Use of videogames (VGs) is almost ubiquitous in preadolescents’ and adolescents’everyday life. One of the most intriguing research topic about positive effects of VG use is about the domain of visuospatial competencies. Previous research show that training with videogames enables children and adolescents to improve their scores in visuospatial tests (such as mental rotation of shapes and cubes), and that such training could overcome gender differences in these domains. Our study aimed at (1) verifying the positive effects of videogame use (...) in the visuospatial domain both for male and female adolescents and preadolescents and (2) verifying whether the visualization style (2D or isometric 3D) of the VG has an influence about the positive effects of gaming. Six measures of visuospatial competency were administered to 318 preadolescents (mean of age = 13.94 years, range 10-18) prior and after a 3-day training with 2D and 3D Tetris. Results indicate that (1) gaming on the whole has slight positive effects both for males and females in enhancing visuospatial competencies, at least in the short term, and (2) it seems that participants who used the videogame with 2D graphics obtained greater improvements in the mental rotation domain while the participants who used the videogame with 3D gobtained greater improvements in the spatial visualization domain. However, a general learning effect between T1 and T2 was measured, which was found regardless of Experimental condition, indicating that the effect of training with videogames can be less relevant than expected. (shrink)

A number of philosophers have recently suggested that some abstract, plausibly non-causal and/or mathematical, explanations explain in a way that is radically dif- ferent from the way causal explanation explain. Namely, while causal explanations explain by providing information about causal dependence, allegedly some abstract explanations explain in a way tied to the independence of the explanandum from the microdetails, or causal laws, for example. We oppose this recent trend to regard abstractions as explanatory in some sui generis way, and argue (...) that a prominent ac- count of causal explanation can be naturally extended to capture explanations that radically abstract away from microphysical and causal-nomological details. To this end, we distinguish di erent senses in which an explanation can be more or less abstract, and analyse the connection between explanations’ abstractness and their explanatory power. According to our analysis abstract explanations have much in common with counterfactual causal explanations. (shrink)

Philosophical aspects of gambang kromong, a traditional orchestra of Betawi people which is a blend of gamelan, Western music and Chinese-style pentatonic base tones.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Books ReceivedAndrianou, Dimitra. The Furniture and Furnishings of Ancient Greek Houses and Tombs. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009. xvi + 213 pp. 24 black-and-white figs. Cloth, $80.Andrisano, Angela Maria, and Paolo Fabbri, eds. La favola di Orfeo: Letteratura, immagine, performance. Ferrara: UnifePress, 2009. 255 pp. 41 black-and-white figs. Paper, €15.Bartsch, Shadi, and David Wray, eds. Seneca and the Self. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009. ix + 304 pp. 1 (...) black-and-white ill. Cloth, $99.Bers, Victor. Genos Dikanikon: Amateur and Professional Speech in the Courtrooms of Classical Athens. Hellenic Studies 33. Washington, D.C.: Center for Hellenic Studies, 2009. Dist. by Harvard University Press. ix + 159 pp. Paper, $15.95.Bowie, Ewen, and Jaś Elsner, eds. Philostratus. Greek Culture in the Roman World. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009. xii + 401 pp. 14 black-and-white ills. Cloth, $135.Bowlby, Rachel. Freudian Mythologies: Greek Tragedy and Modern Identities. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009. viii + 251 pp. Paper, $49.95.Calame, Claude. Poetic and Performative Memory in Ancient Greece: Heroic Reference and Ritual Gestures in Time and Space. Hellenic Studies 18. Washington, D.C.: Center for Hellenic Studies, 2009. Dist. by Harvard University Press. xii + 267 pp. 9 black-and-white figs. Paper, $19.95Collins, Paul. Assyrian Palace Sculptures. With photographs by Lisa Baylis and Sandra Marshall. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2009. 144 pp. Numerous color ills. Cloth, $45.Coltman, Viccy. Classical Sculpture and the Culture of Collecting in Britain Since 1870. Classical Presences. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009. xiv + 315 pp. 85 black-and-white figs., 32 color plates. Cloth, $99.Comoth, Katharina. Gott selbst und die Idee. Beiträge zur Philosophie. Heidelberg: Universitätsverlag Winter, 2009. 86 pp. 2 black-and-white ills. Paper, €10.Connelly, Joan Breton. Portrait of a Priestess: Women and Ritual in Ancient Greece. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2007. xv + 421 pp. Numerous black-and-white figs., 27 color plates, 3 maps. Paper, $35. [End Page 345]Eezzuduemhoi, James. I. A. A Fundamental Greek Course. Ed. Glenn Storey. Lanham, Md.: University Press of America, 2009. xxxv + 547 pp. Paper, $65.Erskine, Andrew, ed. A Companion to Ancient History. Blackwell Companions to the Ancient World. Malden, Mass.: Wiley-Blackwell, 2009. xxxvii + 693 pp. 27 black-and-white figs., 5 maps. Cloth, $199.95.Flower, Harriet I. Roman Republics. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2010. xv + 204 pp. Cloth, $29.95.Föllinger, Sabine. Aischylos: Meister der griechischen Tragödie. Munich: C. H. Beck, 2009. 224 pp. 5 black-and-white ills. Cloth, €24.90.Goldhill, Simon, and Edith Hall, eds. Sophocles and the Greek Tragic Tradition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009. xvi + 336 pp. Cloth, $99.Grethlein, Jonas, and Antonios Rengakos, eds. Narratology and Interpretation. Trends in Classics 4. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2009. vii + 630 pp. Cloth, €93.41.Haziza, Typhaine. Le Kaléidoscope hérodotéen: Images, imaginaire et représentations de l'Égypte à travers le livre II d'Hérodote. Études anciennes 142. Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 2009. 393 pp. 7 black-and-white figs. Paper, €45.Jouanna, Jacques, and Franco Montanari, eds. Eschyle: À l'aube du théâtre occidental. Entretiens Hardt 55. Geneva: Fondation Hardt, 2009. Dist. by Vandoeuvres. xi + 510 pp. Cloth: SFr 85.Johnson, Mark J. The Roman Imperial Mausoleum in Late Antiquity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009. xviii + 296 pp. Numerous black-and-white figs., 16 color plates. Cloth, $95.Kronenberg, Leah. Allegories of Farming from Greece and Rome: Philosophical Satire in Xenophon, Varro, and Virgil. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009. xi + 223 pp. Cloth, $99.Loukopoulou, Louisa D., and Selene Psoma, eds. Thrakika Zetemata. Vol. 1. In collaboration with Athéna Iakovidou. Meletemata 58. Athens: Research Centre for Greek and Roman Antiquity of the National Hellenic Research Foundation, 2008. Dist. by Boccard. 175 pp. Numerous black-and-white figs. Paper, price not stated.Lowrie, Michèle, ed. Horace: Odes and Epodes. Oxford Readings in Classical Studies. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009. viii + 472 pp. Cloth, $199; paper, $75.Martin, Gunther. Divine Talk: Religious Argumentation in Demosthenes. Oxford Classical Mongraphs. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009. ix + 345 pp. Cloth, $125. [End Page 346]Mendoni, Lina G., and Sophia B... (shrink)

The COVID-19 outbreak has placed extraordinary demands upon healthcare systems worldwide. Italy's hospitals have been among the most severely overwhelmed, and as a result, Italian healthcare workers' well-being has been at risk. The aim of this study is to explore the relationships between dimensions of burnout and various psychological features among Italian healthcare workers during the COVID-19 emergency. A group of 267 HCWs from a hospital in the Lazio Region completed self-administered questionnaires online through Google Forms, including the Maslach Burnout (...) Inventory, Resilience Scale, and Intolerance of Uncertainty Scale Short Form. Cluster analysis highlighted two opposite burnout risk profiles: low burnout and high-risk burnout. The high-risk group had lower resilience and greater difficulties in tolerating the uncertainty than the low-burnout group. A set of general linear models confirmed that both IU subscales, prospective and inhibition, moderated the relationship between resilience and burnout. In conclusion, the results showed that individual levels of resilience and one's ability to tolerate uncertainty have been significant factors in determining the impact of the COVID-19 emergency on HCWs. The use of emotional strategies that allow individuals to stay in a critical situation without the need to control it appears to protect against burnout in these circumstances. (shrink)

In this chapter, I critically assess the ability of autobiographical documentary to convey an authentic portrayal of the self and analyze the cinematic means through which autobiographical documentaries may be able to do so. I compare and outline the chief differences between autobiographical documentaries and literary memoirs and assess the ways in which cognitive analysis of film and post-structuralist accounts within film theory and documentary studies have dealt with the distinction between fiction and nonfiction. I lastly consider new avenues of (...) autobiographical expression such as the ones potentially offered by social media, blogs, video diaries, personal websites, and so on. (shrink)

How does the use of military drones affect the legal, political, and moral responsibility of different actors involved in their deployment and design? This volume offers a fresh contribution to the ethics of drone warfare by providing, for the first time, a systematic interdisciplinary discussion of different responsibility issues raised by military drones. The book discusses four main sets of questions: First, from a legal point of view, we analyse the ways in which the use of drones makes the attribution (...) of criminal responsibility to individuals for war crimes more complicated and what adjustments may be required in international criminal law and in military practices to avoid ’responsibility gaps’ in warfare. From a moral and political perspective, the volume looks at the conditions under which the use of military drones by states is impermissible, permissible, or even obligatory and what the responsibilities of a state in the use of drones towards both its citizens and potential targets are. From a socio-technical perspective, what kind of new human machine interaction might drones bring and which new kinds of shared agency and responsibility? Finally, we ask how the use of drones changes our conception of agency and responsibility. The book will be of interest to scholars and students in ethics and to those in law, politics and the military involved in the design, deployment and evaluation of military drones. (shrink)

Popper’s theory of World 3 is often regarded as incongruent with his defense of methodological individualism. This article criticizes this widespread view. Methodological individualism is said to be at odds with three crucial assumptions of the theory of World 3: the impossibility of reducing World 3 to subjective mental states because it exists objectively, the view that the mental functions cannot be explained by assuming that individuals are isolated atoms, and the idea that World 3 has causal power and influences (...) both individual minds and actions. This article demonstrates that the inconsistency thesis stems from a confusion between methodological individualism as understood by Popper and reductionism. The reasons for this confusion are analyzed and clarified. It is argued that two variants of methodological individualism can be distinguished, and that unlike psychologistic individualism, Popper’s nonatomistic individualism is fully consistent with his theory of World 3. (shrink)

In this book, Roberto Di Ceglie offers an historical, theological, and epistemological investigation exploring how commitments to God and/or the good generate the optimum condition to achieve knowledge. Di Ceglie criticizes the common belief that to attain knowledge, one must always be ready to replace one's convictions with beliefs that appear to be proven. He defends a more comprehensive view, historically exemplified by outstanding Christian thinkers, whereby believers are expected to commit themselves to God and to related beliefs no matter (...) how convincing the evidence contradicting such beliefs appear to be. He also argues that both believers and unbelievers can commit themselves to God and the good, respectively, thereby creating a spiritual turn in epistemology that enables them to generate the best possible condition for conducting rational enquiries and discussion. (shrink)

In this paper I refute an apparently obvious objection to Frankfurt-type counterexamples to the Principle of Alternate Possibilities according to which if in the counterfactual scenario the agent does not act, then the agent could have avoided acting in the actual scenario. And because what happens in the counterfactual scenario cannot count as the relevant agent's actions given the sort of external control that agent is under, then we can ground responsibility on that agent having been able to avoid acting. (...) I illustrate how this objection to Frankfurt's famous counterexample is motivated by Frankfurt's own 'guidance' view of agency. My argument consists in showing that even if we concede that the agent does not act in the counterfactual scenario, that does not show that the agent could have avoided acting in the actual scenario. This depends on the crucial distinction between 'not φ-ing' and 'avoiding φ-ing'. (shrink)

This essay suggests that the 21st century knowledge economy represents a moderate form of moral community. To show this I first clarify the ideas of moral community and a knowledge economy. The latter reflects the emergence of high volume, high speed, high precision (or +VSP) electronic communications and exchange networks, both of which embody the ethical value of reciprocity. One result has been the emergence of commercially oriented knowledge communities. In conclusion, the +VSP communications knowledge economy raises several problems, about (...) truth, social turbulence, and democratic community. (shrink)

In the era of the knowledge economy, the improvement of national innovation systems is playing a significant role in the global entrepreneurship ecosystem. Entrepreneurs are accelerating international intellectual property applications to be competitive. What remains to be explored is the evolution of international intellectual property network in the globe. With the application of social network analysis and intellectual property application database, the global innovation network structure from 2000 to 2019 is explored. Results showed that in the period 2000–2019, the global (...) innovation network has been expanding rapidly from a sparse network to a dense and complex one. Patent application is unevenly distributed in the globe. Countries such as the US, China, and Canada have been the top countries flowing in, while Japan, Korea, EU, and Switzerland have been the main countries flowing out. Global innovation network shows an obvious “core-periphery” pattern. The distribution pattern presents a quadrilateral structure with the four core regions of “US, Japan, EU, and China” as the apex. This analysis contributes to the visualization of the global layout of intellectual property and the evolution trend by analyzing intellectual property application networks. This can provide important experience reference for enterprises to study the global entrepreneurship ecosystem. (shrink)

Although racial in-group bias in empathy for pain has been reported, empathic responses to others’ pain may be influenced by other characteristics besides race. To explore whether skin color and attractiveness modulate empathy for pain, we recorded 24 participants’ reactions to painful faces from racial in-group members with different skin color and attractiveness using event-related potentials. Results showed that, for more attractive painful faces, dark skin faces were judged as less painful and elicited smaller N2 amplitudes than fair- and wheatish-skinned (...) faces. However, for less attractive faces, there were no significant differences among the three skin colors. Our findings suggest that empathy for pain toward racial in-group members may be influenced by skin color and attractiveness. (shrink)

Secondo i sostenitori della prospettiva transumanista, la tecnologia contemporanea può condurci a ridefinire la natura umana attraverso il superamento dei suoi limiti. Tra i limiti in questione, si ricordano di frequente quelli biologici e quelli cognitivi. Risulta infatti di generalizzato interesse la possibilità di prevenire ed evitare l’insorgenza di malattie più o meno curabili come pure quella di aumentare le prestazioni intellettuali, compresa la generazione di strumenti di cosiddetta intelligenza artificiale. Forse interessa meno la possibilità di superare limiti di natura (...) morale, per esempio intervenendo sul codice genetico o impiantando appositi neurotrasmettitori per farci desiderare le cose migliori e quindi migliorare il nostro agire morale. Che sia vero o no che il progresso morale indotto dalla tecnologia (moral enhancement) risulti di minore interesse per il grande pubblico, la possibilità di migliorare l’agire morale è comunque un tema di enorme importanza. Questo per tre ragioni. La prima, praticamente ovvia, è che, considerata la storia di dolore arrecata all’umanità da una tensione al male che sembra ineliminabile, renderci migliori sotto un profilo morale sarebbe di straordinario valore. La seconda ragione consiste nel fatto che ogni altro tipo di miglioramento, da quello biologico a quello psicologico e cognitivo, risulterebbe ancora maggiore una volta che ci si fosse assicurati quello morale. È infatti difficilmente negabile che anche una condizione ottimale sotto il profilo fisico e psicologico e un invidiabile livello cognitivo non avrebbero risvolti positivi se conseguiti in assenza di un’adeguata formazione morale. La terza ragione è che, mentre il miglioramento cognitivo e soprattutto quello biologico sembrano costituire un obiettivo effettivamente realizzabile, per cui la discussione a proposito è unicamente tesa a considerarne il valore e le potenzialità come pure gli effetti collaterali, del progresso morale si possono offrire invece ragioni atte a sostenere la tesi che esso, per via tecnologica, sia altamente improbabile. In questo articolo sosterrò questa tesi. Nella prima parte, al modo di una premessa, mi soffermerò sul significato che la riflessione transumanista solitamente attribuisce al legame tra progresso morale e progresso tecnologico. Procederò poi, nella seconda e terza parte, a evidenziare l’esistenza di tre limiti sostanziali alla possibilità che il progresso tecnologico generi progresso morale. Li chiamerò “ignoranza tecnologica”, “passività tecnologica” e “facilità tecnologica”. Infine, mostrerò che essi possono aggravarsi data la visione del futuro della tecnologia come ignoto, visione che è tipica della riflessione transumanista. (shrink)

Social factors have so far been neglected in embodied theories of perception despite the wealth of phenomenological insights and empirical evidence indicating their importance. I examine evidence from developmental psychology and neuroscience and attempt an initial classification according to whether social factors play a contextual, enabling, or constitutive role in the ability to perceive objects in a detached manner, i.e. beyond their immediate instrumental use. While evidence of cross-cultural variations in perceptual styles and the influence of social cues on visual (...) attention could not be said to play more than a contextual role, other factors such as the intricate developmental links between dyadic and triadic interactions in infancy, as well as episodes of peer-learning in children, play enabling roles. A common element in these factors is the presence and resolution of interpersonal conflict. Detached object perception could not develop without these social factors. I argue, in addition, that social skills such as managing partial social acts which are addressed to and completed by others, linguistic mediation, makebelieve play, and the ability to control perspectival switches are constitutive -- i.e. are of the essence -- of the ability to see objects as present with a detached attitude. I discuss the prospects of incorporating such social elements into dynamical interpretations of the sensorimotor approach through the enactive notion of participatory sense-making. (shrink)

According to Plantinga, both the theistic and the Christian belief can be affirmed basically, namely, without proofs. Such a position—he tells us—traces back to Aquinas and Calvin. Here I intend to revisit Plantinga’s view of the relation between his own position and Aquinas’s. I shall argue that the type of harmony the Reformed philosopher believes to have with Aquinas is only partially present, and that there is a different type of affinity between the two thinkers—though Plantinga is not aware of (...) it. My aim is to show that Aquinas’s thought is really fruitful and inspiring to contemporary philosophy of religion, and that an outstanding thinker of our time such as Plantinga takes it as a reference point although does not entirely capture all its intellectual and spiritual depth. (shrink)

Ethics -- Philosophy. ; Social ethics -- Religious aspects -- Islam.

Hard Like Water represents a uniquely Canadian, and international, perspective in a field largely dominated by US writers. The accessible book sets up a "core ethic" that helps the reader to link a few, familiar core values: care for life, welfare, honest communication, and civil rights, with business practices. These values are supplemented by five performance maxims: do no harm; solve the problem; enable informed choice; act, learn, improve; and seek the common good. The book is designed to show how (...) ethical and social values are operative in business, both in North America and internationally, and to help both students and business people to understand how ethics can help solve business problems. (shrink)