Scientists cannot devise theories, construct models, propose explanations, make predictions, or even carry out observations, without first classifying their subject matter. The goal of scientific taxonomy is to come up with classification schemes that conform to nature's own. Another way of putting this is that science aims to devise categories that correspond to 'natural kinds.' The interest in ascertaining the real kinds of things in nature is as old as philosophy itself, but it takes on a different guise when one (...) adopts a naturalist stance in philosophy, that is when one looks closely at scientific practice and takes it as a guide for identifying natural kinds and investigating their general features. This Element surveys existing philosophical accounts of natural kinds, defends a naturalist alternative, and applies it to case studies in a diverse set of sciences. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core. (shrink)

The COVID-19 pandemic has caused a record global crisis, particularly and extremely, for the service sectors. Due to extensive security measures, many service sector employees have to work remotely to maintain services. Drawing upon the conservation of resources theory, this research investigates the impact of servant leadership on the task performance of employees in virtual working environments during the COVID-19 crisis. Our theoretical model was tested using data collected from 335 individual employees in the education sector of Pakistan. SPSS version (...) 26.0 was applied to find the hypothesized relationship between the study variables. To find the indirect mediating effect, we applied Model 4; for moderation, we applied Model 1; and for the moderation and mediation effect, we applied Model 7 of the Process Macro model of Hayes. The results of the study revealed that servant leadership is positively related to task performance in a virtual environment during crises. Furthermore, psychological empowerment partially mediates the relationship between servant leadership and task performance. Perceived supervisor support positively moderates the relationship between servant leadership and task performance. Moreover, the indirect effect of servant leadership on task performance via psychological empowerment is moderated by perceived supervisor support. The results provided guidance to the educational sector on how to lead effectively in times of crisis when service sector employees work predominantly in virtual environments. The theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed. (shrink)

Multiple selves is a conventional assumption in behavioural welfare economics for modelling intrapersonal well-being. Yet an important question is which self has normative authority over others. In this paper, we advance an argument for what we call the ‘ontological approach’ to personal identity in behavioural welfare economics. According to this approach, ethical questions – such as which preference should be granted normative authority over another – can be informed by the ontological criterion of personal persistence, which aims at determining what (...) it takes for an individual to persist from one time to another. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Schopenhauer on the Inevitability of Suffering Criticisms of Schopenhauer's Thesis that to Desire Is to Suffer The Unattainability of True Satisfaction The Inevitability of Boredom The Negative Nature of Pleasure and Satisfaction Happiness and Well‐Being Degrees of Unhappiness: The Possibility of Amelioration The Paradox of the Suspension or Negation of the Will The Inevitability of Unhappiness References Further Reading.

Traditionally, consistency is the only criterion for the quality of a theory in logic-based approaches to reasoning about actions. This work goes beyond that and contributes to the metatheory of actions by investigating what other properties a good domain description should have. We state some metatheoretical postulates concerning this sore spot. When all postulates are satisfied we call the action theory modular. Besides being easier to understand and more elaboration tolerant in McCarthy’s sense, modular theories have interesting properties. We point (...) out the problems that arise when the postulates about modularity are violated, and propose algorithmic checks that can help the designer of an action theory to overcome them. (shrink)

Autor analizira nacin na koji se argument prvog okupatora, koji je izvorno artikulisan kao argument u prilog privatnog vlasnistva, u medjunarodnim sporovima koristi kao razlog za dobijanje politicke kontrole nad nekom teritorijom. Autor zakljucuje da se u slucaju spora oko Kosova tim argumentom danas moze zahtevati podela suvereniteta na osnovu podele kosovske teritorije.

Voluntary sustainability standards that establish global rules for firms’ environmental and/or social conduct and allow for verification of firm compliance via third-party certification hold the promise to govern firms’ sustainability conduct in a globalizing world economy. However, the recent proliferation of competing and overlapping global sustainability standards that have been developed by various stakeholders with different agendas, creates uncertainties for firms that likely reduce their propensity to adopt any standard. Without widespread adoption these standards cannot effectively govern firm conduct and (...) in contrast create barriers for firms’ access to export markets. We suggest that the uncertainties associated with competing standards and the effect of these uncertainties on standard certification decisions are especially large for firms in emerging economies because these firms lack access to information about current and future standards and the resources to obtain certifications to multiple standards. We theoretically propose and empirically identify three distinct sources of sustainability standard uncertainty: diversity of customer requirements, dynamism of customer requirements, and the unpredictability of the future evolution of standard and propose that each of these sources reduces firms’ propensity to obtain certification to any standard. Our empirical results based on certifications to food safety standards by a sample of 97 Mexican food exporting firms confirm that three distinct sources of sustainability standard uncertainty exist and that all of them negatively impact certification. We discuss ethical implications and offer recommendations for both suppliers as well as standard setting organizations. (shrink)

The Earth is facing pressing societal grand challenges that require urgent managerial action. Responsible management learning has emerged as a discipline to prepare managers to act as responsible leaders that can effectively address such pressing challenges. This article aims to extend current knowledge on RML in the domain of corporate sustainability through the application of threshold concepts, novel ideas which provide a doorway to new knowledge and transform a learner’s mindset. Specifically, after conducting a systematic review of the management literature, (...) we identify 33 CS threshold concepts that are useful for mainstream managers and practitioners in their RML process. We group them into six CS threshold concept themes that can help managers understand the complexities and interconnectedness that characterize CS. Finally, we map CS threshold concepts with key competences for effective RML. Therefore, our contribution relies on translating existing CS theoretical frameworks into transformative, specific, understandable and applicable pieces of knowledge that might help mainstream managers to embed CS principles in their daily management practices. (shrink)

Saba Mahmood’s anthropological work studies the gain in skills, agency and capacity building by the women’s dawa movement in Egypt. These women increase their virtue toward the goal of piety by following dominant, often patriarchal norms. Mahmood argues that “teleological feminism” ignores this gain in agency because this kind of feminism only focuses on opposition or resistance to these norms. In this paper I defend Mahmood’s “anti-teleological” feminist work from criticisms that her project valorizes oppression and has no vision for (...) a nonoppressive feminist future. I argue the future envisioned by teleological feminists gets caught in “the Hegelian” trap of replicating past oppression in their feminist future. I find in Mahmood’s work the tools to escape this trap. I argue, rather than a movement of overcoming oppression, Mahmood’s work suggests an immanent and creative movement that emphasizes difference for a truly new future. I turn to a Bergsonian metaphor and argue that this movement can be seen as akin to the movement of biological evolution. I conclude using the work of Eve Sedgwick that the Egyptian women that Mahmood studies are being read in a “paranoid” fashion and demonstrate using Leila Ahmed a better “reparative” reading of these women. (shrink)

The main result proved in the paper is that on every recursive structure the intrinsically hyperarithmetical sets coincide with the relatively intrinsically hyperarithmetical sets. As a side effect of the proof an effective version of the Kueker's theorem on definability by means of infinitary formulas is obtained.

We use this editorial essay as a call for a more effective use of new technologies, such as mobile apps and Web 2.0 tools, to educate students and other relevant stakeholders on business ethics, corporate social responsibility, and sustainability topics. We identify three overarching reasons that justify the need for new ways of teaching that further incorporate technology to foster the innovative thinking needed to tackle imminent societal grand challenges such as climate change and increasing inequality. First, we are facing (...) a new generation of millennials and Generation Z students who are digital natives and more likely to search for educational content on their electronic devices. Second, new technologies offer opportunities to reach students globally, helping to democratize education. Third, we posit that the intrinsic characteristics of societal grand challenges, which are complex, uncertain, and evaluative, can benefit from technology as an effective translator of multilayered concepts into more digestible action items. Our essay ends with a brief summary of the four essays included in the thematic symposium: “There is an App for that! The Use of New Technologies and Apps in Ethics, Corporate Social Responsibility and Sustainability Education.”. (shrink)

This article analyzes the adoption of voluntary environmental management programs by firms operating in Mexico. Mexican firms can obtain national certification (Clean Industry) and/or international certification (ISO 14001). Based on institutional entrepreneurship theory, we posit that the role played by first movers as institutional entrepreneurs is crucial if these programs are to become established with sufficient strength and appeal. This understanding is especially important in an environment where more than one program can be adopted. We tested several hypotheses on the (...) behaviors of 1328 facilities operating in Mexico, half of which (664) had certified environmental management programs. Of the 664 certified facilities, 217 were classified as early adopters. Three variables predicted the likelihood of a facility being an early adopter: (1) connected to international market, (2) in the maquila sector, and (3) linked to an industry association that offers free resources. (shrink)

I begin the first part by showing how situationism should make us question traditional understandings of virtues as intrinsic dispositions. I concentrate specifically on situationist experiments related to mood. I then introduce Islamic virtue ethics and the dawa movement. In parts two and three I examine ethnography of the dawa movement to explore how they deal with worries about the influence of mood on their virtue. In part two I show how they train their habits in very traditional virtue ethics (...) ways in order to be more resilient when faced with virtue-diminishing affective situations. In part three I show how the situation, rather than hindering practitioners, is recruited into helping these women achieve piety. I conclude, in part four, by showing the dawa movement's creative use of the Islamic veil as a way to help these women deal with the objection that one cannot avoid all bad situations. Going beyond social psychological experiments, I examine two methodological sources not found in situationist debates. First, I argue for ethnography as an empirical method through which to study virtue. I draw on ethnography of the Islamic women's dawa movement. Secondly, the work in the philosophy of mind on ‘affective scaffolding’. (shrink)

This paper investigates a limitation of the model of belief and knowledge prevailing in mainstream economics, namely the state-space model. Because of its set-theoretic nature, this model has difficulties in capturing the difference between expressions that designate the same object but have different meanings, i.e., expressions with the same extension but different intensions. This limitation generates puzzling results concerning what individuals believe or know about the world as well as what individuals believe or know about what other individuals believe or (...) know about the world. The paper connects these puzzling results to two issues that are relevant for economic theory beyond the state-space model, namely, framing effects and the distinction between the model-maker and agents that appear in the model. Finally, the paper discusses three possible solutions to the limitations of the state-space model, and concludes that the two alternatives that appear practicable also have significant drawbacks. (shrink)

The search for the “furniture of the mind” has acquired added impetus with the rise of new technologies to study the brain and identify its main structures and processes. Philosophers and scientists are increasingly concerned to understand the ways in which psychological functions relate to brain structures. Meanwhile, the taxonomic practices of cognitive scientists are coming under increased scrutiny, as researchers ask which of them identify the real kinds of cognition and which are mere vestiges of folk psychology. Muhammad (...) Ali Khalidi presents a naturalistic account of “real kinds” to validate some central taxonomic categories in the cognitive domain, including concepts, episodic memory, innateness, domain specificity, and cognitive bias. He argues that cognitive kinds are often individuated relationally, with reference to the environment and etiology of the thinking subject, whereas neural kinds tend to be individuated intrinsically, resulting in crosscutting relationships among cognitive and neural categories. (shrink)

In her book Democracy and Truth: The Conflict between Political and Epistemic Virtues, Snjezana Prijic Samarzija advocates a stance that not only political, but also epistemic values are necessary for justification of democracy. Specifically, she mounts defense for one particular type of public deliberation on epistemic grounds. In this paper, I will discuss the following issue: What connects this type of public deliberation to the wider context of justification of democracy? I will attempt to explain why Prijic Samarzija's stance can (...) be understood as a version of deliberative epistemic instrumentalism and to discuss the role played by the public deliberation within this framework. (shrink)

Philosophical feminism is the only coherent philosophy with universal implications that provides a theoretical alternative to patriarchal thought and sociopolitical structures. I distinguish between a patriarchal logic of power and a feminist logic of pleasure that leads to an enlightened ethical hedonism, a pleasure-centered, feminist ethical framework based on a cooperative rather than authoritarian model of social relations.

Several independent lines of research in neurobiology seem to support the phenomenologically-grounded view of the dreaming brain/mind as a useful model for psychosis. Hallucinatory phenomena and thought disorders found in psychosis share several peculiarities with dreaming, where internally generated, vivid sensorimotor imagery along with often heightened and incongruous emotion are paired with a decrease in ego functions which ultimately leads to a severe impairment in reality testing. Contemporary conceptualizations of severe mental disorders view psychosis as one psychopathological dimension that may (...) be found across several diagnostic categories. Some experimental data have shown cognitive bizarreness to be equally elevated in dreams and in the waking cognition of acutely psychotic subjects and in patients treated with pro-dopaminergic drugs, independent of the underlying disorder. Further studies into the neurofunctional underpinnings of both conditions will help to clarify the use and validity of this model. (shrink)

While agreeing with Bernard Reginster that Nietzsche's advocacy of the will to power as a psychological thesis is much more fundamental than his extension of it as a cosmological or metaphysical thesis, I criticize him for failing to support this interpretation, and I attempt to supply an analysis that does support it. Then, I take issue with the common tendency to sanitize Nietzsche's theory of the will to power, to make it more palatable—and with Reginster's treatment of this issue. This (...) leads me to an examination of Nietzsche's conception of power—and a critique of Reginster's account of it. (shrink)

Why the social ontology uses the game as paradigmatic example of social object? Is social reality a game? In this short essay, shared characteristics and differences of ludic and social acts are explored to explode the myth of the normative structure of social reality. In order to explain and demonstrate their theories, major authors of our research sector as Searle and Smith appeal to ludic phenomenons as unmistakable evidences of regulated social activities. Nevertheless well valued theorists don’t recognize that there (...) are tens of different typologies of games, about which it should be appropriate to draw up a regional ontology, as much there are tons of rule types, not always prescriptive and not always descriptive. The instant article demonstrates that social reality is not explainable by appealing to regulated behaviors, opening in this way a research context that involves the Interactive Fiction of play. Therefore the ludic phenomenon rests the base of social reality, however disconnecting it from the concept of rule, which too much influenced the research on mind, language and culture. (shrink)

In this response to three critiques of my book, Cognitive ontology, I expand on some of its main themes. First, I demarcate the domain of cognition to support my claim that it is properly investigated from Marr's computational level. Then, I defend the claim that cognitive kinds ought to be individuated externalistically, by contrast with neural kinds, which are often individuated internalistically. This implies that the relationship between the cognitive sciences is one of delivering mutual constraints, which is a more (...) productive research strategy than the search for “neural correlates” of cognitive constructs. (shrink)

Karl Polanyi’s scholarship is interpreted in radically different ways. The “hard” reading of Polanyi sees him as a radical socialist; the “soft” reading presents him as a theorist of mixed economy. This article sides with the soft interpretation. It uses Polanyi’s biography to explain his theoretical “elusiveness,” presents a novel interpretation of his three types of economic integration, claiming all economies are “mixed.” While it acknowledges Polanyi as one of the major sources of world system theory, it claims that Polanyi (...) saw not only the dangers, but also the necessity and positive consequences of globalization. Finally, it shows that, in spite of Polanyi’s life-long commitment to the political left, his scholarly work did not offer an apology of socialism. Instead this article uses Polanyi’s theory of economic integration to build a critical political economy of state socialism. (shrink)

Na početku članka daje se kratki pregled razvoja pojma trajanja u Bergsonovima djelima, s posebnim osvrtom na njegova djela Durée et simultanéité i Essai sur les données immédiates. Poslije toga izlaže se Bergsonovo poimanje teorije relativnosti i problema s njome povezanih, primjerice: problem istovremenosti teorije relativnosti i intuitivne ili apsolutne istovremenosti, potom problem referentnih sustava, problem jedinstvenoga vremena i mnoštva vremenâ, stvarnog vremena i simboličkog ili konvencionalnog vremena. U tom su smislu istaknute i neke važnije misli iz rasprave između Bergsona (...) i Einsteina, koja je bila 6. travnja 1922. godine. Na koncu se daje kratki pregled prosudaba i rasprava koje su pratile Bergsonovo tumačenje teorije relativnosti.The author presents a study on the meaning of duration and time in Bergson’s works Durée etsimultanéité and Essai sur les données immédiates de la conscience. It explains Bergson’s conceptof the theory of relativityand the difficulties relatedto it, such as: the theory of relativity’smeaningof coincidence and intuitive or absolute coincidence; difficulties regardingsupportingsystems,problemsof single time and multiple times, realtime and symbolic or conventionaltime.In this sense some important thoughts areemphasized regardingthe discussion betweenBergsonand Einstein, held on 6th April1922. It concludes with a brief overview of the evaluationsand discussions that accompanied Bergson’sexplanation of the theory of relativity. (shrink)

The paper reconstructs the connections between the evolution of Patrick Suppes’ measurement theory from 1951 to 1958 and the research in utility analysis he conducted between 1953 and 1957 within the Stanford Value Theory Project. In particular, the paper shows that Suppes’ superseding of the classical understanding of measurement, his endorsement of the representational view of measurement, and his conceiving of an axiomatic version of the latter were prompted by his research in utility analysis.

In this paper, we propose the introduction of a neutrosophic chi-square-test for consistency, incorporating neutrosophic statistics. Our aim is to modify the existing chi-square -test for consistency in order to analyze imprecise data. We present a novel test statistic for the neutrosophic chi-square -test for consistency, which accounts for the uncertainties inherent in the data. To evaluate the performance of the proposed test, we compare it with the traditional chi-square -test for consistency based on classical statistics. By conducting a comparative (...) analysis, we assess the efficiency and effectiveness of our proposed neutrosophic chi-square-test for consistency. Furthermore, we illustrate the application of the proposed test through a numerical example, demonstrating how it can be utilized in practical scenarios. Through this implementation, we aim to provide empirical evidence of the improved performance of our proposed test when compared to the traditional chi-square-test for consistency based on classical statistics. We anticipate that the proposed neutrosophic chi-square-test for consistency will outperform its classical counterpart, offering enhanced accuracy and reliability when dealing with imprecise data. This advancement has the potential to contribute significantly to the field of statistical analysis, particularly in situations where data uncertainty and imprecision are prevalent. (shrink)