This book addresses central issues in the philosophy and metaphysics of science, namely the nature of scientific theories, their partial truth, and the necessity of scientific laws within a moderate realist and empiricist perspective. Accordingly, good arguments in favour of the existence of unobservable entities postulated by our best theories, such as electrons, must be inductively grounded on perceptual experience and not their explanatory power as most defenders of scientific realism claim. Similarly, belief in the reality of dispositions such as (...) causal powers which ground the natural necessity of scientific laws must be based on experience. Hence, this book offers a synthetic presentation of an original metaphysics of science, namely a metaphysics of properties, both categorical and dispositional, while at the same time opposing strong versions of necessitarism according to which laws are true in all possible worlds. The main theses and arguments are clearly presented in a non-technical way. Thus, on top of being of interest to the specialists of the topics discussed, it is also useful as a textbook in courses for third year and more advanced university students. (shrink)

"Next to Sartre's Search for a Method and in direct opposition to it, Foucault's work is the most noteworthy effort at a theory of history in the last 50 years." -- Library Journal.

Social science researchers often definefilial pietyas a set of norms, values, and practices regarding how children should behave toward their parents. In this article, we trace the conceptual development of filial piety research in Chinese and other societies to highlight the assumptions underlying this traditional approach to filial piety research. We identify the limitations of these assumptions, including the problem of an evolving definition and lack of cross-cultural applicability. We then advocate an alternative framework that overcomes these limitations by focusing (...) on the deep structure of filial piety: the dual filial piety model (DFPM). The DFPM applies the concept of contextualized personality to reconceptualize filial piety in terms of authoritarian and reciprocal psychological motivations particular to the parent-child context. Because the focus is on a universal psychological mechanism rather than cultural norms, values, and behavior, the DFPM may be applied for investigation of filial piety at individual, social, and cultural levels within and across various societies. We discuss application of the DFPM in relation to existing filial piety and intergenerational relations research from several societies and conclude with a comparison to other recent proposals for measuring Chinese filial piety. (shrink)

In the field of psychology, filial piety is usually defined in terms of traditional Chinese culture-specific family traditions. The problem with this approach is that it tends to emphasize identification of behavioral rules or norms, which limits its potential for application in other cultural contexts. Due to the global trend of population aging, governments are searching for solutions to the accompanying financial burden so greater attention is being focused on the issue of elder care and its relevance to filial practices. (...) We contend that the psychological investigation of filial piety in Chinese societies has progressed to the point that it can now provide a solid structure for research targeting intergenerational relations in other cultures. We describe an indigenous psychology approach that integrated Chinese historical, philosophical, and social trends to construct a model of filial piety in terms of the dual reciprocal and authoritarian filial aspects underlying parent-child relations: the dual filial piety model (DFPM). We use this model to re-conceptualize filial piety from its usual definition as a set of Chinese culture-specific norms to a contextualized personality construct represented by a pair of culturally-sensitive psychological schemas of parent-child interaction. We then describe how the DFPM can provide a framework for research on filial relations on individual, structural, societal, and cross-cultural levels. We conclude with a discussion of how the model may be able to integrate and extend Western research on intergenerational relations and contribute to the issue of elder care beyond Chinese societies. (shrink)

La contribution de Michel Troper à la théorie générale du droit et à la théorie constitutionnelle est aujourd'hui reconnue et célébrée un peu partout dans le monde. Un talent d'architecte se tient à l'origine de cette audience rarement égalée dans la sphère francophone : celui qu'il faut pour accommoder toutes les exigences, quel que soit l'ordre de valeur dans lequel on les trouve : originalité, rigueur, souci de la fonction, esthétisme, solidité, adaptation, intelligence, inquiétude, esprit critique, renoncement, réalisme... A ces (...) mérites, on ajoutera une curiosité insatiable, un goût prononcé pour l'échange et le débat, un refus distingué de l'académisme, un sens exigeant de l'amitié et une méfiance profônde pour les adjectifs... C'est cet édifice de qualités que les élèves, collègues et amis de Michel Troper sont heureux de célébrer en lui offrant ces Mélanges. (shrink)

This paper examines two influential theoretical frameworks, set forth by Russell Barkley (1997) and Thomas Brown (2005), and argues that important headway in understanding attention deficit hyperactivity disorder can be made if we acknowledge the way in which human cognition and action are essentially embodied and enactive. The way in which we actively make sense of the world is structured by our bodily dynamics and our sensorimotor engagement with our surroundings. These bodily dynamics are linked to an individual's concerns and (...) felt needs, so that what she attends to in perception, decision-making, and action is partially constituted by her cares and concerns. What I call ?affective framing? engages the whole living body, and ordinarily contributes to attentional focusing, working memory, goal-formulation, and action-monitoring. However, due to affective framing deficits, subjects with ADHD find it difficult to focus their attention, kindle their motivation, and systematically simplify cognitive procedures according to considerations of relevance, salience, and context. Thus, what is impaired in ADHD is not simply a set of executive brain functions, but rather a range of bodily dynamics through which subjects engage with their world. For this reason, intensive behavioral intervention that engages the whole living body may be the most effective, lasting treatment for ADHD. (shrink)

The second volume in an unprecedented publishing event: the complete College de France lectures of one of the most influential thinkers of the last century Michel Foucault remains among the towering intellectual figures of postmodern philosophy. His works on sexuality, madness, the prison, and medicine are classics his example continues to challenge and inspire. From 1971 until his death in 1984, Foucault gave public lectures at the world-famous College de France. These lectures were seminal events. Attended by thousands, they created (...) benchmarks for contemporary critical inquiry. The lectures comprising Abnormal begin by examining the role of psychiatry in modern criminal justice, and its method of categorizing individuals who "resemble their crime before they commit it." Building on the themes of societal self-defense in the first volume of this series, Foucault shows how and why defining "abnormality" and "normality" were prerogatives of power in the nineteenth century, shaping the institutions--from the prison system to the family--meant to deal in particular with “monstrosity,” whether sexual, phsyical, or spiritual. The College de France lectures add immeasurably to our appreciation of Foucault's thought, and offer a unique window on his singular worldview. (shrink)

Cognitive Science, Volume 46, Issue 2, February 2022.

Des variantes existent entre les différents courants qui, en France, s’intéressent à l’activité des « lieux d’accueil neutres pour l’exercice du droit de visite ». Ces divergences masquent une communauté idéologique et des enjeux inconscients très forts. Sous l’argument de faire respecter le droit de l’enfant « d’accéder à ses deux parents », la notion d’« amour » joue un rôle essentiel et occulté dans les représentations psychiques des intervenants (et des magistrats) et les pratiques des acteurs. Or, si l’amour (...) est ce qui pousse à favoriser la rencontre entre parent et enfant dans un cadre réglé par la loi, le strict respect de l’ordonnance du juge peut nous placer dans une situation impossible. On en vient à percevoir que les intervenants des lieux d’accueil se trouvent, pour des raisons éthiques, déontologiques et humaines, dans une obligation de transgression : situation intenable. Le lieu d’accueil est cependant le cadre où s’opère la désintrication des pulsions de vie et des pulsions de mort. Il permet aux ex-conjoints de restaurer leur capacité à être parents ensembles en renonçant à leur violence meurtrière envers l’autre, ce qui dégage l’enfant et lui permet d’aimer sans être menacé. (shrink)

Fieldwork in Familiar Places challenges the misconceptions about morality, culture, and objectivity that support these skepticisms, to show that we can take ...

The most striking region of structural differentiation of a eukaryotic chromosome is the kinetochore. This chromosomal domain plays an integral role in the stability and propagation of genetic material to the progeny cells during cell division. The DNA component of this structure, which we refer to as the centromere, has been localized to a small region of 220–250 base pairs within the chromosomes from the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae. The centromere DNA (CEN) is organized in a unique structure in the cell (...) nucleus and is required for chromosome stability during both mitotic and meiotic cell cycles. The centromeres from one chromosome can stabilize small circular minichromosomes or other yeast chromosomes. The centromeres may therefore interact with the same components of the segregation apparatus regardless of the chromosome in which they reside. The CEN DNA does not encode any regulatory RNAs or proteins, but rather is a cis‐acting element that provides genetic stability to adjacent DNA sequences. (shrink)

Dying serves so often within the narratives of Western popular culture, as an exercise in self-improvement both to the individual dying and to those looking on. It enlightens, ennobles and renders exceptional all those affected by it. Though mainstream cinema's “grammar of dying” is mired in similar myths, film has the potential to do dying differently: it can, instead, connect us, ethically, to the vulnerability of others. The aim of this article is to pursue this potential of film. Using the (...) mainstream grammar of dying as a starting point, I will consider how the moving image, and this ethical potential, is harnessed within two hybrid-media pieces about a loved-one's decline and death: George Saxon's art installation, “A Record of Undying” (2014) and photographer Briony Campbell's short film The Dad Project (2009). While these works will be located within the traditions and transformations of moving image practice, the primary concern here is with how such emotionally resonant pieces navigate our relation to, and responsibility for, our own and others' harsh realities. In this way, the question of ethics is grounded not in the solipsistic circuits of affective modes – whether as the catharsis or betterment of mainstream myths, or what Jane Stadler privileges as the ethical effects of empathy – but in something more inherently, more inevitably, political. (shrink)

Within the Neoplatonic tradition, the absolute transcendence of the First Principle—the One-Good, from which the whole reality in its various articulations derives—plays a crucial role. This philosophical perspective implies, particularly in Plotinus and Proclus, some fundamental philosophical consequences, above all the transcendence of the Principle with respect to being and thought as well. This necessarily implies that the One-Good must be conceived of as beyond the intelligible Beauty itself. In this paper I aim to examine the theoretical implications and consequences (...) of this perspective with specific reference to the conception of God’s absolute transcendence outlined within two texts of the Corpus Areopagiticum, overall characterized by the reworking of some fundamental Neoplatonic concepts in the context of Christian theology: the De divinis nominibus and the De mystica theologia. Indeed, in the De divinis nominibus it is shown that the names/predicates attributed to God in the Sacred Scriptures must be understood only in an allegorical-symbolic meaning, because God is above any possible definition. Not even the character of Beauty can be attributed to him, since he radically transcends it: in fact, God constitutes the absolute foundation and the very first source of Beauty itself. Therefore, God must be understood as ἀκαλλής, that is, “devoid of the connotation of Beauty”, precisely because he completely transcends it. In line with this theological and theoretical perspective, in the De mystica theologia a form of radical and absolute apophatism is developed, which in turn must ultimately lead to its own overcoming for the sake of the henosis, the mystical union with God. (shrink)

First published: 2010; Previous edition: 2012..

A part of the “return to religion” now evident in European philosophy, this book represents the culmination of the career of a leading phenomenological thinker whose earlier works trace a trajectory from Marx through a genealogy of psychoanalysis that interprets Descartes’s “I think, I am” as “I feel myself thinking, I am.” In this book, Henry does not ask whether Christianity is “true” or “false.” Rather, what is in question here is what Christianity considers as truth, what kind of truth (...) it offers to people, what it endeavors to communicate to them, not as a theoretical and indifferent truth, but as the essential truth that by some mysterious affinity is suitable for them, to the point that it alone is capable of ensuring them salvation. In the process, Henry inevitably argues against the concept of truth that dominates modern thought and determines, in its multiple implications, the world in which we live. Henry argues that Christ undoes “the truth of the world,” that He is an access to the infinity of self-love, to a radical subjectivity that admits no outside, to the immanence of affective life found beyond the despair fatally attached to all objectifying thought. The Kingdom of God accomplishes itself in the here and now through the love of Christ in what Henry calls “the auto-affection of Life.” In this condition, he argues, all problems of lack, ambivalence, and false projection are resolved. (shrink)

This study examines whether human gaze lacking the confounding factor of eye whites can be processed unconsciously and explores the critical aspects for such process. Utilizing the continuous flash suppression paradigm, a schematic face—with direct or averted gaze, and with neutral, fearful or happy expressions—was presented to one eye while dynamic masks rendered it invisible to the other eye. Schematic faces were used to avoid unwanted influence from salient eye whites. Participants’ detection time of anything other than the masks was (...) used as an index of unconscious processing time. Faster detection was found for faces with direct gaze than those with averted gaze. However, there was no difference between detection times for different facial expressions and upright-face, inverted-face, and eyes-only conditions . These results confirm that, with schematic faces, gaze can be processed unconsciously regardless of facial expression, and eyes alone are sufficient for such process. (shrink)

This title considers whether any generalisations can be made about word order in language. The chapters, written by international scholars, draw on data from several 'disharmonic' and typologically distinct languages, including Mandarin Chinese, Basque, French, English, Hixkaryana (a Cariban language), Khalkha Mongolian, Uyghur Turkic, and Afrikaans.

Prenatal genetic testing is becoming available for an increasingly broad set of diseases, and it is only a matter of time before parents can choose to test for hundreds, if not thousands, of genetic conditions in their fetuses. Should access to certain kinds of fetal genetic information be limited, and if so, on what basis? We evaluate a range of considerations including reproductive autonomy, parental rights, disability rights, and the rights and interests of the fetus as a potential future child. (...) We conclude that parents should be able to access information that could be useful during pregnancy, but that testing for non-medical information should be limited. Next, we argue that the government lacks a compelling state interest in regulating prenatal genetic testing and propose that regulation should occur through medical professional organizations. Finally, we present a framework for determining what testing physicians should recommend, offer neutrally, or not offer at all. (shrink)

Sustainability has become a major goal of domestic and international development. This essay analyzes the transitions of normative ideas embedded in the notion of sustainability by reviewing the discourses in the representative reports and literature from different periods. Three sets of ideas are proposed: inter- and intra-generational equity, stability of public systems, and a sense of solidarity, which confirms the scope of community and functions as a precondition for the previous two ideas. This essay uses the case of a health (...) system in a hypothetical country to illustrate that, besides securing financial sustainability, a genuinely sustainable public system must also meet the three normative ideas of sustainability. This essay also finds that these three ideas may create intrinsic tensions within the prevalent policy-making model—democracy. The pursuit of sustainability is not only the responsibility of a democratic government, but also a shared moral obligation of the body politic. (shrink)

The article focuses on the analysis of curriculum documents from Taiwan to investigate how benchmarks for learning nature of science are positioned in different versions of the science curricula. Following a review of different approaches to the conceptualization of NOS and the role of NOS in promoting scientific literacy, an empirical study is reported to illustrate how the science curriculum documents represent different aspects of NOS. The article uses the family resemblance approach as the account of NOS and adapts it (...) for analysis of the curriculum documents. The FRA defines NOS as cognitive-epistemic and social-institutional systems that serve as constructs of knowledge categories with a high level of interconnectedness. The FRA was used as an analytical tool for investigating two sets of Taiwanese curriculum guidelines published 10 years apart, providing an opportunity to discuss how NOS is addressed in the curriculum reforms. The findings show a shift away from the excessive centralization of the cognitive-epistemic system to a consideration of the social-institutional system. Modifications to the benchmarks are proposed in order to achieve a more holistic and progressive approach to NOS. The article contributes to studies on NOS in science education by illustrating how the FRA can act as a tool for exploring interconnectedness of NOS ideas in the curriculum. (shrink)

An examination of the relation between war and politics, by one of the twentieth century’s most influential thinkers From 1971 until 1984 at the College de France, Michel Foucault gave a series of lectures ranging freely and conversationally over the range of his research. In Society Must Be Defended , Foucault deals with the emergence in the early seventeenth century of a new understanding of war as the permanent basis of all institutions of power, a hidden presence within society that (...) could be deciphered by an historical analysis. Tracing this development, Foucault outlines the genealogy of power and knowledge that had become his dominant concern. (shrink)

Extensive empirical work has examined ethical perceptions of different occupational groups in marketing. Additionally, researchers have explored ethical apperceptions of industrial customers and retail consumers. Minimal effort, though, has been directed at investigating differences in ethical perceptions between buyers and sellers, notwithstanding considerable theoretical arguments for doing so. This paper reports the results of a study that focused on differences between retail customers’ and retail salespeople’s perceptions of questionable buying and selling behaviors. Findings indicate that the two groups differ in (...) some respect depending on which group is engaging in the questionable conduct. Managerial and future research implications are provided. (shrink)

According to a fragment of Porphyry (410 F Smith = 80 B 2 DK), containing a dialogue on the theme of plagiarism, Plato made use of the same arguments as Protagoras’ Περὶ τοῦ ὄντος against monistic thinkers, most likely the Eleatics. My paper aims to analyse Porphyry’s testimony to assess some aspects of Protagoras’ reflection on being through a comparison with parallel sources, in particular Plato’s dialogues (Theaetetus, Euthydemus, Sophist, Parmenides). I conclude that it is plausible to suppose that, within (...) the framework of a more general reflection on ὀρθοέπεια, Protagoras viewed the notion of being in Περὶ τοῦ ὄντος from a linguistic perspective. (shrink)

Under the influence of concerns about sustainability, health system reforms have targeted institutional designs and have overlooked the role of socio-political factors like solidarity—a concept that is generally assumed to underpin the redistributive health system. The purpose of this research is to investigate users’ perceptions of the National Health Insurance as a system, their senses of solidarity and their views on the sustainability of the system in Taiwan. Using the descriptive ethics approach, qualitative in-depth interviews were conducted with typical case (...) sampling of 17 participants in the Taipei Metropolitan. The framework approach was used to analyze the interview transcripts. The research finds that despite great differences between users’ perceptions of the NHI, most users could share a notion of mutual relationship among each other. Three types of reasons are used to justify the obligations of mutual aid imposed by the NHI. These reasons are embedded within divergent conceptions of solidarity. The research also finds that government’s performance, the stability of decision-making and users’ personal experiences engaging with the system are important conditions for the users’ supportive attitude toward the system. Solidarity is a plausible concept in sustaining a non-Western social health insurance such as Taiwan’s NHI. (shrink)