Previous studies have shown that object properties are processed faster when they follow properties from the same perceptual modality than properties from different modalities. These findings suggest that language activates sensorimotor processes, which, according to those studies, can only be explained by a modal account of cognition. The current paper shows how a statistical linguistic approach of word co-occurrences can also reliably predict the category of perceptual modality a word belongs to (auditory, olfactory–gustatory, visual–haptic), even though the statistical linguistic approach (...) is less precise than the modal approach (auditory, gustatory, haptic, olfactory, visual). Moreover, the statistical linguistic approach is compared with the modal embodied approach in an experiment in which participants verify properties that share or shift modalities. Response times suggest that fast responses can best be explained by the linguistic account, whereas slower responses can best be explained by the embodied account. These results provide further evidence for the theory that conceptual processing is both linguistic and embodied, whereby less precise linguistic processes precede precise simulation processes. (shrink)

This article suggests that there is a relationship between successfully maintaining integrity in nursing and the practical provision of opportunities for shared reflection offered by good clinical supervision. In order to establish this case, I will first give some definitions and then proceed to consider how these ideas relate conceptually. The article makes no attempt to offer empirical research as confirmation, but provides a conceptual and moral argument making use of anecdotes for puposes of clarification and illumination. It is the (...) author’s belief that, if it is understood and implemented properly, clinical supervision offers a radical challenge to nursing’s existing culture. If nurses are interested in the survival of the profession, it is perhaps a challenge that has to be addressed. (shrink)

This research project investigated manifestations of critical thinking in pupils 10 to 12 years of age during their group discussions held in the context of Philosophy for Children Adapted to Mathematics. The objective of the research project was to examine, through the pupils' discussions, the development of dialogical critical thinking processes. The research was conducted during an entire school year. The research method was based on the Grounded Theory approach; the material used consisted of transcripts of verbal exchanges among the (...) pupils. Analysis of the transcripts revealed that: critical thinking appears to the extent that a 'dia-logue' is established among pupils; on the cognitive level, dialogical critical thinking is comprised of four thinking modes: logical, creative, responsible and meta-cognitive; and on the epistemological level, dialogical critical thinking is only manifested in a context where egocentricity of perspective and relativism of beliefs are transcended. (shrink)

If the discourse of manners and customs aspires to a stable fixing of subjects and systems of differences, however, its project is not and never can be complete. This is true if only for the seemingly trivial reason that manners-and-customs descriptions seldom occur on their own as discrete texts. They usually appear embedded in or appended to a superordinate genre, whether a narrative, as in travel books and much ethnography, or an assemblage, as in anthologies and magazines.6 In the case (...) of travel writing, which is the main focus of this essay, manners-and-customs description is always in play with other sorts of representation that also bespeak difference and position subjects in their own ways. Sometimes these other positioning complement the ideological project of normalizing description, and sometime they do not.In what follows, I propose to examine this interplay of discourses in some nineteenth-century travel writing chiefly about Africa. While Barrow’s work is not prominent on anybody’s mental bookshelves these days, readers will recognize such names as David Livingstone, John Speke, James Grant, Richard Burton, Mungo Park, or Paul Du Chaillu. During the co-called opening up of central and southern Africa to European capitalism in the first half of the nineteenth century, such explorer-writers were the principal producers of Africa for European imaginations—producers, that is, of ideology in connection with the European expansionist project there. What I hope to underscore in these writings is not their tendency towards single, fixed subject positions or single, fixed systems of difference. Rather, I wish to emphasize the multiplicity of ways of codifying the Other, the variety of fixed positions and the variety of given sets of differences that they posit. European penetration and appropriation is semanticized in numerous ways that can be quite distinct, even mutually contradictory. In the course of examining discursive polyphony in these travel writings, I hope to stress the need to consider ideology not only in terms of reductive simplification but also in terms of the proliferation of meanings. 6. Ethnographies would seem to be a counterexample to this claim, but in fact one can fairly easily show that ethnographic writing is inextricably tied to personal narrative. Indeed this tie is a symptom of a serious contradiction between ethnographic methods and ethnographic discourse. See my “Fieldwork in Common Places,” in Writing Culture: The Poetics and Politics of Ethnography, ed. James Clifford and George Marcus . Mary Louise Pratt is an associate professor in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese and the Program in Comparative Literature at Stanford University. She is author of Toward a Speech-Act Theory of Literary Discourse and is a member of the editorial boards of Poetics, Signs Tabloid, and Cultural Anthropology. (shrink)

The global COVID‐19 pandemic challenged the world—how it functions, how people move in the social worlds and how government/government services and people interact. Health services, operating under the principles of new public management, have undertaken rapid changes to service delivery and models of care. What has become apparent is the mechanisms within which contemporary health services operate and how services are not prioritising the person at the centre of care. Person‐centred care (PCC) is the philosophical premise upon which models of (...) health care are developed and implemented. Given the strain that COVID‐19 has placed on the health services and the people who deliver the care, it is essential to explore the tensions that exist in this space. This article suggests that before the pandemic, PCC was largely rhetoric, and rendered invisible during the pandemic. The paper presents an investigation into the role of PCC in these challenging times, adopting a Foucauldian lens, specifically governmentality and biopolitics, to examine the policies, priorities and practical implications as health services pivoted and adapted to changing and acute demands. Specifically, this paper draws on the Australian experience, including shifting nursing workforce priorities and additional challenges resulting from public health directives such as lockdowns and limitations. The findings from this exploration open a space for discussion around the rhetoric of PCC, the status of nurses and that which has been lost to the pandemic. (shrink)

This article explores the question of whether or not the ‘art’ of nursing can properly be described as an ‘aesthetics’. The author concludes that, although much nursing literature on the subject is confused and even incoherent, there is nevertheless some justification for seeing a connection between the art of nursing and aesthetics. The philosophical writings of Martha Nussbaum and Iris Murdoch are used to support this position.

Keeping a conversation going is the social glue of friendships. The DSM criteria for autism list difficulties with back-and-forth conversation but does not necessitate that all autistic children will be equally impacted. We carried out three studies (two pre-registered) with verbally-fluent school children (age 5-9 years) to investigate how autistic and neurotypical children maintain a conversation topic. We also investigated within-group relationships between conversational ability and cognitive and socio-cognitive predictors. Study 1 found autistic children were more likely than neurotypical controls (...) to give off-topic and generic minimal responses (e.g. ‘mm’, ‘oh’) and were less likely to give non-verbal responses (e.g. nodding or use of facial affect to respond). Nonetheless, the autistic group provided topic-supporting responses 62% of the time, indicating some aspects of conversation topic maintenance are a relative strength. Studies 2 and 3 found large individual differences in topic-supporting conversational responding amongst both neurotypical and autistic children. These were positively related to theory of mind ability and age in both groups. Conversational skills lie on a continuum for the general population and differences by diagnostic group are a matter of degree. Given the importance for peer relationships, we suggest a whole-classroom approach to supporting conversation skills in all children. (shrink)

I argue that psychiatric researchers, clinicians, and the wider public actively regulate the minds of individuals with mental disorder through the prescriptive processes of mind-shaping (see Andrews in South J Philos 53:50–67, 2015a; Andrews in Philos Explor 18(2):282–296, 2015b; McGeer, in: Folk psychology re-assessed, Springer, Berlin, 2007; McGeer in Philos Explor 18:259–281, 2015; Mameli in Biol Philos 16(5):595–626, 2001; Zawidzki in Philos Explor 11(3):193–210, 2008; Zawidzki, in: Kiverstein (ed) The Routledge Handbook of Philosophy of the Social Mind, Taylor and Francis (...) Group, London, 2016). Consequently, all those with a vested interest in the language of mental disorder should take a critical and dialogical approach in how concepts of psychopathology are developed, disseminated and used. Mind-shaping describes how our folk-psychological categorizations actively regulate the behaviour of those categorized. This is done through setting certain norms, which can be achieved through the application of folk-psychological concepts. I argue that psychiatry has embedded norms and goals in its activities that are non-epistemic in nature and these are not only bound up in disorder concepts, but also in the social roles that clinicians, researchers and patients play. In this way, psychiatry uses folk-psychological type tools for the social understanding of individuals with mental disorder, and the application of these tools also helps it meet these non-epistemic goals. Given this, I characterise psychiatry as partaking in mind-shaping. When we characterise psychiatry as mind-shaping, we are then able to explain occurrences of looping effects between disorder categories and individuals categorized (Haslam in J Psychopathol 22(1):4–9, 2016) and provide a theoretical basis for the occurrence of hermeneutical injustice in the field of mental health. (shrink)

This article uses critical discourse analysis to investigate artificial intelligence (AI) generated images of aged care nurses and considers how perspectives and perceptions impact upon the recruitment and retention of nurses. The article demonstrates a recontextualization of aged care nursing, giving rise to hidden ideologies including harmful stereotypes which allow for discrimination and exploitation. It is argued that this may imply that nurses require fewer clinical skills in aged care, diminishing the value of working in this area. AI relies on (...) existing data sets, and thus represent existing stereotypes and biases. The discourse analysis has highlighted key issues which may further impact upon nursing recruitment and retention, and advocates for stronger ethical consideration, including the use of experts in data validation, for the way that aged care services and nurses are depicted and thus valued. (shrink)

IntroductionResearch indicates that body image disturbance is associated with poorer psychosocial outcomes for individuals with physical health conditions, with poorest body image reported for individuals with visible bodily changes. Using White’s theoretical model of body image the present paper aimed to examine the nature of these relationships in two distinct groups: individuals with an amputation and individuals with diabetes. It was hypothesized that body image disturbance would be associated with psychosocial outcomes and would mediate the relationships between self-ideal discrepancy and (...) personal investment in psychosocial outcomes.MethodsIndividuals with diabetes and individuals with an amputation provided details regarding their medical condition, and completed measures assessing body image, investment, self-ideal discrepancy, depression, anxiety, and quality of life. Structural equation and invariance modeling were used to test the model paths and the invariance of the model.ResultsAs hypothesized, body image disturbance was found to mediate the relationships between personal investment and psychosocial outcome, and between self-ideal discrepancy and psychosocial outcome. The predicted paths were invariant across groups, although the model accounted for more variance in people with an amputation than people with diabetes.ConclusionBody image disturbance, personal investment, and self-ideal discrepancy are important factors contributing to psychosocial outcome for individuals with diabetes and individuals with an amputation. These findings not only confirm the validity of the model in these two groups, but they emphasize the importance of targeting body image in future psychological interventions for individuals with a health condition. (shrink)

The Logic of Human Personality shows how the ancient definition of person remains useful today, and explains how it happened to fall into disuse. The method of using the categories of Aristotle is illustrated by showing how action, relation, and time as well as the fundamental category of substance, can help us understand what it is to be a person. The Logic of Human Personality agrues, against Mill and others who have found Aristotle's categories unsatisfactory, that in fact they are (...) useful for much psychological and anthropological research today, particularly in the intercultural field. (shrink)

The dire implications of navigating the overwhelming whiteness of the education system for Black women is foregrounded by the author’s autoethnography about her educational journey and experiences. Within it, the author illustrates the key role of her Black identity - despite being immersed in whiteness– to provide a strong sense of self, pride and resilience, which ultimately leads to her survival in the unequal spaces of the education system. By way of her own educational experiences, the author shares how she (...) becomes motivated to embark upon a PhD as a way to centre and affirm Black identities and in order to make palatable spaces within the hostility of whiteness. Drawing on her PhD research, which is framed by Black feminist epistemology, Critical Race Theory and Bourdieu’s theory of practice, her findings, based on the semi-structured interviewing of 25 other Black British women graduates, illustrates that the participants share similar educational experiences and responses. The paper concludes by asserting that the attainment of Black girls and young women often does not reflect their strong commitment to education- which evidences one consequence of journeying into the ‘heart of whiteness'. Therefore, the author argues for the necessity of more research and support for this diverse group. (shrink)

Social-psychological dimensions of learning are under-researched, but they affect student achievement. Within a marketized higher education context in England, United Kingdom, this study examined whether the relation between students’ social identities as members of their discipline and academic achievement could be further understood by considering the mediating roles of approaches to learning and frequency of making course complaints. Undergraduates completed a questionnaire to assess these constructs. As expected, approaches to learning and course complaining both acted as serial mediators of the (...) link between discipline identification and academic achievement: stronger discipline identification was related to more deep approaches to learning, less complaining, and higher achievement, whereas weaker discipline identification was related to more surface approaches to learning, more complaining, and lower achievement. The findings suggest that addressing these social-psychological aspects of learning could improve students’ academic achievement. (shrink)

Contemporary critical social theories face the question of how to justify the ideas of the good society that guide their critical analyses. Traditionally, these more or less determinate ideas of the good society were held to be independent of their specific sociocultural context and historical epoch. Today, such a concept of context-transcending validity is not easy to defend; the "linguistic turn" of Western philosophy signals the widespread acceptance of the view that ideas of knowledge and validity are always mediated linguistically (...) and that language is conditioned by history and context. In Re-Presenting the Good Society, Maeve Cooke addresses the justificatory dilemma facing critical social theories: how to maintain an idea of context-transcending validity without violating anti-authoritarian impulses. In doing so she not only clarifies the issues and positions taken by other theorists--including Richard Rorty, Jürgen Habermas, Axel Honneth, and Judith Butler--but also offers her own original and thought-provoking analysis of context-transcending validity.Because the tension between an anti-authoritarian impulse and a guiding idea of context-transcending validity is today an integral part of critical social theory, Cooke argues that it should be negotiated rather than eliminated. Her proposal for a concept of context-transcending validity has as its central claim that we should conceive of the good society as re-presented in particular constitutively inadequate representations of it. These re-presentations are, Cooke argues provocatively, regulative ideas that have an imaginary, fictive character. (shrink)

This article addresses concerns of technology dissemination for small farmers, specifically focusing on the diffusion of new varieties of a self-pollinating crop. Based on bean seed systems research in Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, and the Democratic Republic of Congo, it shows four commonly-held basic assumptions to be false, namely that: first, small-scale farmers do not buy bean seed; they mainly rely on their own stocks or obtain seed from other farmers; second, that small-scale farmers cannot afford to buy seed of newly (...) introduced bean varieties or will not risk it; third, that farmer seed networks function efficiently in varietal diffusion; and lastly, that a good variety will sell itself. Grounded in the reality under which small farmers actually operate, the article offers recommendations for improving the delivery of newly introduced bean cultivars by NARS and seed suppliers. Most of the recommendations are relevant to other self-pollinating crops. (shrink)

This paper provides a starting point for thinking beyond a research–practice divide and discusses possible new conceptualizations of intervention and the role of IT research in contemporary organizational settings. ‘IT research’ denotes a conglomerate of overlapping research conducted under the headings of Information Systems, Systems Development, Critical IS Research and Participatory Design. The paper applies this joint notion of IT research and the IT researcher to draw parallels across these niches of research regarding the question of intervention. Through an analysis (...) of selected field study events, a prominent notion of intervention (as being active as opposed to being passive) is reworked in terms of intervention as circumstance, a circumstantial interplay of situated practices. In closing, subsequent possibilities for repositioning the IT researcher are discussed in terms of reflexivity, facilitation or being a trickster. (shrink)

The most fundamental challenge facing humans today is the imminent destruction of the life-generating and life-sustaining ecosystems that constitute the planet Earth. There is considerable evidence...

After the Second World War, Adorno was politically engaged as a critical public intellectual in the new Federal Republic of Germany. Nonetheless, in the 1960s, a time of active protest against established norms and the underlying socio‐economic and political conditions, he was widely perceived by the protesting activists as adopting an attitude of resignation in blatant contradiction to the aims of his critical social theory. The chapter considers the validity of this accusation. Section 37.1 sets out Adorno's position with regard (...) to the relationship between theory and praxis from the 1950s onwards. Section 37.2 considers the adequacy of his position from the point of view of Critical Social Theory's fundamental concern with radical societal transformation. Contending that Adorno does in effect adopt a stance of resignation vis‐à‐vis radical societal transformation, it draws attention to some questionable elements in his theory that push him toward adopting this stance. It concludes that his theory would benefit from dispensing with them. (shrink)

This article marks a decisive step towards the recovery of the French woman writer, journalist, and aviation pioneer Louise Faure-Favier, who today is virtually forgotten. The article begins by sit...

If Third World women form ‘the bedrock of a certain kind of global exploitation of labour,’ as Chandra Mohanty argues, how can our theoretical definitions of exploitation account for this? This paper argues that liberal theories of exploitation are insufficiently structural and that Marxian accounts are structural but are insufficiently intersectional. What we need is a structural and intersectional definition of exploitation in order to correctly identify global structural exploitation. Drawing on feminist, critical race/post-colonial and post-Fordist critiques of the Marxist (...) definition and the intersectional accounts of Maria Mies and Iris Marion Young, this paper offers the following definition of structural exploitation: structural exploitation refers to the forced transfer of the productive powers of groups positioned as socially inferior to the advantage of groups positioned as socially superior. Global structural exploitation is a form of global injustice because it is a form of oppression. (shrink)