Two experiments investigated subliminal semantic and form priming in a word-completion task. Visual gap-words with a dominant and a subordinate solution were preceded by form-related or by semantically related words, which were briefly presented and sandwich-masked. Priming of the subordinate solution was assessed in Experiment 1, relative to a neutral condition. Both solutions were primed in Experiment 2. In the absence of conscious prime recognition, both semantic and form primes reliably increased the probability with which the primed solution was given. (...) With our variant of fragment-completion, response priming can be ruled out as explanation. Moreover, effects were already present at first presentation, excluding an interpretation in terms of partial awareness due to massive repetition. The data demonstrate automatic activation at both form and semantic levels in the absence of conscious awareness. (shrink)

Results from our laboratories show clear frequency effects for regularly inflected forms in both German and English. Moreover, there does not seem to be sufficient evidence to treat the -s plural as the default plural in German. Together, these data do not support a dual modular structure of the language faculty.

Pickering & Garrod's (P&G's) framework assumes an efference copy based on the interlocutor's intentions. Yet, elaborate attribution of intentions may not always be necessary for online prediction. Instead, contextual cues such as speaker gaze can provide similar information with a lower demand on processing resources.

Research into voice perception benefits from manipulation software to gain experimental control over acoustic expression of social signals such as vocal emotions. Today, parameter-specific voice morphing allows a precise control of the emotional quality expressed by single vocal parameters, such as fundamental frequency (F0) and timbre. However, potential side effects, in particular reduced naturalness, could limit ecological validity of speech stimuli. To address this for the domain of emotion perception, we collected ratings of perceived naturalness and emotionality on voice morphs (...) expressing different emotions either through F0 or Timbre only. In two experiments, we compared two different morphing approaches, using either neutral voices or emotional averages as emotionally non-informative reference stimuli. As expected, parameter-specific voice morphing reduced perceived naturalness. However, perceived naturalness of F0 and Timbre morphs were comparable with averaged emotions as reference, potentially making this approach more suitable for future research. Crucially, there was no relationship between ratings of emotionality and naturalness, suggesting that the perception of emotion was not substantially affected by a reduction of voice naturalness. We hold that while these findings advocate parameter-specific voice morphing as a suitable tool for research on vocal emotion perception, great care should be taken in producing ecologically valid stimuli. (shrink)

The maze and the masses -- Democracy as the rule of the dumb many? -- A selective genealogy of the epistemic argument for democracy -- First mechanism of democratic reason: inclusive deliberation -- Epistemic failures of deliberation -- Second mechanism of democratic reason: majority rule.

This paper argues in favor of the epistemic properties of inclusiveness in the context of democratic deliberative assemblies and derives the implications of this argument in terms of the epistemically superior mode of selection of representatives. The paper makes the general case that, all other things being equal and under some reasonable assumptions, more is smarter. When applied to deliberative assemblies of representatives, where there is an upper limit to the number of people that can be included in the group, (...) the argument translates into a defense of a specific selection mode of participants: random selection. (shrink)

Hélène Landemore ,Aude Bandini | : Cet article présente les bases d’un argument épistémique en faveur de la démocratie définie comme procédure de décision collective. Il explore également les implications d’un tel argument épistémique par rapport à d’autres justifications établies de la démocratie, par rapport aux explications scientifiques de ses succès empiriques, et en termes de politiques publiques à mener. En ce qui concerne l’argument épistémique proprement dit, il repose sur le concept de « raison démocratique », autrement dit l’intelligence (...) collective des individus dans le domaine politique, et propose, de manière contre-intuitive, que la raison démocratique est davantage tributaire de la diversitécognitive des individus qui prennent par aux décisions que de leurs aptitudes personnelles. Généralement, l’argument de la raison démocratique complète les arguments procéduraux basés sur l’équité et l’égalité pour offrir une explication fonctionnaliste complète de la démocratie. Pour finir, cet article défend l’idée de réformes institutionnelles favorisant la participation citoyenne dans le processus de prise de décision collective. | : This paper presents the foundations of a systematic epistemic case for democracy as a collective decision-rule and explores the implications of this epistemic claim for normative justifications of democracy, scientific explanations of its empirical success, and policy reforms. As far as the epistemic case is concerned, the paper proposes an account based on the concept of “democratic reason,” or the collective intelligence of the people in politics. The paper argues that, counter-intuitively, democratic reason is more a function of the cognitive diversity of the individuals taking part in the decision than of their individual ability. As an account of democracy’s epistemic benefits, the argument from democratic reason supplements procedural accounts based on fairness and equality to provide a complete functionalist explanation of democracy. Finally, the argument supports policy reforms increasing citizens’ participation in the collective decision-process. (shrink)

Consensus plays an ambiguous role in deliberative democracy. While it formed the horizon of early deliberative theories, many now denounce it as an empirically unachievable outcome, a logically impossible stopping rule, and a normatively undesirable ideal. Deliberative disagreement, by contrast, is celebrated not just as an empirically unavoidable outcome but also as a democratically sound and normatively desirable goal of deliberation. Majority rule has generally displaced unanimity as the ideal way of bringing deliberation to a close. This article offers an (...) epistemic perspective on this question of consensus versus disagreement. For ensuring the production of better decisions, we argue, the normative appeal of consensus varies depending on the deliberative task – whether it entails problem solving or prediction. We argue that in pure problem-solving contexts, consensus retains a strong normative appeal and forms the ideal deliberative outcome of deliberation. In contrast, on predictive tasks, consensus should generally not be used as a stopping rule noris it likely to be epistemically desirable as an outcome. Instead deliberators may be better served by ending the deliberation with a form of deliberative disagreement we call ‘positive dissensus’, which paves the way for more accurate aggregate predictions. (shrink)

In the burgeoning debate about neuroscience’s role in contemporary society, the issue of brain optimization, or the application of neuroscientific knowledge and technologies to augment neurocognitive function, has taken center stage. Previous research has characterized media discourse on brain optimization as individualistic in ethos, pressuring individuals to expend calculated effort in cultivating culturally desirable forms of selves and bodies. However, little research has investigated whether the themes that characterize media dialogue are shared by lay populations. This article considers the relationship (...) between the representations of brain optimization that surfaced in a study of British press coverage between 2000 and 2012 and interviews with forty-eight London residents. Both data sets represented the brain as a resource that could be manipulated by the individual, with optimal brain function contingent on applying self-control in one’s lifestyle choices. However, these ideas emerged more sharply in the media than in the interviews: while most interviewees were aware of brain optimization practices, few were committed to carrying them out. The two data sets diverged in several ways: the media’s intense preoccupation with optimizing children’s brains was not apparent in lay dialogue, while interviewees elaborated beliefs about the underuse of brain tissue that showed no presence in the media. This article considers these continuities and discontinuities in light of their wider cultural significance and their implications for the media–mind relationship in public engagement with neuroscience. (shrink)

Defining the lives of a majority of the world's population, the question of 'the city' has risen to the fore as one the most urgent issues of our time "e; uniting concerns across the terrain of climate policies, global financing, localised struggles and multi-disciplinary research. Deleuze and the City rests on a conviction that philosophy is crucially important for advancing knowledge on cities, and for allowing us to envisage new forms of urban life toward a more sustainable future. It gathers (...) some of the most original thinkers and accomplished scholars in contemporary urban studies, showing how Deleuze and Guattari's philosophical project is essential for our thinking through the multi-scalar, uneven and contested landscapes that constitute 'the city' today. Case studies range from the 'laboratory urbanism' of an Austrian ski resort and a 'sustainable' Swedish shopping mall to the 'urbicidal' refurbishments of Haifa. (shrink)

BackgroundEven though virtual reality is more and more considered for its power of distraction in different medical contexts, the optimal conditions for its use still have to be determined in order to design interfaces adapted to therapeutic support in oncology.ObjectiveThe objective of this study was to examine the benefits of VR using two immersion methods and comparing them with each other in a population of women with breast cancer who have undergone breast surgery, during scar massage sessions.MethodsIn a physiotherapy center, (...) each patient participated in four experimental conditions in a random order: two sessions used virtual immersion, one session proposed musical listening and the fourth one was a standard session care. The impact of the level of patient involvement in the virtual world was apprehended through the evaluation of the feeling of presence; the estimation of elapsed time of the physiotherapy sessions and particular attention was paid to the evaluation of patient emotional state.ResultsOur study showed an increase in positive emotions and a decrease in anxiety regardless which support methods were offered. Participatory VR created a feeling of more intense spatial presence.ConclusionOur results highlight the importance of the context in which VR should be offered. The presence of the practitioner and his interactions with the patient can provide a context just as favorable in reducing anxiety as the emotional regulation tools used. The use of technological tools should be favored when the practitioner is unavailable during the treatment phase or, even, in order to reduce the monotonous nature of repetitive therapeutic sessions. (shrink)

"I get up every day with one day more," says Eve, the writer's 97-year-old mother. She is escaping into the New Life and the writer must race to catch up. As things slip away and fall into oblivion, as her mother's world and thus her own relentlessly shrinks, the writer is stunned to see for the first time the vestiges of a prison scene in her beloved Tower of Montaigne, which she has been visiting for fifty years. It represents the (...) story of Cimon and Pero, a daughter's act of charity that saved her father from certain death. How extraordinary that it should only now appear to this other daughter who dreams of nothing less for her parent and thus for herself. A different prison scene draws the writer to reflect on Freud's remark "that the dream of a prisoner can have nothing other than escape as content," a comment he illustrates with Moritz von Schwind's painting _The Prisoner's Dream_. But it is Freud's own dreams of escape from the prison of declining powers in his old age that the writer channels through her telepathic connection to the one she calls her "nuncle." She knows that the worst, worse even than the effects of the disease eating through his body, would have been the obliteration of his dreams upon waking, a sensation of theft that is "like a rug one pulls from beneath the head's feet, bam, bam! like a tapestry of life folded up in a flash." And yet life's tapestry has never seemed more richly colored, more elaborately woven, more abundantly endowed with the gifts of Eve, the mother, the midwife, the irrepressible story-teller, the great escape artist, and the indomitable heroine of this book. (shrink)

Entwining the disciplines of philosophy and architecture, this essay proceeds from an account of the Anthropocene and its dark promise of a foreclosed human future toward the speculative gesture of feminist futures, with a focus on feminist architectural practices. To reflect on the ‘storms of progress’ that have issued in the Anthropocene Walter Benjamin’s famous angel of history is complemented with Bruno Latour’s more recent formulation of an angel of geohistory. Each angel posits the question of what is to be (...) done in the aftermath of the destructions the Anthropos has wrought on a global scale, leaving behind the graffiti-like signature of human industrial toil in the very material geological constitution of the planet’s surface while altering its enclosing atmosphere. While each angel flees the material destructions of human progress they are at the same time confronted with what Isabelle Stengers calls the intrusion of Gaia, a mythical figure who cares little for human history. Drawing to a conclusion the essay ventures the speculative gesture of a feminist future and how this can be supported through feminist practices, specifically in architecture. Such a future does not seek to overcome, to escape or to flee, but as Donna Haraway would have it, to stay with the trouble, to work assiduously from the midst of the situations in which we find ourselves. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Notes.

​Das Buch versammelt konstruktivistische Perspektiven auf das Konzept „Biopolitik“. Dadurch werden die Analysepotentiale für aktuelle Phänomene, die den Zusammenhang zwischen dem Leben und dem Lebendigen und der Regierbarmachung betreffen, ausgelotet. Im Fokus stehen die Strategien und die Objekte der Regierungs- und Regulierungsbemühungen: In welcher Weise werden gesellschaftliche Probleme konstruiert und bestimmten „Zielscheiben“ zugeschrieben? Welche Subjektivierungsformen lassen sich im Rahmen biopolitischer Zugriffe ausmachen? Inwiefern spielen spezifische sozialtheoretische Überlegungen und Konzeptionen von Zeit für biopolitische Strategien und Konflikte eine Rolle? An welchen Gegenständen (...) sind die fortdauernden Konflikte, die sich im Spannungsfeld zwischen Medizin, Ethik und Politik ergeben, zu explizieren? (shrink)

_Erratum zu:_ _Ethik Med 2017_ https://doi.org/10.1007/s00481-017-0464-6 Im Tagungsbericht „Die klinische Translation humaner induzierter pluripotenter Stammzellen. Eine Stakeholder-Konferenz zur Evaluation innovativer Risikoforschung“ wurden einige Aussagen aus Herrn Wolfram-Hubertus Zimmermanns Vortrag.

Dans le cadre de la Théorie de la Relation Interlocutive, nous proposons que l’interprétation sémantique et pragmatique de excuse me et sorry, qui ne sont pas, par essence, des marqueurs d’excuse, s’effectue en fonction de deux types de relation interlocutive différents qui conduisent à plusieurs interprétations possibles d’un événement perturbateur. Excuse me est considéré comme marqueur duophonique, c’est-à-dire comme une forme qui impose un désaccord entre un pôle émetteur et un pôle récepteur. On pourra y voir une demande de coopération (...) de l’allocutaire par politesse, pour tenter de réparer un manquement à l’étiquette, ou, bien au contraire, un moyen d’accentuer la nature conflictuelle d’une situation dans un contexte autre qu’un contexte d’excuse. A l’inverse, nous faisons l’hypothèse que sorry est une forme monophonique qui s’emploie pour rétablir l’harmonie interlocutive entre les deux pôles. Avec ce marqueur, la coopération de l’allocutaire est considérée comme acquise, ce qui a pour effet de minimiser le conflit dans des situations d’excuse ou autres. (shrink)

_Three Steps on the Ladder of Writing_ is a poetic, insightful, and ultimately moving exploration of 'the strange science of writing.' In a magnetic, irresistible narrative, Cixous reflects on the writing process and explores three distinct areas essential for 'great' writing: _The School of the Dead_--the notion that something or someone must die in order for good writing to be born; _The School of Dreams_--the crucial role dreams play in literary inspiration and output; and _The School of Roots_--the importance of (...) depth in the 'nether realms' in all aspects of writing. Cixous's love of language and passion for the written word is evident on every page. Her emotive style draws heavily on the writers she most admires: the Brazilian novelist Clarice Lispector, the Russian poet Marina Tsvetaeva, the Austrian novelists Ingeborg Bachmann and Thomas Bernhard, Dostoyevsky and, most of all, Kafka. (shrink)

This book uncovers and explores the constant tension between the historical and the transcendental that lies at the heart of Michel Foucault's work. In the process, it also assesses the philosophical foundations of his thought by examining his theoretical borrowings from Kant, Nietzsche, and Heidegger, who each provided him with tools to critically rethink the status of the transcendental. Given Foucault's constant focus on the question of the possibility for knowledge, the author argues that his philosophical itinerary can be understood (...) as a series of attempts to historicize the transcendental. In so doing, he seeks to uncover a specific level that would identify these conditions without falling either into an excess of idealism or of materialism. The author concludes that, although this problem does unify Foucault's work and gives it its specifically philosophical dimension, none of the concepts successively provided manages to name these conditions without falling into the pitfalls that Foucault originally denounced as characteristic of the "anthropological sleep"--various forms of confusion between the historical and the transcendental. Although Foucault's work provides us with a highly illuminating analysis of the major problems of post-Kantian philosophies, ultimately it remains aporetic in that it also fails to overcome them. (shrink)

Toward illuminating the structure of Llewellyn's dream theory, I compare it in formal terms to Freud's dream theory. An alternative to both of these dream machines, grounded in the distribution of cholinergic activation in the central nervous system, is presented. It is suggested that neither nor dream theory is sufficient to account for the properties of dreams.

In Insister, Hlne Cixous brings a unique mixture of theoretical speculation, breath-taking textual explication and scholarly erudition to an extremely close reading of Derrida's work, always attentive to the details of his thinking. At the same time, Insister is an extraordinarily poetic meditation, a work of literature and of mourning for Jacques Derrida the person, who was a close friend and accomplice of Cixous's from the beginning of their careers.

In this accessible book, leading scholars Jason Brennan and Hélène Landemore ask, what good is democracy and is there any better alternative? Brennan argues that democracy suffers from built-in systematic flaws. There is no way to fix these flaws--we can only contain them, or jettison democracy for a better system of representative government. Landemore argues that our problem is that we have not been using real democracy. Real democracy--in which citizensexercise more genuine power--can overcome the problems we see in modern (...) republican governments. The book concludes with each author responding to the other's arguments, ultimately helping readers see how their views of justice depend in part on how they think democracy functions. (shrink)

Ideomotor actions are behaviours that are unconsciously initiated and express a thought rather than a response to a sensory stimulus. The question examined here is whether ideomotor actions can also express nonconscious knowledge. We investigated this via the use of implicit long-term semantic memory, which is not available to conscious recall. We compared accuracy of answers to yes/no questions using both volitional report and ideomotor response . Results show that when participants believed they knew the answer, responses in the two (...) modalities were similar. But when they believed they were guessing, accuracy was at chance for volitional report , but significantly higher for Ouija response . These results indicate that implicit semantic memory can be expressed through ideomotor actions. They also suggest that this approach can provide an interesting new methodology for studying implicit processes in cognition. (shrink)

This article furnishes a philosophical background for the current debate about responsibility and culpability for war crimes by referring to ideas from three important just war thinkers: Augustine, Francisco de Vitoria, and Michael Walzer. It combines lessons from these three thinkers with perspectives on current problems in the ethics of war, distinguishes between legal culpability, moral culpability, and moral responsibility, and stresses that even lower-ranking soldiers must in many cases assume moral responsibility for their acts, even though they are part (...) of a military hierarchy and act under orders. The questions addressed in this article are arguably among the hardest and most muddled in military ethics and deserve close philosophical analysis and scrutiny. (shrink)

On analyse deux tableaux fameux de Poussin – Paysage avec un homme tué par un serpent (National Gallery) et Apollon amoureux de Daphné (Louvre) – avant de confronter Poussin au Caravage. La thèse défendue est que les deux tableaux analysés illustrent la destitution de Narcisse, et que ce thème a, dans l’œuvre de Poussin, une signification non seulement psychologique et morale, mais encore proprement esthétique. C’est en effectuant une minutieuse et savante enquête qu’on résout de manière inédite l’élément énigmatique contenu (...) dans les deux tableaux et que, en suivant Louis Marin, on approfondit la comparaison de deux conceptions antagonistes de la représentation picturale. (shrink)