In the present manuscript, we comment upon a paper that strongly criticized an expert report written by the consultants of the defense in a case of pedophilia, in which clinical and neuro-scientific data were used to establish the causal link between brain alterations and onset of criminal behavior. These critiques appear to be based mainly on wrong pieces of information and on a misinterpretation of the logical reasoning adopted by defense consultants. Here we provide a point-by-point reply to the issues (...) raised in the above paper and also discuss the potential role that neuroscience may contribute in the forensic context. Did the forensic neuroscience defense consultants claim the existence of a deterministic relationship between brain structure or function and behavior? How did the neuroscientific logic work in this specific case? How may the classic psychiatric/neurologic examination and neuroscientific evidence work side by side? Does the rarity of a disease impact on the causal relationship between the disease and the crime? Do neuroscientific data need to be interpreted? We address the above questions and conclude that neuroscience may strengthen the results of psychiatric evaluations, thus reducing uncertainty in the forensic settings. (shrink)

Paying attention to the inner workings of mathematicians has led to a proliferation of new themes in the philosophy of mathematics. Several of these have to do with epistemology. Philosophers of mathematical practice, however, have not (yet) systematically engaged with general (analytic) epistemology. To be sure, there are some exceptions, but they are few and far between. In this chapter, I offer an explanation of why this might be the case and show how the situation could be remedied. I contend (...) that it is only by conceiving the knowing subject(s) as embodied, fallible, and embedded in a specific context (along the lines of what has been done within social and feminist epistemology) that we can pursue an epistemology of mathematics sensitive to actual mathematical practice. I further suggest that this reconception of the knowing subject(s) does not force us to abandon the traditional framework of epistemology in which knowledge requires justified true belief. It does, however, lead to a fallible conception of mathematical justification that, among other things, makes Gettier cases possible. This shows that topics considered to be far removed from the interests of philosophers of mathematical practice might reveal to be relevant to them. (shrink)

This article argues the necessity of overcoming the hierarchical and pyramidal conception of the central nervous system that has subordinated the motor function to the higher brain activities for at least the last 150 years. The evolution of some motor modes of behavior?such as the ability to construct and manipulate instruments?has given rise to an ?embodied logic? underpinning not only the development of models of action and prediction but also the production of gestures and sequences of syllables that are at (...) the basis of human communication. Whether it is a matter of shaking someone's hand, writing a letter, or whatever, each executive function?controlled by a series of nervous structures and mental procedures that process the information?requires behaviors that are oriented to a specific end. (shrink)

Research on Augmented Reality in education has demonstrated that AR applications designed with diverse components boost student motivation in educational settings. However, most of the research conducted to date, does not define exactly what those components are and how these components positively affect student motivation. This study, therefore, attempts to identify some of the components that positively affect student motivation in mobile AR learning experiences to contribute to the design and development of motivational AR learning experiences for the Vocational Education (...) and Training level of education. To identify these components, a research model constructed from the literature was empirically validated with data obtained from two sources: 35 students from four VET institutes interacting with an AR application for learning for a period of 20 days, and a self-report measure obtained from the Instructional Materials Motivation Survey. We found that the following variables: use of scaffolding, real-time feedback, degree of success, time on-task and learning outcomes are positively correlated with the four dimensions of the ARCS model of motivation: Attention, Relevance, Confidence, and Satisfaction. Implications of these results are also described. (shrink)

Free will is usually defined by three conditions: the ability to do otherwise; control of one’s own choices; responsiveness to reasons. The compatibility of free will with determinism lies at the heart of the philosophical debate at the metaphysical level. This debate, while being increasingly refined, has not yet reached a conclusion. Recently, neuroscience and empirical psychology have tried to settle the problem of free will with a series of experiments that go in the direction of so-called illusionism: free will (...) as the conscious control of our behavior cannot exist, being a mere illusion. But even in this case, the experimental results are challenged at various levels. Considering that in most moral and legal systems, the subject’s liability derives from their freedom, the usefulness of preserving the concept of freedom – which incidentally responds to a very strong commonsensical intuition – suggests the need for an operational solution. This could be done by resorting to the concepts of capacity and cognitive control, which are measured by a set of well-established neuropsychological tests. Our preliminary proposal is to create an index, the first step towards a specific quantification and measurement of free will, to be used especially in ethical and legal contexts. Theoretical premises, practical difficulties and objections to this approach are also discussed and addressed. (shrink)

This volume presents a collection of about 80 very brief, accessible essays written by international experts from medicine, social sciences, and the humanities, ...

En el contexto de cambios del proceso de globalización, la medicalización constituye una problemática central en la agenda de salud internacional. Durante la década de 1990, comenzó la expansión internacional del diagnóstico de trastorno por déficit de atención e hiperactividad (TDAH), entre otros factores, merced a la creciente relevancia de actores no médicos en el proceso y de legislaciones específicas para diferentes diagnósticos. El artículo busca contribuir a un análisis del espacio que le otorga la prensa escrita on line a (...) los procesos de medicalización del TDAH en Argentina en el siglo XXI, como aporte a una lectura panorámica de los procesos en la región y a nivel internacional, y como contribución a un área de vacancia en los estudios sociales. Para este artículo, analizamos 236 artículos on line de periódicos argentinos de alcance nacional y provincial entre 2001 y 2017. Para el relevamiento se diseñaron mecanismos de selección y filtro, con criterios y herramientas de búsqueda y procesamiento de noticias. Se efectuaron estimaciones de regularidad de tópicos emergentes y procesamientos parciales de información, incluyendo, entre otras dimensiones, año, jurisdicción, medio, fecha, sección, título, categoría, características de la nota, palabras clave, concepto o nombre del problema, fármaco/droga, tratamiento, actores sociales y recomendaciones. Con el artículo nos interesa engrosar los todavía escasos estudios que aportan a la comprensión de cómo el diagnóstico de TDAH está migrando a diferentes regiones del globo y, más específicamente, cómo está posicionándose como un problema de salud internacional. Los resultados muestran que, en los procesos de medicalización del TDAH en niños y niñas, la prensa escrita argentina (nacional y provincial) se constituye en un actor no médico relevante tanto en la institucionalización de la problemática como en la presentación de líneas terapéuticas a seguir y en acciones orientadas al impulso de legislaciones específicas. (shrink)

Se presentan los resultados obtenidos en la tesis de maestría Sistema de talleres de trabajo educativo para la capacitación del profesor guía de Medicina en Nuevitas con el objetivo de demostrar el impacto a partir de su implementación en la brigada estudiantil. Se exponen las definiciones elaboradas y las contextualizaciones. Se concluye que el sistema contribuyó al adecuado desempeño del profesor guía y al desarrollo del modo de actuación de los estudiantes. La rapidez y la calidad que implicó en la (...) praxis educativa constituyó el resultado más importante en el contexto de la carrera de Medicina en la Filial. Results achieved through the master's thesis "Educational work workshops system for the Medicine degree guiding teacher training" in Nuevitas are presented, aimed at demonstrating its impact starting from its implementation on a class. Elaborate definitions and contexts are exposed. The conclusionreached through it was that the system contributed to the adequate guiding teacher's performance and to the development of students' behavior. The speed and quality it involved in educational praxis constituted the most important result in the context of the Medicine degree in La Filial town. (shrink)

En el trabajo se propone difundir la teoría y los enfoques referidos a la ciencia de la sostenibilidad, con especial énfasis en el contexto académico cubano, al relacionar su emergencia a las urgencias que surgen en los vínculos entre la ciencia, la naturaleza y la sociedad, así como mostrar las articulaciones de la Ciencia de la Sostenibilidad con la política científica, la educación universitaria y la salud pública. In this paper, the theory and the approaches of the science of sustainability (...) is promoted. Special emphasis is put on the academic Cuban context, when relating its emergence to the urgencies that appear within the links among science, nature and society. The interconnections of the science of sustainability with the scientific policy, the university education and the public health is shown as well as. (shrink)

The question of the dimensionality of space has informed the development of physics since the beginning of the twentieth century in the quest for a unified picture of quantum processes and gravitation. Scientists have worked within various approaches to explain why the universe appears to have a certain number of spatial dimensions. The question of why space has three dimensions has a genuinely philosophical nature that can be shaped as a problem of justifying a contingent necessity of the world. In (...) contrast to explanations of three-dimensionality based on anthropic arguments, we support the search for a theory that provides a justification for the dimensionality of space based on a combination of deductive and inductive reasoning applied to science. In doing so, we argue that Kant correctly approached the question in “Thoughts on the true estimation of living forces” by connecting space dimensionality and the inverse square law. In expounding the strategy of Kant’s argument, we describe the main features of a general Kantian explanation of the dimensionality of space and discuss them with respect to current accounts of explanation in the philosophy of science, such as inference to the best explanation and the deductive-nomological model. (shrink)

The series is devoted to the study of scientific and philosophical texts from the Classical and the Islamic world handed down in Arabic. Through critical text editions and monographs, it provides access to ancient scientific inquiry as it developed in a continuous tradition from Antiquity to the modern period. All editions are accompanied by translations and philological and explanatory notes.

The DNA‐passage activity of topoisomerase II accidentally produces DNA knots and interlinks within and between chromatin fibers. Fortunately, these unwanted DNA entanglements are actively removed by some mechanism. Here we present an outline on DNA knot formation and discuss recent studies that have investigated how intracellular DNA knots are removed. First, although topoisomerase II is able to minimize DNA entanglements in vitro to below equilibrium values, it is unclear whether such capacity performs equally in vivo in chromatinized DNA. Second, DNA (...) supercoiling could bias topoisomerase II to untangle the DNA. However, experimental evidence indicates that transcriptional supercoiling of intracellular DNA boosts knot formation. Last, cohesin and condensin could tighten DNA entanglements via DNA loop extrusion (LE) and force their dissolution by topoisomerase II. Recent observations indicate that condensin activity promotes the removal of DNA knots during interphase and mitosis. This activity might facilitate the spatial organization and dynamics of chromatin. (shrink)

Although a lot of research establishes consumer reactions to corporate social responsibility (CSR), little is known about the theoretical mechanisms for these reactions. We conduct a field experiment with adult consumers to test the hypothesis that the effects of perceived CSR on consumer reactions are mediated by felt gratitude and moderated by the magnitude of altruistic values held by consumers. Two classes of consumer reactions are considered: intentions to (1) say positive things about the company, and (2) participate in advocacy (...) actions benefiting the company. (shrink)

This essay argues that despite of the feminist critique of Merleau-Ponty his phenomenology can be positively appropriated to the theory of sexual difference. It focuses on three issues: the first one is closely linked to the Phenomenology of Perception and introduces a concept of "difference as differentiation". The second one is concerned with the intersubjective dimension of sexuality and will be called a "sexual syncretism". Finally, I’m referring to Merleau-Ponty's notion of "chiasm" in his late work The Visible and the (...) Invisible in order to apply it to the theory of sexual difference. At this point, the difference between sexual beings will be conceptualized as "chiasmatic intertwining". In doing so, I hope to show that Merleau-Ponty's phenomenology is a helpful resource for philosophical research that is mainly concerned with the questions of sexuality and sexual difference. (shrink)

Performance Anxieties looks at the on-going debates over the value of psychoanalysis for feminist theory and politics--specifically concerning the social and psychical meanings of racialization. Beginning with an historicized return to Freud and the meaning of Jewishness in Freud's day, Ann Pellegrini indicates how "race" and racialization are not incidental features of psychoanalysis or of modern subjectivity, but are among the generative conditions of both. Performance Anxieties stages a series of playful encounters between elite and popular performance texts--Freud meets (...) Sarah Bernhardt meets Sandra Bernhard; Joan Riviere's masquerading women are refigured in relation to the hard female bodies in the film Pumping Iron II: The Women ; and the Terminator and Alien films. In re-reading psychoanalysis alongside other performance texts, Pellegrini unsettles relations between popular and elite, performance and performative. (shrink)

The article appearing previously in this journal entitled “Styles of Thought on the Continental Drift Debate” (Pellegrini 2019) prompted a response from Weber and Šešelja (2020) which they termed as “a defence of rationalist accounts”. They argue that their self-designated “sophisticated rationalism” explains the closure of the continental-drift debate without being affected by my critiques to rationalist approaches. While ignoring the empirical evidence that shows the complexity of the debate and the necessity to include broader social elements in the (...) analysis (such as scientists denying continental drift even after the plate tectonics theory, others supporting it without being familiarized with the literature), they proclaim to be unconvinced about the analysis of the styles of thought. In order to clarify differences in the approach to the continental-drift historical controversy, I respond here to the criticism my paper drew while discussing the place of rationalism when explaining the acceptance of a theory. I will argue that their distinction between “crude” and “sophisticated” rationalism does not solve the problem of social aspects being left aside by rationalists in view of the acceptance of a theory. I will also argue that in order to understand what leads people to embrace a belief (namely scientists in accepting a theory), the analysis of mere cognitive or epistemic arguments is not enough and it leads to a reductionist explanation as to social behaviour. (shrink)

What are the relevant values to the appraisal of research programs? This question remains hotly debated, as philosophers have recently proposed many lists of values potentially relevant to scientific appraisal. Surprisingly, despite being mentioned in many lists, little attention has been paid to fruitfulness. It is unclear how fruitfulness should be explicated, and whether it has any substantial role in scientific appraisal. In this paper, I argue we should explicate fruitfulness as the capacity to develop of research programs. Moreover, I (...) provide a novel strategy to assess and compare the fruitfulness of programs focused on their research questions and heuristics. To illustrate how this strategy would work, I will discuss a case study, namely the adaptationist program in evolutionary psychology. (shrink)

This study examines the implications of practical reason for entrepreneurial activities. Our study is based on Thomas Aquinas’ interpretation of such virtue, with a particular focus on the partition of practical reason in potential parts such as synesis, or common sense, and gnome, or perspicacity. Since entrepreneurial acts and actions deal with extremely uncertain situations, we argue that only this perspicacity, as the ability of correctly judging in exceptional cases, has the power to find wisdom under such blurred conditions. Perspicacity (...) frees entrepreneurs from their cognitive schemata rendering them able to be truly entrepreneurial. Based on this vision and thanks to a semantic analysis of the meaning of the Greek word gnome, we construct an interpretative model for entrepreneurial judgment composed of three dimensions, specifically, knowledge-cognitive, external-affective and personal-reflective. The model highlights how a ‘successful’ entrepreneurial judgment is also such from a holistic point of view. (shrink)

Advances in genetics and related biotechnologies are having a profound effect on sport, raising important ethical questions about the limits and possibilities of the human body. Drawing on real case studies and grounded in rigorous scientific evidence, this book offers an ethical critique of current practices and explores the intersection of genetics, ethics and sport. Written by two of the world's leading authorities on the ethics of biotechnology in sport, the book addresses the philosophical implications of the latest scientific developments (...) and technological data. Distinguishing fact from popular myth and science fiction, it covers key topics such as the genetic basis of sport performance and the role of genetic testing in talent identification and development. Its ten chapters discuss current debates surrounding issues such as the shifting relationship between genetics, sports medicine and sports science, gene enhancement, gene transfer technology, doping and disability sport. The first book to be published on this important subject in more than a decade, this is fascinating reading for anyone with an interest in the ethics of sport, bioethics or sport performance. (shrink)

Puts leading Italian thinkers into conversation with established Continental philosophers concerning the future of the nature of the human, technology, metaphysical foundations, globalization, and social and political oppression.

The paper considers one of the most enigmatic problems of Wittgenstein`s Tractatus - the problem of solipsism. The authorś task is to reveal how the discussion of solipsism illuminates Wittgenstein`s metaphysical view in this treatise. Wittgenstein`s method is considered as one through which the status of what cannot be said is demonstrated. Wittgenstein has not embrased solipsism or idealism in the Tractatus, and neither has he rejected metaphysics as a whole. His attack has been directed against dogmatic philosophy and ethics, (...) against the effort to say what cannot be said in true/false propositions. The discussion of solipsism brings into philosophy the importance of metaphysical "I" as a transcendental limit of the world and language. Wittgenstein`s aim in the Tractatus has been twofold: a) to show the nonsensicality of philosophical, ethical, aesthetical propositions , b) to emphasize, that the inexpresibility of the higher is the most important thing in our lives. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Preliminary remarksSince John Capistran is among the most relevant figures of the fifteenth century, not only for the Franciscan Order but more generally for political and religious life , the very substantial corpus of his correspondence has a long history as well as a long historiography. The approximately seven hundred letters he sent or received beginning in 1418 until his death in 1456, were discovered and studied one at (...) a time over the centuries, for quite different reasons and with different aims.Certainly the gradual process of discovering and studying these documents is marked by some milestones. For example, there is the celebration of his canonization process in 1623 , as well as the works of the so-called Capistran Commission. This commission was a team established in 1952 in Rome by the leadership of the Franciscan Order , which was located first in Grottaferrata, College of Quaracchi, then in the Antonianum, and was managed by friars Ottokar Bonmann and Paulis Bédrune.The research archive of Capistrano materials that is housed at the Franciscan Institute at St. Bonaventure University was brought together through the efforts of Gedeon Gál, OFM. Gedeon had been heading up work on the critical edition of the theological and philosophical writings of William of Ockham at the Institute. His interest in John Capistran came from the fact that he was a member of the Hungarian Franciscan Province of St. John Capistran. The greater part of the material came from the research files of Ottokar Bonmann who died before being able to start any actual editing work for an edition of Capistran. Knowing of Bonmann's work Gedeon asked Conrad Harkins, O.F.M., then director of the Franciscan Institute, to request that Bonmann's research be shipped to the Institute from Rome where it was being stored. Also while Conrad was on sabbatical in Italy, Gedeon asked him to photocopy the manuscript of Capistran's letters copied in the 1600s by Antonio Sessa of Palermo that resides in the library of the Basilica di Santa Maria in Aracoeli in Rome. That being done the copies were sent to the Franciscan Institute and joined with the Bonmann materials to form the archive. It is a heritage that deserves to be retrieved by scholars, in order to accomplish the work according to modern criteria, where accomplish means to create a final edition.Bonmann was very familiar with the earlier research on these letters and his work reinforces the fact that the edition was an obstacle course. This is the case not only because scholars' sensibilities regarding these kinds of documents changed throughout the centuries, previously viewed as a relic of a saint or an attestation of his sainthood, and – more recently – as a precious source about European history in the first half of the fifteenth century. Despite scholarly interest in the correspondence, it remains unpublished.In fact, the first to have the intention to publish all of the correspondence was Lucas Wadding, who received some materials about these letters at St. Isidore College in Rome, but he could not complete his project although he mentions it in his Annales Minorum. After Wadding many scholars tried to work on the same project but using criteria that – in several cases – are no longer helpful because their methods are out-of-date.For example, as we will soon see, collections such as those provided by Antonio Sessa in the seventeenth or by Atanasio Masci in the eighteenth century, are inspired by hagiographical criteria or, at least, not philological criteria. All of these collections were acquired by the Capistran Commission and then by Ottokar Bonmann who wrote an article on the subject in which.. (shrink)