This book is an investigation into cultural variations in experiences of depression. With the aid of empirical data, and with a phenomenological outlook, the analyses presented aim to give a comparative account of the significance of culture in shaping cross-cultural variations, as seen in Iran and the UK. Through analysis of elements of Iranian culture such as literature and folk theories, and important pillars of current social make-up of the country like experience of Iran-Iraq war, the Islamic revolution and its (...) dominant religious discourse, variations in conceptions, experiences and narratives of depression are accounted for. Some of the themes explored include discussions of particular symptoms of depression such as guilt, hopelessness, loss of meaning and somatic symptoms; social stigmas and help-seeking behaviours; changes in relations with others; and metaphors used to convey experiences of depression. The findings of the empirical data examined challenge the universalist approach to psychiatry as science and practice, as well as theoretical notions like idioms of distress that aim to account for cross-cultural variations of mental illness. Instead, it is claimed that a better understanding of the workings of mental illness is achieved by situating individuals and their experience in a meaning-making sociocultural context. (shrink)

Partiendo de una interpretación de la dialéctica platónica y de la lectura del artículo de Monique Dixsaut “Platon et le lógos de Parménide”, investigamos en este trabajo si acaso no podemos encontrar en el Poema de Parménides algunos elementos que luego resultarán fundamentales en la constitución de la dialéctica en los diálogos de Platón. El rechazo del nombre como medio y depositario del conocimiento, la necesidad de la mediación del lógos y la insistencia en lo importante que resulta conocer también (...) la naturaleza del engaño, son algunos de esos elementos que ya encontramos expuestos en Parménides y que resultarán fundamentales para el paulatino desarrollo del método propuesto por Platón. (shrink)

Background: Short latency afferent inhibition provides a method to investigate mechanisms of sensorimotor integration. Cholinergic involvement in the SAI phenomena suggests that SAI may provide a marker of cognitive influence over implicit sensorimotor processes. Consistent with this hypothesis, we previously demonstrated that visual attention load suppresses SAI circuits preferentially recruited by anterior-to-posterior -, but not posterior-to-anterior -current induced by transcranial magnetic stimulation. However, cerebellar modulation can also modulate these same AP-sensitive SAI circuits. Yet, the consequences of concurrent cognitive and implicit (...) cerebellar influences over these AP circuits are unknown.Objective: We used cerebellar intermittent theta-burst stimulation to determine whether the cerebellar modulation of sensory to motor projections interacts with the attentional modulation of sensory to motor circuits probed by SAI.Methods: We assessed AP-SAI and PA-SAI during a concurrent visual detection task of varying attention load before and after cerebellar iTBS.Results: Before cerebellar iTBS, a higher visual attention load suppressed AP-SAI, but not PA-SAI, compared to a lower visual attention load. Post-cerebellar iTBS, the pattern of AP-SAI in response to visual attention load, was reversed; a higher visual attention load enhanced AP-SAI compared to a lower visual attention load. Cerebellar iTBS did not affect PA-SAI regardless of visual attention load.Conclusion: These findings suggest that attention and cerebellar networks converge on overlapping AP-sensitive circuitry to influence motor output by controlling the strength of the afferent projections to the motor cortex. This interaction has important implications for understanding the mechanisms of motor performance and learning. (shrink)

At a time when the ‘end’ of comparative philosophy has been announced1 or comparative philosophy has been taken to be a pragmatic enterprise, implying the ‘end’ of a realist interpretation of comparative philosophy,2 the book under review here, The Misty Land of Ideas and the Light of Dialogue: An Anthology of Comparative Philosophy: Western & Islamic, edited by Ali Paya, appears to be aiming at bucking the trend. It sets out, according to its editor, to contribute to a realist conception (...) of comparative philosophy. The book chapters cover topics related to both comparative philosophy and meta-comparative philosophy. This... (shrink)

Este texto tem como objetivo historicizar a preocupação de Freire em torno da "pedagogia da libertação." De que lugar decorre seu pensamento crítico, que discussões Freire recupera como intelectual de seu tempo. Para isso serão usadas como referências as contribuições da filosofia da libertação latino-americana, história da educação na Argentina e na América Latina e os desenvolvimentos do pensamento descolonial.

En el Crátilo, Platón aborda la cuestión de la orthótes onomáton, la “exactitud” o “adecuación” de los nombres con respecto a aquello que nombrarían. Dos posturas se ponen en juego sobre tal adecuación (el convencionalismo de Hermógenes y el naturalismo de Crátilo), las cuales son desmontadas por el Sócrates platónico. ¿Pero solo dos? ¿No hay acaso en el Crátilo aunque sea la indicación de una posible “adecuación” platónica? Este artículo muestra esa posible “adecuación”. Para cumplir tal objetivo, se investiga la (...) diferencia entre el nombre (o nombre “natural”) y la palabra, la necesidad de anclar la denominación en las esencias, y se muestra sobre todo que es necesario pensar la cuestión del nombre en relación con la del lógos. Para eso, se articula una lectura del Crátilo con una revisión de algunos pasajes del Fedón y del Sofista. (shrink)

Even if it has not been so thoroughly investigated, the importance of Platonic philosophy in Benjamin’s work can hardly be argued. Numerous texts, notes and letters reveal the presence of Plato in Benjamin’s thought. But it is specially The origin of German Trauerspiel the place where Benjamin takes Plato’s philosophy most explicitly and extensively. In the “Epistemocritical Preface” –where he develops his theory of knowledge through a revindication and reinterpretation of the Platonic “doctrine of ideas”– as well as in other (...) sections of the book, Plato appears as a fundamental source. In this context, a dialogue stands out: the Symposium. This article aims at investigating Benjamin’s reading of that dialogue, a reading which articulates the figure of a Plato that develops his philosophy as a way to oppose myth, and that allows to elevate philosophy again as a form for the exposition of truth in language. (shrink)

Cuando Walter Benjamin desarrolla en el “Prólogo epistemocrítico” de _El origen del Trauerspiel_ alemán la más extensa de las presentaciones de su teoría del conocimiento (así como la única publicada en vida), lo hace a partir de una explícita reinterpretación de la filosofía platónica, en particular de su “doctrina de las ideas”. Este artículo se propone investigar las afinidades entre el prólogo de Benjamin y la filosofía platónica, poniendo especial énfasis en las relaciones entre los desarrollos metodológicos de ambos autores, (...) es decir entre la “forma de la exposición” de Benjamin y la dialéctica de Platón. A partir de explorar estas relaciones, se busca poner de relieve una visión de la filosofía que ambos autores comparten, y de la que se quiere señalar la originalidad, potencia y actualidad. (shrink)

This paper provides a perspective on where contemporary Muslim responses to biomedical-ethical issues stand to date. There are several ways in which Muslim responses to biomedical ethics can and have been studied in academia. The responses are commonly divided along denominational lines or under the schools of jurisprudence. All such efforts classify the responses along the lines of communities of interpretation rather than the methods of interpretation. This research is interested in the latter. Thus, our criterion for classification is the (...) underlying methodology behind the responses. The proposed classification divides Muslim biomedical-ethical reasoning into three methodological categories: 1) textual, 2) contextual, and 3) para-textual. (shrink)

In this paper we address a deeply interesting debate that took place at the end of the last millennia between David Mermin, Adan Cabello and Michiel Seevinck, regarding the meaning of relationalism within quantum theory. In a series of papers, Mermin proposed an interpretation in which quantum correlations were considered as elements of physical reality. Unfortunately, the very young relational proposal by Mermin was too soon tackled by specially suited no-go theorems designed by Cabello and Seevinck. In this work we (...) attempt to reconsider Mermin's program from the viewpoint of the Logos Categorical Approach to QM. Following Mermin's original proposal, we will provide a redefinition of quantum relation which not only can be understood as a preexistent element of physical reality but is also capable to escape Cabello’s and Seevinck's no-go-theorems. In order to show explicitly that our notion of ontological quantum relation is safe from no-go theorems we will derive a non-contextuality theorem. We end the paper with a discussion regarding the physical meaning of quantum relationalism. (shrink)

In this paper we investigate the history of relationalism and its present use in some interpretations of quantum mechanics. In the first part of this article we will provide a conceptual analysis of the relation between substantivalism, relationalism and relativism in the history of both physics and philosophy. In the second part, we will address some relational interpretations of quantum mechanics, namely, Bohr’s relational approach, the modal interpretation by Kochen, the perspectival modal version by Bene and Dieks and the relational (...) interpretation by Rovelli. We will argue that all these interpretations ground their understanding of relations in epistemological terms. By taking into account the analysis on the first part of our work, we intend to highlight the fact that there is a different possibility for understanding quantum mechanics in relational terms which has not been yet considered within the foundational literature. This possibility is to consider relations in ontological terms. We will argue that such an understanding might be capable of providing a novel approach to the problem of representing what quantum mechanics is really talking about. (shrink)

In this work we discuss the widespread use and application of the notion of 'particle' within the standard understanding of quantum mechanics, trying to prove how it is not just an innocent and unproblematic “way of talking”, as it is often claimed, but the expression of an atomist metaphysics that represents rather a way of perceiving and thinking that inadvertently determines our understanding of the mathematical formalism and the experimental content of quantum mechanics. We show how the retention of atomist (...) concepts, especially due to Bohr’s work, appears not only as an epistemological obstacle but furthermore as an efficient factory of false problems and misleading intuitions that have concentrated the attention of researchers for some time. Revisiting again Heisenberg’s matrix mechanics, we discuss if it would be possible to advance beyond the substantialist account of QM going back to the operational-invariance of intensive quantities. (shrink)

This paper introduces the Special Issue of Theoria entitled "Quantum Mechanics and Reality". We first comment on its origins related to the VIII International Workshop on Quantum Mechanics and Quantum Information, promoted by the International Network on Foundations of Quantum Mechanics and Quantum Information. We then briefly introduce each contribution individually, bringing the papers together under the Special Issue's topic.