ArgumentEusapia Palladino (1854-1918) is remembered as one of the most famous mediums in the history of spiritualism. Renowned scientists attended her séances in Europe and in the United States. They often had to admit to being unable to understand the origin of the phenomena produced. Cesare Lombroso, for example, after meeting Eusapia, was converted first to mediumism, then spiritualism. This article will retrace the early stages of her career as a medium and shed light on the way she managed to (...) gain the attention of scientists. It will also show why they chose her as an epistemic object. (shrink)

Tourism is capable of distributing wealth and participating substantially in the economic development of many countries. However, to ensure these benefits, the planning, management, and monitoring of a sustainable offer become crucial. Despite the increasingly widespread attention to sustainability in this sector, however, the concept of sustainable tourism still appears fragmented and fuzzy. The theoretical frameworks used in many studies often reduce sustainability to its environmental or social aspects and consider such pillars as separate issues. Furthermore, although most studies acknowledge (...) that a potentially wide number of stakeholders play a role in sustainable tourism production, they have so far focused on host communities, tourism producers, or tourists themselves independently. Fewer explorations have addressed simultaneously different stakeholders, their perceptions of sustainable tourism experience, and the various concerns and tensions that may arise. This study aims to investigate sustainability issues in tourism by considering the voices of two relevant stakeholders involved in “co-producing” the tourism experience: tourists and tour operators. Based on a qualitative study conducted in Italy, the article critically discusses how travelers and tour operators craft the sustainability idea, the implicit assumptions that rely on their different perspectives, and their practical implications. The results highlight four different narratives on sustainable tourism, which are related to different assumptions on sustainability and actions legitimated to generate sustainable value. Finally, the article offers insights into how to develop a more holistic and critical approach to sustainable tourism through education and communication. (shrink)

. The subject of this paper is Georg Ernst Stahl's reflections on epilepsy. In the German physician's work, the concept of disease is stratified: it is the morbid idea which causes dysfunctions in the animal economy, as well as irregular motion, overabundance and ultimately an alteration of the corporeal humours. In particular, epilepsy is an affection deriving from an altered functioning of the bodily motions, caused by abnormal blood flow, intestinal worms, anatomical defects, foreign bodies, and the passions of the (...) soul. While a certain medical tradition attributed a nervous origin to epilepsy, Stahl, giving it a humoural genesis, openly shows the theoretical premises on which his physiology rests. So, Stahlian physiology appears to be a non-mechanistic, teleological-inspired, hydraulicism. (shrink)

This study analyzes shells of marine gastropods of a zoological museum and the Latin epithets expressing perceptual and connotative attributes that they have received in the standard, Linnaean nomenclature. Making use of the Osgood semantic differential, we presented the subjects with digital 3-D reproductions of the shell specimens to be subjectively evaluated according to 17 pairs of attributes. The results show that, overall, the subjective evaluations given by the subjects are consistent, which suggests that an intersubjective characterization of the shells (...) as wholes according to their qualitative and morphological traits is possible and scientifically explicable. This may apply to other biological items as well. The results also show that the epithets given to the shells by taxonomists do not always reflect the perceptual evaluation of the general population, being a product of the well-known ambiguity in taxonomic categorization and naming. (shrink)

Background Family and Community Health Nurses (FCHNs) are at a higher risk of experiencing emotional exhaustion and feelings of low personal accomplishment. Higher levels of professional identity may decrease these negative feelings. Its measurement could produce positive effects for FCHNs and the quality of care they offer. Aim This study aims to evaluate the psychometric properties (validity and reliability) of the Nurses Professional Values Scale-Revised (NPVS-R) on FCHNs in Italy. Research design A cross-sectional research design was used. Participants and research (...) context A convenience sample of FCHNs was recruited in an out-of-hospital setting from Italy. A total of 202 nurses were eligible (mean age of 41.11 ± 10.55 years; 78.2% female). Ethical considerations The study was performed in accordance with the World Medical Association Declaration of Helsinki. Participants were asked for their consent and were guaranteed anonymity in the information collected. The study was approved by the internal review board of the university. Results Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) supported a unidimensional factorial structure of the NPVS-R with an adequate fit to the data. Internal consistency reliability was also supported. The construct validity was further reinforced by the concurrent validity results showing a positive and significant correlation of professional identity with job satisfaction. Conclusion The NPVS-R is a valid and reliable instrument to measure professional identity among FCHNs. It can be used in clinical practice to improve FCHNs’ psychological-emotional feelings and quality of care provided, in research to allow comprehensive understanding of professional identity, and in educational settings to monitor the professional identity levels of Family and Community Health Nursing students. (shrink)

Enactive cognitive science combines questions in epistemology, ontology, and ethics by conceiving of bodies as open-ended and mutually transforming through activity. While enaction is not a theory of ethics, it can contribute to its foundations. We present a schematization of enactive ideas that underlie traditional distinctions between Being, Knowing, and Doing. Ethics in this scheme begins in the relation between knowing and becoming. Critical of dichotomous thinking, we approach the questions of alterity and ethical reality. Alterity is relevant to the (...) enactive approach, but not in the radical sense of transcendental arguments. We propose difference, instead, as a more generative concept. Following Simondon, we see norms and values manifest in webs of past and future acts together with their potentialities for becoming. We propose a transindividual concept of moral attunement that includes ethical know-how and consciousness raising. Through generative difference and attunement to configurations of becoming, enaction underpins an ethics of participation linking virtue ethics and ethics of care. (shrink)

A novel theoretical framework for an embodied, non-representational approach to language that extends and deepens enactive theory, bridging the gap between sensorimotor skills and language. -/- Linguistic Bodies offers a fully embodied and fully social treatment of human language without positing mental representations. The authors present the first coherent, overarching theory that connects dynamical explanations of action and perception with language. Arguing from the assumption of a deep continuity between life and mind, they show that this continuity extends to language. (...) Expanding and deepening enactive theory, they offer a constitutive account of language and the co-emergent phenomena of personhood, reflexivity, social normativity, and ideality. Language, they argue, is not something we add to a range of existing cognitive capacities but a new way of being embodied. Each of us is a linguistic body in a community of other linguistic bodies. The book describes three distinct yet entangled kinds of human embodiment, organic, sensorimotor, and intersubjective; it traces the emergence of linguistic sensitivities and introduces the novel concept of linguistic bodies; and it explores the implications of living as linguistic bodies in perpetual becoming, applying the concept of linguistic bodies to questions of language acquisition, parenting, autism, grammar, symbol, narrative, and gesture, and to such ethical concerns as microaggression, institutional speech, and pedagogy. (shrink)

As yet, there is no enactive account of social cognition. This paper extends the enactive concept of sense-making into the social domain. It takes as its departure point the process of interaction between individuals in a social encounter. It is a well-established finding that individuals can and generally do coordinate their movements and utterances in such situations. We argue that the interaction process can take on a form of autonomy. This allows us to reframe the problem of social cognition as (...) that of how meaning is generated and transformed in the interplay between the unfolding interaction process and the individuals engaged in it. The notion of sense-making in this realm becomes participatory sense-making. The onus of social understanding thus moves away from strictly the individual only. (shrink)

An important shift is taking place in social cognition research, away from a focus on the individual mind and toward embodied and participatory aspects of social understanding. Empirical results already imply that social cognition is not reducible to the workings of individual cognitive mechanisms. To galvanize this interactive turn, we provide an operational definition of social interaction and distinguish the different explanatory roles – contextual, enabling and constitutive – it can play in social cognition. We show that interactive processes are (...) more than a context for social cognition: they can complement and even replace individual mechanisms. This new explanatory power of social interaction can push the field forward by expanding the possibilities of scientific explanation beyond the individual. (shrink)

Esiste un confine certo tra vita e morte? Il volume ripercorre, con un approccio transculturale, la storia della definizione di morte e le vicende connesse alle tecniche di accertamento del decesso dall'antichità ai giorni nostri. Da sempre, infatti, medici, filosofi e teologi si sono sforzati di individuare il momento preciso dell'exitus, l'istante in cui, secondo la tradizione, l'anima avrebbe lasciato il corpo. Nondimeno, soglie e parametri stabiliti da una generazione furono spesso posti in discussione e ridisegnati dalla successiva. Alimentato dai (...) successi conseguiti nelle tecniche rianimative e nella trapiantologia, il dibattito ha conosciuto una fase di grande vivacità proprio negli ultimi decenni, tanto che, pur avendo in genere abbandonato - o, perlomeno, ridimensionato - considerazioni su principi metafisici, la definizione di morte appare ancor oggi come un oggetto di negoziazione scientifica e bioetica. (shrink)

In this commentary, we support a complex, mosaic, and multimodal approach to the evolution of intelligence. Using the arcuate fasciculus as an example of discontinuity in the evolution of neurobiological architectures, we argue that the strict dichotomy of modules versus G, adopted by Burkart et al. in the target article, is insufficient to interpret the available statistical and experimental evidence.

This book offers new critical perspectives on the relationship between the notions of speculation, logic and reality in Hegel's thought as basis for his philosophical account of nature, history, spirit and human experience. The systematic functions of logic and pure thought are explored in their concrete forms and processual progression from subjective spirit to philosophy of right, society, the notion of habit, the idea of work, art, religion and science. Engaging the relation between the Logic and its realisations, this book (...) shows the internal tension that inhabits Hegel's philosophy at the intersection of logical speculation and concrete analysis. The investigation of this tension allows for a hermeneutical approach that demystifies the common view of Hegel's idealism as a form of abstract thought, while allowing for a new assessment of the importance of speculation for a concrete understanding of the world. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:“It’s not true, but I believe it”: Discussions on jettatura in Naples between the End of the Eighteenth and Beginning of the Nineteenth CenturiesFrancesco Paolo de CegliaIntroduction: What is Jettatura?Non èvero...ma ci credo (“It’s not true... but I believe it”) is the title of a comedy by the Italian actor and playwright, Peppino De Filippo, younger brother of the more famous Eduardo, which was staged for the first (...) time in 1942. The narrated events take place in the twentieth century and concern Gervasio Savastano, a Neapolitan businessman who is tormented by the fear of jettatura. The character, victim of grotesque events, first sacks a worker, believing him to be a jettatore, and then hires another, who is a hunchback and so should bring him good luck. In the end, however, it is discovered that the presumed jettatore has never harmed anyone and that the hunchback is not what he seems: he has stuffed his jacket in order to enter into the good graces of the gullible businessman and marry his daughter, with whom he has planned a con trick. The “lucky” events ascribed to his presence can therefore be considered casual. The epilogue? In keeping with the logic of compromise, typical of the brothers De Filippo’s theater, even though the character is rationally convinced of the unfounded nature of his beliefs, he remains adamant: “It’s not true, but I believe it” in other words.1 [End Page 75]“Where I come from, jettatura rules,” wrote the journalist and scriptwriter Giuseppe Marotta in 1947. Indeed, it is still a part of popular Neapolitan culture today.2 Often confused with similar beliefs, such as fascination (fascino) and the evil eye (malocchio), jettatura assumed its present form between the end of the eighteenth and beginning of the nineteenth century, at a time when a polite debate on its nature was taking shape in the city. In this period, the epistemological pluralism animating the discussions was translated into a variety of interpretative hypotheses and literary genres, in which grotesque atmospheres and spirited quips also found room, all perfectly in line with what could be considered the Weltanschauung of Savastano. It is the purpose of this article to examine these discussions, which even spread the term abroad and, with it, the “local color” of the concept.Nineteenth-century European writers on jettatura knew the Neapolitan authors well, and either quoted them explicitly or associated them with characters whose names were a deformation of real people’s: for example, Volitta for Valletta (Stendhal), don Jo (Stendhal) or Ojori (Dumas) for De Jorio. They explained that jettatura corresponded to the more familiar evil eye, but they left the term in Italian, as if to underline the fact that it was untranslatable.Is jettatura a mere anthropological issue, linked to a “primitive” culture, in the face of which official science would remain refractory? A belief that could not be exported or shared by those educated in more “highly developed” contexts? Well, in part, yes. Nevertheless, in the 1840s there was a visitor to Naples who expressed himself in the following terms: “When a foreigner arrives in Naples, at first he laughs at jettatura, then, little by little, he becomes troubled by it, and finally, after a stay of three months, you will see him covered in horns and with his right hand forever clenched [to ward off evil].”3 [End Page 76]So wrote the novelist Alexandre Dumas, père, one of the many travellers who, after having completed the Grand Tour of southern Italy, decided to describe its picturesque scenes and backward customs.4 Creating a veritable topos of travel literature, in the same period the philologist Karl August Mayer commented, “often foreigners let themselves be influenced” by local “superstitions.”5 Indeed many of them were captivated by these Neapolitan beliefs, despite their desire to remain objective and detached; and so they were “converted,” and driven to seek scientific explanations, often after meeting “a Real Jettatore,” whose image had nothing in common with the exotic fantasies of “a French Novelist’s Idea of Jettatore.”6Actually, Dumas and Mayer probably exaggerated somewhat in order to make their descriptions more... (shrink)

Resumen: El presente documento tiene por objeto indagar en las publicaciones académicas de dos saberes: la filosofía y la literatura. A partir de allí, se identificó la influencia de las ideas del filósofo Slavoj Žižek en esos documentos -artículos y libros-. Esta revisión se centró en dos países de la región latinoamericana tal como lo son Chile y Perú. Se revisaron las producciones académicas que hacen menciones a las hipotesis del esloveno trazando un recorrido histórico que permite identificar cual es (...) el año en que las ideas comenzaron a ingresar a estos países y el contexto teórico-escritural en que se incluyeron, destacando en Chile el de las ciencias sociales y en Perú el del análisis literario. Debido a la falta de investigaciones de este tipo, este artículo pretende actuar como material inaugurador de futuras investigaciones enfocadas en el estudio del impacto de las ideas del filósofo oriundo de Eslovenia en las producciones locales. Palabras Clave : Filosofía; Literatura; Chile; Perú; Latinoamérica; Slavoj Žižek: The present document aims to investigate the academic publications of two knowledge: philosophy and literature. From there, the influence of the ideas of the philosopher Slavoj Žižek on those documents - articles and books - was identified. This review focused on two countries in the Latin American region such as Chile and Peru. The academic productions that mention the Slovenian's hypothesis were reviewed, tracing a historical route that allows identifying which is the year in which the ideas began to enter these countries and the theoretical-scriptural context in which they were included, highlighting in Chile the social sciences and in Peru the literary analysis. Due to the lack of research of this type, this article intends to act as inaugural material for future research focused on the study of the impact of the ideas of the philosopher from Slovenia on local productions. Keywords: Philosophy; Literature; Chile; Peru; Latin America; Slavoj Žižek. (shrink)

I. Sens du monisme Généalogie du terme et disparition ultérieure du « monisme ontologique » La critique formulée contre le monisme ontologique apparaît comme l’un des points majeurs constituant la grande originalité de L’essence de la manifestation, originalité qui se retrouve déjà dans la formation de l’expression en question (le syntagme « monisme ontologique »). Celle-ci semble ne pas avoir d’équivalent dans la tradition philosophique. Christian Wolff avait en premier élaboré ce terme (« m...

Volume I. The dark precursor in sound and writing -- Volume II. The dark precursor in image, space, and politics.

Le problème du temps chez Michel Henry n’a pas encore fait l’objet d’une étude séparée. Le rejet abrupt de cette question chez l’auteur n’a certainement pas favorisé l’intérêt des critiques pour ce sujet. Dans un premier temps, en 1963 dans L’Essence de la manifestation , Michel Henry considère le problème du temps (à travers le filtre du Kantbuch de Heidegger) comme étant le « même » que celui de la récepti­vité, soit en le renvoyant à l’auto-affection. Celle-ci étant comprise comme (...) opposée ou, mieux encore, comme « étrangère » au kantisme, en tant qu’elle est affection pathétique de soi à soi. Puis, en 2000, dans Incarnation , Michel Henry conteste au « flux temporel » des Leçons pour une conscience intime du temps de Husserl la volonté néantisante du moment présent, tout en l’utilisant subrepticement dans des moments clés de son argumentation ; il lui oppose le sens de l’ « apparaître » s’auto-fondant. Enfin, nous proposons de reprendre les concepts henryens d’ « effort » et de « pouvoir-toucher », présents dans la deuxième partie d’ Incarnation , pour penser une « origine de l’espacement » préalable à la pensée de la tempora­lité ek-statique comme à celle de l’espace. (shrink)

An important amount of research effort in psychology and neuroscience over the past decades has focused on the problem of social cognition. This problem is understood as how we figure out other minds, relying only on indirect manifestations of other people's intentional states, which are assumed to be hidden, private and internal. Research on this question has mostly investigated how individual cognitive mechanisms achieve this task. A shift in the internalist assumptions regarding intentional states has expanded the research focus with (...) hypotheses that explore the role of interactive phenomena and interpersonal histories and their implications for understanding individual cognitive processes. This interactive expansion of the conceptual and methodological toolkit for investigating social cognition, we now propose, can be followed by an expansion into wider and deeply-related research questions, beyond (but including) that of social cognition narrowly construed. Our social lives are populated by different kinds of cognitive and affective phenomena that are related to but not exhausted by the question of how we figure out other minds. These phenomena include acting and perceiving together, verbal and non-verbal engagement, experiences of (dis- )connection, management of relations in a group, joint meaning-making, intimacy, trust, conflict, negotiation, asymmetric relations, material mediation of social interaction, collective action, contextual engagement with socio-cultural norms, structures and roles, etc. These phenomena are often characterized by a strong participation by the cognitive agent in contrast with the spectatorial stance typical of social cognition research. We use the broader notion of embodied intersubjectivity to refer to this wider set of phenomena. This Research Topic aims to investigate relations between these different issues, to help lay strong foundations for a science of intersubjectivity - the social mind writ large. To contribute to this goal, we encouraged contributions in psychology, neuroscience, psychopathology, philosophy, and cognitive science that address this wider scope of intersubjectivity by extending the range of explanatory factors from purely individual to interactive, from observational to participatory"--Provided by publisher. (shrink)

The aim of the study was to assess the effects of visual aesthetic perception on event-related potentials . Eight subjects assigned an aesthetic judgment and a 10-step beauty estimation to the target stimuli, consisting of famous artistic pictures and geometric shapes. In a further task, the subjects performed a motor response to the previously judged pictures and geometric shapes. ERPs were recorded through 54 scalp electrodes during both tasks. The P3b amplitude was increased during the categorization of the geometric shapes (...) compared to the artistic figures and during the vision of the beautiful targets preceding the motor response. The categorization of the aesthetic qualities of geometrical shapes seems to induce a higher level of attention, while a higher arousal variation was elicited by the recognition of beauty, in any form that was presented. (shrink)