Background Executive functions (EFs) not only play an important role in shaping adolescent’s goal-directed, future-oriented cognitive skills under relatively abstract, non-affective conditions (Cool EF), but also under motivationally significant, affective conditions (Hot EF). Empirical evidence suggest a link between EF, exercise and physical activity, specifically elite adult athletes appear to outperform amateur athletes in Cool EF; however, no previous studies have examined the relationship between Hot and Cool EFs and impulsivity during the developmentally sensitive period of adolescence comparing different types (...) of sport (open- vs. closed-skills), and levels (elite athletes vs. amateurs). Methods A total 86 boys and girls between 13 and 15 years of age (mean: 14.0, SD : 0.79) from different sports (track-and-field; team handball) were recruited. Participants were further divided into two groups: (a) 40 elite, and (b) 46 amateur athletes. They completed four Cool EF tasks including Trail-Making Test, Trail-Walking-Test, Flanker task, n-back-task, and one Hot EF task on Game of Dice task. Data on subjective impulsivity (UPPS Impulsive Behavior Scale; Barratt Impulsiveness Scale-15) was also collected. Results There was a significant overall effect for expertise in favor of elite athletes (Wilks’ Lambda = 0.61, F (14,69) = 3.19, p = 0.001, η p 2 = 0.393), but no overall main effect for type of sport or an interaction for expertise by type of sport. Specifically, elite athletes showed significantly better performances on dual tasks. For Hot EF, there were no main effects for type of sport, expertise level, training experience or training duration. We also found positive correlations among Cool EF and impulsivity measures, and between Hot EF and Impulsivity, but no significant relationship between Cool and Hot EF. Conclusion The current understanding of the decisive cognitive abilities does not correspond to sporting reality, so that the tests frequently used are not sensitive enough to distinguish between elite and amateur athletes or different sports. However, it should also be remembered that the factors underlying complex sporting performance are multidimensional and are obviously difficult to trace back to selected partial aspects. Without being able to answer this question conclusively, we proposed a 4-D classification of experimental paradigms, in which we differentiate between tasks of different specificity, between Cool and Hot EF, and between task complexity, and type of sport. (shrink)

Mind wandering refers to a state when attention shifts from the task at hand or current situation toward thoughts, feelings, and imaginations. This state is often accompanied by a decline in mood, and patients suffering from major depression exhibit more perseverative MW. Hence, although the directionality of the relationship between mood and MW is still under investigation, it may be useful to explore possible avenues to reduce MW. In an earlier pilot study, we investigated MW during auditory beat stimulation in (...) healthy subjects using thought-probes during a sustained attention to response task. We found evidence for reduced MW during monaural 5 Hz beats compared to silence, sine tones, and binaural 5 Hz beats. Moreover, the data tentatively suggested that this reduction was particularly pronounced in subjects with high levels of MW during silence. In the current study, we therefore asked whether MW can be reduced by monaural theta beats in subjects with high trait-levels of MW, as indicated by an online MW questionnaire. Preselected subjects performed a SART task with thought-probes assessing the propensity to mind wander, meta-awareness, and the temporal orientation of MW. Stimulation conditions comprised monaural theta beats, as well as silence, and sine tones as control conditions. Our main hypothesis stating that the propensity to mind wander during monaural theta beats is reduced compared to both control conditions was only partly confirmed. Indeed, MW was significantly diminished during exposure to the theta beats compared to sine tones. However, reduced MW during theta beats versus silence was only observed in a subgroup using stricter inclusion criteria. Considering possible reasons for this outcome, our data suggest that the preselection procedure was suboptimal and that beat effects are modulated by the individual responses to auditory stimulation in general. (shrink)

Self-Knowledge: An Essay in Social Personalism proposes that social Personalism can best provide for self-knowledge. Thomas O. Buford offers a social personalist understanding of self-knowledge which focuses on the relation of persons to each other and to the Personal, and avoids the impersonalisms that erode the dignity of persons and their moral life which characterize modern life.

More than a purely philosophical problem, straddling the ambivalent terrain between necessity and impossibility, contingency seems to have become today the very horizon of our everyday life. Often used as a synonym for the precariousness of working conditions under neoliberalism, for the unknown threats posed by terrorism, or for the uncertain future of the planet itself, contingency needs to be calculated and controlled in the name of the protection of life. The overcoming of contingency is not only called upon to (...) justify questionable mechanisms of political control; it serves as a central legitimating factor for Enlightenment itself. In this volume, nine major philosophers and theorists address a range of questions around contingency and moral philosophy. How can we rethink contingency in its creative aspects, outside the dominant rhetoric of risk and dangerous exposure? What is the status of contingency-as the unnecessary and law-defying-in or for ethics? What would an alternative "ethics of contingency"-one that does not simply attempt to sublate it out of existence-look like? The volume tackles the problem contingency has always posed to both ethical theory and dialectics: that of difference itself, in the difficult mediation between the particular and the universal, same and other, the contingent singularity of the event and the necessary generality of the norms and laws. From deconstruction to feminism to ecological thought, some of today's most influential thinkers reshape many of the most debated concepts in moral philosophy: difference, agency, community, and life itself. Contributors: Étienne Balibar, Rosi Braidotti, Thomas Claviez, Drucilla Cornell, Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht, Viola Marchi, Michael Naas, Cary Wolfe, Slavoj Žižek. (shrink)

Hegels Philosophie des Geistes erhebt den Anspruch, den Menschen im Ganzen - durch und durch - als "geistig" zu denken. Thomas Oehl aktualisiert diesen Anspruch, indem er ihn an die gegenwartige philosophische Debatte um die sinnliche Wahrnehmung herantragt und damit kritisch in diese eingreift: Bereits in der sinnlichen Wahrnehmung verhalt sich der Mensch aktiv und nicht, wie es in seinem naheliegenden Selbst(miss)verstandnis scheint, passiv. In der Wahrnehmung konstituiert der Mensch Natur und Welt, und ist eben dadurch selbst nicht einfach (...) Teil der Natur oder Welt, sondern "Geist". "Geist" ist so, wie Hegel sagt, das "absolut Erste" der Natur. Wie Oehl weiter zeigt, schliesst dies ein, dass "Geist" sich gerade dort vollendet, wo er den Menschen von seinem Selbstmissverstandnis befreit, Natur zu sein. Damit stellt sich "Geist" als etwas heraus, das mehr ist als bloss der Mensch, da es den Menschen uber seine Selbstverkehrung hinausfuhrt. So wird ein neuer Zugang zu Hegels Philosophie des absoluten Geistes gewonnen, die eben dieses Geschehen als von Gott bewirkte Befreiung des Menschen von seiner Selbstverkehrung begreift, wie es in Kunst, Religion und Philosophie Gestalt gewinnt. Die vorliegende Arbeit wurde mit dem Promotionsforderpreis der Munchener Universitatsgesellschaft 2020 ausgezeichnet. (shrink)

Nous remercions chaleureusement Thomas Golsenne de nous avoir autorisé à reproduire le texte ci-dessous PM – Cette conférence a été présentée au Centre d'art contemporain du Parc Saint-Léger à Pougues-les-eaux le 4 avril 2017, en marge de l'exposition de Florentine Lamarche et Alexandre Ovize, Les motifs sauvages. Que sa directrice, Catherine Pavlovic, soit chaleureusement remerciée de son invitation. Florentine Lamarche et Alexandre Ovize, L'Artichaut, 2015 Dans leurs gros vases - Esthétique – Nouvel article.

Known as 'Darwin's Bulldog', the biologist Thomas Henry Huxley was a tireless supporter of the evolutionary theories of his friend Charles Darwin. Huxley also made his own significant scientific contributions, and he was influential in the development of science education despite having had only two years of formal schooling. He established his scientific reputation through experiments on aquatic life carried out during a voyage to Australia while working as an assistant surgeon in the Royal Navy; ultimately he became President (...) of the Royal Society. Throughout his life Huxley struggled with issues of faith, and he coined the term 'agnostic' to describe his beliefs. This nine-volume collection of Huxley's essays, which he edited and published in 1893–4, demonstrates the wide range of his intellectual interests. Volume 9 includes lectures delivered at Oxford University on the relationship between scientific thought and ethical problems. (shrink)

Professor Frey expresses surprise at my assertion that, ultimately, nothing is provable in ethics. What about Pol Pot’s atrocities, he asks—surely we can all condemn them? Let us take a more recent example, the Beslan school massacre. The terrorists appear to have weighed against the unquestionably serious harm to the children the boost to their cause which they judged the attendant publicity would achieve. I may believe that even to attempt such a utilitarian assessment is obscene, and most would no (...) doubt agree. I cannot, however, prove that this is the wrong approach. A few people, at least, take a different view.The example shows the problem with utilitarian assessments where the harm is both certain and direct, the victims and beneficiaries are wholly distinct and the victims have no say in the assessment—precisely the pattern with vivisection.I do not, of course, advocate an ethical free for all. As I …. (shrink)

This essay examines the contemporary masculinity of straight, white men in the business classes of the United States as a category of identity. I argue that this form of masculine identity is currently in crisis, and, through a reading of the 1995 film Toy Story, develop an argument about the value of ‘downsizing’ masculinity in an era of diminished work expectations.

& co-graphy names here writing experienced as differance of ‘now’ and ‘then’, of memory and erasure called here ‘saw’ and ‘was’ and the rupture that const...

Macmurray’s understanding of the vocation of the artist and how it is that the artist can create and be are discussed in two sections. In the first, which is subdivided into four smaller sections, presents a discussion of what Macmurray means by ‘contemplation’. The second is devoted to the artist’s role in helping to bring about ‘the Kingdom of the Future’.

A stereospecific binding site is not the only determinant governing the selectivity of transport proteins. An understanding of transport across cellular membranes requires a description of the different compartments within a transmembrane channel; evidence for the existence of these compartments comes from the selectivity properties of genetically modified maltoporin. Such compartments may also be of significance in determining the specificity of other transport proteins.

Examine the first-year student experience as so rarely seen from the community college perspective and increase the odds of the new-to-college students’ success. For three decades, U.S. higher education has paid increasing attention to the beginning college experience—to ensure that entering students make a successful transition to college. Yet, much of the extant research and practice literature focuses on the experience of first-year students entering four-year colleges and universities. Fulfilling the Promise of the Community College is an insightful publication that (...) provides a thought-provoking, idea-inspiring look at the unique characteristics of the community college and its students. In addition, it explores the barriers to success these students face as well as strategies for ensuring that their higher education goals can be achieved. Authors describe successful adaptations of faculty development initiatives, first-year seminars, common reading programs, academic and career advising, learning communities, and STEM initiatives in the community college setting. (shrink)

In 2009, WW Norton published ‘The Red Book’, a book written by Jung in 1913-1914 but not previously published. Snippets of information about the likely contents of the Red Book had been in circulation for years, and there was much debate and eager anticipation of its publication within the Jungian field and the larger reading public. In 2010, a conference was held at the San Francisco Jungian Institute which brought together an international group of distinguished scholars in analytical psychology to (...) explore and address critical contextual aspects of ‘The Red Book’ and to debate its importance for current and future Jungian theory and practice. __The Red Book: Reflections on C.G. Jung’s _Liber Novus_ is based on that conference, the individual papers have been thoroughly revised and updated for this book and address some of the important questions and issues that were raised at that conference in response to the presentation of these papers. As yet there has been very little published about ‘The Red Book’. __The Red Book: Reflections on C.G. Jung’s _Liber Novus_ will contribute to setting the agenda for further research, both scholarly and clinical, in response to Jung’s account of his experiences between 1913-1914, when arguably, the future course of his entire project was set in motion. This book will be essential reading for any Jungian interested in the importance of The Red Book, analytical psychologists, trainee analysts, those with an interest in the history of ideas and historians. (shrink)

One professor of literature renounces his fight to discriminate wrong from right readings. He succumbs to pressures from theorists and practitioners in the profession at large and enters a world of unimagined intellectual freedom. After all, to suggest that some readings might be wrong is not only to engage in intellectual discrimination, but to enter into complicity with a number of imperious gestures that carry dire political consequences. Coming to terms with his newfound freedom to embrace all interpretations of texts (...) as equally valid, he outlines for those who follow thirteen rules that guide hermeneutical practice in our postmodern age. (shrink)