Oaksford (2001) considers that the findings of Espino, Santamaria, and GarciaMadruga (2000a) could be explained by the Probability Heuristics Model (PHM) proposed by Chater and Oaksford (1999). He specifically voices three objections, the two main ones being based on the fact that PHM is not a theory about syllogism representation. If this is the case, we consider that PHM cannot explain our data, because most of them were registered before the participants evaluated the conclusion. We argue that only a theory (...) at the representational level can property explain these data. (shrink)

Bayesian reverse-engineering is a research strategy for developing three-level explanations of behavior and cognition. Starting from a computational-level analysis of behavior and cognition as optimal probabilistic inference, Bayesian reverse-engineers apply numerous tweaks and heuristics to formulate testable hypotheses at the algorithmic and implementational levels. In so doing, they exploit recent technological advances in Bayesian artificial intelligence, machine learning, and statistics, but also consider established principles from cognitive psychology and neuroscience. Although these tweaks and heuristics are highly pragmatic in character and (...) are often deployed unsystematically, Bayesian reverse-engineering avoids several important worries that have been raised about the explanatory credentials of Bayesian cognitive science: the worry that the lower levels of analysis are being ignored altogether; the challenge that the mathematical models being developed are unfalsifiable; and the charge that the terms ‘optimal’ and ‘rational’ have lost their customary normative force. But while Bayesian reverse-engineering is therefore a viable and productive research strategy, it is also no fool-proof recipe for explanatory success. (shrink)

The received view of dynamical explanation is that dynamical cognitive science seeks to provide covering law explanations of cognitive phenomena. By analyzing three prominent examples of dynamicist research, I show that the received view is misleading: some dynamical explanations are mechanistic explanations, and in this way resemble computational and connectionist explanations. Interestingly, these dynamical explanations invoke the mathematical framework of dynamical systems theory to describe mechanisms far more complex and distributed than the ones typically considered by philosophers. Therefore, contemporary dynamicist (...) research reveals the need for a more sophisticated account of mechanistic explanation. (shrink)

This commentary focuses on the importance of attention skills in the development of universal associative learning, and it explains why the centrality of attention in UAL presents a considerable difficulty for the UAL approach. Attentional abilities are not just developmentally related to UAL but are in fact explanatory of UAL. The main problem is that all the types of attention involved in UAL can be dissociated from consciousness. This means that while attention skills for UAL might be necessary for consciousness, (...) they are not sufficient because they can all occur unconsciously. Thus, the possibility that UAL capacities might not be sufficient for consciousness cannot be eliminated, thereby challenging the key claim of the UAL approach. (shrink)

Whereas most branches of neuroscience are thought to provide mechanistic explanations, systems neuroscience is not. Two reasons are traditionally cited in support of this conclusion. First, systems neuroscientists rarely, if ever, rely on the dual strategies of decomposition and localization. Second, they typically emphasize organizational properties over the properties of individual components. In this paper, I argue that neither reason is conclusive: researchers might rely on alternative strategies for mechanism discovery, and focusing on organization is often appropriate and consistent with (...) the norms of mechanistic explanation. Thus, many explanations in systems neuroscience can also be viewed as mechanistic explanations. (shrink)

In a context of pervasive digitalization of the social world, both before and during the COVID-19 pandemic, the field of education has undergone major changes with the development of digital practices and settings. However, the physical presence of the subjects and the body remain something primordial and irreplaceable in traditional educational processes. Thus, it is often assumed that virtuality is opposed to the corporeal reality of the subjects involved in teaching, learning and studying. In this paper we aim to critically (...) challenge this assumption by addressing the phenomenon of virtuality in a more original sense: as a fundamental dimension of corporeality itself. Drawing on Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenological insights, we argue that the experience of the virtual is inherently embodied and fully real. We understand corporeality and virtuality as entangled and multidimensional phenomena. At the same time, this leads us to rethink the digital as only one possible medium in which virtuality can appear as inherent to embodied experience. We develop our phenomenological approach in three instances. First, we question and bracket two common assumptions about corporeality. From our critical perspective, assumptions about a disembodied digitality and a devirtualized corporeality represent extremes within which educational discourses currently move. Second, we address the inherent virtuality of embodied experience. We outline the heuristic concept of the virtual body to describe corporeality and virtuality as entangled and multidimensional phenomena that encompass extension, intercorporeality and intermediality. Finally, we make some remarks on the relationships of corporeality and virtuality considering the challenges of digital education. (shrink)

Provides new insights on the lasting impact of famed philosopher and educator Paulo Freire 50 years after the publication of his masterpiece, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, this book brings new perspectives on rethinking and reinventing Brazilian educator and philosopher Paulo Freire. Written by the most premier exponents and experts of Freirean scholarship, it explores the currency of Freire's contribution to social theory, educational reform, and democratic education. It also analyzes the intersections of Freire’s theories with other crucial social theorists such (...) as Gramsci, Gandhi, Habermas, Dewey, Sen, etc. The Wiley Handbook of Paulo Freire studies the history and context of the man as a global public intellectual, moving from Brazil to the rest of the world and back. Each section offers insides on the epistemology of the global south initiated by Freire with his work in Latin America; the connections between class, gender, race, religion, the state and eco-pedagogy in the work of Freire; and the contributions he made to democratic education and educational reform. Presents original theory and analysis of Freire’s life and work Offers unique and comprehensive analysis of the reception and application of Paulo Freire in international education on all continents Provides a complete historical study of Freire’s contributions to education Systematically analyzes the impact of Freire in teachers training, higher education, and lifelong learning The Wiley Handbook of Paulo Freire is an ideal book for courses on international and comparative education, pedagogy, education policy, international development, and Latin America studies. (shrink)

In some recent papers, the authors and Peter Gärdenfors have defined and studied two different kinds of formal operation, conceived as possible representations of the intuitive process of contracting a theory to eliminate a proposition. These are partial meet contraction (including as limiting cases full meet contraction and maxichoice contraction) and safe contraction. It is known, via the representation theorem for the former, that every safe contraction operation over a theory is a partial meet contraction over that theory. The purpose (...) of the present paper is to study the relationship more finely, by seeking an explicit map between the component orderings involved in each of the two kinds of contraction. It is shown that at least in the finite case a suitable map exists, with the consequence that the relational, transitively relational, and antisymmetrically relational partial meet contraction functions form identifiable subclasses of the safe contraction functions, over any theory finite modulo logical equivalence. In the process of constructing the map, as the composition of four simple transformations, mediating notions of bottom and top contraction are introduced. The study of the infinite case remains open. (shrink)

The purpose of the paper is to present a logical framework that allow to formalize a kind of prima facie duties, defeasible conditional duties, indefeasible conditional duties and actual (indefeasible) duties, as well as to show their logical interconnections.

Hybrid languages are expansions of propositional modal languages which can refer to worlds. The use of strong hybrid languages dates back to at least [Pri67], but recent work has focussed on a more constrained system called $\mathscr{H}$. We show in detail that $\mathscr{H}$ is modally natural. We begin by studying its expressivity, and provide model theoretic characterizations and a syntactic characterization. The key result to emerge is that $\mathscr{H}$ corresponds to the fragment of first-order logic which is invariant for generated (...) submodels. We then show that $\mathscr{H}$ enjoys interpolation, provide counterexamples for its finite variable fragments, and show that weak interpolation holds for the sublanguage $\mathscr{H}$. Finally, we provide complexity results for $\mathscr{H}$ and other fragments and variants, and sharpen known undecidability results for $\mathscr{H}$. (shrink)

Karl Marx’s writings about Spain have been published and studied on several occasions. Among the sources listed by Pedro Ribas, William Walton and his work The Revolutions of Spain, from 1808 to the End of 1836 figures among those mentioned most. Rather surprising, given that Walton sympathised with both Spanish Carlism and Portuguese Miguelism. Though he was born and died in England, Walton lived in the Spanish and Portuguese empires, in America and in the French colony of Santo Domingo at (...) various stages in the course of his career. A Catholic in an Anglican country, he translated Puigblanch’s The Inquisition Unmasked. Neither did his political ideas remain unchanged throughout his life. This paper looks at the influence thatWalton had on Marx’s ideas about Spain, particularly as regards the Carlist political movement. Marx read Walton in the British Library and took detailed notes from his book. He used these notes in his articles regarding the events that occurred in the country. We will also reflect on the place that Walton begins to occupy in Peninsular historiography, through the bibliographical information on his changing political viewpoints and his proximity to contemporary events.For this article we started with the study of the biography and the work of William Walton, which led us to discover a possible connection with the thinking of Karl Marx. Our investigations have led us to consider that Walton’s writings on Spain helped to form the opinions expressed by Marx in his press articles. (shrink)

Este trabajo aborda las diferentes modalidades de la referencia a la teología en la teoría de Hans Kelsen, distinguiendo tres grandes formas: la descripción, el argumento y el problema. Se detiene particularmente en la modalidad denominada aquí “argumento teológico” y su función en el marco de la construcción de la epistemología kelseniana. Busca describir también las razones de su evolución sobre su utilidad, ligada a la relación entre epistemología y política tal como evoluciona en el marco de la guerra fría.

Analyzing Mediumistic Mentation - Alvarado Proposal for Short List of Best Papers in Parapsychology - Levin Kauffman Stokes.

The incense used in some cults and oracles in antiquity seems to have possessed the power to induce visions and prophecies. a study of its components, from an ethnobotanical perspective, reveals us their psychoactive power.

Our aim in this paper is to analyse the possibilities of a logical or epistemological equivalence between the projets of R. Dedekind and G. Frege for the foundations of arithmetic. It is well know that both of them have a “logicist” point of vew. But we think that even if some coincidences exist in the wa y they define the main concepts of arithmetic, some important differences remain.

La crisis económica de la última década ha dejado al descubierto una crisis social profunda que refleja el progresivo desarraigo del individuo respecto de la sociedad, posibilitando el surgimiento de alternativas sociales que sacrifican la libertad a cambio de seguridad. Este artículo presenta una interpretación del proyecto revolucionario de Cornelius Castoriadis como una alternativa a la democracia liberal actual, capaz de hacer frente a la crisis social al situar a la propia sociedad como elemento central en su propia construcción. El (...) surgimiento de un individuo lúcido y reflexivo capaz de desarrollar una acción política consciente, permite avanzar hacia la autonomía individual y social, construyendo un régimen democrático que implica la combinación de libertad e igualdad. (shrink)

Este trabajo tiene la finalidad de discutir el papel de los intelectuales, su importancia como críticos de la sociedad en que viven y, por lo tanto, su participación miitante. No obstante, esa figura del intelectual, aliada y nacida con la modernidad, va perdiendo espacio con el intelectual-investigador que está más preocupado con la producción científica dentro de los claustros universitarios como de los grandes centros de investigación. Para el caso, se tomó como referencia dos figuras paradigmáticas de la intelectualidad argentina (...) como José Aricó y Beatriz Sarlo. (shrink)