Motor learning can be defined as a process that leads to relatively permanent changes in motor behavior through repeated interactions with the environment. Different strategies can be adopted to achieve motor learning: movements can be overtly practiced leading to an amelioration of motor performance; alternatively, covert strategies (e.g., action observation) can promote neuroplastic changes in the motor system even in the absence of real movement execution. However, whether a training regularly alternating action observation and execution (i.e., Action Observation Training, AOT) (...) may surpass the pure motor practice (MP) and observational learning (OL) remains to be established. To address this issue, we enrolled 54 subjects requiring them to learn tying nautical knots via one out of three types of training (AOT, MP, OL) with the scope to investigate which element mostly contributes to motor learning. We evaluated the overall improvement of each group, along with the predictive role that neuropsychological indexes exert on each treatment outcome. The AOT group exhibited the highest performance improvement (42%), indicating that the regular alternation between observation and execution biases participants toward a better performance. The reiteration of this sequence provides an incremental, adjunct value that super-adds onto the efficacy of motor practice or observational learning in isolation (42% > 25% + 10%, i.e., OL + MP). These findings extend the use of the AOT from clinical and rehabilitative contexts to daily routines requiring the learning and perfectioning of new motor skills such as sports training, music, and occupational activities requiring fine motor control. (shrink)

From the first books published by Jean-Paul Sartre, it is possible to observe the criticism that the French author makes to the Western metaphysical tradition, directed specifically at philosophers of modernity. For example, L'imagination and L'Imaginaire are two texts dedicated to questioning “the great metaphysical systems”. Furthermore, in these early investigations, Sartre discovers a principle that would allow him to elabo- rate his work Being and nothingness. What is this principle? The main objective of this essay is to determine this (...) principle and its importance in the elaboration of Being and nothingness. In order to achieve this purpose, I will analyze Sartre's criticism of modern philosophers (Descartes and Hume) and his proposal to overcome what Sartre himself calls: the “naive metaphysics of the image” (1978, p. 9), which is nothing more than the fact of reifying the image. (shrink)

Desde inicios del siglo xx la filosofía parecía haber despachado la legitimidad del realismo, llamando a la descripción del mundo dentro de los límites de nuestra subjetividad. El agotamiento y los problemas de esta premisa filosófica han sido finalmente enunciados y señalados por el realismo especulativo. En el presente artículo mostramos de qué manera tres de sus representantes más reconocidos, Meillassoux, Harman y Gabriel, llevan a cabo esta tarea. Pero para evitar una posición ingenua, este realismo se expresa de forma (...) especulativa, es decir, a partir de argumentos lógicos, matemáticos y abstractos que no carecen de problemas. Después de una breve exposición de sus filosofías, presentamos problemas centrales en ellas que se derivan de una falta de reflexión sobre los recursos lógicos y matemáticos que emplean explícita o implícitamente. Mostramos que la constante en todos ellos consiste tanto en un desconocimiento de las paradojas de autorreferencia que ponen en juego, como en la falta de una teoría de relaciones reales que explique las relaciones sujeto-objeto y objeto-objeto. Concluimos con una breve referencia a Fréredic Nef para mostrar qué puntos debería considerar una teoría general de relaciones. (shrink)

El autor trabaja en este artículo una de las obras más citadas y controvertidas del Hegel de su periodo maduro cual es los Principios de la Filosofía del Derecho o Derecho Natural y Ciencia Política, comúnmente conocida como Filosofía del Derecho y desarrolla algunos temas que permanecen como cuestiones abiertas al debate o como aspectos objetables, tanto en su teoría del espíritu objetivo como en su interpretación.

Interest in the intersection between bilingualism and cognitive control and accessibility to neuroimaging methods have resulted in numerous studies with a variety of interpretations of the bilingual cognitive advantage. Neurocomputational Emergentism (or Neuroemergentism for short) is a new framework for understanding this relationship between bilingualism and cognitive control. This framework considers Emergence, in which two small elements are recombined in an interactive manner, yielding a non-linear effect. Added to this is the notion that Emergence can be captured in neural systems (...) using computationally inspired models. This review poses that bilingualism and cognitive control, as examined through the Neuroemergentist framework, are interwoven through development and involve the non-linear growth of cognitive processing encompassing brain areas that combine and recombine, in symbiotic and parasitic ways, in order to handle more complex types of processing. The models that have sought to explain the neural substrates of bilingual cognitive differences will be discussed with a reinterpretation of the entire bilingual cognitive advantage within a Neuroemergentist framework incorporating its neural bases. It will conclude by discussing how this new Neuroemergentist approach alters our view of the effects of language experience on cognitive control. Avenues to move beyond the simple notion of a bilingual advantage or lack thereof will be proposed. (shrink)

El autor sigue a Ana Arendt para examinar el tema de la responsabilidad personal bajo dictadura. Ante el argumento de que no había opciones pues se era una ‘ruedecilla del engranaje’, afirma que el mal menor no deja de ser un mal, y que la verdadera pregunta moral no es ‘por qué obedeciste’ sino ‘por qué ayudaste’.

The contribution describes some aspects related to the representation of special curves; recalling mechanisms created specifically for the design of these curves, which have particular characteristics. Through the construction of a simple apparatus, consisting of two pendulums—which oscillate at the same time- it is possible to graphically reproduce Lissajous’ experiments on the commuting vibrations of the diapasons. This equipment was first built by Samuel Charles Tisley (London 1829-Unknown), under the name of harmonographer. The contribution aslo illustrates the essential characteristics of (...) the harmonograph—born as a means of analysing vibrations—but which, by its principle belongs to mechanics, for its applications to acoustic science and geometry for the ability to draw “harmonious” curves. (shrink)

Inspired by Columbus, Spaniards set out on an adventurous voyage of the circumnavigation of the globe and, to their surprise, encountered a new continent.This is the essential fact. There were no preliminaries, no previous knowledge, but an abrupt and unexpected meeting between a handful of men who represented the mentality of Spain at the end of the 15th century and an immense geographical panorama that slowly and continuously unfolded, populated by beings for whom there was not even a name and (...) who represented native cultures in different stages of devopment with no previous contact with Europeans, almost diametrically opposed in values, concepts and mentalities to what the transatlantic navigators represented and brought with them. (shrink)

En sus primeros escritos fenomenológicos, Jean-Paul Sartre sostiene la tesis de que la conciencia es exterioridad pura, es decir, no existe interioridad en la conciencia que pudiese albergar instancias metafísicas, como lo podría ser el yo, el cogito, el inconsciente, etc. Ya para El ser y la nada, el filósofo francés mantendrá dicha tesis, profundizándola y estableciendo un diálogo con su teoría del ser. En esta medida, el artículo se propone explorar tal relación, para conocer el lugar que ocupa la (...) noción de conciencia en el Ser y la nada. (shrink)

This paper examines how international law contributes to contemporary understandings of transitional justice with respect to reparations for victims of gross and systematic human rights abuses. The author surveys the jurisprudence of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights through 2003 to determine how the Court’s practice can be used to guide the formulation of reparatory policies during political transition. Recognizing that the direct application of Inter-American case law to situations of mass atrocity is not always viable in practice, the author (...) analyzes regional human rights jurisprudence, particularly that relating to compensation, to determine what role the Court’s rules can and cannot play as a reference for policymakers and societies faced with the challenge of designing a reparations program. He concludes that while landmark Court decisions like Velásquez Rodríguez provide general normative guidance, there are significant obstacles to extending to the transitional justice context many of the measures, amounts, and formulas relied upon by the Court in awarding compensation. The fairness of compensation outside the courtroom cannot be determined with reference to predetermined rules, but depends on the factual context in which the measures are adopted including the number of victims involved. A better source of comparative inspiration is found in the Court’s growing practice of adopting non-monetary reparations measures to deal with moral harm. (shrink)

The settler-colonial and republican principles of early U.S. politics tend to be studied as paradoxical ambitions of American nation-building. This article argues that early republican thought in the United States developed through what I call ‘ideological code-switching’, a vernacular practice that allowed popular actors to strategically vacillate between anti-colonial and neo-colonial discourses as complementary principles of revolutionary change. I illustrate these claims by tracing a genealogy of anti- and neo-colonial thought from the founding of the United States to its transnational (...) emergence in the U.S.-Mexico borderlands. I demonstrate that ideological code-switching first appeared as a rhetorical strategy among the Federalist debates, where Publius argued for the feasibility of expansionist republics via a hemispheric account of American exceptionalism. These appeals to hemispheric unity remained salient into the nineteenth century among groups like the ‘Republicans of ‘Nacogdoches’, a militia comprised of Indigenous, Mestizo, and White actors that mobilized an attack on Spain and founded the Republic of Texas in April of 1813. Drawing on archival research, I turn to the U.S.-Mexico borderlands as an example of the way marginalized groups instrumentalized links between anti- and neo-colonial politics to envision their position in the rapidly evolving landscapes of transnational revolution. (shrink)

This essay has two goals. The first is to define the behavioristic study of natural events and to classify behavior. The second is to stress the importance of the concept of purpose.Given any object, relatively abstracted from its surroundings for study, the behavioristic approach consists in the examination of the output of the object and of the relations of this output to the input. By output is meant any change produced in the surroundings by the object. By input, conversely, is (...) meant any event external to the object that modifies this object in any manner. (shrink)

Con una belleza literaria incomparable, la Comedìa refleja la cosmovisión católica que vertebra la Cristiandad medieval, que tuvo su máximo exponente filosófico y teológico en santo Tomás. A lo largo de todo el itinerario poético, vemos la impronta del Aquinate presente en el meollo de la narración. Aquí analizaré cómo la cuestión teológica fundamental del gobierno divino del mundo permea la Comedìa, tanto en su estructura formal como en ciertos aspectos concretos del viaje de Dante. A partir de dicha premisa, (...) estudiaré las consecuencias que ello tiene en ese orden jurídico manifestado en la «arquitectura» del infierno, cuyo dintel es elocuente: «Giustizia mosse il mio alto fattore; / fecemi la divina podestate, / la somma sapienza e ‘l primo amore». Finalmente, abordaré la proporcionalidad de las penas que sufren los condenados, como indicador de la medida natural de los castigos dictados por justicia divina. (shrink)

La polarización, los populismos y la posverdad forman tres fenómenos sociopolíticos fundamentales para comprender cómo se está orientando la política en los sistemas demoliberales. La polarización política se suele entender como un proceso dinámico de activación de las divisiones entre dos o más grupos sociales en el transcurso de los debates públicos que puede terminar con una ruptura comunicativa o una comunicación fallida. Si bien los especialistas no coinciden a la hora de definir el populismo, se puede comprender como una (...) forma concreta de construir el pueblo mediante un discurso que contrapone este al anti-pueblo. La posverdad se referiría a una tendencia cultural donde las verdades de hecho sufren una merma en favor de las verdades vivenciadas subjetivamente. Estos fenómenos tienden a ser percibidos por una buena parte de la sociedad y del mundo académico como una amenaza grave para las bases pluralistas y reflexivas de la democracia. Sin embargo, esa consideración está decantada normativamente. Este artículo trata de explorar un marco referencial diferente, el emotivismo, y cómo, desde este ángulo, toman sentido los tres conceptos clave: polarización, populismo y posverdad. (shrink)

La percepción puede proponerse como uno de los factores centrales que propician el inicio de procesos semiósicos. La complejidad de esta primera fase cognitiva exige una perspectiva trans e interdisciplinar. Así, desde una postura biosemiótica, trataremos de proponer uno de los conceptos centrales de esta novel teoría, a saber, ‘biosemiosis’. Para ello, nos apoyaremos en ciertos experimentos emanados de las neurociencias. Esta vinculación, en la actualidad, ya no debe resultar extraña si comprendemos que, en nuestro caso, el ser humano es (...) una entidad compuesta por dos esferas fundamentales: la biológica y la cultural. Nos encontramos en un momento en el que el Universo puede entenderse como una enorme red interconectada. Así, la cooperación entre diferentes campos del conocimiento permitirá una mejor comprensión de dichas redes. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: References.

El interés por caracterizar la noción del entendimiento científico es relativamente nuevo, no obstante que el término ha sido ampliamente utilizado en la literatura científica y filosófica, sin mencionar muchas otras. Como aportación a las investigaciones actuales sobre esta noción, el objetivo del siguiente escrito es presentar un análisis crítico de la relación entre el entendimiento científico y las emociones.

In the context of life sciences, we are constantly confronted with information that possesses precise semantic values and appears essentially immersed in a specific evolutionary trend. In such a framework, Nature appears, in Monod’s words, as a tinkerer characterized by the presence of precise principles of self-organization. However, while Monod was obliged to incorporate his brilliant intuitions into the framework of first-order cybernetics and a theory of information with an exclusively syntactic character such as that defined by Shannon, research advances (...) in recent decades have led not only to the definition of a second-order cybernetics but also to an exploration of the boundaries of semantic information. As H. Atlan states, on a biological level "the function self-organizes together with its meaning". Hence the need to refer to a conceptual theory of complexity and to a theory of self-organization characterized in an intentional sense. There is also a need to introduce, at the genetic level, a distinction between coder and ruler as well as the opportunity to define a real software space for natural evolution. The recourse to non-standard model theory, the opening to a new general semantics, and the innovative definition of the relationship between coder and ruler can be considered, today, among the most powerful theoretical tools at our disposal in order to correctly define the contours of that new conceptual revolution increasingly referred to as metabiology. This book focuses on identifying and investigating the role played by these particular theoretical tools in the development of this new scientific paradigm. Nature "speaks" by means of mathematical forms: we can observe these forms, but they are, at the same time, inside us as they populate our organs of cognition. In this context, the volume highlights how metabiology appears primarily to refer to the growth itself of our instruments of participatory knowledge of the world. (shrink)

In 1985, when I graduated from medical school, I thought that medicine in 2018 would be more advanced than it is today. Coloring that view were the dizzying medical advances made from 1950 to 1980, three decades that were Figure 1 Major biomedical advances as a function of the time perhaps the most innovative period in modern medicine. Recent times have seen fewer revolutionary advances, although remarkable progress continues to be made in certain areas, including imaging of disease, the treatment (...) of retroviral infections such as those caused by HIV and hepatitis C virus, nucleic acid-based diagnostics, and cancer immunotherapy. The critical question is not whether we are continuing to make progress... (shrink)

Original, or 'old', institutional economics (OIE) – also known as 'institutionalism' – played a key role in its early stages; it could be said that it was once the 'mainstream economics' of the time. This period ran approximately from the first important contributions of Thorstein Veblen in 1898 to the implementation of the New Deal in the early 1930s, where many institutionalists played a significant role. However, notwithstanding its promising scientific and institutional affirmation, institutional economics underwent a period of marked (...) decline that spanned from the mid-1930s to the late 1980s, when a new season for institutional economics was set in motion. In order to cast some light on this complex issue – without any claim of completeness – we have organised the work as follows: in the first section we consider the main interpretations of this phenomenon. In the subsequent sections we analyse a number of 'endogenous' aspects which might have played a significant role in the period of decline: (i) the relations of institutional economics with Keynes's macroeconomic theory; (ii) the links between theoretical and empirical analysis and the supposed lack of a clear theory; (iii) the interdisciplinary orientation. (shrink)

Reconstructing the genetic traits of the Last Common Ancestor and the Tree of Life are two examples of the reaches of contemporary molecular phylogenetics. Nevertheless, the whole enterprise has led to paradoxical results. The presence of Lateral Gene Transfer poses epistemic and empirical challenges to meet these goals; the discussion around this subject has been enriched by arguments from philosophers and historians of science. At the same time, a few but influential research groups have aimed to reconstruct the LCA with (...) rich-in-detail hypotheses and high-resolution gene catalogs and metabolic traits. We argue that LGT poses insurmountable challenges for detailed and rich in details reconstructions and propose, instead, a middle-ground position with the reconstruction of a slim LCA based on traits under strong pressures of Negative Natural Selection, and for the need of consilience with evidence from organismal biology and geochemistry. We defend a cautionary perspective that goes beyond the statistical analysis of gene similarities and assumes the broader consequences of evolving empirical data and epistemic pluralism in the reconstruction of early life. (shrink)

The brain displays both the anatomical features of a vast amount of interconnected topological mappings as well as the functional features of a nonlinear, metastable system at the edge of chaos, equipped with a phase space where mental random walks tend towards lower energetic basins. Nevertheless, with the exception of some advanced neuro-anatomic descriptions and present-day connectomic research, very few studies have been addressing the topological path of a brain embedded or embodied in its external and internal environment. Herein, by (...) using new formal tools derived from algebraic topology, we provide an account of the metastable brain, based on the neuro-scientific model of Operational Architectonics of brain-mind functioning. We introduce a “topodynamic” description that shows how the relationships among the countless intertwined spatio-temporal levels of brain functioning can be assessed in terms of projections and mappings that take place on abstract structures, equipped with different dimensions, curvatures and energetic constraints. Such a topodynamical approach, apart from providing a biologically plausible model of brain function that can be operationalized, is also able to tackle the issue of a long-standing dichotomy: it throws indeed a bridge between the subjective, immediate datum of the naïve complex of sensations and mentations and the objective, quantitative, data extracted from experimental neuro-scientific procedures. Importantly, it opens the door to a series of new predictions and future directions of advancement for neuroscientific research. (shrink)

Arthur Danto believed that “style has to be expressed immediately and spontaneously.” Danto writes that “the question of when is a thing an artwork becomes one with the question of when is an interpretation of a thing an artistic interpretation”. His extensive art criticism focuses, then, on the way artworks are about. The presence of a metaphor and the demand for interpretation are insufficient to draw the demarcation line between art and not‐art. A work of art ought to be “a (...) piece of visual thought”. Danto's own style was an invitation, almost intimate, to engage his enticing and entertaining way of thinking. His writing creates the impression that he is speaking and simply registering his thoughts and imaginings as they come. (shrink)

This essay proposes going beyond the difference between literary writing and new communication technologies. This appears to be possible by using a genealogical perspective that can recognize the underlying relationships between communication strategies that on the surface seem different. For this, it is necessary to identify the remote and unexpected ascendancies of diverse languages at a moment when the various media express themselves in an increasingly similar style. Even literary language should be considered a medium that shapes and models reality, (...) using codes that are anthropological before they are aesthetic. As Viktor Shklovsky, Italo Calvino, and Paolo Fabbri have shown, literary language explores reality by revealing its incompleteness. On the contrary, ordinary language is confined to that incompleteness with its standard lexicon that would claim to enclose reality within a net of pre-established recurrences. Il saggio invita ad andare oltre il divario esistente tra scrittura letteraria e nuove tecnologie della comunicazione . Questo appare possibile attraverso una prospettiva genealogica che sappia riconoscere le relazioni sotterranee che si stabiliscono tra strategie comunicative che in superficie appaiono diverse. Per questo occorre riconoscere le ascendenze remote e inaspettate dei diversi linguaggi in un momento in cui i vari media si esprimono in maniera sempre più intrecciata. Anche il linguaggio letterario va considerato come un medium che foggia e plasma la realtà utilizzando codici che sono antropologici prima ancora che essere estetici. Come hanno mostrato sia pure in maniera diversa Viktor Šklovskij, Italo Calvino e Paolo Fabbri, il linguaggio letterario esplora la realtà, rivelandone l’incompiutezza alla quale è inchiodato il linguaggio ordinario: quel lessico usuale che pretenderebbe di racchiudere la realtà entro una griglia di ricorrenze prestabilite. (shrink)

In this work we analyse the main interpretations of ownership in Original Institutional Economics (OIE) and their links with pragmatist psychology and psychoanalysis. We consider Thorstein Veblen's notion of ownership as a relation of possession of persons, and John R.Commons's distinction between “corporeal” and “intangible” property, that marks the shift from a material possession of goods and arbitrary power over the workers to the development of human faculties in a more participatory environment. For space reasons we do not address other (...) contributions developed both by the OIE and by the New Institutional Economics. We then consider a number of contributions of pragmatist social psychology and psychoanalysis that, although not dealing directly with the notion of ownership, can cast light not only on the private and “material“ aspects of ownership but also on its collective and “relational aspects”. The reason why we consider it useful to address different perspectives is that, as observed by the famous sociologist Karl Mannheim (1952), a landscape can be seen only from a determined perspective and without perspective there is no landscape. Hence, observing a landscape (or phenomenon) from different angles (or disciplines) can help to acquire a much clearer insight into the features of the various perspectives. And this is one of the main advantage of a pluralist approach to the study of economic and social phenomena, also aimed at overcoming the fragmentation so often present in social sciences. In this light, the interpretative theories that we address, however different in many respects, present notable complementarities, in the sense that the aspects more overlooked by some are more completely considered by the others. In our work, these different but complementary notions of ownership can help illuminate the manifold aspects of human relations, also with a view to provide a more tailored policy action for the solution of their more problematic aspects. (shrink)

En este artículo se intenta entregar una visión sintética de un tema tan complejo como la realidad personal del ser humano. La reflexión de Jacques Maritain alienta y alimenta las perspectivas antropológicas que dan cuenta de la conformación del hombre, de sus características propias, de su ser personal, de su dignidad irrenunciable, de su necesidad de contar con los otros para constituir la sociedad, de proyectarse en el ámbito específico de lo político; y –finalmente– de asegurar, profundizar y extender su (...) libertad. (shrink)

John Dewey es una de las figuras más representativas de la filosofía pragmatista, enfoque este que aplicó sistemáticamente al estudio de la estructura social y cultural. En este artículo el foco de análisis se concentrará en los aspectos principales del enfoque de Dewey al estudio de los aspectos que constituyen la “naturaleza humana” y en cómo ellos interactúan con las características del contexto cultural. Se ilustrará cómo los conceptos elaborados por Dewey pueden contribuir al análisis heterodoxo de una serie de (...) asuntos económicos y sociales. Dewey subraya el papel crucial de las políticas públicas para facilitar el desarrollo de asociaciones voluntarias en todas las áreas de la estructura social. En el análisis de estos aspectos la contribución central de Dewey radica en cambiar los conceptos de democracia y participación del limbo de la abstracción en la que tienden a ser confinados por los enfoques anteriores, y en conectarlos con la evolución de las formas sociales económicas y sociales. (shrink)

The aim of this work is to illustrate the psychological contributions of Pragmatism and of the Original Institutional Economics (also referred to as OIE or institutionalism), and their relevance for improving the process of social valuing and, as a consequence, the effectiveness of policy action. As a matter of fact, both institutionalist and pragmatist theories were well acquainted with various strands of psychology, and some of them also provided relevant contributions in this respect. Moreover, these theories reveal, along with various (...) differences, significant complementarities, both between themselves and with important concepts of social psychology and psychoanalysis. The work will address the following aspects: (I) The main characteristics of pragmatist psychology with particular attention to their social implications. For space reasons, we will focus attention on the contributions of authors – John Dewey, William James and George Herbert Mead – more oriented to social sciences. (II) The psychological contributions of institutionalism. We will pay particular attention to Thorstein Veblen's theory of instincts and John Rogers Commons' theory of negotiational psychology. We highlight that these theories present, despite a number of differences, relevant complementarities. (shrink)