The purpose of this study is to examine how workgroup diversity can be managed through specific strategic human resource management systems. Our review shows that ‘affirmative action’ and traditional ‘diversity management’ approaches have failed to simultaneously achieve business and social justice outcomes of diversity. As previous literature has shown, the benefits of diversity cannot be achieved with isolated interventions. To the contrary, a complete organizational culture change is required, in order to promote appreciation of individual differences. The paper contributes to (...) this discussion by exploring the implications of this change for human resource management, and explaining how the systems of practices should be changed when they are directed to diverse groups. The model designed to test this notion includes: (1) demographic and human capital diversity as independent variables, (2) group performance (measured as innovation outcomes) as the dependent variable and, (3) the orientation of the strategic human resource management system as a potential moderator of this relationship. The main conclusion of the empirical analysis developed is that different patterns of human resource management practices can be used, depending on the type of diversity that the organization faces, and the specific effects that it wishes to manage. Concretely, three alternative management systems are identified in this paper, with different moderating effects. This result has interesting implications for human resource management professionals, explained in the last section. The limitations of this study are also discussed, as well as some issues that future research in this field should address. (shrink)

Socially responsible human resource management (SR‐HRM) is becoming increasingly important for academics and managers. The interface between HRM and corporate social responsibility (CSR) is the subject of analysis in this article. It adopts a contextual perspective to analyze whether the institutional context influences the implementation of socially responsible HRM (SR‐HRM). Considering the differences in the national institutional contexts across Europe, this study explores the different models of SR‐HRM in that region. The research is focused on a sample of 153 companies (...) headquartered in Germany, Spain, Sweden, and the United Kingdom. The findings evidence the influence exerted by the national institutional context on the implementation of SR‐HRM. Differences among country clusters suggest the existence of different models of SR‐HRM in Europe. However, these models do not correspond to the blocks on HRM or on CSR identified by the literature but instead provide a novel categorization. (shrink)

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) is increasingly viewed as a strategic management tool for companies to draw in candidates. In this arena, international responsible rankings such as ‘The Great Place to Work’, ‘Family Responsible Employer Index (FREE)’ or ‘The Best Companies for Working Mothers’ put emphasis on the value of responsible behaviours, not only for surviving in the market, but also to ‘win the war for talent’. Using a sample of Spanish University students, this research aims to analyse the process of (...) selecting responsible organizations to work and whether there is a possible future conflict of interest by students between their own and organizational values. Surprisingly, the university students assessed two opposing situations with the highest values: of looking to change employer and of letting time pass in order to ignore the conflict. The implications of the students’ assessments and the related factors which affect their decision-making criteria are explored in this article. (shrink)

This study aims to diagnose how the cinema of cruelty has been inserted into mainstream culture through the current streaming series, analysing the elements of the eroticism of perversity and the c...

In the context of a particular framework of emergent quantum mechanics, it is argued the emergent origin of the inertial mass of a physical system. Two main consequences of the theory are discussed: an emergent interpretation of the law of inertia and a derivation of the energy-time uncertainty relation.

In this article, I start with an analysis of Husserl’s description of the intentional structure of communicative intentions in the Logical Investigations, pointing to some obvious shortcomings of it. Then, I stress some important criticisms of Husserl’s approach, namely by Pfänder, and I endeavor to show that Husserl was very close to a full-fledged theory of communicative intentions in the years around 1910. I then turn to Reinach’s theory of social acts, without deciding whether Reinach’s approach was dependent or not (...) on Husserl’s new views concerning the intentionality of communicative acts. Regarding Reinach’s theory of the Vernehmung, I criticize a widespread trend to construe it as something like a perception, showing that it expresses what I call the “vocative element” of the communicative acts. Then, I point to some complements that Reinach’s description is in need, and I finish with an outline of a phenomenologically oriented concept of communication, based on Husserl’s and Reinach’s insights. (shrink)

In this paper, I discuss the possible relations between Fritz London’s account of the status of the observer in quantum physics and transcendental phenomenology. Firstly, I discuss Steven French’s interpretation of London’s thesis as a phenomenological account of the status of the observer, along with the objections Otávio Bueno has brought forward. Secondly, refusing in part both French’s and Bueno’s theses for several reasons, I propose another way of reading London’s thesis in the framework of transcendental phenomenology. Namely, I put (...) London’s account of the observer against the backdrop of Husserl’s analyses of the objectifying acts and objectual constitution. Finally, I end this article with some criticisms of what seems to me the ontological indigency of the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum physics, to whose “spirit” London also belongs. (shrink)

In this paper I address some philosophical questions regarding the impact quantum mechanics has in the classical conceptions about reality and knowledge. I stress that onto-gnosiological realism still is an option to the issues regarding the relationship between knowledge and reality. Rejecting some radical aspects of Copenhagen interpretation of quantum formalism, I emphasize the advantages of de Broglie’s realistic and causal model. To finish with, I discuss the limits of the Cartesian concept of matter and the split between matter and (...) mind. (shrink)

In this paper, I examine phenomenologically the structure of the normative noema, which I call the “nomothetic noema.” I distinguish the meaning content, its normative characters, which I call “ductive forces”, and its modes of givenness. Next, I introduce the traditional difference between modalities de re and de dicto. I argue that the current tendency, in deontic logic, to treat deontic expressions as operators over sentences induces, at least on the syntactic surface, a de dicto reading. I then discuss some (...) of the theoretical decisions that underlie deontic logic, starting from two basic asymmetries between modal alethic logic and deontic logic. The decisive point is to recover a strong sense of permission that I equate with the factor of free agency, which is difficult to formalize. Finally, I return to the analysis of the nomothetic noema and try to show how a de re reading is better suited to account for normative intentionality. I simultaneously introduce the concept of status-imposing norms, which must be formulated with a normative use of the copulas “is” and “has.” I conclude that the treatment of normative expressions is more appropriate when they are understood as complex copulas, irreducible to assertive sentences, rather than as operators over whole sentences. I emphasize on this occasion that, from a phenomenological point of view and within the framework of genetic analysis, the primitive basic datum is the freedom of agency, on which the normative domain of assigning statuses to agents, obligations, and prohibitions is built. (shrink)

I offer an outline of an integrated phenomenological analysis of free fantasy and of fictional worlds. My main concern amounts to stress the scissions entailed in free fantasy and in the consciousness of fictional objects: a scission of the I, and a scission of the experience. Firstly, I offer a somewhat new characterization of the presence of the objects of free fantasy, which disconnects any possible relationship of those objects with a real perception as the leading form of an originally (...) giving consciousness. My leading example is daydream. Secondly, I take the Husserlian analysis of neutralization as a conceptual tool to explain the consciousness of fictional worlds, against a new tendency for interpreting these worlds in light of the concept of “possible world”. The two approaches converge to a twofold characterization of the mode of being of fictions and of the modality of presence of the objects of fantasy. (shrink)

En partant des derniers paragraphes de la cinquième parti du Discours de la Méthode, on a reconstitué la formulation cartésienne de la perception d’un autre moi. Les critères de l’usage du langage et de la plasticité du comportement ont été analysés à la lumière de l’idée d’une machine universelle et du test de Turing. On conclut de la faiblesse de l’argument cartésien sur l’irréductibilité de la pensée à un dispositif machinal. En tant qu’issue de la difficulté, on propose une révision (...) de la façon cartésienne de caractérisation de la pensée à partir du concept d’expérience, tout en abandonnant le thème d’une perception interne incommunicable et intémoignable. (shrink)

In this paper, I present the main traits of the phenomenological thinking of Abranches de Soveral. I start with the work of his master Miranda Barbosa explaining the criticisms he address to the Husserlian phenomenology. I show Soveral’s approach to phenomenology is framed by the conceptions of Barbosa and the problems that, for him, phenomenology cannot answer in an accurate way. In this context, I present the fundamental tenets of Soveral’s rejoinder to his master, showing how phenomenology can be rearranged (...) in order to formulate and to answer “the fundamental problem of knowledge”. (shrink)

While not a phenomenologist, Fernando Gil was highly interested in some aspects of Husserl’s work. One of these aspects was Husserl’s theory of evidence. ln a notable book entitled Traité de l’évidence, he developed a throughout theory of evidence, paying close attention to the most important insights Husserl exposed his works. Gil’s theory of evidence is at the same time rooted in Phenomenology and extended beyond it in as much as he locates the first dimension of evidence ma primitive stratum (...) hallucinating aesthesia from desire. Accounting for evidence as threefold process, going from aesthesia to presence, and then to the intellectual grasping of an individual object, the most interesting feature of his theory is the of evidence as a hallucinating process, encompassing all strata of sensitive, perceptive, and conceptual life. (shrink)

Berkeley’s general tenet about immaterialism is presented and discussed. I examined apart the several theses that concur to the immaterialist theory. After that, the general argument is presented and discussed. In particular, I stress Berkeley’s assumption that a world without matter and a world with matter would be indistinguishable from the point of view of the content of perceptions, natural science. I stress that this assumption depends on a relative account of circular motion, generating the centrifugal forces, as Newton shows (...) in his bucket experiment. In spite of the efforts by Leibniz and Huygens, such a relative account of rotational motion was never presented. So the thesis about the scientific and perceptual identity between worlds with and without matter remains a simple case of wishful thinking in need for a justification. (shrink)

In the first part of this paper we try to show how the discussion of Meinong’s distinction between distributed and undistributed objects was crucial for Husserl’s thinking about the phenomenology of time consciousness. The criticism of Meinong’s thesis that the representation of a distributed object (temporal object) is an undistributed act is presented as the central point for the development of Husserl’s own thesis about the perception as a continuum of continua and about consciousness as an unitary flux of temporal (...) phases. In a second part, we move to Brentano’s theory about original associations in the constitution of the “presence-time”. Brentano’s position about the function of phantasy as the origin of our representation of time is refused by Husserl and, as a result, the structural composition of time consciousness in phases of primal-impression, fresh memory (later “retention”) and immediate expectation (later “protention”) appears as the core form to the intuition of the present and the constitution of time. In a last section, we follow Husserl’s revision of his own analysis of fresh memory in order to understand his final position about retention as a primitive form of Vergegenwärtigung. (shrink)

In this paper I discuss the consistency and accuracy of Husserl’s sketch of a theory about non-declarative sentences in the last chapter of Logical Investigations. Whereas the consistency is acknowledged, the accuracy is denied, because Husserl’s treatment of non-declarative phrases such as questions or orders implies that those phrases contain, in some way, a declarative sentence and an objectifying act. To construct a question like “is A B?” as being equivalent to a pseudo-declarative sentence such as “I ask whether A (...) is B” is, however, a false phenomenological analysis, because to ask o r to order or to beg is not to assert. I turn, then, to John Austin ‘s theory of performative (as opposed to constatative) utterances and illocutionary acts in order to find a more accurate approach to the logical-semantic content of non-declarative sentences. Eventually, I show how this Husserlian theory of non-declarative sentences has a negative impact on the phenomenological theory of social ·acts and communication. (shrink)

Gustavo de Fraga was one of the most influential Portuguese phenomenologists. He had a deep understanding of the Husserlian as well as of the Heideggerian phenomenology. One of his major concerns was the connection between these thinkers, and the resettlement of metaphysical questions some step beyond the works of both. In so doing, Gustavo de Fraga took an original stance in the field of Phenomenology, combining conceptual and poetic experiences of thought.

In this paper I try to show how transcendental logic can be interpreted in light of the distinction between apophantics and formal ontology. Despite the non-Kantian origin of these concepts, my contention is that they can reveal the scope of Kant’s argument regarding the distinction between formal and transcendental logic and the thesis that transcendental logic has a pure a priori content. While common approaches interpret this a priori content of transcendental logic as the content pure forms of aesthetics give, (...) we stress that this content is the a priori concepts of object which are embedded in the logical form of judgments. (shrink)

In this paper, I start with the opposition between the husserlian project of a phenomenology of the experience of time, started in 1905, and the mathematical and physical theory of time, as it comes out from the special theory of relativity, by Einstein, in the same year. Although the contrast between the two approaches is apparent, my aim is to show that the original program of Husserl’s time theory is the constitution of an objective time and a time of the (...) world, starting from the intuitive giveness of time, i.e., from time as it appears. To show this, I stress the structural similarity between the original question of time, by Husserl, and the problem of a phenomenology of the space constitution, as it was first developed in the husserlian manuscripts of the XIX century, in which we find the threefold question of the origin of our space representation, of the geometrization of intuitive space and the constitution of transcendent world space. Finally, I reconsider some of Husserl’s main theses about the phenomenological constitution of objective time in the light of the main results of special relativity time-theory, introducing several corrections to central assumptions that underlie Husserl’s theory of time. (shrink)

This paper is concerned with the reappraisal of Husserl’s ontology and epistemology, sketched in book one of Ideen. The main issue is Husserl’s theory of essence and essential insight. I present the fundamental distinction between facts and essences, and, over and above it, Husserl’s defense of an a priori knowledge based on essential insight as well as his partition of the whole realm of a priori knowledge into a formal set of material, regional ontologies. I will show how the theory (...) of essential insight presented in Ideen gives rise to several criticisms, namely those made by Neo-Kantians, like Rickert and Natorp. In the last part, I will show how the mathematical concept of an invariant under a group of variations was the leading case for Husserl’s mature notion of eidetic insight. (shrink)

I discuss Husserl’s concept of norm, and its relevance for a phenomenology of practical reason. I confront Husserl with Wilhelm Wundt, Hans Kelsen, and Carl Schmitt about, respectively, what a norm is, about the relation between theoretical and normative sciences, and, finally, about the creation of political concepts within European culture. In the last section, I develop some theoretical insights about the constitutive character of normative consciousness, abandoning Searle’s distinction between constitutive and regulative rules. I stress also the importance of (...) a phenomenology of plural and collective subjectivity in order to develop a phenomenological theory of state and normative experience. (shrink)

I discuss, from a phenomenological point of view, the distinction between judgments and norms. I stress the limits of the husserlian canonical analysis in order to rightly account for the sense and content of normative intentionality. Based on some Kelsian insights, I draw a clear distinction between judgments and norms, criticizing some classical trends coming from Husserl himself that consider norms as a kind of intentionality founded upon objectifying acts. However, taking distance from Kelsen, Kaufmann, and Cossio, I stress that (...) the ought-proposition (Sollsatz) cannot be a good rendering of the sense-content of norms, based on the phenomenological distinction between the intentional matter and the quality of intentional acts. Finally, I propose my own account based on the concept of ‘ductive force’. I stress that the ductive force of norms cannot be identified witb simple coercion. [ show that there is, even inside the juridical sphere, a variety of ductive forces, going from sheer coercion to council and recommendation. To end, I stress the centrality of the concept of “ductive force” for a phenomenology of the social world. (shrink)

I sketch an analysis of observing as a particular attitude one can take regarding the surrounding world. I stress some particular features of observation, like the cancelling of the vital engagement. in the world, and the delight that pure observation involves. Then I move to a description of figurative consciousness and its image-world. In the final part, 1 try to show how watching movies displays a new type of observation, based on the empathic connection with the characters, the emergence of (...) a virtual body, and a self-decentered life, where the ego is not an onlooker, but something like an “ in-looker”. (shrink)

I intend to understand from a phenomenological point of view the relationship between figurative consciousnesses (Bildbewusstsein) and other non-original presentations (Vergegenwiirtigungen) such as expectations, recollections or fantasies. I centre my analyses in the difference between figurative consciousness, on the one hand, and a modality of fantasy I cal! “daydream consciousness”, on the other. I stress that figurative consciousness implies apure observational ego, whereas day-dream consciousness is a free construction of the ego’s own personal story. The freedom of”day dream consciousness” has, (...) nevertheless, some important constraints. I emphasize the constraints that come from the passive and affective life of the ego. Finally, I propose new criteria for the phenomenological differentiation between the several kinds of acts of non-original presentation. (shrink)

The chapter has two parts. In the first part, I introduce a more fine-grained analysis of evaluative sentences. I distinguish between evaluations proper and directions for action with several degrees of constraint: commands, pieces of advice, suggestions, and so on. I call the latter “ductive-statements.” Thus, I affirm that the realm of morals has two branches: one relative to evaluations, which are is-sentences ranging from the several degrees between good and bad to the indifferent ; the other relative to sentences (...) having a “ductive” force that impose, with different degrees of coercion, a course of action. In the second part of the chapter, I address Searle’s famous argument concerning the derivation of ought-sentences from is-sentences. Relying on my previous distinctions, I argue that Searle’s derivation is flawed in two main points, which I present and discuss at length. (shrink)

Inaugurated in 1965, the Calouste Gulbenkian Planetarium (CGP) was the first institution of its kind in Portugal. The CGP was established in the context of the relocation of the Maritime Museum of Lisbon (Museu de Marinha) to Belém, an area of the Portuguese capital highly symbolic of Portuguese maritime and imperial history. The dictatorial regime known as Estado Novo used Belém as a ground for major events that affirmed the legitimacy of Portugal’s overseas empire by celebrating the maritime deeds of (...) erstwhile sovereigns and navigators, in a mythical narrative of a glorious imperial destiny. Given the close association between astronomy and nautical science, the CGP was certain to gain a prominent place in the tapestry of Belém’s symbolic inscriptions. This paper addresses the inception of the CGP in its urban context, showing how this area of Lisbon provided an ideal backdrop for this institution, and how its foundation was promoted and steered by a naval officer and amateur astronomer who maintained an ambivalent relation with the regime: Eugénio da Conceição Silva (1903–69). (shrink)

This article deals with the conscious and unconscious dimensions of mental life. I distinguish the transitive sense of consciousness, being conscious of something, intentionality, from the adjectival or adverbial sense, being conscious or consciously directed towards something. I show that an intentional act can be conscious or unconscious in the second sense and argue that, from this position, we can ask good questions about what consciousness is and its function in mental life. To achieve this result, I begin by framing (...) the topic in the tradition of psychology before Husserl, namely Lipps, and Brentano, and then describe the unconscious dimension from the conceptual apparatus of phenomenology. (shrink)

In what follows, I intend to address an issue which is at the boundaries of the phenomenological method of reflective explication, and that, in this sense, points to some limitations of the phenomenological approach to consciousness and mind. I am referring to an aporetic situation that is at the heart of the phenomenological analysis of passivity. On the one hand, phenomenology shows, at least indirectly, a passive life that is beyond the first steps of the activity of the ego in (...) the receptive, affective life. This is something that is beyond the rising of an ego, and from which a phenomenology of the ego-form of subjective life could be addressed. On the other hand, the analytic and conceptual tools of the phenomenological method have no grips on this basic realm of subjective life. As a result, Husserl’s analysis of passivity starts with the evidence of a pre-affective, pre-egoic realm, from which a phenomenology of the ego could be developed. However, Husserl’s analyses end up with the denegation of this dimension, as if it was invisible for the phenomenological method. As a consequence, the starting point of the analysis is not passivity proper, but rather the primitive forms of receptivity, which is already a first layer of the activity of the ego. Instead of an analysis of the ego-polarization (the “birth” of the ego), the egoic layer of conscious life is simply presupposed. A phenomenology of the ego-form is, thus, at the same time promised and denied. This aporetic situation is visible in the alteration of the concept of a passive pre-givenness in Husserl’s Analysis Concerning Passive Synthesis. (shrink)

In this paper I discuss Berkeley’s theories about vision, perception of distance, and the foundations of Geometry. I start with Locke’s answer to Molineaux’s problem and the criticisms Berkeley addressed to it. I explain the fundamentais of Berkeley’s theory about our cognitive shaping of the visual field and the type of connections that visual data establishes with data from the haptic field. I show how interesting are Berkeley’s conceptions for a phenomenology of perception, and, eventually, I carried some phenomenological evidence (...) against Berkeley’s too much strict location of the idea of distance in the haptic field alone. (shrink)