Representational unification in cognitive science: Is embodied cognition a unifying perspective?

In this paper, we defend a novel, multidimensional account of representational unification, which we distinguish from integration. The dimensions of unity are simplicity, generality and scope, non-monstrosity, and systematization. In our account, unification is a graded property. The account is used to investigate the issue of how research traditions contribute to representational unification, focusing on embodied cognition in cognitive science. Embodied cognition contributes to unification even if it fails to offer a grand unification of cognitive science. The study of this failure shows that unification, contrary to what defenders of mechanistic explanation claim, is an important mechanistic virtue of research traditions

An Impossible Utopia: People’s Art and the Cultural Revolution

The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution period of the People’s Republic of China (1966-1976) was crucial in the creation of modern-day China. The material culture of that period mirrors the turbulent political activity of students and the directives of the Communist Party’s central leadership during the height of the Mao Zedong personality cult. The commercial manufacture of posters, often the sole decoration available for the public and private spheres, offers strong examples of the design style of this time. The posters are not only indicative of the propagandistic fervor of production, but the aesthetic changes initiated in the visual and performing arts during the period as the state consciously manipulated style in an effort to create a “people’s” art and envision a Marxist utopia. This paper suggests that a comprehension of folk arts and popular culture is essential for understanding the visual language of this specific geographic and political space. A new perspective on the reconciliation of reality and ideology during the Cultural Revolution is gained through an analysis of popular form and content, and reveals not only the basis of a modern mass culture, but the unprecedented unification of high and low art forms

Where qualitative research meets demography: interdisciplinary explorations of conceptions on fatherhood in an extremely low fertility context

Recent demands to include psychological theories of decision-making and intention-formation in research on family formation coincide with calls for improving research on male fertility and fatherhood. In this paper, we address these notions and present findings from in-depth interviews with 30-year-old childless men from Eastern Germany on their desire for children. Our research is embedded in the societal situation of contemporary Eastern Germany, where birth rates have faced a historical low - the lowest in more than 10 years. We analyze fourteen interviews, using an analytical paradigm, which we derive from the contemporary social cognitive theory of intention-formation. The focus lies on the examination of male attitudes, values, motives, interests, goals, action beliefs, and self-concepts, and their connection to men´s intentions for parenthood.In conclusion, we compare our results with explanations that the Theory of Symbolic Self-Completion and the Theory of Reasoned Action give. We argue for the need to bring together psychological and sociological theorizing in this field.Germany (Neue Bundesländer), fertility decline, men, social psychology

Fundamental constants and tests of general relativity - Theoretical and cosmological considerations

The tests of the constancy of the fundamental constants are tests of the local position invariance and thus of the equivalence principle. We summarize the various constraints that have been obtained and then describe the connection between varying constants and extensions of general relativity. To finish, we discuss the link with cosmology, and more particularly with the acceleration of the Universe. We take the opportunity to summarize various possibilities to test general relativity (but also the Copernican principle) on cosmological scales.Comment: Proceedings of the workshop ``The nature of gravity, confronting theory and experiment in space'', ISSI, Bern, october 200