Two experiments probed the role of strategies used in social conflicts on perception of agency and communion. In study 1, persons who revealed prosocial orientation were perceived as less agentic, but more communal than those who revealed competitive orientation. In study 2 these findings were replicated in the context of organizational conflict, those who decided to use confrontational strategies were also perceived as more agentic, although less communal than these who used cooperative strategies. In line with the theory of power (...) effects on objectification of social targets, the perceived agency and communion were differently linked to superior’s and subordinate’s evaluation. While perceived agency predicted the subordinate’s evaluation, perceived communion predicted superior’s evaluation, but not the other way round. Moreover, perception of communion mediated the negative effect of confrontational strategies on supervisor’s evaluation. On the other hand, perceived agency suppressed the effect of strategies on subordinate’s evaluation. (shrink)

At the beginning of 2020, COVID-19 became a global problem. Despite all the efforts to emphasize the relevance of preventive measures, not everyone adhered to them. Thus, learning more about the characteristics determining attitudinal and behavioral responses to the pandemic is crucial to improving future interventions. In this study, we applied machine learning on the multi-national data collected by the International Collaboration on the Social and Moral Psychology of COVID-19 (N = 51,404) to test the predictive efficacy of constructs from (...) social, moral, cognitive, and personality psychology, as well as socio-demographic factors, in the attitudinal and behavioral responses to the pandemic. The results point to several valuable insights. Internalized moral identity provided the most consistent predictive contribution—individuals perceiving moral traits as central to their self-concept reported higher adherence to preventive measures. Similar was found for morality as cooperation, symbolized moral identity, self-control, open-mindedness, collective narcissism, while the inverse relationship was evident for the endorsement of conspiracy theories. However, we also found a non-negligible variability in the explained variance and predictive contributions with respect to macro-level factors such as the pandemic stage or cultural region. Overall, the results underscore the importance of morality-related and contextual factors in understanding adherence to public health recommendations during the pandemic. (shrink)

The article reviews the book Słowa i zbawienie. Dyskurs religijny w perspektywie filozofii Hilarego Putnama [Words and Salvation: Religious Discourse in the Perspective of Hilary Putnam's Philosophy], by Piotr Sikora.

Według tradycyjnych standardów, nauka powinna być wolna od wartościowań i perswazji, a w swej formie dążyć do beznamiętnego, obiektywnego opisu. Takich kryteriów nie da się jednak utrzymać szczególnie w naukach humanistycznych czy społecznych, operujących językami naturalnymi. Języki te obfitują bowiem w wyrażenia nacechowane emocjonalnie i oceniające, co sprawia, że nie mogą być wolne od perswazji. Perswazyjność języka należy do specyfiki nauk humanistycznych i nie jest zjawiskiem negatywnym. Jednakże świadome przedstawianie argumentacji i definicji perswazyjnych jako czystego opisu stanowi, z punktu widzenia (...) reguł metodologicznych, praktykę zasługująca na ocenę negatywną. Szczegółowa analiza i interpretacja popularnonaukowej książki pt. Płeć Mózgu, których dokonuję w niniejszym tekście, ujawniają zastosowane w niej liczne zabiegi perswazyjne. Autorzy świadomie posługują się nimi w celu przekonania odbiorcy do określonego światopoglądu, zaś powołanie się na autorytet nauki (tj. przyrodoznawstwa) ma uwiarygodnić ich stanowisko. Ten kontrowersyjny zabieg posiada nie tylko wymiar metodologiczny (wyznaczenie standardów literatury popularnonaukowej), ale także moralny, związany jest bowiem z odpowiedzialnością popularyzatorów nauki, którzy mogą wprowadzić czytelnika w błąd. (shrink)

Scientists, humanists, and art lovers alike value art not just for its beauty, but also for its social and epistemic importance; that is, for its communicative nature, its capacity to increase one's self-knowledge and encourage personal growth, and its ability to challenge our schemas and preconceptions. However, empirical research tends to discount the importance of such social and epistemic outcomes of art engagement, instead focusing on individuals' preferences, judgments of beauty, pleasure, or other emotional appraisals as the primary outcomes of (...) art appreciation. Here, we argue that a systematic neuroscientific study of art appreciation must move beyond understanding aesthetics alone, and toward investigating the social importance of art appreciation. We make our argument for such a shift in focus first, by situating art appreciation as an active social practice. We follow by reviewing the available psychological and cognitive neuroscientific evidence that art appreciation cultivates socio-epistemic skills such as self- and other-understanding, and discuss philosophical frameworks which suggest a more comprehensive empirical investigation. Finally, we argue that focusing on the socio-epistemic values of art engagement highlights the important role art plays in our lives. Empirical research on art appreciation can thus be used to show that engagement with art has specific social and personal value, the cultivation of which is important to us as individuals, and as communities. (shrink)

There is scarcely a sentence in the New Testament that could have unleashed a wider reception history than Paul‘s comparison of the letter and the spirit in the third chapter of the Second Epistle to the Corinthians: “For the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life.” In Patristics two diverging lines of reception can be identified, which, depending on the perspective, emphasise the hermeneutic or the soteriological side of the formula more strongly. This paper investigates the antithesis of spirit and (...) letter at various stations of its reception history from Late Antiquity to the late Middle Ages and ventures to profile the contrast primarily as the hermeneutic relationship between the object and the reading event. (shrink)

Inclusion of children in medical decision making, to the extent of their ability and interest in doing so, should be the default position, ensuring that children are routinely given a voice. However, optimizing the involvement of children in their health care decisions remains challenging for clinicians. Missing from the literature is a stepwise approach to assessing when and how a child should be included in medical decision making. We propose a systematic approach for doing so, and we apply this approach (...) in a discussion of two challenging clinical cases. The approach is informed by a literature review, and is anchored by case studies of teenagers' refusal of clinical care, regulatory requirements for research assent, and the accepted approach to involving cognitively impaired adults in medical decisions. (shrink)

This paper presents and discusses design studio outcomes developed in response to a studio brief linked to the Fun Palace Futures initiative of the Royal British Institute of British Architects (RIBA) in honour of architect Cedric Price and artist Joan Littlewood. The studio brief was collaboratively developed by the authors. Its core question was: How could the thoughts that guided the development and design of the Fun Palace – a project that was never built but is still today cited as (...) a model for thinking flexible and open architecture – be re-interpreted and renewed for the future? This line of thinking guided the initial and experimental research phase, during which students developed an understanding of what indeterminacy is or could be. The paper shows that through the translation of some of the essential principles of the Fun Palace project into pedagogical instruments, students were enabled to approach the questions of indeterminacy in an open and innovative manner. The paper argues that the use of a variety of media, which often went far beyond the conventional architectural pallet, and the introduction of media shifts were crucial in assisting the students in developing their own tools for creating a new kind of open and flexible architecture. The paper presents this pedagogic approach. We show that the conditions of indeterminacy, uncertainty, chance and change, hold potential for framing the design and creation of a new kind of dynamic architecture, and for initiating experimental architectural thinking in a design studio setting. (shrink)

By analising the specific use made by Thomas Aquinas of the verb ‘ostendere’ in the context of systematic philosophical conclusions as well as his presentation of biblical events and by scrutinizing the narrative strategies relative to ‘ostentatio’ (in the sense of displaying, hinting at, demonstrating) in ‘Der Saelden Hort’, a late medieval text on salvation, this paper makes clear that ostentation is a central category of mediality in the Middle Ages.

A collection of new articles in philosophy of perception, experimental psychology, and cognitive neurosciences written by world experts of the domain: Mohan Matthen, Scott Johnson, Berit Brogaard & Thomas Sørensen, EJ Green, Jake Quilty-Dunn, Brian Scholl, Philip Kellman, Frédérique de Vignemont, Mazviita Chirimuuta, Bence Nanay & Nick Young, Yale Cohen, William Lycan, Jonas Olofsson, Clare Batty & Barry Smith, Benjamin Young, Aleksandra Mroczko-Wąsowicz, Błażej Skrzypulec, Jonathan Cohen, Charles Spence, Casey O’Callaghan, Simon Lacey & Krish Sathian, Fabrizio Calzavarini & Alberto (...) Voltolini, and Matthew Fulkerson among others. (shrink)

THE NATURE OF HISTORISM. THE MAIN CONCEPTS AND THESES OF ERNST TROELTSCH’S INTERPRETATION The article aims to present the main elements of Ernst Troeltsch’s conception of historism. Historism is understood here as a way of thinking (in science or worldview), which is directed to explain things as products of a historical process. In this view, there is no place for any absolute or universal solutions, causes and rules (thus historism is something completely different from historicism in K.R. Popper’s sense). In (...) the first step, the author tries to show the philosophical context of Troeltsch’s thought (Hegel, Dilthey, Neo-Kantianism, Fenomenology) and to present some of the most important ideas connected with historism (like irrationalism, subjectivism, relativism and individuality). The main part of the article discusses Troeltsch’s conception according to the first chapter of his “Historismus und seine Probleme.” This part presents Troeltsch’s opinion about the crisis of historism and his vision of the real philosophy of history, which should be based on a formal logic of history. Keywords: HISTORISM, ERNST TROELTSCH, PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY. (shrink)

Author: Horecka Aleksandra Title: THE CONCEPT OF AESTHETICAL VALUE IN TATARKIEWICZ’S PAPERS (Pojęcie wartości estetycznej w pracach Władysława Tatarkiewicza) Source: Filo-Sofija year: 2011, vol:.13/14, number: 2011/2-3, pages: 601-615 Keywords: WŁADYSŁAW TATARKIEWICZ, AESTHETICAL VALUE, ONTOLOGICAL CATEGORY Discipline: PHILOSOPHY Language: POLISH Document type: ARTICLE Publication order reference (Primary author’s office address): E-mail: www:The purpose of this paper is to report and analyse the main theses of Tatarkiewicz’s theory of aesthetic value. We concentrate on ontological problems – what is aesthetical value and (...) what is the ontological category of valuable object. Tatarkiewicz claims, that: “The term ‘value’ refers to an abstract: property of thing, or to a concrete: to thing endowed with this property”. Many types of aesthetic value (aesthetic value in narrow sense, literary value and poetical value) exist. The only difference between using concept of aesthetic value only in positive sense and using concept of aesthetic value both – in positive and negative sense – is formal. Concerning thesis (1) we claim, that expression “thing” in Tatarkiewicz’s theory is the synonym for “physical object”; not only material objects, but also physical events and processes are Tatarkiewicz’s things as well. In our opinion the concept of aesthetic value proposed by Tatarkiewicz is objective, therefore formulation of thesis of aesthetic subjectivity, which Tatarkiewicz also did, is problematical. Using Tatarkiewicz’s terminology, we construct concept of value as a state of affairs (that some object is endowed with value-property) and we accept monocathegoriality of values (value is a property, a thing endowed with this property or a state of affairs). Concerning thesis (2) we divide all objects into semantic and asemantic and we claim, that in Tatarkiewicz’s theory, only asemantic objects or semantic but semantically uninterpreted object could be endowed with aesthetic value in narrow sense. The aesthetic value in narrow sense is its property considering its appearance or structure. As to the literary and poetical values – they are ascribed to semantic object in consideration of represented object. Concerning thesis (3) we argue, that it is significant whether we use concept of value only in positive sense or both – in positive and negative sense. Only in language with both expressions (“positive aesthetic value” and “negative aesthetic value”) we can formulate the theses about aesthetically neutral objects. (shrink)

Although there are numerous similarities between Duhem and Quine, there are strong arguments which suggest that what can be isolated as Quine?s thesis would be unacceptable to Duhem. On the other hand, they both share Duhem?s holistic thesis: empirical statements are interconnected in such a way that they cannot be confirmed or refuted taken in isolation. Since Quine?s holism is more radical, as we shall show, his thesis claims that we can always keep a statement by making necessary adjustments somewhere (...) else in the system. We will try to show that only the first thesis can be rightfully ascribed to Duhem, that these two thesis are not identical, and that they are both different from what is usually called the theses of underdetermination. As we shall see, neither of them speaks about the possibility of empirically equivalent theories. They are, first and foremost, holistic theses which, under certain additional assumptions, have the thesis of underdetermination as their consequence. (shrink)

This article develops a biosemiotic ´hyper-narrative model´ for the purposes of investigating emergent motor behaviors. It proposes to understand such behaviors in terms of the following associations: the organization of information acquired from the environment, focusing on narrative; the organizational dynamics of epigenetic mechanisms that underly the neural processes facilitating the processing of information; and the evolution of emergent motor behaviors that enable the informational acquisition. The article describes and explains these associations as part of a multi-ordered and multi-causal generative (...) principle of biological phenotype emergence that supersedes the theory of the arbitrary coding of life. Preceeding from narrative’s operations in a biological dimension, the article presents scientific research dealing with the associations of action-oriented organization of narrative information and underlying psychological and physiological dynamics and depicts the relations with a distributed multi-directional mapping dynamic. The article presents the explanatory implications of such a hyper-narrative dynamic model on an example of emergent motor behaviors – bruxism. Central to this discussion is the exploration of the possible mechanisms of emergence and etiopathogenesis of bruxism, based on its neurobiology. The article takes the perspective that complex systems dynamics themselves with a tendency to narrative form are found not to be underlain merely by arbitrary coded mechanisms but, rather, biological neural networks that render context-dependent bio-informational mapping analogous to that of the narrative possible. (shrink)

Artykuł stawia dwa pytania: jaki rodzaj etyki ekologicznej daje się wyprowadzić z posthumanistycznej refleksji i jak taka etyka mogłaby działać w konkretnej przestrzeni – ogrodzie działkowym. Interesuje mnie pole teoretyczne, kt.re wyznacza troska i namysł nad światem poza człowiekiem. Jako punktu wyjścia używam schematu trzech traum opisanego przez Zygmunta Freuda. Sytuacja człowieka po trzech traumach odczytana zostaje jako krajobraz postapokaliptyczny, w którym możliwe jest budowanie nowej etyki ekologicznej. Omawiając spektrum posthumanizmu, zwracam uwagę na problem granicy i dualizmu. Oprócz wskazania przykład.w (...) etycznych praktyk ogrodniczych, proponuję, aby w proces kształtowania struktury ogrodu włączyć śmierć ogrodników. (shrink)

The purpose of this paper is an attempt to present and analyse one of the most intriguing and unique elements of Leibniz’s philosophy of right—the relationship between love and justice —mainly based on selected excerpts from the Elementa Iuris Naturalis and the preface to the Codex Iuris Gentium Diplomaticus. The author presents the characteristics of this close connection and she tries to answer the question about the reasons for this relationship referring to the metaphysical assumptions and principles of Leibniz’s philosophy. (...) With respect to the latter the author also explains significance of the connection between love and justice in Leibniz’s philosophy of right as a part of his whole philosophical system. (shrink)

This paper presents a study of Rāmacandra–Guṇacandra’s theory of aesthetics in light of the Kashmiri rasa ideology and demonstrates that the Jain authors offer a new and original conceptualization of aesthetic experience, in which the spectator remains cognitively active in the course of watching the drama. In their model, the relationship between rasa and pleasure is mediated by a cognitive error, and the feeling of pleasure does not coincide with the savoring of rasa but emerges after the savoring of rasa (...) ceases. This paper argues that Rāmacandra and Guṇacandra demystify the Kashmiri theory of aesthetics by identifying affinities between the lived world and the fictive world of drama and by rendering the regular means of knowledge, such as inference and memory, as instrumental for the experience of rasa. It further suggests that this new conceptualization, in which pleasure is contingent upon the dissolution of illusion, may have facilitated the development of playwrighting among Jain monks from the twelfth century on. (shrink)

Memrise is an educational tool available both online and for mobile devices. Memrise uses flashcards and mnemonic techniques to aid in teaching foreign languages and memorizing information from other subjects, e.g. geography, law or mathematics. Memrise courses are created by its users through the process of crowdsourcing; therefore they are tailored to the individual needs of the users and may focus on the specific content of a particular coursebook or classes. The paper will attempt to present possibilities of using memrise (...) in teaching and learning legal English vocabulary during a tertiary course leading to TOLES certificate examination. The paper will look at various types of exercises which facilitate memorizing vocabulary, learning collocations, prepositional phrases, develop the skill of paraphrasing and defining legal terms of art in plain English. Application of the crowdsourcing method enables the learners to participate in the process of the course creation and constitutes for them a supplementary, out of class exposure to the target language. The second part of the paper will discuss the results of the research conducted by the author among her law students. The aim of the research was to investigate the students′ opinions about memrise as a tool which might facilitate individual learning of the specialist language, as well as to assess whether memrise may influence the test results achieved by the students during the legal English course. The paper will contrastively analyse the progress tests results achieved by the students who have used memrise to revise and recycle language material and those who have chosen traditional methods of learning. The research also attempted to address the question whether the students who had been the contributors to the content of memrise courses had performed better in tests than those who had only been the users. (shrink)