Scientists seeking hard evidence of prayer's curative powers misunderstand the nature of prayer in the Western theistic traditions. Yet theistically consonant ways in which religious belief may influence health do not figure as they should in current professional practice.

Gottlob Frege famously rejects the methodology for consistency and independence proofs offered by David Hilbert in the latter's Foundations of Geometry. The present essay defends against recent criticism the view that this rejection turns on Frege's understanding of logical entailment, on which the entailment relation is sensitive to the contents of non-logical terminology. The goals are (a) to clarify further Frege's understanding of logic and of the role of conceptual analysis in logical investigation, and (b) to point out the extent (...) to which his understanding of logic differs importantly from that of the model-theoretic tradition that grows out of Hilbert's work. (shrink)

This handbook brings together leading international scholars to study the diverse figures, movements, and approaches that constitute Presocratic philosophy. More than a survey of scholarship, this study presents new interpretations and evaluations of the Presocratics' accomplishments, from Thales to the sophists and from theology to science.

This paper contributes to the contemporary business ethics narrative by proposing an approach to corporate ethical decision making (EDM) which serves as an alternative to the imposition of codes and standards to address the ethical consequences of grand challenges, like COVID-19, which are impacting today’s society. Our alternative approach to EDM embraces the concept of reflexive thinking and ethical consciousness among the individual agents who collectively are the corporation and who make ethical decisions, often in isolation, removed from the collocated (...) corporate setting. We draw on the teachings of the Canadian philosopher and theologian, Fr. Bernard Lonergan, to conceptualize an approach to EDM which focuses on the ethics of the corporate agent by nurturing the universal and invariant structure that is operational in all human beings. Embracing Lonergan’s dynamic cognitive structure of human knowing, and the structure of the human good, we advance a paradigm of EDM in business which emboldens authentic ethical thought, decision making, and action commensurate with virtuous living and germane to human flourishing. Lonergan’s philosophy guides us away from the imposition of over-arching corporate codes of ethics and inspires us, as individual agents, to attend to the data of our own consciousness in our ethical decision making. Such cognitional endowment leads us out of the ethics of the ‘timeless present’ (Islam and Greenwood in Journal of Business Ethics 170: 1–4, 2021) towards ethical authenticity in business, leaving us better placed to reflect upon and address the ethical issues emanating from grand challenges like COVID-19. (shrink)

: The author seeks an explanation for Merleau-Ponty's expression "the body understands", to which a real value is applied: the objects of the world have a signification that the body grasps by way of perception. The analysis focuses on Merleau-Ponty's Phenomenology of perception and on notes from two of his courses, Le monde sensible et le monde de l'expression and La nature. In these works, there is a constant allusion to the I can as an underlying and grounding mode with (...) regard to the I think. The French philosopher thus grants a central role to movement that demonstrates the interweaving of the body with the world. Resumo: O autor busca uma explicação para a expressão "o corpo conhece", de Merleau-Ponty, à qual atribui um valor real: os objetos do mundo têm uma significação que o corpo apreende por meio da percepção. A análise se concentra na Fenomenologia da percepção e nas notas de dois cursos: O mundo sensível e o mundo da expressão e A natureza. Há uma constante alusão ao eu posso como um modo subjacente e fundamental em relação ao eu penso. Daí, o filósofo francês conferir um papel central ao movimento que demonstra o entrelaçamento do corpo com o mundo. (shrink)

This paper describes the semiotic process by which parents, as attachment figures, enable infants to learn to make meaning. It also applies these ideas to psychotherapy, with the therapist functioning as transitional attachment figures to patients where therapy attempts to change semiotic processes that have led to maladaptive behavior. Three types of semiotic processes are described in attachment terminology and these are offered as possible precursors of a neuro-behavioral nosology tying mental illness to adaptation. Non-conscious biosemiotic processes in infant-parent attachment (...) are the basis for early adaptation as well as adaptation or maladaptation in adulthood. Mother-infant interaction can be described as a series of signs, each interpreted so as to dispose the behavior of the other interactant towards the goal of protecting the infant from danger and distress. Regulating arousal, scaffolding infants’ behavior in the infants’ zone of proximal development, and repairing ruptures in the interaction are crucial to infants’ development and adaptation. In semiotic terms, each person activates multiple interpretants to make meaning of sensory stimulation. Non-verbal semiotic synchrony establishes the relationship whereas shared repair of ruptures promotes change. Attachment strategies, as learned adaptations to threat, are neuro-psychological strategies for making meaning of sensory information so as to dispose protective behavior. Type A privileges cognitive-temporal information, Type C affective information, Type B has no bias. Type A and C limit semiotic freedom by using ‘short-cuts’ in processing that produce quick protective behavior in the short-term. Type B includes more representations, and thus more semiotic freedom, resulting in slower responses and long-term flexibility. Attachment strategies function as meta-interpretants for applying one semiotic process to most incoming information about danger. A, B, and C case examples are analyzed in semiotic terms. Psychotherapy can be considered a helping process embedded in a transitional attachment relationship. For psychotherapy to be successful, both somatic stabilization and a therapeutic relationship are needed. Treatment that uses scaffolded semiotic processes in each patient’s ZPD to repair moment-to-moment ruptures holds the potential to reorganize attachment strategies and transfer that potential to reflective language and relationships outside the therapy. The outcome should be greater semiotic freedom such that the individual can trust their own mental processes and use them to establish safe relationships. Language can speed the process, but premature reliance on verbal transformations of non-conscious information can carry misattributions into a second layer of misconstrued meaning and maladaptive behavior. Even when dangerous family relationships and external danger cannot be changed, patients can come to know their own minds and use information to regulate their behavior. The goal of psychotherapy is to free patients from their past by enabling them to be secure about the functioning of their own minds, so that they can both avoid eliciting harm and also establish supportive relationships. (shrink)

En este texto se analiza la posibilidad de integrar los resultados deinvestigaciones empíricas a las principales discusiones teóricas entorno a la motivación moral, un territorio especialmente escabrosode la metaética, específicamente, de la psicología moral. Para esto sepresentan, grosso modo, los dos principales debates en torno a la motivaciónmoral, los argumentos e intuiciones de las que parten las distintasposturas respecto al origen y la naturaleza de la motivación moral.

The abductive stage of logical investigation benefits from direct contact with objects of thought, especially material objects in aggregates. The ubiquity of collecting activity and collections of non-utilitarian material objects in ancient as well as contemporary settings, with increasingly deliberate attention to material objects as implements of thought, demonstrates these benefits. This essay focuses on the logica utens of collecting and the role of collections in detection and discovery.

The Deese/Roediger–McDermott paradigm has been used extensively to examine false memory. During the study session, participants learn lists of semantically related items, referred to as targets. Critical lures are items which are also associated with the lists but are intentionally omitted from study. At test, when asked to remember targets, participants often report false memories for critical lures. Findings from experiments using the DRM show the ease with which false memories develop in the absence of suggestion or misinformation. Given this, (...) it is important to examine factors which influence the generalizability of the findings. One important factor is the persistence of false memory, or how long false memories last. Therefore, we conducted a systemic review to answer this research question: What is the persistence of false memory for specific items in the DRM paradigm? To help answer this question our review had two research objectives: to examine the trajectory of target memory and false memory for critical lures and to examine whether memory for targets exceeded false memory for critical lures. We included empirical articles which tested memory for the same DRM lists with at least two testing sessions. We discuss the results with respect to single-session delays, long-term memory recall and recognition, remember and know judgments for memory, and the effect of development, valence, warning, and connectivity on the trajectory of memory. Overall, the trajectory of targets showed a relatively consistent pattern of decrease across delay. The trajectory of critical lures was inconsistent. The proportion of targets versus critical lures across delay was also inconsistent. Despite the inconsistencies, we conclude that targets and critical lures have a dissimilar trajectory across delay and that critical lures are more persistent than targets. The findings with respect to long-term recall and recognition are consistent with both Fuzzy Trace Theory and Associative-Activation Theory of the DRM effect. The generation of false memory with brief delays is better explained by Associative-Activation Theory. Examining the connectivity between target items, and critical lures, and the effect that has during study and retrieval, can provide insight into the persistence of false memory for critical lures. (shrink)

RESUMO O presente texto tem como objeto a organização da sociedade atual, afetada e impactada pela tecnologia, cenário no qual o aparato sensorial é profundamente afetado por diversas modalidades de comunicação interativa. Nesse contexto, apresenta-se uma reflexão sobre as formas pelas quais o espectador interatua com as proposições cênicas e uma análise sobre a experiência enquanto espectadores de um determinado espetáculo do encenador Robert Wilson. A reflexão desenvolvida evidenciou os níveis diferenciados de percepção alcançados por estes pesquisadores/espectadores no momento da (...) recepção. O artigo propõe, no diálogo com a teoria bakhtiniana, reflexões sobre a alteridade e a interação entre espectador e obra no campo do teatro. ABSTRACT The object of this article is the organization of current society, affected and impacted by technology, a scenario in which the sensory apparatus is deeply affected by different modalities of interactive communication. In this context, this text presents a reflection on the ways in which the spectator inter-acts with scenic propositions and an analysis of the experience as viewers of a Robert Wilson’s spectacle. This reflection evidenced the differentiated levels of perception achieved by these researchers/spectators at the time of reception. In a dialogue with the Bakhtinian theory, the article proposes reflections on otherness and on the interaction between spectator and work in the theater context. (shrink)

*[Intertheoretic Reduction]: ___ When a new and very powerful theory turns out to entail a set of propositions and principles that mirror perfectly the propositions of some older theory or conceptual framework, we can conclude that the old terms and the new terms refer to the very same thing, or express the very same properties. (e.g. heat = high average molecular kinetic energy) The old theory is then said to be "reducible" to the new theory.

Biomass such as crops and agricultural waste is increasingly used as the primary resource for products like bioplastics and biofuels. Incorporating the needs, knowledge, skills and values of biomass producers in the design of global value chains – the steps involved in creating any finished product from design to delivery – can contribute to sustainability, reliability and fairness. However, how to involve biomass producers, especially if they are resource poor, remains a challenge. To make sure that inclusion in global biobased (...) value chains is both fair and effective, the capabilities of relevant actors need to be taken into account, especially of those producing biomass. Access to resources determines to what extent a specific actor can participate in a global value chain. Therefore, differences in capabilities should be a central consideration when new (biobased) value chains are designed. Using the capability approach as an ethical framework to realize inclusion, we discern three complementary strategies for setting up inclusive value chains. Firstly, designing for local conversion factors second, providing adaptive design for new capabilities, and third, investing in local conversion factors. Applying these strategies can lead to context-sensitive design of biorefineries that allow for true inclusion of local stakeholders. We support these claims with reference to case-studies of sugarcane production in Jamaica, modified tobacco in South Africa and the non-edible parts of corn (stover) in the US. (shrink)

This thesis is an examination of Frege's logicism, and of a number of objections which are widely viewed as refutations of the logicist thesis. In the view offered here, logicism is designed to provide answers to two questions: that of the nature of arithmetical truth, and that of the source of arithmetical knowledge. ;The first objection dealt with here is the view that logicism is not an epistemologically significant thesis, due to the fact that the epistemological status of logic itself (...) is not well understood. I argue to the contrary that on Frege's conception of logic, logicism is of clear epistemological importance. ;The second objection examined is the claim that Godel's first incompleteness theorem falsifies logicism. I argue that the incompleteness theorem has no impact on logicism unless the logicist is compelled to hold that logic is recursively enumerable. I argue, further, that there is no reason to impose this requirement on logicism. ;The third objection concerns Russell's paradox. I argue that the paradox is devastating to Frege's conception of numbers, but not to his logicist project. I suggest that the appropriate course for a post-Fregean logicist to follow is one which divorces itself from Frege's platonism. ;The conclusion of this thesis is that logicism has of late been too easily dismissed. Though several critical aspects of Frege's logicism must be altered in light of recent results, the central Fregean thesis is still an important and promising view about the nature of arithmetic and arithmetical knowledge. (shrink)

O RECONHECIMENTO DA FAMÍLIA ANAPARENTAL COMO ENTIDADE FAMILIAR ESTÁVEL E SUA CONSEQUENTE LEGITIMIDADE PARA PLEITEAR ADOÇÃO, À LUZ DA JURISPRUDÊNCIA DO STF.

The present study aims to explore whether the symptoms associated with fibromyalgia are contextually influenced by the area of residence. Furthermore, it is analyzed whether the effect of the acceptance of the disease on the emotional, cognitive and physical symptoms is moderated by the patients’ place of residence. Using a cross-sectional design, a total of 234 women with fibromyalgia were surveyed, of which 55.13% resided in rural areas and 44.87% in urban areas. Self-reported questionnaires were used to assess pain severity, (...) anxiety and depression, functional limitation, physical and mental fatigue and acceptance of the disease. The results show significant differences in acceptance, pain, and physical and mental fatigue between patients from rural and urban areas. The rural area patients presented higher levels of acceptance and pain and lesser levels of physical and mental fatigue compared to the urban area. The moderation analysis add that, only in patients from the rural area, the variables of physical symptoms were significantly and negatively associated with acceptance. This study addresses for the first time the role of the place of residence in suffering from fibromyalgia, suggesting that the rural or urban environment plays a relevant role in the severity and/or management of symptoms in fibromyalgia women. Limitations and practical implications are also discussed. (shrink)

En el presente artículo se lleva a cabo el análisis del discurso de las revistas nacionalistas católicas Cabildo, El Fortín y Restauración en torno a un conjunto de medios de comunicación y determinadas personalidades ligadas a ellos, los cuales operaban en Argentina durante el tercer gobierno peronista (1973-1976). Este trabajo se concentra en el estudio de las modalidades de autorrepresentación y de representación de estos “otros” como rivales, adversarios o enemigos, mediante las contribuciones de los estudios sobre prensa en combinación (...) con los de la Sociolingüística Histórica y el Análisis Crítico del Discurso. The article carries out the analysis of the discourse of the nationalistic catholic magazines Cabildo, El Fortín and Restauración concerning a set of materials from the mass media and certain personalities tied to them, which were operating in Argentina during the third peronist government (1973-1976). This work is centered on the study of the modalities of self-representation and the representation of these "others" as rivals, adversaries or enemies, by means of the contributions of the studies on print media in combination with those of the Sociohistorical Linguistics and the Critical Discourse Analysis. (shrink)

Gap junction intercellular communication channels permit the exchange of small regulatory molecules and ions between neighbouring cells and coordinate cellular activity in diverse tissue and organ systems. These channels have short half‐lives and complex assembly and degradation pathways. Much of the recent work elucidating gap junction biogenesis has featured the use of connexins (Cx), the constituent proteins of gap junctions, tagged with reporter proteins such as Green Fluorescent Protein (GFP) and has illuminated the dynamics of channel assembly in live cells (...) by high‐resolution time‐lapse microscopy. With some studies, however, there are potential short‐comings associated with the GFP chimeric protein technologies. A recent report by Gaietta et al., has highlighted the use of recombinant proteins with tetracysteine tags attached to the carboxyl terminus of Cx43, which differentially labels ‘old’ and ‘new’ connexins thus opening up new avenues for studying temporal and spatial localisation of proteins and in situ trafficking events.1 BioEssays 24:876–880, 2002. © 2002 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. (shrink)

We are big fans of propositions. But we are not big fans of the proposed by Mitchell et al. The authors ignore the critical role played by implicit, non-inferential processes in biological cognition, overestimate the work that propositions alone can do, and gloss over substantial differences in how different kinds of animals and different kinds of cognitive processes approximate propositional representations.

The last twenty years have been characterised by a significant shift inattitudes towards enterprise, entrepreneurship and small business.However though valued, entrepreneurs and small businesses are underincreasing pressure to be mindful of the social and moral implicationsof their activities. These developments have given the question ofbusiness ethics a central place in organisational research. Much of thisattention has been directed at the large organisation, despite the factthat the majority of businesses are small firms.A significant amount of the research in the area of (...) business ethicsis prescriptive in orientation with an underlying assumption thatenterprise and ethics are mutually exclusive, with a key aim being tobring them together. In looking at the question of ethics and enterprise(understood here as small business activity) this paper will argue thata prescriptive approach should be avoided and an alternative will beoutlined. With reference to the concept of Lebensfuhrung,translated in Weber''s The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit ofCapitalism as the "manner of leading one''s life", this paper willargue that rather than conceiving of enterprise as an activity whichneeds an infusion of ethics, enterprise is by its very nature ethical.It is ethical in the sense of advocating a particular way by which oneshould live one''s life or in the case of small business owners,presenting an account of how a small business should be owned, nurturedand developed. (shrink)

In an attempt to determine the epistemic status of computer simulation results, philosophers of science have recently explored the similarities and differences between computer simulations and experiments. One question that arises is whether and, if so, when, simulation results constitute novel empirical data. It is often supposed that computer simulation results could never be empirical or novel because simulations never interact with their targets, and cannot go beyond their programming. This paper argues against this position by examining whether, and under (...) what conditions, the features of empiricality and novelty could be displayed by computer simulation data. I show that, to the extent that certain familiar measurement results have these features, so can some computer simulation results. (shrink)

An imperfect duty such as the duty to aid those in need is supposed to leave leeway for choice as to how to satisfy it, but if our reason for a certain way of satisfying it is our strongest, that leeway would seem to be eliminated. This paper defends a conception of practical reasons designed to preserve it, without slighting the binding force of moral requirements, though it allows us to discount certain moral reasons. Only reasons that offer criticism of (...) alternatives can yield requirements, but our reasons for particular ways of satisfying imperfect duties merely count in favor of the acts in question. When the state is authorized to take over charitable obligations, it should not be seen as enforcing fulfillment of our imperfect duties, but rather as forcing us to help fulfill collective duties that may be substantially modified by transfer to the state, replacing imperfect duties with perfect. Besides the cost to us in freedom of choice there is a moral cost to replacing the virtuous motives of charity with those that tend to accompany paying taxes. However, a compensating feature of state involvement is the fact that its more precise demands come with limits. (shrink)

Wendy S. Parker and I have advanced an inductive-risk approach to the provision of climate information that relies on the contextual values of information users. This approach aims to improve the e...

This paper presents the results of a survey of students majoring in STEM fields whose education contained a significant history, philosophy and sociology of science component. The survey was administered to students in a North American public 4-year university just prior to completing their HPS sequence. The survey assessed students’ attitudes towards HPS to gauge how those attitudes changed over the course of their college careers, and to identify the benefits and obstacles to studying HPS as a component of their (...) STEM education. The survey reveals that students generally found unexpected value in taking HPS within their STEM curriculum. It also reveals that framing HPS courses as a means of gaining communication skills necessary to be an influential scientist seems to resonate with students. However, students also identified several factors limiting engagement with HPS content, including the length and density of required readings and assessment via essays and papers. (shrink)