Deep Brain Stimulation (DBS) is an effective treatment for advanced Parkinson’s disease. However, identifying stimulation parameters, such as contact and current amplitudes, is time-consuming based on trial and error. Directional leads add more stimulation options and render this process more challenging with a higher workload for neurologists and more discomfort for patients. In this study, a sweet spot-guided algorithm was developed that automatically suggested stimulation parameters. These suggestions were retrospectively compared to clinical monopolar reviews. A cohort of 24 Parkinson’s disease (...) patients underwent bilateral DBS implantation in the subthalamic nucleus at our center. First, the DBS’ leads were reconstructed with the open-source toolbox Lead-DBS. Second, a sweet spot for rigidity reduction was set as the desired stimulation target for programming. This sweet spot and estimations of the volume of tissue activated were used to suggest (i) the best lead level, (ii) the best contact, and (iii) the effect thresholds for full therapeutic effect for each contact. To assess these sweet spot-guided suggestions, the clinical monopolar reviews were considered as ground truth. In addition, the sweet spot-guided suggestions for best lead level and best contact were compared against reconstruction-guided suggestions, which considered the lead location with respect to the subthalamic nucleus. Finally, a graphical user interface was developed as an add-on to Lead-DBS and is publicly available. With the interface, suggestions for all contacts of a lead can be generated in a few seconds. The accuracy for suggesting the best out of four lead levels was 56%. These sweet spot-guided suggestions were not significantly better than reconstruction-guided suggestions (p = 0.3). The accuracy for suggesting the best out of eight contacts was 41%. These sweet spot-guided suggestions were significantly better than reconstruction-guided suggestions (p < 0.001). The sweet spot-guided suggestions of each contact’s effect threshold had a mean error of 1.2 mA. On an individual lead level, the suggestions can vary more with mean errors ranging from 0.3 to 4.8 mA. Further analysis is warranted to improve the sweet spot-guided suggestions and to account for more symptoms and stimulation-induced side effects. (shrink)

In 2000, Rüdiger Thiele [1] found in a notebook of David Hilbert, kept in Hilbert's Nachlass at the University of Göttingen, a small note concerning a 24th problem. As Hilbert wrote, he had considered including this problem in his famous problem list for the International Congress of Mathematicians in Paris in 1900.

When someone masters a skill, their performance looks to us like second nature: it looks as if their actions are smoothly performed without explicit, knowledge-driven, online monitoring of their performance. Contemporary computational models in motor control theory, however, are instructionist: that is, they cast skillful performance as a knowledge-driven process. Optimal motor control theory, as representative par excellence of such approaches, casts skillful performance as an instruction, instantiated in the brain, that needs to be executed—a motor command. This paper aims (...) to show the limitations of such instructionist approaches to skillful performance. We specifically address the question of whether the assumption of control-theoretic models is warranted. The first section of this paper examines the instructionist assumption, according to which skillful performance consists of the execution of theoretical instructions harnessed in motor representations. The second and third sections characterize the implementation of motor representations as motor commands, with a special focus on formulations from OMCT. The final sections of this paper examine predictive coding and active inference—behavioral modeling frameworks that descend, but are distinct, from OMCT—and argue that the instructionist, control-theoretic assumptions are ill-motivated in light of new developments in active inference. (shrink)

Através de uma leitura densa das fontes hagiográficas jesuítas que celebraram a vida de um jesuíta napolitano, Marcelo Mastrilli (1603-1637), procuro mostrar que as visões e narrativas proféticas foram importantes lugares de comunicação social, memória colectiva e mobilização política. O reposicionamento profético foi uma linguagem específica da tecnologia do eu, a partir da qual o sujeito fabricava a sua própria identidade, dentro e contra os limites externos da autoridade e das instituições. Marcelo Mastrilli – que viajou pela Itália, Espanha, Portugal, (...) Goa, Malaca, Filipinas e Japão – construiu a sua própria subjectividade e acção através de uma visão profética de São Francisco Xavier. Logo que a sua experiência pessoal foi impressa, atingindo um público mais vasto, mobilizou outros actores a imitá-lo, citá-lo, ou a fazer uso dele nos seus percursos individuais e sociais. O que se podia transportar de um continente para outro não eram, claro, visões pessoais mas a sua corporização numa série de textos e imagens materiais. E a verdade é que mesmo depois da sua morte, em 1637, as suas visões foram retomadas pelo padre António Vieira e integradas no seu discurso legitimador da dinastia de Bragança e do papel que os jesuítas aí desempenhavam. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is twofold: (1) to assess whether the construct of neural representations plays an explanatory role under the variational free-energy principle and its corollary process theory, active inference; and (2) if so, to assess which philosophical stance - in relation to the ontological and epistemological status of representations - is most appropriate. We focus on non-realist (deflationary and fictionalist-instrumentalist) approaches. We consider a deflationary account of mental representation, according to which the explanatorily relevant contents of neural (...) representations are mathematical, rather than cognitive, and a fictionalist or instrumentalist account, according to which representations are scientifically useful fictions that serve explanatory (and other) aims. After reviewing the free-energy principle and active inference, we argue that the model of adaptive phenotypes under the free-energy principle can be used to furnish a formal semantics, enabling us to assign semantic content to specific phenotypic states (the internal states of a Markovian system that exists far from equilibrium). We propose a modified fictionalist account: an organism-centered fictionalism or instrumentalism. We argue that, under the free-energy principle, pursuing even a deflationary account of the content of neural representations licenses the appeal to the kind of semantic content involved in the aboutness or intentionality of cognitive systems; our position is thus coherent with, but rests on distinct assumptions from, the realist position. We argue that the free-energy principle thereby explains the aboutness or intentionality in living systems and hence their capacity to parse their sensory stream using an ontology or set of semantic factors. (shrink)

In European science and technology policy, various styles have been developed and institutionalised to govern the ethical challenges of science and technology innovations. In this paper, we give an account of the most dominant styles of the past 30 years, particularly in Europe, seeking to show their specific merits and problems. We focus on three styles of governance: a technocratic style, an applied ethics style, and a public participation style. We discuss their merits and deficits, and use this analysis to (...) assess the potential of the recently established governance approach of ‘Responsible Research and Innovation’. Based on this analysis, we reflect on the current shaping of RRI in terms of ‘doing governance’. (shrink)

In this essay, I engage with the methodological contributions and original readings of Fanon and Rousseau contained in Jane Anna Gordon’s Creolizing Political Theory. I build upon one insight in particular––Gordon’s illuminating joint reading of Rousseau’s general will and Fanon’s national consciousness—in order to reflect on Fanon’s ambivalence about Pan-Africanism. In this task, I engage with W.E.B. Du Bois’s transnational thinking in order to parse out the tensions as well as the reciprocal relation between national consciousness and transnational or cosmopolitan (...) engagements. (shrink)

In certain cases, children can react strongly in favor of product placements inserted in movies. Scholars therefore argue that existing disclosures might be one strategy in protecting children from any negative effects. However, disclosure research indicates that viewers should both notice disclosures and, in cases of textual cues, read them. We conducted an experiment with 139 children (Mage = 8.46; SD = 1.12; girls = 53.2 %) and tested the influence of textual disclosure format on disclosure awareness as well as (...) brand-related effects. When comparing with no disclosure, results showed that exposure to an existing textual disclosure positively affects disclosure awareness while exposure to an expanded version of it (i.e., by using more textual elements) did not. Further analyses revealed that prior movie exposure positively affected brand evaluation. However, disclosure awareness reversed this effect. We conclude that children appear to be socialized with the existing textual disclosure and that disclosure awareness might be of importance in shielding children against persuasive influence. (shrink)

Admiration and adoration have been considered as emotions with the power to change people, yet our knowledge of the specific nature and function of these emotions is quite limited. From an interdisciplinary perspective, we present a prototype approach to admiration and what has variously been labelled adoration, worship, or reverence. Both admiration and adoration contribute to the formation of personal and collective ideals, values, and identities, but their workings differ. We offer a detailed theoretical account of commonalities and differences in (...) the appraisal patterns and action tendencies associated with the two emotions. This analysis reveals that admiration motivates the internalisation and emulation of ideals embodied by an outstanding role model. Adoration motivates adherence to the teachings and expectations of a meaning maker and benefactor perceived as superhuman or sacred. Thus, the primary function of admiration is to promote individual learning and change, whereas adoration primarily serves to bind communities together. (shrink)

Background: The recent COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the deficiencies that characterize the functioning of the Italian national health system. Prisons have always mirrored the most radical expressions of these weaknesses. During the early stages of the pandemic, prison facilities across Italy underwent a series of changes dictated by the need to ensure the safety of the prisoners and staff. The adoption of these rules contributed to a total or partial redefinition of many central facets of life in prison, such as (...) intake procedures for new arrivals and the ways prisoners were allowed to communicate with their families.Objectives: The aim of this qualitative study was to analyze the testimony of penitentiary healthcare workers in prisons throughout Italy to determine the impact of COVID-19 on their professional and personal lives.Participants: Thirty-eight participants were contacted and 20 decided to participate in the interview. The sample was made up of 10 women and 10 men. All the participants were members of the healthcare staff of a penitentiary facility. All were recruited through an Italian association whose mission is the development, promotion, and implementation of social solidarity projects including prisoners' social and health care. This study was facilitated through representatives serving in nine different regions of Italy. The participants were divided according to their professional roles in prisons.Method: In-depth interviews were conducted by telephone or online using telecommunication platforms. The transcribed texts underwent thematic analysis using the Atlas.ti software to identify patterns of meaning across the dataset.Results: Four main themes emerged from the analysis: Interpersonal difficulties, management and operational difficulties, the personal distress and bereavement of healthcare workers, and the distress of inmates. The importance of relationship management skills when interacting with prisoners emerged as a key topic in many interviews, and the participants highlighted the need for adequate training. The increase in prisoners' anxiety made communication more difficult.Conclusions: The findings suggest that healthcare workers in jails need emergency-oriented training. Participants described their feeling of loneliness and quasi-abandonment when carrying out their duties during the pandemic. In particular, they underscored the need for psychological guidance to better manage altered reactions with prisoners and colleagues as a result of heightened death anxiety and isolation. (shrink)

This essay brings together political theories of empire and racial capitalism to clarify the entanglements between socialist and imperial discourse at the turn of the twentieth century. I show that white labor activists and intellectuals in the United States and the British settler colonies borrowed from imperial scripts to mark non-white workers as a threat. This discourse was thus both imperial and popular, because it absorbed the white working class into settler projects and enlisted its support in defense of imperial (...) logics of labor control. While white workers’ demands of enfranchisement were part of a transnational imagination that was both imperial and narrowly emancipatory, this discourse reemerged as one of popular sovereignty and found channels and paths to institutionalization through national states. These institutional formations arose out of the encounter between capitalists interested in facilitating mobility of racialized laboring subjects around the globe, elite projects invested in sheltering settler spaces, and white workers concerned with protecting their own labor from competition by excluding exploitable non-white workers. White labor’s embrace of racial prejudice and the exclusion of workers of color created segregated labor spaces that fit neatly with both capitalist goals of labor control and the protection of the settler status of emerging polities. Bringing to the forefront the imperial genealogy of popular sovereignty and immigration control disrupts liberal political theory frameworks that condemn restrictions as well as those that find migration restrictions permissible. The analysis also illuminates contemporary immigration politics. (shrink)

Von der Antike bis in die Gegenwart partizipiert die Antigone an disparaten Denkmodellen geschlechtlicher, verwandtschaftlicher und ethisch-moralischer Konzepte. Aus literatur-und kulturwissenschaftlicher Perspektive betrachtet, lassen sich die Konstruktionen dieser Konzepte kritisch hinterfragen. Ines Böker untersucht die Entstehungsmöglichkeiten, Wandlungsprozesse und (kritischen) Implikationen von Antigone-Transformationen in dem Spannungsfeld der vielschichtigen theoretischen und literarischen Rezeptionsgeschichte. Trotz unterschiedlicher Positionen enthüllen die Untersuchungen der Antigone-Transformationen das, was die Antigone selbst aktiv gestaltet: Die Ethik der Widersetzlichkeit.

This edited book deepens the engagement between 21st century philosophy of mind and the emerging technologies which are transforming our environment. Many new technologies appear to have important implications for the human mind, the nature of our cognition, our sense of identity and even perhaps what we think human beings are. They prompt questions such as: Would an uploaded mind be 'me'? Does our reliance on smart phones, or wearable gadgets enhance or diminish the human mind? and: How does our (...) deep reliance upon ambient artificial intelligence change the shape of the human mind? Readers will discover the best philosophical analysis of what current and near future 21st technology means for the metaphysics of mind. Important questions are addressed on matters relating to the extended mind and the distributed self. Expert authors explore the role that the ubiquitous smart phone might have in creating new forms of self-knowledge. They consider machine consciousness, brain enhancement and smart ambient technology, and what they can tell us about phenomenal consciousness. While ideas of artificial general intelligence, cognitive enhancements and the smart environment are widely commented on, serious analysis of their philosophical implications is only getting started. These contributions from top scholars are therefore very timely, and are of particular relevance to students and scholars of the philosophy of mind, philosophy of technology, computer science and psychology. (shrink)

This article explores the distinctions among European peoples’ character established in Kant’s anthropology and their connection with his politics. These aspects are neglected relative to the analysis of race between Europeans and non-Europeans, but Kant’s anthropological works portray the people of Mediterranean Europe as not capable of civilization because of the dominance of passion in their faculty of desire, which he ties to ‘Oriental’ influences in blood or government. Kant then superimposes this racialized anthropology over the historical geopolitics of Europe, (...) obscuring the indebtedness of Northern European trade dominance to Mediterranean historical tactics and financial wealth. By relegating the Mediterranean to the margins and dismissing contentious commercial exchange in the region as mere violence spearheaded by North African corsairs, Kant gives us an elitist cosmopolitanism unable to cope with hierarchy and inequality, diminishing its potential for egalitarian global projects today. (shrink)

This aim of this paper is two-fold: it critically analyses and rejects accounts blending active inference as theory of mind and enactivism; and it advances an enactivist-dynamic understanding of social cognition that is compatible with active inference. While some social cognition theories seemingly take an enactive perspective on social cognition, they explain it as the attribution of mental states to other people, by assuming representational structures, in line with the classic Theory of Mind. Holding both enactivism and ToM, we argue, (...) entails contradiction and confusion due to two ToM assumptions widely known to be rejected by enactivism: that social cognition reduces to mental representation and social cognition is a hardwired contentful ‘toolkit’ or ‘starter pack’ that fuels the model-like theorising supposed in. The paper offers a positive alternative, one that avoids contradictions or confusion. After rejecting ToM-inspired theories of social cognition and clarifying the profile of social cognition under enactivism, that is without assumptions and, the last section advances an enactivist-dynamic model of cognition as dynamic, real-time, fluid, contextual social action, where we use the formalisms of dynamical systems theory to explain the origins of socio-cognitive novelty in developmental change and active inference as a tool to demonstrate social understanding as generalised synchronisation. (shrink)

In recent years, many researchers engaged in diverse areas and approaches of “cultural-historical activity theory” (CHAT) realized an increasing international interest in Lev S. Vygotsky’s, A. N. Leont’ev’s, and A. Luria’s work and its continuations. Not so long ago, Yrjö Engeström noted that the activity approach was still “the best-held secret of academia” (p. 64) and highlighted the “impressive dimension of theorizing behind” it. Certainly, this remark reflects a time when CHAT was off the beaten tracks. But if this situation (...) begins to change today, in which direction will CHAT be heading? Will it continue to be one of those projects “unique for its practical, political, and civic engagement” committed “to ideals of social justice, equality, and social change” as it was in the beginning (Stetsenko & Arievitch, 2004, p. 58)? Although a positive future of CHAT seems to lie ahead, we consider in this article some of the problematics that may challenge all those who want to pass the “impressive dimensions of theorizing” from “insider” circles to a larger audience and from one generation to another as well as encourage newcomers to become part of this tradition through critical engagement in its theory and practice. A key to these engagements, we suggest, is not only the comprehensive empirical and philosophical basis, but also the role of dialectics as both topic and method. Therefore, the challenge for newcomers (as well as for “old-timers”) to take on the tradition of CHAT is not a small one indeed. We assume that a major reason for the increasing interest in CHAT lies in its potential to provide a non-reductionist approach to human development, which is due to its affinity to dialectics; however, the close interrelation to a tradition that reaches back to the theories of Georg W.F. Hegel and Karl Marx, among others, is not the easiest to master. In consideration of these difficulties, the purpose of this article is to investigate how contemporary approaches within CHAT can continue to provide a dialectical framework to preserve and renew the critical intention of this tradition, and how we run the risk of losing this sting. Thereby, we sensitize researchers to the problem of developing a cultural-historical approach within a historical situation that confronts us with new, unanswered questions. In this light, we also problematize the use of scientific language, for it may lead us to speak and argue un-dialectically when in fact we intend or ought to think dialectically. This article seeks to convey insights and arguments of how we can relate our theoretical approaches to a tradition of dialectical thinking and in what ways this is paramount for a critical engagement in theory and practice. In the first part, we therefore discuss not only some major theorems in Hegel’s and Marx’s work but also, and above all, Vygotsky’s way of developing the cultural-historical approach of psychology. Second, we argue that the contemporary, widely known version of CHAT, related to Yrjö Engeström’s theoretical and empirical work, neglects different aspects of dialectical thinking and consequently narrows its potential to a socio-critical approach to societal practice and human development. A crucial question of this scrutiny will be the notion of contradictions and how development is supposed to be achieved. In general, our intention is not only to clarify the role of dialectics as a method for activity theory but also to problematize the role of the subjects of research in CHAT and to confront ourselves with the problems of practicing and developing a critical science in face of a complex and challenging societal world. (shrink)

Diante de uma crise sanitária mundial, a pandemia do COVID-19, iniciada em 2020, fez com a humanidade se reorganizasse, entrando em uma nova era. Os órgãos de saúde competentes, juntamente com as nações, expuseram suas preocupações, editando decretos e normativas a serem seguidas, com medidas rigorosas de isolamento social. E a Educação foi uma das áreas mais afetadas, por ser um dos pilares mais importante na sociedade moderna. A rotina que antes era totalmente presencial, passou a ser a distância, novas (...) ferramentas foram ganhando palco, as tecnologias entraram em cena, as mídias sociais passam a ser recursos, estratégias para novas abordagens, metodologias passaram a ser repensadas, reorganizadas, para oferecer uma educação de qualidade, mesmo em tempos de crise. E partindo dessa ideia, o presente trabalho visa discutir e compreender se toda essa mudança, essa troca de cenário de forma abrupta, e as estratégias conseguiram alcançar os objetivos propostos no processo de ensino-aprendizagem. A análise ocorreu em uma escola pública municipal da região norte de Cuiabá- MT, no período letivo de 2020 e 2021, sendo observadas o curso das disciplinas Arte e Educação Física, com um público de alunos variados, da pré-escola ao 3° ano do Ensino Fundamental I. (shrink)

How is admiration different from adoration? We provided one answer to this question by examining the pathways through which admiration and adoration linked to self-expansion in a questionnaire and an experimental (autobiographical recall of emotion episodes) study. Both emotions were associated with increased potential efficacy to accomplish goals (i.e., self-expansion), but different action tendencies accounted for these links. While our emotion inductions did not successfully distinguish between admiration and adoration, we could statistically disentangle their effects through mediator models. In both (...) studies, self-reported admiration linked to self-expansion through the tendency to emulate admired others. Adoration related to self-expansion through the tendency to affiliate with adored others. These findings were obtained after controlling for other emotions in response to the target person (awe, love, hope, benign envy) and mutuality of the relationship. Our findings also suggest that considering specific emotions (rather than undifferentiated positive affect) helps uncover different pathways to self-expansion. (shrink)

En estos últimos años es reconocida la influencia de la dimensión emocional en el desarrollo del aprendizaje en el aula. Sin embargo, parece necesario un mayor desarrollo de los descriptores básicos: actitudes, emociones, creencias y valores en disciplinas concretas. El artículo aborda el tema de los valores y actitudes de las Matemáticas y de forma específica el valor de la belleza. Se argumenta sobre la importancia del juicio estético como una componente importante en el buen resolutor de problemas, explicitando sus (...) implicaciones para la educación matemática de los estudiantes. (shrink)

After committing the original sin in paradise, mankind was forced to work for a living. After that only lazy scoundrels like apes have gotten away without needing to work. Later, the rise of capitalism and the co-occurrence of slaves, workers and citizens demanded scientific theories of racial hierarchy. These taxonomies of racialized social structure were never abandoned: in 2011, the media still referred to the London rioters as ‘apes’.

Insurance markets have always relied on large amounts of data to assess risks and price their products. New data-driven technologies, including wearable health trackers, smartphone sensors, predictive modelling and Big Data analytics, are challenging these established practices. In tracking insurance clients’ behaviour, these innovations promise the reduction of insurance costs and more accurate pricing through the personalisation of premiums and products. Building on insights from the sociology of markets and Science and Technology Studies, this article investigates the role of economic (...) experimentation in the making of data-driven personalisation markets in insurance. We document a case study of a car insurance experiment, launched by a Belgian direct insurance company in 2016 to set up an experiment of tracking driving style behavioural data of over 5000 participants over a one-year period. Based on interviews and document analysis, we outline how this in vivo experiment was set-up, which interventions and manipulations were imposed to make the experiment successful, and how the study was evaluated by the actors. Using JL Austin’s distinction between happy and unhappy statements, we argue how the experiment, despite its failure not to provide the desired evidence, could be considered a ‘happy’ event. We conclude by highlighting the role of economic experiments ‘in the wild’ for the making of future markets of data-driven personalisation. (shrink)

The adoption of Big Data analytics in insurance has proved controversial but there has been little analysis specifying how insurance practices are changing. Is insurance passively subject to the forces of disruptive innovation, moving away from the pooling of risk towards its personalisation or individualisation, and what might that mean in practice? This special theme situates disruptive innovations, particularly the experimental practices of behaviour-based personalisation, in the context of the practice and regulation of contemporary insurance. Our contributors argue that behaviour-based (...) personalisation in insurance has different and broader implications than have yet been appreciated. BDAs are changing how insurance governs risk; how it knows, classifies, manages, prices and sells it, in ways that are more opaque and more extensive than the black boxes of in-car telematics. (shrink)

In this article we propose that executive functions play a key role in the origin of language. Our proposal is based on the methodological assumption that some of the cognitive systems involved in language functioning are also involved in its phylogenetic origin. In this regard, we demonstrate that a key property of language functioning is discourse coherence. Such property is not dependent on grammatical elements but rather is processed by cognitive systems that are not specific for language, namely the executive (...) functions systems of action planning, control and organization. Data from cognitive archaeology on the making of stone tools show that the processes requested to produce Prehistoric tools imply action organization operations similar to those involved in the processing of coherence. Based on these considerations, we propose that executive functions represent the link between stone tool making and language origins and suggest that they allowed our ancestors to develop forms of proto-discourse governed by coherence. (shrink)

This paper proposes an account of neurocognitive activity without leveraging the notion of neural representation. Neural representation is a concept that results from assuming that the properties of the models used in computational cognitive neuroscience must literally exist the system being modelled. Computational models are important tools to test a theory about how the collected data has been generated. While the usefulness of computational models is unquestionable, it does not follow that neurocognitive activity should literally entail the properties construed in (...) the model. While this is an assumption present in computationalist accounts, it is not held across the board in neuroscience. In the last section, the paper offers a dynamical account of neurocognitive activity with Dynamical Causal Modelling that combines dynamical systems theory mathematical formalisms with the theoretical contextualisation provided by Embodied and Enactive Cognitive Science. (shrink)

La biotecnología de edición genética pone a disposición de la humanidad la posibilidad de intervenir en la línea germinal. Este trabajo indaga sobre los fines de la intervención, los compromisos y la responsabilidad en su aplicación. Complementaria a la tarea ética precede la jurídica, como expresión de los valores sociales y, por ende, resulta necesaria una revisión teórica sobre las normativas internacionales, comunitarias y nacionales. Por último, se examina la magnitud del potencial efecto que puede tener en la humanidad, en (...) su dimensión colectiva, pero sin olvidar la dimensión individual, es decir, los sujetos directamente afectados en la intervención. (shrink)

Advancing a radically enactive account of cognition, we provide arguments in favour of the possibility that cultural factors permeate rather than penetrate cognition, such that cognition extensively and transactionally incorporates cultural factors rather than there being any question of cultural factors having to break into the restricted confines of cognition. The paper reviews the limitations of two classical cognitivist, modularist accounts of cognition and a revisionary, new order variant of cognitivism – a Predictive Processing account of Cognition, or PPC. It (...) argues that the cognitivist interpretation of PPC is conservatively and problematically attached to the idea of inner models and stored knowledge. In abandoning that way of understanding PPC, it offers a radically enactive alternative account of how cultural factors matter to cognition – one that abandons all vestiges of the idea that cultural factors might contentfully communicate with basic forms of cognition. In place of that idea, the possibility that culture permeates cognition is promoted. (shrink)

This paper examines the intersection of environmental history and the history of science, specifically the impact of forestry science and fire management on land use and community dynamics in rural Portuguese mountains. It further traces the evolution of fire management from an ancestral rural practice to a scientific concern and the subsequent integration of vernacular knowledge with scientific methods. In the early twentieth century, fire was a common tool in rural Portugal for land clearance, pasture management, and soil enrichment. Rooted (...) in local knowledge, these practices were increasingly challenged by the rise of scientific forestry, which viewed fire primarily as a threat to be controlled. By the mid-twentieth century, Portuguese forestry policies had undergone a significant shift toward aggressive fire suppression and large-scale afforestation, reflecting a broader trend of prioritizing timber production and forest protection. Notable shifts occurred in the 1970s, marked, among other factors, by the increase in rural fires, a new socioecological vision for the forest and the introduction of prescribed fire techniques influenced by international models. The paper argues that the establishment of scientific fire management practices represents a merging of expert knowledge with local experience. This move represents a shift from exclusionary policies toward a more nuanced understanding of fire’s role in landscape management. An examination of these historical developments demonstrates the intricate interrelationship between science, the environment, policy, and local practices, illustrating the way knowledge systems both shape and are shaped by environmental governance. (shrink)