Social entrepreneurship is usually understood as an economic activity which focuses at social values, goals, and investments that generates surpluses for social entrepreneurs as individuals, groups, and startups who are working for the benefit of communities, instead of strictly focusing mainly at the financial profit, economic values, and the benefit generated for shareholders or owners. Social entrepreneurship combines the production of goods, services, and knowledge in order to achieve both social and economic goals and allow for solidarity building. From a (...) broader perspective, entities that are focused on social entrepreneurship are identified as parts of the social and solidarity economy. These are, for example, social enterprises, cooperatives, mutual organizations, self-help groups, charities, unions, fair trade companies, community enterprises, and time banks. Social innovation is a key element of social entrepreneurship. Social innovation is usually understood as new strategies, concepts, products, services, and organizational forms that allow for the satisfaction of needs. Such innovations are created in particular in the contact areas of various sectors of the social system. For example, these are spaces between the public sector, the private sector, and civil society. These innovations not only allow the solving of problems but also extend possibilities for public action. (shrink)

Colombia is the second country with the highest number of internally displaced persons. In the last 10 years, more than 400,000 young people carry, in their life experiences, the title of victims. The psychological and social circumstances that determine the lives of displaced young people in the world are not unknown. Fear, the poor resources for social adaptation available to them, and the possible reproduction of the cycle of violence, represent psychosocial risk factors in the young and displaced population. In (...) this context, the Victims Law in Colombia stipulated various measures of repairment, including Relocation and Return provided the conditions of voluntariness, security, and dignity are present. A hypothesis that well-being will be better in the returnees was set, since they would strengthen the social support networks between neighbors and other victims in their old spaces of life. To test the hypothesis, the scales of Psychological Well-being, Social Well-being, the Satisfaction with Life Scale, and the Psychosocial Trauma Scale were applied to young returnees and relocated in Colombia. The Exploratory and Confirmatory Factor Analysis was performed to extract the general measure of well-being and psychosocial trauma followed by the comparison between the groups. Significance, power, and effect size indicators were obtained, and finally, the partial correlation between the groups was made in relation to psychosocial trauma and well-being. Results showed that returnees have greater well-being and clearer indicators, with respect to that of relocated. In addition, the well-being of returnees has fewer trauma factors, who in turn are quasi-moderated by the situation of return or relocation. (shrink)

BackgroundCognitive Behavioral Therapy is delivered in most of the early intervention services for psychosis in different countries around the world. This approach has been demonstrated to be effective in decreasing or at least delaying the onset of psychosis. However, none of them directly affect the comorbidity of these types of patients that is often the main cause of distress and dysfunctionality. The Unified Protocol for the Transdiagnostic Treatment of Emotional Disorders is a psychological intervention that combines cognitive-behavioral and third-generation techniques (...) that address emotional dysregulation as an underlying mechanism that these disorders have in common. The application of this intervention could improve the comorbid emotional symptoms of these patients.Materials and methodsThe study is a randomized controlled trial in which one group receives immediate UP plus standard intervention and the other is placed on a waiting list to receive UP 7 months later, in addition to standard care in one of our early psychosis programs. The sample will be 42 patients with UHR for psychosis with comorbid emotional symptoms. The assessment is performed at baseline, at the end of treatment, and at 3-months’ follow-up, and includes: general psychopathology, anxiety and depression, positive and negative emotions, emotional dysregulation, personality, functionality, quality of life, cognitive distortions, insight, and satisfaction with the UP intervention.DiscussionThis will be the first study of the efficacy, acceptability, and viability of the UP in a sample of young adults with UHR. The results of this study may have clinical implications, contributing to improving the model of care for young people who consult for underlying psychotic, anxiety, and/or depressive symptoms that can lead to high distress and dysfunctionality.Clinical trial registration[https://clinicaltrials.gov/], identifier [NCT04929938]. (shrink)

Innovation is progressively needed in responding to global challenges. Moreover, the increasing complexity of challenges implies demand for the usage of multisectoral and policy mix approaches. Wicked problems can be tackled by "integrated innovation" that combines the coordinated implementation of social, technological, and health innovation co-created by entities of the public sector, the private sector, the non-governmental sector, and the informal sector. This Research Topic focuses on filling the knowledge gaps about the selected types of innovation. First, regarding social innovation (...) that can be understood as new strategies, concepts, products, services, and organizational forms that allow the satisfaction of human needs. Second, a technological innovation that refers to new or remarkably improved products, goods, or services in terms of their technical specifications, components, materials, software, design, or other functional features. Third, health innovation that focuses on novel or enhanced health policies, systems, products, technologies, services, and care delivery schemes to improve people’s health. Finally, this Research Topic highlights attempts to develop integrated innovation that can add value to social policy, health policy, and environmental policy by improving efficiency, effectiveness, quality, sustainability, safety, and affordability. (shrink)

This Research Topic focuses on both strengths and weaknesses of social innovation, technological innovation, and health innovation that are increasingly recognized as crucial concepts related to the formulation of responses to the social, health, and environmental challenges. Goals of this Research Topic: (1) to identify and share the best recent practices and innovations related to social, environmental and health policies; (2) to debate on relevant governance modes, management tools as well as evaluation and impact assessment techniques; (3) to discuss dilemmas (...) in the fields of management, financing, designing, implementing, testing, and maintaining the sustainability of innovative models of delivering social, health and care services; and (4) to recognize and analyze social, technological and health innovation that has emerged or has been scaled-up to respond to crisis situations, for example, a pandemic of the COVID-19 coronavirus disease. (shrink)

What is ethnicity and how does it inform the way we understand ethical and political issues involving ethnic change and ethnically conscious public policies? Jorge J. E. Gracia put forth what he calls his ‘Familial-Historical View’ of ethnicity in which Hispanic identity is understood in terms of history and family resemblances. He criticizes what he calls the ‘Common-Bundle View’ of ethnicity which understands ethnic belonging in terms of an essence. I defend two negative theses which lead to the outlines (...) of a positive thesis: (1) Gracia’s arguments against the Common-Bundle View are not effective; (2) the Familial-Historical View is inadequate because it downplays the essential role that cultural phenomena play in making Hispanic history ethnically relevant to Hispanic identity. As a way of building on the Common-Bundle View I sketch a reformulation that avoids Gracia’s criticisms and is more politically and ethically effective than his family resemblance view of ethnicity. (shrink)

Se explora cr.ticamente el pensamiento del fil.sofo colombiano Jorge Aurelio Díaz acerca de la religi.n. En particular, se examina, por un lado, la cuestión del lugar y el papel de la religi.n en la modernidad, a partir de la pregunta por la racionalidad y el valor cognitivo de la creencia religiosa, y, por otro lado, la diferencia entre misticismoy religión. Se plantear.n y discutir.n algunos aspectos problemáticos de lamanera en que Díaz comprende ambos asuntos.

En estas páginas, Jorge Tamames relee a Karl Polanyi, Ernesto Laclau y Chantal Mouffe para analizar la historia política reciente de España y Estados Unidos.Así rastrea la evolución de los partidos y movimientos de izquierda desde los primeros días del neoliberalismo en la década de 1970, pasando por la crisis financiera de 2008 y el ciclo de protestas posterior a 2011, hasta la actualidad.La brecha y los cauces ofrece una mezcla necesaria de ideas teóricas, históricas y prácticas para (...) los interesados en el potencial radical del populismo de izquierdas. (shrink)

Hegel. La Odisea del Espíritu reúne la totalidad de las conferencias pronunciadas en el congreso homónimo que, coordinado por Félix Duque, se celebró en el Círculo de Bellas Artes y la Universidad Autónoma de Madrid entre el 28 de mayo y el 1 de junio de 2007 con motivo del segundo centenario de la publicación de "La Fenomenología del Espíritu". El congreso reunió a los mayores especialistas en la obra del pensador alemán y el resultado es una aportación de (...) primer orden a los estudios hegelianos, un libro de referencia imprescindible para quien quiera adentrarse en el magma de ideas y sugerencias de su libro capital. Incluye ensayos de Félix Duque, Volker Rühle, Walter Jaeschke, Jorge Pérez de Tudela, José María Ripalda, Eduardo Álvarez, Dietrich Von Engelhardt, Antonio Gómez Ramos, Klaus Vieweg, Ángel Gabilondo, Jacinto Rivera de Rosales, Paolo D'Angelo, Christoph Jamme, Vincenzo Vitiello y Klaus Düsing. Como el lector, hoy, podrá apreciar, los ensayos están hogaño ordenados como antaño se sucedieron las sesiones del Congreso, es decir: cada articulista interpreta y escribe para su coleto y el de sus lectores un capítulo o tema de la obra. Y así se va siguiendo con regular obediencia la sobresaltada vía de las experiencias de la conciencia, o sea: tal como la obra fue concebida entre -Hegel dixit- dolores del parto de un mundo nuevo que, de no haberse malogrado tan pronto, habría hecho de aquélla, efectivamente, palabra de ayer. Del "Preámbulo" de Félix Duque. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Zeitschrift für kritische Sozialtheorie und Philosophie Jahrgang: 5 Heft: 2 Seiten: 239-263.

What is ethnicity and how does it inform the way we understand ethical and political issues involving ethnic change and ethnically conscious public policies? Jorge J. E. Gracia put forth what he calls his ‘Familial-Historical View’ of ethnicity in which Hispanic identity is understood in terms of history and family resemblances. He criticizes what he calls the ‘Common-Bundle View’ of ethnicity which understands ethnic belonging in terms of an essence. I defend two negative theses which lead to the outlines (...) of a positive thesis: (1) Gracia’s arguments against the Common-Bundle View are not effective; (2) the Familial-Historical View is inadequate because it downplays the essential role that cultural phenomena play in making Hispanic history ethnically relevant to Hispanic identity. As a way of building on the Common-Bundle View I sketch a reformulation that avoids Gracia’s criticisms and is more politically and ethically effective than his family resemblance view of ethnicity. (shrink)

A partir de uma sugestão de Gilles Deleuze e Félix Guattari – a de que todos os filósofos ocidentais terminaram construindo, no interregno do seu pensamento, personagens conceituais, uma espécie de assinatura do filósofo – este livro objetiva identificar esse traço a partir da obra de Michel Foucault. A tese em questão é que este autor não se enquadra em uma imagem única, como a do Juiz em Kant, ou a do sedutor em Kierkegaard, mas em uma imagem híbrida (...) e triádica, fazendo coro com muitos filósofos chamados de transversais e que se instalaram no horizonte de filosofias chamadas de pós-estruturalistas, como Deleuze. (shrink)

A theory can be an explanation of a piece of the world. A theory of law is intended to be an explanation of that phenomenon of social communication which we call Law. But, Raffaele De Giorgi, perhaps the person responsible for the introduction of luhmannian theory in Argentina, (jointly with Torres Nafarrate in Mexico in translating Luhmann’s work to Spanish), asked: What is a theory of society? What is the “Law of society”? And answered: Can we discuss this?, hands managed (...) by hands, nothing different from a prostheses. According to De Giorgi we are sure that the themes that we use as objects or objects that we use as themes, are our construction, we think that we turn around ourselves, while we continue rotating around the vacuum. It is a paradox, or another paradox: ¿Is it possible to get out or get rid of these paradoxes? Logic does not help us. Logic, according to Luhmann, can only see to the fact that some expressions, with unavailable truths, are in contradiction with other expressions, the problem cannot be resolved us- ing logical operations. With the help of Gegenparadoxierungen (against-par- adox), systemic therapy is the alternative where the problem can be toler- ated. And, according to Luhmann, the placement of the paradox should be conducted in a more or less skilled, successful, or useful way to break the logjam.A creative use of paradoxes, especially legal ones, allows us to observe how Luhmann’s theory has impacted existing theories in ArgentinaThemes such as the paradoxality of law, or its being without foundation (and without beginning, the vacuity of their principles and the opacity of its distinctions and operations), filtered theories (like Carlos Cárcova or Ernesto Grün) and jurisprudential practices have started shifting things to what Bielefeld Professor has called “old European”Resumen:Una teoría puede ser una explicación de un sector del mundo. Una teoría del derecho pretende ser una explicación de ese fenómeno de comunicación social que llamamos derecho. Pero, Raffaele De Giorgi, tal vez uno de los máximos responsables de la introducción de la teoría de la luhmanniana en la Argentina (junto a Javier Torres Nafarrate de México, a través de su traducción de las obras de Luhmann al español), pregunta:¿Qué es una teoría de la sociedad? ¿Qué es el “Derecho de la sociedad”? y responde: es que podemos discutir esto?, manos que son manejadas por manos, nada diferente de una prótesis. Y agrega: estamos seguros de que los temas que usamos como objetos o los objetos que utilizamos como temas, son nuestra construcción, pensamos que nos volvemos sobre nosotros mismos, mientras continuamos girando alrededor del vacío.Es una paradoja, u otra paradoja. ¿Es posible salir, deshacerse de estas paradojas? La lógica no nos ayuda. La lógica dice Luhmann, sólo puede ver el hecho de que algunas expresiones, cuya verdad no está disponible, entran en contradicción con otras expresiones, para las cuales vale decir la misma cosa. Usando operaciones lógicas, el problema no puede ser resuelto. Como terapia sistémica la única que podemos ver, con el auxilio de la Gegenparadoxierungen (“contra-paradoja”), es un lugar menos doloroso en el que puede tolerarse el problema. Y recordó que, en cierto sentido, la colocación de la paradoja se realizará con más o menos éxito, esto es: de manera útil para desbloquear la situación.Y es el uso creativo de paradojas, especialmente uno que se hizo por el Derecho, el que nos permite observar cómo su teoría (la de Luhmann) se ha comenzado a reciclar en las teorías existentes en Argentina. Temas como el problema de la paradojalidad del Derecho, de su ser sin fundamentos y sin comienzo, de la vacuidad de sus principios y la opacidad de sus operaciones y distinciones, se filtran teorías (como las de Carlos Cárcova o Ernesto Grün) y prácticas de la jurisprudencia y puede verse que ha comenzado a remover ese tipo de pensamiento que el profesor de Bielefeld había llamado “vétero europeo”. (shrink)

Frecuentemente, los historiadores sitúan sus investigaciones en torno a una serie de límites, tales como un cierto número de años, algún período histórico en particular, las fronteras naturales de una comuna, provincia, región, o país, entre muchos otros. Esta técnica se usa con el objeto de abordar y profundizar de mayor y mejor manera los temas que en los trabajos se recogen, lo que provoca que todo lo que queda fuera del tema estudiado se deje de lado, o se mencione (...) de manera mínima en alg.. (shrink)

El presente trabajo enfatiza algunos de los aspectos filosóficos que envuelven el pensamiento de Jorge Quintero Atencio, haciendo especial énfasis en el postulado de la congruencia de la unidad-bloque físico-lógico-ética, del proceso dialéctico universal, planteado en su texto Biología de la Mente. Allá se establece una vinculación entre la cosmología estoica y los conceptos de libertad y altruismo, apoyándose para ello, en ciertas argumentaciones filosóficas y teológicas. Por último, apelando a la relación entre las leyes dialécticas y las (...) leyes físicas del universo, que rigen al individuo. De esta manera se explica el origen de los sentimientos y de las emociones a la luz de la red neuronal, como fiel representación del binomio organismo-ambiente. Este trabajo puede ser considerado como una exploración descriptiva del quehacer filosófico, su metodología ha sido estructurada bajo el paradigma hermenéutico. (shrink)

Philosophers have offered many arguments to explain why historical injustices require reparations. This paper raises an unnoticed challenge for almost all of them. Most theories of reparations attempt to meet two intuitions: (1) Reparations are owed for a past wrong and (2) the content of reparations must reflect the historical injustice. I argue that necessarily no monistic theory can meet both intuitions. I do this by showing that any theory that can meet intuition (1) necessarily cannot also meet intuition (2). (...) This result suggests that a theory of reparations must either sacrifice one of the two intuitions or be pluralist. I argue that we ought to prefer the pluralist over the monistic theory. I sketch the pluralist theory and I defend it by considering an objection about the way it can resolve conflicts. (shrink)

Se propone una reflexión filosófica sobre el imperativo ético y político de pensar y reconstruir nuestro pasado a partir de la experiencia del sujeto latinoamericano oprimido y resistente. En este orden de ideas, el objetivo principal del artículo es emprender una búsqueda de aquellos lugares en los que habitan y se conservan en el tiempo las memorias de los latino-americanos antes y después del proceso de colonización o de “invasión” de la Modernidad europea. Esta indagación se inclina específicamente hacia esas (...) memorias “no oficiales”, construidas desde las comunidades en sus prácticas culturales, que mediante la rememoración y la tradición oral crearon vínculos de resistencia contra el olvido, al tiempo que preservaban aspectos fundamentales de sus tradiciones. Así, llamamos lugares a aquellos elementos que albergan fragmentos de lo pretérito invisibilizado por el discurso histórico oficial y que permiten establecer un vínculo trascendente entre pasado y presente, una recreación del pasado que surge a partir de la reconstrucción interpretativa de ruinas, rastros y vestigios de un tiempo que no ha dejado de ser y al que aún es posible acceder y conocer. Posteriormente, se destacan algunos episodios importantes de nuestra historia latinoamericana en los que esas memorias encuentran su lugar. (shrink)

Normal 0 21 false false false ES-CO X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Tabla normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0cm; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; line-height:115%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} This essay presents a reading of modern liberalism from Leo Strauss´thought. Starting with his analysis of Carl Schmitt’s Concept of the Political and its critique of liberal “neutralization and depolitization”, Strauss posits an affirmation of the (...) problem of natural right, for which it is a fundamental first step to study the political philosophy of Hobbes. In contrast with Schmitt and Hobbes, Strauss´ thought points towards a consideration of classical natural right as a riposte to the political nihilism or apolitical cosmopolitanism of late-modernity, both products of radical historicism as well as methodological positivism. Strauss considers the search of natural right qua representation of the idea of justice a distinct alternative to the affirmation of the will through sovereign power. Normal 0 21 false false false ES-CO X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4. (shrink)

In this hugely influential book, Laclau and Mouffe examine the workings of hegemony and contemporary social struggles, and their significance for democratic theory. With the emergence of new social and political identities, and the frequent attacks on Left theory for its essentialist underpinnings, Hegemony and Socialist Strategy remains as relevant as ever, positing a much-needed antidote against ‘Third Way’ attempts to overcome the antagonism between Left and Right.

There was a lot of fuss a few years ago about the landing of left-wing populism in the global North at the hands of Syriza, Podemos, La France Insoumise, Corbyn and Sanders, but there has not been as much critical evaluation on their breakthroughs and limitations after their electoral defeats. Jorge Tamames’ book "For the People" attempts to do so by focusing on two particular case studies: Spain and the United States.

The aim of this paper is to show that we are entitled to see in Schütz’s article “Equality and the Social Meaning Structure” the proposal for a formal analysis of group membership understood as a kind of We-experience irreducible to pure We-relationships. First I argue that such an account defines the experience of group membership as a “situation definition process”. Then I show the relevance of this approach for the description of membership experiences and current debates on Collective Intentionality. Finally, (...) I point to its unclarified conceptual presuppositions—such as the at­tribution of situations to groups—, and propose an interpretative solution by drawing on the notions of “social situation” and community of relevances from The Structures of the Life-World. (shrink)

In this article, we shift the usual analytical attention of the GPN framework from lead firms to suppliers in the network and from production to IT services. Our focus is on how Indian IT suppliers embed in the Netherlands along the threefold characterization of societal, territorial and network embeddedness. We argue that Indian IT suppliers attempt to display societal embeddedness when they move to The Netherlands. Our findings reveal that the endeavour by Indian IT suppliers to territorially dis-embed from the (...) Dutch context is reinforced by their peripheral position in the network and their ability to offshore work in a bid to contain costs, in addition to the influence of client domination. Therefore, territorial embeddedness is considered to be secondary to societal embeddedness which is intertwined with client interest while neglecting the interest of other network members. Nonetheless, the inter-firm relationship is complex, given the tension between societal, territorial and network embeddedness. While preferring Indian IT suppliers because of their low pricing, Dutch clients also insist on compliance with the institutional context of the Netherlands especially when it comes to Dutch employees. This results in hybridization which means that Indian IT suppliers find ways to adhere to the institutional framework for Dutch nationals while simultaneously insulating Indian employees from the same. Consequently, a highly unfair segmented internal labour market develops, with Dutch nationals being treated more favourably as compared to Indian nationals. Nonetheless, to address these violations, Indian employees prefer individual strategies of resilience and rework rather than a collectivization response. (shrink)

Increasing global competition has intensified the use of informal sector workforce worldwide. This phenomenon is true with regard to India, where 92% of the workers hold precarious jobs. Our study examines the dynamics of workplace dignity in the context of Indian security guards deployed as contract labour by private suppliers, recognising that security guards’ jobs were marked by easy access, low status, disrespect and precariousness. The experiences of guards serving bank ATMs were compared with those working in large reputed organisations. (...) The former reported loss of dignity though their inherent self-worth remained partially intact, whereas the latter reclaimed dignity despite the precarious working conditions and the absence of unions. Guards from large reputed organisations evolved strategies by which they took advantage of the client’s vulnerabilities, developed ‘thick’ relationships at work and immersed themselves in 'doing dignity work' to ensure that they are not disposable. ‘Doing dignity work’ was a visible device which involved actions that met or went beyond the norms laid down by the client and was used by security guards to limit the extent of their precariousness. Since the opportunity to reclaim dignity was facilitated by large reputed clients’ adherence to legal regulations, we see implications of the study for the moral economy. (shrink)

Entre las críticas de los más férreos oponentes de la teoría kuhniana de la ciencia sobresale un reparo que fue planteado simultáneamente tanto por Popper, como por su discípulo Watkins. Ambos filósofos sostuvieron que, si nos comprometemos con la tesis que afirma que hay Ciencia Normal, tendríamos que aceptar la consecuencia absurda de que las teorías científicas degeneran en dogmas. En este trabajo mostraré que la tesis de Kuhn no tiene las implicaciones desastrosas atrás señaladas y que Popper -y Watkins- (...) ofrecen una imagen increíblemente distorsionada de la naturaleza misma de la Ciencia Normal y de los paradigmas, a tal punto que las razones en las cuales Popper basa la acusación de dogmatismo dependen de un argumento defectuoso. Para ello, voy a contrastar los patrones históricos que Kuhn identifica en los episodios de Ciencia Normal, con las características que le atribuyen sus críticos. Argumentaré, a partir de las contribuciones de Hooke a la mecánica clásica, que no es cierto que uno de los atributos que distingue a los “científicos normales” sea la adhesión doctrinaria, i.e., que el científico normal está obligado a suscribir una teoría por moda o por autoridad. Palabras-clave: paradigmas, ciencia normal, teoría dominante, dogma, mecánica clásica de partículas. (shrink)

RESUMEN Se analiza si la versión de la justicia como equidad, presentada en El liberalismo político, es genuinamente una concepción política. Se examina el problema de la razonabilidad de las doctrinas comprehensivas, y se indaga luego si el argumento en dos etapas afecta la integridad estructural del liberalismo político. Se concluye que J. Rawls fracasa en su intento de justificar un liberalismo independiente de una doctrina comprehensiva de carácter liberal. ABSTRACT The article analyzes whether the conception of justice as fairness, (...) set forth by Rawls in Political Liberalism, is a genuine political conception. It first examines the issue of reasonableness of comprehensive doctrines and then goes on to inquire whether the two-step argument affects the structural integrity of political liberalism. The paper concludes that J. Rawls fails in his attempt to justify liberalism independently of a comprehensive liberal doctrine. (shrink)

This paper aims to analyze the metaphorological project of Hans Blumenberg in relation to the philosophical developments of conceptual history in the mid-twentieth century. It is argued that Blumenberg, based on the study of metaphor, seeks to endow philosophy with a historical substrate that gives rise to the concept, forgotten by the inheritance of the cartesian philosophy. In this way, metaphors, but also myths and anecdotes, fulfill a pragmatic guiding function of thought and expe- rience, becoming indispensable for human life.

In typical statistical learning studies, researchers define sequences in terms of the probability of the next item in the sequence given the current item (or items), and they show that high probability sequences are treated as more familiar than low probability sequences. Existing accounts of these phenomena all assume that participants represent statistical regularities more or less as they are defined by the experimenters—as sequential probabilities of symbols in a string. Here we offer an alternative, or possibly supplementary, hypothesis. Specifically, (...) rather than identifying or labeling individual stimuli discretely in order to predict the next item in a sequence, we need only assume that the participant is able to represent the stimuli as evincing particular similarity relations to one another, with sequences represented as trajectories through this similarity space. We present experiments in which this hypothesis makes sharply different predictions from hypotheses based on the assumption that sequences are learned over discrete, labeled stimuli. We also present a series of simulation models that encode stimuli as positions in a continuous two‐dimensional space, and predict the next location from the current location. Although no model captures all of the data presented here, the results of three critical experiments are more consistent with the view that participants represent trajectories through similarity space rather than sequences of discrete labels under particular conditions. (shrink)

Praise for First Edition: `This book is highly recommended to a wide range of people as a clear and systematic introduction to phenomenological psychology... the book has set the stage for possible new colloquia between the phenomenological and other approaches in psychology' - Changes `As a trainee interested in matters existential, I have been put off in the past by the long-winded and confusing texts usually available in academic libraries. Thankfully, here is a text that remedies that situation... [it] provides (...) a readable and insightful account' - Clinical Psychology Forum 'Spinelli’s classic introduction to phenomenology should be essential reading on all person-centred, existential and humanistic trainings, and any other counselling or psychotherapy course which aims to help students develop an in-depth understanding of human lived-experience. This book is sure to remain a key text for many years to come' - Mick Cooper, Senior Lecturer in Counselling, University of Strathclyde 'This is by far the most monumental, erudite, comprehensive, authoritative case that Existentialism and Phenomenology (a) have a rightful place in the academy; (b) are tough-minded bodies of thought; (c) have rigorous scientific foundations; (d) bequeath a distinctive school of psychotherapy and counselling; and (e) are just as good as the more established systems of psychology' - Alvin R. Mahrer, Ph.D. University of Ottawa, Canada, Author of The Complete Guide To Experiential Psychotherapy 'This book’s rich insight into the lacunae of modern psychological thinking illustrates the contribution that existential phenomenology can make to founding a coherently mature Psychology that is both fully human(e) and responsibly ‘scientific’ in the best sense of that term' - Richard House, Ph.D., Magdalen Medical Practice, Norwich; Steiner Waldorf teacher. The Interpreted World, Second Edition, is a welcome introduction to phenomenological psychology, an area of psychology which has its roots in notoriously difficult philosophical literature. Writing in a highly accessible, jargon-free style, Ernesto Spinelli traces the philosophical origins of phenomenological theory and presents phenomenological perspectives on central topics in psychology - perception, social cognition and the self. He compares the phenomenological approach with other major contemporary psychological approaches, pointing up areas of divergence and convergence with these systems. He also examines implications of phenomenology for the precepts and process of psychotherapy. For the Second Edition, a new chapter on phenomenological research has been added in which the author focuses on the contribution of phenomenology in relation to contemporary scientific enquiry. He describes the methodology used in phenomenological research and illustrates the approach through an actual research study. The Interpreted World, Second Edition demystifies an exciting branch of psychology, making its insights available to all students of psychology, psychotherapy and counselling. (shrink)