Many neuroimaging studies of semantic memory have argued that knowledge of an object's perceptual properties are represented in a modality-specific manner. These studies often base their argument on finding activation in the left-hemisphere fusiform gyrus-a region assumed to be involved in perceptual processing-when the participant is verifying verbal statements about objects and properties. In this paper, we report an extension of one of these influential papers-Kan, Barsalou, Solomon, Minor, and Thompson-Schill (2003 )-and present evidence for an amodal component in the (...) representation and processing of perceptual knowledge. Participants were required to verify object-property statements (e.g., "cat-whiskers?"; "bear-wings?") while they were being scanned by functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). We replicated Kan et al.'s activation in the left fusiform gyrus, but also found activation in regions of left inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) and middle-temporal gyrus, areas known to reflect amodal processes or representations. Further, only activations in the left IFG, an amodal area, were correlated with measures of behavioural performance. (shrink)

Nel 1589 Hercole Filogenio scrisse un discorso che intitolò _Dell’eccellenza della donna_, con l’intento di allinearsi “all’opinione di coloro che si sforzano scoprire l’errore di molti, quali tanto si affannano in avilire il feminil sesso” e dedicò il suo scritto a Flavia Peretti Orsina, donna distinta e dallo spirito inquieto, che con i suoi interessi contribuì allo sviluppo della società dell’epoca. Nel suo tentativo di preservare le donne dal biasimo manifestato dal maschilismo egemone e, allo stesso tempo, elogiare le loro (...) virtù, Filogenio propone due conclusioni, l’analisi e l’approfondimento delle quali, per mezzo di un’argomentazione valida, costituiscono il nucleo testuale della sua opera. L’articolo presenta e analizza i ragionamenti che Filogenio sviluppa nella seconda parte del suo discorso sui quali intende imperniare la dimostrazione della seconda conclusione: che la Donna non è superiore né inferiore all’Uomo, ma simile e uguale per nobiltà, eccellenza e perfezione. (shrink)

Based on A. P. D. Mourelatos's "Events, Processes, and States", an overview of the literature on „verb types‟ is provided in this paper;the basic conceptual, logical and grammatical tests for the identification of different verb types are also briefly reviewed.Such tests, it is argued, reveal variations in a verb’s grammatical and/or lexical aspect; accordingly, verb types should be viewed as regularities governing aspectual variation within and across sentences. Verb types are not associated with particular verbs, predicates or sentences; rather, a (...) verb type is the sum of ways in which a verb‟s aspect may vary. In other words, verb types describe the possibilities for a verb to appear in one or another of a series of interrelated constructions. Verb types are verbal possibilities or, to use B. L. Whorf‟s apt term, fashions of speaking which cut across typical grammatical classifications. It is further argued that verb types, as “mere” fashions of speaking, cannot provide a firm basis for any metaphysics of „situation types‟; i.e., the metaphysics of verb types cannot be founded on their linguistics. (shrink)

In this article I consider the normative and axiological dimension of Simmel’s thought. Building on previous interpretations, I argue that although Simmel cannot be interpreted as a systematic normative theorist, the issue of values and the normative standpoint can nevertheless be traced in various aspects of his multifarious work. This interpretive turn attempts to link Simmel’s obscure theory of value with his epistemological relationism. Relationism may offer a counterweight to Simmel’s value-pluralism, since it points to normative elements (e.g. internal teleology, (...) justice) that can contribute to the reconciliation between incommensurablity of forms and totality. Axiological and normative concerns (of a Hegelian source) survive also in his metaphysics of life, pointing beyond a merely Bergsonian and conservative Lebensphilosophie. I conclude with some thoughts on how this normative rethinking of Simmel’s thought can contribute towards more adequate appreciations of Simmel’s overall theory. (shrink)

Addison and Steele’s legacy on polite manners has been widely acknowledged as a hallmark of the Scottish Enlightenment’s tradition. On the other hand the place of courtly, ‘French’ politeness within the Scottish Enlightenment is much less debated. Conceiving the European Enlightenment as a status quo built on ‘French manners and English liberty’, as Pocock perfectly synthesizes1, points out to the restrictions imposed on religious fanaticism and warfare by the ‘jus gentium’ and European civility. In my paper I aim to shift (...) the attention to the seemingly obvious fact that manners, the backbone of European civility, originate in court, and Versailles was the court par excellence. In this context I explore Adam Smith’s struggle to strip politeness and civility of its aristocratic components. In the heart of the matter lies the strange idea of courtoisie without a court, of propriety that should overcome formal politeness i.e. imitation of aristocratic manners. (shrink)

The network concept is increasingly used for the description of complex systems. Here, we summarize key aspects of the evolvability and robustness of the hierarchical network set of macromolecules, cells, organisms and ecosystems. Listing the costs and benefits of cooperation as a necessary behaviour to build this network hierarchy, we outline the major hypothesis of the paper: the emergence of hierarchical complexity needs cooperation leading to the ageing (i.e. gradual deterioration) of the constituent networks. A stable environment develops cooperation leading (...) to over‐optimization, and forming an ‘always‐old’ network, which accumulates damage, and dies in an apoptosis‐like process. A rapidly changing environment develops competition forming a ‘forever‐young’ network, which may suffer an occasional over‐perturbation exhausting system resources, and causing death in a necrosis‐like process. Giving a number of examples we demonstrate how cooperation evokes the gradual accumulation of damage typical to ageing. Finally, we show how various forms of cooperation and consequent ageing emerge as key elements in all major steps of evolution from the formation of protocells to the establishment of the globalized, modern human society. (shrink)

This article tells the story of an anthropologist and a research subject who encountered each other in the middle of the 20th century on an island in the southwestern Pacific. In the midst of an intensive spate of evidence gathering for his dissertation, anthropologist Melford Spiro noted that one of his would-be interlocutors, a man named Tarev – notable for failing all of his psychological tests – still managed to contribute a different form of evidence: if his views (...) could not be amalgamated in numbers via test scores, they could still be rendered as a case. Tarev’s personality study, ‘A Psychotic in the South Seas’, counted as one of many cases contributing to a broad, worldwide effort to explore the meaning of suffering – specifically psychological illnesses – in non-Western cultures. This article examines Tarev’s rejected test-response ‘data’ and the ways in which his answers did not fit the epistemological and geopolitical frameworks that provoked them. The encounter between anthropologist and interlocutor, today, allows an investigation into how mid-20th-century scholars amassed ambitious data sets meant to revolutionize the sciences that dealt with human beings as psycho-social entities. What sorts of data made it into their archives and what sorts did not? How was the data of happiness, sadness and other fleeting emotional states collected from whole islands newly under US naval occupation? (shrink)

The current methods in psychoanalytic studies of God images and representations have focused almost exclusively on individual, internal processes. This article examines how psychological anthropologists go about formulating symbolic representations of deity in their research, in comparison with the object relations method of God- representations. Drawing on Melford Spiro's integrative proposal for interpreting the mental and collective representations in religious symbol systems, this paper proposes that there is a need for a comprehensive model of the representational process in (...) the Eastern world in order to suit its cultural traditions. The author uses both theoretical and historical materials as well as personal narrative throughout its entirety to balance the two in a mutual and coherent flow of understanding. Noting the culturally patterned interactions with culturally postulated God-symbols, the object relations method of God- representations will be utilized to probe how God is both created and found on a collective level as well as individual level. (shrink)

This is an interview with Erika Bourguignon, who has been a presence in the anthropology of consciousness for decades. Her work has examined possession, altered states of consciousness, religion, psychological anthropology, and shamanism. Her own fieldwork in Haiti has been augmented by book‐length comparative work with Lenora Greenbaum as well. In a 1996 article in Ethos, Melford Spiro notes that Bourguignon is a scholar who has resisted the trends of "postmodernists and interpretivists" and he describes her as "a (...) preeminent psychological anthropologist as well as the premier anthropological authority on trance, possession, and altered states of consciousness.". (shrink)

Kaplan's theory of demonstratives and deicticals can be brie y stated as follows. Expressions of this kind depend for their interpretation on the context of utterance and in a context of utterance they refer directly to whatever they refer to. Direct reference in turn consists in two properties. The rst property is the absence of a Fregean sense. The context does its work once and for all and the reference is not in uenced by a counterfactual circumstance in which something (...) else is pointed at or somebody else is speaking. The second property is the rigidity of the reference: if the reference is direct, it is the same in all possible worlds. It is rigid in a sense slightly stronger than Kripke's, because even in worlds where the object does not exist, the reference is still to the object referred to in the context of utterance. Demonstratives or deicticals can fail to refer when the utterance is abnormal. Consider e.g. a demonstrative without an accompanying pointing gesture or one with a pointing gesture that fails to point to anything. For deicticals we need slightly more imagination: consider an inscription in the beach sand of I am the greatest or an utterance coming from outside of space-time of I am here now. In such cases we have a defective context of utterance. One class of counterexamples to this theory is important in the context of dialogue systems incorporating the facility of pointing in a graphical representation visible on the computer screen: demonstratives used to refer to objects represented in a picture. Kaplan discuError: Illegal entry in bfrange block in ToUnicode CMapError: Illegal entry in bfrange block in ToUnicode CMapError: Illegal entry in bfrange block in ToUnicode CMapError: Illegal entry in bfrange block in ToUnicode CMapError: Illegal entry in bfrange block in ToUnicode CMapError: Illegal entry in bfrange block in ToUnicode CMapError: Illegal entry in bfrange block in ToUnicode CMapError: Illegal entry in bfrange block in ToUnicode CMapError: Illegal entry in bfrange block in ToUnicode CMapError: Illegal entry in bfrange block in ToUnicode CMapError: Illegal entry in bfrange block in ToUnicode CMapError: Illegal entry in bfrange block in ToUnicode CMapError: Illegal entry in bfrange block in ToUnicode CMapError: Illegal entry in bfrange block in ToUnicode CMapError: Illegal entry in bfrange block in ToUnicode CMapError: Illegal entry in bfrange block in ToUnicode CMapError: Illegal entry in bfrange block in ToUnicode CMapError: Illegal entry in bfrange block in ToUnicode CMapError: Illegal entry in bfrange block in ToUnicode CMapError: Illegal entry in bfrange block in ToUnicode CMapError: Illegal entry in bfrange block in ToUnicode CMapError: Illegal entry in bfrange block in ToUnicode CMapError: Illegal entry in bfrange block in ToUnicode CMapError: Illegal entry in bfrange block in ToUnicode CMapError: Illegal entry in bfrange block in ToUnicode CMapError: Illegal entry in bfrange block in ToUnicode CMapError: Illegal entry in bfrange block in ToUnicode CMapError: Illegal entry in bfrange block in ToUnicode CMapError: Illegal entry in bfrange block in ToUnicode CMapError: Illegal entry in bfrange block in ToUnicode CMapError: Illegal entry in bfrange block in ToUnicode CMapError: Illegal entry in bfrange block in ToUnicode CMapError: Illegal entry in bfrange block in ToUnicode CMapError: Illegal entry in bfrange block in ToUnicode CMapError: Illegal entry in bfrange block in ToUnicode CMapError: Illegal entry in bfrange block in ToUnicode CMapError: Illegal entry in bfrange block in ToUnicode CMapError: Illegal entry in bfrange block in ToUnicode CMapError: Illegal entry in bfrange block in ToUnicode CMapError: Illegal entry in bfrange block in ToUnicode CMapError: Illegal entry in bfrange block in ToUnicode CMapError: Illegal entry in bfrange block in ToUnicode CMapError: Illegal entry in bfrange block in ToUnicode CMapError: Illegal entry in bfrange block in ToUnicode CMapError: Illegal entry in bfrange block in ToUnicode CMapError: Illegal entry in bfrange block in ToUnicode CMapsses his pointing to a picture of Spiro T. (shrink)

Tutte le dottrine tradizionali, da quelle più arcaiche e "primitive" a quelle più evolute e articolate, hanno sempre affermato che l'uomo non è un essere solamente corporeo, sia pur dotato di ingegno e di intelligenza, ma è un essere dalla natura composita, formato da una parte materiale e da una o più componenti invisibili e "sottili" e che in lui risiede un principio immortale di origine divina o comunque soprannaturale. Secondo il modo di vedere tradizionale, l'uomo, per conoscere e realizzare (...) se stesso, deve pertanto prendere coscienza, in primo luogo ed essenzialmente, di questa sua natura di essere composito e immortale, e questa è una di quelle idee universali (per noi forse la più importante) che troviamo diffuse presso tutte le popolazioni del pianeta, anche se con sfumature diverse nelle varie tradizioni..."--Cover flap. (shrink)

The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, under the prefecture of Joseph Ratzinger, published its instruction Donum vitae in 1987 to provide moral guidance on bioethical issues. Since 1987, many new ethical issues have arisen, especially in the areas of regenerative medicine (which includes stem cellresearch) and assisted reproduction. To address these the CDF, under the prefecture of William Levada, published the bioethical instruction Dignitas personae inDecember 2008. The present symposium includes reflections on the strengths and weaknesses of the (...) new document by six moral theologians noted for theirwork in bioethics: Christian Brugger, John Finnis, Luke Gormally, Christopher Kaczor, William E. May, and Peter F. Ryan, S.J. National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly 9.3 (Autumn 2009): 461–483. (shrink)

A szabadság dilemmái -- A megrendült öntudat mítoszai -- Irás az éthoszról.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:BOOK REVIEWS 493 La Trinite Creatrice. By GILLES EMERY. Paris: Vrin, 1995. Pp. 590 (paper). It was only a question of when, not if, the late rejection of Thomism in Catholic circles would be followed by the next tum toward the thought of the Angelic Doctor. This movement is already underway, and on the European continent two groups of young Dominicans are playing prominent roles. In Toulouse, though he (...) only assumed its editorship in 1991, S.-T. Bonino already has made the venerable Revue thomiste indispensable reading again. Two recent thematic issues are especially noteworthy: "Autour d'Etienne Gilson" (94 [1994): 355-553) and "S. Thomas et l'onto-theologie" (95 [1995): 1-192). Bonino's own bulletins et recensions are erudite and lively, and he is very clear about the present situation: After the decline of the last decades, Thomism is searching for a new 6lan, a new look, and not without success:... the corpse of Thomism is stirring again. Though the new look is not yet complete, one feature is set: One common point unites all now approaching the works of St. Thomas, whatever their ultimate goals: the necessity to put Thomistic doctrine into serious historical perspective.... Historical-doctrinal study of St. Thomas is opening the possibility of an authentic revival of Thomism. (Revue thomiste 95 [1995]: 485-6) While Anglo-Americans approaching Aquinas from neoscholastic or analytic perspectives might not be so enthusiastic about history, Fr. Bonino is simply correct. For evidence, he turns to the historical work of the other group of Dominicans, at Fribourg. Chief among them is J.-P. Torrell, whose masterful 1993 biography, Initiation d saint Thomas d'Aquin, is now in English, and was accompanied by a Festschrift for the eminent professor of theologyOrdo sapientiae et amoris, ed. C.-J. de Oliveira. Not least among Torrell's contributions has been to direct the thesis of Gilles Emery-La Trinite creatrice. One paragraph of Emery's helpful general conclusion reveals three dominant themes in his important work: In virtue of the nexus mysteriorum, faith in the Trinity clarifies faith in the creative and saving activity of God, while the doctrine of creation in its turn clarifies our approach to the mystery of the Trinity. It is this mutual clarification and support among the articles of faith that we mean by speaking of the "function" of the theme of the creative Trinity. The unity of the Trinity in its works ad extra constitutes a fundamental rule of the trinitarian theology of our scholastics. But it does not exhaust their theological discourse on the subject of God as creator. To arrive at a balanced doctrine, trying to give all the aspects of the mystery their due, one must add to the rule of unity a second rule, which completes it: the procession of the divine persons is the origin of the procession of creatures. (519) Emery's primary theme is captured in the title-The Creative Trinity. Creation involves not only the one God as efficient cause bestowing existence 494 BOOK REVIEWS on a multitude of creatures (rule 1), but also the Trinitarian multiplicity within God as exemplar cause of the procession of creatures (rule 2). The neoscholastics ignored rule 2, separating creation (which was turned over to the philosophers) from Trinity (the exclusive domain of the theologians). This too neat division oflabor produced unhappy consequences: a doctrine ofcreation with no role for the Trinity, and a doctrine of the Trinity with no function in creation. What can be called Emery's Trinitarian theme is a corrective for such mistakes. To understand this side of creation rightly, Emery situates Aquinas's thought in relation to Albert and Bonaventure, on whom he heavily depends. This is his hi,storical theme. From the development of these two principal themes there gradually emerges a third, less overt, but in the long run of signal importance for the new look of Thomism-what might be called the integration theme, uniting reason and revelation in Aquinas's theology. To break through the crust that had built up around Aquinas's genuine doctrine of creation Emery turns to history. Limiting himself to the Scriptum super libros Sententiarum, he finds the Trinitarian... (shrink)