This article examines the organizational prerequisites of competitive labor markets through an account of the restructuring of Mexico's export tomato industry in the 1980s and 1990s. Agricultural labor markets are typically taken as paradigm cases of competitive labor markets, the closest real-world approximation to the spot market of economic theory. Yet, this case demonstrates that such markets are deeply structured through the activities of producer associations and the state, suggesting that disorganization in a labor market can only be sustained (...) through organization. (shrink)

Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, and many more social networking sites are becoming mainstream in the lives of numerous individuals in the United States and around the globe. How these sites could potentially impact one's perception of community, as well as the ability to enhance strong social bonding, is an area of concern for many sociologists and criminologists. Current literature is discussed and framed through the lenses of social disorganization and social control theories as they relate to an individual's propensity to (...) commit crime/indiscretions and then post comments relating to those activities on social networking sites. The result is gained insight into the communal attributes of social networking and a contribution to the discussion of the relationship among the social components of the internet, criminal activity, and one's sense of community. Implications and areas of future research are also addressed. (shrink)

The concept of locally specialized functions dominates research on higher brain function and its disorders. Locally specialized functions must be complemented by processes that coordinate those functions, however, and impairment of coordinating processes may be central to some psychotic conditions. Evidence for processes that coordinate activity is provided by neurobiological and psychological studies of contextual disambiguation and dynamic grouping. Mechanisms by which this important class of cognitive functions could be achieved include those long-range connections within and between cortical regions that (...) activate synaptic channels via NMDA-receptors, and which control gain through their voltage-dependent mode of operation. An impairment of these mechanisms is central to PCP-psychosis, and the cognitive capabilities that they could provide are impaired in some forms of schizophrenia. We conclude that impaired cognitive coordination due to reduced ion flow through NMDA-channels is involved in schizophrenia, and we suggest that it may also be involved in other disorders. This perspective suggests several ways in which further research could enhance our understanding of cognitive coordination, its neural basis, and its relevance to psychopathology. Key Words: attention; cerebral cortex; cognitive coordination; cognitive neuropsychiatry; cognitive neuropsychology; context disorganization; Gamma rhythms; Gestalt theory; glutamate; grouping; memory; NMDA-receptors; PCP-psychosis; perceptual organization; schizophrenia. (shrink)

In recent years, there has been much focus on the apparent heterogeneity of schizophrenic symptoms. By contrast, this article proposes a unifying account emphasizing basic abnormalities of consciousness that underlie and also antecede a disparate assortment of signs and symptoms. Schizophrenia, we argue, is fundamentally a self-disorder or ipseity disturbance that is characterized by complementary distortions of the act of awareness: hyperreflexivity and diminished self-affection. Hyperreflexivity refers to forms of exaggerated self-consciousness in which aspects of oneself are experienced as akin (...) to external objects. Diminished self-affection or self-presence refers to a weakened sense of existing as a vital and self-coinciding source of awareness and action. This article integrates recent psychiatric research and European phenomenological psychiatry with some current work in cognitive science and phenomenological philosophy. After introducing the phenomenological approach along with a theoretical account of normal consciousness and self-awareness, we turn to a variety of schizophrenic syndromes. We examine positive, then negative, and finally disorganization symptoms—attempting in each case to illuminate shared distortions of consciousness and the sense of self. We conclude by discussing the possible relevance of this approach for identifying early schizophrenic symptoms. (shrink)

This paper suggests that the paradigm of lived body (as it is developed in the works of Merleau-Ponty, Sartre and Zaner) provides important insights into the experience of illness. In particular it is noted that, as embodied persons, we experience illness primarily as a disruption of lived body rather than as a dysfunction of biological body. An account is given of the manner in which such fundamental features of embodiment as bodily intentionality, primary meaning, contextural organization, body image, gestural display, (...) lived spatiality and temporality, are disrupted in illness causing a concurrent disorganization of the patient's self and world. The paradigm of lived body has important applications for medical practice. It provides a fuller account of illness than does the prevailing reductionist Cartesian paradigm of body, more directly addresses the existential predicament of illness, and orients the clinical focus around the personhood of the patient. (shrink)

How is it that many schizophrenics identify certain instances of verbal imagery as hallucinatory? Most investigators have assumed that alterations in sensory features of imagery explain this. This approach, however, has not yielded a definitive picture of the nature of verbal hallucinations. An alternative perspective suggests itself if one allows the possibility that the nonself quality of hallucinations is inferred on the basis of the experience of unintendedness that accompanies imagery production. Information-processing models of “intentional” cognitive processes call for abstract (...) planning representations that are linked to goals and beliefs. Unintended actions - and imagery - can reflect planning disruptions whereby cognitive products do not cohere with concurrent goals. A model of schizophrenic speech disorganization is presented that postulates a disturbance of discourse planning. Insofar as verbal imagery can be viewed as inwardly directed speech, a consequence of such planning disturbances could be the production of unintended imagery. This link between the outward disorganization of schizophrenic speech and unintended verbal imagery is statistically supported by comparing the speech behavior of hallucinating and nonhallucinating schizophrenics. Studies of “borderline” hallucinations during normal, “goal-less” relaxation and drowsiness suggest that experiential unintendedness leads to a nonpathological variant of hallucinatory otherness that is correctable upon emerging from such passive cognitive states. This contrasts with the schizophrenic case, where nonconcordance with cognitive goals reinforces the unintendedness of verbal images and sustains the conviction of an external source. This model compares favorably with earlier models of verbal hallucinations and provides further evidence for a language production disorder in many schizophrenics.Short Abstract: How is it that many schizophrenics identify certain instances of verbal imagery as hallucinatory? This paper proposes that the critical feature identifying hallucinations is the experience of unintendedness. This experience is nonpathological during passive conscious states but pathological if occurring during goal-directed cognitive processing. A model of schizophrenic speech disorganization is presented that postulates a disturbance of discourse planning that specifies communicative intentions. These alterations could generate unintended verbal imagery as well. Statistical data are offered to support the model, and relevant empirical studies are reviewed. (shrink)

Should the Western democracies, contrary to their prevailing self-image as "planned" and "managed," be seen as highly disorganized systems of social power and political authority? If so, what are the symptoms, consequences of, and possible remedies for these disorganizing tendencies?In these ten essays, Claus Offe seeks to answer such questions. Moving beyond the boundaries of both Marxism and established forms of political sociology, he focuses on the growth of serious divisions within the work force, the importance of the "informal" sector, (...) the severe difficulties faced by trade unions in coping with the present economic crisis, the vulnerability of neocorporatist mechanisms, and the failures of state policymaking based on either majority rule or bureaucratic administration.In examining these and other fundamental problems of advanced capitalist democracies, Offe also contests some widely held assumptions of contemporary social science. He calls into question the neutrality of liberal democratic mechanisms of participation and representation, the centrality of the category of work and the division between labor and capital, and the feasibility and desirability of full employment.Claus Offe is the author of numerous books and essays, including Contradictions of the Welfare State. He is currently Professor of Political Science and Sociology in the Faculty of Sociology, University of Bielefeld, West Germany. John Keane is Senior Lecturer in Political Theory and Sociology at the Polytechnic of Central London. Disorganized Capitalism is included in the series, Studies in Contemporary German Social Thought, edited by Thomas McCarthy. (shrink)

This paper proposes to reflect self-critically on an ongoing research project entitled “Grammars of listening,” which started as a philosophical approach to the question of listening at the site of trauma and the challenges this kind of listening poses to our conceptions of memory and history, and has recently shifted to asking about the possible limitations to such a reflection when confronted with a decolonial perspective on temporality. I start by presenting a conceptual background for my inquiry, and asking what (...) kind of listening is required when trauma is considered as a colonizing form of violence – that is, when its effects are not only understood as an assault on life but on the conditions of production of sense that make life legible. Following the kind of challenges that such an understanding of trauma poses to the responsibility to listen to its testimony, the paper moves on to propose that only a decolonial approach to listening can truly do justice to the task of rendering testimonies of traumatic violence audible. By decolonizing the frameworks that organize and determine colonial and colonizing distributions of sense, I propose that grammars of lo inaudito understood as decolonial grammars contribute to resisting and disorganizing the criteria for legibility and audibility that colonizing forms of violence not only institute but constantly actualize in their attempt to perpetuate their silencing power.1. (shrink)

This study assessed the extent to which within-individual variation in schizotypy and paranormal belief influenced performance on probabilistic reasoning tasks. A convenience sample of 725 non-clinical adults completed measures assessing schizotypy (Oxford-Liverpool Inventory of Feelings and Experiences; O-Life brief), belief in the paranormal (Revised Paranormal Belief Scale; RPBS) and probabilistic reasoning (perception of randomness, conjunction fallacy, paranormal perception of randomness, and paranormal conjunction fallacy). Latent profile analysis (LPA) identified four distinct groups: class 1, low schizotypy and low paranormal belief (43.9% (...) of sample); class 2, moderate schizotypy and moderate paranormal belief (18.2%); class 3, moderate schizotypy (high cognitive disorganization) and low paranormal belief (29%); and class 4, moderate schizotypy and high paranormal belief (8.9%). Identification of homogeneous classes provided a nuanced understanding of the relative contribution of schizotypy and paranormal belief to differences in probabilistic reasoning performance. Multivariate analysis of covariance revealed that groups with lower levels of paranormal belief (classes 1 and 3) performed significantly better on perception of randomness, but not conjunction problems. Schizotypy had only a negligible effect on performance. Further analysis indicated that framing perception of randomness and conjunction problems in a paranormal context facilitated performance for all groups but class 4. (shrink)

Organized immaturity, the reduction of individual capacities for public use of reason constrained by sociotechnological systems, constitutes a significant pushback against the project of Enlightenment. Forms of immaturity have long been a concern for philosophers and social theorists, such as Kant, Arendt, Fromm, Marcuse, and Foucault. Recently, Zuboff’s concept of “surveillance capitalism” describes how advancements in digital technologies lead to new, increasingly sophisticated forms of organized immaturity in democratic societies. We discuss how sociotechnological systems initially designed to meet human needs (...) can inhibit the multidimensional development of individuals as mature citizens. To counteract these trends, we suggest two mechanisms: disorganizing immaturity as a way to safeguard individuals’ and collectives’ negative freedoms (freedoms from), and organizing maturity as a way to strengthen positive freedoms (freedoms to). Finally, we provide an outlook on the five further articles that constitute the Business Ethics Quarterly Special Issue “Sociotechnological Conditions of Organized Immaturity in the Twenty-First Century.”. (shrink)

The need for conceptual work in marketing ethics is addressed by examining the five techniques of neutralization as a means for partially explaining unethical behaviors by marketing practitioners. These techniques are often used by individuals to lessen the possible impact of norm-violating behaviors upon their self-concept and their social relationships. Borrowed from the social disorganization and deviance literature, the five techniques of neutralization are: (1) denial of responsibility, (2) denial of injury, (3) denial of victim, (4) condemning the condemners (...) and (5) appeal to higher loyalties. Examples of marketing professionals using each of the five techniques are given, and a conceptual model linking the techniques of neutralization with unethical behavior is presented. Finally, relevant research questions are offered for consideration. (shrink)

This book presents a philosophical analysis of the rising interest in the notion of 'noise'. The term 'noise' no longer pertains only to aesthetic judgement, for instance of acoustic or visual 'noise', but also to domains as varied as communication theory, physics and biology. This book investigates if there can be a coherent understanding of 'noise' that is effectively shared among the natural-and human sciences, technology and the arts, revealing 'noise' to be a properly philosophical problem. Drawing the philosophical consequences (...) of `noise' for the theory of knowledge, a philosophical revaluation of C. Shannon and W. Weaver's theory of 'information entropy' here serves as a basis upon which to problematize the common idea that 'noise' can be reduced to notions of error, disorder or disorganization. The wider consequences of this analysis relate the technological and scientific aspect of 'noise' with its cultural and psycho-social aspects. The heart of Malaspina's argument is the contestation of the ground upon which we judge and distinguish noise from information, finally exploring its emancipatory potential. (shrink)

In recent debates about inequality, many have pointed to the predominant position of the finance. This article highlights that structural power, not lobbying resources, are key to explaining variations across countries. It examines finance-government negotiations over national bank rescue schemes during the recent financial crisis. Given the structural power of finance, the variation in bank bailouts across countries cannot be explained by lobbying differences. Instead of observing organized interest intermediation, we can see that disorganization was crucial for the financial (...) industry to get off the hook and let the government carry the burden of stabilizing the economy. Put differently, structural power is strongest when finance remains collectively inactive. In contrast to traditional accounts of the lobbying influence of finance, the comparison highlights that the lack of organization can have crucial redistributive consequences. (shrink)

The presence of asymmetry in the human cerebral hemispheres is detectable at both the macroscopic and microscopic scales. The horizontal expansion of cortical surface during development (within individual brains), and across evolutionary time (between species), is largely due to the proliferation and spacing of the microscopic vertical columns of cells that form the cortex. In the asymmetric planum temporale (PT), minicolumn width asymmetry is associated with surface area asymmetry. Although the human minicolumn asymmetry is not large, it is estimated to (...) account for a surface area asymmetry of approximately 9% of the region’s size. Critically, this asymmetry of minicolumns is absent in the equivalent areas of the brains of other apes. The left-hemisphere dominance for processing speech is thought to depend, partly, on a bias for higher resolution processing across widely spaced minicolumns with less overlapping dendritic fields, whereas dense minicolumn spacing in the right hemisphere is associated with more overlapping, lower resolution, holistic processing. This concept refines the simple notion that a larger brain area is associated with dominance for a function and offers an alternative explanation associated with “processing type.” This account is mechanistic in the sense that it offers a mechanism whereby asymmetrical components of structure are related to specific functional biases yielding testable predictions, rather than the generalization that “bigger is better” for any given function. Face processing provides a test case – it is the opposite of language, being dominant in the right hemisphere. Consistent with the bias for holistic, configural processing of faces, the minicolumns in the right-hemisphere fusiform gyrus are thinner than in the left hemisphere, which is associated with featural processing. Again, this asymmetry is not found in chimpanzees. The difference between hemispheres may also be seen in terms of processing speed, facilitated by asymmetric myelination of white matter tracts ( Anderson et al., 1999 found that axons of the left posterior superior temporal lobe were more thickly myelinated). By cross-referencing the differences between the active fields of the two hemispheres, via tracts such as the corpus callosum, the relationship of local features to global features may be encoded. The emergent hierarchy of features within features is a recursive structure that may functionally contribute to generativity – the ability to perceive and express layers of structure and their relations to each other. The inference is that recursive generativity, an essential component of language, reflects an interaction between processing biases that may be traceable in the microstructure of the cerebral cortex. Minicolumn organization in the PT and the prefrontal cortex has been found to correlate with cognitive scores in humans. Altered minicolumn organization is also observed in neuropsychiatric disorders including autism and schizophrenia. Indeed, altered interhemispheric connections correlated with minicolumn asymmetry in schizophrenia may relate to language-processing anomalies that occur in the disorder. Schizophrenia is associated with over-interpretation of word meaning at the semantic level and over-interpretation of relevance at the level of pragmatic competence, whereas autism is associated with overly literal interpretation of word meaning and under-interpretation of social relevance at the pragmatic level. Both appear to emerge from a disruption of the ability to interpret layers of meaning and their relations to each other. This may be a consequence of disequilibrium in the processing of local and global features related to disorganization of minicolumnar units of processing. (shrink)

Cancer is a paradigmatic case of a complex causal process; causes of cancer operate at a variety of temporal and spatial scales, and the respects in which these causes act and interact are diverse. There are, for instance, temporal order effects, organizational effects, structural effects, and dynamic relationships between causes operating at different temporal and spatial scales. Because of this complexity, models of cancer initiation and progression often involve deliberate choices to focus on one time scale, one causal pathway, or (...) one aspect of cancer’s dynamics. As in most of biology, modeling cancer involves simplification and idealization. At the same time, theoretical perspectives inform the construction of these models. Such perspectives might involve viewing cancer ‘as’ a genetic disease, metabolic disease, stem cell disease, an infectious disease, or a disease of tissue disorganization. This paper will argue that purportedly competing theoretical views of cancer are not at odds, but can be viewed as mutually informative. Models are most often developed in the service of asking very specific questions, and this requires limiting our view of the phenomena to a specific temporal or spatial scale, a particular cause, or a particular outcome, dynamic, or pattern. Thus, while some models may seem at odds, often they are simply concerned with different questions, or, they are complementary and mutually informative. I hope to bring this case to bear on debates among philosophers of science over perspectivism and realism, as well pluralism about the aims and scope of scientific theory. (shrink)

While many with schizophrenia experience deficits in metacognition it is unclear whether those deficits are related to other features of illness. To explore this issue, the current study classified participants with schizophrenia as possessing a deficit in both awareness of their own emotions and those of others , aware of their own emotions but unaware of the emotions of others and aware of their own emotions and of other’s emotions . Groups were compared on assessments of neurocognitive function, symptoms, and (...) history of sexual trauma. ANCOVA controlling for education found that the group unaware of their own emotions and those of others demonstrated poorer verbal memory, processing speed, executive function, less emotional discomfort and higher levels of disorganization symptoms relative to the other groups. The group aware of their own emotions but not those of others had a significantly higher report of childhood sexual abuse. (shrink)

Several researchers point to disorganized attachment as a core feature of borderline personality disorder (BPD). However, recent studies suggest that specific internal working models (IWMs) of each parent combine to account for child outcomes and that a secure relationship with one parent can protect against the deleterious effects of an insecure relationship with the other parent. It was thus hypothesized that adolescents with BPD are more likely to be disorganized with both their parents, whereas non-clinical controls are more secure with (...) at least one of their caregivers. Thirty-six adolescents with BPD and 30 control participants (aged 13-19) were included. Psychiatrist diagnosis was verified with the SIDP-IV and comorbidity was assessed using the Kiddie-SADS. Reported trauma was assessed with the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire. Attachment IWMs of each parent were assessed with the Attachment Multiple Model Interview (AMMI), which enables separate coding for each attachment figure and in which disorganization is conceptualized as conflicting attachment strategies within a specific relationship. Results of a logistic regression analysis suggested that beyond insecure attachment, being disorganized not just with one but with both parents is particularly characteristic of adolescents with BPD. Conversely, belonging to the non-clinical group was predicted by higher security scores with the father and lower deactivation with the mother. Although higher levels of childhood abuse or neglect were reported by adolescents with BPD, the retained attachment dimensions predicted group membership over and above reported trauma. These findings have important implications for clinical intervention and highlight the protective role fathers may have. (shrink)

Botanical preparations used by shamans in rituals for divination, prophecy, and ecstasy contain widely different psychoactive compounds, which are incorrectly classified under a single denomination such as “hallucinogens,” “psychedelics,” or “entheogens.” Based on extensive ethnopharmacological search, I proposed a psychopharmacological classification of magic plants in 1979. This paper re-evaluates this taxonomy in the context of consciousness research. Several groups of psychodysleptic magic plants are proposed: (1) hallucinogens—psilocybin mushrooms, mescaline cacti, dimethyltryptamine snuffs, and the synthetic ergoline lysergic acid diethylamide induce strong (...) perceptual changes, affective intensification, and cognitive enhancement. Their ethnobotanical uses include long lasting divination rituals, prophecy, and sacramental practice. (2) Trance-inducers—ergoline Convolvulaceae and South American Banisteriopsis produce quietness, abstraction, lethargy, mild sensorial and cognitive changes, and salient visual imagery changes used in trance rituals and specific divination practices. (3) Cognodysleptics—marijuana (tetrahydrocannabinol) and other terpene-containing plants induce changes in thought, imagination, and affective functions and are used in short-term divination or oneiromancy. (4) Deliriants—tropane-containing Solanaceae, wild tobacco, and Amanita muscaria (muscimol) induce a delirium characterized by dim and clouded consciousness, stupor, confusion, disorientation, perception distortion, difficulties in recollection, anxiety, irritability, excitation, and behavioral disorganization employed in sorcery, purification, or exorcism rituals. The core mental effects required for a drug to be used in shamanistic rituals include light-headedness, enhanced imagery, and experience intensification. This constellation was the reason why, in his classification of psychoactive compounds, the pioneer German psychopharmacologist Louis Lewin established in 1924 a group of drugs under the appropriate name of Phantastica. (shrink)

This inquiry aims to highlight the philosophical perspective of Aristotle’s “business” priority of the organization over the individual in combination with Heraclitus’ flux theory and the unity of opposites to alternatively approach organizational resilience. While current literature on organizational resilience argues that disorganization and gradual decaying are probable but not certain, they can be predicted and managed. In contrast, the combined analysis of Aristotelian and Heraclitean philosophical theories points out that organizational disorganization and the fluctuation of resilience are (...) a certainty and not a probability, constituting an automation embedded in a circular, repeatable pattern for organizations and businesses. In this project, organizational and entrepreneurial scientific realism meets with the philosophical synthesis of Heraclitus’ and Aristotle’s thought on organizational resilience. The intended outcome of this “encounter” is to contribute an applicable perceptual “intellectual tool” that will foster a deeper understanding of resilience, organizationally and individually. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:The Entanglement: How Art and Philosophy Make Us What We Are by Alva NoëFrederik M. Bjerregaard-NielsenNOË, Alva. The Entanglement: How Art and Philosophy Make Us What We Are. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2023. 288 pp. Cloth, $27.95In The Entanglement, Alva Noë sets forth a minimal yet meaningful definition of art and philosophy and asks how they make us what we are. Art and philosophy are the modes (...) of practice that disrupt and disorganize our habitual ways of doing things, everything from dancing to language, to philosophy and art themselves. They are the reflection at a distance of what we do. “In this sense, then, art is disruptive. Always: everywhere.” From this basis, he tackles a wide range of phenomena from dancing, seeing, writing, and so forth, to introduce a distinction between these as everyday phenomena and their function as art. This delimitation is not material, nor intrinsic to any of the analyzed phenomena; rather, it depends on each practice’s ability to disrupt, disorganize, and force upon us the question of what dancing, seeing, writing is at all. Noë provides an example: At an art exhibition one is confronted with a painting that is ungraspable, foreign, meaningless. But, through a mediation (pointers from a friend, new knowledge of the era, analyses of the style, and so forth) the painting starts becoming significant; it starts to make sense. The viewer is stopped in her tracks, and a painting that was before closed is now opened up to a new perception, a new way of seeing.But Noë extends this aesthetic domain to experience and perception. In perception, we are actively engaged in achieving the things around us, achieving the world. And, in art, this habitual way of attainment is obstructed, for art presents us with new ways of seeing, listening, feeling, and so forth. Noë thus challenges common (especially neuro-aesthetic) views on perception and experience in favor of a more phenomenological approach by which he accentuates the active engagement in the world by which perception and experience come about. And this aesthetic domain, broadly understood, is the locus of showing how we, through these disruptive practices, create new ways of doing, perceiving, understanding, and, even further, create ourselves. We “all operate in a space of significance held open by art.” In other words, it is through a reassessment of the aesthetic that Noë shows how art and philosophy make us what we are. For what we are, for Noë, is this ability of disruption, development, and creation of ourselves. This is what makes us human. Human nature is therefore essentially cultural, a disruption of habit and new avenues of development, but one that is rooted in our body as a horizon of possibilities. Even though he does not conclude on this phylogenetic question, Noë does seem to suggest that the species’s ability to generate art (exemplified by early cave paintings) and philosophy are foundational [End Page 724] to its development or, more strongly, necessary to it being what it is. He thus proposes an alternative to the traditional schism of the nature/nurture and natural/cultural debate, which takes this wide view of aesthetics as its central term.One might raise the question whether the text would have benefited from more thorough analyses of the thinkers who are at play, sometimes at the margin, sometimes at the foundation of the disruption Noë’s text attempts, notably: Merleau-Ponty, with his extensive analyses of habit and style and their place in our life engaging behavior; Derrida’s deconstruction of phonocentrism, which attacks written language’s subordination to the spoken and asks the fundamental question of the ontology of language as such; or perhaps most present by its absence, Nietzsche’s grandiose thought of the human being and life itself as an aesthetic phenomenon. For Nietzsche thereby incorporated both ontology and critique in the sphere of aesthetics in his revaluation of all values. This, quite like Noë, allowed Nietzsche to set forth the human being as a creature of its own creation. These authors are given brief treatments, relegated to footnotes, or left out entirely.But such a critique might be too... (shrink)

This article offers a novel historical interpretation of the problem of jihadism through a critique of the philosophical foundations of Olivier Roy’s scholarship on Islam and jihadism. In particular, the article elucidates the consequences of the dominant positivist ontology and secular episteme of the social sciences for the analysis of jihadism. To this end, it formulates an alternative conceptualization of the main terms of analysis (namely, Islam, the ummah, the caliphate, and jihad), highlighting their political significance and disavowing thereby the (...) epistemic prejudices of Eurocentric social science. The article argues jihad designates a political phenomenon tied to Islam’s presence as a universal order and Muslims as an autonomous community. It is a signifier of the organized, collective warfare of Muslims as a distinct political group, represented by the caliphate as an ‘Islamicate great power’, and waged by its professional armies. Jihadism represents the venture to recover jihad in a world without a caliphate, its condition of possibility being the disappearance of the caliphate, and in that it signifies the fragmentation, disorganization, and de-politicization of jihad. (shrink)

The article presents the conditions for the self-deployment of a globalized world as a set of complex of social systems under conditions of instability. The globalized world as a self-deployment of complex of hierarchical systems under conditions of uncertainty, information stochasticity and "balancing on the brink of chaos" is an integral part of increasing the efficiency of the management system as a whole. The main purpose of the article is the conceptualization of the self-deployment of the globalized world as a (...) set of complex social systems under conditions of stochasticity and "balancing on the verge of chaos”. The term "self-deployment" of complex social systems under conditions of uncertainty and instability reveals the transitions of quality from one state to another. Used methodology - systemic, structural-functional and synergetic methods and approaches that allow to analyze the conditions of instability and uncertainty. The synergetic-reflexive model of management as a complex social system consists of a set of nonlinear processes, in particular dynamic chaos as some of the most complex ordering. The research is based on the following objectives: to reveal the essence of self-deployment and its main stages; determine the role played by autopoiesis in the structuring of social systems as integral units. On the basis of the proposed methods, the conceptual-categorical apparatus necessary for the conceptualization of the self-deployment of the globalized world as a complex of complex social systems is clarified. the synergetic-reflexive model of control necessary for solving problems of stochastic, uncertainty and "balancing on the edge of chaos" is analyzed. The scientific novelty of the research in identifying the ways to overcome disorganization, instability, "balancing on the verge of chaos" and the transition to a stable stage in the development of the social system. This allows us to conclude that the basis of self-deployment of the globalized world as a set of complex social systems is autopoiesis, self-regulation and self-organization, which are aimed at solving problems of uncertainty, information stochasticity and "balancing on the verge of chaos". (shrink)

The critical environmental justice (CEJ) framework contends that inequalities are sustained through intersecting social categories, multi-scalarity, the perceived expendability of marginalized populations, and state-vested power. While this approach offers new pathways for environmental justice research, it overlooks the role of firms, suggesting a departure from long-standing political-economic theories, such as the treadmill of production (ToP), which elevate the importance of producers. In focusing on firms, we ask: how do firms operationalize diverse social forces to produce environmental injustice? What organizational logics (...) sustain these inequalities? To understand the firm-level dynamics shaping treadmill acceleration and environmental injustice, we utilize two concepts—social embeddedness and managerial authority—from economic sociology research on firms. The former refers to the social and non-economic factors that guide economic decision-making, whereas the latter refers to the power that reinforces worksite hierarchies. This theoretical paper argues that social embeddedness and managerial authority interact within firms to produce an organizational logic that sustains environmental injustice and ecological disorganization. We draw from historical and contemporary evidence on sugarcane plantations in Latin America and the Caribbean, with cases ranging from the colonial period to the present day. By bringing economic sociological concepts to bear on the CEJ and ToP frameworks, we advance debates on how firm-level dynamics shape environmental inequalities. (shrink)

Paradox — the simultaneous existence of two inconsistent states — has become orthodox. The orthodox is now the paradox. The orthodox world of ordering, controlling and organizing is increasingly opposed to a normalizing world of disordering, disrupting and disorganizing. And organization studies cannot avoid changing its conceptions of reality as that reality changes. In the future, organization studies will be the study of paradox, how to understand it, how to use it. In this book of original contributions addressed to management (...) and organization paradoxes the authors address the new state of the field in terms of representations — representing paradoxes — and materialisations — materialising paradoxes. The themes — although varied, ranging from dialectics to internal tensions; from collaborations to ethics and value conflicts; from resistant labourers and wharfies to cartoon characters such as The Simpsons; from the irrationalities of finance to the psychoanalytic rationalities of auditing, and from issues of governance in Asian and international business to the composition of the new knowledge work force in the business professions — cohere around core aspects of paradoxicality. Overall, the contributions to Management and Organization Paradoxes are diverse and challenging. Each contribution takes a different angle on the central theme. All of the chapters illuminate diverse aspects of contemporary paradoxes in management and organization theory. The book provides, in each of its chapters, a challenge to the still overwhelmingly rationalist views of theory and practice that dominate the field and provides new directions for understanding organizations and management.The contributors are drawn from leading European, Australian and Latin American contributors. (shrink)

War, from the conflicts in the Middle East and Russia/Ukraine to Mexican narco-violence, from neocolonial land grabs in the Global South to racial, border, health, and climate crises all over the planet, defines the most extreme and contradictory expression of the global world. In this fascinating exploration on the history of the thinking of conflict, Edgar Illas departs from military and sociological analyses to propose a theoretical exploration of war as the ontological force that produces political orders. Magma is used (...) as a geological metaphor to theorize the mixtures of politics and war that organize, and disorganize, global society. Divided into two parts, Illas' study begins by surveying of some of the most important thinkers of war, moving from classical antiquity to the 20th century. Each thinker provides a different inflection in the historical evolution of the being of war. The second part turns to a theorization of the 21st century to claim that conflictive relations between capital, state power, political movements, and social life in globalization culminate and at the same time reiterate the paradoxes of war as an ontological event. The Magma of War is an energizing contribution to the task of rethinking politics in relation to war and an invaluable resource to all those conscious of the unstable forms of contemporary social and political life. (shrink)

If we may rely for our evidence on simple observation, it would appear that the tendency of random or unguided activity in external nature is opposed to the development of complex organization and favorable to structural simplicity—in the sense of uniformity in the distribution of elements. This anti-organizing trend of purely physical processes is illustrated in ordinary large-scale mixing and stirring operations, as well as in the automatic increase of entropy with time in systems subject to the laws of thermodynamics. (...) It is common experience that complex systems which are the seat of physical activity tend to become simpler when left to themselves, i.e., they lose organization. Recently Eddington has given the whole matter an admirably clear expression: “Entropy may most conveniently be described as the measure of disorganization of a system.... We can see chance creeping in where formerly it was excluded.” Unless counteracted by directive action the casual or random element in nature tends to increase. If things are left to chance, not only does organization of any high degree of complexity fail to develop, but what organization there is tends to lapse or disappear. Hence in those cases, such as living organisms, where the existence and activity of the system depend on a special and complex organization, it appears necessary to assume the continued operation of a stable directive influence or factor which pervades the whole system and excludes or compensates casual factors as far as possible. The presence of this factor is what makes possible the development and maintenance of the organization required for vital activity. (shrink)

Precursors of inferential capacities concerning self- and other- understanding may be found in the basic experience of social contingency and emotional sharing. The emergence of a sense of self- and other-agency receives special attention here, as a foundation for self-understanding. We propose that synchrony, an amodal parameter of contingent self-other relationships, should be especially involved in the development of a sense of agency. To explore this framework, we have manipulated synchrony in various ways, either by delaying mother’s response to infant’s (...) behaviour, disorganizing mother’s internal synchrony between face and voice, freezing the partner in a still attitude, or on the contrary maximizing synchrony through imitation. We report results obtained with healthy and clinical populations that are supposed to be at the beginning of basic experiences concerning the ownership of their actions: infants of 2 months and 6 months, low-functioning children with autism and MA matched young children with Down Syndrome. Our results support the idea of a two-step process linking understanding of self to understanding of other and leading on to form the concept of human beings as universally contingent entities. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Pathology of the Mind: Disorder Versus DisabilityRichard G. T. Gipps (bio)Keywordsorder, disorder, ability, disability, mental illnessAlfredo Gaete (2008) describes mental disorders as impairments in intentionality, phenomenal consciousness, and intelligence that cause harm to the affected person. I found persuasive Gaete’s claim that the concept of ‘mental disorder’ is best understood as nontheoretical and nontechnical. I also find compelling his argument that a previous contribution of my own—which relied in (...) part on specifying different senses of ‘disorder’ in psychological, physiological, and social cases—was misguided. Further, his suggestion that we ought at least to attempt analysis in terms of necessary and sufficient conditions before we seek out less definitive characterizations (in terms of family resemblances) also persuades me, although I find myself less sanguine than he about the general possibility of achieving such analyses.One of Gaete’s principal claims is that mental disorder is helpfully understood in terms of an absence of a capacity—that is, as a disability. There are two related objections—or two aspects of the same objection—that I would like to offer the author with respect to this claim. These may well not be conclusive, but will I hope at least function as foils against which the author can usefully sharpen his argument. One objection suggests that there is a viable distinction between the concepts of mental disorder and mental disability, as commonly used in clinical contexts, which the account offered seems unable to respect. The second suggests that the account may not be able to theorize what is argued to be the essential contribution of the concepts of order and disorder (as opposed to ability and disability) to the everyday concept of mental disorder. Accordingly, it questions the power of a disability approach such as Gaete’s to capture the essential nature of mental disorder.In his paper, Gaete classifies mental retardation and developmental, or (what in the United Kingdom are known as) learning, disabilities (autism, etc.) as cases of mental disorder. I found this surprising because it is not common linguistic practice in the psychological circles in which I operate. It would also seem to make a nonsense of commonly accepted ideas like: “Mental disorders are more likely to occur in patients with developmental disabilities (e.g., in autism, Asperger, or Down syndrome) than in the general population.” (For an example, see Campbell and Malone [1991]). On Gaete’s classification, it would appear that people with autism eo ipso have a mental disorder, and [End Page 341] hence the commonly accepted idea would need to be interpreted as merely a statement about comorbidities of different disorders of the same general (i.e., mental) type. But that is not, I believe, how the term is commonly used, and Gaete’s suggestion must therefore be treated as revisionary rather than descriptively analytical.One way of reconstructing a rationale underlying the distinction between mental disabilities and mental disorders is as follows. A developmental disability involves a failure of (certain aspects of) the mind to grow and reach an expected level or type of organization. A mental disorder by contrast involves a disturbance or disorganization (not simply an impoverishment) within the mind at whichever level of organization it has reached. As the mind develops, and reaches new levels or types of organization, the forms which mental disorders may take accordingly change.Autism and schizophrenia provide helpful illustrations of this distinction. Autism represents a failure of (among other things) the social mind to develop in childhood. The person with moderate to severe autism may attain at best a very shaky grasp on the realities of other minds and social conventions. That is, the degree of mental structure they obtain—their social competencies or capacities—will likely remain limited. It is this fundamental deficit that marks out the disability, and not the social anxieties or other such disturbances that can beset the autistic person.Schizophrenia, by contrast, tends to occur at late adolescence, when the individual has developed higher levels of—albeit often fragile—mental structure. Yet it is not the fragility of such mental structure, but rather the disruptions that can occur within such structures as have developed, that mark them out... (shrink)

This paper examines cross-national differences in the development of sectoral collective bargaining in the European telecommunications industry following comparable changes in market regulations. The authors seek to explain why centralized, coordinated bargaining institutions were established in Austria and Sweden, both within incumbent telecommunications firms and at the sector level, while Germany and Denmark experienced decentralization and disorganization of bargaining at both levels. The authors argue that these outcomes resulted from differences in institutional loopholes employers were able to exploit to (...) avoid centralized bargaining and past union structures that influenced patterns of interunion cooperation. These two explanatory factors were interrelated: the presence or absence of institutional loopholes affected the basis for cooperation between unions, while labor cooperation was an important power resource unions could draw on to close emerging loopholes. Findings demonstrate the importance of sector-level political dynamics for the construction or erosion of solidaristic bargaining structures under pressure from market liberalization. (shrink)

This essay reconsiders the haphazard arrangement of Donne's first printed collection of poems in relation to an elegy written for Donne by one Thomas Browne, published for the first and only time in that same volume. The earliest recorded response we have to Donne's verse considered as a complete body of work, Browne's elegy thematizes the readerly tendency to interpret this textual body in the light of "subjective" notions of "proper" desire. Through a close reading of Browne's poem, in which (...) I contextualize his key image of the bad reader as a "circumciser" within the theological and medical discourses of the period, I argue that Browne's response to Donne's text is at once instructively prescient -- providing a useful allegory of reading for the contemporary critic -- and also helpful in situating Donne at the cusp of a historical transformation between "medieval" and "early modern" conceptions of the sexual and the spiritual.IThe structural organization of John Donne's first printed book of poetry makes no obvious sense. Published posthumously in 1633, the collection eschews even the basic generic distinctions so familiar to Donne's modern audience: "Songs and Sonnets," "Satires," "Verse Letters," and "Divine Poems" . Several readers over the years have commented upon the disorderly configuration of Donne's 1633 text; and most recently, Leah Marcus has provided a detailed analysis of the collection in Unediting The Renaissance, itself an ambitious attempt to combine the traditional skills of textual bibliography with the insights of poststructuralist theory. Among other things, Marcus asserts that the very layout and internal composition of Donne's first collection constitute graphic evidence for the ultimate impossibility of "fixing" him within any reductively binary scheme. Indeed, for Marcus, the version of Donne projected by the 1633 Poems confirms not only her deconstructivist principles but also her aesthetic taste more generally. In her words, the collection is a striking melange of sacred and secular that refuses to separate John Donne from Jack. Verse epistles . . . jostle up against scurrilous amatory verses and evocations of human decay in a rough gallimaufry of mingled passions that projects a John Donne very like the Donne most of us value, a Donne for whom the sacred and secular are so closely entwined as to be inseparable.This reading would probably not be considered controversial in most quarters, and I too am in agreement with the main points of Marcus's argument, insofar as they go. However, I want to pause for a moment over one of the more undeveloped aspects of Marcus's interpretation, encoded in her use of the phrase "most of us." As the context makes clear, by "most of us" Marcus means a rather small band of nonreligious or liberal, professionalized, twentieth-century readers. Of course, Marcus is perfectly justified in assuming that her audience will be drawn from exactly this narrow demographic , but at the same time it must also be admitted that "most of us" therefore only refers to the tiniest portion of Donne's actual historical readership. Given that Marcus is performing an analysis of Donne's 1633 Poems, then, one obvious question emerges from her account: How might readers in 1633 have responded to the collection's juxtaposition of the religious with the secular? What might its disorganization have signified for them?One possible answer to this question has been suggested by Arthur F. Marotti, perhaps the most influential of Donne's textualist critics. In Manuscript, Print, and the English Renaissance Lyric, Marotti suggests, against Marcus, that Donne's first editors deliberately delay the readerly encounter with Donne's more earthly lyrics by burying them toward the back of the book. In other words, according to Marotti, the appearance of random disorganization that Marcus values is actually an intentional blind -- the result of a conscious attempt to "protect the reputation of Dean Donne from moral taint."However, this ingenious theory is not without flaws. For example, we are required to accept Marotti's contention. (shrink)

ObjectiveEven if the relationship between adverse childhood experiences and intimate partner violence has already been established, there are no sufficient studies examining the relationships between these factors and attachment representations, specifically attachment disorganization. Thus, this study aimed to explore, in a sample of women who experienced IPV the presence of interpersonal adversities during childhood, and attachment representations, with a particular focus on disorganization.MethodsWomen’s representations of attachment experiences were investigated through the Adult Attachment Interview, while the presence of various (...) forms of interpersonal adversities during childhood was assessed using the Complex Trauma Questionnaire. The results of the IPV group were compared with those of women with no history of IPV.ResultsWomen in the IPV group showed higher values of multiple forms of adverse experiences within their caregiving system. They presented significantly higher rates of disorganized states of mind regarding attachment, indicative of a lack of resolution regarding traumatic experiences, and of disorganized working models resulting from complex trauma. Our results highlighted that, more than the presence of traumatic experiences, it is their irresolution – reflected in the disorganized states of mind regarding attachment at the Adult Attachment Interview – to be a significant predictor of IPV.ConclusionThese results suggest underline the significance of offering a trauma- and attachment-informed therapy to those who experience IPV. Such results could help both clinicians and researchers in formulating clearer guidelines for IPV interventions. (shrink)

Ecology, with its emphasis on coupled processes and massive heterogeneity, is not amenable to complete mechanical reduction, which is frustrated for reasons of history, dimensionality, logic, insufficiency, and contingency. Physical laws are not violated, but can only constrain, not predict. Outcomes are predicated instead by autocatalytic configurations, which emerge as stable temporal series of incorporated contingencies. Ecosystem organization arises out of agonism between autocatalytic selection and entropic dissolution. A degree of disorganization, inefficiency, and functional redundancy must be retained by (...) all living systems to ensure flexibility in the face of novel disturbances. That physical and biological dynamics exhibit significant incongruencies argues for the formulation of alternative metaphysical assumptions, referred to here as “Process Ecology”. (shrink)

Moral philosophy in all its contemporary forms, whether consequentialist, formalist, contractarian, utilitarian, or virtue ethicist, presumes the possibility of formulating principles of conduct that apply universally to all human beings. Standard exceptions are infants and young children, persons who are clinically insane, and persons with reduced mental capacity. These exceptions are recognized by all modern systems of morality and law. The inability to distinguish right from wrong, due to immature age, mental disorganization, or insufficient intelligence is grounds to exempt (...) any given person from moral responsibility and moral agency.Human beings not bound by such conditions are distinguished by their capacity .. (shrink)

This article sets out to revisit Herbert Marcuse’s “transcendent project” of liberation, as well as his notion of “post-technological rationality,” which grounded this project, articulated in outline form in the last section of One-Dimensional Man and in fragments throughout his middle writings between 1955 and 1972. The aim is to assess this project’s continued validity for the struggle for alternatives to the disorganizations and enclosures of neoliberal capitalism and its perpetual moments of crises. This article first reviews Marcuse’s place within (...) substantivist critiques of technology. It then works through how Marcuse’s “post-technological rationality”—the other side of his technology critique—envisions social change happening via a rerationalized, revalued, and reaestheticized technological base spurred by the openings for alternatives made possible by a reconstituted subjectivity, determinate negation, and moments of crisis. (shrink)

The human self model comprises essential features such as the experiences of ownership, of body-centered spatial perspectivity, and of a long-term unity of beliefs and attitudes. In the pathophysiology of schizophrenia, it is suggested that clinical subsyndromes like cognitive disorganization and derealization syndromes reflect disorders of this self model. These features are neurobiologically instantiated as an episodically active complex neural activation pattern and can be mapped to the brain, given adequate operationalizations of self model features. In its unique capability (...) of integrating external and internal data, the prefrontal cortex (PFC) appears to be an essential component of the neuronal implementation of the self model. With close connections to other unimodal association cortices and to the limbic system, the PFC provides an internally represented world model and internal milieu data of the organism, both serving world orientation. In the pathophysiology of schizophrenia, it is the dysfunction of the PFC that is suggested to be the neural correlate for the different clinical schizophrenic subsyndromes. The pathophysiological study of psychiatric disorders may contribute to the theoretical debate on the neuronal basis of the self model. (shrink)

Pressured Into Crime: An Overview of General Strain Theory by Robert Agnew provides an overview of general strain theory, one of the leading explanations of crime and delinquency, developed by author Robert Agnew. Written to be student-friendly, Pressured Into Crime features numerous real-world examples, insightful and colorful quotes from former and active criminals, clear summaries of major points, and challenging review and discussion questions at the end of each chapter.This book provides the following:* It compares and contrasts GST to other (...) leading theories of crime, including biopsychological, control, social learning, routine activities, and social disorganization theories.* It describes the evidence on GST, including the most current research on the types of strains most likely to cause crime, why these strains cause crime, and the factors that influence the effects of strains on crime.* It employs GST to explain patterns of offending over the life course as well as age, gender, class, and race/ethnic differences in offending.* It uses GST to explain community and societal differences in crime rates.* It draws on GST to make recommendations for reducing crime.* It revises and extends GST to take into account the latest research findings.Pressured Into Crime allows students to explore this major theory in depth--reviewing the research on the theory, comparing it to other theories, and applying the theory to key issues in the study of crime. (shrink)

Myocardial disarray is the screening tool for HCM (hypertrophy cardiomyopathy). It is also found in hypertension, congenital heart disease, corpulmonale, etc. Many patients died from heart failure due to myocardial disarray. The risk of premature death may be determined by the degree of myocyte disarray. This article reviews the anatomical explanation of myocardial disarray. It also discusses the pathogenesis of the myocardial disorganization that causes heart failure. How to measure myocardial disarray has also been assessed. Therefore, early detection of (...) myocardial disarray is advised to prevent heart failure. (shrink)

I argue that Merleau-Ponty and Deleuze both offer accounts of passivity capable of paving the way for a philosophy of time constitution operating outside the structure of human consciousness. Taking, as a point of departure, the fundamental role that temporalization plays in phenomenology as the universal grounding of givenness, I argue that both Merleau-Ponty and Deleuze offer similar and complementary accounts of “lower levels” of time constitution: they both think through the articulation of a non-anthropomorphic “here and now” that precedes (...) the articulation of a fully-fledged consciousness. I then argue that this passive time constitution, which precedes any human faculty of thought, is de facto open, beyond the “here and now,” to multiple degrees of virtual memory or “pure past.” Such considerations subvert and complexify the common views that equate the animal’s capacity of retention with its capacity to be open to a world. Finally, I suggest that these syntheses of temporalization are not teleologically oriented, that is, their deployment in organic systems of higher complexity is neither their culmination, nor their final stage. The organic syntheses can be made to resurface. For the human subject, this results in the disorganization of thought and the reshaping of sense-making faculties. (shrink)