The aim of this paper is twofold: (1) to assess whether the construct of neural representations plays an explanatory role under the variational free-energy principle and its corollary process theory, active inference; and (2) if so, to assess which philosophical stance - in relation to the ontological and epistemological status of representations - is most appropriate. We focus on non-realist (deflationary and fictionalist-instrumentalist) approaches. We consider a deflationary account of mental representation, according to which the explanatorily relevant contents of neural (...) representations are mathematical, rather than cognitive, and a fictionalist or instrumentalist account, according to which representations are scientifically useful fictions that serve explanatory (and other) aims. After reviewing the free-energy principle and active inference, we argue that the model of adaptive phenotypes under the free-energy principle can be used to furnish a formal semantics, enabling us to assign semantic content to specific phenotypic states (the internal states of a Markovian system that exists far from equilibrium). We propose a modified fictionalist account: an organism-centered fictionalism or instrumentalism. We argue that, under the free-energy principle, pursuing even a deflationary account of the content of neural representations licenses the appeal to the kind of semantic content involved in the aboutness or intentionality of cognitive systems; our position is thus coherent with, but rests on distinct assumptions from, the realist position. We argue that the free-energy principle thereby explains the aboutness or intentionality in living systems and hence their capacity to parse their sensory stream using an ontology or set of semantic factors. (shrink)

Objectives: Habitually instigated exercise is thought to increase health behavior maintenance. Previous research has explored several aspects of habit formation. However, there is a lack of longitudinal research investigating affective determinants, especially post-exercise affective states. Therefore, the present study aimed to investigate a) if behavior frequency will enhance automaticity, b) if positive affect will enhance automaticity, and c) if positive affect will moderate the relationship between behavior frequency and automaticity. Methods: 226 participants (64% females, mean age 24 years) who attended (...) weekly sports and gym classes at two universities were followed for 13 weeks. Class attendance was documented on a weekly basis (behavior frequency) during the semester. Before, during and immediately after each class, participants filled in the Feeling Scale (affective valence). Furthermore, at the beginning of each class, they answered a question about their automaticity in arriving at the decision to attend the class (instigation habit). We used a two-level modeling approach to predict subsequent automaticity by the different constructs at the previous attendance. Results: The cumulative frequency of prior class attendance did not significantly enhance the automaticity of the decision to re-attend the class. There were significant effects of valence on automaticity on the between-subject level, i.e., a one-point higher mean valence score was associated with a 0.62 point increase in automaticity (p=.001). No moderation effects of affect on the association between behavior frequency and automaticity were observed. Conclusions: Behavior repetition, albeit not significant, and positive affective states at the end of an exercise class may be beneficial in building exercise instigation habits. Practitioners and researchers alike may thus want to emphasize the importance of behavior repetition and affective response for health behavior maintenance. (shrink)

In 2000, Rüdiger Thiele [1] found in a notebook of David Hilbert, kept in Hilbert's Nachlass at the University of Göttingen, a small note concerning a 24th problem. As Hilbert wrote, he had considered including this problem in his famous problem list for the International Congress of Mathematicians in Paris in 1900.

En estos últimos años es reconocida la influencia de la dimensión emocional en el desarrollo del aprendizaje en el aula. Sin embargo, parece necesario un mayor desarrollo de los descriptores básicos: actitudes, emociones, creencias y valores en disciplinas concretas. El artículo aborda el tema de los valores y actitudes de las Matemáticas y de forma específica el valor de la belleza. Se argumenta sobre la importancia del juicio estético como una componente importante en el buen resolutor de problemas, explicitando sus (...) implicaciones para la educación matemática de los estudiantes. (shrink)

In ?Knowledge, Certainty and Probability?, Dr. Heidelberger claims to have shown ?that it is a mistake to assimilate probability and rational belief to knowledge?. The conclusion may be true but his argument is faulty.

Admiration and adoration have been considered as emotions with the power to change people, yet our knowledge of the specific nature and function of these emotions is quite limited. From an interdisciplinary perspective, we present a prototype approach to admiration and what has variously been labelled adoration, worship, or reverence. Both admiration and adoration contribute to the formation of personal and collective ideals, values, and identities, but their workings differ. We offer a detailed theoretical account of commonalities and differences in (...) the appraisal patterns and action tendencies associated with the two emotions. This analysis reveals that admiration motivates the internalisation and emulation of ideals embodied by an outstanding role model. Adoration motivates adherence to the teachings and expectations of a meaning maker and benefactor perceived as superhuman or sacred. Thus, the primary function of admiration is to promote individual learning and change, whereas adoration primarily serves to bind communities together. (shrink)

In recent years, many researchers engaged in diverse areas and approaches of “cultural-historical activity theory” (CHAT) realized an increasing international interest in Lev S. Vygotsky’s, A. N. Leont’ev’s, and A. Luria’s work and its continuations. Not so long ago, Yrjö Engeström noted that the activity approach was still “the best-held secret of academia” (p. 64) and highlighted the “impressive dimension of theorizing behind” it. Certainly, this remark reflects a time when CHAT was off the beaten tracks. But if this situation (...) begins to change today, in which direction will CHAT be heading? Will it continue to be one of those projects “unique for its practical, political, and civic engagement” committed “to ideals of social justice, equality, and social change” as it was in the beginning (Stetsenko & Arievitch, 2004, p. 58)? Although a positive future of CHAT seems to lie ahead, we consider in this article some of the problematics that may challenge all those who want to pass the “impressive dimensions of theorizing” from “insider” circles to a larger audience and from one generation to another as well as encourage newcomers to become part of this tradition through critical engagement in its theory and practice. A key to these engagements, we suggest, is not only the comprehensive empirical and philosophical basis, but also the role of dialectics as both topic and method. Therefore, the challenge for newcomers (as well as for “old-timers”) to take on the tradition of CHAT is not a small one indeed. We assume that a major reason for the increasing interest in CHAT lies in its potential to provide a non-reductionist approach to human development, which is due to its affinity to dialectics; however, the close interrelation to a tradition that reaches back to the theories of Georg W.F. Hegel and Karl Marx, among others, is not the easiest to master. In consideration of these difficulties, the purpose of this article is to investigate how contemporary approaches within CHAT can continue to provide a dialectical framework to preserve and renew the critical intention of this tradition, and how we run the risk of losing this sting. Thereby, we sensitize researchers to the problem of developing a cultural-historical approach within a historical situation that confronts us with new, unanswered questions. In this light, we also problematize the use of scientific language, for it may lead us to speak and argue un-dialectically when in fact we intend or ought to think dialectically. This article seeks to convey insights and arguments of how we can relate our theoretical approaches to a tradition of dialectical thinking and in what ways this is paramount for a critical engagement in theory and practice. In the first part, we therefore discuss not only some major theorems in Hegel’s and Marx’s work but also, and above all, Vygotsky’s way of developing the cultural-historical approach of psychology. Second, we argue that the contemporary, widely known version of CHAT, related to Yrjö Engeström’s theoretical and empirical work, neglects different aspects of dialectical thinking and consequently narrows its potential to a socio-critical approach to societal practice and human development. A crucial question of this scrutiny will be the notion of contradictions and how development is supposed to be achieved. In general, our intention is not only to clarify the role of dialectics as a method for activity theory but also to problematize the role of the subjects of research in CHAT and to confront ourselves with the problems of practicing and developing a critical science in face of a complex and challenging societal world. (shrink)

In this paper we propose a pragmatic approach to the evolution of language based on analysis of a particular element of human communication: discourse coherence. We show that coherence is essential for effective communication. Through analysis of a collection of neuropsychological and neurolinguistic studies, we maintain that the proper functioning of executive processes responsible for planning and executing actions plays a key role in the construction of coherent discourses. Studies that tested the discursive and conversational abilities of bonobos have showed (...) that apes are unable to construct a flow of discourse governed by coherence, and therefore, apes’ conversational interactions are quite different from those of humans. We then propose that the emergence of coherence in communication occurred after the split between great apes’ and humans’ lines of descendants and that this emergence might have been the result of a specific gradual development in the course of hominin evolution of the executive functions. (shrink)

This paper proposes an account of neurocognitive activity without leveraging the notion of neural representation. Neural representation is a concept that results from assuming that the properties of the models used in computational cognitive neuroscience must literally exist the system being modelled. Computational models are important tools to test a theory about how the collected data has been generated. While the usefulness of computational models is unquestionable, it does not follow that neurocognitive activity should literally entail the properties construed in (...) the model. While this is an assumption present in computationalist accounts, it is not held across the board in neuroscience. In the last section, the paper offers a dynamical account of neurocognitive activity with Dynamical Causal Modelling that combines dynamical systems theory mathematical formalisms with the theoretical contextualisation provided by Embodied and Enactive Cognitive Science. (shrink)

The present study contains an affect-based intervention intended to support exercise trainers in positively influencing their course participants’ affective responses to their exercise courses. We argue that positive affective responses are associated with habit formation, thereby being a promising approach for avoiding high drop-out rates in exercise courses. First, the present study aimed to investigate whether the intervention for exercise trainers could increase affective attitudes, and exercise instigation habit strength, and influence the development of weekly measured affective responses and automaticity (...) among adult participants of exercise courses. Second, it examined the relationship between the development of affective responses and exercise instigation habit strength. Ten exercise trainers of weekly sports and exercise courses at a German university received either an affect-based intervention or a control intervention. 132 of their course participants answered the Self-Report Habit Index for exercise instigation habit strength and items to measure affective attitude in the initial and final assessment. Moreover, they were assessed for a duration of 10 weeks during which, each time after attending the course, they reported their affective response to exercise as well as their automaticity in arriving at the decision to exercise. In the repeated measures ANOVA, there was a significant main effect of time for exercise instigation habit strength. Overall, habit strength was higher in the final than in the initial assessment. However, there were no significant differences between the two conditions in all study variables. In the latent growth curve model, the trajectory of the latent growth curve of valence was a significant predictor of the final exercise instigation habit strength. While the applied affect-based intervention was not successful in enhancing positive affective responses to exercise, the results indicate that positive affective responses may contribute to strengthening exercise instigation habits. Future studies should examine the effectiveness of interventions in long-term study designs. (shrink)

In European science and technology policy, various styles have been developed and institutionalised to govern the ethical challenges of science and technology innovations. In this paper, we give an account of the most dominant styles of the past 30 years, particularly in Europe, seeking to show their specific merits and problems. We focus on three styles of governance: a technocratic style, an applied ethics style, and a public participation style. We discuss their merits and deficits, and use this analysis to (...) assess the potential of the recently established governance approach of ‘Responsible Research and Innovation’. Based on this analysis, we reflect on the current shaping of RRI in terms of ‘doing governance’. (shrink)

Através de uma leitura densa das fontes hagiográficas jesuítas que celebraram a vida de um jesuíta napolitano, Marcelo Mastrilli (1603-1637), procuro mostrar que as visões e narrativas proféticas foram importantes lugares de comunicação social, memória colectiva e mobilização política. O reposicionamento profético foi uma linguagem específica da tecnologia do eu, a partir da qual o sujeito fabricava a sua própria identidade, dentro e contra os limites externos da autoridade e das instituições. Marcelo Mastrilli – que viajou pela Itália, Espanha, Portugal, (...) Goa, Malaca, Filipinas e Japão – construiu a sua própria subjectividade e acção através de uma visão profética de São Francisco Xavier. Logo que a sua experiência pessoal foi impressa, atingindo um público mais vasto, mobilizou outros actores a imitá-lo, citá-lo, ou a fazer uso dele nos seus percursos individuais e sociais. O que se podia transportar de um continente para outro não eram, claro, visões pessoais mas a sua corporização numa série de textos e imagens materiais. E a verdade é que mesmo depois da sua morte, em 1637, as suas visões foram retomadas pelo padre António Vieira e integradas no seu discurso legitimador da dinastia de Bragança e do papel que os jesuítas aí desempenhavam. (shrink)

The relationship between Kurt Lewin and Lev S. Vygotsky is important for many methodological questions raised by the two psychologists such as distinguishing a genetic and an accidental event type. The concept of „Gestalt“ is another important issue. The present article analyzes and contextualizes the significance of this concept in their discussions since they met in Berlin in 1925. It can be shown that a difference between Lewin’s and Vygotsky’s approach becomes salient in the ways they refer to Gestalt theory (...) as a holistic approach. While Lewin understands the here-and-now of situation in which an event occurs as depending on the present field forces as a whole, Vygotsky agrees largely with Lewin’s postulate to consider all field forces, but then moves on from the field as an originally spatial model to introduce a semantic model. According to Vygotsky this is necessary to theorize fluidity and flexibility in behavior and thus to understand the necessary psychologically preconditions for free will and independency. (shrink)

When someone masters a skill, their performance looks to us like second nature: it looks as if their actions are smoothly performed without explicit, knowledge-driven, online monitoring of their performance. Contemporary computational models in motor control theory, however, are instructionist: that is, they cast skillful performance as a knowledge-driven process. Optimal motor control theory, as representative par excellence of such approaches, casts skillful performance as an instruction, instantiated in the brain, that needs to be executed—a motor command. This paper aims (...) to show the limitations of such instructionist approaches to skillful performance. We specifically address the question of whether the assumption of control-theoretic models is warranted. The first section of this paper examines the instructionist assumption, according to which skillful performance consists of the execution of theoretical instructions harnessed in motor representations. The second and third sections characterize the implementation of motor representations as motor commands, with a special focus on formulations from OMCT. The final sections of this paper examine predictive coding and active inference—behavioral modeling frameworks that descend, but are distinct, from OMCT—and argue that the instructionist, control-theoretic assumptions are ill-motivated in light of new developments in active inference. (shrink)

La relación de la matemática con la realidad es una cuestión que ha interesado desde siempre a los matemáticos y a los profesores de matemáticas, unas veces se establece esta relación desde la historia, otras para motivar a los alumnos (y responder a la famosa cuestión "para qué sirven las matemáticas") o para situar la construcción de conceptos matemáticos y sus significado en experiencias concretas y en conexión con otras disciplinas y, otras veces, a través de los estudios internacionales comparativos (...) de evaluación. (shrink)

This essay brings together political theories of empire and racial capitalism to clarify the entanglements between socialist and imperial discourse at the turn of the twentieth century. I show that white labor activists and intellectuals in the United States and the British settler colonies borrowed from imperial scripts to mark non-white workers as a threat. This discourse was thus both imperial and popular, because it absorbed the white working class into settler projects and enlisted its support in defense of imperial (...) logics of labor control. While white workers’ demands of enfranchisement were part of a transnational imagination that was both imperial and narrowly emancipatory, this discourse reemerged as one of popular sovereignty and found channels and paths to institutionalization through national states. These institutional formations arose out of the encounter between capitalists interested in facilitating mobility of racialized laboring subjects around the globe, elite projects invested in sheltering settler spaces, and white workers concerned with protecting their own labor from competition by excluding exploitable non-white workers. White labor’s embrace of racial prejudice and the exclusion of workers of color created segregated labor spaces that fit neatly with both capitalist goals of labor control and the protection of the settler status of emerging polities. Bringing to the forefront the imperial genealogy of popular sovereignty and immigration control disrupts liberal political theory frameworks that condemn restrictions as well as those that find migration restrictions permissible. The analysis also illuminates contemporary immigration politics. (shrink)

Background: The recent COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the deficiencies that characterize the functioning of the Italian national health system. Prisons have always mirrored the most radical expressions of these weaknesses. During the early stages of the pandemic, prison facilities across Italy underwent a series of changes dictated by the need to ensure the safety of the prisoners and staff. The adoption of these rules contributed to a total or partial redefinition of many central facets of life in prison, such as (...) intake procedures for new arrivals and the ways prisoners were allowed to communicate with their families.Objectives: The aim of this qualitative study was to analyze the testimony of penitentiary healthcare workers in prisons throughout Italy to determine the impact of COVID-19 on their professional and personal lives.Participants: Thirty-eight participants were contacted and 20 decided to participate in the interview. The sample was made up of 10 women and 10 men. All the participants were members of the healthcare staff of a penitentiary facility. All were recruited through an Italian association whose mission is the development, promotion, and implementation of social solidarity projects including prisoners' social and health care. This study was facilitated through representatives serving in nine different regions of Italy. The participants were divided according to their professional roles in prisons.Method: In-depth interviews were conducted by telephone or online using telecommunication platforms. The transcribed texts underwent thematic analysis using the Atlas.ti software to identify patterns of meaning across the dataset.Results: Four main themes emerged from the analysis: Interpersonal difficulties, management and operational difficulties, the personal distress and bereavement of healthcare workers, and the distress of inmates. The importance of relationship management skills when interacting with prisoners emerged as a key topic in many interviews, and the participants highlighted the need for adequate training. The increase in prisoners' anxiety made communication more difficult.Conclusions: The findings suggest that healthcare workers in jails need emergency-oriented training. Participants described their feeling of loneliness and quasi-abandonment when carrying out their duties during the pandemic. In particular, they underscored the need for psychological guidance to better manage altered reactions with prisoners and colleagues as a result of heightened death anxiety and isolation. (shrink)

In this essay, I engage with the methodological contributions and original readings of Fanon and Rousseau contained in Jane Anna Gordon’s Creolizing Political Theory. I build upon one insight in particular––Gordon’s illuminating joint reading of Rousseau’s general will and Fanon’s national consciousness—in order to reflect on Fanon’s ambivalence about Pan-Africanism. In this task, I engage with W.E.B. Du Bois’s transnational thinking in order to parse out the tensions as well as the reciprocal relation between national consciousness and transnational or cosmopolitan (...) engagements. (shrink)

Diante de uma crise sanitária mundial, a pandemia do COVID-19, iniciada em 2020, fez com a humanidade se reorganizasse, entrando em uma nova era. Os órgãos de saúde competentes, juntamente com as nações, expuseram suas preocupações, editando decretos e normativas a serem seguidas, com medidas rigorosas de isolamento social. E a Educação foi uma das áreas mais afetadas, por ser um dos pilares mais importante na sociedade moderna. A rotina que antes era totalmente presencial, passou a ser a distância, novas (...) ferramentas foram ganhando palco, as tecnologias entraram em cena, as mídias sociais passam a ser recursos, estratégias para novas abordagens, metodologias passaram a ser repensadas, reorganizadas, para oferecer uma educação de qualidade, mesmo em tempos de crise. E partindo dessa ideia, o presente trabalho visa discutir e compreender se toda essa mudança, essa troca de cenário de forma abrupta, e as estratégias conseguiram alcançar os objetivos propostos no processo de ensino-aprendizagem. A análise ocorreu em uma escola pública municipal da região norte de Cuiabá- MT, no período letivo de 2020 e 2021, sendo observadas o curso das disciplinas Arte e Educação Física, com um público de alunos variados, da pré-escola ao 3° ano do Ensino Fundamental I. (shrink)

This article explores the distinctions among European peoples’ character established in Kant’s anthropology and their connection with his politics. These aspects are neglected relative to the analysis of race between Europeans and non-Europeans, but Kant’s anthropological works portray the people of Mediterranean Europe as not capable of civilization because of the dominance of passion in their faculty of desire, which he ties to ‘Oriental’ influences in blood or government. Kant then superimposes this racialized anthropology over the historical geopolitics of Europe, (...) obscuring the indebtedness of Northern European trade dominance to Mediterranean historical tactics and financial wealth. By relegating the Mediterranean to the margins and dismissing contentious commercial exchange in the region as mere violence spearheaded by North African corsairs, Kant gives us an elitist cosmopolitanism unable to cope with hierarchy and inequality, diminishing its potential for egalitarian global projects today. (shrink)

This article investigates the ‘discursive notion’ of communication technology, as embedded in the discussion of mediatization. Instead of focusing on the technical structure of media and its impact on society, I will alternatively turn my attention to its symbolic dimension. I will look beyond the surface of the symbolic, by questioning how this dimension has been discursively created. As such, I suggest using the term ‘discursive notion’, as discourse also refers to power relations. The analysis of the discursive notion relating (...) to the internet in Morocco is developed through the critical approach of postcolonial theory. This is done with the aim of dissecting the construction of colonial discourse, and in order to show how specific power relations continue to function to present. (shrink)

This paper examines the intersection of environmental history and the history of science, specifically the impact of forestry science and fire management on land use and community dynamics in rural Portuguese mountains. It further traces the evolution of fire management from an ancestral rural practice to a scientific concern and the subsequent integration of vernacular knowledge with scientific methods. In the early twentieth century, fire was a common tool in rural Portugal for land clearance, pasture management, and soil enrichment. Rooted (...) in local knowledge, these practices were increasingly challenged by the rise of scientific forestry, which viewed fire primarily as a threat to be controlled. By the mid-twentieth century, Portuguese forestry policies had undergone a significant shift toward aggressive fire suppression and large-scale afforestation, reflecting a broader trend of prioritizing timber production and forest protection. Notable shifts occurred in the 1970s, marked, among other factors, by the increase in rural fires, a new socioecological vision for the forest and the introduction of prescribed fire techniques influenced by international models. The paper argues that the establishment of scientific fire management practices represents a merging of expert knowledge with local experience. This move represents a shift from exclusionary policies toward a more nuanced understanding of fire’s role in landscape management. An examination of these historical developments demonstrates the intricate interrelationship between science, the environment, policy, and local practices, illustrating the way knowledge systems both shape and are shaped by environmental governance. (shrink)

En el principio, estaba el Minotauro –sombra animal del hombre- No había espacio. Todo era interior. Algo creciendo, palpitante, oscuro, extraño. No había surgido aun un corazón humano, pero entre gestos sin forma, ya se insinuaba su tímido y doloroso aleteo, ese agitarse de oscuridades hacia abajo… señales de un nacimiento que necesitaba una tierra para empezar a levantarse.

Purpose: To explain physical activity behavior, social-cognitive theories were most commonly used in the past. Besides conscious processes, the approach of dual processes additionally incorporates non-conscious regulatory processes into physical activity behavior theories. Habits are one of various non-conscious variables that can influence behavior and thus play an important role in terms of behavior change. The aim of this review was to examine the relationship between habit strength and physical activity behavior in longitudinal studies.Methods: According to the PRISMA guidelines, a (...) systematic search was conducted in three databases. Only peer-reviewed articles using a longitudinal study design were included. Both, habit and physical activity were measured at least once, and habit was related to physical activity behavior. Study quality was evaluated by assessment tools of the NHLBI.Results: Of 3.382 identified publications between 2016 and 2019, fifteen studies with different study designs were included. Most studies supported that positive correlations between habit and physical activity exist. Some positive direct and indirect effects of habit on physical activity were detected and only a minority of studies showed the influence of physical activity on habit strength. Studies differentiating between instigation and execution habit found positive correlations and revealed instigation habit as a stronger predictor of physical activity. The quality of studies was rated as reasonable using assessment tools of the NHLBI.Conclusion: This review revealed a bidirectional relationship between habit and physical activity. Whether habit predicts physical activity or vice versa is still unclear. The observation of habit influencing physical activity may be most appropriate in studies fostering physical activity maintenance while the influence of physical activity on habit may be reasonable in experimental studies with physical activity as intervention content to form a habit. Future investigations should differentiate between habit formation and physical activity maintenance studies depending on the research objective. Long-term study designs addressing the complexity of habitual behavior would be beneficial for establishing cue-behavior associations for the formation of habits. Furthermore, studies should differentiate between instigation and execution habit in order to investigate the influence of both variables on physical activity behavior independently. (shrink)

This aim of this paper is two-fold: it critically analyses and rejects accounts blending active inference as theory of mind and enactivism; and it advances an enactivist-dynamic understanding of social cognition that is compatible with active inference. While some social cognition theories seemingly take an enactive perspective on social cognition, they explain it as the attribution of mental states to other people, by assuming representational structures, in line with the classic Theory of Mind. Holding both enactivism and ToM, we argue, (...) entails contradiction and confusion due to two ToM assumptions widely known to be rejected by enactivism: that social cognition reduces to mental representation and social cognition is a hardwired contentful ‘toolkit’ or ‘starter pack’ that fuels the model-like theorising supposed in. The paper offers a positive alternative, one that avoids contradictions or confusion. After rejecting ToM-inspired theories of social cognition and clarifying the profile of social cognition under enactivism, that is without assumptions and, the last section advances an enactivist-dynamic model of cognition as dynamic, real-time, fluid, contextual social action, where we use the formalisms of dynamical systems theory to explain the origins of socio-cognitive novelty in developmental change and active inference as a tool to demonstrate social understanding as generalised synchronisation. (shrink)

This edited book deepens the engagement between 21st century philosophy of mind and the emerging technologies which are transforming our environment. Many new technologies appear to have important implications for the human mind, the nature of our cognition, our sense of identity and even perhaps what we think human beings are. They prompt questions such as: Would an uploaded mind be 'me'? Does our reliance on smart phones, or wearable gadgets enhance or diminish the human mind? and: How does our (...) deep reliance upon ambient artificial intelligence change the shape of the human mind? Readers will discover the best philosophical analysis of what current and near future 21st technology means for the metaphysics of mind. Important questions are addressed on matters relating to the extended mind and the distributed self. Expert authors explore the role that the ubiquitous smart phone might have in creating new forms of self-knowledge. They consider machine consciousness, brain enhancement and smart ambient technology, and what they can tell us about phenomenal consciousness. While ideas of artificial general intelligence, cognitive enhancements and the smart environment are widely commented on, serious analysis of their philosophical implications is only getting started. These contributions from top scholars are therefore very timely, and are of particular relevance to students and scholars of the philosophy of mind, philosophy of technology, computer science and psychology. (shrink)

Advancing a radically enactive account of cognition, we provide arguments in favour of the possibility that cultural factors permeate rather than penetrate cognition, such that cognition extensively and transactionally incorporates cultural factors rather than there being any question of cultural factors having to break into the restricted confines of cognition. The paper reviews the limitations of two classical cognitivist, modularist accounts of cognition and a revisionary, new order variant of cognitivism – a Predictive Processing account of Cognition, or PPC. It (...) argues that the cognitivist interpretation of PPC is conservatively and problematically attached to the idea of inner models and stored knowledge. In abandoning that way of understanding PPC, it offers a radically enactive alternative account of how cultural factors matter to cognition – one that abandons all vestiges of the idea that cultural factors might contentfully communicate with basic forms of cognition. In place of that idea, the possibility that culture permeates cognition is promoted. (shrink)

This paper offers an original reading of Du Bois’s Black Reconstruction that highlights how the knock down effects from Reconstruction’s failures contributed to the U.S. imperial trajectory. The coalition between the industrial North, Southern landowners, and white workers ended the promise of racial emancipation advanced by Black freedmen and the Freedmen’s Bureau. The gains from the resubjection of Black freedmen and women; the development of a national identity based racial hierarchy and an attachment to material wealth, and the racialized militarism (...) of the South, Du Bois argues, underpinned the imperial pursuit of material wealth through violent means. The consolidation of white identity around technological ideals and militarism led Du Bois to revise his account of democratic education (redirecting it to critique capitalism and soulless technology) and to reach transnationally for emancipatory solidarity. (shrink)

This article explores the afterlives of the photographic production by Ruy Duarte de Carvalho (1941-2010), a Portuguese-born Angolan anthropologist who amidst the country's long-lasting civil war (1975-2002) engaged with the Ovakuvale trans-humant shepherds dwelling in the semi-arid region of southern Angola. Through the 1990s, Carvalho used analogue photographic cameras to document his field-work among the Ovakuvale, and afterwards engaged in various experiments with the medium for ethnographic purposes. Departing from the current assemblage of Carvalho's personal archive that remains after he (...) passed away, I explore distinct photographic relations connected to public usages of his Ovakuvale images during his lifetime, to discuss the ways in which he articulated them through diverse expressive modes and ventures - such as watercolours, illustrated publications, temporary exhibitions and a theatre play. Offering the opportunity to surrender to a broad experimental practice that makes his overall Ovakuvale ethnography particularly revealing, I project through the current archival assemblage a comparative approach to the rationales guiding the presentation of his Ovakuvale field images, to discuss salient temporal relationships between his method to produce and later reuse these images in postcolonial times. (shrink)