Philosophy of Education in a Poor Historical Moment: A Personal Account

Under the post-metaphysical sky “old” humanistic-oriented education is possible solely at the cost of its transformation into its negative, into a power that is determined to diminish human potentials for self-exaltation. Nothing less than total metamorphosis is needed to rescue the core of humanistic genesis: the quest for edifying Life and resistance to the call for “home-returning” into the total harmony that is promised to us within nothingness.     

Team Semantics for Interventionist Counterfactuals: Observations vs. Interventions

Journal of Philosophical Logic - Team semantics is a highly general framework for logics which describe dependencies and independencies among variables. Typically, the (in)dependencies considered...     

Continuum between Relational and Therapeutic Models of Self-help in Mental Health: A Qualitative Approach

Self-help groups are generally described as “group[s] composed of individuals who meet on a regular basis to help one another cope with a life problem” (APA, 2019). Yet, it is challenging to find a univocal definition of self-help groups. Scholars usually use different labels to highlight various features of self-help groups, suggesting the need for further inquiry regarding commonalities and differences. The level of professional involvement is one of the most disputed factors influencing whether a group is considered to belong to the “self-help family.” The present qualitative study aimed to understand how professional support in Tuscany, Italy can influence the organizational choices of these groups (place for meetings, admission criteria, timing, etc.), as well as the personal beliefs of members. The study included 17 self-help groups. During 13 focus groups meetings, 92 participants were interviewed; then, we individually interviewed 19 facilitators and six additional key informants from mental health settings. We used a grounded theory approach, and we discussed the emerging models with participants at a public event. Results show the emergence of two theoretical models to define self-help groups, not to be interpreted as mutually exclusive. The “relational model” refers to self-help groups whose main feature is to guarantee the acquisition of specific skills (social comparison skills, active listening, and empathy), while the “therapeutic model” seems to represent a kind of assimilation of other types of interventions.     

Action-based and vision-based selection of input: Two sources of control

In the first part of this paper we review evidence suggesting that there exists a mechanism that selects input on the basis of its similarity to the required action. This response-based input selection differs from the more established space- and object-based input selection in that it is not constrained by the structure of the input. Our evidence suggests that the two-choice Stroop effect is caused by this response-based selection mechanism. By contrast, it is known that the flanker effect is determined by the space- and object- based selection mechanisms. We explore whether the conflict resolution of the Stroop and flanker tasks is different as well by embedding these two tasks in a PRP (Psychological Refractory Period) paradigm. We show that the Stroop and the PRP effects are additive whereas the flanker and the PRP effects are underadditive, suggesting that the processes in charge of the conflict resolution in the Stroop and the flanker tasks are indeed different. We discuss possible reasons for this difference, and discuss possible ways in which the response-based mechanism can be implemented in information processing models.     

Win-shift and win-stay learning in the short-beaked echidna (<Emphasis Type="Italic">Tachyglossus aculeatus</Emphasis>)

Numerous previous investigators have explained species differences in spatial memory performance in terms of differences in foraging ecology. In three experiments we attempted to extend these findings by examining the extent to which the spatial memory performance of echidnas (or "spiny anteaters") can be understood in terms of the spatio-temporal distribution of their prey (ants and termites). This is a species and a foraging situation that have not been examined in this way before. Echidnas were better able to learn to avoid a previously rewarding location (to "win-shift") than to learn to return to a previously rewarding location (to "win-stay"), at short retention intervals, but were unable to learn either of these strategies at retention intervals of 90 min. The short retention interval results support the ecological hypothesis, but the long retention interval results do not. Electronic Publication     

Neubewertung kognitiver Leistungen im Lichte der F?higkeiten einzelliger Lebewesen

A closer look at unicellular organisms and their behavior as autonomous and social beings sheds new light on the nature of cognition. This allows, at the same time, a search for minimal conditions that help to identify the yet unknown appearance of cognition during evolution. Positive results might also serve as principles for the construction of intelligent artefacts as striven for in artificial intelligence and cognitive robotics research. Analyzing the abilities of prokaryotes and unicellular eukaryotes and comparing them to the abilities of "higher" organisms, we conclude that common definitions of cognition are not specific enough. The attempt to define cognition by focusing on the coupling between stimulus and response and asserting that (to have cognition) it has to be indirect and modifiable fails, simply because in all organisms every reaction to a stimulus is indirect and modifiable. A definition of cognition based on such a distinction cannot hold unless one is willing to ascribe cognitive capacities also to Escherichia coli bacteria, for instance. Viewing cognition as the sum of abilities necessary for coping with a complex physical and social environment is also highly questionable, i.e. unspecific. We show that functions comparable to the cognitive functions "perception" and "memory" in higher organisms can well be identified in unicellular beings. The "architecture" of the bacterial (prokaryotic) sensorimotor apparatus is also in some structures, but particularly at the functional level, comparable with that of higher organisms and should be, as a consequence, indicative of cognition. Furthermore, we discuss other, somewhat more delimitable, phenomena like detection of identity, counting, adaptation, habituation and learning in ethological categories and compare them to findings from the microorganismic world. In this context, we argue that so-called "true learning" and the appearance of nervous systems are not break-points in the evolution of cognition. The presence of nervous systems means only a huge amplification of the recognition power of individual organisms. The molecular net that realizes the regulation and transduction of signals in unicellular beings is comparable to the processes within a neural net, and a population of unicellular organisms can be viewed as an individual, multicellular net with amplified recognition power. Finally, we show that sophisticated forms of cooperation and competition developed also in populations of unicellular organisms. This seems not to be true for the phenomena imagination (rehearsal) and introspection, also to be seen as stemming from social problem-solving needs. As for these aspects, further research is needed, however, to put them on firm scientific grounds. Zusammenfassung. Eine genaue Betrachtung einzelliger Lebewesen und ihres Verhaltens als autonome und soziale Wesen wirft neues Licht auf die Natur von Kognition. Das erlaubt gleichzeitig eine Suche nach minimalen Bedingungen, die bei der Bestimmung des Erscheinens von Kognition in der Evolution helfen. Positive Ergebnisse könnten auch als Prinzipien für die Konstruktion intelligenter Artefakte dienen, wie sie in der Künstlichen Intelligenz und der kognitiven Robotikforschung angestrebt werden. Ein Vergleich der Fähigkeiten von Einzellern mit denen von "höheren" Organismen führt uns zu dem Schluß, daß gängige Definitionen von Kognition nicht spezifisch genug sind. Der Versuch, Kognition über die Indirektheit und Modifizierbarkeit der Kopplung zwischen Reiz und Reaktion zu definieren, scheitert, weil in allen Organismen Reiz-Reaktionsverbindungen indirekt und modifizierbar sind. Eine solche Definition ist nicht haltbar, es sei denn, man ist bereit, z.B. auch Escherichia coli-Bakterien kognitive Eigenschaften zuzubilligen. Die Definition von Kognition als Summe der Eigenschaften, die notwendig sind, um in einer komplexen physikalischen und sozialen Umgebung zu bestehen, ist ebenfalls hinterfragbar und unspezifisch. Wir zeigen, daß Leistungen, die mit den Kognitionsleistungen "Wahrnehmung" und "Gedächtnis" in höheren Organismen vergleichbar sind, in Einzellern nachweisbar sind. Die sensomotorische Komplexität von Einzellern ist auch in vieler Hinsicht strukturell, vor allem aber funktionell vergleichbar mit derjenigen höherer Organismen und kann deshalb als ein Hinweis auf Kognition gewertet werden. Darüber hinaus diskutieren wir andere, abgrenzbare Phänomene, wie Erfassung von Identität, Zählen, Adaptation, Habituation und Lernen, aus der Sicht der Verhaltensforschung und vergleichen sie mit Befunden aus der Welt der Mikroorganismen. In diesem Zusammenhang bestreiten wir, daß sogenanntes "echtes Lernen" und das Erscheinen von Nervensystemen Bruchstellen in der Evolution von Kognition sind. Die Anwesenheit von Nervensystemen bedeutet nur den Übergang von Systemen mit einem relativ begrenzten (Erkennungs-) Potential zu solchen mit einem riesigen Potential. Das molekulare Netz, das die Regulation und Transduktion von Signalen in Einzellern realisiert, ist vergleichbar mit den Prozessen innerhalb eines Nervennetzes. Eine Population von einzelligen Organismen kann als individuelles, multizelluläres Netz mit erhöhtem Erkennungspotential angesehen werden. Schließlich zeigen wir, daß raffinierte Formen von Kooperations- und Konkurrenzverhalten auch in Einzellerpopulationen vorhanden sind. Eine ähnliche Aussage scheint nicht für Phänomene wie Imagination (Probehandeln) und Introspektion möglich zu sein, die auch im Zusammenhang mit der Bewältigung sozialer Probleme zu sehen sind. Eine genaue naturwissenschaftliche Erfassung solcher Aspekte, die erst einen Vergleich zwischen Mehrzellern und Einzellern erlauben würde, ist allerdings noch zu leisten.     

The Factor Structure of the Beavers Interactional Scales

Confirmatory factor analysis and regression analyses of the Beavers Interactional Scales did not appear to support the model offered by its developers, namely, several specified family attributes contributing respectively to two global factors of Family Competence and Family Style. Moreover, regression analysis indicated that only three of 12 items predicted raters' assessments of Global Family Health, and one of seven items predicted Global Family Style. Individuals interested in the family dynamic centripetal/centrifugal might best think of that as a unitary entity and rate it accordingly.     

Plantinga’s Reformed Epistemology: What’s the Question?

Alvin Plantingas Warranted Christian Belief is without questionone of the central texts of the Reformed epistemology movement. Critiques of Plantingas defence have been both multiple and varied. As varied as these responses are, however, it is my contention that many of them amount to the same thing. It is the purpose of this paper to offer an overview of the main lines of attack that have been directed as Plantingas project, and thereafter to show how many, if not most, of these objections can be understood as versions or aspects of the same criticism, what I call the Inadequacy Thesis.