This book deals with correspondence truth. It critically analyses selected known correspondence truth theories and proposes - as an alternative - the symbolic truth conception in which correspondence is a symbolisation and not copying.

<I>Dialectics beyond Dialectics is a study of contemporary French philosophy from Bataille to Derrida. It analyses, on the first level of generalization, the decomposition of Hegelianism understood as <I>philosophy of totality. Many French philosophers of the 20<SUP>th century deconstruct Hegelian dialectics and harshly criticize the very idea of totality as either dangerous or impossible. The thesis of the book is that, on doing so, they do not really break with dialectics, but transform it. On the second level of generalization, the (...) issue of the book is modernity and the thesis is that transformations of dialectics reveal transformations of modern consciousness which - despite hasty declarations on the <I>end of modernity - still remains ours. (shrink)

Human nature, regardless of how we perceive it, whether from an ethical or psychological standpoint, is arguably such that it prevents the overwhelming majority of people from killing other humans....

Les auteurs contribuant à ce recueil réfléchissent sur notre condition postmoderne, non pas tant sur les sens différents qu'a pris le terme du postmoderne que sur l'heure qu'il est. La réflexion se déroule dans l'horizon de la pensée des classiques du postmodernisme et dans l'horizon des questions qui y sont, explicitement ou implicitement, posées.

ABSTRACTThe present study was designed to address the hypothesis that differences and similarities in patterns of attentional processing in recently proposed types of anxiety and depression are connected with the dominant function they play in stimulation processing and their structural components. Participants filled out the Anxiety and Depression Questionnaire, which assesses types of anxiety and depression, and completed the Emotional Faces Attentional Test one week later. The obtained results confirmed our prediction and suggested that the proposed typology of anxiety and (...) depression is valid in the adaptive meanings of both phenomena. (shrink)

Drawing from an ethics of care, relational approaches to autonomy have recently emerged in bioethics. Unlike individual autonomy with its emphasis on patients’ rights, choice, and self-determination which has been the hallmark of bioethics consistent with the ideology of individualism in neoliberal democracies in Western countries, relational autonomy highlights the relatedness, interdependency, and social embeddedness of patients. By examining the mediating role that male Hospital Liaison Committee members in Germany play in facilitating care that supports Jehovah's Witnesses’ refusal of blood (...) transfusions, this article moves beyond ‘dyadic relations’ and contexts of caregiving. It also contributes to a deeper understanding of care and relational conceptualizations of Witness patients’ autonomy globally. (shrink)

Study in the period of coronavirus disease 2019 lockdown and the effect of different exercise training programs on the quality of life dimension are limited. This randomized control study as a part of which the impact of an 8-week neuromuscular training program on the 90 healthy young individuals’ QoL after COVID-19 lockdown was assessed using a short form of the WHOQOL-BREF questionnaire comprising of four domains. The intervention group took part in a neuromuscular training program consisting of dynamic neuromuscular stabilization (...) and whole-body vibration training. In contrast, the control group did not participate in any programmed physical activity. From pre- to post-intervention test, the NT group significantly and substantially improved [mean change ] all the QoL domains, physical for 12.78 scores, psychological for 13.12 scores, social relationships for 20.57 scores, and environmental for 24.40 scores. These results suggest that the NT program could enhance QoL in young and healthy participants following COVID-19 lockdown. (shrink)

Recent advances in the neuroscience of episodic memory provide a framework to integrate object relations theory, a psychoanalytic model of mind development, with potential neural mechanisms. Object relations are primordial cognitive-affective units of the mind derived from survival- and safety-level experiences with caretakers during phase-sensitive periods of infancy and toddlerhood. Because these are learning experiences, their neural substrate likely involves memory, here affect-enhanced episodic memory. Inaugural object relations are encoded by the hippocampus-amygdala synaptic plasticity, and systems-consolidated by medial prefrontal cortex (...) (mPFC). Self- and object-mental representations, extracted from these early experiences, are at first dichotomized by contradictory affects evoked by frustrating and rewarding interactions (“partial object relations”). Such affective dichotomization appears to be genetically hardwired the amygdala. Intrinsic propensity of mPFC to form schematic frameworks for episodic memories may pilot non-conscious integration of dichotomized mental representations in neonates and infants. With the emergence of working memory in toddlers, an activated self- and object-representation of a particular valence can be juxtaposed with its memorized opposites creating a balanced cognitive-affective frame (conscious “integration of object relations”). Specific events of object relations are forgotten but nevertheless profoundly influence the mental future of the individual, acting (i) as implicit schema-affect templates that regulate attentional priorities, relevance, and preferential assimilation of new information based on past experience, and (ii) as basic units of experience that are, under normal circumstances, integrated as attractors or “focal points” for interactive self-organization of functional brain networks that underlie the mind. A failure to achieve integrated object relations is predictive of poor adult emotional and social outcomes, including personality disorder. Cognitive, cellular-, and systems-neuroscience of episodic memory appear to support key postulates of object relations theory and help elucidate neural mechanisms of psychodynamic psychotherapy. Derived through the dual prism of psychoanalysis and neuroscience, the gained insights may offer new directions to enhance mental health and improve treatment of multiple forms of psychopathology. (shrink)

When teaching a novel mathematical concept, should we present learners with abstract or concrete examples? In this experiment, we conduct a critical replication and extension of a well‐known study that argued for the general advantage of abstract examples (Kaminski, Sloutsky, & Heckler, 2008a). We demonstrate that theoretically motivated yet minor modifications of the learning design put this argument in question. A key finding from this study is that participants who trained with improved concrete examples performed as well as, or better (...) than, participants who trained with abstract examples. We argue that the previously reported “advantage of abstract examples” manifested not because abstract examples are advantageous in general, but because the concrete condition employed suboptimal examples. (shrink)

Recent literature reported that judgments of semantic coherence are influenced by a positive affective response due to increased fluency of processing. The presented paper investigates whether fluency of processing can be modified by affective responses to the coherent stimuli as well as an automaticity of processes involved in semantic coherence judgments. The studies employed the dyads of triads task in which participants are shown two word triads and asked to solve a semantically coherent one or indicate which of the two (...) is semantically coherent. Across two studies in a dualtask paradigm we show that a) attentional resources moderate insight into semantically coherent word triads, whereas b) judgments of semantic coherence judgments are independent of attentional resources. We discuss implications of our findings for how people might form intuitive judgments of semantic coherence. (shrink)

Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, USA, mathias_risse{at}ksg.harvard.edu ' + u + '@' + d + ' '//--> It is a widespread view that support for Fair Trade is called for, whereas agricultural subsidies are pegged as unjustifiable. Though one supports farmers in developing countries while the other does the same for those in already developed ones, there are, nonetheless, similarities between both scenarios. Both are economically `inefficient', upholding production beyond what the market would sustain. In both cases, supportive arguments (...) can assume two forms. First, such arguments might draw on normative claims made by producers. In the case of agricultural subsidies, farmers in developed countries assert claims against their fellow citizens, who ought to accept redistributive measures to keep them in business. In the case of Fair Trade, the claim can be made by farmers in developing nations against consumers, who ought to pay higher prices to keep them in business (under conditions deemed acceptable). Second, arguments to keep producers in business might be presented as the prerogative of both groups: even if farmers in developed countries did not have a claim to be kept in business, these countries would have the right to take measures to do so because they value their products. In the case of Fair Trade, even if farmers in developing nations had no claim against consumers, it is a consumer prerogative to pay more to keep them in business because they value their product or the process of producing it. There are, of course, differences between these scenarios as well, but in light of these parallels in the moral cases for subsidies and Fair Trade, it will be illuminating to examine the arguments for and against subsidies and Fair Trade together. Key Words: trade • subsidies • fairness • markets • development. (shrink)

The wider topic to which the content of this paper belongs is that of the relationship between formal logic and real argumentation. Of particular potential interest in this connection are held to be substantive arguments constructed by philosophers reputed equally as authorities in logical theory. A number of characteristics are tentatively indicated by the author as likely to be encountered in such arguments. The discussion centers afterwards, by way of specification, on a remarkable piece of argument quoted in Cicero’s dialog (...) On Divination and ascribed to Stoic thinkers. The Stoics’ formal theory of inference is summarily referred to in this context, with special emphasis on their basic deductive schemata (‘indemonstrables’), some of them recognizable as links in the overall structure of the quoted argument. The main lines of Cicero’s criticism of the Stoic argument are next commented upon, with emphasis on his implied view as to the requirements of a good argument. Towards the end of the paper, a few considerations are added on the changes in the prevailing style of argumentation conspicuous in the three famous Roman Stoics. (shrink)