Mechanism and materialism in early modern German philosophy

ABSTRACT

The paper focuses on the gradual separation between materialism and mechanism in early modern German philosophy. In Germany the distinction between the two concepts, originally introduced by Leibniz, was definitively stated by Wolff who was the first to provide a definition of the new philosophical term Materialismus, and of the related philosophical sect. In the first part I describe the initial identification of mechanism and materialism in German philosophy between the last decades of the seventeenth century and 1720. Mechanism is here mostly conceived within a monistic metaphysics of body, which refers mainly to Hobbes and to some (unfaithful) interpretations of Spinoza’s pantheism. This tight connection between a mechanical explanation of nature and the Deus sive natura issue leads to a negative judgement on mechanism and its materialistic implications, both charged with a form of more or less explicit atheism. In the second part I describe the gradual emancipation in Germany of mechanism from materialism according to the distinction between a ‘good’ and a ‘bad’ materialism. In the third and final part, I sketch the first appearances of the entry ‘materialism’ in the philosophical encyclopaedias of early modern Germany, pointing out the by-then clear distinction between this metaphysical issue and the mechanical claim.     

Families with Distinct Levels of Marital Conflict and Child Adjustment: Which Role for Maternal and Paternal Stress?

This study addresses the links between distinct levels of marital conflict and mothers’ and fathers’ parenting stress and their associations with children’s adjustment. Using a sample of 358 Italian father–mother dyads with school–aged children, we computed a cluster analysis to identify distinct groups of families with different levels of interparental conflict. In each of the three groups identified (low, moderate, and high marital conflict), we conducted correlational and mediational analyses to explore the relationship between interparental conflict and children’s adjustment, the relationship between interparental conflict and maternal and paternal stress, and the potential mediating role of these components of maternal and paternal stress in the association between interparental conflict and children’s adjustment. We administered the R-CTS, PSI-SF, and CBCL to parents in order to assess marital conflict, maternal and paternal stress, and children’s behavioral problems; children completed the CPIC in order to evaluate their perceptions of interparental conflict. Results show that, in the high marital conflict group, levels of interparental conflict negatively affect children’s adjustment; moreover, the parent–child dysfunctional interaction component of maternal stress partially mediates the relationship between interparental discord and children’s internalizing behaviors, while the difficult child component of paternal stress fully mediates the effects of marital conflict on externalizing behaviors. In the moderate marital conflict group, levels of interparental conflict are correlated with the difficult child component of both maternal and paternal stress, while in the low marital conflict group, interparental conflict does not correlate with both maternal and paternal stress and children’s adjustment.     

Comparing Maltreating and Foster Families in Italy

Maltreating and foster families belong to different research areas and have rarely been considered together. This exploratory study compared maltreating and foster families to demonstrate an integrated approach that overcomes the dichotomic view that often separates problematic families from those who have resources. This study had 81 participants: 48 maltreating parents and 33 foster parents and the children who were in foster care. We examined family functioning (FES), adult attachment styles (ASQ) and foster children’s strengths and difficulties (SDQ) in maltreating and foster families to examine the differences and similarities between families. Both types of families had significant differences on the FES and ASQ scales. Maltreating families had a stronger orientation to succeed and a family profile that was more orientated towards independence. Maltreating parents had higher scores on the scale that measured discomfort with closeness than foster families. However, both family types had a high level of confidence. Many foster children had SDQ scores that were in the borderline and problem categories. These components may promote a theoretical view of an integrated model for family and children’s problems that promotes children’s welfare and supports maltreating parents. Practitioners can build on parent’s strengths or protective factors and provide services to address less developed areas.     

The effect of training and breed group on problem-solving behaviours in dogs

Dogs have become the focus of cognitive studies looking at both their physical and social problem-solving abilities (Bensky et al. in Adv Stud Behav, 45:209–387, 2013), but very little is known about the environmental and inherited factors that may affect these abilities. In the current study, we presented a manipulation task (a puzzle box) and a spatial task (the detour) to 128 dogs belonging to four different breed groups: Herding, Mastiff-like, Working and Retrievers (von Holdt et al. in Nature 464:898–902, 2010). Within each group, we tested highly trained and non-trained dogs. Results showed that trained dogs were faster at obtaining the reward in the detour task. In the manipulation task, trained dogs approached the apparatus sooner in the first familiarization trial, but no effect of breed emerged on this variable. Furthermore, regardless of breed, dogs in the trained group spent proportionally more time interacting with the apparatus and were more likely to succeed in the test trial than dogs in the non-trained group, whereas regardless of training, dogs in the working breed group were more likely to succeed than dogs in the retriever and herding breed groups (but not the mastiff-like group). Finally, trained dogs were less likely to look at a person than non-trained dogs during testing, but dogs in the herding group more likely to do so than dogs in the retriever and working but not the mastiff-like breed groups. Overall, results reveal a strong influence of training experience but less consistent differences between breed groups on different components thought to affect problem solving.     

The importance of gestural communication: a study of human–dog communication using incongruent information

We assessed how water rescue dogs, which were equally accustomed to respond to gestural and verbal requests, weighted gestural versus verbal information when asked by their owner to perform an action. Dogs were asked to perform four different actions (“sit”, “lie down”, “stay”, “come”) providing them with a single source of information (in Phase 1, gestural, and in Phase 2, verbal) or with incongruent information (in Phase 3, gestural and verbal commands referred to two different actions). In Phases 1 and 2, we recorded the frequency of correct responses as 0 or 1, whereas in Phase 3, we computed a ‘preference index’ (percentage of gestural commands followed over the total commands responded). Results showed that dogs followed gestures significantly better than words when these two types of information were used separately. Females were more likely to respond to gestural than verbal commands and males responded to verbal commands significantly better than females. In the incongruent condition, when gestures and words simultaneously indicated two different actions, the dogs overall preferred to execute the action required by the gesture rather than that required verbally, except when the verbal command “come” was paired with the gestural command “stay” with the owner moving away from the dog. Our data suggest that in dogs accustomed to respond to both gestural and verbal requests, gestures are more salient than words. However, dogs’ responses appeared to be dependent also on the contextual situation: dogs’ motivation to maintain proximity with an owner who was moving away could have led them to make the more ‘convenient’ choices between the two incongruent instructions.     

Modulation of working memory updating: Does long-term memory lexical association matter?

The aim of the present study was to investigate how working memory updating for verbal material is modulated by enduring properties of long-term memory. Two coexisting perspectives that account for the relation between long-term representation and short-term performance were addressed. First, evidence suggests that performance is more closely linked to lexical properties, that is, co-occurrences within the language. Conversely, other evidence suggests that performance is linked more to long-term representations which do not entail lexical/linguistic representations. Our aim was to investigate how these two kinds of long-term memory associations (i.e., lexical or nonlexical) modulate ongoing working memory activity. Therefore, we manipulated (between participants) the strength of the association in letters based on either frequency of co-occurrences (lexical) or contiguity along the sequence of the alphabet (nonlexical). Results showed a cost in working memory updating for strongly lexically associated stimuli only. Our findings advance knowledge of how lexical long-term memory associations between consonants affect working memory updating and, in turn, contribute to the study of factors which impact the updating process across memory systems.     

A Measure to Target Antipoverty Policies in the European Union Regions

The reformed cohesion policy (CP), which is the major investment tool in the European Union (EU) for delivering the Europe 2020 targets, will soon make available substantial funds to improve the quality of life of the EU citizens through supporting the economic and social development of the EU’s regions and cities. Because the reformed CP has intensified the emphasis on measuring results, also with respect to reducing poverty and social exclusion, this paper is about measuring poverty to better target EU local policies. We propose a measurement of poverty at the sub-national level in the EU by means of three poverty components describing absolute poverty, relative poverty and earnings and incomes. The core data source is the cross-sectional European Statistics on Income and Living Conditions (EU-SILC) micro-data, waves 2007–2009. Data reliability at the sub-national level is statistically assessed and the regional level is described whenever possible. To calculate the poverty components, an inequality-adverse type of aggregation is applied in order to limit compensability across indicators populating a component. No aggregation is, however, performed across the three components. In the computations of income-related indicators, individual disposable income adjusted for housing costs, used as a proxy for the costs of living, is used. Poverty is confirmed to be a multi-faceted phenomenon with clear within-country variability. This variation depends on the type of region likely linked to the urbanisation level and, consequently, to the costs of living. The proposed measure may serve to better target anti-poverty measures at the local, sub-national level in the EU.     

The Personality Panorama: Conceptualizing Personality Through Big Behavioural Data

Personality psychology has long been grounded in data typologies, particularly in the delineation of behavioural, life outcome, informant-report, and self-report sources of data from one another. Such data typologies are becoming obsolete in the face of new methods, technologies, and data philosophies. In this article, we discuss personality psychology's historical thinking about data, modern data theory's place in personality psychology, and several qualities of big data that urge a rethinking of personality itself. We call for a move away from self-report questionnaires and a reprioritization of the study of behaviour within personality science. With big data and behavioural assessment, we have the potential to witness the confluence of situated, seamlessly interacting psychological processes, forming an inclusive, dynamic, multiangle view of personality. However, big behavioural data come hand in hand with important ethical considerations, and our emerging ability to create a ‘personality panopticon’ requires careful and thoughtful navigation. For our research to improve and thrive in partnership with new technologies, we must not only wield our new tools thoughtfully, but humanely. Through discourse and collaboration with other disciplines and the general public, we can foster mutual growth and ensure that humanity's burgeoning technological capabilities serve, rather than control, the public interest. © 2020 European Association of Personality Psychology     

The role of in-group identification in infra-humanization

People tend to infra-humanize by attributing more human essence to their in-group than to out-groups. In the present article, we focus on the attribution of primary and secondary emotions to operationalize the human essence. We propose that, in order to infra-humanize, people need to be categorized in meaningful groups. In addition, we argue that what differentiates meaningful from nonmeaningful groups is that the people essentialize, perceiving members of the group as sharing an underlying, common essence. Also, we hypothesize that participants will identify more with their in-group in the case of meaningful groups. Three types of groups were created to manipulate the meaningfulness of the categorization. Participants were either randomly assigned to a group or they chose their group as a function of their preferences for a colour or the type of career they wished to pursue. As expected, infra-humanization occurred only where the categorization's criterion was meaningful. In addition, in-group identification, but not essentialism, mediated the impact of the categorization criteria on the tendency to infra-humanize. Data also showed that infra-humanization is different from classic in-group favouritism. This is because in-group favouritism, but not infra-humanization, was observed in the situation where group membership was based on random assignment. In other words, for infra-humanization to occur mere categorization is not enough; meaningfulness is also needed. For in-group favouritism to arise, the knowledge of being part of a group is a sufficient prerequisite. The discussion focuses on conditions for reducing infra-humanization and on the relationship between in-group favouritism and out-group derogation.