La comprensión lectora constituye un tema de estudio y preocupación en todo el sistema educativo venezolano, desde la primaria hasta el postgrado. A partir de diferentes enfoques y con diferentes métodos y estrategias se han buscado alternativas para mejorar las competencias que tienen los estudiantes. En el caso de este estudio se partió de las teorías constructivistas y de la metodología investigación acción en el aula para que los estudiantes desarrollaran la comprensión de la lectura a través de un conjunto (...) de estrategias interactivas. En cuanto a las técnicas para la recolección y análisis de la información, se utilizaron cuantitativas y cualitativas, como la observación participante, el diario de clase y la triangulación, entre otros. La investigación se efectuó en dos ciclos con estudiantes del Programa Educación, Proyecto Educación Integral, de la Universidad Nacional Experimental “Rafael María Baralt”. Los resultados evidencian mejoras sustantivas en los niveles de comprensión de la lectura del grupo, sobre todo en la lectura inferencial. Se evidencia que los aspectos como el clima del aula, aprendizaje cooperativo, aprender haciendo, aprendizaje significativo, las estrategias para la mediación de aprendizaje y los procesos metacognitivos en el proceso de aprendizaje son importantes para desarrollar la comprensión de la lectura. Asimismo, se consideran relevantes los elementos afectivos y sociales en el diseño de las estrategias. Por último, se concluye que más que consolidar la comprensión de la lectura, se consolidan los procesos cognitivos que posibilitan la comprensión. (shrink)

Liver transplantation (LT) activities during the COVID-19 pandemic have been curtailed in many countries. The impact of various policies restricting LT on outcomes of potential LT candidates is unclear. We studied all patients on the nationwide LT waitlists in Hong Kong and Singapore between January 2016 and May 2020. We used continuous time Markov chains to model the effects of different scenarios and varying durations of disruption on LT candidates.

Authoritarian parenting has long been associated with Western individualism and improved child development. This study examined the relationship between cultural values, parenting styles, and children’s perceived competence in Hong Kong. A total of 48 parents from local Chinese families, 49 parents from South Asian families, and 105 children (24 local Chinese and 81 South Asian) aged 5–6 years participated in the study. Self-report questionnaires on adherence to Asian cultural values and parenting style were administered to parents. The Pictorial Survey on (...) Children’s Perceived Competence was administered to children by trained research assistants. The results contradicted two long-standing assumptions on Asian cultural values and parenting styles. (shrink)

In this chapter, the embodied consciousness of clubbing and raving is considered through the theory of extended mind, according to which the mind is a distributed system where brain, body, and environment play equal parts. Building on the idea of music as affective atmosphere, a case is made for considering the vibe of a dance party as cognitively, socially, and affectively distributed. The chapter suggests that participating in the vibe affords primary musical consciousness—a kind of pre-reflexive state characterized by affective (...) and bodily knowledge—and speculates about the neural correlates of clubbing and raving by means of an analogy with brain research on psychedelic states. (shrink)

In the literature, the pragmatic dimension of metaphors has been clearly acknowledged. Metaphors are regarded as having different possible uses, especially pursuing persuasion. However, an analysis of the specific conversational purposes that they can be aimed at achieving in a dialogue and their adequacy thereto is still missing. In this chapter, we will address this issue focusing on the classical distinction between the explanatory and persuasive uses of metaphors, which is, however, complex to draw at an analytical level and often (...) blurred and controversial also from a theoretical point of view. Building on the analysis of explanation in different theories and fields of study, we show how it can be conceived as characterized by a cognitive and a pragmatic dimension, where the transference of understanding is used pragmatically for different dialogical goals - such as informing, making a joint decision, and most importantly persuading. In this sense, the cognitive effects of understanding are not incompatible with a persuasive dialogical purpose. This theoretical proposal will be applied to examples drawn from the medical context, to show how a pragmatic approach to explanation can account for the complexity of the cases that can be found in actual dialogical contexts. (shrink)

Purpose A mixed-method study was performed to determine the impact of integrating systems thinking (ST) into an electronic learning module for junior high school teachers in the Philippines. The study aims to assess how an ST approach to pedagogy compared against a conventional approach in terms of contribution to the participants’ global climate change content knowledge, holistic thinking and depth and accuracy of knowledge and reasoning. -/- Design/methodology/approach The study implemented e-learning modules using an ST approach versus a conventional approach (...) in teaching climate science to junior high school teachers. The paper presents quantitative data obtained from pre and posttests results of the 20 teacher-participants and qualitative data obtained during the focus-group discussion (FGD) after the implementation of the study. -/- Findings The results from the statistical analysis indicated that the ST group obtained a significant increase in their assessment scores compared to the non-ST group, according to predetermined criteria. Content knowledge, depth and accuracy of knowledge and reasoning increased the most. The participants mentioned during the FGD that the module helped deepen their understanding of climate change. -/- Research limitations/implications The study was limited to 20 teacher-participants, but it has relevance for public school teachers in the country given that participants had raised concerns regarding the lack of training in their schools for teaching climate science. They admitted that they lacked critical information to include in climate change topics in their classes. -/- Originality/value This paper shows how the ST approach can be used to teach climate change to junior high students. The e-learning module can provide teachers with better understanding, knowledge and reasoning to teach climate change to high school students more effectively. (shrink)

Job motivation remains an area of concern among researchers due to the rising issues of poor or lack of motivation among workers. This refers to one’s personal will or drives to perform a task at work. Meanwhile, job satisfaction refers to an employee’s sense of fulfillment with his or her work experience. Therefore, the current study utilized the descriptive- correlational research design to investigate the impact of job motivation on the job satisfaction of accountants. To gather essential data and achieve (...) the objectives of the study, Multidimensional Work Motivational Scale (MWMS) and Minnesota Satisfaction Questionnaire (MSQ) were administered to the target respondents. The collected data were then analyzed using a Multiple Regression Analysis; findings revealed that job motivation has a significant impact on the job satisfaction of accountants. Additionally, the results of this study were carefully evaluated and discussed, and recommendations were made to benefit the stakeholders of the study and contribute to the existing body of knowledge. (shrink)

In this Chapter, Maria Kronfeldner discusses whether psychological essentialism is a necessary part of dehumanization. This involves different elements of essentialism, and a narrow and a broad way of conceptualizing psychological essentialism, the first akin to natural kind thinking, the second based on entitativity. She first presents authors that have connected essentialism with dehumanization. She then introduces the error theory of psychological essentialism regarding the category of the human, and distinguishes different elements of psychological essentialism. On that basis, Kronfeldner (...) connects historical, socio-psychological, and philosophical insights in order to show that although essentialism can act as a catalyst for dehumanization, it is not necessary for it. Examples relate to dehumanization in the context of colonialism and evolutionary thinking, to the history of dehumanizing women from Aristotle to 19th-century craniology, and to contemporary self-dehumanization and ‘lesser mind’ attribution. (shrink)

The recent remarkable success of generative AI models to create text and images has already started altering our perspective of intelligence and the “uniqueness” of humanity in this world. Simultaneously, arguments on why AI will never exceed human intelligence are ever-present as seen in Landgrebe and Smith (2022). To address whether machines may rule the world after all, this paper zooms in on one of the aspects of intelligence Landgrebe and Smith (2022) neglected to consider: creativity. Using Rhodes four Ps (...) of creativity as a starting point, this paper evaluates the creative ability in visual generative AI models with respect to the state of the art in creativity theory. The most part of the reflective evaluation is performed through a case study in generating illustrations of dogs using the generative AI tool Midjourney. (shrink)

This paper examines entrepreneurship. We present insights from a highly influential paper. Here are the highlights from this paper: This paper introduces new results obtained from a statistical investigation into a 3071-observation data set collected from a Vietnamese nationwide entrepreneurship survey. From established relationships, such factors as preparedness, financial resources, and participation in social networks are confirmed to have significant effects on entrepreneurial decisions. Entrepreneurs, both financially constrained and unconstrained, who have a business plan tend to start their entrepreneurial ventures (...) earlier. Also, financial constraints have a profound impact on entrepreneurial decisions. When perceiving the likelihood of success to be high, an entrepreneur shows the tendency for prompt action on business ideas. But when seeing the risk of prolonging the waiting time to first revenue, a prospective entrepreneur would be more likely to wait for more favorable conditions despite the vagueness of “favorable.” Additionally, empirical computations indicate that there is a 41.3 % probability that an extant entrepreneur who is generating revenue sees a high chance of success. Past work and entrepreneurial experiences also have positive impacts on both the entrepreneurial decisions and perceived chance of success. For our overseas readers, we then present the insights from this paper in Spanish, French, Portuguese, and German. (shrink)

This study examines the correlation between job descriptions and salaries at Immaculate Conception College of Balayan Inc. (ICCBI), a private Catholic institution devoted to faith-based education. Using qualitative research, a single-case study was conducted with ten (10) participants selected through purposive sampling based on specific criteria. Through face-to-face interviews, data was collected and analyzed using a narrative approach. Thus, it was found out that job descriptions at ICCBI are established through methods like job analysis, role and responsibility approaches, qualifications, and (...) the school manual-based method. Salary determination involves factors such as tenure, educational attainment, performance, teaching loads, experience, and collegial care. Key factors influencing job descriptions include salary differentiation, aligned job descriptions, career development opportunities, and increased duties and responsibilities. Variations in the salary structure are affected by teaching loads, department designations, and educational qualifications. The findings indicate that job descriptions impact employee salaries at the institution, and future research is encouraged to explore identified factors for insights into developing more efficient roles and contributing to organizational effectiveness. With this, the study proposed a strategic plan for future use and implementation. (shrink)

The COVID-19 pandemic put immense pressure on healthcare systems globally, including those of highly developed countries like the United States and United Kingdom. During the pandemic, professional nursing organizations were the first to call attention to the disproportionate pandemic-related deaths among Filipino nurses. These organizations played a central role in addressing the various crises Filipino nurses faced due to their vulnerabilities as frontliners, ethnic minorities, and migrants in their host countries. Using the Volatile, Uncertain, Complexity, and Ambiguous (VUCA) framework, this (...) monograph assesses the pandemic-response actions and strategies of PNAA and PNAUK, two Filipino nursing associations in the US and UK. The major themes suggest that the two organizations are multifunctional entities with the capacity to act as lobbyists, research organizations, and decision-makers when adapting, strategizing, and coping with VUCA conditions. These findings corroborate previous findings on the potentiality of diasporic nursing organizations in addressing the gaps in government support for migrant workers in the healthcare industry. (shrink)

This paper investigates the emotive (or expressive) meaning of words commonly referred to as “loaded” or “emotive,” which include slurs, derogative or pejorative words, and ethical terms. We claim that emotive meaning can be reinterpreted from a pragmatic and argumentative perspective, which can account for distinct aspects of ethical terms, including the possibility of being modified and its cancellability. Emotive meaning is explained as a defeasible and automatic or automatized evaluative and intended inference commonly associated with the use of specific (...) terms, which can be represented and assessed considering its logical structure and its defeasibility conditions. This automatic inference is conceived as part of the connotation of an ethical term, and is not necessarily stable. By means of quasi-definitions, it is possible to modify the emotive meaning while maintaining the descriptive one, automaticizing the inferences drawn from an ethical word. Through examples drawn from the recent US presidential campaign, we show how re-contextualization and emotive contexts can affect emotive meaning. (shrink)

Social integration was theorized to be a ‘secularizing’ process for immigrants in Western Europe. Assuming that immigrants adapt to new social environments by complying with the mainstream culture of their receiving countries, immigrant religiosity is expected to decline as they assimilate in societies where secular norms prevail. Alternatively, religion could be a coping mechanism for immigrants who struggle to assimilate in their receiving countries. ‘Buffer’ theories of religion suggest that religious identity could be interchangeable with ethnicity and nationality to mitigate (...) the identity conflicts immigrants experience. This paper addresses the following research question: What role does religion play in the identity conflict experienced by immigrants who are both an ethnic minority and a national of a Western European country? Particularly, I explore the pertinence of religious identity for first-generation Sub-Saharan African Christian immigrants (SSACI) in Germany and France, where the models of immigrant assimilation diverge. Statistical tests were conducted on data derived from two surveys to compare religious, national, and ethnic self-identities at the group and individual levels. The group comparisons suggest that Christianity was indeed more salient for SSACI than native-born Christians. SSACIs without citizenship were also more likely to experience identity conflict, to which they may cope by associating less with their ethnicity or more with their religious identity. Perceived discrimination was associated with identity conflict only in Germany where immigrant assimilation is traditionally based on a common ancestry, in contrast to the values-based model in France. These are consistent with the predictions derived from ‘buffer’ theories of immigrant religiosity but longitudinal studies are needed for a more robust understanding of these trends. (shrink)

Ignorance is often a perfectly good excuse. There are interesting debates about whether non-culpable factual ignorance and mistake subvert obligation, but little disagreement about whether non-culpable factual ignorance and mistake exculpate. What about agents who have all the relevant facts in view but fail to meet their obligations because they do not have the right moral beliefs? If their ignorance of their obligations derives from mistaken moral beliefs or from ignorance of the moral significance of the facts they have in (...) view, should they be excused for failing to meet their moral obligations? It is not obvious that they should. In this paper we argue that the best non-skeptical accounts of moral responsibility acknowledge that factual ignorance and mistake will diminish moral responsibility in a way that moral ignorance and mistake will not. That is because factual ignorance is often non-culpable so long as it meets certain merely procedural epistemic standards but the same is not true of moral ignorance. Our argument is that the assumption that it is gets the standards of culpability for moral ignorance wrong, and that the mistake is encouraged by the thought that culpability in general requires an instance of known wrongdoing: that acting wrongly requires de dicto unresponsiveness to one’s obligations at some stage. We deny this and conclude that, therefore, ignorance and mistaken belief are indeed often perfectly good excuses – but far less often than some philosophers claim. (shrink)

The ongoing war on drugs in the Philippines has become the epicenter of discourse and concern regarding human rights, populism, and illiberal democracy. While most studies focus on President Duterte's controversial 'strongman' persona and mass appeal, very few have sought to analyze the locals' attitudes towards him as cognitive-affective phenomena. To address this gap, this paper provides an in-depth qualitative analysis of pre-selected subjects in Davao and Manila, two regions in the Philippines with arguably the most salient pro-and anti-Duterte populations, (...) respectively, in 2019. Using a mapping software modeled after Paul Thagard's emotional coherence theory, this study maps the possible cognitive-affective processes underpinning the political ideologies of an influential leftist organization in the Philippines. Cognitive dissonance theory was used to consolidate the qualitative analyses of data derived from the surveys and interviews. The findings suggest that the two populations' political ideologies were relatively similar, as expected of subjects who belong to the same organization. However, the significant differences in the subjects' stances towards the Duterte administration suggest that the socio-political contexts of Manila and Davao could affect political opinions and views despite their similar core political ideologies. (shrink)

Human nature has always been a foundational issue for philosophy. What does it mean to have a human nature? Is the concept the relic of a bygone age? What is the use of such a concept? What are the epistemic and ontological commitments people make when they use the concept? In What’s Left of Human Nature? Maria Kronfeldner offers a philosophical account of human nature that defends the concept against contemporary criticism. In particular, she takes on challenges related to (...) social misuse of the concept that dehumanizes those regarded as lacking human nature (the dehumanization challenge); the conflict between Darwinian thinking and essentialist concepts of human nature (the Darwinian challenge); and the consensus that evolution, heredity, and ontogenetic development results from nurture and nature. After answering each of these challenges, Kronfeldner presents a revisionist account of human nature that minimizes dehumanization and does not fall back on outdated biological ideas. Her account is post-essentialist because it eliminates the concept of an essence of being human; pluralist in that it argues that there are different things in the world that correspond to three different post-essentialist concepts of human nature; and interactive because it understands nature and nurture as interacting at the developmental, epigenetic, and evolutionary levels. On the basis of this, she introduces a dialectical concept of an ever-changing and “looping” human nature. Finally, noting the essentially contested character of the concept and the ambiguity and redundancy of the terminology, she wonders if we should simply eliminate the term “human nature” altogether. (shrink)

The integration of robotics in the education was one of the aspirations of the K-12 institution in the Philippines. The RoboTeach Extension Project was established to address the challenges associated with the implementation of robotics in K-12 education. This study explores the teachers’ perception of the efficacy in the implementation of the project which focused on training the Department of Education (DepEd) teachers in San Pablo City Laguna, Philippines on the basic concepts and applications of robotics and automation. The topics (...) and learning activities covered during the ten-day training were based on the self-assessment survey results on the level of knowledge of teachers. The study used a descriptive method of research using a quantitative approach and adopted the LSPU Extension Services Evaluation Survey Questionnaire to determine the respondents’ perception of the level of project efficacy. The data were obtained from twenty-five DepEd teachers and analyzed using descriptive statistics such as frequency count, per cent, weighted mean and ANOVA. The respondents were highly satisfied with meeting expectations to attain objectives, training and workshop contents, learning activities, methodologies, instructional materials used, resource person and trainers, training management team, and training management team and training facilities and services. Further, there was no significant difference among their level of satisfaction from day 1 to 5 of the training sessions. Respondents viewed the training as very successful, as evident from the consultation and culminating activity. Thus, the sustainability on the implementation of the project was highly recommended. (shrink)

In Francesco Berto’s words, the term “Serious Actualism” is used for the position “that any object must exist in every circumstance in which it has any property – the thesis that predication, or the having of properties as such, entails existence.” (“Modal Meinongianism and Fiction: The Best of Three Worlds”, Philosophical Studies 152, 2011, 324f.) Berto agrees with Nathan Salmon that Serious Actualism is “a confused and misguided prejudice” (Salmon, “Nonexistence”, Noûs 32, 1998, 290). The aim of this paper is (...) to defend the doctrine of Serious Actualism against this verdict. (shrink)

Mental health among students is one of the major concerns amidst the pandemic. Employing a correlational design, this study investigates the relationship between emotional intelligence and mental health among 152 senior high school students. Based on the statistical analysis, the r coefficient of 0.82 indicates a high positive correlation between the variables. The p-value of 0.00, which is less than 0.05, leads to the decision to reject the null hypothesis. Hence, a significant relationship exists between emotional intelligence and mental health (...) among senior high school. Implications were discussed in the study. (shrink)

It is generally agreed that for blame to be appropriate the wrongdoer must be blameworthy. However, blameworthiness is not sufficient for appropriate blame. It has been argued that for blame to be appropriate the blamer must have standing to blame. Philosophers writing on the topic have distinguished several considerations that might defeat someone’s standing to blame. This paper examines the underexplored consideration of how personal relationships can influence who has the standing to express blame. We seem to assume that if (...) we do not stand in the right relation to the wrongdoer, it is not our business to blame them. I identify three challenges to this view. First, we do not know what is wrong with meddling (whether it is morally or prudentially wrong). Second, there are cases where we have no close relation to the wrongdoer, but where we seem to have standing nonetheless – murder and other serious moral offences are examples of this. Third, we don’t seem to have a clear conception of what ‘standing’ means, and this makes it hard to see how discussion on standing can help us determine the propriety of blame. This paper defends the notion of standing as a propriety condition on blame in cases of meddling. I argue that personal relationships influence who has the standing to blame through constitution of relationship-specific norms; and that the role these norms play in developing and regulating our relationships can explain why meddlesome blame is morally wrong. (shrink)

This book surveys the ways in which languages of different types refer to past, present, and future events and how these referents are related to the knowledge and attitudes of discourse participants. The book is the culmination of fifteen years of research by the author. Four major language types are examined in-depth: tense-based English, tense-aspect-based Polish, aspect-based Chinese, and mood-based Kalaallisut. Each contributes to a series of logical representation languages, which together define a common logical language that is argued to (...) underlie all language types. The four types differ in whether they choose to grammaticalize discourse reference to times (tense), events (aspect), and/or attitudes (mood), and how non-grammaticalized elements are inferred. The common logical language is a dynamic update logic, building on DRT and Centering Theory, but with a novel architecture—e.g. the distinction between focal vs. peripheral attention plays a key role, parallel to focal vs. peripheral vision. (shrink)

Creativity has often been declared, especially by philosophers, as the last frontier of science. The assumption is that it will defy explanation forever. I will defend two claims in order to oppose this assumption and to demystify creativity: (1) the perspective that creativity cannot be explained wrongly identifies creativity with what I shall call metaphysical freedom; (2) the Darwinian approach to creativity, a prominent naturalistic account of creativity, fails to give an explanation of creativity, because it confuses conceptual issues with (...) explanation. I will close with some remarks on the status and differences in some explanations available in contemporary cognitive science. (shrink)

This chapter discusses the topics of trust and expertise from the perspective of political epistemology. In particular, it addresses four main questions: (§1) How should we characterise experts and their expertise? (§2) How can non-experts recognize a reliable expert? (§3) What does it take for non-experts to trust experts? (§4) What problems impede trust in experts?

In English, discourse reference to time involves grammatical tenses interpreted as temporal anaphors. Recently, it has been argued that conditionals involve modal discourse anaphora expressed by a parallel grammatical system of anaphoric modals. Based on evidence from Kalaallisut, this paper argues that temporal and modal anaphora can be just as precise in a language that does not have either grammatical category. Instead, temporal anaphora directly targets eventualities of verbs, without mediating tenses, while modal anaphora involves anaphoric moods and/or attitudinal verbs.

What does it mean to be an aesthetic beholder? Is it different than simply being a perceiver? Most theories of aesthetic perception focus on 1) features of the perceived object and its presentation or 2) on psychological evaluative or emotional responses and intentions of perceiver and artist. In this chapter I propose that we need to look at the process of engaged perception itself, and further that this temporal process of be- coming a beholder must be understood in its embodied, (...) contextual and dynamic speci- ficity. Through both phenomenological and neuroscientific explorations I analyze what is characteristic about a more “aesthetic stance” and argue that there is a certain asym- metry between beholder and beheld, which has to do with a disengagement of goal- directed action, and which allows for other kinds of perceptual involvement than in a more “practical stance”. It is a multi-disciplinary project integrating a sensorimotor no- tion of aesthetic affordances, 18th century philosophy, and large-scale brain network findings. What ensues is a new dynamic framework for future empirical and theoretical research on aesthetic perception. (shrink)

Partee (1973) noted anaphoric parallels between English tenses and pronouns. Since then these parallels have been analyzed in terms of type-neutral principles of discourse anaphora. Recently, Stone (1997) extended the anaphoric parallel to English modals. In this paper I extend the story to languages of other types. This evidence also shows that centering parallels are even more detailed than previously recognized. Based on this evidence, I propose a semantic representation language (Logic of Change with Centered Worlds), in which the observed (...) parallels can be formally analyzed. (shrink)

No two individuals with the autism diagnosis are ever the same—yet many practitioners and parents can recognize signs of ASD very rapidly with the naked eye. What, then, is this phenotype of autism that shows itself across such distinct clinical presentations and heterogeneous developments? The “signs” seem notoriously slippery and resistant to the behavioral threshold categories that make up current assessment tools. Part of the problem is that cognitive and behavioral “abilities” typically are theorized as high-level disembodied and modular functions—that (...) are assessed discretely (impaired, normal, enhanced) to define a spectral syndrome. Even as biology reminds us that organic developing bodies are not made up of independent switches, we remain often seduced by the simplicity of mechanistic and cognitive models. Developmental disorders such as autism have accordingly been theorized as due to different modular dysfunctions—typically of cortical origin, i.e., failures of “theory of mind” (Baron-Cohen et al., 1985), of the “mirror neuron system” (Ramachandran and Oberman, 2006), of “weak central coherence” (Happe and Frith, 2006) or of the balance of “empathizing” and “systemizing” (Baron-Cohen, 2009), just to list a few. -/- The broad array of autonomic (Ming et al., 2005; Cheshire, 2012) and sensorimotor (Damasio and Maurer, 1978; Maurer and Damasio, 1982; Donnellan and Leary, 1995; Leary and Hill, 1996; Donnellan and Leary, 2012; Donnellan et al., 2012) differences experienced and reported by people with autism have by such theories typically been sidelined as “co-morbidities,” possibly sharing genetic causes, but rendered as incidental and decisively behaviorally irrelevant symptoms—surely disconnected from cognition. But what if the development of cortically based mental processes and autonomous control relies on the complexities and proper function of the peripheral nervous systems? Through such an “embodied” lens the heterogeneous symptoms of autism invites new interpretations. We propose here that many behavioral-level findings can be re-defined as downstream effects of how developing nervous systems attempt to cope and adapt to the challenges of having various noisy, unpredictable, and unreliable peripheral inputs. (shrink)

In group discussions of any kind there tends to be an up and down in the level of deliberation. To capture this dynamic we coined the concept of Deliberative Transformative Moments (DTM). In deeply divided societies deliberation is particularly important in order to arrive at peace and stability, but deliberation is also very difficult to be attained. Therefore, we wanted to learn about the conditions that in group discussions across the deep divisions of such societies help deliberation. We organized such (...) group discussions between ex-guerrillas and ex-paramilitaries in Colombia, Serbs and Bosnjaks in Srebrenica, and poor residents and local police officers in the favelas (slums) of Brazil. We could identify factors that help to transform discussions from low to high deliberation and risk transformations in the opposite direction. We could also identify factors that help to keep a discussion at a high level of deliberation, and, in a next step, we could determine to what extent long sequences of deliberation had a positive impact on the outcomes of the discussions. Finally, we show how our research results can have a long term effect if it is used in schools of such deeply divided societies. (shrink)

This paper introduces a framework for direct surface composition by online update. The surface string is interpreted as is, with each morpheme in turn updating the input state of information and attention. A formal representation language, Logic of Centering, is defined and some crosslinguistic constraints on lexical meanings and compositional operations are formulated.

How and when do we learn to understand other people’s perspectives and possibly divergent beliefs? This question has elicited much theoretical and empirical research. A puzzling finding has been that toddlers perform well on so-called implicit false belief (FB) tasks but do not show such capacities on traditional explicit FB tasks. I propose a navigational approach, which offers a hitherto ignored way of making sense of the seemingly contradictory results. The proposal involves a distinction between how we navigate FBs as (...) they relate to (1) our current affordances (here & now navigation) as opposed to (2) presently non-actual relations, where we need to leave our concrete embodied/situated viewpoint (counterfactual navigation). It is proposed that whereas toddlers seem able to understand FBs in their current affordance space, they do not yet possess the resources to navigate in abstraction from such concrete affordances, which explicit FB tests seem to require. It is hypothesized that counterfactual navigation depends on the development of “sensorimotor priors,” i.e., statistical expectations of own kinesthetic re-afference, which evidence now suggests matures around age four, consistent with core findings of explicit FB performance. (shrink)

There seems to be confusion and disagreement among scholars about the meaning of interpersonal forgiveness. In this essay we shall venture to clarify the meaning of forgiveness by examining various literary works. In particular, we shall discuss instances of forgiveness from Homer’s The Iliad, Euripides’ Hippolytus, and Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics and we shall focus on the changes that the concept of forgiveness has gone through throughout the centuries, in the hope of being able to understand, and therefore, of being able (...) to use more accurately, contemporary notions of forgiveness. We shall also explore the relationship between forgiveness and concepts that are closely associated with it, such as anger/resentment, hurt, clemency, desert/merit, excuse, etc. (shrink)

The development of explicit theories of dynamic context change has led to a fundamentally new perspective on the interpretation of discourse. In this paper I show that this development also opens up the possibility of approaching subclausal composition along similar lines. More specifically, I argue that a dynamic theory where type-driven rules apply directly to overt surface structures and fill in missing information by building anaphoric bridges is more faithful to natural language semantics than the classical Montagovian approach.

In the face of causal complexity, scientists reconstitute phenomena in order to arrive at a more simplified and partial picture that ignores most of the 'bigger picture.' This paper will distinguish between two modes of reconstituting phenomena: one moving down to a level of greater decomposition (toward organizational parts of the original phenomenon), and one moving up to a level of greater abstraction (toward different differences regarding the phenomenon). The first aim of the paper is to illustrate that phenomena are (...) moving targets, i.e., they are not fixed once and for all, but are adapted, if necessary, on the basis of the preferred perspective adopted for pragmatic reasons. The second aim is to analyze in detail the second mode of reconstituting phenomena. This includes an exposition of the kind of pragmatic-pluralistic picture resulting from the fact that phenomena are reconstituted by a move up to a level of greater abstraction. (shrink)

It has long been recognized that temporal anaphora in French and English depends on the aspectual distinction between events and states. For example, temporal location as well as temporal update depends on the aspectual type. This paper presents a general theory of aspect-based temporal anaphora, which extends from languages with grammatical tenses (like French and English) to tenseless languages (e.g. Kalaallisut). This theory also extends to additional aspect-dependent phenomena and to non-atomic aspectual types, processes and habits, which license anaphora to (...) proper atomic parts (cf. nominal pluralities and kinds). (shrink)

Section III of part IV of Book I of Hume's Treatise entitled “Of the ancient philosophy” has been virtually ignored by most Hume scholars. Although philosophers seem to concentrate on sections II and VI of part IV and pay little or no attention to section III, the latter section is paramount in showing how serious Hume's skepticism is, and how Hume's philosophy, contrary to his intention, is far removed from "the sentiments of the vulgar". In this paper I shall first (...) explore Hume's view on ancient philosophy as it is presented in section III, and I shall particularly focus on his discussion of identity and simplicity of bodies. Second, I shall argue that Hume's account of identity and simplicity in terms of qualities is at best unsatisfactory. Finally, I shall try to show that Hume's advice to hold a "moderate" skepticism cannot be taken seriously. On the contrary, Hume seems to hold an "extravagant" skepticism, since he claims that there is a contradiction between our most fundamental natural beliefs, as well as between our natural beliefs and philosophical reasoning. (shrink)

While most scholars focus on the advantages of forgiveness, the negative effects of hasty forgiveness have been largely neglected in the literature. In this essay I shall argue that in certain contexts granting forgiveness to a wrongdoer could be morally questionable, and sometimes it could even be morally wrong. Following Aristotle’s view of emotion, and, in particular, his notion of virtuous anger, I shall claim that appropriate, righteous anger is instrumental for justice, and, as a result, inappropriate, or imprudent forgiveness (...) could be an impediment to justice, or even a license for the continuation of injustice. (shrink)

Although cognitivism has lost some ground recently in the philosophical circles, it is still the favorite view of many scholars of emotions. Even though I agree with cognitivism's insight that emotions typically involve some type of evaluative intentional state, I shall argue that in some cases, less epistemically committed, non-propositional evaluative states such as mental pictures can do a better job in identifying the emotion and providing its intentional object. Mental pictures have different logical features from propositions: they are representational, (...) and some may or may not portray actual objects aptly. Yet, unlike propositional attitudes, mental pictures do not allow for objective criteria by which one can judge that a certain picture is an apt portrait of someone or something. (shrink)

Over the last four decades arguments for and against the claim that creative hypothesis formation is based on Darwinian ‘blind’ variation have been put forward. This paper offers a new and systematic route through this long-lasting debate. It distinguishes between undirected, random, and unjustified variation, to prevent widespread confusions regarding the meaning of undirected variation. These misunderstandings concern Lamarckism, equiprobability, developmental constraints, and creative hypothesis formation. The paper then introduces and develops the standard critique that creative hypothesis formation is guided (...) rather than blind, integrating developments from contemporary research on creativity. On that basis, I discuss three compatibility arguments that have been used to answer the critique. These arguments do not deny guided variation but insist that an important analogy exists nonetheless. These compatibility arguments all fail, even though they do so for different reasons: trivialisation, conceptual confusion, and lack of evidence respectively. Revisiting the debate in this manner not only allows us to see where exactly a ‘Darwinian’ account of creative hypothesis formation goes wrong, but also to see that the debate is not about factual issues, but about the interpretation of these factual issues in Darwinian terms. (shrink)

Human nature is a concept that transgresses the boundary between science and society and between fact and value. It is as much a political concept as it is a scientific one. This chapter will cover the politics of human nature by using evidence from history, anthropology and social psychology. The aim is to show that an important political function of the vernacular concept of human nature is social demarcation (inclusion/exclusion): it is involved in regulating who is ‘us’ and who is (...) ‘them.’ It is a folk concept that is used for dehumanization, for denying (a) membership in humankind or (b) full humanness to certain people in order to include or exclude them from various forms of politically relevant aspects of human life, such as rights, power, etc. (shrink)

Continuing Franz Boas' work to establish anthropology as an academic discipline in the US at the turn of the twentieth century, Alfred L. Kroeber re-defined culture as a phenomenon sui generis. To achieve this he asked geneticists to enter into a coalition against hereditarian thoughts prevalent at that time in the US. The goal was to create space for anthropology as a separate discipline within academia, distinct from other disciplines. To this end he crossed the boundary separating anthropology from biology (...) in order to secure the boundary. His notion of culture, closely bound to the concept of heredity, saw it as independent of biological heredity (culture as superorganic) but at the same time as a heredity of another sort. The paper intends to summarise the shifting boundaries of anthropology at the beginning of the twentieth century, and to present Kroeber?s ideas on culture, with a focus on how the changing landscape of concepts of heredity influenced his views. The historical case serves to illustrate two general conclusions: that the concept of culture played and plays different roles in explaining human existence; that genetics and the concept of Weismannian hard inheritance did not have an unambiguous unidirectional historical effect on the vogue for hereditarianism at that time; on the contrary, it helped to establish culture in Kroeber's sense, culture as independent of heredity. (shrink)

In this paper I propose a way of characterizing human agency in terms of the concept of a two‐way power. I outline this conception of agency, defend it against some objections, and briefly indicate how it relates to free agency and to moral praise‐ and blameworthiness.

This paper addresses whether the often-bemoaned loss of unity of knowledge about humans, which results from the disciplinary fragmentation of science, is something to be overcome. The fragmentation of being human rests on a couple of distinctions, such as the nature-culture divide. Since antiquity the distinction between nature (roughly, what we inherit biologically) and culture (roughly, what is acquired by social interaction) has been a commonplace in science and society. Recently, the nature/culture divide has come under attack in various ways, (...) in philosophy as well as in cultural anthropology. Regarding the latter, for instance, the divide was quintessential in its beginnings as an academic dis-cipline, when Alfred L. Kroeber, one of the first professional anthropologists in the US, rallied for (what I call) the right to ignore—in his case, human nature—by adopting a separationist epistemic stance. A separationist stance will be understood as an epistemic research heuristic that defends the right to ignore a specif-ic phenomenon (e.g., human nature) or a specific causal factor in an explanation typical for a disciplinary field. I will use Kroeber’s case as an example for making a general point against a bias towards integration (synthesis bias, as I call it) that is exemplified, for instance, by defenders of evolutionary psychology. I will claim that, in principle, a separationist stance is as good as an integrationist stance since both can be equally fruitful. With this argument from fruitful sepa-ration in place, not just the separationist stance but also the nature/culture di-vide can be defended against its critics. (shrink)

This paper advances the view that the history of philosophy is both a kind of history and a kind of philosophy. Through a discussion of some examples from epistemology, metaphysics, and the historiography of philosophy, it explores the benefit to philosophy of a deep and broad engagement with its history. It comes to the conclusion that doing history of philosophy is a way to think outside the box of the current philosophical orthodoxies. Somewhat paradoxically, far from imprisoning its students in (...) outdated and crystallized views, the history of philosophy trains the mind to think differently and alternatively about the fundamental problems of philosophy. It keeps us alert to the fact that latest is not always best, and that a genuinely new perspective often means embracing and developing an old insight. The upshot is that the study of the history of philosophy has an innovative and subversive potential, and that philosophy has a great deal to gain from a long, broad, and deep conversation with its history. (shrink)

States of affairs raise, among others, the following questions: What kind of entity are they (if there are any)? Are they contingent, causally efficacious, spatio-temporal and perceivable entities, or are they abstract objects? What are their constituents and their identity conditions? What are the functions that states of affairs are able to fulfil in a viable theory, and which problems and prima facie counterintuitive consequences arise out of an ontological commitment to them? Are there merely possible (non-actual, non-obtaining) states of (...) affairs? Are there molecular (i.e., negative, conjunctive, disjunctive etc.) states of affairs? Are there modal and tensed states of affairs? (shrink)

This paper spells out the ways in which we need to be pluralists about “human nature”. It discusses a conceptual pluralism about the concept of “human nature”, stemming from post-essentialist ontology and the semantic complexity of the term “nature”; a descriptive pluralism about the “descriptive nature” of human beings, which is a pluralism regarding our self-understanding as human beings that stems from the long list of typical features of, and relations between, human beings; a natural kind term pluralism, which is (...) a pluralism that concerns the choices we have in deciding how to apply the kind term “human”; and an explanatory pluralism that results from the causal complexity of life. Because of the complexity of being human, which gives rise to these pluralisms, being human is, the paper claims, a kaleidoscopic affair, and one far from concerning the life sciences only. (shrink)

The discovery of so-called ‘mirror neurons’ - found to respond both to own actions and the observation of similar actions performed by others - has been enormously influential in the cognitive sciences and beyond. Given the self-other symmetry these neurons have been hypothesized as underlying a ‘mirror mechanism’ that lets us share representations and thereby ground core social cognitive functions from intention understanding to linguistic abilities and empathy. I argue that mirror neurons are important for very different reasons. Rather than (...) a symmetric ubiquitous or context- independent mechanism, I propose that these neurons are part of broader sensorimotor circuits, which help us navigate and predict the social affordance space that we meet others in. To develop both the critical and positive project I analyze the interpretive choices and the debate surrounding the mirror neuron research and show how the field is marred by highly questionable assumptions about respectively motor and social cognition. The discovery of mirror neurons - and the sensorimotor circuits of which these neurons are a part – actually empirically challenge many of these tacit assumptions. Findings of sensorimotor goal representations at levels of abstraction well beyond actual sensory information and kinetic movements challenge the idea of motor cognition as primarily output production. Additionally, the focus on 3rd person mindreading of hidden mental states is misguiding the field of social cognition. Much ‘mind-reading’ seems rooted in sensorimotor representations and a developmentally primary 2nd person understanding of actions and the mental lives of others, which precisely breaks the assumed dichotomy between mind and behavior. I propose a Social Affordance model where parallel fronto-parietal sensorimotor circuits support representations not just of other people’s actions but of the overall social affordance space. It is a process that monitors concrete goals and teleological possibilities that the environment affords respectively oneself and other present agents. With this model I hypothesize that the complex spectrum of sensorimotor integrations are indeed essential not only to normal action choice calibration but also to social cognitive abilities, as the sensorimotor teleological representations let us relate to others and understand their action choices in a shared pragmatic and intentional context. (shrink)

The Eskimo language Kalaallisut (alias West Greenlandic) has traditionally been described as having a rich tense system, with three future tenses (Kleinschmidt 1851, Bergsland 1955, Fortescue 1984) and possibly four past tenses (Fortescue 1984). Recently however, Shaer (2003) has challenged these traditional claims, arguing that Kalaallisut is in fact tenseless.

Data involving epistemic modals suggest that some classically valid argument forms, such as _reductio_, are invalid in natural language reasoning as they lead to modal collapses. We adduce further data showing that the classical argument forms governing the existential quantifier are similarly defective, as they lead to a _de re–de dicto_ collapse. We observe a similar problem for disjunction. But if the classical argument forms for negation, disjunction and existential quantification are invalid, what are the correct forms that govern the (...) use of these items? Our diagnosis is that epistemic modals interfere with hypothetical reasoning. We present a modal first-order logic and model theory that characterizes hypothetical reasoning with epistemic modals in a principled manner. One upshot is a sound and complete natural deduction system for reasoning with epistemic modals in first-order logic. (shrink)