Double 11 shopping carnival, celebrated by the most successful electronic-commerce Chinese company, Alibaba, has always been the online shopping festival with the highest turnover and involves the largest number of consumers and enterprises in China. This study integrates the elaboration likelihood model and stimulus-organism-response theory to study the dual-processing path of information, which drives customers’ behavioral intention on Double 11. There are 454 valid samples of data are collected, and the research model is tested using the partial least squares method. (...) Results show that in the Double 11 context, two different processing mechanisms affect consumers’ behavioral intention. Thereinto, consumers’ behavioral intention is more affected by the peripheral path than the central path. The affective experience affected by the information stimulus has a greater impact on the behavioral intention than cognitive experience. Furthermore, we find situational involvement have different moderating effects on the relationship between two experiences and behavioral intention. (shrink)

Background: Clinical tests for detecting central and peripheral shoulder fatigue are limited. The discrimination of these two types of fatigue is necessary to better adapt recovery intervention. The Kinematic Theory of Rapid Human Movements describes the neuromotor impulse response using lognormal functions and has many applications in pathology detection. The ideal motor control is modeled and a change in the neuromuscular system is reflected in parameters extracted according to this theory. Objective: The objective of this study was to assess (...) whether a shoulder neuromuscular fatigue could be detected through parameters describing the theory, if there is the possibility to discriminate central from peripheral fatigue, and which handwriting test gives the most relevant information on fatigue. Methods: Twenty healthy participants performed two sessions of fast stroke handwriting on a tablet, before and after a shoulder fatigue. The fatigue was in internal rotation for one session and in external rotation during the other session. The drawings consisted of simple strokes, triangles, horizontal and vertical oscillations. Parameters of these strokes were extracted according to the Sigma-Lognormal model of the Kinematic Theory. The evolution of each participant was analyzed through a U-Mann-Whitney test for individual comparisons. A Hotelling’s T² test and a U-Mann-Whitney test were also performed on all participants to assess the group evolution after fatigue. Moreover, a correlation among parameters was calculated through Spearman coefficients to assess intrinsic parameters properties of each handwriting test. Results: Central and peripheral parameters were statistically different before and after fatigue with a possibility to discriminate them. Participants had various responses to fatigue. However, when considering the group, parameters related to the motor program execution showed significant increase in the handwriting tests after shoulder fatigue. The test of simple strokes permits to know more specifically where the fatigue comes from, whereas the oscillations tests were the most sensitive to fatigue. Conclusion: The results of this study suggest that the Sigma-Lognormal model of the Kinematic Theory is an innovative approach for fatigue detection with discrimination between the central and peripheral systems. Overall, there is a possibility to implement the setting for clinics and sports personalized follow-up. (shrink)

Peripheral vision has different functional priorities for mammals than foveal vision. One of its roles is to monitor the environment while central vision is focused on the current task. Becoming distracted too easily would be counterproductive in this perspective, so the brain should react to behaviourally relevant changes. Gist processing is good for this purpose, and it is therefore not surprising that evidence from both functional brain imaging and behavioural research suggests a tendency to generalize and blend information (...) in the periphery. This may be caused by the balance of perceptual influence in the periphery between bottom-up and top-down processing channels. Here, we investigated this interaction behaviourally using a peripheral numerosity discrimination task with top-down and bottom-up manipulations. Participants compared numerosity between the left and right peripheries of a screen. Each periphery was divided into a centre and a surrounding area, only one of which was a task relevant target region. Our top-down task modulation was the instruction which area to attend – centre or surround. We varied the signal strength by altering the stimuli durations i.e., the amount of information presented/processed. We found that numerosity perceived in target regions was affected by contextual information in neighbouring areas. This effect appeared as soon as stimulus duration allowed the task to be reliably performed and persisted even at the longest duration. We compared the pattern of results with an ideal-observer model and found a qualitative difference in the way centre and surround areas interacted perceptually in the periphery. When participants reported on the central area, the irrelevant surround would affect the response as a weighted combination – consistent with the idea of a receptive field focused in the target area to which irrelevant surround stimulation leaks in. When participants report on surround, we can best describe the response with a model in which occasionally the attention switches from task relevant surround to task irrelevant centre – consistent with a selection model of two competing streams of information. Overall our results show that the influence of spatial context in the periphery is mandatory but task dependent. (shrink)

The longitudinal research presented here is unique, having examined a model of stability and change in work values of the same people over the course of time. The purpose was to reflect the changes in work values that occurred in Israel during this period. The research focused on three domains: work goals, job satisfaction, and work centrality. Following an analysis of research literature, a model of work values was examined by the LISREL method. Instrumental and expressive goals effected work (...) centrality both directly and indirectly (through job satisfaction as mediating factor). While in 1981 only the positive effect of expressive goals on work centrality was significant, the 1993 analysis revealed that beyond the positive effect of expressive goals, there is also significant negative effect of instrumental goals on work centrality. Our research shows that the main changes occurred in peripheral values (work goals) as compared with the stability of core values (work centrality). Slight changes occurred in semi-peripheral values (job satisfaction). (shrink)

This article appraises the political writings of three Polish Marxists from the early 20th century, Kazimierz Kelles-Krauz, Stanisław Brzozowski and Rosa Luxemburg. In the specific peripheral conditions and because of the entanglement of different struggles in the Polish Kingdom under Tsarist rule around the 1905 Revolution, it was no longer possible for Marxists and political theorists to refer to any firm political ground: whether the organic unity of the nation, class antagonisms, or laws of history. The construction of revolutionary (...) subjects in Luxemburg, the political rethinking of national community and the realistic ‘agonistic’ conception of democracy in Kelles-Krauz, and Brzozowski’s anti-essentialist Marxism, with its mobilizing power and politically constructed subjects of social change, are peculiar, peripheral forms of political Marxism, today worth looking at one more time. (shrink)

As the title of this article suggests, the concept of the interface needs to be revisited in the context of biological media in order to infer some implications for the post-biological culture. A direct comparison of our media culture to the environmental notion of the media and the natural partitioning of the media by biological membranes becomes possible if we expand on the notions of media and interfaces in our technologically conditioned realities. The question of periphery and permeability of a (...) biological membrane will be addressed in the context of the theory of aesthetics. Although at first glance we are dealing only with subtle changes in the degree of permeability of an interface, suddenly selectiveness in permeability arises, and though an interface is considered simply peripheral, at a slight touch with an opposing media its role swiftly becomes central. Taking into account the functioning of a biological membrane, a remarkably resourceful technology, associations stem from the culture on the cellular level to the culture of human society, where the human being should not be limited to the concept of self, but operatively diffused into collective awareness. The technologies that we develop, and the media we employ and inhabit always meet at an interface. But there is more to the face-to-face meeting of media than a mere inert surface. Such a surface as a membrane is not abstractly thin but more like ‘infrathin’ – the term invented by the artist Marcel Duchamp. What happens at such confrontation of media of different kinds, of incomparable qualities, will be further discussed in the article. The dynamics of permeability at the periphery adjust the tension between heterogeneous qualities of the media to allow for coexistence, even for the emergence of new meanings. This heterogeneity can be experienced only within the interface, and therefore an inner view is proposed instead of a view from above, an inner view that prevents reduction of processes to commensurable, quantifiable objects. Since interface occurs at every interaction with the world, as explained in the theory of endophysics by biochemist Otto E. Rössler, we have to be aware of the problematics of this phenomenon, and we must rethink its potential. The interface is at the same time an opportunity, the interval we are given, where our drive to act is suppressed and our will to speculate prevails. By contemplating intricate biological solutions, this article hopes to further encourage the turn towards post-biological evolution of our awareness. (shrink)

Proprioceptive acuity is of great significance in basic research exploring a possible neural mechanism of fine motor control and in neurorehabilitation practice promoting motor function recovery of limb-disabled people. Moreover, body representation relies on the integration of multiple somatic sensations, including proprioception that is mainly generated in muscles and tendons of human joints. This study aimed to examine two hypotheses: First, different extension positions of wrist joint have different proprioceptive acuities, which might indicate different body representations of wrist joint in (...) the brain. Second, repetitive peripheral magnetic stimulation applied peripherally to the forearm radial nerve and extensors could change proprioceptive acuity at the wrist joint. Thirty-five healthy participants were recruited then randomly divided into the real stimulation group and the sham stimulation group. The participants’ non-dominant side wrist joint position sense was tested at six extension positions within the physiological joint motion range both before stimulation and after stimulation. Results showed that proprioceptive bias among six extension positions could be divided into lower-extension position and higher-extension position. One session rPMS could influence proprioceptive bias in lower-extension position but not in higher-extension position. However, proprioceptive precision was not influenced. To conclude, proprioceptive bias may vary between different wrist extension positions due to different hand postures being related to changes in body representation, and different functions relating to proprioceptive bias and proprioceptive precision may underlie two aspects of body representation. (shrink)

Abilities such as peripheral reaction are of special importance in soccer. Whether these abilities can be improved by sport-specific on-field interventions remains unclear. The aim of the present controlled trial was to investigate the effect of a soccer-specific perceptual-cognitive on-field training on peripheral reaction of highly talented soccer players aged 12 to 13 years. N = 38 male elite athletes from young talent centers were allocated to an intervention (n = 19) and a control group (n = 19). (...) Computer-based peripheral perception tests were conducted pre- and post-intervention. Combining a sport-specific and a juggling task, the intervention was performed once a week (8 weeks, 20 min. per week) in addition to team training. The control group exclusively underwent usual team training. Analyzes show significant differences between the two groups for Peripheral Reaction Time, with significant improvements for the intervention group and none for the control group. Furthermore, results indicate that improvements in peripheral reaction might be due to changes in the reaction time of right-footed players. Future studies should be conducted to clarify the effect of sport-specific on-field training approaches on peripheral reaction time. These analyzes should consider the influence of lateralization on effectivity of perceptual-cognitive on-field training approaches. (shrink)

According to the concept of direct parameter specification, nonconsciously registered information can be processed to the extent that it matches currently active intentions of a person. This prediction was tested and confirmed in the current study. Masked visual information provided by peripheral cues led to reaction time effects only if the information specified one of the required responses . Information delivered by the same masked cues that did not match the intentions was not used. However, the same information influenced (...) RT if it was provided by visible cues . The results suggest that the processing of nonconsciously registered information is flexible because it is susceptible to the changing intentions of a person. Yet, these processes are apparently restricted, as nonconsciously registered information cannot be used as easily for purposes not corresponding to the currently active intentions as better visible information. (shrink)

“We can avoid, above all, the mistake of thinking that unless one is big one is negligible.”This paper tries to think about the contexts of scientific practices in peripheral spaces, spaces that exist outside the domain of the resource-rich and well-established scientific communities. I ask the question whether contributions from such modest circumstances can give rise to any creative expertise that is capable of producing novel outcomes in science, and whether exploring such contexts might give us reasons for changing (...) our current mental model of what we take science to be. I assume, of course, that scientific thinking can be present in modest as well as in resource-rich circumstances, and little-known episodes... (shrink)

This article provides a corpus-based analysis of formal structure and rapport orientation of evaluative speech acts in written Mandarin starting from the Qing Dynasty leading up to the present. It focuses on illocutional concurrences where the change of rapport management with the interlocutor significantly correlates with evaluative speech acts. The IC are holistic patterns that emerge at various levels of an utterance. They contribute both locally and peripherally to the encoding of contextually and temporally situated speech acts or pragmemes. Mixed (...) methods of hierarchical clustering and multiple correspondence analysis indicate that the recent history of evaluative speech acts in written Chinese is characterised by a shift from prevalently rapport-maintaining orientation to utterances more overtly marked for politeness. Evaluative language in written Mandarin became less mitigated at the structural level and increasingly oriented towards rapport enhancement and rapport challenge. This shift significantly intersects with a progressive replacement of clause-final particles during the 20th century, especially after the so-called ‘May the 4th Movement’. (shrink)

Decision making often requires making arbitrary choices (“picking”) between alternatives that make no difference to the agent, that are equally desirable, or when the potential reward is unknown. Using event-related potentials we tested the effect of age on this common type of decision making. We compared two age groups: ages 18–25, and ages 41–67 on a masked-priming paradigm while recording EEG and EMG. Participants pressed a right or left button following either an instructive arrow cue or a neutral free-choice picking (...) cue, both preceded by a masked arrow or neutral prime. The prime affected the behavior on the Instructed and the Free-choice picking conditions both in the younger and older groups. Moreover, electrophysiological “Change of Intention” (ChoI) was observed via lateralized readiness potential (LRP) in both age groups – the polarity of the LRP indicated first preparation to move the primed hand and then preparation to move the other hand. However, the older participants were more conservative in responding to the instructive cue, exhibiting a speed-accuracy trade-off, with slower response times, less errors in incongruent trials, and reduced probability of EMG activity in the non-responding hand. Additionally, “Change of Intention” was observed in both age groups in slow RT trials with a neutral prime as a result of an endogenous early intention to respond in a direction opposite the eventual instructing arrow cue. We conclude that the basic behavioral and electrophysiological signatures of implicit ChoI are common to a wide range of ages. However, older subjects, despite showing a similar dynamic decision trajectory as younger adults, are slower, more prudent and finalize the decision making process before letting the information affect the peripheral motor system. In contrast, the flow of information in younger subjects occurs in parallel to the decision process. (shrink)

Short-term motor practice leads to plasticity in the primary motor cortex. The purpose of this study is to investigate the factors that determine the increase in corticospinal tract excitability after motor practice, with special focus on two factors; “the level of muscle activity” and “the presence/absence of a goal of keeping the activity level constant.” Fifteen healthy subjects performed four types of rapid thumb adduction in separate sessions. In the “comfortable task” and “forceful task”, the subjects adducted their thumb using (...) comfortable and strong forces. In the “comfortable with a goal task” and “forceful with a goal task”, subjects controlled the muscle activity at the same level as in the C and F, respectively, by adjusting the peak electromyographic amplitude within the target ranges. Paired associative stimulation, which combines peripheral nerve stimulation and transcranial magnetic stimulation, with an inter-stimulus interval of 25 ms was also done. Before and after the motor tasks and PAS25, TMS was applied to the M1. None of the four tasks showed any temporary changes in behavior, meaning no learning occurred. Motor-evoked potential amplitude increased only after the FG and it exhibited a positive correlation with the MEP increase after PAS25, suggesting that FG and PAS25 share at least similar plasticity mechanisms in the M1. Resting motor threshold decreased only after FG, suggesting that FG would also be associated with the membrane depolarization of M1 neurons. These results suggest task-dependent plasticity from the synergistic effect of forceful muscle activity and of setting a goal of keeping the activity level constant. (shrink)

Genetic and early environmental factors are interwoven in the etiology of Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD). Epigenetic mechanisms offer the molecular machinery to adapt to environmental conditions. There are gaps in the knowledge about how epigenetic mechanisms are involved in the effects of early affective environment, development of BPD, and psychotherapy response. We reviewed the available evidence of the effects of psychotherapy on changes in DNA methylation and conducted a pilot study in a sample of 11 female adolescents diagnosed with (...) BPD, exploring for changes in peripheral DNA methylation of FKBP5 gene, which encodes for a stress response protein, in relation to psychotherapy, on symptomatology and underlying psychological processes. For this purpose, measures of early trauma, borderline and depressive symptoms, psychotherapy outcome, mentalization, and emotional regulation were studied. A reduction in the average FKBP5 methylation levels was observed over time. Additionally, the decrease in FKBP5 methylation observed occurred only in those individuals who had early trauma and responded to psychotherapy. The results suggest an effect of psychotherapy on epigenetic mechanisms associated with the stress response. The finding that epigenetic changes were only observed in patients with early trauma suggests a specific molecular mechanism of recovery. The results should be taken with caution given the small sample size. Also, further research is needed to adjust for confounding factors and include endocrinological markers and therapeutic process variables. (shrink)

With the rapid development of the economy, the land use/cover change in the Greater Bay Area has undergone tremendous changes, which have had directly negative effects on ecosystem functions and services. The development of sustainable land use strategies to quantitatively evaluate ecosystem services is required. Based on multitemporal land use data, the equivalent coefficients table method was used to assess the ecosystem service values, and the impact of LUCC on ecosystem services was analyzed. A future land use simulation model (...) and multiscenario simulations were employed to predict land use change in 2030. Our results indicated that the loss of ESVs decreased by 14.29 billion yuan from 2005 to 2020. The spatial distribution of the high-value ecosystem services was concentrated around the peripheral area of the northern regions in the GBA, and those areas had less land use development and human activity. Compared with those in 2020, the total ESVs of the business-as-usual scenario, socioeconomic development scenario, and cultivated protection priority scenario in 2030 decreased, while they increased in the ecological protection priority scenario. In the CPP scenario, regulating, supporting, provisioning, and cultural services increased slightly, but they decreased in the other scenarios. The patterns of LUCC were the main reasons for the decrease in ESVs, such as the loss of land with high ecological value. Additionally, a four-quadrant analysis is introduced to determine which land use simulation will be expected to be adopted by the government. The findings of this study provide valuable information for decision-making and policy development in the coastal zones and for the sustainable management of ecosystems. (shrink)

Repeatedly performing a submaximal motor task for a prolonged period of time leads to muscle fatigue comprising a central and peripheral component, which demands a gradually increasing effort. However, the brain contribution to the enhancement of effort to cope with progressing fatigue lacks a complete understanding. The intermittent motor tasks closely resemble many activities of daily living, thus remaining physiologically relevant to study fatigue. The scope of this study is therefore to investigate the EEG-based brain activation patterns in healthy (...) subjects performing IMT until self-perceived exhaustion. Fourteen participants repeated elbow flexion contractions at 40% maximum voluntary contraction by following visual cues displayed on an oscilloscope screen until subjective exhaustion. Each contraction lasted ≈5 s with a 2-s rest between trials. The force, EEG, and surface EMG data were simultaneously collected. After preprocessing, we selected a subset of trials at the beginning, middle, and end of the study session representing brain activities germane to mild, moderate, and severe fatigue conditions, respectively, to compare and contrast the changes in the EEG time-frequency characteristics across the conditions. The outcome of channel- and source-level TF analyses reveals that the theta, alpha, and beta power spectral densities vary in proportion to fatigue levels in cortical motor areas. We observed a statistically significant change in the band-specific spectral power in relation to the graded fatigue from both the steady- and post-contraction EEG data. The findings would enhance our understanding on the etiology and physiology of voluntary motor-action-related fatigue and provide pointers to counteract the perception of muscle weakness and lack of motor endurance associated with ADL. The study outcome would help rationalize why certain patients experience exacerbated fatigue while carrying out mundane tasks, evaluate how clinical conditions such as neurological disorders and cancer treatment alter neural mechanisms underlying fatigue in future studies, and develop therapeutic strategies for restoring the patients' ability to participate in ADL by mitigating the central and muscle fatigue. (shrink)

In our contemporary age, where a combination of individualism and mutual distrust is unhappily common among people and society is “liquid” and disoriented, so-called intermediate units are a precious resource that promotes positive coexistence within organizations and in local communities, too. The present contribution describes an example of such an intermediate unit, the Talent Club, located in a peripheral neighborhood of a metropolitan area in northern Italy. This case study shows the development of positive living and working together in (...) organizations and their transformation in the tool for community development and good coexistence. Qualitative and quantitative data show that the relational aspect is crucial because it promotes authentic exchange among people, supporting participation and social cohesion against self-referential habits and isolation. Although at present the Talent Club is mostly functioning in a affiliating coexistence among members, seeds of a more generativ... (shrink)

This paper presents an analysis of the forms of response that scientists make when confronted with anomalous data. We postulate that there are seven ways in which an individual who currently holds a theory can respond to anomalous data: (1) ignore the data; (2) reject the data; (3) exclude the data from the domain of the current theory; (4) hold the data in abeyance; (5) reinterpret the data; (6) make peripheral changes to the current theory; or (7) change (...) the theory. We analyze psychological experiments and cases from the history of science to support this proposal. Implications for the philosophy of science are discussed. (shrink)

Autism has been defined as a disorder of social cognition, interaction and communication where ritualistic, repetitive behaviors are commonly observed. But how should we understand the behavioral and cognitive differences that have been the main focus of so much autism research? Can high-level cognitive processes and behaviors be identified as the core issues people with autism face, or do these characteristics perhaps often rather reflect individual attempts to cope with underlying physiological issues? Much research presented in this volume will point (...) to the latter possibility, i.e. that people on the autism spectrum cope with issues at much lower physiological levels pertaining not only to Central Nervous Systems (CNS) function, but also to peripheral and autonomic systems (PNS, ANS) (Torres, Brincker, et al. 2013). The question that we pursue in this chapter is what might be fruitful ways of gaining objective measures of the large-scale systemic and heterogeneous effects of early atypical neurodevelopment; how to track their evolution over time and how to identify critical changes along the continuum of human development and aging. We suggest that the study of movement variability—very broadly conceived as including all minute fluctuations in bodily rhythms and their rates of change over time (coined micro-movements (Figure 1A-B) (Torres, Brincker, et al. 2013))—offers a uniquely valuable and entirely objectively quantifiable lens to better assess, understand and track not only autism but cognitive development and degeneration in general. This chapter presents the rationale firstly behind this focus on micro-movements and secondly behind the choice of specific kinds of data collection and statistical metrics as tools of analysis (Figure 1C). In brief the proposal is that the micro-movements (defined in Part I – Chapter 1), obtained using various time scales applied to different physiological data-types (Figure 1), contain information about layered influences and temporal adaptations, transformations and integrations across anatomically semi-independent subsystems that crosstalk and interact. Further, the notion of sensorimotor re-afference is used to highlight the fact that these layered micro-motions are sensed and that this sensory feedback plays a crucial role in the generation and control of movements in the first place. In other words, the measurements of various motoric and rhythmic variations provide an access point not only to the “motor systems”, but also access to much broader central and peripheral sensorimotor and regulatory systems. Lastly, we posit that this new lens can also be used to capture influences from systems of multiple entry points or collaborative control and regulation, such as those that emerge during dyadic social interactions. (shrink)

Liberal-Democratic changes in the Russian Society have brought a number of acute problems threatening national security and leading to converting Russia into a peripheral socio-cultural system («national self-identification crisis»). Scientific research shows that the main indicator of the said crisis is not only the critical economic differentiation of people into the «poor» and «rich» Russia (with the different ways of life, needs, mentality) but also spiritual degradation, spread of aggressive – depressive syndrome (growth of hatred, feeling of injustice, (...) loss of meaning of the life, anger, melancholy, hopelessness, loneliness etc.). Twothirds of the citizens (74.9%) interviewed in 2006 think that their social status does not correspond to their personal achievements in education and professional abilities. One of the main reasons of their distrust towards the government bodies is insufficient professional and cultural level, absence of unity of a word and business. It is worth mentioning that books and articles of scientists and ideologists who resist Western liberalism are freely published, but you can hardly see these people close to the President. Russians are openly and secretly under pressure of ideas propagandizing negative past which undermine national self-identification, national pride for the great history of their country. The original sphere of influence of Russian language and Russian culture is shortening under the press of mass-culture. Meanwhile, 67% of Russians expressed their negative attitude towards massive Western cultural expansion. The Futureof Russia is in safeguarding national intellectual and spiritual values, Science, education and in supporting the person of work and creativity. (shrink)

Sustained peripheral somatosensory stimulations, such as high-frequency repetitive somatosensory stimulation (HF-RSS) and vibrated stimulation, are effective in altering the balance between excitation and inhibition in the somatosensory cortex (S1) and motor cortex (M1). A recent study reported that whole-hand water flow (WF) stimulation induced neural disinhibition in the M1. Based on previous results, we hypothesized that whole-hand WF stimulation would lead to neural disinhibition in the S1 because there is a strong neural connection between M1 and S1 and aimed (...) to examine whether whole-hand WF stimulation would change the neural balance between excitation and inhibition in the S1. Nineteen healthy volunteers were studied by measuring excitation and inhibition in the S1 before and after each of the four 15-min interventions. The excitation and inhibition in the S1 were assessed using somatosensory evoked potentials (SEPs) and paired-pulse inhibition (PPI) induced by single- and paired-pulse stimulations, respectively. The four interventions were as follows: control, whole-hand water immersion, whole-hand WF, and HF-RSS. The results showed no significant changes in SEPs and PPI following any intervention. However, changes in PPI with an interstimulus interval (ISI) of 30 ms were significantly correlated with the baseline value before whole-hand WF. Thus, the present findings indicated that the whole-hand WF stimulation had a greater decreased neural inhibition in participants with higher neural inhibition in the S1 at baseline. Considering previous results on M1, the present results possibly show that S1 has lower plasticity than M1 and that the duration (15 min) of each intervention may not have been enough to alter the balance of excitation and inhibition in the S1. (shrink)

The cognitive science of science studies the cognitive processes involved in carrying out science: How do scientists reason? How do scientists develop new theories? How do scientists deal with data that are inconsistent with their theories? How do scientists choose between competing theories? Research on these issues has been carried out by investigators in a number of cognitive science disciplines, particularly psychology, philosophy, and artificial intelligence. More detailed accounts of work in this area can be found in two recent conference (...) volumes. (shrink)

Unprecedented runaway climate change and ecological degradation is argued to be caused by the dominant capitalist mode of production’s reliance on endless economic growth and capital accumulation. Businesses and organisations are expected to act in an ecologically and socially ethical way to help avert the crisis. Yet, there has arguably been little progress in this direction. The conventional ethical frameworks are generally subsumed under capitalism’s reliance on growth that effectively delegate business ethics to a peripheral and, often, contradictory pursuit, (...) insufficient to influence ecologically and socially sustainable business conduct. We therefore explore an alternative approach by operationalising business ethics through organisational values from a post-growth perspective. By analysing the case of a social cooperative, we highlight how post-growth organisational values emerge through the organisation’s history, the members’ experience, and active contrasting to the dominant capitalist value systems. We contribute to business ethics scholarship by highlighting the potential of post-growth organisational ethics and values in creating contrasts to the dominant capitalist values. Our research further contributes to sustainability scholarship, particularly post-growth perspectives, by highlighting that organising through post-growth values in contrast to the dominant economic system is not only possible, but essential to achieve sustainability. Ultimately, our research illustrates the need for political engagement in upholding organisational ethics, in the face of the ecological crisis. (shrink)

We have measured the change of lung mechanical parameters on isolated rabbit lungs exposed to chlorine gas (Cl{in2}). Experimental results show parallel increase in elastance and resistance of impaired lungs. We tried to determine whether this may be explained by a reduction of the ventilated areas in the lung, consecutive to closure of some airways. We have then tried to simulate these experimental results by studying the effects of various airways occlusions imposed on two concurrent models (symmetrical and dissymmetrical) of (...) the tracheo-bronchial tree. For each model, we successively evaluated the resistance of the normal lung, simulated a partial peripheral airways occlusion and estimated the induced changes in total resistance. Analytical expressions of the "occluded lung" elastance and resistance have been found for the symmetrical model but not for the dissymmetrical model (a graphical approach is proposed). With the symmetrical model, simulated results are comparable to experimental ones when the occlusion level is proximal. Whatever the dissymmetry level (δ) of the fractal tree model, we could not simulate the expected increase in resistance with the observed increase in elastance. We conclude that either the occlusion is non homogeneous or the lung impairment is not only a reduction in ventilated areas. (shrink)

Artificial stimulation of the peripheral vestibular system has been shown to improve ownership of body parts in neurological patients, suggesting vestibular contributions to bodily self-consciousness. Here, we investigated whether galvanic vestibular stimulation interferes with the mechanisms underlying ownership, touch, and the localization of one’s own hand in healthy participants by using the “rubber hand illusion” paradigm. Our results show that left anodal GVS increases illusory ownership of the fake hand and illusory location of touch. We propose that these (...) class='Hi'>changes are due to vestibular interference with spatial and/or temporal mechanisms of visual-tactile integration leading to an enhancement of visual capture. As only left anodal GVS lead to such changes, and based on neurological data on body part ownership, we suggest that this vestibular interference is mediated by the right temporo-parietal junction and the posterior insula. (shrink)

Prototype theory makes a crucial distinction between central and peripheral sense of words. Geeraerts explores the implications of this model for a theory of semantic change, in the first full-scale treatment of the impact of the most recent developments in lexicological theory on the study of meaning change. He identifies structural features of the development of word meanings which follow from a prototype-theoretical model of semantic structure, and incorporates these diachronic prototypicality effects into a theory of meaning change.

This study integrates institutional theory and social cognitive theory to describe how peripheral organizations can accidentally bring about radical change even in highly institutionalized and change-resistant fields. The empirical context is the field of banking in Ireland (1995–2001), where a peripheral bank triggered a shift away from traditionally conservative and risk-averse banking values toward aggressive values of entrepreneurial risk taking. The introduction of a new approach to banking was attributed to three factors: (1) a benevolent environment, which made (...) this innovation feasible and timely, (2) the state of the field, which had gaps that could be addressed through specialization, and (3) prior successes, which created hubris in the senior managers, thereby increasing the pace and scope of adoption of this approach. Eventually, what started as a specialized and entrepreneurial approach led to the spread of a risky approach to banking across the entire field. The study highlights the risks of hubris, in that media praise and early successes can increase the pace of adoption of innovations which offer short-term gains but are detrimental in the long term. (shrink)

Duncan Foley’s Unholy Trinity: Labor, capital, and land in the new economy is the sixth in the series of Graz Schumpeter Lectures published by Routledge, all relatively slim volumes elucidating themes arguably related to Schumpeter, if just peripherally, and that usually summarize major arguments of the authors (previous authors were Stanley Metcalfe, Brian Loasby, Nathan Rosenberg, Ian Steedman, and Erich Streissler). In this one, which deals with questions of induced technological change in several sections, Foley attempts to provide an integration (...) of ideas that have evolved through his varied career, from high general equilibrium theorist (Foley, 1967), through deep student of Marxian economics (Foley, 1986), to complexity theorist (Foley, 1994; for more detailed discussion of his personal and intellectual path see Colander et al, 2004, Chapter 7). A central argument is that the classical political economists, not just Marx but also Adam Smith and Malthus with Ricardo (largely lumped together in his analysis), developed ideas that are well suited to representation and understanding using the methods of modern complexity economics, themes of dynamic out-of-equilibrium selforganization in systems with boundedly rational agents, in contrast to the requirements for full Walrasian general equilibrium that he studied early in his career. (shrink)

According to rich views of consciousness (e.g., James, Searle), we have a constant, complex flow of experience (or 'phenomenology') in multiple modalities simultaneously. According to thin views (e.g., Dennett, Mack and Rock), conscious experience is limited to one or a few topics, regions, objects, or modalities at a time. Existing introspective and empirical arguments on this issue (including arguments from 'inattentional blindness') generally beg the question. Participants in the present experiment wore beepers during everyday activity. When a beep sounded, they (...) were to take note of the conscious experience, if any, they were having at the last undisturbed moment immediately prior to the beep. Some participants were asked to report any experience they could remember. Others were asked simply to report whether there was visual experience or not (and if so, what it was). Still others were asked about experience in the far right visual field, or tactile experience, or tactile experience in the left foot. A majority of participants in the full experience and the visual conditions reported visual experience in every single sample. Tactile and peripheral visual experience were reported less often. However, the proper interpretation of these results is uncertain. (shrink)

The present paradigm involved manipulating the congruency of the perceptual processing during the study and test phases of a recognition memory task. During each trial, a gaze-contingent window was used to limit the stimulus display to a region either inside or outside a 108 square centred on the participant’s point of gaze, constituting the Central and Peripheral viewing modes respectively. The window position changed in real time in concert with changes in gaze position. Four experiments documented better task (...) performance when viewing modes at encoding and retrieval matched than when they mismatched (i.e., perceptual specificity effects). Viewing mode congruency effects were demonstrated with both verbal and non-verbal stimuli. The present research is motivated and discussed in terms of theoretical views proposed in the 1970s including the levels-of-processing framework and the proceduralist viewpoint. In addition, implications for current processing and multiple systems views of memory are outlined. (shrink)

By a logical theory I mean a formal system together with its semantics, meta-theory, and rules for translating ordinary language into its notation. Logical theories can be used descriptively (for example, to represent particular arguments or to depict the logical form of certain sentences). Here the logician uses the usual methods of empirical science to assess the correctness of his descriptions. However, the most important applications of logical theories are normative, and here, I argue, the epistemology is that of wide (...) reflective equilibrium. The result is that logic not only assesses our inferential practice but also changes it. I tie my discussion to Thagard's views concerning the relationship between psychology and logic, arguing against him that psychology has and should have only a peripheral role in normative (and most descriptive) applications of logic. (shrink)

This target article draws together two groups of experimental studies on the control of human movement through peripheral feedback and centrally generated signals of motor commands. First, during natural movement, feedback from muscle, joint, and cutaneous afferents changes; in human subjects these changes have reflex and kinesthetic consequences. Recent psychophysical and microneurographic evidence suggests that joint and even cutaneous afferents may have a proprioceptive role. Second, the role of centrally generated motor commands in the control of normal (...) movements and movements following acute and chronic deafferentation is reviewed. There is increasing evidence that subjects can perceive their motor commands under various conditions, but that this is inadequate for normal movement; deficits in motor performance arise when the reliance on proprioceptive feedback is abolished either experimentally or because of pathology. During natural movement, the CNS appears to have access to functionally useful input from a range of peripheral receptors as well as from internally generated command signals. The unanswered questions that remain suggest a number of avenues for further research. (shrink)

Previous research in the visual domain suggests that exogenous attention in form of peripheral cueing increases spatial but lowers temporal resolution. It is unclear whether this effect transfers to other sensory modalities. Here, we tested the effects of exogenous attention on temporal and spectral resolution in the auditory domain. Eighteen young, normal-hearing adults were tested in both gap and frequency change detection tasks with exogenous cuing. Benefits of valid cuing were only present in the gap detection task while costs (...) of invalid cuing were observed in both tasks. Our results suggest that exogenous attention in the auditory system improves temporal resolution without compromising spectral resolution. (shrink)

In response to the discussion between William W. Morgan and Annette Kolodny in the Summer 1976 issue of Critical Inquiry I would like to address the issue of separating judgments based on feminism as an ideology from purely aesthetic judgments. Peripherally this included the issue of "prescriptive criticism," so labeled by Cheri Register in Feminist Literary Criticism: Explorations in Theory.1 In the same book, as Kolodny points out,2 I called for criticism that exists in the "prophetic mode." Kolodny indicates reservations (...) about both concepts without fully exploring the issue. I would like to explain my statement here and to explore further the issue of feminism and aesthetics. When I called for criticism in the prophetic mode, I did not intend to promote an idea of the critic as ideological prophet. Rather, as I explain in the context from which the term is taken,3 I am speaking of the engaged scholar who is concerned to influence the future by her/his work today. S/he chooses her/his work with an eye to encourage political and social changes. Obviously, for a feminist this translates into a concern for a future in which women will be free from many of the restrictions that have held them down in the past. Much feminist criticism is thus corrective criticism designed to redress the imbalance in current literary curricula, and more generally to reintroduce "the feminine" into the public culture. · 1. Cheri Register, "American Feminist Literary Criticism: A Bibliographical Introduction ," Feminist Literary Criticism: Explorations in Theory, ed. Josephine Donovan pp. 11-24.· 2. Annette Kolodny, "The Feminist as Literary Critic," Critical Inquiry 2 : 828.· 3. Josephine Donovan, "Critical Re-Vision," Feminist Literary Criticism, p. 81, n. 2. Josephine Donovan, currently working on a literary biography of Sarah Orne Jewett, has written "Feminist Style Criticism," "Sexual Politics in the Short Stories of Sylvia Plath," and has edited Feminist Literary Criticism: Explorations in Theory. Although the occasion for this response was the exchange between Annette Kolodny and William W. Morgan , the questions raised by Ms. Donovan have some bearing on other topics discussed in Critical Inquiry—e.g., the nature of accepted canons in the arts . In addition the question of how we may interpret literary works from the past that contain currently unacceptable representations of women has implications as well for how we respond to "objectionable" representations of ethnic and religious groups and even of social classes. The editors expect to see these issues explored further in the future. (shrink)

In 2006, the Chief Medical Officer for England published the report Good Doctors, Safer Patients in a call for strengthened regulation of the medical profession. The changing relationship between patients and doctors in the United Kingdom arises from the interplay between societal expectation and clinical governance, personal formation and professional practice, private being and public doing. The wisdom of professional practice is in the habits of professionals, a practical wisdom that is the reflex of professional identity. Socialization into a profession (...) is the formation of such identity through the legitimate peripheral participation of the apprentice, oriented towards the contingent granting of admission to the community of practice. The conditional nature of continued insider status, permitting members to interact with clients across the professional boundary, is essential to the contract through which the profession enjoys the privileges conferred by society. The governance of the profession is therefore also necessarily circumscribed, a political reality that is currently evidenced in the regulation of medical practice in the United Kingdom. (shrink)

In _Awakening the Dreamer: Clinical Journeys_, Philip Bromberg continues the illuminating explorations into dissociation and clinical process begun in _Standing in the Spaces_. Bromberg is among our most gifted clinical writers, especially in his unique ability to record peripheral variations in relatedness - those subtle, split-second changes that capture the powerful workings of dissociation and chart the changing self-states that analyst and patient bring to the moment. For Bromberg, a model of mind premised on the centrality of self-states (...) and dissociation not only offers the optimal lens for comprehending and interpreting clinical data; it also provides maximum leverage for achieving true intersubjective relatedness. And this manner of looking at clinical data offers the best vantage point for integrating psychoanalytic experience with the burgeoning findings of contemporary neuroscience, cognitive and developmental psychology, and attachment research. Dreams are approached not as texts in need of deciphering but as means of contacting genuine but not yet fully conscious self-states. From here, he explores how the patient's "dreamer" and the analyst's "dreamer" can come together to turn the "real" into the "really real" of mutative therapeutic dialogue. The "difficult," frequently traumatized patient is newly appraised in terms of tensions within the therapeutic dyad. And then there is the "haunted" patient who carries a sense of preordained doom through years of otherwise productive work - until the analyst can finally feel the patient's doom as his or her own. Laced with Bromberg's characteristic honesty, humor, and thoughtfulness, these essays elegantly attest to the mind's reliance on dissociation, in both normal and pathological variants, in the ongoing effort to maintain self-organization. _Awakening the Dreamer_, no less than _Standing in the Spaces_, is destined to become a permanent part of the literature on therapeutic process and change. (shrink)

Jerry Fodor divides the mind into peripheral, domain-specific modules and a domaingeneral faculty of central cognition. John Tooby and Lisa Cosmides argue instead that the mind is modular all the way through; cognition consists of a multitude of domain-specific processes. But human thought has a flexible, innovative character that contrasts with the inflexible, stereotyped performances of modular systems. My goal is to discover how minds that are constructed on modular principles might come to exhibit cognitive versatility.Cognitive versatility is exhibited (...) in the ability to learn from experience. How can this ability emerge from the resources made available by earlier stages of cognitive specialization without sacrificing the many benefits of modularization? A transition into versatile cognition occurred in the history of our species. A similar development which occurs within individual ontogeny provides clues about the phylogenetic changes. (shrink)

Ethical evaluation of deep brain stimulation as a treatment for Parkinson’s disease is complicated by results that can be described as involving changes in the patient’s identity. The risk of becoming another person following surgery is alarming for patients, caregivers and clinicians alike. It is one of the most urgent conceptual and ethical problems facing deep brain stimulation in Parkinson’s disease at this time. In our paper we take issue with this problem on two accounts. First, we elucidate what (...) is meant by “becoming another person” from a conceptual point of view. After critically discussing two broad approaches we concentrate on the notion of “individual identity” which centers on the idea of “core attitudes”. Subsequently we discuss several approaches to determine what distinguishes core attitudes from those that are more peripheral. We argue for a “foundational-function model” highlighting the importance of specific dependency relations between these attitudes. Our second aim is to comment on the possibility to empirically measure changes in individual identity and argue that many of the instruments now commonly used in selecting and monitoring DBS-patients are inappropriate for this purpose. Future research in this area is advised combining a conceptual and an empirical approach as a basis of sound ethical appraisal. (shrink)

Chronic pain affects a large part of the population causing functional disability, being often associated with coexisting psychological disorders, such as depression and anxiety, besides cognitive deficits, and sleep disturbance. The world elderly population has been growing over the last decades and the negative consequences of chronic pain for these individuals represent a current clinical challenge. The main painful complaints in the elderly are related to neurodegenerative and musculoskeletal conditions, peripheral vascular diseases, arthritis, and osteoarthritis, contributing toward poorly life (...) quality, social isolation, impaired physical activity, and dependence to carry out daily activities. Organ dysfunction and other existing diseases can significantly affect the perception and responses to chronic pain in this group. It has been proposed that elderly people have an altered pain experience, with changes in pain processing mechanisms, which might be associated with the degeneration of circuits that modulate the descending inhibitory pathways of pain. Aging has also been linked to an increase in the pain threshold, a decline of painful sensations, and a decrease in pain tolerance. Still, elderly patients with chronic pain show an increased risk for dementia and cognitive impairment. The present review article is aimed to provide the state-of-art of pre-clinical and clinical research about chronic pain in elderly, emphasizing the altered mechanisms, comorbidities, challenges, and potential therapeutic alternatives. (shrink)

Inverted sensation arguments such as the inverted spectrum thought experiment are often criticized for relying on an unconstrained notion of 'qualia'. In reply to this criticism, 'qualia-free' arguments for inversion have been proposed, in which only physical changes happen: inversions in the world, such as the replacement of surface colors by their complements, and a rewiring of peripheral input cables to more central areas in the nervous system. I show why such constrained inversion arguments won't work. The first (...) problem is that the world lacks the symmetry required to invert physical properties in the way required. The second problem concerns 'rewiring'. Empirical evidence indicates that the rewirings are either impossible, or would not result in an inversion of sensation. I propose the deeper reason for the failure of constrained inversion arguments lies in the fact that sensations are not properties of brain states, but spread into the world and the body. (shrink)

Little is known about the world’s first sociological society, Émile Littré’s Société de Sociologie (1872—4). This article, based on prosopographic research, offers an interpretation of the foundation, political-intellectual orientation and early demise of the society. As indicated by recruitment and texts by its founding members, the Société de Sociologie was in fact conceived more as a political club than a learned society. Guided in this by Littré’s heterodox positivism and the redefinition of sociology he proposed around 1870, the Société de (...) Sociologie was intended first and foremost to accompany intellectually the political changes that Littré considered imperative in the early years of the Third Republic (1870— 1940). This expectation found little echo among the members of the society, and it seems possible that Littré himself and his closest associates were the ones to interrupt the society’s meetings. Some of its members’ general studies on the status of the social sciences and their main divisions were continued in the framework of the journal La Philosophie positive (1867—83), but the authors most committed to those studies were on the margins of the Littré network. Neither the dominant positivist republicanism, centered around Littré and Dubost, nor the general sociology of the more peripheral members of the network (Mesmer, Roberty, Vitry) represented an important intellectual contribution to the formation of academic sociology in France. Given that the Société de Sociologie did contribute to diffuse the project of a sociological science and developed forms of sociology coherent enough to be rejected by the pioneers of university sociology, the group constitutes a significant case of failure in the history of the discipline. (shrink)

On the basis of bibliometric data, this chapter shows that international collaboration in the social sciences and humanities has increased strongly between 1980 and 2014, but that the pattern of exchange has known few structural changes. At the basic level of production capacity and article output, the global field of the SSH is best described as a Euro-American duopoly. At the higher level of co-authorships and citations, however, the field structure tends to be monopolistic: no language can compete with (...) English, no country can rival with the USA. Globalization effects have been relatively weak, and the growth of transnational exchange has reproduced rather than undermined existing hierarchies. Due to its hegemonic position, USA journals remain largely national in their authorship and references, and researchers in the USA are less frequently involved in transnational co-authorship than their colleagues in Europe. For European researchers, transnational collaboration has become somewhat more global in scope, but most of it has remained with the USA and other English speaking countries; China is the only country that has become significantly more important. In European countries the reference pattern indicates that bi-nationalism is the predominant form of transnational exchange: citation hierarchies are dominated by a combination of national and American journals, whereas international and European journals are virtually absent. Patterns of transnational collaboration and exchange thus tend to be structured like star networks with many relations to the center, less frequent relations among semi-central countries, and infrequent or absent relations among semi-peripheral and peripheral countries. (shrink)

Hearing the difference between a patriarchal voice and a relational voice defines a paradigm shift: a change in the conception of the human world. Theorizing connection as primary and fundamental in human life leads to a new psychology, which shifts the grounds for philosophy and political theory. A crucial distinction is made between a feminine ethic of care and a feminist ethic of care. Voice, relationship, resistance, and women become central rather than peripheral in this reframing of the human (...) world. (shrink)

Resumen: Las ciencias sociales y políticas latinoamericanas, por su rol en la geopolítica del conocimiento, han puesto más el acento en la comprobación empírica de las formulaciones teóricas y conceptuales exógenas, que en descubrir cómo describir a partir de la innovación conceptual. Una de las excepciones a este desarrollo periférico fue la vocación intelectual de los latinoamericanistas por comprender el cambio de régimen desde el autoritarismo a la democracia denominado “transitología”. En este dominio disciplinar, uno de los aportes para comprender (...) los cerrojos y herencias autoritarias proviene de los trabajos de Manuel Antonio Garretón y la noción de “enclaves”, la cual ha sido ampliamente utilizada, pero escasamente analizada en términos epistemológicos y metodológicos. Para ello, en un primer momento, analizaremos la génesis e itinerario en la formulación de dicho concepto; luego, daremos cuenta de la tarea intelectual para adjetivar el concepto raíz y dar lugar a una clasificación en torno a los tipos de enclaves; y, por último, observaremos el uso y reformulación posterior que ha tenido el concepto en la ciencia política latinoamericana para extender el dominio de aplicabilidad del concepto.: The Latin American social and political sciences, due to their role in the geopolitics of knowledge, have placed more emphasis on the empirical verification of exogenous theoretical and conceptual formulations, than on discovering how to describe from conceptual innovation. One of the exceptions to this peripheral development was the intellectual vocation of Latin Americanists to understand the change of regime from authoritarianism to democracy, called “transitology”. In this disciplinary domain, one of the intellectual contributions to understand authoritarian locks and inheritances comes from the works of Manuel Antonio Garretón and the notion of "enclaves", which has been widely used but scarcely analyzed in epistemological and methodological terms. To do this, at first, we will analyze the genesis and itinerary in the formulation of this concept; then, we will give an account of the intellectual task to adjective the root concept and give rise to a classification around the types of enclaves; and, finally, we will observe the use and subsequent reformulation that the concept has had in Latin American political science to extend the domain of its applicability. (shrink)

The commentaries on our target article have raised important issues about central neuroplasticity and its role in persistent pain states. Some suggest that central neuroplasticity plays nothing more than a minor role in persistent pain, while others argue that persistent pain depends critically on peripheral inputs for its maintenance. Some stress that persistent pain relies to a large extent on changes in the brain and on centrifugal inputs from brain to spinal cord, whereas others argue that it depends (...) on alterations in inhibitory as well as excitatory systems. We attempt to addresseach of the commentators' points, while defending our position that central neuroplasticity is critical to pathological persistent pain states. (shrink)

Subjective and psychophysiological emotional responses to music from two different cultures were compared within these two cultures. Two identical experiments were conducted: the first in the Congolese rainforest with an isolated population of Mebenzélé Pygmies without any exposure to Western music and culture, the second with a group of Western music listeners, with no experience with Congolese music. Forty Pygmies and 40 Canadians listened in pairs to 19 music excerpts of 29–99 s in duration in random order (eight from the (...) Pygmy population and 11 Western instrumental excerpts). For both groups, emotion components were continuously measured: subjective feeling (using a two- dimensional valence and arousal rating interface), peripheral physiological activation, and facial expression. While Pygmy music was rated as positive and arousing by Pygmies, ratings of Western music by Westerners covered the range from arousing to calming and from positive to negative. Comparing psychophysiological responses to emotional qualities of Pygmy music across participant groups showed no similarities. However, Western stimuli, rated as high and low arousing by Canadians, created similar responses in both participant groups (with high arousal associated with increases in subjective and physiological activation). Several low-level acoustical features of the music presented (tempo, pitch, and timbre) were shown to affect subjective and physiological arousal similarly in both cultures. Results suggest that while the subjective dimension of emotional valence might be mediated by cultural learning, changes in arousal might involve a more basic, universal response to low-level acoustical characteristics of music. (shrink)

ArgumentRecurring economic crises, like the one of 2007-2008, led to criticism of economic research and a demand to develop new strategies to avoid them. Standard economic theories use conventional approaches to deal with economic challenges, heterodox theories try to develop alternatives with which to face them. It remains unclear whether the 2007-2008 crisis led to a change in economic research as well as to a consideration of alternative approaches. We used co-word analysis to map the structure of economic research in (...) Germany between 2005 and 2014. Core topics within economic research, such as “market” or “production” hardly shift and can be linked to standard economic theories. Peripheral topics such as “inequality” or “unemployment” show greater dynamics. However, only a few of these topics can be linked to heterodox approaches. Certain changes have occurred in reaction to the 2007-2008 crisis. However, the unchanged importance of standard economic topics raises the question whether these changes are sufficient to face coming economic challenges. (shrink)

Josef Čapek’s writings from between 1914 and 1920 present a distinctive conception of primitivism, which was, beginning in the early twentieth century, of fundamental importance for the development of modern trends in the fine arts, in connection with the essential change in understanding the term ‘art’. Two manuscript version of the essay Umění přírodních národů (The art of primitive peoples) from 1914 to 1916 and the article ‘Sochařství černochů’ (Negro sculpture) from 1918 are amongst the first European critical attempts to (...) interpret ethnic art. Čapek presents the ‘art of the savages’ (divošské umění) as fully fledged art, and he tries to analyse its principles of expression. He compares them to current trends in art. The essays from the volume Nejskromnější umění (The humblest art, 1919–20), which consider other dimensions of primitivism, present a particular definition and expansion of the term ‘art’. In contrast to academic virtuosity, Čapek here emphasizes values of hitherto peripheral and unacknowledged areas of artistic expression, and achieves a distinctively personal revision of the traditional conception of the boundaries of the work of art and therefore also its essence and purpose. The essay ‘Sociální užitečnost umění’ (The social utility of art, 1919) also relates to these questions. (shrink)

Preface Phillip R. Sloan, Gerald McKenny, Kathleen Eggleson pp. xiii-xviii In November of 2009, the University of Notre Dame hosted the conference “Darwin in the Twenty-First Century: Nature, Humanity, and God.‘ Sponsored primarily by the John J. Reilly Center for Science, Technology, and Values at Notre Dame, and the Science, Theology, and the Ontological Quest project within the Vatican Pontifical... 1. Introduction: Restructuring an Interdisciplinary Dialogue Phillip R. Sloan pp. 1-32 Almost exactly fifty years before the Notre Dame conference, the (...) world’s largest centenary commemoration of Darwin’s legacy was held at nearby University of Chicago. This event, organized by a committee spearheaded by University of Chicago anthropologist Sol Tax, drew nearly 2,500 registrants. In attendance were the primary leaders... Part 1. Nature 2. Evolution through Developmental Change: How Alterations in Development Cause Evolutionary Changes in Anatomy Scott F. Gilbert pp. 35-60 For the past half-century, the mechanisms of evolution have been explained by the fusion of genetics and evolutionary biology called “the Modern Synthesis.‘ The tenets of the Modern Synthesis have been generally formulated as such: 1. There is genetic variation within the population. 2. There is competition... 3. The Evolution of Evolutionary Mechanisms: A New Perspective Stuart A. Newman pp. 61-89 The Modern Evolutionary Synthesis, based on Charles Darwin’s concept of natural selection in conjunction with a genetic theory of inheritance in a population-based framework, has been, for more than six decades, the dominant scientific perspective for explaining the diversity of living organisms. In recent years, however, with the growth... 4. The Evolvability of Organic Forms: Possible, Likely, and Unlikely Change from the Perspective of Evolutionary Developmental Biology Alessandro Minelli pp. 90-115 Confronted with the extraordinary diversity of animal form, we can ask questions about function and adaptation. How does this animal move? How does it feed? How does it defend itself from its enemies? But we can also ask questions about development, reproduction, and heredity. What mechanisms produce these forms? How are these... 5. Accident, Adaptation, and Teleology in Aristotle and Darwinism David J. Depew pp. 116-143 Charles Darwin framed the Origin of Species to meet criteria for inductive science set out by John Herschel in his Preliminary Discourse on the Study of Natural Philosophy. Accordingly, he was distraught when he learned that Herschel, to whom he had sent a copy of his newly published book, was not... 6. The Game of Life Implies Both Teleonomy and Teleology Gennaro Auletta, Ivan Colagè, Paolo D’Ambrosio pp. 144-164 The present contribution is mainly aimed at suggesting the importance of teleonomy and teleology as explanatory mechanisms in biology in the light of recent achievements in the field, and at showing that they play an actual and relevant role in the realm of life. The issue of finality in biology still provokes lively debates in the... Part 2. Humanity 7. Humanity’s Origins Bernard Wood pp. 167-181 One of Charles Darwin’s many achievements is that he began the process of converting the Tree of Life from a religious metaphor into a biological reality. All types of living organisms, be they animals, plants, fungi, bacteria, or viruses, are at the end of twigs that reach the surface of the Tree of Life, and all the types of organisms... 8. Darwin’s Evolutionary Ethics: The Empirical and Normative Justifications Robert J. Richards pp. 182-200 In the increasingly secular atmosphere of the nineteenth century, intellectuals grew wary of the idea that nature had any moral authority. In an earlier age, one might have looked upon the dispositions of nature as divinely sanctioned, and thus one could call upon natural law to ground moral judgment. Certain behaviors, for instance, might have... 9. Crossing the Milvian Bridge: When Do Evolutionary Explanations of Belief Debunk Belief? Paul E. Griffiths, John S. Wilkins pp. 201-231 Two traditional targets for evolutionary skepticism are religion and morality. Evolutionary skeptical arguments against religious belief are continuous with earlier genetic arguments against religion, such as that implicit in David Hume’s Natural History of Religion. Evolutionary arguments are also... 10. Questioning the Zoological Gaze: Darwinian Epistemology and Anthropology Phillip R. Sloan pp. 232-266 This quotation from Darwin’s Descent of Man illuminates an under-explored issue in Darwin’s work---not the issue of evolutionary ethics itself, but the epistemology of experience assumed in his work, and the consequences of his application of this “zoological gaze‘ to human beings. I will term this epistemological stance in this chapter “natural historical... Part 3. God 11. Evolution and Catholic Faith John O’Callaghan pp. 269-298 To begin to examine the relation of orthodox Catholic Christian faith to evolutionary theory and the question of human origins, consider words of the fourth pope, St. Clement: Let us fix our gaze on the Father and Creator of the whole world, and let us hold on to his peace and blessings, his splendid and surpassing... 12. After Darwin, Aquinas: A Universe Created and Evolving William E. Carroll pp. 299-337 At the 2000 Jubilee Session for scientists, held at the Vatican in May of that year, Archbishop Józef Życiński offered an eloquent assessment of contemporary discourse on the relationship between the natural sciences and theology. He ended his address with the comment that what is needed today is a new Thomas Aquinas. I remember... 13. Evolutionary Theism and the Emergent Universe Józef Życiński pp. 338-354 The 150th anniversary of the publication of Charles Darwin’s The Origin of Species has been celebrated in the context of an animated debate concerning both scientific and philosophical issues implied by the theory of evolution.1 One finds a deep diversity of attitudes, both methodological and semantic, in the current debates on evolutionary... 14. Beyond Separation or Synthesis: Christ and Evolution as Theodrama Celia Deane-Drummond pp. 355-380 The fervor with which popular discourse on science and religion has continued to bubble up in the anniversary year celebrating Darwin’s achievements shows that the publically perceived conflict between science and religion will not go away. Academic discussion on such matters is therefore not just peripheral to cultural concerns but takes... Part 4. Past and Future Prospects 15. Imagining a World without Darwin Peter J. Bowler pp. 383-403 What would have happened if Charles Darwin had not lived to write On the Origin of Species? Perhaps his bad health caused the early death he feared, or maybe he fell overboard while on the voyage of the Beagle. Would the world have still experienced the Darwinian Revolution under another name, or would the history of science, and... 16. What Future for Darwinism? Jean Gayon pp. 404-423 What future for Darwinism? I will propose some criteria for exploring this question in the domains of both evolutionary biology and the human sciences. Do not expect me to tell you where we will stand thirty years from now. It will be enough to identify a few general tendencies. For the sake of brevity, I will not devote a preamble to explain... Contributors pp. 424-430. (shrink)