This paper reports the framework, method and main findings of an analysis of cultural milieus in 4 European countries. The analysis is based on a questionnaire applied to a sample built through a two-step procedure of post-hoc random selection from a broader dataset based on an online survey. Responses to the questionnaire were subjected to multidimensional analysis-a combination of Multiple Correspondence Analysis and Cluster Analysis. We identified 5 symbolic universes, that correspond to basic, embodied, affect-laden, generalized worldviews. People in this (...) study see the world as either a) an ordered universe;b) a matter of interpersonal bond;c) a caring society;d) consisting of a niche of belongingness;e) a hostile place. These symbolic universes were also interpreted as semiotic capital: they reflect the capacity of a place to foster social and civic development. Moreover, the distribution of the symbolic universes, and therefore social and civic engagement, is demonstrated to be variable across the 4 countries in the analysis. Finally, we develop a retrospective reconstruction of the distribution of symbolic universes as well as the interplay between their current state and past, present and future socio-institutional scenarios. (shrink)

Papers presented to a series of seminars, Trento, 2002.

words compose a significant part of speech. Despite this, learning them is complicated. Abstract concepts collect more heterogeneous exemplars and are more detached from sensory modalities than concrete concepts. Recent views propose that, because of their complexity, other people are pivotal for abstract concepts’ acquisition and use, e.g., to explain their meaning. We tested this hypothesis using a combined behavioral and thermal imaging paradigm. Twenty-one Italian children determined whether acoustic stimuli were or not correct Italian words. Concrete terms yielded faster (...) responses than abstract ones: for the first time, this effect appears with response times in very young children. More crucially, the higher increase in temperature of the nasal tip suggests that, with abstract concepts, children might be more socially and cognitively engaged. (shrink)

Measured inequality has increased tremendously between the 1960s and 1990s, not only in the United States but throughout the majority of industrial nations. Wages among people of the same race and gender have become less equal. The hours worked by men have fallen, and the drop has been more pronounced among those who earn lower wages—as a result, inequality in labor income, which is the product of the wage rate and hours worked, has increased relative to inequality in wage rates. (...) Moreover, among married couples, employment of the wives of high-income men has increased until these wives are approximately as likely to be employed outside the home as are the wives of low-income men, who have always worked for wages. In addition, due to assortative mating, wage rates of husbands and wives are positively correlated, and it is clear that the growth in inequality of labor incomes among families has outstripped the growth in inequality in individual labor income. Finally, only the highest-income families have savings in excess of home equity and company-sponsored pensions, which implies that inequality in wealth among families has been exacerbated by the growth in stock prices. (shrink)

Lee and Schwarz made considerable theoretical advances in the psychology of cleansing by proposing that cleaning actions might serve as separation procedures between two psychological entities. Here, we propose that the effectiveness of the separation process may be modulated by the available amount of executive resources, and that separation may operate as a load-dependent resetting procedure.

As universities are increasingly called by their national governments for a more entrepreneurial management of public research results, they started to develop internal structures and policies to take a proactive role in the commercialisation of university research. For the first time, this paper presents a detailed chronicle of how country-level reforms on Intellectual Property Rights were translated into organisation-level mechanisms to regulate university-patenting activity. The analysis is based on the complete list of patent policies issued between 1993 and 2009 by (...) the population of Italian universities. Our evidence suggests that universities first dealt with legislative changes on IPRs by enacting isomorphic behaviours, then by creating a community of practices, and finally by leveraging on such community to influence government reforms on IP-related matters. We discuss our results in the light of institutional theory and public policy. (shrink)

Recent theories on abstract concepts and words (ACs), such as Words As social Tools (WAT) (Borghi et al., 2019b) and Language is an Embodied Neuroenhancement and Scaffold (LENS) (Dove, 2019) have underlined the crucial role of both sensorimotor experience and language for ACs representation and use [see Dove et al. (2020), for a comparison]. Here we focus on the WAT view. WAT highlights the role of language, sociality, and inner grounding (interoception, metacognition) for ACs. Furthermore, WAT seeks to integrate a (...) developmental perspective with approaches focusing on conceptual use and brain representation. We briefly illustrate evidence coming from both clinical and non-clinical populations and identify areas where additional evidence that ACs evoke linguistic, social, and interoceptive experience is still needed. (shrink)

Background: The holistic approach views the human as a bio-psycho-socio-spiritual being. Evidence suggests that among these dimensions, the spiritual one is largely ignored in healthcare settings. Objectives: This study aimed to evaluate Iranian nurses’ perceived professional competence in spiritual care, the relationship between perceived competence and nurses’ personal characteristics, and barriers to provide spiritual care. Research design: A cross-sectional study was conducted in the year 2014. Participants and research context: The study population consisted of nurses working in teaching hospitals in (...) Kashan city. Using a stratified, systematic random method, 250 samples were selected from a total of 1400 nurses. An indigenous instrument was used to assess the nurses’ competencies in spiritual care. Ethical considerations: A research ethics committee approved the study. All the participants were briefed on the study aims, were assured of the confidentiality of their personal information, and signed a written informed consent. Results: Among a total of 250 nurses, 239 answered the questionnaire completely, and in total, 23%, 51%, and 26% had poor, moderate, and favorable competence in spiritual care, respectively. No significant differences were found between the mean competence scores of spiritual care in terms of gender, marital status, employment status, and level of qualification. Significant difference was found between nurses’ overall score of competence in spiritual care and receiving training on spiritual care, nurses’ position, and the ward they worked in. Discussion: Confirming the findings of the international literature, this study puts light on the situation of nurses’ perceived competence and barriers to providing spiritual care in Iran as an eastern and Islamic context. Conclusion: Three-quarters of the nurses had moderate or unfavorable competence in spiritual care. Due to the crucial role of spiritual care in quality of care and patient satisfaction, nurses should be trained and supported to provide spiritual care. (shrink)

Eating disorders can be viewed as “embodied acts” that help to cope with internal and external demands that are perceived as overwhelming. The maintenance of EDs affects the entire identity of the person; the lack of a defined; or valid sense of self is expressed in terms of both physical body and personal identity. According to attachment theory, primary relationships characterized by insecurity, traumatic experiences, poor mirroring, and emotional attunement lead to the development of dysfunctional regulatory strategies. Although the literature (...) shows an association between attachment style or states of mind, trauma, behavioral strategies, and various EDs, the debate is still ongoing and the results are still conflicting. Therefore, we believe it is important to examine and treat EDs by understanding which narrative trajectory intercepts distress in relation to narrative and embodied self-concept. Drawing on clinical observation and a narrative review of the literature, we focus on the construction and organization of bodily and narrative identity. Because bodily representations are the primary tools for generating meaning, organizing experience, and shaping social identity from the earliest stages of life, we focus on the role that bodily interactions and sensorimotor and proprioceptive patterns have played in the development of EDs. We consider the role that lack of attunement, insecure attachment, and relational trauma play in mentalizing, affecting self-representation and emotion regulation strategies. The paper also considers a semantic mode of trauma in EDs that involves a top-down pathway through beliefs and narratives about oneself based on lack of amiability, on devaluation, and on humiliation memories. Finally, we would like to highlight the proposal of an integrated model with multiple access model to psychotherapy that takes into account the complexity of ED patients in whom aspects related to dysregulation, body image disintegration, and post-traumatic symptoms are associated with a suffering sense of self and a retraumatizing narrative. (shrink)

IntroductionNeurofeedback training is increasingly applied as a therapeutic tool in a variety of disorders, with growing scientific and clinical interest in the last two decades. Different Neurofeedback approaches have been developed over time, so it is now important to be able to distinguish between them and investigate the effectiveness and efficiency characteristics of each specific protocol. In this study we intend to examine the effects of Neurofeedback based on slow brain activity, the so-called Infra-Low Frequency training a recently developed methodology (...) that seems promising for the regulation of the central nervous system.AimsWith this review we intend to summarize the currently existing literature on ILF-Neurofeedback, examine its quality and formulate indications about the clinical effectiveness of ILF-Neurofeedback.MethodsLiterature search was first conducted according to PRISMA principles, described, and then assessed using the MMAT appraisal tool. 18 well-documented studies of ILF-Neurofeedback training in human subjects were picked up and analyzed. Reports include group interventions as well as single case studies.ResultsResearch data indicates good potential for ILF-Neurofeedback to influence brain activity and neurovegetative parameters. From the clinical profile, a salient common observation is a high level of individualization as a specific characteristic of ILF-Training: this feature seems to correlate with effectiveness of ILF-Neurofeedback, but also poses a challenge for researchers in terms of producing controlled and comparable findings; according to this point, some recommendation for future research on ILF-Neurofeedback are proposed. In conclusion, ILF-neurofeedback shows great potential for application for all those conditions in which the regulation of brain activity and neurophysiological processes are crucial. Further research will make it possible to complete the available data and to have a broader overview of its possible applications. (shrink)

Cette thèse porte sur la question du fini et de l’infini dans la philosophie de Hegel. L’objectif est double. En premier lieu, elle vise à retracer l’influence exercée par la philosophie antique (principalement Platon et Aristote) et par la philosophie moderne (pour l’essentiel Kant et certains postkantiens) sur l’élaboration hégélienne des catégories de la finité et de l’infinité. En second lieu, elle étudie le développement systématique de la logique de l’infinité hégélienne à la lumière de cette influence. Il s’agit (...) d’étudier, à travers une approche historique et critique, comment Hegel résout l’opposition traditionnelle du fini et de l’infini par sa théorie des deux infinis. A l’aune des conceptions de l’infinité-finie (la mauvaise infinité) et de l’infinité véritablement infinie (la véritable infinité), Hegel montre que le processus de la détermination du fini est un processus d’idéalisation qui supprime la contradiction du fini et de l’infini. Ainsi, l’enquête sur des concepts de finité et d’infinité permet de découvrir que l’idéalité spéculative est pour Hegel une réponse non seulement au problème traditionnel de leur articulation, mais aussi, plus généralement, aux problèmes soulevés par la caractérisation des idéalismes antiques et modernes. (shrink)

Dietrich von Hildebrand denominated the generation of new human life as the “superabundant end” of the spousal act not to deny but to refine the scholastic view that the child is the “end of the act,” simply. The act at the source of human generation is not straightforwardly generative; rather, its generativity is metaphysically grounded in it as a concrete act of union between the spouses. There are thus in some sense two finalities structuring the act, with a specific order (...) between them: union and the fruitfulness following superabundantly from it. In this essay I bring to evidence the framework underlying von Hildebrand’s position by examining love as the forma of the spousal act and the significance of sexuality as an embodied act. I will conclude with some thoughts on how the concept of superabundance accommodates certain truths about the spousal act more readily than does the simple notion of finality. (shrink)

Este trabajo consiste en un recorrido por la historia reciente de la asignatura Filosofía del Derecho en España. Dicho recorrido se detiene en lo acontecido en los últimos años. Sin embargo, expone, prospectivamente, diferentes vías para tratar de superar el desterramiento y/o enterramiento de la asignatura: ya sea la resurrección o la reencarnación. La inutilidad y la melancolía enmarcan un final aquejado de la tensión gramsciana entre el pesimismo de la inteligencia y el optimismo de la voluntad.

The extensive quality of the idea of limit expressed by finis becomes evident in the aporia posed in De finibus by the necessity that the supreme good, in order to be perfect, must not increase with duration. The semantic comparison between τέλος and finis explains the difficulty -in the Ciceronian treaty- to understand virtuous acts as non-cinetic acts and, therefore, capable of increasing intensively.

The article develops the conception that Leibniz has of organisms as machines of a particular type, differing from artificial machines because 1. all the parts of an organic machine are in turn composed by smaller machines and thus to infinity; and 2. the maintenance of the individual identity in living machines is provided by the fact that they have folds going to infinity which can unfold and fold back, thus allowing infinite transformations of the body. The author then discusses these (...) two theses. With respect to thesis 1 the question is how the idea that the artificial machines have parts which are not in their turn machines is compatible with the mechanistic worldview hold by Leibniz. With respect to thesis 2 the author emphasizes the fact that Leibniz's conception of the infinite convolution of the organic machines seems to anticipate several points in the mathematics of fractal curves. (shrink)

In a widely noted book, Henry Greely has suggested that “the end of sex” is on the horizon. By this he means that sexual activity for pleasure will be increasingly disconnected from the process by which children are conceived—a result of the growing availability of what he terms Easy PGD. This essay explores the possibility that this sense of an “end” of sex fails to attend adequately to another sense of “end”—namely, the telos that connects human sexual activity to the (...) birth of children. Articulating a Christian understanding of procreation, the essay notes that Easy PGD may invite us to miss the human significance of the connection between the love-giving and life-giving aspects of sexual activity. (shrink)

The paper is an attempt to consider the issue that so far has not been discussed frequently in the Polish philological current. It focuses on the endings of 18 selected articles in the field of literary studies. Authors of textbooks on academic discourse argue that it is the ending that plays a fundamental role in the scientific discourse as a concluding, summarising, and potentially memorable part. This approach to a conclusion is often shared by scholars themselves, who choose different strategies (...) with regard to endings of their articles. When studying articles published in the period of 2015‒2019, we identified about 15 different ending strategies, e.g. an apologia for a literary work selected by an author, suggestions for further research possibilities, an attractive punch line, and an quotation from another paper. As the analysis reveals, the conclusion of an academic article is not only a place for introducing conventional rhetorical figures; it also becomes the researchers’ contribution to the understanding of the role ascribed by literary-studies scholars to their own scientific practice. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:BOOK REVIEWS 187 standing. He picks his way philosophicelly ~darough the many preludes, interludes and epilogues of the long, autobiographical poem, The Prelude. He succeeds in interpreting philosophically.Wordsworth's absorption in "the life of things" and the "immanence of the world soul." These ideas remain, it seems to me, in Wordsworth's mind as well as in.his art primarily "lyrical ballads." But Melvin Rader has given us a thoroughly intelligible account, (...) both historical and philosophical, of both Coleridge and Wordsworth as reflectiveminds, without detracting item them as artists. HERBERTW. SCHNEIDER Claremont Graduate School and Unlver~i~y Center gchelting et la R~alit~ Finis: Essai sur la Philosophic de la Nature et de l'[dentit~. By Judith E. Schlanger. (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1966. Pp. 162. = Biblioth~que de Philosophie Contemporaine: Histoire de ta Philosophie et Philosophie Gfin6rale. Paper, F. 12.--) L'dtude de Judith E. Schlanger pr~se~te un bref expos6 des th~mes princ~paux de la pens~e philosophlque de Schelling en retra~ant de fa~on plus ou moius syst6matique l'itindraire spirituel de ce grand penseur qui a crd6 les fondsments spdculatifs du romantisme aIlemand. La philosophie de Schelling refl~te une ardeur,constants de recherche toujours progressive miroitant lea rythmes intimes de son articulation/~ la fois subtile et intensive. Nous allons donner en raccourci la principale ligne d'6volution de cette pens~e. L'essai de Schlanger a pour objet propre le probl~me philosophique qui rdsulte de la connexion 6troite de deux th~mes constituant les fondoments de la philosophie schellingienne, notamment le bh6me d'une philosophie concrAte qui rdcupAre intdgralement l'intuition et celui de la simultan6it6 de l'absolu et du finidans une rdalitdqui n'est constitu6e que par des totas diserAtes. Pour Schelling l'absolu n'est autre chose que la rdalitd concrete constitude par l'ensemble des totalitds individuelles et particuli6res qui sent con~ues comme dtant organiques et qui sent intelligibles, c'est-~.dire leur prdsence et leur raison d'etre coincident et ne peuvent ~tre saisiesque par l'immddiatetd de l'intuition intellectuelle et non par une rationslitd ddductive. L'absolu eat organicitd intelligibleau moyen d'un mode de connaissance intdgralement intuitif, done de rationalitd/t dvidence pleine et non de rationalitd ~t mddiation conceptuelle. L'absolu est done un total, une totalitd complexe ~ cause do ses articulations ind6finiment multiples ~tl'intdrieur. La philosophie enest la transposition aussi bien dans son d6veloppement actuel que dans l'embrassement des multiples ddterminations en un totalitarisme du savoir. L'instrument opdrationnel et cognitif capable d'61aborer cette transposition est l'intuition,la "Anschauung". En effet l'intuition joue un r61e capital dans la philosophie de Schelling. Issue directement de l'exp6rience sensible, c'est-~-dire, concrbte et individuelle, ellepermet d'englober dans l'immddiatetd d'une seule dvidence ~ la fois coner ~te et totale la coprdsence et la contemporandit6 de l'absolu et du finien une unit6 positive, non-dialectique, mais organique. Il est vrai que le scheme de l'organisme et de l'organicitd detains la pensde de ScheUing. L'absolu et le finisent en correlation organique. L'actualit6 dvidents de leur opposition manifeste leur copr~ence simultande, ce qui traduit leur unit~ absolue, sous-jacente qui a rendu possible cette opposition. La liaison effective, rdelle,empiriquement constatde des deux termes opposds leur suppose un fondement commun absolu. La dichotomie n'estpas primordiale, l'antith~sea pour support affirmatifun absolu. L'absolu est le lieu de l'identitd des opposds. C'est la coincidence immddiate entre des termes antinomiques qui d6finitl'unitd absolue. Et de cet absolu, la philosophic poss~de un savoir imm6diat, c'est-~dire absolu. II en rdsulte que l'intuitionest le principe m~me de l'intelligibilitd.Le probIAme phUosophique capital qui se pose et que Schlanger dtudie dana l'ceuvre de Schelling depuis les ddbuts de sa pensde en 1794jusqu'au moment o~1la philosophie de l'Identitd eat constitude, en 1804environ s'dnonce comme suit: La vision de l'identit6 immddiate des opposds comme forme de la rdalitd absolue pourra-t-elle s'articuler dans un savoir systdmatique et objective- 188 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY ment communicable de la totalit6... (shrink)

Que la passivité nous constitue semble doublement établi. Elle est même désignée tant originaire qu’indéfectible. D’où la sait-on telle? De l’évidence et d’une critique. En l’évidence, nous la constatons, par la critique, Maurice Merleau-Ponty dit son caractère premier. La réfutation de l’idéalisme doit conduire à y consentir. Que montre-t-elle précisément? Que l’idéalisme est, pour nous, impossible, inéluctablement absent. Que serait-il? La stricte infidélité à l’égard de notre être. Être...

SÍNTESE - Facilmente lê-se Descartes como autor de um projeto de reforma do conhecimento, estranhando- se mesmo a presença da moral, na parte terceira do Discurso. Uma análise aprofundada do projeto cartesiano mostra, entretanto, que na economia complessiva intelectual projetada por ele, a moral representa ao mesmo tempo o pressuposto e o ponto alto de tal reforma.