This paper argues that the ubiquitous digital networks in which we are increasingly becoming immersed present a threat to our ability to exercise free will. Using process philosophy, and expanding upon understandings of causal autonomy, the paper outlines a thematic analysis of diary studies and interviews gathered in a project exploring the nature of digital experience. It concludes that without mindfulness in both the use and design of digital devices and services we run the risk of allowing such services to (...) direct our daily lives in ways over which we are increasingly losing control. (shrink)

While political economic perspectives of urban globalization tend to generalize the economic pressures upon socio-political transformations of cities, recent European research has stressed the institutional context of urban collective action. However, the structural bias of the European city model merely complements the criticized economization by a culturalist essentialization of urbanity, and thus fails to conceptualize political agency. In order to elaborate the theoretical foundations of a political counterhypothesis to urban globalization, this article clarifies the different historical and normative conceptions of (...) institutional structure and agency in the urban context. Most research of cities implies — more or less implicitly — a common urban ideal which associates centrality with a local integration potential of plural societies. However, distinguishing between a historically embedded empirical category, a normative model of public space, and an analytical ideal-type of political agency helps to overcome the static structural conception of an essentially European urban culture and problematizes the role of knowledge models in reflectively constructing urban realities. Therefore, a dynamic and contextual relation between political economic functions, historic heritage, and normative frames might contribute to an open-ended comparative framework of urban collective action that can be applied to any ordinary city across and beyond Europe. (shrink)

In early modern theories of ‘proper’ style, ambiguously, difficulty could convey a sense of excellence on one hand (of national belonging, imperial ambition or manly ‘virility’) while also being deployed to denigrate unseemly (too feminine or foreign) speech. Difficulty erupts precisely in the points of friction: when boundaries around ablebodymindedness are drawn or when the available forms of expression are insufficient. Instead of eradicating difficulty altogether, I sift through early modern French, English and Italian writing on rhetoric to make a (...) case for paying closer attention to difficulty, lingering with it, and seeing what these friction points ultimately reveal. The contemporary concept of ‘disability gain’ posits disability not as a defect to be remedied, erased or cured, but rather as a mode of being in the world that allows for innovation, creativity and even added affects, resources or alternative epistemologies. Instead of considering, in the pedagogical domain, how to construct conceptual ‘on-ramps’ for simplifying difficulty, what would we gain by leaning into the unclear, uncertain and potentially joyful ‘other’ forms of communication itself, such as dysfluency, stuttering or Remi Yergeau’s concept of the rhizomatic neuroqueer? (shrink)

Can God Be Free? is a penetrating study of a central problem in philosophy of religion: can it be right to regard God as free, and as praiseworthy for being perfectly good? Allowing that he has perfect knowledge and perfect goodness, if there is a best world for God to create he would have no choice other than to create it. But if God could not do otherwise than create the best world, he created the world of necessity, not freely, (...) and we have no reason to be thankful to God for creating us, since he couldn't do otherwise. William Rowe proposes the need for some substantial revision in contemporary thinking about the nature of God. (shrink)

This book is unique because it is the first single-author monograph which applies Bourdieu’s theory to management studies. It takes a theory-driven approach to develop models to describe service innovation. This will give the reader a full understanding of the variety of different theoretical concepts that Bourdieu created and used and how they can be applied to the study of management and innovation. Moreover, it is also the only book that links Bourdieu’s theory to his methodological approach, providing the reader (...) with a toolkit of methods to perform business ethnographies according to Bourdieu’s approach. The book acts as a primer for anyone wanting to learn how to model an organisational system from a Bourdieusian perspective. It contains all the information someone might need to begin to go out in the field and collect data. Consequently, the people that might want to read this publication include post-graduate students looking to learn business anthropology, as well as post-doctoral and other early career researchers. (shrink)

The present collection brings together for the first time Rowe's most significant contributions to the philosophy of religion. This diverse but representative selection of Rowe's writings will provide students, professional scholars as well as general readers with stimulating and accessible discussions on such topics as the philosophical theology of Paul Tillich, the problem of evil, divine freedom, arguments for the existence of God, religious experience, life after death, and religious pluralism.

Plato's dialogues are usually understood as simple examples of philosophy in action. In this book Professor Rowe treats them rather as literary-philosophical artefacts, shaped by Plato's desire to persuade his readers to exchange their view of life and the universe for a different view which, from their present perspective, they will barely begin to comprehend. What emerges is a radically new Plato: a Socratic throughout, who even in the late dialogues is still essentially the Plato (and the Socrates) of (...) the Apology and the so-called 'Socratic' dialogues. This book aims to understand Plato both as a philosopher and as a writer, on the assumption that neither of these aspects of the dialogues can be understood without the other. The argument of the book is closely based in Plato's text, but should be accessible to any serious reader of Plato, whether professional philosopher, classicist, or student. (shrink)

This article argues that the definition of land grabs in public debate is a politically contested process with profound normative consequences for policy recommendations regarding the future of the family farm model. To substantiate this argument, I first explore how different definitions of land grabbing bring into focus different kinds of actors and briefly survey the history of land grabbing in Canada. I then introduce the public debate about land grabbing in Québec and discuss its evolution from its beginning in (...) 2009 up until the provincial public inquiry on land grabs in March 2015. Here, I make critical observations regarding each participant’s position, showing how different definitions of land grabbing has significant implications for policy recommendation and the promotion of different agricultural business models. More specifically, I emphasize how these discussions crucially fail to consider indigenous people’s land rights and ignore the constraints imposed by the corporate food regime on family farms. I conclude by suggesting that the adoption of a food sovereignty approach to land governance helps redirect attention to these important issues and provide insight into imagining more sustainable alternative models of agriculture. (shrink)

This paper analyses the immunological response of breast cancer patients through the lens of medical semiotics. From this perspective both psychological and physiological symptoms are treated as a set of transitive signs. The symptomatic journey of breast cancer patients was documented through an ethnographic engagement with a breast cancer charity. This journey consists of diagnosis, treatment and remission, where both the physical and psychological trauma maybe irreversible. Equally the genetic disposition of each patient and the variability of the treatment give (...) rise to a plethora of possible immunological responses. The case study organization provided both therapeutic treatment but also sold oncology products to its patients, matching the products’ composition to the specific immunological responses caused by breast cancer treatment, e.g., brittle skins or hair loss, etc. This paper explores how the varied and transient nature of immunological semiosis is identified and commoditized into an economic process. This challenging social context is of interest from a semiotic stand point because it offers a singular paradigm to explain the evolution of signs and symptoms into sales. (shrink)

Plato's Theaetetus and Sophist are two of his most important dialogues, and are widely read and discussed by philosophers for what they reveal about his epistemology and particularly his accounts of belief and knowledge. Although they form part of a single Platonic project, these dialogues are not usually presented as a pair, as they are in Christopher Rowe's new and lively translation. Offering a high standard of accuracy and readability, the translation reveals the continuity between these dialogues and others (...) in the Platonic corpus, especially the Republic. The supporting introduction and notes help the reader to follow the arguments as they develop, explaining their structure, context and interpretation. This new edition challenges current scholarly approaches to Plato's work and will pave the way for fresh interpretations both of Theaetetus and Sophist and of Plato's writings in general. (shrink)

This article reflects on the intersection of the New Testament’s witness with current questions of illness, medication, risk, luck, death, and hope. Drawing principally on the Gospel of Matthew and the letters of Paul, I argue that, for Christians, hope in the resurrection—not the ability to avoid suffering and death—provides the best context for prudential judgment in light of the inscrutability of the future and the concomitant opacity that attends medical decision-making. We do not and will not know what we (...) would need to know in order to make decisions we can count on with surety, and we thus read Scripture in order to become the people who can make wise judgments in the meantime called hope. (shrink)

Economists working on behavioral economics have been awarded the Nobel Prize four times in recent years. This book explores this innovative area and in particular focuses on the work of Harvey Leibenstein, one of the pioneers of the discipline. The topics covered in the book include agency theory; dynamic efficiency; evolutionary economics; X-efficiency; the effect of emotions, specifically affect on decision-making; market pricing; experimental economics; human resource management; the Carnegie School, and intra-industry efficiency in less developed countries.

(1993). Evolutionary competence in the postmodern family: An idealized design approach. World Futures: Vol. 36, Evolutionary Consciousness, pp. 81-105.

This essay sets out to explain how educational semiotics as a discipline can be used to reform medical education and assessment. This is in response to an ongoing paradigm shift in medical education and assessment that seeks to integrate more qualitative, ethical and professional aspects of medicine into curricula, and develop ways to assess them. This paper suggests that a method to drive this paradigm change might be found in the Peircean idea of suprasubjectivity. This semiotic concept is rooted in (...) the scholastic philosophy of John of St Thomas, but has been reintroduced to modern semiotics through the works of John Deely, Alin Olteanu and, most notably, Charles Sanders Peirce. I approach this task as both a medical educator and a semiotician. In this paper, I provide background information about medical education, paradigm shift s, and the concept of suprasubjectivity in relation to modern educational semiotic literature. I conclude by giving examples of what a suprasubjective approach to medical education and assessment might look like. I do this by drawing an equivalence between the notion of threshold concepts and suprasubjectivity, demonstrating the similarities between their positions. Fundamentally, medical education suffers from tensions of teaching trainee doctors the correct balance of biological science and situational ethics/judgement. In the transcendence of mind-dependent and mind-independent being the scholastic philosophy of John of St Thomas may be exactly the solution medicine needs to overcome this dichotomy. (shrink)

Thure von Uexküll’s reputation as a pioneer in biosemiotics and also in psychosomatic medicine is well documented (Tuffs 2004; Geigges 2005). It is easy to see these disciplines reflected in his notable publications, both in English and in German. However, if one spares the time to filter through all of his peer-reviewed works, monographs, conference papers and editorials in English and in German, a notable gap arises in his English language publications: that of Clinical Education. This gap in the Anglophone (...) literature may seem unimportant in and of itself, but it speaks volumes when we consider the total absence of medical semiotics in the curriculum of medical schools in the English-speaking world. Also, in contrast to the strong traditions of psychosomatic medicine in Germany, which Thure von Uexküll largely helped to instil. Do the works of Thure von Uexküll offer a possible step to-wards a resurrection of medical semiotics in Clinical Education? This paper attempts to explore the lesser-known German literature on Clinical Education that Thure von Uexküll produced and explore the role semiotics can play in medical education in the English-speaking world. And contrast it with other existing approaches in British and American Medical Schools’ attempts to reintroduce medical humanities and reflexive thinking into Clinical Education. (shrink)

Can God Be Free? is a penetrating study of a central problem in philosophy of religion: can it be right to regard God as free, and as praiseworthy for being perfectly good? Allowing that he has perfect knowledge and perfect goodness, if there is a best world for God to create he would have no choice other than to create it. But if God could not do otherwise than create the best world, he created the world of necessity, not freely, (...) and we have no reason to be thankful to God for creating us, since he couldn't do otherwise. William Rowe proposes the need for some substantial revision in contemporary thinking about the nature of God. (shrink)

Retention of postgraduate students is a complex problem at higher education institutions. To address this concern, various forms of academic support are offered by higher education institutions to nurture and develop the pipeline of postgraduate students. The support provided to postgraduate students tends to emphasize academic support at times at the expense of psychosocial or non-academic support. Non-cognitive skills were underscored as integral to determining academic and employment outcomes and thus, may need to be investigated more. This manuscript reports on (...) an attempt to filter and consolidate the literature reporting on interventions for postgraduate students that include the development of non-cognitive skills. A systematic review was conducted, because it enabled rigorous and replicable process of consolidating literature. Covidence software was used as a digital platform for the systematic review. The review was conducted at four levels as per the PRISMA guideline namely, identification, screening, eligibility and final summation. The filtration process attempted to answer the following research questions: (1) How are non-cognitive factors or skills defined? (2) Which non-cognitive skills were included in support for postgraduate (Masters and Doctoral) students in the higher education setting?, and (3) How have non-cognitive skills been included in support interventions provided to retain postgraduate students? Descriptive and theory explicative metasynthesis was used for the summation and data extraction. The primary finding was that the term non-cognitive was not used explicitly in the included studies to describe skills or factors supporting student retention. The discourse centered around support and social support as non-academic factors and skills. This suggested that non-cognitive skills were constructed as co-curricular and not integrated into the postgraduate academic project or core learning outcomes. The findings highlighted the distinction between non-cognitive skills and factors and illustrated how skills and factors operate at different levels with different spheres of influence. The formats of support provide an intersectional space where skills and factors are combined. (shrink)

When and why is it wrong to impose a pure risk of harm on others? A pure risk of harm is a risk that fails to materialise into the harm that is threatened. It initially seems puzzling on what grounds a pure risk of harm can be wrong. There have been multiple attempts to explain the wrongness of imposing risk either by reference to the badness of the risked outcome itself or to impacts on the victim, such as harm. In (...) this article, I argue that these approaches are unsatisfactory. Instead, I motivate another approach, what I call a wronging-first approach to the wrongness of imposing pure risk of harm. This approach explains the wrongness of imposing risk of harm in virtue of it being a wronging. As an example of this approach, I put forward the Adequate Concern Account, which holds that an imposition of a risk of harm is wrong in virtue of the act failing to consider the victim's equal moral standing as a stringent source of constraints on conduct. I close by demonstrating the superiority of this approach and account to existing outcome-based approaches. (shrink)

Après avoir rappelé quelques éléments de l’histoire de la police et décrit ses fonctions administratives et judiciaires, l’auteur souligne les évolutions de nos modes de vie, de l’insécurité, et leurs réponses institutionnelles massivement répressives, punitives et onéreuses qui ont prévalu jusqu’à présent. Le sentiment d’insécurité est à la croisée de l’insécurité réelle et de l’insécurité subjective liée à des facteurs autres, tels l’effritement des liens sociaux, la précarité du travail ou l’aménagement urbain. Face à ces bouleversements, la police doit négocier (...) avec les populations mais aussi avec les contraintes institutionnelles et les réformes successives des organisations. Dans le même temps, elle subit un virage technologique important autour des numéros d’appels centralisés et du recours aux véhicules d’intervention. Ces réformes éloignent la police de la population et des lieux sensibles où les patrouilles à pied marquaient la présence de la force publique. La police communautaire ou la police de proximité tentent de remédier au problème. On attend d’elles polyvalence, responsabilité et résultats. Généralisée, présentée comme le remède à tous les maux, cette mise en œuvre fait pourtant face à de multiples difficultés techniques, comme au sein des partenariats locaux, et à des résistances internes. Désarçonnée, la police a besoin d’une vision politique qui lui permette de situer sa mission et ses fonctions dans une société complexe en perpétuel mouvement. (shrink)

Issues related to research integrity receive increasing attention in policy discourse and beyond with most universities having introduced by now courses addressing issues of good scientific practice. While communicating expectations and regulations related to good scientific practice is essential, criticism has been raised that integrity courses do not sufficiently address discipline and career-stage specific dimensions, and often do not open up spaces for in-depth engagement. In this article, we present the card-based engagement method RESPONSE_ABILITY, which aims at supporting researchers in (...) developing their ability to respond to challenges of good scientific practice. The method acknowledges that what counts and what does not count as acceptable practice may not be as clear-cut as imagined and that research environments matter when it comes to integrity issues. Using four sets of cards as stimulus material, participants are invited to reflect individually and collectively about questions of research integrity from different perspectives. This approach is meant to train them to negotiate in which contexts certain practices can still be regarded as acceptable and where possible transgressions might begin. RESPONSE_ABILITY can be seen as fostering the creation of an integrity culture as it invites a more reflexive engagement with ideals and realities of good practice and opens a space to address underlying value conflicts researchers may be confronted with. Concluding the article, we call for caution that addressing issues of integrity meaningfully requires striking a delicate balance between raising researchers’ awareness of individual responsibilities and creating institutional environments that allow them to be response-able. (shrink)