Recent history reveals a series of rogue traders, jeopardizing their employers’ assets and reputation. There have been instances of unauthorized acting in concert between traders, their supervisors and/or firms’ decision makers and executives, resulting in collusive rogue trading. We explore organizational misbehaviour theory and explain three major collusive rogue trading events at National Australia Bank, JPMorgan with its London Whale and the interest reference rate manipulation/LIBOR scandal through a descriptive model of organizational/structural, individual and group forces. Our model draws conclusions (...) on how banks can set up behavioural risk management and internal control frameworks to mitigate potential collusive rogue trading. (shrink)

Evidence suggests that humans might have neurological specializations for music processing, but a compelling adaptationist account of music and dance is lacking. The sexual selection hypothesis cannot easily account for the widespread performance of music and dance in groups (especially synchronized performances), and the social bonding hypothesis has severe theoretical difficulties. Humans are unique among the primates in their ability to form cooperative alliances between groups in the absence of consanguineal ties. We propose that this unique form of social organization (...) is predicated on music and dance. Music and dance may have evolved as a coalition signaling system that could, among other things, credibly communicate coalition quality, thus permitting meaningful cooperative relationships between groups. This capability may have evolved from coordinated territorial defense signals that are common in many social species, including chimpanzees. We present a study in which manipulation of music synchrony significantly altered subjects’ perceptions of music quality, and in which subjects’ perceptions of music quality were correlated with their perceptions of coalition quality, supporting our hypothesis. Our hypothesis also has implications for the evolution of psychological mechanisms underlying cultural production in other domains such as food preparation, clothing and body decoration, storytelling and ritual, and tools and other artifacts. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Der Islam Jahrgang: 93 Heft: 2 Seiten: 581-583.

Biologists and historians often present natural history and molecular biology as distinct, perhaps conflicting, fields in biological research. Such accounts, although supported by abundant evidence, overlook important areas of overlap between these areas. Focusing upon examples drawn particularly from systematics and molecular evolution, I argue that naturalists and molecular biologists often share questions, methods, and forms of explanation. Acknowledging these interdisciplinary efforts provides a more balanced account of the development of biology during the post-World War II era.

Uses examples from physics, philosophy, and Zen teachings to describe a purely objective style of perception.

Many scholars view Confucianism as relatively open to war, as a legitimate tool for maintaining order and rescuing oppressed peoples. Indeed, it is not uncommon for statements such as the following to be presented as though they were straightforward matters of fact: “Confucians would approve the use of force by one state against another state for the protection against abusive rule in the latter if properly carried out”.1 Such claims find support in the work of Daniel A. Bell, Tongdong Bai, (...) and Yan Xuetong. Both Bell and Bai are explicit in their view that Confucians ought to support some humanitarian interventions. Bai writes, “When it is humane and strong, a state... (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Frühmittelalterliche Studien Jahrgang: 46 Heft: 1 Seiten: 221-240.

Sometimes we believe that others receive harmful information. However, Marschak’s value of information framework always assigns non-negative value under expected utility: it starts from the decision maker’s beliefs – and one can never anticipate information’s harmfulness for oneself. The impact of decision makers’ capabilities to process information and of their expectations remains hidden behind the individual and subjective perspective Marschak’s framework assumes. By introducing a second decision maker as a point of reference, this paper introduces a way for evaluating others’ (...) information from a cross-individual, imperfect expectations perspective for agents maximising expected utility. We define the cross-value of information that can become negative – then the information is “harmful” from a cross-individual perspective – and we define (mutual) cost of limited information processing capabilities and imperfect expectations as an opportunity cost from this same point of reference. The simple relationship between these two expected utility-based concepts and Marschak’s framework is shown, and we discuss evaluating short-term reactions of stock market prices to new information as an important domain of valuing others’ information. (shrink)

Many intellectuals scoff at what they call “conspiracy theories.” But two Harvard law professors, Cass Sunstein (now working for the Obama administration) and Adrian Vermeule, go further. They argue in the Journal of Political Philosophy that groups that espouse such theories ought to be infiltrated and undermined by government agents and allies. While some may find this proposal appalling (as indeed we all should), others may find the argument plausible, especially if they have been swayed by the notion that conspiracy (...) theories (or a definable subset thereof), by their nature, somehow or another, do not warrant belief. I will argue that Sunstein and Vermeule’s proposal not only conflicts with the values of an open society, but is also epistemically indefensible. In making my case, I will adopt their favored example, counter-narratives about 9/11. (shrink)

Presumably authoritative sources, such as social scientists who study conspiracy theorists, are generally expected to be logically rigorous, intellectually honest, and unbiased. This chapter suggests that this expectation may not always be justified. Specifically, it exposes a number of significant problems in an attempt by a group of social scientists to defend the (ostensibly) scientific study of conspiracy theorists. First, they misrepresent their own previously stated intentions. Second, they misrepresent a critique of those intentions. Third, they fail completely in their (...) attempt to show that, regarding the inappropriate pathologizing of conspiracy theorists, their critics are guilty as they are. Fourth, they cite seriously flawed studies as though they offered robust findings. And fifth, their criticism of a central distinction, between “generalist” and “particularist” approaches, is based on a misunderstanding. This raises troubling questions: How can we to have confidence in a program of study undertaken, in part, by scientists who get so much wrong? And, to what degree is this an isolated problem? (shrink)

Background In the Netherlands, people can receive (limited) demedicalised assistance in suicide (DAS)—an option less well known than physician-assisted dying (PAD). Aim This study explores which trajectories people take to seek DAS, through open-coding and inductive analysis of in-depth interviews with 17 people who receive(d) DAS from counsellors facilitated by foundation De Einder. Results People sought DAS as a result of current suffering or as a result of anticipating possible prospective suffering. People with current suffering were unable or assumed they (...) would be unable to obtain PAD. For people anticipating possible prospective suffering, we distinguished two trajectories. In one trajectory, people preferred PAD but were not reassured of help by the physician in due time and sought DAS as a backup plan. In the other trajectory, people expressed a preference for DAS mainly as a result of emphasising self-determination, independence, taking their own responsibility and preparing suicide carefully. In all trajectories, dissatisfaction with physician–patient communication—for instance about (a denied request for) PAD or fearing to discuss this—influenced the decision to seek DAS. Conclusions While PAD is the preferred option of people in two trajectories, obtaining PAD is uncertain and not always possible. Dissatisfaction with physician–patient communication can result in the physician not being involved in DAS, being unable to diagnose diseases and offer treatment nor offer reassurance that people seem to seek. We plea for more mutual understanding, respect and empathy for the limitations and possibilities of the position of the physician and the patient in discussing assistance in dying. (shrink)

Die andauernde Faszination des Films liegt nicht zuletzt in seinem Vermögen, Zuschauer_innen zu einer empathischen Reaktion zu bewegen – Filme rufen Gefühle hervor. Der Band betrachtet verschiedene Aspekte dieser Affekte und Emotionen. Neben dem Spielfilm wird dabei auch das bisher in der Diskussion wenig beachtete Genre der Dokumentarfilme analysiert. Die Beiträge aus Philosophie und Filmwissenschaft berufen sich sowohl auf die Tradition der analytischen Philosophie, die bislang eher kognitivistisch orientiert war, als auch auf aktuelle Entwicklungen in der ästhetischen Theorie, die in (...) der phänomenologischen Tradition steht. (shrink)

Nobody knows what's going on -- Belief -- Knowledge -- Contradiction -- Certitude -- At ease with inconceivability -- Chaos -- Consciousness -- Immediacy -- What matters -- Inertia -- Becoming -- Totality.

Bergmann’s rule and Allen’s rule played important roles in mid-twentieth century discussions of adaptation, variation, and geographical distribution. Although inherited from the nineteenth-century natural history tradition these rules gained significance during the consolidation of the modern synthesis as evolutionary theorists focused attention on populations as units of evolution. For systematists, the rules provided a compelling rationale for identifying geographical races or subspecies, a function that was also picked up by some physical anthropologists. More generally, the rules provided strong evidence for (...) adaptation by natural selection. Supporters of the rules tacitly, or often explicitly, assumed that the clines described by the rules reflected adaptations for thermoregulation. This assumption was challenged by the physiologists Laurence Irving and Per Scholander based on their arctic research conducted after World War II. Their critique spurred a controversy played out in a series of articles in Evolution, in Ernst Mayr’s Animal Species and Evolution, and in the writings of other prominent evolutionary biologists and physical anthropologists. Considering this episode highlights the complexity and ambiguity of important biological concepts such as adaptation, homeostasis, and self-regulation. It also demonstrates how different disciplinary orientations and styles of scientific research influenced evolutionary explanations, and the consequent difficulties of constructing a truly synthetic evolutionary biology in the decades immediately following World War II. (shrink)

A long-standing theoretical tradition in clinical psychology and psychiatry sees deliberate self-harm , such as wrist-cutting, as “functional”—a means to avoid painful emotions, for example, or to elicit attention from others. There is substantial evidence that DSH serves these functions. Yet the specific links between self-harm and such functions remain obscure. Why don’t self-harmers use less destructive behaviors to blunt painful emotions or elicit attention? Economists and biologists have used game theory to show that, under certain circumstances, self-harmful behaviors by (...) economic agents and animals serve important strategic goals. In particular, “costly signals” can credibly reveal a “private state” in situations where verbal claims and other “cheap” signals might be disbelieved. Here, DSH is scrutinized using signaling theory, and a variant, the theory of bargaining with private information. The social contexts and associated features of DSH suggest that it might be a costly, and therefore credible, signal of need that compels social partners to respond. (shrink)

Kurtis Hagen argues that early Confucians seek to discourage war by prescribing conditions for just war that are exceedingly difficult to meet. They encourage, instead, a long-term strategy of ameliorating unjust circumstances by leveraging the credibility and influence that stems from consistently practicing genuinely benevolent governance.

Robert Pirsig wrote of Steve Hagen's first book, Why the World Doesn't Seem to Make Sense, "For those who are certain that objectivity and intellect are the ground floor of all knowledge, this can be a valuable trip to the sub-basement." Now, in The Grand Delusion, Hagen drills deeper, into the most basic strengths, assumptions, and limitations of religion and belief, philosophy and inquiry, science, and technology. In doing so, he shines new light on the question Why is (...) there Something rather than Nothing?-and shines this light from an entirely unexpected (and largely unexplored) direction. Using a provocative mix of examples from physics, philosophy, religion, myth, neuroscience, and mathematics-and a clever, shade-throwing Socratic dialogue between Hagen and his foil, "ANYONE"-this book also offers a fresh perspective on other questions that science, philosophy, and religion have long grappled with. Such topics include: · What does it mean to exist? · What is mind? · What constitutes a measurement? · What exactly is motion? Layer by layer, Hagen examines the questions we ask, the way we ask them, the assumptions and beliefs we hold dear, and the ways in which we separate ourselves from the very answers we seek. In the process, he draws on sources that include Huang Po, Richard Feynman, Sir Arthur Eddington, Hui-Neng, Susan B. Anthony, Daniel Dennett, Joseph Campbell, Dogen, Emily Dickinson, Nagarjuna, Ikkyu, William I. McLaughlin, Sam Harris, and Henry David Thoreau. Ultimately, this book reveals how all of these fundamental questions-and many, many more-stem from a single error, a single unwarranted belief, a single Grand Delusion. The Grand Delusion helps readers move past this delusion into insight that can settle these age-old and seemingly intractable questions. (shrink)

We describe an exploratory case study about the applicability of different robotic platforms in an educational context with a child with Down syndrome. The robotic platforms tested are the humanoid robot KASPAR and the mobile robotic platform IROMEC. During the study we observed the effects KASPAR and IROMEC had in helping the child with the development and improvement of her social skills while playing different interactive games with the robots. Conceptually similar play scenarios were performed with both robots and the (...) behaviour of the child was monitored during her interactions with them. (shrink)

The article re-examines the concepts of interpassivity with Pfaller and van Oenen in order to clarify conceptual difficulties and to develop a specific understanding of interpassivity and its counterpart interactivity. Contrary to the philosophers of interpassivity, it is argued that interactivity does not encompass any form of participation. Instead, the current culture of participation and the interpassive retreat are discussed as elements of a specific circular association connecting humans and other entities, or as a form of (quasi-cybernetic) control mechanism in (...) relation to which the occurrences of interpassivity turn out to be different ways to drop out. (shrink)

In den soziologischen, kulturwissenschaftlichen und politisch-theoretischen Diskursen haben die Themen der Subjektivierungsweisen, Singularisierungen, Selbstsetzungsstrategien und Technologien des Selbst in den letzten beiden Dekaden viel Aufmerksamkeit auf sich gezogen. Angesichts dessen stellt die Suche nach „neue[n] Vokabulare[n] und Theorien der Kollektivität“ (so das CfP zu dieser Ausgabe der Zeitschrift) eine wichtige komplementäre Fragerichtung dar. Unser Beitrag will mit der Forschungsperspektive der ‚digitalen Gouvernementalität‘ sowie den Konzepten der ‚Kollektivitätseffekte‘ und der ‚digitalen Methexis‘ (Teilhabe, Partizipation) die Suche nach einem neuen heuristischen und konzeptuellen (...) Rahmen zur Erfassung und kritischen Durchdringung der zugleich individualisierenden und kollektivierenden Phänomene der Digitalität unterstützen. Ausgangspunkt des Beitrages ist die Überlegung, dass sich die Phänomene der Digitalisierung und Digitalität machthistoriographisch mit Foucault als aktuelle Form von Gouvernementalität – genauer: digitale Gouvernementalität – beschreiben lassen, d.h. als spezifisches epistemischpraktisches Ensemble aus Regierungstechnologien, Subjektivierungsweisen und Wissensformen der Digitalität. Unsere grundlegende These ist, dass sich in der Digitalität und digitalisierten Gesellschaft sowohl Regime der verstärkten Individualisierung als auch Regime der Kollektivierung und Kollektivität installieren, wobei erstere immer schon durch letztere eingeholt sind. Die theoretisch-konzeptuelle Herausforderung besteht darin, beide Ausdrucksformen der digitalen Gesellschaft für sich und in ihrer kokonstitutiven Verfasstheit zu begreifen. Wir versuchen damit, Andreas Reckwitz’ Analyse der „Digitalisierung als Singularisierung“ sowohl um eine regierungsanalytische als auch um eine kollektivitätsfokussierte Perspektive zu ergänzen. (shrink)

Why did nineteenth‐century German historians and physicists habitually warn against vices that they believed philosophers in particular embodied: speculation, absence of common sense, and excessive systematizing? Drawing on a rich array of sources, this article interprets this vice‐charging as a rhetorical practice aimed at delineating empirical research from Naturphilosophie and Geschichtsphilosophie as practiced in the heyday of German Idealism. The strawman of “the philosopher” as invoked by historians and physicists served as a negative model for strongly empiricist scholars committed to (...) virtues like precision, thoroughness, and conscientiousness. In their historical narratives, historians and physicists consistently depicted philosophy either as a relic from the past or as a phase that they had virtuously left behind. This boundary work was central to the self‐positioning of both history and physics, which makes clear that the persona of the philosopher mattered not only to philosophers but also to scholars in adjacent disciplines. (shrink)

Tim Blanning & Hagen Schulze: IntroductionJames Sheehan: Art and its Publics, c. 1800Silke Leopold: The Idea of National Opera around 1800John Deathridge: The Invention of German Music, c. 1800Peter Alter: Playing with the Nation: Napoleon and the Culture of NationalismSiegfried Weichlein: Cosmopolitanism, Patriotism, NationalismPeter Mandler: Art in a Cool Climate: The Cultural Policy of the British State in European Context, c. 1780- c. 1850Otto Dann: The Invention of National LanguagesHans-Erich Bödeker: The Debates about Universal History and National History around (...) 1800: A Problem-oriented Historical AttemptVincent Morley: Views of the Past in Irish Vernacular Literature, 1650-1850. (shrink)

In response to several articles on SERRC, I argue that the common pejorative use of the phrase “conspiracy theory” is the fundamental basis for the distinction between generalism and particularism. That is, generalism describes the “conventional wisdom” about conspiracy theories to which particularism is the corrective. Generalism is best understood as the idea that conspiracy theories ought to be dismissed (perhaps even ridiculed) because they are conspiracy theories--for that is the conventional wisdom (as Charles Pigden has maintained). This is not (...) merely to say, vaguely, that such theories have "epistemic defects." Given this definition, particularism, as the rejection of generalism, is true for any definition of "conspiracy theory" for which Watergate would have at one time counted as one--not just for a minimal definition. Rather than being dismissed based on features that apply to conspiracy theories generally (as generalism would have it), each conspiracy theory should be judged on a case-by-case basis according to its own particular merits and demerits. (shrink)

Conspiracy Theories and the Failure of Intellectual Critique argues that conspiracy theories, including those that conflict with official accounts and suggest that prominent people in Western democracies have engaged in appalling behavior, should be taken seriously and judged on their merits and problems on a case-by-case basis. It builds on the philosophical work on this topic that has developed over the past quarter century, challenging some of it, but affirming the emerging consensus: each conspiracy theory ought to be judged on (...) its particular merits and faults. The philosophical consensus contrasts starkly with what one finds in the social science literature. Kurtis Hagen argues that significant aspects of that literature, especially the psychological study of conspiracy theorists, has turned out to be flawed and misleading. Those flaws are not randomly directed; rather, they consistently serve to disparage conspiracy theorists unfairly. This suggests that there may be a bias against conspiracy theorists in the academy, skewing “scientific” results. Conspiracy Theories and the Failure of Intellectual Critique argues that social scientists who study conspiracy theories and/or conspiracy theorists would do well to better absorb the implications of the philosophical literature. (shrink)