Previously conducted structural magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) studies on the neuroanatomical correlates of mathematical abilities and competencies have a number of methodological limitations. Besides small sample sizes, the majority of these studies have employed voxel-based morphometry (VBM) – a method that, although it is easily to implement, has some major drawbacks. Taking this into account, the current study is the first to investigate in a large sample of typically developed adults the associations between mathematical abilities and variations in brain surface (...) structure by using surface-based morphometry (SBM). SBM is a method that also allows the investigation of brain morphometry by avoiding the pitfalls of VBM. Eighty-nine young adults were tested with a large battery of psychometric tests to measure mathematical competencies in four different areas: (1) simple arithmetic, (2) complex arithmetic, (3) higher-order mathematics and (4) numerical intelligence. In addition, we asked participants for their mathematics grade of their final school exam. Inside the MRI scanner, we collected high-resolution T1-weighted anatomical images from each subject. SBM analyses were performed with the computational anatomy toolbox (CAT12) and indices for cortical thickness, for cortical surface complexity, for gyrification and for sulcal depth were calculated. Further analyses revealed associations between (1) the cortical surface complexity of the right superior temporal gyrus and numerical intelligence, (2) the depth of the right central sulcus and adults’ ability to solve complex arithmetic problems and (3) the depth of the left parieto-occipital sulcus and adults’ higher-order mathematics competence. Interestingly, no relationships with previously reported brain regions were observed, thus, suggesting the importance of similar research to confirm the role of the brain regions found in this study. (shrink)

This book contributes to the developing dialogue between cognitive science and social sciences. It focuses on a central issue in both fields, i.e. the nature and the limitations of the rationality of beliefs and action. The development of cognitive science is one of the most important and fascinating intellectual advances of recent decades, and social scientists are paying increasing attention to the findings of this new branch of science that forces us to consider many classical issues related to epistemology and (...) philosophy of action in a new light. This book encourages scholars from different fields who are interested in the dialogue between cognitive science and social sciences, to develop and analyze new perspectives that allow us to elucidate the mystery of rationality. What is rationality? What are its limitations? What rationality assumptions must be used to study social and economic phenomena? The target audience primarily comprises researchers and experts in the field. Analysis of the concept of rationality is a leitmotiv in the history of the social sciences and has involved endless disputes. Since it is difficult to give a precise definition of this concept, and there is a lack of agreement about its meaning, it is possible to say that there is a ‘mystery of rationality’. What is it to be rational? Is rationality merely instrumental or does it also involve the endorsement of values, i.e. the choice of goals? Should we consider rationality to be a normative principle or a descriptive one? Can rationality be only Cartesian or can it also be argumentative? Is rationality a conscious skill or a partly tacit one? This book, which has been written by an outstanding collection of authors, including both philosophers and social scientists, tries to make a useful contribution to the debates on these problems and shed some light on the mystery of rationality. (shrink)

Hindbrain development is orchestrated by a vertebrate gene regulatory network that generates segmental patterning along the anterior–posterior axis via Hox genes. Here, we review analyses of vertebrate and invertebrate chordate models that inform upon the evolutionary origin and diversification of this network. Evidence from the sea lamprey reveals that the hindbrain regulatory network generates rhombomeric compartments with segmental Hox expression and an underlying Hox code. We infer that this basal feature was present in ancestral vertebrates and, as an evolutionarily constrained (...) developmental state, is fundamentally important for patterning of the vertebrate hindbrain across diverse lineages. Despite the common ground plan, vertebrates exhibit neuroanatomical diversity in lineage‐specific patterns, with different vertebrates revealing variations of Hox expression in the hindbrain that could underlie this diversification. Invertebrate chordates lack hindbrain segmentation but exhibit some conserved aspects of this network, with retinoic acid signaling playing a role in establishing nested domains of Hox expression. (shrink)

The Repugnant Conclusion served an important purpose in catalyzing and inspiring the pioneering stage of population ethics research. We believe, however, that the Repugnant Conclusion now receives too much focus. Avoiding the Repugnant Conclusion should no longer be the central goal driving population ethics research, despite its importance to the fundamental accomplishments of the existing literature.

This thought-provoking book discusses the concept of progress in economics and investigates whether any advance has been made in its different spheres of research. The authors look back at the history, successes and failures of their respective fields and thoroughly examine the notion of progress from an epistemological and methodological perspective. The idea of progress is particularly significant as the authors regard it as an essentially contested concept which can be defined in many ways – theoretically or empirically; locally or (...) globally; or as encouraging or impeding the existence of other research traditions. The authors discuss the idea that for progress to make any sense there must be an accumulation of knowledge built up over time rather than the replacement of ideas by each successive generation. Accordingly, they are not concerned with estimating the price of progress, reminiscing in the past, or assessing what has been lost. Instead they apply the complex mechanisms and machinery of the discipline to sub-fields such as normative economics, monetary economics, trade and location theory, Austrian economics and classical economics to critically assess whether progress has been made in these areas of research. -/- Bringing together authoritative and wide-ranging contributions by leading scholars, this book will challenge and engage those interested in philosophy, economic methodology and the history of economic thought. It will also appeal to economists in general who are interested in the advancement of their profession. (shrink)

Dondeyne, A. Pluriformiteit en eenheid van de filosofie.--Peperzak, A. Wegwijzers naar een dialogiek?--Boer, T. de. De eindigheid van de mens en de oneindigheid van de waarheid.--Hollak, J. Wijsgerige reflecties over de scheppingsidee : St. Thomas, Hegel en de Grieken.--Plat, J. Kants kritiek op de rationele psychologie.--Melsen, A. van. Wijsgerige antropologie en de ontwikkeling van natuurwetenschap en techniek.--Buytendijk, F. Het pathisch aspect van de eindigheid.--Struyker Boudier, H. 's Bergbeklimmers einder.

If one formulates Helmholtz's ideas about perception in terms of modern-day theories one arrives at a model of perceptual inference and learning that can explain a remarkable range of neurobiological facts. Using constructs from statistical physics it can be shown that the problems of inferring what cause our sensory inputs and learning causal regularities in the sensorium can be resolved using exactly the same principles. Furthermore, inference and learning can proceed in a biologically plausible fashion. The ensuing scheme rests on (...) Empirical Bayes and hierarchical models of how sensory information is generated. The use of hierarchical models enables the brain to construct prior expectations in a dynamic and context-sensitive fashion. This scheme provides a principled way to understand many aspects of the brain's organisation and responses. In this paper, we suggest that these perceptual processes are just one emergent property of systems that conform to a free-energy principle. The free-energy considered here represents a bound on the surprise inherent in any exchange with the environment, under expectations encoded by its state or configuration. A system can minimise free-energy by changing its configuration to change the way it samples the environment, or to change its expectations. These changes correspond to action and perception, respectively, and lead to an adaptive exchange with the environment that is characteristic of biological systems. This treatment implies that the system's state and structure encode an implicit and probabilistic model of the environment. We will look at models entailed by the brain and how minimisation of free-energy can explain its dynamics and structure. (shrink)

There is a deeply entrenched view in philosophy and physics, the closed systems view, according to which isolated systems are conceived of as fundamental. On this view, when a system is under the influence of its environment this is described in terms of a coupling between it and a separate system which taken together are isolated. We argue against this view, and in favor of the alternative open systems view, for which systems interacting with their environment are conceived of as (...) fundamental, and the environment's influence is represented via the dynamical equations that govern the system's evolution. Taking quantum theories of closed and open systems as our case study, and considering three alternative notions of fundamentality: (i) ontic fundamentality, (ii) epistemic fundamentality, and (iii) explanatory fundamentality, we argue that the open systems view is fundamental, and that this has important implications for the philosophy of physics, the philosophy of science, and for metaphysics. (shrink)

The emerging consensus in the philosophy of cognition is that cognition is situated, i.e., dependent upon or co-constituted by the body, the environment, and/or the embodied interaction with it. But what about emotions? If the brain alone cannot do much thinking, can the brain alone do some emoting? If not, what else is needed? Do (some) emotions (sometimes) cross an individual's boundary? If so, what kinds of supra-individual systems can be bearers of affective states, and why? And does that make (...) emotions ?embedded? or ?extended? in the sense cognition is said to be embedded and extended? Section 2 shows why it is important to understand in which sense body, environment, and our embodied interaction with the world contribute to our affective life. Section 3 introduces some key concepts of the debate about situated cognition. Section 4 draws attention to an important disanalogy between cognition and emotion with regard to the role of the body. Section 5 shows under which conditions a contribution by the environment results in non-trivial cases of ?embedded? emotions. Section 6 is concerned with affective phenomena that seem to cross the organismic boundaries of an individual, in particular with the idea that emotions are ?extended? or ?distributed.? (shrink)

Discussions about a replicability crisis in science have been driven by the normative claim that all of science should be replicable and the empirical claim that most of it isn’t. Recently, such crisis talk has been challenged by a new localism, which argues a) that serious problems with replicability are not a general occurrence in science and b) that replicability itself should not be treated as a universal standard. The goal of this article is to introduce this emerging strand of (...) the debate and to discuss some of its implications and limitations. I will in particular highlight the issue of demarcation that localist accounts have to address, i.e. the question of how we can distinguish replicable science from disciplines where replicability does not apply. (shrink)

Causal queries about singular cases, which inquire whether specific events were causally connected, are prevalent in daily life and important in professional disciplines such as the law, medicine, or engineering. Because causal links cannot be directly observed, singular causation judgments require an assessment of whether a co‐occurrence of two events c and e was causal or simply coincidental. How can this decision be made? Building on previous work by Cheng and Novick (2005) and Stephan and Waldmann (2018), we propose (...) a computational model that combines information about the causal strengths of the potential causes with information about their temporal relations to derive answers to singular causation queries. The relative causal strengths of the potential cause factors are relevant because weak causes are more likely to fail to generate effects than strong causes. But even a strong cause factor does not necessarily need to be causal in a singular case because it could have been preempted by an alternative cause. We here show how information about causal strength and about two different temporal parameters, the potential causes' onset times and their causal latencies, can be formalized and integrated into a computational account of singular causation. Four experiments are presented in which we tested the validity of the model. The results showed that people integrate the different types of information as predicted by the new model. (shrink)

It is argued that those who defend the Everett, or ‘many-worlds’, interpretation of quantum mechanics should embrace what we call the general quantum theory of open systems (GT) as the proper framework in which to conduct foundational and philosophical investigations in quantum physics. GT is a wider dynamical framework than its alternative, standard quantum theory (ST). This is true even though GT makes no modifications to the quantum formalism. GT rather takes a different view, what we call the open systems (...) view, of the formalism; i.e., in GT, the dynamics of systems whose physical states are fundamentally represented by density operators are represented as fundamentally open as specified by an in general non-unitary dynamical map. This includes, in principle, the dynamics of the universe as a whole. We argue that the more general dynamics describable in GT can be physically motivated, that there is as much prima facie empirical support for GT as there is for ST, and that GT could be fully in the spirit of the Everett interpretation—that there might, in short, be little reason for an Everettian not to embrace the more general theoretical landscape that GT allows one to explore. (shrink)

Abstract The view that mirror self-recognition (MSR) is a definitive demonstration of self-awareness is far from universally accepted, and those who do support the view need a more robust argument than the mere assumption that self-recognition implies a self-concept (e.g. Gallup in Socioecology and Psychology of Primates, Mouton, Hague, 1975 ; Gallup and Suarez in Psychological Perspectives on the Self, vol 3, Erlbaum, Hillsdale, 1986 ). In this paper I offer a new argument in favour of the view that MSR (...) shows self-awareness by examining the nature of the mirror image itself. I argue, using the results of ‘symbol-mindedness’ experiments by Deloache (Trends Cogn Sci 8(2):66–70, 2004) , that where self-recognition exists, the mirror image must be functioning as a symbol from the perspective of the subject and the subject must therefore be ‘symbol-minded’ and hence concept possessing. Further to this, according to the Concept Possession Hypothesis of Self-Consciousness (Savanah in Conscious Cogn 2011 ), concept possession alone is sufficient to demonstrate the existence of self-awareness. Thus MSR as a demonstration of symbol-mindedness implies the existence of self-awareness. I begin by defending the ‘mark test’ protocol as a robust methodology for determining self-recognition. Then follows a critical examination of the extreme views both for and against the interpretation of MSR as an indication of self-awareness: although the non-mentalistic interpretation of MSR is unconvincing, the argument presented by Gallup is also inadequate. I then present the symbol-mindedness argument to fill in the gaps in the Gallup approach. Content Type Journal Article Pages 1-17 DOI 10.1007/s10539-012-9318-2 Authors Stephane Savanah, ARC Centre of Excellence in Cognition and its Disorders (CCD), Macquarie University, Sydney, NSW 2109, Australia Journal Biology and Philosophy Online ISSN 1572-8404 Print ISSN 0169-3867. (shrink)

Several theories of emergence will be distinguished. In particular, these are synchronic, diachronic, and weak versions of emergence. While the weaker theories are compatible with property reductionism, synchronic emergentism and strong versions of diachronic emergentism are not. Synchronice mergentism is of particular interest for the discussion of downward causation. For such a theory, a system's property is taken to be emergent if it is irreducible, i.e., if it is not reductively explainable. Furthermore, we have to distinguish two different types of (...) irreducibility with quite different consequences: If, on the one hand, a system's property is irreducible because of the irreducibility of the system's parts' behavior on which the property supervenes, we seem to have a case of "downward causation". This kind of downward causation does not violate the principle of the causal closure of the physical domain. If, on the other hand, a systemic property is irreducible because it is not exhaustively analyzable in terms of its causal role, downward causation is not implied. Rather, it is dubitable how unanalyzable properties might play any causal role at all. Thus, epiphenomenalism seems to be implied. The failure to keep apart the two kinds of irreducibility has muddled recent debate about the emergence of properties considerably. (shrink)

A lot of research has recently been done on the topic of ground, and in particular on the logic of ground. According to a broad consensus in that debate, ground is hyperintensional in the sense that even logically equivalent truths may differ with respect to what grounds them, and what they ground. This renders pressing the question of what we may take to be the ground-theoretic content of a true statement, i.e. that aspect of the statement’s overall content to which (...) ground is sensitive. I propose a novel answer to this question, namely that ground tracks how, rather than just by what, a statement is made true. I develop that answer in the form of a formal theory of ground-theoretic content and show how the resulting framework may be used to articulate plausible theories of ground, including in particular a popular account of the grounds of truth-functionally complex truths that has proved difficult to accommodate on alternative views of content. (shrink)

We say that A≤LRB if every B-random set is A-random with respect to Martin–Löf randomness. We study this relation and its interactions with Turing reducibility, classes, hyperimmunity and other recursion theoretic notions.

Determining the knowledge that guides human judgments is fundamental to understanding how people reason, make decisions, and form predictions. We use an experimental procedure called ‘‘iterated learning,’’ in which the responses that people give on one trial are used to generate the data they see on the next, to pinpoint the knowledge that informs people's predictions about everyday events (e.g., predicting the total box office gross of a movie from its current take). In particular, we use this method to discriminate (...) between two models of human judgments: a simple Bayesian model (Griffiths & Tenenbaum, 2006) and a recently proposed alternative model that assumes people store only a few instances of each type of event in memory (MinK; Mozer, Pashler, & Homaei, 2008). Although testing these models using standard experimental procedures is difficult due to differences in the number of free parameters and the need to make assumptions about the knowledge of individual learners, we show that the two models make very different predictions about the outcome of iterated learning. The results of an experiment using this methodology provide a rich picture of how much people know about the distributions of everyday quantities, and they are inconsistent with the predictions of the MinK model. The results suggest that accurate predictions about everyday events reflect relatively sophisticated knowledge on the part of individuals. (shrink)

BackgroundNarrative reviews are the commonest type of articles in the medical literature. However, unlike systematic reviews and randomized controlled trials (RCT) articles, for which formal instruments exist to evaluate quality, there is currently no instrument available to assess the quality of narrative reviews. In response to this gap, we developed SANRA, the Scale for the Assessment of Narrative Review Articles.MethodsA team of three experienced journal editors modified or deleted items in an earlier SANRA version based on face validity, item-total correlations, (...) and reliability scores from previous tests. We deleted an item which addressed a manuscript’s writing and accessibility due to poor inter-rater reliability. The six items which form the revised scale are rated from 0 (low standard) to 2 (high standard) and cover the following topics: explanation of (1) the importance and (2) the aims of the review, (3) literature search and (4) referencing and presentation of (5) evidence level and (6) relevant endpoint data. For all items, we developed anchor definitions and examples to guide users in filling out the form. The revised scale was tested by the same editors (blinded to each other’s ratings) in a group of 30 consecutive non-systematic review manuscripts submitted to a general medical journal.ResultsRaters confirmed that completing the scale is feasible in everyday editorial work. The mean sum score across all 30 manuscripts was 6.0 out of 12 possible points (SD 2.6, range 1–12). Corrected item-total correlations ranged from 0.33 (item 3) to 0.58 (item 6), and Cronbach’s alpha was 0.68 (internal consistency). The intra-class correlation coefficient (average measure) was 0.77 [95% CI 0.57, 0.88] (inter-rater reliability). Raters often disagreed on items 1 and 4.ConclusionsSANRA’s feasibility, inter-rater reliability, homogeneity of items, and internal consistency are sufficient for a scale of six items. Further field testing, particularly of validity, is desirable. We recommend rater training based on the “explanations and instructions” document provided with SANRA. In editorial decision-making, SANRA may complement journal-specific evaluation of manuscripts—pertaining to, e.g., audience, originality or difficulty—and may contribute to improving the standard of non-systematic reviews. (shrink)

This book consists in seventeen chapters devoted to physical, metaphysical, and methodological questions concerning open systems. The chapters in the volume address questions such as: Are (theories of) open systems more fundamental than (theories of) closed systems? How have concepts of open and closed systems have been used throughout the history of physics, and how should we understand their use in contemporary physical theories? Must the universe be a closed system? Must there be a such thing as the universe at (...) all? -/- Contributors: Emily Adlam, Luis C. Barbado, Caslav Brukner, Eddy Keming Chen, Michael E. Cuffaro, Gemma De les Coves, George Ellis, Doreen Fraser, Henrique Gomes, Sean Gryb, William L. Harper, Stephan Hartmann, Molly Kao, Adam Koberinski, James Ladyman, Simon Langenscheidt, Olimpia Lombardi, Jorn Klovfjell Mjelva, Wayne C. Myrvold, Daniele Oriti, Josh Quirke, David Sloan, Karim P. Y. Thebault, Lev Vaidman, David Wallace, and Alastair Wilson. (shrink)

Buscamos, com o presente artigo, investigar o impacto da práxis de um Projeto de Extensão Universitária, que consiste em oficinas de música para crianças e adolescentes com o que designamos autismo ou outras neurodivergências, sobre a formação discente, levando em consideração as dimensões clínica e ético-política da ação extensionista. Dividimos a metodologia em duas partes: a primeira corresponde à revisão bibliográfica tipo narrativa, por meio da qual abordamos textos da fenomenologia da vida e das éticas da alteridade, comunitária e da (...) libertação; a segunda parte diz respeito aos relatos de experiência feitos pelas/os discentes participantes do Projeto e coautoras/es do presente artigo. Os/as discentes responderam a questões relacionadas a dois eixos temáticos construídos a priori: o impacto da Oficina de Música sobre sua formação e a percepção sobre as dimensões clínica e ética do Projeto. Avaliamos as narrativas por meio da análise de conteúdo, a partir da qual construímos as seguintes categorias de análise: impacto transformador da práxis da Oficina; e modelo biomédico e pensamento crítico, referentes ao eixo 1; arte, acolhimento e potencial terapêutico; pessoas que não cabem em um diagnóstico; e uma clínica ético-política, referentes ao eixo 2. Concluímos que a ação extensionista tem tido um impacto positivo sobre a formação discente, contribuindo para uma clínica estética, ética e política não normalizadora, que possibilita a liberação das forças da vida, a afirmação da vida em sua multiplicidade, sobretudo daquelas pessoas que tiveram e continuam tendo suas vidas negadas e invisibilizadas pelo sistema de produção (econômico e discursivo) dominante. (shrink)

A central question for psychologists, economists, and philosophers is how human lives should be valued. Whereas egalitarian considerations give rise to models emphasizing that every life should be valued equally, empirical research has demonstrated that valuations of lives depend on a variety of factors that often do not conform to specific normative expectations. Such factors include emotional reactions to the victims and cognitive considerations leading to biased perceptions of lives at risk (e.g., attention, mental imagery, pseudo-inefficacy, and scope neglect). They (...) can lead to a valuation function with decreasing marginal value and sometimes even decreasing absolute value as the number of victims increases. As a result, people spend more money to save an individual while at the same time being insensitive and apathetic to large losses of life, despite endorsing egalitarian norms. In this conceptual paper, we propose a descriptive model highlighting the role of different motivations and the conditions under which cognitions and emotions result in deviations from egalitarian normative valuations of human lives. (shrink)

Tudo se passa como se a escrita filosófica de Voltaire se desenvolvesse em uma dupla oposição: de um lado, ela visa denunciar o palavrório dos fazedores de sistemas e a cacofonia a que ele conduz, opondo-lhes a prudência e a modéstia; de outro, ela pretende restaurar, contra a tentação cética, o direito à busca da verdade. Em Voltaire, o discurso filosófico nasce desta tensão, do desejo de dizer o mundo e da vontade de se calar, tensão que a escolha do (...) diálogo tem por função explicitar, dramatizando-a. Perguntamo-nos, então, sobre o lugar e o estatuto da filosofia nos Diálogos . Conteúdo ou continente, conjunto de temas ou modalidade discursiva, a filosofia não está tranquila nesses textos, ela aparece em muitos aspectos como uma exigência problemática. (shrink)

A partir dos aparatos conceituais que Judith Butler empresta de Melanie Klein, pensaremos sobre a relação entre o ressentimento, a reparação e a solidariedade no que se refere aos posicionamentos de Edward Saïd relativamente à questão palestina. Para tanto, levaremos em consideração as obras What world is this? e The Force of Nonviolence, de Butler, bem como o ensaio “Amor, Culpa e Reparação”, de Klein. Ademais, trabalharemos com o ensaio “Identity, Authority and Freedom”, de Saïd e com suas entrevistas reunidas (...) em Dans l’ombre de l’Occident, mas também com a que fora concedida a Charles Rose em 2001. Com base nisso, analisaremos a atitude do intelectual frente à dimensão trágica do mundo; em seguida, problematizaremos de que maneira a paranoia opera na dinâmica da violência social para, então, indicar o papel da culpa na negociação psíquica entre o ressentimento e a reparação como salvaguarda dos laços sociais. (shrink)

In September 1998 the Bundesrztekammer, i.e., the German Medical Association, published new principles concerning terminal medical care. Even before publication, a draft of these principles was very controversial, and prompted intense public debate in the mass media. Despite some of the critics' suspicions that the principles prepared the way for liberalization of active euthanasia, euthanasia is unequivocally rejected in the principles. Physician-assisted suicide is considered to violate professional medical rules. In leaving aside some of the notions customarily used in the (...) euthanasia debate, e.g., passive euthanasia, the principles emphasize the obligation of physicians to offer and the right of patients to receive palliative care. The principles explicitly list modalities of basic treatment that are indispensable in all cases, such as the obligation to satisfy hunger and thirst. This statement is meant to resolve the dispute on nutrition and hydration at the end of life, as it shifts the focus of care from maintaining physiological parameters to satisfying subjective needs. For patients in a persistent vegetative state, artificial feeding is held to be obligatory. Yet, the principles make reference to recent German jurisdiction which permit the stopping of artificial feeding if it is in accordance with the patient's presumed will. Additionally, the wording concerning this issue is found to remain unclear. Patients' autonomy is strengthened by explicitly welcoming advance directives as a means to ascertain patients' wills. The principles mark some changes compared to earlier documents. They deserve careful analysis and should be considered in the international debate on issues concerning the end of life. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Klio Jahrgang: 99 Heft: 2 Seiten: 747-752.

Le consumérisme qui caractérise nos sociétés nous pousse à désirer davantage et à imiter des modèles. Cette course nous laisse insatisfaits et génère rivalité et violence. L'anthropologie que nous propose René Girard va nous permettre de saisir les ressorts de la violence et de dessiner la figure d'un individu pleinement libre, conscient de son mimétisme et choisissant de suivre le modèle qui permet d'échapper à la rivalité. Une invitation à revisiter le christianisme et la figure du Christ.

The aim of this article is to investigate and discuss the notions of difference and representation in Emmanuel Levinas and Gilles Deleuze, articulating such notions through the example of a university extension project involving the formation of a musical ensemble composed of autistic children. Our research involved a review of four major philosophical works—Emmanuel Levinas’ Totality and Infinity; Among Us: Essays On Alterity; and “The Concept Of Difference In Bergson”; and Gilles Deleuze’s Difference and Repetition--in addition to secondary references. The (...) main articulations of the investigation carried out in the project consist of aspects such as: taking responsibility for the autistic child through cultivating asymmetrical relationships, a process that takes place through sensibility, below any representation; and not totalizing the alterity involved while maintaining, at the same time, its radical difference. In addition, there is an emphasis in the work on the difference of each child, beyond his or her diagnostic identity, understanding that all participants are undergoing unique processes of differentiation, and that some differences are not more privileged than others, in that that such hierarchies are determined by power relations. Another contribution of this research is the emphasis on the intensive affective flows of children, and the construction of relationships of mutual affection, which increases the circulation of vital energy in each one. Finally, the results of the project are offered as guidelines for clinical practice, and for the cultivation of a politics of difference, as an alternative to hegemonic practices in autism studies in contemporary times. (shrink)

Dans le courant du XVII e siècle se multiplient en Chine les discours sur l’amitié. En partie liés à la déliquescence des structures traditionnelles et notamment familiales qui servaient de base au fonctionnement social de l’empire, ils proposent de réévaluer le lien amical dans l’organisation politique. He Xinyin (1517-1579) est à cet égard l’un des penseurs les plus innovants et radicaux. À travers la lecture de quelques essais majeurs recueillis dans le recueil de ses œuvres complètes, l’article entend expliciter la (...) réévaluation de l’amitié et sa dimension subversive chez cet auteur et montrer comment une telle redéfinition a pu instiller dans la culture chinoise du XVII e siècle et au-delà de nouveaux rapports subjectifs où l’individu émerge comme une entité cardinale dans les rapports sociaux ainsi que les idées de liberté d’expression. (shrink)

Qu'est-ce que la phénoménologie de la phénoménologie de E Fink, dont la Sixième méditation cartésienne constitue l'exposition principale? Au lieu d'aborder la Sixième méditation à partir de sa genèse textuelle ou à partir de la collaboration avec E Husserl dont elle est issue, l'auteur la prend à partir de son problème directeur. Ce dernier est mis au jour à travers une confrontation approfondie avec la phénoménologie husserlienne du temps, ce qui est devenu récemment possible, d'une part, grâce à la publication (...) des Manuscrits de Bernau et des Manuscrits C, d'autre part, grâce à la publication des notes de recherches de Fink. De là, la division de l'ouvrage en trois moments. Le premier analyse le problème directeur de la phénoménologie de la phénoménologie linkienne dans sa forme de base : comment la temporalisation originaire, qui est à l'origine du flux immanent, se phénoménalise-t-elle? Le deuxième approfondit le problème de la phénoménalisation de la temporalisation originaire dans ses multiples formes : comme problème de la phénoménalisation de l'origine des essences immanentes, de la langue, de l'intersubjectivité et enfin de la science de l'immanence. Le troisième considère le problème de la phénoménalisation de la temporalisation originaire dans l'unité de ses multiples formes et notamment, comme problème de l'attestation phénoménologique de la temporalisation originaire. Ce parcours permet de reconstruire et de problématiser la "métaphysique phénoménologique" que Fink considérait comme le couronnement de sa phénoménologie de la phénoménologie. (shrink)

Deliberation is a standard procedure to make decisions in not too large groups. It has the advantage that the group members can learn from each other and that, at the end, often a consensus emerges that everybody endorses. But a deliberation procedure also has a number of disadvantages. E.g., what consensus is reached usually depends on the order in which the different group members speak. More specifically, the group member who speaks first often has an unproportionally high impact on the (...) final decision: She anchors the deliberation process. While the anchoring effect undoubtably appears in real deliberating groups, we ask whether it also appears in groups whose members are truth-seeking and rational in the sense that they take the information provided by their fellow group members properly into account by updating their beliefs according to plausible rules. To answer this question and to make some progress towards explaining the anchoring effect, a formal model is constructed and analyzed. Using this model, we study the anchoring effect in homogenous groups, for which we provide analytical results, and in inhomogeneous groups, for which we provide simulation results. (shrink)

Spoken communication occurs in a “noisy channel” characterized by high levels of environmental noise, variability within and between speakers, and lexical and syntactic ambiguity. Given these properties of the received linguistic input, robust spoken word recognition—and language processing more generally—relies heavily on listeners' prior knowledge to evaluate whether candidate interpretations of that input are more or less likely. Here we compare several broad-coverage probabilistic generative language models in their ability to capture human linguistic expectations. Serial reproduction, an experimental paradigm where (...) spoken utterances are reproduced by successive participants similar to the children's game of “Telephone,” is used to elicit a sample that reflects the linguistic expectations of English-speaking adults. When we evaluate a suite of probabilistic generative language models against the yielded chains of utterances, we find that those models that make use of abstract representations of preceding linguistic context (i.e., phrase structure) best predict the changes made by people in the course of serial reproduction. A logistic regression model predicting which words in an utterance are most likely to be lost or changed in the course of spoken transmission corroborates this result. We interpret these findings in light of research highlighting the interaction of memory-based constraints and representations in language processing. (shrink)

Pourquoi s'intéresser à Georges Palante? Cet ouvrage répondra au moins en partie à cette interrogation. Il permettra aux lecteurs de mieux mesurer la profondeur de ce sociologue méconnu qui a osé s'opposer à la sociologie durkheimienne ; de ce philosophe non conformiste qui a défendu la sensibilité individualiste contre le grégarisme et l'égoïsme bourgeois ; de ce penseur qui a su se faire apprécier aussi bien des théoriciens du libéralisme que des socialistes ou des anarchistes (et se faire détester aussi, (...) parfois, des mêmes) ; bref, de cet homme, ami de Louis Guilloux et de Jean Grenier, qui a vécu, aimé, souffert et dont la vie ne se résume nullement, comme cela se lit parfois, à son suicide final à l'âge de 62 ans. (shrink)