‘Ndrangheta in Lombardy: Culture and Organizational Structure

This work aims at thoroughly studying a phenomenon that today is still not really discussed (i.e., the criminal organization called ‘Ndrangheta). We will particularly deal with the culture and organizational structure of this Mafia phenomenon and analyze its new territories of infiltration and domination (the region of Lombardy, in Northern Italy) after its migration from its original territory (the region of Calabria in Southern Italy). From the review of the existing literature on ‘Ndrangheta, we can actually point out that the contributions on the theme deal with the Mafia phenomenon, circumscribing it in its original territory, therefore mostly adopting a sociological and historical viewpoint. Up to today, nobody addressed ‘Ndrangheta outside these territorial boundaries and adopting a psychological viewpoint, which is the one this contribution starts from. In more specific terms, a text is analyzed, which is composed by the reports of the pre-trial detention order called Crimine-Infinito [Endless Crime], promoted by investigators in 2010 and so far one of the most relevant actions to fight against ‘Ndrangheta.     

Codes of Commitment to Crime and Resistance: Determining Social and Cultural Factors over the Behaviors of Italian Mafia Women

This article categorizes thirty-three women in four main Italian Mafia groups and explores social and cultural behaviors of these women. This study introduces the feminist theory of belief and action. The theoretical inquiry investigates the sometimes conflicting behaviors of women when they are subject to systematic oppression. I argue that there is a cultural polarization among the categorized sub-groups. Conservative radicals give their support to the Mafia while defectors and rebels resist the Mafia. After testing the theory, I assert that emancipation of women depends on the strength of their beliefs to perform actions against the Mafiosi culture.     

Strong reciprocity is not uncommon in the "wild"

Guala is right to draw attention to the difficulty of extrapolating from the experimental evidence for weak or strong reciprocity to what is observed in the "wild." However, there may be more strong reciprocity in real-world communities than he allows for, as strikingly illustrated in the example of the Mafia.     

The metaphysics of groups

If you are a realist about groups (e.g. religious institutions, football teams, the Mafia etc.) there are three main theories of what to identify groups with. I offer reasons for thinking that two of those theories (groups as sui generis entities and groups as mereological fusions) fail to meet important desiderata. The third option is to identify groups with sets, which meets all of the desiderata if only we take care over which sets they are identified with. I then canvass some possible objections to that third theory, and explain how to avoid them.     

The threat of intergenerational extortion: on the temptation to become the climate mafia,masquerading as an intergenerational Robin Hood

Abstract

This paper argues that extortion is a clear threat in intergenerational relations, and that the threat is manifest in some existing proposals in climate policy and latent in some background tendencies in mainstream moral and political philosophy. The paper also claims that although some central aspects of the concern about extortion might be pursued in terms of the entitlements of future generations, this approach is likely to be incomplete. In particular, intergenerational extortion raises issues about the appropriate limits to the sway of central values such as welfare and distributive justice. We should be wary of ways in which such values invite us to buy off, or perhaps to join, an intergenerational climate Mafia.     

Software Tools in Logic Education: Some Examples

Computers are increasingly present in education and make manyresources and activities available to teachers and pupils. Newpedagogical resources development is very interesting for both.Our digital library Summa Logicae is overtly involved in innovationand pedagogical systematization. It includes some software toolsfor teaching logic developed by computer science students, andin this article we present two of these tools. The MAFIA toolis especially attractive for first year students and helps themto understand the basic concepts of logic in an interactiveway using sematic tableaux. It also allows them to solve thecrazy cases in Mafia which their fellow students from previousyears proposed. The Modelos de Kripke tool, oriented to a moreadvanced level, serves for understanding the link between theproperties of the accessibility relation and the modal formulas,which is at the basis of the current developments of modal logic.     

THE CASE OF THE BULIMIC MAFIA AND THE TOOLS OF THEIR TRADE

Following a discussion of some psychoanalytic approaches to bulimia nervosa (and in particular its multi‐impulsive sub‐type), the place of pathological organizations of the personality within such pathologies and aspects of their NHS treatment, the paper focuses on the omnipotent management of separation difficulties in such eating‐disordered women. The role of shame and the ego‐ideal is discussed, as are their by‐products: secrecy and a preoccupation with the gaze and iconic figures, as seen in the general body‐ego pathology and over‐valuation of thinness in these patients. Illustrating these ideas with material drawn from the early stages of a woman seen in twice‐weekly NHS psychotherapy, the author discusses the literal and metaphorical roles of a box or case and its manic contents, which the patient employed to support her retreat. These secreted items (the box and its magazines, razors, laxatives and paracetamol tablets) constituted the concrete tools of the trade of her Mafia‐like pathological organization. The need to give appropriate clinical attention to such details is stressed and aspects of technique are discussed, especially the importance of creating and sustaining an appropriate therapeutic ‘play‐space’.     

A case of collective responsibility: who else was to blame for the Columbine high school shootings?

Two studies examined perceptions of collective responsibility for the April 20, 1999, shootings at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado. Collective responsibility refers to the perception that others, besides the wrongdoers themselves, are responsible for the event. In Study 1, the authors assessed perceptions of the shooters' parents and their peer group (the Trenchcoat Mafia), whereas Study 2 tested perceptions of collective responsibility across a range of groups. In both studies, perceptions of a target group's entitativity predicted judgments of collective responsibility. This relationship was mediated by two situational construals that justify applying collective responsibility: responsibility by commission (encouraging or facilitating the event) and responsibility by omission (failing to prevent the event). Study 2 also determined that perceptions of authority predicted judgments of collective responsibility for the Columbine shootings and was mediated by inferences of omission. Future directions in collective responsibility research are discussed.     

Jung's dissociable psyche and the ec-static self

Abstract :  Much of Jung's later work assumes that the self is an  a priori  phenomenon in which centripetal dynamics dominate. There is, however, another current in Jung's writings which recognizes the self to be an emergent phenomenon. This view is increasingly prevalent in post-Jungian discourse, and Louis Zinkin's exploration of a post-Jungian-constructivist model of the self can be seen as part of this tendency.
My paper privileges an emergent understanding of the self by focusing on the 'unravelling', 'de-centring', centrifugal experiences of otherness in the psyche. It offers a post-Jungian reading of a number of writers who have been influenced by the psychoanalyst Jean Laplanche and proposes a model of the self which focuses on our fantasies, terrors and longings about coming undone and bringing others undone.
This model is then linked to Judith Butler's understanding of the self as an ec-static phenomenon, in which the self is, of necessity, outside itself, such that 'there is no final moment in which my return to myself takes place'. I suggest that Jung's early clinical researches into the dissociability of the psyche and the clinical tools which he developed as a result of this work are especially suitable for engaging with these emergent, centrifugal dynamics.     

Explaining features of fine-grained phenomena using abstract analyses of phenomena and mechanisms: two examples from chronobiology

Explanations of biological phenomena such as cell division, protein synthesis or circadian rhythms commonly take the form of models of the responsible mechanisms. Recently philosophers of science have attempted to analyze this practice, presenting mechanisms as organized collections of parts performing operations that together produce the phenomenon. But in some cases what researchers seek to explain is not a general phenomenon, but a specific feature of a more fine-grained phenomenon. In some of these cases, it is not the model of the mechanism that performs the explanatory work. I consider a case in which the investigator offered an abstract representation of a fine-grained phenomenon to show why in had the feature in question. I consider a second case in which a researcher abstracted from the mechanism to identify a design principle that explains why the functioning mechanism exhibits a specific feature.

     

The Münsterberg illusion and 'irradiation'

The Münsterberg illusion is a compelling phenomenon for which there is no generally accepted explanation. It is suggested that two different contour-shifting effects operate in this illusion, and these are named the 'symmetrical effect' and the 'corner effect' respectively. It is further suggested that both of these effects are caused by 'irradiation', and an attempt is made to cast some light upon the phenomenon of irradiation, which is itself only poorly understood.     

Functional recovery following brain damage: conceptual frameworks and biological mechanisms

Mammals are well known to manifest recovery over time of many functional impairments induced by brain lesions. A brief reveiw is provided of the different conceptual frameworks within which functional recovery has been examined in the literature, and of different neurobiological mechanisms that have been proposed to account for the phenomenon. We observe that these two levels of analysis have frequently been only loosely related. Finally, a newly identified biological mechanism—compensatory collateral sprouting—is described which appears to be closely related to functional recovery in animals with hippocampal lesions, and this is proposed as a powerful new model within which to investigate further the relationship between the phenomenon of functional recovery and its underlying mechanisms.     

Young Marx and Alienation in western debate

The publication of Marx's early writings has given us a perspective on the early development of socialistic thought that provides a clearer view of its connection with current discussion in philosophy and sociology. The link is the phenomenon of alienation, with which the early Marx was much concerned. In this article the author marks the distinctiveness of the two main current approaches to the alienation phenomenon, the ontological and the sociological, and suggests that the tension between Hegelian ontology and empirical sociology in. the early Marx's analysis of the phenomenon reflects the strength rather than the weakness of this analysis as a contribution to the understanding of the human position.     

Applying phenomenography in guidance and counselling research

This paper examines phenomenography as a viable qualitative approach in guidance and counselling research. A phenomenographic study maps the qualitatively different ways in which people experience a specific phenomenon and helps researchers to describe the aspects that make one way of experiencing a certain phenomenon qualitatively distinct from another. This paper presents an overview of phenomenographic research, encompassing theoretical, methodological and practical considerations. The application of this approach in guidance and counselling studies is illustrated with examples.     

The accommodative response to subthreshold blur and to perceptual fading during the Troxler phenomenon

A study is reported which shows that accommodation can be stimulated by a blur stimulus which is below the threshold for visual perception. It is also shown that perceptual fading of the target, caused by stabilization of the retinal image (Troxler phenomenon), can eliminate the accommodative response causing it to default to its resting level. The first finding suggests a way in which the visual system can filter the percept of blur out of our conscious awareness and still effectively utilize the blur as a steady-state error for the accommodative control system. The second finding is consistent with a locus for the Troxler phenomenon in the early afferent part of the visual pathway, ie the retinal ganglion cells.     

The phenomenon and the transcendental: Jean-Luc Marion, Marc Richir, and the issue of phenomenalization

After reviewing the status of the concept of the phenomenon in Husserl??s phenomenology and the aim of successive attempts to reform, de-formalize, and to widen it, we show the difficulties of a method that, following the example of Jean-Luc Marion??s phenomenology, intends to connect the phenomenon directly to the revelation of an exteriority. We argue that, on the contrary, Marc Richir??s phenomenology, which strives to grasp the phenomenon as nothing-but-phenomenon, is more likely to capture the ??meaning?? of the phenomenological, and hence to help us orient in the field of problems that phenomenology encounters without always knowing how to tackle them. Yet, this extension of the phenomenon??s domain does not thereby encompass everything: there may well be certain issues that require a phenomenology without phenomenon; but the meaning of this cannot be determined before the complete reenvisioning of transcendental phenomenology.     

Advocacy, prejudice, and role modeling in the deaf community

Prejudiced attitudes toward deaf people are a well-established phenomenon (Higgins & Nash, 1982; Moores, 1982; Quigley & Kretschmer, 1982). In recent years, however, a new phenomenon has appeared, and some members of the deaf population now openly express prejudice against the hearing (Boros & Stuckless, 1982; Nash & Nash, 1981). The phenomenon may be an interesting example of Allport's (1954) classical analysis: The victims of the prejudice may tend to reciprocate and/or internalize the prejudice to which they have been exposed. The purpose of our analysis is to examine this phenomenon in more detail, particularly from the perspective of social learning theory as described by Bandura and Walters (1963), Walters (1966), and Bandura (1977).     

抗生素滥用现象剖析与建议

抗生素是广泛用于治疗感染性疾病最常用的药品之一,但在应用过程中滥用现象愈演愈烈,这不仅造成药品的严重浪费,还增加细菌耐药性的产生,对社会造成巨大的危害。通过对其现象、后果及原因的分析,提出了控制抗生素滥用的建议。     

Telomeres and the ethics of human cloning

In search of a potential problem with cloning, I investigate the phenomenon of telomere shortening which is caused by cell replication; clones created from somatic cells will have shortened telomeres and therefore reach a state of senescence more rapidly. While genetic intervention might fix this problem at some point in the future, I ask whether, absent technological advances, this biological phenomenon undermines the moral permissibility of cloning.     

Modeling the Developmental Patterning of Finiteness Marking in English, Dutch, German, and Spanish Using MOSAIC

In this study, we apply MOSAIC (model of syntax acquisition in children) to the simulation of the developmental patterning of children's optional infinitive (OI) errors in 4 languages: English, Dutch, German, and Spanish. MOSAIC, which has already simulated this phenomenon in Dutch and English, now implements a learning mechanism that better reflects the theoretical assumptions underlying it, as well as a chunking mechanism that results in frequent phrases being treated as 1 unit. Using 1, identical model that learns from child-directed speech, we obtain a close quantitative fit to the data from all 4 languages despite there being considerable cross-linguistic and developmental variation in the OI phenomenon. MOSAIC successfully simulates the difference between Spanish (a pro-drop language in which OI errors are virtually absent) and obligatory subject languages that do display the OI phenomenon. It also highlights differences in the OI phenomenon across German and Dutch, 2 closely related languages whose grammar is virtually identical with respect to the relation between finiteness and verb placement. Taken together, these results suggest that (a) cross-linguistic differences in the rates at which children produce OIs are graded, quantitative differences that closely reflect the statistical properties of the input they are exposed to and (b) theories of syntax acquisition need to consider more closely the role of input characteristics as determinants of quantitative differences in the cross-linguistic patterning of phenomena in language acquisition.