The power of algorithms has become a familiar topic in society, media, and the social sciences. It is increasingly common to argue that, for instance, algorithms automate inequality, that they are biased black boxes that reproduce racism, or that they control our money and information. Implicit in many of these discussions is that algorithms are permeated with normativities, and that these normativities shape society. The aim of this editorial is double: First, it contributes to a more nuanced discussion about algorithms (...) by discussing how we, as social scientists, think about algorithms in relation to five theoretical ideal types. For instance, what does it mean to go under the hood of the algorithm and what does it mean to stay above it? Second, it introduces the contributions to this special theme by situating them in relation to these five ideal types. By doing this, the editorial aims to contribute to an increased analytical awareness of how algorithms are theorized in society and culture. The articles in the special theme deal with algorithms in different settings, ranging from farming, schools, and self-tracking to AIDS, nuclear power plants, and surveillance. The contributions thus explore, both theoretically and empirically, different settings where algorithms are intertwined with normativities. (shrink)

Emotions change over time. A comprehensive understanding of emotions will require that their temporal nature be observed and analysed. By observing emotion over time, one can disentangle and simultaneously analyse temporal variability within individuals and between-individual variability using a two-step process approach. First, within-person temporal patterns (e.g., covariation, lead–lag relation, periodicity, etc.) are assessed for each subject. Second, between-person analyses are conducted on the within-person patterns. These two steps can be done simultaneously with hierarchical linear models (HLM) or in two (...) actual steps with the process approach. HLM is limited to the intra-individual analysis of linear patterns (e.g., slope, intercept), whereas the process approach can be used to examine non-linear aspects of intra-individual change, such as multivariate patterns, within-subject skew, or phase relations between oscillating processes. In this paper we provide a description of the process approach and present several examples of, as well as suggestions for, intra-individual analysis applied to emotion and individual differences. (shrink)

This volume is both a state-of-the-art display of current thinking on second language development as a complex system. It is also a tribute to Diane Larsen-Freeman for her decades of intellectual leadership in the academic disciplines of applied linguistics and second language acquisition. The chapters therein range from theoretical expositions to methodological analyses, pedagogical proposals, and conceptual frameworks for future research. In a balanced and in-depth manner, the authors provide a comprehensive and interdisciplinary understanding of second language development, with (...) a wealth of insights that promise to break the status-quo of current research and take it to exciting new territory. The book will appeal to both seasoned and novice researchers in applied linguistics, second language acquisition, bilingualism, cognitive psychology, and education, as well as to practitioners in second or foreign language teaching of any language. (shrink)

In this article, I critically assess Hélène Landemore's new model of Open Democracy, asking whether it requires of citizens to blindly defer to the decisions of the mini-public. To address this question, I, first, discuss three institutional mechanisms in Open Democracy, all of which can be read to grant citizens democratic control. I argue that neither the capacity to authorize the selection mechanism (random sortition), nor the lottocratic conception of political equality, nor the self-selection mechanisms of Landemore's model deliver the (...) form of control that would insulate Open Democracy from the charge of blind deference. I then discuss the direct democracy mechanisms that Landemore incorporates into her model. Although these devices grant citizens control and, by extension, offer the resources for repudiating the charge of blind deference, they also, I argue, subvert the logic of Landemore's lottocratic model, rendering Open Democracy predictably unstable. Given the deliberative asymmetries between the mini-public and the citizenry, a high frequency of bottom-up challenges is to be expected that would throw the whole system into jeopardy. Thus, the challenge for lottocrats is to show how democratic control can be achieved in a lottocratic system without undermining the benefits of the legislature by lot. (shrink)

Criminal offenders may be offered to participate in voluntary rehabilitation programs aiming at correcting undesirable behaviour, as a condition of early release. Behavioural treatment may include direct intervention into the central nervous system (CNS). This article discusses under which circumstances voluntary rehabilitation by CNS intervention is justified. It is argued that although the context of voluntary rehabilitation is a coercive circumstance, consent may still be effective, in the sense that it can meet formal criteria for informed consent. Further, for a (...) consent to be normatively valid (“take the wronging out of the act”) under a coercive circumstance, the subject to be treated must (1) have the sovereign authority to consent, and (2) the offer-giver must be in the right normative position to make the offer. While I argue that subjects do have the sovereign authority to consent to treatment, I also argue that inappropriate offers yield invalid consents. Considerations on inappropriate offers should therefore inform which kinds of CNS intervention-based rehabilitation schemes the state may propose as part of the criminal justice system. Yet as I conclude in this paper, while there are some intrinsic constraints on voluntary rehabilitation programs, the main constraints on voluntary rehabilitation are likely to be contingent overriders. However, CNS intervention is not ruled out as such in the context of voluntary rehabilitation. (shrink)

An article on the aspect of the League which most concerns the present study is Larsen, "Representative Government in the Panhellenic Leagues," CP 20..

In this article, we discuss the practice of conducting research in one's own field, in this case, from a position as a researcher with a nursing background doing fieldwork in a hospital and in one's own organization, an orthopedic surgical department. We show how an “insider” researcher position paves the way for analytical insights about sleep as an institutional phenomenon in the orthopedic surgical infrastructure and how acute and elective patient trajectories differ but build on the same logic, creating the (...) same dynamics of inclusion and exclusion. Through a situated and sociomaterial perspective, we analyze different clinical interactions in which we follow the hospital bed as an example of a central relational element that co‐creates sleep as an institutional phenomenon. Inspired by Karen Barad, we demonstrate how to move diffractively when doing and analyzing fieldwork and argue how moving diffractively as a researcher doing fieldwork “at home” is productive and challenges the concept and demand of “distance” as the phenomenological exercise in fieldwork. (shrink)

Revisionists claim that the retributive intuitions informing our responsibility-attributing practices are unwarranted under determinism, not only because they are false, but because if we are all victims of causal luck, it is unfair to treat one another as if we are deserving of moral and legal sanctions. One revisionist strategy recommends a deflationary concept of moral responsibility, and that we justify punishment in consequentialist rather than retributive terms. Another revisionist strategy recommends that we eliminate all concepts of guilt, blame and (...) punishment, and treat dangerous criminals as we treat people with contagious diseases. I argue against both strong and moderate revisionism that it is not unfair to hold persons desert -entailingly responsible insofar as they take an interest in being treated as appraisable, and that it is unfair to persons not to treat them as desert -entailingly responsible contrary to their interests in being treated as such. The interest-based argument, I conclude, give us a justification for communicating retributive attitudes, but may still require a weak revision of our retributive practices, in the direction of a communicative theory of punishment. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Phenomenological Reflections on Cycling Extended Embodiment – Cycling Thoughts Campagnolo Ti Amo (I Love You) A Multiple Bombardment of the Senses Settling of Accounts – In the Long Run It Is Impossible to Cheat Cycle Speech A Trembling Experience A Descent – Living Up to Its Reputation A Collective Shiver Notes.

This article represents conversations with the American composer Libby Larsen in which she described her beliefs about music, music education, and the dilemmas that our current system faces as we seek to provide relevant and meaningful music education to our students. Our conversation explores such topics as cognitive psychology, music theory, cultural practices and developments in American culture, and current music education practices. Larsen brought up many questions about music education in America, providing some suggestions for the future (...) and posing problems for which the solution may require a great deal of imagination by music education teachers. The article is structured as a Socratic dialogue, in which Larsen constructs an inductively strong argu- ment for making radical changes to current music education practice. (shrink)

Argues that Merleau-Ponty’s thought grounds itself on “non-coincidence” or, as he puts it, on “divergence or écart”, “non-transparence” or “non-adequacy”, since neither perception nor knowledge, in his view, actually conveys the things perceived or known. Reality comes up drenched in transcendence, and likewise thought has to span the “uncanny distance” that severs the subject from itself and every object from its own identity. Thus appear groundless an array of received views on the “reversibility” ascribed by Merleau-Ponty to the doublet “distance (...) vs. immediacy”. (shrink)

Contends that Heideggerian “fundamental ontology” and Husserlian phenomenology, while linked by methodological affinities (hermeneutics would be the operational correlative to phenomenology’s transcendental embrace), are thematically incongruent. It also holds that the self-display of Being clashes with the un-methodical dimension assigned to immediacy by the phenomenological tradition. Through reshaping Husserl’s presentialist transcendentalism, Heidegger cast anew the methodology grounded upon “presentifying intuitiveness” and tailored it to an expanded notion of “phenomenon”.

Contends that Merleau-Ponty’s doctrine of the “philosophical shadow” that went together with all eminent doctrines of the past and which he discloses as their chief (though concealed) operative resource and the main cause of their ground-breaking viewpoints, both synthesizes and transcends all precedent phenomenological attempts (Heidegger’s and Fink’s prominent among them) to solve the theoretical and methodological puzzles uncovered by philosophical historiography.

The aim of this paper is to find out whether Gadamer is entitled to hold together his finitist commitment to the heteronomy of art and thought, and his advocacy of an "endless conversation with itself" of humankind. We focus on three texts: Gadamer’s dismis­sal of Carl Schmitt’s outside-in account of the heteronomy implied by the "irrup­tion of reality" in the play Hamlet and, as Archimedean point, Shakespeare’s "excision of reality" according to Stephen Greenblatt, and its inside-out heteronomic consequences. The results: (...) Schmitt’s approach restricts Gadamer’s argument on the "endless dialogue", Gadamer’s rejoinder aggravates his own argumentative fragility, and Greenblatt’s perspectivation discloses a non-sequitur. The inspection of these texts attests that heteronomy per se does not entail any openness to "creative" interpretations, that a universalized logos endiéthetos is a chimera, and that there cannot be any "infinite conversation" which would sustain the Gadamerian interplay of question and answer. (shrink)

Zusammenfassung Demosthenes, Aristoteles und Pausanias berichten von dem Dikasterion in Phreatto, zu dem ein außer Landes gegangener Athener auf einem Boot heranfährt, dieses unmittelbar an der Küste festmacht und sich dann in einem Prozess verteidigt. Er betritt zu keinem Zeitpunkt athenischen Boden, sondern bleibt auf dem Boot und vernimmt dort das Urteil, ob er vorsätzlich getötet hat oder nicht. Diese Verhandlungsform zwischen Land und Meer kann – so aufwendig und eigentümlich sie auch anmutet – durchaus historisch sein, ist aber nur (...) zu begreifen, wenn man von Drakons Gesetz über die Tötung ausgeht. Der Gesetzgeber hat 621/620 v. Chr. den Vollzug der Blutrache unter die Kontrolle der athenischen Gemeinschaft gestellt und damit einen wichtigen Schritt zur Eindämmung von Konflikten in der Polis geleistet. Das Verfahren in Phreatto ist im Kontext dieser Verordnung zu betrachten. (shrink)

Pepper Culpepper’s seminal Quiet Politics and Business Power has revitalized the study of when business elites can shape policies away from public scrutiny. This article takes the concept of quiet politics to a new, and surprising, set of actors: trade union leaders. Focusing on the case of Denmark, it argues that quiet politics functions through political elite networks and that this way of doing politics favors a particular kind of corporatist coordination between the state, capital, and labor. Rather than showing (...) macrocorporatist coordination between the two classes and governments, it identifies representatives of business and labor that hold privileged positions in political elite networks. Representatives of segments are found in industries important for the Danish economy, specifically, the exporting manufacturing sector. Being at the core of the network requires not only a key position in the Danish economy but also an understanding that politics is often done best without politicians and voters. The analysis shows that trade union and business association representatives work closely on a wide number of issues through quiet politics, using their extensive network to broker and foster agreement between different stakeholders. (shrink)

The notion of quality features prominently in contemporary discourse. Numerous ratings, rankings, metrics, auditing, accreditation, benchmarking, smileys, reviews, and international comparisons are all used regularly to capture quality. This book paves the way in exploring the socio-political implications of evaluative statements, with a specific focus on the contribution of the concept of quality to these processes. Drawing on perspectives from the history of ideas, sociology, political science and public management, Dahler-Larsen asks what is the role of quality, and more (...) specifically quality inscriptions, such as measurement? What do they accomplish? And finally, as a consequence of all this, does the term quality make it possible to deal with public issues in a way that lives up to democratic standards? This cross-disciplinary book will be of interest to scholars and students across various fields, including sociology, social epistemology, political science, public policy, and evaluation. (shrink)

Thinking the Visual, Visualizing the Thought.A perceptual and Political Model of VisionMerleau-Ponty’s program of perceptivizing thought has depoliticizing effects that, though he does not recognize them, undermine his understanding of politics. These anti-political consequences, moreover, bring out the internal difficulties of his anti-intellectualist starting point. There are three areas in which Merleau-Ponty gave a thorough application, though with unequal success, of his perception-based model: the presentation of his own thought, in which his program of picturalization had a striking success; the (...) explanation of the historical process, in which his visualization model was only partly effective; and access to other people’s thought, in which his perceptivist views encountered an undeniable failure. Merleau-Ponty’s successive approaches to other people’s thought show, by two distinct paths, and beyond his own intentions, an unforeseen political defect. His perceptive model proves incompatible with his political ideas when it is applied in depth, and it thus breaks apart the cohesion of his thought. From a larger perspective, it disrupts reflective approaches to politics since it damages their conceptual bases. This article shows successively that Merleau-Ponty laid out a perceptive model of universal scope; that he applied it to several areas, including politics; that this model proves politically deficient when it serves to remove the autochthonous sources of sense; that these depoliticizing effects become more acute when Merleau-Ponty employs the perceptive model to elucidate other people’s thought; and that its frustration in this area not only devalues his political reflections, but also signals that the perceptive model simply prevents a “thinking of the political.”Pensare il visuale, visualizzare il pensiero.Un modello percettivo e politico della visioneIl programma di percettivizzazione del pensiero intrapreso da Merleau-Ponty comporta effetti spoliticizzanti che sconfessano nascostamente la sua comprensione della politica. Tali conseguenze antipolitiche mettono altresì in rilievo le difficoltà intrinseche alla sua posizione anti-intellettualista. Vi sono tre ambiti nei quali Merleau-Ponty, con diverso successo, ha applicato il suo modello percettivo : la presentazione del suo stesso pensiero, nella quale questo programma di pittoricizzazione incontra un successo trionfale; la chiarificazione del processo storico, dove tale modello “visualeˮ non è efficace che in parte; infine l’accesso al pensiero di altri autori, terreno sul quale questa prospettiva percettivista subisce uno scacco innegabile. Molti tentativi merleaupontiani di approcciare il pensiero di altri autori attestano in vario modo un imprevisto deficit politico. Il modello percettivo di Merleau-Ponty si rivela in altri termini incompatibile con le sue idee politiche, nel momento in cui viene applicato in profondità, e in ultima analisi mette a dura prova la coerenza del suo pensiero. In una prospettiva più ampia, esso ostacola un approccio riflessivo alla politica poiché ne degrada le stesse basi concettuali. Il nostro articolo mostra quindi che Merleau-Ponty ha articolato un modello percettivo di portata universale; che l’ha applicato a svariati ambiti d’indagine, tra cui la politica; che quel modello si rivela deficitario quando viene utilizzato per attingere a specifiche fonti di senso; che tali effetti spoliticizzanti si acuiscono nel momento in cui Merleau-Ponty adotta il modello percettivo per illuminare il pensiero di altri autori; che, per concludere, la sua incongruenza con questo peculiare ambito di riflessione non solo impoverisce le sue riflessioni politiche, ma attesta che in linea generale il modello percettivo sbarra la strada a un qualsiasi «pensiero del politico». (shrink)

In this critical comment, we argue that nondemocratic, but decent regimes fail to constitute legitimate governance under Applbaum’s free group agency account. To make this case, we first introduce the three principles of liberty, equality and agency that Applbaum takes to flow directly from his free agency conception of legitimacy. Against this backdrop, we discuss Applbaum’s claim that a nondemocratic regime along the lines of a Rawlsian decent consultation hierarchy could meet the threshold of legitimacy. Contrary to this suggestion, we (...) argue that nondemocratic, but decent regimes cannot claim legitimacy under Applbaum’s account because they are constitutively inegalitarian, thus failing to adequately grant citizens the equal normative power without which legitimacy is unattainable under the free group agency account. (shrink)

Eight Domains of Phenomenology and Research Methods is a unique text that explains how the foundational literature representing our lifeworld experience aligns theory with research methods.

This chapter considers an element of Plato’s account of sense perception. In particular, it poses the question of how widely Plato construes the content of the perceptual capacity. It argues that, based on what Plato says in the Theaetetus and the Timaeus there is good reason to think that sense perception is limited to just those simple sense qualities that are made available to the soul by the individual sensory powers, i.e., colors by sight, sounds by hearing, etc. This, however, (...) raises the question of how, according to Plato, the soul becomes aware of features that are often thought to be perceptible through more than one sensory power: features like shape, motion, rest, number, etc. The chapter addresses this issue by arguing that the awareness of these features requires the co-operation of sense perception with additional capacities of the soul, in particular the capacity for reflective thought; for recognizing these features requires the deployment of basic concepts like sameness and difference. An upshot of the position defended in this chapter is that, if correct, it indicates that, for Plato, rational capacities may be more widely distributed than is often thought. (shrink)

In light of developments within the field of media theory, a certain consensus has evolved in favour of approaches like mediatization and mediation. While these approaches above all focus on societal change from a media-dependent point of view, this article addresses the reverse side of these processes, asking about media users' appropriation of media in order to experience sociality that has only just been enabled by media-use. This awareness of medial terms and conditions is characterized as recipients' acknowledgment as well (...) as utilization of medial constraints, which is subsequently referred to as mediality. (shrink)

School physical education has the potential to contribute to public-health promotion and well-being, but oftentimes students' lack of motivation toward PE or physical activity in general, especially during adolescence, diminishes, or eradicates the positive effects associated with PE. Therefore, practical approaches are required that help teachers to increase or awake students intrinsic motivation toward PE, for which self-determination theory may provide the conceptual framework. In that regard, the purpose of the present study was to examine whether the use of real-time, (...) heart rate feedback during regular PE lessons has the potential to increase students' autonomous motivation and physical effort. To achieve this, we had forty healthy adolescents between 16 and 17 years of age run for 30 min either with or without real-time, individualized heart rate feedback during a regular PE class and compared physical and perceived exertion as well as joy of running between the two groups. Participants were randomly assigned to the groups. Our data revealed that participants in the EG enjoyed running more than participants in the CG despite a higher physical and perceived exertion. That means, running with real-time, individualized heart rate feedback apparently increased participants' motivation to run and to enjoy running at higher levels of exertion. In that regard, real-time, individualized activity feedback should be implemented in regular PE classes systematically and repeatedly to create a controllable and attainable situation that allows students to actively adjust their own behavior to achieve appealing and realistic goals. (shrink)

The Hare Psychopathy Checklist (PCL; Hare, Neumann, & Mokros 2018) scales are among the most widely used forensic assessment tools. Their perceived utility rests partly on their ability to assess stable personality traits indicative of a lack of conscience, which then facilitates behavioral predictions useful in forensic decisions. In this systematic review, we evaluate the empirical evidence behind 3 fundamental justifications for using the PCL scales in forensics, namely, that they are empirically predictive of (1) criminal behavior, (2) treatment outcomes, (...) and (3) a lack of conscience. We found the PCL scales can predict criminal behavior to a statistically significant degree, though with important limitations. We found no evidence of PCL psychopathy being predictive of treatment and rehabilitation outcomes. We found no evidence of PCL psychopathy being predictive of a lack of conscience. These findings disprove widespread beliefs about PCL psychopathy among forensic practitioners and questions the current and future role of the PCL scales in forensic settings. (shrink)

Psychopathy has been theorized as a disorder of emotion, which impairs moral judgments. However, these theories are increasingly being abandoned as empirical studies show that psychopaths seem to make proper moral judgments. In this contribution, these findings are reassessed, and it is argued that prevalent emotion‐theories of psychopathy appear to operate with the unjustified assumption that psychopaths have no emotions, which leads to the hypothesis that psychopaths are completely unable to make moral judgments. An alternative and novel explanation is proposed, (...) theorizing psychopathy as a degree‐specific emotional deficiency, which causes degree‐specific differences in moral judgments. (shrink)

Discussions focusing on the relation between city and sexuality are rare in social and cultural studies. In this article I argue that the modern city is inherently and inevitably sexualized, and that modern sexuality is largely an urban one. The characteristics of this sexuality are described and discussed in the light of urban life world theory (Simmel, Wirth, Kracauer, Benjamin etc.), sexual constructionist theory, feminist analyses, gay studies and pornography. The particular quality of `sexuality' in urban sexualization is identified along (...) Heideggerian lines as a fundamental ` Gestimmtheit' (`being tuned') of modern being-in-the-world, that is of being-in-the-city. In conclusion, some implications of the intimate relation between city and sexuality are discussed. Thus, theories of everyday life and life world, as well as prevailing idioms of modernist and postmodernist cultural critique, are problematized. Throughout the article, the style and methods of the exposition comment on the problematics concerning the representation of sexuality; and trends towards a `discoursification' of sexuality are criticized. (shrink)

The 1948 constitution of the World Health Organization (WHO) defines health as ‘a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity’. It was a bold and revolutionary health idea to gain international consensus in a period characterized by fervent anti-communism. This article explores the genealogy of the health definition and demonstrates how it was possible to expand the scope of health, redefine it as ‘well-being’, and overcome ideological resistance to progressive and (...) international health approaches. The first part of the article demonstrates how the health definition was composed through a trajectory of draft ideas from scholars in the history of medicine, as well as political actors working to promote national health insurance. The definition was authored by League of Nations veteran Raymond Gautier, but secretly drew heavily on medical historian Henry E. Sigerist’s controversial book Socialized Medicine in the Soviet Union (1937). The second part analyses how it was possible to resist the ideological pushback against the WHO and secure US ratification. The WHO’s progressive constitution was not simply a deviation from dominant health ideas, but a direct outcome of the entrenched health conflict. The genealogy is based on original archival material from international organizations and US government archives. The article contributes to understandings of the political controversies surrounding the WHO and to scholarship on understandings of health. It also illustrates how influential health ideas cross the boundaries between politics and health sciences, as well as the boundaries between domestic health policy and global health. (shrink)