Dementia will soon be ranked as the world’s largest economy. At present, it ranges from the 16th to 18th place, with countries such as Indonesia, the Netherlands, and Turkey. Dementia is not only a financial challenge, but also a philosophical one. It provokes a paradigm shift in the traditional view of healthcare and expands the classic concepts of human personhood and autonomy. A promising response to these challenges is the idea of cooperative solidarity. Cooperative solidarity, contrary to its ‘humanitarian’ version, (...) promotes spontaneous teamwork and individual initiative. It obliges us not only to help 'the suffering, the troubled and the disadvantaged’, but above all to support those who already do so for spontaneous moral or affective reasons. In the field of dementia study, solidary initiatives are described within the framework of supportive care. (shrink)

Figurativity has attracted scholars' attention for thousands of years and yet there are still open questions concerning its nature. Figurativity and Human Ecology endorses a view of figurativity as ubiquitous in human reasoning and language, and as a key example of how a human organism and its perceived or imagined environment co-function as a system. The volume sees figurativity not only as embedded in an environment but also as a way of acting within that environment. It places figurativity within an (...) ecological context, and approaches it as a phenomenon which cuts across bodily, psychological, linguistic, social, cultural and natural environments. Figurativity and Human Ecology will appeal to those interested in the analysis of the all-encompassing creativity of the human mind and in the methodological difficulties associated with the study of cognition. (shrink)

Exposure Therapy (ET) has demonstrated its efficacy in the treatment of phobias, anxiety and Post-traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), however, it suffers a high drop-out rate because of too low or too high patient engagement in treatment. Virtual Reality Exposure Therapy (VRET) is comparably effective regarding symptom reduction and offers an alternative tool to facilitate engagement for avoidant participants. Neuroimaging studies have demonstrated that both ET and VRET normalize brain activity within a fear circuit. However, previous studies have employed brain imaging (...) technology which restricts people’s movement and hides their body, surroundings and therapist from view. This is at odds with the way engagement is typically controlled. We used a novel combination of neural imaging and VR technology—Functional Near-Infrared Spectroscopy (fNIRS) and Immersive Projection Technology (IPT), to avoid these limitations. Although there are a few studies that have investigated the effect of VRET on a brain function after the treatment, the present study utilized technologies which promote ecological validity to measure brain changes after VRET treatment. Furthermore, there are no studies that have measured brain activity within VRET session. In this study brain activity within the prefrontal cortex (PFC) was measured during three consecutive exposure sessions. N = 13 acrophobic volunteers were asked to walk on a virtual plank with a 6 m drop below. Changes in oxygenated (HbO) hemogl... (shrink)

Fractal versus fragment -- From proto-modernity to pseudo-modernity. Kant and his descendants -- The politics of re-presentation. a collection of fractals -- Epilogue or after the end -- From sophisticated meaninglessness to sophisticated primitivism -- The state of mindlessness. the rise of the pseudo-modern world -- Ideologies of the non-world. the post-colonial and the subaltern.

Predmet ovog rada je istraživanje i kritika nekih aspekata teorije Dejvida Luisa o tvrđenjima kojima se pripisuje znanje subjektu. U prvom odeljku izlažem skeptički paradoks i osnovne postavke epistemičkog kontekstualizma. U drugom odeljku objašnjavam na koji način Luis kombinuje teoriju relevantnih alternativa i epistemički kontekstualizam prlikom formulisanja svoje teorije o tvrđenjima kojima se pripisuje znanje subjektu. U trećem odeljku pokazujem da ova teorija dopušta postojanje znanja koje je zasnovano samo na ignorisanju i argumentujem da ova nepovoljna posledica proističe iz načina (...) na koji Luis formuliše pravilo verovanja u okviru svoje teorije. U zaključnom odeljku ukazujem na problematične aspekte i ad hoc karakter Luisovog pravila pažnje i tvrdim da je ono tako formulisano da bi omogućilo rešavanje skeptičkog paradoksa. Zaključujem da je Luisova teorija o tvrđenjima kojima se pripisuje znanje subjektu neodrživa u svom originalnom obliku. (shrink)

In synesthesia, a certain stimulus (eg grapheme) is associated automatically and consistently with a stable perceptual-like experience (eg color). These associations are acquired in early childhood and remain robust throughout the lifetime. Synesthetic associations can transfer to novel inducers in adulthood as one learns a second language that uses another writing system. However, it is not known how long this transfer takes. We found that grapheme-color associations can transfer to novel graphemes after only a 10-minute writing exercise. Most subjects experienced (...) synesthetic associations immediately after learning a new Glagolitic grapheme. Using a Stroop task, we provide objective evidence for the creation of novel associations between the newly learned graphemes and synesthetic colors. Also, these associations generalized to graphemes handwritten by another person. The fast learning process and the generalization suggest that synesthesia begins at the semantic level of representation with the activation of a certain concept (the inducer), which then, uniquely for the synesthetes, activates representations at the perceptual level (the concurrent). Thus, the results imply that synesthesia is a much more flexible and plastic phenomenon than has been believed until now. (shrink)

Author: Horecka Aleksandra Title: THE CONCEPT OF AESTHETICAL VALUE IN TATARKIEWICZ’S PAPERS (Pojęcie wartości estetycznej w pracach Władysława Tatarkiewicza) Source: Filo-Sofija year: 2011, vol:.13/14, number: 2011/2-3, pages: 601-615 Keywords: WŁADYSŁAW TATARKIEWICZ, AESTHETICAL VALUE, ONTOLOGICAL CATEGORY Discipline: PHILOSOPHY Language: POLISH Document type: ARTICLE Publication order reference (Primary author’s office address): E-mail: www:The purpose of this paper is to report and analyse the main theses of Tatarkiewicz’s theory of aesthetic value. We concentrate on ontological problems – what is aesthetical value and (...) what is the ontological category of valuable object. Tatarkiewicz claims, that: “The term ‘value’ refers to an abstract: property of thing, or to a concrete: to thing endowed with this property”. Many types of aesthetic value (aesthetic value in narrow sense, literary value and poetical value) exist. The only difference between using concept of aesthetic value only in positive sense and using concept of aesthetic value both – in positive and negative sense – is formal. Concerning thesis (1) we claim, that expression “thing” in Tatarkiewicz’s theory is the synonym for “physical object”; not only material objects, but also physical events and processes are Tatarkiewicz’s things as well. In our opinion the concept of aesthetic value proposed by Tatarkiewicz is objective, therefore formulation of thesis of aesthetic subjectivity, which Tatarkiewicz also did, is problematical. Using Tatarkiewicz’s terminology, we construct concept of value as a state of affairs (that some object is endowed with value-property) and we accept monocathegoriality of values (value is a property, a thing endowed with this property or a state of affairs). Concerning thesis (2) we divide all objects into semantic and asemantic and we claim, that in Tatarkiewicz’s theory, only asemantic objects or semantic but semantically uninterpreted object could be endowed with aesthetic value in narrow sense. The aesthetic value in narrow sense is its property considering its appearance or structure. As to the literary and poetical values – they are ascribed to semantic object in consideration of represented object. Concerning thesis (3) we argue, that it is significant whether we use concept of value only in positive sense or both – in positive and negative sense. Only in language with both expressions (“positive aesthetic value” and “negative aesthetic value”) we can formulate the theses about aesthetically neutral objects. (shrink)

One of the biggest contemporary challenges in education is the appropriate application of advanced digital solutions. If properly implemented, AI could benefit students, opening the door for personalized study programs. However, we need to ensure that AI in classrooms is used responsibly and that it does not pose a threat to students in any way. More specifically, we need to preserve the moral and epistemic values we wish to pass on to future generations and ensure the inclusion of underprivileged students. (...) Moreover, there is a huge problem of different accessibility to technology and representation in the educational material between the Global South and the Global North. This can cause both global epistemic and moral injustice. On the other hand, AI has the potential to increase global justice in education. Therefore, it is of the utmost importance to use it in accordance with the values of equity, fairness, and inclusion that secure global justice for underprivileged groups. (shrink)

We argue that although art has no systematic conventions for conveying knowledge in the way science does, the arts often play an important epistemic role in the production and understanding of scientific knowledge. We argue for what we call weak scientific cognitivism, the view that the production and distribution of scientific knowledge can benefit from engagement with art. We present a range of cases that illustrate a variety of epistemic functions of art relevant to scientific practice, and respond to influential (...) objections from anti-cognitivists that purport to show that art has no epistemic value. (shrink)

One of the key behavioral effects of attractiveness is increased visual attention to attractive people. This effect is often explained in terms of evolutionary adaptations, such as attractiveness being an indicator of good health. Other factors could influence this effect. In the present study, we explored the modulating role of sexual orientation on the effects of attractiveness on exploratory visual behavior. Heterosexual and homosexual men and women viewed natural-looking scenes that depicted either two women or two men who varied systematically (...) in levels of attractiveness (based on a pre-study). Participants’ eye movements and attractiveness ratings towards the faces of the depicted people were recorded. The results showed that although attractiveness had the largest influence on participants’ behaviors, participants’ sexual orientations strongly modulated the effects. With the exception of homosexual women, all participant groups looked longer and more often at attractive faces that corresponded with their sexual orientations. Interestingly, heterosexual and homosexual men and homosexual women looked longer and more often at the less attractive face of their non-preferred sex than the less attractive face of their preferred sex, evidence that less attractive faces of the preferred sex might have an aversive character. These findings provide evidence for the important role that sexual orientation plays in guiding visual exploratory behavior and evaluations of the attractiveness of others. (shrink)

Racism is a pervasive issue in patient care and a key social determinant of health. Clinical ethicists, like others involved in patient care, have a duty to recognize and respond to racism on both individual and systems-wide levels to improve patient care. Doing so can be challenging and, like other skills in ethics consultation, may benefit from specialized training, standardized tools and approaches, and practice. Learning from existing frameworks and tools, as well as building new ones, can help guide clinical (...) ethicists to systematically approach racism as it affects clinical cases. Here, we propose an expansion of the commonly used four-box method to clinical ethics consultation, where racism is considered as a potential factor in each of the four boxes. We apply this method to two clinical cases to highlight ethically salient information that might be missed using the standard formulation of the four boxes but captured with the expanded version. We argue that this expansion of an existing clinical ethics consultation tool is ethically justified insofar as it (a) creates a more just approach, (b) supports individual consultants and services, and (c) facilitates communication in contexts where racism impinges on effecting good patient care. (shrink)

The paper provides an analysis of the impact of negative emotions on decision-making processes. It questions the common-sense view that negative emotions diminish rationality of decisions, i.e., increase the probability of making suboptimal choices. It is argued in the paper that this view is untenable on the grounds of neuroscience, cognitive science and evolutionary theory: the results provided by these sciences support the view that negative emotions in most instances of their occurrence, i.e. types of negative emotions, not only fail (...) to undermine rationality of decision-making but substantially contribute to it. This does mean saying that token-negative emotions never undermine rationality of decision-making. But, as is argued in the paper, the fact that token-negative emotions may have sometimes this kind of negative effect is fully consistent with the claim that, as a rule, the effect is positive, so that one can speak about the causal connection between types of negative emotion and rational decision-making. (shrink)

The aim of the paper is to present views and opinions of the representatives of Lvov-Warsaw School upon subject, tasks, methods of aesthetics and its place among others sciences. Although writings on aesthetical problems appeared in the Lvov-Warsaw School relatively late, many scholars from that scientific circle contributed very much to the development of aesthetics - among others - Stanisław Ossowski, Mieczysław Wallis, Leopold Blaustein, Władysław Tatarkiewicz, Tadeusz Czeżowski, Stefan Baley, Władysław Witwicki and Tadeusz Witwicki. The opinions of these philosophers (...) and psychologists (and also other representatives of Lvov-Warsaw School which were not interested in particular aesthetical problems) upon subject of aesthetics and its place among sciences are varied, but they agree that aesthetics is a philosophical science and that the concepts and thesis of aesthetics should be clear and well constructed, whereas incorrectly posted problems - eliminated. (shrink)

The Unconscious Religiousness in Victor Frankl’s Logotherapy Project In his logotherapic vision of life, Frankl appeal to the concept of an unconscious God. I consider, Polish translation, The Hidden God in this case, irrelevant. The term ‘unconscious’ is being used in his writing not by mere coincidence. It touches the sacral sphere of life. Similarly to Jaspers, faith doesn’t have dogmatic characteristics. It is connected to a conscious will of a human being. Authenticity is a characteristic of the true religiousness. (...) It is free from narrow-mindedness and sanctimoniousness; it affirms life in every aspect; doesn’t captivate religiousness of others. (shrink)

Il est question dans cet article de l’évolution de l’idée de «nation» en France au cours du XVIIIe siècle. Beaucoup d’historiens pensent qu’on peut identifier les débuts de la conscience nationale française déjà au sein de la population de la France médiévale, alors que pour la plupart des sociologues la nation n’est qu’une construction intelectuelle créée par les intelligentsias européennes pendant les XVIIIe et XIXe siècles. Les protagonists de la Révolution prétendirent d’agir au nom de la Nation Française en tant (...) qu’une communauté ethnique, linguistique et culturelle. Cette conception moderne de la nation, quand et comment fût-elle née en? (shrink)

How to read Plato's Dialogues? -- Freedom-general and universal -- Dialectic of library -- Participation and appropriation -- Onto-politics and political ontology -- Equality and difference -- The good-rationality, totality, dialectic -- Justice, politics and philosophy -- Foundations of responsibility -- The politics of virtue -- Dialectic of liberty revisited-democracy and Politeia -- Liberty in the Polis.

This paper argues that the missing voice in clinical ethics is that of informal caregivers. Despite their substantial contribution to care provided to individuals with disabilities, chronic illness or dementia, informal caregivers are rarely thought of as members of the healthcare team and their narratives are rarely listened to and included in clinical and ethical decisions. Addressing this gap, this paper discusses the reasons for the systemic misrecognition of informal caregivers in healthcare systems and argues for their greater narrative inclusion (...) on the clinical, legal and social planes. (shrink)

The paper deals with the problem of translating selected insolvency terminology from Polish into English and from English into Polish. The re- search corpora encompassed the Insolvency Act 1986 as amended and Ustawa z dnia 28 lutego 2003. Prawo upadłościowe i naprawcze [the Act on Polish Insolvency and Rehabilitation Law of 28th February 2003 as amended]. The research methods included: the comparison of parallel texts, the method of axiomatisation of the legal linguistic reality, the termino- logical analysis of the corpus (...) material, the concept of adjusting the target text to the communicative needs and requirements of the community of recipients and the techniques of providing equivalents for non-equivalent terminology. The research hypothesis has been so formulated that the parametrisation of legal reality may assist in finding more adequate equivalents and determine differences in meaning of compared source and target language terms, which in turn facilitates the choice of a more adequate technique of providing equivalents for non-equivalent or partially equivalent legal terminology meeting the com- municative needs of translation recipients. The research results revealed that insolvency terminology is highly system-bound and available equivalents may often be misleading for the community of target text recipients. (shrink)

Inclusion of children in medical decision making, to the extent of their ability and interest in doing so, should be the default position, ensuring that children are routinely given a voice. However, optimizing the involvement of children in their health care decisions remains challenging for clinicians. Missing from the literature is a stepwise approach to assessing when and how a child should be included in medical decision making. We propose a systematic approach for doing so, and we apply this approach (...) in a discussion of two challenging clinical cases. The approach is informed by a literature review, and is anchored by case studies of teenagers' refusal of clinical care, regulatory requirements for research assent, and the accepted approach to involving cognitively impaired adults in medical decisions. (shrink)

Scientists, humanists, and art lovers alike value art not just for its beauty, but also for its social and epistemic importance; that is, for its communicative nature, its capacity to increase one's self-knowledge and encourage personal growth, and its ability to challenge our schemas and preconceptions. However, empirical research tends to discount the importance of such social and epistemic outcomes of art engagement, instead focusing on individuals' preferences, judgments of beauty, pleasure, or other emotional appraisals as the primary outcomes of (...) art appreciation. Here, we argue that a systematic neuroscientific study of art appreciation must move beyond understanding aesthetics alone, and toward investigating the social importance of art appreciation. We make our argument for such a shift in focus first, by situating art appreciation as an active social practice. We follow by reviewing the available psychological and cognitive neuroscientific evidence that art appreciation cultivates socio-epistemic skills such as self- and other-understanding, and discuss philosophical frameworks which suggest a more comprehensive empirical investigation. Finally, we argue that focusing on the socio-epistemic values of art engagement highlights the important role art plays in our lives. Empirical research on art appreciation can thus be used to show that engagement with art has specific social and personal value, the cultivation of which is important to us as individuals, and as communities. (shrink)

This article develops a biosemiotic ´hyper-narrative model´ for the purposes of investigating emergent motor behaviors. It proposes to understand such behaviors in terms of the following associations: the organization of information acquired from the environment, focusing on narrative; the organizational dynamics of epigenetic mechanisms that underly the neural processes facilitating the processing of information; and the evolution of emergent motor behaviors that enable the informational acquisition. The article describes and explains these associations as part of a multi-ordered and multi-causal generative (...) principle of biological phenotype emergence that supersedes the theory of the arbitrary coding of life. Preceeding from narrative’s operations in a biological dimension, the article presents scientific research dealing with the associations of action-oriented organization of narrative information and underlying psychological and physiological dynamics and depicts the relations with a distributed multi-directional mapping dynamic. The article presents the explanatory implications of such a hyper-narrative dynamic model on an example of emergent motor behaviors – bruxism. Central to this discussion is the exploration of the possible mechanisms of emergence and etiopathogenesis of bruxism, based on its neurobiology. The article takes the perspective that complex systems dynamics themselves with a tendency to narrative form are found not to be underlain merely by arbitrary coded mechanisms but, rather, biological neural networks (e.g. neuro-epigenetic network) that render context-dependent bio-informational mapping analogous to that of the narrative possible. (shrink)

The paper focuses on genocide and its multidimensional emanations. First, the authors present the definition of genocide and its types as elaborated by Lemkin : physical, political, social, cultural, economic, biological, religious, and finally moral genocide. Next, ten stages of genocide by Stanton are scrutinized with some emphasis placed on the verbal issues enabling polarization and dehumanization. The authors point out that modern means of communication, ubiquitous nowadays, make it possible to dehumanize and discriminate against groups of people on an (...) unprecedented scale. Therefore, hate speech and infodemic spread on the Internet, especially social media may be a skillfully used tool of lynch and genocide incitement. (shrink)

My paper focuses on one of the most influential, but hardly explored, scholar of the phyi dar period *Jñānākara. *Jñānākara’s *Mantrāvatāra and his auto-commentary, *Mantrāvatāra-vṛtti, which have been lost in the original Sanskrit, but can be accessed in Tibetan translation as Gsang sngags la ’jug pa and Gsang sngags la ’jug pa’i ’grel pa respectively, provides a comprehensive picture of doctrinal debate that dominated the scene in the intellectual history of the eleventh-century Indo-Tibetan world, through demonstrating various perspectives on tantric (...) practices that were forced to enter the battlefield of a critical discussion during the ‘tantric age’. The paper will try to reconstruct the most controversial issues of this debate, such as ‘cenobitic fornication’—that is whether monks should obtain tantric initiation and engage in the practices in which copulation was a central part—and the so-called wrathful rites. Motivated by polemical ends, *Jñānākara’s *Mantrāvatāra aims at establishing its self-authenticity and preeminence by contrasting its ‘correct tantric practice’ with the so-called ‘perverse tantric practice’ promoted by ‘frauds’ and attributing to them, often pejoratively, erroneous or willful misappropriation of tantric scriptures. In this context, the making of orthodoxy goes hand in hand with questioning the legitimacy of certain tantric practices. (shrink)

Although there are numerous similarities between Duhem and Quine, there are strong arguments which suggest that what can be isolated as Quine?s thesis would be unacceptable to Duhem. On the other hand, they both share Duhem?s holistic thesis: empirical statements are interconnected in such a way that they cannot be confirmed or refuted taken in isolation. Since Quine?s holism is more radical, as we shall show, his thesis claims that we can always keep a statement by making necessary adjustments somewhere (...) else in the system. We will try to show that only the first thesis can be rightfully ascribed to Duhem, that these two thesis are not identical, and that they are both different from what is usually called the theses of underdetermination. As we shall see, neither of them speaks about the possibility of empirically equivalent theories. They are, first and foremost, holistic theses which, under certain additional assumptions, have the thesis of underdetermination as their consequence. (shrink)

A robot's decision to harm a person is sometimes considered to be the ultimate proof of it gaining a human‐like mind. Here, we contrasted predictions about attribution of mental capacities from moral typecasting theory, with the denial of agency from dehumanization literature. Experiments 1 and 2 investigated mind perception for intentionally and accidentally harmful robotic agents based on text and image vignettes. Experiment 3 disambiguated agent intention (malevolent and benevolent), and additionally varied the type of agent (robotic and human) using (...) short computer‐generated animations. Harmful robotic agents were consistently imbued with mental states to a lower degree than benevolent agents, supporting the dehumanization account. Further results revealed that a human moral patient appeared to suffer less when depicted with a robotic agent than with another human. The findings suggest that future robots may become subject to human‐like dehumanization mechanisms, which challenges the established beliefs about anthropomorphism in the domain of moral interactions. (shrink)

The author intends to present evolutionary and revolutionary changes in legal terminology. Legal terminology changes as a result of language usage, technological development, political and social changes and even economy reasons. The following research methods have been applied: the terminological analysis of the research material and the analysis of pertinent literature. The research material included legislation from the United Kingdom, the United States of America, Canada and Australia. The author focuses on terminological changes resulting from social transformations. Selected terms and (...) their transformation in respect to meaning and form are elaborated on in the paper. Finally, the author draws conclusions that translation of such terminology should aim at communication precision and many of them may be false friends in interlingual communication. (shrink)

Celem artykułu jest przybliżenie sylwetki łódzkiego pisarza, Witolda Jabłońskiego, współczesnego prozaika i tłumacza, znanego zarówno miłośnikom fantastyki historycznej, jak i popularnego w ostatnich latach gatunku fantastyki słowiańskiej. Część interpretacyjną poprzedza biogram pisarza, przez całe życie związanego z Łodzią, mieszkającego tutaj i tworzącego. W drugiej części artykułu przyglądamy się pogańskim motywom w powieściach z cyklu _Saga Słowiańsk_a, tj. _Dary Bogów, Popiel_ oraz _Wanda_, starając się prześledzić bogate tropy intertekstualne w retellingowych narracjach będących znakiem rozpoznawczym tego autora. Jabłoński wymieniany jest dzisiaj po (...) Andrzeju Sapkowskim i Andrzeju Pilipiuku jako jeden z najpoczytniejszych autorów fantastyki. O jego popularności świadczyć może fakt, iż _Dary Bogów_ przygotowano jako słuchowisko w serwisie Audioteka.pl, a bohaterom głosu użyczyli popularni aktorzy. Analiza ma na celu wskazanie, do jakich mitów słowiańskich i polskich legend państwowych sięga autor i za pomocą jakich narzędzi je przetwarza. Podczas interpretacji sięgamy do różnych metod pracy z tekstem: intertekstualnych, kulturoznawczych, ale odwołujemy się również do religioznawstwa, antropologii i komparatystyki religijnej. (shrink)