We study how people attend to and memorize endings of events that differ in the degree to which objects in them are affected by an action: Resultative events show objects that undergo a visually salient change in state during the course of the event (peeling a potato), and non‐resultative events involve objects that undergo no, or only partial state change (stirring in a pan). We investigate general cognitive principles, and potential language‐specific influences, in verbal and nonverbal event encoding and memory, (...) across two experiments with Dutch and Estonian participants. Estonian marks a viewer's perspective on an event's result obligatorily via grammatical case on direct object nouns: Objects undergoing a partial/full change in state in an event are marked with partitive/accusative case, respectively. Therefore, we hypothesized increased saliency of object states and event results in Estonian speakers, as compared to speakers of Dutch. Findings show (a) a general cognitive principle of attending carefully to endings of resultative events, implying cognitive saliency of object states in event processing; (b) a language‐specific boost on attention and memory of event results under verbal task demands in Estonian speakers. Results are discussed in relation to theories of event cognition, linguistic relativity, and thinking for speaking. (shrink)

is to discuss the nurse leader's role in ensuring congruence between caring missions and caring practices. Ethical principles are discussed as the foundation necessary for creating an ethical climate for nursing practice. Components of ethical climate are presented and strategies to create a positive ethical climate for nursing practice are provided....

Creativity has often been declared, especially by philosophers, as the last frontier of science. The assumption is that it will defy explanation forever. I will defend two claims in order to oppose this assumption and to demystify creativity: (1) the perspective that creativity cannot be explained wrongly identifies creativity with what I shall call metaphysical freedom; (2) the Darwinian approach to creativity, a prominent naturalistic account of creativity, fails to give an explanation of creativity, because it confuses conceptual issues with (...) explanation. I will close with some remarks on the status and differences in some explanations available in contemporary cognitive science. (shrink)

An empirical study indicates how close advertisers from all the continents have been from the natural law and other fundamental moral principles. In their professional activities, many advertisers assumed the philosophical relativism as the framework for fundamental concepts. The ethical problems have not been equated with objectivity and the realist approach is appointed as a solution.

I argue that creativity is compatible with determinism and therefore with naturalistic explanation. I explore different kinds of novelty, corresponding with four distinct concepts of creativity – anthropological, historical, psychological and metaphysical. Psychological creativity incorporates originality and spontaneity. Taken together, these point to the independence of the creative mind from social learning, experience and previously acquired knowledge. This independence is nevertheless compatible with determinism. Creativity is opposed to specific causal factors, but it does not exclude causal determination as such. So (...) creativity can be naturalized. (shrink)

_Experimental situations in which we observe quantum effects that deviate from the intuitive expectations of the classical world call for an interdisciplinary discussion, and one fundamental issue to be considered is the compatibility between the description of phenomena and the assumption of an objective reality. This paper discusses the ontological interpretation of Bohmian quantum mechanics, focusing on the use of the term “trajectory” and the difficulties associated with its connection to a “real” (objective) trajectory. __My conclusion is that the intended (...) realistic interpretation of Bohmian trajectories is highly doubtful.___. (shrink)

Can Confucian ethics contribute to diagnosing the root causes of video games’ toxicity and formulating design requirements for redressing it? Contemporary Confucian studies on technology have not addressed these questions, although video games have become an important part of contemporary human life. This paper advances Confucian-inspired ethical studies on technologies by bringing attention to the moral dimension of this underexamined aspect of contemporary life. By focusing on League of Legends (one of the most popular toxic online multiplayer games), we argue (...) that League’s toxic environment hinders the cultivation of ren (仁), shu (恕), and he (和), but Confucian conceptual resources can inspire the formulation of at least three design recommendations against League’s toxicity. The first is to eliminate killing in the game by banking on players’ desire to express their skillfulness. The second is to include a rewatching feature to sanction toxic players with the aim of inculcating sympathy in them. The last is to add a procedure before and after each match, where players can cordially interact with each other and develop mutual respect. (shrink)

The genome of two completely unrelated individuals is quite similar apart from minor variations called single nucleotide polymorphisms which contribute to the uniqueness of each and every person. These single nucleotide polymorphisms are of great interest clinically as they are useful in figuring out the susceptibility of certain individuals to particular diseases and for recognizing varied responses to pharmacological interventions. This gives rise to the idea of ‘personalized medicine’ as an exciting new therapeutic science in this genomic era. Personalized medicine (...) suggests a unique treatment strategy based on an individual’s genetic make-up. Its key principles revolve around applied pharmaco-genomics, pharmaco-kinetics and pharmaco-proteomics. Herein, the ethical and legal aspects of personalized medicine in a new genomic era are briefly addressed. The ultimate goal is to comprehensively recognize all relevant forms of genetic variation in each individual and be able to interpret this information in a clinically meaningful manner within the ambit of ethical and legal considerations. The authors of this article firmly believe that personalized medicine has the potential to revolutionize the current landscape of medicine as it makes its way into clinical practice. (shrink)

Recent philosophical work on the concept of human nature disagrees on how to respond to the Darwinian challenge, according to which biological species do not have traditional essences. Three broad kinds of reactions can be distinguished: conservative intrinsic essentialism, which defends essences in the traditional sense, eliminativism, which suggests dropping the concept of human nature altogether, and constructive approaches, which argue that revisions can generate sensible concepts of human nature beyond traditional essences. The different constructive approaches pick out one or (...) two of the three epistemic roles that are fused in traditional essentialist conceptions of human nature: descriptive, explanatory, definitional, or explanatory and definitional. These turns towards diverging epistemic roles are best interpreted pluralistically: there is a plurality of concepts of human nature that have to be clearly distinguished, each with a legitimate role in respective scientific contexts. (shrink)

In the face of causal complexity, scientists reconstitute phenomena in order to arrive at a more simplified and partial picture that ignores most of the 'bigger picture.' This paper will distinguish between two modes of reconstituting phenomena: one moving down to a level of greater decomposition (toward organizational parts of the original phenomenon), and one moving up to a level of greater abstraction (toward different differences regarding the phenomenon). The first aim of the paper is to illustrate that phenomena are (...) moving targets, i.e., they are not fixed once and for all, but are adapted, if necessary, on the basis of the preferred perspective adopted for pragmatic reasons. The second aim is to analyze in detail the second mode of reconstituting phenomena. This includes an exposition of the kind of pragmatic-pluralistic picture resulting from the fact that phenomena are reconstituted by a move up to a level of greater abstraction. (shrink)

The book examines how Darwinism has been used to explain novelty and change in culture through the Darwinian approach to creativity and the theory of memes. The first claims that creativity is based on a Darwinian process of blind variation and selection, while the latter claims that culture is based on and explained by units - memes - that are similar to genes. Both theories try to describe and explain mind and culture by applying Darwinism by way of analogies. Kronfeldner (...) shows that the analogies involved in these theories lead to claims that give either wrong or at least no new descriptions or explanations of the phenomena at issue. Whereas the two approaches are usually defended or criticized on the basis that they are dangerous for our vision of ourselves, this book takes a different perspective: it questions the acuteness of these approaches. Darwinian theory is not like a dangerous wolf, hunting for our self image. Far from it, in the case of the two analogical applications addressed in this book, Darwinian theory is shown to behave more like a disoriented sheep in wolf's clothing. - A revised and much shortened version of a dissertation (2007, Darwinism, Memes and Creativity: A Critique of Analogical Reasoning from Nature to Culture). (shrink)

Over the last four decades arguments for and against the claim that creative hypothesis formation is based on Darwinian ‘blind’ variation have been put forward. This paper offers a new and systematic route through this long-lasting debate. It distinguishes between undirected, random, and unjustified variation, to prevent widespread confusions regarding the meaning of undirected variation. These misunderstandings concern Lamarckism, equiprobability, developmental constraints, and creative hypothesis formation. The paper then introduces and develops the standard critique that creative hypothesis formation is guided (...) rather than blind, integrating developments from contemporary research on creativity. On that basis, I discuss three compatibility arguments that have been used to answer the critique. These arguments do not deny guided variation but insist that an important analogy exists nonetheless. These compatibility arguments all fail, even though they do so for different reasons: trivialisation, conceptual confusion, and lack of evidence respectively. Revisiting the debate in this manner not only allows us to see where exactly a ‘Darwinian’ account of creative hypothesis formation goes wrong, but also to see that the debate is not about factual issues, but about the interpretation of these factual issues in Darwinian terms. (shrink)

This paper argues that the so-called ‘paradox’ of dehumanization is a mirage arising from misplaced abstraction. The alleged ‘paradox’ is taken as a challenge that arises from a skeptical stance. After reviewing the history of that skeptical stance, it is reconstructed as an argument with two premises. With the help of an epistemologically structured but pluralistic frame it is then shown how the two premises of the Skeptic’s argument can both be debunked. As part of that it emerges that there (...) are a couple of ways how dehumanization can be realized, and one such realization can be sufficient for affirming the reality of dehumanization for a specific case. (shrink)

Human nature is a concept that transgresses the boundary between science and society and between fact and value. It is as much a political concept as it is a scientific one. This chapter will cover the politics of human nature by using evidence from history, anthropology and social psychology. The aim is to show that an important political function of the vernacular concept of human nature is social demarcation (inclusion/exclusion): it is involved in regulating who is ‘us’ and who is (...) ‘them.’ It is a folk concept that is used for dehumanization, for denying (a) membership in humankind or (b) full humanness to certain people in order to include or exclude them from various forms of politically relevant aspects of human life, such as rights, power, etc. (shrink)

Continuing Franz Boas' work to establish anthropology as an academic discipline in the US at the turn of the twentieth century, Alfred L. Kroeber re-defined culture as a phenomenon sui generis. To achieve this he asked geneticists to enter into a coalition against hereditarian thoughts prevalent at that time in the US. The goal was to create space for anthropology as a separate discipline within academia, distinct from other disciplines. To this end he crossed the boundary separating anthropology from biology (...) in order to secure the boundary. His notion of culture, closely bound to the concept of heredity, saw it as independent of biological heredity (culture as superorganic) but at the same time as a heredity of another sort. The paper intends to summarise the shifting boundaries of anthropology at the beginning of the twentieth century, and to present Kroeber?s ideas on culture, with a focus on how the changing landscape of concepts of heredity influenced his views. The historical case serves to illustrate two general conclusions: that the concept of culture played and plays different roles in explaining human existence; that genetics and the concept of Weismannian hard inheritance did not have an unambiguous unidirectional historical effect on the vogue for hereditarianism at that time; on the contrary, it helped to establish culture in Kroeber's sense, culture as independent of heredity. (shrink)

This paper spells out the ways in which we need to be pluralists about “human nature”. It discusses a conceptual pluralism about the concept of “human nature”, stemming from post-essentialist ontology and the semantic complexity of the term “nature”; a descriptive pluralism about the “descriptive nature” of human beings, which is a pluralism regarding our self-understanding as human beings that stems from the long list of typical features of, and relations between, human beings; a natural kind term pluralism, which is (...) a pluralism that concerns the choices we have in deciding how to apply the kind term “human”; and an explanatory pluralism that results from the causal complexity of life. Because of the complexity of being human, which gives rise to these pluralisms, being human is, the paper claims, a kaleidoscopic affair, and one far from concerning the life sciences only. (shrink)

This paper addresses whether the often-bemoaned loss of unity of knowledge about humans, which results from the disciplinary fragmentation of science, is something to be overcome. The fragmentation of being human rests on a couple of distinctions, such as the nature-culture divide. Since antiquity the distinction between nature (roughly, what we inherit biologically) and culture (roughly, what is acquired by social interaction) has been a commonplace in science and society. Recently, the nature/culture divide has come under attack in various ways, (...) in philosophy as well as in cultural anthropology. Regarding the latter, for instance, the divide was quintessential in its beginnings as an academic dis-cipline, when Alfred L. Kroeber, one of the first professional anthropologists in the US, rallied for (what I call) the right to ignore—in his case, human nature—by adopting a separationist epistemic stance. A separationist stance will be understood as an epistemic research heuristic that defends the right to ignore a specif-ic phenomenon (e.g., human nature) or a specific causal factor in an explanation typical for a disciplinary field. I will use Kroeber’s case as an example for making a general point against a bias towards integration (synthesis bias, as I call it) that is exemplified, for instance, by defenders of evolutionary psychology. I will claim that, in principle, a separationist stance is as good as an integrationist stance since both can be equally fruitful. With this argument from fruitful sepa-ration in place, not just the separationist stance but also the nature/culture di-vide can be defended against its critics. (shrink)

The article addresses the question whether culture evolves in a Lamarckian manner. I highlight three central aspects of a Lamarckian concept of evolution: the inheritance of acquired characteristics, the transformational pattern of evolution, and the concept of directed changes. A clear exposition of these aspects shows that a system can be a Darwinian variational system instead of a Lamarckian transformational one, even if it is based on inheritance of acquired characteristics and/or on Lamarckian directed changes. On this basis, I apply (...) the three aspects to culture. Taking for granted that culture is a variational system, based on selection processes, I discuss in detail the senses in which cultural inheritance can be said to be Lamarckian and in which sense problem solving, a major factor in cultural change, leads to directed variation. (shrink)

This article illustrates in which sense genetic determinism is still part of the contemporary interactionist consensus in medicine. Three dimensions of this consensus are discussed: kinds of causes, a continuum of traits ranging from monogenetic diseases to car accidents, and different kinds of determination due to different norms of reaction. On this basis, this article explicates in which sense the interactionist consensus presupposes the innate?acquired distinction. After a descriptive Part 1, Part 2 reviews why the innate?acquired distinction is under attack (...) in contemporary philosophy of biology. Three arguments are then presented to provide a limited and pragmatic defense of the distinction: an epistemic, a conceptual, and a historical argument. If interpreted in a certain manner, and if the pragmatic goals of prevention and treatment are taken into account, then the innate?acquired distinction can be a useful epistemic tool. It can help, first, to understand that genetic determination does not mean fatalism, and, second, to maintain a system of checks and balances in the continuing nature?nurture debates. (shrink)

This paper has two aims. First, to bring together the models of temporal phenomenology on offer and to present these using a consistent set of distinctions and terminologies. Second, to examine the methodologies currently practiced in the development of these models. To that end we present an abstract characterisation in which we catalogue all extant models. We then argue that neither of the two extreme methodologies currently discussed is suitable to the task of developing a model of temporal phenomenology. An (...) entirely top-down methodology is largely insensitive to empirical findings, while one that is entirely bottom-up is insensitive to both introspective evidence and more general philosophical considerations. We recommend a methodology that falls between these two extremes. (shrink)

ABSTRACTIn this paper, I argue for an Aristotelian way of accommodating supererogation within virtue ethics by retrieving an account of moral heroism and providing a picture of different degrees of virtue. This, I claim, is the most appropriate virtue-ethical background allowing us to talk about supererogation without falling prey to several dangers. After summarizing the main attempts to deny the compatibility of virtue and supererogation, I will present some recent proposals to accommodate supererogation within virtue ethics. Next, I will argue (...) that these proposals raise substantial worries. I will then offer an analysis of heroism and the degrees of virtue to outline my own alternative definition of supererogation in terms of heroic virtue. (shrink)

Academic freedom has often been defended in a progressivist manner: without academic freedom, creativity would be in peril, and with it the advancement of knowledge, i.e. the epistemic progress in science. In this paper, I want to critically discuss the limits of such a progressivist defense of academic freedom, also known under the label ‘argument from truth.’ The critique is offered, however, with a constructive goal in mind, namely to offer an alternative account that connects creativity and academic freedom in (...) a way that goes beyond mere reference to epistemic progress and involves reference to the freedom to think independently as the freedom we mean when we point to creativity and when we point to academic freedom. The resulting causal independence account is not only epistemologically stronger than a progressivist account, it also allows to counter the curbing of academic freedom in the name of progress. The latter becomes key, for instance, when authoritarian political regimes limit or negate academic freedom with reference to an epistemic progress suitably defined for that regime. (shrink)

This study was aimed at predicting individual differences in text reading fluency. The basic proposal included two factors, i.e., the ability to decode letter strings (measured by discrete pseudo-word reading) and integration of the various sub-components involved in reading (measured by Rapid Automatized Naming, RAN). Subsequently, a third factor was added to the model, i.e., naming of discrete digits. In order to use homogeneous measures, all contributing variables considered the entire processing of the item, including pronunciation time. The model, which (...) was based on commonality analysis, was applied to data from a group of 43 typically developing readers (11- to 13-year-olds) and a group of 25 chronologically matched dyslexic children. In typically developing readers, both orthographic decoding and integration of reading sub-components contributed significantly to the overall prediction of text reading fluency. The model prediction was higher (from ca. 37% to 52% of the explained variance) when we included the naming of discrete digits variable, which had a suppressive effect on pseudo-word reading. In the dyslexic readers, the variance explained by the two-factor model was high (69%) and did not change when the third factor was added. The lack of a suppression effect was likely due to the prominent individual differences in poor orthographic decoding of the dyslexic children. Analyses on data from both groups of children were replicated by using patches of colours as stimuli (both in the RAN task and in the discrete naming task) obtaining similar results. We conclude that it is possible to predict much of the variance in text-reading fluency using basic processes, such as orthographic decoding and integration of reading sub-components, even without taking into consideration higher-order linguistic factors such as lexical, semantic and contextual abilities. The approach validity of using proximal vs distal causes to predict reading fluency is discussed. (shrink)

The term ‘human nature’ can refer to different things in the world and fulfil different epistemic roles. Human nature can refer to a classificatory nature (classificatory criteria that determine the boundaries of, and membership in, a biological or social group called ‘human’), a descriptive nature (a bundle of properties describing the respective group’s life form), or an explanatory nature (a set of factors explaining that life form). This chapter will first introduce these three kinds of ‘human nature’, together with seven (...) reasons why we disagree about human nature. In the main, this chapter focuses on the explanatory concept of human nature, which is related to one of the seven reasons for disagreement, namely, the scientific authority inherent in the term ‘nature’. I will examine why, in a number of historical contexts, it was attractive to refer to ‘nature’ as an explanatory category, and why this usage has led to the continual contestation of the term within the sciences. The claim is that even if the contents of talk about ‘nature’ varied historically, the term’s pragmatic function of demarcation stayed the same. The term ‘nature’ conveys scientific authority over a territory; ‘human nature’ is a concept used to divide causes, as well as experts, and thereby conquer others who threaten to invade one’s epistemic territory. Analysing this demarcation, which has social as well as epistemic aspects, will help us to understand why the explanatory role has been important and why it is unlikely that people will ever agree on either the meaning or the importance of ‘human nature’ as an explanatory category. (shrink)

This article illustrates in which sense genetic determinism is still part of the contemporary interactionist consensus in medicine. Three dimensions of this consensus are discussed: kinds of causes, a continuum of traits ranging from monogenetic diseases to car accidents, and different kinds of determination due to different norms of reaction. On this basis, this article explicates in which sense the interactionist consensus presupposes the innate?acquired distinction. After a descriptive Part 1, Part 2 reviews why the innate?acquired distinction is under attack (...) in contemporary philosophy of biology. Three arguments are then presented to provide a limited and pragmatic defense of the distinction: an epistemic, a conceptual, and a historical argument. If interpreted in a certain manner, and if the pragmatic goals of prevention and treatment (ideally specifying what medicine and health care is all about) are taken into account, then the innate?acquired distinction can be a useful epistemic tool. It can help, first, to understand that genetic determination does not mean fatalism, and, second, to maintain a system of checks and balances in the continuing nature?nurture debates. (shrink)

This paper focuses on Aristotelian phronesis and aims at highlighting its nature as an eye on particulars with general ends in sight. More specifically, it challenges the particularistic interpretation of phronesis and Aristotelian ethics in order to argue for a “qualified generalism.” After sketching a radical Particularistic Reading (PR), the paper defends an interpretation it calls the Priority of Particulars Reading (PPR). First, it shows how PPR effectively accounts for the Aristotelian priority assigned to practical perception while at the same (...) time counterbalancing that priority by means of two interpretive strategies. Then it offers further support to PPR by appealing to its own reading of Aristotle's phronesis. It aims to show that it is possible to defend a legitimate form of PPR without ending in holding PR, and that Aristotle's own theory and work ground the moderate reading. Finally, it draws some implications by analyzing educational practice. (shrink)

To have a well-functioning principle of academic freedom, we need to distin-guish critique from an infringement of academic freedom. To achieve this goal, this paper presents three necessary conditions for something to be an infringe-ment of academic freedom. These conditions allow to delineate cases in which at least one of the three conditions is not fulfilled. These are contrast cases that might – at first glance – look like infringements of academic freedom but are, in fact, not so. I will (...) refer to five such kinds of contrast cases: (1) discrimination and thus a more general kind of unjust treatment of a person engaged in aca-demic affairs, (2) infringement of freedom of speech or other non-academic intel-lectual freedoms, (3) mere critique, (4) justified critique that leads to justified limitations of someone’s academic freedom, and (5) cases of deep disagreement. Special attention will be given to vulnerabilities concerning unjustified silencing of critique, which haunt fields that lack clear and agreed-on ethical or academic standards. (shrink)

Three studies were conducted to examine the relation of spatial visualization to solving kinematics problems that involved either predicting the two‐dimensional motion of an object, translating from one frame of reference to another, or interpreting kinematics graphs. In Study 1, 60 physics‐naíve students were administered kinematics problems and spatial visualization ability tests. In Study 2, 17 (8 high‐ and 9 low‐spatial ability) additional students completed think‐aloud protocols while they solved the kinematics problems. In Study 3, the eye movements of fifteen (...) (9 high‐ and 6 low‐spatial ability) students were recorded while the students solved kinematics problems. In contrast to high‐spatial students, most low‐spatial students did not combine two motion vectors, were unable to switch frames of reference, and tended to interpret graphs literally. The results of the study suggest an important relationship between spatial visualization ability and solving kinematics problems with multiple spatial parameters. (shrink)

This paper is on the problem of causal selection and comments on Collingwood's classic paper "The so-called idea of causation". It discusses the relevance of Collingwood’s control principle in contemporary life sciences and defends that it is not the ability to control, but the willingness to control that often biases us towards some rather than other causes of a phenomenon. Willingness to control is certainly only one principle that influences causal selection, but it is an important one. It shows how (...) norms make causes. (shrink)

Se analiza el tratamiento que da Husserl en sus escritos tardíos al fenómeno-límite de la muerte, así como a la problemática que surge en la relación entre el hombre mundano y el sujeto trascendental. El acceso a la dimensión última de la subjetividad constituyente, que la reflexión sobre la muerte exige y motiva, revela una anonimia fundamental del yo, que pone en cuestión la posibilidad de la fenomenología de auto-fundamentarse siguiendo sus propios principios metodológicos: la ausencia de presupuestos y la (...) búsqueda de conocimiento a través de la intuición. (shrink)

The aim of the study was to explore the experiences of night nurses. An interpretative phenomenological study was undertaken, and 35 nurses working in Italian medical, surgical and intensive care units were purposely recruited. Data were gathered in 2010 by semi‐structured interviews, collecting nurses' narratives, memorable cases and metaphors, aimed at summarising the essence of work as a nurse during the night. The experience of night nursing is based on four interconnected themes: (i) working in a state of alert, (ii) (...) growing by expanding autonomy and responsibility, (iii) assuring sensitive surveillance and (iv) experiencing deep intimacy. Memorable episodes were polarised along (i) expected/unexpected events; (ii) positive/negative epilogues; and (iii) life/death issues. Many of the emergent metaphors described working during the night as being in the middle of a space where an apparent calm scene takes place, but unpredictable factors may suddenly change the order of events and the outcomes, creating chaos. Working during the night alerts nurses, who increase autonomy, expanding their role and assuming more responsibility with respect to that assumed during daily shifts. The nurses' clinical reasoning is based on data they carefully listen to, and on the meaning that nurses give time by time to different noises and silence. While in the past a sense of companionships was reported, a loneliness or a ‘neutral’ experience concerning the relationships with colleagues seems to prevail during night nursing. Working night shifts is a complex task, and specific training must be assured to students/novices. (shrink)

Conveying emotions in spoken poetry may be based on a poem’s semantic content and/or on emotional prosody, i.e. on acoustic features above single speech sounds. However, hypotheses of more direct sound–emotion relations in poetry, such as those based on the frequency of occurrence of certain phonemes, have not withstood empirical (re)testing. Therefore, we investigated sound–emotion associations based on prosodic features as a potential alternative route for the, at least partially, non-semantic expression and perception of emotions in poetry. We first conducted (...) a pre-study designed to validate relevant parameters of joy- and sadness-supporting prosody in the recitation, i.e. acoustic production, of poetry. The parameters obtained thereof guided the experimental modification of recordings of German joyful and sad poems such that for each poem, three prosodic variants were constructed: one with a joy-supporting prosody, one with a sadness-supporting prosody, and a neutral variant. In the subsequent experiment, native German speakers and participants with no command of German rated the joyfulness and sadness of these three variants. This design allowed us to investigate the role of emotional prosody, operationalized in terms of sound-emotion parameters, both in combination with and dissociated from semantic access to the emotional content of the poems. The findings from our pre-study showed that the emotional content of poems (based on pre-classifications into joyful and sad) indeed predicted the prosodic features pitch and articulation rate. The subsequent perception experiment revealed that cues provided by joyful and sad prosody specifically affect non-German-speaking listeners’ emotion ratings of the poems. Thus, the present investigation lends support to the hypothesis of prosody-based iconic relations between perceived emotion and sound qualia. At the same time, our findings also highlight that semantic access substantially decreases the role of cross-language sound–emotion associations and indicate that non-German-speaking participants may also use phonetic and prosodic cues other than the ones that were targeted and manipulated here. (shrink)

In this paper, I show that the conception of a virtue in positive psychology is a mishmash of two competing accounts of what virtues are: a Common Sense View and an Aristotelian View. Distinguishing the strengths and weaknesses of these two frameworks leads also to a reconsideration of an old debate, namely, that concerning the Unity of the Virtues thesis. Such thesis is rejected by positive psychologist, as well as by some philosophers among the virtue-ethical field, on the basis, I (...) argue, of a lack of accuracy in defining the very meaning of the concept of what virtues are, before examining the issues at stake. In the first part of the paper, I show to what extent the conceptions of virtue employed by the different voices diverge and the consequences of this divergence for the UV problem. Then, I go on by arguing for one of the two competing accounts, namely, the Aristotelian View, over the other, that is, the Common Sense View. Finally, I show to which of CSV theses positive psychologists are committed, so to explain their rejection of the UV thesis, and to highlight their need for a clearer account of what a virtue is. (shrink)

RESUMEN El concepto heterotopía, definido por Michel Foucault como espacio otro, es retomado en este artículo, desde un enfoque crítico, para analizar los procesos de construcción, gestión y puesta en marcha del Museo Itinerante de la Memoria y la Identidad de Los Montes de María, El Mochuelo. Bajo la premisa de que el desarrollo de los procesos de memorialización debe atenderse más allá del cumplimiento normativo por parte del Estado, puesto que estas prácticas de memoria territoriales en El Mochuelo subvierten (...) el estatismo y la homogeneidad con los cuales se instauran las verdades oficiales. ABSTRACT Heterotopia concept, defined by Michel Foucault as another space, is taken up in this article to analyze the processes of construction, management, and implementation of the Museo Itinerante de la Memoria y la Identidad de Los Montes de María, El Mochuelo (Itinerant Museum of Memory and Identity of Los Montes de María, El Mochuelo). Under the premise that the development of memorialization processes must be addressed beyond regulatory compliance by the State since these territorial memory practices in El Mochuelo subvert the statism and homogeneity with which official truths are established. (shrink)