Making inferences in communication is a highly context-dependent endeavor. Previous research found cultural variations for context-sensitivity as well as for communication comprehension. However, the relative impact of culture and context-sensitivity on communication comprehension has not been investigated so far. The current study aimed at investigating this interplay and tested 4- and 6-year-old children from Germany (n = 132) and China (n = 129). Context-sensitivity was measured with an adapted version of the Ebbinghaus illusion. In this task, children have to discriminate the size of two target circles that only appear to be of similar size due to context circles surrounding the target circles. As expected, performance scores indicated higher degrees of context-sensitivity in Chinese compared to German children and that 6-year-olds were more context-sensitive than 4-year-olds. Further, in an object-choice communication-comprehension task, children watched videos with puppets performing everyday activities (e.g., pet care) and had to choose between two options (e.g., dog or rabbit). A puppet expressed what she wanted either directly (“I want the rabbit”) or indirectly (“I have a carrot”). The children had to choose one option to give to the puppet. In both cultures, 6-year-olds outperformed 4-year-olds and children understood direct communication better than indirect communication. Culture was found to affect children’s processing speed of direct communication. Moreover, culture influenced children’s context-sensitivity while contextsensitivity influenced children’s accuracy in the indirect (but not the direct) communication task. These findings demonstrate that taking context into account is especially important when we are confronted with indirect communication.

Mémoire numérisé par la Division de la gestion de documents et des archives de l'Université de Montréal.

Context: Literature suggests that prenatal care and prenatal supplement use improves pregnancy outcomes. However, we do not know the factors associated with prenatal care and supplement use in Honduras.Objective: To identify characteristics of Honduran women who are the least and most likely to use prenatal care and supplements.Methods: Data from a 2001 Honduras cross-sectional survey of women was used to assess their use of prenatal care and supplements. All data was weighted, resulting in a sample size of n = 5647 women who had a live birth since January 1996. Bivariate and multivariate analyses were used to examine factors associated with prenatal care and supplement use.Results: Current education level was highly positively related to prenatal care and supplement use. Women who were 35 years or older at the time of their most recent birth, currently unmarried, of non-Catholic religious affiliation, and of low SES were significantly less likely to have used prenatal care and supplements. Women who reported the intentionality of their most recent birth as unwanted also were significantly less likely to have used prenatal care and supplements. Prenatal care was the most significant determinant of prenatal supplement use.Conclusion: There are significant differences between Honduran women who use prenatal care and supplements and women who do not. Efforts to increase prenatal health services among underserved women, especially women who are older, unmarried, with no formal education, of low SES, of a non-Catholic religious affiliation, and at risk for an unwanted pregnancy, may significantly improve pregnancy outcomes in Honduras.

This thesis provides the theoretical groundwork for a 'virtue ethical' account of international political conduct. The project begins by investigating the distinct patterns of normative theorising within international scholarship, noting not only that moral philosophical foundations are unpronounced and interchangeable, but that even in this diminished capacity the influence of virtue ethical thought is limited and fragmentary relative to its competitors. Redressing this underrepresentation is thus dually motivated: developing a fresh perspective on important global issues, whilst also subjecting the theory to an atypical angle of scrutiny. Adapting virtue ethics to the international realm requires, most essentially, that we settle the level at which its concepts should be applied. Can the theory’s central focus on character be reconciled with the collective nature of global political interaction? Can we accurately ascribe virtues and vices to governments and states? These questions of group agency form the heart of thesis investigation. Beginning from abstract foundations, the possible justification for such ascriptions is sought in competing theories of joint action and attitude. The 'individualist' accounts of Searle and Bratman are ultimately rejected in favour of Gilbert's non-reductive 'plural subject' theory, and - presenting group-level accounts of intention, motivation, practical wisdom, emotion and disposition around her concept of 'joint commitment' - a general model of collective character is constructed. Allied to additional requirements of moral responsibility, this framework is then used to assess the virtue-capability of actual political bodies, considering the decision-making hierarchy of the United Kingdom as a case study for the modern state. Tracing the route of policy authorisation across cabinet, government and parliament, a sophisticated yet ultimately impermanent picture of group-virtue-ethical agency is established, in tension with the notion of enduring state liability. By shifting focus to the national level, it is argued that this fluctuating footprint of agency can nevertheless be unified, modifying Gilbert’s notion of a 'population joint commitment' to tie institutional virtue and vice to a persisting state identity. This provides a template for international character evaluation.

This thesis deals with the stylization procedures used in the belletristic and journalistic texts written by Ladislav Fuks. The aim of the thesis is to define and demonstrate the basic distinctive methods and procedures such as repetition, intertextuality, ambiguity and mystification, ambivalence and autostylization. This thesis follows the methods mentioned above in characteristic exposures and transformations and examines the diversity of functions these methods fulfil in several texts of different nature. Furthermore, this thesis occupies with the relationship between these methods and author`s artistic stylization as well as to what extent he can be cogitated. This thesis is directed to defining the uniqueness of Fuks`s writing method which offers a variety of reading approaches. It allows to look at Fuks`s writing from different angles and observe the intensity of author`s personal attitudes projecting into his texts. Keywords Ladislav Fuks, stylization, stylization procedures, deliberateness, unpremeditation, repetition, intertextuality, ambiguity and mystification, ambivalence, autostylization, variation(s), memory

Nos travaux portent sur les mécanismes nerveux qui sous-tendent la perception de notre corps en mouvement. Chacune de nos actions est caractérisée par l'intention motrice qui en est à l'origine et par le feedback multi-modalitaire que son exécution évoque. Dans ce cadre, nous avons formalisé le codage proprioceptif du mouvement et nous avons exploré deux types d'images motrices et leur interaction perceptive à travers l'étude des mouvements imaginés et des illusions kinesthésiques.Sur la base de données neurosensorielles, nous avons contribué à développer une méthode « propriomimétique » inspirée du modèle vectoriel de population permettant de prédire les patterns proprioceptifs afférents évoqués lors de mouvements complexes. Ces patterns modélisés ont ensuite été utilisés pour activer les voies de la proprioception musculaire chez des sujets immobiles grâce à la méthode des vibrations tendineuses. / This thesis deals with the neural mechanisms involved in body movement perception. We contributed to developing a "propriomimetic" method based on neurosensory data and drawn from the population vector model for predicting the afferent proprioceptive patterns evoked during complex movements.The main contribution of this work is that it extends the scope of the method to include the whole set of possible human actions by showing that it can be used to accurately predict the proprioceptive patterns and to generate the kinaesthetic experiences associated with movements involving one or more joints, performed in 2- or 3-dimensional space, regardless of which muscles are involved.Other motor images were intentionally generated by the subjects in subsequent experiments and combined with those imposed by the vibratory stimulation. The results obtained here show that the images of both kinds were completely integrated when evoked simultaneously and that they gave rise to a unique and original perceptual experience, in which their spatio-temporal characteristics were combined. From the theoretical point of view, these findings confirm that proprioceptive afferents play an important role, along with the motor intention itself, in the elaboration of kinaesthetic perception. From the clinical point of view, the possibility of evoking motor images quite "naturally" using the method presented here to activate the peripheral receptors and/or the command centers, and thus the whole sensorimotor loop in the absence of any real movements, opens some promising perspectives for rehabilitation purposes.

On soutient ici que la théorie des relations de Meinong, bien qu’elle s’établisse selon une visée psychologique, a des implications ontologiques fortes en raison d’un aspect propre à la perspective de Meinong. C’est à la lumière des exigences issues du rapport entre psychologie et ontologie que le réalisme meinongien peut être éclairé. Associée à la problématique des complexions que Meinong élabore suite à la découverte des qualités gestaltiques par Ehrenfels, et à certaines applications qui en sont faites dans la théorie de la mesure, sa théorie des relations conduit Meinong à distinguer les activités de l’esprit et les propriétés des objets de ces activités – certaines de ses propriétés ne pouvant ontologiquement dépendre de l’esprit. Dans ces conditions, et au vu des textes, on soutient que la distinction de Twardowski entre contenu et objet n’est pas ce qui détermine la position de Meinong sur les objets, dont les objets dits d’ordre supérieur. Par contre, Meinong semble disposer d’une distinction très semblable à celle de Twardowski dans ses recherches sur les relations et les complexions, encore qu’il semble adopter une posture critique envers les implications de la distinction de Twardowski, cette posture traduisant la spécificité du réalisme meinongien. La théorie des relations conditionne aussi la position de Meinong quant à la distinction entre jugements existentiels et jugements catégoriques. Son refus du représentationnalisme twar-dowskien comme de la perspective Brentano-martyenne sur la réductibilité des jugements catégoriques aux jugements existentiels est intrinsèquement lié à sa thèse sur les assomptions et les objets qui sont « hors-l’être ». / In this work, it is claimed that Meinong’s theory of relations, although established in a psychological aim, has strong ontological implications under a particular aspect and peculiar to Meinong’s view. The requirements appearing from this relationship between psychology and ontology enlighten the meinongian realism. Associated with the problem of complexions which Meinong inherited from the discovery of gestalt qualities by Ehrenfels ; and regarding some applications which are made in the theory of the measure ; such a theory of relations leads Meinong to distinguishing the activities of the mind and the properties of the objects of these activities – properties that cannot ontologically depend on the mind. We claim that the distinction of Twardowski between content and object is not what determines the position of Meinong on objects and on objects of higher order. Meinong seems to have conceived a very similar distinction along his researches on relations and complexions. He even seemed to adopt a critical posture toward some implications of the Twardowski’s distinction - this posture clarifying the specificity of the meinongian realism. The theory of relations also grounds the Meinong’s view on the distinction between existential judgments and categorical judgments. His refusal of Twardowski’s representationalism, and his refusal of the Brentano-martyan view on the reducibility of the categorical judgments to existential ones, are internally connected with his thesis on assumptions and on “absistent” objects.

Coincidence as the animator of the independent Czech art of the 1960s We are currently progressing to viewing coincidence as a phenomenon. While coincidence cannot be explained, it needs to be understood. It may be an important program principle of the universe, where coincidence may give life and matters a different direction, and it is undoubtedly part of all of our creative and resourceful efforts. Therefore, we treasure coincidence and in art, we even intentionally call for it frequently. Naturally, the history of art gives us many examples, where coincidence helped an artist to revive their imagination and strengthened their ability to improvise. Dealing with coincidence and activating coincidence intentionally or unintentionally have always been one of the most tantalising moments of many creative endeavours. It is interesting to observe how the role of coincidence and its impact in art, as well as in a human life intermittently diminishes only to resurface again as if in connection with measuring the powers of the acting individual and the current being. It is exciting to follow the complex movement of coincidence in the wide field of potential meanings and understanding, somewhere between Freedom, Necessity, Fate, Fortune, Higher Power or perhaps Providence, and examine the complexity of...

Submitted by Caroline Xavier (caroline.xavier@pucrs.br) on 2017-06-30T14:37:17Z No. of bitstreams: 1 TES_LUIZ_PAULO_DA_CAS_CICHOSKI_COMPLETO.pdf: 1758729 bytes, checksum: 5d01f795a90116b18dbf55169d2ce1ca (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2017-06-30T14:37:17Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 TES_LUIZ_PAULO_DA_CAS_CICHOSKI_COMPLETO.pdf: 1758729 bytes, checksum: 5d01f795a90116b18dbf55169d2ce1ca (MD5) Previous issue date: 2017-03-16 / Coordena??o de Aperfei?oamento de Pessoal de N?vel Superior - CAPES / Quando n?s falamos sobre entidades coletivas, a??o ? o tipo de atribui??o mais comum. N?s rotineiramente falamos coisas tais como: ?China suspende todas as importa??es de carv?o da Coreia do Norte?; ?Uber est? investigando acusa??es de ass?dio feitas por ex-funcion?rio?; ?A Suprema Corte estuda o caso de um tiro disparado nos E.U.A. que matou um adolescente no M?xico?; ?Mal?sia retira embaixador na Coreia do Norte?; ?SpaceX lan?a foguete a partir da hist?rica ?plataforma da lua? da NASA.?. S?o essas atribui??es verdadeiras? Com certeza todas elas poderiam ser meramente metaf?ricas. N?s poder?amos tomar entidades coletivas como agentes somente como uma maneira de falar. Neste trabalho, eu argumento em favor de uma posi??o realista a respeito de entidades coletivas e seu status de agente; tornando algumas dessas senten?as verdadeiras. Ultimamente, muitos fil?sofos t?m abordado esse t?pico, mas a discuss?o tende a ser guiada pelo problema da intencionalidade coletiva, o problema de como entidades coletivas podem possuir estados mentais. Meu trabalho tenta trazer mais elementos da filosofia da a??o para a investiga??o de a??es coletivas. Eu tomo como guia o problema da individua??o da a??o, porque esse t?pico aborda quest?es de central import?ncia para a??es coletivas. Especialmente a quest?o das a??es agregadas: a??es que s?o compostas de outras a??es, que parecem ser os casos paradigm?ticos de a??es coletivas, na medida em que a??es coletivas s?o, presumivelmente, compostas de a??es individuais. O problema da individua??o da a??o nos leva a dois conceitos centrais da natureza da a??o: a??o b?sica e inten??o. Neste trabalho, eu mostrarei como uma investiga??o sobre a??o b?sica pode nos ajudar a localizar o lugar das contribui??es individuais em a??es coletivas e como uma investiga??o sobre inten??o pode localizar um elemento fundamental da a??o que ? irredut?vel e distintivamente coletivo nos casos de a??es coletivas. Depois de explorar esses dois conceitos centrais, eu ofere?o uma defini??o de a??o que leva a s?rio o lugar da inten??o como guia para identificar quando um evento constitui uma a??o. / When we talk about collective entities, action is the most common kind of ascription. We regularly say things such as ?China suspends all coal imports from North Korea?; ?Uber is investigating harassment claims by ex-employee?; ?Supreme Court considers case of a shot fired in U.S. that killed a teenager in Mexico?; ?Malaysia recalls ambassador to North Korea?; ?SpaceX launches rocket from NASA?s historic moon pad.? Are those ascriptions true? For sure, they could all be metaphoric. We could take collective entities as agents just as a way of speaking. In this work, I argue in favor of a realist position regarding collective entities and their status of agent; rendering some of these sentences true. Recently, many philosophers are addressing this topic, but the discussion tends to be guided by the problem of collective intentionality, the problem of how collective entities can have mental states. My work tries to bring more elements of philosophy of action to the investigation of collective action. I take as a guide the problem of action individuation, because this topic addresses questions of central importance for collective action. Especially the question of aggregate actions, actions that are composed of other actions, which seems to be the paradigmatic case of collective action, insofar as they are presumably composed of individuals? actions. The problem of action individuation leads us to two central concepts on the nature of action: basic action and intention. In this work, I will show how an investigation on basic action can help us locate the place of individuals? contributions in collective action and how an investigation on intention can locate a fundamental element of action that is irreducible and distinctively collective in collective action cases. After exploring these two core concepts, I provide a definition of action that take seriously the place of intention as a guide to identify when an event constitutes an action.

Made available in DSpace on 2016-04-27T17:27:00Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Evandro Oliveira de Brito.pdf: 1543996 bytes, checksum: cccc072c2cbdc0314293f7946a776aac (MD5) Previous issue date: 2012-04-23 / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior / This thesis aims to compare two of Brentano‟s formulations regarding the notion of moral values and analyze them from the philosophy of the mind that serves as their base. I will explain in this way, how the reformulation of the notion of moral values arose from the development of descriptions of the activity of consciousness, presented (or assumed) by Brentano in the first stage of his intellectual development (1874-1892). I will explain, therefore, that moral values, as it was formulated by Brentano in the work Psychology from an empirical standpoint(1874), was the result of an Aristotelian-thomist solution aimed at solving a problem of modern epistemology. As such, the moral value would be only a moral sentiment. I will explain, however, that in The origin of the knowledge of right and wrong (1889) Brentano reformulated this notion by proposing a non-subjectivist moral epistemology, that guided by the works that made up the Descriptive psychology (1888-1892), considered the moral value analogous to a evident judgment. This thesis is supported by the assumption that the theory of moral knowledge, formulated by Franz Brentano in 1889, resulted from two specific changes. On one hand, this theory led to the concept of intentional object being abandoned, taken as the Archimedean point in the formulation of Psychology from an empirical standpoint. On the other hand, it resulted in the formulation of the concept of intentional act, presented in the context of the formulation of Descriptive psychology. The justification of this interpretive hypothesis will be presented through the following arguments: (1) I will present the Brentano‟s theory of moral knowledge, published in 1889 in the work The origin of the knowledge of right and wrong, and (2) I will describe the basic epistemological assumptions of Descriptive psychology who hold this theory of moral knowledge, characterized as conceptual reformulations made by Brentano in Psychology from an empirical standpoint. (3) This hypothesis will be supported by interpretive presentation of the incompatibility between the ethics of moral sentiment and ethics of moral knowledge. This incompatibility also will be supported by comparing the descriptions of Brentano‟s psychic act of moral feeling, present in Psychology from an empirical standpoint, and of Brentano‟s psychic act of moral knowledge characterized as preference, present in The origin of the knowledge of right and wrong. (4) My analysis will lead to the following conclusion. By abandoning the assumptions of the Psychology from an empirical standpoint, Brentano‟s theory of moral knowledge was based on the assumption that the notion of intentional act established an intrinsic and immediate relationship called the consciousness of moral‟s preference, or, the psychic phenomenon of preference. Author: Evandro Oliveira de Brito / Esta tese de doutorado tem como propósito comparar duas formulações brentanianas da noção de valor moral e analisá-las a partir da filosofia do psíquico que lhes serve de base. Explicitaremos, desta maneira, o modo como as reformulações da noção de valor moral decorreram do desenvolvimento das descrições da atividade da consciência, apresentadas (ou pressuposta) por Brentano na primeira etapa de seu desenvolvimento intelectual (1874-1892). Explicitaremos, assim, que valor moral‟, tal como foi apresentada por Brentano na obra Psicologia do ponto de vista empírico (1874), seria o resultado de uma solução aristotélico-tomista que visava resolver um problema epistemológico moderno. Como tal, o valor moral seria exclusivamente um sentimento. Explicitaremos, no entanto, que na obra Origem do conhecimento moral (1889) Brentano reformulou tal noção ao propor uma epistemologia moral não subjetivista que, orientada pelos trabalhos que compuseram a Psicologia descritiva (1888-1892), considerava o valor moral um conhecimento análogo ao juízo evidente. Esta tese está sustentada sobre a hipótese de que a teoria do conhecimento moral, formulada por Franz Brentano em 1889, resultou de duas mudanças específica. Por um lado, esta teoria resultou do abandono do conceito de objeto intencional, tomado como ponto arquimediano na formulação da Psicologia do ponto de vista empírico. Por outro lado, ela resultou da formulação do conceito de ato intencional, apresentado no contexto da formulação da Psicologia descritiva. A justificação desta hipótese interpretativa será apresentada por meio dos seguintes passos argumentativos. (1) Apresentaremos a teoria brentaniana do conhecimento moral publicada em 1889, na obra Origem do conhecimento moral, e (2) descreveremos os pressupostos epistemológicos fundamentais da Psicologia descritiva que sustentam esta teoria do conhecimento moral, caracterizados como reformulações conceituais efetuadas por Brentano na Psicologia do ponto de vista empírico. (3) Esta hipótese interpretativa será corroborada pela apresentação da incompatibilidade entre a ética do sentimento moral e a ética do conhecimento moral. Esta incompatibilidade, ainda, será evidenciada por meio da comparação entre as descrições brentanianas do ato psíquico de sentimento moral, vigente na Psicologia do ponto de vista empírico, e do ato psíquico de conhecimento moral caracterizado como preferência, vigente na Origem conhecimento moral. (4) Nossa análise implicará a seguinte conclusão. Ao abandonar os pressupostos da Psicologia do ponto de vista empírico, a teoria brentaniana do conhecimento moral baseou-se no pressuposto de que a noção de ato intencional estabelecia uma relação intrínseca e imediata chamada de consciência da preferência