This paper explores the effect of different types of incubation task (visual, numerical and verbal) with various levels of attentional focus and cognitive effort (non-demanding, low-demanding and high-demanding) on the resolution of insight problems. The most effective was found to be the low-demanding task (regardless of its nature), which although requiring attentional focus, leaves resources available for the unconscious analytical restructuring process, obtaining a high percentage of success in solving the problem shortly after completion of the incubation task. Overall findings (...) support the hypothesis of Unconscious Analytic Thought (UAT), according to which the restructuring required in insight problem solving implies a covert thinking process that includes a relevant, analytic and goal-oriented search. The findings are discussed in the light of UAT and are compared with the main theories of insight in problem solving. (shrink)

This study aims at identifying the tools necessary for COVID-19 health emergency management, with particular reference to the period following the first lockdown, a crucial phase in which it was important to favor the maintenance of protective behaviors. It also aims at identifying the messages and sources that were most effective in managing communication correctly in such a crucial phase that is likely characterized by a fall in perceived health risk (due to the flattening of the epidemic curve) and a (...) simultaneous rise in perceived economic and social risks (due to the enduring calamity). Knowing what source will be most effective to convey a specific message is fundamental in enabling individuals to focus on and comply with the rules. At the same time, it is necessary to understand how the message should be presented, and the relationships between messages, sources and targets. To meet these goals, data were collected through a self-administered online questionnaire submitted to a sample of undergraduate students from a University in Lombardy–the region most affected by the pandemic in the first wave- (Study 1), and to a national sample composed of Italian citizens (Study 2). Through our first manipulation which explored the effectiveness of social norms in relation to different sources, we found that, in the national sample, the injunctive norm conveyed by the government was the most effective in promoting behavioral intentions. By contrast, among the students, results showed that for the critical group with a lower risk perception (less inclined to adopt prevention behavior) descriptive norms, which implicitly convey the risk perception of peers, were as effective as the government injunctive norm. Our second manipulation, identical in Study 1 and 2, compared four types of communication (emotional, exponential growth, both of them, or neutral). The neutral condition was the most memorable, but no condition was more effective than the others. Across all message types there was a high intention to adopt protective behaviors. The results indicate possible applicative implications of the adopted communicative tools. (shrink)

The disjunction effect (Tversky & Shafir, 1992) occurs when decision makers prefer option x (versus y) when knowing that event A occurs and also when knowing that event A does not occur, but they refuse x (or prefer y) when not knowing whether or not A occurs. This form of incoherence violates Savage's (1954) sure-thing principle, one of the basic axioms of the rational theory of decision making. The phenomenon was attributed to a lack of clear reasons for accepting an (...) option (x) when subjects are under uncertainty. Through a pragmatic analysis of the task and a consequent reformulation of it, we show that the effect does not depend on the presence of uncertainty, but on the introduction of non-relevant goals into the text problem, in both the well-known Gamble problem and the Hawaii problem. (shrink)

Language and thought share a unitary cognitive activity, addressed by an interpretative function. This interpretative effort reveals the assonance between the attribution of meaning to an utterance and the discovery of a solution via restructuring in insight problem solving. We suggest a view of complex integrated analytical thinking, which assumes that thinking processes information in different ways, depending on the characteristics of the tasks the subject has to solve, so that reasoning results in a stepwise, rule-based process or in a (...) widespread activity of search where implicit parallel processes are also involved. We investigated the interrelationship between language and thought in insight problem solving, in both its positive (Experiments 1 and 3) and its negative effects (Experiment 2). Our results are discussed in the light of the debate on dual processing theories. (shrink)

Language pragmatics is applied to analyse problem statements and instructions used in a few influential experimental tasks in the psychology of reasoning. This analysis aims to determine the interpretation of the task which the participant is likely to construct. It is applied to studies of deduction (where the interpretation of quantifiers and connectives is crucial) and to studies of inclusion judgment and probabilistic judgment. It is shown that the interpretation of the problem statements or even the representation of the task (...) as a whole often turn out to differ from the experimenter's assumptions. This has serious consequences for the validity of these experimental results and therefore for the claims about human irrationality based on them. (shrink)

The study of insight problem solving could well become one of the most important topics in the contemporary debate on thought. Dealing with insight problems today requires of necessity reconsidering the concept of bounded rationality. Simon’s work has inspired us to reflect on the specific quality of the type of boundaries which, by limiting the search, allow and guarantee the act of creativity; finding the solution to insight problems is emblematic of this creativity and provides a paradigmatic case. According to (...) Simon, the solution to insight problems requires a search for an alternative space. He considered the “Notice Invariants Heuristic” to be a powerful tool for focusing this search which must always be guided by salience. Therefore, in the case of insight problems the heuristic is not a weak method of solving problems; indeed, it is the only way, an innovative and creative approach to reach the solution. In our view, the solution to these problems is not attained by abstraction, but only by a pertinent interpretation of the context (interpretative heuristic) in the light of the goal, allowing the problem solver to abandon the default representation. We therefore propose that this interpretative heuristic is inherent to all insight problem solving processes and, in more general terms, is an adaptive characteristic of the human cognitive system; this of course implies that the dual process theory will have to be challenged and discussed. (shrink)

The formulation of the conditional probability in classical tasks does not guarantee the effective transmission of the independence of the hit rate from the base rate. In these kinds of tasks, data are all available, but subjects are able to understand them in the specific meanings proper to a specialized language only if these are adequately transmitted. From this perspective, the partitive formulation should not be considered a facilitation, but rather, a way of effectively transmitting the conditional probability.Consider the following (...) two phrases:1 The death-rate among men is twice that for women.2 In the deaths registered last month there were twice as many men as women.Are these two different ways of saying the same or are these different events? In fact, they are different events. (Lindley 1985, p. 44). (shrink)

Examining the role of implicit, unconscious thinking on reasoning, decision making, problem solving, creativity, and its neurocognitive basis, for a genuinely psychological conception of rationality. This volume contributes to a current debate within the psychology of thought that has wide implications for our ideas about creativity, decision making, and economic behavior. The essays focus on the role of implicit, unconscious thinking in creativity and problem solving, the interaction of intuition and analytic thinking, and the relationship between communicative heuristics and thought. (...) The analyses move beyond the conventional conception of mind informed by extra-psychological theoretical models toward a genuinely psychological conception of rationality—a rationality no longer limited to conscious, explicit thought, but able to exploit the intentional implicit level. The contributors consider a new conception of human rationality that must cope with the uncertainty of the real world; the implications of abandoning the normative model of classic logic and adopting a probabilistic approach instead; the argumentative and linguistic aspects of reasoning; and the role of implicit thought in reasoning, creativity, and its neurological base. Contributors Maria Bagassi, Linden J. Ball, Jean Baratgin, Aron K. Barbey, Tilmann Betsch, Eric Billaut, Jean-François Bonnefon, Pierre Bonnier, Shira Elqayam, Keith Frankish, Gerd Gigerenzer, Ken Gilhooly, Denis Hilton, Anna Lang, Stefanie Lindow, Laura Macchi, Hugo Mercier, Giuseppe Mosconi, Ian R. Newman, Mike Oaksford, David Over, Guy Politzer, Johannes Ritter, Steven A. Sloman, Edward J. N. Stupple, Ron Sun, Nicole H. Therriault, Valerie A. Thompson, Emmanuel Trouche-Raymond, Riccardo Viale. (shrink)

Most tasks used to demonstrate the base rate fallacy are ambiguous about the independence of the data. The removal of such ambiguities from the texts (by means of a clear reference class for the probabilities) is a necessary condition and has a considerable effect on the use of the base rate in classical probabilistic tasks. Some comments are offered on the frequentist phrasing of such and, more generally, their ecological validity.

Psychology of communication must do everything is possible to promote an adequate perception of risk. This is particularly true when it comes to transmitting statistical and probabilistic data to an audience of non-experts, inevitably conditioning their perception of risk. Data are all available, but subjects are able to understand them in the specific meanings proper to a specialized language, only if they are adequately transmitted. And we find these phenomena in the difficulty in representing the trend of, for instance, Covid-19 (...) contagion, based on probability of contagion and mortality. In general, then, when we communicate scientific terms or data we should re-introduce the psychological aspects which characterize communication. The nudging strategies can be considered as a prototype of approach to overcome risky behaviours, which takes into account the cognitive characteristics of the human system. This strategy acts on different levels, using implicit factors, bypassing defensive attitudes and exploiting adaptive inferential processes, without overloading the cognitive system. But from a communicative point of view, nudge, as well as any other type of intervention, is not a general ‘recipe. The acceptance of the suggestion, the effectiveness of the nudging implies the congruity with the system that receives it: the “way of reasoning”, and its implicit layer has to be taken into account. The right combination of the source, the adopted message and the decisional setting could improve the efficacy of the public policies. (shrink)

We here report the findings of our investigation into the validity of the conjunction fallacy (Tversky & Kahneman, 1983), bearing in mind the role of conversational rules. Our first experiment showed that subjects found a logically correct answer unacceptable when it implied a violation of the conversational rules. We argue that tautological questions, such as those which concern the relationship of inclusion between a class and its sub-class, violate conversational rules because they are not informative. In this sense, it is (...) not understood that the question in a Linda-type problem involves a comparison between an inclusive and included class, but presumed that a different type of comparison is intended. Tautological questions (and, consequently, also their answers) do not become a matter of discussion except under certain specific conditions. Our second experiment showed that, providing the context was adequately marked (such as in the case of a rhetorical question), the conjunction fallacy disappears. In two further experiments, the implications of our view were compared with those of the other critical approaches to the heuristic programme: the classical pragmatic view (which we call logical complementarity) and the frequentist view. (shrink)

In recent literature there is unanimous agreement about children's pragmatic competence in drawing scalar implicatures about some , if the task is made easy enough. However, children accept infelicitous some sentences more often than adults do. In general their acceptance is assumed to be synonymous with a logical interpretation of some as a quantifier. But in our view an overlap with some as a determiner in under-informative sentences cannot be ruled out, given the ambiguity of the experimental instructions and the (...) attitude of trust by children in adults. Our study investigated this hypothesis with different experimental manipulations. We found that when the experimenter's intentions are clear (Experiment 1, all / some order effect; Experiments 2 and 4, conditions 2 and 3), under-informative sentences are usually rejected; otherwise (Experiment 1, some / all order effect; Experiments 3 and 4, control condition) they are accepted. However, analysis of verbal protocols indicated that pragmatically infelicitous sentences are accepted, with some interpreted mostly as a determiner, irrespective of the function of some as a quantifier. Acceptance is not in itself synonymous with a logical interpretation of some as a quantifier. (shrink)

This is an excerpt from the contentThere has been increasing interest in recent years in dual process theories of human thought. This special issue of Mind and Society reflects this interest, some criticisms of these theories, and the major topics that have been discussed and debated as a result. There is the basic topic of how the postulated dual processes should be defined in the first place. Do these processes have essential defining features that can be distinguished from less central (...) correlates? Can decoupling, metarepresentation, or working memory be used for making the essential distinction?There are questions about how these dual processes work and interact. What do dual process theories tell us about different modes of thought and insight in problem solving? One topic that could throw light on these questions is creative thinking. It deals with novelties and yet can be rule following. It can be an aspect of hypothetical thinking, but how far it is a conscious or unconscious process is still unknown. There is th. (shrink)

The disjunction effect (Tversky and Shafir in Psychol Sci 3:305–309, 1992) occurs when decision makers prefer option x (versus y) when knowing that event A occurs and also when knowing that event A does not occur, but they refuse x (or prefer y) when not knowing whether or not A occurs. This form of incoherence violates Savage’s (Cognition 57:31–95, 1954) sure-thing principle, one of the basic axioms of the rational theory of decision-making. The phenomenon was attributed to a lack of (...) clear reasons for accepting an option (x) when the subjects are under uncertainty. Through a pragmatic analysis of the task and a consequent reformulation of it, we show that the effect does not depend on the presence of uncertainty, but on the introduction into the text-problem of a non-relevant goal. (shrink)

In recent years there has been an upsurge of research aimed at removing the mystery from insight and creative problem solving. The present special issue reflects this expanding field. Overall the papers gathered here converge on a nuanced view of insight and creative thinking as arising from multiple processes that can yield surprising solutions through a mixture of “special” Type 1 processes and “routine” Type 2 processes.

Feminists have disagreed about whether women can choose gendered subordination autonomously. Less attention has been paid, however, to the socio-ontological questions that underlie this debate. This article introduces novel cases of ‘thwarted autonomy,’ in which women pursue autonomy but in ways that reinforce gendered subordination, in order to challenge dominant proceduralist and substantivist views, as well as motivate an expressivist view of the social self as a promising foundation for an account of autonomy. On this view, which draws on the (...) Hegelian tradition, agents must embody their desires and values in the social world to achieve self-understanding. Social meanings and norms therefore mediate the form an agent’s expressive activity takes, and the sense of self she develops. An expressivist view, I argue, allows us to reinterpret women’s outward acquiescence to gendered subordination as an attempt to express autonomy in an oppressive social context. It also points towards a robustly social conception of autonomy to aid in the diagnosis and redress of patriarchal oppression. (shrink)

In this article, Laura Quintana elaborates on a conceptual distinction between violence and rage. Along with this distinction, she recognises that while rage may possess a destructive potential, it can also be politicised in emancipatory practices that confront conditions of injustice and structural violence. Her analysis centers on contemporary political movements in Latin America, which she views as collective manifestations of rage. Within these movements, the manifestation of rage is intertwined with forms of care and communal labor. Quintana characterises (...) such movements as embodying a “dignified rage” (digna rabia) that calls for an emancipatory transformation of the status quo. She contends that these practices can be understood in terms of the notion of “anti-violence,” as it has been coined by Étienne Balibar. In this she diverges from Judith Butler, since, according to Quintana’s analysis, such practices challenge the demand for non-violence that has often served to neutralise the disruptive force of such manifestations and movements. (shrink)

Predicativity is a notable example of fruitful interaction between philosophy and mathematical logic. It originated at the beginning of the 20th century from methodological and philosophical reflections on a changing concept of set. A clarification of this notion has prompted the development of fundamental new technical instruments, from Russell's type theory to an important chapter in proof theory, which saw the decisive involvement of Kreisel, Feferman and Schütte. The technical outcomes of predica-tivity have since taken a life of their own, (...) but have also produced a deeper understanding of the notion of predicativity, therefore witnessing the " light logic throws on problems in the foundations of mathematics. " (Feferman 1998, p. vii) Predicativity has been at the center of a considerable part of Feferman's work: over the years he has explored alternative ways of explicating and analyzing this notion and has shown that predicative mathematics extends much further than expected within ordinary mathematics. The aim of this note is to outline the principal features of predicativity, from its original motivations at the start of the past century to its logical analysis in the 1950-60's. The hope is to convey why predicativity is a fascinating subject, which has attracted Feferman's attention over the years. (shrink)

The aim of this chapter is to discuss the relevance that emotions can play in our epistemic life considering the state of the art of the philosophical debate on emotions. The strategy is the one of focusing on the three main models on emotions as evaluative judgements, bodily feelings, and perceptions, following the fil rouge of emotion intentionality for rising questions about their epistemic functions. From this examination, a major challenge to mainstream epistemology arises, the one that asks to provide (...) prominence to the epistemic agent and to her affects. This chapter discusses these implications, also providing an overview of the many alternatives available nowadays in epistemology, arguing for an open, comprehensive, and interdisciplinary approach to emotions in knowledge. (shrink)

While various definitions of moral distress have been proposed, some agreement exists that it results from illegitimate constraints in clinical practice affecting healthcare professionals’ moral agency. If we are to reduce moral distress, instruments measuring it should provide relevant information about such illegitimate constraints. Unfortunately, existing instruments fail to do so. We discuss here several shortcomings of major instruments in use: their inability to determine whether reports of moral distress involve an accurate assessment of the requisite clinical and logistical facts (...) in play, whether the distress in question is aptly characterized as moral, and whether the moral distress reported is an appropriate target of elimination. Such failures seriously limit the ability of empirical work on moral distress to foster appropriate change. (shrink)

This article provides a much‐needed review of the neural bases of implicit statistical learning. Batterink, Paller and Reber focus on the neural processes that underpin performance in experimental paradigms employed in implicit learning and statistical learning research. An important insight is that learning across all paradigms is supported by interactions between the declarative and nondeclarative memory systems of the brain. They conclude with a helpful discussion of future directions of research.

Los autores que dialogan en el número 27 de Ístmica con sus respectivos cuentos; el guatemalteco Francisco Alejandro Méndez y el costarricense Iván Molina Jiménez, han encontrado maneras subrepticias y transtemporales de erizarnos la piel a través de la narrativa que nos ofrecen en esta edición. Méndez (1964), es periodista, crítico literario, catedrático universitario y reconocido escritor del istmo, quien obtuvo el Premio Nacional de Literatura de Guatemala en el 2017. Ha publicado los siguientes libros de novela y cuento: Graga (...) y otros cuentos (Editorial Serviprensa Centroamericana, Guatemala, 1991), Manual para desaparecer (Arco Iris, El Salvador, 1997), Sobrevivir para contarlo (Praxis, México, 1999), Crónicas suburbanas (Editorial X, Guatemala, 2001), Ruleta rusa (Fondo de cultura económico, México-Guatemala, 2001), Completamente Inmaculada (Perro azul, San José de Costa Rica, 2002), Reinventario de ficciones. Catálogo marginal de bestias, crímenes y peatones (La Tatuana, Guatemala, 2006), Les ombres du jaguar et autres nouvelles (Éditions Equilibrio, París, 2009), Juego de muñecas. Un caso más para Wenceslao Pérez Chanán, (Editorial FLACSO, Guatemala, 2012) y Triple Play, (Germinal, Costa Rica, 2013).Como investigador, también ha publicado los siguientes ensayos de crítica literaria: América Central en el ojo de sus críticos (Universidad Rafael Landívar, Guatemala, 2005), Hacia un nuevo canon de la vanguardia en América Central (Ed. Cultura, Guatemala, 2006) y Diccionario de Autores yCríticos de Guatemala (La Tatuana, Guatemala, 2010).Por su parte, Molina (1961), es historiador y escritor de ciencia ficción costarricense, autor, coautor o editor de numerosos estudios sobre historia de CostaRica, en particular, y de Centroamérica, en general. Es catedrático de la Escuela de Historia e investigador del Centro de Investigación en Identidad y CulturaLatinoamericanas (CIICLA) de la Universidad de Costa Rica. Ha obtenido el Premio Nacional de Historia (1991), el Premio de la Academia de Geografía eHistoria (1991), el Premio Áncora del periódico La Nación (1992), el Premio al Investigador en Ciencias Sociales (2015) y el Premio Luis Ferrero de Investigación Cultural (2016). Entre sus investigaciones más recientes figuran: La educación en Costa Rica de la época colonial al presente (EUNA, Costa Rica, 2016) y Príncipes de las remotidades. Carlos Luis Fallas y los escritores proletarios costarricenses (EUNED, Costa Rica, 2016). En el género de la ciencia ficción hapublicado varios libros de cuentos cortos y algunos de sus relatos han sido incluidos en recopilaciones y revistas publicadas en México, Colombia, Perú, España, Argentina, Estados Unidos y Cuba. Su más reciente libro de ciencia ficción es Las fugitivas de Abidos (La Jirafa y Yo, Costa Rica, 2017).En los cuentos de ambos autores que presentamos en esta edición, confluyen la creación de una atmósfera de suspenso, que puede originar desde aparentes alucinaciones hasta revivir temores atávicos. En este encuentro convergen monstruos reales y ficticios -aunque nos cueste diferenciarlos-, así como las neurosis del siglo XXI y las leyendas del siglo XIX, que aliviadas unas por el psicoanálisis y alimentadas otras, por los primeros experimentos de “ingeniería genética”, consiguen sembrarnos una interrogante sobre la (in)distinción de lo real en nuestro entorno. (shrink)

This book is derived from the author's Concise guide to ethics in mental health care, published in 2004. It has been revised, updated, and rewritten with new chapters, topics and data.

In our view, the way of thinking involved in insight problem solving is very close to the process involved in the understanding of an utterance, when a misunderstanding occurs. In this case, a more appropriate meaning has to be selected to resolve the misunderstanding , the default interpretation has to be dropped in order to “restructure”, to grasp another meaning which appears more relevant to the context and the speaker's intention. A new conception of unconscious, implicit thought emerges, informed by (...) relevance. In this article we support our view with experimental evidence, focusing on how a misunderstanding is formed. We have explored two problems, in which a trivial arithmetical task is represented as an insight problem and vice versa. Studying how an insight problem is formed, and not just how it is solved, may well become an important topic in the contemporary debate on thought. (shrink)

La sección de literatura de esta edición N.° 32, nos trae una selección alegremente subjetiva y, por lo tanto, abierta a controversias, de la poesía de la guatemalteca Isabel de los Ángeles Ruano. Esta escritora, periodista y docente, nació en 1945 y se le otorgó el Premio Nacional de Literatura Miguel Ángel Asturias, en el año 2001, pese a esto, su obra ha tenido escasa divulgación, no más allá de los mismos diez o quince poemas publicados por doquier. Por ello, (...) en esta sección reproducimos textos más bien poco conocidos de los poemarios publicados de la autora: Cariátides (1967, México DF: Ecuador OO’O) y Canto de Amor a la Ciudad de Guatemala (1988, Guatemala: CENALTEX, Ministerio de Educación), incluidos en la antología Torres y Tatuajes (1988, Guatemala: Grupo Literario Editorial RIN-78), así como de los poemarios publicados por primera vez en dicha antología, según lo describe Ruano en su prólogo a esta obra, los cuales son: Tratados de los Ritmos, Tratados de las Olas, Poemas de Arena, Los Muros Perdidos, Iconografía del Tiempo, El Mar y Tú, Cantar Indio, Retablo Lírico y Cartas de Fuego, estos dos últimos, una colecciónde sonetos. Igualmente, la autora ha publicado los poemarios: Los del viento (1999, Guatemala: Óscar de León Palacios), Café Express (2002, Guatemala: Editorial Cultura), Versos dorados (2006, Guatemala: Editorial Cultura), Poemas grises (2010, Guatemala: Editorial Cultura) y El perro ciego (2020, Guatemala: Editorial Cultura). A fines de la década de 1980, Ruano comenzó a padecer trastornos mentales, desde entonces es vendedora ambulante, posteriormente cambia su expresión de género y en la actualidad reside ‒con gran estrechez económica‒ en la Zona 21 de Ciudad Guatemala. (shrink)

That Schopenhauer’s view of Buddhism influenced Wagner’s and Nietzsche’s Buddhism seems a commonplace among scholars. However, there seem to be no studies which actually demonstrated this, showing how Schopenhauer was their main source of Buddhism compared to the other Buddhist texts they read. In this article, I aim to fill this gap, analysing Wagner’s and Nietzsche’s Buddhism in the light of the sources of Buddhism they read. This will allow me to demonstrate how Schopenhauer was the main source of Buddhism (...) for both Wagner and Nietzsche, having a deep and long-lasting impact on their conceptions of Buddhism. (shrink)

Congenital hip dysplasia is an abnormal formation of the hip socket that can cause painful arthritis of the joints. Early intervention is essential to ensure proper development of the bones that make up the hip joint, because the longer the condition goes undetected and untreated, the more difficult it is to correct. The assessment test to detect congenital hip dysplasia in newborns was first described by Marino Ortolani, an Italian pediatrician.Marino Ortolani was born in 1904 in Altedo, a small town (...) between Bologna and Ferrara in northeastern Italy. His parents were agricultural workers. He studied medicine at the University of Bologna and, after graduating in 1929, was awarded a medal for being the first.. (shrink)

Over the last decade, Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) has been defined first as a concept whereby companies decide voluntarily to contribute to a better society and cleaner environment and, second, as a process by which companies manage their relationship␣with stakeholders (European Commission, 2001. Nowadays, CSR has become a priority issue on governments’ agendas. This has changed governments’ capacity to act and impact on social and environmental issues in their relationship with companies, but has also affected the framework in which CSR (...) public policies are designed: governments are incorporating multi-stakeholder strategies. This article analyzes the CSR public policies in European advanced democracies, and more specifically the EU-15 countries, and provides explanatory keys on how governments have understood, designed and implemented their CSR public policies. The analysis has entailed the classification of CSR public policies taking into consideration the actor to which the governments’ policies were addressed. This approach to the analysis of CSR public policies in the EU-15 countries leads us to observe coinciding lines of action among the different countries analyzed, which has enabled us to propose a ‹four ideal’ typology model for governmental action on CSR in Europe: Partnership, Business in the Community, Sustainability, and Citizenship, and Agora. The main contribution of this article is to propose an analytical framework to analyze CSR public policies, which provide a perspective on the relationships between governments, businesses, and civil society stakeholders, and enable us to incorporate the analysis of CSR public policies into a broader approach focused on social governance. (shrink)

Deep brain stimulation is a well-accepted treatment for movement disorders and is currently explored as a treatment option for various neurological and psychiatric disorders. Several case studies suggest that DBS may, in some patients, influence mental states critical to personality to such an extent that it affects an individual’s personal identity, i.e. the experience of psychological continuity, of persisting through time as the same person. Without questioning the usefulness of DBS as a treatment option for various serious and treatment refractory (...) conditions, the potential of disruptions of psychological continuity raises a number of ethical and legal questions. An important question is that of legal responsibility if DBS induced changes in a patient’s personality result in damage caused by undesirable or even deviant behavior. Disruptions in psychological continuity can in some cases also have an effect on an individual’s mental competence. This capacity is necessary in order to obtain informed consent to start, continue or stop treatment, and it is therefore not only important from an ethical point of view but also has legal consequences. Taking the existing literature and the Dutch legal system as a starting point, the present paper discusses the implications of DBS induced disruptions in psychological continuity for a patient’s responsibility for action and competence of decision and raises a number of questions that need further research. (shrink)

This paper examines faculty perceptions regarding ethical behavior among colleagues and students, and faculty practices with regard to teaching ethics in three institutions over a 4-year period. Faculty reported an uneven pattern of unethical behavior among colleagues over the period. A majority of business courses included ethics, however as both a specific topic on the syllabus and within course discussions. The percentage of courses with ethics discussions increased in 2006, however, the time allocated to these discussions decreased. These results suggest (...) that faculty are approaching ethics instruction less formally, raising concerns over the success of curriculum integration. (shrink)

Data documenting poor understanding among research participants and real-time efforts to assess comprehension in large-scale studies are focusing new attention on informed consent comprehension. Within the context of biobanking consent, we previously convened a multidisciplinary panel to reach consensus about what information must be understood for a prospective participant’s consent to be considered valid. Subsequently, we presented them with data from another study showing that many U.S. adults would fail to comprehend the information the panel had deemed essential. When asked (...) to evaluate the importance of the information again, panelists’ opinions shifted dramatically in the direction of requiring that less information be understood. Follow-up interviews indicated significant uncertainty about defining a threshold of understanding and what should happen when prospective participants are unable to grasp key information. These findings have important implications for urgently needed discussion of whether... (shrink)

Although the view that sees proper names as referential singular terms is widely considered orthodoxy, there is a growing popularity to the view that proper names are predicates. This is partly because the orthodoxy faces two anomalies that Predicativism can solve: on the one hand, proper names can have multiple bearers. But multiple bearerhood is a problem to the idea that proper names have just one individual as referent. On the other hand, as Burge noted, proper names can have predicative (...) uses. But the view that proper names are singular terms arguably does not have the resources to deal with Burge’s cases. In this paper I argue that the Predicate View of proper names is mistaken. I first argue against the syntactic evidence used to support the view and against the predicativist’s methodology of inferring a semantic account for proper names based on incomplete syntactic data. I also show that Predicativism can neither explain the behaviour of proper names in full generality, nor claim the fundamentality of predicative names. In developing my own view, however, I accept the insight that proper names in some sense express generality. Hence I propose that proper names—albeit fundamentally singular referential terms—express generality in two senses. First, by being used as predicates, since then they are true of many individuals; and second, by being referentially related to many individuals. I respond to the problem of multiple bearerhood by proposing that proper names are polyreferential, and also explain the behaviour of proper names in light of the wider phenomenon I called category change, and show how Polyreferentialism can account for all uses of proper names. (shrink)

Much is being made of local food. It is at once a social movement, a diet, and an economic strategy—a popular solution—to a global food system in great distress. Yet, despite its popularity or perhaps because of it, local food (especially in the US) is also something of a chimera if not a tool of the status quo. This paper reflects on and contrasts aspects of current local food rhetoric with Dalhberg’s notion of a regenerative food system. It identifies three (...) problematic emphases—the locavore emphasis, the Wal-Mart emphasis, and the Pollan emphasis—and argues that they are shifting local food (as a concept and a social movement) away from the deeper concerns of equity, citizenship, place-building, and sustainability. It is suggested that local food activists and advocates might consider the use of multiple methodologies and forms of expression to explore the integration and reintegration of local food into diverse and redundant place-based practice. A short case study of a low-income, urban neighborhood in Lansing, Michigan, illustrates the value of contextual analysis for more fully enabling the local food movement and a regenerative food system. (shrink)

In this article I present a disagreement between classical and constructive approaches to predicativity regarding the predicative status of so-called generalised inductive definitions. I begin by offering some motivation for an enquiry in the predicative foundations of constructive mathematics, by looking at contemporary work at the intersection between mathematics and computer science. I then review the background notions and spell out the above-mentioned disagreement between classical and constructive approaches to predicativity. Finally, I look at possible ways of defending the constructive (...) predicativity of inductive definitions. (shrink)

The aim of this article is to contribute to understanding the changing role of government in promoting corporate social responsibility (CSR). Over the last decade, governments have joined other stakeholders in assuming a relevant role as drivers of CSR, working together with intergovernmental organizations and recognizing that public policies are key in encouraging a greater sense of CSR. This paper focuses on the analysis of the new strategies adopted by governments in order to promote, and encourage businesses to adopt, CSR (...) values and strategies. The research is based on the analysis of an explanatory framework, related to the development of a relational analytical framework, which tries to analyze the vision, values, strategies and roles adopted by governments, and the integration of new partnerships that governments establish in the CSR area with the private sector and social organizations. The research compares CSR initiatives and public policies in three European countries: Italy, Norway and the United Kingdom, and focuses on governmental drivers and responses. The preliminary results demonstrate that governments are incorporating a common statement and discourse on CSR, working in partnership with the private and social sectors. For governments, CSR implies the need to manage a complex set of relationships in order to develop a win–win situation between business and social organizations. However, the research also focuses on the differences between the three governments when applying CSR public policies. These divergences are based on the previous cultural and political framework, such as the welfare state typology, the organizational structures and the business and social and cultural background in each country. (shrink)