This paper investigates how Food Security (FS) is enacted in a southern region of Italy, characterized by high rates of mafias-related activity, arguing for the inclusion in the research of socio-cultural features and power relationships to explain how Alternative Food Networks (AFNs) can facilitate individual empowerment and community resilience. In fact, while FS entails legality and social justice, AFNs are intended as ‘instrumental value’ to reach the ‘terminal value’ of FS within an urban community in Sicily, as well as the (...) space where citizens can act their individual and collective political food choices. Building on the social psychology literature and on ecologic-psychopolitical models (Christens and Perkins in J Commun Psychol 36(2):214–231, 2008), we discuss the case of Addiopizzo, a citizen project promoting the legality of their AFNs through the rejection of the payment of the pizzo (the protection money asked by racket) in the local food chain. The aim is to problematize the extent to which FS is able to re-localize ‘legal’ food in the market. This was done by reconnecting citizens to their space and territory in a socio-cultural context at risk where agro-food producers, retailers and consumers are not free to fully enact their citizenship agency because of a widespread illegal structure. The research findings show that Addiopizzo project enables citizens to act their social power: agro-food producers and retailers by subscribing to formal requirements based on values that reject racket; consumers by purchasing Addiopizzo labelled products; individuals and groups by participating further open-to-the-public activities that promote everyday politically oriented behaviour. The citizen empowerment and community resilience can be exerted within AFNs as they are interconnected paths of reflexivity and social learning within social adaptation. The paper concludes by advocating the role of urban communities as a pivotal agent to maintain positive social adaptations, where AFNs work as a socio-cultural synthesis of traditional and alternative producer–consumer ways of interaction, which are embodied in the FS value. (shrink)

Apoptotic pathways have always been regarded as a key‐player in preserving tissue and organ homeostasis. Excessive activation or resistance to activation of cell death signaling may indeed be responsible for several mechanisms of disease, including malignancy and chronic degenerative diseases. Therefore, targeting apoptotic factors gained more and more attention in the scientific community and novel strategies emerged aimed at selectively blocking or stimulating cell death signaling. This is also the case for the TMEM219 death receptor, which is activated by a (...) circulating ligand, the Insulin‐like growth factor binding protein 3 (IGFBP3) and induces a caspase‐8‐dependent apoptosis of the target cells. Interestingly, stimulation of the IGFBP3/TMEM219 axis exerts an anti‐proliferative effect, while blockade of the TMEM219 deleterious signal protects TMEM219‐expressing cells of the endocrine pancreas, lung, and intestine from damage and death. Here, we summarize the most updated reports on the role of the IGFBP3/TMEM219 apoptotic axis in disease conditions, including intestinal disorders and diabetes, and we describe the advancements in designing and testing novel TMEM219‐based targeting approaches in emerging potential clinical applications. (shrink)

This book explores the different ways in which psychoanalysis has been connected to various fields of Italian culture, such as literary criticism, philosophy ...

El presente trabajo es un estudio descriptivo y con un enfoque sincrónico que da muestra de las deficiencias de los profesores universitarios al redactar textos científicos. Este estudio tiene como objetivo proponer varias acciones de superación para perfeccionar el manejo del lenguaje y el arte de redactar de los docentes de la Universidad de Ciencias Médicas "Dr. Faustino Pérez Hernández" de la provincia Sancti Spíritus que cursan la octava edición de la Maestría en Ciencias de la Educación de la Universidad (...) de Sancti Spíritus "José Martí Pérez". Para darle cumplimiento a este propósito, se aplicaron varios métodos y técnicas de recolección de datos a una muestra seleccionada al azar de informantes y de sus publicaciones, lo que permitió fundamentar la existencia de varias problemáticas en la redacción científica de dichos profesores y la necesidad de implementar formas organizativas básicas del proceso de educación de posgrado para su inmediata y eficaz aplicación. The present work is a descriptive study grounded in a synchronic approach that identifies the deficiencies of university professors when writing scientific texts. This study aims to propose several measures to improve the use of language and the art of writing of teachers of the " Dr. Faustino Pérez Hernández" University of Medical Sciences in Sancti Spíritus, Cuba who are participating in the eighth edition of the Master's Degree in Educational Sciences program at the "José Martí Pérez" University, also located in Sancti Spiritus. Several methods and techniques of data collection were applied to a random sample of informants and their scientific articles. This allowed for the detection of several problems in scientific writing and the need to implement basic organizational forms of postgraduate education for immediate and effective application. (shrink)

Eye movements were recorded during the display of two images of a real-world scene that were inspected to determine whether they were the same or not . In the displays where the pictures were different, one object had been changed, and this object was sometimes taken from another scene and was incongruent with the gist. The experiment established that incongruous objects attract eye fixations earlier than the congruous counterparts, but that this effect is not apparent until the picture has been (...) displayed for several seconds. By controlling the visual saliency of the objects the experiment eliminates the possibility that the incongruency effect is dependent upon the conspicuity of the changed objects. A model of scene perception is suggested whereby attention is unnecessary for the partial recognition of an object that delivers sufficient information about its visual characteristics for the viewer to know that the object is improbable in that particular scene, and in which full identification requires foveal inspection. (shrink)

Experiential evidence shows that pain is associated with common meanings. These include a meaning of threat or danger, which is experienced as immediately distressing or unpleasant; cognitive meanings, which are focused on the long-term consequences of having chronic pain; and existential meanings such as hopelessness, which are more about the person with chronic pain than the pain itself. This interdisciplinary book - the second in the three-volume Meanings of Pain series edited by Dr Simon van Rysewyk - aims to better (...) understand pain by describing experiences of pain and the meanings these experiences hold for the people living through them. The lived experiences of pain described here involve various types of chronic pain, including spinal pain, labour pain, rheumatic pain, diabetic peripheral neuropathic pain, fibromyalgia, complex regional pain syndrome, endometriosis-associated pain, and cancer-related pain. Two chapters provide narrative descriptions of pain, recounted and interpreted by people with pain. Language is important to understanding the meaning of pain since it is the primary tool human beings use to manipulate meaning. As discussed in the book, linguistic meaning may hold clues to understanding some pain-related experiences, including the stigmatisation of people with pain, the dynamics of patient-clinician communication, and other issues, such as relationships between pain, public policy and the law, and attempts to develop a taxonomy of pain that is meaningful for patients. Clinical implications are described in each chapter. This book is intended for people with pain, their family members or caregivers, clinicians, researchers, advocates, and policy makers. (shrink)

La notion de transition énergétique est aujourd’hui l’une des figures de proue du concept plus général de développement durable. Elle est marquée par la double temporalité de l’urgence de sa mise en œuvre et du temps long dont elle se réclame. La mise en politique de cette transition génère des conflits – notamment autour des grands projets d’infrastructures – que cet article analyse en cherchant à croiser les temporalités et les échelles d’action des différents acteurs impliqués. Il met en évidence (...) un certain nombre de tensions qui existent entre urgence climatique et durabilité dans la mise en politique de la transition énergétique, mais aussi la complexité des temporalités dont se réclament les acteurs, qui s’emboîtent, se contredisent parfois et peuvent être source de conflit. Le propos s’articule en trois temps, organisés autour des échelles européennes, nationales et locales de la transition énergétique. Trois terrains viennent étayer les analyses proposées : une enquête auprès du réseau européen des gestionnaires de réseaux d’électricité chargé du plan d’investissement dans les réseaux de transports d’électricité, l’étude des conflits liés à l’implantation des énergies marines renouvelables en France et un cas d’étude grec sur les conflits liés à des projets de parcs éoliens en Crête. (shrink)

Many of the decisions mothers face are morally intense. They're experienced as highly morally significant, and they are also often very morally complex, meaning that there aren't black-and-white, obvious answers to questions about what one morally may or must do. For example, I suggest that breastfeeding is complex in this way, despite a good deal of cultural pressure in favour of trying to do it. Acknowledging many of the decisions of motherhood as complex or as ‘grey areas’ is accurate, and (...) also good for mums. But it also burdens mums with the responsibility of researching, discussing, thinking through, and ultimately making significant, complex moral decisions for themselves. I call this the moral load, taking inspiration from Emma's ‘mental load’. In the last section I consider what we could or should do to try to lessen the moral load as a burden on mums. (shrink)

Despite their diversity and ecological importance, many areas of the SAR—Stramenopila, Alveolata, and Rhizaria—clade are poorly understood as the majority of SAR species lack molecular data and only 5% of species are from well-sampled families. Here, we review and summarize the state of knowledge about the three major clades of SAR, describing the diversity within each clade and identifying synapomorphies when possible. We also assess the “dark area” of SAR: the morphologically described species that are missing molecular data. The majority (...) of molecular data for SAR lineages are characterized from marine samples and vertebrate hosts, highlighting the need for additional research effort in areas such as freshwater and terrestrial habitats and “non-vertebrate” hosts. We also describe the paucity of data on the biogeography of SAR species, and point to opportunities to illuminate diversity in this major eukaryotic clade. See also the video abstract here: https://youtu.be/_VUXqaX19Rw. Despite their diversity, abundance, and importance, fewer than 10% of the species within the SAR—Stramenopila, Alveolata, and Rhizaria—clade have been assessed using molecular tools. Only a small percentage of the molecular records contain information on ecology or have associate location data, indicating a tremendous dark area. (shrink)

Despite their diversity and ecological importance, many areas of the SAR—Stramenopila, Alveolata, and Rhizaria—clade are poorly understood as the majority (90%) of SAR species lack molecular data and only 5% of species are from well‐sampled families. Here, we review and summarize the state of knowledge about the three major clades of SAR, describing the diversity within each clade and identifying synapomorphies when possible. We also assess the “dark area” of SAR: the morphologically described species that are missing molecular data. The (...) majority of molecular data for SAR lineages are characterized from marine samples and vertebrate hosts, highlighting the need for additional research effort in areas such as freshwater and terrestrial habitats and “non‐vertebrate” hosts. We also describe the paucity of data on the biogeography of SAR species, and point to opportunities to illuminate diversity in this major eukaryotic clade. (shrink)

Both patients and clinicians frequently report problems around communicating and assessing pain. Patients express dissatisfaction with their doctors and doctors often find exchanges with chronic pain patients difficult and frustrating. This chapter thus asks how we could improve pain communication and thereby enhance outcomes for chronic pain patients. We argue that improving matters will require a better appreciation of the complex meaning of pain terms and of the variability and flexibility in how individuals think about pain. We start by examining (...) the various accounts of the meaning of pain terms that have been suggested within philosophy and suggest that, while each of the accounts captures something important about our use of pain terms, none is completely satisfactory. We propose that pain terms should be viewed as communicating complex meanings, which may change across different communicative contexts, and this in turn suggests that we should view our ordinary thought about pain as similarly complex. We then sketch what a view taking seriously this variability in meaning and thought might look like, which we call the “polyeidic” view. According to this view, individuals tacitly occupy divergent stances across a range of different dimensions of pain, with one agent, for instance, thinking of pain in a much more “bodycentric” kind of way, while another thinks of pain in a much more "mindcentric” way. The polyeidic view attempts to expand the multidimensionality recognised in, e.g., biopsychosocial models in two directions: first, it holds that the standard triumvirate— dividing sensory/cognitive/affective factors— needs to be enriched in order to capture important distinctions within the social and psychological dimensions. Second, the polyeidic view attempts to explain (at least in part) why modulation of experience by these social and psychological factors is possible in the first place. It does so by arguing that because the folk concept of pain is complex, different weightings of the different parts of the concept can modulate pain experience in a variety of ways. Finally, we argue that adopting a polyeidic approach to the meaning of pain would have a range of measurable clinical outcomes. (shrink)

Long-lasting interference effects in picture naming are induced when objects are presented in categorically related contexts in both continuous and blocked cyclic paradigms. Less consistent context effects have been reported when the task is changed to semantic classification. Experiment 1 confirmed the recent finding of cumulative facilitation in the continuous paradigm with living/non-living superordinate categorization. To avoid a potential confound involving participants responding with the identical superordinate category in related contexts in the blocked cyclic paradigm, we devised a novel set (...) of categorically related objects that also varied in terms of relative age – a core semantic type associated with the adjective word class across languages. Experiment 2 demonstrated the typical interference effect with these stimuli in basic level naming. In Experiment 3, using the identical blocked cyclic paradigm, we failed to observe semantic context effects when the same pictures were classified as younger–older. Overall, the results indicate the semantic context effects in the two paradigms do not share a common origin, with the effect in the continuous paradigm arising at the level of conceptual representations or in conceptual-to-lexical connections while the effect in the blocked cyclic paradigm most likely originates at a lexical level of representation. The implications of these findings for current accounts of long-lasting interference effects in spoken word production are discussed. (shrink)

El presente trabajo elucida el axioma de “la pluralidad necesaria” a partir de algunas calas y notas del pensamiento de Judith Butler y algunos cruces procedentes de la filosofía de Michel Foucault y Friedrich Nietzsche, así como el influjo postnietzscheano contemporáneo, en contraste con el pensamiento mestizo subalterno latinoamericano de Gloria Anzaldúa. La hipótesis central es explicada en estos términos: no existe ningún fundamento metafísico que sustente al mundo; todo es una construcción cultural, resultado del poder predominante en un determinado (...) contexto histórico. El poder es el que establece lo que es normal o anormal, lo que está permitido o no está permitido. En este contexto, se postula la necesidad de someter a los dispositivos de poder reinantes, en las sociedades contemporáneas, bajo una revisión crítica que permita transformarlos en dispositivos de poder que hagan posible sociedades plurales e incluyentes. Y justo aquí, en la apertura de un nuevo horizonte postmetafísico y post-humanista es retomada la perspectiva mestiza subalterna de Gloria Anzaldúa como una forma radical de repensar la condición humana más allá del euro-logo-falocentrismo desde los márgenes de América Latina. La pluralidad necesaria, lejos de ser un título contradictorio, es, antes bien, un título que expresa una afirmación, a saber, la necesidad de una realidad social plural, inclusiva, en la que las diferencias entre los seres humanos sean respetadas, siguiendo el ideal de una sociedad democrática en la que se cultive la apertura a los otros, en un ambiente de convivencia y diálogo. (shrink)

Este artículo sostiene que la exacerbación autoritaria y totalitaria del capitalismo, en la primera mitad del siglo xx, tuvo su origen en la crisis experimentada por el capitalismo de libre mercado, debido a dinámicas propias de la sociedad liberal. El resultado fue una masiva violación de los derechos humanos liberales que habían posibilitado la consolidación y legitimación del propio capitalismo de libre mercado. De esta manera, en el texto se esboza que a la sociedad liberal moderna le es inherente una (...) tendencia autoritaria, vinculada a la dinámica inestable y propensa tendencia a la crisis de la reproducción del capital. Este rasgo estructural es ilustrado con los debates de la Escuela de Frankfurt sobre el fin del capitalismo liberal. Y dentro de este horizonte general, se sigue con especial detalle el análisis crítico que Franz Neumann realiza, en tensión con “la tesis del capitalismo de Estado” de Friedrich Pollock, sobre el devenir totalitario de la República de Weimar. (shrink)

In 1906, Frigyes Riesz introduced a preliminary version of the notion of a topological space. He called it a mathematical continuum. This development can be traced back to the end of 1904 when, genuinely interested in taking up Hilbert’s foundations of geometry from 1902, Riesz aimed to extend Hilbert’s notion of a two-dimensional manifold to the three-dimensional case. Starting with the plane as an abstract point-set, Hilbert had postulated the existence of a system of neighbourhoods, thereby introducing the notion of (...) an accumulation point for the point-sets of the plane. Inspired by Hilbert’s technical approach, as well as by recent developments in analysis and point-set topology in France, Riesz defined the concept of a mathematical continuum as an abstract set provided with a notion of an accumulation point. In addition, he developed further elementary concepts in abstract point-set topology. Taking an abstract topological approach, he formulated a concept of three-dimensional continuous space that resembles the modern concept of a three-dimensional topological manifold. In 1908, Riesz presented his concept of mathematical continuum at the International Congress of Mathematicians in Rome. His lecture immediately won the attention of people interested in carrying on his research. They promoted his ideas, thus assuring their gradual reception by several future founders of general topology. In this way, Riesz’s work contributed significantly to the emergence of this discipline. (shrink)

This paper advances a novel account of how active forgetting underpins Nietzsche’s conception of health. Recent work has focused on what active forgetting is but does not explain how this process facilitates what Nietzsche calls ‘spiritual health’. I show that active forgetting – unlike Freudian repression or sublimation – preserves spiritual health when it is challenged by experiential content such as trauma, and that it allows for the incorporation of such experiences. I offer a reconstruction of active forgetting which makes (...) reference to the use of therapeutic narratives, which although neither necessary nor sufficient for active forgetting can aid and optimize this process in the face of traumatic experiences. My account provides a complex and clear distinction between forgetting and narrativization, in keeping with Nietzsche’s comments on the utility of adversity and the importance of resilience in relation to spiritual health. (shrink)

This chapter examines the way the two main philosophies of Heidegger and Derrida, come into critical contact with each other. Derrida represents his own thinking as a development of Heideggerian thought. The chapter discusses Derrida's engagement with Heidegger spanned nearly his entire philosophical career. Derrida's exploration of Heidegger's spiritual idiom, while somewhat unusual, is not unconnected with his other writings on Heidegger. Through tracing Heidegger's spiritual idiom, Derrida seeks to bring out what is at stake in those aspects of Heidegger's (...) thought he finds uncertain or, to put it more bluntly, questionable. In tracing Derrida's reading of Heidegger in Of Spirit, then, one shall in effect be crossing two pathways. One uses the medium of spirit to introduce certain critical questions for Heideggerian philosophy, specifically questions that relate to the political and geo political aspects of Heidegger's work. (shrink)

Scientists, philosophers, and policymakers disagree about how to define microaggression. Here, we offer a taxonomy of existing definitions, clustering around (a) the psychological motives of perpetrators, (b) the experience of victims, and (c) the functional role of microaggression in oppressive social structures. We consider conceptual and epistemic challenges to each and suggest that progress may come from developing novel hybrid accounts of microaggression, combining empirically tractable features with sensitivity to the testimony of victims.

In this article, we aim to map out the complexities which characterise debates about the ethics of vaccine distribution, particularly those surrounding the distribution of the COVID-19 vaccine. In doing so, we distinguish three general principles which might be used to distribute goods and two ambiguities in how one might wish to spell them out. We then argue that we can understand actual debates around the COVID-19 vaccine – including those over prioritising vaccinating the most vulnerable – as reflecting disagreements (...) over these principles. Finally, we shift our attention away from traditional discussions of distributive justice, highlighting the importance of concerns about risk imposition, special duties, and social roles in explaining debates over the COVID-19 vaccine. We conclude that the normative complexity this article highlights deepens the need for decision-making bodies to be sensitive to public input. (shrink)

What is it to share the same concept? The question is an important one since sharing the same concept explains our ability to non-accidentally coordinate on the same topic over time and between individuals. Moreover, concept identity grounds key logical relations among thought contents such as samesaying, contradiction, validity, and entailment. Finally, an account of concept identity is crucial to explaining and justifying epistemic efforts to better understand the precise contents of our thoughts. The key question, then, is what psychological (...) and social facts could play these roles? Elsewhere, we have argued for a specific relational model of concept identity, the connectedness model (e.g. Schroeter 2012, Schroeter and Schroeter 2014, 2015). Our aim in this chapter is to further explain the motivations behind that account, to address worries about transitivity and vagueness, and to contrast our approach with closely related accounts of concept identity developed by François Recanati and Simon Prosser. -/- What’s distinctive of our approach is that we seek to vindicate the first-person epistemic perspective of concept users. Concepts, on our account, play a crucial normative role in setting regulative ideals for the representational practices in which individual subjects participate. This focus on the normative role of concepts – as opposed to a purely causal explanatory role – motivates our approach to concept identity and our toleration of vagueness and borderline cases. (shrink)

The Système de philosophie by Pierre Sylvain Régis can be considered as the achievement both of the scientific liveliness of the Académie des Sciences in the 17th century and of its fruitful relationship with the Royal Society. Since it aims to shape the new conception of the universe in terms of a system, the Système represents one of the most mature achievements of Cartesian philosophy and it is characterized by an empirical interpretation of Descartes’ thought. The Système therefore reflects two (...) important phenomena occurring in the Europe of the 17th century: the scientific revolution and the proliferation of Academies. In fact, this ambitious work could be undertaken with the support of the Académie des Sciences and the Journal des Sçavants. My paper will analyse the French context by focusing to outline the role which the Académie de France had both in France, as the medium of dissemination of the new philosophy despite censorship, and abroad, in particular through the relationship with the Royal Society in England. I aim to analyse the role of the Journal des Sçavants as a means to share ideas other than by correspondence and as a trait d’union between “rationalist France” and “empiricist England”. I intend to question whether it is possible to establish a connection between the empirical interpretation of French Cartesianism, the consolidation of the Académie de France and the employment of new means of academic communication. The paper will show that the second half of 17th century France represents a remarkable exception to the conventional picture, which states that in 17th century Europe, following the success of a mechanistic interpretation of reality, two philosophical school clashed: rationalism, predominating on the continent, and empiricism, in England. (shrink)

Understanding in Epistemology Epistemology is often defined as the theory of knowledge, and talk of propositional knowledge has dominated the bulk of modern literature in epistemology. However, epistemologists have recently started to turn more attention to the epistemic state or states of understanding, asking questions about its nature, relationship … Continue reading Understanding in Epistemology →.

Use of videogames (VGs) is almost ubiquitous in preadolescents’ and adolescents’everyday life. One of the most intriguing research topic about positive effects of VG use is about the domain of visuospatial competencies. Previous research show that training with videogames enables children and adolescents to improve their scores in visuospatial tests (such as mental rotation of shapes and cubes), and that such training could overcome gender differences in these domains. Our study aimed at (1) verifying the positive effects of videogame use (...) in the visuospatial domain both for male and female adolescents and preadolescents and (2) verifying whether the visualization style (2D or isometric 3D) of the VG has an influence about the positive effects of gaming. Six measures of visuospatial competency were administered to 318 preadolescents (mean of age = 13.94 years, range 10-18) prior and after a 3-day training with 2D and 3D Tetris. Results indicate that (1) gaming on the whole has slight positive effects both for males and females in enhancing visuospatial competencies, at least in the short term, and (2) it seems that participants who used the videogame with 2D graphics obtained greater improvements in the mental rotation domain while the participants who used the videogame with 3D gobtained greater improvements in the spatial visualization domain. However, a general learning effect between T1 and T2 was measured, which was found regardless of Experimental condition, indicating that the effect of training with videogames can be less relevant than expected. (shrink)

We conducted a thorough investigation of the impact of representativeness on reasoning and metacognitive processes by employing the Linda problem. In congruent versions, the more representative res...

Why is there a felt asymmetry between cases in which agents defer to testifiers for certain moral beliefs, and cases in which agents defer on many other matters? One explanation influential in the literature is that having understanding of a proposition is both in tension with acquiring belief in the proposition by deferring to another's testimony and distinctively important when it comes to moral propositions, as compared with what we might think of as many ‘garden variety’ facts. My project in (...) this paper is to offer a new and more defensible version of this explanation. This will involve re-conceiving understanding as a richer state than it is commonly thought to be, requiring affective and motivational engagement with reasons as well as cognitive facility. I also offer a new explanation of the tension between understanding and deference to testimony. (shrink)

Starting with service robotics and industrial robotics, this paper aims to suggest philosophical reflections about the relationship between body and machine, between man and technology in our contemporary world. From the massive use of the cell phone to the robots which apparently “feel” and show emotions like humans do. From the wearable exoskeleton to the prototype reproducing the artificial sense of touch, technological progress explodes to the extent of embodying itself in our nakedness. Robotics, indeed, is inspired by biology in (...) order to develop a new kind of technology affecting human life. This is a bio-robotic approach, which is fulfilled in the figure of the cyborg and consequently in the loss of human nature. Today, humans have reached the possibility to modify and create their own body following their personal desires. But what is the limit of this achievement? For this reason, we all must question ourselves whether we have or whether we are a body. (shrink)

Microaggressions are seemingly negligible slights that can cause significant damage to frequently targeted members of marginalized groups. Recently, Scott O. Lilienfeld challenged a key platform of the microaggression research project: what’s aggressive about microaggressions? To answer this challenge, Derald Wing Sue, the psychologist who has spearheaded the research on microaggressions, needs to theorize a spectrum of aggression that ranges from intentional assault to unintentional microaggressions. I suggest turning to Bonnie Mann’s “Creepers, Flirts, Heroes and Allies” for inspiration. Building from Mann’s (...) richer theoretical framework will allow Sue to answer Lilienfeld’s objection and defend the legitimacy of the concept, ‘microaggression’. (shrink)

Emma Borg examines the relation between semantics and pragmatics, and assesses recent answers to fundamental questions of how and where to draw the divide between the two. She argues for a minimal account of the interrelation between them--a 'minimal semantics'--which holds that only rule-governed appeals to context can influence semantic content.

This chapter offers a brief analysis of the problems facing Bonnett's attempt to articulate a richer conception of thinking. Bonnett states, authentic thinking and understanding require that one become the originators and authors of their own thinking, as against merely reflecting the thoughts of others. In order to deflect the criticism that the account is promoting a self‐centred view of thinking, Bonnett introduces the concept of self referencing, which he describes as the determination to understand what one learns in terms (...) of one's own experiences. Bonnett states, the discipline and rigour of poetic thinking are rooted in the underlying sense of personal responsibility. One of the main flaws with Bonnett's account is that he simply does not engage in a careful enough reading of the philosophical accounts of thinking he draws upon, especially the Heideggerian accounts of being in the world and truth. (shrink)

This chapter explores the similarities that exist between two accounts of thinking presented by philosophers who are usually held to belong to differing, even conflicting, philosophical traditions. These are the accounts of Gilbert Ryle and Martin Heidegger. By situating Ryle in relation to Heidegger, the chapter seeks to show that there is an alternative reading of Ryle and one that problematises any straightforward understanding of him as a partisan of the rationalistic account. Ryle's first criticism takes issue with the way (...) Heidegger turns knowledge into a derivative mode of experience through his account of being in the world. According to Ryle, Heidegger is fundamentally mistaken in doing so, quite simply because knowledge is in fact a precondition for having a relation to things in the world in the first place. Heidegger draws a distinction between two differing conceptions of truth: aletheia and adequatio. (shrink)

This chapter considers a thinker Jacques Derrida, who in some ways inherits the Heideggerian legacy and yet also problematises and puts it to work in new ways. Like Heidegger, the insights raised by Derrida's philosophy in respect to the nature of human thinking come by way of his exploration of the relation between thought and language. Derrida in many ways comes close to one of the key accounts of language afforded by Ordinary Language philosophy, namely that of John Austin. The (...) chapter shows how Derrida's own account of language enables such a surpassing and demonstrates that this is not by way of any bizarre, farfetched man oeuvres but is rather the result of a commitment to remaining faithful and attentive to the actual workings of language. It explores Derrida's account of signification as it develops from his critical confrontation with structuralism and De Saussure. (shrink)

This chapter considers certain key features of Austin's philosophy. It discusses the under recognised affinities that exist between the work of Derrida and Austin, particularly concerning their philosophical methods and their respective attempts to work against the traditional, representation list account of language. The chapter exemplifies the manner in which Derrida nevertheless presents himself as going beyond Austin's philosophy in certain crucial ways, by attending to the criticisms he levels at Austin in his paper ‘Signature Event Context’. It describes Derrida's (...) account by assessing whether his critique of Austin holds, a task that is aided by an exploration of Stanley Cavell's critique of Derrida's reading of Austin. Finally, through appraising Cavell and Derrida's readings of Austin, the chapter argues that Derrida's critique can in fact be defended and in a manner that serves understand Derrida's account of language and thought in certain significant ways. (shrink)

In this comprehensive new study of human free agency, Laura Waddell Ekstrom critically surveys contemporary philosophical literature and provides a novel account of the conditions for free action. Ekstrom argues that incompatibilism concerning free will and causal determinism is true and thus the right account of the nature of free action must be indeterminist in nature. She examines a variety of libertarian approaches, ultimately defending an account relying on indeterministic causation among events and appealing to agent causation only in (...) a reducible sense. Written in an engaging style and incorporating recent scholarship, this study is critical reading for scholars and students interested in the topics of motivation, causation, responsibility, and freedom. In broadly covering the important positions of others along with its exposition of the author’s own view, Free Will provides both a significant scholarly contribution and a valuable text for courses in metaphysics and action theory. (shrink)

While 4E approaches to cognition are increasingly introduced in educational contexts, little has been said about how 4E commitments can inform pedagogy aimed at fostering ethical competencies. Here, we evaluate a 4E-inspired ethics exercise that we developed at a technical university to enliven the moral imagination of engineering students. Our students participated in an interactive tinkering workshop, during which they materially redesigned a healthcare artifact. The aim of the workshop was twofold. Firstly, we wanted students to experience how material choices (...) at the levels of design and functionality can enable morally significant reimaginings of the affordances commonly associated with existing artifacts. We term this type of reimagining world-directed moral imagination. Secondly, through the design process, we wanted students to robustly place themselves in the lived embodied perspectives of (potential) users of their selected artifacts. We term this person-directed moral imagination. While student testimonies about the exercise indicate that both their world-directed and person-directed moral imagination were enlivened, we note that the fostering of robust person-directed moral imagination proved challenging. Using 4E insights, we diagnose this challenge and ask how it might be overcome. To this end, we engage extensively with a recent 4E-informed critique of person-directed moral imagination, raised by Clavel Vázquez and Clavel-Vázquez (2023). They argue that person-directed moral imagination is profoundly limited, if not fundamentally misguided, particularly when exercised in contexts marked by emphatic embodied situated difference between the imaginer and the imagined. Building upon insights from both the 4E field and testimonies from critical disability studies, we argue that, while their critique is valuable, it ultimately goes too far. We conclude that a 4E approach can take on board recent 4E warnings regarding the limits of person-directed moral imagination while contributing positively to the development of moral imagination in engineering ethics education. (shrink)