Este artículo, escrito por algunos de quienes nos formamos con ella, recorren el legado filosófico e institucional de María Cristina Di Gregori, una destacada filósofa y maestra que desplegó su labor primero como estudiante, y luego como docente e investigadora en la Universidad Nacional de la Plata durante más de 50 años. Se destacan sus esfuerzos por construir una concepción alternativa del conocimiento y el lugar que las ideas pragmatistas tuvieron en tal construcción. Desde su trabajo inicial sobre el pensamiento (...) de Alfred Schutz, pasando por su discusión con las posiciones escépticas pero también fundacionistas, se muestra cómo la filosofía del pragmatismo clásico, que fue recuperada en el ámbito iberoamericano en gran parte gracias a su influjo, fue determinante para elaborar la comprensión del conocimiento y la ciencia de Di Gregori como una actividad atravesada también por las marcas distintivas de lo humano: los valores, las emociones y la creatividad. En la primera parte, Federico E. López ofrece un recorrido general por el legado filosófico e institucional de Di Gregori, mientras que María Luján Christiansen y Aurelia Di Berardino ofrecen una semblanza de su trabajo durante los primeros años luego de su doctorado. En la segunda parte, Livio Mattarollo, Victoria Paz Sánchez y Leopoldo Rueda analizan el modo en que, a lo largo de su recorrido intelectual, Di Gregori fue incorporando las ideas pragmatistas, apenas presentes en su trabajo doctoral. (shrink)

Quantum Mechanics is a fundamental physical theory about atomic-scale processes. It was built between 1920 and 1940 by the most distinguished physicists of that time. The accordance between the predictions of the theory and experimental results is remarkable. The physical interpretation of its mathematical constructs, however, raised unprecedented controversies. Ontological, semantic, and epistemic vagueness abound in the orthodox interpretations and have resulted in serious misunderstandings that are often repeated in textbooks and elsewhere. In this work, we identify, criticize, and clarify (...) the most spread ones. (shrink)

Macroscopic irreversible processes emerge from fundamental physical laws of reversible character. The source of the local irreversibility seems to be not in the laws themselves but in the initial and boundary conditions of the equations that represent the laws. In this work we propose that the screening of currents by black hole event horizons determines, locally, a preferred direction for the flux of electromagnetic energy. We study the growth of black hole event horizons due to the cosmological expansion and accretion (...) of cosmic microwave background radiation, for different cosmological models. We propose generalized McVittie co-moving metrics and integrate the rate of accretion of cosmic microwave background radiation onto a supermassive black hole over cosmic time. We find that for flat, open, and closed Friedmann cosmological models, the ratio of the total area of the black hole event horizons with respect to the area of a radial co-moving space-like hypersurface always increases. Since accretion of cosmic radiation sets an absolute lower limit to the total matter accreted by black holes, this implies that the causal past and future are not mirror symmetric for any spacetime event. The asymmetry causes a net Poynting flux in the global future direction; the latter is in turn related to the ever increasing thermodynamic entropy. Thus, we expose a connection between four different “time arrows”: cosmological, electromagnetic, gravitational, and thermodynamic. (shrink)

O foco deste artigo consiste nos usos dos insights científico e evolucionário na ética de Dewey. Para começar, apresenta-se uma visão geral da ética de Dewey. Salienta-se que a posição dele na ética deve ser entendida como um projeto político que advoga para o uso do conhecimento científico ao lidar com os conflitos éticos e políticos. Por sua vez, esse ponto de vista baseia-se na tese da continuidade materialemetodológicaentre a ciência e a ética. A segunda parte trata da questão da (...) abordagem de Dewey ao vínculo da ciência e da filosofia, em geral, e o valor da teoria da evolução e da antropologia à ética, em especial. Contrário a algumas interpretações atuais, argumenta-se que, segundo Dewey, a biologia e a teoria da evolução não possuem a única nem a palavra final sobre a ética, e que em sua opinião, a relevância da antropologia e das ciências sociais não deverão ser negligenciadas. Além disso, argumenta-se que a continuidade material entre a ciência e a ética destaca a importância de uma deliberação ética cientificamente informada quando os problemas éticos são enfrentados, enquanto a continuidade metodológica mostra como é possível atingir conclusões corretas na ética, mas também, a relevância que pode ser denominada de críticas genealógicasreferentes às crenças morais hereditárias. (shrink)

Frida Kahlo (1907–1954) was a Mexican artist who is remembered for her self-portraits, pain and passion, and bold, vibrant colors. This work aims to use her life story and her artistic production in a longitudinal study to examine with quantitative tools the effects of physical and emotional pain (rage) on artistic expression. Kahlo suffered from polio as a child, was involved in a bus accident as a teenager where she suffered multiple fractures of her spine and had 30 operations throughout (...) her lifetime. She also had a tempestuous relationship with her painter husband, Diego Rivera. Her physical and personal troubles however became the texture of her vivid visual vocabulary—usually expressed through the depiction of Mexican and indigenous culture or the female experience and form. We applied color analysis to a series of Frida's self-portraits and revealed a very strong association of physical pain and emotional rage with low wavelength colors (red and yellow), indicating that the expression of her ailments was, consciously or not, achieved by increasing the perceived luminance of the canvas. Further quantitative analysis that used the fractal dimension identified “The broken column” as the portrait with higher compositional complexity, which matches previous critical acclaim of this portrait as the climax of her art. These results confirm the ability of color analysis to extract emotional and cognitive features from artistic work. We suggest that these tools could be used as markers to support artistic and creative interventions in mental health. (shrink)

La cuestión práctica más importante del relativismo ético es sin duda la legitimidad de las valoraciones morales respecto a sociedades con sistemas morales diferentes del sistema de quien emite el juido de valor. El comunitarismo de la última década1 representado en esta cuestión por M. Walzer ha cuestionado precisamente dicha legitimidad y ha abogado por un «enfoque interno» que parta de los criterios de que toda forma de vida es «correcta» si sevive «de manera fiel a las concepciones compartidas por (...) los miembros de la comunidad en cuestión»2, considerando que «no atender a los significados compartidos por nuestra comunidad es siempre obrar injustamente»3. Este particularismo radical adopta así un «enfoque interno» en el que el hecho mismo de la aceptación de determinados puntos de vista, opiniones y principios forma parte de la argumentación en defensa de una concepción moral específica, en contra del «enfoque externo» que mantiene la necesidad de prescindir de estos hechos. En esta última línea Hare, por ejemplo, ha rechazado que pueda demostrarse la inaceptabiidad de una teoría moral alegando su no adecuación a la opinión admitida, pues «las opiniones morales vigentes en un grupo social no tienen valor probatorio alguno en una filosofía moral cuya función es establecer cuestiones morales de alcauce universal. (shrink)

Este documento ofrece una propuesta desde la perspectiva de la bioética para la elaboración de un protocolo de triaje en el contexto de la pandemia de COVID-19. Dicha propuesta incluye recomendaciones sobre las normas procedimentales y normas sustantivas que deben regir la asignación y reasignación de recursos terapéuticos en condiciones de escasez extrema.

El presente artículo pone en alto los aspectos filosóficos de la investigación sobre sí mismo que realizó el escritor Hernando Téllez (1908-1966) en su obra ensayística. Esto permite señalar la condición híbrida y abierta del género ensayístico, la cual hace posible situar la reflexión de Téllez en un espacio indiscernible entre la literatura y la filosofía con un mutuo enriquecimiento de estas dos formas de pensamiento. A partir de lo anterior, se concluye que es necesario reinterpretar el período previo a (...) la profesionalización de la filosofía en Colombia, ya no solo como un lapso de tránsito a la modernización, sino como un momento de la reflexión literaria y filosófica con sus propias gramáticas de creación, relacionamiento y divulgación del pensamiento. (shrink)

En reseña de: Clavero, Bartolomé, España, 1978. Amnesia constituyente. Marcial Pons, Madrid, 2013.

Deep neural networks (DNNs) have had extraordinary successes in classifying photographic images of objects and are often described as the best models of biological vision. This conclusion is largely based on three sets of findings: (1) DNNs are more accurate than any other model in classifying images taken from various datasets, (2) DNNs do the best job in predicting the pattern of human errors in classifying objects taken from various behavioral datasets, and (3) DNNs do the best job in predicting (...) brain signals in response to images taken from various brain datasets (e.g., single cell responses or fMRI data). However, these behavioral and brain datasets do not test hypotheses regarding what features are contributing to good predictions and we show that the predictions may be mediated by DNNs that share little overlap with biological vision. More problematically, we show that DNNs account for almost no results from psychological research. This contradicts the common claim that DNNs are good, let alone the best, models of human object recognition. We argue that theorists interested in developing biologically plausible models of human vision need to direct their attention to explaining psychological findings. More generally, theorists need to build models that explain the results of experiments that manipulate independent variables designed to test hypotheses rather than compete on making the best predictions. We conclude by briefly summarizing various promising modeling approaches that focus on psychological data. (shrink)

En este artículo se estudian las razones que permiten establecer dos momentos en la filosofía kantiana de la historia, momentos que configuran una sutil evolución que, sin embargo, no contradice la intención esencial de la misma: El primero de ellos, anterior a 1790, se basa en un necesitarismo naturalista conjugado con la idea de la libertad como subsunción a la ley moral, lo cual dificulta la relación teoríapraxis, generando pesimismo histórico y, a la vez, no muy fundadas esperanzas en la (...) intervención del buen príncipe para producir el cambio político y social. El segundo momento, encara la historia desde el juicio teleológico, la admisión de los sentimientos como parte cooperante en la moral y la admiración a la revolución francesa, generando optimismo histórico, otorgando al derecho un papel decisivo en la construcción de la república noumenon y abriéndose a una concepción de la libertad más cercana al libre albedrío. (shrink)

En este artículo se estudian las razones que permiten establecer dos momentos en la filosofía kantiana de la historia, momentos que configuran una sutil evolución que, sin embargo, no contradice la intención esencial de la misma: El primero de ellos, anterior a 1790, se basa en un necesitarismo naturalista conjugado con la idea de la libertad como subsunción a la ley moral, lo cual dificulta la relación teoríapraxis, generando pesimismo histórico y, a la vez, no muy fundadas esperanzas en la (...) intervención del buen príncipe para producir el cambio político y social. El segundo momento, encara la historia desde el juicio teleológico, la admisión de los sentimientos como parte cooperante en la moral y la admiración a la revolución francesa, generando optimismo histórico, otorgando al derecho un papel decisivo en la construcción de la república noumenon y abriéndose a una concepción de la libertad más cercana al libre albedrío. (shrink)

This article analyses the accusation of nihilism that F. H. Jacobi made against Fichte in a letter of mars. 1799, imputation that lays on the personal conception ofJacobi about the reason as a negative capacity which only can destroy its objects. The letter in question implicates two different types of nihilism: a)The cosmological one, accepted by Fichte and named acosmism by him. It is only a reformulation of the sensible world from practical principIes, but doesn't suppose an annihilation or scorn (...) of this world. Qn the contrary, the religious view, for example, shows the world as a manifestation of godlite and, hased on moral exigencies, doesn~t admit the existence of death. Of course, the immortality isn't for a particular soul but for the order of moral actions (= God). b) The radical one, which doesn't exist in Fichte and lays on a bad interpretation of bis intellectual intuition assumed from a point of view next to Schelling. (shrink)

En este artículo se estudian las razones que permiten establecer dos momentos en la filosofía kantiana de la historia, momentos que configuran una sutil evolución que, sin embargo, no contradice la intención esencial de la misma: El primero de ellos, anterior a 1790, se basa en un necesitarismo naturalista conjugado con la idea de la libertad como subsunción a la ley moral, lo cual dificulta la relación teoríapraxis, generando pesimismo histórico y, a la vez, no muy fundadas esperanzas en la (...) intervención del buen príncipe para producir el cambio político y social. El segundo momento, encara la historia desde el juicio teleológico, la admisión de los sentimientos como parte cooperante en la moral y la admiración a la revolución francesa, generando optimismo histórico, otorgando al derecho un papel decisivo en la construcción de la república noumenon y abriéndose a una concepción de la libertad más cercana al libre albedrío. (shrink)

En este artículo se estudian las razones que permiten establecer dos momentos en la filosofía kantiana de la historia, momentos que configuran una sutil evolución que, sin embargo, no contradice la intención esencial de la misma: El primero de ellos, anterior a 1790, se basa en un necesitarismo naturalista conjugado con la idea de la libertad como subsunción a la ley moral, lo cual dificulta la relación teoríapraxis, generando pesimismo histórico y, a la vez, no muy fundadas esperanzas en la (...) intervención del buen príncipe para producir el cambio político y social. El segundo momento, encara la historia desde el juicio teleológico, la admisión de los sentimientos como parte cooperante en la moral y la admiración a la revolución francesa, generando optimismo histórico, otorgando al derecho un papel decisivo en la construcción de la república noumenon y abriéndose a una concepción de la libertad más cercana al libre albedrío. (shrink)

‘Banality of evil’ was a concept introduced by Hannah Arendt in order to characterize a new form of wickedness embodied in people as Adolf Eichmann and others nazis criminals. Arendt thougt that this perverseness was very awey from the one of ‘radical evil’, a notion built by Kant and employed by Arendt herself in former works. This article seeks to point out that concepts of radical evil and banality of evil are closer than Arendt recognizes.

The purpose of this article is to present the main contributions to peace, democracy, and the philosophy of education in Colombia, made by philosopher Guillermo Hoyos-Vásquez (Medellín, 1935 – Bogotá, 2013). The work of this Colombian philosopher stands out for its important contributions to political philosophy as the vital, supportive, and responsible exercise of thought concerning the public interest. Using Kant’s concept of practical reason, Husserl’s lifeworld [Lebenswelt], and Habermas’s communicative action as starting points, Hoyos-Vásquez succeeded in going beyond these (...) political philosophers by trying to apply their ideas in the midst of the difficult context of corruption, drug trafficking and armed conflict in Colombia over the past five decades. At the same time, Hoyos-Vásquez developed throughout his life a varied public activity as a thinker and educator, belying the myth of the theoretical distance between the philosopher and his/her political present or historical reality. The thought of Guillermo Hoyos-Vásquez, and his public action as an educator, represent a substantial contribution to contemporary political and educational philosophy, maintaining a close connection between theory and practice. (shrink)

On several key issues we agree with the commentators. Perhaps most importantly, everyone seems to agree that psychology has an important role to play in building better models of human vision, and (most) everyone agrees (including us) that deep neural networks (DNNs) will play an important role in modelling human vision going forward. But there are also disagreements about what models are for, how DNN–human correspondences should be evaluated, the value of alternative modelling approaches, and impact of marketing hype in (...) the literature. In our view, these latter issues are contributing to many unjustified claims regarding DNN–human correspondences in vision and other domains of cognition. We explore all these issues in this response. (shrink)

The systemic complexity of sustainable development imposes a major cognitive challenge to students’ learning. Faculty can explore new approaches in the classroom to teach the topic successfully, including the use of technology. We conducted an experiment to compare the effectiveness of a simulation vis-à-vis a case-based method to teach sustainable development. We found that both pedagogical methods are effective for teaching this concept, although our results support the idea that simulations are slightly more effective than case studies, particularly to teach (...) its multidimensional and inter-temporal nature. Therefore, our findings suggest the use of both simulations and case studies as pedagogical tools to convey the main ideas associated with sustainable development. (shrink)

In 2021, there were 11.7 million licensed young drivers in the U.S. This is 1.5 million fewer young drivers compared to 2007. The phenomenon of delay in driving licensure among teens has notable implications for opportunities positioning them for life success when transitioning into emerging adulthood and in later life.

We propose a new interpretation of the equation E=mc² in special relativity by generalizing ideas of ontological emergence to fundamental physics. This allows us to propose that mass, as a property, can be considered to emerge from energy, using a well-known definition of weak ontological emergence. Einstein’s famous equation gains in this way a clearer philosophical interpretation, one that avoids the problems of previous attempts, and is fully consistent with the kinematic properties of special relativity, while yielding fresh insights concerning (...) the nature of mass. (shrink)

Generics (e.g., “Ravens are black”) express generalizations about categories or their members. Previous research found that generics about animals are interpreted as broadly true of members of a kind, yet also accepted based on minimal evidence. This asymmetry is important for suggesting a mechanism by which unfounded generalizations may flourish; yet, little is known whether this finding extends to generics about groups of people (heretofore, “social generics”). Accordingly, in four preregistered studies (n = 665), we tested for an inferential asymmetry (...) for generics regarding novel groups of animals versus people. Participants were randomly assigned to either an Implied Prevalence task (given a generic, asked to estimate the prevalence of a property) or a Truth-Conditions task (given prevalence information, asked whether a generic was true or false). A generic asymmetry was found in both domains, at equivalent levels. The asymmetry also extended to properties varying in valence (dangerous and neutral). Finally, there were differences as a function of property valence in the Implied Prevalence task and a small but consistent interaction between domain and prevalence in the Truth-Conditions task. We discuss the implications of these results for the semantics of generics, theoretical accounts of the asymmetry, and the relation between generics and stereotyping. (shrink)

How are we to understand the intentionality of desire? According to the two classical views, desire is either a positive evaluation or a disposition to act. This essay examines these conceptions of desire and argues for a deontic alternative, namely the view that desiring is representing a state of affairs as what ought to be. Three lines of criticism of the classical pictures of desire are provided. The first concerns desire’s direction of fit, i.e. the intuition that the world should (...) conform to our desires. The second concerns the “death of desire” principle, i.e. the intuition that one cannot desire what one represents as actual. The last pertains to desire’s role in psychological explanations, i.e. the intuition that desires can explain motivations and be explained by evaluations. Following these criticisms, three positive arguments in favor of the deontic conception are sketched. (shrink)

_T__S_ is a logic that has no valid inferences. But, could there be a logic without valid metainferences? We will introduce _T__S_ _ω_, a logic without metainferential validities. Notwithstanding, _T__S_ _ω_ is not as empty—i.e., uninformative—as it gets, because it has many antivalidities. We will later introduce the two-standard logic [_T__S_ _ω_, _S__T_ _ω_ ], a logic without validities and antivalidities. Nevertheless, [_T__S_ _ω_, _S__T_ _ω_ ] is still informative, because it has many contingencies. The three-standard logic [ \(\mathbf {TS}_{\omega (...) }, \mathbf {ST}_{\omega }, [{\overline {\emptyset }}{\emptyset }, {\emptyset } {\overline {\emptyset }}]\) ] that we will further introduce, has no validities, no antivalidities and also no contingencies whatsoever. We will also present two more validity-empty logics. The first one has no supersatisfiabilities, unsatisfabilities and antivalidities ∗. The second one has no invalidities nor non-valid-nor-invalid (meta)inferences. All these considerations justify thinking of logics as, at least, three-standard entities, corresponding, respectively, to what someone who takes that logic as correct, accepts, rejects and suspends judgement about, just because those things are, respectively, validities, antivalidities and contingencies of that logic. Finally, we will present some consequences of this setting for the monism/pluralism/nihilism debate, and show how nihilism and monism, on one hand, and nihilism and pluralism, on the other hand, may reconcile—at least according to how Gillian Russell understands nihilism, and provide some general reasons for adopting a multi-standard approach to logics. (shrink)

The situational context within which an activity takes place, as well as the personality characteristics of individuals shape the types of strategies people choose in order to regulate their emotions, especially when confronted with challenging or undesirable situations. Taking self-regulation as the framework to study emotions in relation to learning and performing chamber music canon repertoire, this quasi-experimental and intra-individual study focused on the self-rated emotional states of a professional classical cellist during long-term sustained practice across 100-weeks. This helped to (...) develop greater awareness of different emotions and how they vary over artistic events (9 profiled concerts and 1 commercially recorded album). Data analysis included traditional psychometric measurements to test the internal consistency of the time series data as well as the relationship between variables (artistic events). The study mapped the cellist’s flexible regulation of 17 different positive and negative emotions empirically linked to learning and achievement while practicing within the social context of performing music publicly at a high level. Findings arising from the study help with understandings of how to support musicians to maximize their artistic potential by reducing emotion dysregulation and strengthening the types of adaptive methods that enable them to manage their own emotions. (shrink)

Plato's political thought gave rise to a number of concepts and issues - such as the idea of a normative theory, the philosophical foundation of politics, the philosopher-kings, the standard of utopian theory - which have played a significant role on Western political and philosophical thought. -/- This volume aspires to bring out Plato's concept of efficacy in a normative theory. -/- By efficacy, the author means the way in which the theory conceives of its practical realization. If in the (...) Republic this issue is particularly problematic, in the Laws, instead, the claim of realizability becomes the main concern. -/- By defining the concept of efficacy and going through the main works of Plato, this conceptual and textual analysis aims to shed a new light on Plato's political thought, which is neither a utopia, nor a short term political program, but the first normative theory encompassing a theory of efficacy. (shrink)

Music has strong emotional powers. How are we to understand affective responses to music? What does music teach us about emotions? Why are musical emotions important? Despite the rich literature in philosophy and the empirical sciences, particularly psychology and neuroscience, little attention has been paid to integrating these approaches. This extensive review aims to redress this imbalance and establish a mutual dialogue between philosophy and the empirical sciences by presenting the main philosophical puzzles from an affective science perspective. The chief (...) problem is contagion. Sometimes, listeners perceive music as expressing some emotion and this elicits the same emotion in them. Contagion is perplexing because it collides with the leading theory of emotions as experiences of values. This article mostly revolves around the critical presentation of the philosophical solutions to this problem in light of recent developments in emotion theory and affective science. It also highlights practical issues, particularly the role of musical emotions in well-being and health, by tackling the paradox of sad music, i.e., the question of why people enjoy sad music. It thus bridges an important gap between theoretical and real-life issues as well as between philosophical and empirical investigations on affective responses to music. (shrink)

The presence of a theory of the transmigration of the soul or, according to Empedocles’ words, of the δαίμων is a controversial issue among scholars. A major difficulty arises when one tries to read the fragments of the Purifications – where this theme is particularly recurrent – in conjunction with those usually attributed to the poem On nature. The aim of this paper is to suggest a ‘method’ to analyse the extant fragments, and to offer a possible interpretation of the (...) nature of the so–called cycle of the δαίμων. On the one hand, I shall try to show that the two poems, if read together, can provide a ‘salvific’ message. As a matter of fact, the description of the cosmic order that emerges from the poem On nature might convey the same prescription as stated in the Purifications for following the universal laws, which would ultimately allow human beings to be happy even in an age of universal evil. On the other hand, I shall propose to identify the δαίμων with the roots, which can escape from the cycle – i.e. become happy – when they are shaped as human minds, thanks to the way in which the processes of knowledge work. (shrink)

Resumo: O artigo trata da relação entre individualidade e valor, na filosofia transcendental, a partir de uma análise da interpretação da filosofia de J. G. Fichte dada por Emil Lask, no livro publicado em 1903, Fichtes Idealismus und die Geschichte. O artigo visa a mostrar como a radicalização do transcendentalismo o orienta a um realismo não empírico, o qual impede ao transcendentalismo de realizar-se exclusivamente na forma da investigação autorreflexiva das estruturas da consciência e o traduz em uma valorização da (...) práxis. Depois de uma descrição geral das perspectivas abertas pela filosofia laskiana e das razões para valorizar o Fichte-Buch de Lask, serão esclarecidos os conteúdos e o contexto de amadurecimento da tese laskiana em relação a três interlocutores específicos: Windelband, Rickert e Liebmann. Por fim, serão avaliadas a solidez e a fecundidade de duas questões decisivas para o desenvolvimento do pensamento fichtiano: a relação entre filosofia e vida e aquela entre individualidade e sacrifício.: This paper deals with the relationship between individuality and value in transcendental philosophy based on the analysis of J. G. Fichte’s philosophy by Emil Lask in his 1903 book, Fichtes Idealismus und die Geschichte. The paper aims to demonstrate how the radicalization of transcendentalism guides it toward a non-empirical realism. It also aims to show how this non-empirical realism prevents transcendentalism from realizing itself exclusively in the form of self-reflexive investigation of the structures of consciousness, and translates it into an appreciation of praxis. After a discussion of Lask’s philosophy in general and of Lask’s Fichte-Buch, I explain the content and development of Lask’s thesis in relation to three specific authors: Windelband, Rickert, and Liebmann. Finally, I analyze two questions that are crucial to the development of Fichtean thought: the relationship between philosophy and life and between individuality and sacrifice. (shrink)

This paper presents a justification counterpart for dyadic deontic logic, which is often argued to be better than Standard Deontic Logic at representing conditional and contrary-to-duty obligations, such as those exemplified by the notorious Chisholm’s puzzle. We consider the alethic-deontic system (E) and present the explicit version of this system (JE) by replacing the alethic Box-modality with proof terms and the dyadic deontic Circ-modality with justification terms. The explicit representation of strong factual detachment (SFD) is given and finally soundness and (...) completeness of the system (JE) with respect to basic models and preference models is established. (shrink)

As a result of advances in healthcare, the worldwide average life expectancy is steadily increasing. However, this positive trend has societal and individual costs, not least because greater life expectancy is linked to higher incidence of age-related diseases, such as dementia. Over the past few decades, research has isolated various protective “healthy lifestyle” factors argued to contribute positively to cognitive aging, e.g., healthy diet, physical exercise and occupational attainment. The present article critically reviews neuroscientific evidence for another such factor, i.e., (...) speaking multiple languages. Moreover, with multiple societal stakeholders in mind, we contextualize and stress the importance of the research program that seeks to uncover and understand potential connections between bilingual language experience and cognitive aging trajectories, inclusive of the socio-economic impact it can have. If on the right track, this is an important line of research because bilingualism has the potential to cross-over socio-economic divides to a degree other healthy lifestyle factors currently do not and likely cannot. (shrink)