Musical prodigies reach exceptionally high levels of achievement before adolescence. Despite longstanding interest and fascination in musical prodigies, little is known about their psychological profile. Here we assess to what extent practice, intelligence, and personality make musical prodigies a distinct category of musician. Nineteen former or current musical prodigies were compared to 35 musicians with either an early or late start but similar amount of musical training, and 16 non-musicians. All completed a Wechsler IQ test, the Big Five Inventory, the (...) Autism Spectrum Quotient, the Barcelona Music Reward Questionnaire, the Dispositional Flow Scale, and a detailed history of their lifetime music practice. None of the psychological traits distinguished musical prodigies from control musicians or non-musicians except their propensity to report flow during practice. The other aspects that differentiated musical prodigies from their peers were the intensity of their practice before adolescence, and the source of their motivation when they began to play. Thus practice, by itself, does not make a prodigy. The results are compatible with multifactorial models of expertise, with prodigies lying at the high end of the continuum. In summary, prodigies are expected to present brain predispositions facilitating their success in learning an instrument, which could be amplified by their early and intense practice happening at a moment when brain plasticity is heightened. (shrink)

Previous research on the neural basis of cognitive control processes has mainly focused on cortical areas, while the role of subcortical structures in cognitive control is less clear. Models of basal ganglia function as well as clinical studies in neurodegenerative diseases suggest that the striatum (putamen and caudate nucleus) modulates the inhibition of interfering responses and thereby contributes to an important aspect of cognitive control, namely response interference control. To further investigate the putative role of the striatum in the control (...) of response interference, 23 patients with stroke-induced lesions of the striatum and 32 age-matched neurologically healthy controls performed a unimanual version of the Simon task. In the Simon task, the correspondence between stimulus location and response location is manipulated so that control over response interference can be inferred from the reaction time costs in incongruent trials. Results showed that stroke patients responded overall slower and more erroneous than controls. The difference in response times (RTs) between incongruent and congruent trials (known as the Simon effect) was smaller in the ipsilesional/-lateral hemifield, but did not differ significantly between groups. However, in contrast to controls, stroke patients exhibited an abnormally stable Simon effect across the reaction time distribution indicating a reduced efficiency of the inhibition process. Thus, in stroke patients unilateral lesions of the striatum did not significantly impair the general ability to control response interference, but led to less efficient selective inhibition of interfering responses. (shrink)

Alfred North Whitehead called Isabel Scribner Stearns the most talented female philosopher in America. Drawing on Whitehead and her other teachers, Paul Weiss, C.I. Lewis, H.H. Price, and Grace de Laguna, as well as the traditions of ancient Greek philosophy, Continental Rationalism, German Idealism, and American Pragmatism, Stearns has created an epistemologically and logically sound systematic account of the ontology of individuation and the relational genesis and endurance of individual beings.

The main object of this article is to give two novel proofs of the admissibility of Ackermann’s rule (γ) for the propositional relevant logic R. The results are established as corollaries of cut elimination for systems of tableaux for R. Cut elimination, in turn, is established both nonconstructively (as a corollary of completeness) and constructively (using Gentzen-like methods). The extensibility of the techniques is demonstrated by showing that (γ) is admissible for RQ* (R with constant domain quantifiers). The status of (...) the admissibility of (γ) for RQ* was, to the best of the author’s knowledge, an open problem. Further extensions of these results will be explored in the sequel(s). (shrink)

People reject ‘paradoxical’ inferences, such as: Luisa didn't play music; therefore, if Luisa played soccer, then she didn't play music. For some theorists, they are invalid for everyday conditionals, but valid in logic. The theory of mental models implies that they are valid, but unacceptable because the conclusion refers to a possibility inconsistent with the premise. Hence, individuals should accept them if the conclusions refer only to possibilities consistent with the premises: Luisa didn't play soccer; therefore, if Luisa played a (...) game then she didn't play soccer. Two experiments corroborated this prediction for three sorts of ‘paradox’, including a disjunctive paradox. (shrink)

This study investigates whether the market valuation of the two summary accounting measures, book value of equity and net income, is higher for firms with reputation for sustainability leadership, when compared to firms that do not enjoy such reputation. The results are interpreted through the lens of a framework combining signalling theory and resource-based theory, according to which firms signal their commitment to sustainability to influence the external perception of reputation. A firm’s reputation for being committed to sustainability is an (...) intangible resource that can increase the value of a firm’s expected cash flows and/or reduce the variability of its cash flows. Our findings are according to expectations and show that the net income of firms with good sustainability reputation has a higher valuation by the market, when compared to their counterparts. (shrink)

Joseph Priestley, the eighteenth-century scientist who discovered oxygen, was one of the most remarkable thinkers of his time. This collection of essays by a team of experts covers the full range of his work in the fields of education, politics, philosophy, and theology, and firmly re-establishes him as a major intellectual figure.

This study provides empirical evidence on how corporate sustainability performance (CSP), as proxied by membership of the Dow Jones sustainability index, is reflected in the market value of equity. Using a theoretical framework combining institutional perspectives, stake-holder theory, and resource-based perspectives, we develop a set of hypotheses that relate the market value of equity to CSP. For a sample of North American firms, our preliminary results show that CSP has significant explanatory power for stock prices over the traditional summary accounting (...) measures such as earnings and book value of equity. However, further analyses suggest that we should not focus on corporate sustainability itself. Our findings suggest that what investors really do is to penalize large profitable firms with low level of CSP. Firms with incentives to develop a high level of CSP not engaging on such strategy are, thus, penalized by the market. (shrink)

Shavelson et al. (2023) identify an important problem in their Target article: a significant number of terminally ill patients with impaired motor function are wrongfully excluded from receiving ai...

In this article I shall propose María Zambrano's poetic reason as a suitable method for developing a knowledge of animal being. To do so, I will follow the analyses (Derrida, Coetzee) that place animal thinking in the poetic sphere, thus showing the need for a poetic/literary knowledge to make a philosophical knowledge of the animal possible. Animal writing expresses our nature in relation to animal nature; it discloses our animal interbeingness. Finally, I will point to some of the principles of (...) ecofeminist/animal ethics, like care and empathy, which arise both in what I propose to call animal writing and in Zambranian poetic reason. (shrink)

In the first part of this article, we show that, contrary to the Gricean tradition, inter-clausal and is not semantically equivalent to logical conjunction and, contrary to temporal approaches such as Bar-Levand Palacas 1980, it is not temporallyloaded. We then explore a commonsenseidea – namely that while sentence juxtaposition might be interpreted either as discourse coordination or subordination, and indicates coordination. SDRT already includes notions of coordinating and subordinating discourse relations (cf. Lascarides and Asher 1993, Asher 1993), and the meaning (...) of and is related to this distinction. Similar distinctions that play a crucial role in anaphora resolution have also appeared in AI – cf. Scha and Polanyi 1988, or Webber 1991. However, this discourse-structure-based distinction has not been well defined yet, and our approach provides independent motivation for it. This paper argues that the semantics of and includes a notion of coordination expressed as the requirement of a Coordinated Discourse Topic (CDT).CDT characterizes aclass of discourse relations, among which are Narration and Result.Once the basic semanticcontribution of and is isolated, effects related to its presence such as changes in temporal structure, blocking of a Discourse Relation, or conditional meanings are shown to follow from the defeasiblearchitecture set up by SDRT. (shrink)

Borges, un escritor ecuménico en los bordes insondables del infinito del otro. Borges, un pensador del tiempo que lo acompaña en una oscuridad que ilumina. Un artista que el mismo tiempo se aventura a perpetuar. Un filósofo que soslaya la palabra cuya adivinanza nos seduce al límite de lo innombrable. Un ser donde la ética es su obra. De esta obra en la cual se refleja su ética, o de esa ética donde su obra es la autora, es de lo (...) que nos atrevemos a disertar. (shrink)

En el presente artículo analizamos la Internet desde su origen hasta la actualidad considerándola como una unidad integrada por otras tecnologías de comunicación e información, donde todos tienen la posibilidad de hablar. A partir de esta condición inicial dividimos el análisis en dos direcciones: la red como tecno-capitalismo, y la red como «comunista», «comunitaria», «solidaria», «socialista», «democrática».

Richard Rorty notoriously maintained that philosophy is not an academic discipline. He thought that the only viable candidate for philosophy to be an academic discipline—where philosophy consists in a collection of permanent, pure topics—depends on a Cartesian conceptual framework. Once we overcome this framework, he maintained, there will be nothing left to be the distinct subject matter of philosophy. This article argues that there is a conception of philosophy that can be an academic discipline, even if we take Rorty's challenge (...) seriously. It remains even if we overcome the Cartesian conceptual framework. In the end the article goes beyond Rorty's challenge and considers two further criteria for philosophy to be an academic discipline: that it have a distinct method, and that it be able to be done for the public good. The article argues that philosophy can fulfill these two criteria, and therefore that it can be an academic discipline. (shrink)

Well into the 1940s, many French biologists rejected both Mendelian genetics and Darwinism in favour of neo-transformism, the claim that evolution proceeds by the inheritance of acquired characteristics. In 1931 the zoologist Maurice Caullery published Le Problème d’évolution, arguing that, while Lamarckian mechanisms could not be demonstrated in the present, they had nevertheless operated in the past. It was in this context that Raymond Aron expressed anxiety about the relationship between biology, history, and human autonomy in his 1938 Introduction à (...) la philosophie de l’histoire: essai sur les limites de l’objectivité historique, in which he rejected both neo-Kantian and biological accounts of human history. Aron aspired to a philosophy of history that could explain the dual nature of human existence as fundamentally rooted in the biological, and at the same time, as a radical transcendence of natural law. I argue that Aron’s encounter with evolutionary theory at this moment of epistemic crisis in evolutionary theory was crucial to the formation of his philosophy of history, and moreover that this case study demonstrates the importance of moving beyond the methodological divisions between intellectual history and history of science. (shrink)

En este trabajo se analizan, por una parte, los datos sobre la presencia de las mujeres en los movimientos de derechos de los animales en el estado español; por otro lado, tratamos de encontrar marcos explicativos que aclaren cuál es el vínculo que conecta la sensibilidad feminista con la sensibilidad animalista. Hemos realizado un sondeo sobre el porcentaje de mujeres entre los miembros de las organizaciones animalistas más importantes de España y, con estos resultados, hemos hecho una revisión de los (...) diferentes marcos teóricos que pueden explicar esta significativa orientación de género en la defensa del bienestar animal. Por último, defendemos que hay un vínculo entre la ideología patriarcal y la explotación ecológica, en tanto que ambos comparten la dominación y la opresión de género. En este sentido, la sensibilidad animalista movilizaría sentimientos morales de fraternidad con la naturaleza. (shrink)

The multifaceted nature of empathy requires a comprehensive conceptualization of core and related emotional and mindreading processes. Here I argue that new paradigms are needed that allow for a more ecologically valid and parametric assessment of empathy subprocesses and their neuronal correlates. Towards that goal, cognitive neuroscience studies should make use of audiovisual stimuli that more closely approximate real-life settings and include online social interaction paradigms.

Drawing on the self-determination framework, the study examined the effect of coaches’ autonomy support on the leisure experience of young male football players. Specifically, a model was tested analyzing the long-term predictive power of the players’ perception of coach-autonomy support at the beginning of the season on the subjective vitality of young football players at the end of the season through needs satisfaction and intrinsic motivation. Moreover, we tested whether the effects of coach-autonomy support on the aforementioned variables (needs satisfaction, (...) intrinsic motivation, and subjective vitality) at the end of the season remained at the beginning of the following season. Because the coach in the second season was not the same one as in the first season, the perception of coach-autonomy support at the beginning of the second season was used as a control variable. Three hundred and sixty football players (M age = 12.60 years; SD = 0.52) completed a questionnaire on the variables of interest at the beginning of the first season (T1), at the end of the first season (T2), and at the beginning of the second season (T3). The results of the path analyses showed that player’ perceptions of coach autonomy support at the beginning of the season (T1) positively predicted needs satisfaction at the end of the first season (T2), which in turn predicted intrinsic motivation at the end of the first season (T2). Additionally, intrinsic motivation significantly and positively predicted subjective vitality at the end of the first season (T2). Finally, needs satisfaction, intrinsic motivation, and subjective vitality at the end of the second season (T2) positively predicted these same variables at the beginning of the second season (T3). Results emphasized the importance of the autonomy support offered by the coach in promoting the quality of young people’s leisure experience playing football and its benefits for their well-being. (shrink)

Like many humans in the wake of genocide and war, most wildlife today has sustained trauma. High rates of mortality, habitat destruction, and social breakdown precipitated by human actions are unprecedented in history. Elephants are one of many species dramatically affected by violence. Although elephant communities have processes, rituals, and social structures for responding to trauma—grieving, mourning, and socialization—the scale, nature, and magnitude of human violence have disrupted their ability to use these practices. Absent the cultural, carrier groups who traditionally (...) lead and teach these healing practices, humans must assume the role. Trauma theory has brought attention to victims' severe, sustained psychological damage. Looking through the lens of trauma theory provides a better understanding of how systematic violence has affected individuals and groups and how the pervasive nature of traumatic events affects human-nonhuman animal relationships. The framing of recent trauma theory compels conservationists to create new relationships—neither anthropocentric nor powerbased—with nonhuman animals. The David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust, Kenya, shows how humans, taking on the role of interspecies witness, bring orphan elephants back to health and help re-build elephant communities shattered by genocide. (shrink)

This article compares political clientelism and datafied campaigning as two modes of relating politicians/parties and voters that are centred around voter surveillance. It contributes to the discussion on consequences of Big Data by showing similarities of datafied campaigns with a type of electoral politics that pre-dates the advent of mass media and is usually regarded as deficient. It thus departs from the predominant perspective on datafication and surveillance, which draws on Foucault, in order to identify the particular challenges that datafication (...) poses in the realm of democratic electoral politics. They are related to four major aspects in which datafied campaigning resembles political clientelism, as opposed to the combination of ideology, issue-based campaigning and media appeal that characterized Western European party politics in the second half of the 20th century. It personalizes the relationship between politicians and voters with the help of intermediaries; it is based on an asymmetric and iterative monitoring of voters; it implies a strong particularism and an affinity with populist appeals; and it is ambivalent with regard to the volition of voters. The identification of these similarities renders general concerns about the consequences of datafied campaigning for democracy more concrete. It offers a mirror in which seemingly novel practices are revealed to have implications that are well known to be problematic for the quality of democracy. (shrink)

This exploratory study is part of a post-doctoral project investigating how Brazilian and Portuguese textbooks present slavery and the slavery trade, as well as how Portuguese students interpret these issues, particularly when they use the sources in their textbooks. A group of 8th-grade students (aged 13–14) from a school in northern Portugal was asked to reflect on the meaning of slavery and its potential consequences for Brazil and Portugal, drawing on evidence related to the slave trade and labour during the (...) 16th century, as presented in their textbooks. The students’ responses were analysed inductively, and the findings are discussed in terms of (a) the specific analytical process employed and (b) the insights gained regarding the relationship between textbook representations and students’ perceptions, framed within the context of situated learning. This framework suggests that prior knowledge, personal experience, and the specific task at hand may influence students' ideas and outcomes. (shrink)

This paper analyzes Russian-French philosopher Alexandre Kojève’s dialogue with proponents of Hegelianism and phenomenology in Soviet Russia of the 1920–30s. Considering works by Dmytro Chyzhevsky, Ivan Ilyin, Gustav Shpet, and Alexandre Koyré, I retrace Hegelian themes in Kojève, focusing on the relation between method and time. I argue that original reflections on method played a key role in both Russian Hegelianism and Kojève’s work, from his famous Hegel lectures to the late fragments of a system. As I demonstrate, Kojève’s Hegelianism (...) was significantly shaped by his encounter with Ilyin’s 1918 commentary on Hegel, a detailed study of the relation between method and the experience of time. However, in Kojève’s hands, Ilyin’s ideas were transformed, some radicalized, others abandoned. Comparatively reading texts by these thinkers in their respective contexts, I resituate and evaluate claims that Hegel’s method was less dialectical than phenomenological. I finally argue that early Soviet Hegelian discourses not only shaped the trajectory of Kojève’s Hegelianism but also radically anticipated concepts of time in French post-structuralism. (shrink)

This paper gives an implicit characterization of the class of functions computable in polynomial space by deterministic Turing machines – PSPACE. It gives an inductive characterization of PSPACE with no ad-hoc initial functions and with only one recursion scheme. The main novelty of this characterization is the use of pointers to reach PSPACE. The presence of the pointers in the recursion on notation scheme is the main difference between this characterization of PSPACE and the well-known Bellantoni-Cook characterization of the polytime (...) functions – PTIME. (shrink)

In this article, we examine the role of several consumers’ cognitive and psychographic traits in their perceptions of retailers’ deceptive practices and the different effects on perceived deception associated with online vis-à-vis in-store shopping. Building on theoretical models of persuasion in consumer behavior, we hypothesize that the antecedents of perceived deception in traditional settings are the same as those on the Internet, while the intensity of the impact of these antecedents differs between the online and the offline environment. Results suggest (...) that the effects of individual’s cognitive traits and risk aversion on perceived deception are more relevant when consumers shop online than when they purchase from traditional stores. Conversely, psychographic traits play a more important role in explaining perceived deception in the traditional shopping context as compared to the online channel. Several theoretical and managerial implications are derived from these findings. (shrink)

Marcuse teve no Brasil na década de 1970 uma recepção unilateral, sendo visto unicamente como guru da contra-cultura. Contra esse equívoco o artigo mostra a relação intrínseca entre teoria e prática na filosofia de Marcuse, caracterizada como uma filosofia política cuja preocupação central é a transformação radical da sociedade capitalista.