How does intentional communication evolve? Comparative studies can shed light on the evolutionary history of this relevant feature of human language and its distribution before modern humans. The current animal literature on intentional signaling consists mostly of ape gestural studies with evidence of subjects persisting and elaborating with sometimes arbitrary signals toward a desired outcome. Although vocalizations can also have such imperative qualities, they are typically produced in a functionally fixed manner, as if evolved for a specific purpose. Yet, intentionality (...) can sometimes transpire even in functionally fixed calls, for example, if production is adapted to audience composition. In this study, we carried out field experiments to test whether free-ranging sooty mangabeys adjusted snake alarm call production to their audiences. We found a positive relation between alarm call production and naïve individuals arriving, suggesting that callers attempted to influence their behaviors relative to the snake. Subjects called more with smaller audiences, if they had not heard other calls before, and if socially important individuals were in the area. We concluded that sooty mangabeys alarm call production can be explained as an active attempt to refer to an external event, rather than a mere readout of an internal state. (shrink)

Graphical AbstractThe recent explosion in the number of predatory journals has led to the appearance of questionable websites providing fake or spurious impact factors, which are analyzed and discussed here. We believe that academic associations, universities, and research funding bodies must take action to stop these questionable practices.

This article analyses the phenomenon of ‘micro-domination’, in which a series of dominated choices are individually inconsequential for a person’s freedom but collectively consequential. Where the choices concerned are objectively inconsequential, micro- domination poses a problem for ‘objective threshold’ accounts of domination which either prioritise particularly bad forms of domination or exclude powers that do not risk causing serious harm to their victims. Where the choices concerned are subjectively inconsequential to the victim, micro-domination poses a problem for the common republican (...) strategy of creating arenas of contestation for victims of domination, which rely on victims objecting strongly enough to a dominating relationship to sound the alarm. This kind of invigilation may systematically fail victims of micro-domination. Throughout the article, I suggest some ways of better accounting for and responding to cases of micro-domination. (shrink)

In this work I reply to Zoltán Vecsey’s criticisms of the semantic account of fictional names I put forward in Orlando. The main tenet of that proposal is that fictional names refer to individual concepts, which I understand in terms of mental files. In Vecsey, the author presents three main objections: no referential shift can be ascribed to fictional names, fictional names are supposed to play two conflicting functions, and the mental file framework is incompatible with an antirealist view (...) of fictional objects. Although the objections are deep and thoughtful, the challenge they involve can be met if certain aspects of the proposal are clarified and developed. (shrink)

This article inquires whether or not religious beliefs are rational, that is to say, whether or not they can be rationally sustained. The point of the article is not to prove the existence of God, but rather simply to show whether or not religious language has real meaning. To do this, we shall examine the concept of belief in general. Then we shall look at religious beliefs in particular from two opposing points of view: on the one hand, from the (...) position of authors who claim that religious beliefs can in fact be sustained by rational evidence, and on the other hand, from the perspective of other authors who affirm that these beliefs cannot be rationally justified, because spiritual discourse refers to the ineffable, which deprives it of the means to verify or deny its propositions. (shrink)

En este texto reflexivo se compara algunos estados del arte sobre la didáctica y la enseñanza de la filosofía realizados fuera de Colombia en las últimas tres décadas. Después de la búsqueda en varias bases de datos y de consultar varios autores en el tema, solo se hallaron 8 estudios sistemáticos de revisión literatura: en Brasil, Estados Unidos, Francia, Nueva Zelanda e Inglaterra. El dato más relevante puede ser que en los textos hallados la didáctica de la filosofía no aparece (...) como categoría central en la reflexión e investigación sobre enseñanza de la filosofía. Asimismo, se ve claramente el interés de los pensadores anglófonos por la investigación empírica y cuantitativa sobre la filosofía para niños, sobre todo desde la perspectiva de Matthew Lipman, pero no la filosofía “tradicional” en la educación secundaria. Finalmente, parece que hace falta más investigación aplicada en centro y sur américa y más reflexión filosófica y pedagógica sobre la didáctica y enseñanza de la filosofía tradicional en los países anglófonos. (shrink)

While the business ethics literature has devoted a tremendous amount of discussion in recent years to the question of whether the corporate manager has obligations to parties other than shareholders, it has failed to apply any of its insights to particular ethical concerns. This leaves the corporate manager with almost no guidance for resolving particular dilemmas he or she encounters. I bridge the gulf between theory and practice by focusing on the issue of corporate downsizing. I argue that corporate downsizing (...) is, in manyinstances, morally contentious. (shrink)

This article analyses the phenomenon of ‘micro-domination’, in which a series of dominated choices are individually inconsequential for a person’s freedom but collectively consequential. Where the choices concerned are objectively inconsequential, micro-domination poses a problem for ‘objective threshold’ accounts of domination which either prioritise particularly bad forms of domination or exclude powers that do not risk causing serious harm to their victims. Where the choices concerned are subjectively inconsequential to the victim, micro-domination poses a problem for the common republican strategy (...) of creating arenas of contestation for victims of domination, which rely on victims objecting strongly enough to a dominating relationship to sound the alarm. This kind of invigilation may systematically fail victims of micro-domination. Throughout the article, I suggest some ways of better accounting for and responding to cases of micro-domination. (shrink)

Universal basic income is increasingly proposed as a simple answer to the problem of domination at work—one policy whose knock-on effects will transform the balance of power between workers and employers. I argue against such ‘UBI-first’ approaches. Compared to UBI proposals for other purposes, a UBI sufficient or near-sufficient for minimising domination at work would be especially demanding in two ways. First, the level of the grant would be more demanding compared to UBIs suitable for other purposes, in order for (...) workers to be able to credibly threaten to leave their jobs. Secondly, the maintenance of the grant must also meet strict criteria. The demanding level of the grant must be effectively secured against reduction, allowing workers to plan on its long-term acceptability; and in order to avoid increased state domination it must assume the status of an entitlement rather than a gift that may be withdrawn, through stabilisation against political change or some other means. These difficulties render UBI-first approaches doubtful at best, and an unhelpful distraction from other, more fruitful strategies at worst. (shrink)

ISSN:1909-9711 (En línea) Misión La Revista Acta Colombiana de Psicología publica hallazgos originales de las investigaciones en Psicología y de esta disciplina en diálogo con otras, con el propósito de divulgarlas a la comunidad universitaria y a todas las personas interesadas en conocer sus nuevos avances y aplicaciones a distintos campos y necesidades de la sociedad contemporánea.

ISSN:1909-9711 (En línea) Misión La Revista Acta Colombiana de Psicología publica hallazgos originales de las investigaciones en Psicología y de esta disciplina en diálogo con otras, con el propósito de divulgarlas a la comunidad universitaria y a todas las personas interesadas en conocer sus nuevos avances y aplicaciones a distintos campos y necesidades de la sociedad contemporánea.

Resumen El presente artículo investiga los fundamentos creacionales del mesianismo en el pensamiento del pensador judío Emmanuel Levinas. Revisando diversos escritos judíos y filosóficos del autor se muestra que el ser humano, creado a partir de la nada, separado, soberano en su dependencia, está convo cado a ser responsable y a promover la vida de los demás, sustituyendo, incluso, a los otros, poniéndose en su lugar, asumiendo sus pesares y dolores, haciéndo se cargo de ese modo del sufrimiento universal. Con (...) todo, para Levinas el “yo” es quien está llamado a asumir su singular vocación mesiánica, a afirmar “heme aquí”. Y este mismo Yo es aquel, que antes de toda decisión, ha sido elegido para soportar toda la responsabilidad del Mundo y en consecuencia es el llamado a ser “Mesías”.This article investigates the creationalfoundations of messianism in the thought of the Jewish thinker Emmanuel Levinas. Reviewing various Jewish andphilosophical writ- ings of the author it is shown that the human being, created from nothingg, separated, sovereign in his dependence, is summoned to be responsible and promote the lives of others, even replac- ing others, putting himself in hisplace, assuming his sorrows andpains, thereby taking charge of universal suffering. However, for Levinas the “I” is the one who is called to assume his singular messianic vocation, to affirm “here I am”. And this same “I” is the one who, before any decision, has been chosen to bear all the responsibility of the World and conse- quently is the call to be “Messiah”. (shrink)

This paper considers two conceptual expansions of Du Boisian double consciousness—white double consciousness (Alcoff 2015) and kaleidoscopic consciousness (Medina 2013)—both of which aim to articulate the moral-epistemic potential of cultivating double consciousness from racially dominant or other socially privileged positions. We analyze these concepts and challenge them on the grounds that they lack continuity with their Du Boisian predecessor and face problems of practical feasibility. As we show, these expansions obscure structural barriers that make white double consciousness and kaleidoscopic consciousness (...) unlikely antidotes to the kind of racial domination that double consciousness was introduced to illuminate. We conclude that while more intersectional and pluralistic accounts of double consciousness may be desirable, the project of expansion has moral limits. Identifying these limitations, we outline ways in which double consciousness—as a tool for conceptualizing the genealogy of structural anti-Blackness—remains valuable in the absence of ever-expanding revision. (shrink)

Raymond Aron and his Dialogues in an Age of Ideologies examines the thought and rhetoric of the most interesting thinker of the twentieth century of whom no one has heard. This book investigates Raymond Aron's conversations on politics during the Cold War with several of his more well-known interlocutors including Jean-Paul Sartre, Friedrich Hayek, and Charles de Gaulle. Through exploring these dialogues on the subjects of Marxism, freedom, and nationalism, we see the prudence of Aron's politics of understanding as well (...) as the emphasis he places on and virtue he demonstrates in public discourse. Through his dialogues, Aron shows us not only how to think politically but also how to engage in constructive public debate. He stands as a model for us to emulate in our own age of ideologies. (shrink)

We examine two competing effects of beliefs on conditional inferences. The suppression effect occurs for conditionals, for example, “if she watered the plants they bloomed,” when beliefs about additional background conditions, for example, “if the sun shone they bloomed” decrease the frequency of inferences such as modus tollens (from “the plants did not bloom” to “therefore she did not water them”). In contrast, the counterfactual elevation effect occurs for counterfactual conditionals, for example, “if she had watered the plants they would (...) have bloomed,” when beliefs about the known or presupposed facts, “she did not water the plants and they did not bloom” increase the frequency of inferences such as modus tollens. We report six experiments that show that beliefs about additional conditions take precedence over beliefs about presupposed facts for counterfactuals. The modus tollens inference is suppressed for counterfactuals that contain additional conditions (Experiments 1a and 1b). The denial of the antecedent inference (from “she did not water the plants” to “therefore they did not bloom”) is suppressed for counterfactuals that contain alternatives (Experiments 2a and 2b). We report a new “switched‐suppression” effect for conditionals with negated components, for example, “if she had not watered the plants they would not have bloomed”: modus tollens is suppressed by alternatives and denial of the antecedent by additional conditions, rather than vice versa (Experiments 3a and 3b). We discuss the implications of the results for alternative theories of conditional reasoning. (shrink)

Resumen El presente artículo investiga la visión de la presencia y ausencia de Dios en y después de Auschwitz en el pensamiento del filósofo judío Emmanuel Levinas (1906-1995). Analizando especialmente los escritos judíos del autor publicados en el período post-Auschwitz, tras el horror del Holocausto, se muestra cómo responde Dios al clamor de los inocentes y sufrientes estableciendo una relación adulta que respeta la libertad humana y funda una responsabilidad infinita. Se destaca que el vínculo entre Dios y el ser (...) humano es una relación mediada por la experiencia de fidelidad a la Toráh y que la revelación de Dios, esencialmente mandamiento, implica una obediencia insoslayable. En fin, subraya que el contenido fundamental de la revelación divina es el “no matarás”, esto es, promover y defender en toda circunstancia la vida integral de los otros y otras, ejerciendo la responsabilidad y procurando una auténtica justicia social. Abstract This article investigates the presence and absence of God in and after Auschwitz in the thought of the Jewish philosopher Emmanuel Levinas (1906-1995). Analyzing especially the author's Jewish writings published in the post-Auschwitz period, after the horror of the Holocaust, it shows how God responds to the cry of the innocent and suffering by establishing an adult relationship that respects human freedom and founds an infinite responsibility. The article emphasizes the bond between God and the human being, which is mediated by the experience of fidelity to the Torah, and that God's revelation, essentially a commandment, implies unavoidable obedience. Finally, it stresses that the critical content of divine revelation is "thou shalt not kill," to promote and defend the integral life of others in all circumstances, exercising responsibility and striving for authentic social justice. (shrink)

We report five experiments showing that the activation of the end-terms of a syllogism is determined by their position in the composite model of the premises. We show that it is not determined by the position of the terms in the rule being applied (Ford, 1994), by the syntactic role of the terms in the premises (Polk & Newell, 1995; Wetherick & Gilhooly, 1990), by the type of conclusion (Chater & Oaksford, 1999), or by the terms from the source premise (...) (Stenning & Yule, 1997). In our first experiment we found that after reading a categorical premise, the most active term is the last term in the premise. In Experiments 2, 3, and 4 we demonstrated that this pattern of activity is due to the position of the concepts in the model of the premises, regardless of the delay after reading the premises (150 or 2000 msec) or the quantity of the quantifiers (universal or existential). The fifth experiment showed that the pattern switches around after participants evaluate a conclusion. We propose that the last element in the model maintains a higher level of activity during the comprehension process because it is generally used to attach the incoming information. After this process, the first term becomes more active because it is the concept to which the whole representation is referred. These results are predicted by the mental model theory (Johnson-Laird & Byrne, 1991), but not by the verbal reasoning theory (Polk & Newell, 1995), the graphical methods theory (Yule & Stenning, 1992), the attachment-heuristic theory (Chater & Oaksford, 1999), or the mental rules theory (Ford, 1994). (shrink)

This paper is about paradigmatic slurs, i.e. expressions that are prima facie associated with the expression of a contemptuous attitude concerning a group of people identified in terms of its origin or descent, race, sexual orientation, ethnia or religion, gender, etc. Our purpose is twofold: explaining their expressive meaning dimension in terms of a version of stereotype semantics and analysing their original and most typical uses as insults, which will be called with a neologism ‘insultive’, in terms of a speech (...) act theory. (shrink)

When people understand a counterfactual such as “if the flowers had been roses, the trees would have been orange trees,” they think about the conjecture, “there were roses and orange trees,” and they also think about its opposite, the presupposed facts. We test whether people think about the opposite by representing alternates, for example, “poppies and apple trees,” or whether models can contain symbols, for example, “no roses and no orange trees.” We report the discovery of an inference‐to‐alternates effect—a tendency (...) to make an affirmative inference that refers to an alternate even from a negative minor premise, for example, “there were no orange trees, therefore there were poppies.” Nine experiments show the inference‐to‐alternates effect occurs in a binary context, but not a multiple context, and for direct and indirect reference; it can be induced and reduced by prior experience with similar inferences, and it also occurs for indicative conditionals. The results have implications for theories of counterfactual conditionals, and of negation. (shrink)

The present article aims to utilize some insights from behavioral and happiness economics to discuss the consequences that the introduction of an unconditional basic income to cope with technological unemployment may hold for well-being. The impact of 21st-century technological progress on employment has only just begun to make itself felt and it will take time to realize its full extent. However, the main innovation is already common knowledge: robots are finding their way into the production process. According to several recent (...) contributions, the phenomenon is radically different from past technological revolutions and could generate high levels of unemployment, calling for innovative redistributive public policies. The present article, building on Keynes’ short essay and referring to some of the principles and models of behavioral and happiness economics, focuses on the best-known of these policies, namely provision of an unconditional basic income. A series of factors – loss aversion and hedonic adaptation, the impossibility of escalating to higher-grade consumption behaviors, social interaction in the form of active and passive envy, loss of self-esteem and social stigma – are all likely to have a negative impact on well-being if an unconditional basic income that remains unchanging over time is implemented. A policy mix combining a rising basic income with other measures is therefore proposed. (shrink)

En este artículo de reflexión se plantea que el concepto de ‘pensamiento crítico’ formulado por los pensadores del Movimiento de Pensamiento Crítico contiene un presupuesto que mina en gran medida su empresa: el movimiento asume que el pensador crítico desarrolla un autoconocimiento directo y transparente, lo que implicaría cuasi-infalibilidad. En la historia de la filosofía algunos pensadores han defendido esta posibilidad de un autoconocimiento directo e infalible, por ejemplo René Descartes y más recientemente Donald Davidson. Sin embargo, tal conocimiento parece (...) tener unos límites más o menos claros que no son tenidos en cuenta por los pensadores del MPC al formular su noción de pensamiento crítico, y debido a este presupuesto su proyecto filosófico e incluso pedagógico podría quedar sin fundamento. (shrink)

In this essay, I appeal to the mental file approach in order to give an anti-realist semantic analysis of statements containing fictional names. I claim that fictive and parafictive uses of them express conceptual, though not general, propositions constituted by mental files, anchored in the conceptual world of the corresponding fictional story. Moreover, by positing a referential shift determined by the presence of a simulative referential intention characteristic of those uses, it is possible to take them to be true with (...) respect to those conceptual worlds. As for metafictive uses, since they are grounded on mixed intentions, they are considered to express hybrid propositions, partly conceptual and partly referential. (shrink)

In this article, we draw upon the Conceptual Profile Theory to discuss the negotiation of meanings related to the energy concept in an 11th grade physics classroom. This theory is based on the heterogeneity of verbal thinking, that is, on the idea that any individual or society does not represent concepts in a single way. According to this perspective, the processes of conceptualization consist of the use of a repertoire of different socially stabilized signifiers, adjusted to the context in which (...) they occur. We start by proposing zones of a conceptual profile model for energy, each zone being characterized by its own commitments and identifiable by certain modes of talking about energy. Based on classroom evidence, we claim that teachers and students negotiate meanings that interpenetrate the domains of everyday and scientific knowledge. Being inevitable and necessary, this heterogeneity of conceptual thinking needs to be considered in teaching design in order to allow its awareness on the part of the students. We argue that students’ conceptual development goals should be considered in terms of general goals of science education, which points to the need of overcoming the encapsulation of scientific school knowledge. We show that the Conceptual Profile Theory provides a basis for science education that can promote the crossing of cultural boundaries, seeking relations between science and the spheres of everyday life. (shrink)

Despite mounting evidence that abusive supervision triggers interpersonal aggression, much remains unknown regarding the underlying causal mechanisms within this relationship. We explore the role of turnover intentions as a mediator in the relationship between abusive supervision and subsequent supervisor-rated interpersonal aggression. We use a sample of 324 supervisor–subordinate dyads from nine organizations and find support for this mediation effect. Furthermore, we find that power-distance orientation and perceived human resource support climate, as important boundary conditions, independently interact with abusive supervision to (...) weaken this positive impact on turnover intentions, thereby reducing interpersonal aggression. We also find via turnover intentions that abusive supervision intensifies interpersonal aggression among high power-distance-oriented individuals when the HR support climate is perceived to be low. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed. (shrink)

La meritocracia es sinónimo de conocimientos o prácticas, que se jerarquizan y estratifican de acuerdo a principios de excelencia y competencia, dirección y capacitación, para la toma de decisiones. Una sociedad o institución es meritocrática, en la medida que se orienta por valores de máxima ..

The two main theories of food-associated calls in animals propose functions either in cooperative recruitment or competitive spacing. However, not all social animals produce food calls and it is largely unclear under what circumstances this call type evolves. Sooty mangabeys do not have food calls, but they frequently produce grunts during foraging, their most common vocalisation. We found that grunt rates were significantly higher when subjects were foraging in the group’s periphery and with small audiences, in line with the cooperative (...) recruitment hypothesis. In a subsequent field experiment we presented highly desired food items and found that discovering individuals called, unless harassed by competitors, but that the calls never attracted others, confirming that the grunts do not convey any information referential to food. Our data thus suggest that the evolution of cooperative food calling is a two-step process, starting with increased motivation to vocalise in the feeding context, followed by the evolution of acoustic variants derived from context-general contact calls. This evolutionary transition may only occur in species that feed on clumped, high-quality resources where social feeding is competitive, a condition not met in sooty mangabeys. (shrink)

The existentialism of the human being within the Latin American context marks a fundamental essence, from the intrinsic and the extrinsic, to identify their relationship with their other self, within the otherness that characterizes the thinking being faced to his own thought. The Coreguaje are an indigenous ethnic group settled in the department of Caquetá, Colombia. With their own language, the Korebajü, and their cultural identity, they make echo of their wisdom of the jungle where the autochthonous roots of their (...) daily work can be found through their customs, their rituals, their language and their own territory. Giving yourself away and understanding the other is one of their fundamental principles to establish interpersonal relationships within their habitat. Similarly, identifying their cosmic and ancestral knowledge, which is the starting point within the knowledge of the Amazon rainforest, makes this conceptualization a treasury of the cosmogonic vision that the Coreguaje ancestors develop. Thus, their postulates can be ordered under three conceptions: the Chejaboebü, the relationship with nature, water, wind, thunder, the moon and the sun; the Chejasanaba, the relationship with the air and, the Chejasesebü, the relationship with the stars, atavistic positions that forge a philosophical dialogue manifested in the orality of their own knowledge. (shrink)

In this paper I am concerned with the problem of applying the notion of rigidity to general terms. In Naming and Necessity, Kripke has clearly suggested that we should include some general terms among the rigid ones, namely, those common nouns semantically correlated with natural substances, species and phenomena, in general, natural kinds -'water', 'tiger', 'heat'- and some adjectives -'red', 'hot', 'loud'. However, the notion of rigidity has been defined for singular terms; after all, the notion that Kripke has provided (...) us with is the notion of a rigid designator. But general terms do not designate single individuals: rather, they apply to many of them. In sum, the original concept of rigidity cannot be straightforwardly applied to general terms: it has to be somehow redefined in order to make it cover them. As is known, two main positions have been put forward to accomplish that task: the identity of designation conception, according to which a rigid general term is one that designates the same property or kind in all possible worlds, and the essentialist conception, which conceives of a rigid general term as an essentialist one, namely, a term that expresses an essential property of an object. My purpose in the present paper is to defend a particular version of the identity of designation conception: on the proposed approach, a rigid general term will be one that expresses the same property in all possible worlds and names the property it expresses. In my opinion, the position can be established on the basis of an inference to the best explanation of our intuitive interpretation and evaluation, relative to counterfactual circumstances, of statements containing different kinds of general terms, which is strictly analogous to our intuitive interpretation and evaluation, relative to such circumstances, of statements containing different kinds of singular ones. I will argue that it is possible to offer a new solution to the trivialization problem that is thought to threaten all versions of the identity of designation conception of rigidity. Finally, I will also sketch a solution to the so-called 'over-generalization and under-generalization problems', both closely related to the above-mentioned one. (shrink)

Este trabajo trata de los términos peyorativos de grupo, es decir, expresiones que se usan paradigmáticamente para hablar de manera despectiva acerca de ciertos grupos identificados en virtud de su origen o descendencia, raza o nivel social, orientación sexual, religión, ideología política, modo de vida, etc. Nos proponemos tanto explicar el significado expresivo de este tipo de términos mediante una versión de la semántica de estereotipos como analizar sus usos originales y paradigmáticos, aquellos en los que funcionan como insultos, en (...) el marco de una teoría de los actos de habla. (shrink)

In chapter 3 of the very welcome and enjoyable Roads to Reference, “Proper Names and Referential Indeterminacy”, Mario Gómez Torrente proposes a set of conventions establishing merely sufficient conditions for the fixation and transmission of the reference of proper names. There are some aspects of the undoubtedly very original and rigorous proposal that have prompted me the brief comments that follow, grouped into three sections.