In recent years, the public sector in many countries has had difficulty keeping abreast of social problems due to restricted financial resources and limited organizational capacities. As a consequence, entrepreneurs have started to address social welfare issues that the public sector has been unable to tackle with an innovative approach called social enterprise. The authors present research on the future prospects of social enterprise as a sustainable business model for industrialized countries. As there is a lack of historical and current (...) data, the authors aim to contribute to and structure the debate about the potential of the concept. Therefore, the authors provide initial data from a Delphi survey on the future development of social enterprise in a multistakeholder environment. Experts from academia, business, nongovernmental and governmental organizations, social enterprise investors, and social entrepreneurs evaluated 16 projections for the year 2030. Based on these results, the authors present comprehensive scenarios of four different possible developments of the future of social enterprise in Germany. (shrink)

This article summarizes the commentary essay and two research articles comprising the special research forum on “The Social Performance and Responsibilities of Entrepreneurship.” A commentary essay by William J. Baumol addresses the social responsibilities of successful entrepreneurs. A research article by Laura J. Spence examines the social responsibilities of small businesses. A research article by Henning Engelke, Stefanie Mauksch, Inga-Lena Darkow, and Heiko von der Gracht examines scenarios for social enterprises in Germany.

Recension av Lena Millingers _...För det fanns inga barn i Ravensbrück: En berättelse om Gladys och Ivan Neuman_ (Hestra: Isaberg förlag, 2021). 104 s.

This Open Forum contribution critically interrogates the use of space race rhetoric in current discussions about artificial intelligence (AI). According to this rhetoric, similar to the space race of the twentieth century, AI development is portrayed as a rivalry among superpowers where one country will win and reap major benefits, while others will be left behind. Using this rhetoric to frame AI development tends to prioritize narrow and short-term economic interests over broader and longer-term societal needs. Three particularly problematic aspects (...) of using space race narrative in AI discussions are highlighted: first, perceiving technology development globally as a zero-sum game; second, pressuring governments to regulate less; and third, prioritising high technologies over social issues. This contribution invites to challenge underlying political assumptions of the AI space race discourse and to open up conversations about alternative futures. (shrink)

This book draws new connections between twentieth-century German and French film theory and practice and vitalist conceptions of life from biology and philosophy. Inga Pollmann shows how the links between the two created a modernist, experimental, and cinematic strand of vitalism in and around the movie theatre. Articulated by film theorists, filmmakers, biologists and philosophers, this cinematic vitalism maps out connections among human beings, milieus, and technologies that continue to structure our understanding of film.

This book examines philosophical approaches to linguistic vagueness, a puzzling feature of natural language that gives rise to the ancient Sorites paradox and challenges classical logic and semantics. -/- The Sorites, or Paradox of the Heap, consists in three claims: (1) One grain of sand does not make a heap. (2) One billion grains of sand do make a heap. (3) For any two amounts of sand differing by at most one grain: either both are heaps of sand, or neither (...) one is. The third claim is rendered plausible by an initial conviction that vague predicates like ‘heap’ tolerate small changes. However, the repeated application of a tolerance principle to the second claim yields the further proposition that one grain of sand does make a heap – which contradicts claim number one. Consequently, many philosophers reject or modify tolerance principles for vague predicates. -/- Inga Bones reassesses prominent responses to the Sorites and defends a Wittgensteinian dissolution of the paradox. She argues that vague predicates are, indeed, tolerant and discusses how this finding relates to the paradox itself, to the notion of validity and to the concept of a borderline case . (shrink)

On the basis of an interdisciplinary approach linking taxation, marketing, and corporate social responsibility, the present research investigates the effects of media reports on aggressive and responsible corporate tax strategies (CTSs) on corporate success with consumers. By means of two laboratory experiments (N = 150, 360), we analyze the effects of the CTSs on corporate reputation, consumer purchase intention, and the consumer’s willingness to pay. Our results suggest that aggressive CTSs diminish corporate success with consumers, whereas responsible CTSs enhance it. (...) Nevertheless, consumers are not willing to pay a price premium for products sold by responsible tax-planning companies, but rather punish aggressive tax-planning companies through a slightly lower willingness to pay. Finally, consumers’ tax morale and their attitude toward tax avoidance are important moderating variables. Given the growing level of media interest in taxation, our findings are crucial for assessing consumer-related non-tax costs and the benefits of different CTSs. (shrink)

In this article the main focus is to analyse and present the Works of Love by Søren Kierkegaard, and through the critique of Adorno, illustrate the perspective of love that is present in Kierkegaards text, and in doing so I will try to reestablish and widen the concept of charity. I will argue that the lack of a societal surrounding Adorno is highligning, is precisely what makes Kierkegaards concept of love that robust, and it is necessary in the argumentation for (...) establishing a concept of charity that contains equality between human beings. Is the essence of love expressed through our ability to value and treat other human beings in mcuh the same way, to look beyond their individual characteristics and love the person unconditionally? Or is it rather the case that because of the individual characteristics of a human -being, we are capable of loving it? To offer charity, do you then have the ability and will to act according to it, or is charity to be understood primarily in a historical context and at a certain place? These questions will be adressed in this article. (shrink)

In this final response, the author reflects on the recent European elections that favored Euro-skeptic right-wing parties all over Europe. Their Far-Right views blame ‘immigrants’ for the current problems in Europe and challenge institutionalized solidarity. The response, firstly, attacks the dominating discourses in the media which obscure that 75 % of the voters embrace the status quo of free movement and regional citizenship within the EU. Secondly, this final reply connects the move to Far-Right views to general feelings of insecurity (...) that increased in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis. Current scape-goat policies regarding immigrants can be traced to strategies of neighborliness, which in turn reflect deeper social and economic anxieties caused by the withdrawal of state services and the logic of neo-liberal capitalism. (shrink)

Anleitungen zur Selbstperfektionierung wurden geschrieben, um für eine radikale Lebensreform zu werben. Die Kommunikation unter den Reformbefürwortern erfolgte über Schreiben, Lesen und Diskutieren, um Praktiken, Kenntnisse und den Zusammenhalt zu fördern. Da es nur wenigen gelang, sich zeitlebens einem entsagungsvollen Lebensstil zu unterziehen, erwachten immer wieder Bewegungen, die aufs Neue Ängste und Hoffnungen der Menschen artikulierten und zeitgemäße Rezepte für ein glücklicheres Leben lieferten. Ältere Schriften wurden von späteren Generationen verarbeitet und neu interpretiert. Waren die Anleitungen überzeugend, förderten sie über (...) längere Zeit soziokulturelle Prozesse innerhalb der Gesellschaft. Zunächst radikal scheinende Forderungen wurden schließlich allgemein anerkannt. (shrink)

Die über viele Jahrhunderte erteilten Ratschläge zur Askese wurden von denjenigen befolgt, die sich nach Perfektion sehnten und ein ideales Leben im Diesseits wie im Jenseits anstrebten. Dieses menschliche Sehnen ist das eigentliche Movens, das Körper und Geist zu einem asketischen Dasein (ver)führt. Auf die beiden Frauenbewegungen des 3./4. Jahrhunderts und des 12./14. Jahrhunderts trifft dies zu. Die Intensität und Größenordnung dieses Aufbruchs verdanken sie weiblicher Kreativität und Emotionalität, hingebungsvollem Ringen um Gottes Liebe und einer ganz besonderen Spiritualität. Religio bedeutet (...) Bindung an etwas oder an jemanden. Die Religiosae suchten voll Fantasie, Hoffnung und Glauben die Bindung an Christus. Dabei galt immer die Verheißung des Basilius Caesariensis: „Let us die that we may live“. (shrink)

Many philosophical disputes, most prominently disputes in ontology, have been suspected of being merely verbal and hence pointless. My goal in this paper is to offer an account of merely verbal disputes and to address the question of what is problematic with such disputes. I begin by arguing that extant accounts that focus on the semantics of the disputed statement S do not capture the full range of cases as they might arise in philosophy. Moreover, these accounts bring in heavy (...) theoretical machinery. I attempt to show that we can capture the full range of cases with an approach that is theoretically lightweight. This approach explains verbal disputes as a pragmatic phenomenon where parties use the same utterance type S with different speaker’s meaning. Moreover, it provides an answer to the crucial question Jackson’s pragmatic account leaves, at best, highly implicit. Based on my account, we can distinguish between different ways in which disputes can be verbal and different extents to which they are defective. Distinguishing between these varieties of verbalness furthermore allows us to specify what kind of substantive issues remain to be discussed once the linguistic confusion is resolved. (shrink)

Cities and local governments loom large on the sustainability agenda. Networks such as Fair Trade Towns International (FTT) and the Organic Cities Network aim to bring about global policy change from below. Given the new enthusiasm for local approaches, it seems relevant to ask to what extent local groups exercise power and in what form. City networks present their members as “ethical places” exercising _power with_, rather than _power over_ others. The article provides an empirical analysis of the power of (...) FTT and Organic Cities in Germany. In both cases, we found cities that are eager to emphasize their inclusive potential. Their willingness to compromise is demonstrated most illustratively by the fact that several cities are members of both networks: While the FTT campaign aims to address problems of international trade but does not abandon it, Organic Cities advocate for a new localism based on food supply from farmers in the same region. In both cases, city networks use their purchasing power to increase the share of certified products. By doing so, the city networks reproduce privileged positions of consumers benefitting from the global capitalist order (_power over_). However, our analysis revealed that networks also make citizens reflect upon agri-food challenges and allow developing alternatives for more sustainable systems (_power with_). (shrink)

The notion of exemplification is essential for Goodman’s theory of symbols. But Goodman’s account of exemplification has been criticized as unclear and inadequate. He points out two conditions for an object x exemplifying a label y: (C1) y denotes x and (C2) x refers to y. While (C1) is uncontroversial, (C2) raises the question of how “refers to” should be interpreted. This problem is intertwined with three further questions that consequently should be discussed together with it. Are the two necessary (...) conditions (C1) and (C2) conjointly sufficient? Do they amount to a definition of “exemplification”? Which notions of Goodman’s theory are basic, and hence undefined? In this paper, we address these questions and defend a reconstruction of the notion of exemplification that interprets “refers to” in (C2) as exemplificational reference and hence treats “exemplification” as a basic notion of Goodman’s theory. Firstly, we argue that even though the notion of exemplification is not defined, it is still sufficiently clear. This ensures its contribution to Goodman’s theory of symbols. Secondly, we show that our account is plausible as an interpretation of Goodman’s and Elgin’s writings, although it implies that some of Goodman’s theorems about self-reference have to be weakened. Thirdly, we argue that it is the only materially adequate reconstruction of Goodman’s notion of exemplification, whereas the alternative definitional accounts fail. (shrink)

Background: Nurses and physicians in nephrology settings provide care for patients with end-stage kidney disease receiving hemodialysis treatment along a complex illness trajectory. Aim: The aim was to explore physicians’ and nurses’ perspectives on the trajectories toward the end of life involving decisions regarding hemodialysis withdrawal for patients with end-stage kidney disease. Research design and participants: A qualitative research approach was used. Four mixed focus group interviews were conducted with renal physicians (5) and nurses (17) in Sweden. Qualitative content analysis (...) was used to analyse data. Ethical considerations: Ethical approval was obtained (Dnr 2014/304-31). Findings and discussion: Findings illuminated multi-faceted, intertwined processes encompassing healthcare professionals, patients, and family members. The analysis resulted in four themes: Complexities of initiating end-of-life conversations, Genuine attentiveness to the patient’s decision-making process, The challenge awaiting the family members’ processes, and Negotiating different professional responsibilities. Findings showed complexities and challenges when striving to provide good, ethical care which are related to beneficence, nonmaleficence, and self-determination, and which can give rise to moral distress. Conclusion: There are ethical challenges and strains in the dialysis context that healthcare professionals may not always be prepared for. Supporting healthcare professionals in not allowing complexities to hinder the patient’s possibilities for shared decision-making seems important. An open and continual communication, including family meetings, from dialysis initiation could serve to make conversations involving decisions about hemodialysis withdrawal a more natural routine, as well as build up a relationship of trust necessary for the advance care planning about the end of life. Healthcare professionals should also receive support in ethical reasoning to meet these challenges and handle potential moral distress in the dialysis context. (shrink)

This article examines the evolution of Lev P. Karsavin, the connection between the philosopher’s historical perspective and his ontological constructions, his postulation of the personhood principle of being’s organization, and the common mindsets of the philosophy of all-unity. The author of this article distinguishes between reflections on the future found in Karsavin’s pre-emigration work and the image of the future he creates within the framework of the Eurasianist paradigm. This article presents three variants of representation of the future: the universal, (...) the national-cultural, and the state. The author analyzes the image of the future associated with the coming-to-be of the All-One Humanity, its transformation into a truly symphonic person, and show how this image turns into a concept of the future that affirms the self-development of national culture. The prospect of developing Russia-Eurasia as an ideocratic and statist state that acts as a form of manifestation of the national culture represents the final stage of this evolution. (shrink)

ABSTRACT I here explore how an ethics of rhythm can shed light on what promotes and inhibits recognition between people across our vulnerable lives, and the need for a renewal of the philosophy of pedagogy. I argue that philosophy itself has contributed to a certain oblivion regarding how we follow and create rhythmic societies, the need for a more profound and fine-tuned listening attitude as a philosophical-ethical marker, using among others Barthes concept of rhuthmos, Kierkegaards concept of repetition, Herbart’s concept (...) of pedagogical tact and Kristeva’s existential relationship. What forms of imposed rhythms of life can be said to cast light on new ways of living together today? I argue that rhythms affect, shape and set boundaries for interpersonal relationships. Moreover, that they serve as incentives for an ethic, or better; as views, perspectives and concepts to think with when describing the rhythm of the Anthropocene. (shrink)

Contrasting its author’s microhistorical approach with other historical methodologies, especially that of Keith Thomas, Clendinnen praises Kirsten McKenzie’s A Swindler’s Progress: Nobles and Convicts in the Age of Liberty for deftly tying the apparently idiosyncratic stories of a transported convict and the noble family whose scion he impersonated to more pervasive dynamics in nineteenth-century British imperial culture.

World Trade Organization (WTO) Agreement includes the Annex 2 Dispute Settlement Understanding (DSU) that reveals with WTO dispute settlement rules and procedures. The Dispute Settlement Body (DSB) is hereby established to administer these rules and procedures. The article analyses the problematic issues of the direct effect of the DSB decisions in the European Union (EU) legal order. ECJ concluded that an individual does not have the right to challenge, the incompatibility of Community measures with WTO rules, even if the DSB (...) had previously declared the EU legislation to be incompatible with those rules. The position of the ECJ is based on the WTO dispute settlement system specifics—the importance of the negotiation between the parties, even after the DSB decision-making and lack of reciprocity, which means that major commercial partners of the EU does not recognize the direct effect of DSB decisions. (shrink)

Two modes of reasoning are used by humans – the `theoretical' (formal) and the `empirical' (non-formal), the first operating with inside-the-syllogism information, the second utilising out-of-the-syllogism information. Cross-cultural research (since Lévy-Bruhl, and especially after Luria) and developmental research (since Piaget) discovered respectively that members of `traditional' societies and children up to a certain age are able to operate only in the empirical mode.The paper brings together diverse discussions about usage of these modes in actual discourse (Ennis, Johnson-Laird, Moore, Olson, Ong, (...) etc.). It concentrates on contradictory opinions as to whether contemporary individuals after they acquire the formal mode preserve and utilise the empirical mode. In this connection it discusses results of neurological experiments investigating performance in solving syllogisms under conditions of transitory suppression of the left or the right hemisphere (Deglin et al.) which demonstrated that one and the same person, depending on which hemisphere is suppressed, uses both strategies. The activated right hemisphere utilizes the `empirical' pattern, the activated left hemisphere utilizes the `logical' pattern. Thus both mechanisms of reasoning are present in the brain simultaneously, but each of them is controlled by different hemispheres. (shrink)

Sensory dysfunction has been shown to be a part of the pathophysiology of schizophrenia. Nowadays we have an objective, non-invasive tool with which to measure neural manifestations of sensory dysfunction. Defined as time-locked changes to external stimuli in the EEG, event-related potentials (ERPs) provide an objective index of information processing in the human brain. Importantly, ERPs may be analyzed through a variety of approaches such as conventional ERP analysis, analysis in the time-frequency domain, microstate segmentation and topographical analysis, as well (...) as source localisation analysis. Each of the methods gives distinct information; they also supplement each other. Here, an attempt is made to verify the validity of combining different approaches to study sensory dysfunction in neuropsychiatric disorders. For example, the data from a schizophrenic patient and an age- and sex-matched healthy subject generate a picture of the events which emerges after visual, proprioceptive and simultaneous presentation of stimuli in both modalities. This approach, though time-consuming, allows the visualisation of changes appearing in the malfunctioning brain as compared to the healthy brain. These methods could ultimately lead to a better establishment of one or more endophenotypes for the schizophrenic disorders. They might also serve as a way to track changes in response to various medications and therapies. (shrink)

The article follows dynamic changes and evolutions in the history of research theories in the field of humanities. It begins with an analysis of studies on group identity, and drawing from ideas by Ewa Domanska, it employs the metaphor of the see as the space in which one can navigate for new themes and ideas. A special importance is attached to the concept of autobiography, especially in reference to the researcher’s life and experience. Boleslaw Prus’s The Doll and its critical (...) reception offers a good case study to illustrate this approach of analysis which draws on private lives of interpreters and critics. The influence of autobiography on literary theory is analysed using Susan Faludi’s Backlash and In the Darkroom. (shrink)

W tekście poddano analizie wywiady przeprowadzone z czterema uchodźczyniami wojennymi z Ukrainy, które przyjechały do Polski po 24 lutego 2022 r. (z dwoma z nich przeprowadzono wywiad ponownie po roku ich pobytu w Polsce).Autorki tekstu interesował samoopis sytuacji kryzysowej, w jakiej badane się znalazły i jak przedstawiają one radzenie sobie w tej sytuacji, dlatego główną kategorią interpretacyjną uczyniły „radzenie sobie w kryzysie”. Celem badań było dotarcie do obrazu, jakie uchodźczynie mają na swój temat, oraz uchwycenie zachodzących zmian w roku 2022 (...) i 2023 (m.in. jak postrzegają siebie, kontekst wojenny oraz życie w warunkach, do jakich dostosowywały się po ucieczce). Podejście teoretyczne było wielodyscyplinarne, ponieważ oprócz koncepcji psychologicznych związanych z główną kategorią interpretacyjną namysł został dodatkowo oparty na antropologii kulturowej emocji, antropologii doświadczenia, a także etyce troski oraz autoetnografii. (shrink)

In this article the main features and development trends of mediation as an alternative dispute resolution method are analyzed in the legal environment of the Republic of Lithuania. Mediation is analyzed as one of the primary informal alternative dispute resolution processes during which the third neutral, which is not authorized to take a decision during negotiations, helps the parties solve their dispute and the main aim of this process is the peaceful resolution of the dispute and the renewal of social (...) peace between parties. In order to create favourable legal environment for the implementation of mediation process, it is necessary to consolidate the main requirements for the mediation process: requirements for confidentiality, responsibility of mediators, legal power of conciliatory agreements, etc. In this article the legal regulation of mediation in the Republic of Lithuania is described as well. (shrink)

I will present a refutation of 6 and 7 inconsistency claim. Using the proof by Kiessling, I will show that Classical Electrodynamics can be applied consistently and can preserve energy conservation to the problem of charged, accelerated particles. This refutes the core of Frisch's inconsistency claim. Additionally, I will argue that Frisch's proof and the resulting debate is based on a comparison of different, approximate, explicit solutions to the Maxwell–Lorentz equations. However, in order to be informative on the foundations of (...) CED, an analysis would have to be focussed on the Maxwell–Lorentz equations as coupled system of equations. (shrink)

First published in 1984, this is a study of categorization practices: how people categorize each other and their actions; how they describe, infer, and judge. The book presents a sociological analysis and description of practical activities and makes a cogent contribution to the study of how the moral order actually works in practical communicative contexts. Among the issues dealt with are: collectivity categorizations, the organization of lists and descriptions, moral attribution and inferences, and the relationship between standards of morality and (...) standards of rationality. (shrink)

Die Subjektivitat ist das ureigene Grundthema der Phanomenologie. Allerdings kann die Phanomenologie die Subjektivitat nicht zum Thema machen, ohne die Frage nach der Intersubjektivitat zu stellen. Beide Problemfelder sind derart aufeinander bezogen, dass sie nicht unabhangig voneinander behandelt werden konnen. Die Phanomenologie aber eignet sich besonders gut dazu, die Art und Weise der Zusammengehorigkeit von Subjektivitat und Intersubjektivitat zu erforschen, weil sie nicht von vornherein eine ubergreifende Vernunft oder einen allumfassenden Geist zugrunde legt. Vielmehr macht sie gerade die Singularitat des (...) einzelnen Subjekts und sein einmaliges Verhaltnis zu den ebenso singularen Mitsubjekten zum Problem. Diese Einsicht liegt den funfzehn Beitragen des vorliegenden Sammelbandes zugrunde. Dirk Fonfara, Michela Summa, Irene Breuer, Walter Schweidler, Michael Wallner, Alice Pugliese, Meike Siegfried, Anna Orlikowski, Thiemo Breyer, Antonio Cimino, Jesus Guillermo Ferrer Ortega, Christian Rossner, Daniel Biro, Inga Romer und Klaus Held gehen in ihren Beitragen der Frage nach der Subjektivitat und ihrer Bezogenheit auf die Intersubjektivitat aus verschiedenen Perspektiven nach. Dabei kommt immer wieder eine Spannung zwischen den beiden Grundbegriffen zum Vorschein, deren Bedeutung und Reichweite ausgelotet wird. (shrink)

Emotional AI is an emerging technology used to make probabilistic predictions about the emotional states of people using data sources, such as facial (micro)-movements, body language, vocal tone or the choice of words. The performance of such systems is heavily debated and so are the underlying scientific methods that serve as the basis for many such technologies. In this article I will engage with this new technology, and with the debates and literature that surround it. Working at the intersection of (...) criminology, policing, surveillance and the study of emotional AI this paper explores and offers a framework of understanding the various issues that these technologies present particularly to liberal democracies. I argue that these technologies should not be deployed within public spaces because there is only a very weak evidence-base as to their effectiveness in a policing and security context, and even more importantly represent a major intrusion to people’s private lives and also represent a worrying extension of policing power because of the possibility that intentions and attitudes may be inferred. Further to this, the danger in the use of such invasive surveillance for the purpose of policing and crime prevention in urban spaces is that it potentially leads to a highly regulated and control-oriented society. I argue that emotion recognition has severe impacts on the right to the city by not only undertaking surveillance of existing situations but also making inferences and probabilistic predictions about future events as well as emotions and intentions. (shrink)