Transformer-based language models (TLMs) have widely been recognized to be a cutting-edge technology for the successful development of deep-learning-based solutions to problems and applications that require natural language processing and understanding. Like for other textual domains, TLMs have indeed pushed the state-of-the-art of AI approaches for many tasks of interest in the legal domain. Despite the first Transformer model being proposed about six years ago, there has been a rapid progress of this technology at an unprecedented rate, whereby BERT and (...) related models represent a major reference, also in the legal domain. This article provides the first systematic overview of TLM-based methods for AI-driven problems and tasks in the legal sphere. A major goal is to highlight research advances in this field so as to understand, on the one hand, how the Transformers have contributed to the success of AI in supporting legal processes, and on the other hand, what are the current limitations and opportunities for further research development. (shrink)

This paper summarizes the results of 11 separate studies of deaf children’s performance on standard tests of false belief understanding, the results of which combine to show that deaf children from hearing families are likely to be delayed in acquiring a theory of mind. Indeed, these children generally perform no better than autistic individuals of similar mental age. Conversational and neurological explanations for deficits in mental state understanding are considered in relation to recent evidence from studies of deaf, autistic, and (...) normally developing children with varied levels of access to talk about mental states at home with family members during the preschool years. (shrink)

XAVIER, Joelma Aparecida dos Santos. A disciplina de Cultura Religiosa na PUC Minas : aspectos fenomenológicos e éticos como tópos privilegiado do diálogo. Dissertação (Mestrado) 2013. 96p. - Pontifícia Universidade Católica de Minas Gerais, Programa de Pós-graduação em Ciências da Religião, Belo Horizonte.

La resiliencia, o adaptación exitosa lograda por un individuo a pesar de haber pasado por situaciones muy adversas o traumáticas durante su infancia, se ha convertido en los últimos años en un concepto de gran importancia tanto en el campo de la salud mental como en el de las drogodependencias. Comprender cómo estas personas logran un nivel de funcionamiento normal, sin desarrollar problemas personales o psicopatológicos en su adolescencia o adultez, es de gran relevancia para la prevención como para el (...) tratamiento de distintos trastornos. (shrink)

Discutir a Educação do Campo criticamente perpassa pelo estudo de suas bases filosóficas e epistemológicas. Nesta perspectiva, esse artigo objetiva discutir os aspectos filosóficos e epistemológicos da Educação do Campo no bojo das tendências pedagógicas contra-hegemônicas contemporâneas. Para tanto, recuperou-se o balanço da produção do conhecimento sobre a Educação do Campo, atualizando-o. Constatou-se a hegemonia dos estudos que utilizam a expressão Educação do Campo em detrimento ao uso do termo Educação Rural, sinalizando a necessidade de novos estudos sistemáticos. Afinal, a (...) adoção do termo não indica, necessariamente, o comprometimento com o campo pedagógico crítico. (shrink)

Hyperscanning studies using functional Near-Infrared Spectroscopy have been performed to understand the neural mechanisms underlying human-human interactions. In this study, we propose a novel methodological approach that is developed for fNIRS multi-brain analysis. Our method uses support vector regression to predict one brain activity time series using another as the predictor. We applied the proposed methodology to explore the teacher-student interaction, which plays a critical role in the formal learning process. In an illustrative application, we collected fNIRS data of the (...) teacher and preschoolers’ dyads performing an interaction task. The teacher explained to the child how to add two numbers in the context of a game. The Prefrontal cortex and temporal-parietal junction of both teacher and student were recorded. A multivariate regression model was built for each channel in each dyad, with the student’s signal as the response variable and the teacher’s ones as the predictors. We compared the predictions of SVR with the conventional ordinary least square predictor. The results predicted by the SVR model were statistically significantly correlated with the actual test data at least one channel-pair for all dyads. Overall, 29/90 channel-pairs across the five dyads presented significant signal predictions withthe SVR approach. The conventional OLS resulted in only 4 out of 90 valid predictions. These results demonstrated that the SVR could be used to perform channel-wise predictions across individuals, and the teachers’ cortical activity can be used to predict the student brain hemodynamic response. (shrink)

O objetivo principal deste artigo é analisar os objetos intencionais da teoria da intencionalidade em Franz Brentano em sua primeira fase, ou seja, no período de 1874 a 1904, por meio de sua análise mereológica da consciência. Nesse contexto, irei abordar os diferentes modos de consciência, os correlatos intencionais, a distinção entre seres real e existente assim como a distinção entre objeto e conteúdo na teoria brentaniana. No final, irei defender que o estatuto ontológico dos objetos que existem nos correlatos (...) intencionais e dos objetos representados ou conteúdos intencionais podem ser interpretados como sendo “neutros”, visto que eles são partes apenas conceituais ou abstratas de sua teoria mereológica. (shrink)

RÉSUMÉ : Dans la tradition logique de la philosophie analytique, comprendre la signification d’un énoncé, c’est comprendre ses conditions de vérité. Dans la tradition du langage naturel, la signification est liée à l’usage du langage. Depuis Grice, elle est liée aux attitudes et aux actions des interlocuteurs. Selon Austin, Searle et Vanderveken, signifier c’est utiliser des mots avec l’ intention d’accomplir des actes illocutoires. Pareils actes ont des conditions de félicité plutôt que des conditions de vérité. Selon nous, signifier c’est (...) essentiellement tenter d’accomplir des actes illocutoires. Et comme toute tentative est une action intentionnelle plutôt qu’une attitude, signifier c’est agir intentionnellement. ABSTRACT: In the logical tradition of analytical philosophy, to understand the meaning of an utterance is to understand its truth conditions. In the tradition of natural language analysis, meaning is related to language use. Since Grice, meaning is linked to speakers’ attitudes and actions. Following Austin, Searle, and Vanderveken, to mean is to use words with the intention of performing illocutionary acts. Such acts have felicity conditions instead of truth conditions. The aim of my work is to clarify the nature of meaning in the second tradition. In my view, to mean something is mainly to attempt to perform illocutionary acts. Any attempt is an intentional action rather than an attitude. (shrink)

RESUMO:O objeto de estudo deste artigo é a condição humana. Qual a possibilidade de existência da condição humana fundamentada na liberdade? O objetivo é relacionar esfera pública, política, liberdade e condição humana. A elaboração teórica considerou obras de Etienne de La Boétie, Hannah Arendt, Cornelius Castoriadis, entre outros. Na atualidade, ocorre a supressão da condição humana, pois a esfera pública tem a ingerência da esfera privada, predominando a razão instrumental e a lógica do mercado, e o homem é afastado da (...) vida política. Por isso, a nossa ação política pela liberdade é fundamental para a problematização do processo de banalização do mal e da servidão voluntária. A coragem é uma virtude indispensável à ação política, é necessária para nos libertarmos da dominação e do servilismo da vida privada e conquistarmos a vida política. A centralidade da ação política do homem é a sua condição de ser atuante para a reafirmação da esfera pública, do mundo da pluralidade, humano e comum. Todavia, a condição humana fundamentada na liberdade implica a superação da atividade e do pensamento pragmáticos e fragmentários da vida cotidiana e a constituição da praxis na dimensão humano-genérica consciente. ABSTRACT:The subject of this article is the human condition. What is the possibility of the existence of the human condition founded on freedom? The aim is to connect the public sphere, politics, freedom, and the human condition. The works of Etienne de La Boétie, Hannah Arendt, Cornelius Castoriadis, and others, are considered. At the present time there is occurring a suppression of the human condition, because the public sphere exists under the interference of a private sphere in which instrumental reason and market logic prevail. People are divorced from political life. For this reason, political action seeking freedom is essential for addressing the problems of the banalization of evil and voluntary servitude. Courage is an indispensable virtue to political action; it is necessary for liberating us from the domination and servitude of private life, as well as for attaining political life. The centrality of human beings’ political action is the condition for acting to reaffirm the public sphere and the world of plurality, both human and common. However, the human condition founded on freedom supposes the overcoming of the pragmatic and fragmented activity and thinking of daily life, and requires the constitution of praxis in the conscious human-generic dimension. (shrink)

Theory of Mind (ToM) is the cognitive achievement that enables us to report our propositional attitudes, to attribute such attitudes to others, and to use such postulated or observed mental states in the prediction and explanation of behavior. Most normally developing children acquire ToM between the ages of 3 and 5 years, but serious delays beyond this chronological and mental age have been observed in children with autism, as well as in those with severe sensory impairments. We examine data from (...) studies of ToM in normally developing children and those with deafness, blindness, autism and Williams syndrome, as well as data from lower primates, in a search for answers to key theoretical questions concerning the origins, nature and representation of knowledge about the mind. In answer to these, we offer a framework according to which ToM is jointly dependent upon language and social experience, and is produced by a conjunction of language acquisition with children's growing social understanding, acquired through conversation and interaction with others. We argue that adequate language and adequate social skills are jointly causally sufficient, and individually causally necessary, for producing ToM. Thus our account supports a social developmental theory of the genesis of human cognition, inspired by the work of Sellars and Vygotsky. How are we to decide whether to take reason to be an essentially private thing that can, however, turn on a public display when it chooses to do so, or, like conversing, to be an essentially social skill, which can, however, be retained a while through periods of solitary confinement? (Annette Baier, The Commons of the Mind, p. 5). The squirrel does not infer by induction that it is going to need stores next winter as well (Wittgenstein, On Certainty§ 287). The problem of thought and language thus extends beyond the limits of natural science and becomes the focal problem of historical human psychology, i.e. of social psychology. Consequently, it must be posed in a different way (Vygotsky, Thought and Language, p. 51). From the very first days of the child's development his activities acquire a meaning of their own in a system of social behaviour and, being directed towards a definite purpose, are refracted through the prism of the child's environment. The path from object to child and from child to object passes through another person. This complex human structure is the product of a developmental process deeply rooted in the links between individual and social history (Vygotsky, Mind in Society, p. 30). (shrink)

Training citizens capable of guiding their lives and at the same time being socially active seems to be one of the primary objectives that, from the different educational stages, they want to achieve. Learning some principles that guide the behavior of students is not an easy task and requires taking into account different aspects, both personal and social, however, achieving this goal is a fundamental achievement for the subject that will have an impact on their professional future. An educational proposal (...) is made to work on values, understanding that it is a model that we consider favors the training of students in all its dimensions. (shrink)

Searching for Contract (Law) in Europe While investigating ways to Justifying Contract in Europe, Martijn Hesselink leaves it to the interrogated theories to define the scope of its very inquiry – the reach and significance of contract itself. This leaves the question of what Hesselink sets out to justify quite open for the reader, who at the same time gets the distinctive idea that this delimitation has normative significance in the author’s own views. To the extent that we do, as (...) a matter of justice, need to have contract law rules – then, these rules need to be just. The comment, thus, seeks to re-articulate Hesselink’s non-definition of (European) contract law, to try to delimit where we need such rules and test the boundaries of what rules we may in fact accept or even need as a matter of justice – what kind of rules we can, in Hesselink’s framework, ultimately set out to justify. (shrink)

What Solidarity? A Look Behind the Veil of Solidarity in ‘Corona Times’ Contractual Relations The article uses three prominent examples from the Dutch context to problematize the relationship between contractual and social solidarity during the coronavirus crisis. The social science ideal types of ‘mechanical’ and ‘organic’ solidarity, and their typified correspondence with legal modes of punishment and compensation, are used to illuminate the way in which solidarity language in private relationships can convey and normalize assumptions about the public interest and (...) economic order. (shrink)

In this paper we use Hobby's duality for semi-De Morgan algebras, to characterize those algebras having only principal congruences in the classes of semi-De Morgan algebras, demi-pseudocomplemented lattices and almost pseudocomplemented lattices. This work extends some of the results reached by Beazer in [3] and [4].

Frisbee Sheffield argues that the Symposium has been unduly marginalized by philosophers. Although the topic, eros, and the setting at a symposium have seemed anomalous, she demonstrates that both are intimately related to Plato's preoccupation with the nature of the good life, with virtue, and how it is acquired and transmitted. For Plato, analyzing our desires is a way of reflecting on the kind of people we will turn out to be and on our chances of leading a worthwhile and (...) happy life. In its focus on the question why he considered desires to be amenable to this type of reflection, this book explores Plato's ethics of desire. (shrink)

La plupart des approches développées en philosophie adop-tent la notion de représentation pour expliquer la relation entre l’esprit, le langage et le monde. L’idée générale est que les pensées représentent les faits du monde via des concepts et que le langage sert d’intermédiaire entre les deux en exprimant les pensées. Le lien est tissé par la signifi-cation. Certains pensent que la signification peut être analysée en termes des pensées des locuteurs. Comme pareilles pensées sont essentiellement intentionnelles, on explique la signification (...) à partir de l’intentionnalité et donc le langage à partir de l’esprit. Pour d’autres, l’esprit et le langage sont interdépendants. La structure de la pensée est déterminée en ana-lysant la structure profonde du langage. Les agents lient les contenus propositionnels au monde lorsqu’ils pensent ou parlent. Par contre, certains philosophes sont opposés aux deux conceptions antérieures. Ils refusent l’idée d’expliquer la signification en termes de pensées inten-tionnelles. Ils l’expliquent en termes de comportement langagier, mais sans pour autant faire référence au mental. Le langage est alors possible sans la pensée. Le but général de ce travail est de montrer pourquoi les approches philosophiques traditionnelles ont misé sur l’idée de représen-tation ou de signification pour expliquer l’interaction entre l’esprit, le langage et le monde. Plus particulièrement, j’explique pourquoi la théorie des actes de discours adopte une approche intermédiaire. Selon elle, l’esprit fonde le langage. Il y a donc primauté de la pensée sur le langage. Mais le principe d’exprimabilité exige une interdépendance entre pensée et langage. (shrink)

In this article I provide an overview of the many different terms that Brentano sometimes uses as synonyms or as explanations for “intentional inexistence”. The many terms associated with intentional inexistence appear in many different contexts, and we can conclude that Brentano uses these terms primarily to describe a property that is accidental and dependent on the subject from which it arises and with which it passes away. Ontologically, both properties and substances exist, but the former requires a substance (the (...) subject) for its existence. A mental act is to be considered as a first-order property, whereas the content (or part of the mental act) can be understood as an accident of that accident. (shrink)

The distinction between actus humanus and actus hominis is the best-known distinction in Thomas Aquinas’ theory of action. A human action (actus humanus) is a special case of an act of a human being (actus hominis). Several acts of our intellect and will form a human action and thereby put it from the realm of pure natural happenings (genus naturae) into the moral realm (genus moris). The paper at hand shows the character and main parameters of Thomas Aquinas’ action theory, (...) especially in the Summa theologiae I-II, quaestiones 6-17. Moreover, it presents Thomas Aquinas’ central idea of what is the essence of a human action. The analysis especially makes use of the element of command (imperium) It shows that, according to Aquinas, acting consists in the intellectually comprehensible self-disclosure of a person and therefore builds the basis for the moral evaluation of human actions. (shrink)

In this article I provide an overview of the many different terms that Brentano sometimes uses as synonyms or as explanations for “intentional inexistence”. The many terms associated with intentional inexistence appear in many different contexts, and we can conclude that Brentano uses these terms primarily to describe a property that is accidental and dependent on the subject from which it arises and with which it passes away. Ontologically, both properties and substances exist, but the former requires a substance (the (...) subject) for its existence. A mental act is to be considered as a first-order property, whereas the content (or part of the mental act) can be understood as an accident of that accident. (shrink)

Educational interventions are necessary to develop mathematical competence at early ages and prevent widespread mathematics learning failure in the education system as indicated by the results of European reports. Numerous studies agree that domain-specific predictors related to mathematics are symbolic and non-symbolic magnitude comparison, as well as, number line estimation. The goal of this study was to design 4 digital learning app games to train specific cognitive bases of mathematical learning in order to create resources and promote the use of (...) these technologies in the educational community and to promote effective scientific transfer and increase the research visibility. This study involved 193 preschoolers aged 57–79 months. A quasi-experimental design was carried out with 3 groups created after scores were obtained in a standardised mathematical competence assessment test, i.e., low-performance group, high-performance group, and control group. The results show that training with the 4 digital learning app games focusing on magnitude, subitizing, number facts, and estimation tasks improved the numerical skills of the experimental groups, compared to the control group. The implications of the study were, on the one hand, provided verified technological tools for teaching early mathematical competence. On the other hand, this study supports other studies on the importance of cognitive precursors in mathematics performance. (shrink)

Tobacco, divine, rare superexcellent tobacco, which goes far beyond all panaceas, potable gold and philosopher's stones, a sovereign remedy to all diseases.Although most of the toxicity, including cancerogenicity, of tobacco is related to a mix of components other than nicotine present in cigarettes (U.S. Surgeon General 2010), it is indeed nicotine that causes addiction to smoking (Benowitz 2010; Russo et al. 2011).In 1988, the U.S. Surgeon General's Report concluded that cigarettes and other forms of tobacco are addictive as a result (...) of their nicotine content, and that the processes determining tobacco addiction "are similar to those that determine addiction to drugs such as heroin and cocaine." Previously, in .. (shrink)

This article presents original empirical data generated from the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) Pilot Evaluation of pre-trial witness interviewing (PTWI) in England and Wales. Section 1 introduces the PTWI Pilot and describes the methodological strengths and limitations of our qualitative socio-legal study. Forming the richly documented empirical core of the article, Sections 2–5 identify the principal considerations which seemed to influence case selection for Pilot interviews. An overlapping collection of evidentiary, strategic and circumstantial factors encouraged prosecutors to resort to PTWI, (...) whilst other, countervailing considerations were apprehended as disincentives. Assessments of witness credibility were central to prosecutors’ attempts to balance these competing factors. Section 6 concludes by underlining the potential of qualitative socio-legal studies to promote more nuanced understandings of criminal process, and by extension to make practical contributions to evidence-based criminal procedure reform. (shrink)

Le problème métaphysique central en philosophie de l’esprit concerne la relation entre l’esprit et le corps des agents. Quand on tente d’expliquer, par exemple, le rapport entre les pensées et les actions humaines, on est alors immédiatement confronté avec la difficulté, apparemment insurmontable, d’expliquer la causalité mentale. On doit répondre à la question : nos états de pensée causent-ils effectivement ce que l’on fait? Bien sûr, nos croyances, nos intentions et nos désirs sont à la base de notre comportement, dira (...) le sens commun et une longue tradition philosophique. Cependant, certains philosophes ont récemment manifesté des doutes à propos du rôle réel de nos pensées sur nos actions. Pour contrer ce scepticisme, il nous faut expliquer comment des états de pensée peuvent exercer leur rôle causal dans un monde fondamentalement physique. Je vais donner ici les raisons pour lesquelles je crois que les états de pensée sont indispensables à l’explication complète de nos actions. Pour ce faire, je procéderai à une analyse approfondie de la relation entre la causalité mentale ou intentionnelle et la causalité physique. Je mettrai en perspective deux approches importantes sur la causalité mentale : celle de John Searle, qui défend la réalité des états mentaux et semble résister au réductionnisme, et celle de Jaegwon Kim, qui montre le péril auquel l’approche de Searle est exposée : la surdétermination causale! Selon Searle, le mental est un trait du monde physique . Aux yeux de Kim cette stratification en niveaux n’apporte aucune solution au problème de la causalité mentale. Kim a-t-il raison? (shrink)

In Dopo il ballo (1903) Tolstoj crea un armonioso cortocircuito tra la problematica storica con la sua fenomenologia del potere e la propria posizione esistenziale perché in realtà la soluzione etica dell'eroe del racconto è proprio la fuga con il suo rifiuto di qualsivoglia servizio allo Stato. In After the Bal (1903), Tolstoy creates a harmonious short circuit between the historical question with its necessary phenomenology of power and his own existential position, because actually the hero of the story choose (...) escaping as his personal ethical solution to injustice with his rejection of any service to State. (shrink)

Theory of Mind is the cognitive achievement that enables us to report our propositional attitudes, to attribute such attitudes to others, and to use such postulated or observed mental states in the prediction and explanation of behavior. Most normally developing children acquire ToM between the ages of 3 and 5 years, but serious delays beyond this chronological and mental age have been observed in children with autism, as well as in those with severe sensory impairments. We examine data from studies (...) of ToM in normally developing children and those with deafness, blindness, autism and Williams syndrome, as well as data from lower primates, in a search for answers to key theoretical questions concerning the origins, nature and representation of knowledge about the mind. In answer to these, we offer a framework according to which ToM is jointly dependent upon language and social experience, and is produced by a conjunction of language acquisition with children's growing social understanding, acquired through conversation and interaction with others. We argue that adequate language and adequate social skills are jointly causally sufficient, and individually causally necessary, for producing ToM. Thus our account supports a social developmental theory of the genesis of human cognition, inspired by the work of Sellars and Vygotsky.How are we to decide whether to take reason to be an essentially private thing that can, however, turn on a public display when it chooses to do so, or, like conversing, to be an essentially social skill, which can, however, be retained a while through periods of solitary confinement? .The squirrel does not infer by induction that it is going to need stores next winter as well .The problem of thought and language thus extends beyond the limits of natural science and becomes the focal problem of historical human psychology, i.e. of social psychology. Consequently, it must be posed in a different way .From the very first days of the child's development his activities acquire a meaning of their own in a system of social behaviour and, being directed towards a definite purpose, are refracted through the prism of the child's environment. The path from object to child and from child to object passes through another person. This complex human structure is the product of a developmental process deeply rooted in the links between individual and social history. (shrink)

Neste ensaio, advoga-se a necessidade de se repensar as questões curriculares a partir da teoria da complexidade, justificando a importância desse instrumento para evitar a visão positivista de currículo, que separa disciplinas, fragmenta objeto do conhecimento, a realidade e a vida. Para tanto, são trabalhados os conceitos de currículo e de complexidade, reconhecida em seus aspectos ontológico, epistemológico e metodológico, bem como a importância da relação currículo/complexidade e alguns de seus possíveis desdobramentos em educação. Observa-se que a teorização complexa do (...) currículo ajuda a repensá-lo a partir da pluralidade cultural, da unidade na diversidade, da capacidade de produzir coisas novas no processo a partir de processos emergentes. Para tanto, considera-se a intersubjetividade e multirreferencialidade, reafirma-se a importância da alteridade, da luta pela afirmação das diferenças, bem como dos processos auto-eco-organizadores resultantes dos diálogos ocorrentes em sala de aula. O conhecimento interdisciplinar ou transdisciplinar decorrentes desta relação, em seus papéis formativo e elucidativo, são fundamentais ao mobilizar os processos de interdependência, de mestiçagem, de interfecundação e de religação de saberes. Assim compreendido, o currículo transforma-se no espaço da solidariedade epistêmica, da emergência e mudança de valores, diante da multiplicidade e heterogeneidade das experiências que requerem a superação da fragmentação disciplinar e a presença do diálogo constante. Ao finalizar, a autora ressalta a importância de se desenvolver, através das práticas curriculares, a reforma do pensamento proposta por Edgar Morin, a partir da inteligência da complexidade, como condição fundamental para superação da fragmentação do conhecimento e o encontro de soluções compatíveis à magnitude dos problemas atualmente emergentes. (shrink)

Esse artigo apresenta parte do debate sobre Juventude no Brasil e em Portugal analisadas na pesquisa de doutoramento realizada na Universidade Federal da Bahia-Faculdade de Educação (UFBA) e na Universidade de Lisboa- Instituto de Ciências Sociais (ICS) entre os anos de 2013 e 2017 (MORAES, 2017). Problematiza as relações entre juventude negra, políticas públicas e educação em comunidades de Salvador e Lisboa tomando como referencial estudos da Sociologia da Juventude. Através de pesquisa qualitativa com inspiração etnográfica, o estudo de caso (...) contrasta narrativas de gestores de políticas de juventude, educadores sociais, assim como de jovens negros brasileiros, portugueses e cabo-verdianos participantes de projetos de educação social. Intenta ainda dar visibilidade a retomada de políticas públicas para juventudes negras no Brasil como estratégia de enfrentamento do Estado ao genocídio da população negra brasileira. Palavras-chave: juventude negra, políticas públicas e educação social. (shrink)

O objetivo principal deste artigo é esclarecer como Brentano define a relação entre (a) o conhecimento de nossos próprios fenômenos de consciência e (b) o conhecimento de fenômenos de consciência de outros sujeitos. Por um lado, Brentano argumenta, seguindo a tradição moderna, que o conhecimento dos próprios atos mentais é absolutamente fundamental. Ao mesmo tempo, porém, ele quer mostrar com sua Psicologia do ponto de vista empírico uma clara alternativa ao introspeccionismo. Mostraremos como Brentano busca unir estes dois objetivos e (...) como ele também aderiu a esta linha em sua Psicologia Descritiva. Sua psicologia como um todo pode, portanto, ser entendida como um apelo ao pluralismo epistemológico. (shrink)

In this study, we examined the extent to which young children can be influenced by the perceived blessed status of an actor in their evaluations of behavior as a lie or mistake. Children aged 4 and 5 years attending Catholic schools in an urban center in Northern Italy were provided with a situation in which two girls in church were blessed with holy water or shook the priest's hand. The girls were then placed in a setting in which each told (...) a third girl that contaminated juice was good to drink: one deliberately lied and the other had no knowledge of the contaminant and made a mistake. Significantly more children judged both girls to have made a mistake in the blessed condition than in the not blessed condition. Their accuracy in distinguishing mistakes from lies in the not blessed condition resembled that reported in previous research in which traits such as blessedness were not assigned to the perpetrators. Thus children often perceived lying as uncharacteristic of the blessed whereas they applied the definition of lying as involving intentional falsehood for the not blessed. The results are discussed in terms of an early cultural cognition that involves beliefs about processes of purification and positive contagion. (shrink)