Societies change; and sociology has, since its inception, described and evaluated these changes. This article proposes a revised theory of collective learning processes, a conceptual framework which addresses ways in which people make sense of and cope with change. Drawing on Habermas’ classic proposal, but shifting the focus from argumentation towards storytelling, it explains how certain articulations allow for collective learning processes (imagining more inclusive orders), while others block learning processes (imagining more exclusive orders). More specifically, the article points to (...) narrative genres (romance, tragedy, comedy and irony) which organize feelings and shape the social bond, proposing that ironic and tragic stories have the potential to trigger collective learning processes, while romantic and comic stories tend to block them. (shrink)

Images are objects of work in the laboratory. On its face, this work is achieved through talk Yet the talk attached to these images makes reference to other images, which are drawn from varcous environments. In this article, four such environments are identified: the domain of laboratory practice; the context of invisible physical reactions; the future image as it will appear in publication; and the domain of case precedents and reference scenarios from the field. The work of image analysis brings (...) the outside of the image into it and takes the inside out. Thus it can be seen that images are not just taken, they are designed and made. (shrink)

For years, attempts at ensuring the social sustainability of digital solutions have focused on ensuring that they are perceived as helpful and easy to use. A smooth and seamless work experience has been the goal to strive for. Based on document analysis and interviews with 15 stakeholders, we trace the setting up of a data infrastructure in Danish General Practice that had achieved just this goal – only to end in a scandal and subsequent loss of public support. The ease (...) of data access made it possible for data to be extracted, exchanged and used by new actors and for new purposes – without those producing the data fully realizing the expansion of the infrastructure. We suggest that the case has wider relevance for a still more data-intensive healthcare sector and a growing data economy: when those who produce the data are not made aware of new uses of data, it makes it more difficult to resolve potential conflicts along the way. In the Danish case, conflicting views on legitimate data use led to the collapse of the infrastructure. Therefore, while seamlessness may be a solution to the old problem of a poor fit between user and technology, this celebrated virtue may also involve new problems relating to social instability. As digital solutions tend to be integrated still more seamlessly in still more of our activities, we need to develop political mechanisms to define and protect the rights and obligations of both data suppliers and users in order to ensure the long-term sustainability of digital infrastructures. (shrink)

Evolution and learning are two analytically distinct concepts. People learn yet evolution (`change') does not necessarily take place. To clarify this problem the concept of learning is explicated. The first problem addressed is the question of who is learning. Here a shift from the single actor perspective to an interaction perspective is proposed (using Habermas and Luhmann as theoretical arguments for such a shift). Both, however, idealize the preconditions that interactants share while learning collectively. Against rationalist assumptions it is argued (...) that in order to learn people need a narratively based shared world. What do they learn? They acquire knowledge and they learn how to learn. This still does not solve the problem why they learn. Learning, it is argued, does not guarantee evolution but provides the mutations for evolutionary processes to take place. (shrink)

This article argues for a robust notion of collective identity which is not reduced to a psychological conception of identity. In the first part, the debate on the concept of identity raised by several authors is taken up critically with the intention of defending a strong sociological conception of identity which by definition is a collective identity. The basic assumption is that collective identities are narrative constructions which permit the control of the boundaries of a network of actors. This theory (...) is then applied to the case of Europe, showing how identity markers are used to control the boundaries of a common space of communication. These markers are bound to stories which those within such a space of communication share. Stories that hold in their narrative structures social relations provide projects of control. National identities are based on strong and exclusive stories. Europeanization (among other parallel processes at the global level) opens this space of boundary constructions and offers opportunities for national as well as sub-national as well as transnational stories competing with each other to shape European identity projects. The EU — this is the hypothesis — provides a case in which different sites offer competing opportunities to continue old stories, to start new stories or to import old stories from other sites, thus creating a narrative network on top of the network of social relations that bind the people in Europe together. European identity is therefore to be conceived as a narrative network embedded in an emerging network of social relations among the people living in Europe. (shrink)

The Australian Labor Party has, until recent years, exercised almost unchallenged hegemony over Australian Left and working-class politics. Tom Bramble and Rick Kuhn have ambitiously crafted the first Marxist history of the party in over 50 years, deploying an analysis of its material constitution as a ‘capitalist workers’ party’ to underpin arguments for a revolutionary socialist alternative. From its emergence in class struggles of the late nineteenth century, to its early electoral successes, to multiple internal crises and splits, and its (...) more recent role in driving neoliberal restructuring, the party’s contradictory character is analysed with clarity. However, despite containing much suggestive material, key issues – including the party’s unparalleled success despite its betrayals, failures and crises; radical challenges from within and without the party; the nature of its appeal to reformist consciousness; the shape of Marxist and Left debates about thealp; and the party’s centrality to a wider sphere of politics in capitalist society – remain thinly theorised, thereby inadvertently weakening the authors’ case for a revolutionary alternative. (shrink)

A pragmatic (communication-discursive) cognitive sociology beyond observationism (Luhmann, Turner, Conein) and individualistic reductionism (Esser, Boudon) as a way to do sociology as a critical theory and as a positive science is proposed, drawing on the Habermasian theory of communicative action and its radical continuation in Luhmann's concept of the (cognitive) autopoiesis of social systems.

The riddle of how to democratize the multi-level polity of the EU is answered by pointing to the empirical impact of an unfolding European public sphere. It is argued that there is a self-constituting dynamic of a European public sphere which abets the coupling of transnational spaces of communication with the institutional integration of the EU. From this perspective, democracy is not external to the EU, it is already part of the logic of European institution-building and governance and is fostered (...) by collective learning processes in which definitions of the collective good as well as conditions for appropriate forms of political participation are negotiated. In discussing the case of the EU’s constitutional reform, a theory of democratic functionalism is proposed which accounts for this specific form of democratization of the EU. (shrink)

Cases of acts of solidarity can be divided into at least two groups. Solidarity in a narrow sense of the term refers to what I label project-related solidarity; it is prevalent in the modern world at least as much as it was found in past worlds. In contrast, the philosophical discussions of "solidarity" refer to the altruism and mutuality typically found in close human relationships. This concept of "solidarity" is theoretically unfruitful and even misleading. I propose to abandon the term (...) "solidarity" in order to regain sight of the individual phenomena. When these are taken into consideration, a return to the community is no longer called for. I rather argue that modern societies are perfectly capable of inspiring feelings of loyalty and civic virtues, though not by resorting to the old sources of "solidarity". Modern forms such as free associations, participation and, not least, the existence of a liberal society itself are sufficient. Public discussions of solidarity are additionally distorted by frequent appeals to a normative sense of the term. The argument put forward in this collectivist context that an obligation of solidarity results from gratefulness to the community is not found to be convincing. Individuals are not obliged to be grateful to a nation in a way that would be normatively binding. (shrink)

This article argues that the social construction of the borders of Europe is the combined effect of a historical trajectory in which the construction of its outer and its inner boundaries interact. These boundaries make sense to the people because they have a narrative plausibility. On such narrative resonance, real hard borders are grounded. The idea of narrative boundary construction is embedded in a minimalist theory of identity that claims that anything can serve as a boundary within a historically specific (...) situation. The only restriction regarding boundary construction is that a new boundary continues the narrative – either in a continuous or a discontinuous way, either as conservative caring for a tradition or as a revolutionary break with a tradition. This radical break with substantialist notions of Europe's borders and identity implies that such trajectories do not imply any necessity. Whether the European integration process is continuing an old narrative or whether it points towards a specific discontinuity in the further telling of Europe's story, is historically contingent. Europe has just to continue to tell a story about itself that makes narrative sense. (shrink)

Recently, philosophers have come forth with approaches to chemistry based on its actual practice, imparting to it a proper aim and character of its own. These approaches add to the currently growing movement of pluralist philosophies of science. We draw on recent pluralist accounts from chemistry and analyse three notions from modern chemical practice and theory in terms of these accounts, in order to complement the so far more general pluralist approaches with specific evidence. Our survey reveals that the concept (...) of element indicates conceptual pluralisms in chemistry. that electronegativity illustrates methodological pluralism in determining one and the same concept, and that acidity is an instance of plurality hidden behind ‘one notion’. (shrink)

I show that in his De motu animalium Aristoteles proposes a teleology of the practical on the most general zoological level, i.e. on the level common to humans and self-moving animals. A teleology of the practical is a teleological account of the highest practical goals of animal and human self-motion. I argue that Aristotle conceives of such highest practical goals as goals that are contingently related to their realizations. Animal and human self-motion is the kind of action in which certain (...) state of affairs that realize values are mechanized. (shrink)

Research on facial emotion expression has mostly focused on emotion recognition, assuming that a small number of discrete emotions is elicited and expressed via prototypical facial muscle configurations as captured in still photographs. These are expected to be recognized by observers, presumably via template matching. In contrast, appraisal theories of emotion propose a more dynamic approach, suggesting that specific elements of facial expressions are directly produced by the result of certain appraisals and predicting the facial patterns to be expected for (...) certain appraisal configurations. This approach has recently been extended to emotion perception, claiming that observers first infer individual appraisals and only then make categorical emotion judgments based on the estimated appraisal patterns, using semantic inference rules. Here we report two related studies to empirically investigate the facial action unit configurations that are used by actors to convey specific emotions in short affect bursts and to examine to what extent observers can infer a person’s emotions from the predicted facial expression configurations. The results show that 1) professional actors use many of the predicted facial action unit patterns to enact systematically specified appraisal outcomes in a realistic scenario setting, and 2) naïve observers infer the respective emotions based on highly similar facial movement configurations with a degree of accuracy comparable to earlier research findings. Based on estimates of underlying appraisal criteria for the different emotions we conclude that the patterns of facial action units identified in this research correspond largely to prior predictions and encourage further research on appraisal-driven expression and inference. (shrink)

Aristoteles’ Traktat De anima untersucht die Natur der Seele. Unter ›Seele‹ ist dabei jedoch nicht das subjektive Zentrum unseres mentalen Lebens zu verstehen, sondern dasjenige Prinzip, dessen Vorhandensein lebendige von leblosen Körpern unterscheidet. Es umfasst alle Formen des Lebendigen, also pflanzliches, tierisches und menschliches Leben. Ziel der Schrift ist es, die Seele zu definieren, d.h. zu erklären, was es für diese Formen des Lebendigen jeweils heißt, lebendig zu sein. Diskutiert werden: der vegetative Selbsterhalt, Wahrnehmung, menschliches Denken sowie die Ortsbewegung der (...) Lebewesen. De anima gehört zu den faszinierendsten, philosophisch lohnendsten, aber auch schwierigeren Schriften des Aristoteles. Die zweisprachige Studienausgabe bietet eine vollständige Neu­übersetzung. Benutzt wird die Edition des griechischen Textes von Aurelius Förster (Budapest 1912), von der sich die heutzutage sehr verbreitete Ausgabe von W. D. Ross textkritisch hat leiten lassen (OCT 1956 und 1971). Sie ist auch durch die späteren Ausgaben von Siwek (Rom 1965) und Jannone (Paris 1966) nicht ersetzt. Eine Einleitung führt in die Grundlagen und Voraussetzungen der aristotelischen Seelenlehre ein und gibt einen Überblick über den Gedankengang der Schrift. Der Kommentarteil ist so knapp wie möglich gehalten. Im Anhang sind ein Glossar und ein Verzeichnis der Abweichungen von der Ausgabe von Ross beigefügt. (shrink)

A cumulative emotion science requires sustained investments in theory development. To encourage such investments, a new section will be added to Cognition & Emotion that is specifically devoted to...

This chapter first argues against the widely accepted “mentalist” interpretation of Aristotle’s conception of the perception of external objects. On that view, the perception of objects results from an act of synthesis of the diverse perceptual input provided by the different sense modalities. I argue that Aristotle’s conception of perception does not require such mental “construction” of external objects. For him, we unfailingly perceive external objects by way of modally specific perception: perception without qualification is primarily of external 3-D objects, (...) while modally specific perception is of perceptual qualities. As the special senses cannot operate in isolation from the perceptual system as a whole, it follows that we see colors, hear sounds, etc., and thereby perceive the objects whose colors and sounds they are. The second part offers a causal interpretation of Aristotle’s definition of perception as “reception of the form without the matter,” according to which the causal history of sensory affection fixes the content of the resulting act of perception: perception is cognitive in virtue of being the matterless presence of external things’ qualities in the perceiver. (shrink)

Der Beitrag fokussiert das Problem der Widerständigkeit in fortgeschrittenen informatischen Technologien, die den Anspruch erheben „autonom“ zu sein. Das Konzept der Widerständigkeit wird dabei als transzendentalphilosophisches ausgewiesen, das Möglichkeitsbedingungen und Grenzen markiert. Es wird der Anspruch auf Autonomie überprüft, indem deren Bedingungen exponiert werden. Weiterhin wird gezeigt, dass informationstechnische Zugriffe auf die Wirklichkeit nur zum Typologischen gelangen, nicht aber zum Ereignishaften, Singulären und zur konkreten Erlebnisqualität, die dem Individuationsprinzip unterstehen. Grundsätzlich lassen sich Intentionalität, inneres und historisches Zeiterleben, Bewertung, Ereignishaftigkeit, Singularität (...) und Unmittelbarkeit als Widerständigkeitsdimensionen ausweisen, die einer Autonomie im starken, wie im schwachen Sinne entgegenstehen. (shrink)

It is shown by means of four examples that the demarcation between law and morals has become problematical. The study of more recent developments in ethics and in law indicates that in both fields the relevance of discourse and consent has grown. Though both law and morals aim at agreement their degree of dependance on it differs. The definition of law and morals suggested in this article is based on this view. Legitimate law consists of norms, which besides fulfilling other (...) conditions have attained a certain degree of consent. On the other hand one can only talk of social morals when a very high degree of consent has been reached. The consequences of this definition are explained by means of the examples presented at the beginning. (shrink)

The monistic worldview aims at a uniform description of nature based on scientific models. Quantum physical systems are mutually part of the other quantum physical systems. An aperture distributes the subsystems and the wave front in all possible ways. The system only takes one of the possible paths, as measurements show. Conclusion from Bell's theorem: Before the quantum physical measurement, there is no point-like location in the universe where all the information that explains the measurement is available. Distributed information is (...) possible. Movement of the particle and measuring process are deterministic. The oscillation between location uncertainty and momentum uncertainty leads photons to determine their own location at short intervals. The uncertainty principle focuses the systems. The fields of the surrounding matter influence the location of the new formation. The effect of all fields is based on a common mechanism. (shrink)

Proceedings of a conference held Sept. 2010 in Jena, Germany.