From the perspective of free speech theory, both of the central First Amendment values - human autonomy and deliberative democracy - require robust protection for the places and spaces in which speech and public discourse occur. This Article argues that current Supreme Court doctrine does not effectively protect speech from content neutral regulation of place. The problem is that remaining neutral is consistent with policies that would dislocate the very place for the “marketplace of ideas.” Moreover, free speech theory focused (...) on autonomy and deliberative democracy has not adequately addressed the role that place plays in furthering these values. Speech may be, and increasingly in practice is, suppressed by control of the places and spaces where speech occurs. Limitations on public expressions critical of administration policies at Presidential events is a key example of the regulation of speech through the regulation of place. Dissent is increasingly displaced with the consequence that the figure of dissent risks disappearing from public discourse. Employing aspects of Hanna Arendt's political philosophy, this Article argues that we need to re-think and re-articulate the importance of public places for our free speech tradition. Personhood and human autonomy, as well as robust public debate, can only exist and develop in fullest form within social structures that provide public places and spaces for human interaction and discourse. Fundamentally, as Arendt suggests, we protect public appearances for public discourse not simply for its instrumental value for deliberation, but for the intrinsic value of creating persons and citizens in their fullest form. (shrink)

This article develops a normative theory of the status of ‘internally displaced persons’. Political theorists working on forced migration have paid little attention to internally displaced persons, but internally displaced persons bear a distinctive normative status that implies a set of rights that its bearer can claim and correlate duties that others owe. This article develops a practice-based account of justice in internal displacement, which aims to answer the questions of who counts as an internally displaced person and what (...) is owed to internally displaced persons (and by whom). The first section addresses the question of who counts as an internally displaced person by offering an interpretation of the conditions of non-alienage and involuntariness. The second section articulates an account of what is owed to internally displaced persons that draws on and refines the idea of ‘occupancy rights’. The third section sets out an account of the role of the international community in supplementing the protection of internally displaced persons by their own states. (shrink)

An increasingly wide array of moral arguments has coalesced in recent work on the question of how to confront the phenomenon of climate change driven displacement. Despite invoking a range of disparate moral principles, arguments addressing displacement across international borders seem to converge on a similar range of policy remedies: expansion of the 1951 Refugee Convention to include ecological refugees, expedited immigration, or, for entire political communities that have suffered displacement, even the ceding of sovereign territory. Curiously, (...) this convergence is observable even across the distinction of interest for this paper: the distinction between arguments that proceed in the vein of reparations and arguments that reach their conclusion without invoking any reparations. Even though as a collection they appear to point in the same direction, I argue that non-reparative arguments that seek to address climate change driven displacement have several shortcomings, such that climate justice should be understood to include an indispensable role for reparations. (shrink)

Dynamic mental images are co-constitutive of the determinations of reality and possibility under which our senses of life open and unfold. Ultimately, this dynamic sense of images introduces the difficulty of thinking in light of their role in the configuration of human knowledge and their power over interpretations and determinations of the many senses of beings. This relationship between images and philosophical knowledge is further complicated when one looks at it from the perspective of a colonized consciousness. In such (...) cases self-knowledge and the very possibility of philosophical knowledge depend on images that are not one's own. This makes the articulation of the senses of distinct existences an impossible project. By looking at the work of Fanon, Anibal Quijano, and Alfredo Jaar, this article discusses how such pernicious images occur in spite of one's distinct sense of existence, and how the distorted displacement of existence may be challenged and overcome. (shrink)

There is a puzzle regarding the semantics of quantification that is well-known among linguists and formal semanticists, but which has received relatively little attention from philosophers. The puzzle emerges most naturally if our semantic theory is categorical, satisfying two mutually supporting requirements.

This paper explores the way in which Agamben takes part in the dialogue on “impolitical communities” that was inaugurated by J. L. Nancy and was soon followed by authors like M. Blanchot, J. Derrida and R. Esposito, among others. Although Agamben’s ontological exploration of ‘whatever being,’ followed later by the political idea of form-of-life, are still very close particularly to Nancy’s work, the article will show in which ways Agamben’s view of a political coming community explores different paths and moves (...) in unusual registers, that help to understand in new ways the kind of inoperativeness involved in a contemporary rethinking of community. The notion of experience of thought as potentiality and its relationship to that “tiny displacement” of the world which Agamben seems to connect with his idea of a coming community will play a central role in the analysis. (shrink)

This article considers the current global trend of Internally Displaced Persons and the Refugee Crisis, which have become serious concerns for most nations of the world and for the Church. While not limiting the discussion to the current refugee situation, the article focuses more on the circumstances faced by IDPs in Nigeria and the factors that led to this situation. The article brings a Biblical perspective to the situation, as it also looks at the role that theological education can (...) play in stemming the migration tide. Bibliographic and ethnographic tools used in eliciting data reveal that theological education has a role in critically assessing the IDP situation and finding a way out of it. Also, theological education can be a prophetic voice for the Church and society in condemning the factors that lead to crises, and even in urging and encouraging both the government and the Church to fulfil their responsibilities. (shrink)

One of the richest sources available to critics and historians interested in the history of subjectivity in late-medieval Europe is the large body of works surrounding the sacrament of penance. These texts are of interest not simply because of their number and evident popularity, but because of the central role they played in the relationship between the church's spiritual, ethical, and juridical authority and the everyday conduct and experience of medieval people. As penance gained increasing theological and institutional importance (...) during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, the church became increasingly concerned with the need to cultivate a penitential perspective on the territory of human action in everyone, layfolk as well as religious; and as confession in particular became an increasingly central feature of late-medieval ethical practice, the need was seen as well to develop the skills of ethical reflection and psychological analysis necessary for productive work in the confessional. (shrink)

An emerging discourse about automated agricultural machinery imagines farms as places where farmers and workers do not need to be, but also implicitly frames farms as intolerable places where people do not want to be. Only autonomous machines, this story goes, can relieve farmers and workers of this presumed burden by letting them ‘farm at a distance’. In return for this distanced autonomy, farmers are promised increased control over their work-life balance and greater farm productivity from letting ‘smart’ robots assume (...) control over the operational environment. Drawing upon the ways that these machines are promoted by manufacturers in various media, we trace the nascent contours of what we term a liberatory sociotechnical imaginary for agricultural automation across three cases—automated milking systems, self-driving tractors, and robotic strawberry pickers. We show how promises for new freedoms and autonomy are flexibly deployed to respond to distinct frictions that farmers, workers, and even farm animals experience in different modes of industrial agriculture. However, underlying these promises is the purposefully understated self-interest of manufacturers, who stand to gain further control over farms if automated technologies assume a central role in agriculture. Through the liberatory rhetoric, we contend, the imaginary seeks to enroll farmers into a socio-technical network that creates new relations of dependence upon the companies who design, sell, maintain, and often retain ownership over automated technologies. While potentially powerful, this imaginary may nonetheless fail to coalesce as farmers, workers, and agroecosystems exert their own agency on automated imaginaries and technological futures for agriculture. (shrink)

On what basis, and to what extent, are refugees obligated to obey the laws of their host countries? Consideration of the specific case of asylum-seekers generates, I think, two competing intuitions: the refugee has a prima facie obligation to obey the laws of her host country and none of the popularly canvassed substrates of political obligation—consent, tacit consent, fairness, or social role—is at all apt to explain the presence of this obligation. I contend that the unfashionable gratitude account of (...) political obligation does the best job of accounting for the intuitions. As has been noticed by other commentators, obligations of gratitude are difficult to specify and subject to numerous cancelling conditions. I analyze these conditions in detail and conclude that if one accepts that gratitude is the basis of the political obligation of the refugee, then one must face up to just how frangible the obligation is. In particular, the obligation is conditional on the fair and generous treatment of refugees that is consistent with their dignity as human beings. (shrink)

The provision of “closer-to-patient” services has increased in most industrialized countries. However, the migration of services in non-traditional health care settings implies redefining the role of technical and human entities and transforming the nature and use of technologies and places. Drawing on various scholarly efforts to conceptualize space, place, and technology, this paper compares and contrasts satellite and mobile dialysis units implemented in two regions in the province of Quebec, Canada. The satellite units were hosted in two small, local (...) hospitals where nursing staff had been recently trained. The mobile unit was a bus adapted to host five dialysis stations; nurses traveled back and forth between a university teaching hospital and two sites located within a radius of 7.6 miles. In both projects, nephrologists supervised from a distance via a videoconferencing system. Our aim is to illustrate the ways in which the displacement of technical and human entities gives shape to new forms of emplacement in non-traditional health care settings. The satellite and mobile units contributed to the culture of dialysis care and transformed the identity of nurses, doctors, patients, and technologies. By contrasting two projects involving different spatial and clinical logics, we analyze in what ways certain forms of recombination of human and technical entities can prove incomplete but nevertheless acceptable to providers and project managers. (shrink)

In this article, we discuss the potential of wearable structures to provide effective social commentaries and address the political representation of refugees, migrants, and nomads. We take Lucy Orta’s Refuge Wear as an occasion to address a series of socio-political considerations around wearables, textiles, communication, and technology, as well as the role of urban and social environments in determining architectures of mobility. Finally, we provide a critique of framing concepts such as relational aesthetics, heterotopias, nomadology, or deterritorialization—to propose a (...) rethinking of wearables based on the idea of critical habitats and responsible resource-based philosophies. (shrink)

This case study introduces the QIT Madagascar Minerals (QMM) SA mining project at Fort-Dauphin, Madagascar, as a development project that has produced issues concerning justice. Although QMM appears to be a model company with a project that is seen as a success story, its consequent displacement of populations has been problematic in many respects, as have been the social effects that arise due to migration to the area by others who are attracted by the project. We suggest that the (...) root of many of these problems is that the people to be displaced have played an insignificant role in forming the project itself: consultation has instead been centred on corporate, government and environmental NGO concerns and interests. Compensation for losses has been inadequate. As non-mining land has been set aside as an offset for the purpose of conservation, traditional livelihoods have been curtailed. A narrow and Western conception of natural conservation that forbids access by the people has ensued for lands that hav.. (shrink)

Millions of people undergo displacement in the world. Internally displaced people (IDP) are especially vulnerable as they are not protected by special legislation in contrast to other migrants. Research conducted among IDPs must be correspondingly sensitive in dealing with ethical issues that may arise. Muslim IDPs in Puttalam district in the North-Western province of Sri Lanka were initially displaced from Northern Sri Lanka due to the conflict in 1991. In the backdrop of a study exploring the prevalence of common (...) mental disorders among the IDPs, researchers encountered various ethical challenges. These included inter-related issues of autonomy, non-maleficence, beneficence, confidentiality and informed consent, and how these were tailored in a culture-specific way to a population that has increased vulnerability. This paper analyses how these ethical issues were perceived, detected and managed by the researchers, and the role of ethics review committees in mental health research concerning IDPs. The relevance of guidelines and methodologies in the context of an atypical study population and the benefit versus risk potential of research for IDPs are also discussed. The limitations that were encountered while dealing with ethical challenges during the study are discussed. The concept of post-research ethical conduct audit is suggested to be considered as a potential step to minimize the exploitation of vulnerable populations such as IDPs in mental health research. (shrink)

An attempt to come to grips with the problem of how we acquire new concepts or how we develop new theories. Mr. Schon builds his theory on the basis of the idea that we do deal with new situations, or with old situations in new ways, and that we can do so only in terms of "old" theories—concepts which apply literally to other situations. He argues that we do so by "displacing" such concepts, using them as metaphors or projective models (...) for the new situation. This displacement both yields new concepts and conserves old assumptions uncritically. Mr. Schon devotes much attention to the role and nature of the metaphorical use of concepts, yet he fails to develop an explicit theory of their literal use.—K. P. F. (shrink)

This chapter reassesses the role of Aristotle in Gadamer’s work. Gadamer is sometimes read as preferential to Plato over Aristotle. Such a reading, however, displaces the centrality of Aristotle to Gadamer’s thought. Gadamer saw Aristotle, and not Plato, as the first phenomenologist. Gadamer consequently expressed a great debt to Aristotle, not only for modeling a phenomenological approach to philosophy, but also for the illuminating phenomenological descriptions that Aristotle gave. Both his philosophical approach and the insights it yielded serve as (...) compelling evidence for Aristotle’s continued relevance for us today. (shrink)

_ Source: _Volume 39, Issue 2, pp 118 - 137 Most of the empirical research in trauma psychology focuses on posttraumatic reactions, rather than on positive outcomes besides increased attention to contributing factors to the concept of posttraumatic growth. The study presented in this paper investigates the role of religious commitment on the one hand and religious and non-religious coping on the other as contributing factors to posttraumatic growth among Internally Displaced Persons in Georgia. Based on data from _N_ (...) = 190 IDP s, Structural Equation Modeling was used to understand posttraumatic growth and the role of religiosity as a coping resource and strategy. Results indicate that religious commitment is not directly related to areas of posttraumatic growth but it has a positive impact on posttraumatic growth when it fosters religious and non-religious ways of coping. Each and every component has shown to have unique contribution to the outcome variable. Finally, implications of the practical value and for the field in general are discussed. (shrink)

This article outlines the evolution of a national research funding system over a timespan of more than 40 years and analyzes the development from a rather stable Humboldt-inspired floor funding model to a complex multi-tiered system where new mechanisms continually have been added on top of the system. Based on recent contributions to Historical Institutionalism it is shown how layering and displacement processes gradually have changed the funding system along a number of dimensions and thus how a series of (...) minor adjustments over time has led to a transformation of the system as a whole. The analysis also highlights the remarkable resistance of the traditional academically oriented research council system towards restructuring. Due to this resistance the political system has, however, circumvented the research council system and implemented change through other channels of the funding system. For periods of time these strategies have marginalized the role of the councils. (shrink)

En los procesos sociopolíticos de superación de los conflictos armados, la recuperación de la Memoria histórica está ocupando un lugar central debido al papel que está juega para una efectiva reconciliación donde la verdad, la reparación y el perdón forman parte de ese proceso. La experiencia cristiana, como comunidad de memoria tiene mucho que aportar en la medida que articule la reflexión crítica sobre qué memoria, desde dónde, desde quiénes; con el potencial liberador del Dios que se pone del lado (...) de las víctimas y desde ellas no deja que se olvide su dolor sino que busca transformarlo. Además incorporar la perspectiva de género, permite reconocer las diferencias genéricas que influyen en la recuperación de la memoria histórica. Mostrar la relevancia de estas articulaciones, es el propósito de este artículo con la invitación a transformar la pastoral urbana que pretende acompañar a las personas en situación de desplazamiento. In socio-political processes of overcoming armed conflict, the Historical Memory is taking a central point because of the role it plays for effective reconciliation where "truth, reparation and forgiveness" are part of that process. Christian experience, as memory community has much to contribute to articulate the critical reflection about what memory, from where, from whom; with the liberating potential of the God who takes the side of the victims and doesn’t allow to forget them neither their pain and seeks transformation. Besides, incorporate the gender perspective, allow to recognize the gender differences and their influences in the recovery of historical memory. Show the relevance of these articulations is the purpose of this article with an invitation to transform urban pastoral in order to support displaced people. (shrink)

The challenge of orphans and vulnerable children has become central to the response of many organisations today. The number of OVC throughout northern Nigeria is growing as a result of the Boko Haram pandemic. Mostly, this is caused by the death of parents who have been killed by the insurgents. It has been estimated that by 2015, 200 000 children under the age of 18 had been orphaned by the Boko Haram insurgents. As the number of OVC is growing, it (...) is becoming more and more difficult for their communities to address all their needs, including their need for positive role models and mentors. This article discusses the role that mentoring can play in the development of OVC affected by violence in northern Nigeria, specifically those in internally displaced person camps. This article argued that one approach to improve the holistic care of OVC in IDP camps in northern Nigeria is through the use of mentors. (shrink)

We begin with the history of the discovery of computability in the 1930’s, the roles of Gödel, Church, and Turing, and the formalisms of recursive functions and Turing automatic machines . To whom did Gödel credit the definition of a computable function? We present Turing’s notion [1939, §4] of an oracle machine and Post’s development of it in [1944, §11], [1948], and finally Kleene-Post [1954] into its present form. A number of topics arose from Turing functionals including continuous functionals on (...) Cantor space and online computations. Almost all the results in theoretical computability use relative reducibility and o-machines rather than a-machines and most computing processes in the real world are potentially online or interactive. Therefore, we argue that Turing o-machines, relative computability, and online computing are the most important concepts in the subject, more so than Turing a-machines and standard computable functions since they are special cases of the former and are presented first only for pedagogical clarity to beginning students. At the end in §10–§13 we consider three displacements in computability theory, and the historical reasons they occurred. Several brief conclusions are drawn in §14. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy and Rhetoric 34.3 (2001) 207-224 [Access article in PDF] Virtual Witnessing and the Role of the Reader in a New Natural Philosophy Richard Cunningham [Figures]How did the self-described new natural philosophies of the early modern period displace other philosophic (moral, ethical, legal), and specifically religious, discourses as the locus of truth in our culture? Natural philosophy's rejection of disputation and of revelation as means of producing truth (...) in favor of the "discovery" of truth was more accurately an introduction of the invention of truth than of its discovery, and this invention demanded the creation of and participation of a certain kind of reader. Rhetorical examination of the early modern magnetic philosopher William Gilbert's most influential work, De Magnete, 1 will help us understand the "paradigm change," to use Thomas Kuhn's oft-misquoted term, 2 from a culture that accepted probabilistic truth in the natural realm to one that expected moral certainty, from a culture that accepted revelation as a legitimate means of access to truth to one that increasingly recognized only the "discovery" of truth through sensual experience disciplined through experiment.One way this paradigm change was effected was through the inclusion of the reader as an active participant in the new natural philosophies. The reader was included in the new natural philosophies by engendering in him desires for particular forms of knowledge and particular ways of attaining that knowledge. Peter Dear notes that "in the seventeenth century old practices changed and new ones appeared. Those changing practices represent shifts in the meaning of experience itself" (12-13), and he then asks the question that might well have been on the tongues of many as the old practices gave way to the new: "how can a universal knowledge-claim about the natural world be justified on the basis of singular items of individual experience?" (13). A crucially important way to justify the universal knowledge-claim on singular items of individual experience [End Page 207] was through the employment of a technique Steven Shapin and Simon Schaffer have labeled "virtual witnessing" (60-65). Briefly, "virtual witnessing" describes the use of linguistic resources to produce a vicarious experience enabling a reader to confer agreement as though she had actually been present when an experiment was conducted. Virtual witnessing alone, however, cannot explain how the scientific became the dominant truth-producing paradigm in our culture. Virtual witnessing intermingled with a variety of other elements in early modern natural philosophy to encourage readers to participate in the invention of "true" accounts of the world in which we live. In this article I will apply the tools of rhetorical analysis as I use the example of De Magnete to elaborate on how a Foucauldian form of disciplinary impulse combined in the early modern period with the technology of virtual witnessing to create an audience inculcated with desire, interest, and belief in the new natural philosophy, which had to precede and accompany expansion of the scientific into the dominant truth-producing paradigm it has long since become.For the sake of clarity I should expound upon the two key elements of my argument, "discipline," in the Foucauldian sense in which I use the term, and "virtual witnessing." According to Michel Foucault, "discipline" is "a political anatomy of detail... situated on the axis that links the singular and the multiple" (139-49), and I argue that this point, on the "axis that links the singular and the multiple," is exactly the point that enables modern science. William Gilbert's De Magnete can help us understand how knowledge and power--or epistemê and technê, to use another, perhaps more rhetorically inflected, vocabulary--combined in the early modern period to produce the effects that would become those of modern science. Gilbert provides an excellent example of the movement from the production of truth through revelation to the production of truth through discovery and the experimental method. De Magnete persuades its reader by rendering visible a formerly invisible "universal nature," 3 so that truth is no longer warranted by the invisible workings... (shrink)

In this article, I explore displacement as a force that precludes dwelling. I do so in the context of the georgic mode, a literary tradition defined by dwelling and by the kind of agricultural endeavoring that Heidegger relates to “building.” As he explains in “Building Dwelling Thinking,” to build is not only to make or to construct, but also “to preserve and care for, specifically to till the soil, to cultivate the vine”. Thus, in addition to creation outright, Heidegger’s (...) “building” involves husbandry. His expansive definition multiplies the kinds of human activity described by building. When humans cultivate plants, they create a situation and environment wherein the crop can flourish. The generative force is nonhuman; growth comes from the plant itself. We cannot build a vineyard as we can a structure. In addition to placing humans in a caretaking role, the three terms in Heidegger’s title further indicate that the husbandman’s “building” requires his continual attention to his place and to his work. Building, in the agricultural sense of the word, requires prolonged physical presence and much thought. Heidegger’s choice of a vineyard underscores the importance of time to dwelling: as a perennial plant that requires years of investment before bearing fruit, the vineyard functions as a site where planning and labor, observation and care unfold across the seasons and over a period of years. The full scope of Heidegger’s dwelling, then, involves prolonged and productive agricultural thinking and laboring. My fundamental premise is that Heideggerian dwelling reaches a confluence with the georgic mode. (shrink)

An action is typically carried out over time, unified by an intention that is known to the agent under some description. In some of our habitual doings, however, we are often not aware of what or why we do as we do. Not knowing this, we must ask what kind of agency is at stake in these habitual doings, if any. This paper aims to show how habitual doings can still be considered actions of a subject even while they involve (...) a sense of involuntariness and there is a temporal displacement in the self-understanding they afford. It turns out that in some forms of habitual agency, we do not have the relevant intentional description at hand when we are engaged in the process of doing what we so typically do; on the contrary, such a description can only be appropriated with effort and subsequent to the time of the action. I will focus on two approaches to habits, broadly construed; a phenomenological and an action theoretic one, and I will suggest that both approaches focus too narrowly on a synchronic relation between habitual action and self-understanding. I will suggest that we need a diachronic account of the potential for self-understanding required for agency that allows us to explain the experience of diminished control and alienation involved in certain of our habitual actions. The suggested perspective enables us to explain how some habits can be experienced as both momentarily involuntary and unconscious while at the same time they play a significant role for self-understanding. (shrink)

Abusive supervision, defined as subordinates’ perception of the extent to which supervisors engage in the sustained display of hostile verbal and non-verbal behaviors, excluding physical contact, is associated with various negative outcomes. This has made it easy for researchers to overlook the possibility that some supervisors regret their bad behavior and express remorse for their actions. Hence, we know little about how subordinates react to the perception that their supervisor is remorseful and how this perception affects the outcomes of supervisors’ (...) undesired behavior. Specifically, drawing on the social exchange theory and displace revenge literature, this study explains how abusive supervision leads to victims’ service sabotage behavior. In addition, this study also investigates how perceived supervisors’ remorse mitigates the adverse effects of abusive supervision. Based on time-lagged, dyadic data from Chinese individuals, this study found support for all the proposed relationships, i.e., abusive supervision leads to service sabotage through the mediating effect of revenge desire. The findings also conclude that PSR lessens the detrimental effects of abusive supervision on victims’ behavior with their customers. Finally, this research contributes to service sabotage literature by highlighting the possibility where abusive supervisors cause service sabotage behavior among victims. This study also shows the importance of PSR’s role in decreasing service sabotage behavior exhibited by victims of abusive supervisors in the service sector. (shrink)

The harm of horizontal knowledge hiding behavior to individuals and organizations has been discussed and confirmed by many studies. The negative consequences of top-down knowledge hiding have now emerged as a new focus of research. This study aims to enrich the understanding of the consequences of supervisor knowledge hiding by exploring its trickle-down effect and mechanism. Based on the displaced aggression theory in psychology, this paper analyses and examines the cognitive psychological process and mechanism informing employee knowledge hiding from colleagues (...) when faced with their supervisor’s malicious knowledge hiding behavior. Using a three-stage time-lag questionnaire survey strategy, we collect 233 valid samples of full-time employees from representative provinces and cities in China, covering multiple industries. The following findings are observed: Supervisor knowledge hiding from subordinates positively affects subordinate knowledge hiding from colleagues ; Revenge motivation plays a mediating role; Traditionality weakens the influence of supervisor knowledge hiding on a subordinates’ revenge motivation. This study confirms the trickle-down effects of supervisor knowledge hiding behavior, extends research on the consequences of top-down knowledge hiding and its mechanism and provides new insights for organizational practice. (shrink)

Our commentary articulates some of the commonalities between Baumeister et al.'s theory of socially differentiated roles and Strategic Differentiation-Integration Effort. We expand upon the target article's position by arguing that differentiating social roles is contextual and driven by varying ecological pressures, producing character displacement not only among individuals within complex societies, but also across social systems and multiple levels of organization.

This article analyzes the role played by Immanuel Kant's defense of the death penalty, in the first and the second years of Jacques Derrida's Death Penalty Seminars, delivered from 1999 to 2001. Regarding the first year, the initial part of this article charts how Derrida introduces Kant's writings that purport to elaborate the categorical imperative of the death penalty, not by Kant's primary arguments but rather precisely through Kant's concession of an exception to this categorical imperative, concerning the impunity (...) of a mother's infanticide. Derrida's lectures juxtapose Kant's philosophy of the death penalty with Victor Hugo's claim for the inviolability of life, and in doing so, the sessions introduce other examples of the applicability of the death penalty to mothers who have killed their children. What is at stake is the status of philosophy relative to the death penalty. Concerning the second year, the latter part of this article isolates the logic of Kant's categorical imperative, as deconstructed by Derrida, through recourse to the additions that Kant was obliged to append to his initial argument—those involving precisely sex crimes. The article follows how Derrida thoroughly takes apart both the simplicity of Kant's categorical imperative of the death penalty by means of the complications that are its abyssal foundation and the phallogocentrism of Freud's sexual oppositions through the extraction of insights into another thinking of sexual difference that Freud's categories foreclosed. (shrink)

Like most other sciences, behavior analysis adopts an assumption of uniformity, namely that principles discovered under controlled conditions apply outside the laboratory as well. Since the boundary between public and private depends on the vantage point of the observer, observability is not an inherent property of behavior. From this perspective, private events are assumed to enter into the same orderly relations as public behavior, and the distinction between public and private events is merely a practical one. Private events play no (...) role in the experimental analysis of behavior, but they permit us to make sense of many commonplace phenomena where controlled observation is impossible but unsystematic data are available. Such interpretive exercises serve both to guide research and to displace occult explanations. (shrink)

Recent studies suggest that learners who are asked to predict the outcome of an event learn more than learners who are asked to evaluate it retrospectively or not at all. One possible explanation for this “prediction boost” is that it helps learners engage metacognitive reasoning skills that may not be spontaneously leveraged, especially for individuals with still-developing executive functions. In this paper, we combined multiple analytic approaches to investigate the potential role of executive functions in elementary school-aged children's science (...) learning. We performed an experiment that investigates children's science learning during a water displacement task where a “prediction boost” had previously been observed—children either made an explicit prediction or evaluated an event post hoc (i.e., postdiction). We then considered the relation of executive function measures and learning, which were collected following the main experiment. Via mixed effects regression models, we found that stronger executive function skills (i.e., stronger inhibition and switching scores) were associated with higher accuracy in Postdiction but not in the Prediction Condition. Using a theory-based Bayesian model, we simulated children's individual performance on the learning task (capturing “belief flexibility”), and compared this “flexibility” to the other measures to understand the relationship between belief revision, executive function, and prediction. Children in the Prediction Condition showed near-ceiling “belief flexibility” scores, which were significantly higher than among children in the Postdiction Condition. We also found a significant correlation between children's executive function measures to our “belief flexibility” parameter, but only for children in the Postdiction Condition. These results indicate that when children provided responses post hoc, they may have required stronger executive function capacities to navigate the learning task. Additionally, these results suggest that the “prediction boost” in children's science learning could be explained by increased metacognitive flexibility in the belief revision process. (shrink)

Cell biologists, including those seeking molecular mechanistic explanations of cellular phenomena, frequently rely on experimental strategies focused on identifying the cellular context relevant to their investigations. We suggest that such practices can be understood as a guided decomposition strategy, where molecular explanations of phenomena are defined in relation to natural contextual (cell) boundaries. This “top-down” strategy contrasts with “bottom-up” reductionist approaches where well-defined molecular structures and activities are orphaned by their displacement from actual biological functions. We focus on the (...) central role of microscopic imaging in cell biology to uncover possible constraints on the system. We show how identified constraints are used heuristically to limit possible mechanistic explanations to those that are biologically meaningful. Historical examples of this process described here include discovery of the mechanism of oxidative phosphorylation in mitochondria, molecular explanation of the first steps in protein secretion, and identification of molecular motors. We suggest that these instances are examples of a form of downward causation or, more specifically, constraining relations, where higher-level structures and variables delimit and enable lower-level system states. The guided decomposition strategy in our historical cases illustrates the irreducibility of experimentally identified constraints in explaining biological activities of cells. Rather than viewing decomposition and recomposition as separate epistemic activities, we contend that they need to be iteratively integrated to account for the ontological complexity of multi-level systems. (shrink)

Web-based platforms play an increasingly important role in managing and sharing research data of all types and sizes. This article presents a case study of the data storage, sharing, and management platform Figshare. We argue that such platforms are displacing and reconfiguring the infrastructure of norms, technologies, and institutions that underlies traditional scholarly communication. Using a theoretical framework that combines infrastructure studies with platform studies, we show that Figshare leverages the platform logic of core and complementary components to re-integrate (...) a presently splintered scholarly infrastructure. By means of this logic, platforms may provide the path to bring data inside a scholarly communication system still optimized mainly for text publications. Yet the platform strategy also risks turning over critical scientific functions to private firms whose longevity, openness, and corporate goals remain uncertain. It may amplify the existing trend of splintering infrastructures, with attendant effects on equity of service. (shrink)

Leaders play an important role in clergy's response to their call. Toxic leadership, also known as the dark side of leadership, negatively influences their decision to remain in full-time pastoral ministry. There is a shortage of clergy in the Roman Catholic Church and a distribution or displacement challenge facing the Protestant church. This shortage adversely affects the future of the church as clergy play an integral part in the preparation of congregants for their works of service. The purpose (...) of this study was to discover what factors were involved in clergy's response to the call to full-time pastoral ministry. A practical theological grounded theory approach was used to discover the properties of the category 'leadership'. Semi-structured interviews were conducted and data were coded using Glaser and Strauss's grounded theory methodology. The category of 'leadership' includes properties such as favouritism, leaders abdicating responsibilities, leaders taking no action/being inactive, leaders 'labeling' subordinates, leaders' 'unethical' behaviour, nepotism, poor conflict handling, poor handling of multi-racial issues, being placed on a pedestal, affirming subordinates and autocratic leadership style. Osmer's descriptive-empirical task was used as a practical theological lens through which to view the category 'leadership'. The results indicated three responses by clergy to the call to full-time pastoral ministry: not being called in the first place, a dual call and being called but leaving anyway because of, among other factors, toxic leadership. A steward leadership approach is recommended in response to the dark side of leadership. (shrink)

During the 16-year civil war in Mozambique thousands of children were separated from their families as a direct or indirect result of conflict and displacement. International organizations lent support to a national family tracing and reunification programme coordinated by the government Department for Social Action. Drawing on the findings of an empirical study of the sustainability of substitute family care, this article describes the tensions associated with the involvement of international organizations during the emergency conditions of the war, in (...) post-war rehabilitation and in longer term development. It explores the ethical dimensions of social welfare interventions across borders and continents and concludes by arguing a case for international humanitarian agencies to base their interventions to ?help? separated children on deeper knowledges of the social and political history, and the values, beliefs and normative practices of the populations with whom they work. (shrink)

Emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence are actively revolutionizing the healthcare industry. While there is widespread concern that these advances will displace human practitioners within the healthcare sector, there are several tasks – including original and nuanced ethical decision making – that they cannot replace. Further, the implementation of artificial intelligence in clinical practice can be anticipated to drive the production of novel ethical tensions surrounding its use, even while eliminating some of the technical tasks which currently compete with ethical (...) deliberation for clinicians’ limited time. A new argument therefore arises to suggest that although these disruptive technologies will change the face of medicine, they may also foster a revival of several fundamental components inherent to the role of healthcare professionals, chiefly, the principal activities of moral philosophy. Accordingly, “machine medicine” presents a vital opportunity to reinvigorate the field of bioethics, rather than withdraw from it. (shrink)

Spatial memory relies on encoding, storing, and retrieval of knowledge about objects’ positions in their surrounding environment. Blind people have to rely on sensory modalities other than vision to memorize items that are spatially displaced, however, to date, very little is known about the influence of early visual deprivation on a person’s ability to remember and process sound locations. To fill this gap, we tested sighted and congenitally blind adults and adolescents in an audio-spatial memory task inspired by the classical (...) card game “Memory.” In this research, subjects had to find pairs among sounds displaced on an audio-tactile device composed of loudspeakers covered by tactile sensors. To accomplish this task, participants had to remember the spatialized sounds’ position and develop a proper mental spatial representation of their locations. The test was divided into two experimental conditions of increasing difficulty dependent on the number of sounds to be remembered. Results showed that sighted participants outperformed blind participants in both conditions. Findings were discussed considering the crucial role of visual experience in properly manipulating auditory spatial representations, particularly in relation to the ability to explore complex acoustic configurations. (shrink)

Recent studies of spider phobia have indicated thatfearof spiders is closely associated with the disease-avoidance response of disgust. It is argued that the disgust-relevant status of the spider resulted from its association with disease and illness in European cultures from the tenth century onward. The development of the association between spiders and illness appears to be linked to the many devastating and inexplicable epidemics that struck Europe from the Middle Ages onwards, when the spider was a suitable displaced target for (...) the anxieties caused by these epidemics. Such factors suggest that the pervasive fear of spiders that is commonly found in many Western societies may have cultural rather than biological origins, and may be restricted to Europeans and their descendants. (shrink)

Preliminary words One important feature of Poincaré's conventionalism of geometry is linked to the relation between the abstract notion of space geometry and the representations of the free mobility of our bodies. In this sense «the group of rigid motions» identified by Helmholtz and Lie as the foundation of geometries of constant curvature is, according to Poincaré, an idealization of the primitive experience that acquaints us with the properties of space in the first place. 2 Furthermore, since Poincaré thinks that (...) the only adequate candidates for physical geometry – the geometries of constant curvature – are equivalent from a mathematical point of view (they are homeomorphic), we can choose any one of these. Actually, according to Poincaré, the idealization involved in passing from our own local motions to the group of motions makes use of temporal intuition: our notion of the large-space structure of space assumes that our displacements are infinitely iterables and this assumes temporal intuition. 3 Thus, it looks as Poincaré's notion of convention assumes some kind of idealization process. Indeed, the notion of convention involved in this cases seems to assume that in relation to a target system the choice between two idealizations is determined by some kind of equivalence relation, which in our case is displayed 1. (shrink)

This dissertation was written for the purpose of displacing the negative stereotype of video games being deemed as ‘lowbrow’ entertainment within critical and academic circles, when in actuality the medium has the ability to tell a captivating story through a unique lens unlike the narratives that are traditionally found in a film or a novel. Most of the criticism that games have received in the humanities come from literary scholars who have denounced the medium’s attempts to adapt seminal pieces of (...) literature such as Dante’s Divine Comedy. To counter this assumption, I will be engaging with a video game that has not been marketed as a direct adaptation of the Comedy, but rather uses Dante’s writing as a source of inspiration to enhance its own ludonarrative experience. The game I will be examining in close proximity to the Comedy is the Japanese role-playing game Shin Megami Tensei III: Nocturne released by the studio Atlus in 2003. Nocturne is an incredibly viable case study for this investigation because it exemplifies how, through the unconventional adaptation process of transmediality, a distant text like an RPG can transform the material of a medieval poem to best fit its digital stage while still referencing its source material. In this context, I intend to establish a methodological basis for the transmedial analysis of literature and video games through the creative insight of the Comedy and Nocturne, so that new meaning can be uncovered from both texts and further research can thus commence on relative instances of ludic adaptation. (shrink)

The phenomenon of wonder has fascinated scholars for centuries, yet today the subject is understudied and not rooted in any specific academic discipline. Attempts at building a preliminary account of wonder reveals that the experience of wonder is characterised by seven properties: wonder is sudden, extraordinary and personal; intensifies the cognitive focus; intensifies the use of imagination; instigates awareness of ignorance; causes temporary displacement; makes the world newly present; and brings emotional upheaval. Furthermore, wonder can be distinguished from other (...) similar altered states, including awe, horror, the sublime, curiosity, amazement, admiration and astonishment. Human flourishing is a concept in ethics that has enjoyed a revival since Elizabeth Anscombe’s 1958 article ‘Modern Moral Philosophy’. Through the work of Neo-Aristotelian philosophers Douglas Rasmussen, Alasdair McIntyre and Martha Nussbaum who have contributed to the field a working model of human flourishing attentive to human nature was established. As a result of in-depth examination of the contribution of both emotion and imagination in the experience of wonder through a Neo-Aristotelian lens it becomes evident that wonder may contribute to human flourishing via a number of effects, including widening of perception, extension of moral scope or sensitivity and prompting deep wonder, a wondrous afterglow, openness, humility, an imaginative attitude, reverence and gratitude. Importantly, for wonder to act as a strong contributor to human flourishing one needs to wonder at the right thing, in the right amount, in the right time, in the right way and for the right purpose. Cultivating a balanced sense of wonder is thus by no means an easy task but having a critical attitude towards one’s wonderment would aid one to wonder in a virtuous way. (shrink)

We propose a mathematical model for a class of predator–prey systems more complex than the usual one, involving a commensalism effect consisting in an influence of the predator on the sustainability of the prey. This effect induces interesting new features, including bi-stability. The question of the possibility of reaching a certain attractor starting from initial conditions with a small population of predators, which presents an interest from the vewpoint of the onset of the predator in evolution, is addressed. We propose (...) two possibilities: the classical one involving adapted conditions in the far past and a new one using biodiversity, specifically the presence of another predator which operates as a starter, being displaced in the sequel. (shrink)

Social Theory, Performativity and Professional Power—A Critical Analysis of Helping Professions in England Drawing from interviews and ethnographic research, evidence is provided to suggest a sense of "anxiety" and "regret" amongst state social workers and case managers working on the "front-line" within local authority social service departments. There have been a number of theoretical approaches that have attempted to ground the concept of "power" to understand organizational practice though Foucauldian insights have been most captivating in illuminating power relations and subject (...) positioning. In order to theoretically interrogate the relationship between social theory and professional power, we draw from the neo-Foucauldian work of American Social Philosopher Judith Butler—especially regarding Butler's (1990, 1993 and 1998) powerful work on "performativity" and its relationship to social work. We also attempt to examine the "distances" between the social work role and social workers narratives through an examination of notions of "anxiety" and "regret" in the face of the professionalisation of state social work. (shrink)

Environmental displacement is a global phenomenon affecting millions of people. Due to climate change and the corresponding sea-level rise, it is estimated that about eight million of indigenous people of Pacific Islands will be forced to settle elsewhere by 2050. This is one of many examples confirming the need to ascertain the legal status of environmental refugee in international law. The term ‘environmental refugee’ is controversially discussed and internationally not recognised. First, this article discusses the reasons for reluctance of (...) international organisations to accept this term. Second, noting the cold reception of this term at the regional and state levels, a discussion on whether fears associated with this term are based on solid arguments becomes pertinent. Third, this article outlines the possibility of granting refugee status under international law, especially under human rights and environmental law. Fourth, academic discourses will be examined as they play a crucial role in the conceptual development of ‘environmental refugee’ and, to some academics, the existing refugee definition already encompasses ‘environmental refugees’. Taking into account the developments of the environmental and human rights regime, this article concludes that time is ripe for international law to provide refugee status to environmentally displaced people. (shrink)

The paper analyses Peirce’s hypoiconicity through the lens of Husserlian intentionality. Peirce’s triple structure of hypoiconicity as resemblance relation, diagrammatical reasoning and metaphoric displacement is shown to require intentional acts in its production and interpretation. Regarding hypoiconicity as a semiotic schematization of Vorstellung, the paper places it in the context of Husserl’s conception of intentionality in which iconicity appears as a stepping-stone towards the skeletonization of resemblance in diagrammatical abstraction and as schematic displacement in metaphor. As such, hypoiconic (...) intentionality is argued to play a role also in Peirce’s community conception of language. The paper’s core claim is that intentionality provides an avenue for revealing hypoiconicity as a major, critical concept of semiotics, functioning as paradigm case for investigating the convergence of semiotics and phenomenology. (shrink)

Displacing the physiological model that had held sway in 19th-century medical thinking, early 20th-century medical scientists working on hormones promoted a new understanding of the body, psychological reactions, and the sexual instinct, arguing that each were fundamentally malleable. Hormones came to be understood as the chemical messengers that regulated an individual's growth and sexual development, and sexologists interested in this area focused primarily on children and adolescents. Hormone research also promoted a view of the body in which ‘hermaphroditism’, homosexuality, and (...) ‘sexual perversions’ such as masochism and sadism were attributed to anomalies in the internal secretions produced by the testes or the ovaries. This article focuses on Spanish, Italian, Argentinian, and Brazilian sexology shaped by endocrinological research in the interwar period. First, it shows the key role hormone treatments played in the historical development of sexology in Southern Europe and Latin America. Second, it looks at how sexologists employed hormone research to study human sexual development in the early stages of life, and how they set about ‘correcting’ what they viewed as ‘sexual anomalies’. (shrink)

Consensus plays an ambiguous role in deliberative democracy. While it formed the horizon of early deliberative theories, many now denounce it as an empirically unachievable outcome, a logically impossible stopping rule, and a normatively undesirable ideal. Deliberative disagreement, by contrast, is celebrated not just as an empirically unavoidable outcome but also as a democratically sound and normatively desirable goal of deliberation. Majority rule has generally displaced unanimity as the ideal way of bringing deliberation to a close. This article offers (...) an epistemic perspective on this question of consensus versus disagreement. For ensuring the production of better decisions, we argue, the normative appeal of consensus varies depending on the deliberative task – whether it entails problem solving or prediction. We argue that in pure problem-solving contexts, consensus retains a strong normative appeal and forms the ideal deliberative outcome of deliberation. In contrast, on predictive tasks, consensus should generally not be used as a stopping rule noris it likely to be epistemically desirable as an outcome. Instead deliberators may be better served by ending the deliberation with a form of deliberative disagreement we call ‘positive dissensus’, which paves the way for more accurate aggregate predictions. (shrink)

In the film “Kaili Blues” by Bi Gan, intricate clues create complex connections between the plots steered by various characters. This relationship manifests in splitting time and alternating between dream and reality. This article analyzes Bi Gan’s approach to temporality and dreams by focusing on how he employs various film metaphors to deal with poetic narratives in his films. The article consists of three sections: First, it introduces the (puzzle) storytelling form of “Kaili Blues” as a promising area in many (...) Chinese films. Second, it examines how puzzle films contribute to the ambiguity (plots) between characters from the perspective of infinite games. Moreover, third, the article discusses the two levels of metaphors in “Kaili Blues” that result from the condensation and displacement of metaphors, including the mutual projection of roles caused by the time-forking effect and the audience’s associations caused by the significance of dreams in Chinese tradition (or local) culture. (shrink)

Hiromatsu Wataru’s philosophical thought revolves around an analysis of what he calls the “fourfold structure.” According to Hiromatsu, all phenomena in the world are structured in such a fourfold manner that “a given presents itself as something to someone as Someone,” and these four moments of the phenomenon are not independent elements, but exist only as terms of the functional relationship. This paper surveys and critically examines this theory of the fourfold structure, and shows, in particular, how this theory, while (...) largely presented as synchronic structural analysis, contains some conceptual motifs going beyond the synchronic framework. Specifically, with a focus on the process in which there arises a meaning common to different phenomenal givens and to different knowers, my analysis suggests the way in which phenomena are dynamically structured and thereby displaced in meaning as well as in the knowers’ role relationship. (shrink)

Language plays a role in the genocide of the Rohingya people in Myanmar and continues to shape their experiences in displacement, yet their linguistic rights are rarely discussed in relation to their human rights and humanitarian concerns. International human rights standards offer important foundations for conceptualizing the “right to language” and identifying how linguistic rights can be violated both in situ and in displacement. The Rohingya case highlights how language policies are weaponized to oppress unwanted minorities; their (...) outsider status is reinforced by the country’s language education policy and they face additional rights challenges in displacement—including obstacles to effectively accessing humanitarian aid. Moving forward, norms associated with self-determination and language rights offer a conceptual foundation for shifting attitudes and altering negative perceptions of Rohingya identity. (shrink)