This article examines the cameraless negatives revealing the imprints of four fingers obtained in Turin in February 1907 during the second of two séances with renowned medium Eusapia Palladino organized by physiologists Alberto Aggazzotti, Carlo Foà and Amedeo Hertlizka. By looking at the material and performative components of the séance, it presents spiritualist cameraless photography as a productive tool for rethinking and reframing the photographic medium from a cross-disciplinary perspective questioning medium specific histories and dominant genealogies.

This paper argues that there are three reasons why we should regard Wittgenstein's Tractatus as a forerunner of formal semantics: Wittgenstein is convinced that we can apply formal notions to natur...

Several studies have testified to the importance of a responsive linguistic input for children’s language acquisition and development. In particular, maternal use of expansions, imitations, interpretations, and labels has been shown to promote both children’s language comprehension and production. From this perspective, the present study examined the semantically contingent linguistic input addressed to very preterm children’s comparing it to that directed to full-term children observed during a semi-structured play session when the children were 24 months of age. The relationships between (...) maternal contingent utterances and children’s communicative repertoires were also investigated. The main results showed that mothers of full-term children produced a higher proportion of semantically contingent utterances than those of very preterm children; moreover, this variable was associated with children’s more advanced communicative-linguistic outcomes. Overall, this study supports the interdependence between mothers’ use of certain linguistic strategies and children’s communicative-linguistic repertoire, extending this evidence to children born very preterm and suggesting the importance of considering the semantic contingency aspect of child-directed speech to support the communicative and linguistic development of these children. (shrink)

In the present meta-analysis, we examined the effect of cognitive training on the Executive Function (EF) of preschool children (age range: 3-6 years). We selected a final set of 32 studies from 27 papers with a total sample of 123 effect sizes. We found an overall effect of cognitive training for improving EF (g =.352; k = 123; p <.001), without significant difference between near and far transfer effects on executive domains. No significant additional outcome effects were found for behavioral- (...) and learning-related outcomes. Cognitive training programs for preschoolers are significantly more effective for developmentally at-risk children (ADHD or low socio-economic status) than for children with typical development and without risks. Other significant moderators were computerized versus non-computerized training, individual versus group sessions, and length of training. The number of sessions was not a significant moderator. This is the first demonstration of cognitive training far transfer effects among different executive processes. We discuss this result in relationship with the lower level of modularization of EFs in younger children. (shrink)

Quine is one of the most influential of contemporary philosophers, whose work has ranged broadly across a great number of topics and issues in a career spanning some fifty years. In this collection a group of distinguished philosophers offer a sustained critical evaluation of the full range of Quine's writings. Amongst the topics addressed are interpretation, epistemology, ontology, modality, and mathematical truth. This collection will certainly influence all future discussion of Quine. The contributors include: George Boolos, H-N. Castaneda, Donald Davidson, (...) Umberto Eco, Dagfinn Follesdal, James Higginbotham, Charles Parsons, Hilary Putnam, Barry Stroud, and Bas van Fraassen. However, Quine is given the last word, responding to the essays in the final contribution. (shrink)

According to a widespread interpretation, in the Investigations Wittgenstein adopted a deflationary or redundancy theory of truth. On this view, Wittgenstein’s pronouncements about truth should be understood in the light of his invocation of the equivalences ‘p’ is true = p and ‘p’ is false = not p. This paper shows that this interpretation does not do justice to Wittgenstein’s thoughts. I will be claiming that, in fact, in his second book Wittgenstein is returning to the pre-Tractarian notion of bipolarity, (...) and that his new development of this notion in the Investigations excludes the redundancy-deflationary reading. Wittgenstein’s thoughts about truth are instead compatible with another interpretative option: Wittgenstein remains faithful to his methodological pronouncements, and he merely presents us with platitudes about the notions of “true” and “false”. (shrink)

In this paper we present a theoretical framework to understand the underlying psychological mechanism involved in human-Companion Robot interactions. At first, we take the case of Sexual Robotics, where the psychological dynamics are more evident, to thereafter extend the discussion to Companion Robotics in general. First, we discuss the differences between a sex-toy and a Sexual Robots, concluding that the latter may establish a collusive and confirmative dynamics with the user. We claim that the collusiveness leads to two main consequences, (...) such as the fixation on a specific and atypical type of sexual interaction, called paraphilic, and to the infantilization of the user, which we explain through the theoretical framework of “object-relation theory”. We argue that these dynamics may degrade to an infantile stage the relational abilities of users, extending this argument to Companion Robots in general. Then, we enquire if and how the relational dynamics enacted in HRI may shift to human relations: we discuss the analogy with virtual reality concluding that, under certain condition, a symbolic shift might happen. In the last part of this work, we propose an experimental setup to verify if a collusive and confirmative interaction with a Companion Robot can, over time, impact on the user’s ability to manage relational frustration. (shrink)

Can one see one thing as another without possessing a concept of it? The answer to this question is intuitively negative. This is because seeing x as F is usually taken to consist in the application of the concept F to x . Seeing the duck-rabbit figure as a duck figure, for instance, involves applying the concept DUCK to the figure; thus, one cannot see the figure as the figure of a duck unless one has the concept of a duck (...) and is able to deploy it when looking at the figure. Nearly by definition, then, one cannot see x as F without possessing a concept of F. Contrary to this line of reasoning, this article treats the question of whether we can see x as F without possessing a concept of F as an open and partially empirical question. Seeing x as F involves seeing x in a certain way, namely as F, and whether concepts are required in order to see something in a certain way is an open question. Accordingly, what follows offers a proposal for an alternative way of understanding seeing–as that does not appeal to concept application. (shrink)

Later Wittgenstein is famous for having related meaning and use. Nonetheless, thanks to Dummett and Kripke, and the debates they provoked, a conventional wisdom is nowadays available: Wittgenstein, so the story goes, adopted a theory of meaning in terms of assertability conditions. This paper claims that it is wrong to attribute such a theory to the Investigations. For such a thesis to go through, one of the following two scenarios should be confirmed. It should either be true that Wittgenstein reduces (...) all meaning-engendering uses and conditions of use to assertion and assertability conditions, or that he invokes assertability conditions to show that meaning is always use. But, I will be claiming, the first scenario is excluded by Wittgenstein’s thoughts about the role of assertion and his thoughts about the sense-force distinction, while the second scenario is excluded by Wittgenstein’s thoughts about truth. (shrink)

_Riassunto_: L’obiettivo di questo lavoro è tentare di estendere all’evento educativo l’approccio fenomenologico di Fuchs, basato sulla “mente incarnata” e, dunque, su una concezione olistico-ecologica della relazione tra l’individuo personale e il mondo. Muovendo dalla fenomenologica classica di Husserl, vorremmo dunque applicare tale approccio alla _Bildung_ steiniana, per poter valutare in quali modi una _pedagogia fenomenologica olistico-ecologica_ sia oggi sperimentabile nei contesti educativi. A tale scopo, oltre alla costituzione di una _Bildung _come _autopoiesi_, ossia ad una “formazione dall’interno” nella intima (...) relazione tra formatore e formando – dove l’attore principale è proprio il formando –, vorremmo proporre lo strumento sperimentale della _Scheda di Osservazione Sospensiva_ con la finalità di raccogliere _dati qualitativ_i mediante la “presentazione”, in senso puramente fenomenologico, di ciascun formando e di poterli utilizzare, insieme al formando medesimo, per lo sviluppo e il _dispiegamento_ _consapevole_ del proprio Sé. _Parole chiave_: Fenomenologia applicata; Bildung; Approccio olistico; Approccio ecologico; Incorporazione _The qualitative Bildung. A possible phenomenological application of Fuchs’ “holistic-ecologic” approach to educational event_ _Abstract_: The aim of this paper is to extend Fuchs’ phenomenological approach, which is grounded in the concept of the “embodied mind” and an ecological, holistic understanding of the relationship between the individual and the world, to the educational event. Building on Husserl’s classical phenomenology, we aim to apply this framework to Stein’s _Bildung_, with the goal of exploring how a _holistic-ecological phenomenological pedagogy_ might be applied and tested in contemporary educational contexts. In this regard, we seek to establish _Bildung_ as _autopoiesis_, or “self-formation from within”, within the intimate relationship between educator and learner, where the primary actor is the learner themselves. To this end, we propose the use of the _Suspensive Observation Notebook_ as an experimental tool for collecting qualitative data through the “presentation” of each learner in a strictly phenomenological sense. This will allow both the educator and the learner to use the data for the _conscious development _and_ unfolding _of the learner’s sense of self. _Keywords_: Applied Phenomenology; Bildung; Holistic Approach to Education; Ecologic Approach to Education; Embodiment. (shrink)

This paper explores the issue of performative spaces in the medieval Latin Church, examining the mindsets of the time and the ways practitioners adopted the Platonic notion of world harmony. We then look at the Palatine Chapel of Aachen in the light of the Plato’s doctrine. At the heart of this analysis will be the cosmological drama at the creation of the world, described by Ambrose as a chorus of the constitutive elements. It is from this image that the proto-model (...) of the Christian Church as ‘moving waters’ was derived, a vision shared by both the Eastern and the Western world. To this day, the Palatine chapel of Aquisgranum conveys the appearance of the Ambrosian vision of the primordial waters, with its renewed marble revetments imitating the cosmic waters. The church is designed according to propria dispositione, i. e. modularity. Augustine’s concept of modularity and his psychology of sound, space, movement, and time will be explored in the hypothetical inquiry into the dramatization of space at Aachen. Here, we find that the Chapel has two choreographies which unfold in the space like-stage set up as a synthesis of the arts shaped according to numbers. Relevant concepts to our topic will emerge in the analysis, such as concord, consonance and agreement, measure and movement – metaphors of the idea of a ‘dance’ that exceeds the character of a mere performance. (shrink)

In "The Measure of the Mental" (Davidson 1990), replying to a series of criticisms, that grow out of inadvertence or misunderstanding, Davidson has revisited his thesis concerning the physical and the mental, which he called "anomalous monism" (henceforth, AM). The thesis is subtle and elusive, as it is most often the case with Davidson: there is only one kind of event and state, which has a physical description (i.e., a description in physical terms) and may have a mental description too (...) (i.e., a description in mental terms) -- that shows the monism. But there is no strict law to go from a mental to a physical description of events and states or vice versa -- that shows the anomalousness.This sophisticated third way captures the intuition, generally shared today, that we are physical machines, whereas it acknowledges the mind a peculiarity: the mental is identical with a part of the physical, but no part of the mind is specifically identifiable with any part of the physical; or, more weakly, each mental event or state is identical with a physical one, though there is no systematic way to connect the mental and the physical. (shrink)

Este artigo procura apresentar asignificativa evolução das relações entre oHomem e o Absoluto no pensamento de MaxScheler. Num primeiro momento, o Homemdeve estar contente com ser, como se fosse umGottsucher, está em vias de ser, no posteriortrabalho, o verdadeiro sócio para um "futuroDeus". A história do homem e a história deDeus tende a ser somente uma única história.

I emphasize the general character of the central claim made by Terrence Deacon about the necessity of complementary description of evolving cognitive systems. Next, I clarify and augment one of the claims made in the paper about the tools offered by information theory. Finally, I point to the need of further clarification of some central notions, which should help to make connections across discourses.

The paper aims to assess the theory of mind of sexual offenders. We administered to 21 sexual offenders and to 21 nonoffenders two classical first- and second-order ToM tasks, a selection of six Strange Stories, and a semi-structured interview, the Theory of Mind Assessment Scale , which provides a multi-dimensional evaluation of ToM, investigating first- vs. third-person and egocentric vs. allocentric perspectives. Results show that sexual offenders performed worse than controls on second-order ToM tasks, on Strange Stories and on each (...) of the Th.o.m.a.s dimensions, whereas they did as well as the control group on first-order ToM tasks. A detailed analysis of participants’ performance on Th.o.m.a.s. showed that sex offenders performed worse on the third-person than on the first-person ToM scale, and worse on the allocentric than on the egocentric perspective; these findings did not apply to the controls. Implications for future research and treatment are discussed. (shrink)

This article analyses the Swedish TV series Hållbart näringsliv (HN) to study hegemonic discursive formations over the meaning of the climate crisis. Combining new materialist approaches in discourse studies with a political ecology understanding of the socio-ecological entanglement, we propose the concept of technocratic solutionism to understand how the neo-liberal green economy secures instrumentalist discourses on nature in the Swedish context. The discourse-theoretical analysis of nine HN episodes identifies four nodal points which articulate the technocratic solutionist discourse: capital’s leading role, (...) Nordic exceptionalism, substitutionalism and long-termism. We argue that the climate crisis can be understood as a materiality that dislocates capitalist assemblages, which then, in response, deploy a techno-solutionism discourse to protect the core principles of economic growth and profitability while marginalizing potential radical alternatives. (shrink)

Ambiguous figures pose a problem for representationalists, particularly for representationalists who believe that the content of perceptual experience is non-conceptual (MacPherson in Nous 40(1):82–117, 2006). This is because, in viewing ambiguous figures, subjects have perceptual experiences that differ in phenomenal properties without differing in non-conceptual content. In this paper, I argue that ambiguous figures pose no problem for non-conceptual representationalists. I argue that aspect shifts do not presuppose or require the possession of sophisticated conceptual resources and that, although viewing ambiguous (...) figures often causes a change in phenomenal properties, this change is accompanied by a change in non-conceptual content. I illustrate the case by considering specific examples. (shrink)

Standard models of visual perception hold that vision is an inferential or interpretative process. Such models are said to be superior to competing, non-inferential views in explanatory power. In particular, they are said to be capable of explaining a number of otherwise mysterious, visual phenomena such as multi-stable perception. Multi-stable perception paradigmatically occurs in the presence of ambiguous figures, single images that can give rise to two or more distinct percepts. Different interpretations are said to produce the different percepts. In (...) this paper, I argue that a non-inferential account of visual perception is just as capable of explaining multi-stable perception. I propose an embedded understanding of vision, and show how the embedded account can, after properly qualifying them, use the explanatory resources of the inferential view to explain just what such a view explains. (shrink)

Introduction: The two sections of this volume present theoretical developments and practical applicative papers respectively. Theoretical papers cover topics such as intercultural pragmatics, evolutionism, argumentation theory, pragmatics and law, the semantics/pragmatics debate, slurs, and more. The applied papers focus on topics such as pragmatic disorders, mapping places of origin, stance-taking, societal pragmatics, and cultural linguistics. This is the second volume of invited papers that were presented at the inaugural Pragmasofia conference in Palermo in 2016, and like its predecessor presents papers (...) by well-known philosophers, linguists, and a semiotician. The papers present a wide variety of perspectives independent from any one school of thought. (shrink)

In the 1990’s, Robotics began to design a new robot aimed at industries (primarily automotive) that worked and interacted with humans outside the cage, thereby replacing traditional _robots_ for some specific duties. This _robot_ is therefore called _co-bot_ (_collaborative_ and _robot)._ Also in the 1990’s, Robotics designed the _social robot_ (for which we propose the neologism _so-bot),_ aimed at assisting humans and keeping them company. The sociality of the _sobots_ lies in their ability to follow the rules of human social (...) life, make decisions independently, and respect the roles assigned to them. Scientific literature usually keeps the terms _collaborative_ and _social robot_ distinct as if they indicated different and separate concepts. We question this separation and affirm that to collaborate (from the Latin _cum-laboro_) means to interact with someone while respecting their nature. Collaboration is that particular form of sociality that relates to work activity. From this it follows that the _cobot_ is essentially social and that _cobots_ and _sobots_ belong to the same category that we call _co-s-bots_ (_collaborative social robots_). In other words, _cobots_ and _sobots_ are two types of _cosbots,_ as the flea and the elephant are two types of animals. The difference between _cobot_ and _sobot_ is given by the development of AI. Both are _potentially_ social, that is, _potentially_ capable of interacting and making decisions independently; but while the _cobot_ is social in potency, the _sobot_ is social ‘in act’. With Aristotelian terminology we can therefore say that the _cobot_ is a _sobot_ in power, while the _sobot_ is a _cobot_ in act. We call this new concept ‘_cobot ontology_’. Such an ontology makes it possible to classify _cobots_ according to the degree of development of AI, just as living beings are classified according to the level of intelligence developed.To teach the _cosbot_ to interact with humans, engineers use some results of neuroscientific research such as mirror neurons and the _embodied Mind_. The use of these models should encourage machine self-learning. Self-learning means autonomy, and autonomy needs strong AI development. It is becoming increasingly clear that autonomy is the condition of the sociality of the _sobot_. The article thus concludes that the relationship between _cobot_ and _sobot_ is the identification of a more general _robot_-_automaton_ (_rabota_-_automatos_) relationship which, in the writer’s opinion, is the essential basis and driving force behind the entire history of Robotics. (shrink)

This research aims both at filling the gap in the literature on the psychological research carried out at Würzburg at the beginning of this century, and at showing plausible analogies between some concepts assumed in contemporary research to explain mental processes and those advanced by the psychologists working on thinking at Würzburg. The analysis of the research produced there between 1901 and 1908 highlights the peculiar holistic approach devised for understanding thinking. It was such an approach that allowed Marbe and (...) Orth to discover the so called imageless thought which was found in the associations linking abstract mental contents as well as in judgements and affects. From 1904 on, the research focused mainly on the way in which thinking processes take place: Watt theorized the role of the so called determining tendencies in orienting the course of thinking, and Messer acknowledged the existence of thinking processes of which subjects are unaware. Bühler's most relevant contribution was the systematization in a general framework of the interpretations advanced by the several researchers in explaining the interplay of the different elements responsible for the dynamic course of thinking processes. (shrink)

Phenomenology, New Materialism, and Advances In the Pulsatile Imaginary: Rites Of Disimagination brings together scholars from art history and image theory, literary studies and philosophy. Chapters of this volume engage with the overarching theme of imagination as a pulsatile force embedded in words, images, and all imaginative modes of instantiation of the work of art in their elemental aspects, expressed in visual arts, and literature, as well as bodily schemata of choreographic and musical performances. The papers employ contrasting and complementing (...) methods from literary studies and image theory, especially phenomenology and new materialism, such as G. Bachelard and M. Merleau-Ponty, G. Bataille, J. Kristeva, P. Lacoue-Labarthe and J. Sallis, G. Didi-Huberman, H. Belting and A. Warburg, J. Bennett and Jason M. Wirth, as well as performance studies. Chapters in this volume inquire into the imaginative forces that disrupt and disinhibit the traditional habits of imagination to create pulsatile imaginaries, i.e., a dynamic process of “emergence-resurgence” of image manifested in the act of creation and in perception. This process does not properly imply a destruction of image, but rather a withdrawal of image from the realm of representation to give way to new images and new imaginative experiences. The newly coined term “rite of disimagination” points out to this operation, consecutively implying imagining and disimaging that both denies, as well as validates image – it valorizes matter. The affirmation of the materiality of image is “the re-incarnation of image.”. (shrink)

Frege’s claim that sentences are names of truth-values, I argue, was drawn to fit the formal project, but it respects our pre-theoretical intuitions and does not undermine the sentence’s central semantic role. I do a minimal work both on the expression and on its referent, connecting the sentence and the definite description, suggesting an intuitive referent for a true sentence, suggesting a motive for Frege’s choice of the truth-values as referents, and finally suggesting an understanding of the False as a (...) referent. (shrink)

Over the last decades, many studies had focused on the psychological outcomes of children who have received early socialization outside of the family context, highlighting that the daycare experience can both positively and negatively influence the child’s social-emotional development. Despite the number of studies conducted, there is a lack of observational research on this topic. The purpose of this study is to investigate whether the early daycare experience can influence the prosocial behaviors that children exhibit during free-play social interactions with (...) peers, focusing on their quantity and quality. In addition, the associations between the enactment of prosocial behaviors and social-emotional and behavioral competence were investigated. 160 preschoolers, 77 of whom had previously attended daycare, participated in the study and were focally observed during two free play sessions with peers. Each prosocial behavior was identified and subsequently classified using a coding scheme designed to consider the self-initiated or required origin of prosocial actions and their underlying motive. Emotion comprehension was measured using a standardized test, while social-emotional and behavioral competence was assessed using a questionnaire filled out by teachers. The main findings showed that children who had attended daycare had higher anger and aggression scores than those who had not, who, in turn, were rated by their teachers as having more internalizing behaviors. These characteristics seemed to account for the differences found in the tendency to act prosocial acts in response to a peer’s request, which was lower in children who had a previous daycare experience. Moreover, early socialization outside of the family context appeared to foster the comprehension of others’ intent to achieve emotional or instrumental personal goals and, at the same time, to reduce conventional/affiliative prosocial acts. Overall, this study suggested that the incidental effects of daycare on prosocial behavior might be canceled due to the peculiar social-emotional and behavioral characteristics of the two groups of children. (shrink)