Psychotic-like experiences are a phenomenon that occurs in the general population experiencing delusional thoughts and hallucinations without being in a clinical condition. PLEs involve erroneous attributions of inner cognitive events to the external environment and the presence of intrusive thoughts influenced by dysfunctional beliefs; for these reasons, the role played by metacognition has been largely studied. This study investigates PLEs in a non-clinical population and discriminating factors involved in this kind of experience, among which metacognition, as well as psychopathological features, (...) seems to have a crucial role. The aim of this study was to extend the knowledge about the relationship between metacognition, psychopathology, and PLEs, orienting the focus on metacognitive functioning. The sample consisted of 207 Italian participants voluntarily recruited online, who gave consent to participate in the study. The average age of the sample was 32.69 years. Subjects affected by psychosis, neurological disease, and drug addiction were excluded from the analyses. The following scales were used to investigate PLEs: Peters et al. Delusions Inventory, Launay-Slade Hallucinations Scale-Extended Revised, Prodromal Questionnaire-Brief, and Revised Hallucination Scale. To assess general psychopathological features, the Behavior and Symptom Identification Scale was administrated. The Metacognition Self-Assessment Scale was chosen to evaluate metacognitive functioning. From hierarchical regression analyses, it emerged that the presence of anxiety, depression, and impulsive/addictive symptoms constitute a remarkable vulnerability factor for PLEs, in line with previous evidence regarding the relationship between general psychopathology and PLEs. Metacognition negatively predicts PLEs, and its presence does not affect the significance of psychopathological variables, suggesting that metacognitive abilities seem to play a protective role for the occurrence of PLEs among non-clinical individuals, and such ability operates as an independent predictor along with other variables. These results are explained by the role of metacognitive functions, which allow individuals to operate many mental processes such as interpreting sensorial events as real or illusory, understanding behaviors, thoughts, and drives of others, and questioning the subjective interpretation of facts. (shrink)

How can firms support their customers' collaborative, social responsibility initiatives — and especially pro-environmental, firm—customer collaborations? Does corporate transparency affect customers' willingness to undertake pro-environmental collaborative programs? This study addresses these questions in relation to the US residential electricity market. It focuses on the impact of customers' perceptions of the utility's degree of transparency and on the willingness to engage in proenvironmental behavior related to electricity consumption. The responses of 1257 interviewees from US households to questions related to their electricity (...) suppliers are analyzed through structural equation models (SEMs) using latent variables. Results show that customers' perceptions of an electricity utility's transparency affect their willingness to collaborate in environmental programs, and that the degree of perceived transparency of the utility is related to customers' environmental awareness. (shrink)

Both the global workspace theory and Block’s distinction between phenomenal and access consciousness, are central in the current debates about consciousness and the neural correlates of consciousness. In this article, a unifying global workspace model for phenomenal and access consciousness is proposed. In the model, recurrent neural interactions take place in distinct yet interacting access and phenomenal brain loops. The effectiveness of feedback signaling onto sensory cortical maps is emphasized for the neural correlates of phenomenal consciousness. Two forms of top-down (...) attention, attention for perception and attention for access, play differential roles for phenomenal and access consciousness. The model is implemented in a neural network form, with the simulation of single and multiple visual object processing, and of the attentional blink. (shrink)

One important problem in the philosophy of science is whether there can be a normative theory of discovery, as opposed to a normative theory of justification. Although the possibility of developing a logic of scientific discovery has been often doubted by philosophers, it is particularly interesting to consider how the basic insights of a normative theory of discovery have been turned into an effective research program in computer science, namely the research field of machine learning. In this paper, I introduce (...) some current research on statistical models to a philosophical audience. In particular, I will stress those features of statistical models that make them plausible computational counterparts of scientific theories. After noticing how these models allow for the main kinds of inference that are a trademark of scientific theories, I will focus on the problem of learning statistical models from data. The analysis will show how machine learning is casting new light on traditional problems in the philosophy of science. More precisely, I will explore the implications of some results in statistical learning with respect to the role of simplicity in theory choice and to the role of scalability (as a formal property of induction) in making scientific discovery effective. (shrink)

This article uses the Historia Lausiaca of Palladius (cc. 33-34) to identify in a monastic and ecclesiastical community some verbal, psychological and physical violence that reflects what today would be framed as bullying.

This article presents the results of the longitudinal study of Addiopizzo, a successful anti-bribery organization founded in Sicily in 2004. It analyzes how this organization has used information disclosure as a strategy to fight adverse environmental conditions and the immoral activities of the Sicilian Mafia. This article extends the business ethics and corporate social responsibility literature by showing how multi-level strategic information disclosure processes can help gain organizational legitimacy in adverse social environments and successfully fight against social resistance to change, (...) low levels of moral imagination and attacks from criminal organizations. This article provides an additional contribution to the literature by linking the three research streams on corporate transparency, the fight against corruption, and organizational legitimacy. The results of this research also contribute to the special issue of the EBEN AC 2010, “Which values for which organizations”, since it provides a unique example of an organization capable of spreading the values of social justice and honesty in a difficult social environment plagued by Mafia. (shrink)

Mindfulness can be understood as the mental ability to focus on the direct and immediate perception or monitoring of the present moment with a state of open and nonjudgmental awareness. Descriptions of mindfulness and methods for cultivating it originated in eastern spiritual traditions. These suggest that mindfulness can be developed through meditation practice to increase positive qualities such as awareness, insight, wisdom, and compassion. In this article we focus on the relationships between mindfulness, with associated meditation practices, and the cognitive (...) neuroscience of attention and awareness. Mindful awareness is related to distributed attention, phenomenal consciousness, and momentary self-awareness, as characterized by recent findings in cognitive psychology and neuroscience as well as in influential consciousness models. Finally, we outline an integrated neurocognitive model of mindfulness, attention, and awareness, with a key role of prefrontal cortex. (shrink)

Over the years, research in the field of narratological studies has converged towards a unitary vision of narrativity, which is based on a shared interpretation of Aristotle's Poetics. The object of this article is to describe the main characteristics of an alternative model of narrativity, which I propose to call “Nietzschean narratology”. In particular, I emphasize the role that the notion of melancholy plays within the model of aesthetic experience of The Birth of Tragedy. I wish to show that, in (...) this work, Nietzsche criticizes the artificiality of the Aristotelian catharsis, by opposing to it the naturalness of the “Dionysiac melancholy” which, according to him, vivifies the Attic drama. (shrink)

In this paper we investigate the role of performative contradictions in legal discourse. First of all we identify the argumentative roles of performative contradictions and two possible interpretations of them. With this done, we show that one use of performative contradictions can be fruitfully applied in analysing normative speech acts implementing norm enactment, namely, those speech acts that are designed to produce new legal norms. We conclude the paper by showing that our analysis provides strong support for Robert Alexy's claim-to-correctness (...) thesis, according to which speech acts of the norm-enacting kind raise a claim to correctness. (shrink)

The article analyses some aspects of Schmitt’s theories on international law, in particular the notion of Gro ß raum. The assumption is that with this notion Schmitt tries to re-think politics and international relations beyond the classical categories of the State. From this point of view, there is an essential affinity between the concept of politics explained in the homonymous essay published in 1927 and the concept of Gro ß raum. After the Second World War, Schmitt distances himself from the (...) notion of Gro ß raum, too close to the nazi theories, and focuses on that of nomos, explained in Der Nomos der Erde, and on the crisis of the Jus publicum europaeum. However, Schmitt fails to define which system of international relations should follow the Jus publicum europaeum and the same notion of nomos remains rather undefined. In the last part of the paper the author compares Schmitt’s theories about international law and some theories of Kelsen, with particular reference to the theory of bellum justum. (shrink)

The paper deals with a method of hierarchization of alternatives in a multicriteria environment by means of statistical nonparametric procedures. For each criterion, alternatives are disposed on an ordinal scale. After that a procedure similar to ANOVA is activated on the data. The differences relating to the average ranks of each action are used to build the hierarchical algorithm. The concept of outranking, in a probabilistic meaning, is reached in this way. Thereafter, we arrive at the concept of dominance using (...) pairwise comparisons. A case study is presented which implements the methodological suggestion. (shrink)

This special issue on network ethics offers 15 scholarly articles from a variety of disciplines and fields of study, all aimed at exploring some important aspect of how networks develop, enact, and enforce ethical norms. The articles are ordered according to the levels of analysis each deals with, ranging from the cognitive/intra-personal to the systemic/societal. Taken together, these articles provide a fresh look at how networks are changing the way business is done and the way we think about ethics.

In my contribution, I discuss the important role of moral anthropological questions in the development of Schiller’s theoretical thought. I underline the fact that Schiller’s philosophical questions in Jena are much closer to those he confronted in Stuttgart – much closer than is considered to be the case in contemporary Schiller scholarship. I show how this continuity becomes evident when we take into consideration the moral anthropological topics that continued to interest Schiller throughout his life. To ground my argument, I (...) show that the concept of the“whole human being” (i. e. the concept of a human considered in its entirety, as both sensible and rational) constitutes the continuous characteristic of Schiller’s philosophical considerations. (shrink)

This article tries to show William James’s presence in the works of Eugenio d’Ors by offering key textual evidence. Both the agreement and disagreement between these two philosophers can help to understand the intellectual itinerary of the Spanish philosopher.

The work we present has a double purpose: sketching some thinking guidelines to overcome the typical Sicilian Mafia mindset and, at the same time, helping to reinforce the theoretical–methodological paradigm of group analysis by means of a dialogue with the concept of relational good. In this framework of dialogue and confrontation, since psychical, social, and economic developments influence each other, they can determine a strong repercussion in the social context of individuals. Relational good thus becomes not only an interdisciplinary intersection, (...) but also a tool that can significantly help fulfilling suitable programs of local development. (shrink)

In the past few decades a remarkable change occurred in Kant scholarship: the "other" Kant has been discovered, i.e. the one of the doctrine of virtue and the anthropology. Through the rediscovery of Kant's investigations into the empirical and sensuous aspects of knowledge, our understanding of Kant's philosophy has been enriched by an important element that has allowed researchers to correct supposed deficiencies in Kant's work. In addition, further questions concerning the nature of Kant's philosophy itself have been formulated: the (...) more the "other" Kant comes to the fore, the stronger the question concerning the connection between pure philosophy and empirical investigation becomes. The aim of this study is to show that the psychological and anthropological interpretations of Kant's pure philosophy are not convincing and at the same time to illustrate some connections between his critical and anthropological investigations by means of an analysis of the theory of the faculties. Against both a "transcendental psychological" and an "anthropological" reading, the book presents Kant's theory of the facultiesas a constitutive part of his critical philosophy andshows that there is a close connection between Kant's pure philosophy and his moral aesthetic. (shrink)

In this article we argue that the classical—linear and bottom-up directed—models of causation in biology, and the ‘‘proximate/ultimate’’ dichotomy, are inappropriate to capture the complexity inherent to biological processes. We introduce a new notion of ‘‘multilevel causation’’ where old dichotomies such as proximate/ultimate and bottom-up/ top-down are reinterpreted within a multilevel, web-like, approach. In briefly reviewing some recent work on complexity, EvoDevo, carcinogenesis, autocatalysis, comparative genomics, animal regeneration, phenotypic plasticity, and niche construction, we will argue that such reinterpretation is a (...) necessary step for the advancement of the ‘‘Extended Synthesis.’’. (shrink)