When deciding on an online purchase, consumers often face a plethora of information. Yet, individuals consumers differ greatly in the amount of information they are willing and able to acquire and process before making purchasing decisions. Extensively processing all available information does not necessarily promote good decisions. Instead, the empirical evidence suggests that reviewing too much information or too many choice alternatives can impair decision quality. Using simulated contract conclusion scenarios, we identify distinctive types of information processing styles and find (...) that certain search and selection strategies predict the quality of the final choice. Participants chose a cellular service contract in a web-based environment that closely resembled actual online settings in the country of study. Using information processing data obtained with tracking software, we identify three consumer segments differing along two dimensions – the extent dimension, referring to the overall effort invested in information processing, and the focus dimension, referring to the degree to which someone focuses on the best available options. The three subgroups of respondents can be characterized as follows: consumers with a low-effort and low-focus information processing strategy ; consumers with a moderate-effort and high-focus information processing strategy ; and consumers with high-effort and low-focus information processing strategy. The three groups differed not only in their information processing but also in the quality of their decisions. In line with the assumption of ecological rationality, most successful search strategies were not exhaustive, but instead involved the focused selection and processing of a medium amount of information. Implications for effective consumer information are provided. (shrink)

Fifteen essays address subjects ranging from the history of feminist ethics to the logic of pluralist feminism and present feminist perspectives on such topics as terrorism, bitterness, women trusting other women, and survival and ethics. Paper edition, $14.95. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR.

This essay examines how rape of women and girls by male soldiers works as a martial weapon. Continuities with other torture and terrorism and with civilian rape are suggested. The inadequacy of past philosophical treatments of the enslavement of war captives is briefly discussed. Social strategies are suggested for responding and a concluding fantasy offered, not entirely social, of a strategy to change the meanings of rape to undermine its use as a martial weapon.

An increasing amount of research has examined the management of competing logics, and possible tensions arising between them, within “hybrid organizations.” However, the ways in which the relationships of hybrids with other organizations shape the conciliation of these logics and tensions have received limited attention so far. In this theoretical paper, we examine how hybrid organizations deal with interorganizational collaboration, in particular whether and how their hybridity can be maintained when they partner with “dominant-logic organizations.” Drawing on empirical literature on (...) social enterprise–corporate collaborations, we develop a framework and several propositions on how competing logics and their balancing within hybrid organizations may be affected by interactions with organizations underpinned by one dominant logic. We suggest that influences will mostly depend on the type of collaboration pursued. A collaboration based on a lower level of engagement and interaction between the two partners is likely to give precedence to one logic over the other, reducing inter-logic tensions but possibly compromising organizational hybridity. By contrast, a collaboration featuring numerous interactions and mission compatibility may facilitate sustained hybridity if tensions are acknowledged and managed. Our propositions contribute to the literatures on hybrid organizations, interorganizational collaboration, and social enterprise. (shrink)

El objetivo principal de este artículo es indagar sobre la compleja relación entre las nociones de individuo y cosa singular en la Ética de Spinoza, delimitando en qué sentido son equiparables y en cual no. La hipótesis que me interesa defender es que, por un lado, las nociones de individuo y de cosa singular no son totalmente equiparables. Por otro lado, que tanto la cosa singular como la acción pueden entenderse en un sentido amplio y en uno restringido; y, por (...) otro, que comprender al individuo como cosa singular acentúa un aspecto crucial de ellos: su acción y operación. (shrink)

In this paper we consider the relations existing between four deductive systems that have been called categorial grammars and have relevant connections with linguistic investigations: the syntactic calculus, bilinear logic, compact bilinear logic and Curry''s semantic calculus.

Kant's critical philosophy is often regarded as standing in a problematic relation to his works in “anthropology”, or the study of human nature. In the Preface to the second edition of the Critique of Pure Reason Kant describes his critical project as a “Copernican” turn toward the cognitive subject, which might seem to signal a reorientation of philosophy around anthropology.1 However, both in the first Critique and in his subsequent works he relegates “empirical anthropology” and “practical” or “moral anthropology” to (...) the sidelines of his critical projects in cognitive and practical philosophy. Yet Kant's formulation of his critical philosophy coincided almost exactly with the development of his interest in anthropology. During the 1770s, the “silent decade” in which he formulated his critical philosophy, Kant initiated a course on anthropology at the University of Königsberg. This course was among the most popular in his regular schedule, and he offered it annually for twenty-five years until his retirement. He then published a revised version of his lectures as the Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View, a text that is one of his most accessible publications, and might even seem uncharacteristically loose and anecdotal to readers of his other works. Kant also published a number of shorter works on anthropological topics during this period, and even suggested, in several scattered remarks, that anthropology in some way encompasses all of the philosophical disciplines. (shrink)

In this article I posit translation as philosophical operation that disrupts commonsense meaning and understanding. By defamiliarising language, translation can arrest thinking about a text in a way that assumes the language is understood. In recent work I have grappled with the phrase 'ways of knowing', which, for linguistic and conceptual reasons, confuses discussions about epistemological diversity. I here expand this inquiry by considering languages in which more than one equivalent exists for the English verb 'to know'. French, for example, (...) has both savoir and connaître , and German has wissen and kennen . This interlinguistic translation thus allows for a reconsideration of the inquiry into the phrase 'ways of knowing': do problems arise with 'ways of knowing-in-the sense-of connaître ', or with 'ways of knowing-in-the-sense-of savoir ', or both? Displacement is, more generally speaking, a method used by philosophers. Shifting the concept or phenomenon under consideration into a different context or discursive register allows one to defamiliarise it and see it in terms of something else. Through translation, whether interlinguistic or interdiscursive, philosophers ask what questions and understandings become possible when we see A in terms of B. (shrink)

One of the perennially intriguing questions regarding Kant’s approach to the human sciences is the relation between his ‘transcendental psychology’ and empirical cognitive psychology. In this paper I compare his analysis of the a priori conditions of human cognition in the Critique of pure reason with his empirical account of the human cognitive faculties in his Anthropology from a pragmatic point of view. In comparing his approach to self-consciousness, sensibility, imagination, and understanding in these two works, I argue that Kant (...) distinguishes between the transcendental and empirical aspects of the human cognitive faculties, and regards the transcendental functions as configuring the empirical faculties of human consciousness, or as giving them the structure that they require to become faculties of cognition. I then show that the cognitive faculties of human beings may vary in their empirical operation, even while they are configured by the same transcendental structure. Finally, I characterize Kant’s transcendental psychology in the first Critique as an account of the faculties that are required for a mind to be an agent or subject of cognition, corresponding to his account of the conditions that are required universally and necessarily for something to be an object of cognition.Keywords: Immanuel Kant; Anthropology; Psychology; Cognition; Transcendental; Empirical. (shrink)

In response to Helmut Heid's critique of domesticated philosophical critique, I focus on the metaphor of domestication, which is central to his article. Drawing on the work of Jacques Derrida, I offer a deconstructive critique of the opposition between domesticated and undomesticated critique, arguing that a clear conceptual demarcation between the two is impossible, and that ‘domesticated’ and ‘undomesticated’ critique always carry each other's traces. I explore connections between the undomesticated and das Unheimliche (Freud's ‘Uncanny’), as well as differences between (...) Helmut Heid's and Paulo Freire's interpretation and use of the concepts of ‘domestication’ and ‘liberation’. Lastly, I examine how educators might go about a pedagogy of critique. I argue that critique can and should be understood and taught as a tradition, but one that is heterogeneous rather than monolithic. A careful reception of this translated and metonymic tradition of critique will enable students to see the spaces in which new critique—and critique of critique— is possible. (shrink)

One of the persistently controversial issues in the discussion of Kant’s moral philosophy is his view of the relation between the metaphysics of morals and human nature.

Nel Noddings, in Caring: A Feminine Approach to Ethics and Moral Education (1984), presents and develops an ethic of care as an alternative to an ethic that treats justice as a basic concept. I argue that this care ethic is unable to give an adequate account of ethical relationships between strangers and that it is also in danger of valorizing relationships in which carers are seriously abused.

In this paper we investigate how the dynamic nature of words’ meanings plays a role in a philosophical theory of meaning. For ‘dynamic nature’ we intend the characteristic of being flexible, of changing according to many factors (speakers, contexts, and more). We consider meaning as something that gradually takes shape from the dynamic processes of communication. Accordingly, we present a draft of a theory of meaning that, on the one hand, describes how a private meaning is formed as a mental (...) state of individual agents during a lifetime of experiences, and, on the other hand, shows how a public meaning emerges from the interaction of agents. When communicating with each other, agents need to converge on a shared meaning of the words used, by means of a negotiation process. A public meaning is the abstract product of many of these processes while, at the same time, the private meanings are continually reshaped by each negotiation. Exploring this dynamics, we have been looking at the work done by computer scientists dealing with problems of heterogeneity of sources of information. We argue that a suitable solution for both disciplines lies in a systematic characterization of the processes of meaning negotiation. (shrink)

The statistics at least seem alarming. The production of Ritalin, an amphetamine derivative used for the treatment of attention deficit disorder in children (and lately, in adults as well), has risen a whopping 700 percent since 1990. According to figures given by Lawrence Diller in Running on Ritalin, over the decade, the number of Americans using Ritalin has soared from 900,000 to almost 5 million -- the vast majority children from the ages of 5 to 12, though there is a (...) significant rise in Ritalin use among teens and adults as well. No comparable rise is reported in other countries, though a much smaller surge has taken place in Canada and Australia. In Virginia Beach, Virginia (perhaps the most egregious example), 17 percent of fifth-grade boys were taking Ritalin in 1996 to control behavior problems and improve school performance. (Boys on Ritalin 1 outnumber girls in a ratio of 3.5 to 1; when I was recently complaining to another mother about my own son's academic difficulties, she said simply, "Welcome to the world of boys.") Stimulants have been used to treat behavior problems in children since 1937; Ritalin itself appeared on the market in the 1960s to treat what was then called "hyperactivity" -- impulsive, disruptive behavior by children who just "couldn't sit still." In recent years, however, the root problem has been identified as "attention deficit disorder" (ADD), either with or without attendant hyperactivity. Symptoms of ADD, according to the standard survey used in its diagnosis, include: "often fails to give close attention to details or makes careless mistakes in schoolwork," "often has difficulty organizing tasks and activities," and "often avoids, dislikes, or is reluctant to engage in tasks that require mental effort (such as schoolwork or homework)." Symptoms of ADD-H (the variant with hyperactivity) include: "often fidgets with hands or feet or squirms in seat," and "often has difficulty playing or engaging in leisure activities quietly." Ritalin, by most accounts, is remarkably effective in getting such children to settle down and pay attention, with resultant (at least short term) gains in parental sanity and academic achievement. The fear, stated quite baldly, is that as a society we are 1 drugging our children in ever-larger numbers to get them to conform to adult expectations.. (shrink)

The construct of autonomy appears in the literature associated with individual psychological wellbeing. In Ryff's model, autonomy is presented as one of the dimensions of wellbeing, along with self-acceptance, positive relationships with others, environmental mastery, purpose in life, and personal growth. The present study compared the levels of autonomy and psychological wellbeing between Spanish and Colombian young people. Ryff's Scale of Psychological Wellbeing and the Transition to Adulthood Autonomy (EDATVA according to its initials in Spanish) scales were used on a (...) sample of 1,146 young people aged between 16 and 21; 506 Spanish and 640 Colombian. Results showed differences in autonomy and in two of the four dimensions proposed by the EDATVA: self-organization and critical thinking. Similarly, important differences were observed in the subscales of positive relations and purpose in life. The importance of contextual factors in the development of psychological well-being and autonomy in young people in transition to adulthood is discussed. (shrink)

This article argues that the abundance of Greek figures and scenarios in Kittler’s recent work points to a shift in his oeuvre, which, however, does not represent a radical break with his ‘hardware studies’. At the turn of the 21st century, Kittler champions an emphatic notion of culture as a necessary supplement to science and technology. This conceptual marriage mediates grand historical narratives of cultural identity. Specifically, Kittler’s texts provide us with narratives of Greek origin which serve to re-capture collective (...) identities in the age of globalization. On the explicit level, this identity is predominantly European, but the search has national components as well. With his turn to culture, the organizing trope of 19th-century German nationalism, Kittler has also embraced the legacy of German philhellenism, which articulated national identities through the theme of ‘elective affinity’. Kittler’s Greece occupies the very structural place it had in 19th-century German philhellenism: It stands in for both the foundation of European civilization and its virtual better self, a realm of sensual culture untainted by modern capitalism and Empire. Most of the figures inhabiting this realm are familiar from 19th-century discourse as well, but these discursive loops are fueled by contemporary feedback. Kittler’s Greek narratives have developed out of postwar academic discourses and connect to other post-unification Greek fantasies. (shrink)

La question que nous souhaitons soulever et qui motive les analyses proposées dans cet article est stratifiée, car elle recoupe de fait plusieurs interrogations connexes. La première est celle de savoir si, lorsqu’elle parle de l’événement dans une acception tellement généralisée qu’elle va jusqu’à l’identifier à la notion même de phénomène, la phénoménologie contemporaine conserve encore une référence fondamentale à l’événement historique. L’événement historique détient-il une fonction pro...

Is it true that utilitarianism can accommodate the modern belief that human beings have certain moral rights against everybody ‘just in virtue of their human nature?’ I should have thought the most a utilitarian could grant was that we had rights just in virtue of the utility of respecting such rights, not just in virtue of our human nature. In fact, that is more like the view Professor Brandt actually supports. What he argues is that there is not the a (...) priori difficulty with the idea of utilitarian moral rights that some philosophers have thought there was. However, I think the possibility of utilitarian moral rights is not the same as the view that we all have human rights against everybody just in virtue of our human nature. As I hear it, ‘just in virtue of our human nature’ is an alternative to a utilitarian basis for rights. I'll return to that. (shrink)

Esports is a rapidly growing industry worldwide, and it is making significant inroads in Hong Kong as well. However, owing to debates regarding the distinction between Esports and video gaming and the potential negative effects of engaging in Esports, its development in Hong Kong is still in its infancy. Therefore, this qualitative study investigated the perceptions and attitudes of teenagers and young adults toward Esports development and engagement, using the theory of planned behavior. Twenty-five teenagers and young adults participated in (...) this study, with their ages ranging from 15 to 29 years. Our results revealed the views of Hong Kong teenagers and young adults on the beneficial and deleterious outcomes, subjective norms, and barriers and facilitators of participating in Esports. Additionally, the results of this qualitative study may contribute toward a deeper understanding of Hong Kong Esports players to develop a theory of planned behavior construct for capturing the beliefs and perceptions of Hong Kong teenagers toward Esports. (shrink)

It has been claimed that most of the world’s preventable suffering and death are caused not by terrorism but by poverty. That claim, if true, could be hard to substantiate. For most terrorism is not publicly recognized as such, and it is far commoner than paradigms of the usual suspects suggest. Everyday lives under oppressive regimes, in racist environments, and of women, children, and elders everywhere who suffer violence in their homes offer instances of terrorisms that seldom capture public attention. (...) Or so this essay argues, through exploring two models of terrorism and the points of view highlighted by each. (shrink)

Este ensayo es producto de una investigación en el campo de la teoría e historia del arte y se concentra en el análisis de la pintura inédita Escena de dormitorio (c.1985-86) del destacado escritor y pintor chileno Adolfo Couve Rioseco (1940-1998). La obra salió a la luz en 2021, y su estudio no solo permite abordar problemas relativos a autoría, data, técnica y gestos pictóricos, sino también comentar los espacios domésticos y las relaciones familiares del autor. Sobre todo, permite profundizar (...) en sus filiaciones visuales; en este caso puntual, su interés por óleos tales como Jeremías lamentando la destrucción de Jerusalén (1630) de Rembrandt van Rijn; una de las cuatro versiones de El muchacho del chaleco rojo (c.1889-90) de Paul Cézanne, y las naturalezas muertas del italiano Giorgio Morandi, a partir de los cuales probablemente Couve construyó el cuadro hasta ahora no documentado que aquí se somete a escrutinio. (shrink)

Nr. 51 Le monde communautaire, le monde des personnes vivant ensemble, auquel chacune d’entre elles appartient pour les autres et d’une certaine manière aussi pour soi-même, [le monde] en tant que domaine des fins vitales, en tant que domaine de pouvoir (Herrschaftsbereich) pour « chacun », pour chaque communauté particulière – pour autant qu’elle se caractérise par l’u...

Rawls's hypothesis implies that the worst evils that target women and girls will disappear once the gravest political injustices are gone. This chapter explores those hypotheses in relation to women's self‐defense and mutual defense against evils of misogyny. It extrapolates and adapts to this case values, concepts, and methods from Rawls's life's work, especially his writing on war. Despite its exemplary Constitution, the United States, like most societies, has laws, practices, customs, and attitudes that create environments hostile to women's and (...) girls’ development and thriving. Women need principles for forming social units of defense against global and local misogyny. Meanwhile, women need principles now for defending themselves and each other as individuals. The chapter considers the adaptability of Rawls war principles to the case of women. In the 1970s and 1980s guerrilla feminists in the United States carried to another level defense of women against misogyny. (shrink)

ABSTRACT Aristotle's account of rhetoric goes beyond its previous consideration as an art of persuasion to be regarded as a suitable logic for human affairs. In the realm of ethics and politics, he needs to appeal to a logic that can deal with contingency without discarding the concept of truth. I claim that the double rapport of rhetoric with dialectic and ethical-political issues links public discourse with the question of rationality and practical truth. I will start with a brief overview (...) of two passages of the Rhetoric that account for the liaison of rhetoric with dialectic. Secondly, I consider two contributions that rhetoric theory makes to the enhancement of the rationality of ethics. Lastly, I will reflect on the relationship of rhetorical discourse with practical truth. RESUMEN La reflexión aristotélica sobre la retórica va más allá de su consideración previa como un arte de persuasión para ser comprendida como una lógica adecuada a los asuntos humanos. En el ámbito de la ética y la política se necesita apelar a una técnica de razonamiento que pueda lidiar con la contingencia, sin descartar el concepto de verdad. En este artículo defiendo que la doble relación de la retórica con las cuestiones dialécticas y ético-políticas vincula el discurso público con la cuestión de la racionalidad y la verdad práctica. Comenzaré con una breve descripción de dos pasajes de la Retórica que explican el vínculo de la retórica con la dialéctica. En segundo lugar, consideraré dos contribuciones que hace la teoría de la retórica al realce de la racionalidad de la ética. Por último, reflexionaré sobre la relación del discurso retórico con la verdad práctica. (shrink)

In this article, Claudia Ruitenberg argues that the debate for or against instrumentalism in education is less fruitful than (a) a debate about the ends worth striving for, regardless of whether education is the best means to that end; and (b) a debate about the educational practices that are currently valued in and of themselves, regardless of whether these will turn out to serve other ends in the future. Using examples from visual art and examining arguments for and against (...) “art for art's sake” and “education for education's sake,” Ruitenberg argues that education designed for instrumental purposes is already infected by a certain uselessness, while education that supposedly serves no purpose outside of itself “suffers” from a certain usefulness. (shrink)

This article analyzes the work and thought of Lélia Gonzalez on the experience of Black women in Brazil. It highlights her legacy within studies of Black Feminism in Latin America and the Caribbean, as well as the importance of her articulation between sex, class, and race with the intention of understanding the social inequality Indigenous and Black women suffer. Gonzalez's political-cultural category of Amefricanity is presented in this article as an instrument of analysis specific to the region, which promotes an (...) epistemological shift within Black feminism. This category seeks to interpret the stories and survival strategies of previous generations of Black women on the continent, as well as to learn their methods and transgressive practices of asymmetrical power relations as pedagogical processes. (shrink)