Unity,Objectivity, and the Passivity of Experience

In the section ‘Unity and Objectivity’ of The Bounds of Sense, P. F. Strawson argues for the thesis that unity of consciousness requires experience of an objective world. My aim in this essay is to evaluate this claim. In the first and second parts of the essay, I explicate Strawson's thesis, reconstruct his argument, and identify the point at which the argument fails. Strawson's discussion nevertheless raises an important question: are there ways in which we must think of our experiences if we are to self‐ascribe them? In the third part of the essay, I use Kant's remarks concerning the passivity of experience to suggest one answer to this question: in self‐ascribing experiences, we must be capable of thinking of them as passive to their objects. This can be used to provide an alternative route from unity to objectivity.     

More dead than dead? Attributing mentality to vegetative state patients

In a recent paper, Gray, Knickman, and Wegner (2011) present three experiments which they take to show that people perceive patients in a persistent vegetative state (PVS) to have less mentality than the dead. Following on from Gomes and Parrott (forthcoming Gomes, A., &; Parrott, M. (forthcoming). Epicurean aspects of mental state attributions. Philosophical Psychology. [Google Scholar]), we provide evidence to show that participants' responses in the initial experiments are an artifact of the questions posed. Results from two experiments show that, once the questions have been clarified, people do not ascribe more mental capacity to the dead than to PVS patients. There is no reason to think that people perceive PVS patients as more dead than dead.     

The (Un)bearable Educational Lightness of Common Practices: On the Use of Urban Spaces by Schoolchildren

The present paper is about the author??s current research on children??s education in urban contexts. It departs from the rising offer of programmes for school children in out-of-school contexts (e.g. museums, libraries, science centres). It asks what makes these practices educational (and not just interesting, entertaining and/or audience building). Based on Biesta (2006a, 2010) theory of education, the author frames and analyses the educational characteristics of, and possibilities of articulating, in and out-of-school educational practices. This paper aims at understanding if the occasional outing from primary school premises promotes interruptions in the humanist foundations of school. In order to analyse relations between different institutions and professionals (to be) engaged in educational activities and programmes, Nóvoa (2002, 2009) essays will be brought to the discussion, namely his conception of the ??Public Space of Education????as a space where culture, education, arts, sports and leisure are shared responsibilities, and where diverse institutions are networked aiming towards societal pluralism. I argue for the possibility of using cities?? public spaces as contexts with a worldly quality to complexify children??s education. Nevertheless, I draw attention to the unbearable educational lightness that these practices may carry if they do not go beyond the praise of chance; as well as to their unsustainable weight if they perpetually repeat school??s normal orders and add up rational discourses.     

Attention and social functioning in children with malformations of cortical development and stroke

Attention and social functioning and their interrelationships have not been routinely examined in children with early brain insult (EBI). This study aimed to describe attention and social functioning in children with two types of EBI: malformations of cortical development (MCD) and stroke. Children diagnosed with MCD (n?=?14, 6 males) or stroke (n?=?14, 8 males) aged 8 to 14 years (M?=?12 years 11 months) completed neuropsychological assessments to examine attention processes. Primary caregivers completed a questionnaire to assess executive components of children's attention and teachers completed a questionnaire to measure children's social functioning. Brain scans (MRI or CT) were coded by a pediatric neuroradiologist. Higher rates of impairments in attention and social function were found in children with EBI compared with normative expectations. Children with MCD experienced more global and clinically significant levels of impairment than children with stroke; though impairments were present in both groups. A strong association between executive components of attention and social function was observed. In addition, complex attention processes were associated with social function. The findings emphasize the reciprocity between attention, behavior and social outcomes, and the vulnerability of social function following EBI.     

Repacking of crumpled systems

The packing density of a crumpled wire and a crumpled surface submitted to axial compression is investigated. The geometrical, topological and mechanical aspects of both problems are reported and connected with classical results in sphere packing and percolation theory.     

Morality and advantage

Claims that necessary and sufficient conditions are not converse relations are discussed, as well as the related claim that If A, then B is not equivalent to A only if B. The analysis of alleged counterexamples has shown, among other things, how necessary and sufficient conditions should be understood, especially in the case of causal conditions, and the importance of distinguishing sufficient-cause conditionals from necessary-cause conditionals. It is concluded that necessary and sufficient conditions, adequately interpreted, are converse relations in all cases.     

Spermine improves recognition memory deficit in a rodent model of Huntington’s disease

Huntington’s disease (HD) is a progressive neurodegenerative disorder associated with motor and cognitive impairment. Intrastriatal administration of quinolinic acid (QA) causes neurodegeneration, glial proliferation and cognitive impairment in animals, which are similar to these seen in human HD. Since polyamines improve memory in cognitive tasks, we now tested if the post-training intrastriatal administration of spermine, an agonist of the polyamine site at the NMDA receptor, reverses the deficits in the object recognition task induced by QA. Bilateral striatal injections of QA (180 or 360 nmol/site) caused object recognition impairment, neuronal death and reactive astrogliosis. A single injection of spermine (0.1 and 1 nmol/site), 5 days after QA injection, reversed QA-induced impairment of object recognition task. Spermine (0.1 nmol/site) also inhibited QA-induced reactive astrogliosis measured by a semi-quantitative determination of GFAP immunolabelling, but did not alter neuronal death, measured by a semi-quantitative determination of fluoro-Jade C staining. These results suggest that polyamine binding sites may be considered a novel therapeutic target to prevent reactive astrogliosis and mnemonic deficits in HD.     

Psychometric Properties of the European Portuguese Adaptation of the Insomnia Catastrophizing Scale (ICS)

Journal of Rational-Emotive & Cognitive-Behavior Therapy - The current study developed the first translation and adaptation of the ICS (Insomnia Catastrophizing Scale) into European Portuguese,...     

Hand Grip and Load Force Coordination of the Ipsilesional Hand of Chronic Stroke Individuals

Object manipulation depends on a refined control of grip force (GF) and load force (LF). After a brain injury, the GF control is altered in the paretic hand but what happens with the non-paretic hand is still unclear. In this study, we compared the GF control and GF–LF coordination of the non-paretic hand of 10 stroke individuals who suffered right brain damage (RBD) and 10 who suffered left brain damage (LBD), with 20 healthy individuals during lifting and oscillation task, using an instrumented object. GF was recorded with a force transducer, and LF was estimated from the object weight and acceleration. Overall, the ipsilesional hand of stroke individuals, independent of the lesion side, presented similar GF control and GF–LF coordination. However, LBD individuals took longer to start lifting the object, which may be due to the need of more time to obtain somatosensory information from the contact with the object. The findings indicate that stroke individuals preserve their ability to control and coordinate GF and LF when using their ipsilesional hand for object manipulation and the left hemisphere may play an essential role in the processing of somatosensory information needed for the GF control.