Objective: While behavioral recommendations regarding physical activity commonly focus on reaching demanding goals by proposing ‘thresholds’, little attention has been paid to the question of how much of a behavioral change is needed to make people feel that they have changed. The present research investigated this relation between actual and felt behavior change. Design: Using data from two longitudinal community samples, Study 1 and 2 comprised 614 (63 % women) and 398 participants (61 % women) with a mean age (...) of 40.9 years (SD = 13.6) and 42.5 years (SD = 13.4), respectively. Using a stage-approach, participants were classified into four groups by asking them at the respective second measurement to indicate whether they had become more physically active since their last participation six months ago (“Changers”), had tried but did not succeed in becoming more physically active (“Attempters”), were already physically active on a regular basis (“Regular Actives”), or had not tried to become more physically active (“Non-Attempters”). Physical activity was measured using the International Physical Activity Questionnaire (IPAQ), and fitness level was assessed as physical working capacity (PWC) via bicycle ergometry. Mixed ANOVAs including Time and Perceived Change as within and between factors were conducted, followed up by simple effect analyses. Results: Participants stating to have become more active in the past six months (Changers) showed a significant increase in vigorous physical activity but not in moderate physical activity, with an average of 6.8 (Study 1) and 10.6 (Study 2) MET-h per week in vigorous activity. Corroborating these findings, objective fitness also significantly increased in the group of Changers. No systematic change in moderate or vigorous physical activity was observed for the three other ‘non-changer’ groups (regular actives, attempters, non-attempters). Conclusion: The intensity of physical activity is the crucial variable for people’s perception of change in physical activity. Moderate physical activity seems not to be perceived as an effective means for behavior change. It thus might fail to unfold sufficient motivational impact, despite its known positive effects on health. (shrink)

In his paper ‘Words on Play’, Bernard Suits famously defines play as an autotelic activity. Some philosophers like Stephen E. Schmid argue against Suits’s position by pointing out that the concept of autotelicity in Suits’s work is too unclear to serve as a defining feature for play. Due to that fact, Schmid dismisses autotelicity in favor of a definition of play in terms of the player’s engagement in an activity for intrinsic reasons. The purpose of this paper is (...) to defend Suits’s claim by clarifying the concept of autotelicity in the context of play and by arguing against some typical misconceptions about autotelicity in Schmid’s work and in the work of others. First, I define autotelic activities as activities that are engaged in for their own sake. Then, I argue that the engagement in an activity for its own sake is neither in conflict with the activity’s potential internal instrumental structure nor with the existence of certain intrinsic rea-sons (such as pleasure). (shrink)

This study explored the association between out-of-school physical activity and mathematical achievement in relation to mathematical anxiety, as well as the influence of parents’ support for their children’s physical activity on this association, to examine whether parental support for physical activity affects mental health and academic performance. Data were collected from the responses of 22,509 children in Grade 4 from six provinces across eastern, central, and western China who completed the mathematics component and the physical education and (...) health component of the national-level education quality assessment. A moderated moderated-mediation model was tested using PROCESS v3.4 and SPSS v19.0, with socioeconomic status, school location, and body mass index as controlled variables. Out-of-school physical activity had a positive effect on children’s mathematical achievement, and math anxiety partially mediated this association. The indices of conditional moderated mediation through the parental support of both girls and boys were, respectively, significant, indicating that children can benefit from physical activity, and that increased perceived parental support for physical activity can alleviate their children’s math anxiety and improve their mathematics, regardless of gender. However, gender differences were observed in the influence of parental support for physical activity on anxiety: Although girls’ math anxiety levels were significantly higher, the anxiety levels of girls with high parental support were significantly lower than those of boys with low parental support. (shrink)

Studies of the familial association of physical activity and sedentary behavior have increased in recent years. However, there is a lack of studies that have objectively examined the correlates between parents, grandparents, and childrens' PA. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to measure PA using accelerometers to determine the extent to which PA and SB correlate among parents, grandparents, and children. A sample of 169 children between 11 and 14 years, 225 parents, and 52 grandparents were recruited for (...) the current study. Accelerometers RM42 were used to determine PA levels of children, parents, and grandparents. Epoch length was 6 s. Mothers' moderate-to-vigorous PA was associated with children's MVPA of children's MVPA. In contrast, grandfathers' sedentary behavior was a significant predictor of children's sedentary behavior. The results of the current study suggest that parental involvement in PA, particularly by mothers, is important for children's PA and, accordingly, healthy outcomes. (shrink)

Do plants represent according to Kant? This is closely connected to the question of whether he held plants are alive, because he explains life in terms of the faculty to act on one’s own representations. He also explains life as having an immaterial principle of self-motion, and as a body’s interaction with a supersensible soul. I argue that because of the way plants move themselves, Kant is committed to their being alive, to their having a supersensible ground of their self- (...) class='Hi'>activity, and to their having desires (although these are not conscious). This has important ramifications for Kant’s teleology and philosophy of mind. (shrink)

A venerable philosophical tradition holds that we rational creatures are distinguished by our capacity for a special sort of mental agency or self-determination: we can “make up” our minds about whether to accept a given proposition. But what sort of activity is this? Many contemporary philosophers accept a Process Theory of this activity, according to which a rational subject exercises her capacity for doxastic self-determination only on certain discrete occasions, when she goes through a process of consciously deliberating (...) about whether P and concludes by “making a judgment”, thereby bringing about a change in what she believes. I argue that this conception of our control over our beliefs implies an unacceptable picture of the agency we exercise in judging, and of the relation of such agency to the condition of belief itself. I suggest that the beliefs of a rational creature are themselves “acts of reason”, which reflect the capacity for doxastic self-determination in their very nature, not merely in certain facts about how they can originate. (shrink)

A key question in understanding visual awareness is whether any single cortical area is indispensable. In a transcranial magnetic stimulation experiment, we show that observers' awareness of activity in extrastriate area VS depends on the amount of activity in striate cortex (Vl). From the timing and pattern of effects, we infer that back-projections from extrastriate cortex influence information content in Vl, but it is Vl that determines whether that information reaches awareness.

For this volume David Wiggins has selected and revised eleven of his essays in an area of metaphysics where his work has been particularly influential, and he has added a substantial introduction and one new unpublished essay. Among the subjects treated are substance, identity, persistence, persons, sortals, and artefacts.

Then you have a look around, and see that none of the uninitiated are listening to us—I mean the people who think that nothing exists but what they can grasp with both hands; people who refuse to admit that actions and processes and the invisible world in general have any place in reality.

In his paper 'Words on Play’, Bernard Suits famously defines play as an autotelic activity. Some philosophers like Stephen E. Schmid argue against Suits’s position by pointing out that the concept of autotelicity in Suits’s work is too unclear to serve as a defining feature for play. Due to that fact, Schmid dismisses autotelicity in favor of a definition of play in terms of the player’s engagement in an activity for intrinsic reasons. The purpose of this paper is (...) to defend Suits’s claim by clarifying the concept of autotelicity in the context of play and by arguing against some typical misconceptions about autotelicity in Schmid’s work and in the work of others. First, I define autotelic activities as activities that are engaged in for their own sake. Then, I argue that the engagement in an activity for its own sake is neither in conflict with the activity’s potential internal instrumental structure nor with the existence of certain intrinsic reasons (such as pleasure). (shrink)

Louis de La Forge and the Development of Occasionalism: Continuous Creation and the Activity of the Soul STEVEN NADLER THE DOCTRINE OF DIVINE CONSERVATION is a dangerous one. It is not theologi- cally dangerous, at least not in itself. From the thirteenth century onwards, and particularly with the Summa Theologiae of St. Thomas, the notion of the continuous divine sustenance of the world of created things was, if not univer- sally accepted, a nonetheless common feature of theological orthodoxy, Chris- (...) tian and otherwise. Rather, the danger is philosophical in nature . The philosophical problem I am concerned with is not some logical incoherence at the heart of the doctrine; nor does it lie in any objections that can be raised against the arguments that, historically, have been given for the thesis that God, as a causa secundum esse, must continually act in order to conserve the world in being. The question I address -- and it is a pressing one for any seventeenth-century Cartesianmis whether the doctrine of divine conservation establishes too much. I believe that, under certain circumstances, it does, and that the ultimate ramifications of the doctrine for natural causality must be unacceptable to an orthodox Cartesian such as Louis de La Forge , perhaps the most strict follower of Descartes of the.. (shrink)

The literature on affective determinants of physical activity is growing rapidly. The present paper aims to provide greater clarity regarding the definition and distinctions among the various affect-related constructs that have been examined in relation to PA. Affective constructs are organized according to the Affect and Health Behavior Framework, including: affective response to PA; incidental affect; affect processing; and affectively charged motivational states. After defining each category of affective construct, we provide examples of relevant research showing how each construct (...) may relate to PA behavior. We conclude each section with a discussion of future directions for research. (shrink)

Abu Hanifa's theological ideas were not represented at the same level in every region where Hanafism spread. Although Iraq is the region where Abu Hanifa's jurisprudence views were systematized, Abu Hanifa's theological views were largely developed in the Transoxiana region. However, followers of Abu Hanifa in different regions adopted and defended the distinctive views of Hanafism. However, while in some regions these views were limited to basic theological ideas, in others a systematization was made based on this and thus a (...) comprehensive theological structure was formed. The followers of Abu Hanifa in the Transoxiana region are among the leading Hanafis who established a traditional theological structure around his views. This theological structure, which was called Maturidism in the process, was limited to the region where it was born for a long time and was spread to the west from the 11th century. When the Maturidis, who had a rich literature, came to the west, they encountered small and scattered Hanafi masses who regarded the theological views of the sect as consisting of basic theological ideas. Although they belong to the same fiqh tradition, this theological difference between them has created a new ground on which the two Hanafi factions will interact. With the power of their theological knowledge, the Maturidis tried to include the Hanafis in Iraq and Syria in their theological traditions with the texts they wrote as well as their teaching activities. Ahmad b. Muhammad al-Ghaznawi (d. after 593/1197), one of the Maturidis who migrated to the west, draws attention as one of the names that took part in this effort. His works called Usul al-din and al-Hawi al-qudsi are the first examples where this effort is clearly reflected in the texts. In these works, al-Ghaznawi uses the phrases of al-Aqīdah al-Tahawiyyah either exactly or with some minor changes, and adds Maturidi-specific views, especially the attribute of takwin. With this, al-Ghaznawi, on the one hand, reveals the compatibility of al-Aqīdah, which is the main text of non-Maturidi Hanafis, with Maturidi views, on the other hand, carries the Maturidi views to them with the expressions he added to the text. In this study, this activity of Ghaznawi, which can be described as a synthesis of al-Aqīdah al-Tahawiyyah and Maturidism, will be tried to be revealed in detail through the mentioned works. (shrink)

In this paper I give an interpretation of the Wim Wenders film, Paris, Texas, that brings to bear Talbot Brewer’s notion of “dialectical activity.” According to Brewer, dialectical activity is an a...

Empathy is the combined ability to interpret the emotional states of others and experience resultant, related emotions. The relation between prefrontal electroencephalographic asymmetry and emotion in children is well known. The association between positive emotion (assessed via parent report), empathy (measured via observation), and second-by-second brain electrical activity (recorded during a pleasurable task) was investigated using a sample of one hundred twenty-eight 6- to 10-year-old children. Contentment related to increasing left frontopolar activation (p < .05). Empathic concern and positive (...) empathy related to increasing right frontopolar activation (ps < .05). A second form of positive empathy related to increasing left dorsolateral activation (p < .05). This suggests that positive affect and (negative and positive) empathy both relate to changes in prefrontal activity during a pleasurable task. (shrink)

In this paper I discuss an intriguing and relatively little studied symptomatic expression of schizophrenia known as experiences of activity in which patients form the delusion that they can control some external events by the sole means of their mind. I argue that experiences of activity result from patients being prone to aberrantly infer causal relations between unrelated events in a retrospective way owing to widespread predictive deficits. Moreover, I suggest that such deficits may, in addition, lead to (...) an aberrant intentional binding effect i.e., the subjective compression of the temporal interval between an intentional action and its external effects. In particular, it might be that patient’s thoughts are bound to the external events they aimed to control producing, arguably, a temporal contiguity between these two components. Such temporal contiguity would reinforce or sustain the feeling that the patient mind is directly causally efficient. (shrink)

This chapter takes a fresh look at 3d2 of Spinoza’s Ethics, an absolutely pivotal definition for the ethical theory that ensues. According to it, “we act when something happens, in us or outside us, of which we are the adequate cause,” whereas we are passive “when something happens in us, or something follows from our nature, of which we are only a partial cause.” The definition of activity has puzzled scholars: how can we be an adequate, i.e. complete, cause (...) of an effect outside us (which clearly involves other causal factors as well)? However, the definition of passivity is hardly unproblematic either: how can something follow from the patient’s nature so that the patient can nevertheless be considered only a partial cause? I begin by outlining 3d2 and situating it in the historical context formed by Descartes, Hobbes, and the Aristotelian tradition. Then I show that the existing interpretations do not solve the problem of activity and argue that unraveling the problem requires taking properly into account the distinction between immanent and transeunt causality. In relation to the definition of passivity, I argue that Spinoza’s geometry-inspired theory of essence constitution offers the key to understanding the nature of passions. (shrink)

Events are things like explosions, floods, weddings or births. Both in common-sense and scientific usage, events are spatially and temporally bounded doings or happenings that involve activity and change. Philosophical theories of events have not, generally speaking, honored this feature of events. Probably the most widely discussed account, due to Jaegwon Kim, holds that events are exemplifications of properties at times. But properties are things like temperature, shape, color, solidity or fragility; they are not doings or happenings, but havings. (...) In this paper I defend an account which takes seriously the distinction between doings and havings, which I call the object-activity theory of events. I argue that an event is not an object or objects exemplifying a property or relation, but instead an object or objects engaged in an activity or interaction. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Introduction Circumscribing the Claims of Theory Plato's Reversal of the Precedence of Practice A Lesson about Learning Philosophy as a Way of Life and as the Pursuit of a Specialism From Epistemology Back to Practice Questions of Interpretation Reinterpreting Theory The Uses of Practical Philosophy.

activity” has been considered to play a major role in the short-term maintenance of memories. Many studies since then have provided support for this view and greatly advanced our knowledge of the effects of stimulus type and modality on delay activity and its temporal dynamics. In humans, working memory has also been a subject of intense investigation using scalp and intracranial electroencephalography as well as magnetoencephalography, which provide estimates of local population activity. The published findings include reports (...) of systematic changes in signal amplitude during working memory in the theta, alpha, beta. (shrink)