BackgroundFunctional neurodiagnostics could allow researchers and clinicians to distinguish more accurately between the unresponsive wakefulness syndrome and the minimally conscious state. It remains unclear how it informs surrogate decision-making.ObjectiveTo explore how the next of kin of patients with disorders of consciousness interpret the results of a functional neurodiagnostics measure and how/why their interpretations influence their attitudes towards medical decisions.Methods and SampleWe conducted problem-centered interviews with seven next of kin of patients with DOC who had undergone a functional HD-EEG examination at (...) a neurological rehabilitation center in Germany. The examination included an auditory oddball paradigm and a motor imagery task to detect hidden awareness. We analyzed the interview transcripts using structuring qualitative content analysis.ResultsRegardless of the diagnostic results, all participants were optimistic of the patients’ meaningful recovery. We hypothesize, that participants deal with the results of examinations according to their belief system. Thus, an unfavorable evaluation of the patient’s state had the potential to destabilize the participant’s belief system. To re-stabilize or to prevent the destabilization of their belief system, participants used different strategies. Participants accepted a “positive” HD-EEG result since it stabilized their belief system.ConclusionWe hypothesize, that a group of next of kin of patients with DOC deals with functional neurodiagnostics results on the basis of the result’s value and their high hope that the patient will recover meaningfully. A psychological mechanism seems to moderate the impact of functional neurodiagnostics on surrogate treatment decisions. (shrink)

Clarke and Beck's defense of the theoretical construct “approximate number system” is flawed in serious ways – from biological misconceptions to mathematical naïveté. The authors misunderstand behavioral/psychological technical concepts, such as numerosity and quantical cognition, which they disdain as “exotic.” Additionally, their characterization of rational numbers is blind to the essential role of symbolic reference in the emergence of number.

Beller, Bender, & Jordan [Intro]. Which factors have triggered, constrained, or shaped the course of cognitive evolution is a question of key interest to cognitive science. The topic introduced here highlights the relevance of culture as a driving force in this process. It provides an overview of current empirical and theoretical work leading this field, and it investigates the potential for integrating multiple perspectives across several timescales and levels of analysis.

This paper reviews the uneven history of the relationship between Anthropology and Cognitive Science over the past 30 years, from its promising beginnings, followed by a period of disaffection, on up to the current context, which may lay the groundwork for reconsidering what Anthropology and (the rest of) Cognitive Science have to offer each other. We think that this history has important lessons to teach and has implications for contemporary efforts to restore Anthropology to its proper place within Cognitive Science. (...) The recent upsurge of interest in the ways that thought may shape and be shaped by action, gesture, cultural experience, and language sets the stage for, but so far has not fully accomplished, the inclusion of Anthropology as an equal partner. (shrink)

As a practicing clinical nurse, a phenomenon I experienced at times was the sudden acute sense that something was going wrong with a person in care at the sub‐critical unit in the hospital where I worked. In fact, many hospital nurses have their story of “something's not right” in relation to a person they were caring for/with, in that the day started with them on a coherent path to healing and then suddenly the nurse feels something is going very wrong, (...) and yet there is nothing observable that would justify such a feeling. This feeling would be called “intuition” by many nurses, a concept most notably theorized in nursing by Patricia Benner in her extensive program of scholarship. Benner defines intuition as “understanding without rationale.” Benner opposes embodied intuition and rational abstract reasoning and creates criteria for the use of each by nursing depending on whether the clinical situation is familiar or novel. The philosophical idea is that the new must be reasoned with a different mode of thought than the familiar. Charles Sanders Peirce was a philosopher of reasoning. He defined logic as the theory of reasoning, which by the end of his career he was declaring was only another name for semiotic. Peirce argued that all reasoning/semiosis is done through signs, or more accurately sign‐activity. Semiotic is the philosophical schema providing the concepts and methods by which semiosis ‐ reasoning ‐ happens. Importantly, semiotic does not oppose different modes of thought, and conceptualizes reasoning as a process that functions in familiar as well as novel situations. In this paper I describe Peirce's philosophy of semiotic. I then provide an example relevant to nursing by conducting a semiosis of the nursing scenario above to show how nursing “works chance,” or novelty, in a way that doesn't need to resort to rational abstract reasoning and yet is different than Benner's notion of intuition. (shrink)

The French public has a distinct taste for realist representations of public crisis. Citing figures from the Centre National de la Cinématographie et de l’Image Animée (CNC), Sarah Cooper has shown that interest in documentary film is steadily on the rise in France (9), as attested to by the growing number of documentary festivals and documentary films recently released in theaters. Within this context, Martin O’Shaughnessy links the popularity of the social documentary genre to a series of political developments in (...) France, such as the 1995 protests against the infamous “Plan Juppé,” which aimed to slash public spending, and the French electorate’s spurning in 2005 of the Constitution proposed by the European .. (shrink)

This paper argues against the idea of climate change refugeehood. Drawing on political realism, it reconstructs the idea and function of refugeehood in international politics. Refugees are not the agencyless victims merely in search of rescue by states of the Global North, as the idea of climate refugeehood as a form of humanitarian refugeehood would have it. Nor are they simply a function of reparative justice, or of defending international state legitimacy. To liberal democracies, refugees are those fleeing political oppression. (...) They hold an important political function in inter-state relations in undermining rival political systems and strengthening liberal democratic regimes, both ideally and materially. The idea of climate refugeehood collides with the role refugeehood plays in international politics, the reasons for their admission, and the conceptualization of their plight and function. It ought, hence, to be rejected. (shrink)

This paper introduces readers to the philosophical problems related to Chan Buddhist meditation practices. By looking at the Platform Sutra's teachings of “non-abiding” (wuzhu) and the Hongzhou Chan Buddhist's teachings of being “without seeking” (wuqiu), I illustrate how a major problem that the Chan Buddhists were attempting to deal with was of the dualism between practice and realization. To properly understand the Chan Buddhist attitude towards meditation, we need to see them as critical of a means/ends dualism operating in human (...) experience. Contrary to interpretations by recent scholars that believe the Hongzhou Chan Buddhists abandon meditation practices, the Hongzhou approach to meditation is to be “without seeking” or the freedom from a means/ends dualism structuring how we perceive the world. (shrink)

Language is both a biological and a cultural phenomenon. Our aim here is to discuss, in an evolutionary perspective, the articulation of these two aspects of language. For this, we draw on the general conceptual framework developed by Ruth Millikan (1984) while at the same time dissociating ourselves from her view of language.

Although there is widespread agreement that our epistemic dependence on other people's knowledge is a key ingredient of our cognitive life, the role of trust in this dependence is much more open to debate. Is trust in epistemic authority—or “epistemic trust” for short—an epistemological notion in any sense, or is it simply a bridge-concept that connects our epistemological concerns to moral issues? Should we depict it in terms of the more familiar sociological notion of trust as a basis for cooperation?

In this innovative book, Gloria Frost reconstructs and analyses Aquinas's theories on efficient causation and causal powers, focusing specifically on natural causal powers and efficient causation in nature. Frost presents each element of Aquinas's theories one by one, comparing them with other theories, as well as examining the philosophical and interpretive ambiguities in Aquinas's thought and proposing fresh solutions to conceptual difficulties. Her discussion includes explanations of Aquinas's technical scholastic terminology in jargon-free prose, as well as background on medieval (...) scientific views - including ordinary language explanations of the medieval physical theories which Aquinas assumed in formulating his views on causation and causal powers. The resulting volume is a rich exploration of a central philosophical topic in medieval philosophy and beyond, and will be valuable especially for scholars and advanced students working on Aquinas and on medieval natural philosophy. (shrink)

My purpose in this short response to Clinton's interesting article On Bender's orientation to models: Towards a philosophical debate on covering laws, theory, emergence and mechanisms in nursing science, which is published in this issue, is not to provide any counterargument to Clinton's interpretation of my own argument; readers are welcome to interrogate both articles at their leisure and make their own conclusions. What I will do instead is provide a brief critical assessment of my own (il)logic re bringing (...) in the notion of mechanism as conceived by Machamer, Darden and Craver into an argument for models versus theories as a carrier of nursing knowledge. (shrink)

In chapter 4 of Autonomous Knowledge: Radical Enhancement, Autonomy and the Future of Knowing (OUP, 2021), Carter takes on the question of whether there is an epistemic autonomy condition on know-how, e.g. one that might rule out cases of radical performance enhancement as genuine cases of know-how. In this paper, I examine Carter’s proposal and identify an asymmetry in the way his epistemic autonomy condition is applied to enhanced and non-enhanced instances of know-how. In particular, it seems that either an (...) autonomy condition is required for all forms of knowledge-how or it is not. If it is, then a potential worry is that young children do not manifest their know-how when doing things that we would normally be inclined to say they know how to do. If it is not, then young children do manifest some forms of non-enhanced know-how. While Carter chooses the second option, I argue that it is better to choose the first one, that is, to claim that all know-how needs to be epistemically autonomous along the lines he has described. I also show how this does not exclude young children from knowing how to do things. (shrink)

A partir de una investigación aplicada sobre programas de alfabetización digital de jóvenes latinoamericanas/os, el artículo ofrece una reflexión sobre los imaginarios sociales que sostienen la difusión de las nuevas tecnologías de información y comunicación (TIC) como condición para su aceptación y asignación de sentido social y subjetivo. Incursiona en el proceso de construcción de la juventud como concepto y como grupo social, presentando las principales características y problemáticas que experimentan las y los jóvenes en los contextos actuales, especialmente en (...) América Latina, y brinda datos sobre su acceso a las TIC. A través de una tipología de los programas estudiados y de un análisis comparado de las representaciones y valoraciones de las TIC por parte de adultos y jóvenes, interroga sobre los discursos y las prácticas educativas dominantes que incentivan el acceso de la juventud excluida o en riesgo al mundo tecnológico y sobre las formas en que caracterizan y aplican al enfoque de equidad de género. (shrink)

Focused on preparing educators to teach African American students, this straightforward and teacher-friendly text features a careful balance of published scholarship, a framework for culturally relevant and critical pedagogy, research-based case studies of model teachers, and tested culturally relevant practical strategies and actionable steps teachers can adopt. Its premise is that teachers who understand Black culture as an asset rather than a liability and utilize teaching techniques that have been shown to work can and do have specific positive impacts on (...) the educational experiences of African American children. (shrink)

This single volume is a thematically organized history of New York City filled with prints, paintings, and photos from the early days through the present. These telling images and revelations are a rich exploration of the most intriguing city in the world. 63 color photos. 100 line art illustrations.

This work studies an artistic way of narrating an exile without having to resort to direct words such as violence or crime. Max Aub, a Spanish exile in Mexico, published his personal magazine Sala de Espera in Aztec lands. In the section called “Zarzuela,” he compiled a series of short stories entitled Crímenes, which later, for its edition in book format, he called Crímenes ejemplares. The short stories are a series of humorous confessions about various types of murders narrated by (...) the "murderers," so that they seem real testimonies. Throughout the three editions of this book, during Aub's lifetime, the author incorporated a series of "clues" in the paratexts with the aim of referring to the social phenomena of the time, especially those related to the situation with the Franco regime, the Cold War —historical context of the time of Aub's exile in Mexico— and the events that would take place in Mexico and Paris in 1968. For example, this last nod to the violent events of that summer of 68 is represented with a painting that evokes the French gang Bonnot, dedicated to bank robberies to destabilize the economy of the richest. This is an example of how the writer related the fiction of the crimes to real events, in such a way that a kind of dilution between the real and the imaginary arises. (shrink)

AI systems play an increasingly important role in shaping and regulating the lives of millions of human beings across the world. Calls for greater _transparency_ from such systems have been widespread. However, there is considerable ambiguity concerning what “transparency” actually means, and therefore, what greater transparency might entail. While, according to some debates, transparency requires _seeing through_ the artefact or device, widespread calls for transparency imply _seeing into_ different aspects of AI systems. These two notions are in apparent tension with (...) each other, and they are present in two lively but largely disconnected debates. In this paper, we aim to further analyse what these calls for transparency entail, and in so doing, clarify the sorts of transparency that we should want from AI systems. We do so by offering a taxonomy that classifies different notions of transparency. After a careful exploration of the different varieties of transparency, we show how this taxonomy can help us to navigate various domains of human–technology interactions, and more usefully discuss the relationship between technological transparency and human agency. We conclude by arguing that all of these different notions of transparency should be taken into account when designing more ethically adequate AI systems. (shrink)

Miranda Fricker has introduced the insightful notion of epistemic injustice in the philosophical debate, thus bridging concerns of social epistemology with questions that arise in the area of social and cultural studies. I concentrate my analysis of her treatment of testimonial injustice. According to Fricker, the central cases of testimonial injustice are cases of identity injustice in which hearers rely on stereotypes to assess the credibility of their interlocutors. I try here to broaden the analysis of that testimonial injustice by (...) indicating other mechanisms that bias our credibility assessments. In my perspective, the use of identity stereotypes is just one case among many biases in our credibility judgments. (shrink)

In this paper I argue that the epistemology of trust and testimony should take into account the pragmatics of communication in order to gain insight about the responsibilities speakers and hearers share in the epistemic access they gain through communication. Communication is a rich process of information exchange in which epistemic standards are negotiated by interlocutors. I discuss examples which show the contextual adjustment of these standards as the conversation goes on. Our sensitivity to the contextual dimension of epistemic standards (...) make us more responsible communicators. (shrink)

This book defines the relationship between the thought of Adam Smith and that of the ancients---Plato, Aristotle, Cicero, and the Stoics. Vivenza offers a complete survey of all Smith's writings with the aim of illustrating how classical arguments shaped opinions and scholarship in the eighteenth century.