John Carvalho’s Thinking with Images, an Enactivist Aesthetics argues that puzzling artworks can draw us into a special activity – thinking when we don’t know what to think – which is valuable because it takes us beyond our skills and understanding. Enactivism is the theory of mind that best explains such thinking. The book illustrates this proposal with four chapters that detail Carvalho’s highly personal or individual encounters with enigmatic works of art. I raise two concerns. First, the four illustrative (...) chapters say that they are enactivist, but they do not show this. The illustrative chapters detail considerations about the works that are not distinguished by a particular theory of mind and might fit with any number of approaches to works of art. The suggestion that the thinking presented in each chapter is skillful is not explained. Second, the book does not just focus on thinking when we don’t know what to think, it also claims that such thinking frees us from mere looking. But enactivism does not require us to deny that our engagement with particular works in their ‘concrete singularity,’ to use Carvalho’s term, is perceptual. If perception is richly integrated or even continuous with what we understand skillfully or cognitively – and enacted in one’s circumstances – this does not erase differences between perception and thought or between their functions. When we ‘think with’ an individual so that we are engaged with it in its concrete singularity, perception is involved either in the present or the past. There is no need to shunt perception or looking aside as life activities that are just rule-bound, just part of knowing what to think rather than part of our response when we don’t know what to think. (shrink)

The COVID-19 outbreak has ravaged all societal domains, including education. Home confinement, school closures, and distance learning impacted students, teachers, and parents’ lives worldwide. In this study, we aimed to examine the impact of COVID-19-related restrictions on Italian and Portuguese students’ academic motivation as well as investigate the possible buffering role of extracurricular activities. Following a retrospective pretest–posttest design, 567 parents reported on their children’s academic motivation and participation in extracurricular activities. We used a multi-group latent change score model to (...) compare Italian and Portuguese students’: pre-COVID mean motivation scores; rate of change in motivation; individual variation in the rate of change in motivation; and dependence of the rate of change on initial motivation scores. Estimates of latent change score models showed a decrease in students’ motivation both in Italy and in Portugal, although more pronounced in Italian students. Results also indicated that the decrease in students’ participation in extracurricular activities was associated with changes in academic motivation. Furthermore, students’ age was significantly associated with changes in motivation. No significant associations were found for students’ gender nor for parents’ education. This study provides an important contribution to the study of students’ academic motivation during home confinement, school closures, and distance learning as restrictive measures adopted to contain a worldwide health emergency. We contend that teachers need to adopt motivation-enhancing practices as means to prevent the decline in academic motivation during exceptional situations. (shrink)

We begin this article by delineating the explanatory gaps left by prevailing gene‐focused approaches in our understanding of phenotype determination, inheritance, and the origin of novel traits. We aim not to diminish the value of these approaches but to highlight where their implementation, despite best efforts, has encountered persistent limitations. We then discuss how each of these explanatory gaps can be addressed by expanding research foci to take into accountbiological agency—the capacity of living systems at various levels to participate in (...) their own development, maintenance, and function by regulating their structures and activities in response to conditions they encounter. Here we aim to define formally what agency and agents are and—just as importantly—what they are not, emphasizing that agency is an empirical property connoting neither intention nor consciousness. Lastly, we discuss how incorporating agency helps to bridge explanatory gaps left by conventional approaches, highlight scientific fields in which implicit agency approaches are already proving valuable, and assess the opportunities and challenges of more systematically incorporating biological agency into research programs. (shrink)

With the shift toward online environments due to COVID-19 pandemic, particularly for educational sector, employees’ performance has been affected by an array of different factors. Personal aspects as well as organizational focus on individuals’ wellbeing are the main focus of this study through inclusion of job autonomy and work-life conflict alongside other factors, such as informational support that can aid academic staff regarding their wellbeing during times of crisis. In response to the effects of COVID-19 on employees, this study aims (...) to provide tangible data to protect university teachers during crises and establish key points that can improve their wellbeing. For this purpose, we used interviews to provide in-depth understanding of the subject. A total of 16 teachers as interviewees have provided qualitative data that was analyzed with MAXQDA. This study highlights the importance of work-life conflict and vitality of job autonomy on academic staffs’ performance and overall wellbeing through a conceptual analysis. We emphasize the role of organizations in maintaining a work environment where university teachers’ wellbeing is prioritized and various elements such as training and support are used to help stabilizing work-life balance. The current findings can be beneficial for both scholars and decision-makers in schools and universities to enhance elements of remote work for their staff. (shrink)

En una época de éxodo masivo global, se explora el documental De Nadie (2005) de Tin Dirdamal, el cual, a través de una variedad de instancias narrativas, presenta la experiencia y condición migrante, aún actual, de centroamericanos en su tránsito por México en su camino hacia EE.UU. Frente a la exclusión en el pasado de personajes migrantes femeninos, el cine y la narrativa literaria contemporánea despliegan significados culturales y sociales que avivan la presencia de mujeres como protagonistas en el vertiginoso (...) cruce entre fronteras, bajo los regímenes de movilidad. Estas narrativas ponen en evidencia la trascendencia identitaria de las mujeres migrantes a partir del desplazamiento. En específico, en este trabajo se examina el documental De Nadie (2005) bajo la lupa de la performatividad de género de la hondureña María, antes y durante su recorrido migratorio. (shrink)

The essay addresses the debates about the ontology of norms considering the case of accounting for customary norms. It undertakes and defends a stance in favor of a semantic ontology by developing a framework for the explanation of norms as abstract objects and their linking with social facts to be identified in categories like “customary”, “enacted”, “legal”, “grammatical”, and so on. Furthermore, the work addresses the rival conceptions (pragmatic and eclectic) by showing the specific impossibility that these face for giving (...) a satisfactory account on customary norms. The inquiry concludes by exploring some possible insights from the philosophy of mind to explain the conceptual nature of norms as mental representations. (shrink)

The present essay addresses the conceptual structure of customary law, understood as a set of customary rules. More specifically, it deals with the core question of what opinio juris entails as a constituent element of customary law. The work will begin with an analysis of samples of common strategies in contemporary legal theory that deal with opinio juris when analyzing the structure of customary law. Subsequently, following Hart’s notion about what constitutes social rules, and introducing explanatory features from Game Theory (...) applied to social philosophy and some insights from Behavioral Economics, the goal of the present study is to propose a different conceptual path for analyzing and identifying customary law with what could be understood as “opinio juris”, given the conceptual necessity of finding the normative element that lies within the usus, or social practices. (shrink)

In recent years, the changing landscape for the conduct and assessment of research and of researchers has increased scrutiny of the reward systems of science. In this context, correcting the research record, including retractions, has gained attention and space in the publication system. One question is the possible influence of retractions on the careers of scientists. It might be assessed, for example, through citation patterns or productivity rates for authors who have had one or more retractions. This is an emerging (...) issue today, with growing discussions in the research community about impact. We have explored the influence of retractions on grant review criteria. Here, we present results of a qualitative study exploring the views of a group of six representatives of funding agencies from different countries and of a follow-up survey of 224 reviewers in the US. These reviewers have served on panels for the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health, and/or a few other agencies. We collected their perceptions about the influence of self-correction of the literature and of retractions on grant decisions. Our results suggest that correcting the research record, for honest error or misconduct, is perceived as an important mechanism to strengthen the reliability of science, among most respondents. However, retractions and self-correcting the literature at large are not factors influencing grant review, and dealing with retractions in reviewing grants is an open question for funders. (shrink)

Simone de Beauvoir and the Politics of Ambiguity is the first full-length study of Beauvoir's political thinking. Best known as the author of The Second Sex, Beauvoir also wrote an array of other political and philosophical texts that together, constitute an original contribution to political theory and philosophy. Sonia Kruks here locates Beauvoir in her own intellectual and political context and demonstrates her continuing significance. Beauvoir still speaks, in a unique voice, to many pressing questions concerning politics: the values (...) and dangers of liberal humanism; how oppressed groups become complicit in their own oppression; how social identities are perpetuated; the limits to rationalism; and the place of emotions, such as the desire for revenge, in politics. In discussing such matters Kruks puts Beauvoir's ideas into conversation with those of many contemporary thinkers, including feminist and race theorists, as well as with historical figures in the liberal, Hegelian, and Marxist traditions. Beauvoir's political thinking emerges from her fundamental insights into the ambiguity of human existence. Combining phenomenological descriptions with structural analyses, she focuses on the tensions of human action as both free and constrained. To be human is to be a paradoxical being, at once capable of free choice and yet, because embodied, vulnerable to injury from others. Politics is thus a domain of complexly interwoven, multiple, human interactions that is rife with ambiguity, and where freedom and violence too often closely intertwine. Beauvoir accordingly argues that failure is a necessary part of political action. However, she also insists that, while acknowledging this, we should assume responsibility for the outcomes of what we do. (shrink)

The standards for translating texts in specialized fields have become particularly rigorous with the increasing complexity of material and growing demand for its translation. While translations simply aimed at communication and produced by machine translation are proliferating, the need for reliable and high-quality translations is also increasing. The demand for expert-dependable legal translation is higher than ever, requiring competence-based training in the field of legal translation. This paper describes a guided-task framework for developing subject area competence at the earliest stage (...) of an English–Arabic legal translation course. It presents the three most problematic phases of concept processing in legal translation in terms of: legal systems; branches of law; and genre-based phraseology. The approach presented below is part of a more general study that aims to describe the first course in a series of three graduate courses on legal translation, each of them motivated by a guided-task framework that has the aim of developing three specific competences in legal translation: legal concept processing => subject area competence; documentary research => instrumental competence; and legal rhetorics => communicative and textual competence. In this paper we intend to focus on the first course of legal concept processing as a key prerequisite for legal knowledge development. We illustrate the relevance of addressing specific variables when analysing legal concepts in the text that is to be translated, before proceeding to the information search and communication, according to established formulae and conventions. (shrink)

When Crisis Becomes the Norm: What Can We Do to Demand Change? Crisis dominates the present historical moment. The economy is in crisis, politics in both its past and present forms is in crisis and our own individual lives are in crisis, made vulnerable by the fluctuations of the labor market and by the undoing of social and political ties we inherited from modernity. Yet, traditional views of crises as just temporary setbacks do not seem to hold any longer; this (...) crisis seems permanent, with no way out and no alternatives on the horizon. Reconstructing a political genealogy of the term from the Greek world to today's neoliberalism, this book demonstrates that crisis, understood as a "choice" between revolution and conservation, is a peculiarity of the modern era that does not apply to the present day. However, since its origin, the trope of crisis has proven to be one of the most effective instruments of social discipline and administration. The analytical trajectory followed by this book - which spans from Plato to Hayek, from the juridical and medical science of antiquity to the current technocracy, passing through the "weapons of criticism" of Marx and Gramsci - finally identifies, following Benjamin and Foucault, precariousness as the "form of life" that characterizes crisis understood as an art of government. But we still need to answer the question: "How can we recreate the possibility of political alternatives?". (shrink)

This study focuses on retraction notices from two major Latin American/caribbean indexing databases: SciELO and LILACS. SciELO includes open scientific journals published mostly in Latin America/the Caribbean, from which 10 % are also indexed by Thomson Reuters Web of Knowledge Journal of Citation Reports. LILACS has a similar geographical coverage and includes dissertations and conference/symposia proceedings, but it is limited to publications in the health sciences. A search for retraction notices was performed in these two databases using the keywords “retracted”, (...) “retraction” “withdrawal”, “withdrawn”, “removed” and “redress”. Documents were manually checked to identify those that actually referred to retractions, which were then analyzed and categorized according to the reasons alleged in the notices. Dates of publication/retraction and time to retraction were also recorded. Searching procedures were performed between June and December 2014. Thirty-one retraction notices were identified, fifteen of which were in JCR-indexed journals. “Plagiarism” was alleged in six retractions of this group. Among the non-JCR journals, retraction reasons were alleged in fourteen cases, twelve of which were attributed to “plagiarism”. The proportion of retracted articles for the SciELO database was approximately 0.005 %. The reasons alleged in retraction notices may be used as signposts to inform discussions in Latin America on plagiarism and research integrity. At the international level, these results suggest that the correction of the literature is becoming global and is not limited to mainstream international publications. (shrink)

Herder is often criticized for having embraced cultural relativism, but there has been little philosophical discussion of what he actually wrote about the nature of the human species and its differentiation through culture. This book focuses on Herder's idea of culture, seeking to situate his social and political theses within the context of his anthropology, metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, theory of language and philosophy of history. It argues for a view of Herder as a qualified relativist, who combined the conception of (...) a common human nature with a belief in the importance of culture in developing and shaping that nature. Especially highlighted are Herder's understanding of the relativity of virtue and happiness, and his belief in the impossibility of constructing a single best society. The book will appeal to a wide range of readers interested both in Herder and in Enlightenment culture more generally. (shrink)

This series presents issues which are central to 20th-century European thought, but unfamiliar to students of Anglo-American philosophy. In this book the author traces the development of the concept of situation through the work of Gabriel Marcel, Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir and Merleau-Ponty.

The third of three commentaries on “A Defense of Genetic Discrimination,” from the July‐August 2013 issue.

Recent works about ecumenical systems, where connectives from classical and intuitionistic logics can co-exist in peace, warmed the discussion on proof systems for combining logics. This discussion has been extended to alethic modalities using Simpson’s meta-logical characterization: necessity is independent of the viewer, while possibility can be either intuitionistic or classical. In this work, we propose a pure, label free calculus for ecumenical modalities, nEK\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$$\mathsf {nEK}$$\end{document}, where exactly one logical operator figures (...) in introduction rules and every basic object of the calculus can be read as a formula in the language of the ecumenical modal logic EK\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$$\mathsf {EK}$$\end{document}. We prove that nEK\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$$\mathsf {nEK}$$\end{document} is sound and complete w.r.t. the ecumenical birelational semantics and discuss fragments and extensions. (shrink)

Os conceitos que tratam do processo de globalização, originários da economia a partir da década de 1980, se aplicam para a comparação e análise de alguns paradoxos ainda hoje presentes no campo da comunicação internacional. Assim como uma ‘nova ordem econômica’ versou sobre a mundialização dos negócios, na área da comunicação o desequilíbrio na circulação de informação entre países industrializados e em desenvolvimento deu origem a intensos debates internacionais que resultaram no documento oficial que tratava de uma ‘nova ordem da (...) informação e da comunicação’. Assuntos como internacionalização e transnacionalização, analisados inicialmente no domínio dos estudos econômicos e das relações internacionais, migraram para o núcleo das pesquisas comunicacionais na mesma década de 1980. Alguns autores identificam quatro linhas básicas para a interpretação do fenômeno da globalização: “(a) globalização como uma época histórica; b) globalização como um fenômeno sociológico de compressão do espaço e tempo; c) globalização como hegemonia dos valores liberais; d) globalização como fenômeno socioeconômico” (Prado, s/d). É também nos estudos econômicos que está a origem de outro conceito usado para explicar a forma como se estabeleceram as relações entre ‘centro e periferia’, com a divisão do mundo distribuída entre centros econômicos desenvolvidos (como Estados Unidos e países da Europa ocidental) e países periféricos (produtores de economia primária). No setor da comunicação, os primeiros assumiram o papel de geradores de informação e os últimos se transformaram em consumidores da produção midiática dos países industrializados. O impacto da globalização no campo da comunicação é expressivo no âmbito da indústria de mídia, em especial no que diz respeito à propriedade dos meios de massa. Conglomerados midiáticos se expandem em escala global e a audiência cresce de maneira proporcional à padronização gerada pela fusão de empresas que passaram a produzir simultaneamente notícia, entretenimento e conteúdo para a web. O fluxo da informação entre países e culturas se mantém como elemento de pesquisas desenvolvidas pela comunidade internacional de pesquisadores de comunicação. Nesse aspecto se destacam investigadores da Europa e dos Estados Unidos. São poucas as contribuições da América Latina e ainda mais reduzida a participação de pesquisadores do Brasil nessa discussão que é de interesse de todos – produtores, especialistas e público dos meios de comunicação. Os artigos que integram esta edição dedicada ao tema Globalização e Comunicação Internacional expressam o status dos estudos contemporâneos sobre o assunto. Não é por coincidência que os cinco textos, as duas resenhas e os depoimentos dos correspondentes internacionais no Rio de Janeiro, selecionados para este número tragam em comum um mesmo fio condutor: a questão do equilíbrio no fluxo da informação e de produtos midiáticos. A política de comunicação global é o foco do artigo de abertura assinado pelo Dr. Cees Hamelink, da Universidade de Amsterdã, autor com extensa produção teórica, que há vários anos coordena pesquisas e é responsável pela disciplina Comunicação Internacional na sua instituição. A participação da comunidade latino-americana na elaboração do Relatório MacBride no final da década de 1970, representada pelo colombiano Gabriel Garcia Márquez e pelo chileno Juan Somavia, é recuperada no artigo de José Marques de Melo, da Universidade de São Paulo e diretor da Cátedra Unesco no Brasil. A jornalista Sonia Ambrósio de Nelson avalia a influência de poderes políticos, econômicos e culturais na cobertura midiática do terrorismo em três países asiáticos. O artigo do professor Joseph Straubhaar, em co-autoria com estudantes de doutorado na Universidade do Texas em Austin, é uma contribuição importante para os estudos comparados entre o Brasil e os Estados Unidos, ao abordar a questão da inserção digital da população nos dois países. O artigo de Eula Dantas Taveira Cabral, resultados de pesquisa realizada para o doutorado, analisa algumas das estratégias de internacionalização de meios de comunicação brasileiros. A oportunidade de reunir em um único volume a produção científica com autores de origens distintas é uma forma sistematizar uma área de conhecimento que continua dispersa, à espera da contribuição dos investigadores de comunicação no Brasil. Referências Bibliográficas PRADO, Luiz Carlos Delorme. Globalização: notas sobre um conceito controverso. Instituto de Economia da UFRJ, sem data. PREBISCH, Raúl. The Latin American Periphery in the Global System of Capitalism. Cepal Review nº 13, April 1981, p. 143-150. (shrink)

The context-based use of terminology and phraseology is one of the essential building blocks of legal translation. The contextual nature of both components has implications when it comes to designing resources that are adapted to the needs of translators. For Arabic legal translation, there are a multitude of different print and online resources available, however, they do not integrate the context-related parameter for term choice acceptability. In this article, we will describe the main features of certain bilingual legal dictionaries with (...) the English-Arabic and French-Arabic language pairs. We will then make a descriptive assessment of the tools available online, highlighting their limitations. Taking into consideration all the contextual parameters involved in making a translation choice, we will put forward the value of developing bilingual ontologies with Arabic. With the rapid expansion of information technologies, a move towards formalizing legal knowledge will help fill existing gaps in the representation of Arabic legal content and the retrieval of information, providing legal translators with a tool that provides specific details that will enable translators to make informed and relevant decisions, in addition to opening new research perspectives for Arabic legal translation. (shrink)

Aesthetic properties figure prominently in our daily lives, our conversations and many actions we take. Yet theoretical disagreement prevails over their nature, their variety, their epistemic and metaphysical status. This overview highlights the heterogeneity of aesthetic properties and examines repercussions for explanation. Aesthetic properties belong to natural objects or scenes, to artworks in any medium, to artefacts and built environments across historical eras; and they draw a wide variety of responses such as our perceptions, emotions or imaginative thought. Historicism about (...) artworks carries over to at least some aesthetic properties that depend on facts of their broader historical context just as works do. One issue is whether aesthetic properties can be demarcated solely in terms of non-aesthetic properties. If not, explanations of aesthetic properties need to draw on other aesthetic notions such as aesthetic experience, attention, judgement or value. The paper examines several accounts of aesthetic value to show how they extend to aesthetic properties. The paper concludes with an overview of the current metaphysical debate between realists and non-realists about aesthetic properties. (shrink)

In Heavy Time psychogeographer Sonia Overall takes to the old pilgrim roads, navigating a route from Canterbury to Walsingham via London and her home town of Ely. Vivid in her evocation of a landscape of ancient chapels, ruined farms and suburban follies, Overall's secular pilgrimage elevates the ordinary, collecting roadside objects -- feathers, a bingo card, a worn penny -- as relics. Facing injury and interruption, she takes the path of the lone woman walker, seeking out 'thin places' where (...) past and present collide, and where new ways of living might begin. 'It is a talisman of a book. Heavy Time doesn't just describe a pilgrimage, it becomes one, for both writer and reader. It is an invitation to resist 'busyness', to think of ourselves as explorers, to seek out 'the everyday divine'. It has sent me out looking for 'thin places: pockets in the landscape where the membrane is so tightly stretched that other worlds might shine through.' Beautiful and essential.' - Helen Mort. (shrink)

According to logical theories of meaning, a meaning of an expression can be formalized and encoded in truth conditions. Vagueness of the language and individual differences between people are a challenge to incorporate into the meaning representations. In this paper, we propose a new approach to study truth-conditional representations of vague concepts. For a case study, we selected two natural language quantifiers most and more than half. We conducted two online experiments, each with 90 native English speakers. In the first (...) experiment, we tested between-subjects variability in meaning representations. In the second experiment, we tested the stability of meaning representations over time by testing the same group of participants in two experimental sessions. In both experiments, participants performed the verification task. They verified a sentence with a quantifier (e.g., “Most of the gleerbs are feezda.”) based on the numerical information provided in the second sentence, (e.g., “60% of the gleerbs are feezda”). To investigate between-subject and within-subject differences in meaning representations, we proposed an extended version of the Diffusion Decision Model with two parameters capturing truth conditions and vagueness. We fit the model to responses and reaction times data. In the first experiment, we found substantial between-subject differences in representations of most as reflected by the variability in the truth conditions. Moreover, we found that the verification of most is proportion-dependent as reflected in the reaction time effect and model parameter. In the second experiment, we showed that quantifier representations are stable over time as reflected in stable model parameters across two experimental sessions. These findings challenge semantic theories that assume the truth-conditional equivalence of most and more than half and contribute to the representational theory of vague concepts. The current study presents a promising approach to study semantic representations, which can have a wide application in experimental linguistics. (shrink)

The development of vaccines against SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) presented a unique set of challenges. There was a global need for safe, effective vaccines against a new virus. In response to the development of vaccines for COVID-19 (some of which used novel technologies), there was a proliferation of no-fault compensation schemes (NFCS) for COVID-19 vaccine injuries. We identified 28 national vaccine injury NFCS operating in December 2019. Just 2 years later, over 130 countries had some NFCS coverage for COVID-19 vaccines. This rapid (...) expansion was primarily driven by the creation of three multinational schemes. The COVID-19 Vaccines Global Access (COVAX) scheme covers vaccines given under the COVAX framework in 92 low and middle-income countries across the globe. The African Vaccines Acquisition Trust (AVAT) scheme covers vaccines administered under the AVAT framework in 36 African and Caribbean countries. The UNICEF scheme covers vaccines administered by UNICEF in 18 Asian countries.Because of the sudden expansion of no-fault compensation for vaccine injury, especially in developing economies, more research on the foundations, procedures and outcomes of NFCS is needed. In this article, we examine how these NFCS meet the needs of individual claimants and society more widely. To do so, we first review the rationales offered to support the creation of vaccine injury NFCS. We then argue that, in order to achieve their function as compensation mechanisms, NFCS should be accessible and offer substantive and procedural justice to claimants. Finally, we focus on transparency and accountability as necessary requirements to allow scrutiny over existing NFCS and their wider impacts. (shrink)

BackgroundReiki is an energy healing technique or biofield therapy in which an attuned therapist places their hands on or near the client’s body and sends energy to the client to activate the body’s ability to heal itself and restore balance. It was developed in Japan at the end of the 19th century by Mikao Usui of Kyoto. Given the enormous international socioeconomic burden of mental health, inexpensive, safe, and evidenced-based treatments would be welcomed. Reiki is safe, inexpensive, and preliminary research (...) suggests it may assist in treating a wide variety of illnesses. Given that Reiki is a biofield therapy, growing in use, and not yet accepted by the dominant biomedical paradigm, it is important to establish its effectiveness over placebo. This study aimed to examine Reiki’s effectiveness over placebo in treating symptoms of mental health and to explore parameters for its effectiveness.MethodA systematic review of randomized placebo-controlled trials examining Reiki’s effectiveness in treating symptoms of mental health in adults was conducted through a systematic search of PubMed, PsycINFO, MEDLINE, CINAHL, Web of Science, Scopus, Embase, and ProQuest. Fourteen studies met the inclusion criteria, and risk of bias was assessed using Cochrane’s Revised ROB 2 assessment tool. This was followed by a grading of recommendations, assessment, development and evaluations assessment.ResultsThe evidence to date suggests that Reiki consistently demonstrates a greater therapeutic effect over placebo for some symptoms of mental health. The GRADE level of evidence is high for clinically relevant levels of stress and depression, moderate to high for clinically relevant levels of anxiety, low to moderate for normal levels of stress, and low to moderate for burnout, and low for normal levels of depression and anxiety.ConclusionThe results suggest that, Reiki may be more effective in treating some areas of mental health, than placebo, particularly if symptoms are clinically relevant. To date, there are a small number of studies in each area, therefore findings are inconclusive and, more RCTs controlling for placebo in Reiki research are needed. Most included studies were also assessed as having a risk of bias of some concern. Incorporating Reiki as a complementary treatment to mainstream psychotherapy for depression, stress, and anxiety may be appropriate.Systematic Review Registration[https://www.crd.york.ac.uk/], identifier [CRD42020194311]. (shrink)

The aim of this volume is to present Kafka not as a writer, or not only as a writer, but as a philosopher. However, even after narrowing the scope of our interest down, there will still be several Kafka’s left on the table. Themes treated in the volume include: the so-called Brentano School in Prague, Kafka’s affiliation to the Louvre Circle, Kafka and existentialist philosophy, Kafka’s Jewish heritage, his love of Nietzsche and Meister Eckhart and—last but not least, since he (...) was such an exceptional writer—his aesthetics. (shrink)

This article explores gender inequities and sexual double standards in teens’ digital image exchange, drawing on a UK qualitative research project on youth ‘sexting’. We develop a critique of ‘postfeminist’ media cultures, suggesting teen ‘sexting’ presents specific age and gender related contradictions: teen girls are called upon to produce particular forms of ‘sexy’ self display, yet face legal repercussions, moral condemnation and ‘slut shaming’ when they do so. We examine the production/circulation of gendered value and sexual morality via teens’ discussions (...) of activities on Facebook and Blackberry. For instance, some boys accumulated ‘ratings’ by possessing and exchanging images of girls’ breasts, which operated as a form of currency and value. Girls, in contrast, largely discussed the taking, sharing or posting of such images as risky, potentially inciting blame and shame around sexual reputation (e.g. being called ‘slut’, ‘slag’ or ‘sket’). The daily negotiations of these new digitally mediated, heterosexualised, classed and raced norms of performing teen feminine and masculine desirability are considered. (shrink)

How should socially privileged white feminists address their privilege? Often, individuals are urged to overcome their own personal racism through a politics of self-transformation. The paper argues that this strategy may be problematic, since it rests on an over-autonomous conception of the self. The paper turns to Simone de Beauvoir for an alternative account of the self, as “situated,” and explores what this means for a politics of privilege.

If artworks and their aesthetic properties stand in constitutive relationships to historical context and circumstances, so that some understanding of relevant facts is involved in responding to a work, what becomes of the intuitive view that we see artworks and at least some of their aesthetic properties? This question is raised by arguments in both aesthetics and art history for the historical nature of works of art. The paper argues that the answer needs to take philosophy of perception into account. (...) The principal development that has shaped philosophy of perception in the last thirty years—explaining perceptual experience in terms of contents that represent that such-and-such is the case—is directly relevant to key arguments for the historical nature of art because contents can represent complex kinds and properties. Conceptual realism is especially well-suited for explaining perception of artworks and aesthetic properties because it emphasizes that forms of understanding—in the sense of capacities, abilities and techniques—are involved in perceptual engagement with individual objects and instances of properties. To make this case, the paper examines influential arguments for the historical nature of art and aesthetic properties by Arthur C. Danto and Kendall L. Walton; and examines art-historical discussions by Michael Baxandall, Linda Nochlin and T. J. Clark. The paper argues that the aesthetic properties of an artwork depend on human intentional uses of properties, colours and contours among them, and such uses may themselves be aesthetic. The Wittgensteinian notion of use is contextual and historical, and uses are perceptible. (shrink)