Verschwörungserzählungen sind ein fortdauernd prominentes Thema in der nachrichtlichen Berichterstattung und treten immer wieder in Zusammenhang mit Bewegungen auf, die demokratische Strukturen zu untergraben versuchen. In der aktuellen Diskussion um Verschwörungserzählungen dominieren psychologische, politische, kultur- und sozialwissenschaftliche Perspektiven. Philosophische Zugänge hingegen scheinen dabei unterrepräsentiert zu sein. Der hier vorliegende Schwerpunkt „Verschwörungserzählungen“ soll einen Beitrag dazu leisten, diesem Mangel abzuhelfen, und das Phänomen der Verschwörungserzählungen aus verschiedenen Perspektiven insbesondere der Praktischen Philosophie zu beleuchten.

This book addresses the challenges of living together after empire in many post-colonial cities. It is organized in two sections. The first section focuses on efforts by people of multiple faiths to live together within their contexts, including such efforts within a neighborhood in urban Manchester; the array of attempts at creating multi-faith spaces for worship across the globe; and initiatives to commemorate divisive conflict together in Northern Ireland. The second section utilizes particular postcolonial methods to illuminate pressing issues within (...) specific contexts—including women’s leadership in an indigenous denomination in the variegated African landscape, and baptism and discipleship among Dalit communities in India. In the context of growing multiculturalism in the West, this volume offers a postcolonial theological resource, challenging the epistemologies in the Western academy. (shrink)

Pessimism over a democracy’s ability to produce good outcomes is as longstanding as democracy itself. On one hand, democratic theorists consider democracy to be the only legitimate form of government on the basis that it alone promotes or safeguards intrinsic values like freedom, equality, and justice. On the other, skepticism toward the ordinary citizen’s cognitive capacities remains a perennial concern. Qualms about the epistemic value of democracy have only been made more pertinent by a fundamental problem of deep epistemic disagreement (...) which underlies the post-truth phenomenon. I argue that the democratic theorists who have sought to defend democracy on epistemic grounds have thus far neglected such deep and intractable disagreements. Without addressing this oversight, the epistemic democrat will find that collective decision-making processes quickly become paralyzed and will not be able to yield the epistemic benefits they promise. Hence, the work for epistemic democrats is to recognize and take into account the ramifications of epistemic disagreements so as to make a stronger case for epistemic democracy. (shrink)

The overall goal of this target article is to demonstrate a mechanism for an embodied cognition. The particular vehicle is a much-studied, but still widely debated phenomenon seen in 7–12 month-old-infants. In Piaget's classic “A-not-B error,” infants who have successfully uncovered a toy at location “A” continue to reach to that location even after they watch the toy hidden in a nearby location “B.” Here, we question the traditional explanations of the error as an indicator of infants' concepts of objects (...) or other static mental structures. Instead, we demonstrate that the A-not-B error and its previously puzzling contextual variations can be understood by the coupled dynamics of the ordinary processes of goal-directed actions: looking, planning, reaching, and remembering. We offer a formal dynamic theory and model based on cognitive embodiment that both simulates the known A-not-B effects and offers novel predictions that match new experimental results. The demonstration supports an embodied view by casting the mental events involved in perception, planning, deciding, and remembering in the same analogic dynamic language as that used to describe bodily movement, so that they may be continuously meshed. We maintain that this mesh is a pre-eminently cognitive act of “knowing” not only in infancy but also in everyday activities throughout the life span. Key Words: cognitive development; dynamical systems theory; embodied cognition; infant development; motor control; motor planning; perception and action. (shrink)

In this commentary, we point to guidelines for performing human neuroimaging studies and their reporting in microbiota-gut-brain articles. Moreover, we provide a view on interpretational issues in MGB studies, with a specific focus on gut microbiota–derived metabolites. Thus, extending the target article, we provide recommendations to the field to increase reproducibility and relevance of this type of MGB study.

Notion complexe et problématique objet de crainte et de crispation, la stásis renvoie tout autant à la discorde, à la sédition, à la guerre civile, qu'à la division. Loin de lire dans cette équivocité le signe de son indétermination, cette enquête se propose de mettre en lumière l'unité et la cohérence de ce concept dans la philosophie pratique d'Aristote. Sans être banalisée, comment la stásis devient-elle le corrélat direct et explicite de la cité? En quel sens la théorie aristotélicienne rompt-elle (...) avec la tradition grecque, pour laquelle la stásis, figure du mal absolu, constituait pourtant un impensé de la cité grecque? (shrink)

Whether mathematical truths are syntactical (as Rudolf Carnap claimed) or empirical (as Mill actually never claimed, though Carnap claimed that he did) might seem merely an academic topic. However, it becomes a practical concern as soon as we consider the role of questions. For if we inquire as to the truth of a mathematical statement, this question must be (in a certain respect) meaningless for Carnap, as its truth or falsity is certain in advance due to its purely syntactical (or (...) formal-semantical) nature. In contrast, for Mill such a question is as valid as any other. These differing views have their consequences for contemporary erotetic logic. (shrink)

Does avoiding biased responding to reasoning problems and grasping the ­correct solution require engaging in effortful deliberation or can such solution insight be acquired more intuitively? In this study we set out to test the impact of deliberation on the efficiency of a de-bias training in which the problem logic was explained to participants. We focused on the infamous bat-and-ball problem and varied the degree of possible deliberation during the training session by manipulating time constraints and cognitive load. The results (...) show that the less constrained the deliberation, the more participants improve. However, even under extremely stringent conditions (high time-pressure and dual task load), participants still show a significant improvement. Critically, this “intuitive” insight effect persists over two months. This suggests that deliberation helps reasoners benefit from the training, but it is not indispensable. We discuss critical applied and theoretical implications. (shrink)

In this contribution, we will discuss the opportunities and challenges arising from memory institutions' need to redefine their archival strategies for contemporary collecting in a world of big data. We will reflect on this topic by critically examining the case study of the UK Web Archive, which is made up of the six UK Legal Deposit Libraries: the British Library, National Library of Scotland, National Library of Wales, Bodleian Libraries Oxford, Cambridge University Library and Trinity College Dublin. The UK Web (...) Archive aims to archive, preserve and give access to the UK web space. This is achieved through an annual domain crawl, first undertaken in 2013, in addition to more frequent crawls of key websites and specially curated collections which date back as far as 2005. These collections reflect important aspects of British culture and events that shape society. This commentary will explore a number of questions including: what heritage is captured and what heritage is instead neglected by the UK Web archive? What heritage is created in the form of new data and what are its properties? What are the ethical issues that memory institutions face when developing these web archiving practices? What transformations are required to overcome such challenges and what institutional futures can we envisage? (shrink)

Provability, Computability and Reflection.

Zimbabwean literature produced after the attainment of independence has been predominantly engrossed with thematisation of the postcolonial subaltern subjects’ existential conditions, enunciated together with gender politics, religion and socio-economic environment that frame politics of difference, and sites of suffering or resistance. These tropes remain absorbing and critical even in contemporary female-authored novels that also engage with a deeply fractured modern-day Zimbabwe. Tsitsi Dangarembga’s novel, This Mournable Body, offers important site to debate the enduring concerns of gender inequalities, politics, and religion. (...) A stylistic approach is adopted to identify the semiotic construction of the text and discuss the different styles that are deployed to foreground central tropes in the novel. The adoption of stylistics as an underlying conceptual model locates this current study in the interdisciplinary research which brings together gender, applied linguistics, poetics, politics, and religion, in order to provoke new ways of reading the dialogic and polyphonic elements of the text. The study contends that the politics of difference is an unsettling subject that profoundly impacts on gender relations and religio-political practices in a milieu where precarity is a major defining feature of the subaltern sections comprising women and the marginalised poor. Thus, the novel’s title figuratively foregrounds the (un)mournable bodies of the people, who are both dehumanised and heavily burdened by surviving at the margin.Contribution: Tsitsi Dangarembga’s novel, This Mournable Body demonstrates a deep concern with the plight of the subaltern people in a gendered society and how their conditions of the Othered bodies are further amplified by both religion and politics in present-day Zimbabwe. Thus the study contributes to the mounting discourses about politics of fragmentation and binary practices, and the ensuing agony suffered by the sidelined persons. The adopted stylistic reading of the focus novel underscores the interdisciplinary urgency to literary interpretative process. (shrink)

In a recent article, Wilkinson puts forward the notion of identity-relative paternalism. According to Wilkinson’s final formulation of this principle, ‘[i]ndividuals should be prevented from doing to future selves (where there are weakened prudential unity relations between the current and future self) what it would be justified to prevent them from doing to others’.1 In medical ethics, it is usually assumed that hard paternalism, that is, acting against a competent person’s wishes for their own benefit, is not justified. According to (...) Mill’s harm principle, we may only limit people’s freedom if they cause harm to others.2 Harm to self is not a sufficient reason for overriding competent persons’ decisions. Wilkinson, however, draws on Parfit’s reductionist view of personal identity to argue that sometimes, patients’ future selves are sufficiently disconnected from their present selves to treat future selves like different persons. If a competent person’s medical decision negatively affects a future self, this should be treated like a case of harm to others. Thus, overriding competent persons’ decisions in such cases—and treating them against their will—could be justified. In this commentary, I point out two problems with this approach. First, I demonstrate that the cases Wilkinson’s argument is based on are not examples of harm to others but rather cases of surrogate decision making gone wrong, …. (shrink)

v. 1. Cosmogenesis.--v. 2. Anthropogenesis.

This study shows that professional identity should not be viewed as a composed variable with a uniform structure. Based on the literature and previous research, we view teachers? job satisfaction, self?efficacy, occupational commitment and change in the level of motivation as indicators of teachers? professional identity. Using two?step cluster analysis, three distinct professional identity profiles have empirically been identified, based on data of 1214 teachers working in secondary education in the Netherlands. These profiles differed significantly regarding the indicators of teachers? (...) professional identity. Teachers belonging to the found profiles did not significantly differ in their amount of experience. (shrink)

Les atlas linguistiques sont-ils des corpus? Nous voudrions ici montrer pourquoi certains atlas ne sont pas des corpus et comment leur informatisation pourrait, néanmoins, permettre de les exploiter comme tels. Le questionnement auquel font écho ces lignes est celui de la possibilité d’une informatisation de l’Atlas linguistique de la Wallonie (ALW), envisagée dans un premier temps comme l’intégration d’échantillons des publications dans des bases de données, exploitables via une interface de consultation en ligne. Ce travail consisterait à réduire la matière (...) de l’enquête qui avait été enrichie lors de l’édition des matériaux. Cependant, nous voudrions montrer la part d’analyse qu’il est souhaitable de conserver lors de cette réduction. (shrink)

This paper enquires into the politics of real-time in online media. It suggests that real-time cannot be accounted for as a universal temporal frame in which events happen, but explores the making of real-time from a device perspective focusing on the temporalities of platforms. Based on an empirical study exploring the pace at which various online media produce new content, we trace the different rhythms, patterns or tempos created by the interplay of devices, users’ web activities and issues. What emerges (...) are distinct forms of ‘realtimeness’ which are not external from but specific to devices, organized through socio-technical arrangements and practices of use. Realtimeness thus unflattens more general accounts of the real-time web and research, and draws attention to the agencies built into specific platform temporalities and the political economies of making real-time. (shrink)

The Covid-19 induced United Kingdom-wide lockdown in 2020 saw choirs face a unique situation of trying to continue without being able to meet in-person. Live networked simultaneous music-making for large groups of singers is not possible, so other “virtual choir” activities were explored. A cross sectional online survey of 3948 choir members and facilitators from across the United Kingdom was conducted, with qualitative analysis of open text questions, to investigate which virtual choir solutions have been employed, how choir members and (...) facilitators experience these in comparison to an “in-person” choir, and whether the limitations and opportunities of virtual choir solutions shed light on the value of the experience of group singing as a whole. Three virtual choir models were employed: Multi-track, whereby individuals record a solo which is mixed into a choral soundtrack; Live streamed, where individuals take part in sessions streamed live over social media; Live tele-conferencing, for spoken interaction and/or singing using tele-conferencing software. Six themes were identified in the open text responses: Participation Practicalities, encompassing reactions to logistics of virtual models; Choir Continuity, reflecting the responsibility felt to maintain choir activities somehow; Wellbeing, with lockdown highlighting to many the importance of in-person choirs to their sense of wellbeing; Social Aspects, reflecting a sense of community and social identity; Musical Elements, whereby the value of musical experience shifted with the virtual models; Co-creation through Singing, with an overwhelming sense of loss of the embodied experience of singing together in real-time, which is unattainable from existing virtual choir models. The experiences, activities and reflections of choir singers during lockdown present a unique perspective to understand what makes group singing a meaningful experience for many. Co-creation through Singing needs further investigation to understand the impact of its absence on virtual choirs being able re-create the benefits of in-person choirs. (shrink)

The social construction of space -- The anatomy of taste -- Towards a theory of cultural practice --Fields of cultural production -- Cultural practice, reflexivity and political action.

Reasoning about bedrock abstract concepts such as time, number, and valence relies on spatial metaphor and often on multiple spatial metaphors for a single concept. Previous research has documented, for instance, both future-in-front and future-to-right metaphors for time in English speakers. It is often assumed that these metaphors, which appear to have distinct experiential bases, remain distinct in online temporal reasoning. In two studies we demonstrate that, contra this assumption, people systematically combine these metaphors. Evidence for this combination was found (...) in both directly elicited and spontaneous co-speech gestures about time. These results provide first support for the hypothesis that the metaphorical representation of time, and perhaps other abstract domains as well, involves the continuous co-activation of multiple metaphors rather than the selection of only one. (shrink)

In several jurisdictions, irremediable suffering from a medical condition is a legal requirement for access to assisted dying. According to the expressivist objection, allowing assisted dying for a specific group of persons, such as those with irremediable medical conditions, expresses the judgment that their lives are not worth living. While the expressivist objection has often been used to argue that assisted dying should not be legalised, I show that there is an alternative solution available to its proponents. An autonomy-based approach (...) to assisted suicide regards the provision of assisted suicide (but not euthanasia) as justified when it is autonomously requested by a person, irrespective of whether this is in her best interests. Such an approach has been put forward by a recent judgment of the German Federal Constitutional Court, which understands assisted suicide as an expression of the person’s right to a self-determined death. It does not allow for beneficence-based restrictions regarding the person’s suffering or medical diagnosis and therefore avoids the expressivist objection. I argue that on an autonomy-based approach, assisted suicide should not be understood as a medical procedure but rather as the person’s autonomous action. (shrink)

Article published in Stance by Wolfe and Grosz.

Abstract[I] want to single out one phenomenon that could be called the ‘politics of sources’. It points to the extent to which the histories that both scientists and historians can write are artifacts of the available sources. The Rockefeller Foundation not only opened its archives very early on for historical work but also invested a lot in making the archives readily available for historical exploration. During the 1980s, many young historians took advantage of this opportunity. Thus, in a relatively early (...) phase of the professional historiography of molecular biology, one could have gained the impression that the development of the new biology as a whole was a bio‐politically directed enterprise of the Rockefeller Foundation sustained by the vision that social processes could ultimately be controlled by biological processes. (shrink)

In this article, we explore the learning of newcomers in a religious community through a micro-sociological approach, making use of Jean Lave and Etienne Wenger’s (1991) notion of “legitimate peripheral participation” to conceptualize initial stages of inclusion and involvement in social practice. Our case study concerns Orthodox Christianity and is based on material gathered through fieldwork in a course targeting potential new members organized by a Finnish Orthodox parish. In the analysis, we inquire into how beginners learn skilful participation in (...) Orthodox liturgical life, and specifically embodied ritual conduct. This learning takes place primarily through participation in real-life divine services. The article highlights challenges faced by beginners in acquiring the embodied repertoire of Orthodox ritual, including adapting to the artistic use of ritual gestures, and negotiating the meanings produced through them. Furthermore, it also illustrates how nuanced dynamics between newcomers and old-timers influence the learning process. (shrink)

While we often talk about time using spatial terms, experimental investigation of space-time associations has focused primarily on the space in front of the participant. This has had two consequences: the disregard of the space behind the participant and the creation of potential task demands produced by spatialized manual button-presses. We introduce and test a new paradigm that uses auditory stimuli and vocal responses to address these issues. Participants made temporal judgments about deictic or sequential relationships presented auditorily along a (...) body-centered sagittal or transversal axis. Results involving the transversal axis replicated previous work while sagittal axis results were surprising. Deictic judgments did not use the sagittal axis but sequential judgments did, in a previously undocumented way. Participants associated earlier judgments with the space in front of them and later judgments with the space behind them. These findings, using a new approach, p.. (shrink)

v. 1. Psicologia experimental -- v. 2. Fundamentos da educação -- v. 3. Educação do excepcional -- v. 4. Educação rural -- v. 5. A educação do bem-dotado.

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to report on empirical work conducted to open up algorithmic interpretability and transparency. In recent years, significant concerns have arisen regarding the increasing pervasiveness of algorithms and the impact of automated decision-making in our lives. Particularly problematic is the lack of transparency surrounding the development of these algorithmic systems and their use. It is often suggested that to make algorithms more fair, they should be made more transparent, but exactly how this can be (...) achieved remains unclear. Design/methodology/approach An empirical study was conducted to begin unpacking issues around algorithmic interpretability and transparency. The study involved discussion-based experiments centred around a limited resource allocation scenario which required participants to select their most and least preferred algorithms in a particular context. In addition to collecting quantitative data about preferences, qualitative data captured participants’ expressed reasoning behind their selections. Findings Even when provided with the same information about the scenario, participants made different algorithm preference selections and rationalised their selections differently. The study results revealed diversity in participant responses but consistency in the emphasis they placed on normative concerns and the importance of context when accounting for their selections. The issues raised by participants as important to their selections resonate closely with values that have come to the fore in current debates over algorithm prevalence. Originality/value This work developed a novel empirical approach that demonstrates the value in pursuing algorithmic interpretability and transparency while also highlighting the complexities surrounding their accomplishment. (shrink)

The European Commission has recently proposed the introduction of legally binding quotas for women on corporate boards of European companies. This proposal has put the spotlight on the question of whether increasing female representation on the board brings economic benefits to the firm. In order to shed light on the issue, this study investigates the direct and indirect effects of women on the board on firm value. We use a simultaneous equation model to estimate the effects of women on the (...) board on firm value, financial performance, and compliance with ethical and social principles adopted by the firm. We find no evidence that a higher female representation on the board directly affects firm’s value. However, we find indirect effects. Women on the board are positively related with financial performance (measured in terms of return on assets and return on sales) and with ethical and social compliance, which in turn are positively related with firm value. The findings in this study suggest that greater female representation on corporate boards of large European firms can increase firm value indirectly. Further, part of the indirect effect comes from stronger compliance with ethical principles, something that is not captured by accounting-based financial performance. (shrink)

Interviews with female impersonators reveal the social, cultural, and economic aspects of their occupation and the subculture of the homosexual transvestite.

Storchak, Ehlis, and Fallgatter provide an extensive literature review on electrophysiological measurements, which indicate that general predictive deficits in self‐monitoring are associated with various positive symptoms in patients with schizophrenia.

Decision-making capacity is the gatekeeping element for a patient’s right to self-determination with regard to medical decisions. A DMC evaluation is not only conducted on descriptive grounds but is an inherently normative task including ethical reasoning. Therefore, it is dependent to a considerable extent on the values held by the clinicians involved in the DMC evaluation. Dealing with the question of how to reasonably support clinicians in arriving at a DMC judgment, a new tool is presented that fundamentally differs from (...) existing ones: the U-Doc. By putting greater emphasis on the judgmental process rather than on the measurement of mental abilities, the clinician as a decision-maker is brought into focus, rendering the tool more of an evaluation guide than a test instrument. In a qualitative study, the perceived benefits of and difficulties with the tool have been explored. The findings show on the one hand that the evaluation aid provides basic orientation, supports a holistic perspective on the patient, sensitizes for ethical considerations and personal biases, and helps to think through the decision, to argue, and to justify one’s judgment. On the other hand, the room for interpretation due to absent operationalisations, related ambiguities, and the confrontation with one’s own subjectivity may be experienced as unsettling. (shrink)

Servant leadership offers a compelling ideal of self-sacrificing individuals who put the needs of others before their own and cultivate a culture of growth in their organisations. Although the theory’s attempts to emphasise the moral, emotional and relational dimensions of leadership are laudable, it has primarily assumed a decontextualised view of leadership untouched by power. This article aims to problematise servant leadership by undertaking an intersectional analysis of an Asian cis-male heterosexual senior manager in Australia. Through in-depth interviews with the (...) manager and his staff, the article shows how his attempts to practice servant leadership were informed by intersecting power dynamics of race, gender, sexuality, age and class that subordinated him to white power. The findings demonstrate the ways servant leadership is necessarily embedded in wider power structures that shape who gets to be a “servant leader” and who remains merely a “servant”. (shrink)

Previous research has shown that Need for Cognition, the individual tendency to engage in and enjoy cognitive endeavors, contributes to academic performance. Most studies on NFC and related constructs have thereby focused on grades to capture tertiary academic success. This study aimed at a more comprehensive approach on NFC’s meaning to success in university. We examined not only performance but also rather affective indicators of success. The current sample consisted of 396 students of different subjects with a mean age of (...) 24 years. All participants took part in an online survey that assessed NFC together with school performance and further personality variables via self-report. Success in university was comprehensively operationalized including performance, satisfaction with one’s studies, and thoughts about quitting/changing one’s major as indicators. The value of NFC in predicting tertiary academic success was examined with correlation analyses and path analysis. NFC significantly correlated with all success variables with the highest correlation for study satisfaction. Path analysis confirmed the importance of NFC for study satisfaction showing that NFC had a significant direct effect on study satisfaction and via this variable also a significant indirect effect on termination thoughts. This study clearly indicates that NFC broadly contributes to the mastery of academic requirements and that it is worthwhile to intensify research on NFC in the context of tertiary education. (shrink)

Biografia do antropólogo e educador brasileiro. Inicia mostrando seus contatos com Rondon, Anísio Teixeira e Leonel Brizola. Em seguida analisa a situação da educação no Brasil desde o século XIX e o encontro de Darcy Ribeiro com os problemas educacionais brasileiros. Relata também suas principais realizações na área educacional : a Universidade de Brasília, nos anos 60, e os CIEPs, nos 80.