A careful observation of the phenomenon of human life allows us to understand that from the beginning of the human life cycle until its destruction, the existence of each subject is deeply marked b...

The purpose of this article is to show that animal rights are not necessarily at odds with the use of animals for research. If animals hold basic moral rights similar to those of humans, then we should consequently extend the ethical requirements guiding research with humans to research with animals. The article spells out how this can be done in practice by applying the seven requirements for ethical research with humans proposed by Ezekiel Emanuel, David Wendler and Christine Grady to (...) animal research. These requirements are i) social value, ii) scientific validity, iii) independent review, iv) fair subject selection, v) favorable risk-benefit ratio, vi) informed consent, and vii) respect for research subjects. In practice, this means that we must reform the practice of animal research to make it more similar to research with humans, rather than completely abolish the former. Indeed, if we banned animal research altogether, then we would also deprive animals of its potential benefits – which would be ethically problematic. (shrink)

This dialogue explores the question of whether intentionality—the “ofness”, “aboutness”, or “directedness” of mental states—is a relation. We explore three views: the Naive View, on which intentionality is a relation to ordinary, everyday objects, facts, and other such items; the Abstract Contents View, on which intentionality is a relation to mind-independent abstract entities that are our contents; and the Aspect View, on which intentionality is a matter of having intentional states with particular (non-relational) aspects that are our contents. We consider (...) the challenges facing these views, which include empirical challenges in accounting for all the contents our intentional states can represent, metaphysical challenges in making sense of how contents can be entertained or otherwise represented by us and how they can play a psychological role in the mental economy, and challenges in making sense of how intentionality connects us to the world—if at all. Along the way, we consider the question of how consciousness is related to intentionality and how this affects one’s choice of views. (shrink)

ABSTRACT This article presents the analysis of a data sample collected from a survey conducted with Brazilian and Portuguese youngsters. Our aim was to identify textual supports used for literary reading, as well as the authors and works most read by this public so that we may reflect upon the influences subjacent to those choices. To do so, we analyzed the answers given to a questionnaire applied to students in the last year of High School, in both contexts. This is (...) research is exploratory, of quantitative and qualitative nature, with theoretical support in Barthes (2004), Balça and Costa (2017), Pennac (1993), Petit (2009), Todorov (2010), among others who discuss the subject. Results show that young people prefer to read literary works in print, which are mostly chosen according to the requirements of school institutions and the publishing market. (shrink)

Little has been studied on the relationship between affect and school problems related with attendance. This study aims to identify different affective profiles and to determine whether these profiles differ from each other based on the four functional conditions of school refusal behavior. Participants comprised 1,816 Spanish adolescents aged 15–18 years. The Positive and Negative Affect Schedule for Children-Short Form and the School Refusal Assessment Scale-Revised for Children were administered. Latent profile analysis revealed five affective profiles: low affective profile, self-fulfilling (...) profile, low positive affect profile, self-destructive profile, and high affective profile. The self-destructive profile revealed the highest average scores in the first three factors of the SRAS-R-C, whereas the high affective profile reached the highest average score in the fourth factor. On the contrary, the self-fulfilling profile obtained the lowest average scores in the first two factors of the SRAS-R-C, whereas the low affective profile revealed the lowest average scores in the last two factors. Findings suggest the relevance of developing more adaptative affective profiles, such as the self-fulfilling profile, which would contribute to diminishing school attendance problems. (shrink)

What leads people to believe in conspiracy theories? In this paper, we explore the possibility that people might be drawn towards conspiracy theories because believing in them might satisfy certain existential needs and help people find meaning in their life. Through two studies (N = 289 and 287 after exclusion), we found that par­ ticipants higher in the need and search for meaning were more likely to believe in conspiracy theories. This relationship was not moderated by participants' feelings of control. (...) We also found that believing in conspiracy theories was associated with more presence of meaning (Study 1), and more precisely with a heightened feeling of mattering in the grand scheme of things (Study 2). Additionally, we found that participants were more likely to endorse conspiracy theories that left them more agency and allowed them the possibility to make a difference. Overall, we argue that our results suggest that people might sometimes be drawn towards conspiracy theories because they allow them to feel as if they can make a difference and have a positive impact on the world, and thus that conspiracy theories can be used as tools to satisfy existential needs. (shrink)

Human-wildlife interactions frequently lead to conflicts – about the fair use of natural resources, for example. Various principled accounts have been proposed to resolve such interspecies conflicts. However, the existing frameworks are often inadequate to the complexities of real-life scenarios. In particular, they frequently fail because they do not adequately take account of the qualitative importance of individual interests, their relative importance, and the number of individuals affected. This article presents a limited aggregation account designed to overcome these shortcomings and (...) thus to facilitate decision-making in real-world human-wildlife conflicts. (shrink)

O Transtorno do Espectro Autista (TEA) é caracterizado pela presença de déficits persistentes na comunicação e interação social, além de padrões restritos e repetitivos de comportamentos, interesses e atividades. Como forma de viabilizar a inclusão das crianças autistas no ambiente escolar, a orientação dos professores que atuam com este público é de suma importância. O objetivo do estudo é apresentar a experiência de orientação feita para os professores que lecionam para alunos autistas, acompanhados pelo Núcleo de Atenção ao TEA, da (...) cidade de Monte Alto-SP, no período de junho de 2022 a junho de 2023. Trata-se de um estudo descritivo, do tipo relato de experiência, embasado na ciência ABA (Análise do Comportamento Aplicada) e relacionado às vivências com os professores em orientações, realizadas mensalmente. Como resultado, observou-se a dificuldade dos docentes em acolher estes alunos, direcionar atividades, lidar com comportamentos disruptivos e no manejo das atividades de vida diária. Discute-se a importância de uma ferramenta de apoio para proporcionar aos docentes maior respaldo teórico à prática com alunos autistas, para contribuir na inclusão, aprendizagem e socialização no ambiente escolar. Esta experiência ampliou as vivências sobre a perspectiva do professor na inclusão escolar de crianças com TEA, lançando luz sobre a necessidade de formação teórica e instrumentalização dos docentes, considerando as particularidades de neurodesenvolvimento e comportamento desta população e contribuindo para a maior eficácia da assistência educacional inclusiva. (shrink)

In their monograph Narrow Content, Yli-Vakkuri and Hawthorne argue that all versions of internalism about mental content are either false or "pointless" (roughly, of no interest). We overview Yli-Vakkuri and Hawthorne's main line of argument and suggest that, while largely correct, it does not touch the core internalist claim that mental states have internally determined contents. Instead of engaging with this claim, Yli-Vakkuri and Hawthorne attack a variety of stronger or weaker claims. The stronger claims fall prey to the Mirror (...) Man argument and other considerations. The weaker claims fall prey to the charge of pointlessness. But the core internalist view is left untouched. (shrink)

Three philosophical accounts of risk dominate the contemporary literature. On the probabilistic account, risk has to do with the probability of a disvaluable event obtaining; on the modal account, it has to do with the modal closeness of that event obtaining; on the normic account, it has to do with the normalcy of that event obtaining. The debate between these accounts has proceeded via counterexample-trading, with each account having some cases it explains better than others, and some cases that it (...) cannot explain at all. In this article, we attempt to break the impasse between the three accounts of risk through a shift in methodology. We investigate the concept of risk via the method of conceptual reverse-engineering, whereby a theorist reconstructs the need that a concept serves for a group of agents in order to illuminate the shape of the concept: its intension and extension. We suggest that risk functions to meet our need to make decisions that reduce disvalue under conditions of uncertainty. Our project makes plausible that risk is a pluralist concept: meeting this need requires that risk takes different forms in different contexts. But our pluralism is principled: each of these different forms are part of one and the same concept, that has a ‘core-to-periphery’ structure, where the form the concept takes in typical cases (at its ‘core’) explains the form it takes in less typical cases (at its ‘periphery’). We then apply our findings to epistemic risk, to resolve an ambiguity in how ‘epistemic risk’ is standardly understood. (shrink)

The success of digital COVID-19 contact tracing requires a strategy that successfully addresses the digital divide—inequitable access to technology such as smartphones. Lack of access both undermines the degree of social benefit achieved by the use of tracing apps, and exacerbates existing social and health inequities because those who lack access are likely to already be disadvantaged. Recently, Singapore has introduced portable tracing wearables (with the same functionality as a contact tracing app) to address the equity gap and promote public (...) health. We argue that governments have an ethical obligation to ensure fair access to the protective benefits of contract tracing during the pandemic and that wearables are an effective way of addressing some important equity issues. The most contentious issues about contact tracing apps have been the potential infringements of privacy and individual liberty, especially where the use of apps or other technology (such as wearables or QR codes) is required for access to certain spaces. Here we argue that wearables, as opposed to apps alone, will make a digital contact tracing mandate more practical and explain some conditions under which such a mandate would be justified. We focus on Singapore as a case study that has recently deployed contact tracing wearables nationally, but also reference debate about wearables in Australia and New Zealand. Our analysis will be relevant to counties trialling similar portable tracing wearables. (shrink)

On explanationist accounts of genealogical debunking, roughly, a belief is debunked when its explanation is not suitably related to its content. We argue that explanationism cannot accommodate cases in which beliefs are explained by factors unrelated to their contents but are nonetheless independently justified. Justification-specific versions of explanationism face an iteration of the problem. The best account of debunking is a probabilistic account according to which subject S’s justification J for their belief that P is debunked when S learns that (...) J is no more likely to be true on the hypothesis that P than on the hypothesis that ¬P. The probabilistic criterion is fully general, applying not only to cases where the learned undercutting defeater is a proposition about our beliefs or other mental states but to any case of undercutting defeat, providing the grounds for a debunking argument against the existence of a special, metacognitive debunking principle. (shrink)

For all its popularity as a psychological construct, willpower is irremediably polysemous. A more helpful construct is self-control, defined as the self-regulation of conflicting impulses. We show how the process model of self-control provides a principled framework for examining how undesirable impulses may be weakened and desirable impulses may be strengthened.

Background:The high level of satisfaction of users of a health service is largely due to the fact that they receive excellent care from healthcare professionals. Compassionate care is an essential...

Only a few studies have disaggregated homicide rates by relationship type or gender, with little investigation of homicide trends in adult marital and other intimate relationships. The current study documents patterns of homicide between opposite gender relational partners for the twelve years of 1976 through 1987 based on Supplementary Homicide Report Data, comparing rates between couples in marital and nonmarital relationships. Analyses reveal that the homicide rate for married couples declined somewhat during this period, although the drop in the rate (...) of wives killing husbands was greater than the drop in the rate of husbands killing wives. However, homicides involving unmarried couples followed a very different pattern. Whereas the lethal victimization rate for men in unmarried relationships varied unsystematically over time from 1976 through 1987, the rate of unmarried women being killed by their male partners increased significantly. Findings demonstrate the importance of disaggregating homicide data by gender and relationship type so that crucial differences can be detected. (shrink)

This thesis develops and defends epistemic fictionalism, according to which knowledge talk is metaphorical. One of the distinctive features of metaphor is that metaphorical sentences have multiple readings: a literal (or ‘face-value’) reading and at least one metaphorical (or ‘non-face-value’) reading. Typically, speakers who utter metaphorical sentences intend to communicate a content that corresponds to the metaphorical meaning. Epistemic fictionalism posits that, as is standard for metaphors, sentences of the form “S knows that P” admit of at least two different (...) readings: a face-value (literal) reading, and a different non-face-value metaphorical reading. A face-value reading of sentences of the form “S knows that P” is that S is infallible with regards to P, and as such are always (or almost always) false at face-value. However, such sentences are not typically used to communicate their typically false face-value content, but some other, typically true metaphorical content. The thesis applies the methods of function-first epistemology (Craig 1990, Hannon 2019a), taking as a starting point the question of what knowledge talk is used for. I argue that understanding knowledge talk as metaphorical coheres with the function that knowledge talk plays, in spite of all (or most) knowledge attributions being literally false: there are advantages to communicating the non-face-value, metaphorical content. Another key advantage of epistemic fictionalism is that it explains the intuitions surrounding sceptical arguments. On the one hand, sceptical infallibilism is compelling because it is the correct analysis of the face-value content of knowledge attributions. On the other hand, sceptical infallibilism is not threatening to everyday knowledge attributions because it does not threaten the truth of the metaphorical content that knowledge attributions are typically used to express. Overall, the main aim of the thesis is to motivate epistemic fictionalism as a serious contender worthy of further investigation and development. (shrink)

El presente artículo es producto de una investigación multidisciplinaria e interinstitucional, fruto de la alianza entre la Universidad de San Buenaventura Medellín y el Centro de Familia VID-Obra de la Congregación Mariana de Medellín. Surge de una inquietud respecto a la manera en que se aborda la realidad institucional de las madres cabeza de familia, tanto en el ámbito político como empresarial. Para estudiar esta realidad, se partió de un modelo de investigación cualitativo, en donde se hizo una aproximación a (...) la población a partir de un cuestionario que permitiera identificar los roles y percepciones frente al ejercicio de la maternidad y la jefatura femenina, específicamente, cuando se trata de madres trabajadoras. Los resultados arrojados por la investigación permiten obtener una mirada psicosocial de la forma en que se ejerce el rol de madre y de figura de articulación familiar. (shrink)

Philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche and sociologist Norbert Elias are both famous for their influential interpretations of modern European culture as a whole. Nietzsche s On the Genealogy of Morals and Elias The Civilizing Process crossed disciplinary boundaries with respect to both content and method, and both books are still of great contemporary interest. This volume brings international specialists together for the first time to explore the connections between these two works. ".

The data analyzed in this paper are part of the results described in Bueno et al. (2000). Three cytogenetics endpoints were analyzed in three populations of a species of wild rodent – Akodon montensis – living in an industrial, an agricultural, and a preservation area at the Itajaí Valley, State of Santa Catarina, Brazil. The polychromatic/normochromatic ratio, the mitotic index, and the frequency of micronucleated polychromatic erythrocites were used in an attempt to establish a genotoxic profile of each area. It (...) was assumed that the three populations were in the same conditions with respect to the influence of confounding factors such as animal age, health, nutrition status, presence of pathogens, and intra- and inter-populational genetic variability. Therefore, any differences found in the endpoints analyzed could be attributed to the external agents present in each area. The statistical models used in this paper are mixtures of negative-binomials and Poisson variables. The Poisson variables are used as approximations of binomials for rare events. The mixing distributions are beta densities. The statistical analyzes are under the bayesian perspective, as opposed to the frequentist ones often considered in the literature, as for instance in Bueno et al. (2000). (shrink)

This study examines the cross‐cultural generality of Hering's (1878/1964) color‐opponent theory of color appearance. English‐speaking and Somali‐speaking observers performed variants of two paradigms classically used to study color‐opponency. First, both groups identified similar red, green, blue, and yellow unique hues. Second, 25 English‐speaking and 34 Somali‐speaking observers decomposed the colors present in 135 Munsell color samples into their component Hering elemental sensations—red,green,blue, yellow, white, and black—or else responded “no term.” Both groups responded no term for many samples, notably purples. Somali (...) terms for yellow were often used to name colors all around the color circle, including colors that are bluish according to Hering's theory. Four Somali Grue speakers named both green and blue elicitation samples by their term for green. However, that term did not name the union of all samples called blue or green by English speakers. A similar pattern was found among three Somali Achromatic speakers, who called the blue elicitation sample black or white. Thus, color decomposition by these Somali‐speaking observers suggests a lexically influenced re‐dimensionalization of color appearance space, rather than a simple reduction of the one proposed by Hering. Even some Somali Green‐Blue speakers, whose data were otherwise similar to English, showed similar trends in yellow and blue usage. World Color Survey data mirror these results. These within‐ and cross‐cultural violations of Hering's theory do not challenge the long‐standing view that universal sensory processes mediate color appearance. However, they do demonstrate an important contribution of language in the human understanding of color. (shrink)

This book proposes a new interpretative key for reading and overcoming the binary of idealism and realism. It explores the way human consciousness unfolds through the relationship between the I and the world-a field of phenomenological investigation that cannot and must not remain closed within the limits of its own disciplinary boundaries. The book focuses on the question of realism in contemporary debates, ultimately dismantling prejudices and automatisms that one finds therein. It shows that at the root of the controversy (...) between realism and idealism there often lie equivocations of a semantic nature. By returning to the origins of modern phenomenology this study mines the Husserlian concept of transcendental idealism. Following this path, and neutralizing the extreme positions of an acritical idealism and a naïve realism, the book proposes a "transcendental realism": the horizon of a dynamic unity that embraces the process of cognition and that grounds the relation, and not the subordination, of subject and object. The close reading of this reciprocity offered here allows one to surpass the limits of the domain of knowing, leading one to fundamental questions about the ultimate sense of things and their origin. (shrink)

Despite the belief that autism is an empathy disorder, autistics declare their ability to empathize. To explore this experiential vision, we present the alternative explanation for social impairments in autism offered by the Intense World Theory (IWT) and substantiate it through the phenomenological analysis of empathy as an experienced phenomenon. According to IWT, autistics are characterized by hyper-emotionality and therefore their detachment is not the sign of a disrupted empathy, but a strategy to face a world of overwhelming stimuli. Taking (...) the phenomenological account of empathy as a tendency to minimize the emotional and conceptual space dividing embodied and conscious subjects, our purpose is to explain that although autistics seem to expand this space, they may still be considered empathetic. (shrink)

Adolescence is a crucial time for social development, especially for helping and compassionate behaviors; yet brain networks involved in adolescent prosociality and compassion currently remain underexplored. Here, we sought to evaluate a recently proposed domain-general developmental network model of prosocial cognition by relating adolescent functional and structural brain networks with prosocial and compassionate disposition. We acquired resting state fMRI and diffusion MRI from 95 adolescents along with self-report questionnaires assessing prosociality and compassion. We then applied the Network-Based Statistic to inductively (...) investigate whether there is a significant subnetwork related to prosociality and compassion while controlling for age and sex. Based on the Do-GooD model, we expected that this subnetwork would involve connectivity to the ventromedial prefrontal cortex from three domain-general networks, the default mode network, the salience network, and the control network, as well as from the DMN to the mirror neuron systems. NBS revealed a significant functional subnetwork related to prosociality and compassion connecting 31 regions, showing DMN and DLPFC connectivity to the VMPFC; DMN connectivity to mirror neuron systems; and connectivity between the DMN and cerebellum. These findings largely support and extend the Do-GooD model of prosocial cognition in adolescents by further illuminating network-based relationships that have the potential to advance our understanding of brain mechanisms of prosociality. (shrink)

Proceedings of a forum held in Austin, Tex., on Mother's Day, 1996.

Humans are equipped with the remarkable ability to comprehend an infinite number of utterances. Relations between grammatical categories restrict the way words combine into phrases and sentences. How the brain recognizes different word combinations remains largely unknown, although this is a necessary condition for combinatorial unboundedness in language. Here, we used functional magnetic resonance imaging and multivariate pattern analysis to explore whether distinct neural populations of a known language network hub—Broca’s area—are specialized for recognizing distinct simple word combinations. The phrases (...) consisted of a noun (flag) occurring either with a content word, an adjective (green flag), or with a function word, a determiner (that flag). The key result is that the distribution of neural populations classifying word combination in Broca’s area seems sensitive to neuroanatomical subdivisions within this area, irrespective of task. The information patterns for adjective + noun were localized in its anterior part (BA45) whereas those for determiner + noun were localized in its posterior part (BA44). Our findings provide preliminary answers to the fundamental question of how lexical and grammatical category information interact during simple word combination, with the observation that Broca’s area is sensitive to the recognition of categorical relationships during combinatory processing, based on different demands placed on syntactic and semantic information. This supports the hypothesis that the combinatorial power of language consists of some neural computation capturing phrasal differences when processing linguistic input. (shrink)

This book discusses 'how' to respectfully and responsibly include pregnant women in clinical research. In sharp contrast, the existing literature predominantly focuses on the reasons 'why' the inclusion of pregnant women in clinical research is necessary - viz., to develop effective treatments for women during pregnancy, to promote fetal safety, to reduce harm to women and fetuses from suboptimal care, and to allow access to the benefits of research participation. This book supports the shift to a new default position, whereby (...) pregnant women are included in clinical research unless researchers argue convincingly for their exclusion. This shift raises many as yet unexplored ethical and policy questions about existing barriers to the equitable inclusion of pregnant women in research. This book is original in three key ways. First, it presents an unparalleled depth of analysis of the ethics of research with pregnant women, bringing together many of the key authors in this field as well as experts in research ethics and in vulnerability who have not previously applied their work to pregnant women. Second, it includes innovative theoretical work in ethics and disease specific case studies that highlight the current complexity and future challenges of research involving pregnant women. Third, the book brings together authors who argue both for and against including more pregnant women in formal clinical trials. (shrink)

It is increasingly argued that polymathy—vocational and avocational pursuits in multiple domains—is deeply associated with creativity and innovation, and that its development enables the creation of important bridges between otherwise fragmented, dispersed sets of knowledge. Nevertheless, the dominant culture in both industry and academia is still that of narrow specialization. In this paper, we argue that in the context of COVID-19 crisis, with its wicked and transdisciplinary nature, the disciplinary approach of specialization is ill-suited to solve our increasingly complex problems, (...) and that polymathic thinking can be a crucial asset in this regard. Drawing on different literature strands, we first examine the interplay between polymathy and other well-developed constructs in personality and temperament research. We then advance theoretical predictions regarding the relationship between trait polymathy and resilience in the COVID-19 crisis. After that, we discuss learnable strategies that can be used in complex, uncertain and adverse situations, which are associated with development of a more polymathic set of knowledge. Later, we discuss how it may be possible to better capitalize on the key features of polymathic thinking at the societal level. Finally, we conclude with a reflection on the adequacy of our current institutions for dealing with complex problems, and we underscore the crucial role of polymathic thinking in an increasingly complex and interrelated world. (shrink)

Resumen: Esta exposición intenta comprender las formas culturales de comunicación y fijación mnémica en una narración específica que Davi Kopenawa, chamán Yanomami, expone al antropólogo Bruce Albert, en virtud de los modos de existencia amazónicos, refiriéndose en particular a la intensidad de los espíritus selváticos y a la experiencia chamánica con los mundos espirituales. En el contexto de una extensión vegetal dispersa y sobresaliente, afirmamos una sociabilidad cotidiana en el marco de una “ética respetuosa o amorosa” entre todas las formas (...) de vida, expresada estéticamente en formas significantes y transportadoras de emociones desarrolladas por la cosmología amazónica. Para ello utilizamos las nociones que Aby Warburg emplea en su estudio de la cultura de las imágenes, en tanto curso por el que estas pueden entenderse como organismos vivientes susceptibles a transformación, preservando su propia biología en la trasmisión codificada de la memoria.: This exhibition tries to understand the cultural forms of communication and mnemic fixation in a specific narrative that Davi Kopenawa, Yanomami shaman, exposes to the anthropologist Bruce Albert, by virtue of Amazonian modes of existence, especially referring to the intensity of jungle spirits and experience Shamanic with spiritual worlds. In the context of a dispersed and outstanding plant extension, we affirm a daily sociability within the framework of a “respectful or loving ethic” among all life forms, aesthetically expressed in significant and transporting forms of emotions developed by Amazonian cosmology. For this we use the notions that Aby Warburg uses in his study of the culture of images, as a course by which they can be understood as living organisms susceptible to transformation, preserving their own biology in the coded transmission of memory. (shrink)