In the recent literature on formation in online theological education, a number of thematic strands can be delineated: the apologetic, didactic, pedagogical, empirical, and geographical strands. However, apart from the early apologetic stage of the discussion theological reflection plays a minor role in the literature. In this article, I argue that theology plays a limited and superficial role in contemporary writings about formation in online theological education. Yet, spiritual formation in online theological education needs theological grounding. Given the accelerated shift (...) to forms of online education across the world, such theological grounding is an urgent task. In this renewed theological engagement, three areas especially call for sustained attention: the multi-faceted nature of spiritual formation; the question of agency in spiritual formation and the consequences for the theological curriculum; and engagement with theological traditions that offer ample material to guide our contemporary thinking about spiritual formation. (shrink)

Theoretical models for physician-patient communication in clinical practice are described in literature, but none of them seems adequate for solving the communication problem in clinical practice that emerges in case of factitious disorder. Theoretical models generally imply open communication and respect for the autonomy of the patient. In factitious disorder, the physician is confronted by lies and (self)destructive behaviour of the patient, who in one way or another tries to involve the physician in this behaviour. It is no longer controversial (...) that the physician should communicate his consideration of a factitious disorder without insistence that the patient accepts this diagnosis. However, the balance between patient autonomy and open communication on the one hand, and the preservation of the patient's health, physician integrity and of a constructive physician-patient relationship on the other is easily disrupted. In this article, an epistemological model is described to facilitate a positive outcome of confrontation in treatment of factitious disorder. Analysing the problem in terms of systems theory will help the physician to assess what information is appropriate to use in which phase of the patient's treatment, while preserving the physician-patient relationship. (shrink)

By sounding the work of John Calvin and Karl Barth as mirrors of reflection and experience, justice is done to the tension between the premodern and postkantian ...

This work details the theological sources and moral significance of the life and work of the Scottish moral philosopher Adam Smith (1723-1790). The panel of contributors deepen our understanding of Adam Smith in his religious and theological context and the significance of this understanding for contemporary moral, economic, and political challenges to modern social life. The chapters cover a broad range of disciplinary and historical concerns, from Smith's view of providence and his famous "invisible hand" to the role of self-interest (...) and benevolence in Smith's social and economic thought. A better appreciation for the moral and theological dimensions of Smith's thought provides not only a better understanding of Smith's own context and significance in the Scottish Enlightenment, but also promises to assist in meeting the perennial challenges of properly connecting economic realities to moral responsibility. The book is of interest to advanced students and scholars of the history of economic thought, historical and moral theology, intellectual history, political science and philosophy. (shrink)

We performed an EEG graph analysis on data from 31 typical readers (22.27 ± 2.53 y/o) and 24 dyslexics (22.99 ± 2.29 y/o), recorded while they were engaged in an audiovisual task and during resting-state. The task simulates reading acquisition as participants learned new letter-sound mappings via feedback. EEG data was filtered for the delta (0.5–4 Hz), theta (4–8 Hz), alpha (8–13 Hz), and beta (13–30 Hz) bands. We computed the Phase Lag Index (PLI) to provide an estimate of the (...) functional connectivity between all pairs of electrodes per band. Then, networks were constructed using a Minimum Spanning Tree (MST), a unique sub-graph connecting all nodes (electrodes) without loops, aimed at minimizing bias in between groups and conditions comparisons. Both groups showed a comparable accuracy increase during task blocks, indicating that they correctly learned the new associations. The EEG results revealed lower task-specific theta connectivity, and lower theta degree correlation over both rest and task recordings, indicating less network integration in dyslexics compared to typical readers. This pattern suggests a role of theta oscillations in dyslexia and may reflect differences in task engagement between the groups, although robust correlations between MST metrics and performance indices were lacking. (shrink)

Willem II van Haecht?s panel of the Cabinet of Cornelis van der Geest (1628), introduces the viewer to the theme of the Five Senses by including five prominently displayed paintings, each corresponding to one of the senses, in the foreground. The paper offers a new reading of the panel, suggesting that this image may be read as an allegory of the Five Senses, proposing this theme as a key to the rhetorical performance the collector, van der Geest, is shown (...) undertaking, and connecting the senses to the picture?s punning motto: Vive l?Esprit. (shrink)

The concept of meaningful work is used to evaluate the quality of work. Typical cases of meaningless work that have been used to clarify this concept are assembly line work, and work involving other types of mindless tasks, but also David Graeber's ‘bullshit jobs’. I argue that there are at least two fundamental reasons to care about meaningful work: reasons from the wellbeing of the worker and reasons pertaining to meaningfulness of the worker's life. I first argue that a concept (...) of meaningful work needs to reflect these two values, but that these two values may come apart. Because of this, accounts that provide a single answer to the question to what extent a particular work context is meaningful work for a particular worker are unable to reflect these two values. I then survey three promising accounts of meaningful work: perfectionism, which captures the self-interested aspect of meaningful work well but fails to capture the meaningfulness aspect appropriately; consequentialism, which captures the meaningfulness aspect well but fails to capture the self-interested aspect; and Wolf's Fitting Fulfilment View of meaningful projects, which can be read as addressing both concerns but leads to implausible judgments about meaningful work. I then argue that we should conceive of the concerns that fall under the notion of meaningful work as two separate concepts and values. The best work incorporates both these dimensions but falling short on either dimension is problematic for different reasons. (shrink)

The sense of agency has received much attention in the context of individual action but not in the context of joint action. We investigated how the sense of agency developed during individual and dyadic performance while people learned a haptic coordination task. The sense of agency increased with better performance in all groups. Individuals and dyads showed a differential sense of agency after initial task learning, with dyads showing a minimal increase. The sense of agency depended on the context in (...) which the task was first learnt, as transfer from joint to individual performance resulted in an illusory boost in the sense of agency. Whereas the quality of performance related to the sense of agency, the generated forces to achieve the task did not. Our findings are consistent with a predictive model account at the perceptual level, such that the sense of agency relies most strongly on sharable perceptual information. (shrink)

We introduce a logic specifically designed to support reasoning about social choice functions. The logic includes operators to capture strategic ability, and operators to capture agent preferences. We establish a correspondence between formulae in the logic and properties of social choice functions, and show that the logic is expressively complete with respect to social choice functions, i.e., that every social choice function can be characterised as a formula of the logic. We prove that the logic is decidable, and give a (...) complete axiomatization. To demonstrate the value of the logic, we show in particular how it can be applied to the problem of determining whether a social choice function is strategy-proof. (shrink)

Although the change of beliefs in the face of new information has been widely studied with some success, the revision of other mental states has received little attention from the theoretical perspective. In particular, intentions are widely recognised as being a key attitude for rational agents, and while several formal theories of intention have been proposed in the literature, the logic of intention revision has been hardly considered. There are several reasons for this: perhaps most importantly, intentions are very closely (...) connected with other mental states—in particular, beliefs about the future and the abilities of the agent. So, we cannot study them in isolation. We must consider the interplay between intention revision and the revision of other mental states, which complicates the picture considerably. In this paper, we present some first steps towards a theory of intention revision. We develop a simple model of an agent’s mental states, and define intention revision operators. Using this model, we develop a logic of intention dynamics, and then investigate some of its properties. (shrink)

Misinformation about the novel coronavirus is a pressing societal challenge. Across two studies, one preregistered, we assess the efficacy of two ‘prebunking’ interventions aimed at improving people’s ability to spot manipulation techniques commonly used in COVID-19 misinformation across three different languages. We find that Go Viral!, a novel five-minute browser game, increases the perceived manipulativeness of misinformation about COVID-19, improves people’s attitudinal certainty in their ability to spot misinformation and reduces self-reported willingness to share misinformation with others. The first two (...) effects remain significant for at least one week after gameplay. We also find that reading real-world infographics from UNESCO improves people’s ability and confidence in spotting COVID-19 misinformation. Limitations and implications for fake news interventions are discussed. (shrink)

In the present work we illustrate how two sorts of defeasible reasoning that are fundamental in the normative domain, that is, reasoning about exceptions and reasoning about violations, can be simulated via monotonic propositional theories based on a bimodal language with primitive operators representing knowledge and obligation. The proposed theoretical framework paves the way to using native theorem provers for multimodal logic, such as MleanCoP, in order to automate normative reasoning.

The subtitle of this paper could have been, “Big Data meets Education to advance Cognitive Science.” In it, the authors analyze 20 million answers to 1700 simple arithmetic problems in an educational number game to determine “what makes some problems harder than others.” The results contribute to the cognitive science of arithmetic skill acquisition and have the potential to change how math is taught.

This paper provides an empirical case study of the relationship between corporate social responsibility (CSR) and the new competition regulation in the Netherlands. The leading question in this case study is whether the new institutional arrangement has allowed for the possibility that reasonable exceptions can be made to the principle that inter-firm cooperation is prohibited. That is to say: does the new institutional arrangement allow for the possibility of 'well organized but not 'perfect' markets'? The investigation focuses on the Netherlands, (...) which constitutes an exemplary case as the Dutch are committed to both strengthen the competitiveness of the market and allow for exceptions on behalf of non-economic values such as CSR. The authors expect that the Dutch context will prevent a doctrinal and categorical rejecting of any good argument to make an exception to the rule that inter-firm cooperation must be prohibited. (shrink)

This article aims to provide some insight into the nature and content of the theory of associative political obligation. It does this by first locating the view in the wider debate on political obligation, analyzing the view in terms of four central elements that are shared by many of its versions, and then discussing important criticisms that have been made of each of these, as well as some rejoinders by defenders of the theory.

Contextualist moral philosophers criticise hands-off liberal theories of justice for abstracting from the cultural context in which people make choices. Will Kymlicka and Joseph Carens, for example, demonstrate that these theories are disadvantageous to cultural minorities who want to pursue their own way of life. I argue that Pierre Bourdieu's critique of moral reason radicalises contextualist moral philosophy by giving it a sociological turn. In Bourdieu's view it is not enough to provide marginalised groups or subgroups with equal access to (...) public institutions and specific cultural rights—in some cases this may in fact be detrimental. He contends that scientists, politicians and other intellectuals have a duty to take seriously the social presuppositions of free deliberate choice and public opinion and to support cultural minorities with instruments to liberate themselves from their often precarious situation. (shrink)

Editor's suggested further reading in BioEssaysA new paradigm in cell therapy for diabetes: Turning pancreatic α‐cells into β‐cells Abstract.

Compared with other biblical books that are named after its main protagonist, Job mentions many (at least 72) body parts. Yet hair is explicitly referred to only once, even when it plays a relatively significant role in other books in the Hebrew Bible. This virtual absence of hair in the book can at first glance be explained by the shaving of Job's 'head' as early as 1:20, using a different verb, •••, from the one in Leviticus 13:33 and 14:8.9, •–•, (...) where the context is that of —’—’–’—, wrongly translated as 'leprosy', but probably referring to the same skin problem from which Job is suffering. This connection to the skin is important, because the two body parts seem to be almost mutually exclusive, as also suggested by 1:21 immediately after the aforementioned shaving, where Job considers himself to be essentially –’—’– [naked]. This means that hair has, amongst other functions, also a clothing-like role in the book of Job. Three questions will hence be explored: how 'absence' is to be psychoanalytically interpreted and more specifically, what consequences all of this has on the virtual absence of hair in the Book of Job and, finally, what relevance this absence has for the South African context. CONTRIBUTION: Applying a psychoanalytical perspective to both the body and to absence, the biblical text is contextualised on a broader horizon than what the purely historical-critical approach can render. The additional African context widens the relevance of the ancient book even further. (shrink)

Since Gallie introduced the notion of essentially contested concepts, it has given rise to considerable debate and confusion. The aim of this paper is to bring clarity to these debates by offering a critical reconstruction of the notion of essential contestedness. I argue that we should understand essentially contestable concepts as concepts that refer to ideals or to concepts and phenomena that can only be fully understood in light of ideals and that are, as a consequence, open to pervasive contestation. (...) Moreover, some concepts are second-order essentially contested: it may be a matter of ongoing dispute as to whether they should be regarded as essentially contested. The concept of law is an example. Some authors argue that it is ideal-oriented, whereas others claim it is not. This insight that ‘law’ is a second-order essentially contested concept may explain some of the disagreements between legal positivism and its various opponents. (shrink)

The skopos of this new type of church Bible is: ‘How would the source texts of the Bible have sounded in Afrikaans in the context envisaged for its hypothesised first audience?’ Fully acknowledging the complexities of language as a dynamic and complex system embedded in the culture and conceptual world of its speakers, as well as the wide range of frames that are involved in the process of Bible translation as a difficult form of secondary communication, this article addresses two (...) of the challenges of this ambitious project. In the first section the incongruence between the world of the Old Testament and speakers of Afrikaans is treated. Examples are provided of instances where both the nature of difficult secondary intercultural communication as well as the subjective theories of the host audience constrains the ‘directness’ of the translation. In the second section, some of the challenges of distinguishing between the formal and functional features of Biblical Hebrew are dealt with. The article concludes that, although the notion ‘communicative clue’ provides a useful heuristic device to act as point of departure for negotiations on the construal of the meaning of the text in the source language and host language respectively, the notion has to be supplemented by insights from the fields of cultural anthropology, cognitive linguistics and linguistic typology. A better understanding of how meaning ‘works’ provides members of a translation team with some criteria to make informed decisions when they negotiate how the meaning of specific Biblical Hebrew constructions are to be construed ‘directly’ in Afrikaans.Keywords: Afrikaans Bibles; Bible translation; Biblical Hebrew; church Bible; code model; cognitive linguistics; cognitive semantics; communication model; communicative clue; direct translation; discourse marker; dynamic equivalent translation; functionalist tran. (shrink)

Conversational artificial agents and artificially intelligent voice assistants are becoming increasingly popular. Digital virtual assistants such as Siri, or conversational devices such as Amazon Echo or Google Home are permeating everyday life, and are designed to be more and more humanlike in their speech. This study investigates the effect this can have on one’s conformity with an AI assistant. In the 1950s, Solomon Asch’s already demonstrated the power and danger of conformity amongst people. In these classical experiments test persons were (...) asked to answer relatively simple questions, whilst others pretending to be participants tried to convince the test person to give wrong answers. These studies were later replicated with embodied robots, but these physical robots are still rare. In light of our increasing reliance on AI assistants, this study investigates to what extent an individual will conform to a disembodied virtual assistant. We also investigate if there is a difference between a group that interacts with an assistant that communicates through text, one that has a robotic voice and one that has a humanlike voice. The assistant attempts to subtly influence participants’ final responses in a general knowledge quiz, and we measure how often participants change their answer after having been given advice. Results show that participants conformed significantly more often to the assistant with a human voice than the one that communicated through text. (shrink)

In this article we characterize a countable ordinal known as the big Veblen number in terms of natural well-partially ordered tree-like structures. To this end, we consider generalized trees where the immediate subtrees are grouped in pairs with address-like objects. Motivated by natural ordering properties, extracted from the standard notations for the big Veblen number, we investigate different choices for embeddability relations on the generalized trees. We observe that for addresses using one finite sequence only, the embeddability coincides with the (...) classical tree-embeddability, but in this article we are interested in more general situations. We prove that the maximal order type of some of these new embeddability relations hit precisely the big Veblen ordinal ϑΩΩ\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$${\vartheta \Omega^{\Omega}}$$\end{document}. Somewhat surprisingly, changing a little bit the well-partially ordered addresses, the maximal order type hits an ordinal which exceeds the big Veblen number by far, namely ϑΩΩΩ\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$${\vartheta \Omega^{\Omega^\Omega}}$$\end{document}. Our results contribute to the research program on classifying properties of natural well-orderings in terms of order-theoretic properties of the functions generating the orderings. (shrink)