In a broad-based study of experiences in psychological research, 65 undergraduates participating in a wide range of psychological experiments were interviewed in depth. Overall findings demonstrated that participants hold varying views, with only 32% of participants characterizing their experiences as completely positive. Participants' descriptions of their debriefing experiences suggest substantial variability in the content, format, and general quality of debriefing practices. Just over 40% of the debriefing experiences were viewed favorably. Positive debriefing experiences were described as including a thorough explanation (...) of the study and detailed information concerning the broader relevance of the experiment to the field of psychology. The most common complaint, characterizing 28.8% of the responses, was that the debriefing was unclear and that insufficient information was provided. Participants' views of psychological research and the discipline of psychology were also elicited. Results are discussed in terms of ethical and methodological implications. (shrink)

Sixty-five undergraduates participating in a wide range of psychological research experiments were interviewed in depth about their research experiences and their views on the process of informed consent. Overall, 32% of research experiences were characterized positively and 41 % were characterized negatively. One major theme of the negative experiences was that experiments were perceived as too invasive, suggesting incomplete explication of negative aspects of research during the informed consent process. Informed consent experiences were viewed positively 80% of the time. However, (...) most of the participants had a limited view of the purpose of informed consent: Less than 20% viewed the process as a decision point. Results suggest a number of common pitfalls to standard informed consent practices that have not generally been recognized. Results are discussed in terms of both ethical and methodological implications. Suggestions for improving the informed consent process are also provided. (shrink)

This article intends to show that the defense of “understanding” as one of the major goals of science education can be grounded on an anti-reductionist perspective on testimony as a source of knowledge. To do so, we critically revisit the discussion between Harvey Siegel and Alvin Goldman about the goals of science education, especially where it involves arguments based on the epistemology of testimony. Subsequently, we come back to a discussion between Charbel N. El-Hani and Eduardo Mortimer, on the one (...) hand, and Michael Hoffmann, on the other, striving to strengthen the claim that rather than students’ belief change, understanding should have epistemic priority as a goal of science education. Based on these two lines of discussion, we conclude that the reliance on testimony as a source of knowledge is necessary to the development of a more large and comprehensive scientific understanding by science students. (shrink)

ABSTRACTClose relationship partners often respond to happiness expressed through smiles with capitalization, i.e. they join in attempting to up-regulate and prolong the individual’s positive emotion, and they often respond to crying with interpersonal down-regulation of negative emotions, attempting to dampen the negative emotions. We investigated how people responded when happiness was expressed through tears, an expression termed dimorphous. We hypothesised that the physical expression of crying would prompt interpersonal down-regulation of emotion when the onlooker perceived that the expresser was experiencing (...) negative or positive emotions. When participants were asked how they would behave when faced with smiles of joy, we expected capitalization responses, and when faced with tears of joy, we expected down-regulation responses. In six experimental studies using video and photographic stimuli, we found support for our hypotheses. Throughout our investigations we test and discuss boundaries of and poss... (shrink)

I. Pragmatismus und Neukantianismus Marc Rölli: Die Durchquerung des Absoluten. Zur Hegel-Rezeption John Deweys Wolfgang Bonsiepen: Hegel und der Neukantianismus Matthias Wunsch: Phänomenologie des Symbolischen? Die Hegelrezeption Ernst Cassirers II. Phänomenologie - Ontologie - Lebensphilosophie Annette Sell: Das Geheimnis des Anfangs. Die Aufnahme des Hegelschen Anfangsbegriffs in der Philosophie Martin Heideggers Hans-Ulrich Lessing: Hegel und Helmuth Plessner: Die verpaßte Rezeption Walter Jaeschke: Der Geist und sein Sein. Nicolai Hartmann auf Hegelschen Wegen Holger Glinka: Aus Phänomenologie mach Dialektik. Jean-Paul Sartres Anverwandlung (...) Hegels III. Marxistische Tradition und kritische Theorie Andreas Arndt: Lenin liest Hegel Daniel Althof: Das "Geklapper der Triplizität" - Adornos Hegelrezeption Christoph J. Bauer: Mit Hegel gegen den 'Positivismus' - mit Hegel zum 'Wesen des Menschen'. Herbert Marcuses Interpretation der Hegelschen Urteilslehre IV. Postmoderne und Gegenwart Karin de Boer: Differenz: zwischen Hegel und Derrida Robert B. Pippin: Brandoms Hegel. (shrink)

BackgroundThere is increasing need for peer reviewers as the scientific literature grows. Formal education in biostatistics and research methodology during residency training is lacking. In this pilot study, we addressed these issues by evaluating a novel method of teaching residents about biostatistics and research methodology using peer review of standardized manuscripts. We hypothesized that mentored peer review would improve resident knowledge and perception of these concepts more than non-mentored peer review, while improving review quality.MethodsA partially blinded, randomized, controlled multi-center study (...) was performed. Seventy-eight neurology residents from nine US neurology programs were randomized to receive mentoring from a local faculty member or not. Within a year, residents reviewed a baseline manuscript and four subsequent manuscripts, all with introduced errors designed to teach fundamental review concepts. In the mentored group, mentors discussed completed reviews with residents. Primary outcome measure was change in knowledge score between pre- and post-tests, measuring epidemiology and biostatistics knowledge. Secondary outcome measures included level of confidence in the use and interpretation of statistical concepts before and after intervention, and RQI score for baseline and final manuscripts.ResultsSixty-four residents (82%) completed initial review with gradual decline in completion on subsequent reviews. Change in primary outcome, the difference between pre- and post-test knowledge scores, did not differ between mentored (−8.5%) and non-mentored (−13.9%) residents (p = 0.48). Significant differences in secondary outcomes (using 5-point Likert scale, 5 = strongly agree) included mentored residents reporting enhanced understanding of research methodology (3.69 vs 2.61; p = 0.001), understanding of manuscripts (3.73 vs 2.87; p = 0.006), and application of study results to clinical practice (3.65 vs 2.78; p = 0.005) compared to non-mentored residents. There was no difference between groups in level of interest in peer review (3.00 vs 3.09; p = 0.72) or the quality of manuscript review assessed by the Review Quality Instrument (RQI) (3.25 vs 3.06; p = 0.50).ConclusionsWe used mentored peer review of standardized manuscripts to teach biostatistics and research methodology and introduce the peer review process to residents. Though knowledge level did not change, mentored residents had enhanced perception in their abilities to understand research methodology and manuscripts and apply study results to clinical practice. (shrink)

Jewish law has a history stretching from the early period to the modern State of Israel, encompassing the Talmud, Geonic and later codifications, the Spanish Golden Age, medieval and modern responsa, the Holocaust and modern reforms. Fifteen distinct periods are separately studied in this volume, each one by a leading specialist, and the emphasis throughout is on the development of the institutions and sources of the law.

The Hooks et al. review of microbiota-gut-brain literature provides a constructive criticism of the general approaches encompassing MGB research. This commentary extends their review by: highlighting capabilities of advanced systems-biology “-omics” techniques for microbiome research and recommending that combining these high-resolution techniques with intervention-based experimental design may be the path forward for future MGB research.

In this paper, we set out to test empirically an idea that many philosophers find intuitive, namely that non-moral ignorance can exculpate. Many philosophers find it intuitive that moral agents are responsible only if they know the particular facts surrounding their action. Our results show that whether moral agents are aware of the facts surrounding their action does have an effect on people’s attributions of blame, regardless of the consequences or side effects of the agent’s actions. In general, it was (...) more likely that a situationally aware agent will be blamed for failing to perform the obligatory action than a situationally unaware agent. We also tested attributions of forgiveness in addition to attributions of blame. In general, it was less likely that a situationally aware agent will be forgiven for failing to perform the obligatory action than a situationally unaware agent. When the agent is situationally unaware, it is more likely that the agent will be forgiven than blamed. We argue that these results provide some empirical support for the hypothesis that there is something intuitive about the idea that non-moral ignorance can exculpate. (shrink)

The Critique of Pure Reason—Kant’s First Critique—is one of the most studied texts in intellectual history, but as Alfredo Ferrarin points out in this radically original book, most of that study has focused only on very select parts. Likewise, Kant’s oeuvre as a whole has been compartmentalized, the three Critiques held in rigid isolation from one another. Working against the standard reading of Kant that such compartmentalization has produced, The Powers of Pure Reason explores forgotten parts of the First (...) Critique in order to find an exciting, new, and ultimately central set of concerns by which to read all of Kant’s works. Ferrarin blows the dust off of two egregiously overlooked sections of the First Critique—the Transcendental Dialectic and the Doctrine of Method. There he discovers what he argues is the Critique’s greatest achievement: a conception of the unity of reason and an exploration of the powers it has to reach beyond itself and legislate over the world. With this in mind, Ferrarin dismantles the common vision of Kant as a philosopher writing separately on epistemology, ethics, and aesthetics and natural teleology, showing that the three Critiques are united by this underlying theme: the autonomy and teleology of reason, its power and ends. The result is a refreshing new view of Kant, and of reason itself. (shrink)

Contiene una sección especial sobre Filosofía Latinoamericana, donde hay ponencias de los siguientes autores: Carlos Alemián, Abelardo Barra Ruatta, Alberto Buela y Oscar Wingartz Plata. Además, sobre Arturo A. Roig (dos artículos, uno de Estela Fernández y otro de Marisa Muñoz, Dante Ramaglia y Oscar Zalazar); sobre ensayo y fenomenología en América Latina (Clara Alicia Jalif de Bertranou); sobre Agustín Alvarez (Dante Ramaglia); y sobre Simón Rodríguez (Oscar Salazar). De otras secciones destacamos una ponencia de Arturo A. Roig sobre la (...) historia de las ideas y la filosofía latinoamericana, y otras dos, una sobre Mariátegui (Néstor Kohan) y la segunda sobre Andrés Mercado Vera (Isabel Luchetta)"--Handbook of Latin American Studies, v. 58. (shrink)

The nature of mental information-processing is studied in the context of the neo-mechanicist program for Biology, from the general form of information-processing in living systems, allosteric interactions, to information-processing in human brain. An instantiation of the self-organizing systems model is suggested, which leads to the hypothesis of the "supercode". This is a mental program, molecularly codified, responsable for, inter alia, linguistic competence. A comparison is done between this hypothesis and Jerry Fodor's "language of thought".Raciocinando no contexto do programa neomecanicista para (...) a Biologia, estudamos a natureza do processamento de informação no sistema vivo em geral, e no cérebro humano em particular, onde uma aplicação do modelo da Auto-Organização nos conduz à hipótese do "Supercódigo". Este seria um programa mental, molecularmente codificado, responsável pelas competências inatas, como a competência lingüística. Fazemos também uma comparação entre nossa hipótese e a da Linguagem do Pensamento, proposta por Jerry Fodor. (shrink)

Many artists, art critics, and poets suggest that an aesthetic appreciation of artworks may modify our perception of the world, including quotidian things and scenes. I call this Art-to-World, AtW. Focusing on visual artworks, in this paper I articulate an empirically-informed account of AtW that is based on content-related views of aesthetic experience, and on Goodman’s and Elgin’s concept of exemplification. An aesthetic encounter with artworks demands paying attention to its aesthetic, expressive, or design properties that realize its purpose. Attention (...) to these properties make percipients better able to spot them in other entities and scenes as well. The upshot is that an aesthetic commerce with artworks enlarges the scope of what we are able to see and has therefore momentous epistemic consequences. (shrink)

Hegel is, arguably, the most difficult of all philosophers. To find a way into his thought interpreters have usually approached him as though he were developing Kantian and Fichtean themes. This book demonstrates in a systematic way that it makes much more sense to view Hegel's idealism in relation to the metaphysical and epistemological tradition stemming from Aristotle. The book offers an account of Hegel's idealism in light of his interpretation, discussion, assimilation and critique of Aristotle's philosophy. There are explorations (...) of Hegelian and Aristotelian views of system and history; being, metaphysics, logic, and truth; nature and subjectivity; spirit, knowledge, and self-knowledge; ethics and politics. No serious student of Hegel can afford to ignore this major interpretation. It will also be of interest in such fields as political science and the history of ideas. (shrink)

This paper proposes to determine and identify the origin of the gens Valgia from Arpinum. It is possible that the Valgii, by taking advantage of the political success of Gaius Marius, like other Arpinum families, already succeeded in obtaining the senatorial rank towards the end of the 2nd and the beginning of the 1st century BC. Later, thanks to Sulla's and Caesar's reforms, who sought allies among the powerful local gentes, the Valgii could consolidate their presence in Rome, until reaching (...) the consulate in 12 BC. (shrink)

Critiques of Western feminists’ attempts to extend claims about gender injustice to the global context highlighted a dilemma facing Western feminists, what I call the global gender justice dilemma. In response to this dilemma, Alison M. Jaggar argues that Western feminists should turn our attention away from trying to resolve it and, instead, toward examination of our own complicity in the processes that produce injustice. I suggest that this kind of approach is helpful in responding to an additional dilemma that (...) confronts the Western feminist, namely the epistemic dilemma. Western feminists can speak for women of the global South and run the risk of distorting those women’s experience and further silencing their voices, or we can refuse to speak and abdicate our responsibilities to address injustice. I argue that we should address this dilemma not by trying to resolve it but by examining our role in the reproduction of epistemically unjust practices. To explain this response, I offer a preliminary account of epistemic injustice as epistemic oppression. I conclude by claiming that our own epistemic complicity in epistemically oppressive social practices is a weighty reason for us to work to transform those practices. (shrink)

Responsible family ownership is a combination of the family’s commitment to the family-firm’s stakeholders in the long term and the explicit behaviour of the family members associated with the firm. However, families are not individuals but rather a system of relationships among family members. In such a context, misunderstandings in communication, anachronistic mentalities and different value systems can block the intergenerational transmission of RFO. Consequently, the responsibility of the family towards the FF’s stakeholders may be damaged and the firm’s socially (...) responsible behaviour hindered. This paper aims to identify how RFO is transferred across generations and to ascertain the role that family social capital plays in preserving the transmission of RFO from generation to generation. Our research is based on three in-depth case studies of Mexican family-owned small- and medium-sized enterprises. First, the paper identifies and contrasts a set of FSC-specific factors and problems which play a relevant role in the transmission of RFO while recognizing the influence of the mutually reinforcing dynamics of FSC dimensions. Secondly, the family’s honourableness :751–767, 2013) is identified as a key driver for sustaining the transmission of RFO. Finally, the paper identifies RFO institutionalization required to face the intrinsic problems of transmitting RFO in growing families. (shrink)

Timothy Williamson supports the thesis that every possible entity necessarily exists and so he needs to explain how a possible son of Wittgenstein’s, for example, exists in our world:he exists as a merely possible object, a pure locus of potential. Williamson presents a short argument for the existence of MPOs: how many knives can be made by fitting together two blades and two handles? Four: at the most two are concrete objects, the others being merely possible knives and merely possible (...) objects. This paper defends the idea that one can avoid reference and ontological commitment to MPOs. My proposal is that MPOs can be dispensed with by using the notion of rules of knife-making. I first present a solution according to which we count lists of instructions - selected by the rules - describing physical combinations between components. This account, however, has its own difficulties and I eventually suggest that one can find a way out by admitting possible worlds, entities which are more commonly accepted - at least by philosophers - than MPOs. I maintain that, in answering Williamson’s questions, we count classes of physically possible worlds in which the same instance of a general rule is applied. (shrink)

Many artists, art critics, and poets suggest that an aesthetic appreciation of artworks may modify our perception of the world, including quotidian things and scenes. I call this Art-to-World, AtW. Focusing on visual artworks, in this paper I articulate an empirically-informed account of AtW that is based on content related views of aesthetic experience, and on Goodman’s and Elgin’s concept of exemplification. An aesthetic encounter with artworks demands paying attention to its aesthetic, expressive, or design properties that realize its purpose. (...) Attention to these properties make percipients better able to spot them in other entities and scenes as well. The upshot is that an aesthetic commerce with artworks enlarges the scope of what we are able to see and has therefore momentous epistemic consequences. (shrink)

At the beginning of the 20th century, Gestalt psychologists put forward the concept of psychoneural isomorphism, which was meant to replace Fechner’s obscure notion of psychophysical parallelism and provide a heuristics that may facilitate the search for the neural correlates of the mind. However, the concept has generated much confusion in the debate, and today its role is still unclear. In this contribution, I will attempt a little conceptual spadework in clarifying the concept of psychoneural isomorphism, focusing exclusively on conscious (...) visual perceptual experience and its neural correlates. Firstly, I will outline the history of our concept, and its alleged metaphysical and epistemic roles. Then, I will clarify the nature of isomorphism and rule out its metaphysical role. Finally, I will review some epistemic roles of our concept, zooming in on the work of Jean Petitot, and suggest that it does not play a relevant heuristic role. I conclude suggesting that psychoneural isomorphism might be an indicator of robustness for certain mathematical descriptions of perceptual content. (shrink)

My aim in this article is to understand the role of imagination and practical judgment in Kant's moral philosophy. After a comparison of Kant with Rousseau, I explore Kant's moral philosophy itself — unlike Hannah Arendt, who finds in the enlarged mentality of the third Critique the ground for the activity of imagination in a shared world. Instead, I place the concept of moral legislation in its background, the reflection on particulars relevant to deliberation, and discuss the mutual relation of (...) reflection and determination. Not only reflection and determination work together; imagination and judgment imply one another essentially, as interpretation of what is relevant, and as a principle of orientation in the choice of the maxim against the backdrop of a uniform and ordered world. The concepts of analogy and symbolic exhibition turn out to be crucial for how reason represents to itself the reality of ideas in the world. (shrink)

Friedrich Nietzsche e a crítica da subjetividade cartesiana O nome de Descartes aparece várias vezes nas obras publicadas e nos fragmentos póstumos de Nietzsche. As considerações do filósofo alemão são quase sempre críticas e recuperam, embora com um diferente juízo de valor, a interpretação do pensamento cartesiano fornecida pela tradição idealista. Nesta perspetiva, Descartes é considerado o pai do racionalismo ocidental, o pensador que teria colocado o cogito no centro da representação. A este respeito, analisar criticamente a leitura nietzschiana não (...) significa só questionar a validade da sua interpretação, mas pôr em causa os mesmos cânones da modernidade filosófica. Palavras-chave: Nietzsche; Descartes; Cogito; Idealismo alemão; Heidegger; Modernidade. Friedrich Nietzsche et la critique de la subjectivité cartésienne Résumé: Le nome de Descartes apparait plusieurs fois dans les œuvres publiées et dans les fragments posthumes de Nietzsche. Les considérations du philosophe allemand sont presque toujours critiques et reprennent, même si avec un diffèrent jugement de valeur, l’interprétation de la pensée cartésienne fournie par la tradition idéaliste. Dans cette perspective, Descartes est considéré comme le père du rationalisme occidental, à savoir, le penseur qui aurait placé le cogito au centre de la représentation. À cet égard, analyser de façon critique l’approche de Nietzsche n’implique pas seulement mettre en question la validité de son interprétation, mais aussi remettre en cause les canons de la modernité philosophique. Mots-clés: Nietzsche; Descartes; Cogito; Modernité. Friedrich Nietzsche e the criticism of Cartesian subjectivity Abstract: Descartes’ name appears several times in Nietzsche’s published works and in his posthumous fragments. The considerations of the German philosopher are almost always critical and resume, although with a different value of judgement, the interpretation of Cartesian thought provided by Idealistic tradition. In this perspective, Descartes is considered as the father of Western Rationalism, namely, the author that would place the cogito at the center of representation. In this regard, to critically analyzing Nietzschean approach toward Descartes it does not only imply to questioning the validity of his interpretation, but also to questioning the very same canons of philosophical modernity. Keywords: Nietzsche; Descartes; Cogito; Modernity. (shrink)

The notion of productive imagination is not only of crucial importance for Kant’s idea of pure reason, and for the unity of our theoretical experience, it is also stunningly seminal for post-Kantian philosophy: think, for instance, of Fichte, Schelling, the German Romantics, and of Hegel’s Glauben und Wissen. For the historian of philosophy, in particular, it is a very intriguing notion. Yet, however fundamental the notion of productive imagination is, it is not easy to determine its precise role in the (...) Critique of Pure Reason; the question of its historical genealogy is even more obscure. (shrink)

The authors present some remarks on Al- Farabi's reception and understanding of Platonic Dialogues, especially according to "The Philosophy of Plato". In this treatise, Al- Farabi intends to show how politics were meant to be the leitmotiv of Plato's writings. He also discusses the argumentative and cognitive relations that exist between Political Science, Philosophy and Religion. As the statesman is engaged in pedagogical functions, he is urged to have some discursive abilities —besides the speculative knowledge of the first principles— for (...) him to incite the multitude to act. (shrink)

As reflexões de Michel Foucault em torno da problemática do poder constituem uma proposta de abordagem inovadora, estando consubstanciadas, principalmente, nas obras Surveiller et punir e La volonté de savoir, surgidas na década de setenta; trata-se, em sua opinião, de "decapitar o rei" ao nivel da teoria politica, substituindo uma abordagem negativa do poder por uma abordagem mais positiva e concreta, onde o poder é encarado em termos de tecnologia, de táctica e de estratégia. A abordagem desenvolvida nestas obras foi (...) determinada, em parte, pela situação vivida em França após Maio de 68 e pela leitura, na mesma época, da obra de Nietzsche; o seu contacto com as prisões, entre os anos de 1971-72, terà sido igualmente importante na apreensào do funcionamento das engrenagens do poder /// Michel Foucault's treatment of the problematics of power in Surveiller et punir and La volonte de savoir involves a kind of "beheading of the king" in the context of political theory. In lieu of a negative analysis of power and influenced by the events of May of 1968 in France, by his reading of Nietzsche, and by his contact with prison life in 1971-72, he proposes one that is positive and concrete in which power is considered in terms of technology, tactics, and strategies. (shrink)

The modern world was in part born as a reaction against Aristotelianism. However, the image of Aristotle to which modern philosophers reacted was partial, to say the least. Paradoxical though it may seem, today, more than twenty-three centuries on, we may now be in the most advantageous position for understanding the Stagirite's philosophy and applying it to contemporary problems. The present book contributes to the forming of an idea of Post-modern reason inspired by a constellation of Aristotelian concepts, such as (...) prudence (phronesis), practical truth (aletheia praktike), science in act (episteme en energeiai), metaphor (metaphora), similarity (homoiosis) and the imitation-creation pair (mimesis-poiesis). They all form an interconnected network and together they make up an idea of reason that may prove suitable for the present. These concepts offer the most promising basis for undertaking a series of urgent reconciliations: of facts and values, of means and ends, of theoretical and practical reason, of intelligence and emotion. Aristotle's notions could help solve many dualisms of modern times. He offers a third way between identity and difference in ontology and politics, between algorithm and anarchism in methodology, between naïve realism and plain relativism in epistemology, between equivocity and univocity in language, between Enlightenment and Romanticism in culture... On the way, this shift facilitates the relationships between science, arts and ethics - the three parts of the sphere of culture which Modernity had separated - as well as the integration of the sphere of culture itself with the world of life. (shrink)

According to Williamson’s epistemology of modality, we know metaphysical necessities by means of our knowledge of some specific counterfactualconditionals. In particular, Williamson’s idea is that we come to have knowledge of metaphysical necessities—which have the form □A—via our knowledge ofcounterfactual conditionals which have the form ~A□→┴. In this paper I claim that there are two different ways in which Williamson’s position can plausibly bearticulated, and that both ways lead to circularity.

After briefly presenting the approaches to price theory developed in American colonial scholasticism by Tomás de Mercado, Bartolomé de Albornoz and Juan de Matienzo, we intend to demonstrate the preponderant role played by Aristotle and the peculiar reception given to him by these authors in their respective works.

In his paraphasis of Aristotle’s Metaphysics, Avicenna seems to adopt a first principle distintc form the one adopted by the Greek philosopher for this science. In fact, some interpreters consider him as prefering the principle of third excluded instead of the principle of non contradiction. Since I desagree with this thesis, I propose to analyse here Avicenna’s formulation of the first principle. In order to do that, I propose, first, to clarify the meaning of the first principle by looking to (...) one of the most important modern critics: Jan Lukasiewicz. To put it briefly, the question I will try to answer is: how Avicenna and Aristotle justify the nature of the logical relations. The article finishes with make some general remarks on Avicenna’s defense of the first principle. (shrink)

The activism of institutional investors tends more and more toward the supervision and control of the behavior of the managers of big companies. In this article, we present a model based on the creation of an activism index that lets us evaluate such activism's effect on the sensitivity of the investment policies of a company in the face of financial variables and market variables. To test our assertions, we analyze firm-level data for United Kingdom, Germany, France, Denmark, and Spain during (...) the period 1995-2004. Our results point to a significant reduction in the sensitivity of company investment decisions in the face of these variables, especially relative to intangible capital, as a result of the neutralizing effect of activism on the high agency costs of free cash flow and on the information asymmetries of the market. (shrink)

The activism of institutional investors tends more and more toward the supervision and control of the behavior of the managers of big companies. In this article, we present a model based on the creation of an activism index that lets us evaluate such activism's effect on the sensitivity of the investment policies of a company in the face of financial variables and market variables . To test our assertions, we analyze firm-level data for United Kingdom , Germany, France, Denmark, and (...) Spain during the period 1995-2004. Our results point to a significant reduction in the sensitivity of company investment decisions in the face of these variables, especially relative to intangible capital, as a result of the neutralizing effect of activism on the high agency costs of free cash flow and on the information asymmetries of the market. (shrink)

The activism of institutional investors tends more and more toward the supervision and control of the behavior of the managers of big companies. In this article, we present a model based on the creation of an activism index that lets us evaluate such activism’s effect on the sensitivity of the investment policies of a company in the face of financial variables (such as cash flow and liquidity ratio) and market variables (ownership concentration and value creation index). To test our assertions, (...) we analyze firm-level data for United Kingdom (U.K.), Germany, France, Denmark, and Spain during the period 1995–2004. Our results point to a significant reduction in the sensitivity of company investment decisions in the face of these variables, especially relative to intangible capital, as a result of the neutralizing effect of activism on the high agency costs of free cash flow and on the information asymmetries of the market. (shrink)

Is consistency the sort of thing that could provide a guide to mathematical ontology? If so, which notion of consistency suits this purpose? Mark Balaguer holds such a view in the context of platonism, the view that mathematical objects are non-causal, non-spatiotemporal, and non-mental. For the purposes of this paper, we will examine several notions of consistency with respect to how they can provide a platon-ist epistemology of mathematics. Only a Gödelian notion, we suggest, can provide a satisfactory guide to (...) a platonist ontology. Is consistency the sort of thing that could provide a guide to mathematical ontology? If so, which notion of consistency suits this purpose? Mark Bala-guer holds such a view in the context of platonism, the view that mathematical objects are non-causal, non-spatiotemporal, and non-mental. Balaguer's version of Platonism, Full-Blooded Platonism (FBP), is the view that "there are as many abstract mathematical objects as there could be-i.e., there actually exist abstract mathematical objects of all possible kinds" (Balaguer, 2017, p. 381). He continues: Since FBP says that there are abstract mathematical objects of all possible kinds, it follows that if FBP is true, then every purely mathematical theory that could be true-i.e., that is internally consistent-accurately describes some collection of actually existing abstract objects. Thus it follows from FBP that in order to acquire knowledge of abstract objects, all we have to do is come up with an internally consistent purely mathematical theory (and know that it is internally consistent). (Balaguer, 2017, p. 381) * To be published in 43rd International Wittgenstein Symposium proceedings. (shrink)

L'analyste des discours qui surgissent au sein de conflits sociaux, de controverses, de débats publics, a souvent le sentiment qu'il n'observe pas des 'camps' correspondant à des groupes d'individus, mais des agencements qui doivent être considérés indépendamment des intentions, des stratégies ou des opinions de ceux qui y sont impliqués. Pour décrire les processus dans lesquels se constituent ces configurations conflictuelles, on fait alors appel à des combinaisons conceptuelles plus ou moins heureuses. À partir de l'hypothèse selon laquelle les conflits (...) sociaux évoluent par le renforcement/affaiblissement de la disponibilité de types d'actions, ce livre se propose de construire une théorie sémantique qui permette d'éclairer les mécanismes à l'œuvre dans les dynamiques sociales structurées par des tensions, d'interroger les liens entre discours et actions humaines, et d'explorer les conditionnements de la formation sociale du politique"--Page 4 of cover. (shrink)

A stochastic version of the Noether theorem is derived for systems under the action of external random forces. The concept of moment generating functional is employed to describe the symmetry of the stochastic forces. The theorem is applied to two kinds of random covariant forces. One of them generated in an electrodynamic way and the other is defined in the rest frame of the particle as a function of the proper time. For both of them, it is shown the conservation (...) of the mean value of a random drift momentum. The validity of the theorem makes clear that random systems can produce causal stochastic correlations between two faraway separated systems, that had interacted in the past. In addition possible connections of the discussion with the Ives Couder’s experimental results are remarked. (shrink)

In Women’s Activism, Feminism, and Social Justice, Margaret McLaren develops and argues for a new theoretical framework, the feminist social justice approach, that can guide ongoing feminist transnational solidarity projects. I briefly map out the main lines of argumentation in McLaren’s book and highlight some of the valuable contributions these arguments make to the intersecting sub-fields of global ethics, global justice, development ethics, and feminist philosophy. I then note two critical thoughts on the book. First, I argue that McLaren’s concessions (...) to rights discourse as a valuable tool for transformative activism undermine and potentially even contradict her own strong critique of rights discourse. Second, I argue that McLaren doesn’t explicitly or develop the latent social epistemology of her feminist social justice approach and discussions of “training” and “education” potentially run counter to this promising but again latent social epistemology. (shrink)

A theory T is tight if different deductively closed extensions of T (in the same language) cannot be bi-interpretable. Many well-studied foundational theories are tight, including $\mathsf {PA}$ [39], $\mathsf {ZF}$, $\mathsf {Z}_2$, and $\mathsf {KM}$ [6]. In this article we extend Enayat’s investigations to subsystems of these latter two theories. We prove that restricting the Comprehension schema of $\mathsf {Z}_2$ and $\mathsf {KM}$ gives non-tight theories. Specifically, we show that $\mathsf {GB}$ and $\mathsf {ACA}_0$ each admit different bi-interpretable extensions, (...) and the same holds for their extensions by adding $\Sigma ^1_k$ -Comprehension, for $k \ge 1$. These results provide evidence that tightness characterizes $\mathsf {Z}_2$ and $\mathsf {KM}$ in a minimal way. (shrink)