Children’s fine motor skills link to cognitive development, however, research on their involvement in language processing, also with adults, is scarce. Lexical items are processed differently depending on the degree of sensorimotor information inherent in the words’ meanings, such as whether these imply a body-object interaction or a body-part association. Accordingly, three studies examined whether lexical processing was affected by FMS, BOIness, and body-part associations in children and adults. Analyses showed a differential link between FMS and lexical processing as a (...) function of age. Whereas response latencies indicated that children’s FMS were associated with “hand” words, adults’ FMS linked to the broader concept of BOI. Findings have implications for shared activation theories positing that FMS support lexical processing. (shrink)

What were Shakespeare's final thoughts on history, tragedy, and comedy? Shakespeare's Last Plays focuses much needed scholarly attention on Shakespeare's "Late Romances." The work--a collection of newly commissioned essays by leading scholars of classical political philosophy and literature--offers careful textual analysis of Pericles, Prince of Tyre, Cymbeline, The Winter's Tale, The Tempest, All is True, and The Two Noble Kinsmen. The essays reveal how Shakespeare's thought in these final works compliments, challenges, fulfills, or transforms previously held conceptions of the (...) playwright and his political-philosophical views. (shrink)

The paper considers the question of whether it is possible to acquire beliefs at will, i.e. directly, simply as the result of willing to do so. In particular, it discusses an argument of Bernard Williams in "Deciding to Believe" to the conclusion that it is a necessary truth that one cannot acquire a belief at will. The argument is first clarified and reformulated so as to exhibit the underlying assumptions and explain precisely what he means by "acquiring beliefs at will." (...) The truth of the premises is then examined. Attention is focused on the most important assumption, which is that necessarily, if in full consciousness I will to acquire a belief b irrespective of its truth, then after the event it is impossible that I believe in full consciousness [b is a present belief of mine and I acquired b at will]. After further clarification of this claim, I argue that whatever plausibility it has results from the plausibility of another claim: Necessarily ~ (Ǝx) (Ǝp) (x believes [x believes p and x's belief of p is not sustained by any truth-considerations] ). I defend the latter claim against apparent counter-examples and show that it is compatible with the possibility conscious irrationality and has important implications. Nevertheless, I argue that even if it is true, other premises of Williams' argument are not plausible and he does not succeed in establishing that we cannot acquire beliefs at will. (shrink)

Affective theory of mind (aToM) impairments associated with the youth antisocial phenotype callous-unemotional (CU) traits predict antisocial behaviour above CU traits alone. Importantly, CU traits associate with decrements in complex but not basic aToM. aToM is modulated by cognitive control and CU traits associate with cognitive control impairments; thus, cognitive control is a plausible mechanism underlying aToM impairments in CU traits. Because cognitive control is dependent on the availability of cognitive resources, youth with CU traits may have difficulty with allocating (...) cognitive resources under greater demands that impact complex aToM. To test this, 81 participants (ages 12–14, Female = 51.8%, Male = 48.2%) were recruited to complete a behavioural paradigm that involved an initial aToM task with complex and basic emotions followed by placing additional demands on cognitive control and a final repeat of the same aToM task. Results indicate adolescents higher in CU traits had intact basic aToM but less accuracy in complex aToM that worsened after taxing cognitive control; and this load only required a short duration to account for ToM decrements (200 ms [range 150–1600 ms]). These results demonstrate CU traits association with cognitive control limitations that impact complex aToM. This may partially explain antisocial behaviour associated with CU traits. (shrink)

A wide variety of clinical situations can lead to the implementation of assisted nutrition and hydration (ANH). Both enteral ANH and parenteral assisted nutrition and hydration (PNH) serve to nourish and hydrate those who are incapable of normal eating and drinking. Although PNH via the intravenous (IV) route is comparable to enteral ANH in its intention, IV PNH bypasses the relevant body system—the digestive tract—entirely. Consequently, IV PNH is ethically comparable to mechanical ventilation and thus can be withheld or withdrawn (...) following the ethical criteria that apply to any other extraordinary therapeutic measure. However, other alternatives to oral and enteral hydration that are proportionately less challenging than IV PNH (i.e., hypodermoclysis and proctoclysis) should be further evaluated as potentially ordinary means of keeping patients adequately hydrated at the end of life. National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly 11.4 (Winter 2011): 649–659. (shrink)

I adopt a cladistic view of species, and explore the possibility that there exists an equally valuable cladistic view of organismic traits. This suggestion seems to run counter to the stress on functional views of biological traits in recent work in philosophy and psychology. I show how the tension between these two views can be defused with a multilevel view of biological explanation. Despite the attractions of this compromise, I conclude that we must reject it, and adopt an essentially cladistic (...) conception of biological traits. (shrink)

The problem of philosophical introductions - or, rather, introductions to the works of philosophers - is notorious. Generally, they fall into three categories. The first type are those which are no introduction at all in any but the most attenuated sense … Hegel’s introduction to The Phenomenology, Merleau-Ponty’s introduction to his Phenomenology of Perception, Husserl’s introduction to his Logical Investigations, or even Ideas, which is subtitled “Introduction to Pure Phenomenology.” Introductions of this sort have often attained the status of philosophic (...) texts in their own right as is the case with the now often discussed first introduction to Kant’s Critique of Judgment. (shrink)

Modal interpretations take quantum mechanics as a theory which assigns at all times definite values to magnitudes of quantum systems. In the case of single systems, modal interpretations manage to do so without falling prey to the Kochen and Specker no-go theorem, because they assign values only to a limited set of magnitudes. In this paper I present two further no-go theorems which prove that two modal interpretations become nevertheless problematic when applied to more than one system. The first theorem (...) proves that the modal interpretation proposed by Kochen and by Dieks cannot correlate the values simultaneously assigned to three systems. The second and new theorem proves that the atomic modal interpretation proposed by Bacciagaluppi and Dickson and by Dieks cannot correlate the values simultaneously and sequentially assigned to two systems if one assumes that these correlations are uniquely related to the dynamics of the state of the systems. (shrink)