Computational modeling of the brain holds great promise as a bridge from brain to behavior. To fulfill this promise, however, it is not enough for models to be 'biologically plausible': models must be structurally accurate. Here, we analyze what this entails for so-called psychobiological models, models that address behavior as well as brain function in some detail. Structural accuracy may be supported by (1) a model's a priori plausibility, which comes from a reliance on evidence-based assumptions, (2) fitting existing data, (...) and (3) the derivation of new predictions. All three sources of support require modelers to be explicit about the ontology of the model, and require the existence of data constraining the modeling. For situations in which such data are only sparsely available, we suggest a new approach. If several models are constructed that together form a hierarchy of models, higher-level models can be constrained by lower-level models, and low-level models can be constrained by behavioral features of the higher-level models. Modeling the same substrate at different levels of representation, as proposed here, thus has benefits that exceed the merits of each model in the hierarchy on its own. (shrink)

Phillips & Silverstein emphasize the gain-control properties of NMDA synapses in cognitive coordination. We endorse their view and suggest that NMDA synapses play a crucial role in biased attentional competition and (visual) working memory. Our simulations show that NMDA synapses can control the storage rate of visual objects. We discuss specific predictions of our model about cognitive effects of NMDA-antagonists and schizophrenia.

At Statesman (Plt.) 291a–c and 303c–d, Plato compares the so-called statesmen of all existing constitutions to a motley crew of lions, centaurs, satyrs, and other beasts, and the entire section of the Statesman devoted to law and constitutions (291c–303c) to a satyr-play of sorts. This paper argues that these thought-provoking images are best understood as literary devices which, in addition to other dramatic elements in the Theaetetus and Sophist, help to bolster the unity of the Theaetetus-Sophist-Statesman trilogy and its apologetic (...) agenda concerning Socrates. (shrink)

Overzicht van de ontwikkeling van het ideaal van de vrije mens in de westerse wereld.

Classical logic is based on an underlying view of the world, according to which there are elementary facts and compound facts, which are logical combinations of these elementary facts. Sentences are true if they correspond to, in last instance, the elementary facts in the world. This world view has no place for rules, which exist as individuals in the world, and which create relations between the most elementary facts. As a result, classical logic is not suitable to deal with rules, (...) and is therefore unsuitable to deal with legal reasoning. A logic that is more suitable should take into account that law is a part of social reality, in particular a part that consists of constructivist facts, and that rules play a central role in law. This article gives a superficial description of how social reality exists and of the place of law and legal rules in it. It uses this description to argue that traditional techniques to reason with and about legal rules provide a better logic for law than classical logic. These techniques can be accommodated in a logic that treats rules as logical individuals. (shrink)

Schrödinger escreveu as Palestras William James em 1954, mas estas não foram publicadas durante sua vida. Escritas em inglês, foram guardadas e publicadas somente em 1995, em uma coletânea organizada por Michel Bitbol, em que se baseia esta tradução. O primeiro texto se inicia discutindo relações entre filosofia e ciência, abordadas usando exemplos que relatam como as cores e os sons são abordados por diferentes ciências. Na segunda palestra, Schrödinger aborda um tema que foi alvo de muitas discussões na filosofia: (...) as sensações. Ele discute vários exemplos de medições na física, argumentando o quanto a observação e a interferência humanas são necessárias; por outro lado, o quanto a física se esforçava para afastar essa imagem. Na terceira palestra, Schrödinger analisa o papel da mente humana, atento especialmente ao planejamento e construção dos instrumentos de medição. É nessa palestra que encontramos também a definição mais concisa de um conceito central e original na filosofia de Schrödinger: a “formação de invariantes”, que de acordo com Schrödinger é o que permite a todas as pessoas “verem” as mesmas coisas. Pelos temas que abordam, exemplos que exploram e ideias que expressam, os textos aqui traduzidos são de interesse para toda a comunidade filosófica de leitores da língua portuguesa. Além disso, esta tradução é útil em cursos de graduação não só na área de filosofia, mas também física e química, por exemplo. (shrink)

A new reconstruction and edition of the _Placita_ of Aëtius (ca. 50 CE), arguably the most important work of ancient doxography covering the entire field of natural philosophy. Accompanied by a full commentary, it replaces the seminal edition of Herman Diels (1879).

This contribution elaborates the idea that norms are rules that lead to deontic consequences. Rules are one kind of constraints on possible worlds. They determine which facts necessarily go together or cannot go together. Three kinds of rules are distinguished: dynamic rules which attach consequences to the occurrence of events, fact-to-fact rules which attach one fact to the presence of some other fact, and counts-as rules, which make that some things also count as something else. Deontic facts are facts that (...) tend to induce a motivation to comply with them in agents to which they apply. A distinction is made between two kinds of basic deontic facts—the existence of duties and of obligations—and two kinds of supervening deontic facts: being obligated and owing to do something. Some norms lead to obligations, and others impose duties. (shrink)

Aristotle'sSophistical Refutations(=Soph. el.) seeks to uncover the workings of apparent deductive reasoning, and is thereby largely devoted to the caricature of dialectic that the ancients callederistic(ἐριστική), the art of quarrelling. Unlike antilogy (ἀντιλογία), which refers to a type of argumentation where two arguments are pitted against each other in a contradictory manner, eristic takes on in Aristotle an exclusively pejorative meaning, as is made clear, for example, by this passage fromSoph. el.: ‘For just as unfairness in a contest is a (...) definite type of fault, and is a kind of foul fighting, so the art of contentious reasoning is foul fighting in disputation.’. (shrink)

In the Netherlands, in 2002, euthanasia became a legitimate medical act, only allowed when the due care criteria and procedural requirements are met. Legally, an Advanced Euthanasia Directive can replace direct communication if a patient can no longer express his own wishes. In the past decade, an exponential number of persons with dementia share a euthanasia request with their physician. The impact this on physicians, and the consequent support needs, remained unknown. Our objective was to gain more insight into the (...) experiences and needs of Dutch general practitioners and elderly care physicians when handling a euthanasia request from a person with dementia. We performed a qualitative interview study. Participants were recruited via purposive sampling. The interviews were transcribed verbatim, and analyzed using the conventional thematic content analysis. Eleven general practitioners and elderly care physicians with a variety of experience and different attitudes towards euthanasia for PWD were included. Euthanasia requests appeared to have a major impact on physicians. Difficulties they experienced were related to timing, workload, pressure from and expectations of relatives, society’s negative view of dementia in combination with the ‘right to die’ view, the interpretation of the law and AEDs, ethical considerations, and communication with PWD and relatives. To deal with these difficulties, participants need support from colleagues and other professionals. Although elderly care physicians appreciated moral deliberation and support by chaplains, this was hardly mentioned by GPs. Euthanasia requests in dementia seem to place an ethically and emotionally heavy burden on Dutch GPs and elderly care physicians. The awareness of, and access to, existing and new support mechanisms needs further exploration. (shrink)

Peter Hall introduced the concept of paradigm shifts into the public policy discourse. His account explains the seismic transition the world experienced in the 1980s. With this neoliberal paradigm...

One of the main philosophical outcomes of Plato’s Statesman is to define statesmanship as a prescriptive form of knowledge, exercising control over subordinate tekhnai. Against a widespread scholarly view according to which the Statesman offers a radically critical view of laws, this paper argues that the art of legislation has pride of place among these subordinate arts which also include rhetoric, strategy, the art of the judge and education.

Why should interpretation of conceptual schemes and practices across traditions work at all? In this paper we present the following necessary conditions of possibility for interpretation in comparative and Chinese philosophy: the interpreter must presuppose that there are mutually recognizable human practices; the interpreter must presuppose that “the other” is, on the whole, sincere, consistent, and right; the interpreter must be committed to certain epistemic virtues. Some of these necessary conditions are consistent with the fact that interpretation is not thwarted (...) by the “danger” of relativism or of incommensurability. Some other conditions are suggestive of reorientations of methodologies of comparative and Chinese philosophy. (shrink)

This commentary discusses several problems with the target article by Ceci et al. First, the results admit of an alternative interpretation that undercuts the conclusion drawn. In addition, at a number of points, the research should be supplemented by examining situations in which there is no tenure-granting policy. Finally, 60% of the questions are concerned with whistle-blowing, but the issues involved in such cases make them much less relevant to the assessment of tenure than the authors suppose. (Published Online February (...) 8 2007). (shrink)

Dans sa Politique (II, 2-4), Aristote a sévèrement critiqué la communauté des biens et celle des femmes et des enfants défendues par Platon au livre V de la République. En République, 462a-465b, Socrate soutient notamment que la communauté des gardiens sera cimentée par l’amitié, à quoi Aristote objecte que cette amitié ne peut être qu’une amitié « diluée » du fait même des mesures communautaires préconisées par Socrate (Politique, II, 4). Cet article commence par examiner les arguments d’Aristote à l’encontre (...) de la philia entre les gardiens et montrent qu’ils ne tiennent pas compte du long processus de maturation psychologique dans lequel consiste l’éducation des gardiens. L’un des objectifs de leur éducation est en effet de cimenter leurs relations réciproques par la philia, en modifiant radicalement le sens qu’ils se font de l’idée de propriété. Cette forme intense de philia est ensuite comparée à l’amitié civique dont Socrate affirme qu’elle relie gardiens et producteurs par delà leur place respective dans la hiérarchie sociale de la cité idéale. (shrink)

Rule-applying legal arguments are traditionally treated as a kind of syllogism. Such a treatment overlooks the fact that legal principles and rules are not statements which describe the world, but rather means by which humans impose structure on the world. Legal rules create legal consequences, they do not describe them. This has consequences for the logic of rule- and principle-applying arguments, the most important of which may be that such arguments are defeasible. This book offers an extensive analysis of the (...) role of rules and principles in legal reasoning, which focuses on the close relationship between rules, principles, and reasons. Moreover, it describes a logical theory which assigns a central place to the notion of reasons for and against a conclusion, and which is especially suited to deal with rules and principles. (shrink)

Classroom discussion is frequently proposes as an essential part of democratic citizenship education. Literature, however, pays little attention to what kind of discussion is most effective and how teachers can facilitate a discussion. This study aims to contribute to the development of a framework for analysing the characteristics of classroom discussions and the different roles teachers can adopt in guiding a discussion on controversial issues. In addition, we investigated how the way teachers guide the discussion is related to the structure (...) and content features of the discussion. The framework was used to analyse five classroom discussions in secondary education. Our framework appeared to be useful for revealing differences in the structure and content features of the classroom discussions and in the way teachers guide the discussion. The results also indicated that a high degree of teacher regulation was related to high content quality and more participation from students. A high degree of stu... (shrink)

This is a collection of essays written by leading experts in honour of Christopher Rowe, and inspired by his groundbreaking work in the exegesis of Plato. The authors represent scholarly traditions which are sometimes very different in their approaches and interests, and so rarely brought into dialogue with each other. This volume, by contrast, aims to explore synergies between them. Key topics include: the literary unity of Plato's works; the presence and role of his contemporaries in his dialogues; the function (...) of myth (especially the Atlantis myth); Plato's Socratic heritage, especially as played out in his discussions of psychology; his views of truth and being. Prominent among the dialogues discussed are Euthydemus, Phaedo, Phaedrus, Republic, Theaetetus, Timaeus, Sophist and Laws. (shrink)

M.J. Langeveld (1905-1989) behoort tot de grootste Nederlandse pedagogen van de twintigste eeuw. Dit is de biografie van deze beroemde opvoedkundige, die tevens een gevreesde autoriteit was en een fenomenoloog van internationaal formaat.

Encadrant le Sophiste, le Théétète et le Politique, pris tous les deux ensemble, soulèvent des questions et suggèrent des réponses quant à la double relation entre le philosophe et le politique, d’une part, et entre Socrate et l’Étranger d’Élée, d’autre part. Je montre ici que certains aspects de la Digression du Théétète sur la nature des philosophes servent à critiquer les questions que pose LaRépublique ainsi que les réponses qu’elle donne sur la philosophie et la politique . Cette critique prépare (...) ainsi le terrain pour les différentes analyses qui sont données dans le Politique, dialogue qui sépare l’enquête sur la royauté ou la politique, des réflexions sur le bonheur, précisément de cette façon que réclame le philosophe dépeint par le Socrate de la Digression. J’avance que Socrate ne pouvait lui-même proposer l’idéal du vrai politique, bien que certains éléments du Théétète en signalent le besoin. Cet idéal peut bien être vécu par un philosophe ; toutefois devenir un politique transforme en profondeur le philosophe , au point que le Politique estime plus correct de le définir comme un politique plutôt que comme un philosophe. Je suggère finalement, en m’appuyant sur ce qui précède, que Socrate et l’Étranger d’Élée sont complémentaires, en ce que tous deux sont engagés dans la philosophie, sans qu’aucun des deux ne puisse la définir ou l’incarner complètement.Considering the Theaetetus and Statesman together – as the two dialogues explicitly said to flank the Sophist – both raises and suggests answers to questions about the relationship between philosopher and statesman, and the relationship between Socrates and the Eleatic Stranger. It is argued that aspects of the Theaetetus « Digression » on the nature of philosophers serve to criticise the questions raised and answers given about philosophy and statecraft in The Republic and so to introduce the different analysis of these matters which will be given in the Statesman, which separates its inquiry into kingship or statecraft from its reflections on happiness in just the way called for by Socrates’ philosopher in the « Digression ». It is then argued that the ideal of a true statesman is one which Socrates could not have advanced, although aspects of the Theaetetus signal the need for such an ideal. And that ideal is one which may be lived out by a philosopher, but in becoming a statesman, crucial aspects of that philosopher are redefined such that the Statesman suggests that it is more correct to define him as a statesman than as a philosopher. Finally, it is suggested drawing on aspects of the preceding that the relationship between Socrates and the Eleatic Stranger is complementary in that both are committed to philosophy, although neither can define or exhibit it fully. (shrink)

In the near future, robots will function in social roles and attempt to influence the user’s behavior and / or thinking. The current contribution analyses how to influence robot influence: Persuasive robots can be personalized to make them more effective. We present an overview of (1) the user characteristics to which persuasive robots can be personalized, (2) considering the specific current situation of a user; and (3) the robot characteristics that can be personalized. Thereby, we give an overview of how (...) the persuasive robot’s physical appearance, behavior, (perceived) cognition and affect can be influenced to characteristics of the user (personalized) in order to make the robot more persuasive and thereby to understand better how the persuasive power of an embodied artificial social entity can be influenced. (shrink)

Mindset plays a pivotal role in academic achievement. In particular, a growth mindset is related to academic success. This study explored the role of mindset in Secondary Vocational Education and T...

This essay attempts to develop a psychologically informed semantics of perception reports, whose predictions match with the linguistic data. As suggested by the quotation from Miller and Johnson-Laird, we take a hallmark of perception to be its fallible nature; the resulting semantics thus necessarily differs from situation semantics. On the psychological side, our main inspiration is Marr's (1982) theory of vision, which can easily accomodate fallible perception. In Marr's theory, vision is a multi-layered process. The different layers have filters of (...) different gradation, which makes vision at each of them approximate. On the logical side, our task is therefore twofold • to formalise the layers and the ways in which they may refine each other, and • to develop logical means to let description vary with such degrees of refinement. The first task is formalised by means of an inverse systems of first order models, with reality appearing as its inverse limit. The second task is formalised by means of so-called conditional quantifiers, a new form of generalised quantification which can best be described as resource bounded quantification. We show that the logic provides for a semantics and pragmatics of direct perception reports. In particular, direct perception reports have a possibly nonveridical, approximative semantics, which becomes veridical only by virtue of our pragmatic expectation that what is perceived would continue to be the case, were we to perceive more accurately. It is a general feature of resource bounded logics that the underlying logics are weak, but that stronger principles can be obtained pragmatically, by strengthening the resource. For the logic of vision this feature is clarified by showing how changes in the resource capture different notions of partiality, and by studying how the perception verb interacts with connectives and quantifiers in different visual contexts. The inference Veridicality, which is now viewed rather as a nonmonotonic inference, is also studied in depth. We end with an attempt to buttress the proposed model by comparing it with suggestions put forward in Cognitive or Conceptual Semantics, in the literature on evidentials, and in Husserl's philosophy of perception. (shrink)

This study investigated the relationship between the development of students? self-regulated learning and students? perceptions of the learning environment in terms of autonomy support, the emphasis on relevance and collaborative learning. In addition, we compared innovative learning environments that aim to enhance self-regulated learning with traditional learning environments. Questionnaires for measuring self-regulated learning and perceptions of the learning environment were administered by 648 students. Self-regulated learning was measured at the start of secondary education and again half way through the first (...) year. The results point to the importance of how students perceive the learning environment for self-regulated learning. There was a positive relationship between autonomy support and relevance and self-regulated learning. Furthermore, students in innovative environments perceived more autonomy support, more emphasis on relevance and more collaborative learning than those in traditional environments. Students in innovative environments, however, reported no more self-regulated learning than students in traditional environments. (shrink)

Albert (von) Szent-Györgyi started his studies on biological oxidation processes - which also resulted in the discovery of vitamin C, for which he received the Nobel Price in 1937 - in the Laboratory of Physiology of the University in Groningen in 1922-1926. These studies were later continued in Cambridge (UK) and Szeged (Hungary). When he had already received the invitation as well as the financial means to come and work in Cambridge, he still did experiments in Groningen to find out (...) whether the adrenal extract, isolated by him and later found to be a major source of vitamin C, contained the hormone essential for the survival of cats whose adrenals were removed. He was rather upset by the negative results of this experiment, judging by the recollections of a former student of his. This history constitutes an interesting example of the difference between serendipitous discovery and planned invention. (shrink)

Looking at objectivity in scientific practices from a rhetoric point of view, this paper focuses on three related strategies of objectification found in the early psychoanalytic situation (1901-1924): formalisation and purification of language, accumulation of symbolic capital, and social distancing. On the one hand, these strategies help empower psychoanalytic discourse while, on the other, they reduce its proponents at the same time to subjects of these strategies. The aim of the analysis is to look at the moment when this happens (...) and for this purpose focuses on the many transformations, adaptations and alterations in one of Freud's most popular and influential books, The Psychopathology of Everyday Life, and its subsequent editions, as a collective effort by Freud and his students to build a language of their own. In the conclusions, the question as to if and in what way an objectified discourse can be resisted is addressed. (shrink)