This review evaluates pros and cons of the schema theory as a general framework for expressing what Arbib et al. call “systems neuroscience.” We discuss the software/hardware duality of the schema concept and the relative neglect of the mechanical properties of muscles. We propose a computational alternative to the functional decomposition in terms of schemas.

Generalizing the notion that muscles are positional frames of reference, a high-dimensional muscle space is defined for multi-muscle systems with an embedded low-dimensional motor manifold of functional articulators. A central representation of such a manifold is proposed as computational body schema. The example of the jaw-tongue system is presented, discussing the relation of functional articulators with kinematic invariances and control problems.

In field computing a topologic organization of CFs is necessary to support sensorimotor planning. A simple model of cortical dynamics can exploit such topologic organization.

A deep investigation of proprioceptive processes is necessary to understand the relationship between sensory afferent inputs and motor outcomes. In this work, we investigate whether and how perception of wrist position is influenced by the direction along which the movement occurs. Most previous studies have tested Joint Position Sense through 1 degree of freedom wrist movements, such as flexion/extension or radial/ulnar deviation. However, the wrist joint has 3-DoF and many activities of daily living produce combined movements, requiring at least 2-DoF (...) wrist coordination. For this reason, in this study, target positions involved movement directions that combined wrist flexion or extension with radial or ulnar deviation. The chosen task was a robot-aided Joint Position Matching, in which blindfolded participants actively reproduced a previously passively assumed target joint configuration. The JPM performance of 20 healthy participants was quantified through measures of accuracy and precision, in terms of both perceived target direction and distance along each direction of movement. Twelve different directions of movement were selected and both hands tested. The left and right hand led to comparable results, both target extents and directions were differently perceived according to the target direction on the FE/RUD space. Moreover, during 2-DoF combined movements, subjects’ perception of directions was impaired when compared to 1-DoF target movements. In summary, our results showed that human perception of wrist position on the FE/RUD space is symmetric between hands but not isotropic among movement directions. (shrink)

Proprioception has a crucial role in promoting or hindering motor learning. In particular, an intact position sense strongly correlates with the chances of recovery after stroke. A great majority of neurological patients present both motor dysfunctions and impairments in kinesthesia, but traditional robot and virtual reality training techniques focus either in recovering motor functions or in assessing proprioceptive deficits. An open challenge is to implement effective and reliable tests and training protocols for proprioception that go beyond the mere position sense (...) evaluation and exploit the intrinsic bidirectionality of the kinesthetic sense, which refers to both sense of position and sense of movement. Modulated haptic interaction has a leading role in promoting sensorimotor integration and it is a natural way to enhance volitional effort. Therefore, we designed a preliminary clinical study to test a new proprioception-based motor training technique for augmenting kinesthetic awareness via haptic feedback. The feedback was provided by a robotic manipulandum and the test involved 7 chronic hemiparetic subjects over three weeks. The protocol included evaluation sessions, that consisted of a psychometric estimate of the subject’s kinesthetic sensation, and training sessions, in which the subject executed planar reaching movements in the absence of vision and under a minimally assistive haptic guidance made by sequences of graded force pulses. The bidirectional haptic interaction between the subject and the robot was optimally adapted to each participant in order to achieve a uniform task difficulty over the workspace. All the subjects consistently improved in the perceptual scores as a consequence of training. Moreover, they could minimize the level of haptic guidance in time. Results suggest that the proposed method is effective in enhancing kinesthetic acuity, but the level of impairment may affect the ability of subjects to retain their improvement in time. (shrink)

In human groups performing oscillatory tasks, it has been observed that the frequency of participants' oscillations reduces when compared to that acquired in solo. This experimental observation is not captured by the standard Kuramoto oscillators, often employed to model human synchronization. In this work, we aim at capturing this observed phenomenon by proposing three alternative modifications of the standard Kuramoto model that are based on three different biologically-relevant hypotheses underlying group synchronization. The three models are tuned, validated and compared against (...) experiments on a group synchronization task, which is a multi-agent extension of the so-called mirror game. (shrink)

Siamo ormai lontani dalla stagione in cui la forza propulsiva della “svolta linguistica” si impose come tendenza dominante nel dibattito filosofico. Da varie angolazioni si è potuto parlare negli ultimi anni di pictorial turn come antidoto all’egemonia del paradigma linguistico in filosofia. Il volume Verità, Immagine, Normatività. Truth, Image, and Normativity non si inserisce direttamente in questa nuova tendenza, ma ruota comunque intorno a questioni che derivano dal medesimo sfondo. I 24 saggi qui raccolti tengono conto dei diversi ruoli che (...) le immagini possono svolgere, a seconda che si focalizzi la loro dimensione descrittiva o normativa, e indagano alcuni aspetti del rapporto tra immagine e linguaggio. Questi problemi di filosofia dell’immagine, intesa sia come immagine cognitiva sia come immagine grafica, costituiscono il fil rouge di questo volume. Una tale riflessione sui linguaggi figurati e sulla comunicazione visiva non-linguistica costringe a riformulare in termini nuovi le grandi domande concernenti le tradizionali nozioni di verità, oggettività, normatività, consenso e persuasione. (shrink)

How is freedom valuable? And how should we go about defining freedom? In this essay, I discuss a distinction between two general ways of valuing freedom: one appeals to the good (e.g., to freedom's contribution to well-being); the other appeals to how persons have reason to treat one another in virtue of their status as purposive beings (to the right). The analysis of these two values has many relevant implications and it is preliminary to a better understanding of the relationships (...) between freedom and justice. First, it contributes to shed light on the relationship between trust and the value of freedom, and on two attitudes towards freedom – promoting and respecting freedom. Second, it disambiguates between two versions of the claim that freedom has non-specific/content-independent value: one appeals to the good, the other to the right. And third, I show that certain implications concerning the definition of freedom follow from assuming an account of the value of freedom that exclusively appeals to the right, illustrating how the value of freedom can shape what freedom is. (shrink)

Throughout his life, Jurij Lotman lived at the crossroad between different worlds, ages, and cultures. The many authors, cultures, and ideas that shaped his thought and influenced his theories are scattered at either side of countless geographical, political, and cultural borders, beginning with the one that separates “Russian culture” from “European culture,” porous and ambiguous as any boundary.The task of reconstructing how Lotman’s ideas came to being, how they shifted their meaning as their context shifted, is more and more a (...) crucial task not only for the historian. Many Lotmanian concepts, first and foremost that of semiosphere, are acquiring major relevance not only for semiotics itself and its branches, such as the rising political semiotics, but also for many neighboring disciplines, such as cultural studies and political sciences. Therefore, gaining a better understanding of the meaning of Lotman’s ideas could be of value also for the applied semiotician or the political analyst.The present paper is the result of research started in the Lotman Archives in Tallin, Estonia. Through an analysis of archival material, it aims at reconstructing the origins and meaning of the most political tropes of Lotman’s theories, especially what I will call his theory of the political subject. In the first part, I will argue that, in order to understand this political aspect of Lotman, it is necessary to take into consideration the intellectual debates inside which the author started his intellectual journey in 1930s–1940s Soviet Russia, and how he sought answers to those debates in the works of G. W. Leibniz.In the final part of the paper, I will try to show how this reconstruction of Lotman’s history could contribute to the contemporary debate in semiotics and other connected disciplines. (shrink)

During the second decade of the 20th century Hans Kleinpeter, an Austrian scholar devoted to the development of the modern science, published some brief papers on Nietzsche’s thought. Kleinpeter has been one of the main upholders of Mach’s epistemology and probably the first who connected his ideas with the philosophy of Nietzsche. In his book on Der Phänomenalismus (1913) he described a new world view that arose in the 19th century, a perspective that ‒ according to him ‒ completely contrasted (...) the mechanistic and metaphysical world view of the old school of scientific inquiry. The main outcome of the scientists whose name was related with this perspective (e.g. Clifford, Maxwell, Kirchoff and, obviously, Mach himself) has been the refusal of the absolute value of any “truth”. Kleinpeter’s statements on this topic are a good example of the rising of a Scientific Philosophy, whose development involved many scientists and thinkers that later set up the Verein Ernst Mach and the Wiener Kreis. On the other hand, his interest on Nietzsche is a relevant case of reception of the latter’s thought, that Kleinpeter puts into the context of the contemporary epistemology. In fact, he considers Nietzsche as one of the main upholders of the phenomenalistic world view, and states that he «took part at the same renewal of philosophical investigation that arose from the latest results of scientific inquiry» during the 19th century. A renewal whose main outcomes has been presented by John Stallo in his book on The Concepts and Theories of Modern Physics (1881), which Kleinpeter translated in German and published in 1901. According to Kleinpeter, in Nietzsche’s writings (mostly unpublished) one can find a theory of knowledge quite close to the one presented by both Mach and the new born Pragmatism, i.e. the complete refusal of an absolute truth and, therefore, the development of an antimetaphysical world view. In my paper I’ll discuss the main statements presented by Kleinpeter on this topic and show which of Nietzsche’s ideas has actually been in compliance with the main outcomes of late 19th century science. Thus, I’ll carry out a reconstruction of an unfamiliar side of the first period of reception of the philosophy of Nietzsche and its relevance to the development of a new (scientific) world view. (shrink)

Stephen Turner’s anti-normativism is based on the idea that the normative can be explained away by social science. Exploiting the idea fostered by the sociology of scientific knowledge that reasons can be understood naturalistically as the causes of the beliefs of scientists and endorsing a non-normative conception of rationality, Turner has argued that normative accounts are better understood as “Good Bad Theories” (GBT). GBT are understood as false accounts that play a role in social coordination like magical or religious rituals (...) in primitive societies (e.g. Tabu and the like). According to Turner, “norms,” “obligations,” “reasons,” and “commitments” are like Tabu and can be explained away as GBT. Hence, Turner expected normative accounts to disappear completely in a fully disenchanted world. Turner focuses on the idea, widespread among philosophers, that the normative does not reduce to the causal: his main claim is that social science succeeds in the reduction of the normative in causal terms, overcoming normative/causal dualism. Furthermore, this success is presented as creating a serious challenge for normativism. By focusing on certain (supposedly normative) features of beliefs like those involved in belief change dynamics, I will point out some interesting implications and problems for Turner’s anti-normativism. (shrink)

The recent Italian translation of the writings on language of J.G. Fichte draws attention to a chapter in German classical philosophy which so far has not aroused great interest. The volume brings together four texts: 1) Von der Sprachfähigkeit und dem Ursprung der Sprache, 2) Über den Ursprung der Sprache, 3) Von der Sprachfähigkeit, 4) Über den Ursprung der Sprache überhaupt. The first of these four texts is the most important: it is the only work by Fichte thematically devoted to (...) the problem of language. It is a 1795 essay published in the Philosophisches Journal einer Gesellschaft Teutscher Gelehrten edited by F.I. Niethammer partly in the third and partly in the fourth fascicle of that year. The other writings are linked to Fichte’s work in that period as a lecturer at the University of Jena. They are notes by the author and transcriptions of his university courses. Fichte’s lectures were based on the Philosophische Aphorismen by Ernst Platner and it was precisely in commenting on the chapter on language in Platner’s text that Fichte worked out his own reflections on language. In Fichte’s corpus there is not much else on language: some pages in Reden an die deutsche Nation and a few other observations in the other works. (shrink)

The recent Italian translation of the writings on language of J.G. Fichte draws attention to a chapter in German classical philosophy which so far has not aroused great interest. The volume brings together four texts: 1) Von der Sprachfähigkeit und dem Ursprung der Sprache, 2) Über den Ursprung der Sprache, 3) Von der Sprachfähigkeit, 4) Über den Ursprung der Sprache überhaupt. The first of these four texts is the most important: it is the only work by Fichte thematically devoted to (...) the problem of language. It is a 1795 essay published in the Philosophisches Journal einer Gesellschaft Teutscher Gelehrten edited by F.I. Niethammer partly in the third and partly in the fourth fascicle of that year. The other writings are linked to Fichte’s work in that period as a lecturer at the University of Jena. They are notes by the author and transcriptions of his university courses. Fichte’s lectures were based on the Philosophische Aphorismen by Ernst Platner and it was precisely in commenting on the chapter on language in Platner’s text that Fichte worked out his own reflections on language. In Fichte’s corpus there is not much else on language: some pages in Reden an die deutsche Nation and a few other observations in the other works. (shrink)

In a note to G.R.S. Mead’s "Quests Old and New", where he found a section devoted to Hans Vaihinger’s main ideas, Fernando Pessoa reflects on the consequences of the fictionalist approach to both our perception of the I and the value of consciousness. These questions correspond to some statements that we find in Nietzsche’s writings, which in particular Vaihinger refers to in his Die Philosophie des Als-ob. Our aim is thus to compare Nietzsche’s and Pessoa’s view of the I and (...) consciousness, and to deal with their psychology by making reference to Vaihinger’s fictionalism. (shrink)

During his late period, Nietzsche focused on the problem of the “value of truth”, since according to him it plays an important role on Western culture and its anthropology. That reflection had been influenced by some outcomes of the late-nineteenth century scientific research, and can be therefore compared with other strategies that, during those years, faced the relativism implied in modern epistemology, e.g. William James’s Pragmatism. This paper aims to explore the pragmatic feature of Nietzsche’s investigation on truth. As will (...) be shown, Nietzsche’s perspectival thought can indeed be compared with classic Pragmatism on several aspects, e.g. the cultural context out of which both these philosophical position arised, and the broad consequences of their impact on European culture. (shrink)

Several treatises have come down to us from Christian antiquity devoted to the defence of the dogma of the resurrection of the flesh. Such works are mutually connected by evident similarities in the content and often by literary dependence. The treatise On the resurrection attributed to Justin Martyr is preserved almost exclusively in the Sacra Parallela. This has been used as a source by different authors, e.g. Tertullian and Methodius of Olympus. According to the optimistic viewpoint of recent scholars, the (...) text which is included in the Sacra Parallela represents nearly the totality of the original text. However, this article, by combining the text of Tertullian and Methodius of Olympus, aims to reconstruct some now lost passages of περὶ ἀναστάσεως which are devoted to biblical exegesis or which demonstrate the resurrection of the flesh on the basis of philosophical thought. (shrink)

Interest in _dream_ and _madness_, conceived as the loss of a world shared with others, and the individual’s entry into a private world governed by a personal logic unrelated to the waking state and to common feeling, recurs in at least three of Kant’s works: _Essay on the Diseases of the Head,_ (1764), _Dreams of a Spirit-Seer_ (1766), and _Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View_ (1798). Hegel too, from an early age, showed a strong fascination and a precocious interest (...) in psychopathological matters (states of altered consciousness, prophetic dreams, somnambulism, catalepsy, witchcraft etc.) to which he devoted intriguing reflections in various works from different periods: from the Berne Ms _Philosophy of Subjective Spirit_ (1794/95) to the _Phenomenology _(1807), from the _Philosophical __Propaedeutics_ (1808ff.) to the _Encyclopedia of the Philosophical Sciences_ (1830 3 ). Starting from the remarks of the two philosophers, this paper aims to underline the conceptual links between their thought and that of some renowned psychologists and psychiatrists of the 1800s-1900s (Pinel, Janet, Adler, James, Binswanger, Freud et al.). On the other hand, the paper also seeks to show – within the framework of an idea of _reason_ dating back to Heraclitus (about 544/483 B.C.) – some murky motifs, not always adequately emphasized in the past, found in the figurative and literary works of the late 1700s (e.g. Fuseli’s_ The Nightmare_, Coleridge’s _The Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner_, and, in particular, plate Nr. 43 of the _Caprichos _by Goya, _El sueño de la razón produce monstruos_), where there emerges a «dark side» of psychic activity emblematically described as the cryptic relationship between _dream_ and_ madness._. (shrink)

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)

This perspective paper aims at discussing theoretical principles that could explain how emotion regulation and physical diseases mutually influence each other in the context of borderline personality disorder (BPD). Furthermore, this paper discusses the clinical implications of the functional relationships between emotion regulation, BPD and medical conditions considering dialectical behavior therapy (DBT) as a well-validated therapeutic intervention, which encompasses these issues. The inflexible use of maladaptive emotion regulation strategies (e.g., suppression, experiential avoidance, and rumination) might directly increase the probability of (...) developing physical diseases through a physiological pathway, or indirectly through a behavioral pathway. Some metabolic and chronic medical conditions could significantly impact emotional functioning through biological alterations involved in emotion regulation. Several empirical studies have shown high co-occurrence rates between BPD and several chronic physical diseases, especially ones linked to emotion-based maladaptive behaviors. DBT addresses physical diseases reported by individuals with BPD reducing problematic behaviors functionally associated to emotion dysregulation and identifying physical health as a goal forBuilding a Life Worth Living. (shrink)

This paper sets out to explore the relation between social argumentation and inner debate by taking into account suggestions from argumentation studies and from social and discursive psychology. It develops Dascal’s (2005) claim that there are metonymical and structural relations between the two realms of debate by substantiating it with data taken from international migrants’ inner debates at moments of difficult decisions. The data are drawn from the experience of migrating mothers who have to decide whether to go back or (...) to remain in their host country (the UK). I show that others are present in migrants’ multivoiced decisions in two important senses: first, inner debates can be reconstructed as critical discussions (van Eemeren and Grootendorst 1984). Second, the locus from analogy has the special function of allowing the comparison between the migrant’s experience and someone else’s experience. (shrink)

This paper sets out to explore the relation between social argumentation and inner debate by taking into account suggestions from argumentation studies and from social and discursive psychology. It develops Dascal’s claim that there are metonymical and structural relations between the two realms of debate by substantiating it with data taken from international migrants’ inner debates at moments of difficult decisions. The data are drawn from the experience of migrating mothers who have to decide whether to go back or to (...) remain in their host country. I show that others are present in migrants’ multivoiced decisions in two important senses: first, inner debates can be reconstructed as critical discussions. Second, the locus from analogy has the special function of allowing the comparison between the migrant’s experience and someone else’s experience. (shrink)