The aim of this paper is to critically explore whether crowdsourced Big Data enables an inclusive humanitarian response at times of crisis. We argue that all data, including Big Data, are socially constructed artefacts that reflect the contexts and processes of their creation. To support our argument, we qualitatively analysed the process of ‘Big Data making’ that occurred by way of crowdsourcing through open data platforms, in the context of two specific humanitarian crises, namely the 2010 earthquake in Haiti and (...) the 2015 earthquake in Nepal. We show that the process of creating Big Data from local and global sources of knowledge entails the transformation of information as it moves from one distinct group of contributors to the next. The implication of this transformation is that locally based, affected people and often the original ‘crowd’ are excluded from the information flow, and from the interpretation process of crowdsourced crisis knowledge, as used by formal responding organizations, and are marginalized in their ability to benefit from Big Data in support of their own means. Our paper contributes a critical perspective to the debate on participatory Big Data, by explaining the process of in and exclusion during data making, towards more responsive humanitarian relief. (shrink)

I address the view that the classical electromagnetic potentials are shown by the Aharonov–Bohm effect to be physically real. I give a historico-philosophical presentation of this view and assess its prospects, more precisely than has so far been done in the literature. Taking the potential as physically real runs prima facie into ‘gauge-underdetermination’: different gauge choices represent different physical states of affairs and hence different theories. This fact is usually not acknowledged in the literature, neither by proponents nor by opponents (...) of the potentials view. I then illustrate this theme by what I take to be the basic insight of the AB effect for the potentials view, namely that the gauge equivalence class that directly corresponds to the electric and magnetic fields is too wide, i.e., the Narrow Equivalence Class encodes additional physical degrees of freedom: these only play a distinct role in a multiply-connected space. There is a trade-off between explanatory power and gauge symmetries. On the one hand, this narrower equivalence class gives a local explanation of the AB effect in the sense that the phase is incrementally picked up along the path of the electron. On the other hand, locality is not satisfied in the sense of signal locality, viz. the finite speed of propagation exhibited by electric and magnetic fields. It is therefore intellectually mandatory to seek desiderata that will distinguish even within these narrower equivalence classes, i.e. will prefer some elements of such an equivalence class over others. I consider various formulations of locality, such as Bell locality, local interaction Hamiltonians, and signal locality. I show that Bell locality can only be evaluated if one fixes the gauge freedom completely. Yet, an explanation in terms of signal locality can be accommodated by the Lorenz gauge: the potentials propagate in waves at finite speed. I therefore suggest the Lorenz gauge potentials theory—an even narrower gauge equivalence relation—as the ontology of electrodynamics. (shrink)

Applications of sexual selection theory to humans lead us to expect that because of mammalian sex differences in obligate parental investment there will be gender differences in fitness variances, and males will benefit more than females from multiple mates. Recent theoretical work in behavioral ecology suggests reality is more complex. In this paper, focused on humans, predictions are derived from conventional parental investment theory regarding expected outcomes associated with serial monogamy and are tested with new data from a postreproductive cohort (...) of men and women in a primarily horticultural population in western Tanzania (Pimbwe). Several predictions derived from the view that serial monogamy is a reproductive strategy from which males benefit are not supported. Furthermore, Pimbwe women are the primary beneficiaries of multiple marriages. The implications for applications of sexual selection theory to humans are discussed, in particular the fact that in some populations women lead sexual and reproductive lives that are very different from those derived from a simple Bateman-Trivers model. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to offer an additional perspective to the understanding of educational change processes by clarifying the significance of identity learning. Today’s innovations require changes in teachers’ professional identity. Identity learning involves a relation between social‐cognitive construction of new meanings and individual, emotional sense‐making of new experiences. This relationship between cognition and emotion asks for a strong learning environment: the question is whether schools provide these strong learning environments. To answer this question, the paper provides an (...) overview of the existing knowledge about schools as contexts for teacher learning and change. It will become clear that the emotional side of the change process has been overlooked. A model for identity learning is presented, involving both meaning‐giving and sense‐making. Building on this model, it is discussed how school leaders can build strategies for the identity learning of teachers. (shrink)

Psychotherapy research is known for its pursuit of evidence-based treatment. Psychotherapeutic efficacy is assessed by calculation of aggregated differences between pre treatment- and post treatment symptom levels. As this ‘gold standard methodology’ is regarded as ‘procedurally objective’, the efficacy number that results from the procedure is taken as a valid indicator of treatment efficacy. However, I argue that the assumption of procedural objectivity is not justified, as the methodology is build upon a problematic numerical basis. I use an empirical case (...) study to show how measurement problems practically occur in the first step of data collection, i.e. in individual symptom measurement. These problems have been discussed and acknowledged for decades, but still measurement is regarded as the best epistemic means to gain evidence on psychotherapeutic efficacy. Therefore, I show how initial measurement problems are overlooked in the remainder of the methodological procedure, which harms the ‘evidence-base’ of psychotherapeutic EBT. Via this applied analysis, I exhibit concerns that are increasingly raised in the literature in an empirical way, to emphasize the need for a non-idealized consideration of the ‘gold standard methodology’ as a means towards its clinical end. (shrink)

Companies committed to corporate social responsibility should ensure that their managers possess the appropriate competencies to effectively manage the CSR adaptation process. The literature provides insights into the individual competencies these managers need but fails to prioritize them and adequately contextualize them in a manner that makes them meaningful in practice. In this study, we contextualized the competencies within the different job roles CSR managers have in the CSR adaptation process. We interviewed 28 CSR managers, followed by a survey to (...) explore the relative importance of the competencies within each job role. Based on our analysis, we identified six distinct managerial roles, including strategic, coordinating, and stimulating roles. Next, we identified per role key individual CSR-related competencies as prioritized by the respondents. Our results show that the context, as indicated in this study by CSR managers’ job roles, indeed influenced the importance of particular CSR-related competencies, because each role seems to require a different combination and prioritization of these competencies. Moreover, the results suggest that the relative importance of these competencies within each role may be driven by business logic rather than an idealistic logic. The results are presented as a competence profile which can serve as a reflection tool and as a frame of reference to further develop the competence profile for CSR managers. (shrink)

Higher-order theories account for intransitive consciousness by using the transitive notion ‘awareness-of.’ I argue that this notion implies a form of ‘seeming’ that the higher-order approach requires, yet cannot account for. I show that, if the relevant kind of seeming is declared to be present in all representational states, the seeming in question is objectionably trivialized; while using the higher-order strategy to capture not only intransitive consciousness but also the relevant kind of seeming results in an infinite regress. Finally, highlighting (...) distinctive features of representations that explain why they display seeming amounts to abandoning the higher-order approach altogether. (shrink)

Power enthusiasts are engaged in two projects: developing a decent metaphysical account of powers, and applying that account in order to make progress on various other philosophical issues, ranging from narrowly related topics such as causality to further removed ones such as free will, reasoning, or perception. I argue that an intermediate step may be taken, one that explores ‘varieties of power’ while still staying within the realm of, of ‘pure’ powers metaphysics. Taking this intermediate step provides a much more (...) interesting basis for those involved in project, ‘applied’ powers metaphysics. I articulate four such varieties of power by exploring various dimensions in which the explanatory profile of a power can be extended. I then briefly survey how these relate to various further metaphysical issues. (shrink)

Studies concerning the relationship between religion and mental health have provided substantial evidence for the existence of a positive relationship. Nevertheless, it remains largely unclear which aspects of both religion and mental health take part in this relationship. The present study uses multiple measures of religion and of mental health to obtain a more refined view of this relationship. The results show the importance of distinguishing between if a person believes and how a person believes. Religious persons who have a (...) symbolic attitude towards religion scored higher on positive aspects of mental health. No significant results were found for negative mental health. (shrink)

There have been and continue to be disagreements about how to consider the traditional square of opposition and the traditional inferences of obversion, conversion, contraposition and inversion from the perspective of contemporary quantificational logic. Philosophers have made many different attempts to save traditional inferences that are invalid when they involve empty classes. I survey some of these attempts and argue that the only satisfactory way of saving all the traditional inferences is to make the existential assumption that both the subject (...) and predicate classes and their complement classes are non-empty for all the propositions we admit. I briefly indicate the room for continued controversy over how properly to interpret Aristotle's statements regarding these inferences, but find some plausibility in the views of Manley Thompson and A.N.Prior that Aristotle had in mind a particular arrangement of existential import unfamiliar to most contemporary logicians. (shrink)

Recent investigations into the relationship between the questions on the Metaphysics authored by Marsilius of Inghen, on the one hand, and John Buridan, on the other, have revealed interesting doctrinal contrasts between them. The present article extends these investigations by examining the metaphysical question of whether we have a natural capacity for knowing God. Even though Marsilius followed Buridan’s reasoning to a great extent, he disagreed with his main point: that our intellect has the natural capacity for abstracting an absolute, (...) simple, essential concept of God from his effects. The disagreement is rooted in their differing conceptions of what an absolute concept of God entails, viz. Buridan’s strictly philosophical conception vis-à-vis Marsilius’ more theological conception. (shrink)

In this paper, I consider how a Kierkegaardian could respond critically to the question of strong theological universalism, i.e., the belief that all individuals must eventually be reconciled to God and experience everlasting happiness. A Kierkegaardian would likely reject what Thomas Talbott has called “conservative theism,” but has the resources to mount a sustained attack on the view that all individuals must experience everlasting happiness. Some have seen that Kierkegaard has some potential in this regard, but a full Kierkegaardian response (...) to strong theological universalism has yet to be given. In this paper, I give such an account. (shrink)

This dissertation is focused on the validity of “the data” that are collected in psychotherapy research for the purpose of evidencing treatment efficacy. In the ‘Evidence Based Treatment’ paradigm, researchers rely on the so-called ‘gold standard methodology’ to gather sound and trustworthy evidence, which increasingly influences the organization of mental health care worldwide. In the gold standard, data are collected by quantified self-report measures, to assess the presence and severity of symptoms before and after treatment. When the pre-post difference is (...) larger for a group of people that received the treatment of interest and a group of people who received no or an alternative treatment, the treatment of interest is called effective. In this methodological procedure, researchers tend to assume that when this gold standard methodology is conducted properly, “the data” will speak for themselves. However, when evidence is based on data, that evidence is principally limited by that data. In other words: output depends on input. That implies that when input is flawed, output will be flawed, even when the very best methods of analysis would be used. So what if “the data” yield validity issues despite being collected by validated measures? When “the data” do not straightforwardly evidence treatment effects, will the subsequent steps in the analysis of these data be enough to secure that the evidence in the end does evidence treatment efficacy? In this dissertation, the focus is turned to validity of “the data” that are concretely provided by patient-participants by scoring their own experienced symptoms in self-report questionnaires, in function of evidencing treatment efficacy. A series of empirical case studies were conducted to scrutinize how patient-participants in a randomized controlled psychotherapy study experienced the process of data collection, and how these experiences affected the data that they provided. Each of the studied patient-participants experienced a substantial effect of the questionnaire administration on their complaints. This impacted the level of complaints, but also changed the way in which the complaints were understood at all, and how patient-participants perceived themselves. Thus, rather than neutrally measuring symptoms, questionnaire administration changed the experienced complaints ‘performatively’, which turned measurement into a clinical intervention of its own. Consequently, what is measured cannot straightforwardly be called ‘treatment efficacy’, as it may be entangled with, enabled by or even obstructed by effects of measurement and research. Therefore, the act of measurement itself can pose a vital threat to the validity of “the data”. This way, the empirical case studies exhibited that data can yield validity problems despite the use of validated measures. Consequently, the validity of a measure as such is no guarantee for the validity of data. Nonetheless, in gold standard research, the data are straightforwardly taken as input for analyses of general treatment efficacy. The question is what happens with those validity issues on the level of individual data, when they pursue their journey towards becoming evidence. In this dissertation, it was argued that the validity issues are not sufficiently solved in the methodological steps after data collection, so when data are invalid in the beginning, these validity issues will simply become part of the data set that forms the input for analysis of the final evidence. This urges that validity issues should be solved on the level of individually provided data, as the validity issues will otherwise become inherent to “the data”. Put formally: valid data is a precondition for evidence in EBT. In conclusion, it is crucial for a sound evidence-base to scrutinize the validity of data in function of the overall goal and utility of the research. For this, it is important not to take “the data” as speaking for themselves, but to regard them as clinical narratives, which are framed in a specific format to be communicated between researcher and respondent in a research context. This emphasizes that the choice for a certain format determines what can be evidenced, so it is vital that these choices indeed allow for obtaining evidence that is useful and valid to serve the clinical goal of EBT. (shrink)

The brain adapts to changes that take place in the body. Deprivation of input results in size reduction of cortical representations, whereas an increase in input results in an increase of representational space. Amputation forms one of the most dramatic disturbances of the integrity of the body. The brain adapts in many ways to this breakdown of the afferent–efferent equilibrium. However, almost all studies focus on the sensorimotor consequences. It is not known whether adaptation takes place also at other “levels” (...) in the system. The present study addresses the question whether amputees dream about their intact body, as before the amputation, or about the body after the amputation and whether the dream content was a function of time since the amputation and type of amputation. The results show that the majority of the dreamers reported dreams about their intact body although the mean time that elapsed since the amputation was twelve years. There is no clear relation with the type of amputation. The results give modest evidence for the existence of a basic neural representation of the body that is, at least, partly genetically determined and by this relatively insensitive for changes in the sensory input. (shrink)

Realism about general relativity (GR) seems to imply realism about spacetime curvature. The existence of the teleparallel equivalent of general relativity (TEGR) calls this into question, for (a) TEGR is set in a torsionful but flat spacetime, and (b) TEGR is empirically equivalent to GR. Knox (Stud Hist Philos Sci Part B Stud Hist Philos Mod Phys 42(4):264–275, 2011) claims that there is no genuine underdetermination between GR and TEGR; we call this verdict into question by isolating and addressing her (...) individual arguments. In addition, we anticipate and evaluate two further worries for realism about the torsionful spacetimes of TEGR, which we call the ‘problem of operationalisability’ and the ‘problem of visualisability’. (shrink)

It is often claimed that principles of individuation imply essential properties of the things individuated. For example, sets are individuated by their members, hence sets have their members essentially. But how does this inference work? First I discuss the form of such inferences, and conclude that the essentialist inference is not a purely formal matter: although there is a form which all principles of individuation have in common, it is not true that any statement of that form is a principle (...) of individuation, and hence there is no valid inference based purely on that form. However, I argue that there is a viable version of the essentialist inference nonetheless. The resources for a proper reconstruction of this type of inference can be gathered from reflections upon the role principles of individuation play in the project of the ontologist: such principles turn out to carry a modal weight similar to that of definitions or conceptual truths. It follows that, no matter how austere the ontology, some portion of essentialist modality is inevitable. (shrink)

Brain-Computer Interface (BCI) research and (future) applications raise important ethical issues that need to be addressed to promote societal acceptance and adequate policies. Here we report on a survey we conducted among 145 BCI researchers at the 4th International BCI conference, which took place in May–June 2010 in Asilomar, California. We assessed respondents’ opinions about a number of topics. First, we investigated preferences for terminology and definitions relating to BCIs. Second, we assessed respondents’ expectations on the marketability of different BCI (...) applications (BCIs for healthy people, BCIs for assistive technology, BCIs-controlled neuroprostheses and BCIs as therapy tools). Third, we investigated opinions about ethical issues related to BCI research for the development of assistive technology: informed consent process with locked-in patients, risk-benefit analyses, team responsibility, consequences of BCI on patients’ and families’ lives, liability and personal identity and interaction with the media. Finally, we asked respondents which issues are urgent in BCI research. (shrink)

Frege taught us how to understand one form of predication: an atemporal one. There is also a different, temporal form of predication, which I briefly introduce. Accordingly, there are two fundamentally different approaches to time: a reductive one, aiming to account for time in terms of Frege’s atemporal predication, and a non-reductive one, insisting that the temporal form of predication is sui generis, and that time is to be understood in its terms. I do not directly argue for or against (...) reductionism in this paper. Rather, by evaluating the debates on endurantism–perdurantism, A-theory–B-theory, and presentism–eternalism, I argue that these debates, although aiming to be fundamental, largely boil down to mere quarrels between alternative reductive approaches. We should take notice of this fact and reorient ourselves within the debate on time accordingly: the real issue is whether we should reduce or not. I briefly sketch in what sense endurantism, A-theory, and presentism may be developed on a properly anti-reductionist basis. (shrink)

Humeans take reality to be devoid of ‘necessary connections’: things just happen. Laws of nature are to be understood in terms of what ‘just happens’, not vice versa. Here the Humean needs some conception of what it is that ‘just happens’ – a conception of the Humean mosaic. Lewis’s Humeanism incorporates such a conception in the form of a Lewis-style metaphysics of objects, properties, and modality. Newer versions of Humeanism about laws of nature, such as the Better Best Systems approach, (...) typically reject such a Lewisian metaphysics, but it remains unclear what they can offer in its place. By exploring different candidate conceptions, this paper sheds light on the limits of Humeanism about laws of nature: not all conceptions of the Humean mosaic form a suitable basis for a Humean theory of laws. In fact, only a metaphysics roughly in line with Lewis’s will do. The paper ends with a tentative generalization of this result, thus pointing to the ‘limit’ of Humeanism in general: taking the Humean way of thinking to its limit results in a rejection of the whole idea of such a mosaic – and hence of Humean mosaic-based accounts of anything. (shrink)

In psychotherapy research, treatment efficacy is commonly studied by means of self-report questionnaires to gain quantitative data on symptom development. The data serve as input for statistical analyses up to the level of evidence-based treatment. We analyzed how a patient in a psychotherapy study experienced the translation of her story into quantitative data by combining a phenomenological qualitative analysis of her therapeutic narrative and a visual analysis of her extensively annotated paper-andpencil questionnaires. Our findings provide a practical empirical illustration of (...) the nature and impact of known validity issues. Beyond, we found the act of questionnaire administration affected the primary complaint such that it became performative toward the symptoms under study. We discuss the epistemic consequences for the validity of data, and we argue that valid data collection requires qualitative scrutiny of meaning within data and a concept of validity that allows for consideration of performativity of data collection. (shrink)

In her seminal essay ‘Causality and Determination’, Elizabeth Anscombe very decidedly announced that “physical indeterminism” is “indispensable if we are to make anything of the claim to freedom”. But it is clear from that same essay that she extends the scope of that claim beyond freedom–she suggests that indeterminism is required already for animal self-movement. Building on Anscombe’s conception of causality and determinism, I will suggest that it extends even further: life as such already requires physical indeterminism. Furthermore, I show (...) that we can, on this basis, arrive at the idea of varieties of determinism, along with a corresponding variety of incompatibilist theses. From this Anscombean vantage point, the free will discussion takes on a quite different outlook. The question whether free agency can coexist with determinism on the level of blind physical forces, which preoccupies the philosopher of free will, turns out to conflate a whole series of compatibility questions: not just whether life is compatible with physical determinism, but also whether animal self-movement is compatible with ‘biological determinism’, and whether free agency is compatible with ‘animal determinism’. (shrink)

Recent research emphasizes the complexity of providing useful explanations of computer-generated output. In developing an explanation-generating tool, the computer scientist should take a user-centered perspective, while taking into account the user’s susceptibility to certain biases. The purpose of this paper is to expand the research results on explainability from the social sciences, and to indicate how these results are relevant to the field of XAI. This is done through the presentation of two surveys to university students. The analysis of the (...) results leads to some interesting hypotheses, for example that the presented order of historical facts might be more influential on the interpretation or appreciation of an event than the actual temporal order of these facts. The computer scientist should, therefore, pay particular emphasis to the format of the produced output of any explainable artificial intelligence system. The main message of the paper is that results from the social sciences must be regarded as a crucial foundation of any explainable artificial intelligence system. (shrink)

The purpose of this article is twofold. First, it explores and shows ways in which one important view of racism parallels the Christian doctrine of original sin. Second, it argues that this comparison helps to close the gap between the two main strands of Christian thinking about original sin. Philosophers and theologians are often asked to decide between Augustinian or Irenaean theories of original sin. An epistemology of ignorance, especially as applied in discussions of racism, helps us to see how (...) this dichotomy may be short‐sighted. For virtually no one, in an epistemology of ignorance, matures into being a racist. Nevertheless, as Charles W. Mills famously argues, the epistemology of ignorance he terms the Racial Contract has a historical inception, namely, the period around the beginning of the Transatlantic Slave Trade. I close the article by discussing whether a model of original sin similar to an epistemology of racist ignorance might satisfy the dogmatic constraints of the Catholic tradition. (shrink)

Tracing the historical roots of modern conservation thought & practice, this book explores current perspectives from evolutionary & community ecology, conservation biology, anthropology, political ecology, economics, and policy.

Procreation with donor gametes is widespread and commonly accepted, but it involves ethical questions about the child's best interest. Understanding the historical structures of the moral discussion of gamete donation may contribute to reflecting on the child's best interest. This is why I have analysed the debate on gamete donation in the Netherlands, and this analysis has uncovered some striking discontinuities. Notions of the child's best interest have undergone a radical swing. In the past, it was considered acceptable to conceal (...) the truth about the child's biological origin, but in the past two decades the general opinion has changed to the common belief that this information should be shared with the child. This changed notion of the child's best interest will be analysed using a framework encompassing three views of the child, which derive from the debate on children's rights. These three views each provide a different interpretation of the child's moral and political status. I conclude that the changed notion of the child's best interest results from a view of the child that focuses on autonomy and citizenship, and which frames the child's interests according to its legal status. I comment on this view and I champion an alternative one, namely ‘the embedded child’. This is a relational view based on care ethics that goes beyond what can be articulated in law, and that will help to establish a more balanced interpretation of the child's best interest at the practice and policy levels of gamete donation. (shrink)

Sorensen (1992) has provided two modal-logical schemas to reconstruct the logical structure of two types of destructive thought experiments: the Necessity Refuter and the Possibility Refuter. The schemas consist of five propositions which Sorensen claims but does not prove to be inconsistent.We show that the five propositions, as presented by Sorensen, are not inconsistent, but by adding a premise (and a logical truth), we prove that the resulting sextet of premises is inconsistent. Häggqvist (2009) has provided a different modal-logical schema (...) (Counterfactual Refuter), which is equivalent to four premises, again claimed to be inconsistent. We show that this schema also is not inconsistent, for similar reasons. Again, we add another premise to achieve inconsistency. The conclusion is that all three modal-logical reconstructions of the arguments that accompany thought experiments, two by Sorensen and one by Häggqvist, have now been made rigorously correct. This may inaugurate new avenues to respond to destructive thought experiments. (shrink)

Although contemporary powers metaphysics largely understands itself as a metaphysical realist undertaking, recently powers have come to the surface also within an idealist context. This paper aims to characterize and motivate an absolute idealist conception of powers. I compare realist and idealist powers metaphysics in their respective responses to Humean scepticism concerning powers, thereby motivating the claim that the very idea of a power is actually best understood as an idealist idea. I continue to characterize the absolute idealist’s understanding of (...) power, for which it is necessary to see that the content of her power notion is inseparable from the way in which she arrives at that notion. I close with a brief reflection on the absolute idealist’s understanding of the power of thought, which is where idealist and realist powers metaphysics diverge most radically. (shrink)

Ex aequo et bono compensations refer to tribunal’s compensations that cannot be determined exactly according to the rule of law, in which case the judge relies on an estimate that seems fair for the case at hand. Such cases are prone to legal uncertainty, given the subjectivity that is inherent to the concept of fairness. We show how basic principles from statistics and machine learning may be used to reduce legal uncertainty in ex aequo et bono judicial decisions. For a (...) given type of ex aequo et bono dispute, we consider two general stages in estimating the compensation. First, the stage where there is significant disagreement among judges as to which compensation is fair. In that case, we let judges rule on such disputes, while a machine tracks a certain measure of the relative differences of the granted compensations. In the second stage that measure, which expresses the degree of legal uncertainty, has dropped below a predefined threshold. From then on legal decisions on the quantity of the ex aequo et bono compensation for the considered type of dispute may be replaced by the average of previous compensations. The main consequence is that this type of dispute is, from this stage on, free of legal uncertainty. (shrink)

David Wallace's `Dennett's Criterion' plays a key part in establishing realist claims about the existence of a multiverse emerging from the mathematical formalism of quantum physics, even after decoherence is fully appreciated. Although the philosophical preconditions of this criterion are not neutral, they are rarely explicitly addressed conceptually. I tease apart three: (I) a rejection of conceptual bridge laws even in cases of inhomogeneous reduction; (II) a reliance on the pragmatic notion of usefulness to highlight quasi-classical patterns, as seen in (...) a decoherence basis, over others; and (III) a structural realist or `functional realist' point of view that leads to individuating those patterns as real macroscopic objects at the coarse-grained level, as they are seen from the Classical Stance (analogous to Dennett's Intentional Stance). I conclude that the justification of Dennett's Criterion will be intimately tied up with the fate of strong forms of naturalism, and in particular that Wallacian quantum mechanics is a key case study for concretely evaluating his `math-first' structural realism (Wallace 2022). (shrink)

Job crafting has been established as a bottom-up work design instrument for promoting health and well-being in the workplace. In recent years, the concepts of job crafting have been applied to the university student context, proving to be positively related to student well-being. Building on person-centered analyses from the employment context, we assessed approach study crafting strategy combinations and the relationships to students’ exhaustion, study engagement, and general well-being. Data from 2,882 German university students were examined, collected online during the (...) summer term in 2020. Using latent profile analysis, we found five distinct crafting groups, which showed discriminate validity with regard to emotional exhaustion, engagement, and well-being. The results underscore the positive role of study crafting for students’ health and well-being. They further indicate a less important role of increasing social resources for emotional exhaustion when combined with a moderate increase in structural resources and a moderate increase in challenging demands. Our findings imply that interventions to promote study crafting should be considered to promote student health and well-being. (shrink)

Data from the Kipsigis of Kenya are used to test two models for how parents invest in offspring, the Trivers-Willard and local resource competition/enhancement hypotheses. Investment is measured as age-specific survival, educational success, marital arrangements, and some components of property inheritance, permitting an evaluation of how biases persist or alter over the period of dependence. Changes through time in such biases are also examined. Despite stronger effects of wealth on the reproductive success of men than women, the survival of sons (...) and daughters is not related to parental wealth. However, a Trivers-Willard effect characterizes educational investment: poor families show a greater concern for daughters’ (vis-à-vis sons’) schooling than do rich families, a trend that has increased over time. In regard to models of local resource competition and enhancement, men’s reproductive success decreases with number of brothers and increases with number of sisters; this pattern of competition with same-sex sibs and cooperation with opposite-sex sibs is not found among women. As predicted from these observations, parents show reduced investment in sons with a large number of brothers, and increased investment in sons with a large number of sisters. By contrast, investment in daughters is entirely unaffected by number of sisters and is influenced only in subtle ways by number of brothers. Levels of investment in relation to sibship size (irrespective of siblings’ sex) are highest for younger children of large sib sets.Discussion of the results in relation to those from other studies leads to three conclusions. First, predictive models for how investment biases vary across societies must consider a broad range of socioecological factors constraining parental options and payoffs. Second, the timing of investment biases within societies will be affected by the value of children and the costs of parental investment. Third, measures of investment appropriate for between-sex and between-class comparisons need careful attention. Each of these issues is brought to bear on the question of why, in contrast to so many other parts of the world, sex preferences are so muted in Africa. (shrink)

What is the best question reductionists would have to answer but cannot, and why exactly is there no reductionist answer to that question? To answer this question, we need to identify the relevant question.

Prolonging working hours and presenteeism have been conceptualized as self-endangering coping behaviors in employees, which are related to health impairment. Drawing upon the self-regulation of behavior model, the goal achievement process, and Warr's vitamin model, we examined the antecedents and moderation effects regarding quantitative demands, autonomy, emotion regulation, and self-motivation competence of university students' self-endangering coping behaviors. Results from a cross-sectional survey of 3,546 German university students indicate that quantitative demands are positively related and autonomy has a u-shape connection with (...) self-endangering coping. Emotion regulation was shown to be a protective factor for prolonging working hours. Moreover, self-motivation moderated the relationship between quantitative demands and prolonging of working hours, but not in the assumed direction. Self-motivation showed a systematic positive relationship with prolonging of working hours, but no relationship with presenteeism. Autonomy moderated the relationship of quantitative demands with both self-endangering behaviors. We found no moderating effects for emotion regulation of quantitative demands or autonomy and self-endangering behaviors. Besides further practical implications, the results suggest that lecturers should design their courses accordingly with less time pressure and university students should be trained in the use of autonomy. (shrink)