The results of the investigation were aligned with the objective of determining the influence of the program in the strengthening of social skills in university students of Medical Technology of the National University of Jaén. It is an applied, explanatory, longitudinal research, with a quantitative approach and quasi-experimental design, with pre-test and post-test in experimental and control groups. The hypothetical-deductive method was used, with a population of 289 students and 80 for the sample. The Observation Form and the Social Skills (...) Evaluation Scale were used. The results showed a good to excellent level of social skills in all the participants of the experimental group of the II and VI cycle. The means per academic cycle increased by 32 and 35.75 respectively. By dimensions according to academic cycle, the first social skills increased by 6.2 and 5.4, advanced social skills by 5.05 and 4.85, skills related to feelings by 5.45 and 5.1, alternative social skills to aggression by 3.95 and 6.7, social skills to cope with stress by 7.4 and 8.45, and finally social planning skills by 3.95 and 5.25 respectively. In conclusion, the program has a significant influence on strengthening social skills in university students, with a greater influence in the experimental group of the VI cycle (35.75 percentage points). (shrink)

Concerns over medical paternalism are especially salient when there exists a conflict of values between patient and clinician. This is particularly relevant for psychiatry, the field of medicine for which the phenomenon of conflicting values is most present and for which the specter of medical paternalism looms large. Few cases are as glaring as that of anorexia nervosa (AN), a disorder that is considered to be egosyntonic (meaning its symptoms are reflectively endorsed by the patient) and maintained by the presence (...) of pathological values. One might think, given this, that an approach to medicine that foregrounds the role of values in clinical encounters would be particularly well suited to address the problem of medical paternalism in treating AN. As it happens, this is precisely the goal of values-based medicine, an approach to medicine that prioritizes the integration of patients’ unique values into the aims of treatment and that has been touted as being particularly applicable to psychiatric conditions such as AN. Although this strategy may initially appear promising, in this paper I will argue that the directive to incorporate patient values (as dictated by values-based medicine) cannot do the work of mitigating medical paternalism in the treatment of egosyntonic disorders such as AN. Rather than chalking this up as a failure due to AN being a particularly challenging case, I will instead conclude that the failure of values-based medicine in this context cuts to the heart of the limitations of rectifying medical paternalism within psychiatry as it currently exists. (shrink)

Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and queer family-making has exploded in many western nations in the past few decades in the midst of growing social acceptance and legal recognition of queer families, as well as increasing options for same-sex reproduction.1 Philosophers and bioethicists have perhaps been late in taking up these issues compared to scholars in other fields concerned with politics, justice, and cultural criticism. And where philosophers and bioethics have taken up these topics, often the moral issues at stake are framed (...) in a manner that implicitly or explicitly holds heterosexual reproduction through intercourse in a committed relationship to be the normal, natural, and morally unquestioned... (shrink)

Some philosophers challenge the advisability of naturalizing social metaphysics by appeal to social science. They argue that social science fails to meet criteria for realist commitment, such as unity and novel predictive power, and that social science would therefore be a poor basis for naturalization. These skeptical challenges are rooted in traditions in the philosophy of science that have held the social sciences in poor esteem. Through a case study that highlights the ways in which archaeology is methodologically converging on (...) hard science, I show that the philosophical bias against social science is outmoded. I suggest that at least some of the methodological advances of archaeology and other social sciences are epistemologically significant and are relevant to the question of realism. However, I conclude with the thought that realist commitment need not be a precondition for naturalization. The paper therefore accomplishes two main things: 1) it allays objections to using social science to naturalize social metaphysics, and 2) it motivates a higher estimation of the epistemological credentials of social science as compared with more skeptical traditions. (shrink)

The paper presents evidence in bacteria for the utility of Godfrey-Smith’s environmental complexity thesis, using certain kinds of signal transduction systems as proxies for cognitive/behavioral complexity. Microbiologists already accept that the number of signal transduction proteins in a bacterial genome indicates the level of ecological complexity to which the organism is subject: the more signalling proteins, the greater the complexity. Sheer numbers are not always a reliable indicator of behavioral complexity, however. The paper proposes a new, ECT-based procedure for identifying, (...) from genomic sequence and signalling repertoire, novel bacterial candidates likely to exhibit behavioral complexity in response to a complex ecological niche. (shrink)

In 1982, when T. M. Scanlon published “Contractualism and Utilitarianism,” he noted that, despite the widespread attention to Rawls’ A Theory of Justice, the appeal of contractualism as a moral theory had been under appreciated. In particular, the appeal of contractualism’s account of what he then called “moral motivation” had been under appreciated.1 It seems to me that, in the intervening quarter century, despite the widespread discussion of Scanlon’s work, the appeal of contractualism, in precisely this regard, has still been (...) under appreciated—even though Scanlon makes what he once called “moral motivation” central, throughout his work. My first aim, then, is to do my best to draw out and make vivid this appeal. I will do this by first considering the two questions that Scanlon thinks must be addressed by any moral theory, what he once called “the question of subject matter” and “the question of motivation.” I will spend some time first locating and explicating the second question, of motivation, and then displaying Scanlon’s answer to it—it is this answer which provides contractualism with its under-appreciated appeal. I will then return to the question of subject matter—which will, by that point, have been revealed as not wholly distinct from the question of motivation, as Scanlon understands it. But it is as an answer to this question that Scanlon’s theory is most often.. (shrink)

Robinson offers the ‘superior personhood’ approach (SPA) to capture the value of gestation and ground justice for women/gestators.1 SPA holds that women/gestators are more than mere persons given the reality of pregnancy and the vital role women/gestators play in reproduction.1 In this commentary, I speak to some background context perhaps relevant to SPA, lay out areas of agreement with Robinson and then raise four worries about the approach. In my view, the devaluing of gestation and injustice for women/gestators need rectifying, (...) but SPA is not the way. It is difficult not to read Robinson’s piece through the lens of 2022’s Dobbs v. Jackson decision and the politics of abortion, with its focus on fetal status. This background offers a certain kind of sympathetic strategic/rhetorical reading of the motivation for SPA—one to which I found students and others with whom I discussed the piece quite open. Perhaps the goal here is to offer an ingenious defence of abortion rights: if women/gestators are more than one person, then the immorality of abortion cannot be easily grounded in claims about fetal personhood.2 However, Robinson downplays abortion, affirming only ‘my approach could support a wide range of positions on abortion’. This is curious. Is SPA compatible with significant restrictions on abortion? Assuming a realistic political context, this would involve mere persons (men/non-gestators) legislating how superior persons can …. (shrink)

In Aristotle on the Category of Relation, Pamela Hood challenges the view that Aristotle's conception of relation is so divergent from our own that it does not count as a theory of relation at all. This book presents compelling evidence that Aristotle's theory of relation is more robust than originally suspected.

Zusammenfassung Der Beitrag behandelt strukturelle und kontextuelle Spezifika von selbstorganisierten Migrantensportvereinen auf statistischer Grundlage. Er beruht auf einer Sonderauswertung des für den Sportentwicklungsbericht 2009/2010 durch eine Befragung von Sportvereinen in ganz Deutschland gewonnenen Datensatzes (N=19.345). Durch univariate Varianzanalysen abgesicherte Mittelwertvergleiche zwischen den anhand ihrer Mitglieder- und Vorstandszusammensetzung als solche kategorisierten Migrantensportvereinen und den restlichen Vereinen der Stichprobe werden ergänzt durch eine Matched-Pairs- Analyse und eine Regressionsanalyse. Die dafür herangezogenen Vergleichsvariablen liegen in den Bereichen Mitgliederstruktur, Vereinstätigkeit, Standort und Problembelastung. Unter anderem (...) haben Migrantensportvereine im Durchschnitt weniger Mitglieder und einen höheren Männeranteil, öfter Fußball im Angebot und häufiger existenzbedrohende Probleme als andere Sportvereine. (shrink)

In this paper, I consider the tutorial conversation in Higher Education. To focus the discussion I use the scenario of a tutorial conversation between a lecturer and a student. I begin by suggesting that the increasing emphasis placed on student satisfaction in certain Higher Education Institutions tends to focus the tutorial conversation towards a form of settlement that I then consider in light of Thoreau's Walden. To explore what other conversation might be possible, I turn to the philosophical writing of (...) Martin Buber. I discuss his ‘life of dialogue’ in relation to the distinction he draws between I and Thou and between I and It and to how Nancy Vansieleghem and Jan Masschelein analyse this in relation to the 2002 film, Le Fils. With reference to the film adaptation of Alan Bennett's The History Boys, I suggest a different starting point for the tutorial conversation. I conclude that the tutorial discussion, seen as an invitation to speak, and as a form of exposition and dialogue, is the possibility of the opening up of a new dimension of thinking and acting. This is the invitation to a conversation in education that is itself truly educative. (shrink)

Recent work at the confluence of Philosophy and Higher Education Studies has conceptualized the university as a place for belonging. The university, on this understanding, offers respite and refuge and familiarity; it is a place for insiders and outsiders to come together and to forge meaningful and lasting bonds. One of the interesting aspects about this body of scholarship is that its antithesis also exists. There is an equally compelling body of work in the philosophy of education that conceptualizes the (...) university as singularly alienating, troubling, and disorientating. But are these two ideas of what it means to experience a higher education at odds with each other? We would argue to the contrary, rather maintaining that they are ineluctably related through the idea of sanctuary. We propose the idea of the university as sanctuary to encapsulate both what it means for the university to be a site for safety and familiarity and, paradoxically, a place where such senses are importantly challenged. We are interested in the implications of this idea for scholars' experiences of belonging as well as their encounters with radical otherness. (shrink)

Wexler and Specker Sullivan (2023) note that, “unbridled speculation can imperil the credibility of neuroethics, generate unrealistic expectations amongst different stakeholders, take up time that...

Open peer commentary on the article “Beyond Individual-Centred 4E Cognition: Systems Biology and Sympoiesis” by Mads Julian Dengsø & Michael David Kirchhoff. Abstract: A move to sympoiesis entails a conceptual overhaul of autopoiesis, a key facet of the enactive approach to cognition. In this commentary, I invite more systematic thinking about the concept of autopoiesis and enactivist commitments to it, given the inconsistencies regarding individuality raised in the target article.

This conversation analytic paper investigates how speakers self-position or are other-positioned as members of a certain social group through other-initiated repair. Findings illustrate the complexity of linguistic membership categories by demonstrating that they continually shift depending on local interactional goals and documenting how shifts are accomplished. The different levels and types of linguistic and cultural knowledge that are invoked in instances of repair on specific lexical items demonstrate the complexity of linguistic membership categorization, and this indicates a need to problematize (...) the use of a priori and overly-vague labels like ‘non-native speaker’. Findings contribute to our understanding of the functions of other-initiated repair and the mechanisms of co-constructing membership and thus social identity in interaction. They also raise questions about the relationship between amounts and types of knowledge and further our understanding of the construction of expert/novice categories via knowledge displays and negotiation. (shrink)

It is often assumed that a commitment to scientific realism naturally, if not necessarily, accompanies a commitment to naturalizing metaphysics. If one denies that our scientific theories are approximately true, it would be unclear why one should index metaphysics to them. My aim is to show that the project of naturalizing metaphysics does not require realist assumptions. I will identify two success conditions for the project of disentangling naturalized metaphysics from realism: 1) the narrow success condition, which requires the antirealist (...) to explain why naturalized metaphysics is preferable to non-naturalized metaphysics, and 2) the broad success condition, which requires the antirealist to explain why naturalized metaphysics is preferable to metaphysical quietism. I believe that the antirealist can meet these conditions. Although I will not defend any definitive way of meeting them, I will explore argumentative avenues open to the antirealist. In particular, I will consider some conceptions of naturalized metaphysics, discuss their antirealist-compatible expected payoffs, and consider whether those payoffs enable the antirealist to meet the success conditions of the project. I will find that the antirealist has several argumentative avenues open to them. (shrink)

Literary analysis offers English instructors an ideal vehicle for modeling, practicing, and teaching critical thinking skills. Because literature students must master the skills of analysis, reasoning, evaluation, and argumentation, they would benefit from deliberate and explicit instruction in the concepts and practices of critical thinking in the classroom. Part I of this paper describes strategies to incorporate explicit instruction in the elements of reasoning and the standards of critical thinking described by critical thinking experts Richard Paul, Linda Elder, and Gerald (...) Nosich into the literature classroom. In the companion piece, “Critical Thinking in the Literature Classroom, Part II: Dickens’s Great Expectations and the Emergent Critical Thinker,” a demonstration is given of how protagonists in literary works such as Pip from Dickens’s Great Expectations can be understood and interpreted as literary representations of an individual’s transition from a first-order, unreflective thinker to a second-order, reflective, metacognitive critical thinker, further illuminating the literary texts and further reinforcing students’ understanding of the concepts of critical thinking. (shrink)

Tendo em vista a emergência do pensamento ecológico em tempos do atual cenário antropocênico, o presente artigo procura refletir acerca da relação entre os seres vivos e o capitalismo, de modo a corroborar um conflito termodinâmico que permeia entre eles, tendo a entropia como mediação. Deste modo, constitui-se, por um lado, os sistemas abertos, que são capazes de trocar matéria e energia com o meio e, assim, esfriar seu sistema, de modo a impedir ou desacelerar sua autodestruição entrópica; e por (...) outro, os sistemas isolados, que não trocam energia e matéria com o meio e, por isso, alimentam e antecipam a morte térmica do seu sistema. Sendo assim, apresentam-se dois cenários antagônicos sobre a entropia: primeiramente, parte-se do ponto de vista da entropia enquanto elemento evolucionário da vida, visto que é responsável pela autossustentação de organismos vivos, e nesta atividade, mantém o fluxo entrópico entre o sistema e o meio; e, inversamente, coloca-se sobre perspectiva do caráter antropocênico da entropia, que, a partir do capitalismo, acelera a flecha entrópica do tempo e desenvolve, portanto, a luta pela existência entre o sistema econômico e o ecossistema. Neste sentido, fala-se, no presente trabalho, sobre a tensão entre os dois sistemas e sua relação com o colapso ambiental.Palavras-chave: Sistemas; Termodinâmica; Biosfera; Economia; Entropia. (shrink)

Much has been written about the history of the work of men and women in the premodern past. It is now generally acknowledged that early modern ideological assumptions about a strict division of work and space between men and productive work outside the house on the one hand, and women and reproduction and consumption inside the house, on the other, bore little relation to reality. Household work strategies, out of necessity, were diverse. Yet what this spatial complexity meant in particular (...) households on a day-to-day basis and its consequences for gender relationships is less clear and has received relatively little historical attention. The aim of this paper is to add to our knowledge through a case study of the way that men and women used and organized space for work in the county of Essex during the “long seventeenth century”. Drawing on critiques of the concept of “separate spheres” and the models of economic change to which it relates, together with local/micro historical methods, it places evidence within an appropriate regional context to argue that spatial patterns were enormously varied in early modern England and a number of factors—time, place, occupation, and status, as well as gender—determined them. Understanding of the dynamic, complex, uneven purchase of patriarchy upon the organization, imagination, and experience of space has important implications for approaches to gender relations in early modern England. It raises additional doubts about the utility of the separate spheres analogy, and particularly the use of binary oppositions of male/female and public/private, to describe gender relations and their changes in this period and shows that a deeper understanding demands more research into the local contexts in which the gendered division and meaning of work was negotiated. (shrink)

African women farmers have an urgent need for adequate agricultural extension information. Training extension agents in gender related issues should have high priority, considering that the majority of farmers are women and have different roles, resources, constraints, and responsibilities from men. This paper examines the extent to which these issues are incorporated into the curriculum of the two Malawian institutions of agricultural education that train extensionists. It also considers the degree to which they are recruiting women officers into fields other (...) than home economics. Administrators and lecturers at both institutions express a desire to integrate gender matters into the curriculum and to recruit more females into agricultural extension; yet both fall far short in meeting these goals. The conclusion provides recommendations on how African institutions of higher learning that train extension personnel might better accomplish these goals and suggests that African MOAs need to employ more women in agricultural research, extension, training, and policy-making positions. (shrink)