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 this paper we consider the relations existing between four deductive systems that have been called categorial grammars and have relevant connections with linguistic investigations: the syntactic calculus, bilinear logic, compact bilinear logic and Curry''s semantic calculus.

Published in the American Journal of Bioethics.

Après le 11 septembre 2001, un ressort essentiel des politiques américaines de renforcement de la « sécurité nationale » a pris la forme d’une insistance quasi paranoïaque sur les menaces potentiellement catastrophiques constituées par le cyber-terrorisme. Un grand nombre de commentateurs politiques, militaires ou économiques, ainsi que d’universitaires et de journalistes, ont envahi..

Current art world statistics demonstrate that the fight for gender and race equality in the art world is far from over: only sixteen percent of this year's Venice Biennale artists were female; only fourteen percent of the work displayed at MoMA in 2016 was by nonwhite artists; only a third of artists represented by U.S. galleries are female, but over two-thirds of students enrolled in art and art-history programs are young women. Arranged in thematic sections focusing on feminism, race, and (...) sexuality, Curatorial Activism examines and illustrates pioneering examples of exhibitions that have broken down boundaries and demonstrated that new approaches are possible, from Linda Nochlin's 'Women Artists' at LACMA in the mid-1970s to Jean-Hubert Martin's 'Carambolages' in 2016 at the Grand Palais in Paris. Including interviews with pioneering curators such as Okwui Enwezor, Linda Nochlin, Jean-Hubert Martin, and Nan Goldin, this volume is both an invaluable source of practical information for those who understand that institutions must be a driving force in this area and a vital source of inspiration for today's expanding new generation of curators. Preface by Lucy R. Lippard. (shrink)

There are few, if any, other educational philosophers that have left their mark internationally as John Dewey has. Author of 40 books and no less than 700 articles that appeared in over 140 journals, Dewey's work has been translated into at least 35 languages. His landmark Democracy and Education - published over a century ago in 1916 - is one of the most cited educational texts ever. Dewey has inspired educators and provoked controversies in his day, and still does so (...) today. This volume sets out to engage with Dewey's educational thought, especially as it relates to its circulation in the countries bordering on the Mediterranean. Authors consider his enduring influence, and reflect on the 'push' and 'pull' forces that served to anchor progressivism, in its multiple manifestations, in the region. The notion of a unidirectional force - personified by Dewey - that is somehow absorbed by the 'receiving' country is problematised by most if not all chapters in this volume. Rather, contributors carefully show how context affects a process marked by active appropriation, re-interpretation, adaptation, as well as resistance. (shrink)

Bortolotti argues that the irrationality of many delusions is no different in kind from the irrationality that marks many non-pathological states typically treated as beliefs. She takes this to secure the doxastic status of those delusions. Bortolotti’s approach has many benefits. For example, it accounts for the fact that we can often make some sense of what deluded subjects are up to, and helps explain why some deluded subjects are helped by cognitive behavioral therapy. But there is an alternative approach (...) that secures the same benefits as Bortolotti’s account while bringing additional benefits. The alternative approach treats both many delusions and many of the non-pathological states to which Bortolotti compares them as in-between states. Subjects in in-between states don’t fully believe the beliefs which it is sometimes convenient to ascribe to them. This alternative approach to belief and belief-ascription fits well with an independently attractive account of the varied purposes of our ordinary attitude ascriptions. It also makes it easier to make fine-grained distinctions between intentional attitudes of different kinds. (shrink)

In this chapter I argue that Alexis de Tocqueville describes the virtue of citizenship in a way that is relevant to contemporary virtue ethics. He explains how a group can possess a virtue that is distinct from the virtue of individual members of the group. (this is an unofficial draft).

Conversations with patients and families about the allow-natural-death (AND) order, along with the standard do-not-resuscitate (DNR) order during end-of-life (EOL) decision-making, may create engagement and understanding while promoting care that can be defended using enduring notions of autonomy, beneficence, and professional duty. Ethical, legal, and pragmatic issues surrounding EOL care decision-making seem to suggest discussion of AND orders as one strategy clinicians could consider at the individual practice level and at institutional levels. A discussion of AND orders, along with traditional (...) DNR orders is presented. This is followed by argument and counter-argument focused on ethical, legal, and practical issues germane to EOL care decision-making associated with use of AND orders. (shrink)

In this paper, I aim to demonstrate that the consequences of the current United States health insurance scheme on both physician and patient autonomy is dire. So dire, in fact, that the only moral solution is something other than what we have now. The United States healthcare system faces much criticism at present. But my focus is particular: I am interested in the ways in which insurance interferes with physician and patient autonomy. I will argue in favor of an expansion (...) of the traditional conception of what I call “medical autonomy” or “healthcare autonomy” and the usual role it plays in bioethical discussions. More generally, I show that in morally designing or evaluating any healthcare system, serious attention should be paid to how this system helps foster what I call active autonomy. (shrink)

We present a geometrical analysis of the principles that lay at the basis of Categorial Grammar and of the Lambek Calculus. In Abrusci it is shown that the basic properties known as Residuation laws can be characterized in the framework of Cyclic Multiplicative Linear Logic, a purely non-commutative fragment of Linear Logic. We present a summary of this result and, pursuing this line of investigation, we analyze a well-known set of categorial grammar laws: Monotonicity, Application, Expansion, Type-raising, Composition, Geach laws (...) and Switching laws. (shrink)

In this paper, we aim at explaining the relevance of thought experiments in philosophy and the history of science by describing them as particular instances of two categories of creative thinking: metaphorical reasoning and abductive cognition. As a result of this definition, we will claim that TEs hold an ignorance-preserving trait that is evidenced in both TEs inferential structure and in the process of scenario creation they presuppose. Elaborating this thesis will allow us to explain the wonder that philosophers of (...) science have consistently shown for TEs, as well as the high functionality of TEs in the creative aspects of scientific and philosophical praxis. (shrink)

Early in the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States, concern that there could be a shortage of ventilators raised the possibility of rationing care. Denying patients life-saving care captures our moral imagination, prompting the demand for a defensible framework of ethical principles for determining who will live and who will die. Behind the moral dilemma posed by the shortage of a particular medical good lies a broad moral geography encompassing important and often unarticulated societal values, as well as assumptions about (...) the nature and purpose of health care and the consequences of long-standing choices about health care as a social good. This article explores what COVID-19 has exposed concerning values and choices around health care in the United States. Employing the lens of Catholic Social Thought, it argues for an approach to rationing that is grounded in respect for human dignity, committed to distributing social goods in light of the common good, and self-conscious about the construction of vulnerability to illness and death. (shrink)

The imperviousness of delusions to counter-evidence makes it tempting to classify them as imaginings. Bayne and Pacherie argue that adopting a dispositional account of belief can secure the doxastic status of delusions. But dispositionalism can only secure genuinely doxastic status for mental states by giving folk-psychological norms a significant role in the individuation of attitudes. When such norms individuate belief, deluded subjects will not count as believing their delusions. In general, dispositionalism won't confer genuinely doxastic status more often than do (...) competing accounts of belief. (shrink)

When a wrongdoing occurs, victims, barring special circumstance, can aptly forgive their wrongdoers, receive apologies, and be paid reparations. It is also uncontroversial, in the usual circumstances, that wronged parties can aptly blame their wrongdoer. But controversy arises when we consider blame from third-parties after the victim has forgiven. At times it seems that wronged parties can make blame inapt through forgiveness. If third parties blame anyway, it often appears the victim is justified in protesting. “But I forgave him!” In (...) other cases, however, forgiveness seems irrelevant: B can forgive A, but it can still seem that third parties can aptly blame A for the wrong against B. This perplexity adds a dimension to ongoing discussion regarding criteria for apt blame and the related issues of standing and fittingness. This paper explores the status of third party blame after forgiveness. I argue that while post forgiveness blame is often inapt, in many other cases forgiveness is irrelevant. This difference is explained by appeal to the various relationships third parties might have to wronged parties, and how these differences affect the ways we blame and thereby blame’s aptness. (shrink)

The introduction describes the monographic section of Scienza & Politica dedicated to the innovations which postcolonial and feminist studies in Latin America are introducing in the history of political thought as a whole. The fundamental concepts of the following essays are presented here to introduce their historic and critic analysis. It is also highlighted the specific character of continental laboratory which the historic and political reflection is assuming in South American continent and the connections which are occurring with other countries (...) in the global South. (shrink)

The dispute on mongrelization starts to play a fundamental role in Latin America inside the modernist debates about the national unity between the end of the XIX century and the beginning of the XX century, to later acquire an unprecedented global diffusion in the eighties and the nineties of the last century. Using the writings of the Bolivian sociologist Silvia River Cusicanqui and of the Argentinian anthropologist, who has long since been active in Brazil, Rita Segato, the essay reconstructs the (...) historic and political happening of metissage in Latin America. The authors show that it is an historical concept which worked as an instance of legitimation both in the period of colonial oppression and later in the epoch of republican modernization. It represents the instrument to hide – if not to delete – the original character of modern State; for this reason it has been able to play a fundamental role in the epoch of liberalism as much as in the neoliberal one. However in mongrelization what is also at stake is that it can express the radically de-colonizing impulse of the differences as forms of litigation which inhabit the complex contemporary Latin American territories. (shrink)

In 2010, a South Carolina mother was taken to court when her fourteen‐year‐old son reached 555 pounds. An article on the story reported, “His mother, Jerri Gray, lost custody of her son and is being charged with criminal neglect. Gray is facing 15 years on two felony counts, the first U.S. felony case involving childhood obesity.” If the caretakers of obese children are negligent, then they are also morally and legally blameworthy. I want to suggest, however, that important ethical differences (...) exist between negligent or abusive caretakers and the caretakers of obese children and that these differences ought to make a moral and legal difference. The distinctions are nuanced, and the ethical pictures in cases of abuse, neglect, and obesity are far from black and white. However, the various types of harm that children face from their caretakers should be placed in neither the same ethical nor the same legal category.When children are beaten or sexually molested, the justification for taking them out of the home is clear: the caretakers are violating the rights of their children. Similarly, with neglect, caretakers are failing to provide their children the necessities to which they are entitled. The central question that I want to address in this article is whether the actions (or inaction) of caretakers that allow a child to become obese are morally or practically analogous to physical abuse or neglect. Ultimately, I will argue that parenting that allows a child to become obese is so morally different from both abuse and neglect that it is best understood as falling outside these categories altogether. This conclusion has important moral, practical, and legal implications. (shrink)

Our behavior doesn't always match the beliefs attributed to us, and sometimes the mismatch raises questions about what our beliefs actually are. I compare two approaches to such cases, and argue in favor of the one which allows some belief-attributions to lack a determinate truth-value. That approach avoids an inappropriate assumption about cognitive activity: namely, that whenever we fail in performing one cognitive activity, there is a distinct cognitive activity at which we succeed. The indeterminacy-allowing approach also meshes well with (...) an attractive view of folk-psychology: that ascriptions can help shape the attitudes they report. (shrink)

We know from the literature in theoretical linguistics that interrogative constructions in Italian have particular syntactic properties, due to the liberal word order and the rich inflectional system. In this paper we show that the calculus of pregroups represents a flexible and efficient computational device for the analysis and derivation of Italian sentences and questions. In this context the distinction between direct vs. indirect statements and questions is explored.

Metaphor is a pervasive and significant feature of language. We use metaphor to talk about the world in familiar and innovative ways, and in contexts ranging from everyday conversation to literature and scientific theorizing. However, metaphor poses serious challenges for standard philosophical theories of meaning, because it straddles so many important boundaries: between language and thought, between semantics and pragmatics, between rational communication and mere causal association. ;In this dissertation, I develop a pragmatic theory of metaphorical utterances which reconciles two (...) apparently incompatible intuitions. The first is that metaphors are vehicles for undertaking speech acts with a propositional content distinct from their conventional sentence meaning. The second is that metaphors are tools for inducing the essentially non-propositional effect of 'seeing things in a new light' or under a new aspect. These intuitions seem to be incompatible because it is assumed that only one can capture the essential function of metaphor. I propose instead that non-propositional 'seeing-as' or aspectual thought serves as the means by which speakers intend to accomplish their end of communicating content. This does not imply that speakers are not interested in and even committed to the effects of aspectual thought as well, only that it is not their sole, ultimate intention. ;In order to substantiate this proposal about how metaphor works, I develop an account of the psychological structures on which aspectual thought operates and the changes it engenders; I then show how the content of the speaker's intended speech act is determined by the aspect the sentence generates. By bringing propositional content and non-propositional aspectual thought together in this way, my account can treat the full range of metaphors, from 'ordinary' to 'poetic', within a unified theory. Armed with this account, we have the explanatory resources necessary to acknowledge both that ordinary conversational metaphors are efficient and sometimes essential vehicles for communicating determinate propositional contents, and also that rich, poetic metaphors are invitations to an open-ended contemplation of the subject under discussion. These apparently very different effects turn out to be manifestations of the same basic process of comprehension. (shrink)

Celebrando os quarenta anos de A Hermenêutica do Sujeito — o curso ministrado por Michel Foucault no Collège de France, em 1982 —, este texto propõe-se a estabelecer conexões, gerais e específicas, entre aquele curso e a Educação. É feita uma discussão acerca da perspectiva analítica não metafísica adotada por Foucault, em contraste com o atual discurso pedagógico interpretativo dominante. São discutidos os sentidos que se pode dar a alguns insights daquele curso, em suas relações com a Educação contemporânea. Propondo-se (...) uma diferenciação entre pedagogia e Pedagogia, destaca-se a função subjetivante das práticas pedagógicas na educação escolarizada. Argumenta-se em favor da ontologia histórica, em oposição à ontologia transcendental e recorre-se ao conceito de frame, de modo a ressaltar sua importância e limitações em estudos como este. Discute-se a inversão moderna que colocou ênfase no preceito do “conhece-te a ti mesmo” (gnôthi seautón), deixando em segundo plano o preceito do “cuida de ti mesmo” (epiméleia heautoû), do que resultou a substituição do ideal antigo do sujeito das ações corretas pelo ideal moderno do sujeito dos saberes verdadeiros. Sugere-se que a Educação possa contribuir para suspender a anunciada morte do sujeito ou, pelo menos, mitigar os seus efeitos. Palavras-chave: Foucault; Subjetivação; Pedagogia; Ontologia histórica. Weaves: between Hermeneutics of the Subject and Education Abstract: Celebrating the forty years of The Hermeneutics of the Subject —the course by Michel Foucault at the Collège de France, in 1982—, this text proposes to establish connections, both general and specific, between that course and Education. A discussion is made about the non-metaphysical analytical perspective adopted by Foucault, in contrast to current dominant interpretive pedagogical discourses. The meanings that can be given to some insights from that course are discussed, in their relations with education. Proposing a differentiation between pedagogy and Pedagogy, the subjectivizing function of pedagogical practices in schools is highlighted. We argue in favor of historical ontology, as opposed to transcendental ontology, and we resort to the concept of frame, in order to emphasize its importance and limitations in foucauldian studies. We discuss the modern inversion that placed emphasis on the precept “know thyself” (gnôthi seautón), leaving in the background the precept “take care of yourself” (epiméleia heautoû), which resulted in the replacement of the ideal of the subject of correct actions by the modern ideal of the subject of true knowledge. We suggest that Education can contribute to suspend the announced death of the subject or, at least, mitigate its effects. Keywords: Foucault; Subjectivizing; Pedagogy; Historical ontology. Tesituras: entre la Hermenéutica del Sujeto y la Educación Resumen: Celebrando los cuarenta años de La Hermenéutica del Sujeto —curso por Michel Foucault en el Collège de France, en 1982—, este texto se propone establecer conexiones generales y específicas, entre ese curso y la Educación. Se discute la perspectiva no-metafísica adoptada por Foucault, en contraste con el actual discurso pedagógico interpretativo dominante. Se problematizan los sentidos que se pueden dar a algunos insigths de aquel curso, en sus relaciones con la educación contemporánea. Se propone una diferenciación entre pedagogía y Pedagogía y se destaca la función de subjetivación de las prácticas pedagógicas en las escuelas. Se argumenta a favor de la ontología histórica, en oposición a la ontología transcendental, y se recurre al concepto de frame, para enfatizar su importancia y limitaciones en estudios foucaultianos. Se discute la idea moderna que puso énfasis en el precepto de “conócete a ti mismo” (gnôthi seautón), dejando en segundo plano el “cuida de ti mismo” (epiméleia heautoû), lo que derivó en la sustitución del ideal antiguo del sujeto de las acciones correctas, por el ideal moderno del sujeto del conocimiento verdadero. Se sugiere que la Educación puede contribuir a suspender la anunciada muerte del sujeto o, al menos, mitigar sus efectos. Palabras clave: Foucault; Subjetivación; Pedagogia; Ontologia histórica. Data de registro: 08/07/2022 Data de aceite: 13/12/2022. (shrink)

Jeffrey Bishop’s The Anticipatory Corpse exposes a functional metaphysics at the root of contemporary medical practice that gives rise to inhumane medicine, especially at the end of life. His critique of medicine argues for alternative spaces and practices in which the communal significance of the body, its telos, can be restored and the meaning of a “good death” enriched. This essay develops an alternative epistemology of the body, drawing from Christian theological accounts of the communal or Eucharistic body and linking (...) liturgical practices to the cultivation of solidarity. It argues for an epistemology of the body that makes visible the invisible bodies at medicine’s margins and illumines the disparate worlds of health care globally. (shrink)

From a feminist perspective, unlimited procreative liberty risks treating children as property, distorts understanding of the family, and neglects moral concerns about how we reproduce.

We present a geometrical analysis of the principles that lay at the basis of Categorial Grammar and of the Lambek Calculus. In Abrusci it is shown that the basic properties known as Residuation laws can be characterized in the framework of Cyclic Multiplicative Linear Logic, a purely non-commutative fragment of Linear Logic. We present a summary of this result and, pursuing this line of investigation, we analyze a well-known set of categorial grammar laws: Monotonicity, Application, Expansion, Type-raising, Composition, Geach laws (...) and Switching laws. (shrink)

For more than 60 years, Jim Lambek has been a profoundly inspirational mathematician, with groundbreaking contributions to algebra, category theory, linguistics, theoretical physics, logic and proof theory. This Festschrift was put together on the occasion of his 90th birthday. The papers in it give a good picture of the multiple research areas where the impact of Jim Lambek's work can be felt. The volume includes contributions by prominent researchers and by their students, showing how Jim Lambek's ideas keep inspiring upcoming (...) generations of scholars. (shrink)