Whilst previous observational studies have linked negative thought processes such as an external locus of control and holding negative cognitive styles with depression, the directionality of these associations and the potential role that these factors play in the transition to adulthood and parenthood has not yet been investigated. This study examined the association between locus of control and negative cognitive styles in adolescence and probable depression in young adulthood and whether parenthood moderated these associations. Using a UK prospective population-based birth (...) cohort study: the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children, we examined the association between external locus of control and negative cognitive styles in adolescence with odds of depression in 4,301 young adults using logistic regression models unadjusted and adjusted for potential confounding factors. Interaction terms were employed to examine whether parenthood moderated these associations. Over 20% of young adults in our sample were at or above the clinical threshold indicating probable depression. For each standard deviation increase in external locus of control in adolescence, there was a 19% higher odds of having probable depression in young adulthood, after adjusting for various confounding factors including baseline mood and different demographic and life events variables. Similarly, for each SD increase in negative cognitive styles in adolescence, there was a 29% higher odds of having probable depression in the adjusted model. We found little evidence that parenthood status moderated the relationship between external locus of control or negative cognitive styles in adolescence and probable depression following adjustment for confounding factors. Effect estimates were comparable when performed in the complete case dataset. These findings suggest that having an external locus of control and holding negative cognitive styles in mid- to late adolescence is associated with an increased likelihood of probable depression in young adulthood. (shrink)

Are grounding claims fully general in character? If an object a is F in virtue of being G, does it follow that anything that’s G is F for that reason? According to the thesis of Weak Formality, the answer here is ‘yes’. In this paper, however, I argue that there is philosophical utility in rejecting this thesis. More exactly, I argue that two currently unresolved problems in contemporary metaphysics can be dealt with if we hold that there can be cases (...) of ‘kind-dependent grounding’, the key thought being that once we allow for such cases, we must also accept that Weak Formality is false. (shrink)

¿Cuál es la relación entre la ciencia y sus métodos y la genealogía? La respuesta a esta pregunta es el propósito fundamental de este artículo. Para ello, llevaremos a cabo un triple análisis de la cuestión, expuesto en un orden de menor a mayor profundidad y radicalismo teórico: primero, mostraremos el modo como la ciencia es utilizada por la crítica genealógica; segundo, desarrollaremos la crítica genealógica de la ciencia, y, tercero, consideraremos la pretensión de Nietzsche de establecer un nuevo criterio (...) para valorar el conocimiento en general y el científico en particular. (shrink)

Texto de la conferencia presentada en la mesa “Lecturas argentinas de Proust” en el marco del Coloquio Internacional Montevideana IV “A la recherche du temps perdu y Ulysses en ámbitos rioplatenses: lecturas, traducciones, traslaciones, diálogos”, organizado por Instituto de Letras de la Facultad de Humanidades y Ciencias de la Educación. Universidad de la República (Uruguay) - Museo Nacional de Artes Visuales (Uruguay) - Universidad de Picardie (Francia). Montevideo, 6 de julio de 2006. Las referencias bibliográficas fueron agregadas para la presente (...) publicación. (shrink)

The Quest for a Constitutional Perspective: A review of Poul F Kjaer, Gunther Teubner and Alberto Febbrajo (eds), The Financial Crisis in Constitutional Perspective: The Dark Side of Functional Differentiation.

As a response to Moran's (1994) recommendation that Heidegger's Destruktion be extensively elaborated and critiqued, this paper suggests a way in which Heidegger's thinking can be more clearly understood as a search for how better to ‘say' the destruction. By briefly tracing how Heidegger's thinking on the Destruktion repeatedly turns against itself throughout his writings, it is demonstrated that Heidegger does indeed revise the notion by abandoning the term in his later writing; to replace it first with the concept (...) of ‘overcoming', and subsequently with the notion of Verwindung . This self-critical reworking of the Destruktion is evident in his turning towards these concepts; which is taken up by Derrida's deconstruction in its simultaneous turning towards and away from Heidegger's Destruktion . South African Journal of Philosophy Vol. 27 (1) 2008 pp. 52-68. (shrink)

What is the relation between first person authority and knowledge of one’s own actions? On one view, it is because we know the reasons for which we act that we know what we do and, analogously, it is because we know the reasons for which we avow a belief that we know what we believe. Carlos Moya (2006) attributes some such theory to Richard Moran (2001) and criticises it on the grounds of circularity. In this paper, I examine the (...) view attributed to Moran. I rebut the charge of circularity, but also reject the theory as an adequate interpretation of Moran. (shrink)

Testimony is a crucial source of knowledge: we are to a large extent reliant upon what others tell us. It has been the subject of much recent interest in epistemology, and this volume collects twelve original essays on the topic by some of the world's leading philosophers. It will be the starting point for future research in this fertile field. Contributors include Robert Audi, C. A. J. Coady, Elizabeth Fricker, Richard Fumerton, Sanford C. Goldberg, Peter Graham, Jennifer Lackey, Keith Lehrer, (...) Richard Moran, Frederick F. Schmitt, Ernest Sosa, and James Van Cleve. (shrink)

After the birth of thermodynamics’ second principle—outlined in Carnot's Réflexions sur la puissance motrice du feu —several studies provided new arguments in the field. Mainly, they concerned the thermodynamics’ first principle—including energy conceptualisation—, the analytical aspects of the heat propagation, the statistical aspects of the mechanical theory of heat. In other words, the second half of nineteenth century was marked by an intense interdisciplinary research activity between physics and chemistry: new disciplines applied to the heat developed in the form of (...) analytical, mechanical and statistical theories. Inside all these theories, entropy—the brand-new function that Clausius coined in his Mechanical theory of heat—started to play a central epistemic role. In the present paper, we analyse some steps of the historical process of conceptualisation of such function from 1850 to 1902. Particularly, we retrace the historical–foundational path that—starting from Clausius’ Second Law—lead Boltzmann and Gibbs to their distinguished formulations of statistical entropy. As usual, our research has been unrolled through the analyses of primary sources and by leaning on critical readings of the secondary literature. As for the methodological approach, text analysis of historical documents constituted our privileged modus operandi. This paper is the expression of a collaborative historical research program focused on the thermodynamic foundations of physics–chemistry relationship; early results have already been published by the same authors upon the concepts of reversibility––and––thermal equilibrium. (shrink)

One of the vastly exciting areas in modern science involves the study of the brain. Recent research focuses not only on how the brain works but how it is related to what we normally call the mind, and throws new light on human behavior. Progress has been made in researching all that relates to interior man, why he thinks and feels as he does, what values he chooses to adopt, and what practices to scorn. All of these attributes make us (...) human and help to explain art, philosophy, and religions. Motion, sight, and memory, as well as emotions and the sentiments common to humans, are all given new meaning by what we have learned about the brain. In an introductory essay, Vernon B. Mountcastle traces the progress made in brain science during this century. Gerald M. Edelman touches upon features of the brain that challenge the picture of the brain as a machine. Semir Zeki discusses artists and artistic expression as an extension of the function of the brain. Richard S. J. Frackowiak probes the functional architecture of the brain. Mark F. Bear and Leon N Cooper explore whether complex neural systems can be illuminated by theoretical structures. Jean-Pierre Changeux sheds light on the knowledge gained in recent years concerning the neurobiology and pharmacology of drug action and addiction. Alexander A. Borbuly and Giulio Tononi ponder the quest for the essence of sleep, illuminating its complex dynamic process. George L. Gabor Miklos examines variations in neuroanatomies and sensory systems between individuals of the same species as well as variations across the evolutionary spectrum. Emilio Bizzi and Ferdinando A. Mussa-Ivaldi explain how scientists have approached the study of movement, the problems encountered, and the solutions proposed. Marcel Kinsbourne explores the unity and diversity in the human brain. In the concluding essay, Andy Clark points to recent work in neuroscience, robotics, and psychology that stresses the unexpected intimacy of brain, body, and world, supporting his belief that the mind is best understood as a brain at home in its proper bodily cultural and environmental niche. The breadth and scope of subjects covered in this volume attest to the extraordinary progress taking place in the study of the brain. This brilliant collection of essays by those at the forefront of research in this area will be of interest to all those interested in human behavior. Gerald M. Edelman is director of the Neurosciences Institute and chairman of the Department of Neurobiology at the Scripps Research Institute. Jean-Pierre Changeux is professor at the Collbge de France and the Institute Pasteur. (shrink)

The Philosophical Imagination is a collection of essays ranging over a wide range of philosophical themes: from the emotional engagement with fictions, to the functioning of metaphor in poetry and in rhetoric, to the concept of beauty in Kant and in Proust, and the nature of the first-person perspective in thought and action.

Freud puts the verse of Virgil as an epigraph to his book on the interpretation of dreams. It is the exclamation of Juno who, after having tried in every way to defeat Aeneas, witnesses his landing on the coast of Lazio and the birth of Rome. She cannot give a reason for her defeat and then:_she sought the earth: and summoned Allecto, the grief-bringer, from the house of the Fatal Furies, from the infernal shadows: in whose mind are sad wars, (...) angers and deceits, and guilty crimes (VII, 323–325)_(The Italian version of the Aeneid by Vittorio Sermonti, Rizzoli, 2007). In the transforming world of cyber space, we ask whether we can bring into interplay our conscious and unconscious parts to dream and interpret the world of digital sociality and of seemingly total knowledge. We further ask whether we can build upon our deeply rooted mechanisms of resistance and rebellion to cultivate the growth of social and individual awareness of the danger of social fragmentation arising from the utopian fantasies of individualism and mobility, and thus confront the dilemmas of surveillance capitalism and autocratic automaton. (shrink)

In Practicing Safe Sects F. LeRon Shults provides scientific and philosophical resources for having “the talk” about religious reproduction: where do gods come from – and what are the costs of bearing them in our culturally pluralistic, ecologically fragile environment?

En este artículo se presentan algunas reflexiones sobre la enseñanza de la filosofía, basadas en la revisión analítica de las principales tendencias en la literatura nacional reciente y en la experiencia docente del autor. Se discuten distintas posiciones sobre el contenido de los cursos, las estrategias para impartir dichos contenidos y se examinan los principales dilemas y retos que generan los enfoques más populares en la actualidad.

John F. Henry is an eminent economist who has made important contributions to heterodox economics drawing on Adam Smith, Karl Marx, Thorstein Veblen, and John Maynard Keynes. His historical approach offers radical insights into the evolution of ideas (ideologies and theories) giving rise to and/or induced by the changes in capitalist society. Essays collected in this festschrift not only evaluate John Henry's contributions in connection to Marx's and Veblen's theories, but also apply them to the socio-economic issues in the 21st (...) century. In Part I leading heterodox economists in the traditions of Marxism, Post Keynesianism, and Institutionalism critically examine Marx's and Veblen's theoretical frameworks (and their connections to each other) that have become the foundations of heterodox economics. Chapters in Part II showcase alternative theoretical explanations inspired by Marx, Veblen, and Henry. Topics in this Part include financial crisis, financialization, capital accumulation, economics teaching, and the historical relationship between money and class society. Part III is devoted to John Henry's heterodox economics encapsulated in his "farewell" lecture, interview, and bibliography. Essays in this book, individually and collectively, make an important point that the history of economic thought (or historical analysis of economic theory and policy) is an integral part of developing heterodox economics as an alternative theoretical framework. Anyone who is troubled by the recurring failure of capitalism as well as mainstream economics will find this book well worth reading. (shrink)

En el texto, el autor desarrolla dos elementos del pensamiento filosófico de Karl F. Krause (Alemania, 1781-1832). En primer lugar, se trata de su propuesta para una dialéctica abierta y dual, respetuosa del individuo y opuesta a la dialéctica hegeliana y su determinismo histórico. Esto tiene implicancias directas en la orientación que adoptan los movimientos revolucionarios, democrática o, por el contrario, autoritaria. En segundo lugar, el autor aborda el pensamiento de Krause respecto de la mujer y su papel en la (...) sociedad, destacando su ideario progresista y libertario “avant la lettre”, respetuoso de lo que hoy sería una identidad de género y opuesto a las corrientes dominantes de su época. Su crítica apunta al liberalismo y a la izquierda revolucionaria, que, en aquellos años, excluyeron a la mujer del espacio público, la educación y la política. La crítica se centra especialmente en las concepciones educativas de Rousseau propuestas en su clásico texto, Emilio. (shrink)

One main quandary that emerges in the context of Immanuel Kant’s moral ideal, The Highest Good, is that on the one hand Kant sets it as a moral demand, that is, as a principle that must be comprehended as an attainable end for man in practice while, on the other hand, it is set as a moral ideal, i.e. as something that cannot be concretized and realized within the empirical world. The main goal of this paper is to argue for (...) the realizability of the moral ideal by means of the principle of reflective judgment as a form of judgment that in fact clarifies human limitation. I assert that the very recognition of this limitation constitutes the possibility for hope in that ideal, or for striving towards it, and that this striving is the only way that the moral ideal can be concretized. I examine man’s recognition of self-limitation as a response to the moral demand to realize the moral ideal and the necessity of the power of imagination for this, used reflectively. Keywords: culture, final end, Highest Good, hope, imagination, Kant, moral ideal reflective judgment, ultimate end. (shrink)