This study argues that the notion of transparency requires reconsideration as an essence of ethical agency. It provides a brief explication of the concept of transparency, rooted in the principle of human dignity of Immanuel Kant, and suggests that it has been inadequately appreciated by media ethics scholars and instructors more focused on relatively simplistic applications of his categorical imperative. This study suggests that the concept's Kantian roots raise a radical challenge to conventional understandings of human interaction and, by extension, (...) what it means to exercise freedom. (shrink)

Griinbaum's own article sets forth his views on the ontology of the curvature of empty space, especially in the geometrodynamics of Clifford and Wheeler. ...

This paper develops and refines the suggestion that logical systems are conceptual artefacts that are the outcome of a design-process by exploring how a constructionist epistemology and meta-philosophy can be integrated within the philosophy of logic.

Abstract: The core aim of this special issue is to present the philosophy of information as a way of doing philosophy, to focus on the contributions of Luciano Floridi to that area, and most important, to stimulate the debate on the most distinctive and controversial views he has defended in that context. This introduction contains a description of the philosophy of information, a discussion of two common misconceptions about the scope and the ambition of the philosophy of information, and a (...) brief overview of the essays in the issue. (shrink)

A bold exploration of the feminist revolution in Roman Catholic ethics, this book addresses controversial issues head on. This is the long-awaited first offering by the well-known feminist theologian, a professor of religion at Carleton College and a past president of the Catholic Theological Socity of America.

This paper reports on the findings of the third in a series of surveys of large U.S.-based and multinational corporations on their ethics statements. Focusing on four types – values statement, corporate credo, code of ethics and Internet privacy policy – we find growth in the use of these statements over the last decade. We discuss the external communication of these statements, including the avenues that are now used for promotion and their intended audiences. The paper concludes with a number (...) of research issues to be addressed. (shrink)

While the subjective experience of insight during problem solving is a common occurrence, an understanding of the processes leading to solution remains relatively uncertain. The goal of this study was to investigate the restructuring patterns underlying solution of a creative problem, and how providing cues to solution may alter the process. Results show that both providing cues to solution and analyzing problem solving performance on an aggregate level may result in restructuring patterns that appear incremental. Analysis of performance on an (...) individual level provides evidence for insight-like solution patterns. However, no evidence is found for a relationship between an individual’s restructuring pattern and their subjective experience of insight during problem solving. (shrink)

Visual forms of episodic memory and anticipatory imagination involve images that, by virtue of their perspectival organization, imply a notional subject of experience. But they contain no inbuilt reference to the actual subject, the person actually doing the remembering or imagining. This poses the problem of what (if anything) connects these two perspectival subjects and what differentiates cases of genuine memory and anticipation from mere imagined seeing. I consider two approaches to this problem. The first, exemplified by Wollheim and Velleman, (...) claims that genuinely reflexive memories and anticipations are phenomenally unselfconscious, with the co-identity of the notional and actual subjects secured by a determinate causal history. The second approach posits some distinctive phenomenal property that attaches to genuinely reflexive memories and anticipations and serves to experientially conflate the notional and actual subject. I consider a version of the second approach, derived from Kierkegaard’s discussions of phenomenal contemporaneity, and argue that this approach can better account for the possibility of affective alienation from the selves we were and will be: the way in which our sense of self and awareness of our causal history can sometimes come apart. (shrink)

We have a certain fascination with the incredible untapped potential of our minds. Some studies once suggested that we use only 10% of the mind's capacity. Today that estimate has been revised to about 2%-3%. Imagine what more we could do with all of that as yet unrealized potential. What is standing in our way? How do we move into a more full realization of who we are? These are the questions that this book seeks to answer.

What part should description play in coming to judgment? Questions about genre have become more important in religious ethics as many seek to reform “thin” models of ethical arbitration by recourse to artistic, literary, and historical descriptions in their texts. In this book discussion, I explore what the consequences would be of pursuing this reform by turning to social anthropology—a discipline that relies on extensive empirical descriptions. I do this by considering the anthropology of ethics: a movement that seeks, for (...) the first time, to devote systematic and sustained attention the moral lives of ethnographic informants. I focus on the ways that authors within this field attempt to arrive at more realistic portraits of the different ways societies play out the familiar ethical themes of freedom, responsibility, suffering and agency. Their work challenges religious ethicists to consider what ethical conversation across these differences would look like, and thus to reconsider the relationship between description and judgment in their work. (shrink)

This paper considers the revolutionary developments occurring in the field of genetic mapping and the genetic identification of disease propensities. These breakthroughs are discussed relative to the ethical and economic implications for the insurance industry. Individual's privacy rights and rights to employment must be weighed against the insurers desire for better estimates of future loss costs associated with health, life and other insurances. These are in turn related to the fundamental conception of insurance as a financial intermediary versus insurance as (...) a vehicle for social policy. (shrink)

This article sets out the basic principles of a new theory of intellectual interventions centred round the notion of positioning. Intellectual interventions are seen as ways in which intellectuals locate themselves in the socio-political and intellectual field, thereby also positioning others. The existing contributions to the study of intellectuals often take the self-concepts or dispositions of intellectuals to be fixed, and they tend to focus on the causes and motivations behind intellectual interventions. Challenging this perspective, the theory proposed substitutes a (...) vocabulary of effects for the existing vocabulary of intentions and causes: rather than speculating on the sociological determinants or purposes that underlie an intellectual intervention, this theory explores its effects for the symbolic and institutional recognition of the author(s) and for the diffusion of the ideas propagated. (shrink)

This is an important collection of essays dealing with the foundations of probability that will be of value to philosophers of science, mathematicians, statisticians, psychologists and educationalists. The collection falls into three parts. Part I comprises five essays on the axiomatic foundations of probability. Part II contains seven articles on probabilistic causality and quantum mechanics, with an emphasis on the existence of hidden variables. The third part consists of a single extended essay applying probabilistic theories of learning to practical questions (...) of education: it incorporates extensive data analysis. Patrick Suppes is one of the world's foremost philosophers in the area of probability, and has made many contributions to both the theoretical and practical side of education. The statistician Mario Zanotti is a long-time collaborator. (shrink)

This paper examines the contribution of the PhD dissertation of the American cytologist Michael F. Guyer (1874-1959) to the early establishment (in 1902-1903) of the parallel relationship between cytological chromosome behaviour in meiosis and Mendel's laws. Guyer's suggestions were among the first, which attempted to relate the variation observed in the offspring in hybridisation studies by a coherent cytological chromosome mechanism to meiosis before the rediscovery of Mendel's principles. This suggested for the first time that the chromosome mechanism involved a (...) conjugation of maternal and paternal chromosomes during the synapsis followed by a segregation of parental chromosomes in the final germ cells and a random union of the final germ cells in the fertilization. It shows that this early suggestion was similar to William Austin Cannon's later chromosome proposal attempting to explain Mendel's principles and had some influence on Walter Sutton's cytological suggestion explaining correctly the behaviour of Mendel's particle by 1903. (shrink)

Cet article présente, contre le physicalisme, un argument métaphysique fondé sur la distinction entre les propriétés intrinsèques et extrinsèques. Il soutient que le physique, comme le physicalisme doit le comprendre, comprend uniquement des propriétés extrinsèques, tandis que la conscience implique au moins certaines propriétés intrinsèques. Il conclut que la conscience a des propriétés non-physiques et que le physicalisme est faux. L’article défend ensuite ses prémisses contre la pensée physicaliste actuelle. Autant que possible, il offre des arguments métaphysiques portant sur les (...) propriétés physiques et conscientes plutôt que des arguments épistémologiques portant sur nos concepts physiques et phénoménaux. (shrink)

By resituating Alexander von Humboldt in the “working world” of mining, this essay offers a case study of the way in which industry has shaped practice and theory in the history of science. While Humboldt’s experience as a miner in Saxony and Prussia provided him a venue in which to study fossilized vegetation, revealing a fundamental link between the migrations of plants and of peoples, industrial concerns about miners’ safety inspired a study of the interplay between plants and people that (...) shaped his later articulation of the verticality of plant distribution. Moreover, the cartographic methods Humboldt employed during his American journey depended as much on drawing practices indebted to mining as they did on patterns of vertical mobility above and below the surface of the earth. These arguments ultimately encourage a departure from “Humboldtian Science,” a term that has veiled an originally Prusso-Saxon science beneath a set of Anglo-American connotations. (shrink)

One hundred years of French social theory : from structuralism to pragmatism -- The biological metaphor : functionalism and neo-functionalism -- The enigma of everyday life : symbolic interactionism, the dramaturgical approach and ethnomethodology -- The invasion of economic man : from rational choice theory to the new institutionalism -- Sociology meets history : Giddens's theory of modernity -- The history and the present : Foucault's archaeology and genealogy -- The spread of reason : Habermas's critical theory and beyond -- (...) A brave new world? : the empirical turn in social theory -- Conclusion : social theory for the twenty-first century. (shrink)

Hannah Arendt is one of the most prominent thinkers of modern times, whose profound influence extends across philosophy, politics, law, history, international relations, sociology, and literature. Presenting new and powerful ways to think about human freedom and responsibility, Arendt's work has provoked intense debate and controversy. 'Hannah Arendt: Key Concepts' explores the central ideas of Arendt's thought, such as freedom, action, power, judgement, evil, forgiveness and the social. Bringing together an international team of contributors, the essays provide lucid accounts of (...) Arendt's fundamental themes and their ethical and political implications. The specific concepts Arendt deployed to make sense of the human condition, the phenomena of political violence, terror and totalitarianism, and the prospects of sustaining a shared public world are all examined. 'Hannah Arendt: Key Concepts' consolidates the disparate strands of Arendt's thought to provide an accessible and essential guide for anybody who wishes to gain a deeper understanding of this leading intellectual figure. (shrink)

Awareness that moral beliefs and practices have changed across time threatens our confidence in our current moral beliefs: if past moral beliefs turned out to be wrong, how can we be sure ours aren't likewise mistaken? In this paper, I set up four desiderata for a successful theory of moral progress: it must allow us to judge that progress has occurred, avoid the image of increasing correspondence towards ahistorical truthmakers, allow for revision in belief, and yet not be disobligating. Rorty's (...) pragmatist account of moral progress delivers on the first three, but at the cost of failing to meet the fourth: it drains moral beliefs of their categorical force. I then outline K.E. Løgstrup’s understanding of the relation between the ‘ethical demand’ and changing, socially mediated norms. While Løgstrup does posit an unchanging ground of normativity - the "ethical demand" to act for the sake of the other whose welfare is in our hands – he also thinks that changing social norms are an indispensable part of ethical life. I argue that Løgstrup's discussion of the ‘refraction’ of the ethical demand through changing social norms provides resources for an account of moral progress that fulfils these four desiderata. (shrink)

Researchers in the fields of sign language and gesture studies frequently present their participants with video stimuli showing actors performing linguistic signs or co-speech gestures. Up to now, such video stimuli have been mostly controlled only for some of the technical aspects of the video material, leaving open the possibility that systematic differences in video stimulus materials may be concealed in the actual motion properties of the actor’s movements. Computer vision methods such as OpenPose enable the fitting of body-pose models (...) to the consecutive frames of a video clip and thereby make it possible to recover the movements performed by the actor in a particular video clip without the use of a point-based or markerless motion-tracking system during recording. The OpenPoseR package provides a straightforward and reproducible way of working with these body-pose model data extracted from video clips using OpenPose, allowing researchers in the fields of sign language and gesture studies to quantify the amount of motion pertaining only to the movements performed by the actor in a video clip. These quantitative measures can be used for controlling differences in the movements of an actor in stimulus video clips or, for example, between different conditions of an experiment. In addition, the package also provides a set of functions for generating plots for data visualization, as well as an easy-to-use way of automatically extracting metadata from large sets of video files. (shrink)

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This article analyzes business and union strategies in the reform of job security regulations. It argues that unions are the main political actors pushing for their expansion of regulations, but given employers’ opposition, unions are able to enforce better protection only in exceptional periods. Once the first restrictions are in place, employers use their power advantages at the workplace level to circumvent regulations, which unions combat by reducing the level of discretion awarded to employers in interpreting regulations. In recent decades, (...) job security regulations have come under increasing pressure. Unions have reacted to this new situation by consenting to the continuous deregulation of temporary employment, while they fight any attempt at deregulating job security in open-ended contracts in order to protect their members’ interests and their institutional involvement in the administration of dismissals. The theoretical argument is supported by empirical evidence from four Western European countries since the postwar period. (shrink)

This book examines cultural recognition and the struggle for identity in America's schools. In particular, the contributing authors focus on the recognition and misrecognition as antagonistic cultural forces that work to shape, and at times distort identity.

Contemporary yoga is popularly represented in various media by a fit, white woman. Yoga Journal is a magazine recognized by many as an industry cornerstone and an institution in and of itself. It represents the distinctive face of yoga. By analyzing the visual and textual content of the Yoga Journal magazine covers, from its first issue in 1975 to issue 313, we describe the produced and consumed portrait of yoga. By focusing on the cover themes, together with the objects and (...) persons depicted, we recognize three phases of development that have contributed to the understanding of the changing image of yoga in the media. While, in the initial phase, yoga was represented as a mystical and mysterious spiritual discipline that originated in the Orientalized East, in the later phase, it was depicted first as a global and universal phenomenon and then as a mainstream everyday fitness regime. Yoga’s depiction in the last phase is compatible with the scholarly representation of contemporary yoga as posture and body centered, but not with its earlier depictions. We found that in its mature phase, the yoga body, which is criticized for its lack of inclusiveness, emerged to become omnipresent. We conclude that the newly formed face of yoga is problematic, both for its female readers, who are encouraged to conform to a unique body type, and also for the yoga community, which encounters an appearance-based restriction of access. (shrink)