A cartoon description of the goals of cognitive science and neuroscience might read respectively “How the mind works” and “How the brain works.” In this caricature, there would seem to be little overlap in the vocabularies employed by each domain. The cartoon cognitive scientist could speak at length about decision making and short‐term memory in a relatively self‐consistent manner, without any need to make reference to the language of neuroscience. Likewise, the cartoon neuroscientist could provide an immense body of physical (...) detail about the function of neurons, synapses, and their component parts. She could even build models about how collections of neurons work together, or even how they might have developed. (shrink)

Previous research has shown that short-term fasting in healthy individuals is associated with changes in risky decision-making. The current experiment was designed to examine the influence of short-term fasting in healthy individuals on four types of impulsivity: reflection impulsivity, risky decision-making, delay aversion, and action inhibition. Participants were tested twice, once when fasted for 20 hours, and once when satiated. Participants demonstrated impaired action inhibition when fasted; committing significantly more errors of commission during a food-related Affective Shifting Task. Participants also (...) displayed decreased reflection impulsivity when fasted, opening significantly more boxes during the Information Sampling Task (IST). There were no significant differences in performance between fasted and satiated sessions for risky decision-making or delay aversion. These findings may have implications for understanding eating disorders such as Bulimia Nervosa (BN). Although BN has been characterised as a disorder of poor impulse control, inconsistent findings when comparing individuals with BN and healthy individuals on behavioural measures of impulsivity question this characterisation. Since individuals with BN undergo periods of short-term fasting, the inconsistent findings could be due to differences in the levels of satiation of participants. The current results indicate that fasting can affect performance on the IST, a measure of impulsivity previously studied in BN, whilst performance on other impulsivity measures were unaffected. However, the results from the IST were contrary to the original hypothesis and should be replicated before specific conclusions can be made. (shrink)

Ce texte a déjà paru dans Temporalistes, n° 15, octobre 1990, p. 9-12. Quand il s'est agi d'organiser notre colloque, le thème des rythmes sociaux dans la vie quotidienne s'est imposé à nous d'emblée, comme si un lien évident associait rythmes sociaux et quotidienneté. Dans sa répétitivité, le quotidien davantage assigné au prive qu'au public, ne porte-t-il pas aussi la marque du féminin plus que celle du masculin ? Cela jusque dans les travaux qui lui sont consacrés : cinq des (...) communications présentées (...) - Sociologie – Nouvel article. (shrink)

ENTREVISTA COM PROFESSORAS(ES) DE FILOSOFIA DO ENSINO MÉDIO DO CEARÁ – BLOCO IICom: Dayane Evellin de Sousa Costa, Emilson Silva LopesPor: Antônio Alex Pereira de Sousa, Paulo Willame Araújo de Lima.

Name der Zeitschrift: Naharaim Jahrgang: 10 Heft: 2 Seiten: 247-272.

Although seemingly irrational choice abounds, the rules governing these mis‐steps that might provide hints about the factors limiting normative behavior are unclear. We consider three experimental tasks, which probe different aspects of non‐normative choice under uncertainty. We argue for systematic statistical, algorithmic, and implementational sources of irrationality, including incomplete evaluation of long‐run future utilities, Pavlovian actions, and habits, together with computational and statistical noise and uncertainty. We suggest structural and functional adaptations that minimize their maladaptive effects.

In this original and provocative book, Colin Dayan tackles head-on the inexhaustible world, at once tender and fierce, of dogs and humans. We follow the tracks of dogs in the bayous of Louisiana, the streets of Istanbul, and the humane societies of the United States, and in the memories and myths of the humans who love them. Dayan reorients our ethical and political assumptions through a trans-species engagement that risks as much as it promises. She makes a powerful (...) case for questioning what we think of as our deepest-held beliefs and, with dogs in the lead, unsettles the dubious promises of liberal humanism. Moving seamlessly between memoir, case law, and film, Dayan takes politics and animal studies in a new direction--one that gives us glimpses of how we can think beyond ourselves and with other beings. Her unconventional perspective raises hard questions and renews what it means for any animal or human to live in the twenty-first century. Nothing less than a challenge for us to confront violence and suffering even in the privileged precincts of modernity, this searing and lyrical book calls for another way to think the world. Theoretically sophisticated yet aimed at a broad readership, _With Dogs at the Edge of Life_ illuminates how dogs--and their struggles--take us beyond sentimentality and into a form of thought that can make a difference to our lives. (shrink)

En mettant en question l’utilisation par les colonisés de la langue des colonisateurs et en appelant au retour aux langues africaines, l’écrivain kényan Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o a produit sans doute la critique la plus radicale et la plus audacieuse qui soit, de la colonisation de l’esprit. Cet article le met en conversation avec Karl Marx dans l'esprit de la pensée de Jane Anna Gordon sur la créolisation de la théorie politique.

One character in Cortázar's novel truly believes in cosmic rhythm. This belief is characteristic of a magical view of the universe central to 1960s counterculture. The other characters in Los Premios, like the implied narrator, reject Persio's essentialism; they dismiss the notion that there is really any rhythm common to art, humanity, and the universe. However, there are key points in the narrative, inspired by falling in love and by works of art, at which their world does appear patterned by (...) just such a rhythm, a ‘swing cósmico’. The novel itself turns out to depend on the intermittent conviction of this rhythm, not objectively embedded in anything, but always seen, living, and dying in time; the price of art is the acceptance of this rhythmed mortality. (shrink)

Bayesian decision theory provides a simple formal elucidation of some of the ways that representation and representational abstraction are involved with, and exploit, both prediction and its rather distant cousin, predictive coding. Both model-free and model-based methods are involved.

O combate que Thomas Mann travou contra o nazismo a partir de 1922 é exemplar, pois é o de um escritor apaixonado pela liberdade e não o de um militante. Ele privilegia a ficção e o mito como meios de luta contra o fascí- nio exercido pelo nazismo e afirma a permanência de uma Alemanha cultural, cosmopolita, fonte de uma universalidade estranha a todos os particularismos étnicos. Goethe, com quem ele se identifica e no qual se projeta, é a figura (...) de proa dessa Alemanha. (shrink)

We use neural reinforcement learning concepts including Pavlovian versus instrumental control, liking versus wanting, model-based versus model-free control, online versus offline learning and planning, and internal versus external actions and control to reflect on putative conflicts between short-term temptations and long-term goals.

Now in a third edition, Introduction to Philosophy: Classical and Contemporary Readings is a highly acclaimed, topically organized collection that covers five major areas of philosophy--theory of knowledge, philosophy of religion, philosophy of mind, freedom and determinism, and moral philosophy. Editor Louis P. Pojman enhances the text's topical organization by arranging the selections into a pro/con format to help students better understand opposing arguments. He also includes accessible introductions to each chapter, subsection, and individual reading, a unique feature for an (...) anthology of this depth. While the book focuses on a compelling sampling of classical material--including selections from Plato, Aristotle, Descartes, Locke, Berkeley, Hume, and Kant--it also incorporates some of philosophy's best twentieth-century and contemporary work, featuring articles by Bertrand Russell, Richard Taylor, John Searle, Thomas Nagel, and others. This third edition contains an expanded glossary, more extensive section introductions, and twelve new selections: Karl Popper: "Epistemology without a Knowing Subject" Richard Rorty: "Dismantling Truth: Solidarity Versus Objectivity" Daniel Dennett: "Postmodernism and Truth" Bruce Russell: "The Problem of Evil: Too Much Suffering" David Chalmers: "Against Materialism: Can Consciousness Be Reductively Explained?" Baron Paul Henri d'Holbach: "A Defense of Determinism" Michael Levin: "A Compatibilist Defense of Moral Responsibility" Plato: Socratic Morality: "Crito" Herodotus: "Custom Is King" J. L. Mackie: "The Subjectivity of Values" Louis P. Pojman: "A Critique of Mackie's Theory of Moral Subjectivism" Thomas Nagel: "Moral Luck". (shrink)

Un texte n’existe que dans la mesure où il est lu et ses différentes lectures contribuent à en montrer la richesse et l’intérêt. En France on a longtemps lu et on continue encore à lire Fanon, en particulier Les damnés de la terre , à la lumière de la préface que Sartre avait rédigée, à la demande de Fanon lui-même, après une rencontre et d’intenses discussions entre les deux hommes au printemps 1961 à Rome. Le premier chapitre des Damnés de (...) la terre , intitulé “De la violence” avait été publié séparément dans les Temps Modernes , la revue dirigée par Jean-Paul Sartre, comme s’il s’agissait là de l’essentiel de ce livre. Il y a eu depuis beaucoup d’autres lectures de l’œuvre de Fanon, et en particulier de ce livre difficile et complexe. Je voudrais m’attacher, dans les pages qui vont suivre, à la lecture faite par Edward Said des textes de Fanon tout au long de sa carrière, à partir du moment, où, à la suite de la guerre de 1967 entre Israël et les pays arabes, et l’occupation de la Cisjordanie et de Gaza, ainsi que l’annexion de la partie Est de Jérusalem, Said va mêler intimement élaboration théorique et agir politique. Il est d’autant plus intéressant, d’un point de vue français, de porter attention à cette lecture, que Fanon aussi bien que Said, sont largement marginalisés dans le champ intellectuel et universitaire. Ils sont l’un et l’autre le symptôme d’une tache aveugle dans la pensée française dominante, peu encline à analyser le phénomène colonial. Il ne s’agit pas seulement des lacunes de l’histoire coloniale, qui commence tout juste à se développer. Le regard porté par Frantz Fanon sur la colonisation française en Algérie est difficilement supportable dans un pays qui se veut la “patrie des droits de l’Homme” et des valeurs universelles, tout comme la mise en évidence du racisme dans la France des années 1950. Ce qui semble encore davantage difficile à admettre, c’est que la domination coloniale puisse concerner aussi les catégories intellectuelles, les productions de l’imaginaire, et la construction des subjectivités. Lors de la parution, en 1980, de la traduction française d’ Orientalism , la levée de boucliers contre l’ouvrage fut telle qu’il fallut attendre vingt-cinq ans pour une nouvelle édition du livre qui était devenu introuvable. Entre temps Edward Said était mort, et sa notoriété internationale telle qu’il était impossible de continuer à faire comme si cet ouvrage avait cessé d’exister. On peut naïvement s’étonner d’une telle réaction, en face d’un livre dans lequel il est largement question d’écrivains et de savants français, et qui surtout a été écrit en partie dans le sillage intellectuel de Michel Foucault. Said avait cependant déjà pris, à cette époque, des distances avec la théorie foucaldienne, en s’appuyant sur d’autres théoriciens, au premier rang desquels Fanon. L’importance qu’il accordait à Fanon était antérieure. En effet, dans Beginnings , son premier ouvrage important de théorie littéraire, qui précédait Orientalism , Said avait déjà situé Fanon parmi ceux qui, avec Freud, Orwell, Lévi-Strauss et Foucault, avaient contribué à la production d’un “langage mental commun.&rdquo. (shrink)

The social sciences were founded at the height of the Euromodern era when the belief in infinite expansion coexisted with the willingness to enclose, categorize, and lock up a large part of humanity. The invention of the social sciences was closely linked to this enterprise of disciplinarization of spaces and of populations which accompanied the expansion of capitalism and colonial conquest. Stigmatized, dominated, and colonized groups were constituted as objects by social scientists who considered themselves as pure subjects, and concealed (...) the conditions under which they undertook their research and prohibited the colonized from expressing their own subjectivity. Colonization also imposed a binary cartography of the world and a geography of reason with obligatory references and strict disciplinary divisions. There are many ways to decolonize knowledge, but they remain marginal in a world where white male supremacy is also epistemological. The rejection of disciplinary decadence implies not only a critical but a metacritical gesture, and the refusal of the imperative of objectivation and non-engagement. (shrink)

Modern literature has always been obsessed by music. It cannot seem to think about itself without obsessing about music. And music has returned the favour. The Routledge Companion to Music and Modern Literature addresses this relationship as a significant contribution to the burgeoning field of word and music studies. The 37 chapters within consider the partnership through four lenses-the universal, opera and literature, musical and literary forms, and popular music and literature-and touch upon diverse and pertinent themes for our modern (...) times, ranging from misogyny to queerness, racial inequality to the claimed universality of whiteness. This Companion therefore offers an essential resource for all who try to decode the musico-literary exchange. (shrink)