We mobilise contemporary philosophy of science to further clarify observations on economic modelling made by Gilboa et al. (2023). We adopt a normative stance towards these modelling practices to identify the extent to which they are epistemically justified. Our message is simple: many of the distinctions proposed by Gilboa et al. (2023) are useful, but without the proper qualifications, too much flexibility in choosing the right interpretation risks downplaying the crucial role that empirical evidence should play in any modelling endeavour.

To examine the influence of bilateral motor behaviors on flexibility performance, two studies were conducted. Previous research has shown that when performing unilateral motor behavior that activates the affective and motivational systems of approach versus avoidance (arm flexion vs. extension), it is the congruence between laterality and motor activation that determines flexibility-rigidity functioning (Cretenet & Dru, 2009). When bilateral motor behaviors were performed, a mechanism of embodiment was revealed. It showed that the flexibility scores were determined by the match between (...) the respective qualities of congruence of each of the unilateral motor behaviors performed. These results bring to light an overall embodied mechanism associated with the compatibility of the cognitive impact(s) of each motor behavior performed. (shrink)

When recalling autobiographical memories, individuals often experience visual images associated with the event. These images can be constructed from two different perspectives: first person, in which the event is visualized from the viewpoint experienced at encoding, or third person, in which the event is visualized from an external vantage point. Using a novel technique to measure visual perspective, we examined where the external vantage point is situated in third-person images. Individuals in two studies were asked to recall either 10 (...) or 15 events from their lives and describe the perspectives they experienced. Wide variation in spatial locations was observed within third-person perspectives, with the location of these perspectives relating to the event being recalled. Results suggest remembering from an external viewpoint may be more common than previous studies have demonstrated. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:In his influential study, The Harvest of Medieval Theology, Heiko Oberman had drawn two broad categories by which to classify the late medieval conception of Holy Scripture and the Catholic Tradition. The first, Tradition I, held Scripture to be the sole source of Catholic doctrine such that Tradition was equated with the exegetical contribution of the holy doctors. What Oberman deemed Tradition II maintained that Holy Scripture is not (...) sufficient for the determination of Catholic doctrine such that it needed to be supplemented by a separate extra-scriptural source of revelation. And it is within Tradition II that Oberman placed William of Ockham. That is to say Ockham was deemed a proponent of a so-called ‘two-sources’ principle of divine revelation. In fact, Oberman went on to say that, “we may conclude that Occam is not just playing with the two-sources theory but that he indeed believes in the solidity of the argument in its totality.”1 Influential as Oberman’s theory has been over the past forty years, however, the strict categorization of ‘one source’ over and against ‘two-sources’ may indeed be detrimental to an assessment of Ockham’s views on the authoritative determination of Catholic doctrine.This essay will focus primarily on Ockham’s conception of biblical authority relative to that of extra-scriptural sources, most notably papal authority. We will also look at two other fourteenth-century Franciscans, his predecessor John Duns Scotus and his successor William Woodford. This will provide us with an opportunity to assess the ways in which different Franciscan theologians handled the nuances of doctrinal authority in light of the specific concerns they faced. In the case of Scotus such questions were less polemically charged than they were for Ockham and Woodford. They usually came up within the confines of his Ordinatio and pertained to doctrines that Scotus willingly embraced even as he tried to make sense of their formulation. Ockham and Woodford, on the other hand, faced flesh and blood opponents in fierce debates: Ockham against the papacy and Woodford against the English Wycliffites. In an era when the precise relationship between authoritative sources was not very well defined, we will see these latter two Franciscans take different tacks as they addressed the exigencies of the moment, thereby highlighting the flexibility of Franciscan views of scriptural and extra-scriptural authority in the fourteenth century.First, though, we can offer some perspective on Oberman’s one source/two sources dichotomy. Oberman was one among many scholars—Protestant and Catholic—charting a grand history of Scripture and Tradition in the run-up to the Second Vatican Council. Much scholarly interest was specifically focused on what the Council of Trent had meant in its formal statement of April 8, 1546 when referring to “the truth and discipline [of the Gospel] contained in the written books and in the unwritten traditions.”2 In an effort to draw out the full intention of this statement scholars turned to an earlier draft to see if it could further illuminate what the Tridentine fathers meant. The earlier draft spoke of the truth and discipline of the Gospel being contained partly in the written books and partly in the unwritten traditions. In light of this fact scholars asked whether the final edition’s use of ‘and’ meant that all Catholic doctrine comes down fully in Scripture and fully in the traditions of the Church, such that either form of transmission sufficiently communicates this doctrine; or does the ‘and’ carry the weight of the earlier ‘partly’ such that Scripture contains only a portion of the truth and thus must be supplemented by unwritten traditions?Did the change from ‘partly … partly’ to ‘and’ signify a change in meaning? Not according to Oberman who was sure that the Council intended to affirm that Scripture does not contain all doctrinal truths.3 Whereas George Tavard concluded just the.. (shrink)

The Cell Cycle Ontology (CCO) has the aim to provide a 'one stop shop' for scientists interested in the biology of the cell cycle that would like to ask questions from a molecular and/or systems perspective: what are the genes, proteins, and so on involved in the regulation of cell division? How do they interact to produce the effects observed in the regulation of the cell cycle? To answer these questions, the CCO must integrate a large amount of knowledge (...) from diverse sources; the irregularity and incompleteness of this information suggests an ontology can act as the means of this integration. The volatility and continued expansion of biological knowledge means the content and modelling of the CCO will have to be frequently changed and updated. The CCO is generated from the input data automatically once every two months. This makes it easy to change the representation to enable certain queries; incorporate new knowledge; and consistently apply design patterns across the CCO. The automatic process also allows the CCO to be delivered in a variety of representations that suit the needs of various CCO customers and the abilities of existing toolsets. In this paper we present the CCO and its characteristics of utility and flexibility, that, from our perspective, make it a beautiful ontology. (shrink)

According to Chomsky, creativity is a critical property of human language, particularly the aspect of ?the creative use of language? concerning the appropriateness to a situation. How language can be creative but appropriate to a situation is an unsolvable mystery from the Chomskyan point of view. We propose that language appropriateness can be explained by considering the role of the human capacity for Mental Time Travel at its foundation, together with social and ecological intelligences within a triadic language-grounding system. Our (...) proposal is based on the change of perspective from the analysis of individual sentences to the flux of speech in which the temporal dimension of language is much more relevant. (shrink)

// tl;dr A Proposition is a Way of Thinking // -/- This chapter is about type-theoretic approaches to propositional content. Type-theoretic approaches to propositional content originate with Hintikka, Stalnaker, and Lewis, and involve treating attitude environments (e.g. "Nate thinks") as universal quantifiers over domains of "doxastic possibilities" -- ways things could be, given what the subject thinks. -/- This chapter introduces and motivates a line of a type-theoretic theorizing about content that is an outgrowth of the recent literature on epistemic (...) modality, according to which contentful thought is broadly "informational" in its nature and import. The general idea here is that an object of thought is not a way *the world* could be, but rather a way *one's perspective* could be (with respect to a relevant representational question). I will spend the middle part of this chapter motivating and developing a version of this strategy that is, I’ll argue, well-suited to explaining clear phenomena concerning the attribution of perspectival attitudes -- in particular, attitudes towards loosely information-sensitive propositions -- with which extant approaches struggle. My overarching goal here will be to motivate a distinctive version of the "informational" approach -- the "Flexible Types" approach, which is based on the theory proposed in Charlow (2020). According to the Flexible Types approach, propositional attitude verbs are quantifiers over sets of possibilities, but a possibility is a type-flexible notion -- sometimes a possible world, sometimes a perspective, sometimes a set of possible worlds, sometimes a set of perspectives. -/- After introducing the Flexible Types approach, this chapter circles back to more traditional concerns for the analysis of propositions as types of possibilities -- Frege's Puzzle and the problem of Logical Omniscience. Here too the Flexible Types approach bears fruit. Although there are certainly significant differences -- I note some in the concluding section -- the gist of this theory is Hinitkkan or Lewisian in spirit (if not quite in letter). We can make progress on addressing the challenges for the analysis of propositional content in terms of types of possibilities, through empirically driven refinement of our notion of what kind of thing a "doxastic possibility" is. (shrink)

I strongly agree with the criticisms of the restrictive isomorphic matching (RIM) definition of empathy made by Murphy, Lilienfeld, and Algoe (2022), and largely agree with their conceptualization of empathy as a dynamic process best defined by its function. In this commentary, I extend this argument by emphasizing the relational, interpersonal aspects of empathy. It is my view that in order to understand the functions of empathy, we must take into account not only the internal experience of the individual empathizing, (...) but also the individual (or group) whose perspective the empathizer is attempting to take. I highlight how the emotional needs of others are dynamic and require flexible adaptation and underscore the role of context in appreciating the function of empathy. (shrink)

This is a new Wittgensteinian account of the American Constitution that provides a fresh perspective on how judges can follow a legal document written in flexible language. The book shows why originalism is incompatible with the American legal system and challenges the views of Ronald Dworkin and numerous law professors.

Schyns, Goldstone & Thibaut's argument is evaluated from a developmental perspective. Theoretically, feature creation is not necessarily problematic; this view derives from the assumption of innate content (primitive feature sets). Alternative assumptions (e.g., Piaget's theory) are possible. Preschool children readily search for novel features in response to task demands. This is compatible with functionalist approaches, but not the rationalist ones criticized by the authors.

This paper studies a family of monotonic extensions of first-order logic which we call modulated logics, constructed by extending classical logic through generalized quantifiers called modulated quantifiers. This approach offers a new regard to what we call flexible reasoning. A uniform treatment of modulated logics is given here, obtaining some general results in model theory. Besides reviewing the “Logic of Ultrafilters”, which formalizes inductive assertions of the kind “almost all”, two new monotonic logical systems are proposed here, the “Logic (...) of Many” and the “Logic of Plausibility”, that characterize assertions of the kind “many”, and “for a good number of”. Although the notion of simple majority (“more than half”) can be captured by means of a modulated quantifier semantically interpreted by cardinal measure on evidence sets, it is proven that this system, although sound, cannot be complete if checked against the intended model. This justifies the interest on a purely qualitative approach to this kind of quantification, what is guaranteed by interpreting the modulated quantifiers as notions of families of principal filters and reduced topologies, respectively. We prove that both systems are conservative extensions of classical logic that preserve important properties, such as soundness and completeness. Some additional perspectives connecting our approach to flexible reasoning through modulated logics to epistemology and social choice theory are also discussed. (shrink)

In English, deictic verbs of motion, such ascomecan encode the perspective of the speaker, or another individual, such as the addressee or a narrative protagonist, at a salient reference time and location, in the form of an indexical presupposition. By contrast, Spanish has been claimed to have stricter requirements on licensing conditions forvenir(“to come”), only allowing speaker perspective. An open question is how a bilingual learner acquiring both English and Spanish reconciles these diverging language-specific restrictions. We face this (...) question head on by investigating narrative productions of young Spanish-English bilingual heritage speakers of Spanish, in comparison to English monolingual and Spanish dominant adults and children. We find that the young heritage speakers producevenirin linguistic contexts where most Spanish adult speakersdo not, but where English monolingual speakersdo, and also resemble those of young monolingual Spanish speakers of at least one other Spanish dialect, leading us to generate two mutually-exclusive hypotheses: (a) the encoding of speaker perspective in the young heritage children is cross-linguistically influenced by the more flexible and dominant language (English), resulting in a wider range of productions by these malleable young speakers than the Spanish grammar actually allows, or (b) the young Spanish speakers are exhibiting productions that are in fact licensed in the grammar, but which are pruned away in the adult productions, being supplanted by other forms as the lexicon is enriched. Given independent evidence of the heritage speakers' robust Spanish linguistic competence, we turn to systematically-collected acceptability judgments of three dialectal varieties of monolingual adult Spanish speakers of the distribution of perspective-taking verbs, to assess their competence and adjudicate between (a) and (b). We find that adultsaccept venirin contexts in which they do notproduceit, leading us to argue that (a)venirisnotobligatorily speaker-oriented in Spanish, as has been claimed, (b) adults may not producevenirin these contexts because they instead select more specific motion verbs, and (c) for heritage bilingual children, the more dominant language (English) may support the grammatically licensed but lexically-constrained productions in Spanish. (shrink)

Whether sentences are formulated primarily using lexically based or non-lexically based information has been much debated. In this perspective article, I review evidence for rational flexibility in the sentence production architecture. Sentences can be constructed flexibly via lexically dependent or independent routes, and rationally depending on the statistical properties of the input and the validity of lexical vs. abstract cues for predicting sentence structure. Different neural pathways appear to be recruited for individuals with different executive function abilities and for (...) verbs with different statistical properties, suggesting that alternative routes are available for producing the same structure. Together, extant evidence indicates that the human brain adapts to ongoing language experience during adulthood, and that the nature of the adjustment may depend rationally on the statistical contingencies of the current context. (shrink)

The notion of whether people focus on the past, present or future, and how it shapes their behaviour is known as Time Perspective. Fundamental to the work of two of its earliest proponents, Zimbardo and Boyd (2008), was the concept of balanced time perspective and its relationship to wellness. A person with balanced time perspective can be expected to have a flexible temporal focus of mostly positive orientations (past-positive, present-hedonistic, and future) and much less negative orientations (...) (past-negative and present-fatalistic). This study measured deviation from balanced time perspective (DBTP: Zhang, Howell, and Stolarski, 2013) in a sample of 243 mature adults aged 45 to 91 years and explored relationships to Retirement Planning, Depression, Anxiety, Stress, Positive Mood, and Negative Mood. Results indicate that DBTP accounts for unexplained variance in the outcome measures even after controlling for demographic variables. DBTP was negatively related to Retirement Planning and Positive Mood and positively related to Depression, Anxiety, Stress and Negative Mood. Theoretical and practical implications regarding balanced time perspective are discussed. (shrink)

Pragmatic deficits of persons with autism spectrum disorders [ASDs] are often traced back to a dysfunction in Theory of Mind. However, the exact nature of the link between pragmatics and mindreading in autism is unclear. Pragmatic deficits in ASDs are not homogenous: in particular, while inter-subjective dimensions are affected, some other pragmatic capacities seem to be relatively preserved. Moreover, failure on classical false-belief tasks stems from executive problems that go beyond belief attribution; false-belief tasks require taking an alternative perspective (...) on the reality. While this capacity is functional in typically developing young children, it is impaired in ASDs. Typically developing children are capable of taking their interlocutor's perspective into account when communicating, whereas poor cognitive flexibility makes it difficult for persons with ASDs to grasp the inter-subjective character of communicative stimuli. This analysis predicts that those pragmatic processes that amount to merely taking into account salient contextual facts during utterance interpretation, without necessarily adopting the interlocutor's perspective, may be preserved in ASDs. (shrink)

This research involves a review of the submissions to a 2005/06 Australian Government Inquiry into Corporate Social Responsibility. The Inquiry was established to investigate whether corporate social responsibilities and accountabilities should be regulated, or left to be determined by market forces. Our results show that the business community overwhelming favour an anti-regulation approach whereby corporations should be left with the flexibility to determine their social responsibilities and associated accountabilities and ‘enlightened self-interest’ should be retained as the guiding mechanism for social (...) responsibility initiatives. In stark contrast, the submissions from social and environmental organisations and individuals provided counter-arguments in favour of a pro-regulation view. Ultimately Government embraced the ‘free market perspective’ promoted by the business community and decided against the introduction of national legislation pertaining to corporate social responsibilities. (shrink)

Recent debates over adults' theory of mind use have been fueled by surprising failures of perspective-taking in communication, suggesting that perspective-taking may be relatively effortful. Yet adults routinely engage in effortful processes when needed. How, then, should speakers and listeners allocate their resources to achieve successful communication? We begin with the observation that the shared goal of communication induces a natural division of labor: The resources one agent chooses to allocate toward perspective-taking should depend on their expectations (...) about the other's allocation. We formalize this idea in a resource-rational model augmenting recent probabilistic weighting accounts with a mechanism for (costly) control over the degree of perspective-taking. In a series of simulations, we first derive an intermediate degree of perspective weighting as an optimal trade-off between expected costs and benefits of perspective-taking. We then present two behavioral experiments testing novel predictions of our model. In Experiment 1, we manipulated the presence or absence of occlusions in a director–matcher task. We found that speakers spontaneously modulated the informativeness of their descriptions to account for “known unknowns” in their partner's private view, reflecting a higher degree of speaker perspective-taking than previously acknowledged. In Experiment 2, we then compared the scripted utterances used by confederates in prior work with those produced in interactions with unscripted directors. We found that confederates were systematically less informative than listeners would initially expect given the presence of occlusions, but listeners used violations to adaptively make fewer errors over time. Taken together, our work suggests that people are not simply “mindblind”; they use contextually appropriate expectations to navigate the division of labor with their partner. We discuss how a resource-rational framework may provide a more deeply explanatory foundation for understanding flexible perspective-taking under processing constraints. (shrink)

Expectations play a central role in understanding scientific and technological changes. Future-oriented representations are also central with regard to nanotechnologies as they can guide policy activities, provide structures and legitimation, attract different interests, focus policy-makers’ attention and foster investments for research. However, the emphasis on future scenarios tends to underrate the complexity of the challenges of the present market of nanotechnologies by flattening them under the needs and promises of scientific research. This is particularly apparent if we consider the viewpoint (...) of the regulator who faces two different ranges of problems with regard to the market and research and is expected, simultaneously, to manage two different types of regulatory instruments, pursuing at the same time the same goals. Instead, by favoring only the future scenarios, the regulator runs the risk of abruptly shifting from more flexible and elastic tools to forms of hard legislation, wasting, thus, the resources of the soft-regulation, in particular those of self-regulation. By referring primarily to the European context, human rights, also thanks to their normative structure of principles, can help in strengthening both the legislation needed for regulating the present market and the soft instruments needed for steering research and for fostering the stakeholders’ participation without sacrificing the coherence of the regulatory response. (shrink)

This paper aims to verify the effects of work–family conflict and work–family facilitation on employee innovation in the digital era. Based on resource conservation theory, this study regards the work–family relationship as a conditional resource. Employees who are in a state of lack of resources caused by work–family conflict will maintain existing resources by avoiding the consumption of further resources to perform innovation activities; employees who are in a state of sufficient resources are more willing to invest existing resources to (...) obtain more resources. In this study, 405 employees from enterprises in the Chinese provinces of Jiangsu, Anhui, Sichuan, and Guangdong, and in the municipality of Tianjin were selected as the research object. These enterprises are knowledge-based companies, and their employees frequently transfer knowledge at work. We collected questionnaires from the frontline employees of these companies. The results show that negative and positive emotions mediate the effect of work–family conflict and work–family facilitation on employee innovation. Moreover, work flexibility has a significant moderating effect on the mediating role of emotions between work–family facilitation and employee innovation behavior. In the digital era, when facing different work–family situations, employees need to pay attention to and dredge their negative emotions to avoid reducing their innovative behaviors due to self-abandonment; in parallel, they need to guide their positive emotions toward innovation, so as to promote their innovative consciousness and behavior. This paper expands the research perspective of employee innovation behavior. (shrink)

Learning a novel environment involves integrating first-person perceptual and motoric experiences with developing knowledge about the overall structure of the surroundings. The present experiments provide insights into the parallel development of these egocentric and allocentric memories by intentionally conflicting body- and world-centered frames of reference during learning, and measuring outcomes via online and offline measures. Results of two experiments demonstrate faster learning and increased memory flexibility following route perspective reading (Experiment 1) and virtual navigation (Experiment 2) when participants begin (...) exploring the environment on a northward (vs. any other direction) allocentric heading. We suggest that learning advantages due to aligning body-centered (left/right/forward/back) with world-centered (NSEW) reference frames are indicative of three features of spatial memory development and representation. First, memories for egocentric and allocentric information develop in parallel during novel environment learning. Second, cognitive maps have a preferred orientation relative to world-centered coordinates. Finally, this preferred orientation corresponds to traditional orientation of physical maps (i.e., north is upward), suggesting strong associations between daily perceptual and motor experiences and the manner in which we preferentially represent spatial knowledge. (shrink)

The research study explores the philosophical viewpoints on cultural hybridity and considers how they affect the development of identities, moral behaviour, epistemological criticism, and real-world applications in a variety of fields. Cultural hybridity, which is defined as the blending of different cultural aspects, calls into question established ideas about identity and encourages us to reevaluate the flexibility and diversity that are fundamental to the human self. For measuring, the research study used the Smart PLS Algorithm Model related to variables through (...) this software run results included descriptive statistics, correlation coefficient, and the Smart PLS Algorithm Model between them. Philosophical investigations into cultural hybridity shed light on the dynamic interactions between identity and alterity, ethics and epistemology, and draw on the works of philosophers like Stuart Hall, Emmanuel Levinas, and Homi K. Bhabha. Cultural hybridity is an ethical imperative that requires us to shift our perspective towards the Other and welcome cultural variety with warmth and kindness. From an epistemological point of view, cultural hybridity upends hegemonic knowledge frameworks and creates pluralistic modes of knowledge creation that provide voice to underrepresented groups. Philosophical viewpoints on cultural hybridity have practical implications in urban planning, education, diplomacy, and intercultural communication. Overall result found that there is a direct and significant link between philosophical perspectives on the cultural hybridity related to dynamics of identity and alterity. These applications promote inclusive societies, social cohesion, and creativity. We began a revolutionary route towards a more globalized, compassionate, and linked society by accepting cultural hybridity. (shrink)

According to Viveiros de Castro, comparison as ontology defines the ontological turn in anthropology. It presents a necessity for philosophy to approach the matter with comparative strategy. Morten Pedersen claims that ontological turn should be interpreted as a fulfillment of an anthropological version of Husserl’s method. Thus, phenomenology enters the field of interest along with its critique in Speculative Realism. In this article, we will see clearly why this selection is not accidental but rather unavoidable. Amerindian perspectivism necessitates the philosophical (...) reconceptualization of perspective in general, which is to be taken as a challenge for the established discourses. The need arises to rethink the problematic of Kantian perspectivism and its offspring. Amerindian perspectivism proposes cosmological deictics that hold a spatiality of the perspective of the other, of the in-itself, thus it comes into an opposition to Kant’s system. Phenomenological perspective, as one of the Kantian offspring, faces a predicament that is interwoven with the critique of correlationism arriving from Speculative Realisms. The synthetic character of phenomenology allows enough flexibility for it to traverse these recent charges. We will draw a comparative picture of dynamic co-evolution of strains of recent thought, striving for a synthetic multiplicity, permeated by a common perspectival thread. (shrink)

A hallmark of skilled motor performance is behavioral flexibility – i.e., experts can not only produce a movement pattern to reliably achieve a given task goal, but also possess the ability to change that movement pattern to fit a new context. In this perspective article, we briefly highlight the factors that are critical to understanding behavioral flexibility, and its connection to movement variability, stability, and learning. We then address how practice strategies should be developed from a motor learning standpoint (...) to enhance behavioral flexibility. Finally, we highlight some important future avenues of work that are needed to advance our understanding of behavioral flexibility. We use examples from sport as a context to highlight these issues, especially in regard to elite performance and development. (shrink)

This commentary relates Hoerl & McCormack's dual systems perspective to models of cognitive development emphasizing representational redescription and the role of culturally constructed tools, including language, in providing flexible formats for thinking. We describe developmental processes that enable children to construct a mental time line, situate themselves in time, and overcome the primacy of the here and now.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophies versus Philosophy:In Defense of a Flexible DefinitionRein RaudIt is strange that no one has taken up Carine Defoort's clearly formulated and timely argument about the intercultural tensions in interpreting what philosophy is, although the issue deserves at least a roundtable, if not an international conference.1 I doubt that this is because there is a general consensus that the matter is now settled, and I would therefore like (...) to develop the argument a bit further and offer a few additional factors to consider. It is also obvious that the problem is not limited to the subject of Chinese philosophy alone: all traditions of thought from all over the world, but most notably the Indian, Islamic, and Japanese heritages, are affected by the positions we adopt. As in most debates about the commensurability of cultural traditions, we can find differences when we look for them, and similarities if these are what we would like to see, so the "conflict of sensitivities"2 is also a matter of attitudes. My own position is that regardless of what we prefer to call the practice of deeper thought (and 'philosophy' is a very good name), it would be extremely useful for all of its participants, whatever their origin and upbringing, to find a common denominator for them to be able to exchange ideas and mutually enrich each other on its basis. In what follows I shall try to sketch a perspective from which this could, in my opinion, be theoretically grounded.Four PositionsDefoort has identified four possible points of view on the problem of whether classical Chinese thought could or should be called 'philosophy,' which could be summarized as follows.1. Chinese classical thought is not philosophy, because it does not satisfy the conditions of philosophy as it is generally and traditionally understood in the West.2. Chinese classical thought is philosophy, because it reveals the necessary characteristics if analyzed with the help of an appropriate (Western-type) observation language.3. Chinese classical thought can be called philosophy, but only if we redefine philosophy in order to accommodate some of its nontypical or clearly deviant features.4. Chinese classical thought should not be called philosophy, because philosophy is a culturally closed Western phenomenon with a limited scope and incapable of understanding fundamentally different modes of thought. [End Page 618]If we dismiss the birthright variety of the first position, we could label it essentialist, and its weakest point is certainly that Western philosophy has not remained unchanged during the course of history. It is highly doubtful that Socrates, Diogenes, scholastics, Nietzsche, and Gareth Evans could all be members of the same set if the same strict criteria were applied to all periods and all cultural settings in the same way, and, as Defoort herself stresses,3 the fact that seventeenth-century Jesuits (the basis of whose original worldview, we should think, was much farther from the Chinese than ours) had no problem in calling Chinese thought philosophy should show us that the paradigm shift of the thing called 'philosophy' has occurred in the West and is, so to speak, our problem and not theirs.Now, it is also possible that in some circles even some prominent names in the Western tradition do not qualify as real philosophers, in the sense in which Hegel was treated by Bertrand Russell4 and Heidegger was dismissed by Alfred Ayer5 in their respective histories of philosophy (while they nevertheless felt compelled to include chapters or passages on them). A definition of philosophy that puts forward such criteria that a considerable number of thinkers would have to remain outside its borders should be labeled sectarian-and it can still be met, even if ever less often, in some analytical schools of philosophy. It is my conviction, however, that in our globalizing world any definition that would leave non-European philosophy outside the borders of 'philosophy proper' should be considered sectarian in nature. The main problem that I have with Defoort's family model6 is precisely that in it the head of the family, who makes the decisions as to who can be adopted and who cannot, is always Western, and the... (shrink)

BackgroundLiterature on issues relating to comprehension during the process of obtaining informed consent (IC) has largely focused on the challenges potential participants can face in understanding the IC documents, and the strategies used to enhance comprehension of those documents. In this review, we set out to describe the factors that have an impact on comprehension and the strategies used to enhance the IC process in sub-Saharan African countries.MethodsFrom November 2021 to January 2022, we conducted a literature search using a PRISMA (...) tool. We searched electronic databases (PubMed, EMBASE, EBSCOHOST) to identify relevant peer reviewed studies. We then reviewed the references of these articles to find additional literature that might have been missed through the initial search. We were particularly interested in full text articles in English that focused on the IC process in SSA published between 2006 and 2020. We included systematic reviews, and studies from Western and Asian countries that included data about SSA. We excluded articles that focused on medical interventions and studies that did not require IC.ResultsOut of the 50 studies included most were multi-country (n = 13) followed by single country studies in South Africa (n = 12); Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda (n = 5) each; Gambia, Ghana and Nigeria (n = 2)each ; and one each for Botswana, Malawi, Mali, Mozambique. We identified three areas of focus: (1) socio-cultural factors affecting IC; (2) gaps in the ethical and legal frameworks guiding the IC process; and (3) strategies used to improve participants’ understanding of IC.ConclusionOur review showed wide recognition that the process of achieving IC in SSA is inherently challenging, and there are limitations in the strategies aimed at improving comprehension in IC. We suggest that there is a need for greater flexibility and negotiation with communities to ensure that the approach to IC is suited to the diverse socio-cultural contexts. We propose moving beyond the literal translations and technical language to understanding IC comprehension from the participants’ perspectives and the researchers’ views, while examining contextual factors that impact the IC process. (shrink)

Integrative and naturalistic philosophy of mind can both learn from and contribute to the contemporary cognitive sciences of dreaming. Two related phenomena concerning self-representation in dreams demonstrate the need to bring disparate fields together. In most dreams, the protagonist or dream self who experiences and actively participates in dream events is or represents the dreamer: but in an intriguing minority of cases, self-representation in dreams is displaced, disrupted, or even absent. Working from dream reports in established databanks, we examine two (...) key forms of polymorphism of self-representation: dreams in which I take an external visuospatial perspective on myself, and those in which I take someone else's perspective on events. In remembering my past experiences or imagining future or possible experiences when awake, I sometimes see myself from an external or 'observer' perspective. By relating the issue of perspective in dreams to established research traditions in the study of memory and imagery, and noting the flexibility of perspective in dreams, we identify new lines of enquiry. In other dreams, the dreamer does not appear to figure at all, and the first person perspective on dream events is occupied by someone else, some other person or character. We call these puzzling cases 'vicarious dreams' and assess some potential ways to make sense of them. Questions about self-representation and perspectives in dreams are intriguing in their own right and pose empirical and conceptual problems about the nature of self-representation with implications beyond the case of dreaming. (shrink)

This book investigates the phenomenon of perspectival flexibility in its different facets and with particular attention to social experience. Our experience of other individuals goes hand in hand with the awareness that they have a unique perspective on the experienced objects and situations. The same object can be seen from different points of view; an event can awaken different emotional reactions in different individuals; and the positions we take can be mediated in part by our belonging to social or (...) cultural groups. All of these occurrences are grasped by the metaphor of perspective and perspectival flexibility. The original essays in this volume employ approaches from philosophy, particularly phenomenology, and from psychopathology to show how perspectival flexibility is grounded in the interplay of perception and imagination, and develop on this basis a fruitful reassessment of social experience. The chapters are divided into five sections: imagination and the as-if, imagination and its disturbances in psychopathology, imagination and the experience of others, the sociality of imagination, and the aesthetic, ethical, and socio-political grounds of perspectival flexibility. This book is an essential resource for researchers in philosophy and psychology working on social cognition, the epistemological and conceptual problems of other minds, and imagination and the experience of fiction. (shrink)

In her well-known In A Different Voice, Gilligan argues that the male and female approaches to morality are fundamentally opposed to each other. The masculine approach emphasizes impartial justice, and the application of a 'hierarchy' of rules. In contrast, the feminine approach is grounded in care and concern for others, and emphasizes flexibility and attention to context when making moral decisions. This paper offers a critique of Gilligan's views through a consideration of Mencian morality. Mencius inhabits the 'feminine' perspective (...) insofar as his morality is grounded in care and responsibility. However, he develops from this a philosophy of government which recognizes the need for impartial justice to apply among citizens. Mencius's views show that, pace Gilligan, there is no inherent incompatibility between 'feminine' care and concern and 'male' impartial justice. It is possible for the latter to be founded upon the former. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Insurrectionist Ethics: Radical Perspectives on Social Justice ed. by Jacoby Adeshei Carter and Daryl ScrivenDuncan R. CordryEdited by Jacoby Adeshei Carter and Daryl Scriven Insurrectionist Ethics: Radical Perspectives on Social Justice Palgrave Macmillan, 2023, 295 pp.In the collected volume Insurrectionist Ethics, edited by Jacoby Adeshei Carter and Daryl Scriven, contributors engage in discussion over the ethics of revolt. Faced with the systemic persistence of immiseration, and given normative (...) morality's complicity in sustaining such systems of domination, what ethical and practical recourse do the oppressed have to liberate themselves? This is a question which runs throughout the book and motivates the problem of an 'insurrectionist ethics,' as coined by Leonard Harris: a field of ethics which takes up a position, as he writes in the foreword, "that is in, starts from, and sojourns to a different place" (p. xiii). It is a re-imagining of the ethical which departs from romanticized notions of agency and reason, often in ways that favor descriptions over normative or explanatory principles. This shift gives it a high degree of flexibility with respect to its approach, which nevertheless remains guided by a common "insurrectionist sentiment" that lends consistency to the works of the text's contributors: they all "favor the abolition of what creates non-being, living death and necro-being" (p. xi). The book is split into a total of five topical sections, each of which discusses a different facet of insurrectionist ethics: its conceptions and context, its ties to liberation theory throughout the Americas, applications and correctives for its theory, its relation to pragmatism, and its future. Bookending contributions from the editors unpack the meaning and definition of an insurrectionist ethics.In this review, I survey several chapters of the volume by discussing Scriven's and Carter's definitions and examining a few ways in which these definitions produce tensions in a few selected contributions. Doing so will highlight some important differences between [End Page 110] the authors' approaches to insurrectionist ethics while underscoring the consistency which commits them to abolition; ultimately, Insurrectionist Ethics is as much an invitation as it is an introduction to the tradition it espouses.Scriven's introductory chapter, "The Very Idea of Insurrectionist Ethics," exposes an insurrectionist ethic within the thought of David Walker, while Carter's conclusive essay, "Death by a Thousand Cuts: Insurrectionist Ethics in a Present less Oppressive than the Past," attempts to pin down a definition by analyzing its essential elements. Their difference in approach is not insignificant. What is revealed through Scriven's angle, for example, is that insurrectionist ethics is indeed a tradition—to work through the meaning of such an ethics is to lend historical weight to the lives of past and present insurrectionists and to declare solidarity with their actions at the level of valuation. A number of such figures circulate throughout the volume, including David Walker, Maria W. Stewart, Alain L. Locke, Ida B. Wells-Barnett, Tommy Curry, and Leonard Harris. With the exception of the latter-most, none of these figures make direct contributions to the collection (although their spirits animate it). Its status as a tradition means that insurrectionist ethics is not limited to the confines of this volume, itself more knot than archive: such a tradition reaches well beyond the text and invites its readers to extend its concepts and debates in all directions. It has not one past but several, and not one future but many.Furthermore, Scriven's essay points out that insurrectionist ethics is not simply an indictment of corrupt institutions on the basis of some moral framework or other—it is foremost an outright rejection of the alliance between customary morality and systems of oppression; it searches for an ethos that condones direct action against such systems, operating at a philosophical level to produce conceptual and theoretical weaponry that "incite resistance and demands action" (p. xiv). Yet, as the form of the volume itself demonstrates, the arguments and methods of reasoning deployed by insurrectionists (past and present) to condone such actions has tended to vary, sometimes drastically. Nonetheless, the multiplicity which properly belongs to this tradition—a point explored further in... (shrink)

As consumers represent a key actor for the success of businesses implementing socially responsible strategies, companies need to gain further insights on the determinants of responsible behaviors. In this study, we provide a contribution to the ongoing debate on responsible consumers by means of an integrative literature review, which analyzes a set of competing models mainly from social psychology and marketing. Stemming from this preliminary analysis of the existing evidence, we develop a new conceptual model, that is, a framework based (...) on (i) a flexible setting of the boundaries of analysis, (ii) a broader lens taking into account interrelations across behaviors, and (iii) a dynamic approach. The framework, for which an exemplary use is illustrated, represents the basis for advancing a rich agenda for future research. The latter is aimed at overcoming current criticalities in responsible consumer research, and it develops around the need for an integrative, dynamic, and cross-cultural approach on the one hand, and the elaboration of new perspectives on single antecedents, on the other. (shrink)

How flexible is language? To what extent does language 'absorb' individual differences, for example physical interaction, in knowledge acquisition within a domain? Current neuropsychological findings show that conceptual knowledge is embodied. When reading the word 'cinnamon', supportive neural activity includes brain areas usually engaged in perceptual tasks. Such findings suggest that perceptual and somatosensory processes influence the conceptual knowledge of the competent language user. Here, I explore what I name the 'plasticity' of language, to hone in on characteristics of (...) language, which, once language is in place, might lessen the necessity of physical interaction with the environment during knowledge acquisition. Linguistic knowledge is acquired by way of structures that contain representations of previous physical interactions. This could explain how a person's experiences transcend the boundary of the individual and meaningfully translate into linguistic knowledge accessible to others, as seems to be the case in so-called interactional expertise; expertise acquired without physical interaction. (shrink)

The role of reason, and its embodiment in philosophical-scientific theorizing, is always a troubling one for religious traditions. The deep emotional needs that religion strives to satisfy seem ever linked to an attitudes of acceptance, belief, or trust, yet, in its theoretical employment, reason functions as a critic as much as it does a creator, and in the special fields of metaphysics and epistemology its critical arrows are sometimes aimed at long-standing cherished beliefs. Understandably, the mere approach to these beliefs (...) through organized philosophical activity, however well-intended, is viewed with suspicion by ecclesiastical authorities and the devout. The attitude towards philosophical inquiry on the part of the Islamic religious community might be thought to typify this reaction. As one of the great prophetic religions, the self-avowed image of Islam is of a tradition which already possesses the truth as set forth in the divine revelation of the Qur'an. What need is there for philosophizing on fundamental matters, e.g., the ultimate nature of reality, the foundations of morality, the modes whereby the divine is connected with the temporal? The structure of creation is already made clear, the "straight path" for living already manifest. how can philosophical activity be anything but a source of divisive controversy, for as it turns its gaze to the foundations upon which the Shari`a' (Islamic Law) rests, or to the grounds for religious belief itself, it cannot avoid turning up alternative viewpoints, different perspectives on divine revelation, noting various weaknesses in received 1 interpretations? In short, isn't the practice of philosophy a threat to Islam's promise of providing a comprehensive way of living devoid of skepticism and uncertainty about the place of a human in God's creation and his or her role in the 'umma (Islamic community)? This problem is not unique to Islam, nor is it a new one within Islam. We know that it has been debated by Islamic thinkers since the translations of the Greek philosophers began to appear in an organized Islamic world during the 8th Century A.. (shrink)

In this paper, we seek to explain the power of perspective taking in narrative discourse by turning to research on the oral foundations of storytelling in human communication and language. We argue that narratives function through a central process of alignment between the viewpoints of narrator, hearer/reader, and character and develop an analytical framework that is capable of generating general claims about the processes and outcomes of narrative discourse while flexibly accounting for the great linguistic variability both across and (...) within stories. The central propositions of this viewpoint alignment framework are that the distance between the viewpoints of participants in the narrative construal – narrator, character, reader – is dynamic and regulated by linguistic choices as well as contextual factors. Fundamentally, viewpoint alignment is grounded in oral narrative interaction and, from this conversation, transferred to the written narrative situation, varying between demonstration and invasion of the narrative subjects and guiding readers’ route of processing the narrative (experientialversusreflective). Our claim is that variations in viewpoint alignment are functional to the communicative context and intended outcomes of narratives. This is illustrated with the analysis of a corporate journalistic narrative that comprises both interactional and non-interactional aspects of storytelling. The concept of viewpoint alignment further explains the oral fundaments of narrative discourse in conversational storytelling and poses new questions on the relation between the dynamic processing of stories on the one hand and their static outcomes on the other. (shrink)

Modern society faces major environmental problems, but there are many difficulties in studying the nature–human relationship from an integral psychosocial perspective. We propose the ecomind sponge conceptual framework, based on the mindsponge theory of information processing. We present a systematic method to examine the nature–human relationship with conceptual frameworks of system boundaries, selective exchange, and adaptive optimization. The theoretical mechanisms were constructed based on principles and new evidence in natural sciences. The core mechanism of ecomindsponge is the subjective sphere (...) of influence, which is the limited mental representation of information received from and processed based on the objective sphere of influence–actual interactions in reality. The subjective sphere is the sum of two sub-spheres: influencing (proactive) and being influenced (reactive). Maladaptation in thinking and behavior of the mind as an information collection-cum-processor results from the deviation of the subjective sphere from reality, which includes two main types: “stupidity” and “delusion”. Using Bayesian Mindsponge Framework (BMF) analytics on a dataset of 535 urban residents, we provide consistent statistical evidence on the proposed properties of subjective spheres. The dynamic framework of ecomindsponge can be used flexibly and practically for environmental research as well as other psychosocial fields. (shrink)

This article presents and analyzes the basic features of wellbeing competence. Following a procedural approach to wellbeing, I propose wellbeing competence as a significant object of focus in the philosophical debate on wellbeing. Instead of being concerned one-sidedly with abstract ideals and explicit, theoretical knowledge about what constitutes wellbeing, wellbeing competence is the ability to handle the concrete process of living well and helping others live well in a generally qualified way. This article presents a theory that considers wellbeing competence (...) a complex form of knowing how. Further, it outlines central aspects and components of wellbeing competence. I suggest four components to play central functional roles in wellbeing competence when supplementing each other: empathy, emotional awareness, flexible perspective, and metacognition. (shrink)

This paper addresses relations between memory and imagery in expert sport in relation to visual or visuospatial perspective. Imagining, remembering, and moving potentially interact via related forms of episodic simulation, whether future- or past-directed. Sometimes I see myself engaged in action: many experts report switching between such external visual perspectives and an internal, 'own-eyes', or field perspective on their past or possible performance. Perspective in retrieval and in imagery may be flexible and multiple. I raise a (...) range of topics for empirical research on perspective and visualization. (shrink)

In recent years, many philosophers of modern physics came to the conclusion that the problem of how objectivity is constituted (rather than merely given) can no longer be avoided, and therefore that a transcendental approach in the spirit of Kant is now philosophically relevant. The usual excuse for skipping this task is that the historical form given by Kant to transcendental epistemology has been challenged by Relativity and Quantum Physics. However, the true challenge is not to force modern physics into (...) a rigidly construed static version of Kant's philosophy, but to provide Kant's method with flexibility and generality. In this book, the top specialists of the field pin down the methodological core of transcendental epistemology that must be used in order to throw light on the foundations of modern physics. First, the basic tools Kant used for his transcendental reading of Newtonian Mechanics are examined, and then early transcendental approaches of Relativistic and Quantum Physics are revisited. Transcendental procedures are also applied to contemporary physics, and this renewed transcendental interpretation is finally compared with structural realism and constructive empiricism. The book will be of interest to scientists, historians and philosophers who are involved in the foundational problems of modern physics. (shrink)

[About the book] This book explores the idea that we have two minds - automatic, unconscious, and fast, the other controlled, conscious, and slow. In recent years there has been great interest in so-called dual-process theories of reasoning and rationality. According to such theories, there are two distinct systems underlying human reasoning - an evolutionarily old system that is associative, automatic, unconscious, parallel, and fast, and a more recent, distinctively human system that is rule-based, controlled, conscious, serial, and slow. Within (...) the former, processes the former, processes are held to be innate and to use heuristics that evolved to solve specific adaptive problems. In the latter, processes are taken to be learned, flexible, and responsive to rational norms. Despite the attention these theories are attracting, there is still poor communication between dual-process theorists themselves, and the substantial bodies of work on dual processes in cognitive psychology and social psychology remain isolated from each other. This book brings together leading researchers on dual processes to summarize the state-of-the-art, highlight key issues, present different perspectives, explore implications, and provide a stimulus to further work. It includes new ideas about the human mind both by contemporary philosophers interested in broad theoretical questions about mental architecture and by psychologists specialising in traditionally distinct and isolated fields. For all those in the cognitive sciences, this is a book that will advance dual-process theorizing, promote interdisciplinary communication, and encourage further applications of dual-process approaches. (shrink)

There is considerable evidence that language comprehenders derive lexical-semantic meaning by mentally simulating perceptual and motor attributes of described events. However, the nature of these simulations—including the level of detail that is incorporated and contexts under which simulations occur—is not well understood. Here, we examine the effects of first- versus third-person perspective on mental simulations during sentence comprehension. First-person sentences describing physical transfer towards or away from the body modulated response latencies when responses were made along a front-back axis, (...) consistent with the action-sentence compatibility effect. This effect was not observed for third-person sentences. The ACE was observed when making responses along a left-right axis for third-person, but not first-person sentences.sentences did not show an ACE along either axis. These results show that perspective is a detail that is simulated during action sentence comprehension, and that motoric activations are flexible and affected by the pronominal perspective used in the sentence. (shrink)

The ability to judge spatial relations from perspectives that differ from one's current body orientation and location is important for many everyday activities. Despite considerable research on imaginal perspective taking, however, detailed computational accounts of the processes involved in this ability are missing. In this contribution, I introduce Smart (Spatial Memory Access by Reference Frame SelecTion) as a computational cognitive model of imaginal perspective taking processes. In assuming that imaginal perspective taking is governed by reference frame selection (...) for memory access and subsequent motor activation, Smart is able to explain and simulate key findings on human imaginal perspective taking. In addition to providing novel insight into the mechanisms underlying imaginal perspective taking, Smart also has several implications for our view on spatial memory, more generally. In particular, Smart supports the idea that enduring spatial representations are essentially orientation-free and that spatial representations are best viewed as flexible combinations of representation structures and reference frames. (shrink)

This article discusses whether it is rational and valuable to have hope in the face of the climate crisis. The aim is to explore a distinctive Kantian perspective characterized by three main elements. First, hope is not seen primarily as a means of sustaining action, but action is viewed as a condition for rational hope. Second, the value of certain ‘fundamental’ hopes is not merely instrumental but derives from their constitutive role in our practical identity. Here, I focus on (...) Kantian hope in the compatibility of our fundamental ends, happiness and morality. Third, the rationality of such a hope presupposes trust – in particular, trust that our conceptions of morality and the good life are sufficiently flexible to adapt to drastically new circumstances. (shrink)

The purpose of this study is to discuss how the verses in the Holy Quran can be related to the flexible hexagon of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy. The issues discussed in the six steps of the Act are the issues emphasized in the Quran in order to ensure the happiness of people in this world and the hereafter. For believers, religion is the most important element that directs their lives. For this reason, when individuals who aim to continue their (...) worldly life according to religious values encounter a problem or pain and want to get psychological support, both the client and the counselor may hesitate. Seeing the similar aspects of the Quran verses with ACT will make the work of the counselor and the client easier in the psychotherapy process. While applying this therapy to a believing client, the counselor will be able to benefit from the Holy Quran, which is the most important source according to his belief; The client will feel the pleasure that the counselor cares about his religious values. Therefore, the fact that psychological counseling techniques coincide with the messages given by the verses of the Quran will make it easier for Muslim clients to overcome the pain they experience, cope with difficulties, and most importantly, they will be able to go through the counseling process happily because it does not contradict their beliefs. For this reason, in the study, the components of the Act are explained in detail and its relationship with the verses in the Holy Quran is revealed. (shrink)

A divide exists in the creativity literature as to whether relatively more or less executive processing is beneficial to creative thinking. To explore this issue, we employ an individual differences perspective informed by dual-process theories in which it is assumed that people vary in the extent to which they rely on autonomous or controlled processing . We find that those more willing and/or able to engage Type 2 processing are more likely to successfully make creative connections in tasks requiring (...) the unification of disparate elements and the novelty of generated items, but not in some other indices of creativity, namely, cognitive flexibility and fluency. Implications for the role of executive processing in creative thinking are discussed in the context of DPTs. We situate the ability to make remote connections alongside other advanced higher order thinking capabilities that are unique to humans. (shrink)

This paper exemplifies a theoretical and methodological evaluation of IT Initiatives. It discusses post-implementation modifications (ERP-PIM) to enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems for the purpose of business process optimization (BPO) from a Context-Initiative-Mechanism-Outcome (CIMO) perspective. CIMO suggests that context and mechanisms are factors triggering causal effects responsible for outcomes derived from technology initiatives. Through conceptualization, data collection/analysis, and retroduction, the paper proposes a middle-range theory to facilitate the explanation of outcomes from diverse post-implementation initiatives. Data from multiple case study (...) identifies situational and action-formation mechanisms, and actions as essential to realizing the desired outcomes. The proposed ERP-PIM-CIMO theory encapsulates: (i) Business Process Optimization (BPO) as context, (ii) ERP-PIM as structure, (iii) Business Process Efficiency, Effectiveness, and Flexibility as observable events, (iv) ERP capability as causal mechanism, (v) actions as necessary for the actualization of mechanism, and finally (vi) effort and cost, knowledge, and training as factors influencing actualization. (shrink)

Beyond modularityattempts a synthesis of Fodor's anticonstructivist nativism and Piaget's antinativist constructivism. Contra Fodor, I argue that: (1) the study of cognitive development is essential to cognitive science, (2) the module/central processing dichotomy is too rigid, and (3) the mind does not begin with prespecified modules; rather, development involves a gradual process of “modularization.” Contra Piaget, I argue that: (1) development rarely involves stagelike domain-general change and (2) domainspecific predispositions give development a small but significant kickstart by focusing the infant's (...) attention on proprietary inputs. Development does not stop at efficient learning. A fundamental aspect of human development (“representational redescription”) is the hypothesized process by which information that isina cognitive system becomes progressively explicit knowledgetothat system. Development thus involves two complementary processes of progressive modularization and progressive “explicitation.” Empirical findings on the child as linguist, physicist, mathematician, psychologist, and notator are discussed in support of the theoretical framework. Each chapter concentrates first on the initial state of the infant mind/brain and on subsequent domain-specific learning in infancy and early childhood. It then goes on to explore data on older children's problem solving and theory building, with particular focus on evolving cognitive flexibility. Emphasis is placed throughout on the status of representations underlying different capacities and on the multiple levels at which knowledge is stored and accessible. Finally, consideration is given to the need for more formal developmental models, and a comparison is made between representational redescription and connectionist simulations of development. In conclusion, I consider what is special about human cognition by speculating on the status of representations underlying the structure of behavior in other species. (shrink)

We examined how social cues and representational ones jointly shape people's spatial memory representations and their subsequent descriptions. In 24 pairs, Directors studied an array with a symmetrical structure while either knowing their Matcher's subsequent viewpoint or not. During the subsequent description of the array, the array's intrinsic structure was aligned with the Director, the Matcher, or neither partner. According to memory tests preceding descriptions, Directors who had studied the array while aligned with its structure were more likely to use (...) its orientation as an organizing direction. Directors who had studied the array while misaligned with its structure used its orientation more frequently as an organizing orientation when knowing that the Matcher would be aligned with it, but used their own viewpoint more frequently as an organizing direction when not knowing the Matcher's viewpoint. Directors also adapted their descriptions strategically, using more egocentric expressions when aligned with the intrinsic structure and more partner-centered expressions when their Matchers were the ones aligned with the structure, even when this information wasn't available in advance. These findings suggest that speakers are guided by converging social and representational cues to adapt flexibly the organization of their memories and the perspectives of their descriptions. (shrink)

Adopting a configurational perspective, this study explored the pathways for small and medium-sized enterprises to achieve high levels of radical innovation. On the basis of dynamic capabilities theory, six causal conditions for radical innovation were identified at both external and internal levels—that is, environmental turbulence and absorptive capacity. The results of a fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis of 82 Chinese SMEs identified four solutions for high radical innovation. The six causal conditions interacted interdependently and different combinations of these conditions were (...) equally effective pathways for SMEs to achieve radical innovation. Hence, SMEs could generate radical innovation through flexibly allocating resources and capabilities based on the environmental circumstances. By using the fsQCA method, this study contributes to the related literature with an investigation of the complex causal relationship between environmental turbulence, absorptive capacity, and SMEs’ radical innovation. The results resolve some prior contradictory findings and provide new insights for future research. Other theoretical contributions, practical implications, and directions for future research are also discussed. (shrink)