This research aims to study possible effects or impacts of COVID-19 in the context of a democratic organizational system analyzing how COVID-19 has influenced employees’ perception of their participation in decision-making and its impact on some psychological outcomes and emotions. COVID-19 has accelerated the process of implementation of new frameworks at work that have generated the modification of culture and employee management practices. Our hypothesis are, on the one hand, that COVID-19 has generated changes in participation structures and internal communication (...) mechanisms, having to make modifications not to deteriorate the perception of employees about their participation in decision making. On the other hand, COVID-19 has generated changes in the psychological outcomes and emotions of the employees. In the study, we analyze a cooperative belonging to the MONDRAGON cooperative group, where participation in decision-making and ownership is in its DNA. Through qualitative and quantitative methodologies, involving 42 employees, we investigate firstly, how COVID-19 has affected perceptions about participation in decision-making analyzing what role has played internal communication in these perceptions. Secondly, we investigate how COVID-19 has affected psychological outcomes and emotions. In this case, the perceptions arising from participation in decision-making focus on the assessment that participators make of the governance channels and the day-to-day meetings. Therefore, their appropriateness seems to be a key factor in the perception of participation in the COVID-19 era. Differences have been detected between the perceptions of blue and white collar employees. Such differences have also been founded in the psychological outcomes and emotions. Although this is a single case study, the analysis carried out provides elements of reflection to modify and restructure the decision-making and participation mechanisms, adapting them to the needs of blue and white collar employees in order to “guarantee” the expected outcomes. (shrink)

This article suggests that an epistemological and ontological pluralist perspective may enable human beings to cooperate each other and live with less injustice. Intercultural cooperation may help for a reformulation of the Human rights in order to consider aspects of different ways of life like the variations of moral, political and judicial norms. I expound that Liberal pluralism does not respond adequately to present day multiculturalism. Additionally, I explain that Human rights are not inclusive norms for all ways of life. (...) -/- I definitely sustain that some communities do not have to agree to live in the same moral world as others, but, that it is indeed necessary to know each other’s differences so as to be able to respect them. (shrink)

Public health agencies undertake a broad range of health promotion and injury and disease prevention activities in collaboration with an array of actors, such as the community, businesses, and non-profit organizations. These activities are “multisectoral” in nature and centered on public health agencies that oversee and engage with the other actors. Public health agencies can influence the hazardous activities in the private sector in a variety of ways, “ranging from prohibition and regulation to volunteerism, and from cooperation to cooption.” Hence, (...) a public health agency that possesses the necessary administrative resources and authority is vital to the effective implementation of health policies and regulations.In the developing world, however, many state health agencies lack these basic capacities in dealing with critical health threats, including their ability to avert epidemics of communicable diseases arising from poor sanitary conditions. A serious constraint is the shortage of public health funding for health agencies in the developing world for typical agency functions. This is often aggravated by the transaction-intensive demands entailed in enforcing regulations among an array of private and public sector actors including individuals, businesses, and local bodies responsible for providing civic services. (shrink)

The purpose of this paper is to analyse the Spanish mobile phone industry to determine how mobile phone companies and certain institutions can improve protection for children who use mobile phones. We carried out a multivariate statistical analysis using anonymous primary data from mobile phone companies, and institutions and associations that protect children, to compare these stakeholders’ opinions and to put forward solutions. We proved that, even though some European countries have made an effort to provide safer ICT services, all (...) stakeholders still need to cooperate and agree on solutions to the commercial problems associated with children using mobile phones. This can be done by signing codes of conduct. We found that even though some companies implement measures to protect children from accessing harmful content via their mobile phones, they do so for reasons of legal and not social responsibility. (shrink)

The literature on the construction of places of worship has predominantly shown difficulties, rejection and disharmony among religious communities. This study aims to describe and analyzed the success story of the construction of the Santa Monica church in Tangerang. This is a qualitative study conducted over a month-long period using primary and secondary data. Primary data were obtained through observation and interviews, while secondary data were obtained through formal and informal policy reviews available online. The informants involved in this (...) study amounted to eight people consisting of church leaders and administrators, local leaders, religious leaders, religious organizations and the Ministry of Religious Affairs. Data were analyzed using content analysis methods. The results of the study show that the ability of church leaders and administrators to build good social and cultural relations with the community was a key element in their success in obtaining permission to build the church. This was achieved through effective communication, dialogue and cooperation between the Catholic community, leaders and the predominantly Islamic local community. Active involvement in daily activities had a positive impact, fostering mutual trust and peaceful coexistence, ultimately resulting in the local community’s support and approval for the establishment of the place of worship. Thus, the church construction committee was able to meet all administrative requirements as stipulated by government regulations. This study recommends the importance of good social and cultural relations as the fundamental basis and determinant of success for religious communities seeking to construct places of worship. Contribution: This article contributes to the goal of HTS Theological Studies in promoting the transdisciplinary aspect of religious studies in the international theological arena, particularly in the study of religious harmony among communities in Indonesia. (shrink)

Andrew Cooper presents the first systematic study of Kant's account of natural history. Cooper contends that Kant made a decisive contribution to one of the most explosive and understudied revolutions in the history of science: the addition of time to the frame in which explanations are required, sought, and justified in natural science. Through addressing a wide range of Kant's works, Cooper challenges the claim that Kant's theory of science denies a developmental conception of nature and argues (...) instead that it establishes a method by which natural historians can genuinely dispute historical claims and potentially come to consensus. This method, Cooper argues, can be used to expose serious flaws in Kant's own historical reasoning, including the formation and defence of his racist views. The book will be valuable to philosophers seeking to discern both the power and limitations of Kant's theory of science, and to historians of science working on the fractured landscape of eighteenth-century Newtonianism. (shrink)

Núñez et al. (2019) argue that cognitive science has failed either “to transition to a mature inter‐disciplinary coherent field” (p. 782) or “to generate a successful [Lakatosian] research program” (p. 789). We argue that the former was never the intention of many early researchers within the field, while the latter is an inappropriate criterion by which to judge an entire discipline. However, we concur with Núñez et al. (2019) that the individual disciplinary balance within cognitive science has changed over time. (...) Of particular concern is the fact that the use of computational methods appears to be on the wane. (shrink)

This article explores the challenge of developing a feminist law reform proposal to decertify sex and gender based on research conducted for the ‘Future of Legal Gender' project. Locating the proposal to decertify within a do-it-yourself, prefigurative approach to law reform, the article asks: Can a law reform proposal be both instrumental and radical? Can a proposal take shape as a viable legislative text and as a more subversive intervention to unsettle and reimagine gender’s relationship to law? This article explores (...) this at two levels. First, it considers the ontological challenges of developing a controversial law reform proposal in terms of its realness (or fictiveness), contours, and temporality, turning to ‘slow law' as a credible way of approaching radical reform. Second, it explores the design-based challenges of legal prototyping—foregrounding questions of legitimacy, participation, and purpose, which arise in designing a decertification law. At the heart of this discussion is the relationship between representation and enactment—between what a proposal presents and what its presentation does and does not accomplish. (shrink)

Robert Pippin's recent study of Hegel's Logic, Hegel's Realm of Shadows, argues that we should read Hegel as rejecting the need for a Transcendental Deduction in logic because he takes Hegel, in the Phenomenology of Spirit, to have ruled out the scepticism that motivates Kant's Deduction. By contrast, I argue, we cannot understand what Pippin calls the ‘identity’ of logic and metaphysics in the Science of Logic unless we see how Hegel does provide a kind of Deduction argument in the (...) Logic, albeit one stripped of the psychologism present in the Kantian version. Accordingly, I provide a sketch of what such an ‘absolute’ Deduction must look like, and argue that Hegel's presentation of the ‘absolute idea’ functions as the conclusion of such an argument. (shrink)

I Deliberation, Practical Syllogisms , and Intuition. Introduction Aristotle's views on moral reasoning are a difficult and much disputed subject. ...

Martin Heidegger and Cornelius Castoriadis both understood Greek tragedy in relation to a political rupture in the Athenian world, a rupture containing insights into the ontological grounding of human beings. This paper critically explores the role of 'the Greeks' in Heidegger and Castoriadis' political thought, drawing implications for the availability of the Greeks for any philosophical thinking. After his infamous Rectoral Address in 1933 Heidegger turned explicitly to Greek tragedy in his lectures at Freiburg ( Introduction to Metaphysics and Hölderlin’s (...) Hymn ) to search for resources that might prove fundamental to instigating a new political era. However, he constructed a transcultural notion of 'the Greeks' at the expesnse of seeing tragedy as the development of a public institution that facilitated the criticism of the shared values and ideas of a particular historical epoch. Castoriadis, on the other hand, saw tragedy not simply as an awareness of the groundlessness of human society, but as the ceaseless questioning of what society is for. For Castoriadis, the Greeks are present to us in the same political rupture we experience today. In this paper I will argue that Castoriadis is more successful than Heidegger in developing an account of human creativity that holds open the problematic relation between the created world and human beings, though not without significant problems. I will conclude by suggesting that Euripides, a tragedian overlooked by Castoriadis, can supply some critical recouses for addressing them. (shrink)

This paper examines normative feminist care scholarship through the lens of a sexual bathhouse. At first glance, a space dedicated to casual sexual pleasure seems at odds with feminist care. Drawing on the Toronto Women's Bathhouse (TWB) as a case study, this paper argues that bathhouse spaces can exemplify feminist care norms. At the same time, as a casual sexual space oriented towards personal autonomy, carefree conduct, and self-care, TWB also challenges certain feminist care assumptions. Drawing on these challenges, in (...) the light of wider problems with normative care theorizing, particularly the sanitization and idealization of personal relationships, the paper seeks to revision care along non-normative lines. (shrink)

: This article seeks to explain how thought experiments work, and also the reasons why they can fail. It is divided into four sections. The first argues that thought experiments in philosophy and science should be treated together. The second examines existing accounts of thought experiments and shows why they are inadequate. The third proposes a better account of thought experiments. According to this account, a thought experimenter manipulates her worldview in accord with the “what if” questions posed by a (...) thought experiment. When all necessary manipulations are carried through, the result is either a consistent model or a contradiction. If a consistent model is achieved, the thought experimenter can conclude that the scenario is possible; if a consistent model cannot be constructed, then the scenario is not possible. The fourth section of the article uses this account to shed light on the circumstances in which thought experiments fail. (shrink)

Any account of knowledge has to take account both of the contribution of the world and the contribution of man. Every human endeavour, every activity, every art, every science is a product of a unique interaction between man and the world. Where man is most passive, he merely reflects and reports the world; this is pure discovery, if it ever exists. Where man is most active, the world's contribution lies merely in the provision of the raw material; this is pure (...) invention, if it ever exists. All the arts, all the sciences can be ordered in a continuous array or spectrum ranging from pure discovery to pure invention. That they are all at some point on this continuum gives them a common but fragile thread, justifying our thinking and talking of the unity of the arts and sciences. Philosophy is neither pure discovery nor pure invention; it bears resemblances to both a science and an art. In this paper I propose to try to give reasons why we should regard the philosopher as an artist and philosophy as an art; or, at any rate, I shall try to show that there is an Art of Philosophy. (shrink)

Empirical ethics research is increasingly valued in bioethics and healthcare more generally, but there remain as yet under-researched areas such as pharmacy, despite the increasingly visible attempts by the profession to embrace additional roles beyond the supply of medicines. A descriptive and critical review of the extant empirical pharmacy ethics literature is provided here. A chronological change from quantitative to qualitative approaches is highlighted in this review, as well as differing theoretical approaches such as cognitive moral development and the four (...) principles of biomedical ethics. Research with pharmacy student cohorts is common, as is representation from American pharmacists. Many examples of ethical problems are identified, as well as commercial and legal influences on ethical understanding and decision making. In this paper, it is argued that as pharmacy seeks to develop additional roles with concomitant ethical responsibilities, a new prescription is needed for empirical ethics research in pharmacy—one that embraces an agenda of systematic research using a plurality of methodological and theoretical approaches to better explore this under-researched discipline. (shrink)

Over the past few decades, philosophers of biology have debated the need for a revised evolutionary synthesis that could integrate the causal dynamics of singular organisms into mainstream biological theory. In this chapter I examine two synthesizing arguments (extension and accretion) by turning to a historical source that has recently caught the attention of philosophers on both sides of the debate: Immanuel Kant’s Critique of the Power of Judgment. I argue that accretionists and extenders both pick out one of two (...) key components in Kant’s account of teleological judgment, which, according to Kant, must be held together. By emphasizing one part of Kant’s account of teleological judgment at the expense of the other, both sides overlook the practical nature of his critique. Kant does not simply identify the conditions that render it necessary to judge some products of nature teleologically, I suggest, but also demonstrates the need for second-order analysis to define various domains of inquiry that arise in response to the explanatory demands of nature. The shared turn to Kant indicates that synthesizing arguments can be evaluated against their capacity to accommodate ongoing negotiation between the plurality of research aims in practice. I conclude that a deflationary version of the extension argument is best suited to the task. (shrink)

In this paper I extend the case for a necessitation account of particular laws in Kant's philosophy of science by examining the relation between reason's hypothetical use in the Appendix to the Transcendental Dialectic and the legitimate hypotheses identified in the Doctrine of Method. Building on normative accounts of reason's ideas, I argue that reason's hypothetical use does not describe the connections between objects and their grounds, which lie beyond the reach of the understanding, but merely prescribes the relations between (...) appearances and their conditions, for which the understanding must seek. A legitimate hypothesis, I suggest, is a proposition we hold to be true that fills in one or several of those relations. The problematic character of hypotheses requires that we evaluate our reasons for holding them to be true. While natural modality is grounded in the nature of things, which cannot be fully known, our reasons for assent can and must be grounded on features of objects that are epistemically available to us. (shrink)

In this article, I compare and evaluate R. D. Laing and A. Esterson’s account of schizophrenia as developed in Sanity, Madness and the Family, social models of disability, and accounts of extended mental disorder. These accounts claim that some putative disorders should not be thought of as reflecting biological or psychological dysfunction within the afflicted individual, but instead as external problems. In this article, I consider the grounds on which such claims might be supported. I argue that problems should not (...) be located within an individual putative patient in cases where there is some acceptable test environment in which there is no problem. A number of cases where such an argument can show that there is no internal disorder are discussed. I argue, however, that Laing and Esterson’s argument—that schizophrenia is not within diagnosed patients—does not work. The problem with their argument is that they fail to show that the diagnosed women in their study function adequately in any environment. (shrink)

Here, we add to the debate as to whether false recognition of emotional stimuli is more memory-based or more bias-based. Emotional false memory findings using the DRM paradigm have been marked by higher false alarms to negatively arousing compared to neutral critical lure items. Explanation for these findings has mainly focused on false memory-based accounts. However, here we address the question of whether a response bias for emotional stimuli can, at least in part, explain this phenomenon. In Experiment 1, we (...) used a criterion warning, previously shown to increase more conservative responding and reduce false recognition. Experiment 2, we employed a two-alternative-forced choice test, which minimises the role of criterion setting. In both experiments, we compared false alarms to negative and neutral critical lures. We observed a significant decrease in false recognition rates for both negative and neutral critical lures under the conditions of forced choice restriction and criterion warning. However, despite these conditions, negative items, compared to their neutral counterparts, still consistently provoked a higher degree of false recognition. The discussion that follows presents an exploration of both memory-based accounts and criterion-setting explanations for the enhanced emotional false memory finding. (shrink)

One of the fundamental questions in post-Fregean philosophy is how to account for the normativity involved in assertoric claims once the traditional subject-object view of thinking is rejected. One of the more productive lines of inquiry in the contemporary literature attributes normativity to second nature, which is presented as a sui generis space of reason giving and receiving distinct from the space of nature studied by the natural sciences. In this paper I suggest an alternative account by drawing from Castoriadis’s (...) philosophical interpretation of autopoiesis. For Castoriadis, the idea of second nature protects the modern conception of nature from undergoing the radical critique it requires, for it restricts normativity to the anthropic sphere. In contrast, he proposes an autopoietic account of the subject that grounds the capacity to know that one knows in the activity of the living being. Castoriadis demonstrates that the normativity of assertoric claims is not a vertical break from nature but rather a horizontal transformation of the biological capacity for self-referentiality. (shrink)

The goal of the debunking social constructionist is to reveal as social kinds that are widely held to be natural (or, in some cases, to reveal as more deeply social kinds that are already widely recognized to be social). The prominent approach to such debunking has been to make a case for thinking that the individuation conditions for membership in the kinds in question are in fact social (or in fact more deeply social than has previously been recognized). In this (...) paper, I argue that adopting the prominent approach to debunking prevents one from answering the implicit question being posed by the debunker, namely, the question of how a plausibly socially constituted kind can come to appear more natural than it in fact is. I then sketch an alternative way of understanding social kinds that enables us to answer the appearance question while remaining neutral on the nature of social kinds. In particular, I argue that the mechanism of covert normativity explains causally the persistence of the social kinds of interest to the debunker, and so also provides an answer to the appearance question. (shrink)

Despite the reality of intersex individuals whose biological markers do not necessarily all point towards a traditional binary understanding of either male or female, the vast majority of sports divide competition into categories based on a binary notion of biological sex and develop policies and regulations to police the divide. In so doing, sports governing bodies (SGBs) adopt an imperfect model of biological sex in order to serve their particular purposes, which, typically, will include protecting the fundamental sporting value of (...) fair competition. Yet, one potential consequence of enforcing such an approach would seem to be the exclusion or marginalization of individuals whose biological development does not fit within the binary model, whether due to genetics or through a choice to undergo medical intervention to better represent a chosen gender identity. Any such exclusion or marginalization will inevitably tend to undermine another fundamental value of sport, that of inclusivity. In the context of those with differences of sex development, SGBs appear to be faced with a difficult problem: dealing with a conflict between two fundamental values of sport. Different approaches to this problem have been suggested, with some academics proposing that sports organisations, in general, ought to prioritise fairness above, while others suggest the need to ‘balance’ competing values or even to prioritise inclusion over fairness. However, it is argued that any of these approaches are, in principle, justifiable as any sport should be free to prioritise or balance its own values. What seems more important for any SGB is the need for a rational and transparent justification of regulations that pursue fair competition at the expense of inclusivity. Furthermore, where fair competition and inclusivity are fundamental values, any such justification would seem to demand adherence to some basic norms. First, the regulations should be built on (and articulate) a consistent and principled basis of what ‘fair competition’ means in a particular sport. Second, any regulations should only exclude or restrict participation to the minimum degree necessary to achieve the sense of fair competition so articulated. Third, SGBs should be transparent about what their values are and where their priorities lie so that participants and other stakeholders are able to make an informed choice as to whether they wish to participate in, support, or be associated with a particular sport. With reference to the adoption of the Eligibility Regulations for Athletes with Differences of Sex Development (the ‘DSD Regulations’) by the International Association of Athletic Federations (IAAF), this article seeks to evaluate whether the approach of the IAAF satisfied these basic requirements. (shrink)

The DSM is the main classification of mental disorders used by psychiatrists in the United States and, increasingly, around the world. Although widely used, the DSM has come in for fierce criticism, with many commentators believing it to be conceptually flawed in a variety of ways. This paper assesses some of these philosophical worries. The first half of the paper asks whether the project of constructing a classification of mental disorders that ‘cuts nature at the joints’ makes sense. What is (...) mental disorder? Are types of mental disorder natural kinds (that is, are the distinctions between them objective and of fundamental theoretical importance, as are, say, the distinctions between the chemical elements)? The second half of the paper addresses epistemic worries. Even if types of mental disorder are natural kinds there may be reason to doubt that the DSM will come to reflect their natural structure. In particular, I examine the extent to which the DSM is theory-laden, and look at how it has been shaped by social and financial factors. Ultimately, I conclude that although the DSM is of immense practical importance it is not likely to become the best possible classification of mental disorders. (shrink)

The formal systems of logic have ordinarily been regarded as independent of biology, but recent developments in evolutionary theory suggest that biology and logic may be intimately interrelated. In this book, William Cooper outlines a theory of rationality in which logical law emerges as an intrinsic aspect of evolutionary biology. This biological perspective on logic, though at present unorthodox, could change traditional ideas about the reasoning process. Cooper examines the connections between logic and evolutionary biology and illustrates how (...) logical rules are derived directly from evolutionary principles, and therefore have no independent status of their own. Laws of decision theory, utility theory, induction, and deduction are reinterpreted as natural consequences of evolutionary processes. Cooper's connection of logical law to evolutionary theory ultimately results in a unified foundation for an evolutionary science of reason. It will be of interest to professionals and students of philosophy of science, logic, evolutionary theory, and cognitive science. (shrink)

Despite the known positive effects of acute exercise on cognition, the effects of a competitive team sport match are unknown. In a randomized crossover design, 20 female and 17 male field hockey players completed a battery of cognitive tests prior to, at half-time, and immediately following a competitive match ; with effect sizes presented as raw ES from mixed effect models. Blood samples were collected prior to and following the match and control trial, and analyzed for adrenaline, noradrenaline, brain derived (...) neurotrophic factor, cathepsin B, and cortisol. The match improved response times for a simple perception task at full-time and response times on the complex executive function task improved at half-time. Working memory declined at full-time on the match. The change in working memory was negatively correlated with increases in cortisol, as was the change in simple perception response time and the change in noradrenaline concentration. This study is the first to highlight the effects a competitive hockey match can have on cognition. These findings have implications for performance optimization, as understanding the influence on specific cognitive domains across a match allows for the investigation into strategies to improve these aspects. (shrink)

This paper introduces a formal view of the semantics and pragmatics of corrective feedback in dialogues between adults and children. The goal of this research is to give a formal account of language coordination in dialogue, and semantic coordination in particular. Accounting for semantic coordination requires (1) a semantics, i.e. an architecture allowing for dynamic meanings and meaning updates as results of dialogue moves, and (2) a pragmatics, describing the dialogue moves involved in semantic coordination. We illustrate the general approach (...) by applying it to some examples from the literature on corrective feedback, and provide a fairly detailed discussion of one example using TTR (Type Theory with Records) to formalize concepts. TTR provides an analysis of linguistic content which is structured in order to allow modification and similarity metrics, and a framework for describing dialogue moves and resulting updates to linguistic resources. (shrink)