Cognitive Science, Volume 46, Issue 2, February 2022.

Discovering the meaning of novel communicative cues is challenging and amounts to navigating an unbounded hypothesis space. Several theories posit that this problem can be simplified by relying on positive expectations about the cognitive utility of communicated information. These theories imply that learners should assume that novel communicative cues tend to have low processing costs and high cognitive benefits. We tested this hypothesis in three studies in which toddlers (N = 90) searched for a reward hidden in one of several (...) containers. In all studies, an adult communicated the reward's location with an unfamiliar and ambiguous cue. We manipulated the processing costs (operationalized as inferential chain length) and cognitive benefits (operationalized as informativeness) of the possible interpretations of the cues. Toddlers processing of novel communicative cues were guided by expectations of low processing costs (Study 1) and high cognitive benefits (Studies 2 and 3). More specifically, toddlers treated novel cues as if they were easy to process, informative, and accurate, even when provided with repeated evidence to the contrary. These results indicate that, from toddlerhood onward, expectations of cognitive utility shape the processing of novel communicative cues. These data also reveal that toddlers, who are in the process of learning the language and communicative conventions of people around them, exert a pressure favoring cognitive efficiency in communicative systems. (shrink)

Arturo Roig inscribe el ejercicio del filosofar en la geografía de su función crítica. Crítica que es comprendida como una forma de pensamiento que se cuestiona a sí mismo y que considera no sólo los límites y posibilidades de la razón, sino también la realidad humana e histórica de un sujeto que se constituye en un "nosotros". La filosofía, así entendida, es un saber de vida. La función utópica se presenta como tarea para este saber de conjetura y para una (...) filosofía que sirve a la vida. Roig devuelve con ello el valor epistémico que tiene el plus lo axiológico, no verificable como hipótesis científica. Arturo Roig inscribes the exercise of philosophizing in the geography of its critical function. Critique that is understood as a form of thought that questions itself and considers not only the limits and possibilities of reason, but also the human and historical reality of a subject that becomes a "we". Philosophy, thus understood, is a knowledge of life. The utopian function arises as a task for this knowledge of conjecture that serves to life. Thus Roig gives back an axiological dimension as epistemic value to this knowledge. (shrink)

En medio del constante replanteo que la filosofía y las ciencias humanas en general han venido haciendo de nociones básicas como la de 'existencia', un horizonte de planteo intercultural permitirá acoger mejor las demandas de las sociedades contemporáneas cruzadas por diferentes centros histórico-culturales y por el fenómeno común de los movimientos sociales exigiendo cada uno reconocimiento de sus propios derechos. Se concibe tal planteo como una 'odisea de la libertad', ya que intenta perseguir el difícil camino de la libertad -en (...) tanto poder ser- hacia la realización de sí mismo, en relación al reconocimiento de sí y de los otros, en el ámbito comunitario y político. Sin olvidar la buena relación con la naturaleza y el cosmos y con lo que trasciende a cada realidad, en tanto abrigo de infinitud en el ámbito artístico y religioso. Se advierte entonces que el camino a la libertad atraviesa todo tipo de dificultades. Amid the constant reconsideration of basic notions such as "existence" by philosophy and human sciences, an intercultural proposal will give a better response to the demands of contemporary societies, which are crossed by different historical-cultural centers and by the common phenomenon of social movements claiming for their own rights. Such proposal is conceived as "an odyssey of freedom", since it pursues the hard path of freedom-as possibility to be-towards his own realization and regarding his own and others' acknowledgement in the community and political sphere, not forgetting the good relationship with nature and the cosmos and with what transcends each reality, as a shelter of infinity in the artistic and religious field. It is then noticed that the path to freedom undergoes all kinds of difficulties. (shrink)

Cravero’s work is divided in three parts. In the first part, the author briefly presents his views of the influence of Thomistic philosophy on three main schools of contemporary economic philosophies—liberalism, socialism, and what he calls Christian economic philosophy—by analyzing these relationships in three subdivisions of economic philosophy: economic anthropology, economic epistemology, and economic ethics. The second part intends to clarify some of the concepts introduced in the first section by analyzing the relationship that exists between faith and culture, the (...) roles of Thomistic philosophy on Christian thought and neo-Thomism on economic thought, their influence on the understanding of the homo oeconomicus, and the objectivity, neutrality, and normative aspects of economics as a science. The book concludes with some comments on the first part of the book by two economists, Alberto Rubio and Felipe S. Tami. (shrink)