenstein was putting into practice in the same years when Mind and the world order was written, namely it would be bound to question the very meaning of the idea of ‘mind’ as an undue fiction – the same carried out by Descartes – when he assumed the Cogito to be at once a body of self-evident truths and a thing or substance, the familiar Platonic idea of psyche or soul. (shrink)

A New Italian translation of Principia Ethica coming almost 60 years after the 1964 translation by Gianni Vattimo with Nicola Abbagnano’s preface. The new edition makes room for the English text alongside the Italian translation; it includes the 1922 Preface, a bibliography of Moore’s ethical writings with critical literature, a chronology of Moore’s life and works, and an Index. The Introduction by Sergio Cremaschi reconstructs the background of ideas, concerns and intentions from which Moore’s Principia Ethica originated. It stresses (...) the role of religious concerns, as well as that of the Idealist legacy. I argue that PE is more a patchwork of incompatible lines of argument than a consistent work. It compares PE with Rashdall’s almost contemporary ethical work, suggesting that the latter defends the same general claims in a different and more plausible way, which manages to answer decisive objections. It ends with the suggestion that the emergence of Analytic Ethics was a more multi-faceted phenomenon than the received view would make us believe and the analytic tradition's wheat, that is, what logic can do for philosophy, has to be separated from the chaff, that is, the confused, and besides mutually incompatible, legacies of Utilitarianism and Idealism. (shrink)

The article argues that one of the maim moments of Lukacs' rupture with the preceding ontologies is his original distinction between essence and phenomenon from the peculiar relation of each one with the category of continuity. Doing so, Lukacs could recover the radical historicity of the human realm.O artigo argumenta que um dos principais momentos de ruptura de Lukács com as ontologias anteriores reside na sua inovadora distinção entre essência e fenômeno, a partir da peculiar relação de cada um com (...) a categoria da continuidade. Assim procedendo, Lukács pôde resgatar a radical historicidade do mundo dos homens. (shrink)

Resenha sobre 'Maquiavelianas' de Sérgio Cardoso.

As published, the authorship for this article is incorrect. Coauthor Hilda Helena Soares Bentes was omitted due to an editorial error. The correct citation is:Bentes, Hilda and Salles, Sergio. Paul Ricoeur e o humanismo jurídico moderno: O reconhecimento do sujeito de direito. Études Ricoeuriennes / Ricoeur Studies vol. 2, no. 2 (2011): 106–117.The online version reflects these changes.

This essay aims to demonstrate that the concepts of conflict and prophecy play a key role in the thought of Mario Tronti and Sergio Quinzio – even though they are interpreted in a different way. Tronti describes them as “extreme think- ing and careful acting”, remaining “within and against” the mainstream sociopolitical system. Quinzio, instead, interprets conflict and prophecy as spes contra spem, “hoping against hope” ; hence, he observes the present lucidly, remaining tenaciously faithful to the promise of (...) the Second Coming of Christ. Tronti, rethinking some fundamental aspects of the Quinzio’s reflections, connects clearly the Marxian conception of the world, on the one hand, with the theological-political one, and, on the other hand, with the messianic one; in this way, it reveals itself as a resource of meaning, from which even today we can draw. (shrink)

Recensione a "Tracce dell’informe. L’indecostruibile e la filosofia dell’evento in Jacques Derrida", opera prima di Sergio Genovesi, pubblicata da Mimesis Edizioni per la collana "Eterotopie".

No presente trabalho discutiremos a tese segundo a qual provas com diagramas são heterogêneas, i. e., envolvem casos de raciocínio visual. Em uma primeira seção, examinaremos o uso informal de diagramas de Venn em provas conjuntistas, procurando determinar em que sentido provas com diagramas seriam heterogêneas. Tais provas su-postamente envolveriam raciocínio visual no sentido em que a validade das inferências dependeria de características visualizáveis dos diagramas e não de regras de derivação. Em uma segunda seção, investigaremos quais seriam os aspectos (...) relevantes para a validade das inferências diagramáticas. A seguir, na terceira seção, argumentaremos que a concepção de provas diagramáticas como envolvendo essencialmente um elemento visual apresenta sérios problemas. (shrink)

A analogia, enquanto procedimento metodológico da dialética platônica, estabelece uma relação entre paidéia e dialética ascendente. O presente estudo limita-se ao diálogo Ménon e visa, ainda, articular a relação entre este diálogo e o conjunto de obra de Platão no que concerne à relação entre analogia e dialética.

Este artigo objetiva traçar o itinerário da educação libertadora na realidade social brasileira e refletir sobre a necessidade de se repensar a ação dessa modalidade de educação nos dias atuais. Ao se articular a realidade da época do surgimento da educação libertadora, que pretendia responder aos apelos de libertação dos povos Latino-Americanos, com a realidade dos tempos atuais e suas implicações, este artigo busca respostas às questões postas por essa educação libertadora na atualidade. Para abordar as funções do processo educativo (...) dentro do contexto de uma sociedade, é preciso situar as abordagens em sua realidade, contemporizando e adequando as suas ações. Essa temática representa um grande desafio, pois a concepção libertadora de educação extrapola os ambientes acadêmicos, visando sobretudo o bem comum do ser humano e o seu pleno desenvolvimento. Para a realização deste trabalho foram realizadas pesquisas bibliográficas e estudo da realidade desta época informatizada em que estamos inseridos, assim como suas consequências. Palavras-chave : Conscientização. Emancipação. Informatização. Educação Libertadora.This article aims to trace the route of liberating education in Brazilian social reality and reflect on the need to rethink the action of this type of education these days. In order to articulate the onset of liberating education that intended to respond to calls for liberation of Latin American peoples with the reality of the present time and its implications, this article seeks to answer to the questions posed by this liberating education today. To address the functions of the educational process within the context of a society, one must situate the approaches in their reality, compromising and adapting their actions. This theme represents a great challenge because the conception of such liberating education goes beyond the academic environments, seeking above all, the common good of the human being and its full development. The methodology used in this paper consisted of bibliographical research and a study of the reality of this computerized era in which we operate. Keywords: Awareness Empowerment. Information Technology. Liberating Education. (shrink)

O presente artigo propõe-se estudar o modo como a Guerra Civil Espanhola tem sido abordada pelos manuais de História do 9.º ano do Ensino Básico português, desde a década de 80 até à atualidade. Fazendo uso de uma metodologia qualitativa-comparativa, são analisados tópicos como número de páginas e quantidade/qualidade da informação; documentos históricos utilizados; relação com outros conteúdos históricos, entre outros. Desta análise conclui-se que, apesar da relevância histórica e da proximidade geográfica e temporal do tema, este tem vindo a (...) ser lecionado de forma cada vez mais breve, quase esquemática, assistindo-se a uma escassa problematização do conteúdo. (shrink)