Experiments in cognitive neuroscience build a setup whose set of controlled stimuli and rules elicits a cognitive process in a participant. This setup requires researchers to decide the value of quite a few parameters along several dimensions. We call ‘’contextual factors’’ the parameters often assumed not to change the cognitive process elicited and are free to vary across the experiment’s repetitions. Against this assumption, empirical evidence shows that many of these contextual factors can significantly influence cognitive performance. Nevertheless, it is (...) not entirely clear what it means for a cognitive phenomenon to be context-sensitive and how to identify context-sensitivity experimentally. We claim that a phenomenon can be context-sensitive either because it is only triggered within a specific context or because different contexts change its manifestation conditions. Assessing which of these forms of context-sensitivity is present in a given phenomenon requires a criterion for individuating it across contextual variations. We argue that some inter-level experiments that, within the mechanistic approach to explanation, are required to identify relations of constitutive relevance between a phenomenon and a mechanism, are also necessary for individuating the phenomenon across its contextual variations. We articulate a criterion according to which behavioral variations across contexts indicate different phenomena if and only if the mechanistic activities, components and/or organizational properties recruited in each context are different. We support this approach by showing how it is applied in paradigmatic studies addressing cognitive performance differences resulting from contextual variations of task features, such as stimulus type and response modality. Finally, we address the challenge that a form of context-sensitivity possessed by the so-called ‘multifunctional mechanisms’ is incompatible with our proposal because it entails that the same mechanism can be recruited in different contexts to produce different phenomena. We examine key cases of multifunctionality and argue that they are consistent with our proposal because a single mechanism can have different components, activities and/or organizational properties in different contexts. Thus, these modifications may not affect the identity of a mechanism, and they could explain how it produced different phenomena in those contexts. (shrink)

The current research inspired by Foucault’s concept of panopticon, analyzes within the novel The Mister President the power relationships as a manifestation of a speech ruled by a logocentric structure of surveillance and denunciation. The work also studies the relevance of this text considering the presence of the panopticon in the represented continental reality as a coercive mechanism of control capable of normalizing the identity of the individuals and determine the political and interpersonal relationships.

In recent decades, memory studies in Colombia in relation to the internal armed conflict have become a point of reference for multidisciplinary work with collectives and communities, and are also an important topic on the state agenda. This article explores the remembering subjectivities, narrative marks and cultural trauma that emerge from the experiences and perspectives in a memory work Antiguo Espacio Territorial de Capacitación y Reincorporación (AETCR) de Pondores. In addition, the tensions involved in thinking about cultural trauma from subjects (...) marked by the exercise of armed violence are analyzed. For this purpose, a narrative analysis is developed that integrates thematic recurrences, expression of the experience, features of orality and structure of the story. The methods used to carry out this study include a participatory approach and life stories of reincorporated persons and the surrounding community in the context of the AETCR. The study focuses on the ways in which memory expressed narratively conceives practices such as forgiveness and coexistence as possible experiences, through the experiences and thoughts of the AECTR community. (shrink)

El esclarecimiento y la determinación exacta de cuáles pueden haber sido las fuentes, autores o ideas que influyeron decisivamente el pensamiento de Friedrich Nietzsche y el modo como tales referencias teórico-conceptuales pudieron haber quedado incorporadas y expresadas luego en toda la extensión de su obra, constituye uno de los asuntos más complejos y difíciles de abordar para la investigación académica especializada. A materializar dicha tarea indagatoria se dirige este artículo, buscando con ello proveer una estrategia de lectura que permita visualizar (...) focalizadamente ciertos elementos centrales de la reflexión nietzscheana que no siempre son bien reconocidos en la investigación respectiva, cuando no quedan desatendidos por completo en el corpus interpretativo que se ha venido consagrando en relación con su quehacer filosófico. Apoyándose en la investigación especializada, este artículo busca precisar el impacto que pudo haber tenido el pensamiento del filósofo F. A. Lange en Nietzsche; sobre todo reconociendo ciertos elementos de la filosofía crítica de Kant que habiendo sido inicialmente recogidos por Lange, fueron luego heredados como remanentes por Nietzsche, aunque también modificados en su obra, fenómeno que hemos denominado “criticismo radical”. (shrink)

La complejidad de los desafíos que plantea el siglo XXI interpelan a la innovación, especialmente en el ámbito pedagógico, por su presencia, relevancia y potencialidad para la generación de soluciones, formas de acción y formación que sean asumibles por la ciudadanía, principalmente quienes están inmersos en su proceso educativo. Por ello, este trabajo tiene la finalidad de proponer las metodologías activas como medios idóneos para implementar la innovación educativa centrada en los procesos sociales, que ponga a las personas al centro (...) del fenómeno, como seres en formación y, asimismo, como creadores y mantenedores de innovaciones promotoras de bienestar. Inicialmente, se esbozan las dificultades del esfuerzo de renovación pedagógica, en algunos de sus textos y momentos fundamentales, para responder a los retos y amenazas que enfrentan las sociedades contemporáneas, discutiéndose algunas nociones relevantes de teoría y filosofía de la educación. Seguidamente, esta aportación trata de sumarse a las reflexiones en curso sobre filosofía de la innovación, como disciplina en germen, que debe a su vez vincularse con una propuesta para una filosofía de la innovación educativa. Se pretende a continuación problematizar, bajo estas premisas teóricas, la creatividad pedagógica y los programas de acción vinculados a la tradición del activismo y a las recientes propuestas de las Metodologías Activas de Aprendizaje, a través de la aportación del enfoque social de la innovación educativa. (shrink)

Michelle Maiese: Trauma, dissociation, and relational authenticity; Caroline Christoff: Performative trauma narratives: Imperfect memories and epistemic harms; Aisha Qadoos: Ambiguous loss: A loved one's trauma; Alberto Guerrero Velázquez: El trauma está en la respuesta. Hacia una visión post-causal en la definición de trauma psicológico; Clarita Bonamino, Sophie Boudrias, and Melanie Rosen: Dreams, trauma, and prediction errors; Gabriel Corda: Memoria episódica y trastorno de estrés postraumático en animales no humanos: una propuesta metodológica; María López Ríos, Christopher Jude McCarroll, and Paloma Muñoz (...) Gómez: Memory, mourning, and the Chilean constitution; Sergio Daniel Rojas-Sierra, and Tito Hernando Pérez Pérez: Subjetividades rememorantes, marcas narrativas y trauma cultural en la construcción de memoria de desmovilizados de las FARC-EP en el AETCR Pondores; Germán Bonanni: Y después de la guerra... ¿Qué? (shrink)

Friends of Wright-entitlement cannot appeal to direct epistemic consequentialism (believe or accept what maximizes expected epistemic value) in order to account for the epistemic rationality of accepting Wright-entitled propositions. The tenability of direct consequentialism is undermined by the “Truth Fairy”: a powerful being who offers you great epistemic reward (in terms of true beliefs) if you accept a proposition p for which you have evidence neither for nor against. However, this chapter argues that a form of indirect epistemic consequentialism seems (...) promising as a way to deal with the Truth Fairy problem. The relevant form of indirect consequentialism accommodates evidentialism but allows for exceptions in the case of anti-sceptical hypotheses. Since these are the kind of propositions to which Wright-entitlement is supposed to apply—i.e. cornerstone propositions—indirect consequentialism is entitlement-friendly. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:And When May I Cry?Juggling Emotions in Healthcare InterpretingMateo Rutherford-RojasDisclaimers. All names have been changed to protect the privacy of the patient and the patient's family.Baby Oliver had been in the NICU almost since he was born. Oliver was born with a relatively simple congenital problem, which required him to have a routine corrective surgery.Unfortunately, routine surgeries don't always deliver routine results. Due to unexpected complications during the operation (...) and a prolonged lack of blood flow, several of Oliver's tiny organs suffered partial necrosis. It was just a matter of time until little Oliver's life could no longer be sustained with tubes, pumps, liquids, and pain medications. How much time Oliver's tiny body could hold out was unclear—he had days, maybe a week. The care team had already communicated to Oliver's parents, who were still teens themselves, the options that were available. The team provided sufficient medical detail for the parents to understand the logic of the situation. They faced the most difficult decision any parent—past, present, or future—would ever have to make. Before his birth, the parents expected to take little Oliver home, to love and nurture him, and witness him grow well into adulthood. Now, they had two choices. They could either choose to disconnect Oliver from the machines and let him die in their loving arms or watch him fade away, connected to his incubator and accompanying equipment, barely able to touch him through the multiple life-sustaining wires and tubes.The message had been delivered in Oliver's parents' language many times. In fact, every Spanish interpreter on staff had worked with the care team and Oliver's family at some time during their stay. Their ears heard it, but their minds could not comprehend how a routine operation could end like this. It is in these moments that most people rely heavily on their faith, as did Oliver's parents; waiting for God's miracle to happen.Perhaps it was the Chaplain's suggestion that God's miracles are not dependent on medical machines and life-sustaining equipment. Or that perhaps God needs Oliver and knows his family is strong enough to let him go. But at moments like these, religious philosophy and the nature of God do not provide a simple and clear answer. Still, someone has to decide, "Yes, it's time to hold him and say goodbye" or "No, we are not yet ready to let go of our hope."I don't know what the final deciding factor was or when that moment came for these young parents so full of love and hope for their new family. All I know is that I had the tremendous honor and [End Page E6] responsibility of interpreting for the parents and the care team when the gravity of the situation had penetrated all those human mechanisms of self-preservation. Oliver's parents chose to embrace their son, hold him in their arms one last time, and say, "Goodbye, we love you."This situation is not unusual at our hospital. As one of the nation's primary academic children's hospitals, patients come to us for miracle cures or to die in comfort and peace. In this case, what was unusual and touched the hearts of everyone in the room—surgeons, specialists of every organ system, bedside nurses, chaplains, social workers, and yes, the interpreter—was the final message the parents had for the care team. "Please, please, our only wish is that no parent ever have to make a decision like this again, please." We were all shocked and humbled by these anciently wise teenage souls whose hearts were broken, and their primary concern was for every other parent in the world, whom they would never meet—"May they never feel our pain."How I wish their desires had come true. However, soon after the situation with Baby Oliver, I would find myself again in the NICU interpreting the same messages to two other families, though their stories were distinctly different. Unlike little Oliver, the babies in the later cases were diagnosed with genetic disorders that presented little... (shrink)

When someone steps on your toe on purpose, it seems to hurt more than when the person does the same thing unintentionally. The physical parameters of the harm may not differ—your toe is flattened in both cases—but the psychological experience of pain is changed nonetheless. Intentional harms are premeditated by another person and have the specific purpose of causing pain. In a sense, intended harms are events initiated by one mind to communicate meaning (malice) to another, and this could shape (...) the recipient’s experience. This study examined whether self-reported pain is indeed higher when the events producing the pain are understood as intentionally (as opposed to unintentionally) caused by another person. Although pain was traditionally conceived to be solely physical in nature (Aydede, 2005), its experience varies substantially with psychological context. The placebo analgesia effect, for example, is the reduction of pain without a change in physical stimulation when context, expectations, or sugar pills challenge the interpretation of a sensation as painful (e.g., Fields, 2008). The nocebo effect, in turn, is the experience of pain without any physical stimulation—as when participants report headaches when told that a (nonexistent) electric current is passing through their heads (Schweiger & Parducci, 1981). These variations in pain experience seem to depend on the meaning of the stimulus: A sugar pill is meant to decrease pain, whereas electric current is meant to increase pain. In an interpersonal context, the meaning of an action is derived from the would complete. perceiver’s perceptions of the actor’s intention (Clark, 1996). (shrink)

In recent years, the ontological argument and theistic metaphysics have been criticised by philosophers working in both the analytic and continental traditions. Responses to these criticisms have primarily come from philosophers who make use of the traditional, and problematic, concept of God. In this volume, Daniel A. Dombrowski defends the ontological argument against its contemporary critics, but he does so by using a neoclassical or process concept of God, thereby strengthening the case for a contemporary theistic metaphysics. Relying on (...) the thought of Charles Hartshorne, he builds on Hartshorne's crucial distinction between divine existence and divine actuality, which enables neoclassical defenders of the ontological argument to avoid the familiar criticism that the argument moves illegitimately from an abstract concept to concrete reality. His argument, thus, avoids the problems inherent in the traditional concept of God as static. (shrink)

This book is a study of the role of intellect in human action as described by Thomas Aquinas. One of its primary aims is to compare the interpretation of Aristotle by Aquinas with the lines of interpretation offered in contemporary Aristotelian scholarship. The book seeks to clarify the problems involved in the appropriation of Aristotle's theory by a Christian theologian, including such topics as the practical syllogism and the problems of akrasia. Westberg argues that Aquinas was much closer to Aristotle (...) than is often recognized, and he puts forward important new interpretations of the relation of intellect and will in the stages of intention, deliberation, decision, and execution. In the concluding section of the book, he shows how this new interpretation yields fruitful insights on a range of theological topics, including sin, law, love, and the moral virtues. (shrink)

Concentrating on their treatment of folk psychology, this paper seeks to establish that, in the form advocated by its leading proponents, the Canberra project is presumptuous in certain key respects. Crucially, it presumes (1) that our everyday practices entail the existence of implicit folk theories; (2) that naturalists ought to be interested primarily in what such theories say; and (3) that the core content of such theories is adequately characterized by establishing what everyone finds intuitively obvious about the topics in (...) question. I argue these presumptions are a bad starting point for any naturalistic project and, more specifically, that in framing things in this way proponents of the Canberra plan have led us unnecessarily into philosophical quagmires. (shrink)

The human world is replete with narratives - narratives of our making that are uniquely appreciated by us. Some thinkers have afforded special importance to our capacity to generate such narratives, seeing it as variously enabling us to: exercise our imaginations in unique ways; engender an understanding of actions performed for reasons; and provide a basis for the kind of reflection and evaluation that matters vitally to moral and self development. Perhaps most radically, some hold that narratives are essential for (...) the constitution of human selves. This volume brings together nine original contributions in which the individual authors advance, develop and challenge proposals of these kinds. They critically examine the place and importance of narratives in human lives and consider the underlying capacities that permit us to produce and utilise these special artifacts. All of the papers are written in a non-technical and accessible style. (shrink)

In this book, public health ethicist Daniel S. Goldberg sets out to characterize the subjective experience of pain and its undertreatment within the US medical establishment, and puts forward public policy recommendations for ameliorating the undertreatment of pain. The book begins from the position that the overwhelming focus on opioid analgesics as a means for improving the undertreatment of pain is flawed, and argues instead that dominant Western models of biomedicine and objectivity delegitimize subjective knowledge of the body and (...) pain in the US. This general intolerance for the subjectivity of pain is part of a specific American culture of pain in which a variety of actors take part, including not only physicians and health care providers, but also pain sufferers, caregivers, and policymakers. Concentrating primarily on bioethics, history, and public policy, the book brings a truly interdisciplinary approach to an urgent practical ethical problem. Taking up the practical challenge, the book culminates in a series of policy recommendations that provide pathways for moral agents to move beyond contests over drug policy to policy arenas that, based on the evidence, hold more promise in their capacity to address the devastating and inequitable undertreatment of pain in the US. (shrink)

I present a straightforward objection to the view that what we know has epistemic probability 1: when combined with Bayesian decision theory, the view seems to entail implausible conclusions concerning rational choice. I consider and reject three responses. The first holds that the fault is with decision theory, rather than the view that knowledge has probability 1. The second two try to reconcile the claim that knowledge has probability 1 with decision theory by appealing to contextualism and sensitive invariantism, respectively. (...) I argue that each response fails, and that we can hold on to much of what was attractive in the responses while denying that what we know has probability 1. (shrink)

The vivid terms, "Top-down" and "Bottom-up" have become popular in several different contexts in cognitive science. My task today is to sort out some different meanings and comment on the relations between them, and their implications for cognitive science.

In the New Kingdom of Granada the revolutionary period is usually analyzed in isolation, as if it was an incongruity barely linked to the past or to its own future. Therefore, explanations about the very occurrence of the political transformation discard intimate causalities, privileging instead the actions of small groups as well as external influences and accidents. Thus the main challenge for future research will be to understand this epoch of great transformations as an unexpected coincidence between a dynamic evolution (...) and an explosive juncture. In short, the task will be to place the independence on the plane of history, no longer considering it as a sphere gravitating in space. (shrink)

We discuss how the law and scholars have approached three questions. First, what acts count as acts of entrapment? Secondly, is entrapment a permissible method of law-enforcement and, if so, in what circumstances? Thirdly, what must criminal courts do, in response to the finding that an offence was brought about by an act of entrapment, in order to deliver justice? While noting the contrary tendency, we suggest that the first question should be addressed in a manner that is neutral about (...) the answers to the other two. On the second question, we summarize various arguments about the permissibility of entrapment, while remaining largely neutral about their merits. With regard to the third question, we summarize the approaches to entrapment in various jurisdictions, and we note some patterns, across the jurisdictions here surveyed, concerning shifts from one sort of entrapment remedy to another. (shrink)

This book offers a broad reconstruction of the modern notion of sovereignty, a comprehensive critique of state-inflicted violence, and a concept of non-coercive law for our contemporary world society.

Review essay of Infinite Mobilization, by Peter Sloterdijk, translated by Sandra Berjan, Cambridge, Polity, 2020, 240 pp., $24.95, ISBN: 978-1-509-51847-0.

What kind of literature is the Talmud? To answer this question, Daniel Boyarin looks to an unlikely source: the dialogues of Plato. In these ancient texts he finds similarities, both in their combination of various genres and topics and in their dialogic structure. But Boyarin goes beyond these structural similarities, arguing also for a cultural relationship. In _Socrates and the Fat Rabbis_, Boyarin suggests that both the Platonic and the talmudic dialogues are not dialogic at all. Using Michael Bakhtin’s (...) notion of represented dialogue and real dialogism, Boyarin demonstrates, through multiple close readings, that the give-and-take in these texts is actually much closer to a monologue in spirit. At the same time, he shows that there is a dialogism in both texts on a deeper structural level between a voice of philosophical or religious dead seriousness and a voice from within that mocks that very high solemnity at the same time. Boyarin ultimately singles out Menippean satire as the most important genre through which to understand both the Talmud and Plato, emphasizing their seriocomic peculiarity. An innovative advancement in rabbinic studies, as well as a bold and controversial new way of reading Plato, _Socrates and the Fat Rabbis_ makes a major contribution to scholarship on thought and culture of the ancient Mediterranean. (shrink)

The stresses of the twenty-first century have exposed the fault lines in Higher Education, both as an instructional space that facilitates student growth and as a social space that shapes our economic, political, and religious institutions. This book uses Paul Ricoeur’s rigorous writings to envision a Just University necessary for the years ahead.

My purpose in this book is to reach a more general audience than I have been able to reach through my publications in academic journals, such as Environmental Ethics. The strategy of the book is to use a lyrical personal narrative to motivate chapters advancing the case for the intelligence of all living things, our kinship with, similarities to, and dependency upon other life forms, and an ethic of respect for life. It includes a critique of biocidal aspects of our (...) culture, especially as it pertains to land use. The narrative chapters describe the process through which I became aware of the depth and pervasiveness of the environmental crisis and what I have learned through three decades of effort at ecological restoration of twenty-one acres of ruined land. The narrative chapters are used to motivate scientific descriptions of, and philosophical reflection on, various domains of life: the intelligence of insects, the analogy between soil ecosystems and the human microbiome, the inner lives of animals, and the intelligence of plants, as well as the human dependency upon healthy ecosystems—both material (through ecosystem services) and spiritual. The book calls for a radical reorientation of our attitudes and reforms in the institutions governing land use. (shrink)

This book argues that the Fourth Gospel offers a potentially transformative response to the question of suffering and the human compulsion to blame. By engaging with the symbols of light, vision, and the Good Shepherd, readers can experience a theodical spirituality that transforms resentment and rage through divine forgiveness.