This article examines patients’ calls to three different GP services in the United Kingdom. Using conversation analysis, combined with coding of 447 calls, we studied the role of thank you in closing sequences, focusing on their timing and order in relation to service outcome. We show first how patients withhold thank you in orientation to an absent summary or specification of service: patients are more likely to initiate thank you if the receptionist volunteers such a summary. Second, we show there (...) is variation in how appropriately participants project the termination of calls using thank you. Finally, while thank you serves a primary role in managing the termination of calls, the timing, order and design of thank you can also display patient satisfaction. We discuss our findings in terms of service encounters more generally, including implications for larger scale analysis. (shrink)

How authentic are inquiry calls made by simulated clients, or ‘mystery shoppers’, to service organizations, when compared to real callers? We analysed 48 simulated and 63 real inquiry calls to different veterinary practices in the United Kingdom and Ireland. The data were transcribed for conversation analysis, as well as coded for a variety of call categories including reason for the call, call outcome and turn design features. Analysis revealed systematic differences between real and simulated calls in terms of reasons for (...) the call, call outcome and call duration and how callers refer to their pets in service requests and follow-up questions about their animal. Our qualitative analyses were supported with statistical summaries and tests. The findings reveal the limitations of mystery shopper methodology for the assessment of service provision. We also discuss the implications of the findings for the use of simulated encounters and the development of conversational agents. (shrink)

The founder of the eponymous engineering firm, which continues to realize seminal projects around the world, Ove Arup is widely acknowledged as one of the most significant engineers of his time. Generated over the course of his illustrious career, these lectures, essays, and interviews broadlyshare several themes: insight into Arup's thinking on the nature of good design, quality and value in the built environment, and the growing need for better collaboration between engineers, architects, and contractors in order to exploit technological (...) advances in materials and methods, while at the same time reducing the environmental impact of building. These chronologically arranged essays span five decades, and many of the themes they address are as relevant today as they were when first produced. Illustrating wisdom, practical problem solving, and Arup's philosophical approach, this book is a necessary and long-overdue addition to the library of anyone who has a passion for, and an interest in, the principles of great design. (shrink)

We offer philosophical motivations for a method we call Virtual World Cognitive Science (VW CogSci), in which researchers use virtual embodied agents that are embedded in virtual worlds to explore questions in the field of Cognitive Science. We focus on questions about mental and linguistic representation and the ways that such computational modeling can add rigor to philosophical thought experiments, as well as the terminology used in the scientific study of such representations. We find that this method forces researchers to (...) take a god’s-eye view when describing dynamical relationships between entities in minds and entities in an environment in a way that eliminates the need for problematic talk of belief and concept types, such as the belief that cats are silly, and the concept CAT, while preserving belief and concept tokens in individual cognizers’ minds. We conclude with some further key advantages of VW CogSci for the scientific study of mental and linguistic representation and for Cognitive Science more broadly. (shrink)

Lying is an important moral phenomenon that most people are affected by on a daily basis—be it in personal relationships, in political debates, or in the form of fake news. Nevertheless, surprisingly little is known about what actually constitutes a lie. According to the traditional definition of lying, a person lies if they explicitly express something they believe to be false. Consequently, it is often assumed that people cannot lie by more indirectly communicating believed‐false claims, for instance by merely conversationally (...) implicating them. In this paper, we subject this claim to an empirical test. In a preregistered study of 300 participants, we investigate how people judge cases of implicit deceptions that would usually be excluded by the traditional definition of lying (i.e., conversational implicatures, presuppositions, and nonverbal actions). Our results show that people do in fact consider it possible to lie by indirect means, suggesting that people have a broader concept of lying than is usually assumed. Moreover, our findings indicate that lie judgments are closely tied to the extent to which agents are perceived as having committed themselves to the believed‐false claims they have communicated. We discuss the implications of our results for the traditional definition of lying and propose a new commitment‐based definition of lying that can account for the findings of our experiment. (shrink)

[1]. Antikken -- 2. Middelalder, Renessanse.

The present study examines cross-cultural differences in people’s concept of lying with regard to the question of whether lying requires an agent to _say_ something they believe to be false. While prominent philosophical views maintain that lying entails that a person explicitly expresses a believed-false claim, recent research suggests that people’s concept of lying might also include certain kinds of deception that are communicated more indirectly. An important drawback of previous empirical work on this topic is that only few studies (...) have investigated people’s concept of lying in non-Western samples. In the present study, we compare people’s intuitions about lying with indirect deceptions (i.e., presuppositions, conversational implicatures, and non-verbal actions) in a sample of _N_ = 255 participants from Russia and _N_ = 300 participants from the United Kingdom. Our findings show a strong degree of similarity between lie ratings of participants from Russia and the United Kingdom, with both samples holding it possible for agents to lie with deceptive statements and actions that do not involve the agent _saying_ something they believe to be false. (shrink)

The aim in this article is to widen the understanding of the significance of morality in the Norwegian social formation by comparing it with the French and the American case. After the introductory discussion of the new sociology of morality, previous findings from a study of the Norwegian middle class are reported. A short presentation of republicanism in France and Americanism in USA is followed by an analysis of the cultural and structural peculiarities of the Norwegian case, arguing that the (...) content of the Norwegian middle class morality should be seen in light of the egalitarian tradition. Finally, by way of comparison the article points to possible ways the different configuration of values might be transferred institutionally. (shrink)

Reality exists independently of human observers, but does the same apply to its structure? Realist ontologies usually assume so: according to them, the world consists of objects, these have properties and enter into relations with each other, more or less as we are accustomed to think of them. Against this view, Rein Raud develops a radical process ontology that does not credit any vantage point, any scale or speed of being, any range of cognitive faculties with the privilege to (...) judge how the world ‘really’ is. In his view, what we think of as objects are recast as fields of constitutive tensions, cross-sections of processes, never in complete balance but always striving for it and always reconfiguring themselves accordingly. The human self is also understood as a fluctuating field, not limited to the mind but distributed all over the body and reaching out into its environment, with different constituents of the process constantly vying for control. The need for such a process philosophy has often been voiced, but rarely has there been an effort to develop it in a systematic and rigourous manner that leads to original accounts of identity, continuity, time, change, causality, agency and other topics. Throughout his new book, Raud engages with an unusually broad range of philosophical schools and debates, from New Materialism and Object-Oriented Ontology to both phenomenological and analytical philosophy of mind, from feminist philosophy of science to neurophilosophy and social ontology. Being in Flux will be of interest to students and scholars in philosophy and the humanities generally and to anyone interested in current debates about realism, materialism and ontology. (shrink)

Artiklens fokus er begrebet folk, der udgør et af sprogets mest komplekse og kon- fliktfyldte begreber. Artiklen belyser den semantiske og idehistoriske transforma- tionsproces, som begrebet folk undergår: fra primært at være forbundet med hus- stand og slægt til at blive knyttet sammen med nation og demokrati. I det ældre danske sprog blev ordet folk anvendt om samfundets laveste stand, bondestand og brugt synonymt med begreber som almue, tyende, tjenere, hob og mængde. Men fra slutningen af 1700-tallet og frem blev (...) begrebet gradvist omdefineret og ordet folk knyttet sammen med begreber som nation, kultur, sprog og folkesuverænitet. Der er tale om en langstrakt proces, hvor et gammelt sprogligt paradigme efter- hånden bliver overtrumfet af et nyere. Dog uden at den ældre betydning af ordet folk forsvinder. Transformationsprocessen belyst ved hjælp af ordbøger og politiske tænkere som Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Johann Gottfried Herder, Karl Marx og Frie- drich Engels såvel som N.F.S. Grundtvig. (shrink)

In this article, we discuss and compare various positions in leadership theory through the perspective of Kierkegaard’s modes of existence. After a brief presentation of the three modes of existence—aesthetic, ethical and religious—and a description of the ironic–reflective interpretation of the change process, we synthesize leadership theories into the three main positions of instrumental, responsible and spiritual. Later, we compare and integrate the different positions in leadership theory with the three modes of existence. We argue that the various positions in (...) leadership theory represent different modes of existence. This means that leaders anchored within the aesthetical mode of existence tend to prefer the instrumental position, leaders anchored in the ethical mode of existence tend to prefer the responsible position, and leaders anchored in the religious mode of existence tend to prefer the spiritual position. In accordance with this line of reasoning the ironic–reflective interpretation of Kierkegaard’s three modes of existence gives a relevant explanation for development of leadership theory, and we delve deeper into some key dimensions in the expanding contexts of ontology, epistemology, ethics, the image of man and organizational ends. We conclude that it is necessary to start a process of transition in the mode of existence and in leadership theory in order to cope with the underlying patterns of the natural, cultural and economic crises we are facing today. (shrink)

This paper examines six cross-sector partnerships in South Africa and Zambia. These partnerships were part of a research study undertaken between 2003 and 2005 and were selected because of their potential to contribute to poverty reduction in their respective countries. This paper examines the context in which the partnerships were established, their governance and accountability mechanisms and the engagement and participation of the partners and the intended beneficiaries in the partnerships. We argue that a partnership approach which has proven successful (...) in one context can be used as a valuable learning resource. However, a partnership's work, which includes all aspects of the partnership and its activities, cannot necessarily be transferred directly to another partnership without a thorough and locally informed analysis of the context in which it is implemented. In addition, we suggest that it is difficult to assess whether the good intentions behind partnerships were translated into real benefits for target groups as effective monitoring and evaluation procedures were not in place in the partnerships studied. Similarly, the absence of regularised governance and accountability systems in partnerships made it difficult to support partner and beneficiary participation and engagement. We conclude that there is a need to move beyond a 'one-size-fits-all' approach to partnerships and that partnership replication should focus more strongly on the transfer of learning about partnership processes instead of simply copying partnership activities. Moreover, the development of stronger mechanisms for assessing and ensuring accountability towards both partners and intended beneficiaries is required if partnerships are to meet their intended objectives. (shrink)

Rousseau's philosophy of education is contained not only in Emile , but also in The Government of Poland . In each of them he emphasises different aspects of education: How to be a human being? And: How to be a citizen? The main theme investigated by Rousseau in The Government of Poland, is how a minor nation surrounded by such major powers as Russia, Prussia and Austria can ensure its survival? Not having the option of defending itself against its powerful (...) neighbours by military means, Rousseau's advice is to found the Polish nation in the hearts of the Polish people, primarily through citizenship education. However, Poland was finally divided between its neighbours in 1795. Rousseau's writing The Government of Poland can shed some light on the Danish situation after losing the war to Prussia and Austria in 1864. With its defeat Denmark did not disappear, as did Poland, but the territory of the United Monarchy was almost halved by the loss of the duchies of Schleswig and Holstein. After the war some of the same defence strategies and educational ideas as Rousseau had recommended to Poland became important in Denmark. In light of Rousseau's ideas about citizenship education this article will explore the Danish way of trying to establish the nation in the hearts of the people throughout the 20th century. Today the question is: How to understand the conception of self‐determination in the context of establishing European political unity? In his analysis Habermas directs our attention to some of the same dilemmas that Rousseau had dealt with 200 years earlier. Habermas’ advice is to give the European spirit a republican form. (shrink)

Mein Ziel in diesem Artikel ist es, unsere moralischen Verpflichtungen gegenüber zukünftigen Generationen mithilfe der sogenannten Goldenen Regel moral-theoretisch zu begründen. Zu diesem Zweck werde ich im ersten Abschnitt die gängigen Varianten dieser Regel hinsichtlich ihrer Tauglichkeit als allgemeine Moralvorschriften untersuchen, und anschließend im zweiten Abschnitt eine aussichtsreichere Variante präsentieren. Abschließend werde ich im dritten Abschnitt diese Variante der Goldenen Regel auf Verpflichtungen gegenüber zu künftigen Generationen anwenden.

This article is an attempt at a systematic account of decision making under greater uncertainty than what traditional, mathematically oriented decision theory can cope with. Four components of great uncertainty are distinguished: (1) the identity of the options is not well determined (uncertainty of demarcation) ; (2) the consequences of at least some option are unknown (uncertainty of consequences); (3) it is not clear whether information obtained from others, such as experts, can be relied on (uncertainty of reliance); and (4) (...) the values relevant for the decision are not determined with sufficient precision (uncertainty of values). Some possible strategy types are proposed for each of these components. Decisions related to environmental issues are used to illustrate the proposals. (shrink)

La couturière à la Réunion : figure ou actrice sociale? Cet article aborde les stratégies professionnelles des femmes libres dans une société esclavagiste, Bourbon (La Réunion) en 1847, confrontée à la nécessité d’introduire le travail libre. Dans ce contexte, les femme sont perçues comme actrices du changement social. L’augmentation des déclarations de l’activité de couturière révèle aussi l’appropriation de nouvelles valeurs, soumises cependant aux contraintes du genre et de l’environnement servile.

Dans cet article, on suggère qu’un rôle central peut être assigné à la philosophie de la chimie dans la philosophie des sciences post-kuhnienne en général, et dans l’analyse du débat opposant le réalisme scientifique à l’anti-réalisme dans la philosophie des sciences standard. La philosophie des sciences construit la science comme une pratique plus que comme un réseau d’assertions. On soutient que le réalisme pratique permet d’éviter les défauts à la fois du réalisme scientifique standard et de l’anti-réalisme. On analyse un (...) livre important publié récemment, B. Bensaude-Vincent’s & J. Simon’s Chemistry — The Impure Science [Bensaude-Vincent & Simon 2008], et on interprète la position des auteurs comme une sorte de réalisme pratique. (shrink)

The end of the Cold War brought about a new wave of proliferation of market economy and democracy. Both are spreading through purposeful efforts of Western exporters and Eastern importers as well as by way of example. These generally positive processes are not, however, without considerable negative side effects and setbacks. The article considers three pairs of dialectical contradictions: parallel democratization and introduction of free markets, democratization and liberalism, and democratization and nationalism. Naïve, hypocritical, and pragmatic approaches to democracy promotion, (...) as well as factors facilitating or hindering democratization (sometimes making it impossible) of specific societies, are analyzed. One of the central problems is the question of absolute or relative (contingent on time, space, and other factors) universality of democracy. The article concludes that democracy has to be mainly demand-driven, not supply-induced. It also considers to what extent external efforts can compensate for the weaknesses of domestic facilitators and what happens when there are attempts to export democracy to societies that are not ready for that. (shrink)