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)

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)

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 this paper we propose a pragmatic approach to the evolution of language based on analysis of a particular element of human communication: discourse coherence. We show that coherence is essential for effective communication. Through analysis of a collection of neuropsychological and neurolinguistic studies, we maintain that the proper functioning of executive processes responsible for planning and executing actions plays a key role in the construction of coherent discourses. Studies that tested the discursive and conversational abilities of bonobos have showed (...) that apes are unable to construct a flow of discourse governed by coherence, and therefore, apes’ conversational interactions are quite different from those of humans. We then propose that the emergence of coherence in communication occurred after the split between great apes’ and humans’ lines of descendants and that this emergence might have been the result of a specific gradual development in the course of hominin evolution of the executive functions. (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.

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)

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)

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)

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)

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’.

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 paper argues that it is possible to embrace the predictive processing framework (PP) without reducing affordances to inferential perception. The cognitivist account of PP contends that it can capture relational perception, such as affordances. The rationale for this claim is that over time, sensory data becomes highly-weighted. This paper, however, will show the inconsistency of this claim in the face of the cognitivist premise that ‘encapsulated’ models can throw away ‘the body, the world, or other people’ [Hohwy 2016: 265]. (...) It is then showed how it is possible to embrace a non-cognitivist reading of PP—one that does not need to reduce affordances to representational content. (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)

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)

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)

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)

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)

El pensamiento crítico es uno de los objetivos generales de la educación, pero poco se conoce acerca de cómo se puede trasladar al aula. Este estudio explora la conceptualización de pensamiento crítico de los formadores/as de maestros/as y los ambientes de aprendizaje que diseñados para promoverlo. Se analizaron cinco entrevistas semiestructuradas a formadores/as de maestros/as mediante análisis de contenido. Los resultados mostraron que el pensamiento crítico se aborda implícitamente fomentando un aprendizaje activo contextualizado en problemas de la vida real. Este (...) estudio revela algunos desafíos relacionados con el diseño de ambientes de aprendizaje y procedimientos de evaluación. (shrink)

This paper aims to show how clinical pragmatics can fruitfully inform the classical theoretical models proposed by philosophical pragmatics. In the first part of the paper I argue that theories proposed in the domain of philosophical pragmatics, as those elaborated by Austin and Grice, are not plausible from a cognitive point of view and that for this reason they cannot be useful to understand pragmatic deficits. In the second part, I show that Relevance Theory overcomes this limitation, but I also (...) argue that it offers a restricted view of human communication which has to be integrated with a model of language use that takes into account a central pragmatic property: coherence of discourse. (shrink)

La relación de la matemática con la realidad es una cuestión que ha interesado desde siempre a los matemáticos y a los profesores de matemáticas, unas veces se establece esta relación desde la historia, otras para motivar a los alumnos (y responder a la famosa cuestión "para qué sirven las matemáticas") o para situar la construcción de conceptos matemáticos y sus significado en experiencias concretas y en conexión con otras disciplinas y, otras veces, a través de los estudios internacionales comparativos (...) de evaluación. (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)

We target the ontological and epistemological ramifications of the proposed distinction between Friston and Pearl blankets. We emphasize the need for empirical testing next to computational modeling. A peculiar aspect of the free energy principle (FEP) is its purported support of radically opposed ontologies of the mind. In our view, the objective ontological aspiration itself should be rejected for a pragmatic instrumentalist view.

This paper offers an original reading of Du Bois’s Black Reconstruction that highlights how the knock down effects from Reconstruction’s failures contributed to the U.S. imperial trajectory. The coalition between the industrial North, Southern landowners, and white workers ended the promise of racial emancipation advanced by Black freedmen and the Freedmen’s Bureau. The gains from the resubjection of Black freedmen and women; the development of a national identity based racial hierarchy and an attachment to material wealth, and the racialized militarism (...) of the South, Du Bois argues, underpinned the imperial pursuit of material wealth through violent means. The consolidation of white identity around technological ideals and militarism led Du Bois to revise his account of democratic education (redirecting it to critique capitalism and soulless technology) and to reach transnationally for emancipatory solidarity. (shrink)

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)

Nowadays, consumer ethics represents a relevant field of review. There have been some attempts to conduct literature reviews; however, these have been few and incomplete. For this reason, this paper follows two main objectives: (1) to develop a performance analysis to measure the impact/perceptibility of academic production on consumer ethics (most cited authors, journals and themes) and (2) to visually present the scientific structure by themes of research in consumer ethics as well as its evolution along time. Using SciMAT software, (...) a comprehensive thematic review is discussed. 568 scientific papers (2569 keywords and 8642 citations) were retrieved from the Web of Science from 1995 to 2021 (May). Our results show three main periods with two main research themes (consumer and corporate social responsibility), which remain relevant themes at the time. Also, some new themes that promote ethical consumption have gained weight or appear over time, some of which are linked to the marketing field (such as experiences, satisfaction, attitudes or privacy among others). (shrink)

Riassunto: Al centro di questo lavoro è l’analisi di due disturbi acquisiti del linguaggio: l’afasia di Broca e l’afasia di Wernicke. Tradizionalmente, tali disturbi sono stati interpretati come deficit che colpiscono le funzioni legate, rispettivamente, alla produzione articolatoria e alla comprensione del parlato in seguito a lesioni in due specifiche regioni cerebrali: nel caso dell’afasia di Broca, la terza circonvoluzione frontale sinistra; nel caso dell’afasia di Wernicke, la porzione posteriore del giro temporale superiore sinistro. Per tale ragione, queste due regioni (...) cerebrali, a cui ci si riferisce anche nei termini di area di Broca e area di Wernicke, sono state considerate le sedi neuroanatomiche della produzione e comprensione del linguaggio. Questo articolo mostra che, alla luce delle ricerche condotte negli ultimi decenni: non è più possibile sul piano dei deficit linguistici continuare a considerare l’afasia di Broca e l’afasia di Wernicke come disturbi unitari; non è più possibile continuare a sostenere l’esclusiva localizzazione delle funzioni di produzione e comprensione del linguaggio nelle due regioni cerebrali ad esse classicamente associate. Parole chiave: Afasia di Broca; Afasia di Wernicke; Area di Broca; Area di Wernicke; Disturbi del linguaggio; Localizzazione cerebrale; Neuroscienze Broca’s and Wernicke’s Aphasias in the Light of Contemporary Neuroscience: This paper analyzes two acquired language disorders: Broca’s aphasia and Wernicke’s aphasia. It has been commonly suggested that these disorders respectively affect functions related to speech production and language comprehension and they have been understood to result from two specific types of brain lesions: Broca’s aphasia from lesions in the third left frontal convolution; Wernicke’s aphasia from lesions in the posterior section of the left superior temporal gyrus. For this reason, these cerebral regions, also known as Broca’s area and Wernicke’s area, have long been viewed as the neuroanatomical correlates of language production and comprehension. This paper shows that in light of current research: with regard to language disorders, it is no longer possible to conceive of Broca’s and Wernicke's aphasias as unitary disorders; with regard to the cerebral localization of linguistic functions, it no longer possible to suggest that Broca’s and Wernicke’s areas are the only regions involved in speech production and comprehension. Keywords: Broca’s Aphasia; Wernicke’s Aphasia; Broca’s Area; Wernicke’s Area; Language Impairments; Cerebral Localization; Neuroscience. (shrink)