What influence did Josiah Royce's academic work (1913-1917) have on the development of classical Symbolic Interactionist thought? And which philosophical influences shaped Royce's social and philosophical thought? This book provides a holistic approach to Royce's academic work and the social philosophy that shaped Symbolic Interactionist theory. By critically evaluating the works of Royce, this book reveals how his ideas and social philosophy made significant contributions to both Symbolic Interactionist thought and sociological theory. Situating his contributions within a socio-historical time frame, (...) Royce's social philosophy is compared and contrasted to the major concepts of George Herbert Mead (Mind, Self, and Society) and Herbert Blumer's core synthesized components of classical symbolic interactionist thought (Symbolic Interactionism: Perspective and Method). Thus, demonstrating that Royce's later academic works closely resemble not only the basic ideas of Mead but also have a strong correspondence with Blumer's synthesis of the three basic premises and eight root images that outline the theoretical core of Symbolic Interactionist thought. For those looking to investigate or discover new aspects of symbolic interactionist theory from a classical viewpoint, this book offers a unique insight into an American philosopher whose contribution to the development of Symbolic Interactionism has been largely unnoticed. (shrink)

Algorithms increasingly make managerial decisions that people used to make. Perceptions of algorithms, regardless of the algorithms' actual performance, can significantly influence their adoption, yet we do not fully understand how people perceive decisions made by algorithms as compared with decisions made by humans. To explore perceptions of algorithmic management, we conducted an online experiment using four managerial decisions that required either mechanical or human skills. We manipulated the decision-maker, and measured perceived fairness, trust, and emotional response. With the mechanical (...) tasks, algorithmic and human-made decisions were perceived as equally fair and trustworthy and evoked similar emotions; however, human managers' fairness and trustworthiness were attributed to the manager's authority, whereas algorithms' fairness and trustworthiness were attributed to their perceived efficiency and objectivity. Human decisions evoked some positive emotion due to the possibility of social recognition, whereas algorithmic decisions generated a more mixed response – algorithms were seen as helpful tools but also possible tracking mechanisms. With the human tasks, algorithmic decisions were perceived as less fair and trustworthy and evoked more negative emotion than human decisions. Algorithms' perceived lack of intuition and subjective judgment capabilities contributed to the lower fairness and trustworthiness judgments. Positive emotion from human decisions was attributed to social recognition, while negative emotion from algorithmic decisions was attributed to the dehumanizing experience of being evaluated by machines. This work reveals people's lay concepts of algorithmic versus human decisions in a management context and suggests that task characteristics matter in understanding people's experiences with algorithmic technologies. (shrink)

Trusting relationships are both valuable and risky. Where the risks are high and the fears of betrayal are also high, it might seem rational to try to mitigate the risks, while still enjoying the benefits of the trusting relationship, by forming a contingency plan. A contingency plan—in the sense I am interested in—involves contingent punishments for defection, which are primarily meant to encourage the trusted partner to act trustworthily. I argue, however, that such contingency plans suffer from an internal tension (...) wherein the contingency planner both seeks and undermines a particular level (or kind) of trust. There are two problems in particular, either of which is sufficient to undermine trusting relationships: one, the planner fails to see the trusted partner as sincerely engaged in the trusting relationship, and two, the planner separates herself out from the trusting relationship by seeing her flourishing as separate from her partner’s (or, even worse, as dependent on her partner’s harm). Continency plans, then, are not just about the future; they cast a moral shadow on what we are doing now. (shrink)

Popper Proposed the criterion of falsifiability as a solution to the problem of demarcation i.e. of distinguishing science from pseudo-science and not, as many of his contemporaries in the Vienna Circle mistook it to be, a solution to the quite different problem with which they themselves were preoccupied, viz. of providing a criterion of meaning to distinguish the meaningful from the meaningless. While the positivists were concerned to damn metaphysics and exalt science, by identifying the empirically verifiable with the meaningful, (...) Popper was concerned to separate science from scientism, to damn astrology and to extol astronomy. In other words his preoccupation belongs not to the philosophy of language but to the philosophy of science. (shrink)

This is the first introductory anthology on the philosophy of ecology edited by an ecologist and a philosopher. It illustrates the range of philosophical approaches available to ecologists and provides a basis for understanding the thinking on which many of today's environmental ideas are founded. Collectively, these seminal readings make a powerful statement on the value of ecological knowledge and thinking in alleviating the many problems of modern industrial civilization. Issues covered include: the challenges of defining scientific ecology, tracing its (...) genealogy, and distinguishing the science from various forms of "ecological-like" thinking the ontology of ecological entities and processes selected concepts of community, stability, diversity, and niche the methodology of ecology (rationalism and empiricism, reductionism and holism) the significance of evolutionary law for ecological science. (shrink)

We propose an approach to the question of how qualia fit into the physical world, in the context of a relational and realist completion of quantum theory, called the causal theory of views\cite{views}. This is a combination of an approach to a dynamics of discrete causal structures, called energetic causal sets, developed with M. Cortes, with a realist approach to quantum foundations, called the real ensemble formulation. In this theory, the beables are the information available at each event from its (...) causal past, such as its causal predessesors and the energy and momentum they transfer to the event. We call this the view of an event. That is, we describe a causal universe that is composed of a set of partial views of itself. We propose that conscious perceptions are aspects of some views. This addresses the problem of why consciousness always involves awareness of a bundled grouping of qualia that define a momentary self. This gives a restricted form of panpsychism defined by a physically based selection principle which selects which views have experiential aspects. We further propose that only those views which are novel, in the sense that they are not duplicates of the view of any event in the event's own causal past, are the physical correlates of conscious experience. (shrink)

SUMMARYAs one of his first acts upon becoming Astronomer Royal in 1835, George Airy made moves to set up a new observatory at Greenwich to study the Earth’s magnetic field. This paper uses Airy’s correspondence to argue that, while members of the reform movement in British science were putting pressure on the Royal Observatory to branch out into geomagnetism and meteorology, Airy established the magnetic observatory on his own initiative, ahead of Alexander von Humboldt’s request for British participation in the (...) worldwide magnetic charting project that later became known as the ‘Magnetic Crusade’. That the Greenwich magnetic observatory did not become operational until 1839 was due to a series of incidental factors that provide a case study in the technical and political obstacles to be overcome in building a new government observatory. Airy attached less importance to meteorology than he did to geomagnetism. In 1840, he set up a full programme of meteorological observations at Greenwich – and thus turned his magnetic observatory into the ‘Magnetic and Meteorological department’ – only as the price of foiling an attempt by Edward Sabine and others in the London scientific elite to found a rival magnetic and meteorological observatory. Studying the origins of Airy’s Magnetic and Meteorological department highlights how important the context of other institutions and trends in science is to understanding the development of Britain’s national observatory. (shrink)

This essay discusses how ontological commitments within modern Western culture are no less problematic than those within traditional African cultures. Each posits unobservable entities to explain the experiential world, and neither has ready access to those posits held as grounding or as otherwise determining what is experienced. It looks at the conceptions of persons in Western and African traditions and suggests that each tradition can learn from the other.

Several conflict theorists have appropriated Hegel’s ‘struggle for recognition’ to highlight the healthy dimensions of conflict and to explore ways of reaching reconciliation through mutual recognition. In so doing, some scholars attend to the interpersonal dimension of reconciliation, while others focus on the interstate dimension of reconciliation. This paper argues that both approaches miss important Hegelian insights into the modern state. Hegel understands that freedom must be situated and bounded in order to take a concrete form. He believes that concrete (...) freedom and domestic reconciliation create an atmosphere that can pressure the state to be more confrontational with other states by attaining a stronger individuality. Thus, the common concern about freedom among Hegelian states remains a ‘thin’ version of communication, vulnerable to such factors as national honor or recognition status. Hegel’s challenge urges peace-inspired scholars to explore ways of achieving concrete freedom and domestic reconciliation while simultaneously relieving interstate conflict. (shrink)

The process of translation has both an excluding and including character. The analysis of actor networks, the process of mobilizing alliances, and constructing networks is a common and worthwhile focus. However, the simultaneous betrayals, dissidences, and controversies are often only implied in network construction stories. We aim to nuance the construction aspect of actor–network theory by shining the analytical searchlight elsewhere, where the theoretical tools of ANT have not yet systematically ventured. We argue that we need to understand every process (...) of translation in relation to its simultaneous process of treason, and to add antonyms for Callon’s problematization, intressement, enrollment, and mobilization. This enables us to describe powerlessness not as a state but as a process. Our case focuses on the network building around measures for disabled people in the construction of the Athens Metro, during the period 1991-1993. The discussion highlights the efforts of disability organizations to intervene in the initial construction works of the metro project and the simultaneous actions of the Greek government to exclude disability organizations from the design process and to disrupt the accessibility-metro actor network. (shrink)

The stakes-shifting cases suggest that pragmatic factors such as stakes play an important role in determining our intuitive judgments of whether or not S knows that p. This seems to be in conflict with intellectualism, according to which pragmatic factors in general should not be taken into account, when considering whether or not S knows that p. This paper develops a theory of judgments of knowledge status that reconciles intellectualism with our intuitive judgments regarding the stakes-shifting cases. I argue that (...) pragmatic factors affect only our epistemic perspectives, i.e., the ways in which we evaluate S’s epistemic position. Therefore, pragmatic factors only have an indirect impact on our judgments of knowledge status. (shrink)

In this paper, I defend the thesis that knowledge is the norm of assertion. I first examine three prominent “counterexamples”: false assertion, selfless assertion, and assertion based on mere justified true belief. I argue that they all fail to square well with our ordinary intuitions. However, the contemporary debate over the norm of assertion depends heavily on the method of counterexamples, whose crux is to prompt our intuitions regarding the appropriateness (or inappropriateness) of a certain kind of assertions. This method (...) has its limits as sometimes the debate simply boils down to a clash of intuitions. I think we can do better. In the second part of the paper, I construct a positive argument for the knowledge norm, showing that the knowledge norm can be derived from the general account of the conversational role of assertion. I argue that in order for assertion to play the role it plays in conversation, the knowledge norm must hold. (shrink)

In his theory of determination, Charles Peirce considered two processes of determination, the semiotic process and epistemology. The semiotic process is an extensional process from object to interpretant that consists of an infinite chain of references that can be spatially reversible. The epistemological process of determination is temporal and irreversible, where the idea grows into the individual mind, as the universe is unfolded by the agency of mind.

This study investigates the efficacy of three corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives—sponsorship, cause-related marketing (CRM), and philanthropy—on consumer–company identification (C–C identification) and brand attitude and, in turn, consumer citizenship behaviors. CSR reputation is proposed as the moderating variable that affects the relationship between CSR initiatives, C–C identification, and brand attitude. A conceptual model that integrates the hypothesized relationships and the moderating effect of CSR reputation is used to frame the study. Using a between-subjects factorial designed experiment, the results showed that (...) all three CSR initiatives have a significant effect on C–C identification and brand attitude. The level of that influence, however, varied according to a firm’s CSR reputation. Managerial implications of these findings are also discussed. (shrink)

I defend Kant’s moral psychology against John R. Silber’s argument that Kant cannot account for the radical evil of Hitler. Silber’s argument cannot be maintained, I argue, if Kant’s account of theological and moral fanaticism, and the personality of the moral fanatic, are taken into account. I contend that Kant’s writings support an analogy between the fanatical pursuit of religious and moral ideals and Hitler’s fanatical pursuit of an ideal of racial purity. I conclude that Kant’s account of moral fanaticism (...) is adequate to account for the actions and moral psychology of Hitler. (shrink)

ABSTRACTIn the Timaeus, Plato explicitly defines time as “the moving image of eternity”. This proposition affirms actually that time reflects the eternal that embodies the rational and lawful principle – namely the logos of proportionality – in the motion and change of visible objects in the universe. In other words,time determines the principle that every mutable being must follow to participate in the rational and nomological order of existence; the absolute logos which is given by God is hence intrinsic to (...) time. This idea of time is echoed by the theories of Augustine and Husserl. Both philosophers inherited some of Plato’s metaphysical views, and each of them developed a distinctive theory of the relations between Being, time, and the absolute logos. This paper attempts to compare their theories and to defend the following claim: Augustine fo-cuses on the immutable representation of time which is regarded as the image or reflection of God’s absolute logos, and explains temporal phenome... (shrink)

Traditionally, historians have taken it for granted that Britain’s National Physical Laboratory was created as the result of demands from a “professional” body of university-based physicists for a state-funded scientific institution. Yet paying detailed attention to the history of the NPL’s originating institution, Kew Observatory, shows that the story is not so clear-cut. Starting in the 1850s, Kew Observatory was partly a center for testing meteorological instruments and other scientific equipment in return for fees. Long after the 1850s, the observatory (...) was run by self-funded devotees of science. Paid university physicists only assumed a dominant role on its governing committee in the last two decades of the nineteenth century, by which time instrument-testing was already the observatory’s main role. This paper argues that the rise of the university physicists – together with the desire of some of these physicists for a national institution that tested electrical standards – can only partially explain the origins of the NPL, and that Kew was in some ways a national physical laboratory before there were many physics teaching posts in British universities. This paper is a case study that illustrates a need to reassess the importance of university physicists in shaping British science at the end of the nineteenth century. (shrink)

In the late thirteenth century, western Europe suffered the notable disgrace of losing the last of the Christian strongholds in mainland Syria with the fall of Acre in 1291, and yet throughout the early fourteenth century Western powers were unable to launch a crusade to recover the Holy Land despite repeated and costly attempts. Until not long ago, historians of the crusades had interpreted the inaction of the fourteenth century as a sign that the age of true crusading was over (...) and that both disillusionment with the machinery of the papal indulgence and increasing local strife effectively removed the possibility of international cooperative action that a crusade to the Holy Land required. Recent scholarly work on the late Middle Ages has shown that this interpretation ignores both historical reality and late-medieval attitudes toward crusading. Acre's loss in many respects crystallized issues regarding crusade reform, and, though no new crusade to the Holy Land ever materialized, crusading in its various guises experienced renewed vitality throughout the fourteenth century—notably in Iberia, Italy, and the Baltic—in spite of the ravages of the Black Death, the suppression of the Templars, the collapse of prominent Italian banking houses that supported crusade finance, and the Anglo-French conflict. While the Holy Land may have remained in heathen hands, crusading remained a diverse, multifaceted, and vibrant set of practices that continued to be contested and redefined by various social groups despite the papacy's sophisticated descriptions of it in papal bulls and in canon law. In this study I hope to facilitate interdisciplinary discussion of crusade theory and practice by examining literary evidence—specifically, the Middle English romance Sir Isumbras—with a more broadly conceived notion of crusade discourse that includes connections among propaganda, chronicle, religious ritual, and popular romance. As I argue, Sir Isumbras critiques certain knightly behavior following Acre's loss and at the very least imagines, if not outright promotes, crusading reform and action for a mixed audience of lesser knights and non-nobles. The topicality of the poem's critique, however, is fully intelligible only when considered in light of other facets of crusade discourse; hence, I discuss below how features of popular fourteenth-century crusading movements, chronicle histories, and literary history are appropriated and reconfigured by the text. By reading these various sources as part of a connected, evolving discussion, we effectively expand our definition of the genre of the crusading romance in a way that not only incorporates historians' recent insights regarding the range of crusading practices but also reveals that crusading's personal and political aspects, in addition to its mass military campaigns, continued to shape a complex medieval outlook that found literary expression. (shrink)

This study explores the ethical attitudes, behaviors, and perceptions of a sampling of political science students in Taiwan. It investigates their intentions toward observing ethics in the area of digital rights, on topics such as the freedom of expression, freedom of association, equal access to information, confidentiality, security, and protection of intellectual property while using computers. Based on preliminary studies, a questionnaire was designed and distributed to 660 political science and public administration students throughout colleges in Taiwan. Data collected from (...) 440 valid samples have been analyzed using structural equation modeling to test the three sets of hypotheses made by the researchers in the framework of the theory of planned behavior. Findings show attitude, subjective norm, and perceived behavior control of the respondents all have positive impacts on the personal observation of information ethics. In this regard, altruism, the secondary group, and the sense of security have greater influence than egoism, the primary group, and the consideration of self-efficacy. Implications of these findings and recommendations for cultivating computer ethics in Taiwan and elsewhere are discussed. (shrink)

Many scholars often use the terms “metaphors,” “analogies,” and “models” interchangeably and inadvertently overlook the uniqueness of each word. According to recent cognitive studies, the three terms involve distinct cognitive processes using features from a familiar concept and applying them to an abstract, complicated concept. In the field of science and religion, there have been various objects or ideas used as metaphors, analogies, or models to describe the science–religion relationship. Although these heuristic tools provided some understanding of the complex interaction, (...) they failed to address the broad nature of science and religion as well as the multifarious relationship between the two in a sociocultural context. Unlike the previous candidates, the concept of language, including the notions of linguistic worldview, linguistic identity, dialects, power, and bilingualism, offers a unique and comprehensive window through which science, religion, and the relationship between the two are seen with clarity. (shrink)

The growth of European colonial empires occurred during a period of intense international conflict. This article examines how the international position of colonial states altered the distribution of wealth within indigenous societies. Colonial administrators favored precolonial elites only if they were militarily and financially secure, a pattern that stems from balancing the advantages of working with these groups against their higher probability of revolt. This theory is tested using data on the wealth of Indian caste groups. In areas annexed at (...) times of European war, precolonial elites are poorer than other groups, whereas they remain richer in areas annexed at other times and in indirectly ruled areas. These results appear not to stem from preexisting differences between regions. The results highlight the variable impact of colonialism within societies, and the importance of the international system in shaping colonial and postcolonial outcomes. (shrink)

We investigate the performance and risk of Socially Responsible Investment (SRI) equity funds in the Australian market and find no significant difference between the returns of SRI and conventional funds. In an extension to prior literature, we examine the impact of the number of positive, negative and total screens funds impose on performance and risk. We find little evidence of positive or negative screening impacting total return, but find weak evidence that funds with more screens overall provide better risk-adjusted performance. (...) Positive screening significantly reduces funds’ risk. However, negative screening significantly increases risk and reduces funds’ abilities to form diversified portfolios. (shrink)

Modernity has not collapsed under the weight of postmodern criticisms. On the contrary, it has rebounded with greater vigour as witnessed by the emergence of new terms such as reflexive modernization, liquid modernity and multiple modernities. These terms suggest that modernity can no longer be conceptualized in the singular. Yet the pluralization of modernity does not necessarily imply that there is a new consensus about the meaning of modernity. The appearance of these terms can be regarded as specific attempts to (...) transcend postmodern critiques. Comparison of these new terms provides an understanding of their usage in the context of the decline of postmodernism and the direction of contests over the meaning of modernity. (shrink)

In this chapter, Lee considers contemporary consequentialist theories of punishment. Consequentialist theories look to the consequences of punishment to justify the institution of punishment. Two types of theories fall into this category—teleology and aggregationism. Lee argues that teleology is implausible because it is based on a problematic assumption about the fundamental value of criminal punishment. Aggregationism is a more reasonable alternative. It holds that punishment is morally justified because it is an institution that helps society to aggregate important moral values. (...) Several theories fall into this category, including general deterrence theories, specific deterrence theories, and preventionism. Lee critically evaluates these theories and argues that only one specific deterrence theory, namely, her rights-protection theory, provides the most reasonable consequentialist account of punishment. (shrink)

This book explores Dostoevsky as a political thinker from his religious and philosophical foundation to nineteenth-century European politics and how themes that he had examined are still relevant for us today.

Past research on talk radio discourses has illustrated the crucial role of the hosts in managing the conversation and shaping the voices of callers. However, past research focused mostly on dyadic host–caller interactions. Radio talk shows in Hong Kong, in contrast, often have more than one host. This study is interested in the implications of the triadic setting of radio talk shows in Hong Kong. It uses Radio Television Hong Kong’s evening program Open Line Open View as a case study. (...) Employing the techniques of conversation analysis, this study replicates some of past studies’ findings about the source of host power. More importantly, the analysis shows that the second host in a triadic setting can play three important roles: the program conductor, the buffer, and the counterweight. The micro-level interactional patterns have important implications for the overall character of the program itself and the role of talk radio in the politics of public opinion in Hong Kong. More generally, this study illustrates the utility of paying attention to the differences between dyads and triads in the microsociological analysis of conversations in broadcast media. (shrink)

Drawing on gender-role theories and considering the potential new media environments brought to the dynamics of strategic political communication, this study explores the nature of US Midwestern congresswomen’s strategic online self-presentations in comparison to those of congressmen. The discourse analysis presented in this study shows that in their official online biographies, that is, as given on websites provided by the US government, congresswomen devoted more space to describing their own personal traits than did congressmen. In particular, women tended to stress (...) the masculine aspects of their personalities by using so-called masculine words such as tough and fighter much more than their male counterparts did. Such masculine terminology was scarcely evident in the biographies of male House members in the same states and committees as the female members. These findings imply that female politicians are more active in strategically presenting themselves as tough leaders in what appears to be a self-conscious effort to counteract detrimental gender stereotypes. (shrink)

Choi (Philosophia, 38(3), 2010) argues that my counterexamples in Lee (Philosophia, 38(3), 2010) to the simple conditional analysis of disposition ascription are bogus counterexamples. In this paper, I argue that Choi’s arguments are not satisfactory and that my examples are genuine counterexamples.