This chapter contains sections titled: Introduction Functional Attribution: Meeting the Explanatory Constraint Functional Attribution: Normativity Postscript: Counterpoint Notes References.

A general feature of our moral psychology is that we feel that some moral demands are motivated externally. Stanford explains this feature with an evolutionary account, such that moral externalism was selected for its ability to facilitate prosocial interactions. Alternatively, I argue that a cognitive, non-selectionist account of moral externalism is a more parsimonious explanation.

When studying historical thinkers, it helps enormously to know on which issues they had philosophically systematic views. For example, if attributing to Mencius the view that all existence is process-like rather than substance-like, it is very useful to know whether Mencius had philosophically systematic views about the (process-like or substance-like) nature of existence in the first place, or whether speculation about this particular issue is more constructive on the part of interpreters. In this paper, I offer a rough-and-ready (...) account of philosophical systematicity, talk about what would count as evidence of this sort of systematicity, and what implications it should have for one's interpretation if one can or cannot provide such evidence. The historical tradition that I am most concerned with is the pre-modern Chinese one, but my conclusions should hold for philosophical interpretations of thinkers of most times and traditions. (shrink)

Evolutionary biology – or, more precisely, two (purported) applications of Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection, namely, evolutionary psychology and what has been called human behavioral biology – is on the cusp of becoming the new rage among legal scholars looking for interdisciplinary insights into the law. We argue that as the actual science stands today, evolutionary biology offers nothing to help with questions about legal regulation of behavior. Only systematic misrepresentations or lack of understanding of the relevant (...) biology, together with far-reaching analytical and philosophical confusions, have led anyone to think otherwise. Evolutionary accounts are etiological accounts of how a trait evolved. We argue that an account of causal etiology could be relevant to law if (1) the account of causal etiology is scientifically well-confirmed, and (2) there is an explanation of how the well-confirmed etiology bears on questions of development (what we call the Environmental Gap Objection). We then show that the accounts of causal etiology that might be relevant are not remotely well-confirmed by scientific standards. We argue, in particular, that (a) evolutionary psychology is not entitled to assume selectionist accounts of human behaviors, (b) the assumptions necessary for the selectionist accounts to be true are not warranted by standard criteria for theory choice, and (c) only confusions about levels of explanation of human behavior create the appearance that understanding the biology of behavior is important. We also note that no response to the Environmental Gap Objection has been proffered. In the concluding section of the article, we turn directly to the work of Owen Jones, a leading proponent of the relevance of evolutionary biology to law, and show that he does not come to terms with any of the fundamental problems identified in this article. (shrink)

While medicine is solidly grounded on scientific areas such as biology and chemistry, some argue that it is in its essence not a science at all. With medicine playing a substantial societal role, addressing questions about the scientific nature of medicine is of obvious urgency. This paper takes on such a task and starts by consulting the literature on the “demarcation” problem in the philosophy of science. Learning from failures of earlier approaches, it proposes that we adopt a Deflated Approach, (...) which acknowledges that “science” is a family resemblance concept that admits differences of degrees to nonscientific undertakings. Then, drawing on Paul Hoyningen-Huene’s ; account of systematicity and Alexander Bird’s analysis of examples from the history of medicine, the paper argues that medicine meets the requirement for systematicity on all dimensions and thereby qualifies as a science. The paper then considers and defuses two objections. First, it is shown that nonepistemic differences linked to the distinctive duality of medicine do not warrant thinking that medicine is not science. Second, against some recent criticism, the paper uses homeopathy as an example to show that systematicity can succeed as a demarcation criterion. (shrink)

Hoyningen-Huene develops an account of what science is, distinguishing it from common sense. According to Hoyningen-Huene, the key distinguishing feature is that science is more systematic. He identifies nine ways in which science is more systematic than common sense. I compare Hoyningen-Huene’s view to a view I refer to as the “Continuity Thesis.” The Continuity Thesis states that scientific knowledge is just an extension of common sense. This thesis is associated with Quine, Planck, and others. I argue that (...) Hoyningen-Huene ultimately rejects the Continuity Thesis, and I present further evidence to show that the Continuity Thesis is false. I also argue that it is the systematicity of science that ultimately grounds the epistemic authority of science. Hoyningen-Huene thus draws attention to an important feature of science that explains the place of science in contemporary society. (shrink)

This article examines the theoretical status of the three CSR models of William C. Frederick. Using the method of systematics, it disaggregates the elements of the three models and suggests one integrative means of re-sorting them. The article argues the need to develop a theoretical logic to understand behavior in this area and supplies one in the form of the beginnings of an explicit theory of normative referencing. The processes of normative referencing, including normative selection, normative commitment, normative instruction, normative (...) implementation, normative administration, normative outcomes production, normative accounting, and normative adjustment are described. (shrink)

Kant's account of systematicity, in the Critique of Judgment, provides the basis for judgements regarding the moral salience of objects in experience, thus satisfying this necessary condition for the practical employment of teleological judgement. Kant's account of systematicity, however, grounds merely theoretical teleological interpretation of experience without necessarily grounding practical judgements. In order to provide a basis for practical judgements, teleological judgement must subordinate the teleological interpretation of experience to an account of the necessary commitments of a rational subject.

In this paper I argue that if one is to do justice to reason's unity in Kant, then one must acknowledge that reason's practical ends are presupposed in every theoretical investigation of nature. Thus, contrary to some other commentators, I contend that the notion of the metaphysical ground of the unity of nature should not be attributed to the “dynamics of reason” and its “own practical purposes.” Instead, the metaphysical ground of the unity of nature is in fact an indispensable (...) and necessary notion for reason in both its theoretical and practical functions, but this need of reason to presuppose such a notion can only find its adequate proof in the practical. By offering a synopsis of Kant's accounts of nature's systematicity in the Transcendental Ideal of the Critique of Pure Reason (Part I), the Appendix to the Dialectic of the Critique of Pure Reason (Part II), and in the Critique of Judgment (Part III), I identify in each section Kant's theoretical and practical arguments for reason's presupposition of the “unconditioned,” demonstrate their structural interdependence, and show a general continuity in Kant's position on this issue throughout his critical system. (shrink)

Scientometrics, as a rule, is considered in details – the more accurate and ex­pressive the detailing, the more effective is the accounting of scientific research: the measurement of quantitative parameters of the results of scientific activity is aimed at improving the quality of scientific communication and, ultimately, the progress of science. This led to the transition from usual bibliometrics to sciento­metrics, and later to other more sophisticated forms of accounting for scientific activity, which can be divided into infometrics and altmetrics. (...) Infometrics and its modifications take into account everything that could be formalized, while altmetrics seeks to include qualitative parameters in the realm of quantitative measurements. In this article, attention is focused precisely on the analysis of the relationship between quantitative methods and quantitative indicators of scien­tific activity with the progress of science thanks to a comparative assessment of bibliometrics, scientific metrics and infometrics from philosophical positions. A way out of the problematic situations in which attempts to provide a quantita­tive description of the quality of scientific activity inevitably fall, should be sought beyond the quantitative methods themselves – in the identification of their ulti­mate goal. Such a goal is the development of humanity through the progress of science. The UN program “Transforming Our World: Agenda 2030 for Sustainable Development” offers a systematic vision of ways to accomplish this task, which, in particular, sets the goal of achieving equal development opportunities for every person. Bibliometrics, scientometrics and infometrics contribute to overcoming many types of social inequality – provided that people are actively involved in sci­entific activity: personal scientific achievements level out property, gender, reli­gious, ethnic and many other types of social inequality and give every participant of scientific research access to a public career and personal development. The development of each person on a rational basis is the ultimate goal of science, which is the basis of the philosophy of the strategy of global sustainable develop­ment of Mankind. (shrink)

It would be very desirable to have an account of the relation between mind and world that sustained the integrity of each. In this paper, we will argue that a theory of cognition which is broadly Thomistic can do just that. Many commentators recognize that cognitio is Aquinas’s basic epistemic concept, and that it designates knowledge in the broadest and most basic sense, as distinguished from scientia, or knowledge in the paradigmatic sense. There are several important consequences of this distinction (...) which are relevant to a proper understanding of the way in which a theory of knowledge which is in the Aristotelian-Thomistic tradition approaches the issue of the relation between the mind and the world. First and foremost, knowledge cannot be construed as a univocal concept in the A/t context. There are different senses of knowledge and we should not expect there to be a theory which supplies necessary and sufficient conditions for “S knows that p” that satisfies all the different senses of knowledge. It is perplexing that the contemporary discussion seems to miss this point, for the same sort of systematic ambiguity of the term ‘knowledge’ seems to hold in English. Second, the A/t theory of knowledge is not an epistemological theory in the modern sense, if by “epistemological” we mean one which is clearly demarcated from a metaphysical, psychological, or even semantical theory. The A/t theory is a metaphysics of knowledge. Third, a Thomistic theory of knowledge begins with a theory of cognition which provides the grounds of knowledge across the board, including even that of scientia. (shrink)

I defend and revise the systematic account of normative functions (teleofunctions), as recently developed by Gerhard Schlosser and by W. D. Christensen and M. H. Bickhard. This account proposes that teleofunctions are had by structures that play certain kinds of roles in complex systems. This theory is an alternative to the historical etiological account of teleofunctions, developed by Ruth Millikan and others. The historical etiological account is susceptible to a general ontological problem that has been under-appreciated, and that offers (...) important reasons to adopt the systematic account. However, the systematic account must be revised to allow for two distinct kinds of teleofunctions in order to avoid another ontological problem. (shrink)

This paper focuses on innovation in the context of business–non-governmental organization (NGO) partnerships for corporate social responsibility (CSR). While different aspects of business–NGO partnerships have been studied, the role of innovation and its potential implications for partnership outcomes have so far not been systematically explored. The paper defines innovation in simple and concrete terms and synthesizes from the literature what can be considered as critical ingredients to foster social alliance innovation. The paper posits in turn that these ingredients correspond closely (...) to the conception of social capital and offers a consolidated framework that helps in probing around these ingredients and social capital in accounting for innovative partnership outcomes. The empirical part consists of a comparative analysis of six case studies of business–NGO collaboration in the context of CSR in the United Kingdom. The evidence presented makes it clear that strategic partnerships are more readily capable of innovation and that social capital as an umbrella concept is very promising in explaining the differential success and performance of social alliances and central to understanding the dynamics of social alliance innovation and value creation. (shrink)

A globalized world, some argue, needs a global democracy. But there is considerable disagreement about whether global democracy is an ideal worth pursuing. One of the main grounds for scepticism is captured by the slogan: “No global demos, no global democracy.” The fact that a key precondition of democracy—a demos—is absent at the global level, some argue, speaks against the pursuit of global democracy. The paper discusses four interpretations of the skeptical slogan—each based on a specific account of the notion (...) of “the demos”—and concludes that none of them establishes that the global democratic ideal must be abandoned. In so doing, the paper (i) systematizes different types of objections against global democracy, thus bringing some clarity to an otherwise intricate debate and (ii) offers a robust but qualified defense of the global democratic ideal. (shrink)

Management accounting and control seeks to provide information that substantiates decision-making at all firm levels and thus may also foster ethical decision-making. Against this background, this article presents a systematic literature review of research on management accounting and control and business ethics that has been published in the Journal of Business Ethics. Through this review, we intend to bring to the forefront a research topic that has been widely neglected in broader literature reviews on accounting ethics research and that (...) has been covered by a small number of articles published by traditional leading accounting journals only. Our systematic literature review is guided by a theoretical framework that integrates the decision-facilitating and decision-influencing roles of management accounting and control information and the stages of the ethical decision-making process. Through this theoretical lens, we analyze 64 management accounting and control articles published in the Journal of Business Ethics over more than three decades. Synthesizing and structuring this research, we discuss prior accomplishments and elaborate on avenues for future research. (shrink)

I argue that van Fraassen’s selectionist explanation for the success of science is superior to the realists’ explanation. Whereas realists argue that our current theories are successful because they accurately reflect the structure of the world, the selectionist claims that our current theories are successful because unsuccessful theories have been eliminated. I argue that, unlike the explanation proposed by the realist, the selectionist explanation can also account for the failures of once successful theories and the fact that (...) sometimes two competing theories are both equally successful. (shrink)

In an increasingly complex world with increasingly powerful organisations it seems inevitable that society – or groups in society – would become anxious about whether these organisations could be encouraged to match that power with an appropriate responsibility. This is the function of accountability – to require individuals and organisations to present an account of those actions for which society holds them – or would wish to hold them – responsible. And the history of social accounting, at its most fundamental, (...) is a history of attempts to develop this accountability. It seems to me that the widespread and systematic practice of social and environmental accounting is a deeply essential element in any well‐functioning, complex democracy. The corollary is that the absence of such mechanisms raises fundamental questions about the nature of modern democracies. This article briefly outlines what I believe to be the three strands of social accounting. It then identifies a few of the lessons that we may be able to learn from current experience and, in particular, how social accounting is related to accountability, democracy and sustainability. The central issue of the tension between accountability and control is touched upon: I then illustrate how the stakeholder model can be used to help define the social account, and conclude with a few words on attestation. (shrink)

The study deals with Kant's theory of aesthetics, which is mainly exposed in his "Critique of Judgment". This theory represents one of the most important interpretations of the problem of aesthetic being and is one of the best examples of the Cartesian account of the philosophical foundations of aesthetics. In the submitted study it is emphasized that Kant in his theory relied upon previous aesthetic theories of the 18th century, especially those of the German and English philosophers of the period (...) of the Enlightenment. On the other hand it is stressed that Kant's conception was a great achievement in the field of original philosophical thought. Especially his conception of universal validity of aesthetic judgments apriori was an outstanding example of Kant's ability to find a new original solution of old philosophical problems. Kant's final humanistic account of aesthetics and its close relation to ethics is also very important. (shrink)

This paper provides a systematic account of how artificial intelligence (AI) technologies could harm nonhuman animals and explains why animal harms, often neglected in AI ethics, should be better recognised. After giving reasons for caring about animals and outlining the nature of animal harm, interests, and wellbeing, the paper develops a comprehensive ‘harms framework’ which draws on scientist David Fraser’s influential mapping of human activities that impact on sentient animals. The harms framework is fleshed out with examples inspired by (...) both scholarly literature and media reports. This systematic account and framework should help inform ethical analyses of AI’s impact on animals and serve as a comprehensive and clear basis for the development and regulation of AI technologies to prevent and mitigate harm to nonhumans. (shrink)

Accounting for the Commandments in Medieval Judaism explores the discursive formation of the commandments as a generative matrix of Jewish thought and life in the posttalmudic period. Each study sheds light on how medieval Jews crafted the commandments out of theretofore underdetermined material. By systematizing, representing, or interrogating the amorphous category of commandment, medieval Jewish authors across both the Islamic and Christian spheres of influence sought to explain, justify, and characterize Israel's legal system, divine revelation, the cosmos, and even the (...) divine order. This volume correlates bodies of knowledge-such as jurisprudence, philosophy, ethics, pietism, and kabbalah-that are normally treated in isolation into a single conversation about a shared constitutional concern. (shrink)

Recent research on the semantics and pragmatics of slurs has offered insight into several important facts concerning their meaning and use. However, prior work has unfortunately been restricted primarily to considerations of slurs that typically target females, homosexuals, and African Americans. This is problematic because such a narrowly focused attention to slurs in prior work has left theorizing of how slurs generally function relatively uninformed by facts of actual language use. As a result, theoretical accounts of slurs that have (...) so far been proposed have largely failed to accurately reflect actual usage, account for the empirical findings about slurs and general pejoratives from the social sciences, and offer any informative predictions to help guide future research. At this time more empirically oriented homework on the variety of ways that different slurs have been used in different cases would be helpful for theorists to consider so that they can proceed to develop more nuanced and empirically informed theories about slurs, their usage, and their effects. Accordingly, since no account of slurs for Italian Americans has so far been offered, this article provides a systematic and empirically informed analysis of slurs for Italian Americans that accounts for both their derogatory and appropriative use. Further, this article demonstrates that the family resemblance account of slurs maintained here has major advantages over previous accounts insofar as it is flexible yet robust enough to accommodate both the derogatory and appropriative use of slurs, can explain many of the psychological effects that slurs actually have on both their users and targets, and is more in accord with the real rather than ideal nature of our organic human psychology. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Philosophy 39.4 (2001) 597-600 [Access article in PDF] Andrew Haas. Hegel and the Problem of Multiplicity. SPEP Studies in Historical Philosophy. Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 2000. Pp. xxxii + 355. Paper, $29.95. Jon Stewart. The Unity of Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit: A Systematic Interpretation. SPEP Studies in Historical Philosophy. Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 2000. Pp. xv + 556. Cloth, $69.95. In his study, (...) The Unity of Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit: A Systematic Interpretation, Jon Stewart not only analyzes Hegel's Phenomenology in chapter-by-chapter fashion but he also provides a compelling argument as to why even individual sections of the book can only be interpreted in the context of the unity of the work as a whole. [End Page 597]Stewart views the Phenomenology as a continuation of Kant's project in the first Critique, claiming that Kant did not go far enough in uncovering and justifying the necessary conditions of understanding. Thus, Stewart sees the Phenomenology as a transcendental argument. Like Kant, Hegel is concerned with truth and objectivity but in each subsequent chapter of the Phenomenology, according to Stewart, Hegel takes the reader through a different determination of objectivity.Perhaps most important is Stewart's view of Hegel's notion of "Absolute Knowing," the last section of the Phenomenology. Eschewing theological or metaphysical interpretations or interpretations according to which history comes to an end or some type of divine knowledge is attained, Stewart impressively argues that, for Hegel, absolute knowing means that self-consciousness has finally arrived at the point at which all of the conditions for cognition have been unpacked and that self-consciousness sees these conditions in their necessary systematic and developmental unity. As such, "Absolute Knowing" is merely backward looking; self-consciousness comes to realize all of the forms that knowledge has taken in the past and how this past relates to the way in which self-consciousness cognizes at present. Thus, the Phenomenology, on Stewart's view, is a ladder from common sense to science; it completes a deduction of the categories of thought—universality, particularity, and individuality—that are present in all forms of human thinking in all time periods.At the beginning of this work, Stewart summarizes Hegel's life and works, as well as discusses the Kantian background of Hegel's project as a whole. The subsequent chapters of his book parallel the major divisions in the Phenomenology. Each chapter and each of the various subsections within the chapters—again always paralleling Hegel's work—begins with a brief overview of what Stewart sees as the goal toward which Hegel is progressing in the particular section of the Phenomenology. He then provides an account of the "Notion" or paradigm of truth that Hegel presently criticizes. Accordingly, the author addresses the dialectic by which the particular Notion is sublated or overcome. It is in this section that Stewart explicitly sets out whenever possible the In-Itself, the For-Itself, and the In-Itself-For-Itself moments of the dialectic. Stewart always makes an explicit attempt at discussing what is at issue in the dialectical moment, say, either an irreconcilable split between immediacy and mediacy or between universal and particular. Finally, he ends each chapter or subsequent section with a review of what Hegel has done and how this, then, leads into the next section of the work.In the course of this study, Stewart admirably argues for why the Phenomenology should not be regarded as a "patchwork," by convincingly demonstrating the intricate unity of Hegel's Phenomenology. He shows how Hegel always returns to a similar structure—using, in fact, the very same categories—even in some of the parts of the book that scholars or certain schools of interpretation have tended to dismiss. In the chapter of his book that addresses the first formal chapter of the Phenomenology, "Consciousness," Stewart argues that each of the three subdivisions in the chapter focuses on, respectively, 1) being, 2) the one and the many, and... (shrink)

Addiction theorists have often utilized the metaphor of the blind men and the elephant to illustrate the complex nature of addiction and the varied methodological approaches to studying it. A common purported upshot is skeptical in nature: due to these complexities, it is not possible to offer a unifying account of addiction. I think that this is a mistake. The elephant is real–there is a _there_ there. Here, I defend a dispositionalist account of addiction as _the systematic disposition to (...) fail to control one’s desires to engage in certain types of behaviors_. I explain this position, defend the inclusion of desires and impaired control, and flesh out the notion of _systematicity_ central to my account. I then illustrate how my dispositionalist framework can unify the disparate and seemingly incompatible accounts of addiction (and their respective methodological approaches). I close with a brief plan to extend and implement my account. (shrink)

Polysemy is a phenomenon involving single lexical items with multiple related senses. Much theorizing about it has focused on developing linguistic accounts that are responsive to various compositional and representational challenges in semantics and psychology. We focus on an underexplored question: Why does systematic polysemy cluster in the ways it does? That is, why do we see certain regular patterns of sense multiplicity, but not others? Drawing on an independently motivated view of kind cognition – i.e. the formal (...) structures for different classes of kind representations – we argue for an answer centered on conceptual individuation. Specifically, we argue that classes of kind concepts vary in what they individuate (i.e. counting as one and specifying what makes it the same or different from others). By elucidating these differences, we can explain why a range of patterns of systematic polysemy are found cross-linguistically and why other patterns are not attested. Overall, our account provides an explanatory framework addressing an important question at the interface between language and mind and opens new avenues for future theoretical and empirical research. (shrink)

The Colombian military and the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC) have committed systematic attacks against the Colombian people that violate international law. One such heinous incident took place in May 2003 at the Betoyes Guahibo indigenous reserve in Colombia. Unlike other acts of terror, the attack at the Reserve is well documented. Because of this, the attack on the Reserve is an excellent case for International Criminal Court (ICC) prosecution. This article exposes acts of cruelty and makes a (...) persuasive moral case for ICC prosecution. The ICC has jurisdiction over the attack on the Betoyes people by the AUC and Colombian military. The article further discusses the potential legal exposure of the Colombian government, individual Colombians and US individuals through its military support and training of the Colombian military. (shrink)

: For Cudworth, God would be a drudge if He did each and every thing, and so the universe contains plastic natures. Malebranche argues that finite power is unintelligible and thus that God does do each and every thing. The supremacy of God is reflected in the range of His activity and also in the manner of His activity: He acts by general non-composite volitions. Malebranche (like Cudworth) is careful to adjust other aspects of his system to square with his (...) position on causality, but his view that we are free and accountable for what we do will not be revised. (shrink)

Cross-linguistic strategies for mapping lexical and spatial relations from body partonym systems to external object meronymies (as in English ‘table leg’, ‘mountain face’) have attracted substantial research and debate over the past three decades. Due to the systematic mappings, lexical productivity and geometric complexities of body-based meronymies found in many Mesoamerican languages, the region has become focal for these discussions, prominently including contrastive accounts of the phenomenon in Zapotec and Tzeltal, leading researchers to question whether such systems should (...) be explained as global metaphorical mappings from bodily source to target holonym or as vector mappings of shape and axis generated “algorithmically”. I propose a synthesis of these accounts in this paper by drawing on the species-specific cognitive affordances of human upright posture grounded in the reorganization of the anatomical planes, with a special emphasis on antisymmetrical relations that emerge between arm-leg and face-groin antinomies cross-culturally. Whereas Levinson argues that the internal geometry of objects “stripped of their bodily associations” (1994: 821) is sufficient to account for Tzeltal meronymy, making metaphorical explanations entirely unnecessary, I propose a more powerful, elegant explanation of Tzeltal meronymic mapping that affirms both the geometric-analytic and the global-metaphorical nature of Tzeltal meaning construal. I do this by demonstrating that the “algorithm” in question arises from the phenomenology of movement and correlative body memories—an experiential ground which generates a culturally selected pair of inverse contrastive paradigm sets with marked and unmarked membership emerging antithetically relative to the transverse anatomical plane. These relations are then selected diagrammatically for the classification of object orientations according to systematic geometric iconicities. Results not only serve to clarify the case in question but also point to the relatively untapped potential that upright posture holds for theorizing the emergence of human cognition, highlighting in the process the nature, origins and theoretical validity of markedness and double scope conceptual integration. (shrink)

What makes scientific knowledge possible? The philosopher Immanuel Kant in his magnum opus, the Critique of Pure Reason, had a fascinating and puzzling answer to this question. Scientific knowledge, for Kant, is made possible by the faculty of reason and its demand for systematic unity. In other words, cognition about empirical objects can aspire to be scientific only if it is rationally embedded within or transformed into a system. But how can such system form once we take into account (...) the perspectival nature of knowledge, i.e., its being situated in individual human cognitive faculties? My PhD thesis has a two-pronged objective: to reconstruct the complexity of the notion of systematicity in Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason; and to defend its plausibility in contemporary debates on the unity or plurality of scientific knowledge. As far as is concerned, Kant’s position is far from being clearly understood in the literature. Despite a renewed interest in Kant’s notion of systematicity in recent decades, existing contributions fail to offer a satisfactory account of it. The aim of my thesis is to provide a unified reading of reason’s systematicity as an essential feature of Kant’s analysis of the sources of cognition. In particular, I defend a novel account of theoretical reason the aims to support the following claims: systematicity is grounded in a legitimate use of reason’s ideas as prescriptive rules for empirical investigation; it is necessary to make empirical cognition possible and generate scientific hypotheses; and it gives us fundamental insights into Kant’s ‘empirical realism’ and his understanding of the role of metaphysics in science. With regard to, I show that Kant’s account of theoretical reason has much more to offer than generally acknowledged. In particular, I present it as providing a reconciling solution to the conflict between unity and pluralism in contemporary philosophy of science. Drawing inspiration from Kant’s ‘perspectivism,’ I argue that unity and pluralism are to be thought as mutually inclusive principles of scientific knowledge. (shrink)

Debriefing is a standard ethical requirement for human research involving the use of deception. Little systematic attention, however, has been devoted to explaining the ethical significance of debriefing and the specific ethical functions that it serves. In this article, we develop an account of debriefing as a tool of moral accountability for the prima facie wrong of deception. Specifically, we contend that debriefing should include a responsibility to promote transparency by explaining the deception and its rationale, to provide an (...) apology to subjects for infringing the principle of respect for persons, and to offer subjects an opportunity to withdraw their data. We also present recommendations concerning the discussion of deception in scientific articles reporting the results of research using deception. (shrink)

This paper investigates the practices whereby the subject, in an organisational context, carries out systematic practices of self-discipline and becomes a calculative self. In particular, we explore the techniques of conduct developed by management accountants in a French carmaker, which adheres to a neoliberal environment. We show how these management accountants become calculative selves by building the very measurement of their own performance. The organisation thereby emerges as the cauldron in which a Homo liberalis is forged. Homo liberalis is (...) the individual capable of constructing for him/her the political self-discipline establishing his/her relationship with the social world on the basis of measurable performance. The management accountants studied in this article prefigure the Homo liberalis in the self-discipline they develop to act in compliance with the organisation’s goals. (shrink)

This dissertation argues for an interpretation of liberty in terms of non-domination rather than non-interference, that non-domination can work as an independent criterion of political legitimacy, and that non-domination includes an approximation of equality in socioeconomic goods. In the first part, four theories of liberty and power – those of Kant, Locke, J. S. Mill and H. Taylor, and Wollstonecraft – are analyzed. It is concluded that Locke and Wollstonecraft, and Mill and Taylor partly, but not Kant, offer non-domination oriented (...) conceptions of liberty. It is also tentatively argued that this has repercussions for their ideas on sex equality. In the second part a systematic discussion is offered in support of the three aims of the disseration. Non-domination is a socially radical, but not republican value. A distinction is made between liberty and freedom; “liberty” is normative and “freedom” empirical. One’s freedom can be restrained without one’s liberty being infringed, which typically would be the case where there is interference but no relation of dominance. Non-domination addresses asymmetrical relations of power and is inherently egalitarian. One’s liberty is infringed to the extent an agent has the power to interfere with one, whether interference actually takes place or not. Non-domination works as a twofold criterion of legitimacy: A legitimate state furthers non-domination between citizens under the circumstances of certain constitutional restrictions. The absence of vulnerability to the interference of others that non-domination requires, has to be institutionally secured. One aspect of dominance is the socioeconomic relation between people, and an approximation of socioeconomic equality will therefore be a political concern. (shrink)

Background: A number of meta-analyses of mindfulness have been performed, but few distinguished between different facets of mindfulness, despite it being known that facets of mindfulness behave differently in different populations; and most studied the outcome of interventions, which tend to involve additional ingredients besides mindfulness. Furthermore, there has recently been some concern regarding possible publication bias in mindfulness research. -/- Objective: Systematic review and meta-analysis of the relationship of different facets of mindfulness with various outcomes, taking into account (...) possible moderators, and controlling for publication bias using a method appropriate given the substantial heterogeneity present. -/- Methods: Random effects meta-analysis with a number of robustness checks and estimation of the possible impact of publication bias on the results. Included are all studies that report correlations of outcomes with all five FFMQ facets, in English, French, German, or Spanish. -/- Study Registration: PROSPERO International prospective register of systematic reviews ID=CRD42016041863. -/- Results: For the designated primary measure (SWLS) estimated correlations were: 0.15 [0.07, 0.22] for the Observing facet, 0.31 [0.27, 0.36] for Describing, 0.35 [0.31, 0.38] for Acting-with-Awareness, 0.30 [0.10, 0.47] for Non-judging and 0.28 [0.18, 0.37] for Non-reacting. Grouping all desirable outcomes together, Describing has the highest zero-order (though not partial) correlation; Non-judging the highest effect on avoiding undesirable outcomes. Results seem to be reasonably robust even to severe publication bias. (shrink)

The range and types of performance metrics has recently proliferated in academic settings, with bibliometric indicators being particularly visible examples. One field that has traditionally been hospitable towards such indicators is biomedicine. Here the relative merits of bibliometrics are widely discussed, with debates often portraying them as heroes or villains. Despite a plethora of controversies, one of the most widely used indicators in this field is said to be the Journal Impact Factor. In this article we argue that much of (...) the current debates around researchers’ uses of the JIF in biomedicine can be classed as ‘folk theories’: explanatory accounts told among a community that seldom get systematically checked. Such accounts rarely disclose how knowledge production itself becomes more-or-less consolidated around the JIF. Using ethnographic materials from different research sites in Dutch University Medical Centers, this article sheds new empirical and theoretical light on how performance metrics variously shape biomedical research on the ‘shop floor.’ Our detailed analysis underscores a need for further research into the constitutive effects of evaluative metrics. (shrink)

The everyday capacity to understand the mind, fancifully dubbed 'mindreading', plays an enormous role in our lives. In the latter half of the 20th century mindreading became the object of sustained scientific and theoretical research, capturing the attention of a wide range of disciplines, including philosophy, developmental psychology, behavioral ecology, anthropology, and cognitive psychopathology. What has been missing is a detailed and integrated account of the mental components that underlie this remarkable capacity. Nichols and Stich develop and defend a new (...) account of the psychological mechanisms underlying mindreading. They maintain that it is, as common sense would suggest, vital to distinguish between reading others' minds and reading one's own. In reading other minds, the imagination plays a central role. As a result, the authors begin with an explicit and systematic account of pretence and imagination which proposes that pretence representations are contained in a separate mental workspace, the 'Possible World Box', which is part of the basic architecture of the human mind. The mechanisms underlying pretence get recruited when people attempt to understand others and predict their behaviour. In some cases, we use our own mental mechanisms to simulate the mental processes of another, as suggested by the 'simulation theory' of mindreading. However, mindreading also implicates very different kinds of mechanisms that rely on rich bodies of information, as suggested by information-based accounts of mindreading. In addition, the authors argue, reading other minds involves important processes that don't fit into either category. None of these mechanisms, though, explain how we read our own minds, which, according to the authors, requires invoking an entirely independent set of mechanisms.What we find, then, is an intricate web of mental components to explain our fascinating and multifarious knack of understanding minds. This account provides a valuable framework for future work on mindreading and has broad implications for philosophical debates that have surrounded the issue for the last quarter century. (shrink)

This article conceptualizes corporate accountability under international law and introduces an analytical framework translating corporate accountability into seven core elements. Using this analytical framework, it then systematically assesses four models that could be used in a future business and human rights treaty: the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights model, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights model, the progressive model, and the transformative model. It aims to contribute to the BHR treaty negotiation process by clarifying different options (...) and possible trade-offs between them, while taking into account political realities. Ultimately, the article argues in favour of the BHR treaty embracing a progressive model of corporate accountability, which combines ambitious development of international law with realistic prospects of state support. (shrink)

Comparing and sharing selectionist terms and concepts from disparate domains can aid understanding in each domain. But constraints of interpretive language will make this difficult – such as the bipolar constraint of interpretive language when addressed to intrinsically tripolar phenomena. Hull et al. acknowledge that some key terms in their account remain problematic; the term, “information,” probably needs to be replaced.

Research on gender and antimicrobial resistance (AMR) beyond women’s biological susceptibility is limited. A gender and equity lens in AMR research is necessary to promote gender equality and support the effectiveness, uptake, and sustainability of real-world AMR solutions. We argue that it is an ethical and social justice imperative to include gender and related intersectional issues in AMR research and implementation. An intersectional exploration of the interplay between people’s diverse identities and experiences, including their gender, socio-economic status, race, disability, age, (...) and sexuality, may help us understand how these factors reinforce AMR risk and vulnerability and ensure that interventions to reduce the risk of AMR do not impact unevenly. This paper reports on the findings of a systematic scoping review on the interlinkages between AMR, gender and other socio-behavioural characteristics to identify priority knowledge gaps in human and animal health in LMICs. The review focused on peer-reviewed and grey literature published between 2017 and 2022. Three overarching themes were gendered division of caregiving roles and responsibilities, gender power relations in decision-making, and interactions between gender norms and health-seeking behaviours. Research that fails to account for gender and its intersections with other lines of disadvantage, such as race, class and ability, risks being irrelevant and will have little impact on the continued and dangerous spread of AMR. We provide recommendations for integrating an intersectional gender lens in AMR research, policy and practice. (shrink)

Research on electroencephalogram (EEG) characteristics associated with major depressive disorder (MDD) has accumulated diverse neurophysiologic findings related to the content, topography, neurochemistry, and functions of EEG oscillations. Significant progress has been made since the first landmark EEG study on affective disorders by Davidson 35 years ago. A systematic account of these data is important and necessary for building a consistent neuropsychophysiologic model of MDD and other affective disorders. Given the extensive data on frequency-dependent functional significance of EEG oscillations, a (...) frequency domain approach may reveal the types of brain functions involved and disturbed in MDD. In this review, we systematize and integrate diverse and often unconnected observations on the content, topography, neurochemistry, and functions of EEG oscillations involved in MDD within the general concept of an EEG oscillatory pattern. (shrink)

A systematic review was carried out on the production and publication of research papers related to the study of Business Accounting, Sustainability, Responsible Finance, during the period between 2017 and 2022 under the PRISMA approach (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic reviews and Meta-Analyses). The purpose of the analysis proposed in this document was to know the main characteristics of the publications registered in the Scopus and Wos databases during the study of the proposed variables, achieving the identification of (...) 64 publications in total. Thanks to this first identification, it was possible to refine the results through the keywords entered in the search button of both platforms, which were BUSINESS ACCOUNTING, SUSTAINABILITY, RESPONSIBLE FINANCES, reaching a total of 14 documents, excluding duplicates and those that did not meet the analysis criteria. Among the main findings in the analysis applied to the identified articles, it is highlighted that business accounting must evolve towards a model that effectively integrates sustainability into its processes. Business practices that incorporate social and environmental metrics not only meet stakeholder expectations and regulatory standards, but also drive long-term economic success. (shrink)

Brian Barry attacks the `resource account' of power providing a set of definitions through which power should be analysed. While there might be different, equally good, ways of defining power, I argue that the formulations provided by Dowding are superior to those of Barry as they produce fewer anomalies and provide a better foundation for empirical research. The article defends the resource account against Barry's criticisms and argues for the utility of the ideas of luck and `systematic luck'. Key (...) Words: power • luck • systematic luck • resources • Barry • Dowding • Harsanyi • capitalists. (shrink)

Genic selectionists (Williams 1966; Dawkins 1976) defend the view that genes are the (unique) units of selection and that all evolutionary events can be adequately represented at the genic level. Pluralistic genic selectionists (Sterelny and Kitcher 1988; Waters 1991; Dawkins 1982) defend the weaker view that in many cases there are multiple equally adequate accounts of evolutionary events, but that always among the set of equally adequate representations will be one at the genic level. We describe a range of (...) cases all involving stable equilibria actively maintained by selection. In these cases genotypic models correctly show that selection is active at the equilibrium point. In contrast, the genic models have selection disappearing at equilibrium. For deterministic models this difference makes no difference. However, once drift is added in, the two sets of models diverge in their predicted evolutionary trajectories. Thus, contrary to received wisdom on this matter, the two sets of models are not empirically equivalent. Moreover, the genic models get the facts wrong. (shrink)

In this study, we use a conversation analysis framework to understand the systematic organization of interactions in Periscope live video streams, and its crucial features: the talking heads orientation for the video stream, in common with video-mediated communication; the expectation that the streamer should attend to all messages as much as possible; the ‘loose’ organization of viewers’ responses to streamers’ turn-at-talk, as in multi-party chats. We also identify a distinctive design for streamers’ responses to messages, the ‘read-aloud and respond’ (...) practice. These distinctive features are oriented to the highly asymmetrical communicative affordances of Periscope streams. Without precluding other forms of Periscope-based activities, this systematic organization of talk and messages, coupled with the affordances of the application, favors a basic mode of topic initiation resting on a typical and minimal adjacent pair: viewer’s noticing/streamers’ reading and responding. We argue that the particular salience of this organization of topic initiation may account for the emergence of the dominant kind of use for Periscope streams, that is, the online public exposure of youth to strangers in order to elicit some conversation. (shrink)

Peripersonal space (PPS) is frequently defined as a plastic, pragmatic and goal-directed multisensory buffer that connects the brain-body with its immediate environment. While such characterisations indicate that peripersonal spatiality is profoundly embodied and enactive, comparatively few attempts have aimed to systematically synthesise PPS literature with compatible phenomenological accounts of lived space provided by Heidegger and Merleau-Ponty. Moreover, in traditional cognitive neuroscience, neurophysiological activity is thought to map onto discrete ‘cognitive correlates’. In contemporary 4E approaches to cognition, however, phenomenology-derived notions (...) such as ‘pre-reflective cognition’ and ‘motor-intentionality’ frequently appear, yet their neural correlates may be comparatively difficult to pin down. Pre-reflectively, agents seemingly do not thematise spatial properties as operationalised in key experimental paradigms (e.g., spatial rotation tasks) but are instead inherently spatially embedded within the world. To refine this distinction, I survey how tools co-determine this distinctly spatial ‘world-embeddedness’ using a neurophenomenological methodology (Varela, _Journal of Consciousness Studies, 3_(4), 330–349, 1996 ). Specifically, I conduct two neurophenomenological analyses of tool-perception and tool-use, examining both how distance modulates affordance-perception and how tool-use remaps bodily space via the withdrawal of tools from intentional-objects into co-constituting motor-intentionality itself. I conclude by briefly distinguishing this interpretation of spatial cognition from cognitivist frameworks. Thereafter, I briefly highlight the temporal scaffolding underlying PPS while conceptually grounding my account within Embodied Simulation Theory (Gallese, _Reti, Saperi, Linguaggi_, (1), 31–46, 2018 ). What is at stake is thus both an explicitly embodied-enactive account of bodily space that is qualitative and situational instead of quantitative and positional, as well as a viable, interdisciplinary strategy for unifying pre-reflective cognition with neurophysiological data. (shrink)

What is the ethical significance of debriefing in deceptive research? The standard view of debriefing is that it serves to disclose the deception to the participant and is a means of evaluating and mitigating potential harms that may have resulted from involvement in the research. However, as the article by Miller, Gluck, and Wendler in this issue of the Kennedy Institute of Ethics Journal points out, there has been little systematic attention to the ethics of debriefing, particularly with regard (...) to the role of debriefing in addressing the prima facie moral wrong of deception itself. They argue that in addition to mitigating the harms of deception, debriefing should include an apology to participants for being deceived. In the current paper, I argue that an apology is not morally obligatory in most research contexts. Debriefing should be considered an opportunity to further define the researcher-participant relationship without the need to be remorseful about the research practice. (shrink)

Apollodorus' Bibliotheca is often used, though little studied. Like any author, however, Apollodorus has his own aims. As scholars have noticed, he does not include any discussion of Rome and rarely mentions Italy, an absence they link to tendencies of the Second Sophistic, during which period he was writing. I refine this view by exploring the nature of Apollodorus' project as a whole, showing that he creates a system of genealogies that connects Greece with other places and peoples of the (...) ancient world, specifically the Near East. The nature of the Bibliotheca allows us to see these myths as a closed system, in which these genealogical connections depend upon the perceived importance of these peoples; e.g. the Persians have more connections with the Greeks than the Molossians do. It is from this system that Apollodorus excludes Rome, thereby denying the Romans any genealogical connections with the Greeks and thus marking them as being of little importance. The consciousness of Apollodorus' decisions is clear from the many opportunities he had to include Rome and the fact that his sources contained myths about Rome or Italy. The Bibliotheca is a tendentious account of Greek myth with its own goals, and our knowledge of Apollodorus' aims must condition any use of this text. (shrink)

"Legend is overdue for replacement, and an adequate replacement must attend to the process of science as carefully as Hull has done. I share his vision of a serious account of the social and intellectual dynamics of science that will avoid both the rosy blur of Legend and the facile charms of relativism.... Because of [Hull's] deep concern with the ways in which research is actually done, Science as a Process begins an important project in the study of science. It (...) is one of a distinguished series of books, which Hull himself edits."—Philip Kitcher, Nature "In Science as a Process, [David Hull] argues that the tension between cooperation and competition is exactly what makes science so successful.... Hull takes an unusual approach to his subject. He applies the rules of evolution in nature to the evolution of science, arguing that the same kinds of forces responsible for shaping the rise and demise of species also act on the development of scientific ideas."—Natalie Angier, New York Times Book Review "By far the most professional and thorough case in favour of an evolutionary philosophy of science ever to have been made. It contains excellent short histories of evolutionary biology and of systematics (the science of classifying living things); an important and original account of modern systematic controversy; a counter-attack against the philosophical critics of evolutionary philosophy; social-psychological evidence, collected by Hull himself, to show that science does have the character demanded by his philosophy; and a philosophical analysis of evolution which is general enough to apply to both biological and historical change."—Mark Ridley, Times Literary Supplement "Hull is primarily interested in how social interactions within the scientific community can help or hinder the process by which new theories and techniques get accepted.... The claim that science is a process for selecting out the best new ideas is not a new one, but Hull tells us exactly how scientists go about it, and he is prepared to accept that at least to some extent, the social activities of the scientists promoting a new idea can affect its chances of being accepted."—Peter J. Bowler, Archives of Natural History "I have been doing philosophy of science now for twenty-five years, and whilst I would never have claimed that I knew everything, I felt that I had a really good handle on the nature of science, Again and again, Hull was able to show me just how incomplete my understanding was.... Moreover, [Science as a Process] is one of the most compulsively readable books that I have ever encountered."—Michael Ruse, Biology and Philosophy. (shrink)

A distorted representation of one's own body is a diagnostic criterion and core psychopathology of both anorexia nervosa (AN) and bulimia nervosa (BN). Despite recent technical advances in research, it is still unknown whether this body image disturbance is characterized by body dissatisfaction and a low ideal weight and/or includes a distorted perception or processing of body size. In this article, we provide an update and meta-analysis of 42 articles summarizing measures and results for body size estimation (BSE) from 926 (...) individuals with AN, 536 individuals with BN and 1920 controls. We replicate findings that individuals with AN and BN overestimate their body size as compared to controls (ES= 0.63). Our meta-regression shows that metric methods (BSE by direct or indirect spatial measures) yield larger effect sizes than depictive methods (BSE by evaluating distorted pictures), and that effect sizes are larger for patients with BN than for patients with AN. To interpret these results, we suggest a revised theoretical framework for BSE that accounts for differences between depictive and metric BSE methods regarding the underlying body representations (conceptual vs. perceptual, implicit vs. explicit). We also discuss clinical implications and argue for the importance of multimethod approaches to investigate body image disturbance. (shrink)