Das Sammelwerk legt umfassend den Stand der Staatstheorie dar und arbeitet die Beiträge der bedeutendsten Staatsdenker und der wichtigsten Strömungen des Staatsdenkens zum heutigen Staatsverständnis exemplarisch heraus.Renommierte Philosophen, Historiker, Sozial-, Kultur- und Rechtswissenschaftler aus Universitäten und Forschungseinrichtungen in ganz Europa stellen in 15 gleichgewichteten Kapiteln das Staatsdenken von der Antike bis zur Postdemokratie facettenreich heraus. Jedes Kapitel firmiert unter einem Schwerpunkt, angefangen beim klassischen und konservativen über das liberale und feministische bis hin zum anarchistischen und religiösen Staatsdenken. Einen besonderen Stellenwert (...) nimmt dabei das Staatsdenken in anderen Kulturen ein, darunter China, Indien, die arabische Welt sowie das vor- und das postkoloniale Afrika.Die Schlussbetrachtung zum "Staat der Zukunft" bilanziert die Probleme von Souveränitätsverlust, Staatszerfall und Postdemokratie vor dem Hintergrund von Globalisierung, Ökonomisierung und Individualisierung.Praktische Querverweise und ein umfassendes Literaturverzeichnis erleichtern den Zugriff, detaillierte Stichwort- und Personenregister runden das Werk ab.Mit Beiträgen von:Helga Albrecht, Andreas Anter, Olaf Asbach, Friedrich Balke, Ernst Baltrusch, Michael Becker, Hannah Bethke, Karl-Heinz Breier, Michael Brie, Norbert Campagna, Lars Distelhorst, Sabine Doyé, Dominik Finkelde, Oliver Flügel-Martinsen, Alexander Gantschow, Eva Geulen, Gerhard Göhler, Dieter Grimm, Martin Gronau, Gregor Hain, Hendrik Hansen, Leonhard Harding, Oliver Hidalgo, Wilhelm Hofmann, Frauke Höntzsch, Dana Ionescu, Matthias Jestaedt, Dirk Jörke, John Kannankulam, Stefan Koslowski, Oliver W. Lembcke, Rochus Leonhardt, Roland Lhotta, Mathias Lindenau, Marion Löffler, Gundula Ludwig, Günter Maschke, Jean-Christophe Merle, Dominique Fabian Miething, Andreas Niederberger, Claudia Opitz-Belakhal, Henning Ottmann, Gregor Paul, Thore Prien, Walter Reese-Schäfer, Claudia Ritzi, Samuel Salzborn, Stefano Saracino, Birgit Sauer, Peter Seyferth, Thomas Schölderle, Hans-Martin Schönherr-Mann, Ulrich Seeber, Veith Selk, Harald Sippel, Tine Stein, Kazuhiro Takii, Ulrich Thiele, Andreas Vasilache, Rüdiger Voigt, Christian Wendt, Stefanie Wöhl, Joachim Wurst, Holger Zapf und Barbara Zehnpfennig. (shrink)

Jim buys a ticket in a million-ticket lottery. He knows it is a fair lottery, but, given the odds, he believes he will lose. When the winning ticket is chosen, it is not his. Did he know his ticket would lose? It seems that he did not. After all, if he knew his ticket would lose, why would he have bought it? Further, if he knew his ticket would lose, then, given that his ticket is no different in its chances (...) of winning from any other ticket, it seems that by parity of reasoning he should also know that every other ticket would lose. But of course he doesn’t know that; in fact, he knows that not every ticket will lose. (shrink)

The Meno is often interpreted as an illustration of Plato’s decision to replace elenchus with recollection and the method of hypothesis. My paper challenges this view and defends instead two theses: that far from replacing elenchus, the method of hypothesis incorporates and uses elenctic arguments in order to test and build its own steps; and that recollection is not a method of search on a par with elenchus and the method of hypothesis, but is rather primarily a theory that accounts (...) for the metaphysical horizon within which the method of hypothesis, coupled with elenchus and perhaps other dialectical methods, can lead us from opinions to knowledge. (shrink)

With the growth of neuroscience research, new neuroscience and society (NeuroX) fields like neuroethics, neurolaw, neuroarchitecture, neuroeconomics, and many more have emerged. In this article we report on lessons learned about mentoring students in the interdisciplinary space of neuroscience and society. We draw on our experiences with the recently launched Dana Foundation Career Network in Neuroscience & Society. This resource supports educators and practitioners mentoring students aiming to apply neuroscience in diverse fields beyond medicine and biomedical science. Through our (...) programming, we identified three key lessons: (1) students are interested in exploring a wide range of neuroscience and society intersections; (2) outreach to underserved institutions generates avenues for students to join NeuroX conversations; and (3) by offering free access to online NeuroX resources and a network of subject-matter experts, the Career Network joins many partners helping to bridge the gap between neuroscience and society. (shrink)

Animate vision systems have gaze control mechanisms that can actively position the camera coordinate system in response to physical stimuli. Compared to passive systems, animate systems show that visual computation can be vastly less expensive when considered in the larger context of behavior. The most important visual behavior is the ability to control the direction of gaze. This allows the use of very low resolution imaging that has a high virtual resolution. Using such a system in a controlled way provides (...) additional constraints that dramatically simplify the computations of early vision. Another important behavior is the way the environment “behaves‘. Animate systems under real-time constraints can further reduce their computational burden by using environmental cues that are perspicuous in the local context. A third source of economy is introduced when behaviors are learned. Because errors are rarely fatal, systems using learning algorithms can amortize computational cost over extended periods. Further economies can be achieved when the learning system uses indexical reference, which is a form of dynamic variable binding. Animate vision is a natural way of implementing this dynamic binding. (shrink)

In everyday life, we assume that there are degrees of blameworthiness and praiseworthiness. Yet the debate about the nature of moral responsibility often focuses on the “yes or no” question of whether indeterminism is required for moral responsibility, while questions about what accounts for more or less blameworthiness or praiseworthiness are underexplored. In this paper, I defend the idea that degrees of blameworthiness and praiseworthiness can depend in part on degrees of difficulty and degrees of sacrifice required for performing the (...) action in question. Then I turn to the question of how existing accounts of the nature of moral responsibility might be seen to accommodate these facts. In each case of prominent compatibilist and incompatibilist accounts that I consider, I argue that supplementation with added dimensions is required in order to account for facts about degrees of blameworthiness and praiseworthiness. For example, I argue that the reasons-responsiveness view of Fischer and Ravizza requires supplementation that takes us beyond even fine-grained measures of degrees of reasons-responsiveness in order to capture facts about degrees of difficulty to extend the reasons-responsiveness view by appealing to such measures). I conclude by showing that once we recognize the need for these additional parameters, we will be in a position to explain away at least some of the appeal of incompatibilist accounts of moral responsibility. (shrink)

Robert Fogelin claims that interlocutors must share a framework of background beliefs and commitments in order to fruitfully pursue argument. I refute Fogelin’s claim by investigating more thoroughly the shared background required for productive argument. I find that this background consists not in any common beliefs regarding the topic at hand, but rather in certain shared pro-cedural commitments and competencies. I suggest that Fogelin and his supporters mistakenly view shared beliefs as part of the required background for productive argument because (...) these procedural com-mitments become more difficult to uphold when people’s beliefs diverge widely regarding the topic at hand. (shrink)

In conclusion, then, the situationist literature provides a rich area of exploration for those interested in freedom and responsibility. Interestingly, it does not do so primarily because it is situationist in the sense of supporting the substantive thesis about the role of character traits. Rather it is because it makes us wonder whether we really do act on a regular basis with the particular normative, epistemic,and reactive capacities that are central to our identity as free and responsible agents.

Nelkin presents a simple and natural account of freedom and moral responsibility which responds to the great variety of challenges to the idea that we are free and responsible, before ultimately reaffirming our conception of ourselves as agents. Making Sense of Freedom and Responsibility begins with a defense of the rational abilities view, according to which one is responsible for an action if and only if one acts with the ability to recognize and act for good reasons. The view is (...) compatibilist -- that is, on the view defended, responsibility is compatible with determinism -- and one of its striking features is a certain asymmetry: it requires the ability to do otherwise for responsibility when actions are praiseworthy, but not when they are blameworthy. In defending and elaborating the view, Nelkin questions long-held assumptions such as those concerning the relation between fairness and blame and the nature of so-called reactive attitudes such as resentment and forgiveness. Her argument not only fits with a metaphysical picture of causation -- agent-causation -- often assumed to be available only to incompatibilist accounts, but receives positive support from the intuitively appealing Ought Implies Can Principle, and establishes a new interpretation of freedom and moral responsibility that dovetails with a compelling account of our inescapable commitments as rational agents. (shrink)

The purpose of this research was to explore the relationship between university students’ perceptions of the overall quality of instruction they experienced since COVID-19 and their academic well-being. This relationship was examined in the context of a moderated moderation with students’ household income and the cultural value of power distance, which measures the extent to which less powerful members of an organization expect and accept that power is unequally distributed. Two countries with societally moderate levels of PD were assessed. Moderated (...) moderations between PQI, income, and PD were found for the academic well-being of students from both the United States and South Africa. The patterns of interactions were in some ways similar and other ways different, highlighting the complexity of how students may react to potential stressors in their academic environment. Potential explanations and implications of these results are discussed. (shrink)

To describe phenomena that occur at different time scales, computational models of the brain must incorporate different levels of abstraction. At time scales of approximately 1/3 of a second, orienting movements of the body play a crucial role in cognition and form a useful computational level embodiment level,” the constraints of the physical system determine the nature of cognitive operations. The key synergy is that at time scales of about 1/3 of a second, the natural sequentiality of body movements can (...) be matched to the natural computational economies of sequential decision systems through a system of implicit reference called deictic in which pointing movements are used to bind objects in the world to cognitive programs. This target article focuses on how deictic bindings make it possible to perform natural tasks. Deictic computation provides a mechanism for representing the essential features that link external sensory data with internal cognitive programs and motor actions. One of the central features of cognition, working memory, can be related to moment-by-moment dispositions of body features such as eye movements and hand movements. (shrink)

One of the most puzzling aspects of the portrait of the philosopher in the Theaetetus is that the depiction of this disengaged and aloof character is odds with the depiction of Socrates himself both in this dialogue and in others. In this paper I follow thinkers like Dorter, Sedley, and Blondell, who argue that the philosopher-leader is an abstract ideal that is not meant to be understood as a character in flesh and blood, but I aim to go beyond what (...) they have done so far by enlarging the scope of the question and elaborating on it. More specifically, I want to explore the significance of this double-tiered assessment of the philosopher in terms of the philosopher in flesh and blood as philosopher of the chorus (οῖ ἐν τῶ τοιῶδε χορεθύοντες, 173c1-2) and this abstract image of the idealized philosopher-leader of the chorus (οῖ κορμφαίοι, 173c6-7). I ask specifically why we need such an idealized figure as a model to emulate especially in a context in which Plato’s Socrates is offering us God as ultimate model to follow (“becoming as like God as possible” 176a-b). Whom is a philosopher like Socrates supposed to be taking as model: the idealized figure of the philosopher-leader, the god, or both? And, if both, then isn’t the figure of the idealized philosopher redundant? Do we need the image of the idealized philosopher at all? (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Questioning the Motives of Habituated Action:Burke and Bourdieu on PracticeDana AndersonThe British official's habit, in the Empire's remotest spots, of dressing for dinner is in effect the transporting of an idol, the vessel of a motive that has its sanctuary in the homeland.—Kenneth Burke, A Grammar of Motives, 44In his recent Kenneth Burke and the Conversation after Philosophy, Timothy Crusius locates Burke in the context of "PostPhilosophical" thought by (...) describing Burke's expansive Dramatistic project as a praxis—as a program encompassing "any act whatsoever, including symbolic action (i.e., expression, whether artistic or discursive), in behalf of a better life." When praxis is conceived broadly as a dialectical perspective on human action—that agents and structures interact in mutually determining ways—the term becomes, in fact, an accurate summary of the entire Burkean corpus: "If we understand it as Burke does," Crusius continues, "all that he wrote is praxis" (1999, 198). This panoramic scope of Burke's dialectical inquiry is certainly one reason it remains rhetorical theory's perhaps most flexible and productive framework for considering human action; the Dramatistic pentad and its ratios for discussing the attribution of motive continue to invite theoretical "ways of placement" as multifaceted as human motives themselves.Speaking of Burke's work in terms of praxis, however, at least in the term's contemporary critical usage,1 raises a question regarding a cognate concept that the idea of praxis entails: in what sense is Burke's pentadic grammar of action equipped to consider the habituated actions characteristic of human practice?Practice, as a conceptual descendant of Marxian praxis, retains a connection with what Marx called "human sensuous activity" (1968, 28-30).2 In its most general sense, practice refers to the regular and repeated activities of agents that, in their quotidian enactment, dialectically [End Page 255] constitute an agent's sense of self and of reality in relation to external conditions of existence. While the activities of agents will tend to reify the dominant external conditions in which agents act, these external conditions are nonetheless open to change inasmuch as the evolving practices of individuals might come to challenge them. This perspective of the determined, yet determining nature of human practice is aptly summarized in The German Ideology, where Marx and Engels famously argue that "circumstances make men just as much as men make circumstances" (2000, 189).3 As Michel de Certeau's seminal studies of practice have demonstrated (de Certeau 1984; de Certeau, Giard, and Mayol 1998), the power of this relationship of mutual constitution between individuals and their worlds of external circumstances owes directly to the banality of the actions through which such constitution is accomplished—actions ranging from the way bread is served in a given household, to the way cosmetics are purchased in department stores, to the general "ways of operating" in urban spaces, including simply walking in one's own neighborhood (de Certeau, Giard, and Mayol 1998; Mayol 1998, 7-13). As Judith Butler very poignantly summarizes, it is through precisely such "embodied rituals of everydayness," however "taken-for-granted" they may be, that "a given culture produces and sustains belief in its own 'obviousness' " (1999, 113-14).The constitutive dynamics of such practical actions should surely figure prominently into any conception of Burke's work as praxis. Indeed, this dynamic is already implicit in the fact that, for Burke, it is only through the possibility of mutually transforming both ourselves and our worlds through actions material and symbolic that we might begin to move toward a better life. But while Dramatism and practice rest on similar perspectives of the dialectically constitutive nature of human action, several aspects of the grammar through which Burke investigates motive might appear to limit, or even to preclude, the Dramatistic examination of practice as a kind of motivated action. More specifically, Burke's consistent "anti-Behaviorist" emphasis on the conscious or purposive nature of action questions the extent to which Dramatism can account for the dispositional and habituated actions characteristic of practice, actions for which agents would be least able to articulate conscious purposes. To cast the issue in the context of my epigraph above... (shrink)

Deleuze's Logique de la sensation is not a canonical art historical interpretation of Francis Bacon's painting and even less an illustration of Deleuze's philosophy. It is better read as a prolegomena to a semiotics of plastic art in which the visual image is related to the dialectics of touch and vision. These issues feature strongly in the art theories of Aloïïs Riegl, Wilhelm Worringer and Heinrich Wöölfflin. This article presents a comparative approach to the relation between Deleuze's and these writers’’ (...) conception of the image and attempts to answer the following questions: does a painting appeal strictly to the sense of vision? Does its structure point to a virtual haptic function of vision and if so, does painting overturn the stable hierarchy of senses with vision at the top? Is there a gradual relation between touch and vision? Reading Deleuze reading Riegl, Worringer and Wöölfflin offers an occasion to reconsider the image as a tensive surface grasped with a touching eye and seeing hand. (shrink)

The cerebral cortex is a rich and diverse structure that is the basis of intelligent behavior. One of the deepest mysteries of the function of cortex is that neural processing times are only about one hundred times as fast as the fastest response times for complex behavior. At the very least, this would seem to indicate that the cortex does massive amounts of parallel computation.This paper explores the hypothesis that an important part of the cortex can be modeled as a (...) connectionist computer that is especially suited for parallel problem solving. The connectionist computer uses a special representation, termed value unit encoding, that represents small subsets of parameters in a way that allows parallel access to many different parameter values. This computer can be thought of as computing hierarchies of sensorimotor invariants. The neural substrate can be interpreted as a commitment to data structures and algorithms that compute invariants fast enough to explain the behavioral response times. A detailed consideration of this model has several implications for the underlying anatomy and physiology. (shrink)

Theodor Adorno once wrote an essay to "defend Bach against his devotees." In this book Dana Villa does the same for Hannah Arendt, whose sweeping reconceptualization of the nature and value of political action, he argues, has been covered over and domesticated by admirers who had hoped to enlist her in their less radical philosophical or political projects. Against the prevailing "Aristotelian" interpretation of her work, Villa explores Arendt's modernity, and indeed her postmodernity, through the Heideggerian and Nietzschean theme (...) of a break with tradition at the closure of metaphysics.Villa's book, however, is much more than a mere correction of misinterpretations of a major thinker's work. Rather, he makes a persuasive case for Arendt as the postmodern or postmetaphysical political theorist, the first political theorist to think through the nature of political action after Nietzsche's exposition of the death of God. After giving an account of Arendt's theory of action and Heidegger's influence on it, Villa shows how Arendt did justice to the Heideggerian and Nietzschean criticism of the metaphysical tradition while avoiding the political conclusions they drew from their critiques. The result is a wide-ranging discussion not only of Arendt and Heidegger, but of Aristotle, Kant, Nietzsche, Habermas, and the entire question of politics after metaphysics. (shrink)

In recent decades, participants in the debate about whether we are free and responsible agents have tended with increasing frequency to begin their papers or books by fixing the terms “free” and “responsible” in clear ways to avoid misunderstanding. This is an admirable development, and while some misunderstandings have certainly been avoided, and positions better illuminated as a result, new and interesting questions also arise. Two ways of fixing these terms and identifying the underlying concepts have emerged as especially influential, (...) one that takes the freedom required for responsibility to be understood in terms of accountability and the other in terms of desert. In this paper, I start by asking: are theorists talking about the same things, or are they really participating in two different debates? Are desert and accountability mutually entailing? I tentatively conclude that they are in fact mutually entailing. Coming to this conclusion requires making finer distinctions among various more specific and competing accounts of both accountability and desert. Ultimately, I argue, that there is good reason to accept that accountability and desert have the same satisfaction conditions. (shrink)

I believe that the data is both fascinating and instructive, but in this paper I will resist the conclusion that we must give up Invariantism, or, as I prefer to call it, Unificationism. In the process of examining the challenging data and responding to it, I will try to draw some larger lessons about how to use the kind of data being collected. First, I will provide a brief description of some influential theories of responsibility, and then explain the threat (...) to them from the experimental results. Finally, I will set out my general approach to the data, as well as some specific suggestions about how to think about each set of experiments. I will conclude that philosophers searching for a unified theory need not give up, but that at the same time they can learn a great deal from the new data. (shrink)

In this paper, I begin with a familiar puzzle about forgiveness, namely, how to distinguish forgiveness from excuse on the one hand and “letting go” on the other. After considering three recent and influential accounts of forgiveness that offer answers to this challenge among others, I develop an alternative model of forgiveness as a kind of personal release from debt or obligation. I argue that this model has a number of distinct advantages, including offering a new explanation of the subtle (...) connections between forgiveness, resentment and perspective taking, as well as helping to provide plausible answers to normative questions such as whether forgiveness is ever morally required. Finally, I draw connections between the debate about forgiveness and the debate about free will, and suggest one way in which the compatibility of forgiveness and understanding of an action’s causes can illuminate the debate about the compatibility of freedom and determinism. (shrink)

Abstract: In this paper, I defend a view according to which one is responsible for one's actions to the extent that one has the ability to do the right thing for the right reasons. The view is asymmetrical in requiring the ability to do otherwise when one acts badly or for bad reasons, but no such ability in cases in which one acts well for good ones. Despite its intuitive appeal, the view's asymmetry makes it a target of both of (...) the main camps in the debate over responsibility. In addressing objections, I explore the relationship between fairness and responsibility, and the nature of the ability to do otherwise. (shrink)

Within bioethics, two prevailing approaches structure how we think about the role of medical surrogates and the decisions that they must make on behalf of incompetent patients. One approach views the surrogate primarily as the patient's agent, obediently enacting the patient's predetermined will. The second approach views the surrogate as the patient's custodian, judging for herself how to best safeguard the patient's interests. This paper argues that both of these approaches idealize away some of the ethically relevant features of advance (...) care planning that make patient preferences so inscrutable and surrogate decision-making so burdensome. It proposes a new approach to surrogate decision-making, the Fiduciary Agency Approach. On this novel approach, the surrogate has authority to not only act on the patient's behalf as the patient's agent but also to decide on the patient's behalf as the patient's fiduciary. One upshot of this new approach is that surrogates must sometimes go against the expressed dictates of the patients' advance directives not necessarily because doing so would be in the patient's best interest but rather because doing so would best represent the patients' will. (shrink)

:In this essay, I consider a particular version of the thesis that the blameworthy deserve to suffer, namely, that they deserve to feel guilty to the proper degree. Two further theses have been thought to explicate and support the thesis, one that appeals to the non-instrumental goodness of the blameworthy receiving what they deserve, and the other that appeals to the idea that being blameworthy provides reason to promote the blameworthy receiving what they deserve. I call the first "Good-Guilt" and (...) the second "Reason-Guilt.” I begin by exploring what I take to be the strongest argument for Good-Guilt which gains force from a comparison of guilt and grief, and the strongest argument against. I conclude that Good-Guilt might be true, but that even if it is, the strongest argument in favor of it fails to support it in a way that provides reason for the thesis that the blameworthy deserve to feel guilty. I then consider the hypothesis that Reason-Guilt might be true and might be the more fundamental principle, supporting both Good-Guilt and Desert-Guilt. I argue that it does not succeed, however, and instead propose a different principle, according to which being blameworthy does not by itself provide reason for promoting that the blameworthy get what they deserve, but that being blameworthy systematically does so in conjunction with particular kinds of background circumstances. Finally, I conclude that Desert-Guilt might yet be true, but that it does not clearly gain support from either Good-Guilt or Reason-Guilt. (shrink)

Unwitting omissions pose a challenge for theories of moral responsibility. For commonsense morality holds many unwitting omitters morally responsible for their omissions (and for the consequences thereof), even though they appear to lack both awareness and control. For example, some people who leave dogs trapped in their cars outside on a hot day (see Sher 2009), or who forget to pick something up from the store as they promised (see Clarke 2014) seem to be blameworthy for their omissions. And yet, (...) if moral responsibility requires awareness of one’s omission and of its moral significance, as well as control, then it would appear that the unwitting protagonists of these cases are not, in fact, morally responsible for their omissions. In this paper, we consider, and ultimately reject, a number of influential views that try to solve this problem, including skepticism about responsibility for such omissions, a view we call the “decision tracing” view that grounds responsibility for such omissions in previous exercises of conscious agency, and “attributionist” views that ground responsibility for such omissions in the value judgments or other aspects of the agents’ selves. We propose instead a new tracing view that grounds responsibility for unwitting omissions in past opportunities to avoid them, where having such opportunities requires general awareness of the risk of such an omission, but not an exercise of agency, in contrast to the decision tracing view. We argue that the view can better accommodate cases, and fits well with the most plausible conception of the kind of control required for responsibility. (shrink)

An Introduction to Proof via Inquiry-Based Learning is a textbook for the transition to proof course for mathematics majors. Designed to promote active learning through inquiry, the book features a highly structured set of leading questions and explorations. The reader is expected to construct their own understanding by engaging with the material. The content ranges over topics traditionally included in transitions courses: logic, set theory including cardinality, the topology of the real line, a bit of number theory, and more. The (...) exposition guides and mentors the reader through an adventure in mathematical discovery, requiring them to solve problems, conjecture, experiment, explore, create, and communicate. Ultimately, this is really a book about productive struggle and learning how to learn. This is a print version of the popular open-access online text by Dana C. Ernst. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Feminist Studies 46, no. 2. © 2020 by Dana Sonnenschein 495 Dana Sonnenschein A History of Lace Textile Research Centre, Leiden, NL Lace is the creation of a series of holes to form a design. Categorized as looping, interlacing, circular in definition and sometimes in the making. In Europe, in the late Middle Ages, women began filling in cutwork or drawn threads with nets of stars and (...) flowers in colored silks and silver-gilt. Needle lace is like embroidery in the air. * Later, bobbin lace. Mathematical, precise. Each bobbin a wooden handle like a flower bulb sending up a stalk ending in a spool instead of petals. Lace was brought to Zurich from Italy in about 1536. The whole history of lace-making is women. Men sold it and made the profit. * 496 Dana Sonnenschein Afloat on a round, midnight-blue velvet pillow, a half-finished lace collar, one side a ring of flowers radiating thread to a couple dozen bobbins around the rim, the other side dots and dashes on sky-blue paper— An old lace-maker has died, and her family has given her things to the research center. * Has anyone here made lace before? Once, Eefe says, her forearms crossing back and forth like a girl slowly twirling jump-ropes for Double Dutch. She smiles at the memory, shakes her head, afraid to touch the wooden handles now. Lace is the history of women, a series of holes that make a design. * Leaning in, I remember my grandmother’s eyes blurred behind glasses and wonder how this old woman did such fine work. Perhaps someone else set the pins, and she read them with her fingertips, whispering the Dutch words for anemone, meadow-flax, tulips, humming a bobbin tell, a song to remind her what to do with her hands, another kind of dance in another kind of Netherland. Dana Sonnenschein 497 Or perhaps she stopped making lace when memory grew clearer than sight but kept this cushion as a place she could still touch her past though the blooms lie flat and pale. * Irish lace is three-dimensional— a corner garden of cornflowers displayed near rows of fine Belgian trim arched like church windows— so many hours, panes, blooms, tendrils, we are speechless and so is the teacher. She calls Marika out of the office— You make lace, explain. * She shows us her tiny circlet of blue Torchon. I touch two loose threads, ask if that’s where she began. And finished, she says; It is hard to make the connection. Lace is the history of women. You always have a pattern, Marika says. Honiton lace is strict, every pin mapped out. With Belgian, you can be more free, fill in a shape with fantasy—I like this kind. You can move from this bloom to that leaf or fern spiral next with a little bridge called a bride. 498 Dana Sonnenschein She points to a zigzag. Fan here. We stare at the mark, mystified. You are always working with only four; it’s very logical, she says. Eefe adds, The threads and bobbins will show you the way. What’s missing is the knowledge of when to pass over or under when you want a rose or lily. Marika’s grandmother taught her lace thirty years ago. She’s learning again now. It’s nice to do. But you need a teacher. It’s a complicated subject. She makes a few passes with pairs of bobbins then undoes her work, looks up, smiles. She doesn’t know how to say what she means in English and might not say more in Dutch. Even when it’s on the table in front of us, lace is what’s missing, the art of making something of absences, of what is felt more than known, the history of women. There is no grandmother among us. Note The italicized passages in the first two sections and the query about whether anyone has made lace are drawn from my notes on Dr. Gillian Vogelsang-Eastwood ’s lecture during the Intensive Textile Course, September 19–23, 2016. Dana Sonnenschein 499 The Great Chain of Being is one loop pulled through another in... (shrink)

Dominant forms of contemporary big-data based digital citizen science do not question the institutional divide between qualified experts and lay-persons. In our paper, we turn to the historical case of a large-scale amateur project on biogeographical birdwatching in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century to show that networked amateur research can operate in a more autonomous mode. This mode depends on certain cultural values, the constitution of specific knowledge objects, and the design of self-governed infrastructures. We conclude by arguing (...) that the contemporary quest for autonomous citizen science is part of a broader discourse on the autonomy of scientific research in general. Just as the actors in our historical case positioned themselves against the elitism of gentlemen scientists, avant-garde groups of the twenty first century like biohackers and civic tech enthusiasts position themselves against the system of professional science—while “digital citizen science” remains to oscillate between claims for autonomy and realities of heteronomy, constantly reaffirming the classic lay-expert divide. (shrink)

In this dissertation, I offer an interpretation and defense of the following argument for the claim that we--together with all rational deliberators--are free: rational deliberators necessarily possess a sense of freedom in virtue of their nature as rational deliberators, and if rational deliberators, in virtue of their nature as rational deliberators, necessarily possess a sense of freedom, then they are free. Therefore, rational deliberators are free. ;I offer two related arguments for , each of which is inspired by the Kantian (...) view that reason cannot be the source of an illusory idea. Each argument appeals to a different aspect of reason. The first turns on the idea that reason is a guide to truth, and so could not be such as to lead inevitably to a false sense of ourselves. The second turns on the idea that reason could not lead to an epistemic state which is unresponsive to reasons, and that if there were rational deliberators who were unfree, the sense of freedom would be unresponsive to reasons. ;I then canvass a variety of interpretations of , and argue that several of them rest on a mistaken conception of rational deliberation. I ultimately adopt and defend a reading of according to which all rational deliberators are epistemically committed to the proposition that their actions are up to them in such a way that they are accountable for them. This reading of rests on an understanding of rational deliberation as an activity, the point of which is to act for good reasons. Identifying the correct understanding of rational deliberation allows us to see that the very activity of rational deliberation is rationalized by a sense of freedom, and hence that is true. ;I consider a number of objections to the argument, including the claim that entails that a skeptic who believes that she is not free has contradictory beliefs, and, hence, is irrational. In reply, I argue that the attribution of a certain sort of irrationality in this case is intelligible and provides the best account of the skeptic's situation. (shrink)

Due to digital transformation, technology advancements, telework, we can no longer pretend that traditional work offers high incentives and efficiency, but on the contrary, traditional work falls behind each year, deeming organizations and individuals to adopt the agile work. Rapid technological developments have altered the way businesses operate, with the goal of producing viable solutions in an environment fraught with unpredictability. This paper is a theoretical narrative review on the general topic of agile work. The present paper addresses the issue (...) of determining the best international practices for implementing agile methodology at work, carrying out a theoretical narrative review. Basing on literature on present-day theory the authors make an attempt to explain the implications of implementing agile methodologies into organizational culture, summarize existing approaches to classifying the main effects on implementing agile methodologies at work, consolidate and document best international practices for agile methodologies development among employers. After defining the concepts of agile method tailoring and agile maturity, the data obtained in the theoretical narrative analysis reveal that the implementing agile methodologies have a direct impact on management style, on teams, on learning environments, and on employee’s mental health. An overall conclusions and discussions section is presented along with the personal opinion of authors. This work is intended to open a post-pandemic agile work research methodology, since there are no systematic approaches to this topic. (shrink)

Christianity has recently undergone historic demographic and cultural shifts: it has expanded significantly in the global south while declining in the west. In an age of World Christianity, these changes bring diversity and competition, and renewed Christian witness. The global context for the faith reveals unavoidable tensions between missional expansion and the call to be one in Christ Jesus. Amid plurality and rapid changes in identity, Christians are challenged to re-appropriate the classic marks of the church – one, holy, catholic, (...) and apostolic. Engagement with all four marks, reframed for the contemporary situation, will help to maintain the creative tension between mission and unity, to connect Christians across geography and generations, and to forge a common vision of salvation in an interconnected world. (shrink)

There is a growing resurgence in the study of psychedelic medicines for the treatment of mental health and substance use disorders. However, certain early investigations are marred by questionable research methods, abuses against research participants, and covert Central Intelligence Agency financial involvement. The purpose of this study was to understand how and to what extent people of colour and other vulnerable populations, specifically, individuals who were incarcerated or incapacitated due to mental health issues, were exploited during the first wave of (...) psychedelic research in the USA. To do so, we reviewed available empirical publications according to current ethical standards. Variables of interest included race and ethnicity of participants, population vulnerability, drug administration conditions, informed consent and undue influence. Our findings draw attention to the history of research abuses against people of colour in Western psychedelic research. In light of these findings, we urge a call-to-action to current psychedelic researchers to prioritise culturally inclusive and socially responsible research methods in current and future studies. All data relevant to the study are included in the article. (shrink)