Figurative drawing is a skill that takes time to learn, and it evolves during different childhood phases that begin with scribbling and end with representational drawing. Between these phases, it is difficult to assess when and how children demonstrate intentions and representativeness in their drawings. The marks produced are increasingly goal-oriented and efficient as the child’s skills progress from scribbles to figurative drawings. Pre-figurative activities provide an opportunity to focus on drawing processes. We applied fourteen metrics to two different datasets (...) (_N_ = 65 and _N_ = 344) to better understand the intentional and representational processes behind drawing, and combined these metrics using principal component analysis (PCA) in different biologically significant dimensions. Three dimensions were identified: efficiency based on spatial metrics, diversity with color metrics, and temporal sequentiality. The metrics at play in each dimension are similar for both datasets, and PCA explains 77% of the variance in both datasets. Gender had no effect, but age influenced all three dimensions differently. These analyses for instance differentiate scribbles by children from those drawn by adults. The three dimensions highlighted by this study provide a better understanding of the emergence of intentions and representativeness in drawings. We discussed the perspectives of such findings in comparative psychology and evolutionary anthropology. (shrink)

Self-sufficient ideographies are rare because they are stifled by the issue of standardization. Similar issues arise with abstract art or drawings created by young children or great apes. We propose that mathematical indices and artificial intelligence can help us decode ideography, and if not to understand its meaning, at least to know that meaning exists.

IntroductionThe observation that animals may respond to emotional states of conspecific or even hetero-specific individuals is not new. Darwin broached the question by underlying the ability of animals to express sympathy, i.e. the response to non-self-emotional status, and this across species barriers. More importantly, he tried to find the evolutionary origin of this animal trait, suggesting that it evolved from the selective advantages of kinship behaviour in the struggle for life (Darwin, 1872). Such a behaviour corresponds, for instance, to alloparental (...) care relatively common in mammals and birds, and now also characterized in fishes and insects (Josi, Taborsky, & Frommen, 2019; Wu, Walser, Sun, & Kölliker, 2020). After more than one century, the need of defining what exactly non-human animals are able to feel, and from this starting point, rethink the legal status and place of animals in human societies, suddenly arises. This can mainly be considered as an indirect consequence of people awareness of human-driven dramatic impacts on global climate, biodiversity, but also on a more daily basis on animal life and welfare. However, because assessable currencies are required to establish laws, animals were classified into categories based on ecological (e.g. invasive species, pest, wild, domestic), biological (e.g. vertebrates and invertebrates) or cognitive (e.g. primates, cephalopods) traits. This should help lawyers to define ethical rules of animal use by humans and t... (shrink)

Although there exist advantages to group-living in comparison to a solitary lifestyle, costs and gains of group-living may be unequally distributed among group members. Predation risk, vigilance levels and food intake may be unevenly distributed across group spatial geometry and certain within-group spatial positions may be more or less advantageous depending on the spatial distribution of these factors. In species characterized with dominance hierarchy, high-ranking individuals are commonly observed in advantageous spatial position. However, in complex social systems, individuals can develop (...) affiliative relationships that may balance the effect of dominance relationships in individual's spatial distribution. The objective of the present study is to investigate how the group spatial distribution of a semi-free ranging colony of Mandrills relates to its social organization. Using spatial observations in an area surrounding the feeding zone, we tested the three following hypothesis: (1) does dominance hierarchy explain being observed in proximity or far from a food patch? (2) Do affiliative associations also explain being observed in proximity or far from a food patch? (3) Do the differences in rank in the group hierarchy explain being co-observed in proximity of a food patch? Our results showed that high-ranking individuals were more observed in proximity of the feeding zone while low-ranking individuals were more observed at the boundaries of the observation area. Furthermore, we observed that affiliative relationships were also associated with individual spatial distributions and explain more of the total variance of the spatial distribution in comparison with dominance hierarchy. Finally, we found that individuals observed at a same moment in proximity of the feeding zone were more likely to be distant in the hierarchy while controlling for maternal kinship, age and sex similarity. This study brings some elements about how affiliative networks and dominance hierarchy are related to spatial positions in primates. (shrink)

First published in 2002. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

There exist many competing philosophical definitions of joint action and no clear criteria to decide between them; so far the search for definitions has by and large been a semantical enterprise rather than an empirical one. This chapter describes and assesses several constraints that could help converge towards a set of necessary and sufficient conditions for joint action. The tightness constraint favours definitions that fit joint actions in which the links between agents are as relaxed as possible, so as to (...) better pinpoint the conceptual core of jointness. The developmental constraint asks for definitions based on realistic psychological states that could be entertained by agents less cognitively developed than ideal human beings. The motor constraint holds that definitions should refer to psychological mechanisms involved in actual human coordination. These first three constraints are discussed and dismissed, mainly because they manage to establish vague limits at best (for various reasons). I then introduce a fourth one, the efficiency constraint, based on the fact that most of our joint actions are generally successful, and according to which definitions should involve conditions that help justify this success. Finally, the rational and evolutionary versions of the efficiency constraint are examined and defended against objections. (shrink)

La 4e de couverture indique: "Une synthèse paradoxale s'opère en France, au tournant du XXe siècle, entre les notions de liberté et de convention, de création et d'accord. En partant de la tension critique qui accompagne l'introduction du concept poincaréen de convention en mathématiques et en physique, Cédric Chandelier montre comment se forme un nouveau positivisme. La crise de la conscience née des transformations de la science a le caractère structurel d'un état qui se prolonge à travers la philosophie bachelardienne, (...) et jusqu'à la récente tentative de conciliation entre l'épistémologie historique et la tradition analytique. La thèse défendue est que le positivisme a survécu à sa remise en cause au nom de la liberté. En revenant aux origines du conventionnalisme, l'auteur soutient qu'il est cependant possible de mesurer la dimension cosmique de l'action réflexive de la conscience.". (shrink)

Cedric Boeckx focuses on two core components of grammar: phrase structure and locality.

The sounds produced by animals have been a topic of research into animal behaviour for a very long time. If acoustic signals are undoubtedly a vehicle for exchanging information between individuals, environmental sounds embed as well a significant level of data related to the ecology of populations, communities and landscapes. The consideration of environmental sounds for ecological investigations opens up a field of research that we define with the term ecoacoustics. In this paper, we draw the contours of ecoacoustics by (...) detailing: the main theories, concepts and methods used in ecoacoustic research, and the numerous outcomes that can be expected from the ecological approach to sound. Ecoacoustics has several theoretical and practical challenges, but we firmly believe that this new approach to investigating ecological processes will generate abundant and exciting research programs. (shrink)

Seneca the Younger's tragedies are adaptations from the Greek. C. A. J. Littlewood emphasizes the place of these plays in the Latin literature and in the philosophical context of the reign of the emperor Nero. Stoics dismissed public reality as theatre, as illusion. The artificiality of Senecan tragedy, the consciousness that its own dramatic worlds are literary constructs, responds to this contemporary philosophical perception.

L'auteur nous propose ici une analyse du fonctionnement des mécanismes d'extermination de la vie politique dans nos sociétés. La thèse qu'il soutient : le "démocratisme", soit l'idéologie des formes de pouvoir légitimées, est cela même qui refoule et tue la démocratie. Selon lui, cette idéologie fonctionne comme un agencement de discours destinés à faire prévaloir auprès de la population cette "évidence" fallacieuse, discréditant toute autre figure de la politique ou de l'activité démocratique.

Non-classical views about important issues in logic and its philosophy are a distinctive trait of Shahid Rahman's work. This volume has been designed, on the occasion of his 50th birthday, as a gathering place for unconventional approaches, original ideas and attempts to question well-established standards. Some of the world top philosophers and logicians contributed to a brilliant collection of papers, some of which doubtlessly leave their mark on the work to come in logic and in philosophy of formal sciences. Contributors (...) are: Philippe Balbiani, Diderik Batens, Johan van Benthem, Giacomo Bonanno, Walter A. Carnielli, Newton C. A. Da Costa, Michel Crubellier, Francisco A. Doria, Dov M. Gabbay, Olivier Gasquet, Gerhard Heinzmann, Andreas Herzig, Jaakko Hintikka, Justine Jacot, Reinhard Kahle, Erik C. W. Krabbe, Decio Krause, Franck Lihoreau, Kuno Lorenz, Ilkka Niiniluoto, Graham Priest, Stephen Read, Manuel Rebuschi, Greg Restall, Gabriel Sandu, Gerhard Schurz, Francois Schwarzentruber, Yaroslav Shramko, Goran Sundholm, John Symons, Christian Thiel, Nicolas Troquard, Tero Tulenheimo, Jean Paul Van Bendegem, Daniel Vanderveken, Yde Venema, Heinrich Wansing, Jan Wolenski and John Woods. (shrink)

Le faux s'entend de multiples façons et ne désigne pas seulement le résultat d'une opération de falsification menée à des fins privées et, à ce titre, réprimée plus ou moins efficacement par le droit pénal. Il fait aussi partie des contraintes nécessaires au bon fonctionnement du système juridique: on ne peut se passer des fictions ou des présomptions ; il faut compter aussi avec les approximations nécessaires du langage juridique: jamais il n'est question de "décrire" une réalité, mais bien plutôt (...) de la schématiser ou d'énoncer un devoir-être la concernant. Ce qui a pour effet de placer le législateur et ses alliés objectifs dans une situation de tension permanente entre ce qui existe en fait ou risque d'advenir et les exigences énoncées par la règle juridique. Ce décalage nécessaire affecte tous les secteurs du droit, pas seulement les plus sensibles au changement social. On a donc essayé d'en prendre la mesure, dans certains d'entre eux - droit économique, droit des assurances, droit de l'environnement, protection des oeuvres de l'esprit, droit international et européen, droit des nouvelles technologies -, sans oublier que le droit n'est à tout prendre qu'un laboratoire des oppositions et conflits d'intérêts qui travaillent la société dans son ensemble et que, par conséquent, comme tout système de communication, il se doit pour continuer d'exister et de remplir cette fonction implicite, de maintenir une part d'ombre sur sa propre nature. Comme dans tous les colloques organisés par le Centre d'études et de recherches sur les contentieux, cette question juridique par excellence a été étudiée par des juristes, bien sûr, mais aussi par des collègues apparemment étrangers à la chose juridique mais directement concernés par les problèmes de la communication entre les hommes. Le colloque dont les actes sont ici reproduits s'inscrit dans la continuité d'un travail entrepris il y a quelques années dans le cadre du Centre d'études et de recherches sur les contentieux. Il a déjà donné lieu à une première publication consacrée aux problèmes de l'interprétation et de la traduction. (shrink)

We analyse the computational complexity of comparing informational structures. Intuitively, we study the complexity of deciding queries such as the following: Is Alice’s epistemic information strictly coarser than Bob’s? Do Alice and Bob have the same knowledge about each other’s knowledge? Is it possible to manipulate Alice in a way that she will have the same beliefs as Bob? The results show that these problems lie on both sides of the border between tractability (P) and intractability (NP-hard). In particular, we (...) investigate the impact of assuming information structures to be partition-based (rather than arbitrary relational structures) on the complexity of various problems. We focus on the tractability of concrete epistemic tasks and not on epistemic logics describing them. (shrink)

The repeated attempts to characterise joint action have displayed a common trend towards minimalism – whether they focus on minimal situations, minimal characterisations, cognitively minimal agents or minimal cognitive mechanisms. This trend also appears to lead to pluralism: the idea that joint action may receive multiple, equally valid characterisations. In this paper, I argue for a pluralist stance regarding joint action, although one stemming from maximalism. Starting from the description of three cases of "maximal" joint action – demonstrations, deliberations and (...) free collective improvisation – that stretch our conceptual characterisations of joint action, I introduce and defend contextual minimalism, which focuses on joint actions occurring in contexts from which the factors that typically favour successful cooperation are absent. Although maximalist as compared to the other forms of minimalism, contextual minimalism does fit the minimalist trend and its recent emphasis on specific cognitive cooperative mechanisms. (shrink)

The Minimalist Program for linguistic theory is Noam Chomsky's boldest and most radical version of his naturalistic approach to language. Cedric Boeckz examines its foundations, explains its underlying philosophy, exemplifies its methods, and considers the significance of its empirical results. He explores the roots and antecedents of the Program and shows how its methodologies parallel those of sciences such as physics and biology. He disentangles and clarifies current debates and issues around the nature of minimalist research in linguistics and shows (...) how the aims and ambitions of the Minimalist Program lie at the centre of the enterprise to understand how the human language faculty operates in the mind and is manifested in the world's languages.Professor Boeckx writes for advanced and graduate students of linguistics and for all those, in fields such as cognitive science and evolutionary biology, who want to know more about current developments in theoretical linguistics. (shrink)

Marcher ensemble, porter une table à plusieurs, participer à une manifestation, et même discuter, sont autant d’exemples de coopération humaine – d’action conjointe. Par opposition, les mouvements d’une foule dans la rue, la course simultanée d’individus vers un abri lorsque l’orage se déclare ne sont que des actions collectives. Mais comment distinguer les unes des autres? Quand pouvons-nous dire que des personnes ont vraiment agi ensemble? Et comment expliquer qu’ils coopèrent même lorsque le risque d’échec est considérable? Cet ouvrage se (...) propose de répondre à ces questions, en se penchant sur toutes les dimensions de la coopération : les buts collectifs, la connaissance commune, ainsi que les facteurs psychologiques, cognitifs et stratégiques qui la favorisent. À partir de notions telles que l’identification de groupe, on défendra en particulier la thèse que certains types d’actions de masse, comme les manifestations, peuvent constituer des exemples légitimes de coopération. (shrink)

Formal learning theory constitutes an attempt to describe and explain the phenomenon of learning, in particular of language acquisition. The considerations in this domain are also applicable in philosophy of science, where it can be interpreted as a description of the process of scientific inquiry. The theory focuses on various properties of the process of hypothesis change over time. Treating conjectures as informational states, we link the process of conjecture-change to epistemic update. We reconstruct and analyze the temporal aspect of (...) learning in the context of dynamic and temporal logics of epistemic change. We first introduce the basic formal notions of learning theory and basic epistemic logic. We provide a translation of the components of learning scenarios into the domain of epistemic logic. Then, we propose a characterization of finite identifiability in an epistemic temporal language. In the end we discuss consequences and possible extensions of our work. (shrink)

This article argues that the concept of deliberation is construed too narrowly in political corporate social responsibility (CSR) and that a concept of deliberation for political CSR should err toward useful speech acts rather than reciprocity and charity. It draws from the political philosophy, labor relations, and business ethics literatures to outline a framework for an extended notion of deliberative engagement. The characters of deliberative behavior and deliberative environment are held to generate four modes of engagement: strategic deliberation, unitarist deliberation, (...) pluralist deliberation, and deliberative activism. The article concludes by arguing that political CSR will be better positioned to realize its potential by moving away from primarily consensus-centered objectives to a more responsive range of deliberative goals and practice. (shrink)

This paper introduces Agreement Theorems to dynamic-epistemic logic. We show first that common belief of posteriors is sufficient for agreement in epistemic-plausibility models, under common and well-founded priors. We do not restrict ourselves to the finite case, showing that in countable structures the results hold if and only if the underlying plausibility ordering is well-founded. We then show that neither well-foundedness nor common priors are expressible in the language commonly used to describe and reason about epistemic-plausibility models. The static agreement (...) result is, however, finitely derivable in an extended modal logic. We provide the full derivation. We finally consider dynamic agreement results. We show they have a counterpart in epistemic-plausibility models, and provide a new form of agreements via public announcements. (shrink)

Although stakeholder theory is concerned with stakeholder engagement, substantive operational barometers of engagement are lacking in the literature. This theoretical paper attempts to strengthen the accountability aspect of normative stakeholder theory with a more robust notion of stakeholder engagement derived from the concept of good faith. Specifically, it draws from the labor relations field to argue that altered power dynamics are essential underpinnings of a viable stakeholder engagement mechanism. After describing the tenets of substantive engagement, the paper draws from the (...) labor relations and commercial law literatures to describe the characteristics of good faith as dialogue, negotiation, transparency, and totality of conduct; explains how they can be adapted and applied to the stakeholder context; and suggests the use of mediation and non-binding arbitration. The paper concludes by addressing anticipated objections and shortcomings and discussing implications for theory and research. (shrink)

Recent years have witnessed an increased number of game-theoretic approaches to social norms, which apparently share some common vocabulary and methods. We describe three major approaches of this kind (due to Binmore, Bicchieri and Gintis), before comparing them systematically on five crucial themes: generality of the solution, preference transformation, punishment, epistemic conditions and type of explanation. This allows us to show that these theories are, by and large, less compatible than they seem. We then argue that those three theories struggle (...) to account for three phenomena pertaining to social norms (namely context-dependence, conflicting norms and self-evidence), with which any complete game-theoretic account should in principle be able to deal. (shrink)

ABSTRACT:This paper argues that, although stakeholder engagement occurs within the context of power, neither market-centered CSR nor the deliberative model of political CSR adequately addresses the specter of power asymmetries and the inevitability of conflict in stakeholder relations, particularly for powerless stakeholders. Noting that the objective of stakeholder engagement should not be benevolence toward stakeholders, but mechanisms that address power asymmetries such that stakeholders are able to protect their own interests, I present a framework of stakeholder engagement based on agonistic (...) pluralism that seeks to structure and utilize discord rather than reduce or eliminate it. I then propose arbitration as an agonistic mechanism to address power asymmetries in stakeholder engagement and explore its implications. (shrink)

Referring mainly to theories of transformation engineering, this article focuses on an experimental vocational training system bringing together special education teachers in initial training, under apprenticeship contracts and in employment. It uses the issue of the construction of emerging professionalism to analyze the formation of legal skills among educators. This contribution offers a broader vision of the conditions that make this learning possible, pointing to their effects on the feeling of personal effectiveness. The analysis of the traces collected makes it (...) possible to highlight the role of the relational circles around the learner in a professional situation. These results are discussed in the light of work on legal socialization and aim to identify the skills forming a "legal professionalism" specific to the educator, and for which training modalities are suggested. (shrink)

According to Belegradek, a first order structure is weakly small if there are countably many $1$-types over any of its finite subset. We show the following results. A field extension of finite degree of an infinite weakly small field has no Artin-Schreier extension. A weakly small field of characteristic $2$ is finite or algebraically closed. A weakly small division ring of positive characteristic is locally finite dimensional over its centre. A weakly small division ring of characteristic $2$ is a field.

We investigate some common points between stable structures and weakly small structures and define a structureMto befineif the Cantor-Bendixson rank of the topological space${S_\varphi }\left} \right)$is an ordinal for every finite subsetAofMand every formula$\varphi \left$wherexis of arity 1. By definition, a theory isfineif all its models are so. Stable theories and small theories are fine, and weakly minimal structures are fine. For any finite subsetAof a fine groupG, the traces on the algebraic closure$acl\left$ofAof definable subgroups ofGover$acl\left$which are boolean combinations of (...) instances of an arbitrary fixed formula can decrease only finitely many times. An infinite field with a fine theory has no additive nor multiplicative proper definable subgroups of finite index, nor Artin-Schreier extensions. (shrink)

Identifying genomic homology within and between genomes is essential when studying genome evolution. In the past years, different computational techniques have been developed to detect homology even when the actual similarity between homologous segments is low. Depending on the strategy used, these methods search for pairs of chromosomal segments between which either both gene content and order are conserved or gene content only. However, due to fact that, after their divergence, homologous segments can lose a different set of genes, these (...) methods still often fail to detect genomic homology. Recently, more advanced approaches have been developed that can combine gene order and content information of multiple genomic segments. BioEssays 26:1225–1235, 2004. © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. (shrink)

The role intellectual virtues play in scientific inquiry has raised significant discussions in the recent literature. A number of authors have recently explored the link between virtue epistemology and philosophy of science with the aim to show whether epistemic virtues can contribute to the resolution of the problem of theory choice. This paper analyses how intellectual virtues can be beneficial for successful resolution of theory choice. We explore the role of virtues as well as vices in scientific inquiry and their (...) beneficial effects in the context of theory choice. We argue that vices can play a role in widening the set of potential candidate theories and support our claim with historical examples and normative arguments from formal social epistemology. We argue that even though virtues appear to be neither necessary nor sufficient for scientific success, they have a positive effect because they accelerate successful convergence amongst scientists in theory choice situations. (shrink)

In 2013, Bennett proposed a mereological theory in which the parthood relation is defined on the basis of two primitive relations: a is a part of b iff a fills a slot owned by b. However, this theory has issues counting how many parts an entity has. We explore the various counting problems and propose a new theory to solve them. Keeping the core idea of Bennett’s slots, this theory introduces mereological relations between slots. This theory enables us to solve (...) all known counting problems and to go beyond the limits of Bennett’s theory by theorising expected features of mereological theories: supplementation principles and mereological sum and fusion. The theory is illustrated on ontological issues on the nature of structural universals and informational entities. (shrink)

Over the last three decades, joint action has received various definitions, which for all their differences share many features. However, they cannot fit some perplexing cases of weak joint action, such as demonstrations, where agents rely on distinct epistemic sources, and as a result, have no first-hand knowledge about each other. I argue that one major reason why the definition of such collective actions is akin to the classical ones is that it crucially relies on the concept of common knowledge. (...) To this end, I first argue for the necessity of common knowledge for joint action in general due to the increased reliability of success it entails. I then defend the relevance of common knowledge against several criticisms, point at an adequate weakening, and discuss alternative approaches. Although structurally weaker, the common knowledge has a richer content in weak joint actions. As a result, even if the links between individuals are seriously stretched, much is still shared among them. Weak joint actions still require considerable cognitive abilities indeed. (shrink)

Major depression is associated with a decrease of 1st person visual perspective in autobiographical memory, even after full remission. This study aimed to examine visual perspective in healthy never-depressed subjects presenting with either genetic or psychological vulnerability for depression. Sixty healthy participants performed the Autobiographical Memory Test with an assessment of visual perspective. Genetic vulnerability was defined by the presence of at least one S or LG allele of the polymorphism of the serotonin-transporter-linked promoter region . Psychological vulnerability was defined (...) by high scores of harm avoidance measured by the Temperament and Character Inventory. Life stress exposure, depressive mood, rumination, and familial history of depression were assessed through standardized procedures. Visual perspective for positive memories was independently predicted by both harm avoidance and a gene by environment interaction between the 5-HTTLPR polymorphism and life stress exposure. Visual perspective and vulnerability for depression may share some biological bases. (shrink)