This paper presents a participative research about the student evaluation of teaching in continuing training programs proposed in a university institute in Switzerland. The research project examines the viewpoints of different stakeholders who are concerned by the programs and its evaluation. Some of these actors are co-authors of this article. The results expose the actors’ relationship with the standardized tool used to evaluate lessons. They show different forms of recognition related to the professionalization goal of the training programs. In doing (...) so, the article stresses different collaboration issues developed around the student evaluation of teaching and, more broadly, around the continuing training programs. (shrink)

Réfléchir à l’idée de justice et de prise en compte des intérêts, notamment économiques, ouvre un champ d’étude considérable, même en prenant comme point de départ l’analyse juridique. Aussi pour tenter de circonscrire l’objet de cette recherche, le choix a été fait de partir d’une situation, provoquant la mise en tension de l’idée même de justice d’une manière originale et d’envisager une réponse juridique nouvelle. A cet égard, partir des catastrophes industrielles s’est imposé à plusieurs titres. D’une part, le phénomène (...) est mondial puisque des catastrophes ont eu lieu tant dans des pays développés qu’en développement. D’autre part, il questionne l’idée de justice de manière complexe car les conséquences ne sont pas univoques et le profil des victimes est très divers. Enfin, les modalités d’intervention juridique pour réguler ces situations poussent à envisager un cadre transnational d’intervention cohérent avec la portée des catastrophes industrielles. Néanmoins, cette réglementation, au sein de traités négociés entre pays et qui relève du droit international économique ne fait pas figure d’évidence. Pour dépasser l’horizon national en matière de normes juridiques, il convenait donc d’identifier un concept à même de le justifier : la justice socio-environnementale. (shrink)

Food democracy is a concept with growing influence in food research. Food democracy deals with how actors may regain democratic control over the food system enabling its sustainable transformation. Following multi-level perspective framework's connotations, food democracy research has so far mainly focused on the niche level of the food system. An integrative approach that includes the perspectives of both the regime and the niche is still missing. This study addresses this research gap and proposes a new conceptual framework for food (...) democracy that includes actors from the niche and the regime level. Furthermore, we apply our conceptual framework to the urban food system of Vienna to explore the deeper meaning and practice of food democracy. Finally, we have conducted semi-structured interviews with actors at niche level and regime level within Vienna’s urban food system. Findings from this research broaden the perspective on food democracy and illustrate actors’ contributions at niche and regime level such as promoting organic food, re-localizing food provision, and procuring environmentally sustainable public food. Barriers to food democracy were also identified, e.g.: actors’ self-enhancement values, market-orientation, and capitalist alignment or lack of transparency. We conclude that actors at the niche and, to some extent, at the regime level may contribute to a process of on-going changes that fosters a transformation of established structures within the food system. (shrink)

Paul Auster es uno de los grandes escritores de nuestro tiempo. Desde 1994, a su labor de novelista, poeta, traductor y ensayista ha añadido la de guionista y director de cine. Ambos medios, literatura y cine, aparecen estrechamente ligados en su producción creativa, de manera que uno nutre al otro y viceversa, a través de temas y personajes comunes, de guiños autorreferenciales y metaficcionales. En novelas, relatos y películas Auster se revela, en esencia, como un gran contador de historias. Se (...) trata de historias múltiples que se superponen a distintos niveles narrativos siguiendo la técnica de cajas chinas. Su obra forma parte de una amplia red de referencias internas y externas que dialogan entre sí, al tiempo que plantean cuestiones en torno a la identidad, la escritura o las intersecciones entre ficción y realidad, que aparecen de manera recurrente tanto en forma literaria como fílmica. (shrink)

Los sistemas educativos dedicados al cine y la comunicación audiovisual, abrumados por la demanda imperativa de contenidos prácticos, sustentan sus planes didácticos en la aplicación mecanizada de manuales de realización audiovisual. Los alumnos, cada vez menos capacitados para el pensamiento abstracto, abordan los desafíos creativos a través de la plantilla y el mínimo esfuerzo. Los efectos de esta situación en el campo cultural son de una notable estandarización en las formas y, sobre todo, simplificación y unificación de los mensajes. Aplicando (...) al proceso cinematográfico el modelo del argumento predicativo de José Luis Pardo, este trabajo propone y fundamenta un marco teórico basado en el desarrollo de las habilidades conceptuales y operacionales del pensamiento relacional y emocional del alumno. La hipótesis de base es, por tanto, que la enseñanza del cine ha de situarse más cercana a la de la filosofía que a la de las ciencias, y que, debido a su naturaleza compleja, debe ser observada como un proceso de creación dialéctico y temático, antes que técnico y narrativo. (shrink)

Children and adolescents are not indifferent to the dramatic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, and the need to be forced to live in confinement. The change in life to which they have been abruptly subjected forces us to understand the state of their mental health in order to adequately address both their present and future needs. The present study was carried out with the intention of studying the consequences of confinement on anxiety, sleep routines and executive functioning of 1,028 children (...) and adolescents, aged from 6 to 18 years, residing in Spain to; assess if there are differences regarding these consequences in terms of sex and age; how anxiety affects executive functioning in males and females; and to examine the possible correlations between the measured variables. For this purpose, an online questionnaire containing five sections was designed: the first section gathers information on sociodemographic and health data, while the following sections gather information from different standardized scales which measure anxiety, sleep and executive functions, whose items were adapted in order to be completed by parents, and/or legal guardians. The statistical analyzes carried out highlights significant differences in executive functioning between males and females. In turn, in regards to age, greater difficulties were detected in anxiety in the 9 to 12 age group and greater sleep disturbances between 13 and 18 year olds. On the other hand, significant differences were found in intra-sexual executive functioning depending on whether they presented greater or lesser anxiety, with executive functioning being more tendentiously maladjusted in males than in females, revealing a significantly relevant effect size. Positive correlations are obtained between state anxiety and sleep and executive functioning alterations. Finally, through Path Analysis, it is verified that state anxiety is the variable with the greatest weight within the model that would explain the alteration in the executive functioning of the present sample. (shrink)

Managers’ commitment to contribute to sustainable development holds the key to their long-term business success and may be a source of competitive advantage. The managerial perception of business ethics is influenced by the level of moral development and personal characteristics of managers. These perceptions are also shaped by forces existing in the environment of the firm, including available resources, societal expectations, sector, and regulations. The resource-based perspective can thus contribute to the analysis of ethical issues offering important insights on how (...) they can influence the environmental strategy of the firm. The findings of this study show that firm resources have a strong influence on business managers’ ethical attitudes. In addition, the application of resource-based rationales to ethical issues can be justified in the following several ways: it influences a managerial perception of natural environment as a competitive opportunity, it requires investments of financial and human resources, flexibility and speed in the adaptation to environmental changes, and it creates new resource-based opportunities through changes in prevention pollution technology, policy process, and market forces. (shrink)

I review some theoretical ideas in cosmology different from the standard “Big Bang”: the quasi-steady state model, the plasma cosmology model, non-cosmological redshifts, alternatives to non-baryonic dark matter and/or dark energy, and others. Cosmologists do not usually work within the framework of alternative cosmologies because they feel that these are not at present as competitive as the standard model. Certainly, they are not so developed, and they are not so developed because cosmologists do not work on them. It is a (...) vicious circle. The fact that most cosmologists do not pay them any attention and only dedicate their research time to the standard model is to a great extent due to a sociological phenomenon . We might well wonder whether cosmology, our knowledge of the Universe as a whole, is a science like other fields of physics or a predominant ideology. (shrink)

In our everyday moral deliberations, we attend to two central types of considerations – outcomes and moral rules. How these considerations interrelate is central to the long-standing debate between deontologists and utilitarians. Is the weight we attach to moral rules reducible to their conduciveness to good outcomes (as many utilitarians claim)? Or do we take moral rules to be absolute constraints on action that normatively trump outcomes (as many deontologists claim)? Arguments over these issues characteristically appeal to commonsense intuitions about (...) various cases. As a result, an important portion of the debate involves empirically tractable questions — questions that can be investigated by probing for people’s judgments in cases in which the two types of considerations come into conflict with one another. (shrink)

From its very beginning, sociological thought has been concerned with a topic central to our daily lives: social distance. Since inception, the concept of social distance has referred to the relationships of familiarity and strangeness between social groups, which is experienced in the social world in terms of “We” and “They”. This article covers the main tenets of a Schutzian phenomenological approach to the study of social distance and group relationships. Specific focus is placed on the different attitudes and valuations (...) of the in-group towards the out-group considered as a stranger, the invisible excess of meaning that emerges in these types of social relationships and the conceptual construction of the Other that explains the phenomenon of discrimination. (shrink)

By themselves, mesencephalic subcortical mechanisms provide a preattentive kind of consciousness, related to stimulus-related, short-latency dopamine release triggered by collicular input. Elaborate forms of consciousness, containing identifiable objects (visual, auditory, tactile, or chemical), imply longer-lasting phenomena that depend on the activation of prosencephalic networks. Nevertheless, the maintenance of these higher-level networks strongly depends on long-lasting mesencephalic dopamine release. (Published Online May 1 2007).

This paper explores the way in which Agamben takes part in the dialogue on “impolitical communities” that was inaugurated by J. L. Nancy and was soon followed by authors like M. Blanchot, J. Derrida and R. Esposito, among others. Although Agamben’s ontological exploration of ‘whatever being,’ followed later by the political idea of form-of-life, are still very close particularly to Nancy’s work, the article will show in which ways Agamben’s view of a political coming community explores different paths and moves (...) in unusual registers, that help to understand in new ways the kind of inoperativeness involved in a contemporary rethinking of community. The notion of experience of thought as potentiality and its relationship to that “tiny displacement” of the world which Agamben seems to connect with his idea of a coming community will play a central role in the analysis. (shrink)

In De Veritate, question 12, article 3, Thomas Aquinas discusses whether prophecy is natural. Given that there he argues that prophecy is a divine gift , he seems to break away from the Muslim philosopher Avicenna, who holds a naturalistic explanation of this phenomenon. Certainly Avicenna explained prophecy in psychological and metaphysical terms, and was considered by some Christian theologians as proponent of a naturalistic view, thought to be incompatible with prophecy conceived as a divine and supernatural gift. In this (...) paper I trace the origin of the discussion on whether prophecy is natural or supernatural, and then I recapitulate Avicenna’s understanding of this phenomenon in two short treatises, namely, the Epistle Concerning Dreams and On the Proof of Prophecies, and in the De anima and the Metaphysics of his major work The Book of Healing. Then I review Aquinas’s understanding of Avicenna’s view and his own conception of “natural prophecy” in order to show that, although when he argues for the divine origin of prophecy he distances himself from the Persian philosopher, he sees in his interpretation of Avicenna’s naturalistic doctrine a theory that could explain why some people sometimes attain knowledge of future events through a natural process different from divine prophecy. Finally, I discuss for what purpose Aquinas would have admitted this naturalistic view. (shrink)

I reviewThe Philosophy of Praxisby Andrew Feenberg, firstly, presenting a critical yet sympathetic summary of Feenberg’s argument, developed via Marx, Lukács and Marcuse. Despite sharing Adorno’s and Marcuse’s dismissal of proletarian revolution, he finds aspects of Marx and particularly Lukács compelling. Upon this synthesis he builds his own philosophy. Secondly, I argue that Feenberg’s treatment of Lukács’s 1920s work is unparalleled and may counter the systematic distortion to which it has been subject. He defends Lukács’s ontology with respect to nature (...) and his politics, countering the charge of authoritarianism. Finally, I suggest that Feenberg tends to elide the analysis of the state and politics in Marx and Lukács, and that this distorts his understanding of the latter. I suggest a Hegelian interpretation of Lukács’s concept of mediation by way of parallel withThe Phenomenology of Spirit. I conclude by suggesting the implications of this disagreement. (shrink)

School performance and cognitive competence can be conceptualized as social and relational constructs. Thus, we expect their association to vary as a function of other socially-embedded variables which have proven meaningful in the academic domain. The present study takes a critical theory approach to assess gender-related and contextual variability in the association between peer-assessed school performance and self-perceived cognitive competence. The sample consisted of 719 preadolescents living in lower- and upper-middle-class neighborhoods in Montreal, Canada and Barranquilla, Columbia. Multigroup comparisons revealed (...) that peer-assessed school competence was more strongly associated with self-perceived cognitive competence for upper-middle-class than lower-middle-class participants from Barranquilla, whereas the opposite pattern was observed with Montreal participants, and that the association between communal orientation and self-perceived cognitive competence was stronger for girls than for boys across the sample, especially in the upper-middle-class school in Montreal. These findings highlight the nuanced degree of gender differences in preadolescents’ perceived academic competence and emphasize the role of SES in shaping self-perceptions. (shrink)

This research aims to describe how practicing lawyers perceive ‘plain writing’ in the legal field and to conceptualize this notion through the discourse analysis of these specialists. To do so, a qualitative research framed in the interpretive paradigm has been developed. Specifically, 18 practicing lawyers, from different countries and with different specializations in the practicing of Law, were surveyed. After analyzing the discourse of the interviewed lawyers, eight macro categories accounting for plain language both generally and particularly were identified. The (...) audience was identified as a key element in the production of legal texts which facilitate justice to citizens. Based on our analysis, we conclude with a definition of plain writing. (shrink)

La teoría de la lógica mental no acepta una regla correcta en el cálculo proposicional estándar: la regla de introducción de la disyunción (esto es, la regla que permite inferir, por ejemplo, p o q de p). Esto es un problema porque esa misma teoría admite otro esquema en el que la regla está realmente implicada. Es cierto que, como ha mostrado López-Astorga, la teoría de la lógica mental puede ser actualizada de acuerdo con resultados empíricos recientes y que tal (...) actualización puede ayudar a la teoría a resolver algunas de sus dificultades. No obstante, la actualización de López-Astorga no afronta los desafíos directamente planteados por la regla de introducción de la disyunción y este trabajo pretende proceder en esa dirección. En concreto, mi tesis aquí es que todas las dificultades de la mencionada regla pueden desaparecer si no es considerada un Esquema Núcleo de la sintaxis del pensamiento humano, sino un Esquema Alimentador de la misma. (shrink)

Certain results of observational cosmology cast critical doubt on the foundations of standard cosmology but leave most cosmologists untroubled. Alternative cosmological models that differ from the Big Bang have been published and defended by heterodox scientists; however, most cosmologists do not heed these. This may be because standard theory is correct and all other ideas and criticisms are incorrect, but it is also to a great extent due to sociological phenomena such as the "snowball effect" or "groupthink". We might wonder (...) whether cosmology, the study of the Universe as a whole, is a science like other branches of physics or just a dominant ideology. (shrink)

En este trabajo se presenta una explicación para el problema de las versiones abstractas de la tarea de selección de las cuatro tarjetas de Peter Wason: los discretos resultados de los participantes cuando se enfrentan a ellas. Nuestra explicación apunta a que los sujetos no comprenden la regla de la tarea como un condicional, sino como un bicondicional, provocando tal circunstancia que no elijan las tarjetas correctas. Santamaría planteó una objeción para todo enfoque que defienda que en la tarea de (...) selección se produce una interpretación bicondicional de la regla, pero nosotros también respondemos aquí a dicha objeción atendiendo a la primacía que en el razonamiento humano puede tener la regla lógica del modus ponens. Igualmente, exponemos un estudio, basado en diálogos de seminario tutoriales al modo socrático, realizado por nosotros con el propósito de comprobar si nuestra explicación puede ser viable y comentamos los resultados obtenidos. In this paper, we present an explanation for the problem of the abstract versions of Peter Wason’s four-card selection task: modest subjects’ results when they are confronted with these tasks. Our explanation poses that individuals do not comprehend the task rule as a conditional sentence, but as a biconditional one, causing that subjects do not choose the correct cards. Santamaría presented an objection for any approach that suggests a biconditional interpretation in the task selection. In this work, we discuss this objection based on the apparent primacy of a logical rule in human reasoning: modus ponens. Additionally, we present a study based on Socratic dialogue seminars with a tutorial style, developed by us, to check whether our explanation is viable or not, and discuss the results achieved. (shrink)

Se describen varios elementos que le permiten a la fenomenología elaborar una descripción del ser humano sin renunciar a lo que tiene de ontología universal o antropologización, lo que implica que en todo análisis de la conciencia general deben caer la razón humana, la paradoja de la subjetividad o, lo que es lo mismo, la paradoja de la conciencia en su estado humano. De aquí se desprende que ella pueda ser observada en un sujeto que posee un cuerpo con el (...) cual y desde el cual la experiencia y la percepción pueden tener lugar. Esto valida el ejercicio de interrogar a la razón por su genética antropológica en un proceso de filogenias. This article describes the various elements which allow phenomenology to develop a description of the human being without giving up its status of universal ontology or anthropologization, which implies that any analysis of general awareness refers to human reason, the paradox of subjectivity, or, in other words, the paradox of con-sciousness in its human state. From this it follows that it can be observed in a subject that has a body with which and from which experience and perception can take place. This validates the action of interrogating reason for its anthropological genetics in a process of phylogenies. (shrink)

En su ensayo Para una crítica de la violencia, Walter Benjamin reivindica el fenómeno social de la huelga general revolucionaria teorizada por Georges Sorel en su obra Reflexiones sobre la violencia, como una figura ejemplar de lo que sería un “medio puro de la política”, al margen de cualquier forma legitimada de poder. En este marco, pocos comentadores contemporáneos advierten una discordancia conceptual entre ambos filósofos: para Sorel, la huelga revolucionaria es un mito social, mientras que el mito, categoría esencialmente (...) negativa en Benjamin, describe la violencia que aprisiona la vida y que se traduce en una forma de poder político superior. En este artículo quisiéramos demostrar esta discordancia conceptual para examinar en seguida cómo ha sido comentada por otros pensadores contemporáneos. La filosofía de la historia, la posibilidad de una acción política ética y la temporalidad mesiánica aparecen en el horizonte teórico que emparenta a estos filósofos y por el cual podría descifrarse su impasse conceptual. Esto se confirma si se despliega la idea de un “medio puro de la política”, pista que Benjamin ofrece sin profundizar y sobre la cual reenvía al pensamiento de un filósofo poco explorado, Erich Unger. En la última parte de este artículo desarrollaremos las claves dadas por Unger, que entran justamente en sintonía con la mención de la huelga general como medio puro de la política. In his Critique of violence, Walter Benjamin claimed that the social phenomenon of the revolutionary general strike was an example of what would be a “pure political mean”. In this context, not many contemporary commentators note an important conceptual incoherence between those two philosophers: for Sorel the revolutionary general strike is a social myth, while in Benjamin the category of myth, essentially negative, describes the violence that imprisons life and crystallizes it in a higher form of political power. In this article, we demonstrate this conceptual discrepancy in order to examine the way it has been approached by other philosophers. The philosophy of history, the possibility of an ethical political action, and messianic temporality, all appear on the theoretical horizon linking these philosophers, and through these ideas a conceptual impasse can be decoded. Moreover, this horizon can be confirmed if we follow the idea of a “pure political means” that Benjamin proposes and which moves forward to the thought of an unexplored philosopher mentioned by him: Erich Unger. In the last part of this article we will develop the keys given by Unger, which fall right in line with the notion of the general strike as a pure political mean. (shrink)

Introducción: El examen estatal escrito evalúa la competencia del egresado y debe cumplir los requisitos de su confección y de su análisis informar las deficiencias en el proceso docente educativo para su perfeccionamiento. Objetivo: Caracterizar el examen estatal ordinario escrito y los resultados obtenidos en la Facultad de Estomatología. Camagüey durante el período 2011-2012. Métodos: Se realizó un estudio descriptivo del examen estatal ordinario escrito aplicado a 146 estudiantes. Se elaboró una base de datos con las calificaciones obtenidas, índice académico (...) y una guía con las variables tipo de examen, de preguntas, nivel de asimilación, claridad de formulación, correspondencia con los objetivos de la carrera, clave de calificación y cumplimiento de los criterios de Guilbert, analizados por grupo de expertos. Resultados: En los resultados se aproximó la nota de los excelentes (27,4 %) con el índice académico de los altos rendimientos (28,1 %). La mediana general fue de 86,3. Los temas más explorados fueron Endodoncia (18,8 %), Prótesis y Odontopediatría (10,4 %). Las preguntas con más valor fueron de temas curativos. El nivel de asimilación fue reproductivo y el 35,4 % de preguntas tipo selección múltiple complemento agrupado. Existieron dificultades de diseño del examen y autopreparación de los estudiantes. Conclusiones: Los resultados se aproximaron a los rendimientos académicos. No hubo equidad entre el número, valor de las preguntas por temas y nivel de asimilación. Los errores se asociaron en frecuencia al diseño y redacción de algunas preguntas, insuficiente estudio y en menor grado a la falta de sistematicidad en el proceso docente, que permitieron determinar las deficiencias para su intervención. Introduction: The State written exam evaluates the competence of seniors and must meet the requirements of its preparation and analysis in order to report deficiencies in the educational teaching process for its further development. Objective: To characterize the written regular state exam and the results obtained at the Faculty of Stomatology. Camaguey during the period of 2011-2012. Methods: A descriptive study of the written regular state exam was conducted to 146 students. A data base was developed with the grades obtained, academic index and a guide with the exam- type variables, questions, level of assimilation, clarity of formulation, correspondence with the objectives of the career, key qualification and compliance with the criteria of Guilbert, all analyzed by groups of experts. Results: In the results the excellent notes (27.4%) approached to the academic index of high yield (28.1%). The general average was 86,3. The most explored themes were Endodontics (18.8%), Prosthesis and Pediatric Odontology (10.4%). healing topics were the questions with more value. The level of assimilation was reproductive and 35.4% of multiple choice type questions complement clustered. There were difficulties according to the test design and the students' self study. Conclusions: The results were close to academic performance. There was no equality between the number, value of the questions by topic and level of assimilation. Errors were often associated with the design and wording of some questions, insufficient study and in a lesser extent to the lack of systematic fashion in the teaching process, which allowed to determine deficiencies for its intervention. (shrink)

Este artículo analiza lo que nos cuentan las imágenes fotográficas en su reverso y en las huellas del verso, a través de las anotaciones, marcas o descripciones que contienen, que entregan información importante de su contexto de producción, de los sujetos u objetos fotografiados y de su trayectoria. Así, se configura un sentido apropiado de la imagen. Este artículo, pone el foco en imágenes fotográficas escolares porque representan un espacio de convivencia particular y de intercambio de experiencias que, en alguna (...) medida, se captura y resguarda en ellas. En los pliegues, en los bordes oscurecidos o desgastados, en los márgenes marchitos y en las marcas de óxido o de otros materiales, es posible también encontrar historias, restos de memorias, afectos y rostros en un contrapunto que va más allá de la motivación del fotógrafo para captar el instante en un encuadre específico. Para el análisis, se presentan algunas imágenes fotográficas pertenecientes al archivo escolar de un centro educativo de la ciudad de Talca en la región del Maule (Chile), pues permiten develar el significado familiar, mnemónico y comunitario que estas adquieren al reunirse en ese repertorio. Este valor igualmente se desprende de la observación del material oculto en el reverso y de las marcas del verso de las imágenes fotográficas. (shrink)

El artículo aboga por la unificación de criterios en el estilo de escritura académica y en su transmisión a través de la publicación. Recoge información del dosier presentado en el año 2003 por la Universidad de Granada titulado "Evaluación normativa, calidad editorial y difusión de las revistas científicas editadas por el Servicio de Publicaciones de la Universidad Complutense de Madrid". Se centra en una de las secciones más relevantes de las publicaciones periódicas: la información que deben tener los autores si (...) quieren que sus trabajos tengan mayor impacto y calidad metodológica. A lo largo de cuatro capítulos se realiza una selección de parámetros y criterios a los que deben adaptarse las revistas científicas según los nuevos usos nacionales e internacionales. Se aborda, asimismo, la implementación de los requisitos e itemes normativos a la revista Anales del seminario de historia de la filosofo. Por último se presenta una selección de normas, tesauros y manuales del estilo, con la intención expresa de allanar el dificil camino de la comunicación científica. (shrink)

The present study has attempted to artriculate a central issue of Mahäyäna soteriology through an examination of the writings of two Mädhyamika masters, Bhävaviveka and Candrakïrti. The purpose here has been to demonstrate a further criterion for the retrospective designation of their respective philosophies with the terms “Svātantrika” and “Prasangika” an exhaustive study of the nature of the Hinayäna wisdom according to the Mädhyamika school would entail an analysis of the writings of many other masters, especially those who produced what (...) has been called the Yogäcära-Mädhyamika synthesis. To attempt to determine the position of Maitreyanätha, for example, on this issue would entail an analysis of the famous “Five Treatises” (the Dharmadharmatävibhańa, the Madhyäntavibhańga, the Mahayanasutrlamkara, the Uttratantra, and the Abhisamayälamkära) as well as the myriad commentaries on these works. It is possible to speculate briefly here on what the position of Nägärjuna may have been on this issue and then go on to discuss the implications and possible motivations of the views of Bhävaviveka and Candrakïrti. (shrink)

Infants use statistical information in their environment, as well as others’ emotional communication, to understand the intentions of social partners. However, rarely do researchers consider these two sources of social information in tandem. This study assessed 2-year-olds’ attributions of intentionality from non-random sampling events and subsequent discrete emotion reactions. Infants observed an experimenter remove five objects from either the non-random minority (18%) or random majority (82%) of a sample and express either joy, disgust, or sadness after each selection. Two-year-olds inferred (...) the experimenter’s intentionality by giving her the object that she had previously selected when she expressed joy or disgust after non-random sampling events, but not when she expressed sadness or sampled at random. These findings demonstrate that infants use both statistical regularities and discrete emotion communication to infer an agent’s intentions. In particular, the present findings show that 2-year-olds infer that an agent can intentionally select a preferred or an undesired object from a sample as a function of the discrete emotion. Implications for the development of inferring intentionality from statistical sampling events and discrete emotion communication are discussed. (shrink)