To better understand the gender gap in science, technology, engineering and math aspiration, the article examines the critical role of domain-specific motivation. Using longitudinal data from 5th and 6th grade students, person-oriented analyses was applied to understand the gendered motivational profiles and their longitudinal influence on achievement and STEM aspiration. Specifically, we aimed to derive motivational belief profiles regarding science, mathematics, and language, analyze the stability and change in the profiles between the 5th and 6th grade, assess the relationship between (...) motivational profiles and achievement and STEM aspiration, and test for gender differences. We derived four motivational profiles for both years: high motivation in all subjects, high mathematics motivation, low mathematics motivation, and low motivation in all subjects. Latent transition analysis revealed that most students remained in the same profile throughout the 2 years. We found evidence of gendered differences in the motivational profiles and the chance of transitioning between profiles. More girls are characterized by low math motivation, while boys are more likely to transition to higher math motivation in 6th grade. The motivational difference is reflected in their achievement, although not strongly coupled with their STEM aspiration. The findings suggest that at this developmental stage, Finnish students have not developed a strong association between STEM aspiration and their domain-specific motivation, although their motivation may have influenced their achievement. Interpretation and practical implications are discussed. (shrink)

The debate over whether we can learn from art is as contentious as it is enduring. With the debate often centring on literature, recent theories claim that literature can deepen and enrich our understanding in novel and valuable ways. Contrary to this, Peter Lamarque accuses the neo-cognitivist of relying on empty metaphors of illumination and enrichment to spell out literature’s cognitive import. This paper links philosophical and psychological research to defend the neo-cognitivist against Lamarque’s charge. It highlights some of the (...) processes and mechanisms central to experiencing the cognitive impact of literary reading. These processes help the neo-cognitivist tell a robust and empirically informed story about how ‘enhanced understanding’ manifests in the experience of reading. (shrink)

A Filosofia da nova música de Adorno é muito mais interessante se abordada como uma reflexão sobre as duas correntes de vanguarda que, no século XX, atacaram com mais virulência a ideia de razão: o expressionismo e o surrealismo. A crítica que Adorno opera é, ao mesmo tempo, uma homenagem. Porque, se na luta contra a razão, o expressionismo e o surrealismo aparecem como irracionais, "a arte, diz Adorno, é apesar de tudo a verdade sobre a sociedade, na medida em (...) que, em suas produções autênticas, a irracionalidade da constituição racional do mundo aparece claramente". (shrink)

Desarrollo de algunas relaciones conceptuales entre una teor a del conocimiento y una teor a de la sociedad. Para ello, se analizan problemas de historia de la ciencia y conceptos tales como verdad y racionalidad. Finalmente, se argumenta contra la idea de que los enfoques sociol gicos y filos ficos del conocimiento que consideran seriamente la dimensi n social quedan comprometidos con concepciones convencionalistas.

This paper focuses on the conceptual relationship between rationality and progress as applied to scientific development. The concept of methodology is used in the sense of a model of scientific change. It is argued, as against e.g. recent discussion by Larry Laudan, that progress implies rationality. The notion of rationality useful for this conception of scientific development includes instrumental rationality, butalso the idea of rational paradigm-shift, which is analysed in terms of changes of conceptual frameworks. The key idea is the (...) posibility of a rational reconstruction of series of conceptual frameworks, where the shift from one framework to its successor may be reconstructed as rational in the sense of there being reasons in the successor for accepting the change, and thus the whole series being rational. (shrink)

Drawing on Marxist and psychoanalytic frameworks, I collect notes and reflections about the experience of contingent work in the Writing Center at Amherst College, a private liberal arts college in the United States. Taking the tradition of workers' inquiry as a source of inspiration and point of departure, I chart the material relations of the job alongside its social and affective dimensions. Connecting the form that writing takes (in classrooms and scholarly publishing) to the political economic relations of higher education, (...) I reframe writing as a means to make sense of experience rather than as a mode of professionalized conversation. (shrink)

According to an influential research program in cognitive science, philosophy, and linguistics, there is a deep, special connection between generics and pernicious aspects of social cognition such as stereotyping. Specifically, generics are thought to exacerbate our propensity to essentialize, lead us to overgeneralize based on scarce evidence, and lead to other epistemically dubious patterns of inference. Recently, however, several studies have put empirical and theoretical pressure on some of the main tenets of this research program. The goal of this paper (...) is to bring these results together in a comprehensive narrative and systematically evaluate their impact on the hypothesis that generics have a uniquely problematic effect on our social and cognitive capacities. (shrink)

This report reviews what quantum physics and information theory have to tell us about the age-old question, How come existence? No escape is evident from four conclusions: (1) The world cannot be a giant machine, ruled by any preestablished continuum physical law. (2) There is no such thing at the microscopic level as space or time or spacetime continuum. (3) The familiar probability function or functional, and wave equation or functional wave equation, of standard quantum theory provide mere continuum idealizations (...) and by reason of this circumstance conceal the information-theoretic source from which they derive. (4) No element in the description of physics shows itself as closer to primordial than the elementary quantum phenomenon, that is, the elementary device-intermediated act of posing a yes-no physical question and eliciting an answer or, in brief, the elementary act of observer-participancy. Otherwise stated, every physical quantity, every it, derives its ultimate significance from bits, binary yes-or-no indications, a conclusion which we epitomize in the phrase, it from bit. (shrink)

El texto que presentamos es un ejercicio literario con objetivos filosóficos. Como Galileo, que en 1642 mostró, en su Diálogo sobre los sistemas máximos, el enfrentamiento entre los defensores de la cosmología aristotélica, tradicional, y los defensores del sistema copernicano, heliocéntrico, nosotros deseamos enfrentar dos cosmovisiones. Inventamos, con este fin, una conversación imaginaria entre dos autores, Max Weber y Richard Rorty, autores que, por no ser contemporáneos el uno del otro, no han podido dialogar entre sí. Partiendo de los aspectos (...) epistemológicos, la conversación recorre, después, la vertiente ético-política, intentando mostrar los puntos básicos de acuerdo y confrontación entre el racionalismo decisionista de Weber y el pragmatismo de Rorty. No se oculta que el texto pretende asimismo contribuir, desde una óptica weberiana, a la crítica en torno a la obra del filósofo norteamericano, poniendo especialmente de relieve el riesgo de "petrificación social" que comporta plantear como valor último la propia preservación de la democracia liberal. (shrink)

INTRODUCTION Human knowledge has two central aspects that demand attention: On one hand, it is a social construct and on the other it aspires to be ...

In this paper, some theoretical problems about a relevant conceptualization helpful to understand resistance to scientific and technological change are discussed. An interpretative perspective is developed, and some concepts are elucidated, according to which certain processes become scientific changes because, among other things, but in a fundamental way, they are constituted as changes by members of a community. Certain cognitive processes are typified as “scientific”, “technological” and “scientific-technological”, and the importance of their relationship to processes of exploitation is stressed. It (...) is suggested that resistance to changes increases and becomes more problematic when less exploitation is involved in the changes, i.e. when the processes are closer to what here is called scientific, rather than technological or scientific-technological knowledge. Some exampIes are drawn from the history of science to illustrate these ideas. (shrink)

Philosophy has historically played an important role: it has provided individuals and whole societies with conceptions of the world, which have made meaningful their individual and collective lives. But in our contemporary world, that role has been minimized under the impact of science and technology, the global exchange of information, and the transformation of social structures. The possibility of progress in this respect depends on the possibility of recovering the values of respect and love for others, as well as respect (...) for their cultural values. Finally, it depends on the possibility of turning the notion of humanity into a meaningful one for everybody—not only as a biological species—but rather as a truly global community of people, where differences will always exists and will be most welcome and common projects in the interest of everybody will be agreed upon and developed. (shrink)

The late Vivienne Westwood sketched a role for fashion that elevates it from the prosaic to the status of art, as something important, life-enhancing, and worthy of pursuit. Here, a philosophical treatment of Westwood’s vision of fashion that does justice to the artistic and life-enhancing value that fashion can realise is offered, using an emergent theory in contemporary analytic aesthetics. The virtue theory of art delineates the intrinsic worth of art in terms of the opportunities it provides for us to (...) exercise and cultivate virtues such as courage, self-expression, imagination, wit, or authenticity. Our engagement with art can subsequently be genuinely life-enhancing in lieu of the constitutive role the virtues play in living well. The present study takes Westwood’s claims as a jumping-off point, considering how they speak not just to her own designs but to our relationship with our clothes more broadly. Fashion is defended as a practice that performs this function in analogous ways to other genres of art and thus has clear artistic value as well as enables us to live well. Given this potential, just as Westwood claimed, there are reasons to perform the practice well because it has importance for the ways in which it can realise artistic value and aid us in living well. (shrink)

ObjectiveTo apply a socioecological approach to identify risk and protective factors across levels of the “sports-ecosystem,” which are associated with mental health outcomes among athletes in para-sports and non-para sports. A further aim is to determine whether para athletes have unique risks and protective factor profiles compared to non-para athletes.MethodsA cross-sectional, anonymous online-survey was provided to all categorized athletes aged 16 years and older, registered with the Australian Institute of Sport. Mental health outcomes included mental health symptoms, general psychological distress, (...) risky alcohol consumption and eating disorder risk. Risk and protective factors across multiple levels of the socioecological model, including individual, microsystem, exosystem and macrosystem level factors were assessed via self-report.ResultsA total of 427 elite athletes participated in the study. No significant differences in the rates of mental health problems were observed between para and non-para athletes. Both differences and similarities in risk and protective factor profiles were found across the multiple levels of the sports-ecosystem. Weak evidence was also found to support the hypothesis that certain risk factors, including experiencing two or more adverse life events in the past year, sports related concussion, high self-stigma, inadequate social support and low psychological safety conferred a greater risk for poorer mental health outcomes for para athletes in particular.ConclusionRisk factors occurring across various levels of the sports ecosystem, including individual, interpersonal and organizational level risk factors were found to be associated with a range of poorer mental health outcomes. The association between mental ill-health and certain risk factors, particularly those at the individual and microsystem level, appear to be greater for para athletes. These findings have important implications for policy and mental health service provision in elite sports settings, highlighting the need for more nuanced approaches to subpopulations, and the delivery of mental health interventions across all levels of the sports ecosystem. (shrink)

(2007). Youth and Sexualities: Pleasure, Subversion, and Insubordination In and Out of Schools. Edited by Mary Louise Rasmussen, Eric Rofes, and Susan Talburt. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004. 250 pp. $75.00 (hardcover), $24.95 (paper) Educational Studies: Vol. 41, No. 1, pp. 88-92.

Numerous empirical studies have been conducted to examine first-generation college students, those individuals whose parents have not attended college. Their personality characteristics, cognitive development, academic preparation, and first-year performance have all been topics of research; yet there appears to be little in the literature exploring the motivation of these individuals to seek higher education. There are even fewer studies targeting academic motivation in Hispanic students. The purpose of this study is to conduct a phenomenological examination of the desire to attend (...) college among first generation Hispanic students participating in an academic support program. One-hour taped interviews were conducted with three volunteer participants enrolled in the Student Support Services program at Sul Ross State University. Meaning units and constituents were extracted, and general structures were developed using the Descriptive Phenomenological Method . The phenomenological analysis resulted in two structures that address the effectiveness of academic outreach programming and identify the roles of self-efficacy, successful experiences in high school, a desire for improved socioeconomic status, a need to contribute to the well-being of others, a break with tradition, and the influence of respected role models in facilitating a desire for higher education in first-generation Hispanic college students. (shrink)

L’article se propose de confronter l’herméneutique du sujet, telle qu’elle est définie par Ricœur dans son ouvrage Soi-même comme un autre à celle qui fait l’objet du cours donné par Michel Foucault en 1981-1982 au Collège de France. Il s’agit, sous la forme d’une conversation imaginaire, de préciser le sens donné par les deux auteurs à l’herméneutique du sujet et d’en dégager les implications sur la constitution du sujet, la conception de la liberté et le statut de l’éthique. L'argumentation s'appuie (...) sur l'ouvrage majeur Soi-même comme un autre , que Ricœur a élaboré dans la période qui correspond aux dernières œuvres de Foucault. This paper intends to compare the hermeneutics of the subject by Ricœur in Oneself as Another with the lessons given by Foucault at the Collège de France in 1981-1982 about The Hermeneutics of the Subject . Presented as an invented conversation, it tries to specify the meaning of both authors’ hermeneutics and to find their implications about the subject’s constitution, the conception of freedom and the status of ethics. The argumentation is based on the essential book Oneself as Another , conceived by Ricœur at the same time Foucault was writing his last works. (shrink)

Πρόκειται γιά διπλό ξύλινο αὐλό, ἐξαιρετικά καλά διατηρημένο. 'Αποτελεῖται ἀπό δυό σωλῆνες πού σχηματίζονται ἀπό ἕνα στόμιο καί ἕναν ὅλμο, καί ἀπό τόν « βόμβυκα » · ἔχουν 7-9 τρύπες, ἀπό τίς ὁποῖες μιά γιά τόν ἀντίχειρα στό κάτω μέρος καί τῶν δυό σωλήνων. Ἡ θέση τους ποικίλλει σημαντικά ἀπό σωλήνα σέ σωλήνα καί μπορεῖ κανείς νά ἀποκατάσταση τῆς μουσικῆς κλίμακας τοῦ ὀργάνου, σύμφωνα μέ ὑπολογισμούς πού χρησιμοποιοῦσαν οἱ Ἕλληνες θεωρητικοί. Μ' αὐτό τόν τρόπο ἀποδεικνύεται ὅτι ὁ διπλός αὐλός δέν (...) ἐπινοήθηκε γιά ἐκτέλεση ἐτεροφώνων μελωδιῶν : ὁ ὀργανοποιός ἀνοίγει τρύπες σέ δυό σωλῆνες, ἐκεί πού θά τοῦ ἦταν ἀδύνατο νά τό κάνει μόνο στον ἕνα χωρίς νά χαλάσει τό ὄργανο. Στό διπλό αὐλό τοῦ Λούβρου μπορεῖ νά ἐκτελεσθούν 16 νότες · πρόκειται γιά ὄργανο ἐξαιρετικῆς κατασκευῆς πού προορίζεται γιά δεξιοτέχνη. Μπορεῖ νά χρονολογηθεῖ στά τέλη τοῦ 4ου αἰώνα. (shrink)

Τό λατινικό scabellum, οι ελληνικές «κρούπεζαι» είναι βοηθητικά αντικείμενα πού χρησιμοποιούν οί αυλητές : αποτελείται άπό Ινα διπλό ξύλινο πέλμα ενισχυμένο ενδεχομένως μέ μέταλλο πού ό οργανοπαίχτης κινεί μέ τό πόδι · γιά νά γίνει πιό ηχηρό καμμιά φορά υπάρχουν δύο κύμβαλα ανάμεσα στά δύο πέλματα · μελέτη τών ελληνικών δρων · προέλευση καί λειτουργία τοΰ οργάνου, ειδικότερα στή Βοιωτία · σχέσεις μέ τόν Βάταλο πού αναφέρεται στην επιγραφή τοΰ Διονυσίου της Θάσου · σχέσεις μεταξύ αύλου, ρ* υθμοΰ καί εργασίας (...) " συμπεράσματα πάνω στους μουσικούς ^υθμούς στην Ελλάδα καί στή Τώμη. (shrink)

Este libro es una recopilación de artículos, ponencias y conversaciones -casi todos provenientes del Seminario de Problemas Científicos y Filosóficos de la UNAM- y conforman un diálogo, que recuerda el intercambio epistolar, entre dos figuras destacadas dentro de la filosofía de la ciencia en México. Los textos se han ordenado cronológicamente y están escritos en un tono informal; el objetivo es introducir al lector en los temas actuales de la filosofía de la ciencia desde dos enfoques distintos, el ético y (...) el epistemológico. (shrink)

Coherentism maintains that coherent beliefs are more likely to be true than incoherent beliefs, and that coherent evidence provides more confirmation of a hypothesis when the evidence is made coherent by the explanation provided by that hypothesis. Although probabilistic models of credence ought to be well-suited to justifying such claims, negative results from Bayesian epistemology have suggested otherwise. In this essay we argue that the connection between coherence and confirmation should be understood as a relation mediated by the causal relationships (...) among the evidence and a hypothesis, and we offer a framework for doing so by fitting together probabilistic models of coherence, confirmation, and causation. We show that the causal structure among the evidence and hypothesis is sometimes enough to determine whether the coherence of the evidence boosts confirmation of the hypothesis, makes no difference to it, or even reduces it. We also show that, ceteris paribus, it is not the coherence of the evidence that boosts confirmation, but rather the ratio of the coherence of the evidence to the coherence of the evidence conditional on a hypothesis. (shrink)

Two compelling principles, the Reasonable Range Principle and the Preservation of Irrelevant Evidence Principle, are necessary conditions that any response to peer disagreements ought to abide by. The Reasonable Range Principle maintains that a resolution to a peer disagreement should not fall outside the range of views expressed by the peers in their dispute, whereas the Preservation of Irrelevant Evidence Principle maintains that a resolution strategy should be able to preserve unanimous judgments of evidential irrelevance among the peers. No standard (...) Bayesian resolution strategy satisfies the PIE Principle, however, and we give a loss aversion argument in support of PIE and against Bayes. The theory of imprecise probability allows one to satisfy both principles, and we introduce the notion of a set-based credal judgment to frame and address a range of subtle issues that arise in peer disagreements. (shrink)

Justice requires that public policy improve the lives of disadvantaged members of society. Dementia is a source of disadvantage, and a growing global public health challenge. This article examines the theoretical and ethical connections between theories of justice and public dementia policy. Disability in general, and dementia in particular, poses important challenges for theories of justice, especially social contract theories. First, the article argues that non-contractarian accounts of justice such as the Capabilities and Disadvantage approaches are better equipped than their (...) contractarian counterparts to analyse issues of justice and dementia. Secondly, using a capabilities framework, I analyse original empirical data from qualitative interviews and discussion groups with health and social care professionals. The article concludes that social connection is a ‘fertile functioning’—a multiplier of advantage that enables people to live well with dementia together—and should therefore be a priority for public dementia policy. (shrink)