Enactivism and ecological psychology converge on the relevance of the environment in understanding perception and action. On both views, perceiving organisms are not merely passive receivers of environmental stimuli, but rather form a dynamic relationship with their environments in such a way that shapes how they interact with the world. In this paper, I suggest that while enactivism and ecological psychology enjoy a shared specification of the environment as the cognitive domain, on both accounts, the structure of the environment, itself, (...) is unspecified beyond that of contingent relations with the species-typical sensorimotor capacities of perceiving organisms. This lack of specification creates a considerable gap in theory regarding the organization of organisms as coupled with their environments. I argue that this gap can be filled by drawing from resources in developmental systems theory, namely, specifying the environmental state-space as a developmental niche that shapes and is shaped by individual organisms over developmental and, on a population scale, evolutionary time. Defining the environment as an organism’s developmental niche makes it clearer how and why certain contingencies have arisen, in turn, strengthening a joint appeal to both enactivism and ecological psychology as theories asserting complementarity between organisms and their environments. (shrink)

A dispositional property is a tendency, or potency, to manifest some characteristic behaviour in some appropriate context. The mainstream view in the twentieth century was that such properties are to be explained in terms of more fundamental non-dispositional properties, together with the laws of nature. In the last few decades, however, a rival view has become popular, according to which some properties are essentially dispositional in nature, and the laws of nature are to be explained in terms of these fundamental (...) dispositions. The supposed ability of fundamental dispositions to ground natural laws is one of the most attractive features of the dispositional essentialist position. In this paper, however, I cast doubt on the ability of dispositional essences to ground the laws of nature. In particular I argue that the dispositional essentialist position is not able to coherently respond—sympathetically or otherwise—to Cartwright's challenge that there are no true general laws of nature. (shrink)

For over 20 years, Jaegwon Kim’s Causal Exclusion Argument has stood as the major hurdle for non-reductive physicalism. If successful, Kim’s argument would show that the high-level properties posited by non-reductive physicalists must either be identical with lower-level physical properties, or else must be causally inert. The most prominent objection to the Causal Exclusion Argument—the so-called Overdetermination Objection—points out that there are some notions of causation that are left untouched by the argument. If causation is simply counterfactual dependence, for example, (...) then the Causal Exclusion Argument fails. Thus, much of the existing debate turns on the issue of which account of causation is appropriate. In this paper, however, I take a bolder approach and argue that Kim’s preferred version of the Causal Exclusion Argument fails no matter what account one gives of causation. Any notion of causation that is strong enough to support the premises of the argument is too strong to play the role required in the logic of the argument. I also consider a second version of the Causal Exclusion Argument, and suggest that although it may avoid the problems of the first version, it begs the question against a particular form of non-reductive physicalism, namely emergentism. (shrink)

Enhancement technologies may someday grant us capacities far beyond what we now consider humanly possible. Nick Bostrom and Anders Sandberg suggest that we might survive the deaths of our physical bodies by living as computer emulations.­­ In 2008, they issued a report, or “roadmap,” from a conference where experts in all relevant fields collaborated to determine the path to “whole brain emulation.” Advancing this technology could also aid philosophical research. Their “roadmap” defends certain philosophical assumptions required for this technology’s success, (...) so by determining the reasons why it succeeds or fails, we can obtain empirical data for philosophical debates regarding our mind and selfhood. The scope ranges widely, so I merely survey some possibilities, namely, I argue that this technology could help us determine (1) if the mind is an emergent phenomenon, (2) if analog technology is necessary for brain emulation, and (3) if neural randomness is so wild that a complete emulation is impossible. (shrink)

This paper takes up Huw Price׳s challenge to develop a retrocausal toy model of the Bell-EPR experiment. I develop three such models which show that a consistent, local, hidden-variables interpretation of the EPR experiment is indeed possible, and which give a feel for the kind of retrocausation involved. The first of the models also makes clear a problematic feature of retrocausation: it seems that we cannot interpret the hidden elements of reality in a retrocausal model as possessing determinate dispositions to (...) affect the outcome of experiments. This is a feature which Price has embraced, but Gordon Belot has argued that this feature renders retrocausal interpretations “unsuitable for formal development”, and the lack of such determinate dispositions threatens to undermine the motivation for hidden-variables interpretations in the first place. But Price and Belot are both too quick in their assessment. I show that determinate dispositions are indeed consistent with retrocausation. What is more, I show that the ontological economy allowed by retrocausation holds out the promise of a classical understanding of spin and polarization. (shrink)

Public participation in scientific research has gained prominence in many scientific fields, but the theory of participatory research is still limited. In this paper, we suggest that the divergence of values and goals between academic researchers and public participants in research is key to analyzing the different forms this research takes. We examine two existing characterizations of participatory research: one in terms of public participants' role in the research, the other in terms of the virtues of the research. In our (...) view, each of these captures an important feature of participatory research but is, on its own, limited in what features it takes into account. We introduce an expanded conception of norms of collaboration that extends to both academic researchers and public participants. We suggest that satisfying these norms requires consideration of the two groups' possibly divergent values and goals, and that a broad characterization of participatory research that starts from participants' values and goals can motivate both public participants’ role in the research and the virtues of the research. The resulting framework clarifies the similarities and differences among participatory projects and can help guide the responsible design of such projects. (shrink)

Organisms live not as discrete entities on which an independent environment acts, but as members of a reproductive lineage in an ongoing series of interactions between that lineage and a dynamic ecological niche. These interactions continuously shape both systems in a reciprocal manner, resulting in the emergence of reliably co-occurring configurations within and between both systems. The enactive approach to cognition describes this relationship as the structural coupling between an organism and its environment; similarly, Developmental Systems Theory emphasizes the reciprocal (...) nature of structurally coupled systems in its analysis of organisms as developmental processes embedded within a developmental system. Through an enactive-developmental systems framing, this paper identifies the organizational features of cognizing systems in order to motivate a picture of how organism and environment co-determine and co-construct one another. I argue that organisms can be characterized as self-organizing, operationally closed, plastic systems ecologically embedded within a developmental system. In virtue of this organizational makeup, organisms actively engage in the modulation and assessment of their coupling with their environment: cognitive strategies that entail contextualized responses to variations across the web of interactions that comprises the developmental system. (shrink)

Статья представляет собой попытку обнаружить «испанский след» в богословской мысли Киевской митрополии XVII в. на примере наставлений об отправлении церковных таинств («Наука о седми тайнахъ церковных» в составе виленского Требника 1617–1618 гг.) и первого православного печатного пособия по моральному богословию («Мир с Богом человеку». Киев, 1669). Одним из источников для «Науки» стало сочинение испанского иезуита Франсиско де Толедо (1534–1596)) «Summa de Instructione Sacerdotum» (известное также как «Summa casuum conscientiae»), в основу которого был положен курс по моральной теологии в Collegium Romanum (...) в Риме. Составители виленской «Науки» прибегали не только к буквальному переводу значительных порций текста испанского иезуита и близкому к оригиналу пересказу отдельных фрагментов, но также дополнили заимствованные из де Толедо фрагменты рассуждениями о церковных ритуалах, цитатами из отеческой традиции, из канонов Вселенских и Поместных соборов, из гражданских правовых памятников. Несмотря на то, что виленская «Наука» вышла из униатских кругов, она получила широкое распространение и среди православных: именно посредством данного памятника отдельные фрагменты сочинения де Толедо попали в «Мир с Богом человеку». Но при этом совершенно очевидно, что в толковании семи смертных грехов и в рассуждениях о милостыни заметно прямое обращение составителей «Мира с Богом» к сочинению де Толедо. Оба памятника Киевской митрополии послужили впоследствии источником для рукописной компиляции о таинствах московского книжника Евфимия Чудовского, который, таким образом, способствовал распространению «Суммы» де Толедо и в московской традиции. (shrink)

Suppose you are presented with three red objects. You are then asked to take a careful look at each possible pair of objects, and to decide whether or not their members look chromatically the same. You carry out the instructions thoroughly, and the following propositions sum up the results of your empirical investigation: <blockquote> i. red object #1 looks the same in colour as red object #2. </blockquote> ii. red object #2 looks the same in colour as red object #3.

El texto Feminism for the 99% A Manifesto, es la caracterización de un feminismo anticapitalista que considera imprescindible erigir vı́nculos con el marxismo, antirracismo, ambientalismo, derechos de los obreros y migrantes. Lo anterior busca distanciarse de posturas como el “feminismo liberal” cuya estrategia es la incorporación de la mitad de las mujeres de elite a altos cargos de las compañı́as, lo cual es criticado por las autoras, ya que no involucra un “feminismo de las masas” (de ahı́ el 99%), sino (...) de una minorı́a de mujeres privilegiadas. El libro contiene once tesis que identifican la crisis del capitalismo como origen de las problemáticas actuales y un epı́logo que consta a su vez de cinco partes, en donde se proponen las soluciones a tales problemáticas. (shrink)

The Texas borderlands have come to be increasingly important in the historical literature and in public opinion for the way that the region shapes national thought on race, borders, and ethnicity. With this increasing importance, it is pressing to examine the history of these issues in the region so that they may be accurately and insightfully deployed. This article contributes to the existing scholarship with a close discursive analysis of race in the booster materials, 1904-1941. The booster materials forge a (...) notion of race relations that borrows from tropes common across the West but is also informed by Jim Crow and the unique demands of the region. The booster materials forward a notion of race that is largely unique in Western boosterism, positing only two major characters, Mexicans and white Northerners. The figure of ‘the Mexican’ is drawn more as a part of nature than human society in that it shares the fundamental characteristics of the land, animals, and rivers of the region. Nature in the region is depicted as an adventitious, disorderly, and wasteful body that calls out for northern discipline. The ‘Northerners’ are figured as the ones who, through applying discipline to the natural resources of the area (land, water, and Mexicans) can bring reason, fertility, and profitable connection to the national economy. The consequences of this racial division are further explored in the article as they play out in schooling, religion, justice, beauty, leisure, and sport. (shrink)

Abstract This paper presents the study of the James and Che BBQ House’s strategic management. Strategic management is the process of scientifically analyzing, tracking, and assessing present strategies in order to develop and implement new ones that are required to meet the goals and objectives of a business organization. The collected data from the business’ operation manager exhibits the business’ status in terms of its performance in the industry it belongs to, which will be a crucial foundation for the evaluation (...) and formulation of strategies. The food industry is one of the most well-known industries globally for having a broad market and competitive businesses. Hence, it is vital to establish and/or uphold one’s business competitiveness, to evaluate current strategies that are no longer effective, and to implement new ways or solutions that would make the business keep up with its competitors in the industry based on the study of its existing strategic management, as well as the business environment. -/- Keywords: Competitive Businesses; PESTEL Analysis; Strategic Management. (shrink)

RESEÑAS. Margarita M. Valdés y Miguel Ángel Fernández (compiladores), Normas, virtudes y valores epistémicos. Ensayos de epistemología contemporánea, Instituto de Investigaciones Filosóficas, UNAM, México, 2011, 550 pp.

The Louvre Museum is the largest of the world's art museums by its exhibition surface. These represent the Western art of the Middle Ages in 1848, those of the ancient civilizations that preceded and influenced it (Oriental, Egyptian, Greek, Etruscan and Roman), and the arts of early Christians and Islam. At the origin of the Louvre existed a castle, built by King Philip Augustus in 1190, and occupying the southwest quarter of the current Cour Carrée. In 1594, Henri IV decided (...) to unite the palace of the Louvre with the palace of the Tuileries built by Catherine de Medicis. The Cour Carrée was built by the architects Lemercier and then Le Vau, under the reign of Louis XIII and Louis XIV. The Department of Paintings currently has about 7,500 paintings (of which 3,400 are exposed), covering a period that goes from the Middle Ages to 1848 (date of the beginning of the Second Republic). By including the deposits, the collection is, with 12,660 works, the largest collection of ancient paintings in the world. With rare exceptions, the works after 1848 were transferred to the Musée d'Orsay when it was created in 1986. CONTENTS: Louvre Museum - Variety of exhibited works - The Royal Palace - The collections - - Eastern antiquities - - Arts of Islam - - Egyptian Antiquities - - Greek, Etruscan and Roman Antiquities - - Paintings - - - French school - - - Northern Schools (Flanders, Netherlands, Germany) - - - Italian School - - - Other schools Painting - Definitions - Painting genres - - The landscape - - Still life Paintings - FRANCOIS BOUCHER - - Vulcan presenting arms to Venus for Aeneas - RAPHAEL - - Portrait of Baldassare Castiglione - RUBENS - - Helena Fourment with children - LOUIS DAVID - - Madame Récamier - REMBRANDT - - Portrait of Heindrickje Stoffels - VELAZQUEZ - - Portrait of the Infanta Margarita - SIMONE MEMMI - - Jesus Christ walking on Calvary - JAN STEEN - - The Bad Company - HANS HOLBEIN - - Erasmus - CORREGGIO - - Mystic Marriage of Saint Catherine - LANCRET - - Conversation - JAN VAN DER MEER (VERMEER) - - The Lacemaker - VAN DYCK - - Charles I at the Hunt - FRANÇOIS CLOUET - - Elisabeth of Austria (1554-1592), Wife of Charles IX and Queen of France (1570 - 1574) - DELACROIX - - The Barque of Dante - EL GRECO - - Saint Louis, King of France, and a page - REMBRANDT - - Pilgrims at Emmaus (The Supper at Emmaus) - GERARD DAVID - - Marriage at Cana - RAPHAEL - - Portrait of Dona Isabel de Requesens, Vice-Queen of Naples - RUBENS - - La Kermesse (The Village Fête, or Noce de village) - FRANS HALS - - The Gypsy Girl - DECAMPS - - The Sonneurs - HOLBEIN THE YOUNGER - - Anne of Cleves - P. PRUD’HON - - Psyche transported to Heaven - PHILIPPE DE CHAMPAIGNE - - Portrait of Richelieu - LANCRET - - The Autumn - L. DAVID - - Madame Seriziat - COROT - - Recollection of Mortefontaine - LEONARDO DA VINCI - - La belle ferronnière - CORREGGIO - - Venus and Cupid with a Satyr - WATTEAU - - Pilgrimage to Cythera (The Embarkation for Cythera) - NICOLAS POUSSIN - - The Inspiration of the Poet - PRUD’HON - - The Empress Josephine (1763-1814) - FRAGONARD - - The Bathers - H. RIGAUD - - Louis XIV (1638–1715) - TERBURG - - The Concert - LEOPOLD ROBERT - - The Pilgrimage to the Madonna of the Arch - LARGILLIERE - - Family Portrait - MANTEGNA - - Parnassus - MEMLING - - The Virgin and Child between St James and St Dominic - FRAGONARD - - The Music Lesson - JEAN VAN EYCK - - The Virgin of chancellor Rolin - PAOLO VERONESE - - Susannah and the Elders - FRANÇOIS BOUCHER - - Diana leaving her bath - GÉRICAULT - - The Raft of the Medusa - MURILLO - - Assumption of the Virgin - CLAUDE GELLEE (LORRAIN) - - Ulysses returning Chryseis to her father (Marine, setting sun) - INGRES - - Madame Riviere - E. MURILLO - - The Young Beggar - GREUZE - - The Broken Pitcher - PIETER DE HOOCH - - Card players in an opulent interior - POUSSIN - - Et in Arcadia ego - QUENTIN MATSYS - - The moneylender and his wife - ANDREA SOLARIO - - Madonna with the Green Cushion - TITIEN - - Woman with a Mirror - DAVID TENIERS (the Younger) - - The Works of Mercy - LEONARDO DA VINCI - - Mona Lisa (La Gioconda) - Armand Dayot . (shrink)