Public health care interventions—regarding vaccination, obesity, and HIV, for example—standardly take the form of information dissemination across a community. But information networks can vary importantly between different ethnic communities, as can levels of trust in information from different sources. We use data from the Greater Pittsburgh Random Household Health Survey to construct models of information networks for White and Black communities--models which reflect the degree of information contact between individuals, with degrees of trust in information from various sources correlated with (...) positions in that social network. With simple assumptions regarding belief change and social reinforcement, we use those modeled networks to build dynamic agent-based models of how information can be expected to flow and how beliefs can be expected to change across each community. With contrasting information from governmental and religious sources, the results show importantly different dynamic patterns of belief polarization within the two communities. (shrink)

This research project investigated manifestations of critical thinking in pupils 10 to 12 years of age during their group discussions held in the context of Philosophy for Children Adapted to Mathematics. The objective of the research project was to examine, through the pupils' discussions, the development of dialogical critical thinking processes. The research was conducted during an entire school year. The research method was based on the Grounded Theory approach; the material used consisted of transcripts of verbal exchanges among the (...) pupils. Analysis of the transcripts revealed that: critical thinking appears to the extent that a 'dia-logue' is established among pupils; on the cognitive level, dialogical critical thinking is comprised of four thinking modes: logical, creative, responsible and meta-cognitive; and on the epistemological level, dialogical critical thinking is only manifested in a context where egocentricity of perspective and relativism of beliefs are transcended. (shrink)

«Claros del bosque» es uno de los libros esenciales de la trayectoria filosófica de María Zambrano en el que vemos, por primera vez, en marcha su «razón poética». Nadie mejor que la propia autora para presentarnos el significado de esta obra: “«Claros del bosque» dentro de mi pensamiento vertido en lo impreso, salvo alguna excepción, aparece como algo inédito salido de ese escribir irreprimible que brota por sí mismo y que ha ido a parar a cuadernos y hojas que nadie (...) conoce, ni yo misma, reacia que soy a releerme. Tenía que suceder por fuerza. Mas creo que el carácter de ofrenda de «Claros del bosque» a la persona a quien va dedicado en su tránsito tiene que ver en ello, acentuando así el carácter de ofrenda que todo lo que he publicado tiene desde siempre. Nada es de extrañar que la razón discursiva apenas aparezca. Con anterioridad esbocé una ‘Crítica de la razón discursiva’ que no podría prometerme que salga de ese estado. Creo, pues, que como libro es el que más responde a esa ‘idea’ hace tiempo formulada de que ‘pensar es ante todo –como raíz, como acto–– descifrar lo que se siente’, entendiendo por sentir el ‘sentir originario’, expresión usada por mí desde hace años. Y también que ‘el hombre es el ser que padece su propia trascendencia’ en un incesante proceso de unificación entre pasividad y conocimiento, entre ser y vida. Vida verdadera, sorprendida tan sólo en algunos claros que se abren en la espesura inicial entre cielo y tierra. Y en el remoto horizonte donde cielo y tierra, ser y vida, vida y muerte se anegan”. (shrink)

Impression management refers to behaviors used by individuals to control the impressions they make on audiences. This study demonstrated that business men and women were more likely to defend their questionable behavior by using excuses and justifications than to openly concede errors of judgment and behavior. Three hundred and sixty two participants received a scenario in which they had allegedly engaged in questionable behavior. The participants then wrote a position paper explaining their actions. Results indicated that people in business attempt (...) to avoid being associated with potentially negative interpretations of their behavior primarily through the use of justifications and excuses. In general, the types of responses were relatively consistent across work experience, educational and occupational levels. However, in some instances the specific explanations used depended on gender and age. (shrink)

Meaningful participant engagement has been identified as a key contributor to the success of efforts to share data via a “Medical Information Commons”. We present findings from expert stakeholder interviews aimed at understanding barriers to engagement and the appropriate role of MIC participants. Although most interviewees supported engagement, they distinguished between individual versus collective forms. They also noted challenges including representation and perceived inefficiency, prompting reflection on political aspects of engagement and efficiency concerns.

In this volume, María Cerezo examines Wittgenstein's Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus as a response to some of Frege's and Russel's logical problems. In analyzing the tractarian conditions for the possibility of language, she explains the two main theories of the proposition in Tractatus : the truth-functions theory and the picture theory. Cerezo shows that Wittgenstein initially separates the account of the structure of a proposition from the explanation of its expression. However, contrary to his intention, the combination of these theories creates new (...) difficulties, since the requirements of each theory cannot be fully respected by the others. Cerezo also argues that Wittgenstein's theory of language cannot be fully understood unless attention is paid to his theory of expression and his doctrine of projection by the metaphysical subject. (shrink)

Although a conventional environmentalism focuses on the health of ecological systems, Pope Francis’s 2015 environmental encyclical Laudato Sí invokes St. Francis of Assisi to emphasize God’s love for the individual organism, no matter how small. Decrying the tendency to regard other creatures as mere objects to be controlled and used, Pope Francis urges our enactment of a ‘universal communion’ governed by love. I suggest, however, that Laudato Sí’s animal ethic, as focused on ordering human and animal need, is inadequate to (...) its overarching vision of cross-species communion. This vision requires the sort of cross-species relational bridge implicit in Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s view of agency as an irreducibly ‘animate’ expression of choice and afforded further definition in Kenneth J. Shapiro’s conception of a ‘kinesthetic empathy.’ As the phenomenological epistemology underlying both discourses makes possible a rough correspondence, I put these in conversation to demonstrate that a Merleau-Pontyan and reciprocal agency is a constitutive aspect of the fullest sort of cross-species relation, such that recognition of this agency can both deepen our understanding of ‘universal communion’ and foster engagement in its practice. (shrink)

One hundred years after Gestalt views first took hold our understanding of how perceptual processes organize the visual field into objects and their local backgrounds has progressed substantially. We now know that in addition to the image-based properties that the Gestalt psychologists identified as relevant, a myriad of other image-based factors influence figure–ground organization, as do subjective factors such as past experience, attention, and intentions. Moreover, properties of grounds as well as properties of figures play a role. The recent use (...) of indirect measures and brain imaging techniques has revealed that there is much more processing of the regions ultimately perceived as grounds than is supposed in traditional approaches, and that competition and feedback are involved in figure–ground organization. These recent advances offer great promise for uncovering the mechanisms that organize the visual field into figures and grounds. (shrink)

У статті подається короткий огляд прагматичного емпіризму Джеймса, емпіризму Дьюї, неопрагматистських ідей Рорті, огляд метамоделей Крейга щодо теорії комунікації. На основі даного огляду авторка обґрунтовує необхідність радикалізації прагматизму та аналізує його вплив на комунікаційні дослідження. Досліджується теорія комунікації Роберта Крейга, яку він розглядає як практичну дисципліну. Доводиться, що всі теорії комунікації є взаєморелевантними, якщо їх адресують у практичний життєвий світ, в якому «комунікація» вже є багатозначним терміном. Кожна традиція теорії комунікації походить з риторичних посилань на певні загальноприйняті уявлення про комунікації, (...) оскаржуючи інші переконання. Взаємодоповнення та напруженість традицій породжують теоретичний метадискурс, який перетинається з існуючим практичним метадискурсом у суспільстві та потенційно інформує про нього. За попередньою схемою комунікативного поля риторична, семіотична, феноменологічна, кібернетична, соціально-психологічна, соціокультурна і критична традиції теорії комунікації вирізняються властивими способами визначення комунікації та проблем спілкування, метадискурсивними словниками та метадискурсивними загальними поняттями. Запропоновано порівняльну аргументацію між традиціями, розглянуто результати для теоретичної роботи та дисциплінарної практики в цій галузі. (shrink)

This collection is the first comprehensive history of Fichte's reception in America, highlighting the existence of a long and strong tradition of Fichtean studies throughout the continent and demonstrating the centrality of Fichtean ideas in contemporary discussions of issues such as feminism, social criticism, and decolonial thought. Read and reinterpreted in the highly diverse circumstances across the American continent, Fichte's ideas are presented in a radically new light, uncovering the Fichtean spirit of self-activity and autonomous thought in an American context.

Volume 20, Issue 7, July 2020, Page 120-122.