In this paper we argue that questions about which mathematical ideas mathematicians are exposed to and choose to pay attention to are epistemologically relevant and entangled with power dynamics and social justice concerns. There is a considerable body of literature that discusses the dissemination and uptake of ideas as social justice issues. We argue that these insights are also relevant for the epistemology of mathematics. We make this visible by a journalistic exploration of relevant cases and embed our insights into (...) the larger question how mathematical ideas are taken up in mathematical practices. We argue that epistemologies of mathematics ought to account for questions of exposure to and choice of attention to mathematical ideas, and remark on the political relevance of such epistemologies. (shrink)

The Aesthetic Dimensions of Educational Administration and Leadership provides an aesthetic critique of educational administration and leadership. It demonstrates the importance of aesthetics on all aspects of the administrative and leadership world: the ways ideas and ideals are created, how their expression is conveyed, the impact they have on interpersonal relationships and the organizational environment that carries and reinforces them, and the moral boundaries or limits that can be established or exceeded. The book is divided into three sections. · Section (...) I examines various philosophical traditions in aesthetics as they inform administrative life, focussing on major modern traditions arising from Kant, romanticism and Nietzsche, Collingwood, the pragmatic school, and critical theory. · Section II explores four aesthetic sources for administrative critique - architecture, literature, film, and movement - as they serve both to understand the social construction of administration and leadership and provide a critique of values, roles, power and authority. · Section III examines more topical and applied problems of charisma, heroism, and authority in practice, concluding with a discussion of the aesthetic analysis of politics and power within the context of contemporary educational administration and leadership theory. While presenting a significant departure from conventional studies in the field, the international contributors reflect a continuity of thought on the creation, use and abuse of administrative and leadership authority from the writings of Plato through to contemporary theory. This book should appeal to school administrators and leaders and those aspiring to these roles. (shrink)

In _Life-Destroying Diagrams_, Eugenie Brinkema brings the insights of her radical formalism to bear on supremely risky terrain: the ethical extremes of horror and love. Through close readings of works of film, literature, and philosophy, she explores how diagrams, grids, charts, lists, abecedaria, toroids, tempos, patterns, colors, negative space, lengths, increments, and thresholds attest to formal logics of torture and cruelty, violence and finitude, friendship and eros, debt and care. Beginning with a wholesale rethinking of the affect of horror, orienting (...) it away from entrenched models of feeling toward impersonal schemes and structures, Brinkema moves outward to consider the relation between objects and affects, humiliation and metaphysics, genre and the general, bodily destruction and aesthetic generation, geometry and scenography, hatred and value, love and measurement, and, ultimately, the tensions, hazards, and speculative promise of formalism itself. Replete with etymological meditations, performative typography, and lyrical digressions, _Life-Destroying Diagrams_ is at once a model of reading without guarantee and a series of generative experiments in the writing of aesthetic theory. (shrink)

Volume 10, Issue 3, September 2019, Page 457-461.

During the last couple of decades, there has been an expansion in a number of related and overlapping fields producing evidence of covert activities: toxic cultures, destructive leadership styles, micropolitics, ethical problems in organisations and administration, abusive power and authority, and many other topics of dysfunctional management and leadership studies that frequently make reference to secretive and deceptive behaviour.In this book, Eugenie A. Samier draws on a range of disciplines including education, psychology, administration and management studies and organizational theory to (...) provide a comprehensive examination of the ways in which organisational leaders and administrators carry out their roles in a secretive or deceptive manner. Samier presents a theory of covert administration that can be used to:provide an analysis and interpretation of secretive and deceptive activity inform decision-making both theoretically and practically offer a means of diagnosing errant management using secretive and deceptive practicesprovide a general set of guidelines for determining when clandestine activities may be legitimate and moral. Alongside a detailed presentation of the theory of covert administration, the book explores covert administration in practice, factors leading to it, and the results of attempts to combat its many forms. It will be key reading for researchers and postgraduates with an interest in the field, as well as administrators and policy makers. (shrink)

Franco Eugeni remembers Bruno Rizzi: in this brief introduction, I would like to remember an afternoon spent in “ Roma Tre ” with Bruno, since we were both Ordinary Professors at that University. We passed it doing a dense program of work for the next three years. At 6.00 pm, I left for “Roseto degli Abruzzi”. At six o'clock a.m. of the next morning, I still have the voice in my ears. A phone call from the Headmaster Ciro d'Aniello, who (...) told me " The Professor is dead" In that afternoon, Emilio Ambrisi and I went to Rome; we were stunned and desperate. Not many days later, a conference was held at the University of Teramo; it was the conference that we had prepared for Bruno, to celebrate his 60th birthday, but it was his memory. In the opening conference, Prof. Antonino Giambo, also fraternal friend of Bruno, burst into a tearful cry, which expressed in a moment, the senses of friendship and love that we all had for the missing friend! Starting from this work with Fabrizio Maturo, the study of some problems left open by the works of Eugeni and Rizzi will be investigated. Sunto Ricordo di Franco Eugeni su Bruno Rizzi: in questa brevissima introduzione vorrei ricordare un pomeriggio passato a Roma Tre con Bruno, visto che allora eravamo entrambi Professori Ordinari in quella Università. Lo passammo a fare un denso programma di lavoro per i successivi tre anni. Alle 18.00 ripartii per Roseto degli Abruzzi. Alle sei del mattino successivo, ho ancora la voce nelle orecchie, una telefonata del Preside Ciro d’Aniello, che mi diceva “ Il Professore è morto” Nel pomeriggio Emilio Ambrisi ed io ci recammo a Roma, eravamo attoniti e disperati. Non molti giorni dopo si tenne presso l’Università di Teramo un Convegno, era il Convegno che avevamo preparato per Bruno, per festeggiare i suoi 60 anni, fu invece il ricordo. Nella conferenza di apertura il prof. Antonino Giambò, anche lui, come noi, fraterno amico di Bruno, scoppiò in un pianto dirotto, che espresse in un attimo, i sensi dell’amicizia e dell’amore, che tutti noi avevamo per l’amico scomparso! A partire da questo lavoro con Fabrizio Maturo verrà approfondito lo studio di alcune problematiche rimaste aperte dai lavori di Eugeni e Rizzi. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy, Psychiatry, & Psychology 11.1 (2004) 87-94 [Access article in PDF] Talk and the Nature of Delusions:Defending Sociocultural Perspectives on Mental Illness Eugenie Georgaca Keywords discourse, social constructionism, delusions, psychosis, mental illness, context It is very pleasing to see writers from philosophy, psychiatry and psychology, the three disciplines represented by this journal, debating the issue of delusions. The majority of the papers in this volume set out to determine (...) the underlying mechanisms responsible for delusions. As such, they offer themselves as discussions of the etiological factors of the formation and maintenance of delusions. My paper analyzes the interactional presentation and negotiation of statements that would be considered as delusional. This led some commentators (Ghaemi 2004; Sass 2004) to argue that the analysis of talk about delusions is useful, but cannot be extended to claims about the nature of delusions. In the following section, I discuss the ways in which analyzing interactions can be useful in clinical research and practice. Subsequently, I identify and critically discuss the assumptions about the nature of delusions that underlie these criticisms and the majority of the papers in this volume. The Usefulness of the Study of Interaction My paper can be seen as part of a growing body of studies that attempt to elucidate the role of interactional and discursive processes in the identification and management of disorders (Barrett 1988; Coulter 1975; Hak 1989; Pollner 1975; Smith 1978; Soyland 1994). Microsociological and ethnographic studies look at the properties of client-professional interaction with the aim of clarifying the tacit skills and knowledges used in such encounters. Palmer (2000), for example, argues that the recognition of disorder is a social and interactional issue both in the sense that the judgment of disorder is based on social criteria and in the sense that diagnosis is an interpersonal process with its own inherent social order. The aim, therefore, of analyzing professional-client interactions would be to articulate the properties of this implicit social order. Other researchers argue that diagnosis is not a process of identification or recognition of disorder, but rather a process of active construction of disorder and of transforming the person to a mental patient. Barrett's (1988) analysis of the transformation of a [End Page 87] person to a "person suffering from schizophrenia" and subsequently a "schizophrenic" through interviewing and report writing is an excellent example of this kind of work.The application of this approach to the field of delusions would attempt to address the issue of how delusions are diagnosed and managed through the interactions between the delusional patient and the clinician. In this paper and in previous work (Georgaca 1996, 2000) I showed that statements that have been diagnosed as delusional are presented and argued through using appropriate conversational strategies, drawing on socially meaningful systems of knowledge and applying appropriate rules of evidence. Moreover, I argued that there was no way in which these disagreements over competing versions of reality could be definitely settled conversationally, and that instances of breakdown in communication were due not to the delusional version being proven wrong, but to lack of explanatory frameworks within which the competing versions could be negotiated. At least in the exchanges analyzed, the criteria of implausibility, conviction, and incorrigibility were shown not to apply.Clinicians do not customarily investigate the truth of patient claims against empirical data (Maher 1992), which means that they have to judge claims on the basis of the patient's presentation in the diagnostic interview. Because there are no technical guidelines for the assessment of truth and falsity, plausibility and implausibility, rationality and irrationality, clinicians have to rely on personal judgment. The question then is on what grounds the clinician's personal judgment is granted the status of determining the truth of someone else's claim and in what capacity clinicians are called to make such decisions. I will not pursue this argument any further here. The point I want to make is that the analysis of professional-client interactions foregrounds the active role of professionals in clinical decisions and questions the criteria upon which decisions are... (shrink)

According to social constructionism factuality, the establishment of accounts as corresponding to an objective external reality, is an interactional accomplishment ordinarily achieved in everyday conversations. In cases of disagreement regarding the interpretation and nature of events, however, not only the plausibility of the account, but also the rationality, integrity, and accountability of the participants is at stake. Delusions present extreme cases of such disagreement. This paper analyzes extracts from an interview with an individual diagnosed as delusional focusing on the factualization (...) devices used in the negotiation of accounts. The question of whether the observation of conversational rules documented in the interview is sufficient to establish the plausibility of an account and the rationality of its teller leads to arguments around the necessity of shifting the focus from the grounded micro-analysis of talk to wider social and institutional processes. (shrink)

Our goal is to prove that the golden section, however important, is not the only key to understand a mathematical-formalizing approach to the idea of beauty. Having developed, from this point of view, reading keys linked to the post-modern, it is necessary to link together the multiple rivulets of knowledge that gather in this direction. Moreover the canons of the approaches presented up to now are very indicative for the understanding of many aspects of beauty, which however depends on the (...) historical moment and the cultures created in the various civilizations. Therefore we can affirm that there is no effective definition of "beauty" that can be codified through fixed canons, but that the concept is expressed by a series of stratifications and interpretations that tend to link several major variations, expressing the various answers given by man to the question: what is the beauty? (shrink)

_Ideologies in Educational Administration and Leadership_ explores ideological dimensions of educational administration in a number of Western and Central European contexts as they influence or shape the understanding, analysis, and practice in the field covering a broad range of topics, such as ethics, governance, diversity, and power. The first section, Philosophical and Theoretical Foundations, includes a range of sociological, political and linguistic approaches to examining ideology in an educational context. The second section, Ideologies of Research and Teaching, includes examinations of (...) neoliberal and technological effects on research and teaching, as well as ideological shifts and challenges, in the West and in Eastern Europe. The last section, Contemporary and International Issues, includes critiques of social media, neoliberal impact on schooling, managerial leadership, university ideologies in Finland, the rationalisation of universities, and the impact of administrative ideologies on school systems. The book will appeal to researchers, practitioners, policy-makers, academics, as well as post-graduates in educational administration theory, and related courses in the ethics and politics of education, educational leadership, and organisational studies. (shrink)

(2009). To cut, to split, to touch, to eat, as of a body or a text. Angelaki: Vol. 14, shadows of cruelty sadism, masochism and the philosophical muse – part one, pp. 131-145.

This article explores the role of disgust in Kant’s aesthetic philosophy, Derrida’s deconstruction of Kant’s third Critique in his article 'Economimesis,' and the figure of vomit in two films by David Lynch in order to argue for the ethical possibilities of not giving ground relative to one’s disgust—what I term an ethics of the worse than the worst.

La réflexion sur l’éthique et la déontologie des médias en Afrique de l’Ouest suscite diverses questions. Il convient d’abord de clarifier les concepts pour alimenter le débat qui a ses moments forts, notamment pendant les périodes électorales.D’un côté, les professionnels de l’information, les acteurs des médias mettent l’accent sur la nécessaire liberté de la presse et peuvent être en porte-à-faux dans leur pratique avec la philosophie et les règles de la profession. D’un autre côté, différentes institutions, que ce soit les (...) institutions gouvernementales, la société civile ou de « simples » citoyens, s’appuient sur les médias, mais les interpellent au sujet d’une liberté qui ne saurait être sans responsabilité.Il s’agira donc de contextualiser l’environnement d’intervention des médias et d’examiner les réponses données aux problèmes posés y compris par les citoyens dans leurs rapports aux médias. La mise en place d’une législation et de structures institutionnelles – que ce soit les organes de régulation, dans leur diversité, ou de manière plus problématique, les organes d’autorégulation ou le tribunal des pairs – montre qu’il existe une dynamique à prendre en compte dans le dévelop­pement des médias en Afrique de l’Ouest.Enfin, nous nous attaquerons à quelques défis, qu’il s’agisse de la formation des professionnels, de la pratique des médias en période de conflit ou des technologies de l’information et de la communication, pour montrer que l’éthique et la déontologie sont au cœur du développement démocratique en Afrique de l’Ouest et en sont un élément constitutif. (shrink)

All logic instruments and tools in possession of, and used by researchers are generally considered as the results of bivalent logic. A common error to people interested in science is that, usually, they don’t known with certainty which things are true and which are false. But they are sure that things are true or false. No ways in the middle. The fuzzy principle asserts that this is completely a question of measure. Fuzziness is the opposite concept to bivalency, while fuzzy (...) quality means polyvalency. Fuzzy logic is able to manage uncertain knowledge and, more precisely, to manage those rules difficult to formalize. In many cases, such rules haven’t got, or cannot have, the necessary precision, required for a whole formalization. (shrink)

Our goal is to prove that the golden section, however important, is not the only key to understand a mathematical-formalizing approach to the idea of beauty. Having developed, from this point of view, reading keys linked to the post-modern, it is necessary to link together the multiple rivulets of knowledge that gather in this direction. Moreover the canons of the approaches presented up to now are very indicative for the understanding of many aspects of beauty, which however depends on the (...) historical moment and the cultures created in the various civilizations. Therefore we can affirm that there is no effective definition of "beauty" that can be codified through fixed canons, but that the concept is expressed by a series of stratifications and interpretations that tend to link several major variations, expressing the various answers given by man to the question: what is the beauty? (shrink)

Our goal is to prove that the golden section, however important, is not the only key to understand a mathematical-formalizing approach to the idea of beauty. Having developed, from this point of view, reading keys linked to the post-modern, it is necessary to link together the multiple rivulets of knowledge that gather in this direction. Moreover the canons of the approaches presented up to now are very indicative for the understanding of many aspects of beauty, which however depends on the (...) historical moment and the cultures created in the various civilizations. Therefore we can affirm that there is no effective definition of "beauty" that can be codified through fixed canons, but that the concept is expressed by a series of stratifications and interpretations that tend to link several major variations, expressing the various answers given by man to the question: what is the beauty? (shrink)

Rationality in medicine is frequently construed as hypotheticodeductive. This article argues that such a model gives a distorted view of the rational character of an enterprise that makes judgments about individual human well-being. Medicine as a science is a practical human science. Seen as such, its rational orientation is one that applies general knowledge to particular situations. It is argued that such an orientation is not deductive but interpretative. The Aristotelian concept of practical wisdom (‘phron sis’) is used as a (...) model of the rational orientation of clinical judgment. Keywords: clinical judgment, rationality, human sciences CiteULike Connotea Del.icio.us What's this? (shrink)

Contemporary empiricism has attempted to ground its analysis of science in a falsificationism based in selection theory. This paper links these evolutionary epistemologies with commitments to certain epistemological and ontological assumptions found in the later work of K. Popper, D. Campbell, and D. Hull, I argue that their assumptions about the character of contemporary empiricism are part of a shared paradigm of epistemological explanation which results in unresolved tensions within their own projects. I argue further that their claim to be (...) doing a science of science is not defensible. Hull's selectionism is analyzed to show how this epistemological agenda has played itself out in late empiricism. I suggest some directions that Hull might take toward an historical epistemology. (shrink)

In the context of academic research, a diversity of ethical issues, conditioned by the different roles of members within these institutions, arise. Previous studies on this topic addressed mainly the perceptions of researchers. However, to our knowledge, no studies have explored the transversal ethical issues from a wider spectrum, including other members of academic institutions as the research ethics board (REB) members, and the research ethics experts. The present study used a descriptive phenomenological approach to document the ethical issues experienced (...) by a heterogeneous group of Canadian researchers, REB members, and research ethics experts. Data collection involved socio-demographic questionnaires and individual semi-structured interviews. Following the triangulation of different perspectives (researchers, REB members and ethics experts), emerging ethical issues were synthesized in ten units of meaning: (1) research integrity, (2) conflicts of interest, (3) respect for research participants, (4) lack of supervision and power imbalances, (5) individualism and performance, (6) inadequate ethical guidance, (7) social injustices, (8) distributive injustices, (9) epistemic injustices, and (10) ethical distress. This study highlighted several problematic elements that can support the identification of future solutions to resolve transversal ethical issues in research that affect the heterogeneous members of the academic community. (shrink)