Job motivation remains an area of concern among researchers due to the rising issues of poor or lack of motivation among workers. This refers to one’s personal will or drives to perform a task at work. Meanwhile, job satisfaction refers to an employee’s sense of fulfillment with his or her work experience. Therefore, the current study utilized the descriptive- correlational research design to investigate the impact of job motivation on the job satisfaction of accountants. To gather essential data and achieve (...) the objectives of the study, Multidimensional Work Motivational Scale (MWMS) and Minnesota Satisfaction Questionnaire (MSQ) were administered to the target respondents. The collected data were then analyzed using a Multiple Regression Analysis; findings revealed that job motivation has a significant impact on the job satisfaction of accountants. Additionally, the results of this study were carefully evaluated and discussed, and recommendations were made to benefit the stakeholders of the study and contribute to the existing body of knowledge. (shrink)

Libraries provide access to large amounts of library metadata. Unfortunately, many libraries only offer textual interfaces for searching and browsing their holdings. Visualizations provide simpler, faster, and more efficient ways to navigate, search and study large quantities of metadata. This paper presents GlamMap, a visualization tool that displays library metadata on an interactive, computer-generated geographic map. We provide detailed discussion of how GlamMap benefits the work of librarians and researchers. We show how geographic representations help librarians to perform tasks such (...) as collection assessment and how geographic information helps researchers to identify important scientific resources. (shrink)

L'Histoire de la folie l'âge classique de Michel Foucault a produit, au montent de sa publication, une onde de choc. Cet ouvrage, foisonnant, baroque, labyrinthique, est apparu aussitôt comme insituable. S'agissait-il d'histoire, de philosophie, de littérature, de sociologie? Les partages disciplinaires traditionnels furent emportés par le courant impétueux de ce livre impossible. Mais il n'y eut pas que les cercles universitaires pour se trouver inquiétés par ces thèses tumultueuses (l'exclusion de la folie par l'âge classique, l'hypocrisie atroce de la libération (...) des fous par les médecins modernes, etc). Le récit épique de l'enfermement des fous dans les prisons de l'ordre moral, des nouveaux partages imposés par les révolutionnaires, altérait la bonne conscience d'une psychiatrie qui se pensait, fondamentalement, et par la vertu d'une fondation originaire jamais interrogée, humaniste. histoire de la folie préparait ainsi les révoltes de l'anti-psychiatrie. Cinquante ans après la parution de ce qui, au départ, était une simple thèse de doctorat, l'éclat de la rupture est intact. Ce livre continue à troubler, fasciner, irriter. Notre culture ne l'a toujours pas digéré. On découvre sans cesse de nouvelles apories, de nouveaux problèmes, de nouvelles perspectives pour interroger l'avenir. Ces rencontres, provoquées à l'occasion de cet anniversaire ne sont pas des commémorations. Il ne s'agit pas d'établir scientifiquement ici ce que Foucault a vraiment voulu dire, mais d'entendre jusqu'à quel point, encore aujourd'hui, ce texte réinvente notre rapport à la folie. (shrink)

Le corps traverse la pensée de Michel Foucault comme un fil rouge. Cadavre ouvert sur la table d'autopsie, masse opaque au miroir de laquelle l'homme, objet/sujet des sciences humaines, aperçoit son reflet fondateur et inquiétant. Corps morcelé du supplicié, corps "infâme" face au corps surpuissant du roi. Corps de l'ouvrier rendu docile par les techniques disciplinaires. Corps agité de la convulsionnaire, tordu de l'hystérique face aux demandes de vérité du médecin ou du confesseur. Corps du sage antique, rompu aux pratiques (...) diététiques ou éthiques. Corps utopique, double, imaginaire. A travers cette panoplie bigarrée, la question de la vérité du corps est mise hors jeu. Il n'existe pas un concept univoque, une nature essentielle du corps. Seulement des histoires, des récits de batailles. Car si le corps est bien le lieu d'inscription du pouvoir, il en est aussi l'instance de contestation, de vérification, d'altération. Le corps fait valoir partout la résistance grimaçante et rieuse de l'immanence. (shrink)

Le théâtre dans l'oeuvre et la pensée de Foucault, ce n'est ni une simple métaphore pour caractériser des événements de sens ou des ruptures pratiques, ni un concept esthétisant qui dédoublerait l'idée de vérité pour la vider de ses prétentions épistémologiques, ni un réservoir d'exemples colorés pour illustrer des expériences historiques. Le théâtre, c'est un opérateur philosophique, une manière de penser autrement. Cet ouvrage montre à quel point, au fil des récits de Foucault, la vérité trouve dans l'histoire l'élément moins (...) de sa réalisation que de sa mise en scène et, partant, de son indéfinie fragmentation : pluralité des voix, dramatiques des prises de parole, résistances et rébellions des corps, spectacles du pouvoir, tragique des vérités impossibles. Si le chemin que trace la vérité dans la vie des hommes relève à ce point de la représentation, du drame ou de la farce, c'est qu'elle n'est pas le reflet calme des choses. La vérité, c'est un trouble critique dans l'expérience de soi, c'est une performance politique. S'appuyant non seulement sur ses ouvrages publiés mais aussi sur un ensemble d'inédits, ce livre déploie le theatrum philosophicum de Foucault, et, plus largement, de la pensée contemporaine. (shrink)

Les explications de ce pourquoi mentir est mal sont toutes inadéquates. Leur problème commun se situe dans leur structure unitaire. Ces analyses présupposent que tous les mensonges sont mauvais pour la même raison unificatrice. Cette supposition ne rend cependant pas justice au phénomène du mensonge, et ce, parce qu’on peut s’objecter à l’acte de mentir de différentes façons. Ainsi je suggère qu’il faut un changement dialectique en direction d’un traitement pluraliste de ce qui est mauvais dans le mensonge. Il ne (...) faut pas forcer une unité sur la structure morale du mensonge lorsqu’il y a en fait pluralité. (shrink)

Peut-on utiliser la dimension théâtrale pour penser les généalogies de Michel Foucault? Quelle est la valeur de vérité d’une histoire qui affirme être une « fiction » et procède par scènes, personnages, « dramatiques de la vérité »? Pour répondre à ces interrogations, le présent article utilise la notion de théâtre dans un sens anti-représentatif et expérientiel : comme un mouvement toujours recommencé d’action et de transformation. En questionnant les critiques de la méthode foucaldienne formulées par des historiens tels que (...) Carlo Ginzburg et Hayden White, nous montrerons comment Foucault mobilise dans ses textes une pensée-théâtre historique qui joue comme une arme de problématisation ironique des grands mythes de l’histoire elle-même. Le théâtre est pour Foucault un instrument pour mener une réflexion historico-politique sur la vérité en dehors des catégorisations et des moralisations traditionnelles de la philosophie et de la science occidentales. Mais la dramatisation philosophique du discours historique opérée par Foucault ne représente-elle pas alors le risque concret d’un dangereux relativisme intellectuel et politique : l’exemple parfait d’une « rhétorique » de l’histoire, qui sacrifie la vérité à l’efficacité de la parole? (shrink)

A partire dal corso al Collège de France L’ermeneutica del soggetto , l'analisi del complesso rapporto fra retorica e filosofia permette a Foucault di riformulare la questione della verità dal punto di vista delle pratiche di veridizione. Rispetto alla filosofia, la retorica è il modo d’essere altro del discorso attraverso il quale la parr ē sia può definirsi nella sua differenza costitutiva: la messa alla prova di una parola che sia “performance” creativa, una drammatica del vero come potenza di alterazione.

Qu’est-ce que l’expérience artistique nous apprend de l’art? C’est la question à l’horizon de cette étude dont le but est de jeter les bases pour repenser la spécificité de cette expérience dans le contexte actuel. En effet, l’offre artistique contemporaine a bouleversé le rôle du spectateur, sa relation avec l’œuvre ainsi que l’idée d’art tout court. Qu’est-ce qu’une œuvre d’art aujourd’hui? Faut-il parler encore de spectateur? Peut-on concevoir l’expérience de l’art au-delà du conflit entre l’ancien idéal de contemplation et les (...) exigences performatives actuelles? Avec deux nouveaux outils conceptuels, cet article propose de frayer un chemin parmi quelques-uns des préjugés de la tradition philosophique afin de formuler les premières hypothèses pour repenser la théorie de l’art. (shrink)

The article investigates the influence that the theological debates on divine grace have exercised on the evolution of Dante’s reflection on the relationship between nobility of the soul and natural predisposition, from the Vita nuova to the Commedia. If in his youthful work, commenting the sonnet Negli occhi porta la mia donna amore, Dante had attributed to Beatrice the ability to «induce Love in potentiality where he is not» (Vn. 12, 6) - an ability that Augustine’s doctrine of grace had (...) reserved to God -, in Le dolci rime d’amor and, above all, in the IV book of the Convivio, Dante affirms, with Guinizelli, the essential correlation between a «gentle heart» and love, that is to say the necessity of a natural predisposition for the purpose of possessing nobility, i. e. the divine «grace» (Cv. IV XX 7). Finally, in the Commedia, the poet returns to freeing God’s gift from any preventive natural disposition, as demonstrated not only by the repeated references to the twins Jacob and Esau, destined to opposite fates by virtue of the «grace» with which God «at his own pleasure endows each creature differently» (Pd. XXXII, vv. 65-6), but also by the XXX canto of Purgatorio, where Dante no longer appears uncertain whether to attribute his genius to a «good star» or to «a better thing» (If. XXVI, vv. 21-24), but clearly affirms its dependence on the «largess of celestial graces» (v. 112). (shrink)

English summary: This ambitious volume examines the Foucaults later writings from the 1980s. Foucaults contemporaries were baffled by his new perspective from this period in which he explored the modalities of a relationship with the self and the truth, seeming to blur the image of a Foucault concerned with describing and denouncing the forms of contemporary power. This study brings to light the theoretical and practical aspects of this period, in order to a reinvention of our own actuality. French description: (...) Les recherches menees par Foucault au cours des annees quatre-vingt demeurent, a beaucoup d'egards, indecidables. Doit-on parler, a leur propos, d'un retour aux questions classiques du sujet, de la morale, de la liberte? D'un abandon de la mise en perspective politique? D'un dandysme esthetisant? Les contemporains furent profondement deconcertes par des analyses qui, en se concentrant sur les modalites du rapport a soi et a la verite dans l'Antiquite ou le christianisme primitif, paraissaient brouiller l'image d'un Foucault attache a decrire et denoncer les formes du pouvoir moderne. Le present ouvrage se propose de relever le defi pose par ce dernier moment, aussi fecond que provocateur, de la pensee foucaldienne, d'en degager les enjeux theoriques et pratiques, et de se donner les moyens, a partir d'eux, de reinventer notre actualite. (shrink)

The article is devoted to the analysis of research approaches and attitudes to the study of the a priori in the philosophy of science. In the first part, I outline the basic premises of this study: (a) scientific knowledge as the highest manifestation of rationality; (b) the normative nature of scientific knowledge. In the second part, I turn to the difference in the subject of philosophical research on the history of science – the history of science as a “history of (...) facts” vs the history of science as a history of scientific thought. The third part discusses the main theoretical and technical difficulty associated with changing the subject of research – the possibility of a transition from historical fact to “scientific thought at the time of its birth” (in Helene Metzger terminology). The forth part is devoted to the analysis of the “model approach” (Arianna Betti, Hein van den Berg) in philosophy as a possible way to overcome this difficulty and includes both theoretical and technical aspects of the future direction of research. In conclusion, consequences are drawn about the possibility of using the “model approach” for reconstruction a priori in the history of science as “constitutive elements of scientific knowledge” (David Stump). (shrink)

Comments on Jane Friedman "Inquiry and Belief" (for 2015 Ranch Conference). Jane Friedman proposes DBI: One ought not to believe an (complete) answer to a question & at the same time inquire into that question – that’d be irrational. I raise some counterexamples. Then I propose an alternative principle which avoids the counterexamples and which has the further advantage of following from more general platitudes about knowledge. The general point is that even if one believes an answer to a question (...) it is not irrational to inquire as long as epistemic improvement is possible. (This is along the same lines as the principle of *Epistemic Improvement* more recently suggested by Arianna Falbo and Avery Archer.). (shrink)

Kant è stato il principale riferimento epistemologico di quella ricerca sui fondamenti della matematica che ha avuto in Gottlob Frege il suo massimo esponente. In seguito, tuttavia, al tramonto dei programmi logicista, intuizionista e formalista, l'esigenza di garantire la certezza della matematica passa in secondo piano rispetto al problema della natura degli enti matematici. E in tal modo che, almeno a livello terminologico, Platone subentra a Kant come essenziale referente di una diversa costruzione epistemologica. Terreno fertile della ricerca fondazionale diviene (...) infatti, a partire dagli anni '60, il dibattito fra i sostenitori e gli avversari del 'platonismo matematico': etichetta che, utilizzata per indicare la trascendenza degli enti matematici, ha non di rado banalizzato o reso marginale l'originario pensiero di Platone. Il dibattito è ancor oggi un crogiolo di idee e tendenze, tra le quali emerge, accanto alla necessità di un maggiore approfondimento dei risultati e della reale attività del matematico, l'opportunità di interrogare i testi del filosofo greco. Nella sterminata letteratura contemporanea sui fondamenti della matematica, Platone e Kant si presentano, dunque, come problematici fili d'Arianna per orientarsi, mettere ordine, cogliere una linea evolutiva o anche soltanto originali spunti teorici per nuovi orizzonti. (shrink)

The roots of the Lvov-Warsaw School can be traced back to Aristotle himself. But in later times we better put them into thinking GW Leibniz and who somehow inherited many of these ways of thinking, such as the philosopher and mathematician Bernhard Bolzano. Since he would pass the key figure of Franz Brentano, who had as one of his disciples to Kazimierz Twardowski, which starts with the brilliant Polish school of mathematics and philosophy dealt with. Among them, one of the (...) most interesting thinkers must be Jan Lukasiewicz, the father of many-valued logic.Jan Łukasiewicz began teaching at the University of Lvov, and then at Warsaw, but after World War II must to continue in Dublin. Some questions may be very astonishing in the CV of Łukasiewicz. For instance, that a firstly Polish Minister of Education in Paderewski cabinet, into the new Polish Republic, and also Rector for two times at Warsaw University, was awarded with a Doctorate ‘Honoris Causa’ in spring 1936, at University of Münster, into the maximum of effervescency of Nazism in Germany. The explanation must be their good relation with a very good friend, the former theologian, and then logician, Heinrich Schölz, who was the first Chairman of Mathematical Logic in German universities.Łukasiewicz firstly studied Law, and then Mathematics and Philosophy in Lvov. His doctoral supervisor was Kazimierz Twardowski, and in 1902 he obtain his Ph. D. title with a very special mention: ‘sub auspiciis Imperatoris’. Also he received a doctorate ring with diamonds from the Kaiser of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Franz Joseph I.From 1902, Łukasiewicz was employed as a private teacher, and also as a desk in the Universitary Library of Lvov. So it was until 1904 when he obtained a scholarship to study abroad. He defends his ‘Habilitationschrift’ in 1906, entitled “Analysis and construction of the concept of cause”. This permits to give university courses. His first lectures were on the Algebra of Logic, according to the recent translation to Polish of this book of the French logician Louis Couturat.Between 1902 and 1906, Lukasiewicz continued his studies in the universities of Berlin and Leuwen. In 1906, by his ‘Habilitationschrift’, he obtain the qualification as university professor at Lvov. And the, in 1911, he was appointed as associate professor in his ‘alma mater’.Jan Łukasiewicz was also very active in historical research on logic, giving a new and up-to-date interpretation of Aristotle’s syllogism and of the Stoics’ propositional calculus. According to Scholz, the better pages on history of logic are due to him. And also, as Arianna Betti says, “Jan Lukasiewicz is first and foremost associated with the rejection of the Principle of Bivalence and the discovery of Many-Valued Logic.”The discovery of MVL by Lukasiewicz was in 1918, a little earlier than Emil Leon Post. According to Jan Wolenski, “although Post’s remarks were parenthetical and extremely condensed, Lukasiewicz explained his intuitions and motivations carefully and at length. He was guided by considerations about future contingents and the concept of possibility”. So, he introduces, firstly, three-valued logic, then four-valued logic, generalized to logics with an arbitrary finite number of veritative values, and finally, to logics with a countably infinite-valued number of such values.Very noteworthy is his treatment of the history of logic in the light of the new formal logic. Thus, not only he addressed the issue of future contingents departing from Aristotle, but also put in value logic of the Stoics, at least so far taken. In fact, Heinrich Scholz said, rightly, that Lukasiewicz had written the most lucid pages on the history of logic. (shrink)

'Why did the window break when it was hit by the stone? Because the window is brittle and the stone is hard; hardness and brittleness are powers, dispositional properties or dispositions.' Dispositions are essential to our understanding of the world. This book is a record of the debate on the nature of dispositions between three distinguished philosophers - D. M. Armstrong, C. B. Martin and U. T. Place - who have been thinking about dispositions all their working lives. Their distinctive (...) accounts cover many of the issues surrounding dispositions such as the nature of mind, matter, universals, existence, laws of nature and causation. Dispositions illuminates this central topic in analytic philosophy and at the same time highlights deeper concerns of metaphysics. (shrink)

Throughout more than two millennia philosophers adhered massively to ideal standards of scientific rationality going back ultimately to Aristotle’s Analytica posteriora . These standards got progressively shaped by and adapted to new scientific needs and tendencies. Nevertheless, a core of conditions capturing the fundamentals of what a proper science should look like remained remarkably constant all along. Call this cluster of conditions the Classical Model of Science . In this paper we will do two things. First of all, we will (...) propose a general and systematized account of the Classical Model of Science. Secondly, we will offer an analysis of the philosophical significance of this model at different historical junctures by giving an overview of the connections it has had with a number of important topics. The latter include the analytic-synthetic distinction, the axiomatic method, the hierarchical order of sciences and the status of logic as a science. Our claim is that particularly fruitful insights are gained by seeing themes such as these against the background of the Classical Model of Science. In an appendix we deal with the historiographical background of this model by considering the systematizations of Aristotle’s theory of science offered by Heinrich Scholz, and in his footsteps by Evert W. Beth. (shrink)

A stream of conscious experience is extremely contextual; it is impacted by sensory stimuli, drives and emotions, and the web of associations that link, directly or indirectly, the subject of experience to other elements of the individual's worldview. The contextuality of one's conscious experience both enhances and constrains the contextuality of one's behavior. Since we cannot know first-hand the conscious experience of another, it is by way of behavioral contextuality that we make judgements about whether or not, and to what (...) extent, a system is conscious. Thus we believe that a deep understanding of contextuality is vital to the study of consciousness. Methods have been developed for handling contextuality in the microworld of quantum particles. Our goal has been to investigate the extent to which these methods can be used to analyze contextuality in conscious experience. (shrink)

An argument that the major metaphysical theories of facts give us no good reason to accept facts in our catalog of the world. -/- In this book Arianna Betti argues that we have no good reason to accept facts in our catalog of the world, at least as they are described by the two major metaphysical theories of facts. She claims that neither of these theories is tenable—neither the theory according to which facts are special structured building blocks of (...) reality nor the theory according to which facts are whatever is named by certain expressions of the form “the fact that such and such.” There is reality, and there are entities in reality that we are able to name, but, Betti contends, among these entities there are no facts. -/- Drawing on metaphysics, the philosophy of language, and linguistics, Betti examines the main arguments in favor of and against facts of the two major sorts, which she distinguishes as compositional and propositional, giving special attention to methodological presuppositions. She criticizes compositional facts (facts as special structured building blocks of reality) and the central argument for them, Armstrong's truthmaker argument. She then criticizes propositional facts (facts as whatever is named in “the fact that” statements) and what she calls the argument from nominal reference, which draws on Quine's criterion of ontological commitment. Betti argues that metaphysicians should stop worrying about facts, and philosophers in general should stop arguing for or against entities on the basis of how we use language. (shrink)

Giuseppina D'Oro explores Collingwood's work in epistemology and metaphysics, uncovering his importance beyond his better known work in philosophy of history and aesthetics. This major contribution to our understanding of one of the most important figures in history of philosophy will be essential reading for scholars of Collingwood and all students of metaphysics and the history of philosophy.

Car driving is considered a very complex activity, consisting of different concomitant tasks and subtasks, thus it is crucial to understand the impact of different factors, such as road complexity, traffic, dashboard devices, and external events on the driver’s behavior and performance. For this reason, in particular situations the cognitive demand experienced by the driver could be very high, inducing an excessive experienced mental workload and consequently an increasing of error commission probability. In this regard, it has been demonstrated that (...) human error is the main cause of the 57 % of road accidents and a contributing factor in most of them. In this study, 20 young subjects were involved in a real driving experiment, performed under different traffic conditions (rush hour and not) and along different road types (main and secondary streets). Moreover, during the driving tasks different specific events, in particular a pedestrian crossing the road and a car entering the traffic flow just ahead of the experimental subject, were acted. A Workload Index based on the Electroencephalographic (EEG), i.e. brain activity, of the drivers has been employed to investigate the impact of the different factors on the driver’s workload. Eye-Tracking technology and subjective measures were also employed in order to have a comprehensive overview of the driver’s perceived workload and to investigate the different insights obtainable from the employed methodologies. The employment of such EEG-based Workload index confirmed the significant impact of both traffic and road types on the drivers’ behavior (increasing their workload), with the advantage of being under real settings. Also, it allowed to highlight the increased workload related to external events while driving, in particular with a significant effect during those situations when the traffic was low. Finally, the comparison between methodologies revealed the higher sensitivity of neurophysiological measures with respect to Eye-Tracking and subjective ones. In conclusion, such an EEG-based Workload index would allow to assess objectively the mental workload experienced by the driver, standing out as a powerful tool for research aimed to investigate drivers’ behavior and providing additional and complementary insights with respect to traditional methodologies employed within road safety research. (shrink)

I temi della fede e della religione, e del loro conflitto con la cultura laica, sono da qualche tempo al centro di un interesse mediatico crescente, alimentato anche dalle polemiche politiche suscitate dal moltiplicarsi degli interventi e delle "scomuniche" del papa e della Conferenza Episcopale Italiana contro la modernità. Mancava fin qui, tuttavia, un testo di discussione, da punti di vista diversi e reciprocamente problematici, sulle ragioni dell'ateismo e della fede. Un confronto tra gli esponenti di tre posizioni ideologiche molto (...) lontane tra loro, accomunate però dal rifiuto di ogni appartenenza accademica: il cristianesimo nietzschiano del "pensiero debole" di Gianni Vattimo, la saggezza atea di una tradizione antica rilanciata da Michel Onfray e l'empirismo naturalistico-esistenziale della "filosofia del finito" di Paolo Flores d'Arcais. In questo insolito dialogo a tre voci emergono tutti gli interrogativi essenziali legati al problema, a partire da quello più generale: quali devono essere i rapporti tra filosofia e ateismo? L'"ipotesi Dio" deve ormai essere considerata superflua anche dalla riflessione filosofica, visto che le scienze ne fanno metodologicamente a meno? Quali sono le conseguenze etiche e politiche dell'essere atei o, all'opposto, credenti? (shrink)

Background: The rapid pace of progress in medical research, the consequent need for the timely transfer of new knowledge into practice, and the increasing need for ethics support, is making the work of Ethics Committees (ECs) ever more complex and demanding. As a response, ECs in many countries exhibit large variation in number, mandate, organization and member competences. This cross-sectional study aims to give an overview of the different types of activities of Italian ECs and favour discussion at a European (...) level.Methods: A questionnaire was emailed to all Italian Ethics Committees contained in the national Registry of the Ministry of Health, enquiring whether the EC was conducting, or planning to conduct, 4 specific activities. A telephone interview was conducted to determine reasons for failure to respond.Results: Response rate was 53% (101 respondents out of 191). 20% of ECs restrict their responsibilities to research protocol review, 25% also offer ethical consultation to institutions, support on individual health care decisions and promotes educational initiatives, while the remaining 50% conduct a few of the examined activities to varying degrees. Large variation was observed across different types of hosting institutions and geographical locations.Conclusions: A common European model should be developed, defining EC functions, member selection modalities, necessary member competences, decision-making criteria and measures for work verification. In the absence of sound empirical evidence, it would be interesting to study the effectiveness and efficiency of the different existing models. (shrink)