The purpose of this case study is to investigate the identity linguistically and cognitively presented by official Target Corporation’s discourse and to unveil any structures or elements that are prominent enough to be included in the employees’ discourse production. The assumption is that the particular language we speak and the structures we choose in various contexts predispose us to think and act in certain ways. As for the approach utilized in this research, it is rather data-driven than data-based. Methods of (...) Critical Discourse Analysis are employed and they are supplemented by Critical Metaphor Analysis. The sampling of the customers was opportunistic. The identity in and around organization can be effectively investigated through linguistic methods. The study has shown that the vision of the company’s identity is more integrated by the executives and team leaders than grassroots employees. The paper draws attention to the very basic level of communication and its potential of imposing certain conceptualizations – the actual building blocks of any narrative. Moreover, the methodology employed goes beyond mere content analysis and applies rigorous linguistic analysis of company discourse. (shrink)

In this article, I explore the way in which Korsgaard’s approach to obligation as springing from the reflective rejection of that which threatens one’s own identity can account for obligations towards others, without making the latter relative to obligations to oneself. To this end, I begin by stressing the role of reflexivity in ethical relationships, and show how this reflexivity is mediated by reference to law, which applies both to the self and to the other. On this basis, I then (...) argue that Korsgaard’s account of the interplay between practical and moral identity reflects the very structure of practical reason, which requires both a particular and a universal premise in order to issue practical reasons for action– and the corresponding obligations. Within this framework, I argue that Korsgaard’s solution to the problem outlined above lies in having stressed the shareable character of reasons such that it is neither your reason nor my reason that obligates me, but rather reason as such. This solution, however, requires a further argument aimed at clarifying what makes your reasons different from my own. (shrink)

Building on an existing framework concerning ethical intention, this research explores how Thai business people perceive the importance of ethics in various scenarios. This study investigates the relative influences of personal characteristics and the organizational environment underlying the Thai business people’s ethical perception. Corporate ethical values and idealism are shown to positively influence a Thai manager’s perceptions about the importance of ethics. While their ability to perceive the existence of an ethical problem is negatively influenced by relativism, it is positively (...) impacted by their existing perceptions about the importance of ethics. Results also suggest positive relationships between perceived importance of ethics and perceived ethical problems with ethical intention. These results extend research in understanding the relationship between the antecedents and consequences of perceived importance of ethics within an economically growing non-Western culture. (shrink)

The purpose of this paper is to view Kant's approach to education in the broader context of Kant's philosophy of culture and history as a process whose direction should be reflectively assumed by human freedom, in the light of man's moral vocation. In this context, some characteristic tensions of his enlightened approach to education appear. Thus, while Kant takes the educational process to be a radically moral enterprise all the way through—and hence, placed in a relational context—he also aspires to (...) constitute education as a science, to be improved through experiments, thereby paving the way for a systemic approach to education; in spite of its moral inspiration, his systemic approach not only could enter into conflict with the moral demand of taking each individual subject as an end, but is also marked by an intrinsic paradox, already involved in the ambiguity of the term ‘humanity’, which might mean a) humanity as a moral disposition present in each individual human being or b) humanity as a whole, as the ‘human species’. (shrink)

Much has been written since the Covid-19 pandemic hit the world. The way in which we refer to this and other diseases has been commented and criticized in the media and in public online forums. Several linguists have referred to the different metaphors with which we refer to the disease appealing to our social responsibility towards the words we use to refer to sensitive subjects and have compiled alternative forms to “the war metaphor”. There is a linguistic, political, and even (...) health concern about the possible consequences of referring to Covid-19 as a war. However, the conceptual metaphor DISEASE IS WAR is ubiquitous, the key is: it is conceptual, it is a metaphor of the mind and not of language. Moreover, its variations and changes are a reflection of human creativity, but there is nothing wrong with the metaphor per se. In any case, it is a means to criticize certain discourses and there, as in everything, the context of the communicative act is ineludible. In this article we will see some examples of how we refer to SARS-CoV-2 in different media and explain the ubiquity of the metaphor. We shall also note that there is nothing wrong with the metaphor itself, which is, in fact, based on a biologically hooked form, present in human cognition, to refer to something that threatens us and that we must avoid or combat. (shrink)

Mindfulness is intentional focus of one’s attention on emotions, thoughts, or sensations occurring in the present moment with a nonjudgmental attitude. Recently there has been increased interest in the effects of mindfulness practice on psychological processes such as concentration, focus, and attention. In the present study, a prepulse inhibition/facilitation paradigm was employed to investigate the effect of brief mindfulness practice on automatic attention regulation processes. PPI occurs when a relatively weak prepulse is presented 30–500 ms before a startle-inducing stimulus, and (...) reduces the magnitude of the startle response. Prepulse facilitation is the increase in startle magnitude when the prepulse is presented 500 ms or more before the startle-eliciting stimulus. In the present study, the effect of engaging in a 23-min mindfulness exercise on PPI and PPF was investigated. Participants listened to either a mindfulness instruction or relaxing music. In a PPI/PPF pretest and posttest, a startle-eliciting noise was presented at lead intervals of 60, 120, and 2,000 ms. Results showed that engaging in brief mindfulness practice increased prepulse facilitation at the 2,000 ms lead interval in the posttest compared to the pretest. The amount of PPI did not differ between tests. (shrink)

A partir de los desafíos pedagógicos que se diseñaron en los pilares educativos de este siglo a raíz del Informe Delors, planteamos el reto que debe asumir el educador en relación a los contextos de aprendizaje de valores a partir de propuestas dinámicas desde un entorno pragmático, teniendo en cuenta el aprendizaje de competencias que comprende el actual diseño educativo. Enmarcamos esta propuesta pedagógica como desafío al que se enfrentan los educadores al hacer frente a la formación social de la (...) ciudadanía en relación al manejo de los conflictos como propuesta axiológica para el desarrollo de competencias axiológicas en la ciudadanía. Por ello proponemos algunos recursos pedagógicos desde la dimensión moral, desde la educación en valores, sobre los que construir una conjunción armónica de las identidades y de las diferencias en nuestras sociedades plurales y de inicios de este siglo.From the pedagogical challenges that were designed in the educational pillars of this century following the Delors Report, we posed the challenge to be assumed by the teacher in relation to the contexts of learning values from dynamic proposals from a pragmatic environment, taking into consideration the learning of skills that includes the current educational design. We frame this as a pedagogical challenge that educators face in dealing with the social formation of citizens in relation to conflict management as a proposal for developing axiological skills in citizenship. We, therefor propose some educational resources from the moral dimension, from education on values, on which to build a harmonious conjunction of identities and differences in our diverse societies and the beginning of this century. (shrink)

Se explora la justificación que ofrece Hume del gobierno en dos momentos, y, a partir de ahí, los argumentos con los que pretende salvar la posibilidad de la resistencia civil sin afirmar tajantemente un derecho a la resistencia. Para ello pone en juego su distinción entre obligación natural —u obligación de interés—y obligación moral —-avalada por el sentimiento. Al hilo de esta distinción puede señalarse un criterio para distinguir normalidad y excepción, y, eventualmente, el tipo de situación que podría respaldar (...) acciones de resistencia civil. (shrink)

La idea moderna de derechos humanos y el concepto clásico de ley natural no son equivalentes. Ciertamente comparten la idea de que no toda ley es convencional. Pero más allá de esto, la noción clásica de ley natural es definida claramente en el marco de las virtudes y, consecuentemente, tiene una orientación más práctica y está atada más de cerca a la historia; la noción de derechos humanos, que han heredado las teorías modernas de los derechos naturales, conduce a la (...) subjetivación del concepto de derecho y tiende a separar al ser humano de su contexto histórico y político, donde los eventos se llevan a cabo. En ese sentido, el concepto clave asociado con los derechos humanos es aquel de “dignidad”. Dado que las dos ideas tienen diferentes puntos de partida y son diferentes en su estatuto epistemológico, no hay, estrictamente hablando, fundamento alguno para imaginar una síntesis de las dos teorías. En el plano teórico sólo podemos hablar de su complementariedad. La síntesis es algo que sólo surgirá en la práctica. (shrink)

El uso habitual del lenguaje reconocía hasta hace todavía relativamente poco tiempo un sentido ético-normativo en los términos "natural" y "naturaleza". De un tiempo a esta parte, sin embargo, ha penetrado profunda¬mente en el sentido común epocal la idea de la diferenciación del hombre con respecto a la naturaleza. De ahí que, ante la invitación a secundar la naturaleza, no sea infrecuente escuchar la respuesta: "¿por qué? ¡si yo soy un ser racional, una persona!". Esta mentalidad coexiste culturalmente con la (...) cre¬ciente conciencia ecológica, que puede interpretarse como una invitación a considerarnos de nuevo como seres naturales. La invitación nos llega cuando ya hemos aprendido a vernos como seres libres, y a defender nuestra libertad; cuando en el discurso ético, términos como "dignidad" y "persona" han pasado a desempeñar el papel privilegiado que en otro tiempo desempeñaba el término "naturaleza": la fuerza retórica que en otro tiempo tenía el término "naturaleza", la tiene hoy el término "libertad". El reto es ahora conciliar el logro principal de la filosofía moderna –somos libertad– con la herencia clásica -somos naturaleza-. La tesis que se defiende en este trabajo es que, lejos de representar un obstáculo para la dignidad y la libertad real del hombre, la apelación a la naturaleza es lo único que garantiza que el término dignidad sea algo más que una palabra cargada de fuerza retórica para los occidentales. (shrink)

Information-seeking behaviour of sniffer dogs during match-to-sample training in the scent lineup Qualitative and quantitative changes in dogs' information-seeking behaviours during the subsequent phases of operant conditioning training using a scent lineup, were investigated. Particular interest was paid to behaviours which may have an impact on errors committed by dogs at work in a scent lineup and thus on the reliability of the canine identification of humans on the base of scent. Significant individual differences were found in dogs' performance in (...) operant conditioning during match-to-sample trials. The style and time of sniffing the pattern scent sample as well as the searching time and number of stations sniffed in the lineup were found to influence the percentage of errors made by dogs. The effects of the dogs' routine e.g. omitting stations, using other cues than olfactory ones and effects of the non-verbal communications between handler and dog have been discussed. (shrink)

This article explores one aspect of Kant's crucial contribution to the philosophy of culture. It does so by analysing two different approaches to the notion of culture, which are explicit in his work. The first, which may be called "genetical", presents culture almost as a result of a natural dialectic. The second, which I call "practical", regards culture as a task for the human being.

Can nature be restored to a pristine state through deliberate action? Must the preservation of wilderness always subordinate the interests of humans to those of other species? Can indigenous peoples be entrusted with the guardianship of their own wild resources? This collection of international writings tackles tough questions like these as it expands wilderness conservation beyond its American roots. One of the first anthologies to consider wilderness as a global issue, it takes a stand against the notion that wilderness is (...) a northern colonialist conceit and is irrelevant to the plans of third world countries. Contributions from all over the planetÑ Nepal, Borneo, Brazil, Chile, Mexico, Papua New Guinea, Kenya, South Africa, India, and the United StatesÑ show instead that wilderness has an important place in the environmental thought and policy of any nation, industrial or developing. The World and the Wild boldly advances the idea that our concept of wilderness must expand to take in new vistas. It breaks fresh ground in global environmentalism and is essential reading for anyone concerned with development issues related to conservation. Contents Foreword: Whither World Wilderness? / Vance G. Martin Introduction: Wilderness in the Rest of the World / David Rothenberg How Can Four Trees Make a Jungle? / Pramod Parajuli The Unpaintable West / Zeese Papanikolas Restoring Wilderness or Reclaiming Forests? / Sahotra Sarkar For Indian Wilderness / Philip Cafaro and Monish Verma In the Dust of Kilimanjaro / David Western Why Conservation in the Tropics Is Failing / John Terborgh "Trouble in Paradise": An Exchange / David Western and John Terborgh Zulu History / Ian Player Bruno Manser and the Penan / William W. Bevis Roads Where There Have Long Been Trails / Kathleen Harrison Volcano Dreams / Tom Vanderbilt Recycled Rain Forest Myths / Antonio Carlos Diegues The Park of Ten Thousand Waterfalls / Dan Imhoff Mapping the Wild / Edward A. Whitesell Earth Jazz / Evan Eisenberg They Trampled on Our Taboos / Damien Arabagali. (shrink)

In dynamical systems models feedforward is needed to guide planning and to process unknown and unpredictable events. Feedforward could help Theory of Event Coding (TEC) integrate control processes and could model human performance in action planning in a more flexible and powerful way.

If well-designed, the results of a Randomised Clinical Trial can justify a causal claim between treatment and effect in the study population; however, additional information might be needed to carry over this result to another population. RCTs have been criticized exactly on grounds of failing to provide this sort of information Evidence, inference and enquiry. Oxford University Press, New York, 2011), as well as to black-box important details regarding the mechanisms underpinning the causal law instantiated by the RCT result. On (...) the other side, so-called In Silico Clinical Trials face the same criticisms addressed against standard modelling and simulation techniques, and cannot be equated to experiments Philosophy of molecular medicine: foundational issues in research and practice, Routledge, New York, 2017; Parker in Synthese 169:483–496, 2009; Parke in Philos Sci 81:516–536, 2014; Diez Roux in Am J Epidemiol 181:100–102, 2015 and related discussions in Frigg and Reiss in Synthese 169:593–613, 2009; Winsberg in Synthese 169:575–592, 2009; Beisbart and Norton in Int Stud Philos Sci 26:403–422, 2012). We undertake a formal analysis of both methods in order to identify their distinct contribution to causal inference in the clinical setting. Britton et al.’s study :E2098–E2105, 2013) on the impact of ion current variability on cardiac electrophysiology is used for illustrative purposes. We deduce that, by predicting variability through interpolation, ISCTs aid with problems regarding extrapolation of RCTs results, and therefore in assessing their external validity. Furthermore, ISCTs can be said to encode “thick” causal knowledge —as opposed to “thin” difference-making information inferred from RCTs. Hence, ISCTs and RCTs cannot replace one another but rather, they are complementary in that the former provide information about the determinants of variability of causal effects, while the latter can, under certain conditions, establish causality in the first place. (shrink)

In order to explore the relationship between research and universities with a Christian identity, it is important to be clear about the identity of social realities and the meaning of ‘Christian identity’ when applied to universities. In my view, the latter requires three elements: (1) assigning a central role to theological reflection, (2) recognizing a mediating role to philosophy, and (3) encouraging a reflective posture in all disciplines. These three aspects should be considered and secured through adequate research policies that (...) manage external constraints with internal ones. (shrink)

We propose a new integrative framework of external time monitoring in prospective memory (PM) tasks and its relation with performance. Starting from existing empirical regularities and our theoretical analysis, the framework predicts that external monitoring in PM tasks comprises a first stage of loose monitoring to keep track of the passage of time, and a subsequent stage of finer-grained monitoring, based on interval reduction, to meet the PM deadline. Following our framework, we predicted and observed in three different datasets (N (...) = 375): (1) a marked increase in external monitoring frequency in the final part of the period of the PM task, well captured by a proportional rate exponential growth function; (2) a positive association between individual compliance with this monitoring pattern and PM performance; (3) a positive relation between monitoring frequency in the time window immediately preceding the PM deadline and PM performance at the individual level; and (4) good individual compliance with an interval reduction pattern in external monitoring, especially in the time window closer to the PM deadline. These results support the proposed integrative framework, which has the potential to foster future research on external monitoring in PM and in other fields of cognitive science. (shrink)

This book is a major contribution to the renewed interest in natural law. It provides the reader with a comprehensive overview of natural law, both from a historical and a systematic point of view. It ranges from the mediaeval synthesis of Aquinas through the early modern elaborations of natural law, up to current discussions on the very possibility and practical relevance of natural law theory for the contemporary mind.

This cross-disciplinary collection of essays focuses on gender from multiple perspectives. The main themes include human rights, political economy, cultural diversity, democracy, immigration, dignity, care, and shifts in hegemonic male models of societies.

This book brings together a number of contributions dealing with certain fundamental structures of practical rationality, as they are presented in the areas of the philosophy of action and normative ethics, namely: intentionality, normativity, and reflexivity. With the term “intentionality,” is meant a set of problems that are linked not only with the teleological structure of praxis-oriented rationality, but also with its temporal structure. “Normativity”, in turn, refers to a distinct set of problems, which cannot simply be reduced to those (...) entailed in the intentional nature of human action, even if this notion incorporates a reference to the good or value in its very structure. Finally, with the term “reflexivity” we point at the linkage between the normative dimension of reason with both the contingent circumstances of action and the moral receptivity of the agent, as it is experienced in moral judgment. (shrink)

Aristotle ’s claim that we become virtuous by doing virtuous actions raises a familiar problem: How can we perform virtuous actions unless we are already virtuous? I reject deflationary accounts of the answer given in _Nicomachean Ethics_ 2.4 and argue instead that proper habituation involves doing virtuous actions with the right motive, i.e. for the sake of the noble, even though learners do not yet have virtuous dispositions. My interpretation confers continuity to habituation and explains in a non-mysterious way how (...) we become virtuous by doing virtuous actions in the right way. (shrink)

The central idea behind this paper is that presuppositions of soft triggers arise from the way our attention structures the informational content of a sentence. Some aspects of the information conveyed are such that we pay attention to them by default, even in the absence of contextual information. On the other hand, contextual cues or conversational goals can divert attention to types of information that we would not pay attention to by default. Either way, whatever we do not pay attention (...) to, be it by default, or in context, is what ends up presupposed by soft triggers. This paper attempts to predict what information in the sentence is likely to end up being the main point (i.e. what we pay attention to) and what information is independent from this, and therefore likely presupposed. It is proposed that this can be calculated by making reference to event times. The notion of aboutness used to calculate independence is based on that of Demolombe and Fariñas del Cerro (In: Holdobler S (ed) Intellectics and computational logic: papers in honor of Wolfgang Bibel, 2000). (shrink)

ABSTRACTFinance may suffer from institutional deformations that subordinate its distinctive goods to the pursuit of external goods, but this should encourage attempts to reform the institutionalization of finance rather than to reject its potential for virtuous business activity. This article argues that finance should be regarded as a domain-relative practice. Alongside management, its moral status thereby varies with the purposes it serves. Hence, when practitioners working in finance facilitate projects that create common goods, it allows them to develop virtues. This (...) argument applies MacIntyre’s widely acknowledged account of the relationship between practices and the development of virtues while questioning some of his claims about finance. It also takes issue with extant accounts of particular financial functions that have failed to identify the distinctive goods of financial practice. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Semiotica Jahrgang: 2015 Heft: 203 Seiten: 39-51.

Analytic philosophy has recently been challenged from a perspective advocated by Richard Rorty: this favours edifying philosophy against systematic philosophy comprising also analytic philosophy. In Rorty's presentation analytic philosophy is one more variant of the Cartesian—Kantian epistemology which, being committed to a permanent framework of inquiry rooted in our human subjectivity, implies the uniqueness of one conceptual scheme.Against this tenet I argue in two ways. First, I show that analytic philosophy of mind and language with the Fregean background and possible (...) world semantics implies the pluralism of conceptual schemes on logical-conventionalist grounds. Secondly, I show that although analytic philosophy shares the claim for legitimation of a conceptual scheme with Kantian epistemology, it is critical of the latter in that the uniqueness-claim is refuted. (shrink)

This article presents two ways of contributing to the debate on cognitive phenomenology. First, it is argued that cognitive attitudes have a specific phenomenal character or attitudinal cognitive phenomenology and, second, an element in cognitive experiences is described, i.e., the horizon of possibilities, which arguably gives us more evidence for cognitive phenomenology views.

Cancer research has been at the forefront of biomedical activity in recent decades, and advances in molecular biology have provided a growing amount of information on the mechanisms involved in the etiopathogenesis of tumors. Nevertheless, despite these advances, the complexity of cancer is more evident, especially as different levels of phenomena are considered to explain the heterogeneity of the neoplastic process. A synthetic analysis of advances in cancer research illustrates these changes. In attempting to overcome the limits of epistemological reductionism, (...) there is a move from a view of a genetic basis for cancer to a more comprehensive perspective aiming to integrate a large amount of information and to understand the neoplastic phenomenon at higher levels of biological complexity through a new interpretative framework. (shrink)

introduction Dialectic and the notion of tradition The past does not pull back but presses forward. (Hannah Arendt 1977: 10) Through the confrontation over ...

Business Ethics: A European Review, EarlyView.

Some presuppositions are easier to cancel than others in embedded contexts. This contrast has been used as evidence for distinguishing two fundamentally different kinds of presuppositions, ‘soft’ and ‘hard’. ‘Soft’ presuppositions are usually assumed to arise in a pragmatic way, while ‘hard’ presuppositions are thought to be genuine semantic presuppositions. This paper argues against such a distinction and proposes to derive the difference in cancellation from inherent differences in how presupposition triggers interact with the context: their focus sensitivity, anaphoricity, and (...) question–answer congruence properties. The paper also aims to derive the presuppositions of additive particles such as too, also, again, and of it-clefts. (shrink)

This paper explores the relation of thought and the stream of consciousness in the light of an ontological argument raised against cognitive phenomenology views. I argue that the ontological argument relies on a notion of ‘processive character’ that does not stand up to scrutiny and therefore it is insufficient for the argument to go through. I then analyse two more views on what ‘processive character’ means and argue that the process-part account best captures the intuition behind the argument. Following this (...) view, I reconstruct the ontological argument and argue that it succeeds in establishing that some mental episodes like judging, understanding and occurrent states of thought do not enter into the stream but fails to exclude episodes like entertaining. Contrary to what it might seem, this conclusion fits well with cognitive phenomenology views, given that, as I show, there is a way for non-processive mental episodes to be fundamentally related to processive ones, such that they cannot be excl.. (shrink)