In his comments, Daniel Nicholls succeeds in saying more than a few things that I had scarcely realized about the ways in which I write and, therefore, of what I tend to take for granted. He sees in what I write a capacity ‘to utilize the “obvious” whilst at the same time saying something about it.’ Not every philosopher would take that as a compliment. Many philosophers and philosophies have quite other pretensions – to transcend the illusions of common thought (...) and perception towards a higher plane of metaphysical philosophy – or of physics and mathematics. I find that Nicholls’s remark both compliments and complements my work, however. The use of everyday language and example to disturb that everyday world to ‘bring it into high relief’ as Nicholls puts it – is a significant part of philosophical method. To juxtapose the esoteric language of metaphysics (being-in-itself, being-for-itself, being-for-others) with the everyday (what there is, living for oneself, living for others) is to haunt the everyday with a metaphysical imagination even as it reveals what metaphysics had erased from the coinage of common words. (I am thinking, of course, of Derrida’s remarks about Anatole France’s satirical view of philosophical language as coinage from which all marking has been erased). (shrink)

A preference method probed infants` perception of object motion on an inclined plane. Infants viewed videotaped events in which a ball rolled downward (or upward) while speeding up (or slowing down). Then infants were tested with events in which the ball moved in the opposite direction with appropriate or inappropriate acceleration. Infants aged 7 months, but not 5 months, looked longer at the test event with inappropriate acceleration, suggesting emerging sensitivity to gravity. A further study tested whether infants appreciate (...) that a stationary object released on an incline moves downward rather than upward; findings again were positive at 7 months and negative at 5 months. A final study provided evidence, nevertheless, that 5-monthold infants discriminate downward from upward motion and relate downward motion in videotaped events to downward motion in live events. Sensitivity to certain effects of gravity appears to develop in infancy. (shrink)

This chapter provides an overview of the phenomenology of size perception and the use of instructions to tease apart phenomenal and cognitive aspects. It develops his own recent proposals concerning the geometry of visual space. The chapter proposes that visual space is contracted along the lines of sight. This contraction would explain the apparent convergence of railway tracks, but without invoking a “proximal mode” experience. Parallel railway tracks receding into the distance project converging lines onto the retinas. A true proximal (...) mode representation would show these lines converging as if in a vertical plane. But we experience them as converging while also receding in depth along the ground. The chapter suggests that this calls for a third geometry of visual space, intermediate between a linear perspective projection and full phenomenal constancy. The chapter attributes reports of full constancy to cognitive factors. size perception, visual space, geometry, lines of sight, proximal mode, phenomenal constancy. (shrink)

In recent philosophy of mind, a series of challenging ideas have appeared about the relation between the body and the sense of touch. In certain respects, these ideas have a striking affinity with Husserl’s theory of the constitution of the body. Nevertheless, these two approaches lead to very different understandings of the role of the body in perception. Either the body is characterized as a perceptual “organ,” or the body is said to function as a (...) “template.” Despite its focus on the sense of touch, the latter conception, I will argue, nevertheless orients its understanding of tactual perception toward visual objects. This produces a distorted conception of touch. In this paper, I will formulate an alternative account, which is more faithful to what it is like to feel. (shrink)

This article, which seeks to connect philosophy, polite culture, and the Enlightenment, shows how Malebranche’s Cartesian science presented a full-frontal attack on the worldly notion of a good taste aligned with reason. It did this by arguing that the aesthetic tastes that people experience were the result of mechanically-transmitted sensations that, like all physical sensations, were inaccurate, erroneous and relativistic. The mechanics of this process is explored in detail to show how Malebranche was challenging honnête thinking. The article suggests that (...) Malebranche’s demystifying approach was at once a hallmark of the Enlightenment, and that his views would ironically come to inform much Enlightenment thought about taste in ways he would have despised. (shrink)

Near the beginning of De Gen. et Cor. II.1, Aristotle claims that the generation and corruption of all naturally constituted substances are “not without the perceptible bodies”. It is not clear what he intends by this. In this paper I offer a new interpretation of this assertion. I argue that the assumption behind the usual reading, namely, that these “perceptible bodies” ought to be distinguished from the naturally constituted substances, is flawed, and that the assertion is best understood as a (...) claim that Aristotle has established in the second half of the first book of the De Gen. et Cor. (shrink)

A body schema is an agent's model of its own body that enables it to act on affordances in the environment. This paper presents a body schema system for the Learning Intelligent Decision Agent (LIDA) cognitive architecture. LIDA is a conceptual and computational implementation of Global Workspace Theory, also integrating other theories from neuroscience and psychology. This paper contends that the ‘body schema' should be split into three separate functions based on the functional role of consciousness (...) in Global Workspace Theory. There is (1) an online model of the agent's effectors and effector variables (Current Body Schema), (2) a long-term, recognitional storage of embodied capacities for action and affordances (Habitual Body Schema), and (3) "dorsal" stream information feeding directly from early perception to sensorimotor processes (Online Body Schema). This paper then discusses how the LIDA model of the body schema explains several experiments in psychology and ethology. (shrink)

Recent literature emphasizes an altered perception of the body in subjects practicing sport to pursue an ideal body image. Sometimes such bodily misperception is associated with the inability to re...

Cheryl Chase has argued that “the problem” of intersex is one of “stigma and trauma, not gender,” as those focused on medical management would have it. Despite frequent references to shame in the critical literature, there has been surprisingly little analysis of shame, or of the disgust that provokes it. This paper investigates the function of disgust in the medical management of intersex and seeks to understand the consequences—material and moral—with respect to the shame it provokes.Conventional ethical approaches may not (...) provide quite the right tools to consider this affective dimension of the medical management of intersex, but we find in Nietzsche's Genealogy of Morality a framework that allows us a profound appreciation of its moral significance (Nietzsche 1887/1998). Understanding doctors' disgust—and the disgust that they promote in parents of those born with atypical anatomies—as a contemporary expression of ressentiment directs us to not focus on the bodies of those born with intersex conditions, which have been the privileged objects of attention both in medical practice and in criticisms of it, but moves us to consider instead the bodies of those whose responses constitute the motivating force for normalizing practices in the first place. (shrink)

We consider the target-reaching problem in plane scenes for a point robot which has a tactile sensor and can locate the target ray. It might have a compass, too, but it is not able to perceive the coordinates of its position nor to measure distances. The complexity of an algorithm is measured by the number of straight moves until reaching the target, as a function of the number of vertices of the scene. It is shown how the target point (...) can be reached by exhaustive search without using a compass, with the complexity exp). Using a compass, there is a target-reaching algorithm, based on rotation counting, with the complexity O. The decision problem, to recognize if the target cannot be reached because it belongs to an obstacle, cannot be solved by our type of robot. If the behaviour of a robot without compass is periodic in a homogeneous environment, it cannot solve the target-reaching problem. (shrink)

This paper aims to critically review the existing literature on the relationship between corporate governance, in particular board diversity, and both corporate social responsibility and corporate social responsibility reporting and to suggest some important avenues for future research in this field. Assuming that both CSR and CSRR are outcomes of boards’ decisions, this paper proposes that examining boards’ decision making processes with regard to CSR would provide more insight into the link between board diversity and CSR. Particularly, the paper stresses (...) the importance of studies linking gender diversity and CSR decision making processes, which is quite rare in the existing literature. It also highlights the importance of more qualitative methods and longitudinal studies for the development of understanding of the diversity–CSR relationship. (shrink)

In his 1953 lectures at the College de France, Merleau-Ponty dedicated much effort to further developing his idea of embodied subject and interpreted fresh sources that he did not use in Phenomenology of Perception. Notably, he studied more in depth the neurological notion of "body schema". According to Merleau-Ponty, the body schema is a practical diagram of our relationships to the world, an action-based norm with reference to which things make sense. Merleau-Ponty more precisely tried to describe the (...) fundamentally dynamic unity of the body, i.e. the fact there are various possibilities how the practical "diagram" of body schema could be de-differentiated (in pathology) or further refined (via cognitive and cultural superstructures, symbolic systems). This chapter summarises Merleau-Ponty's interpretation of the notion, while contrasting it to the more traditional understanding of the body in phenomenology and recent philosophical texts dealing with body schema. (shrink)

Lack of gender balance within STEM fields is caused by many complex factors, some of which are related to the fact that women do not perceive certain occupations as congruent with their career and personal goals. Although there is a large body of research regarding women in STEM, there is a gap concerning perception of occupations within different STEM industries. IT is a domain where skilled employees are constantly in demand. Even though the overall female representation in STEM fields (...) is rising and that the IT industry is undertaking numerous interventions to attract women to careers in IT, the representation of women in this domain is still disappointingly low. Therefore, the goal of our study was to examine the possible differences among male and female IT and non-IT students and employees in terms of their perception of IT and other key factors influencing the feeling of aptness of IT as a potential sector one's career: goal congruence, sense of belonging and self-efficacy. In this paper we present the results of a study conducted in Poland among working IT professionals and IT students that we compare with individuals from non-IT sectors. Our results showed significant gender differences between IT students and IT professionals. We found that communal goals are more important for IT employees than for IT students and that a sense of social belonging is stronger among female IT employees than among male IT employees and IT students. Women employed in IT also had the same level of sense of social belonging as women in non-IT group. These findings suggest that after entering IT positions, women's perception of the domain might become potentially more favorable and attuned with their needs. We also found that female IT students value agentic goals more than communal goals which was not the case for female IT employees. The results highlight the importance of investigating women's perception of the IT sector at different levels of career in terms of their goals and other work-related variables. Such lines of research will help develop more effective interventions in attracting women to enter the IT field. (shrink)

This study uses panel data to investigate the different roles of the Chinese government in influencing companies’ decision making about corporate environmental reporting (CER) via a two-stage process. The results show that the Chinese government appears to mainly influence the decision whether to disclose or not, but has limited influence on how much firms disclose. The results also show that the traditional model of authoritarian capitalism (under which state-owned enterprises [SOEs] are the major governance arrangement) is transforming into a new (...) model. In the new model of authoritarian capitalism, the Chinese government uses newer, more sophisticated tools to manage both state-owned and non–state-owned companies. In addition, these new governance arrangements appear to be more efficient than the traditional model. The findings of this study have implications for both the Chinese government and for Chinese companies, as well as making important contributions to the literature and knowledge of CER in China. (shrink)

Atypical sensorimotor developmental trajectories greatly contribute to the profound heterogeneity that characterizes Autism Spectrum Disorders. Individuals with ASD manifest deviations in sensorimotor processing with early markers in the use of sensory information coming from both the external world and the body, as well as motor difficulties. The cascading effect of these impairments on the later development of higher-order abilities underlines the need for interventions that focus on the remediation of sensorimotor integration skills. One of the promising technologies for such (...) stimulation is Immersive Virtual Reality. In particular, head-mounted displays have unique features that fully immerse the user in virtual realities which disintegrate and otherwise manipulate multimodal information. The contribution of each individual sensory input and of multisensory integration to perception and motion can be evaluated and addressed according to a user’s clinical needs. HMDs can therefore be used to create virtual environments aimed at improving people’s sensorimotor functioning, with strong potential for individualization for users. Here we provide a narrative review of the sensorimotor atypicalities evidenced by children and adults with ASD, alongside some specific relevant features of IVR technology. We discuss how individuals with ASD may interact differently with IVR versus real environments on the basis of their specific atypical sensorimotor profiles and describe the unique potential of HMD-delivered immersive virtual environments to this end. (shrink)

Values Education in Schools is a new resource for teachers involved in values and ethics education. It provides a range of 'practical philosophy' resources for secondary school teachers that can be used in English, religious education, citizenship, personal development and social science subjects. The materials include narratives to engage students in philosophical inquiry, doing ethics through the activity of philosophy, not simply learning about it.

Human perception has long been a critical subject of design thinking. While various studies have stressed the link between thinking and acting, particularly in spatial experience, the term “design thinking” seems to disconnect conceptual thinking from physical expression or process. Spatial perception is multimodal and fundamentally bound to the body that is not a mere receptor of sensory stimuli but an active agent engaged with the perceivable environment. The body apprehends the experience in which one’s kinesthetic engagement and (...) knowledge play an essential role. Although design disciplines have integrated the abstract, metaphoric, and visual aspects of the body and its movement into conceptual thinking, studies have pointed out that design disciplines have emphasized visuality above the other sensory domains and heavily engaged with the perception of visual configurations, relying on the Gestalt principles. Gestalt psychology must be valued for its attention to a whole. However, the theories of design elements and principles over-empathizing such visuality posit the aesthetics of design mainly as visual value and understate other sensorial and perceptual aspects. Although the visual approach may provide a practical means to represent and communicate ideas, a design process heavily driven by visuality can exhibit weaknesses undermining certain aspects of spatial experience despite the complexity. Grounded in Merleau-Ponty’s notion of multisensory perception, this article discusses the relationship between body awareness and spatial perception and its implication for design disciplines concerning built environments. Special attention is given to the concepts of kinesthetic and synesthetic phenomena known as multisensory and cross-sensory, respectively. This discussion integrates the corporeal and spatiotemporal realms of human experience into the discourse of kinesthetic and synesthetic perceptions. Based on the conceptual, theoretical, and precedent analyses, this article proposes three models for design thinking: Synesthetic Translation, Kinesthetic Resonance, and Kinesthetic Engagement. To discuss the concepts rooted in action-based perception and embodied cognition, this study borrows the neurological interpretation of haptic perception, interoception, and proprioception of space. This article suggests how consideration of the kinesthetic or synesthetic body can deepen and challenge the existing models of the perceptual aspects of environmental psychology adopted in design disciplines. (shrink)

Anti-bribery and corruption in sport governing bodies is a little explored area in academic literature. This paper addresses the gap in the literature through expert perceptions on the current state of anti-bribery and corruption policies in international and national sport governing bodies as seen through an ethical climate theory lens. Thus, this paper addresses the question of how and why enhancing anti-bribery and corruption in sport internal controls can mitigate financial corruption and improve ethical climates. Semi-structured interviews were undertaken with (...) 17 forensic accountants and anticorruption experts to garner their opinion on strengths and weaknesses of current policies in sport governing bodies and ascertain the link between anticorruption, accounting controls, and ethical climates. The transcripts were analysed using thematic analysis and the results showed a consistency of opinion with regards to the policy improvements required for a robust anti-bribery and corruption programme within sport governing bodies, with multiple implications for ethical organisational climates. (shrink)

In explaining the reasons for sustained existence of tolerance in Indian philosophical mind and continuation of tolerant practices in socio-political life, Amartya Sen argues that tolerance is inherently a social enterprise, which may appear as contingent, but for all intents and purposes is persistent. Basing his thesis that is opposed to Cartesian dualism, which makes a distinction between mind and body, Sen submits that Indian system of universalizing perception finds a subtle form of connection between mind and body. (...) He expands the ancient core worldview, Vasundhara kutumbakam as a secular tolerant civil code,1which makes a connection between the transcendental and the pragmatic planes of consciousness, and reconstructs a thesis about tolerance around human consciousness, which is collectivized and anchored in an acknowledged public space in society that is joined together psychologically as well as philosophically. Tolerance as consciousness can be regarded a necessary condition for playing the role of intentionality as stipulated by classical philosophy. Aware of this ancient wisdom that accepts relativism as an impasse over some evaluative matter, Sen avoids the pitfalls of cultural relativism in tolerance by offering an argument that is based on the metaphysics of Advaita Vedanta and other religious and secular literature, and epitomizes an internationalizing virtue in tolerant traditions. I would examine some interconnected issues, such as the ethical “perimeter” of Sen’s philosophical observation of totalized value system and Indian tolerant attitudes in real life, etc., raising the broader question about the location of cultural identity in relation to supranational state organization. My chief argument is that Sen has been able to observe a connection between the Advaita Vedantic moral philosophy that informs that viewed from the Brahmanic perspective of absolute knowledge in unity, the apparent subject of duality is not the ultimate subject. My conclusion is that valuing of tolerance, individual liberty as well as civil rights is a particular contribution of Western thinking and philosophy; the Western advocates of these rights often provide ammunition to the non-Western critics of tolerance and human rights. (shrink)

Dance as a complex human activity is a rich test case for exploring perception in action. In this article, we explore a 4E approach to perception/action in dance, focussing on the intersubjective and ecological aspects of kinaesthetic attunement and their capacity to expand empathic and perceptive experience. We examine the question: what are the ways in which the performance ecology co-created in different dance practices influences empathic and perceptive experience? We adopt an enactive ethnographic and phenomenological approach to explore two (...) distinct dance forms: Contact Improvisation [CI], a duet-system based practice aimed at fostering interkinaesthetic awareness and challenging habits of movement; and Body Weather [BW], an anti-hierarchical movement practice sensitive to the surrounding environment. We argue that through intersubjective kinaesthetic attunement, CI scaffolds the development of perceptive awareness of subtle shifts within ourselves and others, allowing the cultivation of a capacity for flexibly traversing between conscious initiation of action, attuned responding, and the intersection between them. Similarly, we investigate the expansion of perceptive experience through kinaesthetic attunement in BW. We suggest that the capacity for empathy is enhanced in BW through drawing attention to, and perception of, the fullness of a place in a way that we do not typically experience. By focussing on the variations in which embodied perceptual skills are enacted in specific dance forms and the expansion of perceptive experience through kinaesthetic attunement, we stress the potential of the performing arts to cultivate and create new ways of empathic engagement with the world in which we find ourselves. (shrink)

Research increasingly demonstrates that associations between autonomy-relevant parenting and adolescent adjustment generalize across cultures. Yet, there is still an ongoing debate about the role of culture in these effects of autonomy-relevant parenting. The current study aimed to contribute to a more nuanced perspective on this debate by addressing cultural variability in micro-processes involved in autonomy-relevant parenting and, more specifically, in adolescents’ appraisals of and responses to parental behavior. In this vignette-based experimental study, involving 137 South-Korean adolescents (54% female, mean age (...) = 16 years), we examined whether individual differences in vertical collectivism affect the association between descriptions of potentially autonomy-supportive and controlling parenting practices and (a) appraisals of these practices (in terms of perceived autonomy support and control and experiences of autonomy need satisfaction and frustration), and (b) anticipated responses to these practices (i.e., negotiation, submissive compliance, and oppositional defiance). Participants in the autonomy-supportive condition reported more perceived autonomy support and autonomy satisfaction and lower perceived control and autonomy need frustration than participants in the controlling condition. Collectivism moderated between-vignette effects on perceived control and autonomy need frustration such that the differences between the autonomy-supportive and controlling vignettes were less pronounced (yet still significant) among adolescents scoring higher on collectivism. Collectivism did not moderate effects of the vignettes on the responses to parenting, but yielded a main effect, with collectivism relating to more submissive compliance and less oppositional defiance. Overall, the results suggest that both universal and culture-specific processes are involved in autonomy-relevant socialization. (shrink)

The association of colour, sensation and the body, which is noted by Jacqueline Lichtenstein and Merleau-Ponty through their insights on colour as the disturbing of structure and form, offers a way in which to foreground a series of questions about embodiment and the discourse of vision. An analysis of the chromatics of Red Road, which features a female protagonist who works as a surveillance officer in a CCTV control room, offers a way to echo and disrupt the ‘mechanisms and (...) techniques of reality-control’ and to challenge what constitutes socially acceptable bodies and the cinematic institution of the image of woman. In Red Road the legible architecture of the film image emerges through the myriad colours of light reflected by a camera lens and the effacement of details in areas affected by shadow and variations in focus. The camera is almost always in motion and responsive to the gestures of the protagonist's body, signalling the potential of the chromatics of Red Road to trouble the structures of seeing familiar to cinematic representation. Colour and perception remain open to contingency and change, fostering alternative subject positions that trace the interrelations of the body — its senses and sensations — and the discourse of vision. The unsettling of perception refigures the encounter between the self and others through the imaginary or fictional worlds that remind us of the uncertainties and vulnerability of such interactions. (shrink)

Autoscopic phenomena are complex experiences that include the visual illusory reduplication of one’s own body. From a phenomenological point of view, we can distinguish three conditions: autoscopic hallucinations, heautoscopy, and out-of-body experiences. The dysfunctional pattern involves multisensory disintegration of personal and extrapersonal space perception. The etiology, generally either neurological or psychiatric, is different. Also, the hallucination of Self and own body image is present during dreams and differs according to sleep stage. Specifically, the representation of the Self (...) in REM dreams is frequently similar to the perception of Self in wakefulness, whereas in NREM dreams, a greater polymorphism of Self and own body representation is observed. The parallels between autoscopic phenomena in pathological cases and the Self-hallucination in dreams will be discussed to further the understanding of the particular states of self awareness, especially the complex integration of different memory sources in Self and body representation. (shrink)

Malebranche holds that sensory experience represents the world from the body’s point of view. I argue that Malebranche gives a systematic analysis of this bodily perspective in terms of the claim that the five familiar external senses and bodily awareness represent nothing but relations to the body.