Several decades of behavioral research have established that variations in socioeconomic status are related to differences in cognitive performance. Neuroimaging and psychophysiological techniques have recently emerged as a method of choice to better understand the neurobiological processes underlying this phenomenon. Here we present a systematic review of a particular sub-domain of this field. Specifically, we used the PICOS approach to review studies investigating potential relationships between SES and scalp event-related brain potentials. This review found evidence that SES is related to (...) amplitude variations in a diverse range of ERPs: P1, N1, N2, Error-Related Negativities, N400, auditory evoked potentials, negative difference waves, P3 and slow waves. These ERPs include early, mid-latency and late potentials that reflect a broad range of cognitive processes. In this review, all SES effects on ERPs appeared to reflect an impairment or a less efficient form of task-related neural activity for low-SES compared to high-SES individuals. Overall, these results confirm that a wide variety of distinct neural processes with different functional meanings are sensitive to SES differences. The findings of this review also suggest that the relationship between SES and some ERP components may depend on the developmental stage of study participants. Results are further discussed in terms of the current limitations of this field and future avenues of research. (shrink)

A landslide inventory is a detailed register of the spatial distribution, geometry, and attributes of landslides and is essential for landslide hazard analysis, risk management, regional planning, and land use management and development, especially in landslide-prone regions. However, the development of a national landslide inventory is time-consuming and costly. Accordingly, most developing countries, including Sri Lanka, have basic landslide databases, which identify the location, date, and time of occurrence on a point map. This study, therefore, aimed to introduce a new (...) method to report landslide information via a mobile application based on a participatory approach with information recorded in a web portal called the participatory landslide inventory. Twenty-one landslide site locations and their attributes were captured on the PLI web portal using the PLI mobile app. The system administrator then demarcated the landslide boundaries and performed geometrical calculations for each landslide to complete the inventory. Finally, the landslide information was published through the PLI web portal. The PLI is an effective and efficient tool for developing a landslide inventory economically. (shrink)

This study investigates the malleability of the eyewitness memory by analyzing the effects of Memory Conformity and Cross-Race Effect (CRE) among Asian ethnic groups. A live crime enactment (snatch theft) was initiated in order to assess both variables. Two experiments were conducted using a questionnaire with a total of 36 participants in a private university. Experiment 1 examined the effects of group conformity. After the live enactment and the filler task, participants were randomly assigned to one of two conditions: discussed (...) and no discussed groups. All participants were given a questionnaire and was informed to complete it individually. Experiment 2 examined the cross-race effect. Participants were informed to answer the questionnaire individually and the results were analyzed based on the racial identity. No difference in memory accuracy was found between discussed and no discussed conditions in the experiment 1. However, in experiment 2, a disparate racial identity effect was found opposing the past literature. (shrink)

The aim of this essay is to identify the significance of animal research and its benefits in cognitive neuroscience research. This essay will evaluate the advantages of conducting research using animal models, its history, and the ethical issues surrounding this technique. It will further evaluate how the research has contributed to improve our knowledge of human brain functioning.

Animals navigate through three-dimensional environments, but we argue that the way they encode three-dimensional spatial information is shaped by how they use the vertical component of space. We agree with Jeffery et al. that the representation of three-dimensional space in vertebrates is probably bicoded (with separation of the plane of locomotion and its orthogonal axis), but we believe that their suggestion that the vertical axis is stored (that is, not containing distance or direction metrics usable for novel computations) is unlikely, (...) and as yet unsupported. We describe potential experimental protocols that could clarify these differences in opinion empirically. (shrink)

Early life stress precedes alterations to neuro-immune activation, which may mediate an increased risk for stress-related psychiatric disorders, potentially through alterations of central kynurenine pathway metabolites, the latter being relatively unexplored. We hypothesized that ELS in a non-human primate model would lead to a reduction of neuroprotective and increases of neurotoxic KP metabolites. Twelve adult female bonnet macaques reared under conditions of maternal variable foraging demand were compared to 27 age- and weight-matched non-VFD-exposed female controls. Baseline behavioral observations of social (...) affiliation were taken over a 12-week period followed by the first cerebrospinal fluid sample. Subjects were then either exposed to a 12-week repeated separation paradigm or assigned to a “no-RSP” condition followed by a second CSF. We used high-performance liquid chromatography for kynurenine, tryptophan, 5-hydroxyindoleacetic acid, kynurenic acid, and anthranilic acid as a proxy for quinolinic acid determination. At baseline, social affiliation scores were reduced in VFD-reared versus control subjects. CSF log KYNA and log KYNA/KYN ratio were lower in VFD-reared versus control subjects. CSF log KYNA/KYN was positively correlated with CSF log ANTH in VFD only. Controlling for log KYNA/KYN, log ANTH was elevated in VFD-reared subjects versus controls. CSF log KYNA/KYN obtained post-RSP was positively correlated with mean social affiliation scores during RSP, specifically in VFD. ELS is associated with a reduced neuroprotective and increased neurotoxic pathway products. That the two contrasting processes are paradoxically correlated following ELS suggests a cross-talk between two opposing KP enzymatic systems. (shrink)

Rising economic inequality has aggravated long-standing labor market disparities, with one exception: government employment. This article considers the puzzle of black-white wage parity in the American public sector. African Americans are more likely to work in the public than in the private sector, and their wages are higher there. The article builds on prior work emphasizing institutional factors conditioning this outcome to argue that employee mobilization can motor it. As public sector unions gained political influence postwar, their large constituencies of (...) black, blue-collar workers, drawing on both militant and nonviolent tactics of the urbanizing civil rights movement, advocated for improved working conditions. Archival sources confirm this pattern at the federal level. The employment and activism of African Americans in low-skilled federal jobs pivoted union attention to blue-collar issues and directly contributed to the enactment of a transparent, universal wage schedule for the blue-collar federal workforce. The result was greater pay parity for African Americans, as well as for other disadvantaged groups. (shrink)

This special issue of Journal of Consciousness Studies brings together work from a range of philosophers, neuroscientists, psychologists, cognitive scientists, behavioural scientists, and computer scientists who are all united in their approach to answering questions about consciousness. The contributions to this journal are inspired by work presented at the inaugural Designed Mind Symposium, held at the University of Edinburgh Informatics Forum on 7-8 November 2017.

Definition of the problem The present article focuses on the current international ethical debate on “responsible implementation” of expanded carrier screening to public healthcare systems. Expanded carrier screening is a novel genetic test which aims to provide information to couples about whether both partners carry a genetic variation for the same recessively inherited condition. It was introduced to the market by commercial laboratories in the U.S. in 2010; since about 2015, however, international debates have emerged on how and why to (...) offer the screening as a public health service. Arguments It is shown that, initially, enhancement of couples’ reproductive autonomy, not prevention of recessive disorders, has been established as the ethically well-founded aim and guiding principle of responsible implementation. Recently, however, in 2019, three well-known Dutch bioethicists argued that this aim has been embraced without much reflection and should therefore be replaced with the guiding principle of “responsible parenthood”. According to the latter, autonomous reproductive decision-making of couples or women is morally acceptable solely when carrier screening is done only during pregnancy. Before pregnancy, by contrast, couples are held to have a moral duty to take preventive measures if their future children are at risk of being affected by one of the “worst” recessive conditions. In the present paper, both of these conflicting ethical framings of expanded carrier screening are critically examined. Conclusions While the aim of reproductive autonomy also has problematic aspects, the notion of “responsible parenthood” is much more objectionable since it challenges voluntary participation in carrier screening, argues for directive genetic counseling, limits reproductive self-determination of women and couples, and introduces dubious concepts to the debate. (shrink)

The government concern towards preservation of Economic, Social and cultural rights of citizens of a country can be clearly visible through the fiscal policy changes and the trends in public finance. This article intends to decompose and analyse the trends of government expenditure of Sri Lanka over the past years and to investigate whether the public expenditure has been allocated for productive sectors which truely facilitate public welfare and uplift the Ecoomic,Social and cultural rights of the citizens.The considered period for (...) the data analysis is 2010 to 2018 and also a special emphasis has been given on 2019 budget as the latest. The trends of Public expenditure on education, health and main welfare programs and recent taxation policies have been taken into account as a proxy of the attention towards ESCR by the government. The study has illustrated a significant decline in the public expenditure on education, health and welfare with heavy burden generated by indirect taxes that can draw harmful impacts on economy’s future productive potential as well as on the obligation of protecting ESCR. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Bodhicitta and Charity:A ComparisonLuke PereraThe object of this paper is to present a comparison of bodhicitta and charity. These concepts are central to their respective traditions (Mahāyāna Buddhism, Christianity), and for the sake of keeping the comparison within reasonable limits I will focus on two sets of texts: the writings of the Indian Buddhist monk Śāntideva (late seventh and eighth centuries ce) and those of the French Catholic nun (...) Thérèse of Lisieux (1873–1897). My intention is that this comparison will help to clarify the similarities and the differences between the two concepts and provide thoughtful comment for Christians and Buddhists involved in interfaith dialogue and interested in comparative or interreligious theology.preliminary definitionsBodhicittaBodhicitta is a Sanskrit term, a compound of bodhi and citta, which appears regularly in the sūtras and śāstras composed by Mahāyāna Buddhist monks in India. Citta can mean mind, intelligence, thought, intention, or will, and bodhi (lit. awakening) refers to the state of all-embracing knowledge and freedom from cognitive and emotional limitations possessed by the buddhas. Bodhicitta, then, is the mind or thought that takes the supreme bodhi of the buddhas as its aim. Synonyms include cittotpāda (arising of the thought) and bodhicittotpāda (arising of the thought of bodhi). These three terms have always been associated with the resolve to become a buddha or a bodhisattva.1The resolve to become a buddha appears first in retellings of the story of the buddha Śākyamuni. Many lifetimes ago, the buddha-to-be was a pious young ascetic who had the fortune to encounter a buddha, and in his presence he vowed to become a buddha in the future.2 Thenceforth he was a bodhisattva, a being (sattva) devoted to the goal of complete enlightenment, the bodhi of the buddhas.3 In the Mahāyāna sūtras, the Buddha is shown teaching that the bodhisattva path is the supreme spiritual path. For a monk or layperson to begin the spiritual career of bodhisattva, they must generate the thought (cittotpāda), which takes bodhi as its aim (bodhicittotpāda): They must generate bodhicitta.The Abhisamayālaṃkāra, an Indian scholastic text attributed to the bodhisattva Maitreya, provides a classic definition: “to generate the resolve [to become a buddha] [End Page 121] is to desire perfect complete awakening for the sake of other [sentient beings].”4 Bodhicitta has two aspects: It is a resolve to attain the state of the buddhas and to work for the welfare of sentient beings. These two aspects combine in one career because the best way to help beings is to become an awakened buddha, capable of teaching them the way to deliverance. As another important text, the Bodhisattvabhūmi, relates:Furthermore, the bodhisattva, when fixing his thought on awakening, collects [his] thoughts and articulates [his] words thus: “Oh, may I be perfectly awakened unto the highest, perfect awakening, may I be the benefactor of all sentient beings and may I establish [them] in the absolutely perfect (or firm) extinction [i.e. Nirvāṇa] and in the insight of the Tathagata!” In this way, one generates the resolve [to become a buddha] when striving for one’s awakening and for the welfare of sentient beings.5The generation of bodhicitta requires preparatory actions such as confession of sins, solicitation of buddhas and bodhisattvas, and prolonged meditation on the benefits of bodhicitta and the sufferings of sentient beings. When the candidate is ready, he will vocalize his intention in the form of a vow in a ritual context, modeled on the monastic prātimokṣa vow.6 He will henceforth be bound by special bodhisattva precepts, which forbid harming sentient beings and creating difficulties for fellow Buddhist practitioners. Tibetan Buddhists identify two ritual traditions for the taking of the bodhicitta vow, each with their respective preparatory meditations, which they trace back to India. They associate Śāntideva with a lineage derived from the mythic bodhisattva Mañjuśrī, which includes the great monastic teacher and philosopher Nāgārjuna and his disciple Āryadeva (second and third centuries ce).The causes required for generating bodhicitta and its exact subdivisions have been... (shrink)

In this article, the authors examine the systemic nature of state violence and racial terror in the context of the Australian settler state and Indigenous deaths in custody. Drawing on Steve Martinot and Jared Sexton’s (2003) concept of a “double economy of terror,” the authors contend that police violence and Aboriginal deaths in custody must be read in terms of the standard operating procedures of a double economy of terror that ensures the institutional reproduction of the Australian settler colonial state. (...) Death in police custody, Perera and Pugliese argue, is coextensive with the larger governmental and administrative apparatuses of the colonial state. In the face of the settler state’s systemic ignorability of the ongoing racialized violence against Indigenous peoples, the authors conclude their paper opposing such a state with an Indigenous voice that refuses tacit acquiescence and that howls with rage at the mounting Aboriginal deaths in custody and rates of Indigenous imprisonment. (shrink)

The use of new paradigms of false belief tasks allowed to reduce the age of children who pass the test from the previous 4 years in the standard version to only 15 months or even a striking 6 months in the nonverbal modification. These results are often taken as evidence that infants already possess an—at least implicit—theory of mind. We criticize this inferential leap on the grounds that inferring a ToM from the predictive success on a false belief task requires (...) to assume as premise that a belief reasoning is a necessary condition for correct action prediction. It is argued that the FBT does not satisfactorily constrain the predictive means, leaving room for the use of belief-independent inferences. These heuristics, when applied to the FBT, can achieve the same predictive success of a belief-based inference because information provided by the test stimulus allows the recognition of particular situations that can be subsumed by their ‘laws’. Instead of solving this issue by designing a single experimentum crucis that would render unfeasible the use of non-representational inferences, we suggest the application of a set of tests in which, although individually they can support inferences dissociated from a ToM, only an inference that makes use of false beliefs is able to correctly predict all the outcomes. (shrink)

We examined the subjective experiences of young environmentalists who engage in green consumption practices from the theoretical lens of Warde’s :131–153, 2005) practice theory. Data were gathered through 21 photo-elicited, in-depth interviews with young environmentalists. Based on our findings, we postulated a theoretical framework to understand green consumption practices among our informants as a process with three interrelated phases: green credibility seeking, green procurement and prosumption, and green whispers. This inductive investigation revealed various symbolic meanings of green consumption that are (...) instrumental in effectively engaging in green consumption practice and are widely shared among our informants. Our investigation extends the existing literature on green consumption with an alternative theoretical perspective and provides managers with insights into the motivations and practices of green consumers. (shrink)

A growing body of literature critical of ethics review boards has drawn attention to the processes used to determine the ethical merit of research. Citing criticism on the bureaucratic nature of ethics review processes, this literature provides a useful provocation for (re)considering how the ethics review might be enacted. Much of this criticism focuses on how ethics review boards _deliberate,_ with particular attention given to the lack of transparency and opportunities for researcher recourse that characterise ethics review processes. Centered specifically (...) on the conduct of ethics review boards convened within university settings, this paper draws on these inherent criticisms to consider the ways that ethics review boards might enact more communicative and deliberative practices. Outlining a set of principles against which ethics review boards might establish strategies for engaging with researchers and research communities, this paper draws attention to how _Deliberative communication_, _Engagement with researchers_ and the _Distribution of responsibility_ for the ethics review might be enacted in the day-to-day practice of the university human ethics review board. This paper develops these themes via a conceptual lens derived from Habermas’ (The theory of communicative action. Volume 1: Reason and the rationalization of society, 1984 ) articulation of ‘communicative action’ and Fraser’s (Social Text, 25(26), 56–80, 1990 ) consideration of ‘strong publics’ to cast consideration of the role that human ethics review boards might play in supporting university research cultures. _Deliberative communication_, _Engagement with researchers_ and the _Distribution of responsibility_ provide useful conceptual prompts for considering how ethics review boards might undertake their work. (shrink)

Un atlas zoopolítico es lo que pretende tener aquí lugar. Un atlas en el sentido en que cada pequeño tratado de los cincuenta y dos que configuran el libro se presenta en la forma de un retrato donde el pensamiento, entre sus pensadores, se aplica en el esfuerzo de hacerse cargo de la presencia animal sin renunciar a la diferencia humana, y en que, entre todos ellos, se delinea en todas sus valoraciones posibles esta nueva presencia del animal entre nosotros. (...) Retrato con animal. Prefacio. Pablo Perera Velamazán es escritor, además de filósofo e historiador del arte. Esta triple condición –y alguna otra (profesor, traductor)- le han permitido entrar en el círculo de los que escriben siempre de los que no saben y le ha impedido, también formar parte de ninguna empresa concreta, salvo la del precipicio del pensamiento en la singularidad que se resiste a los nombres. Allí suelen estar acompañado de niños y animales, de ángeles como muñecos, pero allí también se pueden encontrar a cualquiera. Buen compañero de viaje de invierno. (shrink)

L’article vise à montrer le lien nécessaire entre responsabilité et liberté, tout en exposant le sens de cette responsabilité, décomposée entre responsabilité envers Autrui et responsabilité envers la Nature. Dans la deuxième partie, l’article s’attache à présenter les mutations de la responsabilité à l’époque contemporaine, remettant aujourd’hui en cause la liberté telle qu’elle était conçue en 1789, c’est-à-dire comme autodétermination.

I propose that a scientific account of perceptual consciousness decomposes into two sub-problems: the conceptual problem of reframing our internal, first-personal perspective in external, thirdpersonal terms, and the scientific one of providing a theory that accounts for the phenomenon reframed in this way. In this paper I consider both aspects of the problem, drawing on the ideas of Dennett and Metzinger. For the first part, I use Dennett's method of heterophenomenology to argue that perceptual experience should be understood as a (...) structured space of possible behaviours. On this view, each phenomenal 'detail' that we consciously apprehend is not quintessentially private, but rather a reflexive affordance: an opportunity to behave, perhaps covertly, about how the world looks, sounds, or feels from our perceptual vantage point. I then present a novel argument in favour of a higher-order, self-representationalist account of this aspect of our phenotype, along the lines of Metzinger's phenomenal model of the intentionality relation. I conclude with the suggestion that a conscious organism has a design which is distinctly Cartesian in flavour: a self-simulating agent able to observe itself perceiving. (shrink)

Who controls space? Powerful corporations, institutions, and individuals have great power to create physical and political space through income and influence. _People’s Spaces_ attempts to understand the struggle between people and institutions in the spaces they make. Current literature on cities and planning often looks at popular resistance to institutional authority through open, mass-movement protest. These views overlook the fact that subaltern classes are not often afforded the luxury of open, organized political protest. _People’s Spaces _investigates individual’s diverse approaches in (...) reconciling the difference between their spatial needs and spatial availability. Through case studies in Southeast Asia, India, Nepal, and Central Asia, the book explores how people accommodate their spatial needs for everyday activities and cultural practices within a larger abstract spatial context produced by the power-holders. (shrink)

For the past three decades Sri Lanka was stalemated between governments that were not prepared to devolve power to the Tamil majority provinces and a Tamil militant movement that wanted a separate country. In February 2002, the Sri Lankan government and LTTE signed a ceasefire agreement under Norwegian government auspices that appeared to offer the real prospect of a final end to violence as a means of conflict resolution. The ceasefire between the government and the LTTE held for nearly four (...) years despite significant problems affecting the peace process, problems that led to the LTTE’s withdrawal from the peace talks. However, the ceasefire collapsed in early 2006 with a series of ambushes of government soldiers by the LTTE, eventually leading to counter measures and counter attacks by the forces of the government, measures in which the government wrested back control of territory placed under the control of the LTTE by the terms agreed upon by the Ceasefire Agreement. Today Sri Lanka is a country that continues to be deeply divided on lines of ethnicity, religion and politics. Horizontal inequalities, defined as severe inequalities in economic and political resources between culturally defined groups, were undoubtedly a contributing factor for the perpetuation of Sri Lanka’s long-running conflict. No sooner it won the war, the government asserted economic development to be the main engine of reconciliation. (shrink)

Urban dwellers’ food and nutritional wellbeing are both dependent on infrastructure and can be indicative of wider wellbeing in urban contexts and societal health. This paper focuses on the multiple relationships that exist between food and infrastructure to provide a thorough theoretical and empirical grounding to urgent work on urban food security and nutrition in the context of rapid urban and nutrition transitions in the South. We argue that urban systems and food systems thinking have not been well aligned, but (...) that such alignment is not only timely and overdue but also fruitful for both thematic areas of research and policy. We draw in particular on work within wider urban political economy and political ecology that can be classified as part of the ‘infrastructural turn’ that is influential with urban studies but little acknowledged within food studies. Drawing on these literatures helps us to better understand the interrelationships between people, things and ideas that make up both infrastructure and food systems. Policy, planning and research relating to both food and urban systems cannot afford to ignore such interlinkages, though much policy still operates on the neat assumptions of progressive connectivity to ‘the grid’ and formal food retail. Instead we argue how in many urban governance systems, a variety of hybrid mechanisms—on and off the grid, public and private formal and informal—better represent how urban residents, particularly the most marginalised, meet their everyday food and infrastructural needs along a continuum of gridded and off-grid access. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Justice Not GreedRichard A. HoehnJustice Not Greed Edited by Pamela Brubaker and Rogate Mshana Geneva: WCC Publications, 2010. 224 pp. $14.00The World Council of Churches (WCC) Advisory Group on Economic Matters (AGEM) advises the WCC and congregations on global economic issues. AGEM members from diverse backgrounds produced the papers in this volume. The introduction is by Rogate Mshana, WCC director for Peace, Justice, and Creation. Samuel Kobia, general (...) secretary of the WCC from 2004–9, introduces the rationale and role of AGEM in the global financial crisis. The book ends with a statement on just finance and the economy of life, adopted by the WCC Central Committee in September 2009. Justice Not Greed will be most useful in settings where there is interest in the intersection of ethics, the economic crisis, and Christianity in relation to the global economy, as well as among those who wish to follow the WCC. As expected [End Page 208] of conference papers, there is not a systematic development of an argument but overlapping ethical and economic analyses. All, however, are opposed to the status quo because of its manifest injustice, especially the impact on poor people.If one were to impose a thematic development, it might go something like this, allowing for individual differences among the authors. Decolonization has resulted in a lopsided, Western, capitalist economic system predicated on greed (Jan Pronk), described by other authors as a beast or a cancer (vivid but unhelpful metaphors since the crisis was caused by humans, not nature). The world lacks appropriate international structures. We need new global institutions, a new global financial architecture that is predicated on, or at least takes into account, justice. Congregations, the ecumenical movement, and the WCC could play a significant role in helping the United Nations move toward such a system.Several authors hope that the global crisis will provide a moment when such a change might become possible (e.g., Alexander Cobham’s “Blood-Stained Silver Lining”). Pamela K. Brubaker, Kim Yong-Bock, Roel Aalbersberg, Rienzie Perera, and Geevarghese Mor Coorilos examine questions related to the Bible, ethics, theology, a culture of “enough for all” (Musa Panti Filibus), the church as moral community, the ecumenical movement, and principles for an alternative economic system. Mariana Issa Zureikat argues for “econo-morals,” applying moral values to economic analyses. Thomas H. Kang advocates the capabilities approach of Amartya Sen and Martha Nussbaum. Marcos Arruda suggests an economy of world solidarity with the “gross happiness index” as a standard for measuring progress. While most chapters include economic analysis, John Dillon wades into some nitty-gritty causes of the current financial crisis, with a positive nod toward the (never adopted) Keynes plan for the Bretton Woods system of monetary management. Marie-Aimee Tourres lays out impacts on the developing world, as does Xiao Lian from a Chinese perspective. Most of these authors argue for such global solutions as a global reserve system and a global tax system.Justice Not Greed presents thoughtful, sometimes passionate papers that could form a basis for lively discussion. Yet real-world solutions often come down to the practice of democracy and political will. Unfortunately, it is not clear that the ecumenical movement possesses the will or the means to effect change because local organizing for political change is not a high priority at any level. [End Page 209]Richard A. HoehnChrist the Servant Lutheran ChurchCopyright © 2012 The Society of Christian Ethics... (shrink)

The paper aims to examine the role of Benet Perera’s and Roberto Bellarmino’s exegetic models in the development of the relationship between the nascent Galilean science and post-Tridentine catholic theology. It intends to show that, during the early decades of seventeenth century, the Catholic Church dealt with the Scientific Revolution with the same hermeneutical tools that it had employed to confront the Protestant Reformation half a century before. However, new science involved a philosophical and scientific culture change so vast (...) and intricate that those models turned out to be inadequate to understand the birth and characteristics of the new era. (shrink)

A well-established historiography has pointed out the distinction between first philosophy and theology, proposed by Benet Perera in his De communibus, as the “birth” of modern ontology. Ontology is often defined as an independent or neutral science by modern authors as well as contemporary scholars.This paper aims to show the way in which Perera comes to this distinction, after a long reflection on the status of mathematics and abstractions of theoretical sciences matured during his lectures at the Collegio (...) Romano.Interestingly, it appears that after the subject of ontology is removed from its relationship with God and rational theology, ontology does not seem to acquire the status of neutral and universal science that Perera sought. Ontology becomes, in fact, a science dependent on the definitions provided by other disciplines and sciences, such as logic and mathematics.Following these recent findings, the paper also provides a renewed confrontation b.. (shrink)

Beside from the Collegio Romano, the Jesuit Province of Upper Germany with its universities at Dillingen and Ingolstadt was a centre of the intellectual dispute about Perera. Especially his pupil Anton Balduin and the theologian Gregorius de Valencia are central to the controversy. Despite the restraint of the Rector Theodoricus Canisius in the disputations of Balduinus about physics there are theses that show the influence of Balduinus: indeterminate dimensions of prime matter, the question of a maximum and minimum in (...) the natural species, the critics of the aristotelian definition of place, the persistence of forms in elementary mixture. Perera’s history of philosophy in book IV of his De communibus is used several times by Jacobus Pontanus in his discourses at Dillingen university and in his Progymnasmata Latinitatis. (shrink)

In Benet Perera’s De communibus, the question on the first object of the intellectual knowledge is not addressed as a particular topic. On the contrary, it does constitute the general background in which Perera tries to sketch an original theory of the knowledge. Starting from this premise, the following article aims to demonstrate how Perera’s quaestio de primo cognito can clarify, for its reader, the nature of the intellectual knowledge, the relationship between the intellectual knowledge and the (...) sensible knowledge, and the ontology presupposed by this noetics.Through a detailed analysis of Perera’s arguments and of his claim that the first object of the intellect is the singular, the article focuses on some consequences of the solution proposed by the Spanish Jesuit. To this end, particular attention is given to Perera’s doctrine of the intellect and to the theoretical consequences of its formulation, in connection to the question of the relationship between sensible and intellectual knowledge. (shrink)

The paper aims to provide an updated biography of Benet Perera in the historical background of the early years of the Collegio Romano. As one of the first teachers at the Collegio Romano, Benet Perera played a significant role in the debate on the different drafts of the Constitutiones and the Rationes studiorum of the Jesuit order, often generating criticisms among his colleagues and brothers in the faith. Debating on disciplines and methods of teaching, these discussions involved some (...) crucial topics from an epistemological point of view: mainly concerning the scientific status and role of metaphysics. (shrink)

Benet Perera started his philosophical career with lecturing philosophy at the Jesuit college in Rome in 1558. Although numerous documents reveal that his lectures were highly appreciated by his listeners, it seems that around the year 1564 Perera’s teachings were criticized by two of his colleagues at Rome, Diego de Ledesma and Achille Gagliardi. They feared Perera would give too much value to the Arab philosopher Averroes and that Perera’s method of teaching would pose a danger (...) to Christian doctrines by raising doubts whether those pious doctrines can be demonstrated within the framework of an Aristotelian philosophy. This article will shed light on the background of this affair by analyzing the questions of how Perera might have provoked the criticism and why his accusers were so keen on putting forward an investigation against Perera. It will become clear that Perera had rather philosophical motives for his method of teaching, whereas especially Ledesma had an explicitly pedagogical rationale for his criticism. By sketching this particular affair this article will also deliver an insight into early Jesuit efforts for and against censorship in teaching philosophy. (shrink)

El concepto cartesiano de una _mathesis universalis _tiene como antecedente histórico inmediato algunas de las ideas defendidas en el contexto de las discusiones del aristotelismo renacentista acerca de la certeza matemática y el puesto de las matemáticas en la clasificación de las ciencias. Una de las figuras principales en este debate es la del jesuita valenciano Benet Perera (1535 – 1610). A través de la presentación de una serie de pasajes extraídos de los manuscritos inéditos de Perera, en (...) este artículo analizamos la defensa que este autor realiza de la existencia de una ciencia matemática común, en relación con algunas de sus ideas fundamentales, como la impugnación del carácter científico de las matemáticas, o la división de la metafísica en una filosofía primera dedicada al ente en cuanto ente y una teología natural que estudia las inteligencias y Dios. (shrink)

Catalog of the collection of the Madamkhand Museum of Art, named after the wife of Batzhargalyn Batbai︠a︡r, businessman and member of the Mongolian Khural.