The Social Intelligence or Social Brain Hypothesis is an influential theory that aims to explain the evolution of brain size and cognitive complexity among the primates. This has shaped work in both primate behavioural ecology and comparative psychology in deep and far-reaching ways. Yet, it not only perpetuates many of the conceptual confusions that have plagued psychology since its inception, but amplifies them, generating an overly intellectual view of what it means to be a competent and successful social primate. Here, (...) I present an analysis of the Social Intelligence/Brain hypothesis highlighting how its anthropocentric origins have led us to be held captive by a picture of what social life involves and the kind of mind needed to navigate the social landscape. I go on to consider how experimental work in this vein either does not test what it claims to be testing, or introduces impossible problems regarding animal minds that cannot be solved, but only dissolved. What we need, in other words, is the application of “Wittgenstein's razor” and the reinvention of primatology along his enactivist lines. (shrink)

Discussions of what minds are and what they do is a contentious issue. This is particularly so when considering non‐human animals, for here the questions become: do they have minds at all? And if so, what kinds of minds are they? Alternatives to Cartesian or computational models of mind open up a whole new space of possibility for how we should conceive of animal minds, while also highlighting how Skinner's pragmatist‐inspired radical behaviourism has much more to offer than most researchers (...) in animal cognition would like to admit. Pragmatism, or ‘American Naturalism' is also highlighted by Chemero as the alternative for human cognition. The challenge, then, is to build an understanding of mind along pragmatist lines in a way that does justice to both human and non‐human animals. A clear understanding of embodiment, and commitment to a radical form of enactivism, can, perhaps, begin to generate a better kind of continuity. (shrink)

Introduction In many ways this book is a kind of detective story. It tries to find something out about the kind of society which is taking shape in these ...

Although Penn et al's incisive critique of comparative cognition is welcomed, their heavily computational and representational account of cognition commits them to a purely internalist view of cognitive processes. This perhaps blinds them to a distributed alternative that raises the possibility that the human cognitive revolution occurred outside the head, and not in it.

Depuis 2006, trois enquêtes représentatives au niveau national ont évalué en Irlande la perception dans la population générale de trois droits inhérents à la Convention internationale des droits des personnes handicapées (CIDPH): accès aux écoles ordinaires, à la vie sexuelle et à la parentalité. Trois questions sont posées dans le présent document: les Irlandais considèrent-ils que les personnes ont les mêmes droits, quelles que soient leurs déficiences? Soutiennent-ils certains droits des personnes handicapées plus que d’autres? En 2017, comment la perception (...) des droits a-t-elle évolué en Irlande? Le public irlandais est plus favorable aux droits des personnes handicapées physiques et sensorielles qu’à ceux des personnes ayant des déficiences cognitives ou émotionnelles. Il est également plus sensible au droit à l’épanouissement sexuel qu’à celui de l’accès à l’école. En 2017, il apparaît que les perceptions des Irlandais relatives aux droits des personnes handicapées ont évolué favorablement, en particulier pour ceux des personnes souffrant de troubles de santé mentale. Un suivi de la perception du public à l’échelle nationale contribuerait à éclairer les efforts de plaidoyer et de sensibilisation nécessaires pour faire du public irlandais un allié dans la réalisation des objectifs de la Convention. (shrink)

Van de Vliert's findings fit nicely with our recent arguments implying that (1) differentiated selfhood is partly motivated by requirements of cultural groups, and (2) free will mainly exists within culture. Some cultural groups promote individual freedom, whereas others constrict it so as to maintain elites' power and privilege. Thus, freedom is, to a great extent, a creation of culture.

(1978). George Hoggart Toulmin's theory of man and the earth in the light of the development of British geology. Annals of Science: Vol. 35, No. 4, pp. 339-352.

What I propose to do in the present paper is to clarify critical realism on some crucial points. While such is my primary purpose, I also entertain the hope that logical positivists and pragmatists may be led to see in this form of realism a necessary supplementation to their emphases and insights. I am persuaded that there has been misunderstanding and prejudice at work partly because of verbal phobias in connection with such phrases as the copy-theory, representative perception, transcendence, the (...) subjective, Cartesian dualism, etc., etc. So strong have these accumulated prejudices been that, in America at least, there has been a tendency to outlaw epistemology. I do not find the same situation in England for instance. Here it seems at times as though pragmatism and positivism have consciously “ganged up” against epistemology—in my opinion to the hurt of philosophy. I have the impression that the younger philosophers in America are bewildered and are largely drifting. Under these conditions it is the duty of any one who believes that he has a clear-cut epistemology capable of rising above these verbal phobias to seek to present it as precisely as possible. (shrink)

This is in no sense an attack on the theory of relativity but, instead, an attempt to clarify some points about its epistemology and ontology. It is quite probable that the queries I have had in mind are products of the past. But I observe enough uncertainty in writings here and there to justify a brief discussion.Discarding both ether and Newtonian Space either as entities or as frames for light, we have left the problem of relating the behavior of light (...) to physical bodies, such as the proverbial rods. (shrink)

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work. This work is in the public domain (...) in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant. (shrink)

The body may be the object we know the best. It is the only object from which we constantly receive a flow of information through sight and touch; and it is the only object we can experience from the inside, through our proprioceptive, vestibular, and visceral senses. Yet there have been very few books that have attempted to consolidate our understanding of the body as it figures in our experience and self-awareness. This volume offers an interdisciplinary and comprehensive treatment of (...) bodily self-awareness, the first book to do so since the landmark 1995 collection The Body and the Self, edited by José Bermúdez, Naomi Eilan, and Anthony Marcel. Since 1995, the study of the body in such psychological disciplines as cognitive psychology, cognitive neuroscience, psychiatry, and neuropsychology has advanced dramatically, accompanied by a resurgence of philosophical interest in the significance of the body in our mental life. The sixteen specially commissioned essays in this book reflect the advances in these fields. The book is divided into three parts, each part covering a topic central to an explanation of bodily self-awareness: representation of the body; the sense of bodily ownership; and representation of the self. ContributorsAdrian Alsmith, Brianna Beck, José Luis Bermúdez, Anna Berti, Alexandre Billon, Andrew J. Bremner, Lucilla Cardinali, Tony Cheng, Frédérique de Vignemont, Francesca Fardo, Alessandro Farnè, Carlotta Fossataro, Shaun Gallagher, Francesca Garbarini, Patrick Haggard, Jakob Hohwy, Matthew R. Longo, Tamar Makin, Marie Martel, Melvin Mezue, John Michael, Christopher Peacocke, Lorenzo Pia, Louise Richardson, Alice C. Roy, Manos Tsakiris, Hong Yu Wong. (shrink)

Fast and frugal heuristics function accurately and swiftly over a wide range of decision making processes. The performance of these algorithms in the social domain would be an object for research. The use of simple algorithms to investigate social decision-making could prove fruitful in studies of nonhuman primates as well as humans.