Este artículo visibiliza la centralidad de la dimensión ética en la investigación sociológica. En la primera sección se analizan los antecedentes de las preocupación es éticas en la investigación social. Para ello, se rastrea la emergencia del campo de la bioética en Europa Occidental y Estados Unidos después de la Segunda Guerra Mundial, la creación de Códigos y Declaraciones Éticos y la institucionalización de mecanismos regulatorios del quehacer investigativo por medio de la creación de Comités Éticos en organizaciones de distinto (...) tipo. Luego, se identifican tres temas cruciales en la literatura sobre ética e investigación social a nivel internacional: el consentimiento informado, el anonimato y la confidencialidad. Finalmente, se examina cómo algunas organizaciones científicas y profesionales argentinas re-localizan estas problemáticas centrales. Este artículo argumenta que existe un marginal aunque creciente interés en torno a las consideraciones éticas en Argentina. Sin embargo, este interés parece más producto de la incorporación de códigos y lineamientos internacionales que el resultado de una reflexión colectiva (al menos en el caso de los sociólogos) en torno a los dilemas éticos que éstos deben enfrentar cotidianamente en su ejercicio profesional. (shrink)

Based on the theoretical reconstruction of neglected post-WWI writings and political action of W. E. B. Du Bois, this volume offers a normative account of transnational cosmopolitanism. Pointing out the limitations of Kant's cosmopolitanism through a novel contextual account of Perpetual Peace, Transnational Cosmopolitanism shows how these limits remain in neo-Kantian scholarship. Inés Valdez's framework overcomes these limitations in a methodologically unique way, taking Du Bois's writings and his coalitional political action both as text that should inform our theorization (...) and normative insights. The cosmopolitanism proposed in this work is an original contribution that questions the contemporary currency of Kant's canonical approach and enlists overlooked resources to radicalize, democratize, and transnationalize cosmopolitanism. (shrink)

Investigaciones de arqueología histórica iniciadas en 2018 en el municipio de Lanús permitieron identificar un conjunto de terrenos que fueron propiedad de Anacarsis Lanús (considerado fundador del partido homónimo de la provincia de Buenos Aires, Argentina) y detectar su cercanía con el expresidente de la Nación, Bartolomé Mitre. Este artículo propone explorar la relación de amistad, con aspectos políticos y económicos, que unió a ambas personalidades durante el momento de formación del Estado moderno argentino, con el fin de aproximarnos a (...) los motivos que llevaron al auge y al ocaso del Sr. Lanús y que de alguna manera incidieron sobre sus propiedades e imagen dentro del actual partido. Se concluye que el acercamiento entre ambas personalidades tuvo aspectos rentables para ambos, pero al mismo tiempo se intercaló con situaciones infructuosas, que, si bien no resultaron en los motivos de la declinación económica de Anacarsis Lanús, sí impactaron negativamente sobre ella y sobre su imagen. El fraccionamiento y la venta de sus terrenos y propiedades son el resultado de una serie de problemas financieros y monetarios, que llevaron tanto a la urbanización de un sector del municipio como a dejar en las sombras parte de su historia y la de su familia. (shrink)

Este trabajo se propone examinar algunas características de la máscara del coquus en el corpus plautino. En primer término, se estudia el modo en que este personaje, a partir de las referencias al castigo físico y a la pasividad sexual, es construido como un cuerpo subordinado al servicio de otros. Luego, se consideran sus apariciones como ladrón y como proveedor de placeres corporales. Proponemos que la forma en que los cocineros son representados en la palliata de Plauto pone en evidencia (...) el vínculo que la axiología republicana establece entre actores sociales subalternos, corporalidad y amenaza a los mores maiorum. This paper examines some characteristics of the coquus mask in the plautine corpus. First, we study how this character, from references to physical punishment and sexual passivity, is built as a subordinate body to the service of others. Then, we consider his appearances as a thief and a provider of bodily pleasures. We propose that the way cooks are represented in Plautus' palliata shows us the link established by Republican axiology between subaltern social actors, body and threat to mores maiorum. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is twofold: (1) to assess whether the construct of neural representations plays an explanatory role under the variational free-energy principle and its corollary process theory, active inference; and (2) if so, to assess which philosophical stance - in relation to the ontological and epistemological status of representations - is most appropriate. We focus on non-realist (deflationary and fictionalist-instrumentalist) approaches. We consider a deflationary account of mental representation, according to which the explanatorily relevant contents of neural (...) representations are mathematical, rather than cognitive, and a fictionalist or instrumentalist account, according to which representations are scientifically useful fictions that serve explanatory (and other) aims. After reviewing the free-energy principle and active inference, we argue that the model of adaptive phenotypes under the free-energy principle can be used to furnish a formal semantics, enabling us to assign semantic content to specific phenotypic states (the internal states of a Markovian system that exists far from equilibrium). We propose a modified fictionalist account: an organism-centered fictionalism or instrumentalism. We argue that, under the free-energy principle, pursuing even a deflationary account of the content of neural representations licenses the appeal to the kind of semantic content involved in the aboutness or intentionality of cognitive systems; our position is thus coherent with, but rests on distinct assumptions from, the realist position. We argue that the free-energy principle thereby explains the aboutness or intentionality in living systems and hence their capacity to parse their sensory stream using an ontology or set of semantic factors. (shrink)

LS Penrose was the first to propose a measure of voting power (which later came to be known as ‘the [absolute] Banzhaf index’). His limit theorem – which is implicit in Penrose (1952) and for which he gave no rigorous proof – says that, in simple weighted voting games, if the number of voters increases indefinitely while the quota is pegged at half the total weight, then – under certain conditions – the ratio between the voting powers (as measured by (...) him) of any two voters converges to the ratio between their weights. We conjecture that the theorem holds, under rather general conditions, for large classes of variously defined weighted voting games, other values of the quota, and other measures of voting power. We provide proofs for some special cases. (shrink)

Este trabajo estudia las transformaciones de las operaciones productivas y receptivas del arte contemporáneo a partir de sus encuentros y desencuentros con la tecnociencia. Se advierte que la creciente inespecificidad de la esfera del arte, sus relaciones controvertidas con el pasado artístico y con las formas técnicas de la memoria, sus efectos en las configuraciones del sistema perceptivo humano, modifican los conceptos de arte, así como su función social. Se sostiene, además, que estas mutaciones dan lugar a una meta-reflexión estética, (...) epistemológica y política sobre la propia condición humana en sus complejos vínculos con el sistema tecnocientífico e industrial. (shrink)

The problem of identity constructions of young people who choose teacher training involves a dual problem. First, it is necessary to characterize these young people, analyze their role in society, observing its context. Secondly, we have to explain why they choose to be teachers in their training, in the future, and will enroll in a racing Faculty of Social Sciences at the University regional, little tradition, located in a city average. These tasks define the problem that is presented in this (...) article. (shrink)

In 2000, Rüdiger Thiele [1] found in a notebook of David Hilbert, kept in Hilbert's Nachlass at the University of Göttingen, a small note concerning a 24th problem. As Hilbert wrote, he had considered including this problem in his famous problem list for the International Congress of Mathematicians in Paris in 1900.

This essay brings together political theories of empire and racial capitalism to clarify the entanglements between socialist and imperial discourse at the turn of the twentieth century. I show that white labor activists and intellectuals in the United States and the British settler colonies borrowed from imperial scripts to mark non-white workers as a threat. This discourse was thus both imperial and popular, because it absorbed the white working class into settler projects and enlisted its support in defense of imperial (...) logics of labor control. While white workers’ demands of enfranchisement were part of a transnational imagination that was both imperial and narrowly emancipatory, this discourse reemerged as one of popular sovereignty and found channels and paths to institutionalization through national states. These institutional formations arose out of the encounter between capitalists interested in facilitating mobility of racialized laboring subjects around the globe, elite projects invested in sheltering settler spaces, and white workers concerned with protecting their own labor from competition by excluding exploitable non-white workers. White labor’s embrace of racial prejudice and the exclusion of workers of color created segregated labor spaces that fit neatly with both capitalist goals of labor control and the protection of the settler status of emerging polities. Bringing to the forefront the imperial genealogy of popular sovereignty and immigration control disrupts liberal political theory frameworks that condemn restrictions as well as those that find migration restrictions permissible. The analysis also illuminates contemporary immigration politics. (shrink)

This article explores the distinctions among European peoples’ character established in Kant’s anthropology and their connection with his politics. These aspects are neglected relative to the analysis of race between Europeans and non-Europeans, but Kant’s anthropological works portray the people of Mediterranean Europe as not capable of civilization because of the dominance of passion in their faculty of desire, which he ties to ‘Oriental’ influences in blood or government. Kant then superimposes this racialized anthropology over the historical geopolitics of Europe, (...) obscuring the indebtedness of Northern European trade dominance to Mediterranean historical tactics and financial wealth. By relegating the Mediterranean to the margins and dismissing contentious commercial exchange in the region as mere violence spearheaded by North African corsairs, Kant gives us an elitist cosmopolitanism unable to cope with hierarchy and inequality, diminishing its potential for egalitarian global projects today. (shrink)

Reseña de: Florencia Abadi. El sacrificio de Narciso. Buenos Aires: Hecho Atómico, 2018.

The field of Neuroscience has experienced a growing interest in recent decades, which has led to an exponential growth in the amount of related information made available online as well as the market for Neuroscience-related courses. While this type of knowledge can be greatly beneficial to people working in science, health and education, it can also benefit individuals in other areas. For example, neuroscience knowledge can help people from all fields better understand and critique information about new discoveries or products, (...) and even make better education- and health-related decisions. Online platforms are fertile ground for the creation and spread of fake information, including misrepresentations of scientific knowledge or new discoveries. These types of false information, once spread, can be difficult to tear down and may have widespread negative effects. For example, even scientists are less likely to access retractions of peer-reviewed articles than the original discredited articles. In this study we surveyed general knowledge about neuroscience and the brain among volunteers in Brazil, Latin America’s largest country. We were interested in evaluating the prevalence of neuromyths in this region, and test whether knowledge/neuromyth endorsement differs by age, region, and/or profession. To that end, we created a 30-item survey that was anonymously answered online by 1128 individuals. While younger people generally responded more accurately than people 60 and older, people in the North responded significantly worse than those in the South and Southeast. Most interestingly, people in the biological sciences consistently responded best, but people in the health sciences responded no better than people in the exact sciences or humanities. Furthermore, years of schooling did not correlate with performance, suggesting that quantity may surpass quality when it comes to extension or graduate-level course offerings. We discuss how our findings can help guide efforts toward improving access to quality information and training in the region. (shrink)

Por una lectura moderna del último modernista.

El propósito del artículo es reflexionar sobre las políticas públicas implementadas desde el gobierno nacional hacia los movimientos sociales en el contexto argentino actual. El interés es debatir la influencia de los programas sociales –en particular el Programa de Ingreso Social con Trabajo (en adelante PAT)– en la situación de los jóvenes de sectores urbanos populares. Lo haremos a partir de abordar la compleja relación entre los emprendimientos cooperativos, las políticas de subsidio y las estrategias de los jóvenes participantes en (...) una experiencia territorial. La base empírica resulta de una investigación cualitativa con militantes de un movimiento de trabajadores desocupados. Los hallazgos dan cuenta de múltiples tensiones; mientras que su adscripción a la acción colectiva promueve la autogestión y mediatiza el acceso a planes sociales, como componentes de la fuerza de trabajo en período activo y de formación, los trabajadores desocupados siguen ubicados en posiciones marginales respecto al mercado de empleo. The purpose of this article is to reflect on the public policies implemented from the national government to the social movements in Argentina’s current context. The interest is to discuss the influence of social programs, including Social Program Income through Work (hereafter pat) in the situation of young people from urban areas. We will address it from the complex relationship established among cooperative ventures, social policies and strategies of the young participants in a territorial experience. The empirical basis is a qualitative research with a militant movement of unemployed workers. The findings realize multiple stresses; while its allegiance to collective action promotes self–management and mediates access to social programs as components of the active labor force and training period, which are located in marginal positions on the labor market. (shrink)

El artículo presenta avances de una investigación realizada en San Carlos de Bariloche por un equipo de profesoras y estudiantes del IFDC Bariloche: "Condiciones que favorecen y obstaculizan la inclusión educativa de jóvenes y adultos/as con discapacidad intelectual en educación primaria, secundaria y técnico-profesional en San Carlos de Bariloche". Se comparten aportes jurídico-normativos, dimensiones del marco teórico, y avances a partir del análisis de entrevistas iniciales a equipos directivos, docentes, y a un estudiante con DI. Finalmente, se exponen facilitadores y (...) barreras para la inclusión educativa y social, y aportes para la discusión acerca de la temática. (shrink)

Admiration and adoration have been considered as emotions with the power to change people, yet our knowledge of the specific nature and function of these emotions is quite limited. From an interdisciplinary perspective, we present a prototype approach to admiration and what has variously been labelled adoration, worship, or reverence. Both admiration and adoration contribute to the formation of personal and collective ideals, values, and identities, but their workings differ. We offer a detailed theoretical account of commonalities and differences in (...) the appraisal patterns and action tendencies associated with the two emotions. This analysis reveals that admiration motivates the internalisation and emulation of ideals embodied by an outstanding role model. Adoration motivates adherence to the teachings and expectations of a meaning maker and benefactor perceived as superhuman or sacred. Thus, the primary function of admiration is to promote individual learning and change, whereas adoration primarily serves to bind communities together. (shrink)

How is admiration different from adoration? We provided one answer to this question by examining the pathways through which admiration and adoration linked to self-expansion in a questionnaire and an experimental (autobiographical recall of emotion episodes) study. Both emotions were associated with increased potential efficacy to accomplish goals (i.e., self-expansion), but different action tendencies accounted for these links. While our emotion inductions did not successfully distinguish between admiration and adoration, we could statistically disentangle their effects through mediator models. In both (...) studies, self-reported admiration linked to self-expansion through the tendency to emulate admired others. Adoration related to self-expansion through the tendency to affiliate with adored others. These findings were obtained after controlling for other emotions in response to the target person (awe, love, hope, benign envy) and mutuality of the relationship. Our findings also suggest that considering specific emotions (rather than undifferentiated positive affect) helps uncover different pathways to self-expansion. (shrink)

This edited book deepens the engagement between 21st century philosophy of mind and the emerging technologies which are transforming our environment. Many new technologies appear to have important implications for the human mind, the nature of our cognition, our sense of identity and even perhaps what we think human beings are. They prompt questions such as: Would an uploaded mind be 'me'? Does our reliance on smart phones, or wearable gadgets enhance or diminish the human mind? and: How does our (...) deep reliance upon ambient artificial intelligence change the shape of the human mind? Readers will discover the best philosophical analysis of what current and near future 21st technology means for the metaphysics of mind. Important questions are addressed on matters relating to the extended mind and the distributed self. Expert authors explore the role that the ubiquitous smart phone might have in creating new forms of self-knowledge. They consider machine consciousness, brain enhancement and smart ambient technology, and what they can tell us about phenomenal consciousness. While ideas of artificial general intelligence, cognitive enhancements and the smart environment are widely commented on, serious analysis of their philosophical implications is only getting started. These contributions from top scholars are therefore very timely, and are of particular relevance to students and scholars of the philosophy of mind, philosophy of technology, computer science and psychology. (shrink)

In European science and technology policy, various styles have been developed and institutionalised to govern the ethical challenges of science and technology innovations. In this paper, we give an account of the most dominant styles of the past 30 years, particularly in Europe, seeking to show their specific merits and problems. We focus on three styles of governance: a technocratic style, an applied ethics style, and a public participation style. We discuss their merits and deficits, and use this analysis to (...) assess the potential of the recently established governance approach of ‘Responsible Research and Innovation’. Based on this analysis, we reflect on the current shaping of RRI in terms of ‘doing governance’. (shrink)

The adoption of Big Data analytics in insurance has proved controversial but there has been little analysis specifying how insurance practices are changing. Is insurance passively subject to the forces of disruptive innovation, moving away from the pooling of risk towards its personalisation or individualisation, and what might that mean in practice? This special theme situates disruptive innovations, particularly the experimental practices of behaviour-based personalisation, in the context of the practice and regulation of contemporary insurance. Our contributors argue that behaviour-based (...) personalisation in insurance has different and broader implications than have yet been appreciated. BDAs are changing how insurance governs risk; how it knows, classifies, manages, prices and sells it, in ways that are more opaque and more extensive than the black boxes of in-car telematics. (shrink)

El coloquio-conversatorio Memorias sonoras, prisión política y dictaduras en el Cono Sur. Reflexiones trasandinas sensibles se desarrolló el día 11 de septiembre de 2021, día de conmemoración de las víctimas de violencias políticas durante la dictadura militar chilena. Fue organizado por la línea Arte y Política del Núcleo de Sociología del Arte y las Prácticas Culturales de la Facultad de Ciencias Sociales de la Universidad de Chile, y contó con la participación de expositoras chilenas y argentinas: Analía Lutowicz, Victoria (...) Polti, Katia Chornik y Francisca Cornejo. A continuación, presentamos tres de las ponencias propuestas para el conversatorio: “Memorias de canciones de Violeta Parra y la Nueva Canción Chilena en mujeres ex presas políticas en la cárcel del Buen Pastor de Valparaíso durante la dictadura militar chilena” a cargo de Francisca Cornejo, “La memoria sonora de las experiencias concentracionarias en Argentina. Escuchando las miradas que construyen los relatos del Terrorismo de Estado durante la última dictadura cívico-militar”, a cargo de Analía Lutowicz y “La performatividad del sonido y la escucha en contextos concentracionarios” de Victoria Polti. (shrink)

One of the criteria to a strong principle in natural sciences is simplicity. This paper claims that the Free Energy Principle (FEP), by virtue of unifying particles with mind, is the simplest. Motivated by Hilbert’s 24th problem of simplicity, the argument is made that the FEP takes a seemingly mathematical complex domain and reduces it to something simple. More specifically, it is attempted to show that every ‘thing’, from particles to mind, can be partitioned into systemic states by virtue of (...) self-organising symmetry break, i.e. self-entropy in terms of the balance between risk and ambiguity to achieve epistemic gain. By virtue of its explanatory reach, the FEP becomes the simplest principle under quantum, statistical and classical mechanics conditions. (shrink)

This aim of this paper is two-fold: it critically analyses and rejects accounts blending active inference as theory of mind and enactivism; and it advances an enactivist-dynamic understanding of social cognition that is compatible with active inference. While some social cognition theories seemingly take an enactive perspective on social cognition, they explain it as the attribution of mental states to other people, by assuming representational structures, in line with the classic Theory of Mind. Holding both enactivism and ToM, we argue, (...) entails contradiction and confusion due to two ToM assumptions widely known to be rejected by enactivism: that social cognition reduces to mental representation and social cognition is a hardwired contentful ‘toolkit’ or ‘starter pack’ that fuels the model-like theorising supposed in. The paper offers a positive alternative, one that avoids contradictions or confusion. After rejecting ToM-inspired theories of social cognition and clarifying the profile of social cognition under enactivism, that is without assumptions and, the last section advances an enactivist-dynamic model of cognition as dynamic, real-time, fluid, contextual social action, where we use the formalisms of dynamical systems theory to explain the origins of socio-cognitive novelty in developmental change and active inference as a tool to demonstrate social understanding as generalised synchronisation. (shrink)

Selection and recruitment process is the first step from human resource management PT. MGF has already following this process but still find in effective result on field. There are a lot of complaint from many departments about the employees whose recruit by HRD doesn’t perform very well. This problem affected other system and causes a lot of employee are accepted by reference. This research held to find the causes and problems in recruitment process in PT. MGF, in order to find (...) the training needs as a solution through this problem. According to problem analysis, the right solution is create/established the competency based criteria model for specific position. This can support the recruiter to find the person whose meet the criteria to show excellence performance. Subjects are all center employees who meet the research criteria and held in Operational Department.  . (shrink)

In recent years, many researchers engaged in diverse areas and approaches of “cultural-historical activity theory” (CHAT) realized an increasing international interest in Lev S. Vygotsky’s, A. N. Leont’ev’s, and A. Luria’s work and its continuations. Not so long ago, Yrjö Engeström noted that the activity approach was still “the best-held secret of academia” (p. 64) and highlighted the “impressive dimension of theorizing behind” it. Certainly, this remark reflects a time when CHAT was off the beaten tracks. But if this situation (...) begins to change today, in which direction will CHAT be heading? Will it continue to be one of those projects “unique for its practical, political, and civic engagement” committed “to ideals of social justice, equality, and social change” as it was in the beginning (Stetsenko & Arievitch, 2004, p. 58)? Although a positive future of CHAT seems to lie ahead, we consider in this article some of the problematics that may challenge all those who want to pass the “impressive dimensions of theorizing” from “insider” circles to a larger audience and from one generation to another as well as encourage newcomers to become part of this tradition through critical engagement in its theory and practice. A key to these engagements, we suggest, is not only the comprehensive empirical and philosophical basis, but also the role of dialectics as both topic and method. Therefore, the challenge for newcomers (as well as for “old-timers”) to take on the tradition of CHAT is not a small one indeed. We assume that a major reason for the increasing interest in CHAT lies in its potential to provide a non-reductionist approach to human development, which is due to its affinity to dialectics; however, the close interrelation to a tradition that reaches back to the theories of Georg W.F. Hegel and Karl Marx, among others, is not the easiest to master. In consideration of these difficulties, the purpose of this article is to investigate how contemporary approaches within CHAT can continue to provide a dialectical framework to preserve and renew the critical intention of this tradition, and how we run the risk of losing this sting. Thereby, we sensitize researchers to the problem of developing a cultural-historical approach within a historical situation that confronts us with new, unanswered questions. In this light, we also problematize the use of scientific language, for it may lead us to speak and argue un-dialectically when in fact we intend or ought to think dialectically. This article seeks to convey insights and arguments of how we can relate our theoretical approaches to a tradition of dialectical thinking and in what ways this is paramount for a critical engagement in theory and practice. In the first part, we therefore discuss not only some major theorems in Hegel’s and Marx’s work but also, and above all, Vygotsky’s way of developing the cultural-historical approach of psychology. Second, we argue that the contemporary, widely known version of CHAT, related to Yrjö Engeström’s theoretical and empirical work, neglects different aspects of dialectical thinking and consequently narrows its potential to a socio-critical approach to societal practice and human development. A crucial question of this scrutiny will be the notion of contradictions and how development is supposed to be achieved. In general, our intention is not only to clarify the role of dialectics as a method for activity theory but also to problematize the role of the subjects of research in CHAT and to confront ourselves with the problems of practicing and developing a critical science in face of a complex and challenging societal world. (shrink)

Através de uma leitura densa das fontes hagiográficas jesuítas que celebraram a vida de um jesuíta napolitano, Marcelo Mastrilli (1603-1637), procuro mostrar que as visões e narrativas proféticas foram importantes lugares de comunicação social, memória colectiva e mobilização política. O reposicionamento profético foi uma linguagem específica da tecnologia do eu, a partir da qual o sujeito fabricava a sua própria identidade, dentro e contra os limites externos da autoridade e das instituições. Marcelo Mastrilli – que viajou pela Itália, Espanha, Portugal, (...) Goa, Malaca, Filipinas e Japão – construiu a sua própria subjectividade e acção através de uma visão profética de São Francisco Xavier. Logo que a sua experiência pessoal foi impressa, atingindo um público mais vasto, mobilizou outros actores a imitá-lo, citá-lo, ou a fazer uso dele nos seus percursos individuais e sociais. O que se podia transportar de um continente para outro não eram, claro, visões pessoais mas a sua corporização numa série de textos e imagens materiais. E a verdade é que mesmo depois da sua morte, em 1637, as suas visões foram retomadas pelo padre António Vieira e integradas no seu discurso legitimador da dinastia de Bragança e do papel que os jesuítas aí desempenhavam. (shrink)

Firms usually need to attract debt to form and grow, but increasing financial leverage also entails increased risks and costs for stakeholders, such as customers and employees. Accordingly, past research suggests that for common commercial firms (CCFs), which prioritize profits, higher leverage leads to lower sales growth and higher employment costs. However, Certified B Corporations (CBCs) distinguish themselves by having a credible prosocial mission and, therefore, might be better insulated against the adverse effects of higher leverage. Using a European multi-country (...) matched sample of 136 CBCs and 136 CCFs, we find that the negative relationship between leverage and sales growth and the positive relationship between leverage and employment costs are weaker for CBCs than CCFs. Taken together, due to their certified prosocial mission, CBCs enjoy an advantage in debt financing compared to CCFs. (shrink)

Advancing a radically enactive account of cognition, we provide arguments in favour of the possibility that cultural factors permeate rather than penetrate cognition, such that cognition extensively and transactionally incorporates cultural factors rather than there being any question of cultural factors having to break into the restricted confines of cognition. The paper reviews the limitations of two classical cognitivist, modularist accounts of cognition and a revisionary, new order variant of cognitivism – a Predictive Processing account of Cognition, or PPC. It (...) argues that the cognitivist interpretation of PPC is conservatively and problematically attached to the idea of inner models and stored knowledge. In abandoning that way of understanding PPC, it offers a radically enactive alternative account of how cultural factors matter to cognition – one that abandons all vestiges of the idea that cultural factors might contentfully communicate with basic forms of cognition. In place of that idea, the possibility that culture permeates cognition is promoted. (shrink)

In contemporary Western culture, death has been widely censured because of its conceptual implications; it lies at the boundaries between reductionism and metaphysics. There is not yet an efficacious epistemology able to solve this contraposition and its consequent collision with science and tradition. This article analyzes Near Death Experiences as a prototypical argument in which the two perspectives conflict. Specifically, it analyzes the epistemological antinomies of the ontological representations of death, inhering in passage versus absolute annihilation. Indeed, the NDEs theme (...) permits the examination of the logical contradiction between monistic reductionism and its ontological counterpart to improve the discovery of a new paradigm that integrates the ecological with eternalist views. (shrink)

When someone masters a skill, their performance looks to us like second nature: it looks as if their actions are smoothly performed without explicit, knowledge-driven, online monitoring of their performance. Contemporary computational models in motor control theory, however, are instructionist: that is, they cast skillful performance as a knowledge-driven process. Optimal motor control theory, as representative par excellence of such approaches, casts skillful performance as an instruction, instantiated in the brain, that needs to be executed—a motor command. This paper aims (...) to show the limitations of such instructionist approaches to skillful performance. We specifically address the question of whether the assumption of control-theoretic models is warranted. The first section of this paper examines the instructionist assumption, according to which skillful performance consists of the execution of theoretical instructions harnessed in motor representations. The second and third sections characterize the implementation of motor representations as motor commands, with a special focus on formulations from OMCT. The final sections of this paper examine predictive coding and active inference—behavioral modeling frameworks that descend, but are distinct, from OMCT—and argue that the instructionist, control-theoretic assumptions are ill-motivated in light of new developments in active inference. (shrink)