In this article, we reflect on the particular temporal structure of pregnancies and prenatal entities with the aim to contribute to the field of the sociology of pregnancy. Medical models and technology shape today’s notion of pregnancy as a linear, nine-month developmental process that leads to the birth of a child. Through ultrasound technology and prenatal examinations, prenatal entities have thus historically gained a present ‘being’ as a developing, unborn child. While these ideas undoubtedly greatly influence the participants’ interpretations, a (...) culturalistic perspective on time alone does not do justice to the phenomenon’s lived tensions and the temporal complexity of the phenomenon. From a Schutzian perspective of time, we have worked out how practices of pregnancy and the production of meaning are shaped by an interwoven back and forth between orientations to the past, present and future. Drawing on relevant works from the sociology of pregnancy, we work out five modes of temporal references that mold the phenomenon of pregnancy: joint imagination of the couple, in which the born is anticipated as fantasies of the future, passivities of pregnancy, in which the desired future is experienced as unable to influence, the presentification of the unborn in and through visual and bodily-somatic contact moments, its futurization through the cultivation of a ‘not-yet’ and prenatal losses, as a critical rupture with the anticipated and desired future. Our analysis underlines the potential of a time sociological perspective on pregnancy and the constitution of relationships and persons. (shrink)

What are 'emotions'? This book offers a balanced survey of facts and theory.

Why does the world look to us as it does? As Nico Orlandi argues, it is simply because of how the world is. This answer emerges from understanding vision as situated in a structured environment, and it contrasts with the view that visual perception involves an inference.

Knowledge Societies offers both a critical examination of existing social theory, and a new synthesis of social theory with the actual study of knowledge relations in advanced economies. Some of the elements explored are scientization: the penetration not only of production but of most social action by scientific knowledge; the transformation of access to knowledge through higher education; the growth of experts (managers, accountants, advisors, and counselors) and of corresponding institutions based on the deployment of specialized knowledge; and a shift (...) in the nature of societal conflict from struggles about income and property to claims and conflicts about generalized human needs. Nico Stehr's argument amply demonstrates not only that all social theories now need to take into account the changing nature of social relations around knowledge, but also the parameters within which this analysis should take place. This book is essential reading for all those interested in social theory, sociology of knowledge and science, and the general issue of knowledge in the late 20th century. (shrink)

In his book Processual Sociology (2016), Andrew Abbott proposes a radically new theoretical perspective for sociology. This review essay discusses the strengths and weaknesses of his “processual” approach, in comparison with other dynamic perspectives in sociology such as, in particular, Norbert Elias’s “process sociology.” It critically questions central ideas and arguments advanced in this book: the reduction of social processes to “events,” the focus on stability as the central explanandum of sociological theory, the implicit separation of individual and social processes, (...) the proposition that the social world changes faster than the individual, the idea that “excess” rather than “scarcity” is the central problematic of human affairs, the strong emphasis on the inherent normativity of sociological concepts, the focus on values as the core of human social life, the neglect of human interdependence, power, coercion, and violence, and the distinction between “moral facts” and “empirical facts.” Detailed criticisms of the arguments in various chapters are given, and alternative viewpoints are proposed. The conclusion is that Processual Sociology fails to provide a fruitful approach for understanding and explaining social processes, and that it even represents, in several respects, theoretical regression rather than progress. (shrink)

This article attempts to clarify the commitments of a predictive coding approach to perception. After summarizing predictive coding theory, the article addresses two questions. Is a predictive coding perceptual system also a Bayesian system? Is it a Kantian system? The article shows that the answer to these questions is negative.

In this issue we include contributions from the individuals presiding at the panel All in a Jurnal's Work: A BABEL Wayzgoose, convened at the second Biennial Meeting of the BABEL Working Group. Sadly, the contributions of Daniel Remein, chief rogue at the Organism for Poetic Research as well as editor at Whiskey & Fox , were not able to appear in this version of the proceedings. From the program : 2ND BIENNUAL MEETING OF THE BABEL WORKING GROUP CONFERENCE “CRUISING IN (...) THE RUINS: THE QUESTION OF DISCIPLINARITY IN THE POST/MEDIEVAL UNIVERSITY” SEPTEMBER 21ST, 2012: SESSION 13 MCLEOD C.322, CURRY STUDENT CENTER NORTHEASTERN UNIVERSITY, BOSTON, MA. Traditionally, a wayzgoose was a celebration at the end of a printer’s year, a night off in the late fall before the work began of printing by candlelight. According to the OED, the Master Printer would make for the journeymen “a good Feast, and not only entertains them at his own House, but besides, gives them Money to spend at the Ale-house or Tavern at Night.” Following in this line, continent. proposes in its publication(s) a night out and a good Feast, away from the noxious fumes of the Academy and into a night of revelry which begins, but does not end, at the alehouse or Tavern. continent. proposes that the thinking of the Academy be freed to be thought elsewhere, in the alleys and doorways of the village and cities, encountered not in the strictly defined spaces of the classroom and blackboard (now white) but anticipated and found where thinking occurs. Historically, academic journals have served a different purpose than the Academy itself. Journals (from the Anglo-Fr. jurnal , "a day," from O.Fr. jornel , "day, time; day's work," hence the journalist as writer of the news of the day ) have served as privileged sites for the articulation and concretization of specific modes of knowledge and control (insemination of those ideas has been formalized in the classroom, in seminar). In contrast, the academic journal is post-partum and has been an old-boys club, an insider trading network in which truths are (re)circulated against themselves, forming a Maginot Line against whatever is new, or the distinctly challenging. All in a Jurnal’s Work will discuss (in part) the ramifications of cheap start-up publications that are challenging the traditional ensconced-in-ivory academic journals and their supporting infrastructures. The panel will be seeking a questioning (as a challenging) towards the discipline of knowledge production/fabrication (of truth[s]) and the event of the Academy (and its publications) as it has evolved and continues to (d)evolve. Issues to be discussed will revolve around the power of academic publishing and its origins, hierarchical versus horizontal academic modules (is there a place for the General Assembly in academia?) and the evolving idea of the Multiversity as a site(s) of a (BABELing) multivocality in the wake of the University of Disaster. A CONTINUOUS ACT Nico Jenkins In Pierre Hadot’s extraordinary book, Philosophy as a Way of Life , the practices of philosophy—that is the exercise of what we can term pre-institionalized love of wisdom, what Philo of Alexandria described as a training towards wisdom—are described as, following the Stoics, “a continuous act, permanent and identical with life itself, which had to be renewed at each instant.” This renewal of thinking, this coming to be of being itself —meeting itself on its own ground, concerns the way philosophy is practiced, and more often, taught, or rather not taught. Hadot continues his thinking with a description of what happens to the structure of thought in the medieval ages as it becomes adopted—co-opted— by the university, and by extension, by the institution of the church. Philosophy becomes no longer a way of living, no longer a praxis as such but becomes a condition that is locked in a theoretical construct, one which was literally removed from life (and in life we read then love, wisdom, being etc, also the home, the market, the field, the street) and secured behind the high walls of the monastery (which were shortly replaced by the high walls of the Academy) where thinking unfortunately rests for the most part today. Hadot writes further that this dangerous movement of removal reduces thinking to a theoretical practice akin to the mythical Ouroborous; “education was thus no longer directed toward people who were to be educated with a view to becoming fully developed human beings, but to specialists, in order that they might learn how to train other specialists.” Thought then is trapped behind the walls of the academy, and with the exception of such thinkers as Spinoza, Descartes, and Liebnitz as well as others who think from an outside in, thought remains, in the form of Kant, Fichte, Hegel, a practice reduced or removed from life and restricted to what Schopenhauer will call “mere fencing in front of the mirror.” This is of course the tendency today and philosophy remains, for the most part, a discourse produced and thought inside the academy and disseminated, in seminated through university presses and of course the academic journal. It seems necessary to me that we have to have a place, a return, to a thinking which is closer to the Stoics, closer to the pre-Socratics, to a thinking which is a practice of becoming, a training to think, to live, to die. this is not south romantic than imperative . This thinking is one of a deep ir responsibility because it is not known, it is not figured out. It requires a risk and what Heidegger calls a leap (for there is no bridge to it). I call it irresponsible because for too long sanctioned thought has had as its premise the idea that thinking has a goal, a direction, a telos ; that it is not an activity but a process which gives a product; that the responsibility of thinking in turn demand an answer. In my mind, only freed from that goal can thinking, in contrast, bask in its own thinking, bask in a state in which the unknown can remain unknown, that mystery can rest as mystery. This is not to say that the world needs no answers, or to promote a Whitmanesque “leaning and loafing” as the only valid practice. It is only to say that for too long, thinking has been validated by the academy, by the answerable, by the already decided. To me, this requires—as an answer— the ir responsibility of thought, what Nancy calls, “a world for which all is not already done (played out, finished, enshrined in a destiny), nor entirely still to do (in the future for always future tomorrows).” This is a thinking not sanctified by the academy, made sacred by the church or the palace but rather it takes place on the périphérie , beyond the ring road, in alleyways behind the marketplace, in cafes stained with the syphilitic patina of irresponsible talk, of loose talk, the kind of talk made loose not only by the tankard and the goblet by the practice and training of attuned thinking. continent. was formed as a collective of thinkers coming out of the European Graduate School (also known as the University of Disaster) three years ago, in an effort to combat, or challenge, the dominant paradigm which isolates thinking from the street, from life, from where perhaps wisdom tends to emerge. We feel that not only is the university herself no longer the privileged site of where true thinking takes place—and where only official thought can take place—but that the very artificiality of the academy denies thinking—at times—authentic, thought. Our goal at continent. is to create a media agnostic publication which is rigorous in its intellectual underpinnings but which will remain permanently beyond and out of reach of the academy. Though many of us butter our bread with academic paychecks (maid!) we attempt to keep continent. as a refuge—and a refugee—from the University in ruins, from the University as a site of preformed and institutionalized pre-set dialogues. In concert with other publications-both cyber and print—as well as various blogs we are attempting to re-dialogize the dialogue of thinking. We are attempting both to speak to— as well as with and against —the university as a site of accreted knowledge. We have not been utterly successful and continue to attempt to define what that role of being perpetually beyond is (while still trying to maintain rigorous intellectual standards) but it is just that, a goal, which is perpetually opening, perpetually unanswered, perhaps even by design, perpetually unanswerable. (shrink)

There is a certain excitement in vision science concerning the idea of applying the tools of bayesian decision theory to explain our perceptual capacities. Bayesian models are thought to be needed to explain how the inverse problem of perception is solved, and to rescue a certain constructivist and Kantian way of understanding the perceptual process. Anticlimactically, I argue both that bayesian outlooks do not constitute good solutions to the inverse problem, and that they are not constructivist in nature. In explaining (...) how visual systems derive a single percept from underdetermined stimulation, orthodox versions of bayesian accounts encounter a problem. The problem shows that such accounts need to be grounded in Natural Scene Statistics (NSS), an approach that takes seriously the Gibsonian insight that studying perception involves studying the statistical regularities of the environment in which we are situated. Additionally, I argue that bayesian frameworks postulate structures that hardly rescue a constructivist way of understanding perception. Except for percepts, the posits of bayesian theory are not representational in nature. bayesian perceptual inferences are not genuine inferences. They are biased processes that operate over nonrepresentational states. (shrink)

A review of the literature was conducted to better understand the (potential) role of mental health professionals in physician-assisted suicide. Numerous studies indicate that depression is one of the most commonly encountered psychiatric illnesses in primary care settings. Yet, depression consistently goes undetected and undiagnosed by nonpsychiatrically trained primary care physicians. Noting the well-studied link between depression and suicide, it is necessary to question giving sole responsibility of assisting patients in making end-of-life treatment decisions to these physicians. Unfortunately, the use (...) of mental health consultation by these physicians is not a common occurrence. Greater involvement of mental health professionals in this emerging and debated area is advocated. Beyond describing mental health professionals' role in the assessment of patient competency or decision making capacity, other areas of potential involvement are described. A discussion of ethical principles relevant to this area follows, along with comments on the training necessary to adequately serve patient needs. (shrink)

Animal ethics has often been criticized for an overreliance on “ideal” or even “utopian” theorizing. In this article, I recognize this problem, but argue that the “nonideal theory” which critics have offered in response is still insufficient to make animal ethics action-guiding. I argue that in order for animal ethics to be action-guiding, it must consider agent-centered theories of change detailing how an ideally just human-animal coexistence can and should be brought about. I lay out desiderata that such a theory (...) of change should suffice so as to be helpful in guiding action. Specifically, a theory of change should determine (1) who needs to do what in order for ideal justice to be achieved in the long run, (2) who should be expected to refuse compliance and how they should be moved to comply, and (3) why specific intermediate steps are necessary. I show how previous “nonideal” contributions, though helpful in other ways, are insufficiently determinate on these points and I sketch a (still somewhat utopian) theory of change for one specific context. This brings animal ethics a crucial step closer to being action-guiding in the real world. (shrink)

Film theory and its emphasis on political and ideological readings of films dominated much of cinema studies in the '70s and '80s. Since then, in response to what some view as the shortcomings of theoretical approaches, a variety of other methods have emerged or reemerged. In many ways, as Nico Baumbach argues, "Anti-Grand Theory" has won the day but its victory is, in part, based on misreadings or simplifications of '70s film theory. In particular, Baumbach views contemporary critical approaches (...) to film as abandoning the crucial and productive ways in which theory understands the relationship between cinema, politics, and art. Baumbach does not advocate a return to the orthodoxies of the seventies but rather reads the work of Ranciere, Badiou, and Agamben as providing new ways of thinking about the history of film theory and how film creates its own way of thinking about politics. Moreover, at a time when digital technologies are asking us to think of film and the film image in new ways, the work of these thinkers once again asks, "What is Cinema?" but in a more expansive sense that can help us account for transformations in how moving images are produced, distributed, and exhibited in the twenty-first century. (shrink)

This open access book revises Kant’s ethical thought in one of its most notorious respects: its exclusion of animals from moral consideration. The book gives readers in animal ethics an accessible introduction to Kant’s views on our duties to others, and his view that we have only ‘indirect’ duties regarding animals. It then investigates how one would have to depart from Kant in order to recognise that animals matter morally for their own sake. Particular attention is paid to Kant’s ‘Formula (...) of Humanity,' the role of autonomy and the moral law, as well as Kant’s notions of practical reason and animal instinct. The result is a deliberately amended version of Kantianism which nevertheless remains faithful to central aspects of Kant’s thought. The book’s final part illustrates the framework’s use in applied contexts, addressing the issues of using animals as mere means, the ethics of veganism and vegetarianism, and environmental protection. Nico Dario Müller shows how, when furnished with duties to animals, Kant's moral philosophy can be a powerful resource for animal ethicists. (shrink)

the question of objectivity in legal interpretation has emerged in recent years as an imprtant topic in contemporary jurisprudence. This book addresses the issue of how and in what sense legal interpretation can be objective. The author supports the possibility of objectivity in law and spells out the content of objectivity involved. He then provides a defence against the classical, as well as less well-known, objections to the possibility of objectivity in legal interpretation. The discussion is thoroughly grounded in metaphysics, (...) which sets the book apart from other similar discussions in jurisprudence. Stavropoulos identifies an important source of resistance to the acceptance of the possibility of objectivity in legal interpretation; a widely held but faulty semantic. He then develops an alternative semantic framework, drawing on influential theories in contemporary philosophy. The book shows that objectivism is a natural, common sensical position, and rejects the currently popular notion that objectivism requires extravagant or bizarre metaphysics. Furthermore, the discussion presents the opportunity to re-interpret major debates in jurisprudence and to show how influential theories, notably H.L.A. Hart's and Ronald Dworkin's, bear on that issue. (shrink)

the question of objectivity in legal interpretation has emerged in recent years as an imprtant topic in contemporary jurisprudence. This book addresses the issue of how and in what sense legal interpretation can be objective. The author supports the possibility of objectivity in law and spells out the content of objectivity involved. He then provides a defence against the classical, as well as less well-known, objections to the possibility of objectivity in legal interpretation. The discussion is thoroughly grounded in metaphysics, (...) which sets the book apart from other similar discussions in jurisprudence. Stavropoulos identifies an important source of resistance to the acceptance of the possibility of objectivity in legal interpretation; a widely held but faulty semantic. He then develops an alternative semantic framework, drawing on influential theories in contemporary philosophy. The book shows that objectivism is a natural, common sensical position, and rejects the currently popular notion that objectivism requires extravagant or bizarre metaphysics. Furthermore, the discussion presents the opportunity to re-interpret major debates in jurisprudence and to show how influential theories, notably H.L.A. Hart's and Ronald Dworkin's, bear on that issue. (shrink)

Examines the conflict between modern and postmodern theories in sociology and attempts to bridge the divide between them.

The concept of “appraisal” has been used in the literature in a dual way: to refer to the content of emotional experience, as well as to the cognitive antecedents of emotions. I argue that appraisal in the former sense is what is contained in information in self-reports and that this information is of limited use for making inferences on emotion antecedents. This is so because emotional experience may contain appraisals that are part of the emotional response rather than belonging to (...) its causes. They often result from elaboration of the experience after it has begun to be generated. Although in most or all emotions some cognitive appraisal processes are essential antecedents, these processes may be much simpler than self-reports (and the semantics of emotion words) may suggest. The appraisal processes that account for emotion elicitation can be assumed to be of a quite elementary kind. (shrink)

Constitutional pluralism has become a principal model for understanding the legal and political structure of the European Union. Yet its variants are highly diverse, ranging from moderate “institutional” forms, closer to constitutionalist thinking, to “radical” ones which renounce a common framework to connect the different layers of law at play. Neil MacCormick, whose work was key for the rise of constitutional pluralism, shifted his approach from radical to institutional pluralism over time. This paper reconstructs the reasons for this shift—mainly concerns (...) about political stability that also underlie many others' skepticism vis-à-vis radical pluralist ideas. It then seeks to show why such concerns are likely overdrawn. In the fluid, contested space of postnational politics, a common, overarching frame is problematic as it might inflame, rather than tame, tensions. Leaving fundamental issues open along radical pluralist lines may help to work around points of highly charged contestation and provide opportunities for resistance from less powerful actors. (shrink)

Series: Studies in Theology and Religion (STAR), Am 15. April 1799 beendete Friedrich Schleiermacher seine "Reden über die Religion". Die rhetorisch und stilistisch sehr geschickt verfasste (und anonym veröffentlichte) Erstlingsschrift des später berühmten Predigers, Universitätsprofessors und Schriftstellers hat bis heute ihre Anziehungkraft behalten. Aus Anlass der Zweihundertjahrfeier hat die Niederländische Forschungsgesellschaft für Theologie und Religionswissenschaften (NOSTER) zusammen mit der Theologischen Fakultät Tilburg einen Studientag veranstaltet. Zwei Ziele wurden dabei verfolgt: erstens die Situierung der "Reden" in ihrer Entstehungszeit und in der (...) heutigen Zeit sowie zweitens die systematisch-theologische Vertiefung zentraler Themen der "Reden", Schleiermachers Verständnis der Religion in der 2. Rede und seine Christologie in der 5. Rede. Dieser Band enthält die Beiträge zu dieser Tagung und ein Protokoll der spannungsreichen Diskussion, verfasst von Nico Schreurs (Tilburg), das auf viele Forschungsergebnisse und Forschungsdesiderate hinweist. Die Beiträge stammen von Günter Meckenstock, Herausgeber der Kritischen Schleiermacherausgabe und renommierter Kenner der historischen Lage um 1800, Ad Willems, Übersetzer der "Reden" ins Niederländische, Christian Albrecht (Tübingen, jetzt Bochum) und Claus-Dieter Osthövener (Halle an der Saale). Inhalt Die Aufnahme der "Reden" in Schleiermachers Zeitgenossenschaft Günter Meckenstock Zur Aktualität von Schleiermachers "Reden" aus dem Jahre 1799: Ein kontextueller Deutungsversuch Ad Willems Die Ermöglichung von Korrelativität: Religion als "Anschauung und Gefühl" in Schleiermachers zweiter Rede Christian Albrecht Die Christologie der "Reden" Claus-Dieter Osthövener Religion als Ausdruck des gestimmten Gefühls: Schleiermachers. Sicht der religiösen Erfahrung in den "Reden" Wessel Stoker "... etwas ausser und über der Menschheit... " Schleiermachers Religionsbegriff in den "Reden". Postmodernismus avant la lettre? Dick Boer Die Präsenz Spinozas in Schleiermachers "Reden" Rinse Reeling Brouwer Von einer romantischen hin zu einer transzendental-philosophischen Bewusstseinstheorie Jacques Laurent Das Tilburger Symposium über Schleiermachers "Reden" Protokoll der Diskussion Nico Schreurs NAMENREGISTER. (shrink)

Highly divergent accounts exist of the nature of emotional feelings. Following Lambie and Marcel (2002), that divergence is traced back to actual differences in experience that result from variations in the involvement and direction of attention during emotions. The dimensions of variation include first versus second order experience, world- versus self-focus, appraisal or action-readiness focus, and attention mode (synthetic-analytic, immersed-detached). It is argued that the most characteristic form during actual emotional events consists of the more or less immersed and synthetic (...) perception of an emotionally meaningful world or of oneself as emotionally meaningful. Meaning consists of perceived qualities that represent appraisal and action readiness. Although information from one's body is central for all emotion experience, it is not central in all emotion experience. Feeling of the body in a particular state represents detached analytic self-focused awareness only.Emotion experience not only represents a perspective on emotional reactions but also contributes to the constitution of those reactions, notably with respect to attention shifts, action initiation and action guidance, and emotion regulation. It is a major factor in constituting a representation of “self” and in establishing social coherence. (shrink)

Many philosophers take the view that, while coercion is a prominent and enduring feature of legal practice, its existence does not reflect a deep, constitutive property of law and therefore coercion plays at best a very limited role in the explanation of law's nature. This view has become more or less the orthodoxy in modern jurisprudence. I argue that an interesting and plausible possible role for coercion in the explanation of law is untouched by the arguments in support of the (...) orthodox view. Since my main purpose is to clear the ground for the alternative, I spell out the orthodox view in some detail. I then briefly sketch the alternative. Finally, I turn to Jules Coleman's discussion of the alternative. (shrink)

Law is usually understood as an orderly, coherent system, but this volume shows that it is often better understood as an entangled web. Bringing together eminent contributors from law, political science, sociology, anthropology, history and political theory, it also suggests that entanglement has been characteristic of law for much of its history. The book shifts the focus to the ways in which actors create connections and distance between different legalities in domestic, transnational and international law. It examines a wide range (...) of issue areas, from the relationship of state and indigenous orders to the regulation of global financial markets, from corporate social responsibility to struggles over human rights. The book uses these empirical insights to inform new theoretical approaches to law, and by placing the entanglements between norms from different origins at the centre of the study of law, it opens up new avenues for future legal research. This title is also available as Open Access. (shrink)

Emotion experience reflects some of the outcomes of the mostly nonconscious processes that compose emotions. In my view, the major processes are appraisal, affect, action readiness, and autonomic arousal. The phenomenology of emotion experience varies according to mode of consciousness (nonreflective or reflective consciousness), and to direction and mode of attention. As a result, emotion experience may be either ineffable or articulate with respect to any or all of the underlying processes. In addition, emotion experience reflects the degree to which (...) the emotion processes control perception, thought, action and bodily arousal. (shrink)

The theoretical underpinnings of public international law have taken the sovereign status of the nation-state for granted since the beginning of the modern era. After centuries of evolution in legal and political thought, the state's definition as a bounded territorial unit has been strictly codified. The legal development of the nation-state was an ideological project informed by extra-legal considerations. Additionally, the ever-narrowing scope of the juridical idea of sovereignty functioned as a boundary mechanism instrumental in colonising Africa and other regions. (...) While international law claims universal liberalism today, the current system based on sovereign nation-states represents not social inclusion but fierce and dangerous exclusion. -/- The central thesis of this book is that the development of legal sovereignty was, rather than part of the modernist progress narrative, a historically contingent evolutionary regression. While other social systems such as economics and science became globalised, politics and law counterintuitively became more territorialised. It is argued that the nation-state today is not only anachronistic but is dangerously ill-equipped for facing international problems such as the climate crisis or global pandemics. Finally, it also leaves African states and many other formerly-colonised territories at a particular disadvantage by regulating their political practices into a predefined mould. (shrink)

In his seminal Islam Observed: Religious Developments in Morocco and Indonesia from 1968, the American anthropologist Clifford Geertz placed the comparative study of Muslim societies on the research agenda. In view of my knowledge on the history of Islam in Indonesia, it stroke me that the political dimension of religion did not take an important place in the book. This is the more remarkable because during Geertz’s fieldwork in Java in 1953-4 manifestations of political Islam regularly popped up, and Geertz (...) did not only notice those, but also recorded them in his book The Religion of Java from 1960. In this paper I will go into the question of why Geertz did not give a more prominent place to political Islam in his analysis of Muslim cultures, and what concepts of both Islam and religion he used. (shrink)

This article applies the concept of prudence to develop the characteristics of responsible risk-modeling practices in the insurance industry. A critical evaluation of the risk-modeling process suggests that ethical judgments are emergent rather than static, vague rather than clear, particular rather than universal, and still defensible according to the discipline’s established theory, which will support a range of judgments. Thus, positive moral guides for responsible behavior are of limited practical value. Instead, by being prudent, modelers can improve their ability to (...) deal with the ethical and technical complexity of the risk-modeling process. While the application of prudence to resolve ethical challenges in risk modeling, an issue of practical importance to managers, is a first in the literature, the practice of applying an ethical lens to issues of pragmatic importance for managers is well established in Maak and Pless (J Bus Ethics 66:99–115, 2006a ; Responsible leadership, 2006b ) among others. (shrink)

This five volume collection brings together a carefully selected array of contributions from a variety of disciplines. Featuring essays from philosophers who have investigated the foundations of knowledge, and addressing different forms of knowledge in society such as common sense and practical knowledge, this collection also discusses the role of knowledge in economic process and gives attention to the role of expert knowledge in political decision making. Including a collection of articles from the sociology of knowledge and science, the set (...) also provides a new introduction and full index by the editors, making it a unique and invaluable research resource for both student and scholar. Coverage includes: 1. Foundations of Knowledge - Knowledge, Experience and Mind - Knowledge and Reality - Knowledge and Skepticism - Knowledge and Ignorance - Knowledge and Uncertainty 2: Knowledge and Society: Forms of Knowledge - Everyday Knowledge - Practical knowledge - Tacit knowledge - Secret Knowledge - Scientific Knowledge - Hermeneutics - Knowledge Construction - Indigenous (traditional) knowledge 3: Knowledge and the Economy - The Economics of Knowledge - Knowledge and Organisations - Knowledge Acquisition - Knowledge Based Systems (firms) - Knowledge Management - Knowledge and Information - Knowledge and Law 4: Politics and Knowledge - Science and Policy-Making - The Power of Ideas and Discourse - The Politics of Knowledge 5: Sociology of Knowledge and Science - Classical Perspectives - Modern Views - Science Studies. (shrink)

The following article was written to honour Johan Buitendag’s contribution to the discipline of eco-theology. Assuming an interdisciplinary stance, eco-theology in general and his work, in particular, is observed from the position of legal theory and sociology. As such, eco-theology is not assessed on theological grounds but is treated interdisciplinary through comparison with environmental law. More specifically, the project of eco-theology is shown to share certain characteristics with the nascent subdiscipline of Earth systems law within environmental law. It is argued (...) that one of the most important of these is the use of norms as an ecological strategy. This is understandable as both the religious and legal systems rely on the norm form to a lesser or greater extent. However, in the legal sociology of systems theory, the shortcomings of norms have been eloquently argued. This article thus posits the limits of norms to eco-theology and Earth systems law as a challenge deserving attention. However, social systems theory has its shortcomings, and a preliminary line of flight away from this challenge is suggested in the shape of Agamben’s description of the monastic form-of-life, where life and norm overlap so intensely that suggestions of a new worldview gain plausibility. (shrink)

Several philosophical issues in connection with computer simulations rely on the assumption that results of simulations are trustworthy. Examples of these include the debate on the experimental role of computer simulations :483–496, 2009; Morrison in Philos Stud 143:33–57, 2009), the nature of computer data Computer simulations and the changing face of scientific experimentation, Cambridge Scholars Publishing, Barcelona, 2013; Humphreys, in: Durán, Arnold Computer simulations and the changing face of scientific experimentation, Cambridge Scholars Publishing, Barcelona, 2013), and the explanatory power of (...) computer simulations :277–292, 2008; Durán in Int Stud Philos Sci 31:27–45, 2017). The aim of this article is to show that these authors are right in assuming that results of computer simulations are to be trusted when computer simulations are reliable processes. After a short reconstruction of the problem of epistemic opacity, the article elaborates extensively on computational reliabilism, a specified form of process reliabilism with computer simulations located at the center. The article ends with a discussion of four sources for computational reliabilism, namely, verification and validation, robustness analysis for computer simulations, a history of successful implementations, and the role of expert knowledge in simulations. (shrink)

As its title suggests, this anthology is a collection of papers presented at a conference on feelings and emotions held in Amsterdam in 2001. One of the symposium’s main goals was to draw some of the most prominent researchers in emotion research together and provide a multi-disciplinary ‘snap shot’ of the state of the art at the turn of the century. In that respect it is truly a cognitive science success story. There are articles from a wide range of fields, (...) encompassing, e.g., philosophy, neuroscience, anthropology, sociology, and psychology. Another.. (shrink)

More than three decades after Gernot Böhme and Nico Stehr began to explore modern "knowledge societies", the concept has transformed sociological inquiry into the dynamics of contemporary society. But a quick Google search shows that the term is not only limited to academic circles. Moreover, international bodies such as the OECD underline the importance of transformative processes towards knowledge societies for global tertiary education and point to the importance of "inclusive knowledge societies for sustainable development". This book brings together (...) Nico Stehr's key writings on the knowledge society and serves as an authoritative resource for students, scholars, and professionals. Previously published articles and chapters have been carefully selected to take the reader from the formulation and refinement of the concept to scholarly contributions that test the applicability and explanatory power of the concept in empirical case studies. In addition, the volume includes new and original material by Nico Stehr that will help the next generation of scholars find ways to explore novel and pressing issues such as the role of digital technologies and AI in modern knowledge societies and future inequalities in knowledge capitalism. (shrink)

Frontmatter -- Inhalt -- Formen und Inhalte der Bedeutungsbeschreibung: Definition, Explikation, Repräsentation, Simulation / Weber, Nico -- Zeichen, Bedeutung, Objekt aus kommunikationssemantischer Sicht / Juchem, Johann G. -- Was ist philosophische Logik der Zeit? / Stuhlmann-Laeisz, Rainer -- Zum Kompositionalitätsprinzip in der Semantik / Schröder, Bernhard -- Kognitiv orientierte Lexikographie / Figge, Udo L. -- Wortbedeutungen in Wörterbüchern, Wortbedeutungen in Texten / Seewald, Uta -- Lexikon und Universalgrammatik / Bierwisch, Manfred -- Enzyklopädische Informationen in Wörterbüchern / Bergenholtz, Henning / (...) Kaufmann, Uwe -- Ansichten von Bedeutung: fachsprachliche vs. gemeinsprachliche Semantik / Schaeder, Burkhard -- On Compound Explication in a Byzantine Greek Dictionary / Steiner-Weber, Astrid -- Lexikographische Erschließung des Wendekorpus / Hellmann, Manfred W. -- Les temps d'un dictionnaire de TAO sont-ils venus? / Zemb, Jean-Marie -- Semantische Relatoren / Engel, Ulrich -- Die Beschreibung von Sätzen ohne Subjektsphrase in der kopfgesteuerten Phrasenstrukturgrammatik / Klenk, Ursula -- Representation of Verb-alternations in an Inheritance-based Lexicon / Wolting, Suzanne -- Probleme der Extraktion semantischer Relationen aus maschinenlesbaren Wörterbüchern / Mehl, Stephan -- Können Verben semantische Relationen markieren? / Büchel, Gregor -- On the Verification of Lexical Descriptions in Text Corpora / Heid, Ulrich -- Automatische Generierung natürlichsprachlicher Paraphrasen formaler Bedeutungsbeschreibungen / Küstner, Herbert -- Verb Semantics in Multilingual Sentence Generation / Stede, Manfred -- ADRESSEN DER AUTOREN. (shrink)

The review essay deals with two recent publications on media-war relationships: Tumber and Palmer's ‘Media at war. The Iraq crisis’ and Thussu and Freedman's ‘War and the media. Reporting conflict 24/7’. Two questions are raised in this essay. First, is it still relevant to look back at two publications on media-war relationships when the wars they focus on have fundamentally altered? And even more importantly, is there a convincing reason for actually reading them? Answering these questions allows for a more (...) fundamental reflection on the importance of academic activities in relationship to issues of media and war. Three answers are suggested: the importance and necessity of documenting, analyzing and archiving war, the facilitation of academic and societal dialogue on the issues of war, and the analyses of the political, economical, cultural, technological and ideological contexts that transcend singular wars. Especially the last domain is considered crucial. Although each war is characterized by a high degree of specificity and contingency, which unavoidably influences and alters the media-war-military relationships, the contextual analyses enable uncovering the presence of more structural aspects in these relationships. More specifically, these contextual analyses teach us most about the role of power and ideology in the representational processes that deal with war. These analyses again show the powerlessness of media and media professionals to escape from the dichotomized ideological model of war and from the legitimization of what Knightley termed ‘the institution of war’. (shrink)

The accusation is often levelled at Calvin that his doctrine on sin is inconsistent, contradictory, deterministic and culpable of making God the Author of sin. This article probes the validity of these accusations by analysing the consistency of John Calvin’s doctrine on human sinfulness and by asking whether Calvin’s understanding of sinful human nature is theologically valid. In doing so, the investigation keeps in mind the structural make-up of his theology, the rhetorical intent of his utterances and the devices he (...) employs to harmonise possible inconsistencies in his theology. The finding is that characterisations of Calvin’s doctrine on sin as deterministic, logically inconsistent and culpable of making God the Author of sin are not well-founded. Factors often overlooked are the dialectical nature of his theological reflection on sin, the chronological evolution of his thought on sin and the fact that he does not regard God and human beings as operating on the same ontological level, though this does not mean that God is not active in creaturely reality. When these factors are taken into account, Calvin’s doctrine on sin proves to be fairly consistent and reconcilable with the rest of his theology. (shrink)