Differing accounts are conventionally given of the origins of medical sociology and its parent discipline of sociology. These distinct ‘histories’ are justified on the basis that the sociological founders were uninterested in medicine, mortality and disease. This article challenges these ‘constructions’ of the past, proposing the theorization of health not as a ‘late development of sociology’ but an integral part of its formation. Drawing on a selection of key sociological texts, it is argued that evidence of the founders’ sustained interest (...) in the infirmities of the individual, of mortality, and in medicine, have been expunged from the historical record through processes of ‘canonization’ and ‘medicalization’. (shrink)

This theoretical expose explores the complex notion of argumentative style, which has so far been largely neglected in argumentation theory. After an introduction of the problems involved, the theoretical tools for identifying the properties of the discourse in which an argumentative style manifests itself are explained from a pragma-dialectical perspective and a theoretical definition of argumentative style is provided that does full justice to its role in argumentative discourse. The article concludes with a short reflection upon the next steps that (...) need to be taken in argumentation theory in further substantiating the notion of argumentative style. (shrink)

Comparisons between international integration and integrative processes on lower social levels or in other social sectors have rather been neglected in the recent development of integration theory. However, they might have taught something more about the dynamics of integrative processes in general. International integration here, is compared with the creation and development of multi-purpose or all-purpose interest groups. Both are viewed as dynamic social processes of increasing interdependence and interaction, which start from the recognition that individual interests might better be (...) served by turning them info group-interests, through a process of successive compromises. Such social processes are accompanied by the creation of proper structures and by a shift of loyalty to the group or community-level. (shrink)

In one of the essays in his recent book on Christianity, La déclosion (2005), Nancy discusses the relationship between Judaism and Christianity. Nancy opens this discussion with a reference to Lyotard’s book on this relationship: Un trait d’union (1993). Both Lyotard and Nancy examine a very early figure in the emergence of Christianity from Judaism—whereas Lyotard focuses on the epistles of Paul, Nancy reads the epistle of James. Lyotard concludes that the hyphen in the expression ‘Judeo-Christian’ actually conceals ‘the most (...) impenetrable abyss within Western thought’. With this abyss, Lyotard refers to the point of departure of Judaism: the event in which a Voice has left behind letters, inaugurating an interminable work of interpretation. For Nancy, however, it is rather Christianity, and therefore, Western culture, which is deconstructive in nature. Its composition is co-original with a decomposition, and therefore, with an openness. In James, Nancy finds an emphasis on praxis, in such a way that existence is to be understood as transcendent within itself. With this reading of James, Nancy seems to deny that there is a fundamental difference between Judaism and Christianity. In order to clarify the differences between Lyotard and Nancy, it is shown that, in Lyotard’s view, an unsublatable alterity comes with aisthèsis, whereas in Nancy’s view, alterity comes with existence as such. (shrink)

BackgroundThe emphasis on impact factors and the quantity of publications intensifies competition between researchers. This competition was traditionally considered an incentive to produce high-quality work, but there are unwanted side-effects of this competition like publication pressure. To measure the effect of publication pressure on researchers, the Publication Pressure Questionnaire (PPQ) was developed. Upon using the PPQ, some issues came to light that motivated a revision.MethodWe constructed two new subscales based on work stress models using the facet method. We administered the (...) revised PPQ (PPQr) to a convenience sample together with the Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI) and the Work Design Questionnaire (WDQ). To assess which items best measured publication pressure, we carried out a principal component analysis (PCA). Reliability was sufficient when Cronbach’s alpha > 0.7. Finally, we administered the PPQr in a larger, independent sample of researchers to check the reliability of the revised version.ResultsThree components were identified as ‘stress’, ‘attitude’, and ‘resources’. We selected 3 × 6 = 18 items with high loadings in the three-component solution. Based on the convenience sample, Cronbach’s alphas were 0.83 for stress, 0.80 for attitude, and 0.76 for resources. We checked the validity of the PPQr by inspecting the correlations with the MBI and the WDQ. Stress correlated 0.62 with MBI’s emotional exhaustion. Resources correlated 0.50 with relevant WDQ subscales. To assess the internal structure of the PPQr in the independent reliability sample, we conducted the principal component analysis. The three-component solution explains 50% of the variance. Cronbach’s alphas were 0.80, 0.78, and 0.75 for stress, attitude, and resources, respectively.ConclusionWe conclude that the PPQr is a valid and reliable instrument to measure publication pressure in academic researchers from all disciplinary fields. The PPQr strongly relates to burnout and could also be beneficial for policy makers and research institutions to assess the degree of publication pressure in their institute. (shrink)

BackgroundConcerns about research misbehavior in academic science have sparked interest in the factors that may explain research misbehavior. Often three clusters of factors are distinguished: individual factors, climate factors and publication factors. Our research question was: to what extent can individual, climate and publication factors explain the variance in frequently perceived research misbehaviors?MethodsFrom May 2017 until July 2017, we conducted a survey study among academic researchers in Amsterdam. The survey included three measurement instruments that we previously reported individual results of (...) and here we integrate these findings.ResultsOne thousand two hundred ninety-eight researchers completed the survey. Results showed that individual, climate and publication factors combined explained 34% of variance in perceived frequency of research misbehavior. Individual factors explained 7%, climate factors explained 22% and publication factors 16%.ConclusionsOur results suggest that the perceptions of the research climate play a substantial role in explaining variance in research misbehavior. This suggests that efforts to improve departmental norms might have a salutary effect on behavior. (shrink)

It is often claimed that the exceptional severity of the Spanish flu, one of the most deadly events in recorded human history, is an unsolved mystery. However, even detailed aspects such as its W-shaped mortality curve are well explained by Paul Ewald’s theory of the evolution of virulence. Understanding the causes of the Spanish flu will help to prevent future epidemics.

Mathematicians suggest that some proofs are valued for their explanatory value. This has led to a philosophical debate about the distinction between explanatory and non-explanatory proofs. In this paper, we explore whether contrasting views about the explanatory value of proof are possible and how to understand these diverging assessments. By considering an epistemic and contextual conception of explanation, we can make sense of disagreements about explanatoriness in mathematics by identifying differences in the background knowledge, skill corpus, or epistemic aims of (...) mathematicians or mathematical communities. We focus on the relation between explanation, epistemic aims and diverging explanatory assessments by looking at cases from mathematical practice. (shrink)

Over the last few decades there have been several calls for a “big picture” of the history of science. There is a general need for a concise overview of the rise of modern science, with a clear structure allowing for a rough division into periods. This essay proposes such a scheme, one that is both elementary and comprehensive. It focuses on four machines, which can be seen to have mediated between science and society during successive periods of time: the clock, (...) the balance, the steam engine, and the computer. Following an extended developmental phase, each of these machines came to play a highly visible role in Western societies, both socially and economically. Each of these machines, moreover, was used as a powerful resource for the understanding of both inorganic and organic nature. More specifically, their metaphorical use helped to construe and refine some key concepts that would play a prominent role in such understanding. In each case the key concept would at some point be considered to represent the ultimate building block of reality. Finally, in a refined form, each of these machines would eventually make its entry in scientific research, thereby strengthening the ties between these machines and nature. (shrink)

I argue that epistemic injustice manifests not only in the content of our concepts, but in the spaces between them. Others have shown that epistemic injustice arises in the form of “testimonial injustice,” where an agent is harmed because her credibility is undervalued, and “hermeneutical injustice,” where an agent is harmed because some community lacks the conceptual resources that would allow her to render her experience intelligible. I think that epistemic injustice also arises as a result of prejudiced and harmful (...) defects in the inferential architecture of both scientific practice and everyday thinking. Drawing on lessons from the philosophy of science, I argue that the inferential architecture of our epistemic practices can be prejudiced and wrongful, leading to a variety of epistemic injustice that I am calling “inferential injustice.” This type of injustice is fully structural; it inheres in our epistemic practices themselves rather than as a direct result of an individual’s action. For this reason, cases of inferential injustice are importantly different from extant cases of epistemic injustice and are especially hard to track. We need a better understanding of inferential injustice so that we can avoid and ameliorate cases such as the ones I present here. (shrink)

This article reacts against the undesirable ideological separation between dialectical and rhetorical approaches to argumentative discourse. It argues that a sound evaluation of argumentation requires an analysis that reveals all aspects of the discourse pertinent to critical testing. To explain the rationale of the various moves made in the discourse and the strategic patterns behind them, not only the interlocutors' dialectical goals must be taken into account, but also their rhetorical goals. After explaining how rhetorical insight can be instrumental in (...) deepening and justifying a dialectical analysis, an integrated analysis is made of the rhetorical strategies that are brought to bear in an advertorial published by the oil company Shell. (shrink)

Journal of Philosophy of Education, EarlyView.

As a continuation of our studies regarding the use of rhetoric in the thought of Thomas Hobbes, the present study deals with the relation between eloquence, passions and rebellion in The Elements of Law, Natural and Politic. Thus, it is explained how the leaders of sedition and rebellion are necessarily, according to Hobbes, “eloquent men”. The aim is not only to separate the rhetorical tradition from the foundation of political sciences, but also to point out the supposed damages caused by (...) orators in civil life. Therefore, the conflicting and often contradictory relation between demonstration and persuasion in the politics of the 17th century is questioned, as well as the binding and constitutive role of passions. (shrink)

The first part of this work starts with a passage of Machiavelli to show that the defense of a certain“realism” in the constitution of political philosophy does not excludeimagination. The defense of the efective truth of things against the imaginedrepublics has as an effect the affirmation that politics cannot operatewithout images: either the politician or the political thinker should notdisregard the imagination. Therefore, the importance of an attentivelook on what is inherent to imagination: the ability to create images. Inthis sense, (...) Hobbes appears as the heir of a tradition that unfolds in twothemes: his relation with the rhetorical tradition; the readers of Machiavelli. (shrink)

Não obstante as críticas de Giambattista Vico ao pensamento de Espinosa, é possível estabelecer uma relação de proximidade entre os dois. Se as críticas distanciam, o interesse histórico-filológico aproxima. Com efeito, para o estabelecimento de certa convergência entre os propósitos filosóficos dos dois autores, elencam-se os seguintes pressupostos: _i)_ tanto na _Ciência Nova_, quanto no _Tratado Teológico-Político_, a _filologia_ não é apenas conhecimento textual das línguas, porém via de acesso à história de um povo, pois guarda as mutações temporais da (...) vida civil e a memória do mundo de sentido no qual se gesta; _ii)_ a língua não é uma criação do rigor do entendimento, isto é, não é criação dos filósofos, mas da imaginação, portanto do _vulgo_. Desse modo, toda via de acesso ao conhecimento do passado passa inevitavelmente pela potência da _imaginação-fantasia_: questão que interpela Espinosa na _história dos hebreus_ e Vico na _natureza comum das nações_. (shrink)

With the transition from a one-person psychology of instinctual needs to a two-person psychology of relational needs, the metapsychological focus tends to shift from instinct theory to emotion motivation and systems theory, and, accordingly, familiar concepts have to be rethought. In this article, the superego is reconceptualized as a psychic regulation system for self-evaluation, comprising the capacity for empathy, the proneness to experience self-conscious emotions, such as shame, pride, and guilt, and the capacity for moral reasoning. This new conceptualization provides (...) useful tools for addressing the actual functioning of the conscience in clinical psychoanalysis. Affective neuropsychoanalysis can make important contributions to this rethinking of the superego. It also brings clinical practice and psychoanalytic metapsychology closer to empirical research beyond the scope of clinical psychoanalysis. The new model offers ample opportunities for integrating affective neuroscience into the functioning of the conscience. (shrink)

Many factors have a restraining influence on the decision making and the dynamical function of foreign policy. Next to the Minister of Foreign Affairs, there are the Undersecretary for Foreign Trade and the Undersecretary for Development Co-operation. As a result, there is no continuity in policy making. The division of competences is even problematic for the administration.Since 1980, the communities also have international competences, for instance to ratify treaties. These competences are legal and constitutional, although the Central Government tries to (...) cut them down. The strict application of the legal and constitutional prescriptions should undoubtedly simplify the problems. (shrink)

Ideas formulated by Paul Ewald about the “evolution of virulence” are used to explain why bats, more often than other mammals, are a reservoir of virulent viruses, and why many of these viruses severely affect other mammals, including humans, but are apparently less pathogenic for bats. Potential factors contributing to bat viruses often being zoonotic are briefly discussed.

The issues addressed in philosophical papers on quotation generally concern only a particular type of quotation, which I call 'closed quotation'. The other main type, 'open quotation', is ignored, and this neglect leads to bad theorizing. Not only is a general theory of quotation out of reach: the specific phenomenon of closed quotation itself cannot be properly understood if it is not appropriately situated within the kind to which it belongs. Once the distinction between open and closed quotation has been (...) drawn and properly appreciated, it is tempting to consider that only closed quotation is relevant to semantics. Open quotation is more a matter of pragmatics: it is a matter of what people do with words, rather than a matter of content and truth-conditions. In this way one can provide the beginning of a justification for the neglect of open quotation in current semantic theorizing. There is some truth in this view, yet the phenomenon of 'mixed quotation', investigated at length in this paper, is interesting precisely because it shows that things are not so simple. Important issues concerning the interface between semantics and pragmatics will thus be raised. (shrink)

In this paper, I propose and defend a particular desire-based theory of what makes a person’s life meaningful. Desire-based theories avoid the problems facing other theories of meaning in life: in contrast to objectivist theories (both consequentialist and non-consequentialist ones), they succeed in providing a necessary link between what makes a person’s life meaningful and the person’s own set of attitudes or concerns; in contrast to hybrid theories (or subjectivist theories with a value requirement), they avoid the elitism or exclusivism (...) inherent in the former; and in contrast to mental-state theories, they avoid the problem of not taking the state of the world properly into account when determining whether someone’s life is meaningful. However, meaningfulness does not plausibly depend on the satisfaction of just any desires—perhaps especially not on the satisfaction of desires that we experience as alien to ourselves. I therefore suggest that the meaning in your life depends on the extent to which your categorical desires (i.e. those desires that are partly constitutive of your practical identity) are satisfied or fulfilled. In the final section of the paper, I respond to at least four possible objections to this view. (shrink)

The central notion in this article is ‘pluriform accommodation,’ a term that we have coined to defend two lines of thought. The first is a plea for inclusive and consequential neutrality; the second is a closely linked plea for reasonable accommodation. With ‘pluriform accommodation’ we emphasize that the multicultural recognition scope should be expanded. The need for inclusive and accommodative rules, laws, and practices is a matter of principle and as such cannot be reduced to the inclusion of people with (...) an immigration background who bring with them all kinds of ethnocultural and religious practices, convictions, and traditions. Furthermore, the enshrined freedom of religion does not provide the needed protection for the multiplicity of conscientious identifications, convictions, and strong allegiances that might be central to one’s sense of self. We argue that we should not engage in (top down) debates about the rights of individuals and groups of different types and think in terms of identity hierarchies, but instead should consider the various claims being made (bottom up), aiming for common standards and criteria to assess the validity of these claims and the reasonableness of the associated accommodations. (shrink)

What is the highest good? In the ethics of René Descartes, we can distinguish between at least seven different answers to this question: God; the sum of all the different goods that “we either possess... or have the power to acquire” ; free will; virtue; love of God; wisdom; and supernatural beatitude. In this paper, I argue that each of these answers, in Descartes’s view, provides the correct particular conception, relative to a distinct sense or concept of the highest good. (...) Just as there are seven different conceptions of the highest good, according to Descartes, there are thus also seven different senses or concepts of the highest good. (shrink)