A remarkable hypothesis has recently been advanced by Libet and promoted by Eccles which claims that there is standardly a backwards referral of conscious experiences in time, and that this constitutes empirical evidence for the failure of identity of brain states and mental states. Libet's neurophysiological data are critically examined and are found insufficient to support the hypothesis. Additionally, it is argued that even if there is a temporal displacement phenomenon to be explained, a neurophysiological explanation is most likely.

This handbook brings together leading international scholars to study the diverse figures, movements, and approaches that constitute Presocratic philosophy. More than a survey of scholarship, this study presents new interpretations and evaluations of the Presocratics' accomplishments, from Thales to the sophists and from theology to science.

One’s philosophical points of view, which form the bases for assumptions that we bring to management theory and practice matter, and matter deeply, to management thinking and corporate behavior. In this paper I outline three related threads of philosophical conversations and explain how they are important in management theory and practice: the “linguistic turn” in philosophy, deriving from the later writings of Ludwig Wittgenstein, a social constructionist perspective: a set of theories at least implicitly derived from the linguistic turn in (...) philosophy, and the notion of the impartial spectator. I then use these three theories to analyze the idea of the corporation, corporate cultures and corporate mission statements, stakeholder theories and their differences, and the limitations of the popular notion of “corporate social responsibility.” I conclude that how one frames these management ideas makes a difference, a difference in theory and in practice. (shrink)

This paper describes the semiotic process by which parents, as attachment figures, enable infants to learn to make meaning. It also applies these ideas to psychotherapy, with the therapist functioning as transitional attachment figures to patients where therapy attempts to change semiotic processes that have led to maladaptive behavior. Three types of semiotic processes are described in attachment terminology and these are offered as possible precursors of a neuro-behavioral nosology tying mental illness to adaptation. Non-conscious biosemiotic processes in infant-parent attachment (...) are the basis for early adaptation as well as adaptation or maladaptation in adulthood. Mother-infant interaction can be described as a series of signs, each interpreted so as to dispose the behavior of the other interactant towards the goal of protecting the infant from danger and distress. Regulating arousal, scaffolding infants’ behavior in the infants’ zone of proximal development, and repairing ruptures in the interaction are crucial to infants’ development and adaptation. In semiotic terms, each person activates multiple interpretants to make meaning of sensory stimulation. Non-verbal semiotic synchrony establishes the relationship whereas shared repair of ruptures promotes change. Attachment strategies, as learned adaptations to threat, are neuro-psychological strategies for making meaning of sensory information so as to dispose protective behavior. Type A privileges cognitive-temporal information, Type C affective information, Type B has no bias. Type A and C limit semiotic freedom by using ‘short-cuts’ in processing that produce quick protective behavior in the short-term. Type B includes more representations, and thus more semiotic freedom, resulting in slower responses and long-term flexibility. Attachment strategies function as meta-interpretants for applying one semiotic process to most incoming information about danger. A, B, and C case examples are analyzed in semiotic terms. Psychotherapy can be considered a helping process embedded in a transitional attachment relationship. For psychotherapy to be successful, both somatic stabilization and a therapeutic relationship are needed. Treatment that uses scaffolded semiotic processes in each patient’s ZPD to repair moment-to-moment ruptures holds the potential to reorganize attachment strategies and transfer that potential to reflective language and relationships outside the therapy. The outcome should be greater semiotic freedom such that the individual can trust their own mental processes and use them to establish safe relationships. Language can speed the process, but premature reliance on verbal transformations of non-conscious information can carry misattributions into a second layer of misconstrued meaning and maladaptive behavior. Even when dangerous family relationships and external danger cannot be changed, patients can come to know their own minds and use information to regulate their behavior. The goal of psychotherapy is to free patients from their past by enabling them to be secure about the functioning of their own minds, so that they can both avoid eliciting harm and also establish supportive relationships. (shrink)

: The author seeks an explanation for Merleau-Ponty's expression "the body understands", to which a real value is applied: the objects of the world have a signification that the body grasps by way of perception. The analysis focuses on Merleau-Ponty's Phenomenology of perception and on notes from two of his courses, Le monde sensible et le monde de l'expression and La nature. In these works, there is a constant allusion to the I can as an underlying and grounding mode with (...) regard to the I think. The French philosopher thus grants a central role to movement that demonstrates the interweaving of the body with the world. Resumo: O autor busca uma explicação para a expressão "o corpo conhece", de Merleau-Ponty, à qual atribui um valor real: os objetos do mundo têm uma significação que o corpo apreende por meio da percepção. A análise se concentra na Fenomenologia da percepção e nas notas de dois cursos: O mundo sensível e o mundo da expressão e A natureza. Há uma constante alusão ao eu posso como um modo subjacente e fundamental em relação ao eu penso. Daí, o filósofo francês conferir um papel central ao movimento que demonstra o entrelaçamento do corpo com o mundo. (shrink)

Citizenship education is a complex matter, and not least the place of civic virtues in it. This is illustrated by a consideration of the civic virtue of gratitude. Two conceptions of gratitude are explored. Gratitude seen as a debt is examined and Kant’s exposition of it, including his objections to a person’s getting himself into the position where he has to show gratitude as a beneficiary, is explored. An alternative conception of gratitude as recognition is developed. This, it is claimed, (...) has more relevance to the kind of gratitude it would be appropriate for citizens of a democratic state to feel. The educational implications of these views are indicated. (shrink)

BioPortal is a Web portal that provides access to a library of biomedical ontologies and terminologies developed in OWL, RDF(S), OBO format, Protégé frames, and Rich Release Format. BioPortal functionality, driven by a service-oriented architecture, includes the ability to browse, search and visualize ontologies (Figure 1). The Web interface also facilitates community-based participation in the evaluation and evolution of ontology content.

*[Intertheoretic Reduction]: ___ When a new and very powerful theory turns out to entail a set of propositions and principles that mirror perfectly the propositions of some older theory or conceptual framework, we can conclude that the old terms and the new terms refer to the very same thing, or express the very same properties. (e.g. heat = high average molecular kinetic energy) The old theory is then said to be "reducible" to the new theory.

Using data from the General Social Survey and the National Organizations Survey, this study assesses the extent to which job search methods affect gender composition in a job. In contrast to past research and the popular notion that networking maximizes job search outcomes, it is found that women who use informal job search methods had jobs with more women in them compared to not using such methods. Women using formal job search methods had jobs with fewer women in them compared (...) to not using these methods. For men, job search methods were not associated with the gender composition of the job. (shrink)

Although many historians of science acknowledge the extent to which Greek and Roman ideals framed eighteenth-century thought, many classical references in the texts they study remain obscure. Poems played an important role not only in spreading ideas about natural philosophy, but also in changing people’s perceptions of its value; they contributed to Newton’s swelling reputation as an English hero. By writing about Latin poetry, we focus on the intersection of two literary genres that were significant for eighteenth-century natural philosophy, but (...) seem alien to modern science. We classify Augustan Latinate scientific poetry by considering the audiences for whom the poems were intended. We distinguish three broad categories. One type of poetry was circulated amongst gentlemanly scholars. A second group comprised poetry written specifically to promote or criticise Newton and his books, particularly the Principia. After Newton’s death, a third type of poetry became increasingly significant, included in collections of poems rather than in texts of natural philosophy. Overall, we show how the classical past was vital for creating the scientific future.Author Keywords: Isaac Newton; Neo-Latin; Lucretius; Oxford and Cambridge verse; Edmond Halley; Queen Caroline. (shrink)

Teachers usually consider their work as the opportunity to transmit knowledge. A recent research conducted with secondary education teachers, before they start teaching and after a teaching experience, shows an evolution where the necessity of maintaining some fulfilling teacher-pupil relationships surfaces, in which feelings of mutual trust would be key. In addition, pedagogical methods are undergoing a tremendous change in which digital technologies play a key role. This research investigates the possibility of assessing teaching satisfaction today in view of the (...) teachers’ professional development who face unpredicted socio-educational issues when they enter the career. Therefore, the manner the professional identity is submitted to a subjectivation process depends on the sense granted to the teaching activity, based upon its usefulness. In that way, teaching could be related to a feeling of happiness. (shrink)

Este artigo se propõe pensar a relação entre natureza e humanidade a partir de alguns ensaios de Walter Benjamin – particularmente através da leitura do fragmento A caminho do planetário, em Rua de Mão Única, assim como dos ensaios Sobre o conceito de história, com ênfase na Tese XI, e d’A obra de arte na época de sua reprodutibilidade técnica – em paralelo com a leitura do ensaio de Ailton Krenak, liderança indígena da região do vale do Rio Doce, intitulado (...) Ideias para adiar o fim do mundo. A proposta de buscar esse diálogo entre autores tão distantes – de realidades político-sociais e culturais que até mesmo se desconhecem –, em uma primeira vista, baseia-se na necessidade que ambos tiveram de pensar sobre a catástrofe iminente como consequência da dominação da natureza. (shrink)

Many questions concerning the nature of the mind have remained intractable since their first systematic discussion by the ancient Greeks. What is the nature of knowledge, and how is it possible to represent the world? What are consciousness and free will? What is the self and how is it that some organisms are more intelligent than others? Since it is now overwhelmingly evident that these are phenomena of the physical brain, it is not surprising that an established empirical and theoretical (...) foundation in this domain has eluded us for so long. For in order to understand what we are and how we work, we must understand the brain and how it works. Yet the brain is exceedingly difficult to study, and research on any significant scale is critically dependent on advanced technology. (shrink)

This study investigates the effects of making academic space for service learning that emphasizes the importance of active participation in society. We describe several projects of professional practice performed by students at our university with the objective of satisfying the needs of NGOs. The practice will allow for a meeting between academic learning of CSR and the needs of the community, articulated through voluntary practice. The final goal is to guide students through the process of facing the needs of their (...) social context. Through an analysis of these aspects, we will demonstrate how the university can contribute to the formation of future professionals with solid social responsibility awareness. (shrink)

Nelson argues the best we can hope for in a nonsexist society is to revalue those feminine qualities that have previously been devalued. I argue that those qualities are the result of a sexist construction of gender categories, and that a nonsexist society would have no reason to preserve them.