We propose a new integrative framework of external time monitoring in prospective memory (PM) tasks and its relation with performance. Starting from existing empirical regularities and our theoretical analysis, the framework predicts that external monitoring in PM tasks comprises a first stage of loose monitoring to keep track of the passage of time, and a subsequent stage of finer-grained monitoring, based on interval reduction, to meet the PM deadline. Following our framework, we predicted and observed in three different datasets (N (...) = 375): (1) a marked increase in external monitoring frequency in the final part of the period of the PM task, well captured by a proportional rate exponential growth function; (2) a positive association between individual compliance with this monitoring pattern and PM performance; (3) a positive relation between monitoring frequency in the time window immediately preceding the PM deadline and PM performance at the individual level; and (4) good individual compliance with an interval reduction pattern in external monitoring, especially in the time window closer to the PM deadline. These results support the proposed integrative framework, which has the potential to foster future research on external monitoring in PM and in other fields of cognitive science. (shrink)

This paper provides a discussion of Jacques Rancière’s former teacher at École Normale Supérieure, then famous for fashioning Marxism with the philosophical gauge of structuralism, Louis Althusser. Perhaps a brief discussion on the relation between the two would render context to the origins of Rancière's philosophico-political praxis, specifically the humble beginnings of conceptualizing an egalitarian method out of his philosophical rupture with Althusserianism. Meanwhile, to reduce the philosophical enterprise of Althusser into its practical shortcomings and silence during the revolutionary events (...) of May 1968 in France would do an injustice to the magnitude of his contribution to contemporary French political theory and his major revisions in the theoretical direction of the Parti communiste français. Thus, the following discussions focus on sketching Althusser's theoretical foundations, which possibly clarifies the political decision he has made during May '68: a demand for organization over spontaneous revolutionary activity based on the authority of theoretical practice over the ideological activities—a decision that became the point of departure for Rancière's subversion of both mastery and the structural inequality Althusserianism entail. The whole piece is guided by the following two-fold question—a question, perhaps, akin to Badiou's inquiry: What were the philosophico-political interventions of Louis Althusser, and why did Rancière move away from his direction? (shrink)

Constitutional law in the United States is, for most practical purposes, the product of ‘judicial review’, the power of judges to disallow policy choices made by other officials or institutions of government, ostensibly because those choices are prohibited by the Constitution. This extraordinary and unprecedented power, America's dubious contribution to the science of government, has made American judges the most powerful in the world, not only legislators but super-legislators, legislators with virtually the last word. Because lawmaking power divorced from popular (...) will is tyranny, most states have attempted to reconcile the lawmaking power of judges with representative self-government by subjecting all or some judges to some form of popular election. In all but four such states, judges, encouraged and supported by their fellow lawyers in the organized bar—would-be judges and beneficiaries of judicial power—have responded by adopting codes of judicial ethics that limit what candidates for election to judicial office are permitted to say. The effect is to undermine elections as a control on judicial power by limiting criticism of judicial activism, the misuse of judicial power. (shrink)

Industrial (“white”) biotechnology promises to contribute to a more sustainable future. Compared to current production processes, cases have been identified where industrial biotechnology can decrease the amount of energy and raw materials used to make products and also reduce the amount of emissions and waste produced during production. However, switching from products based on chemical production processes and fossil fuels towards “biobased” products is at present not necessarily economically viable. This is especially true for bulk products, for example ethanol production (...) from biomass. Therefore, scientists are also turning to genetic modification as a means to develop organisms that can produce at lower costs. These include not only micro-organisms, but also organisms used in agriculture for food and feed.The use of genetic modification for “deliberate release” purposes, in particular, has met great opposition in Europe. Many industrial biotechnology applications may, due to their scale, entail deliberate releases of GM organisms. Thus, the biobased economy brings back a familiar question; is it ethically justifiable, and acceptable to citizens, to expose the environment and society to the risks associated with GM, in order to protect that same environment and to sustain our affluent way of life? For a successful innovation towards a biobased economy, its proponents, especially producers, need to take into account (take responsibility for) such issues when developing new products and processes. These issues, and how scientists can interact with citizens about them in a timely way, are further explored in projects at Delft University and Leiden University, also in collaboration with Utrecht University. (shrink)

The notion of freedom was in ancient philosophy formed in the sense of the privileges belonging to adult free citizens, and thus foreigners, minors, women, and slaves were deprived of the possibility of freedom. This definition of freedom was also adopted by Roman law, unlike Stoic philosophy and the New Testament Christianity, where freedom was extended to belong to all human beings. In comparison, the Stoics condemn slavery, while Christianity eschatologises freedom. The Middle Ages built on such a concept of (...) freedom. Still, in that period the secular concept of freedom was formulated, which especially comes to the fore in the Magna charta libertatum. The modern concept of freedom was shaped in the Modern Age, from Locke’s definition of life, freedom, and property as inalienable civil rights, through Voltaire’s request for the freedom of thought and Rousseau’s identification of freedom with the essence of human being, to Kant’s understanding of freedom that is possible only through the mind. The ideals of French Revolution, Liberty, Equality, Fraternity, are concretised in the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen. John Stuart Mill formulated the classical liberal concept of freedom. Today freedom is discussed, on the one hand, at the level of questions about individual freedom, and on the other hand, at the level of the problematisation of social presumptions regarding the freedom of human being. (shrink)

This paper argues that research in the primary sources must precede the investigation of Byzantine philosophy. Two points are to be considered, on the one hand, the gathering of texts, and, on the other hand, the study of texts in relation to their sources. Thus the external evidence as well as the internal evidence of texts should be examined. In this double regard, the manuscripts containing Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics are considered. Their authors are Michael of Ephesos, Eustratios of Nicaea, “Anonymus”, (...) Heliodoros of Prussa, Georgios Pachymeres, Michael Psellos, John Italos, Nikephoros Blemmydes, George Gemistos Plethon. (shrink)

Ludovico Silva fue uno de los intelectuales marxistas más influyentes de la Venezuela del siglo XX. Él recogió de la obra de Marx aquellos elementos que le permiteron enjuiciar al capitalismo desde el contexto latinoamericano, sin olvidar los errores que los pueblos de la Europa del Este cometieron en su camino al socialismo. Las ideas que guían el presente estudio recogen su postura sobre conceptos como el de ideología, plusvalía, alienación, capitalismo, iglesia, utopía, cultura, entre otros, desde los cuales procura (...) vitalizar el marxismo fosilizado por los manuales elaborados por los intelectuales soviéticos. (shrink)

L’article essaie d’expliquer la nature éthique de l’action par l’analyse de la peine. C’est dans la justification de l’acte pénal que Hegel présenta le premier noyau de la dialectique qui « dépasse » et relativise le commandement du droit positif. C’est même dans la justification de l’action pénale que Hegel expose de façon systématique le principe capital selon lequel le droit n’est réellement juste que lorsqu’il se constitue comme un acte « reconnaissable » par le destinataire.

L’article essaie d’expliquer la nature éthique de l’action par l’analyse de la peine. C’est dans la justification de l’acte pénal que Hegel présenta le premier noyau de la dialectique qui « dépasse » et relativise le commandement du droit positif. C’est même dans la justification de l’action pénale que Hegel expose de façon systématique le principe capital selon lequel le droit n’est réellement juste que lorsqu’il se constitue comme un acte « reconnaissable » par le destinataire.

Mujica, representa unos de los intelectuales más importantes del marxismo venezolano del siglo XX. Las ideas que guían el presente estudio, recogen su postura ante la historia, la religión, los medios de comunicación, así como su tesis sobre el progreso y su postura antiimperialista y, de manera muy particular, la teoría socialista como instrumento de interpretación y trasformación de la realidad.Mujica represents one of the most important intellectuals in twentieth-century Venezuelan Marxism. The ideas guiding this study include his posture regarding (...) history, religion and mass media as well as his thesis about progress, his anti-imperialist posture and especially, socialist theory as an instrument for interpreting and transforming reality. (shrink)

This ar ti cle is part of the anal y sis of the his tory of ideas in Latin Amer ica, which is a field of thought that con trib utes to re cov er ing con tri bu tions from di verse fields of knowl edge, and which has been fo cused on by in tel lec tu als who con sider our iden tity to be a theme..

Hier wird die folgende Frage gestellt: gibt es überhaupt irgendeine unengagierte Philosophie? Nämlich, jede Philosophie, die überhaupt als echte Philosophie bewertbar ist, und nicht etwa als Ideologie, Dophistik oder Schwindel, sollte als Denken, das der Wahrheit treu bleibt, beschrieben werden, d. h. als eine im Dienst der Wahrheit engagierte Philosophie. Dagegen, diejenige Philosophie, die im Dienst einer weltlicher oder jenseitiger Macht antritt, darf man keineswegs als eine Philosophie bewerten. Doch, es wird noch eine Frage gestellt: Wäre es erlaubt, eine Parallele (...) mit der sog. engagierte Kunst zu stellen? Die Antwort wird ermöglicht durch die Definition der Philosophie als die Tätigkeit des unnachsichtigen Dienstes zur Wahrheit. (shrink)

Unter dem Begriff Biologismus verstehen wir die Anwendung strikter wissenschaftlicher biologischer Maßstäbe und Begriffe auf die Gebiete, die nicht durch die Dominanz biologischer Verhältnisse bezeichnet werden. Die Annahme des biologistischen Determinismus resultiert notwendigerweise mit der Auffassung, dass die Kultur durch die biologischen Gesetze determiniert wird. Als Antithese zu einem solchen Reduktionismus stellt sich der Kulturalismus heraus, d. h. die Betonung des Vorrangs kultureller Determinanten im Prozess der Bildung der Kultur und der menschlichen Welt überhaupt. In diesem Beitrag wird bewiesen, dass (...) ein solcher Kulturalismus nur die falsche Alternative zum Biologismus ist. Die menschliche Welt kann auf angemessene Weise nur dann begriffen werden, wenn alle relevanten Dimensionen ihrer Gestaltung in Betracht gezogen werden. Die Voraussetzung dafür ist die Befreiung von allen reduktionistischen Versuchungen. (shrink)

In this paper the author tries to explore the problem of the social function of philosophy in the contemporary world. This world is characterized by universal modernization and in the last decades by globalization and unification, but at the same time also by controversies and contradictions which reveal tendencies of human regression and degeneration. Philosophy must remain a study of general and fundamental nature of a human-produced world. As such philosophy produces potentialities of critical thinking, provides social investigations, and—at least (...) in principle—gives people the power of an adequate understanding of our world, its fundamental characteristics and main tendencies. Thus philosophy is a ground for a reasonable social practice and adequate policies. (shrink)

An undiscovered chapter in the history of architecture comes from the ex-Soviet Republic of Georgia. Poetics of Architecture is the name given to the studioworkshop at the Georgian Technical University set up by the Georgian architect Shota Bostanashvili (1948–2013). From 1990 until his death he delivered insightful, playful and rather provocative lectures on architecture at this university. He preferred to call his architectural philosophy, critical discourse on architecture. Themes ranged from poetics to metapoetics of architecture. His philosophy of architecture is (...) illustrated by some of his designs and executed projects which demonstrate a drift from existentialism to the philosophy of play. This study includes reference to his last building, a project whose demolition Bostanashvili witnessed before passing away. Based on the concept of the return of the sacred, this edifice was a sort of counter movement to technogenic architecture. (shrink)

Desde hace décadas se viene hablando en América Latina y de manera muy particular en Venezuela sobre la necesidad de una transformación universitaria. Lo que, como es de esperar, genera gran debate entre quienes se aferran a las roídas estructuras de las instituciones de educación superior por los privilegios que consagran y los que apuestan por una nueva universidad. Este trabajo intenta contribuir al gran debate nacional que el proyecto de Ley de Educación Universitaria (2010) ha generado en Venezuela, para (...) ello hace énfasis en lo importante de la radicalización de la democracia universitaria y la introducción del pensamiento crítico en los planes de estudio. (shrink)