When subjects view stimulation of a rubber hand while feeling congruent stimulation of their own hand, they may come to feel that the rubber hand is part of their own body. This illusion of body ownership is termed ‘Rubber Hand Illusion’ . We investigated sensitivity of RHI to spatial mismatches between visual and somatic experience. We compared the effects of spatial mismatch between the stimulation of the two hands, and equivalent mismatches between the postures of the two hands. We created (...) the mismatch either by adjusting stimulation or posture of the subject’s hand, or, in a separate group of subjects, by adjusting stimulation or posture of the rubber hand. The matching processes underlying body ownership were asymmetrical. The illusion survived small changes in the subject’s hand posture, but disappeared when the same posture transformations were applied to the rubber hand. Mismatch between the stimulation delivered to the subject’s hand and the rubber hand abolished the illusion. The combination of these two situations is of particular interest. When the subject’s hand posture was slightly different from the rubber hand posture, the RHI remained as long as stimulation of the two hands was congruent in a hand-centred spatial reference frame, even though the altered posture of the subject’s hand meant that stimulation was incongruent in external space. Conversely, the RHI was reduced when the stimulation was incongruent in hand-centred space but congruent in external space. We conclude that the visual–tactile correlation that causes the RHI is computed within a hand-centred frame of reference, which is updated with changes in body posture. Current sensory evidence about what is ‘me’ is interpreted with respect to a prior mental body representation. (shrink)

This contribution consists of two parts. The first aims to clarify the structure of the nosology of psychopathologies that Kant proposes in the "Versuch über die Krankheiten des Kopfes". Such nosology consists of two series, arranged in ascending order, one relating to the social manifestations of madness, the other to its individual manifestations, which specifically concern the faculties of the soul. We will try to demonstrate the existence of a connection between these two series, and to illustrate how this occurs. (...) The second part of the contribution, on the other hand, intends to question the thesis according to which Kant in his "Versuch" provided a social aetiology of psychopathologies. We will show, in spite of this thesis, how society creates conditions only for the manifestation of these pathologies, and not for their production, which must instead be sought in the body. (shrink)

BackgroundThis study aims to quantitatively and qualitatively evaluate the activities of a Bioethics Unit (BU) 5 years since its implementation (2016–2020). The BU is a research unit providing empirical research on ethical issues related to clinical practice, clinical ethics consultation, and ethical education for health care professionals (HPS).MethodsWe performed an explanatory, sequential, mixed-method, observational study, using the subsequent qualitative data to explain the initial quantitative findings. Quantitative data were collected from an internal database and analyzed by descriptive analysis. Qualitative evaluation (...) was performed by semi-structured interviews with 18 HPs who were differently involved in the BU’s activities and analyzed by framework analysis.ResultsQuantitative results showed an extensive increment of the number of BU research projects over the years and the number of work collaborations with other units and wards. Qualitative findings revealed four main themes, concerning: 1. the reasons for contacting the BU and the type of collaboration; 2. the role of the bioethicist; 3. the impact of BU activities on HPs, in terms of developing deeper and more mature thinking; 4. the need to extend ethics support to other settings. Overall, our results showed that performing both empirical bioethics research and more traditional clinical ethics activities at the same unit would produce an impetus to increase collaboration and spread an 'ethical culture' among local HPs.ConclusionsOur findings contribute to a growing body of literature on the models of clinical ethics support services and the role of empirical research in bioethics internationally. They also prepare the ground for the implementation of a multidisciplinary Clinical Ethics Committee (CEC) that aims to support the BU’s ethics consultation service within the local context. (shrink)

The mental representation of one’s own body does not necessarily correspond to the physical body. For instance, a dissociation between perceived and actual reach-ability has been shown, that is, individuals perceive that they can reach objects that are out of grasp. We presented participants with 3D pictures of objects located at four different distances, namely near-reaching space, actual-reaching space, perceived-reaching space and non-reaching space. Immediately after they were presented with function, manipulation, observation or pointing verbs and were required to judge (...) if the verb was compatible with the object.Participants were faster with function and manipulation verbs than with observation and pointing verbs. Strikingly, with both function and manipulation verbs participants were faster when objects were presented in actual than the perceived reaching space. These findings suggest that our knowledge of the world is implicitly built online through behaviour, and is not necessarily reflected in explicit estimates or conscious representations. (shrink)

In this paper we will address the following points: (1) we will question the general belief that Kant’s philosophical approach has a geographical character, by showing how critical philosophy and physical geography establish, in their respective systems, two inverse relationships between the rational and the aesthetic form of spatiality; (2) we will argue that cartography still plays a role in the realization of a scientific system of cognition, and that this role consists in guiding this very realization; (3) lastly, we (...) will develop the hypothesis that the map of the cognitive faculties, exemplified by the transcendental topic, is part of a device aimed at keeping the subject from the adventures of thought typical of dogmatism. (shrink)

The article aims to be a reflective paper on the interconnected concepts of training, development and innovation and the potential they have in dealing with change in organizations. We call change both the process through which something becomes different and the result of that process. Change management is the expression used to define the complex of activities, functions, and tools (such as training courses) through which an organization deals with the introduction of something new that is relevant for both its (...) survival and growth. Training and development are labels used to define those educational activities implemented in organizations to empower the competences of workers, employees and managers in the lifelong learning perspective of improving their performance. Consequently, we define competences as those personal characteristics that allow people to be effective in the changing contexts of both workplace and everyday life. They are also necessary in organizational innovation, which is the process of transforming ideas or inventions into goods or services that generate value and for which customers will pay. Training, development, and innovation are three different but interconnected functions by which organizations manage change. What is the state of the art of the literature dealing with these topics? Here, is a critical review on the matter. (shrink)

Emerging research has highlighted the utility of measuring individual differences in decision-making competence (DMC), showing that consistently following normatively rational principles is associated with positive psychosocial and health behaviors. From another level of analysis, functional theories of personality suggest that broad trait dimensions represent variation in underlying self-regulatory systems, providing a mechanistic account for robust associations between traits and similar life outcomes. Yet, the degree to which broad dispositional personality dimensions predict global tendencies to respond rationally is less understood. In (...) a large online community sample (N = 804), we tested the associations between HEXACO personality dimensions, a 6-factor structural trait model, and a subset of DMC indicators (Applying Decision Rules, Resistance to Framing, Recognizing Social Norms, and Consistency in Risk Perception). Additionally, we examined gender differences across the DMC, first considering the potential for measurement non-invariance across groups for the DMC. We observed partial measurement invariance between men and women; only the Applying Decision Rules scale showed evidence of differential functioning across groups. Controlling for these differences, analyses revealed that higher Conscientiousness, Honesty/Humility, and Openness were associated with higher DMC scores. In contrast, Emotionality and Extraversion demonstrated gender-specific associations. Speci... (shrink)

This paper deals with the metaphysics of the notion of quantity in the philosophy of Leibniz, and its aim is to defend the following bi-conditional: for any object x, x has a certain quantity if and only if x has a (metaphysical) limit or a bound. The direction from left to right is justified in §3, while in §4 I develop an argument to justify the direction from right to left. Since the bi-conditional links the metaphysical notion of limit to (...) the mathematical notion of quantity (and in this way it links Leibniz’s metaphysics with his conception of Mathesis Universalis), it allows the use of metaphysics to clarify the features of the mathematical notion of quantity. This task is accomplished in §5 and §6. Finally, §7 discusses a possible objection. (shrink)

In the multi-agent setting, it is relevant to model group dynamics of agents, and logic has proved a good tool to do so. We propose an epistemic logic, L-DINF-E, that allows one to formalize what are the beliefs formed by a group of agents, where several groups exist and agents can pass from a group to another one. We introduce a new modality which allows an agent to reason about the beliefs of other agents. This allows us to model aspects (...) of the “Theory of Mind”, understood as the set of social-cognitive skills involving the ability to attribute and reason about mental states, desires, beliefs, and knowledge of agents. In this paper, we present the logic L-DINF-E and illustrate how it can be used to solve “false-belief tasks”, i.e., tests in which an agent should understand that some other agent may develop, under some circumstances, false beliefs. (shrink)

A collection of articles originally presented at two conferences, the first at Ventura Hall, Stanford, in April 1998; and the second at the University of Bologna in September 1999.

In this essay, Karl Philipp Moritz seeks to demonstrate how a psychological analysis of language can clarify the deeper meaning behind the use of certain linguistic expressions. Specifically, Moritz focuses on impersonal verbs (in German, constructed with the pronoun ‘es’) and argues that these verbs express states of mind – sensations and thoughts – that the subject passively undergoes and, thus, cannot trace back to their own spontaneous mental activity. Moritz’s essay is a pivotal contribution to 18th-century linguistic thought, as (...) it explores the relationship between how states of mind are expressed linguistically and the origin and nature of these states within the subject’s mental life. (shrink)

We show: (1) It is possible to produce the three familiar statistics without referring to the problem of distinguishability; (2) what really distinguishes elementary particles is the correlation existing among them; (3) correlations existing among quantum particles, positive for bosons and negative form fermions, are completely different in character.

Embodiment matters to perception and action. Beyond the triviality that, under normal circumstances, we need a body in order to perceive the world and act in it, our particular embodiment, right here, right now, both enables and constrains our perception of possibilities for action. In this chapter, we provide empirical support for the idea that the structural and morphological features of the body can narrow the set of our possible interactions with the environment by shaping the way we perceive the (...) possibilities for action provided. We argue that this narrowing holds true in the perception of what we call strongly embodied affordances, that is, relevant micro-affordances that have a genuinely demanding characteristic, as well as in the perception of actions performed by others. In particular, we show that perceptual contents are shaped by fine-grained morphological features of the body, such as specific hand-shapes, and that they change according to our possibility to act upon them with this body, in this situation, at this moment. We argue that these considerations provide insight into distinguishing a variety of experienced affordance relations that can aid us in better understanding the relevance of embodiment for perception and experience. (shrink)

The contribution analyses the third part of the "Allgemeine Naturgeschichte", written by Kant in 1755, and focuses in particular on the ontological nexus that relate the activity of the soul to the material quality and to the morphology of the organic body. In the course of the analysis, the presence of two argumentative logics of Kant’s discourse will be highlighted. For the first one, the body is a limitation of the spirit, which would fully develop its cognitive faculties if it (...) were not connected to any matter. For the second one, on the contrary, the connection with the body becomes a necessary condition for the spirit to be given the faculty to exercise its own power of thought. (shrink)

This contribution retraces the most significant moments of a debate that has seen researchers from different disciplinary areas reflect on schizophrenia, in particular on the symptom of thought insertion, with the conceptual tools of Kant’s theoretical philosophy. In the course of this report, some problematic aspects of the interpretations of the "Critique of Pure Reason" promoted in the aforementioned debate are highlighted. The last part of the contribution presents some considerations on the relationship between critical philosophy and madness.

A generalization of Ehrenfest''s urn model is suggested. This will allow usto treat a wide class of stochastic processes describing the changes ofmicroscopic objects. These processes are homogeneous Markov chains. Thegeneralization proposed is presented as an abstract conditional (relative)probability theory. The probability axioms of such a theory and some simpleadditional conditions, yield both transition probabilities and equilibriumdistributions. The resulting theory interpreted in terms of particles andsingle-particle states, leads to the usual formulae of quantum and classicalstatistical mechanics; in terms of chromosomes (...) and allelic types, it allowsthe deduction of many genetical models including the Ewens sampling formula;in terms of agents'' strategies, it gives a justification of the ``herdbehaviour'''' typical of a population of heterogeneous economic agents. (shrink)

In this paper, I first examine the classification of mental derangements contained in Kant’s "Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View", in order to highlight the role played by imagination in their pathogenesis. Later, on the basis of this examination, I reflect on the origins of critical philosophy, which can be seen as an attempt to construct a control device for the imagination structured as a systematic, organic space.

This paper analyses the abstractionist account of quantity championed by Leibniz, especially in the 1680s. Leibniz introduced the notion of quantity in an indirect way, via an abstraction principle. In the first part of the paper, I identify the context in which this approach arose in light of Leibniz's criticism of his earlier dream of an ‘alphabet of human thought’. Recognising the impossibility of such a project led him to realise that, when dealing with terms referring to abstract objects, we (...) should always consider them within the true sentences in which they occur. In the second part, I describe this approach in detail. This allows us to look at some key concepts of Leibniz's theory of quantity. In particular, I raise the problem of the relationship between the two sides of the abstraction principle: how should we think of the relation between the claim that a and b are equal, and the claim that the quantity of a is identical to the quantity of b? I argue that we can find a positive answer to this problem in Leibniz. (shrink)

In this contribution, we first discuss the aspects of the analytic method conceived by Kant in the Deutlichkeit that differentiate it from the Wolffian method and relate it to the Newtonian method. Compared to the philosophical tradition, the task of analysing concepts appears profoundly changed. Since Kant aims philosophy towards the world, he considers concepts as something given and intends to discern their characteristic marks by observing their usual applications. Although Kant abandons any attempt to define concepts nominally, he still (...) gives great relevance to words to the extent that concepts, according to him, acquire their meaning in the linguistic usage. We will also point out how for Kant the linguistic usage makes the analysis of concepts anything but easy and how a hermeneutic process is necessary for its completion. In distinguishing philosophical signs from mathematical signs, Kant provides the semiotic reasons that underlie his recourse to hermeneutics. (shrink)

The long history of ergodic and quasi-ergodic hypotheses provides the best example of the attempt to supply non-probabilistic justifications for the use of statistical mechanics in describing mechanical systems. In this paper we reverse the terms of the problem. We aim to show that accepting a probabilistic foundation of elementary particle statistics dispenses with the need to resort to ambiguous non-probabilistic notions like that of (in)distinguishability. In the quantum case, starting from suitable probability conditions, it is possible to deduce elementary (...) particle statistics in a unified way. Following our approach Maxwell-Boltzmann statistics can also be deduced, and this deduction clarifies its status.Thus our primary aim in this paper is to give a mathematically rigorous deduction of the probability of a state with given energy for a perfect gas in statistical equilibrium; that is, a deduction of the equilibrium distribution for a perfect gas. A crucial step in this deduction is the statement of a unified statistical theory based on clearly formulated probability conditions from which the particle statistics follows. We believe that such a deduction represents an important improvement in elementary particle statistics, and a step towards a probabilistic foundation of statistical mechanics.In this Part I we first present some history: we recall some results of Boltzmann and Brillouin that go in the direction we will follow. Then we present a number of probability results we shall use in Part II. Finally, we state a notion of entropy referring to probability distributions, and give a natural solution to Gibbs' paradox. (shrink)

Based on Rodolfo Sacco’s passionate research on cryptotypes and mute law, the essay aims to propose an onto-aesthetic understanding of latency in law. Inspired by a transdisciplinary way of thinking, the Author elevates comparative law to the privileged site where a critique of the unexpressed can be performed; the degree of figurality of the law can be uncovered and measured; an economy of surplus can be disclosed as the proper segnatorial trait of the material appearances of the law. In this (...) direction, comparative law combines a phenomenology of latency with a hermeneutics of the implicit/implied and becomes the place where it is possible to uncover the communality among plural symbolic universes (literature, arts, music) against the tyranny of disciplinary strategy. (shrink)

Whilst previous observational studies have linked negative thought processes such as an external locus of control and holding negative cognitive styles with depression, the directionality of these associations and the potential role that these factors play in the transition to adulthood and parenthood has not yet been investigated. This study examined the association between locus of control and negative cognitive styles in adolescence and probable depression in young adulthood and whether parenthood moderated these associations. Using a UK prospective population-based birth (...) cohort study: the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children, we examined the association between external locus of control and negative cognitive styles in adolescence with odds of depression in 4,301 young adults using logistic regression models unadjusted and adjusted for potential confounding factors. Interaction terms were employed to examine whether parenthood moderated these associations. Over 20% of young adults in our sample were at or above the clinical threshold indicating probable depression. For each standard deviation increase in external locus of control in adolescence, there was a 19% higher odds of having probable depression in young adulthood, after adjusting for various confounding factors including baseline mood and different demographic and life events variables. Similarly, for each SD increase in negative cognitive styles in adolescence, there was a 29% higher odds of having probable depression in the adjusted model. We found little evidence that parenthood status moderated the relationship between external locus of control or negative cognitive styles in adolescence and probable depression following adjustment for confounding factors. Effect estimates were comparable when performed in the complete case dataset. These findings suggest that having an external locus of control and holding negative cognitive styles in mid- to late adolescence is associated with an increased likelihood of probable depression in young adulthood. (shrink)

The paper deals with Leibniz’s ontology and the metaphysics of the aggregate. Concerning the ontology of aggregates, the main aim is to provide _a new argument_ in favor of the claim that an aggregate and its constituents have the same ontological import. This argument takes the form of a weakening of a principle known in the contemporary literature of mereology as ‘composition as identity’ (CAI). The paper shows that Leibniz’s nominalism toward aggregates is a direct consequence of two elements: the (...) way in which he considers the relationship between aggregates and their constituents in his logical calculus; and his theory of identity (and more generally, equivalence relations) as providing us with the ground for substitution _salva veritate_. It is concluded that Leibniz is committed to a principle that the author dubs Ontological-CAI: the aggregate/whole is _ontologically identical_ (i.e. it has the same ontological import) as its constituents/parts. Concerning the metaphysics of aggregates, the paper outlines in what sense aggregates are grounded on their constituents: arguing that Leibniz is committed to a further principle that the author calls Metaphysical-CAI: the aggregate/whole is _metaphysically grounded_ on its constituents/parts. From this it can be understood in which sense Leibniz could be considered a mereological nihilist, and in which sense not. The paper also sets out two different and competing readings of Metaphysical-CAI, and argues that Leibniz accepted both of them by interpreting them as different levels of explanation of the nature of aggregates. (shrink)

In this paper we offer a new solution to the old paradox of nothingness. This new solution develops in two steps. The first step consists in showing how to resolve the contradiction generated by the notion of nothingness by claiming that the contradiction shows the indefinite extensibility of the concept of object. The second step consists in showing that, having accepted the idea of indefinite extensibility, we can have absolute generality without the emergence of the contradiction connected to the absolute (...) notion of nothingness. The idea of indefinite extensibility allows us to have our cake and to eat it too. (shrink)