Audio description remains the cornerstone of accessibility for visually impaired audiences to all sorts of audiovisual content, including porn. Existing work points to the efficacy of audio description to guarantee immersion and emotional engagement, but evidence on its role in sexual arousal and engagement in porn is still scant. The present study takes on this challenge by comparing sighted and visually impaired participants’ experiences with porn in terms of their physiological response [i.e., cortisol and heart rate ] and self-report measures (...) of affect [Positive and Negative Affect Schedule ; Watson et al., 1988], anxiety [State-Trait Anxiety Inventory ; Spielberger et al., 1970], sexual reactivity and arousal [Sexual Inhibition/Sexual Excitation Scale ; Moyano and Sierra ; and the Ratings of Sexual Arousal ; Mosher ], and narrative engagement or transportation [The Transport Narrative Questionnaire, Green and Brock ]. 69 Spanish participants were allocated into three different groups: 25 sighted participants who watched and heard the porn scenes in their audio-visual version ; 22 sighted participants who listened to the audio described version without images ; and 22 visually impaired participants who also listened to the audio described version without images. Overall, results on physiological and self-report measures revealed no significant differences between groups or different versions of the clips. The analysis of cortisol reactivity to porn as the maximum increase or decrease in cortisol with respect to baseline values revealed no significant differences between the groups, but pointed to a higher percentage of non-responders than responders in the three groups, the highest being found in the ONCE group. As for participants’ cardiac response to the clips, no significant differences were found across the groups, with the highest HR levels being registered in the baseline phase. Self-report measures revealed significant between-group differences in negative affect. The ONCE group displayed the highest pre-task levels of negative affect and was the only group that showed a decrease in negative affect after exposure to the clips. Sighted and visually impaired participants reported to be moderately aroused and immersed in the films, regardless of exposure to AV or AD porn. In addition, correlations found between participants’ levels of self-report sexual arousal and transportation and post-task affect pointed to a positive relationship between exposure to porn and perceived levels of sexual arousal and affect. Results from the study reflected the efficacy of audio description in providing sighted and visually impaired audiences with a similar experience to that offered by original AV porn scenes. This study is exploratory but provides valid, initial groundwork for further research on the impact of audio description on porn reception. (shrink)

Metaphors are cognitive and linguistic tools that allow reasoning. They enable the understanding of abstract domains via elements borrowed from concrete ones. The underlying mechanism in metaphorical mapping is the manipulation of concepts. This article proposes another view on what concepts are and their role in metaphor and reasoning. That is, based on current neuroscientific and behavioural evidence, it is argued that concepts are grounded in perceptual and motor experience with physical and social environments. This definition of concepts is then (...) embedded in the Structure-Mapping Theory, a model for metaphorical processing and reasoning. The blended view of structure-mapping and embodied cognition offers an insight into the processes through which the target domain of a metaphor is embodied or realised in terms of its base domain. The implications of the proposed embodied SMT model are then discussed and future topics of investigation are outlined. (shrink)

In the Transcendental Dialectic of the Critique of Pure Reason (1787), Kant argues for the impossibility of theistic arguments, namely the ontological, cosmological, and physico-theological arguments. However, his objection relies on his classification of theistic arguments, which has been criticized by analytical philosophers of religion such as Plantinga (2012) and Swinburne (2019). Therefore, this paper aims to critically investigate two problems related to this classification: the systematic criteria of its classification and the historical sufficiency of its three theistic proofs. Regarding (...) the first problem, it will be argued that it is possible to recognize a certain systematic artificiality in Kant's classification of theistic proofs, given the criticisms of Strawson (1966) and Hegel (1812, 1830), as well as the internal critique developed by the authors of this work. Regarding the second problem, it will be argued that it is possible to indicate a certain historical insufficiency in Kant's classification of the three theistic proofs, based on brief critiques focused on some classical theologians such as Anselm, Aquinas, and Al-Ghazali. Finally, once it is justified that Kant's objection depends on this possibly artificial and insufficient classification, it will be briefly indicated that Kant does not seem as justified as he intended in his objection to theistic arguments. (shrink)

Mobilizadas pelas imagens do protesto “Ato em memória de Miguel” que circularam reiteradamente, nas redes sociais, nos meses de junho e julho passados, realizamos este trabalho analítico e reflexivo sobre algumas imagens relacionadas ao evento da morte do menino Miguel e as cenas de valor dão ver, propondo e operando o conceito de visualidades resolutivas. Para tal, nos auxiliaram na realização deste trabalho os conceitos de: evento racial na perspectiva de Denise Ferreira da Silva ; raça por Stuart Hall e (...) Denise Ferreira da Silva ; ativismo visual por Nicholas Mirzoeff ; documento, evento fotográfico e iconização por Ariella Azoulay ; e imagem resolutiva por Nêgo Bispo. (shrink)

Phase separation underlies the formation of biomolecular condensates. We hypothesize the cellular processes that occur within condensates shape their structural features. We use the example of transcription to discuss structure–function relationships in condensates. Various types of transcriptional condensates have been reported across the evolutionary spectrum in the cell nucleus as well as in mitochondrial and bacterial nucleoids. In vitro and in vivo observations suggest that transcriptional activity of condensates influences their supramolecular structure, which in turn affects their function. Condensate organization (...) thus becomes driven by differences in miscibility among the DNA and proteins of the transcription machinery and the RNA transcripts they generate. These considerations are in line with the notion that cellular processes shape the structural properties of condensates, leading to a dynamic, mutual interplay between structure and function in the cell. (shrink)

La reflexión filosófica sobre la justicia para los animales encuentra expresión en una multiplicidad de teorías. Es fundamental la teoría centrada en el sufrimiento y la compasión (desarrollada entre otros por Peter Singer y Carol Adams), la teoría de los derechos de los animales de Tom Regan, la teoría política de Will Kymlicka sobre los derechos de los animales. El artículo identifica tres preguntas abiertas, transversales a las diferentes posiciones que configuran este rico e importante debate. Se trata de la (...) noción de persona, el tema del mal moral gratuito, el presunto principio de reciprocidad entre derechos y deberes. La creencia que subyace al artículo es que un estudio en profundidad de estas cuestiones teóricas podría ser fructífero para consolidar la idea de que la justicia para los animales es un objetivo ineludible para toda democracia. (shrink)

This handbook presents the conceptions and principles central to every aspect of Hegel’s systematic philosophy. In twenty-eight thematically linked chapters by leading international experts, The Palgrave Hegel Handbook provides reliable, scholarly overviews of each subject, illuminates the main issues and debates, and details concisely the considered views of each contributor. Recent scholarship challenges traditional, largely anti-Kantian, readings of Hegel, focusing instead on Hegel’s appropriation of Kantian epistemology to reconcile idealism with the rejection of foundationalism, coherentism and skepticism. Focused like Kant (...) on showing how fundamental unities underlie the profusion of apparently independent events, Hegel argued that reality is rationally structured, so that its systematic structure is manifest to our properly informed thought. Accordingly, this handbook re-assesses Hegel’s philosophical aims, methods and achievements, and re-evaluates many aspects of Hegel’s enduring philosophical contributions, ranging from metaphysics, epistemology, and dialectic, to moral and political philosophy and philosophy of history. Each chapter, and The Palgrave Hegel Handbook as a whole, provides an informed, authoritative understanding of each aspect of Hegel’s philosophy. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to show that the legal protection of children must be recognised as a priority. The moral rights of children are fundamental rights with different degrees of generality. They not only reflect the fact that children merit justice, but are also indispensable for the promotion of justice in society in general, thus allowing other rights, including those of adults, to be safeguarded appropriately. The rule of law and its role in reducing violence go hand in (...) hand with protecting children from harm. A childhood that is free of violence is an essential prerequisite of a just society. (shrink)

In this paper, I offer an analysis of evil in Friedrich W. J. Schelling’s Philosophische Untersuchungen über das Wesen der menschlichen Freiheit (1809). Schelling develops an account of the sui-genesis of God out of the two principles. These principles are 1) the dark ground (dunkler Grund) that belongs to God and 2) the self-revelation of God, who actualizes the dark ground, which grounds God antecedently. These two principles also contain in themselves the possibility and the intelligibility of the human world. (...) In order to elucidate the ontological account of the possibility of evil in Schelling, I turn to Martin Heidegger’s analyses of Schelling’s Freiheitsschrift and especially to Heidegger’s account of self-will (Eigenwille) and put these analyses in conversation with Heidegger’s own thinking about αλήθεια. I establish a conceptual affinity between Schelling’s presentation of the dark ground, which for him is the ground of selfhood, and Heidegger’s insights into the prioricity of concealment (Verborgenheit). (shrink)

How is it that, as fiction readers, we are nonplussed by J. K. Rowling's prescription to imagine Ronan, Bane, and Magorian, three different centaurs of the Forbidden Forrest at Hogwarts? It is usually held in the philosophical literature on fictional discourse that singular imaginings of fictional objects are impossible, given the blatant nonexistence of such objects. In this paper, I have a dual purpose: on the one hand, to show that, without being committed to Meinongeanism, we can explain the phenomenon (...) of singular imaginings of different nonexistents of the same kind; while, at the same time, to attribute this position to Thomas Reid, thus correcting some misunderstandings of his view on imagination. (shrink)

The puzzle is this: I argue that for Reid, moral sense needs benevolent affections – i.e. some of our animal, non-cognitive principles of action – to apply the rules of duty. But he also thinks that duty can conflict with benevolent affections. So what happens in these conflict cases? I will argue that Reid takes moral psychology seriously and that he believes that our natural benevolent affections can be used as indicators of duty. Although creative, his account has a major (...) problem, because he does not resolve certain conflicts that arise between what action a duty prescribes and what action a natural affection, associated to that duty, inclines us to do. (shrink)

Thomas Reid offers an explanation of how memory of events is possible. This paper presents, criticize,s and amends his view that memory not only preserves our knowledge of the external world, but also contributes to such knowledge, by being essential for the perception of events. Reid’s views on memory are in line with his generalanti-skeptical commitments, and thus attractive, for several reasons. One reason is that, just like perception, memory is not infallible, but it can constitute or, at least, ground (...) knowledge. Reid argues that memory, like perception, is immediate: it gives direct access to the external world, and not to mental representations of the external world. Another reason is that Reid’s explanation of how memory of events works emphasizes the impor- tance of the divide between memory and perception and consciousness: it is one thing to perceive or be conscious of something; it is another to remember that thing. Despite these advantages, a careful study of Reid’s views on memory will uncover a serious problem of general philosophical interest: it is unclear how exactly we are able to remember events episodically, since it is not settled whether we ever literally perceive events. This problem is engendered by a clash of the following two intuitions: (i) we can perceive only presently existing things, and (ii) we can remember events, which usually span periods of time longer than the present (whether the present is durationless or not). (shrink)

This paper elucidates how the thinking about opposition that we find in the surviving passages of Anaxagoras of Clazomenae and in the fragments of Heraclitus of Ephesus informs discussions of the separability of the body and the soul in the Phaedo. I offer a reconstruction of the way in which these pre-Socratic ideas of opposition are appropriated and refracted in Plato’s Phaedo (especially at 85e–86e, 92a–95a, 102c–e, 102b–107a). I treat Anaxagoras first, in order to explicate how his ideas make up (...) the background of the dialogical study of the separation of the soul from the body (102b–107a). My analysis of Heraclitus comes second and shows how his ideas inform the interlocutors’ assessment of the unity characteristic of the body and the soul (92a–95a). I set the stage for the discussion of Anaxagoras and Heraclitus by relating these thinkers to the broader Pythagorean background that is apparent in the dialogue. (shrink)

In this article it is defended that the notion known as “The mark of the cognitive” is better characterized as a process that performs the function of generating intelligent behavior, in a flexible and adaptive way, capable of adapting to circumstances, given it is a context sensitive process. For that, some relevant definitions of cognition are examined. In the end, it is pointed out that the definition of the mark of cognition as a context-sensitive process takes into account several factors (...) that were added as constitutive parts of cognitive phenomena over the years, especially the 4E Cognition, which cannot be satisfactorily accommodated alongside the preceding notions of cognition. Accordingly, this essay shouldn’t be mistaken merely as an exercise in intellectual history, but as a brief and accessible attempt to advance the debate. (shrink)

Higginbotham argued that certain linguistic items of English, when used in indirect discourse, necessarily trigger first-personal interpretations. They are: the emphatic reflexive pronoun and the controlled understood subject, represented as PRO. PRO is special, in this respect, due to its imposing obligatory control effects between the main clause and its subordinates ). Folescu & Higginbotham, in addition, argued that in Romanian, a language whose grammar doesn’t assign a prominent role to PRO, de se triggers are correlated with the subjunctive mood (...) of certain verbs. That paper, however, didn’t account for the grammatical diversity of the reports that display immunity to error through misidentification in Romanian: some of these reports are expressed by using de se triggers; others are not. Their IEM, moreover, is not systematically lexically controlled by the verbs, via their theta-roles; it is, rather, determined by the meaning of the verbs in question. Given the data from Romanian, I will argue, the phenomenon of IEM cannot be fully explained starting either from the syntactical or the lexical structure of a language. (shrink)

Thomas Reid believed that the human mind is well equipped, from infancy, to acquire knowledge of the external world, with all its objects, persons and events. There are three main faculties that are involved in the acquisition of knowledge: (original) perception, memory, and imagination. It is thought that we cannot understand how exactly perception works, unless we have a good grasp on Reid’s notion of perceptual conception (i.e., of the conception employed in perception). The present paper argues that the same (...) is true of memory, and it offers an answer to the question: what type of conception does it employ? (shrink)

Os modos como cada sociedade ou grupo pondera sobre o consumo do álcool e seus efeitos nos múltiplos contextos culturais é bastante distinto, em especial quando os discursos se referem a este consumo com as atenções voltadas aos gêneros. Assim, as associações entre o consumo de bebidas alcoólicas e as alterações dos comportamentos sexuais de cada gênero, embora estejam presentes desde a antiguidade, devem ser entendidas nos contextos culturais em que foram produzidas, de modo a compreender como cada grupo social (...) lida com determinados aspectos fisiológicos e a partir dissoconstrói seus discursos e interdições. Desta forma, torna-se fundamental, um retorno cuidadoso às fontes antigas, evitando interpretações baseadas no senso comum ou na tradição, considerando as possíveis diferenças entre o discurso normativo e a prática cotidiana. (shrink)

The starting point of this paper is Thomas Reid's anti-skepticism: our knowledge of the external world is justified. The justificatory process, in his view, starts with and relies upon one of the main faculties of the human mind: perception. Reid's theory of perception has been thoroughly studied, but there are some missing links in the explanatory chain offered by the secondary literature. In particular, I will argue that we do not have a complete picture of the mechanism of perception of (...) bodies. The present paper, relying, in part, on a particular theory in psychology – the feature integration theory of attention – will make a contribution in this regard. (shrink)

New technologies provide great opportunities for cultural heritage to become more widely accessible and for cultural experience to be more meaningful. The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the strengths and vulnerabilities of the cultural heritage sector and the need to accelerate its digital transformation to make the most of the opportunities it provides. The Commission Recommendation on the digitisation and online accessibility of cultural material and digital preservation (2011/711/EU) concluded that there is an urgent need to protect and preserve European cultural (...) heritage, and, in particular, endangered cultural heritage is still present. However, the diversity of legal approaches to cultural heritage by the Member States discourages the creation of a common European data space for cultural heritage as the European Commission recently proclaimed. In Greece, there have been significant efforts in recent decades to digitise and digitally preserve cultural heritage goods. However, the attention was not drew upon the accessibility and reuse of the digitized cultural heritage content. According to the relevant regulatory framework the existing rules on the use of digital technologies for the reproduction, use and preservation of cultural heritage content is obviously outdated. According to the paragraphs 4 and 5 of article 46 of the Greek Code for the protection of antiquities and cultural heritage in general (Law 4858/2021), a previous permission granted by the Ministry of Culture is required for the production, reproduction and dissemination to the public of impressions, copies or depictions of monuments belonging to the Public Sector, or immovable monuments that are located within archaeological sites and historical places or are isolated, or movable monuments that are kept in museums or public collections, in any way and by any means whatsoever, including Information Communication Technologies. Such permission is granted to natural or legal persons for a fee paid to the Hellenic Organization of Cultural Resources Development (HOCRED) upon the decision of the Minister of Culture, while the decision also specifies the temporal validity of the permission, the terms on which the permission is granted and the fee that must be paid. The production, reproduction and use of the aforementioned goods for other purposes, such as artistic, educational or scientific purposes, is again allowed for a fee paid to HOCRED, however, the fee can be waived upon the decision of the Minister of Culture. This Paper will examine the existing Greek legal framework and will attempt to propose an appropriate framework that will ensure open access to the digitized cultural heritage assets, enhance the recovery and transformation of the cultural heritage sector and support cultural heritage institutions in becoming more empowered and more resilient in the future. (shrink)

Featuring original essays from leading scholars in philosophy and psychology, this volume investigates and rethinks the role of practical wisdom in light of the most recent developments in virtue theory and moral, social and developmental psychology. The concept of phronesis has long held a prominent place in the development of Aristotelian virtue ethics and moral education. However, the nature and development of phronesis is still in need of investigation, especially because of the new insights that in recent years have come (...) from both philosophy and science. The essays in this volume contribute to the debate about practical wisdom by elucidating its role in empirical psychology and advancing important new research questions. They address various topics related to practical wisdom and its development, including honesty, ecocentric phronesis, social cognitive theory, practical wisdom in limited-information contexts, Whole Trait Theory, skill models, the reciprocity of virtue, and challenges from situationism. Practical Wisdom will interest researchers and advanced students working in virtue ethics, moral psychology, and moral education. (shrink)

This research explored the feasibility of using multidimensional scaling (MDS) analysis in novel combination with other techniques to study comprehension of epistemic adverbs expressing doubt and certainty (e.g., evidently, obviously, probably ) as they relate to health communication in clinical settings. In Study 1, Australian English speakers performed a dissimilarity-rating task with sentence pairs containing the target stimuli, presented as “doctors' opinions.” Ratings were analyzed using a combination of cultural consensus analysis (factor analysis across participants), weighted-data classical-MDS, and cluster analysis. (...) Analyses revealed strong within-community consistency for a 3-dimensional semantic space solution that took into account individual differences, strong statistical acceptability of the MDS results in terms of stress and explained variance, and semantic configurations that were interpretable in terms of linguistic analyses of the target adverbs. The results confirmed the feasibility of using MDS in this context. Study 2 replicated the results with Canadian English speakers on the same task. Semantic analyses and stress decomposition analysis were performed on the Australian and Canadian data sets, revealing similarities and differences between the two groups. Overall, the results support using MDS to study comprehension of words critical for health communication, including in future studies, for example, second language speaking patients and/or practitioners. More broadly, the results indicate that the techniques described should be promising for comprehension studies in many communicative domains, in both clinical settings and beyond, and including those targeting other aspects of language and focusing on comparisons across different speech communities. (shrink)

This is an encyclopedia entry that can be accessed following this link: http://www.iep.utm.edu/reidmind/ -/- In philosophy of mind, Reid is most celebrated today for the arguments he gave in support of the position known as direct realism, which, at its most basic, states that the primary objects of sense perception are physical objects, not ideas in human minds. However, Reid’s philosophy of mind neither begins nor ends with perception. In addition to arguing for direct realism and, consequently, against “the way (...) of ideas,” he undertook the task of establishing the equal status of the faculties of the mind, and of explaining the relationships that exist among them. He is a worthy successor of Locke, in that he believes that the mind is to be characterized in terms of a faculty psychology. He is a worthy successor of Newton, in that he believes that the scientific method is the right way of investigating the nature of mind. Reid characterized the scientific method mainly by trial and error, and by setting up experiments and drawing general conclusions from them. (shrink)

From the beginning of the COVID-19 global pandemic, it became clear that the practices of naming the disease, its nature and its handling by the health authorities, the news media and the politicians had social and ideological implications. This article presents a sociosemiotic study of such practices as reflected in a corpus of headlines of eight newspapers of four countries in the early stages of the COVID-19 crisis. After an analysis of the institutional naming choices of the World Health Organization (...) and the International Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses, the study focuses on the changes in newspapers’ naming patterns following the WHO’s announcement of the disease name on 11 February 2020. A subsequent political controversy related to naming in the United States is then examined in reports of The New York Times and The Washington Post as a further illustration of how public discourses and perceptions can rapidly evolve in the context of health crises. (shrink)

A founding figure of German idealism, Johann Gottlieb Fichte developed a radically new version of transcendental idealism. The Bloomsbury Handbook of Fichte follows his intellectual life and presents a comprehensive overview of Fichte's dynamic philosophy, from his engagement with Kant to his rigorously systematic and nuanced Wissenschaftslehre and beyond. Covering a variety of topics and issues in epistemology, ontology, moral and political philosophy, as well as philosophy of right and philosophy of religion, an international team of experts on Fichte explores (...) his important contributions to philosophy. Arranged chronologically, their chapters map Fichte's intellectual and philosophical development and the progression of his thought, identifying what motivated his philosophical inquiry and revealing why his ideas continue to shape discussions today. Alongside wide-ranging chapters advancing new insights into Fichte, there are topical discussions of conceptions and issues central to his philosophy. Featuring a chronology of Fichte's life, as well as a timeline of his publications and lectures, this is an invaluable research resource for all Fichte scholars and a reliable guide for anyone undertaking a study of Fichte and German idealism. (shrink)

The Miss America Pageant has served as a platform for beautiful women for a century. Throughout its long tenure, the Pageant has picked a woman each year to serve as the epitome of beauty and femininity. This paper will discuss the Pageant’s trends in the 1950s and 1960s. The Pageant controls the contestants’ talents, outfits, and time as they are in the competition. As such, they have almost complete control over who enters the competition and, by extension, who wins. Through (...) their screening process and judging criteria, the Pageant is able to choose a woman each year that embodies their version of the ideal American Woman. (shrink)

The essays in this volume address topics prominent in current debates about Hegel's Philosophy of Spirit, which originally appeared as the third part of his Encyclopaedia of the Philosophical Sciences. Together, a group of internationally recognized Hegel scholars presents a sophisticated, well-researched, and considered account of Hegel's text, approaching it from different perspectives, philosophical schools, and traditions. Each essay focuses on a specific issue relevant to Hegel scholarship, carefully and clearly setting out established views of the text and putting forward (...) incisive new interpretations. The essays will enable readers to obtain a broad yet analytically nuanced understanding of Hegel's thought and in particular of the Philosophy of Spirit, a rich and important work that has relevance for contemporary debates in philosophy of mind and action, philosophy of law and religion, ethics, aesthetics, and social and political philosophy. (shrink)

This article attempts to understand the philosophical significance of Lenin’s work, Materialism and Empiriocriticism, by putting it in the historical perspective and context of the theoretical debates of the time. The author argues that Lenin’s decision to engage in philosophical discussion was motivated by the need to respond to the growing struggles of Marxism, and specifically to the dangerous consequences of positivism that spread to Russia, which thereby led to a crisis in theory and political practice. Lenin’s work is the (...) first philosophical assault on positivism, and most notably on its specific form, Machism, which he criticizes from the position of dialectical materialism. Recognizing the damaging effects of the positivistic position for Marxism, Lenin attacks Alexander Bogdanov’s Empiriomonism as a form of Machism which undermines the materialistic foundation of Marxist philosophy. (shrink)

Este artículo pretende analizar cómo el arte, para Heidegger, se muestra a sí mismo como una manifestación del ser contrafactual al modo de ser de la tecnología, entendida como la época final de la metafísica. Para ello, será necesario analizar la noción griega de tecnología y cómo esta noción está inicialmente vinculada tanto al conocimiento de la producción de utensilios como al conocimiento de la producción artística. De esta manera, veremos cómo la tecnología griega, entendida como un conocimiento, se convierte, (...) con el predominio de la metafísica, en una acción que se desarrolla a lo largo de la historia hasta el momento de la tecnología moderna. Desde la consumación de la metafísica en la era de la tecnología que pretendemos mostrar, centrándonos en el ensayo El origen de la obra de arte (1936), ese arte, para Heidegger, que es a la vez consanguíneo y ajeno a la técnica moderna, nos muestra una Relación más original con el ser y con nociones que se le atribuyen, como verdad y origen. (shrink)

Содерж.: Грибная лихорадка ; Прости, пожалуйста, прости.