Design research programs attempt to bring together the properties of available materials and the demands derived from intended applications. The logic of problem states and state transitions in such programs, including assessment criteria and heuristic principles, is described in settheoretic terms, starting with a naive model comprising an intended profile and the operational profile of a prototype. In a first concretization the useful distinction between structural and functional properties is built into the model. In two further concretizations the inclusion of (...) potential applications is motivated and described for the case of drug research as well as the inclusion of potential realizations for the case of complex products. Next, another line of concretization of the naive model, the incorporation of potentially relevant properties, is sketched. Then the partial analogy between product- and truth-approximation is indicated. We conclude with some remarks about the usefulness of our models for products reaching the market in comparison to the the so-called social construction of technology approach. (shrink)

Byun et al. describe how deaf signers deal with communication problems in first encounters with signers of different languages. They show that the basic Conversation Analytic repair mechanisms for dealing with verbal troubles are largely reproduced in gesture and sign, including details of turn‐taking structure, timing and form. This underlines the role of repair as a basic resource for linguistic and interactional creativity across modalities.

Byun et al. describe how deaf signers deal with communication problems in first encounters with signers of different languages. They show that the basic Conversation Analytic repair mechanisms for dealing with verbal troubles are largely reproduced in gesture and sign, including details of turn‐taking structure, timing and form. This underlines the role of repair as a basic resource for linguistic and interactional creativity across modalities.

Research has shown the importance of engaging in networking behaviors for employees’ career success. Networking behaviors can be seen as a proactive way of creating access to career-related social resources and we argue that this type of proactive career behaviors might be particularly relevant for freelancers who cannot depend on an organizational career system supporting their further development, yet whose careers are characterized by high levels of uncertainty and unpredictability. To date, however, our understanding of how freelancers, being a category (...) of workers that are deprived of an organizational context of support for career development, can safeguard their employability, is limited. Therefore, this study addresses this gap and investigates whether freelancers’ networking behaviors are positively associated with career outcomes, through the mediating role of the need for relatedness fulfillment and employability-enhancing competencies. Hypotheses are tested via Structural Equation Modelling using a sample of 1,874 freelancers from Belgium, France, Germany, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom. The results generally support our hypotheses, providing evidence for a significant association between networking behaviors and need for relatedness fulfillment, and between networking behaviors and employability-enhancing competencies. Moreover, we found a significant association between need for relatedness fulfillment and employability-enhancing competencies, being the mediators in our research model and the outcomes of career satisfaction and future career opportunities. Implications for career development in the contemporary workplace are discussed, with particular attention for need for relatedness fulfillment, employability, and sustainable careers of freelance workers. (shrink)

Non-governmental organizations are increasingly important drivers for businesses’ self-regulation to operate in a sustainable way. We shift the perspective on NGOs from focusing on their advocacy role to focusing on their accountability for having sustainable internal operations. In a multiple case analysis, we explore the question ‘What are the drivers and barriers to sustainable conduct of NGOs that are sustainability advocates?’ Drawing on institutional theory, we obtain novel insights into the legitimacy-seeking motivations for sustainable conduct in the specific context of (...) advocacy NGOs. We found that, affected by its mission, the cultural-cognitive drive is particularly high, with sustainable conduct as an internally ‘taken-for-granted’ behavior, followed by the normative drivers, with the balance between perceived vulnerability of needing to ‘walk the talk’ and the sense of immunity due to lack of external scrutiny, and there are hardly any regulative drivers. Furthermore, these organizations face idiosyncratic trade-offs when balancing investments in their advocacy missions with investments in sustainable operations, reflecting ethical dilemmas. In a broader sense, this research elucidates the way advocates cope in situations of institutional complexity, with conflicting institutional demands between their mission and role-model function. (shrink)

This article argues that phenomenological sociology has great potential to provide a strong theoretical support to the Sociocognitive Approach in Critical Discourse Studies. SCA is interested in the interconnections between knowledge, discourse and society while placing subjectivity in the centre of its framework. It looks into the correlative relationship between personal- and socially shared knowledge, and the significance of these correlations to discourse production and interpretation. Analogously, phenomenological sociology explores the interrelated structures of subjectivity, knowledge and the social world. It (...) systematically analyses the conditions and forms of intersubjective understanding and the mutually constitutive relationship between subjective- and objective knowledge. Given the considerable overlap between the subject matter of phenomenological sociology and that of SCA, the purpose of the article is to draw the attention of critical discourse analysts to a neglected but extremely resourceful field. Following a brief introduction to SCA, the article will address some of SCA’s key concepts in conjunction with the phenomenological-sociological insight. (shrink)

In this study, we examined the learning of new grapheme-phoneme correspondences in individuals with and without dyslexia. Additionally, we investigated the relation between grapheme-phoneme learning and measures of phonological awareness, orthographic knowledge and rapid automatized naming, with a focus on the unique joint variance of grapheme-phoneme learning to word and non-word reading achievement. Training of grapheme-phoneme associations consisted of a 20-min training program in which eight novel letters (Hebrew) needed to be paired with speech sounds taken from the participant's native (...) language (Dutch). Eighty-four third grade students, of whom 20 were diagnosed with dyslexia, participated in the training and testing. Our results indicate a reduced ability of dyslexic readers in applying newly learned grapheme-phoneme correspondences while reading words which consist of these novel letters. However, we did not observe a significant independent contribution of grapheme-phoneme learning to reading outcomes. Alternatively, results from the regression analysis indicate that failure to read may be due to differences in phonological and/or orthographic knowledge but not to differences in the grapheme-phoneme-conversion process itself. (shrink)

Computer science advocates institutional frameworks as an effective tool for modelling policies and reasoning about their interplay. In practice, the rules or policies, of which the institutional framework consists, are often specified using a formal language, which allows for the full verification and validation of the framework (e.g. the consistency of policies) and the interplay between the policies and actors (e.g. violations). However, when modelling large-scale realistic systems, with numerous decision-making entities, scalability and complexity issues arise making it possible only (...) to verify certain portions of the problem without reducing the scale. In the social sciences, agent-based modelling is a popular tool for analysing how entities interact within a system and react to the system properties. Agent-based modelling allows the specification of complex decision-making entities and experimentation with large numbers of different parameter sets for these entities in order to explore their effects on overall system performance. In this paper we describe how to achieve the best of both worlds, namely verification of a formal specification combined with the testing of large-scale systems with numerous different actor configurations. Hence, we offer an approach that allows for reasoning about policies, policy making and their consequences on a more comprehensive level than has been possible to date. We present the institutional agent-based model methodology to combine institutional frameworks with agent-based simulations). We furthermore present J-InstAL, a prototypical implementation of this methodology using the InstAL institutional framework whose specifications can be translated into a computational model under the answer set semantics, and an agent-based simulation based on the jason tool. Using a simplified contract enforcement example, we demonstrate the functionalities of this prototype and show how it can help to assess an appropriate fine level in case of contract violations. (shrink)

Identity, Morality, and Threat offers a critical examination of the social psychological processes that generate outgroup devaluation and ingroup glorification as the source of conflict. Daniel Rothbart and Karyna Korostelina bring together essays analyzing the causal relationship between escalating violence and opposing images of the Self and Other.

It is extraordinary, when one thinks about it, how little attention has been paid by theorists of the nature and justification of punishment to the idea that punishment is essentially a matter of self-defense. H. L. A. Hart, for example, in his famous “Prolegomenon to the Principles of Punishment,” is clearly committed to the view that, at bottom, there are just three directions in which a plausible theory of punishment can go: we can try to justify punishment on purely consequentialist (...) grounds, which for Hart, I think, would be to try to construct a purely utilitarian justification of punishment; we can try to justify punishment on purely retributive grounds; or we can try to justify punishment on grounds that are some sort of shrewd combination of consequentialist and retributive considerations. Entirely absent from Hart's discussion is any consideration of the possibility that punishment might be neither a matter of maximizing the good, nor of exacting retribution for a wrongful act, nor of some imaginative combination of these things, but, rather, of something altogether different from either of them: namely, the exercise of a fundamental right of self-protection. Similarly, but much more recently, R. A. Duff, despite the fact that he himself introduces and defends an extremely interesting fourth possibility, begins his discussion by writing as though, apart from his contribution, there are available to us essentially just the options previously sketched by Hart. Again, there is no mention here, any more than in Hart's or any number of other recent discussions, of the possibility that we might be able to justify the institution of punishment on grounds that are indeed forward-looking, to use Hart's famous term, but that are not at all consequentialist in any ordinary sense of the word. (shrink)

Professor Procrastinate receives an invitation to review a book. Best would be to accept it and then write the review. But if he accepts it, he will never get around to writing. And this would be worse than declining. Should he accept? Possibilists say yes, Actualists say no, and I say we need more information. In particular, we lack some information about the level of goodness of the various options. For example, we lack information regarding how much better it would (...) be to accept and write than it would be to decline. In the course of defending my view, I discuss its implications for ethical theory and our everyday actions. (shrink)

This book studies geoethics in Latin America and offers comprehensive research on geoethics and geoeducation. Its respective chapters explore geoethics in relation to UNESCO geoparks, mining activities in Latin America, natural hazards and risk management. Geoethics is a key discipline in the field of Earth and Planetary Sciences, and not only includes scientific, technological, methodological and social-cultural aspects, but also addresses the need to consider appropriate protocols, scientific integrity issues and a code of good practice when studying the abiotic world. (...) The position of Latin America’s recently created geoethics associations is based on protection of the environment, together with a reassurance that the balance of nature and the rights of human beings to enjoy it will be preserved. (shrink)

Vous menez depuis plusieurs années des enquêtes sur le personnel politique en France, avec l’ambition de reconsidérer la notion de « professionnel » de la politique et par extension les ressorts d’une « professionnalisation » de la vie politique en France. Un point de départ, semble-t-il, de votre réflexion porte sur le fait que ces termes servent souvent (à l’instar du vocable péjoratif de « politicien » auquel ils se substituent souvent) à dévaloriser le personnel politique. Ils avaient pourtant été (...) conçus par les sciences sociales pour mettre à distance tout jugement de valeur à propos des élus. On pense bien sûr à Max Weber, mais aussi aux travaux fondateurs de Daniel Gaxie ou Jacques Lagroye, notamment. Comment vos propres travaux se situent-ils par rapport à la dimension normative inévitablement attachée à cet objet qu’est le « métier » de député? Il est vrai que je mène une critique des « professionnels de la politique », mais pas tout à fait dans le sens de celle qui domine... (shrink)

Il existe en Corse, partie du territoire français dotée d’un statut particulier bien que métropolitaine, une mouvance dite « nationaliste » ; une mouvance qui, en d’autres termes, se réclame d’une identité collective spécifique (– « Ce que nous sommes? » – « Nous sommes « Corses » avant d’être « Français » »), et qui soutient le droit du « peuple corse » à être reconnu comme une nation à part entière et à l’autodétermination. Cette mouvance recouvre des autonomistes (...) (ils revendiquent une aut... (shrink)

O cenário contemporâneo dos jogos eletrônicos tem dado mostras de que a competência do jogador não está mais limitada a interações psicomotoras com vistas ao fim de sagrar-se vencedor. A permanência do jogador nos espaços virtuais em modo singleplayer, no uso solitário que faz da máquina, como nos casos dos games de ação em mundo aberto que representam cidades reais, leva-nos à constatação de uma fruição do objeto técnico satisfeita no simples “estado de estar” no jogo, permitindo uma espécie de (...) experiência urbana a partir do contato com os conteúdos midiáticos. Disso advêm as análises que demonstramos, tais como as percepções reflexivas da cibervivência da vida urbana através do game Watch_Dogs, ambientado na cidade de Chicago. (shrink)

The publication of Moshe Idel’s book, Kabbalah: New Perspectives marks a turning point in the field of Jewish mysticism. In this volume, Moshe Idel offered phenomenology as an alternative key to appreciating the history and ideas of Jewish mystical traditions. This study returns to this book in order to assess and critique the meaning and function of phenomenology in his early scholarship, as a prelude to the developing and possibly changing methodologies that he has employed in numerous studies published since (...) the appearance of his now classic study. The study considers the connection between phenomenology and experience and its role within the multiple perspectives suggested in the volume. Moshe Idel’s methodology is thus appreciated within the larger context of his work, positioned within the history of scholarship in the field and serves as a measure of the turn to new perspectives. (shrink)

Linguistics and philosophy, while being two closely-related fields, are often approached with very different methodologies and frameworks. Bringing together a team of interdisciplinary scholars, this pioneering book provides examples of how conversations between the two disciplines can lead to exciting developments in both fields, from both a historical and a current perspective. It identifies a number of key phenomena at the cutting edge of research within both fields, such as reporting and ascribing, describing and referring, narrating and structuring, locating in (...) time and space, typologizing and ontologizing, determining and questioning, arguing and rejecting, and implying and supposing. Each chapter takes on a phenomena and explores it through a set of questions which are posed and answered at the outset of each chapter. An accessible and engaging resource, it is essential reading for researchers and students in both disciplines, and will empower exciting and illuminating conversations for years to come. (shrink)

In this preface, we introduce Roger Schwarzschild’s body of work, as well as the papers in this volume. Because Roger’s work is so diverse and comprehensive, the book is divided into four categories: papers that address the semantics of nouns and plurals; papers on focus semantics; papers on degree semantics; and papers addressing the semantics of tense and aspect. We end with compelling arguments that Roger is the best.

The lineage of philosophical hermeneutics is indelibly marked by the discourse of asceticism and otherworldliness. This influence springs most immediately from Nietzsche but finds itself provocatively manifest in the recent and ongoing return of philosophical hermeneutics to religious patterns of thought. This work will consider the hermeneutic encounter with and appropriation of asceticism in the work of Gianni Vattimo. In one sense, this engagement would appear an unlikely one, as Vattimo (following Nietzsche) is openly suspicious of the voluntary assumption of (...) and salvific role for suffering in the quest for human flourishing. However, upon closer inspection, we see that a reconfigured asceticism, focused on the turning of power against itself and the reconfiguration of our relationship with the world, is alive and well in Vattimo’s “weak thought.” More radically, Vattimo’s thought represents a purification-even a mortification- of asceticism by cleansing it of its untenable and burdensome metaphysical baggage and allowing for a renewed and authentic approach to religiosity. (shrink)

The strong coupling of binding to cross-correlations is methodologically problematic. A completely unstructured network of neurons can produce cross-correlations very similar to the measured ones, and yet they have little dynamic effect.

Scholars from various philosophical schools of thought, including cultural relativism, hermeneutics, and postmodernism, have recently critiqued rationalism in light of new developments in the cognitive sciences. Each of these new developments set into motion new inquiries in each school philosophical school of thought. Now, in Facets of Rationality, a distinguished team of scholars examines these new inquiries and bring rationality back into the mainstream of the social sciences. The unique feature of this book lies in its multidisciplinary exploration of rational (...) concerns and in discovering the integral meaning of rationality as viewed by the perspectives of different disciplines. As such, it will of considerable interest to those involved with the study and teaching of philosophy, theoretical psychology, cognitive science, political theory, and linguistics. (shrink)

situation in the sciences of man and show it to be fallacious. On the view to be 6 rejected, the sciences of man are undergoing the first serious attempt in history to 7 thoroughly naturalize their subject matter and thus to put an end to their separate sta- 8 tus. Progress has (on this view) been quite considerable in the disciplines in charge 9 of the individual, while in the social sciences the outcome of the process is moot: 10 the (...) naturalistic social sciences are still in their infancy, and whether they will even- 11 tually engulf or at least profoundly transform the field of social science is unclear. 12 The dichotomous conception pits two camps against one another. On the one hand, 13.. (shrink)

David Atkinson asks whether nonempirical constructions can lead to genuine knowledge in science, and answers in the negative. Thought experiments, in his view, are to be commended only insofar as they eventually lead to real experiments. The claim does not rely on a general study, conceptual or historical, of thought experiments as such: the range of the paper is at once narrower and broader. Atkinson views thought experiments as commonly understood as just one kind of episode in the development of (...) physics in which real experimentation is bypassed, and he believes that such episodes are justified only inasmuch as they are transitory stages on the way to genuine empirical inquiry. Atkinson wants to kill with one arrow what is usually regarded as two different birds: the notion that thought experiments proper can be persuasive in themselves, and the thesis that theories which cannot be brought to the tribunal of experience can nevertheless belong to science. He thus implicitly opposes three views which are commonly, albeit not universally, held: (i) some thought experiments are conclusive; (ii) some theories belong to science despite not being evidently and concretely amenable to empirical corroboration; (iii) the two issues are largely independent. The standpoint from which Atkinson operates is a rather strict form of empiricism, one which relies on a fairly sharp distinction between the conceptual and empirical dimensions of inquiry. My outlook is rather different: the conceptual and empirical seem to me to be intertwined, both conceptually, as suggested by Quine’s critique of logical positivism, and empirically, as revealed by the evidence provided by science itself in its daily and historical reality. Rather than take the high road, I propose to focus first on the critique to which Atkinson subjects Galileo’s thought experiment, and the lessons he draws from his analysis.. (shrink)

Assigning a positive signification to the concept of ‘ideology,’ the basic hypothesis of this paper is that both what we call social reality and what we understand by the expression social knowledge are the result of an ideological projection. In other words, it is my opinion that ideology accomplishes a double purpose: on the one hand, it actively participates in the construction of social reality; on the other hand, it also plays the role of an instrument of social knowledge. To (...) support this assertion, I advance the idea of ideological conventions that are constituent parts of the social projection of reality and that emerge as ‘landmarks’ of the processof understanding it. I provide arguments that, as long as that they are found at the level of social institutions and thus being reproduced in discourse, including symbolically – as codes, norms, rules, habits, behaviours, etc., both formal and informal –, ideological conventions are an expression of social identity, being useful in explaining and understanding social reality and its possibilities of evolving. Finally, taking into account the premise that while social knowledge is not entirely ideological, the ideological element is unavoidable in the process of configuring this knowledge (contributing in a decisive manner to the changes emerging at the societal level), I propose an integrated, interdisciplinary model of ideological analysis. (shrink)