Primary and secondary processes are the foundational axes of the Freudian mental apparatus: one horizontally as a tendency to associate, the primary process, and one vertically as the ability for perspective taking, the secondary process. Primary process mentation is not only supposed to be dominant in the unconscious but also, for example, in dreams. The present study tests the hypothesis that the mental activity during REM-sleep has more characteristics of the primary process, while during non-REM-sleep more secondary process operations take (...) place. Because the solving of a rebus requires the ability to non-contexually condensate the literal reading of single stimuli into a new one, rebus solving is a primary process operation by excellence. In a replication of the dream-rebus study of Shevrin and Fisher (1967), a rebus, which consisted of an image of a comb (German: “Kamm”) and an image of a raft (German: “Floß”), resulting in the German rebus word “kampflos” (Engl.: without a struggle), was flashed subliminally (at 1 ms) to 20 participants before going to sleep. Upon consecutive awakenings participants were asked for a dream report, free associations and an image description. Based on objective association norms, there were significantly more conceptual associations referring to Kamm and Floß indexing secondary process mentation when subjects were awakened from non-REM sleep as compared to REM-awakenings. There were not significantly more rebus associations referring to kampflos indexing primary process mentation when awakened from REM-sleep as compared to non-REM awakenings. However, when the associations were scored on the basis of each subject’s individual norms, there was a rebus effect with more idiosyncratic rebus associations in awakenings after REM than after non-REM-sleep. Our results support the general idea that REM-sleep is characterized by primary process thinking, while non-REM-sleep mentation follows the rules of the secondary process. (shrink)

For Quine all talk is in mediis rebus, is itself a physical phenomenon. To grasp what a sentence is, its relation to a language, and what it is for a sentence to be true is to be invited to see that notions of shared meaning across languages, of truth, even of knowledge, are far from what they are ordinarily taken to be. To read Quine reflectively is to plunge with him into the midst of things, shunning the vain support (...) of purported transcendental certainties or Archimedean points, and spurning claims of the intuitive clarity of meaning, thought, and belief, for in the midst of things they themselves are what are most lacking in clarity. (shrink)

El presente artículo expone brevemente las circunstancias del "redescubrimiento" de la obra de Luciano en la Italia renacentista y el movimiento renovador en las letras que esto trajo consigo en el caso específico del Momus de Leon Battista Alberti. Para tal objetivo, me concentraré en el rol de Manuel Crisoloras; en los aspectos de género literario que Luciano plantea, sobre todo, en el Prometheus es in verbis, y finalmente, en cómo estos son retomados en el Momus, donde Alberti se presenta (...) como innovador de las letras latinas, pero al mismo tiempo como indirecto continuador del quehacer luciánico. (shrink)

So, let us begin in the middle of things. There are two senses in which I think that philosophy must begin in the middle of things: The first is epistemological: I think that the Cartesian ideal of finding an absolute starting point without any presuppositions is illusory. The most that we can do is to be aware of our presuppositions; we cannot eliminate them. Wherever we choose to start, we are in the middle of things epistemologically. The second way in (...) which I think that philosophy must begin in the middle of things is ontological: The objects of my interest at least initially are medium-sized things—primarily people, but also nonhuman organisms and other natural objects, and artifacts, and artworks. These are the kinds of things that populate the world that we all unavoidably contend with and care about. And it is that world—the everyday life world—that I am ultimately interested in understanding. (shrink)

In this paper, I offer an analysis of a passage from Eckhart’s commentary on the verse of the Genesis In principio creavit caelum et terram that has not received, in my opinion, sufficient attention so far. In this passage, Eckhart points out that the principium through which God created the world is the ideal model, i.e. the ratio essendi of a thing as well as its ratio cognoscendi. It is also the cause of the essence of the thing and, as (...) Aristotle says, of its definition and its scientific proof. Eckhart also quotes Averroes, according to whom philosophers have always searched for the quiddity of a sensible thing because it could lead to knowledge of the first cause of being. By this, Eckhart warns, Averroes does not mean God, as some erroneously think, but the ratio idealis of sensible things, which is expressed by their definition. Joseph Koch’s critical edition does not identify who the plerique erra... (shrink)

How should philosophy be pursued? I want to defend a conception of philosophy in mediis rebus—philosophy in the middle of things. The more familiar Latin phrase is ‘in medias res,’ but Latin distinguishes two readings of ‘in the middle of things.’ There’s the middle of things from which one starts, and there’s the middle of things into which one jumps. ‘In medias res’ is the middle of things into which one jumps; I, however, mean to invoke the middle of (...) things from which one starts. Thus, risking an accusation of pedantry, I use ‘in mediis rebus.’. (shrink)

George Boolos (1984, 1985) has extensively investigated plural quantifi- cation, as found in such locutions as the Geach-Kaplan sentence There are critics who admire only one another, and he found that their logic cannot be adequately formalized within the first-order predicate calculus. If we try to formalize the sentence by a paraphrase using individual variables that range over critics, or over sets or collections or fusions of critics, we misrepresent its logical structure. To represent plural quantification adequately requires the logical (...) resources of the full second-order predicate calculus. (shrink)

Psychedelics are experiencing a renaissance in mental healthcare. In recent years, more and more early phase trials on psychedelic-assisted therapy have been conducted, with promising results overall. However, ethical analyses of this rediscovered form of treatment remain rare. The present paper contributes to the ethical inquiry of psychedelic-assisted therapy by analysing the ethical implications of its therapeutic mechanisms proposed by the relaxed beliefs under psychedelics (REBUS) hypothesis. In short, the REBUS hypothesis states that psychedelics make rigid beliefs revisable (...) by increasing the influence of bottom-up input. Put differently, patients become highly suggestible and sensitive to context during a psychedelic session, amplifying therapeutic influence and effects. Due to that, patients are more vulnerable in psychedelic-assisted therapy than in other therapeutic interventions; they lose control during a psychedelic session and become dependent on the therapeutic setting (including the therapist). This enhanced vulnerability is ethically relevant and has been exploited by some therapists in the past. Therefore, patients in current research settings and starting mainstream medical settings need to be well informed about psychedelics’ mechanisms and their implications to give valid informed consent to treatment. Furthermore, other security measures are warranted to protect patients from the vulnerability coming with psychedelic-assisted therapy. (shrink)

Jean Gagnier’s De vita, et rebus gestis Mohammedis was the first substantial biography of the Prophet Muhammad translated by a European author directly from an authentic Muslim source. Familiar to Edward Gibbon and Voltaire, Gagnier’s work significantly shaped European understandings of the origins of Islam well into the nineteenth century. Yet Gagnier’s scholarship has not been examined in any depth since it was closely read by his contemporaries. This article provides an analysis of Gagnier’s strategies and competencies as a (...) translator and reconstructs his attempt to exploit the Arabic manuscripts then available to an Oxford scholar. It argues that the case of Gagnier is a cautionary reminder that philological approaches to the study of the Muslim past did not necessarily occasion sympathy for Islam. Old prejudices continued to influence Gagnier’s decisions as a translator and were passed on in new forms to later readers. Moreover, aspects of the Muslim historiographical tradition discovered by Gagnier did not necessarily incline his readers to a more positive view of Islam. The increased accessibility of Islamic historical texts could just as easily serve the Christian polemicist as the Enlightened historian. (shrink)

Nos séculos XIII e XIV há um grande aprofundamento da lógica, salientando-se, entre outros autores, Guilherme de Ockam e Walter Burleigh. Entre estes dois autores há um debate a respeito da composição das proposições, perguntando-se qual a relação entre as proposições verbais e escritas e seus contrapontos mentais.