Psychologists believe grade schoolers' free play in the United States is universally biased toward single-gender groups. In a study of grade schoolers in a children's museum, already-acquainted kindergartners to sixth graders were observed at three exhibits. While boys chose more automobile play and girls more supermarketing, one-quarter of each group played in settings dominated by the other gender. Boys had no group-size preference; girls had a strong preference for small groups. That preference accounts for most of the gender differences found (...) in children's gender sorting in a novel environment. However, the ubiquity of gender segregation in large groups of grade schoolers was disconfirmed for this setting. (shrink)

Dieses von mir im J. 1924 behandelte Papyrusbruchstück wurde 1927 von v. Wilamowitz berücksichtigt. Er hält meine Zurückfuhrüng des Bruchstückes auf Antiphon für sehr ansprechend und auch meine Erklärung für treffend; die Ergänzungen befriedigen ihn nur zum Teil. Letzteres muss ich ihm unbedingt zugeben. Leider sind alle kleinen Fragmente des Papyrus sowie die Zz. 1–6 des Fr. B bei dem Hinüberführen aus England nach Amerika spurlos verschwunden und somit fiir die Wissenschaft auf immer verloren; es ist also nicht mehr möglich (...) zu beurteilen, ob ich Recht hatte, als ich die Zz. 14–15 des Fr. A mit dem Fr. F vereinigte. Dagegen ist Col. II. des Fr. A glücklicherweise erhalten; Prof. W. L. Westermann legte eine ganz hervorragende Freundlichkeit an den Tag, indem er mir zuerst eine photographische Aufnahme davon zusandte und dann meine Lesung an der Hand des Originals prüfte. Bei dem näheren Studium der Photographie bemerkte ich, dass sowohl Hunts Lesung der Z. 7 wie auch meine fruhere durch diese falsche Lesung ins Leben gerufene Erganzung ganz unmöglich sind. Auf der Photographie las ich Z. 7 t περ[ι] επ[ ]ηδ‐‑, und teilte dieses Ergebnis W. L. Westermann mit. Nachdem er in das Original noch einmal eingesehen hatte, antwortete er mir darauf; ‘Das ist die richtige Lesung. Es ist absolut sicher.’ Zu der scheinbar nächstliegenden Ergänzung Περ[] έπ[ιτ]ηδ[ευ]μάτων, die auch ich im ersten Augenblick für passend hielt, kam Westermann, nachdem ihm mein Vorschlag zur richtigen Lesung des Textes bekannt worden war, ganz unabhängig von mir; ich glaube trotzdem dass diese Lesung nicht das Richtige trifft. Wir haben doch in Col. II. eine Reihe von Antithesen ; aus περ Υο‐‑ νης ist aber keine Antithese zu έπιτηδεύματα zu konstruieren. Was nun diese Stelle anbetrifft, so ist hier nur die Lesung Υο möglich, keinesfalls aber das von mir a. a. O. vermutete Υα Aus den Resten Υο. νης oder Υο.νης ist allerdings kein griechisches Wort zu erganzen; doch haben die einzelnen Zeilen des Papyrus nicht gleiche Längen, sodass nichts dem im Wege steht, dass Z. nach Υο auch nichts gestanden habe; dann gelangen wir zur Lesung: πε[ρ] Υο[] έπ[ικ]ηδ [ευ]μάτων, d. h. ‘von der Geburt der Menschen sowie von den Bestattungsbrauchen’ —auch hier haben wir dann, wie in alien anderen Antithesen von Col. II. an der ersten Stelleυμξφροντα, an der zweiten ξυμΦέροντα, vgl. Antiphon, P. Oxy. 1364, Col. III., Z. 28: κατμένξναύτοέστινάΠων. (shrink)

Dieses von mir im J. 1924 behandelte Papyrusbruchstück wurde 1927 von v. Wilamowitz berücksichtigt. Er hält meine Zurückfuhrüng des Bruchstückes auf Antiphon für sehr ansprechend und auch meine Erklärung für treffend; die Ergänzungen befriedigen ihn nur zum Teil. Letzteres muss ich ihm unbedingt zugeben. Leider sind alle kleinen Fragmente des Papyrus sowie die Zz. 1–6 des Fr. B bei dem Hinüberführen aus England nach Amerika spurlos verschwunden und somit fiir die Wissenschaft auf immer verloren; es ist also nicht mehr möglich (...) zu beurteilen, ob ich Recht hatte, als ich die Zz. 14–15 des Fr. A mit dem Fr. F vereinigte. Dagegen ist Col. II. des Fr. A glücklicherweise erhalten; Prof. W. L. Westermann legte eine ganz hervorragende Freundlichkeit an den Tag, indem er mir zuerst eine photographische Aufnahme davon zusandte und dann meine Lesung an der Hand des Originals prüfte. Bei dem näheren Studium der Photographie bemerkte ich, dass sowohl Hunts Lesung der Z. 7 wie auch meine fruhere durch diese falsche Lesung ins Leben gerufene Erganzung ganz unmöglich sind. Auf der Photographie las ich Z. 7 t περ[ι] επ[ ]ηδ‐‑, und teilte dieses Ergebnis W. L. Westermann mit. Nachdem er in das Original noch einmal eingesehen hatte, antwortete er mir darauf; ‘Das ist die richtige Lesung. Es ist absolut sicher.’ Zu der scheinbar nächstliegenden Ergänzung Περ[] έπ[ιτ]ηδ[ευ]μάτων, die auch ich im ersten Augenblick für passend hielt, kam Westermann, nachdem ihm mein Vorschlag zur richtigen Lesung des Textes bekannt worden war, ganz unabhängig von mir; ich glaube trotzdem dass diese Lesung nicht das Richtige trifft. Wir haben doch in Col. II. eine Reihe von Antithesen ; aus περ Υο‐‑ νης ist aber keine Antithese zu έπιτηδεύματα zu konstruieren. Was nun diese Stelle anbetrifft, so ist hier nur die Lesung Υο möglich, keinesfalls aber das von mir a. a. O. vermutete Υα Aus den Resten Υο. νης oder Υο.νης ist allerdings kein griechisches Wort zu erganzen; doch haben die einzelnen Zeilen des Papyrus nicht gleiche Längen, sodass nichts dem im Wege steht, dass Z. nach Υο auch nichts gestanden habe; dann gelangen wir zur Lesung: πε[ρ] Υο[] έπ[ικ]ηδ [ευ]μάτων, d. h. ‘von der Geburt der Menschen sowie von den Bestattungsbrauchen’ —auch hier haben wir dann, wie in alien anderen Antithesen von Col. II. an der ersten Stelleυμξφροντα, an der zweiten ξυμΦέροντα, vgl. Antiphon, P. Oxy. 1364, Col. III., Z. 28: κατμένξναύτοέστινάΠων. (shrink)

V.K.: Vladislav Aleksandrovich, you have come a long way in your scientific career: from a student of the class of 1955 in the Philosophy Faculty of Moscow State University to a corresponding member of the Russian Academy of Sciences, head of the sector of the theory of knowledge and head of the division of epistemology and logic at the Institute of Philosophy of the RAS, and editor in chief of our country's leading philosophy journal Voprosy filosofii. Your field of research (...) is the theory of knowledge and the philosophy of science or, to be more specific, the cultural-historical analysis of knowledge from the point of view of the activity approach. As far as I know, the psychological aspect of the activity approach to the study of consciousness and knowledge was developed by the psychologists Lev Semenovich Vygotsky, his student Aleksei Nikolaevich Leontiev, Aleksandr Romanovich Luria, and Petr Iakovlevich Galperin. Leontiev, Luria, and Galperin were professors at the Philosophy Faculty of MGU at the time you were studying there. Tell me, did you develop your scientific interests under the influence of the Moscow school of cultural-historical psychology? (shrink)

This paper argues that cognitive psychology's practice of explaining mental processes in terms which avoid invoking phenomenology, and the person-level self-conception with which it is associated in common sense psychology, leads to a hybrid Cartesian dualism. Because phenomenology is considered to be fundamentally irrelevant in any scientific explanation of the mind, the person-level is regarded as scientifically invisible: it is a ghost-like housing for sub-personal computational cognition. The problem of explaining how the sub-personal and sub-phenomenological machinery of mind is related (...) to person-level experience is as troublesome for cognitive psychology as the problem Descartes faced in explaining how the ghost (the non-corporeal mind) is related to the machine (the material body).This paper outlines the historical roots of cognitive dualism, showing how it has come to recapitulate a number of puzzling conceptual dichotomies that have hindered scientific and philosophical psychology since Kantian constructivism. It then defends the view that cognitive psychology's commitment to the sub-personal explanatory level leads to exaggerated deflationary claims about the explanatory significance of phenomenology, and the personlevel framework. It is argued that phenomenological description must function as a constraint upon, and guide for, theory formation in cognitive psychology (as illustrated in the work of the cognitive neuro-psychologist A.R. Luria). Phenomenology must be brought into a kind of reflective equilibrium with the cognitive and neuro-sciences. (shrink)

Numerous functions, cognitive skills, and behaviors are associated with intelligence, yet decades of research has yielded little consensus on its definition. Emerging from often conflicting studies is the provocative idea that intelligence evolved as an adaptation humans needed to keep up with - and survive in - challenging new environments. The Handbook of Intelligence addresses a broad range of issues relating to our cognitive and linguistic past. It is the first full-length volume to place intelligence in an evolutionary/cultural framework, tracing (...) the development of the human mind, exploring differences between humans and other primates, and addressing human thinking and reasoning about its own intelligence and its uses. The works of pioneering thinkers - from Plato to Darwin, Binet to Piaget, Luria to Wechsler - are referenced to illustrate major events in the evolution of theories of intelligence, leading to the current era of multiple intelligences and special education programs. In addition, it examines evolutionary concepts in areas as diverse as creativity, culture, neurocognition, emotional intelligence, and assessment. Featured topics include: The evolution of the human brain from matter to mind Social competition and the evolution of fluid intelligence Multiple intelligences in the new age of thinking Intelligence as a malleable construct From traditional IQ to second-generation intelligence tests The evolution of intelligence, including implications for educational programming and policy. The Handbook of Intelligence is an essential resource for researchers, graduate students, clinicians, and professionals in developmental psychology; assessment, testing and evaluation; language philosophy; personality and social psychology; sociology; and developmental biology. (shrink)

By analyzing descriptions of illusory and nonillusory figures, Richer called into question the common assumption that illusory and nonillusory perceptions were experientially the same and differed only in terms of their accuracy. The present study attempted to replicate Richer's work with a focus on identifying within the subjects' descriptions any orienting attitudes corresponding to these two forms of perception. Nineteen student volunteers were asked to describe two illusory figures and a nonillusory control of similar complexity. The descriptions revealed consistent differences (...) between the two forms. However, the Hering and Zollner figures were not always described in illusory terms, and surprisingly, several subjects described the control as if it were illusory. Further, perceptual accuracy was not guaranteed by nonillusory experience. Subjects described the figures from within one of three different orienting attitudes-atomizing, representational, and geometrical-organizing. The latter attitude appeared necessary for the phenomena of illusory perception and experience. Though the present findings confirmed Richer's distinction between illusory and nonillusory experience, they also indicate the need for further differentiation- illusory perception versus illusory experience. Finally, the findings also supported Luria's and Segall, Campbell, and Herskovits's position on the importance of particular cultural and educational experiences and codes in relation to perceptual illusions. (shrink)

Contemporary psychiatry is becoming more biologically oriented in the attempt to elicit a biological rationale of mental diseases. Although mental disorders comprise mostly functional abnormalities, there is a substantial overlap between neurology and psychiatry in addressing cognitive disturbances. In schizophrenia, the presence of cognitive impairment prior to the onset of psychosis and early after its manifestation suggests that some neurocognitive abnormalities precede the onset of psychosis and may represent a trait marker. These cognitive alterations may arise from functional disconnectivity, as (...) no significant brain damage has been found. In this review we aim to revise A.R. Luria’s systematic approach used in the neuropsychological evaluation of cognitive functions, which was primarily applied in patients with neurological disorders and in the cognitive evaluation in schizophrenia and other related disorders. As proposed by Luria, cognitive processes, associated with higher cortical functions, may represent functional systems that are not localized in narrow, circumscribed areas of the brain, but occur among groups of concertedly working brain structures, each of which makes its own particular contribution to the organization of the functional system. Current developments in neuroscience provide evidence of functional connectivity in the brain. Therefore, Luria’s approach may serve as a frame of reference for the analysis and interpretation of cognitive functions in general and their abnormalities in schizophrenia in particular. Having said that, modern technology, as well as experimental evidence, may help us to understand the brain better and lead us towards creating a new classification of cognitive functions. In schizophrenia research, multidisciplinary approaches must be utilized to address specific cognitive alterations. The relationships among the components of cognitive functions derived from the functional connectivity of the brain may provide an insight into cognitive machinery. (shrink)

Our objective is to corroborate Merleau-Ponty's phenomenology of speech perception and intersubjectivity through an analysis of A. R. Luria's account of semantic aphasia. By emulating Merleau-Ponty's style of analysis in dealing with the work of a contemporary leader in the field of aphasiology, we are able to take up Merleau-Ponty's thought and test whether his conclusions are inevitable or whether they are based on outmoded problems of the psychology and psychopathology of his day. These reflections also enable us to present (...) arguments against both the assumptions of the natural attitude, as well as those of transcendental phenomenology, and so enable us to cast some light on the relation between existential phenomenology and empirical research. By contrasting aphasic and normal perception, we intend to show that ultimately even the aphasiologist is able to characterize aphasic perception only in terms of the aphasic's loss of an "openness" to meanings present in the uttered sounds. We argue that this notion of openness, like that of Merleau-Ponty's notion of "perceptual faith, " requires the reduction but also points to the impossibility of a complete reduction. (shrink)

Since antiquity, individuals have attempted to relate mental processes to circumscribed areas of the brain. In 1935 the neurologist Wilder Penfield purported to know, “the humming of the mind's machinery, and where words come from,” after he electrically stimulated areas of the exposed human cortex. Recent theories have suggested a functional separation of the dominant and the nondominant hemispheres, the right brain/left brain concept of thought and personality. One author has even proposed that human consciousness and modern civilization developed when (...) the bicameral mind broke down, and the left brain achieved mastery over the right nondominant temporal lobe.Compared to these mechanistic approaches to brain function and human personality, the Russian neurologist, Alesandr Romanovich Luria, and his American follower, Oliver Sacks, have developed a more intellectually satisfying and clinically useful approach which relies on a fuller understanding of the doctor-patient dialogue and the clinical tale. An analysis of Luria's writing about language reveals that mechanistic approaches to language are inadequate; a review of the work of several well-known poets confirms that knowing what a poem means involves more than a recital of its localized contents. Similarly, an examination of three of Sack's clinical tales suggests that even those patients who are grossly awry on a synaptic level can be understood on a personal level to be worthy of respect and even honor. “Man is to himself the most wonderful object in nature; for be cannot conceive what the body is, still less what the mind is, and least of all how a body should be united to a mind. This is the consummation of his difficulties, and yet it is his very being.”Blaise Pascal,Pensees, (11,72)1. (shrink)

The folk psychology view of the faculty of freewill is that it is innate, unitary, structureless and, of course, free. A bifold approach to the mind, as taken by Vygotsky, Mead, Luria and others, argues that, like all the other higher mental abilities of humans, freewill is in fact largely a socially-constructed and language-enabled habit of thought. There is a neurology for this habit to latch on to -- after all, the ‘raw’ animal brain is built for acting rather than (...) contemplating. But it is the social superstructure -- the habit of monitoring and even directing our planning behaviour - which creates much of the traditional mystery. Indeed, ironically, it is actually central to the socially-constructed Western ‘script’ of freewill that we deny the social origins of this ability to take charge of our own brains. (shrink)

Eight philosophers discuss the works of the best-selling novelist and graphic novelist, including The Graveyard Book, Coraline and Good Omens and reveal their thoughts on the intersection of fantasy and reality and whether the unknown is as ...

The book presents the most relevant theories of truth (correspondence, semantic, deflational, pragmaticist, coherentist, constructivist, evidential), with the emphasis of analytical approaches. The author develops a version of the realist correspondence concept of truth while distinguishing various criteria of truth. He is skeptical in regard of any, complete or certain truth but he does not accept epistemic skepticism either, but argues for a moderate realism where objective orientation towards truth suffices as catching (ever) more truth than falsity.

Comment devient-on philosophe? Par quel sursaut un Aristoclès se fait-il Platon, jusqu'à s'imposer dans la liste des " auteurs philo " Il faut enquêter, non pas sur la vie privée, mais sur la vie intime : rumination intellectuelle, ton sur lequel on parle, motivations amoureuses... Ce qui fait un philosophe, c'est un immense travail sur soi, et la rencontre d'autres philosophes, vivants, de leurs problématiques. Mémoire sémantique + obsession métaphysique, voilà le code génétique du philosophe. Il débute par un attentat (...) religieux, puisqu'il commence sa carrière en niant tel ou tel sacré. Bien sûr, il vaut mieux être mâle, communiquer par les livres adopter la langue dominante, écrire quand on est célibataire. Comment gagner sa vie? Pas forcément en étant enseignant, comme c'est le cas aujourd'hui. Le profil du philosophe nous le révèle orphelin, vivant à l'étranger, souvent laid, jamais fou, et serial thinker, prêt à changer de philosophie pourvu qu'il reste, lui, à menacer le monde donnera ou donnera pas du sens à notre vie? Le philosophe est l'être inquiet qui pense inquiéter l'Être par deux trois mots bien aiguisés. (shrink)

Seder ha-teshuvah -- Marpe la-nefesh -- Teshuvah me-ḥayim.

While there are numerous doubts, controversies and lack of consensus on alternative definitions of human death, it is argued that it is more ethical to allow people to choose either cessation of cardio-respiratory function or loss of entire brain function as the definition of death based on their own views. This paper presents the law of organ transplantation in Japan, which allows people to decide whether brain death can be used to determine their death in agreement with their family. Arguably, (...) Japan could become a unique example of individual choice in the definition of death if the law is revised to allow individuals choose definition of death independently of their family. It suggests that such an approach is one of the reasonable policy options a country can adopt for legislation on issues related to the definition of death. (shrink)

Extraterrestrial Altruism examines a basic assumption of the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI): that extraterrestrials will be transmitting messages to us for our benefit. This question of whether extraterrestrials will be altruistic has become increasingly important in recent years as SETI scientists have begun contemplating transmissions from Earth to make contact. Technological civilizations that transmit signals for the benefit of others, but with no immediate gain for themselves, certainly seem to be altruistic. But does this make biological sense? Should we (...) expect altruism to evolve throughout the cosmos, or is this only wishful thinking? Is it dangerous to send messages to other worlds, as Stephen Hawking has suggested, or might humankind benefit from an exchange with intelligence elsewhere in the galaxy? Would extraterrestrial societies be based on different ethical principles, or would we see commonalities with Earthly notions of morality? Extraterrestrial Altruism explores these and related questions about the motivations of civilizations beyond Earth, providing new insights that are critical for SETI. Chapters are authored by leading scholars from diverse disciplines—anthropology, astronomy, biology, chemistry, computer science, cosmology, engineering, history of science, law, philosophy, psychology, public policy, and sociology. The book is carefully edited by Douglas Vakoch, Director of Interstellar Message Composition at the SETI Institute and professor of clinical psychology at the California Institute of Integral Studies. The Foreword is by Frank Drake. This interdisciplinary book will benefit everybody trying to understand whether evolution and ethics are unique to Earth, or whether they are built into the fabric of the universe. (shrink)