Emotions are complex reactions that allow individuals to cope with significant positive and negative events. Research on emotion was pioneered by Darwin’s work on emotional expressions in humans and animals. But Darwin was concerned mainly with facial and bodily expressions of significance for humans, citing mainly examples from mammals (e.g., apes, dogs, and cats). In birds, emotional expressions are less evident for a human observer, so a different approach is needed. Understanding avian emotions will provide key evolutionary information on the (...) evolution of related behaviors and brain circuitry. Birds and mammals are thought to have evolved from different groups of Mesozoic reptiles, theropod dinosaurs and therapsids, respectively, and therefore, their common ancestor is likely to be a basal reptile living about 300 million years ago, during the Carboniferous or Permian period. Yet, birds and mammals exhibit extensive convergence in terms of relative brain size, high levels of activity, sleep/wakefulness cycles, endothermy, and social behavior, among others. This article focuses on two basic emotions with negative valence: fear and frustration. Fear is related to the anticipation of dangerous or threatening stimuli (e.g., predators or aggressive conspecifics). Frustration is related to unexpected reward omissions or devaluations (e.g., loss of food or sexual resources). These results have implications for an understanding of the conditions that promote fear and frustration and for the evolution of supporting brain circuitry. (shrink)

: It is often argued that while Kant grounds practical freedom in the idea of transcendental or absolute freedom in the Dialectic of the First Critique, he would have explicitly dissociated these concepts in the Canon. For, in contradiction with the Dialectic, Kant claims in the Canon that through experience we know practical freedom to be one of the natural causes and that the transcendental freedom could be left aside as irrelevant. These claims are usually interpreted in the light of (...) the socalled “patchwork theory” as evidence of an inconsistency between the two sections of the First Critique and of a defense of a mere comparative, compatibilistic or even psychological concept of freedom by Kant in the Canon. In contradistinction to this widespread interpretation, I intend to provide an alternative interpretation of the Canon by showing that the concept of practical freedom contained in it is a genuinely incompatibilistic one and that this section can be reconciled with the Dialectic. Moreover, I intend to show that Henry Allison’s allegedly alternative interpretation is entirely misguided. (shrink)

This article considers distinct ways of understanding the world, referred to in psychology as Functions of Consciousness or as Cognitive Modes, having as the scope of interest epistemology and natural sciences. Inspired by C.G. Jung's Simile of the Spectrum, we consider three basic cognitive modes associated to: (R) embodied instinct, experience, and action; (G) reality perception and learning; and (B) concept abstraction, rational thinking, and language. RGB stand for the primary colors: red, green, and blue. Accordingly, a conceptual map between (...) cognitive modes and primary and secondary colors is built based on the physics and physiology of color perception and epistemological characteristics of the aforementioned cognitive modes, leading to logical relations structured as an Hexagon of Opposition. Finally, this model of cognitive modes is applied to the analysis and interpretation of some important episodes in the historical development of physics and technology. (shrink)

This article considers distinct ways of understanding the world, referred to in psychology as functions of consciousness or as cognitive modes, having as the scope of interest epistemology and natural sciences. Inspired by C.G. Jung’s simile of the spectrum, we consider three basic cognitive modes associated to: (R) embodied instinct, experience, and action; (G) reality perception and learning; and (B) concept abstraction, rational thinking, and language. RGB stand for the primary colors: red, green, and blue. Accordingly, a conceptual map between (...) cognitive modes and primary and secondary colors is built based on the physics and physiology of color perception and epistemological characteristics of the aforementioned cognitive modes, leading to logical relations structured as an hexagon of opposition. Finally, this model of cognitive modes is applied to the analysis and interpretation of some important episodes in the historical development of physics and technology. (shrink)

Estudos sobre eficácia escolar, bem como o conceito de capital cultural de Pierre Bourdieu, evidenciam que o contexto socioeconômico e cultural – ou o background – exerce papel fundamental nas notas e resultados obtidos pelos estudantes em exames. Ou seja, segundo esta teoria, alunos com menor background tenderiam a apresentar desempenho inferior em comparação com alunos oriundos de um contexto socioeconômico e cultural mais privilegiado. Nesse sentido, considerando que os bolsistas do Programa Universidade para Todos devem possuir desvantagem de background (...) em relação aos seus colegas pagantes, tendencialmente o seu desempenho deveria ser inferior, afinal o programa, criado em 2004, busca viabilizar o acesso à educação superior por meio da concessão de bolsas de estudos integrais ou parciais de 50%, a estudantes com renda familiar per capita de zero a três salários mínimos que cursaram o ensino médio em escolas públicas ou em escolas privadas na condição de bolsistas. Entretanto, percepções subjetivas de docentes indicam que nem sempre é isso que ocorre, ou seja, bolsistas estariam obtendo, em diversas situações, melhores resultados que os colegas pagantes nas disciplinas que cursam em instituições privadas. Nesse contexto, com o objetivo de refletir sobre aspectos fundamentais da qualidade e da equidade do Prouni, o presente artigo problematiza a suposta superioridade de notas dos bolsistas em disciplinas e no Enade e, ao mesmo tempo, analisa hipóteses que explicariam o desempenho além do esperado desses estudantes provenientes de meios populares. Quanto ao desenvolvimento metodológico da pesquisa, são utilizadas duas fontes de dados. A primeira delas é composta por microdados das avaliações de disciplinas de uma universidade comunitária do Rio Grande do Sul entre os anos de 2009 e 2012. A segunda consiste nos dados do Enade referentes ao ano de 2006. Palavras-chave : Capital cultural. Background. Educação superior. Prouni. (shrink)

Esta investigación examina la teoría de la intencionalidad de Duns Escoto y se plantea la pregunta por la presencia del objeto intencional, por sus modalidades y por la manera como tiene lugar la identificación como primer paso del conocimiento. En el desarrollo del trabajo se explicitan las dos modalidades de la “presencia”: de una parte, a través de las especies sensibles y de la imagen y, de otra parte, a través de la especie inteligible. El interés es determinar en qué (...) medida la especie inteligible sirve como medio para el brillo del objeto intencional, bajo el trasluz de las formas a priori, universales. Que el objeto intencional se corresponde en último término con la naturaleza común nos lleva a plantear la pregunta por la unidad de la esencia o naturaleza común, en cuanto antecede a la realización del acto intencional. (shrink)

Abstract Physiological psychology has its conceptual roots in stimulus?response behaviourism. The resurgence of cognitive concepts in mainstream psychology has led to a separation between the two, largely due to the failure of most cognitive theories to specify how their explanatory processes could be realised in the nervous system. Connectionism looks as if it may be able to bridge this gap. The problem is that connectionism takes a radically different view of the brain from that adopted in traditional physiological psychology. This (...) paper looks at some of the implications of connectionism for how physiological psychology should develop. It also looks at the implications of the findings of physiological psychology for connectionism. (shrink)

Neuroscientists are searching for the engram within the conceptual framework established by John Locke's theory of mind. This framework was elaborated before the development of information theory, before the development of information processing machines and the science of computation, before the discovery that molecules carry hereditary information, before the discovery of the codon code and the molecular machinery for editing the messages written in this code and translating it into transcription factors that mark abstract features of organic structure such as (...) anterior and distal. The search for the engram needs to abandon Locke's conceptual framework and work within a framework informed by these developments. The engram is the medium by which information extracted from past experience is transmitted to the computations that inform future behavior. The information-conveying symbols in the engram are rapidly generated in the course of computations, which implies that they are molecules. (shrink)

While many have celebrated Black Panther, some have also criticized it – such as contemporary philosopher Christopher Lebron, who argues that Black Panther 's plot is centrally driven by anti‐Black stereotypes about Black Americans, and particularly about Black American men. Anti‐colonial theory emerges in situations of colonial domination. But there are different kinds of colonialism, and there are different manifestations of anti‐colonial resistance. The image of colonialism that Black Panther most directly invokes – stopping short, however, of openly recognizing it (...) – is really just one species of colonizatism. As previously noted, Black Panther rarely invokes the concepts of slavery and colonialism. In Black Panther, Killmonger is the very site at which the terror of colonial history is sutured – the anti‐heroic figure who must be depicted as a genocidal and misogynistic monster in order to dissipate the shame and the guilt he would otherwise elicit. (shrink)

This paper and its predecessor () are about the question: 'Are the events in the entire universe encoded in and predictable from any of its parts?' To approach a positive answer in classical physics, the following result is proved and commented on: in Newton's theory of gravitation, the entire trajectory of a particle can be predicted given any segment of it, regardless of how the other particles are moving-provided that there is only a finite number of particles and that their (...) speeds remain bounded. (It is this condition, together with a set of parameters characterising the motion of the other particles, which enables us to estimate the effect of the other particles on the trajectory of the given particle.) The extension of this result to other theories, in particular to special relativity, is discussed. (shrink)

Professor Austin explores four main areas in this paper. First of all he outlines the physical development of sex differentiation in the embryo. He develops this by describing the clinical manifestations of abnormality which can appear at that stage. Professor Austin points out that there are relatively few people with abnormalities and that those who do show homosexual tendencies are not noticeably different from the norm in terms of their sexual equipment and hormone levels. It is much more likely that (...) their psychological and social development has a greater influence in differentiating them sexually. The last section of the paper is a synopsis of society's reactions to homosexuality or bisexuality which term in Professor Austin's opinion is more accurate and descriptive of the condition. (shrink)