French philosopher Louis Pierre Althusser (1918 -1990) helped define the politico-theoretical conjuncture of pre- and post-1968. Today, there is a recrudescence of interest in his thought, especially in light of his later work, published in English as Philosophy of the Encounter (Verso, 2006). This has led to renewed debates on the reformulation of conflicting notions of materialism, on the event as both philosophical concept and political construction, and on the nature of politics and the political. These original essays by leading (...) scholars aim to provide a new assessment of Althusser's thought, especially in relation to contemporary debates. Organized in four sections that represent the main currents in Althusser's scholarship, the book discusses materialism and the different formulations of the relationship between politics and philosophy, Althusser's interpretations of political thinkers (including Machiavelli, Deleuze and Gramsci), the resources he provides to critique political economy and politics in post-Marxist thought, and the theorization of ideology and politics. Encountering Althusser is a groundbreaking resource that highlights Althusser's continuing relevance to contemporary radical thought. (shrink)

Recent research on moral decision-making has suggested that many common moral judgments are based on immediate intuitions. However, some individuals arrive at highly counterintuitive utilitarian conclusions about when it is permissible to harm other individuals. Such utilitarian judgments have been attributed to effortful reasoning that has overcome our natural emotional aversion to harming others. Recent studies, however, suggest that such utilitarian judgments might also result from a decreased aversion to harming others, due to a deficit in empathic concern and social (...) emotion. The present study investigated the neural basis of such indifference to harming using functional neuroimaging during engagement in moral dilemmas. A tendency to counterintuitive utilitarian judgment was associated both with ‘psychoticism’, a trait associated with a lack of empathic concern and antisocial tendencies, and with ‘need for cognition’, a trait reflecting preference for effortful cognition. Importantly, only psychoticism was also negatively correlated with activation in the subgenual cingulate cortex (SCC), a brain area implicated in empathic concern and social emotions such as guilt, during counterintuitive utilitarian judgments. Our findings suggest that when individuals reach highly counterintuitive utilitarian conclusions, this need not reflect greater engagement in explicit moral deliberation. It may rather reflect a lack of empathic concern, and diminished aversion to harming others. (shrink)

Bei geriatrischen, oral ernährten Patienten mit Dysphagie entstehen insbesondere bei der Kostformanpassung ethische Konflikte. Die Abwägung zwischen Aspirationsrisiko und Lebensqualität fällt oft zugunsten der Fürsorge – also einer Risikominimierung – aus, Autonomie und das Nicht-Schadens-Prinzip werden in den Entscheidungen weniger beachtet.Ziel dieser Studie war die Erfassung relevanter Aspekte aus der Patienten- und Angehörigenperspektive bezüglich der Abwägungen zwischen Aspirationsrisiko und Lebensqualität. Zudem wurde die Erprobung des im Rahmen der Studie entwickelten Interviewleitfadens und die Entwicklung von Hypothesen für weiterführende Studien angestrebt. Acht (...) geriatrische Patienten mit leicht- bis schwergradiger Dysphagie und mindestens einer Woche stark adaptierter Kost sowie vier Angehörige wurden in halbstandardisierten, problemzentrierten Interviews befragt. Die Auswertung erfolgte auf Basis der qualitativen Inhaltsanalyse nach Mayring. Die problemzentrierten Interviews und der Interviewleitfaden erwiesen sich als geeignetes Instrument, das individuelle Erleben der Situation differenziert zu erfassen. Es konnte ein breit gefächertes Spektrum möglicher Hintergründe zu Risiko-Lebensqualitäts-Gewichtungen und ethischen Konfliktsituationen gefunden werden, die im Rahmen der Kostformadaption eine Rolle spielen. Diese wurden in drei Hauptkategorien zusammengefasst: Aspekte für eine höhere Risikotoleranz, Aspekte für eine niedrigere Risikotoleranz, Aspekte für die Instabilität von Entscheidungen.Die gewonnenen Kategorien geben einen ersten Überblick über die komplexen Einflüsse auf Risiko-Lebensqualitäts-Abwägungen oral ernährter, alter Menschen mit Dysphagie. Die Ergebnisse können ein Ausgangspunkt für weiterführende Studien mit einer größeren Fallzahl bilden und auf dieser Basis zur Entwicklung eines Orientierungsrahmens für Kostformentscheidungen in der geriatrischen Dysphagietherapie beitragen. (shrink)

This volume brings together contributions from distinguished scholars in the history of philosophy, focusing on points of interaction between discrete historical contexts, religions, and cultures found within the premodern period. The contributions connect thinkers from antiquity through the Middle Ages and include philosophers from the three major monotheistic faiths-Judaism, Islam, and Christianity. By emphasizing premodern philosophy's shared textual roots in antiquity, particularly the writings of Plato and Aristotle, the volume highlights points of cross-pollination between different schools, cultures, and moments in (...) premodern thought. Approaching the complex history of the premodern world in an accessible way, the editors organize the volume so as to underscore the difficulties the premodern period poses for scholars, while accentuating the fascinating interplay between the Greek, Hebrew, Arabic, and Latin philosophical traditions. The contributors cover many topics ranging from the aims of Aristotle's cosmos, the adoption of Aristotle's Organon by al-Farabi, and the origins of the Plotiniana Arabica to the role of Ibn Gabirol's Fons vitae in the Latin West, the ways in which Islamic philosophy shaped thirteenth-century Latin conceptions of light, Roger Bacon's adaptation of Avicenna for use in his moral philosophy, and beyond. The volume's focus on "source-based contextualism" demonstrates an appreciation for the rich diversity of thought found in the premodern period, while revealing methodological challenges raised by the historical study of premodern philosophy. Contextualizing Premodern Philosophy: Explorations of the Greek, Hebrew, Arabic, and Latin Traditions is a stimulating resource for scholars and advanced students working in the history of premodern philosophy. (shrink)

Examining movement learning though Piercean semiotics, this article affirms the basic embodied notion that to utilize one’s body constitutes a form of thought. Through a case study that focuses on theorization of skilled movement in a Japanese martial art that has been transported into North America, I examine processes involved in somatic learning, including both ontological as well as epistemological aspects. I suggest that embodied skills are passed on through story telling, rather than through more conventional models of “passing down (...) information.” Learning somatic skills, or learning more generally, can thereby be conceptualized as a process of attuning judgment, in contrast to acquiring a set of internalized representations about the world. (shrink)

Concept properties are an integral part of theories of conceptual representation and processing. To date, little is known about conceptual properties of abstract concepts, such as idea. This experiment systematically compared the content of 18 abstract and 18 concrete concepts, using a feature generation task. Thirty‐one participants listed characteristics of the concepts (i.e., item properties) or their relevant context (i.e., context properties). Abstract concepts had significantly fewer intrinsic item properties and more properties expressing subjective experiences than concrete concepts. Situation components (...) generated for abstract and concrete concepts differed in kind, but not in number. Abstract concepts were predominantly related to social aspects of situations. Properties were significantly less specific for abstract than for concrete concepts. Thus, abstractness emerged as a function of several, both qualitative and quantitative, factors. (shrink)

Academic publications of empirical public health research often entail recommendations for moral action that address practitioners and policy makers. These recommendations are regularly based on implicit moral judgments with the underlying reasons not explicitly stated. In this paper, we elaborate on the moral relevance of such judgments and the need to explain them in order to account for academic argumentation. We argue for an explicit reporting of bridge principles to increase the transparency of the reporting of public health research. The (...) reporting of bridge principles can inform readers, support them in understanding the relationship between empirical and normative claims in a specific paper, and may pave new ways for the rigorous reporting of empirical research that has moral implications. Furthermore, it can be used to classify studies to systematically address the justification for their argumentation. (shrink)

This article deploys Peircean approach to bodily skills, foregrounding motricity as a semiotically mediated and a “suprasubjective” process. By examining two contrasting skills – javelin and martial arts – I draw out the relevance of dynamic movement to the semiotics of sport and embodiment. These contrasting movements expose different epistemological assumptions since they emerge in distinct cultural traditions. To attend to the cultural dimension of movement practices – including the mediation of signs making certain movement forms seem reasonable or desirable (...) in the first place – I highlight ecological dimensions of each somatic tradition. This ecological focus aligns with Peirce’s project of tracking how semiotic signs are positioned and mediated. To make ecological factors of motricity more recognizable, I contrast somatic engagements that take place on synthetic, predictable substrates and somatic engagements that take place on variable, unpredictable ground. In a similar way to the classic gestalt figure-ground relations, where perception of a figure depends on the particulars of the ground, I suggest that the ground upon which somatic action occurs shapes the way we make sense of it epistemologically. These different grounds – both literally and figuratively – operate representationally via thirdness: they lead us to conceptualize movement in culturally and historically particular ways. (shrink)

Journal of Philosophy of Education, Volume 56, Issue 2, Page 329-341, April 2022.

The threat simulation theory of dreaming states that dream consciousness is essentially an ancient biological defence mechanism, evolutionarily selected for its capacity to repeatedly simulate threatening events. Threat simulation during dreaming rehearses the cognitive mechanisms required for efficient threat perception and threat avoidance, leading to increased probability of reproductive success during human evolution. One hypothesis drawn from TST is that real threatening events encountered by the individual during wakefulness should lead to an increased activation of the system, a threat simulation (...) response, and therefore, to an increased frequency and severity of threatening events in dreams. Consequently, children who live in an environment in which their physical and psychological well-being is constantly threatened should have a highly activated dream production and threat simulation system, whereas children living in a safe environment that is relatively free of such threat cues should have a weakly activated system. We tested this hypothesis by analysing the content of dream reports from severely traumatized and less traumatized Kurdish children and ordinary, non-traumatized Finnish children. Our results give support for most of the predictions drawn from TST. The severely traumatized children reported a significantly greater number of dreams and their dreams included a higher number of threatening dream events. The dream threats of traumatized children were also more severe in nature than the threats of less traumatized or non-traumatized children. (shrink)

We present a method for improving local coherence in German with a positive effect on automatically as well as human-generated texts. We demonstrate that local coherence crucially depends on which constituent occupies the initial position in a sentence. To support our hypothesis, we provide statistical evidence based on a corpus investigation and on results of an experiment with human judges. Additionally, we implement our findings in a generation module for determining the Vorfeld constituent automatically.

Using lens- and time-based media — photography and very still moving image — the artistic research practice presented here as ‘phenomenological notes’ aims to bring to the foreground that which might be familiar and is easily overlooked. The presupposed perception of the phenomenon of nature is destabilized and put into question through a process of lens-based durational observation, stretching that which is thought to be known, allowing for the opening of other understandings of nature to emerge. The aim is for (...) these phenomena to be re-seen through closely engaging with what surrounds us and through a process of elongated looking that leads to different modes of seeing and recollecting. The practice itself comprises two distinct, seemingly opposed but interdependent parts of the overall making process: one foregoes the other which is essential for the other one to evolve. These parts are referred to as modes of attention. The first mode of attention demonstrates a more active form of being in a space: the artist actively moves, seeks, and collects. Following on from this, a less active mode is taken up: the artist becomes more receptive, lets the world reveal and unfold itself in front of the lens. The three pieces of work presented — Stille Fragmente, Leaves, Ice melting — give expression to these two modes of attention, and also show how the work has evolved throughout ‘time’. As the work has developed, the process of looking has become more and more distilled, lending more attention to the idea of duration, a concept that might be somewhat contentious to discuss via a medium so clearly associated with clock-time. The decision has been made to trust the agencies of the artifacts themselves produced by this process: not to explain but to frame the phenomenon, to destabilize the pre-established understanding of the phenomenon of nature. (shrink)

Der Artikel zeigt, dass der Einsatz von Spielfilmen in der Lehre sinnvoll sein kann, um Studierende an komplexe bioethische Themen heranzuführen und moralische Dilemmata zu diskutieren. Zunächst werden Funktion und Bedeutung des audiovisuellen Mediums (Spiel-)Film als Mittel zur ethischen Urteilsbildung reflektiert. Anhand von zwei Sequenzanalysen des Films GATTACA, in denen die gesellschaftlichen Konsequenzen gen- und reproduktionstechnologischer Entwicklungen in Bezug auf Zeugung und Familienplanung sowie veränderte Verwandtschafts- und Freundschaftsbeziehungen dargestellt sind, wird exemplarisch gezeigt, welche ethischen Fragen in welcher Art und Weise (...) hier thematisiert werden. Unter Bezugnahme auf das Ethische Reflexionsmodell von Marianne Rabe wird abschließend veranschaulicht, wie sich filmische Fälle praktisch in die Ethiklehre integrieren lassen. (shrink)

In this article, we make the case for corpus-based metonymy analysis and show that many interesting linguistic and statistical questions can only be answered byworking with real texts. To facilitate such studies, we present a method for annotating metonymies in domain- and genre-independent text. We advocate an annotation scheme that builds on regularities in metonymic usage, that takes underspecification in metonymic reference into account, and that is organized hierarchically. We combine previous metonymy classification proposals with insights from a corpus study (...) to present a fullyworked-out annotation scheme for location names, illustrating the previously mentioned principles.We present several experiments measuring annotation agreement and show that the annotation scheme is reliable and has wide coverage. We also provide a gold standard for annotations of this kind consisting of 2,000 annotated occurrences of country names in the British National Corpus.We use the resulting corpus to study metonymy distributions and the factors that influence the choice of literal versus metonymic readings in real texts. (shrink)

In the context of late capitalism, cultural producers have contributed to the process of precarisation by embracing ideas of autonomy, concomitantly contributing to neoliberal policies and political-economy. I scrutinise the claim for the autonomy of the arts in Eastern Europe, a context that exemplifies the transition from socialism to the neoliberal era. The analysis foregrounds the precarious working conditions of cultural producers during the transition from self-managed socialism to the independent nation-state of Slovenia. In Slovenia, the precarisation of artists had (...) already begun in the 1980s when the socialist government implemented the Law for the Independent Cultural Workers, still in place today. I demonstrate that cultural producers address their working conditions in ideological terms, instead of approaching them in terms of class relations that govern cultural production. Hence, the claim for autonomy is a strategically misguided response to the dismantling of the welfare state. (shrink)

(German abstract below) -/- What do we mean by ‚negligence‘ and why are we responsible for our negligent actions? This book reconstructs our linguistic, moral and legal usage of the concept of negligence and demonstrates that there is an overarching, intrinsically normative concept underlying our evaluative practices of ascribing negligence. Philosophical action theory provides the means to spell out the conditions under which can speak of ‘negligent actions’. In line with Joseph Raz the author concludes that to solve the ‘problem (...) of negligence’, i.e. to justify moral and legal responsibility for all cases of negligence we have to take recourse to a specific conception of an agent’s ‘rational functioning’. – The author has graduated in law and philosophy and works on questions of practical philosophy, especially in ethics and philosophy of law. == Was verstehen wir unter ‚Fahrlässigkeit‘ und warum sind wir für fahrlässiges Handeln verantwortlich? Dieses Buch führt praktische Philosophie und Rechtsphilosophie zusammen und zeigt anhand der Rekonstruktion unserer alltagssprachlichen, moralischen, delikts- und strafrechtlichen Verwendungsweisen des Fahrlässigkeitsbegriffs, dass unserer evaluativen und normativen Praxis ein einheitlicher, intrinsisch normativer Begriff von Fahrlässigkeit zugrunde liegt. -/- Mit den Mitteln der analytischen Handlungstheorie werden die Bedingungen herausgearbeitet, unter denen man von einer ‚fahrlässigen Handlung‘ sprechen kann. Zur Lösung des ‚Problems der Fahrlässigkeit‘, d. h. zur Rechtfertigung moralischer und rechtlicher Verantwortlichkeit für alle Fallgruppen von Fahrlässigkeit, ist – so das Ergebnis im Anschluss an Joseph Raz – der Rekurs auf eine bestimmte Konzeption rationaler Funktionsfähigkeit von Akteuren erforderlich. -/- Die Verfasserin verfügt über rechtswissenschaftliche und philosophische Studienabschlüsse und arbeitet zu Fragen der praktischen Philosophie, insbesondere in der Ethik und der Rechtsphilosophie. -/- Das Werk ist Teil der Reihe Fundamenta Juridica, Band 64. (shrink)

Based on three empirical studies, this research sets out to conceptualise and subsequently operationalise the construct of consumer perceived ethicality (CPE) of a company or brand. Study 1 investigates consumer meanings of the term ethical and reveals that, contrary to philosophical scholars' exclusively consequentialist or nonconsequentialist positions, consumers' ethical judgments are a function of both these evaluation principles, illustrating that not any one scholarly definition of ethics alone is capable of capturing the content domain. The resulting conceptualisation identifies six key (...) themes explicating the construct. Building upon these findings, studies 2 and 3 were conducted to operationalise CPE. Such operationalisation is an essential prerequisite for future explorations and theory development given the absence of a suitable tool to capture and quantify the strength and direction of CPE. The key focus was on developing a valid and reliable multi-item measurement tool that is practical, parsimonious and easy to administer. The scale's general applicability allows deployment in academic and business contexts as well as different research areas and doing thus facilitates the much-needed theory building in this new research area. (shrink)

This research investigates how consumers’ ethical brand perceptions are affected by differentially valenced information. Drawing on literature from person-perception formation and using a sequential, mixed method design comprising qualitative interviews and two experiments with a national representative population sample, our findings show that only when consumers perceive their judgment of a brand’s ethicality to be pertinent, do they process information holistically and in line with the configural model of impression formation. In this case, negative information functions as a diagnostic cue (...) to form an unethical brand perception, irrespective of other positive information at hand. However, in the case where processing relevance of the un/ethical information provided is low, brand perception formation is algebraic, in which case positive information can counterbalance and neutralize the detrimental impact of brand misbehavior. Our findings extend existing research on consumer perceived ethicality as well as consumer reactions to corporate social responsibility and sustainability initiatives, which has so far assumed the asymmetric impact of negative information on ethical perceptions and consumer attitudes to be prevalent. We derive a range of academic and managerial implications and present a number of important avenues for future research. (shrink)

We propose a step‐by‐step methodological framework of translational bioethics that aims at changing medical practice according to normative–ethical requirements, which we will thus call “transformative medical ethics.” The framework becomes especially important when there is a gap between widely acknowledged, ethically justified normative claims and their realization in the practice of biomedicine and technology (ought–is gap). Building on prior work on translational bioethics, the framework maps a process with six different phases and 12 distinct translational steps. The steps involve various (...) research activities including conceptual philosophical inquiry and (socio‐)empirical research. On the one hand, the framework can be used as a heuristic tool to identify barriers to the transformation process. On the other hand, it can provide guidance for researchers and practitioners to develop appropriate (conceptual action and practice) models, which are then implemented and evaluated in specific practice contexts. We use the example of realizing the norm of respect for autonomy in the practice of medical decision‐making to illustrate the framework. Further research is required, for example, to theoretically underpin the framework, to apply it to other ought–is gaps, and to evaluate its feasibility and effectiveness in various practice areas. Overall, the framework of transformative medical ethics suggests a strategic process to investigate and promote practice change that is ethically informed in all phases. (shrink)

In this article, we investigate the ethical conditions of online education by extending Levinas’ concept of the ‘face’. Considering the ‘face’ of the other raises the question of what it is we see when communicating online—is it the face of the other, or something else? How does this perception constitute the other for ‘me’? Can we access the ethical dimension of experience in online communication? To describe the ‘face’ we encounter in online educational settings, we introduce the concept of ‘interface’: (...) the presentation of the other in something other than their body. We argue that in online settings, the interface becomes the entry point for ethical pedagogy. Importantly, we do not argue that online teaching is preferable to other forms of teaching. Instead, we aim at sharpening the view of the limits and possibilities of online teaching. (shrink)

Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 The nature and the role of sensation sit at the heart of classic enlightenment debates about the nature of knowledge. While these debates, in their modern form, came into being several hundred years ago, many key words from them remain with us today. As a result, a number of culturally particular assumptions also remain as part of the semantic composition of these words. In the following, we examine such assumptions, particularly in (...) relation to sensoriality. We contrast the classic empiricist and rationalist views on sensation, including their broader epistemological stakes, and bring forth a third account through Peircean semiotics. We suggest that the classic debate between rationalists and empiricists can be re-examined by asking how repetition exists in the world. By thinking about the ontology of repetition, and by highlighting some of the basic semiotic principles of this, we suggest that sensoriality needs to be recognized as a dynamical system rather than a system that exists for the documenting of "what there is". In this account, neither sensoriality nor the nature of existence, including the physical world, are anchored toward absolutes on any level. This point, however, does not lead us toward rationalist claims about the non-importance of senses or the body, but toward recognition that while patterns and stability play a significant role in living systems, there is always room for plasticity and open-endedness. It is in this space between stability and change, where meaning is brought into being. Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Klio Jahrgang: 96 Heft: 1 Seiten: 236-242.

Definition of the problemThe upcoming reforms according to the specifications of the Master Plan 2020 provide for a competency-oriented restructuring of medical studies. This article aims to develop perspectives on how teaching ethics in medical studies can be more strongly oriented at building competencies. In this way, it pursues the goal of making the concept of competency more tangible for medical ethics and usable for the design of medical ethics education.ArgumentsWe understand competencies as dispositions for actions that enable problem solving. (...) By transferring the concept of moral intelligence to the moral actions of physicians in patient care, we specify five ethical–moral competencies that must be present for morally appropriate, ethically reflected actions by future physicians: (1) the ability to form a professional moral compass, (2) the willingness to align oneself with professional ethical norms and values, (3) the ability to perceive moral dimensions of medical action, (4) the ability to make moral judgments based on ethical considerations about the right action, and (5) the willingness to realize ethically justified action. We illustrate their importance for teaching medical ethics using the example of teaching clinical ethics in medical studies.ConclusionOur conceptualization of moral–ethical competencies can be used to design concrete courses in a competency-oriented way. Our approach could be applied analogously to other areas of teaching ethics in health care. (shrink)

More and more findings suggest a tight temporal coupling between (non-linguistic) socially interpreted context and language processing. Still, real-time language processing accounts remain largely elusive with respect to the influence of biological (e.g., age) and experiential (e.g., world and moral knowledge) comprehender characteristics and the influence of the ‘socially interpreted’ context, as for instance provided by the speaker. This context could include actions, facial expressions, a speaker’s voice or gaze, and gestures among others. We review findings from social psychology, sociolinguistics (...) and psycholinguistics to highlight the relevance of (the interplay between) the socially interpreted context and comprehender characteristics for language processing. The review informs the extension of an extant real-time processing account (already featuring a coordinated interplay between language comprehension and the non-linguistic visual context) with a variable (‘ProCom’) that captures characteristics of the language user and with a first approximation of the comprehender’s speaker representation. Extending the CIA to the sCIA (social Coordinated Interplay Account) is the first step toward a real-time language comprehension account which might eventually accommodate the socially situated communicative interplay between comprehenders and speakers. (shrink)

Background Decisions on limiting life-sustaining treatment for patients in the vegetative state (VS) are emotionally and morally challenging. In Germany, doctors have to discuss, together with the legal surrogate (often a family member), whether the proposed treatment is in accordance with the patient's will. However, it is unknown whether family members of the patient in the VS actually base their decisions on the patient's wishes. Objective To examine the role of advance directives, orally expressed wishes, or the presumed will of (...) patients in a VS for family caregivers' decisions on life-sustaining treatment. Methods and sample A qualitative interview study with 14 next of kin of patients in a VS in a long-term care setting was conducted; 13 participants were the patient's legal surrogates. Interviews were analysed according to qualitative content analysis. Results The majority of family caregivers said that they were aware of aforementioned wishes of the patient that could be applied to the VS condition, but did not base their decisions primarily on these wishes. They gave three reasons for this: (a) the expectation of clinical improvement, (b) the caregivers' definition of life-sustaining treatments and (c) the moral obligation not to harm the patient. If the patient's wishes were not known or not revealed, the caregivers interpreted a will to live into the patient's survival and non-verbal behaviour. Conclusions Whether or not prior treatment wishes of patients in a VS are respected depends on their applicability, and also on the medical assumptions and moral attitudes of the surrogates. We recommend repeated communication, support for the caregivers and advance care planning. (shrink)

The present study was conducted with the aim of constructing and validating a short form of the Profile of Mood States. The POMS is a widely-applied measure for the assessment of an individual's mood. Thus, it is of great relevance for many research questions in clinical and social psychology. To develop the short scale, we first examined psychometric properties and found the optimal 16-item solution among all valid combinations of the full POMS in an exploratory subsample of our complete representative (...) sample of the German general population. We then validated this model in a confirmatory subsample. Additionally, we examined its invariance across age groups and sex, as well as its reliability. Our results indicate that the POMS-16 is a valid and reliable measure of mood states with minimal losses compared to the 35-item version. Particularly where brevity and an economical assessment is desired, the POMS-16 should be considered. (shrink)

ABSTRACT:The relationship between culture and corruption has been the focus of various studies, producing inconsistent results. We suggest that these inconsistencies might be due to the conceptualization and measurement of culture. Drawing on the possible value/fact dichotomy discussed in ethical philosophy, we introduce the construct of cultural discrepancy—the difference between cultural values and practices —as a predictor of pervasive and arbitrary corruption. Examining the relationship between the discrepancies observed in the GLOBE cultural dimensions and the Corruption Perception Index shows that (...) in-group collectivism discrepancy is negatively related to pervasive corruption; future orientation discrepancy is positively related to arbitrary corruption. Further, we show that these relationships are contingent on national wealth. The negative relationship for in-group collectivism discrepancy is most pronounced in poor and moderately wealthy countries, and the positive relationship for future orientation discrepancy is most pronounced in rich countries. (shrink)

This special issue of Grazer Philosophische Studien brings together a number of carefully selected and timely articles that explore the discussion of different facets of self-consciousness from multiple perspectives. The selected articles mainly focus on three topics of the current debate: (1) the relationship between conceptual and nonconceptual ways of self-representation; (2) the role of intersubjectivity for the development of self-consciousness; (3) the temporal structure of self-consciousness. A number of previously underexposed, yet important connections between different approaches are explored. The (...) articles not only represent the state of the art in their respective areas of research and make new insights available, but also provide an overview of different methodologies: ranging from philosophy of language and mind to phenomenology and cognitive science. The volume is of interest for philosophers, cognitive scientists and researchers in related disciplines who are concerned with investigating the nature and origin of self-consciousness. (shrink)

Research on federalism is rarely concerned with its philosophical foundations. However, arguments on why and how best to organise a plurality of states in a multilevel political order have first been discussed by philosophers and continue to inspire contemporary reasoning on international and supranational relations not only in political philosophy. This book offers a unique overview of the philosophical foundations of federalism from both a historical and a systematic perspective. The analyses proposed by renowned scholars from the US and from (...) several European countries cover classic writers such as Hobbes and the authors of the Federalist Papers, Kant and Rawls, and range from anthropological justifications of federal orders to contemporary problems of EU constitutionalism, the principle of subsidiarity and the jurisdiction of the European Court of Human Rights. The book is of relevance to anyone interested in philosophical justifications of federalism. (shrink)