Despite its intuitive appeal and the empirical evidence for it, the hypothesis of cognitive polyphasia (Moscovici, 1961/1976/2008) remains largely unexplored. This article attempts to clarify some of the ideas behind this concept by examining its operations at the level of individuals and by proposing a conceptual model that includes some elements of social cognition. Indeed, calls for a rapprochement between the theory of social representations and cognitive psychology have been made by Moscovici, in particular, in his 1984 paper on The (...) myth of the lonely paradigm and in his paper on La nouvelle pensée magique (1992) in which he argues that the theory of social representations provides an explanatory framework for the descriptions offered by cognitive psychology and that their combining could translate into a finer understanding of contemporary social phenomena.Building on the results of an empirical examination of the controversy that surrounded the MMR vaccination programme in the UK between 1998 and 2005, different ways of engaging into cognitive polyphasia are proposed, including what can be described as cognitive “monophasia”, that is, the exclusive use of one type of knowledge, at least at the level of the individual. A brief discussion about the implications of the proposed conceptual model for our understanding of cognitive polyphasia and of the different ways of making sense of the world around us concludes this article. (shrink)

The rise of blockchain as a techno-solution in the development sector underscores the critical imbalances of data power under ‘computational capitalism’. This article will consider the political economy of techno-solutionist and blockchain discourses in the developing world, using as its object of study blockchain projects in Pacific Island nations. Backed by US State Department soft power initiatives such as Tech Camp, these projects inculcate tech-driven notions of economic and political development, or ICT4D, while opening up new terrains for data accumulation (...) and platform control. Blockchain developers in search of proof of concept have found the development sector a fecund space for tech experimentation as they leverage a desire for tech-development and exploit regulatory weakness. The material implications of blockchain projects and discourse have been to create governance solutions which bypass the developing world state as a largely corrupting intermediary. In the Pacific, this has meant blockchain supply-chain management systems, proprietary financial innovation in humanitarian relief and an Asian Development Bank project to manage indigenous Fijian lands exclusively on the blockchain. In all these instances, discourses of solutionism, innovation and data empowerment have been deployed in aid of blockchain cartographies of control. (shrink)

This book presents the framework for a new, comprehensive approach to cognitive science. The proposed paradigm, enaction, offers an alternative to cognitive science's classical, first-generation Computational Theory of Mind. _Enaction_, first articulated by Varela, Thompson, and Rosch in _The Embodied Mind_, breaks from CTM's formalisms of information processing and symbolic representations to view cognition as grounded in the sensorimotor dynamics of the interactions between a living organism and its environment. A living organism enacts the world it lives in; its embodied (...) action in the world constitutes its perception and thereby grounds its cognition. _Enaction_ offers a range of perspectives on this exciting new approach to embodied cognitive science. Some chapters offer manifestos for the enaction paradigm; others address specific areas of research, including artificial intelligence, developmental psychology, neuroscience, language, phenomenology, and culture and cognition. Three themes emerge as testimony to the originality and specificity of enaction as a paradigm: the relation between first-person lived experience and third-person natural science; the ambition to provide an encompassing framework applicable at levels from the cell to society; and the difficulties of reflexivity. Taken together, the chapters offer nothing less than the framework for a far-reaching renewal of cognitive science. Contributors: Renaud Barbaras, Didier Bottineau, Giovanna Colombetti, Diego Cosmelli, Hanne De Jaegher, Ezequiel A. Di Paolo. Andreas K. Engel, Olivier Gapenne, Véronique Havelange, Edwin Hutchins, Michel Le Van Quyen, Rafael E. Núñez, Marieke Rohde, Benny Shanon, Maxine Sheets-Johnstone, Adam Sheya, Linda B. Smith, John Stewart, Evan Thompson. (shrink)

Of all the things we do and say, most will never be repeated or reproduced. Once in a while, however, an idea or a practice generates a chain of transmission that covers more distance through space and time than any individual person ever could. What makes such transmission chains possible? For two centuries, the dominant view was that humans owe their cultural prosperity to their powers of imitation. In this view, modern cultures exist because the people who carry them are (...) gifted at remembering, storing and reproducing information. How Traditions Live and Die proposes an alternative to this standard view. What makes traditions live is not a general-purpose imitation capacity. Cultural transmission is partial, selective, often unfaithful. Some traditions live on in spite of this, because they tap into widespread and basic cognitive preferences. These attractive traditions spread, not by being better retained or more accurately transferred, but because they are transmitted over and over. This theory is used to shed light on various puzzles of cultural change and to explain the special relation that links the human species to its cultures. Morin combines recent work in cognitive anthropology with new advances in quantitative cultural history, to map and predict the diffusion of traditions. This book is both an introduction and an accessible alternative to contemporary theories of cultural evolution. (shrink)

The first of its kind, this book is an in-depth history of hydrodynamics from its eighteenth-century foundations to its first major successes in twentieth-century hydraulics and aeronautics. It documents the foundational role of fluid mechanics in developing a new mathematical physics. It gives full and clear accounts of the conceptual breakthroughs of physicists and engineers who tried to meet challenges in the practical worlds of hydraulics, navigation, blood circulation, meteorology, and aeronautics, and it shows how hydrodynamics at last began to (...) fulfill its early promise to unify the different worlds of flow. Richly illustrated, technically thorough, and sensitive to cross-cultural effects, this history should attract a broad range of historians, scientists, engineers, and philosophers and be a standard reference for anyone interested in fluid mechanics. (shrink)

Describes God in simple, easy terms for children.

This book is a long-term history of optics, from early Greek theories of vision to the nineteenth-century victory of the wave theory of light. It is a clear and richly illustrated synthesis of a large amount of literature, and a reliable and efficient guide for anyone who wishes to enter this domain.

The main contention of this article is that current approaches to ontological emergence are not comprehensive, in that they share a common bias that make them blind to some conceptual space available to emergence. In this article, I devise an alternative perspective on ontological emergence called ‘flat emergence’, which is free of such a bias. The motivation is twofold: not only does flat emergence constitute another viable way to fulfill the initial emergentist promise, but it also allows for making sense (...) of some emergence ascriptions that traditional accounts are unable to accommodate. (shrink)

This book recounts a few ingenious attempts to derive physical theories by reason only, beginning with Descartes' geometric construction of the world, and finishing with recent derivations of quantum mechanics from natural axioms.

This article presents, an analysis of the opinions of assurance providers regarding the quality and the limitations of sustainability reports and their recommendations to improve them using the Global Reporting Initiative as a framework. The qualitative content analysis of 301 assurance statements for sustainability reports from mining and energy companies provides a comprehensive view of the main outcomes of the assurance process, including its limitations, the application of the GRI principles and suggestions for improving sustainability reports. Taking into account the (...) perceptions of practitioners a priori well informed on the quality of sustainability reports—namely assurance providers—this paper complements the current literature on sustainability reporting and its assurance, including critical approaches that question the reliability of sustainability reports, stakeholder engagement and the accountability of reporting practices. This study contributes to the debates surrounding the quality of sustainability reports, the added value of assurance statements and the ethical issues underlying the assurance process. It also contains important practical implications for auditors, standardization organizations and stakeholders. (shrink)

This study examines to what extent different types of CEOs in family firms influence external and internal stakeholder-related CSP as compared to CEOs in nonfamily firms. Linking family CEO and nonfamily CEO with CSR outcomes, we provide evidence that family CEOs are positively associated with both external and internal CSR, whereas nonfamily CEOs within family firms tend to be negatively associated with both external and internal CSR. We show that the incumbent CEO’s age moderates the above relationships, indicating the existence (...) of shifting family priorities and suggesting a tendency toward CSR conformity as the salience of succession concerns increases. (shrink)

Sixteen years after Kim’s seminal paper offering a welcomed analysis of the emergence concept, I propose in this paper a needed extension of Kim’s work that does more justice to the actual diversity of emergentism. Rather than defining emergence as a monolithic third way between reductive physicalism and substance pluralism, and this through a conjunction of supervenience and irreducibility, I develop a comprehensive taxonomy of the possible varieties of emergence in which each taxon—theoretical, explanatory and causal emergence—is properly identified and (...) defined. This taxonomy has two advantages. First, it is unificatory in the sense that the taxa it contains derive from a common unity principle, which consequently constitutes the very hallmark of emergentism. Second, it can be shown that the emergence taxa it contains are able to meet the challenges that are commonly considered as being the hot topics on the emergentists’ agenda, namely the positivity, the consistency and the triviality/liberality challenges. (shrink)

The objective of this paper is to explore, through a qualitative study of small regional airports, how sustainability issues are taken into account in remote small- and medium-sized enterprises. Based on 42 semi-structured interviews conducted with managers of small regional Canadian airports and experts in this area, this study shows the quasi-absence of specific measures for sustainability, despite the seriousness of environmental issues, which tend to be subordinated to economic priorities and operational activities. The paper contributes to the literature on (...) sustainability in SMEs by focusing on passive organizations located in remote areas and the complex reasons underlying their lack or absence of environmental commitment. The paper sheds more light on the essential role of stakeholders in providing the resources and skills necessary for the development of sustainability initiatives in passive SMEs. The study’s managerial contributions and implications for stakeholders are also discussed. (shrink)

Cet article souhaite porter un regard réflexif sur le projet scientifique de constitution et d’exploitation d’un grand corpus de français parlé, les Enquêtes sociolinguistiques à Orléans, né à l’aube de la sociolinguistique et qui se développe au tournant méthodologique et épistémologique des digital humanities. Quels objectifs? Quelles données? Quels traitements? Ce sont les questions qui guident la réflexion proposée ici afin d’apporter une contribution à l’élaboration de nouvelles pratiques scientifiques dans une perspective variationniste contemporaine.

This article examines how the action logics associated with the stages of consciousness development of organizational leaders can influence the meaning, which these leaders give to corporate greening and their capacity to consider the specific complexities, values, and demands of environmental issues. The article explores how the seven principal action logics identified by Rooke and Torbert (2005, Harvard Business Review 83 (4), 66–76; Opportunist, Diplomat, Expert, Achiever, Individualist, Strategist and Alchemist) can affect environmental leadership. An examination of the strengths and (...) limitations of these action logics reveals the relevance of the so-called post-conventional stages of consciousness to the recognition and effective management of complex environmental issues. Suggestions are also made for promoting organizational contexts conducive to the development of a post-conventional environmental leadership. (shrink)

Organizational citizenship behaviors have been the topic of much research attempting to understand the motivations, manifestations, and impacts of these behaviors on organizational development. However, studies have been based essentially on an anthropocentric and intra-organizational perspective that tends to ignore broader environmental issues. Due to the complexity of environmental issues and their human, informal, and preventive aspects, consideration of these issues requires voluntary and decentralized initiatives that draw on organizational citizenship behaviors. The role of these behaviors has been neglected, or (...) even ignored, in studies of environmental management, which have focused mainly on the explicit, formal, and prescriptive aspects of organizations. The aim of this article is to shed light on the pertinence of organizational citizenship behaviors in improving the efficacy and efficiency of environmental management. The article discusses how the principal dimensions of these behaviors can be applied to the environmental practices of organizations and underlines their importance in responding to essential challenges of environmental management, including the complexity of environmental issues, limitations of formal management systems, the need to consider tacit knowledge, the importance of helping relationships, and the promotion of␣social legitimacy among organizations. Measures to encourage eco-efficiency and establish a favorable context for the emergence of citizenship behaviors are also proposed. (shrink)

In this paper, we show that it is not a conceptual truth about laws of nature that they are immutable (though we are happy to leave it as an open empirical question whether they do actually change once in a while). In order to do so, we survey three popular accounts of lawhood—(Armstrong-style) necessitarianism, (Bird-style) dispositionalism and (Lewis-style) ‘best system analysis’—and expose the extent, as well as the philosophical cost, of the amendments that should be enforced in order to leave (...) room for the possibility of changing laws. (shrink)

The relativistic revolution led to varieties of neo-Kantianism in which constitutive principles define the object of scientific knowledge in a domain-dependent and historically mutable manner. These principles are a priori insofar as they are necessary premises for the formulation of empirical laws in a given domain, but they lack the self-evidence of Kant’s a priori and they cannot be identified without prior knowledge of the theory they purport to frame. In contrast, the rationalist endeavors of a few masters of theoretical (...) physics have led to comprehensibility conditions that are easily admitted in a given domain and yet suffice to generate the theory of this domain. The purpose of this essay is to compare these two kinds of relativized a priori, to discuss the nature of the comprehensibility conditions, and to demonstrate their effectiveness in a modular conception of physical theories. (shrink)

Le « droit » tient aussi dans les discours qu’on tient sur lui, notamment les discours des juristes. L’analyse des discours des juristes engagés du Troisième Reich fait ressortir un schéma général de justification, un principe grammatical génératif de ces discours qu’on peut qualifier de « décisionnisme substantiel ». Le positivisme juridique, parce qu’abstrait et « juif », fut désigné comme l’ennemi principal de la science du « droit » nazi, une « science » qui ne pouvait se concevoir elle-même (...) que comme politique. En analysant la construction idéologico-juridique de l’État total, la destruction de la notion de droits subjectifs, la substitution au concept de personnalité juridique d’une notion « concrète » de l’« être-membre-de-la-communauté », puis en montrant le fonctionnement de ces discours dans la pratique, la présente contribution met en évidence la double logique de l’incorporation et de l’incarnation à l’œuvre dans la science nazie du droit, une « science » dont Carl Schmitt fait la « théorie » en 1934 à travers la « pensée de l’ordre concret ». (shrink)

Dans cet article, je me propose de réfléchir, à partir de certains travaux de Thomas Nagel, sur la nature de la réflexion métaphysique. Nous qualifions certains problèmes de métaphysiques et leur attribuons par là une certaine unité. Il est cependant difficile de caractériser cette unité, et l’ensemble de ces problèmes peut apparaître comme une simple rhapsodie : quel rapport existe-t-il entre des questions comme « sommes-nous libres? », « quelle est la place de l’esprit dans la nature? » ou « (...) pouvons-nous connaître la réalité extérieure? ». J’avance une hypothèse à propos de l’origine, de la nature et de l’unité de ces problèmes, ainsi que de la fonction de leur examen à l’intérieur de la métaphysique, du moins à propos de certains d’entre eux, ceux qui portent sur ce qui est et non sur ce en quoi consiste le fait d’être. J’essaie également de dégager de cette hypothèse une compréhension plus précise de la nature d’une part centrale de l’enquête métaphysique. (shrink)

Ingvar Johansson has argued that there are not only determinate universals, but also determinable ones. I here argue that this view is misguided by reviving a line of argument to the following effect: what makes determinates falling under a same determinable similar cannot be distinct from what makes them different. If true, some similarities — imperfect similarities between simple determinate properties — are not grounded in any kind of property-sharing. I suggest that determinables are better understood as maximal disjunctions of (...) brutely and imperfectly similar determinates. Such brute similarities have been thought to clash with realism about universals. I argue that this worry stems from the mistaken assumption that perfect and imperfect similarities are relations of a same kind. If exact and inexact resemblances are distinct and heterogeneous explananda, the realist about universals might explain the first thanks to property-sharing, while happily leaving imperfect similarities between properties unexplained. (shrink)

En 1741, la Royal Military Academy de Woolwich est créée par le Board of Ordnance afin d’instruire les futurs artilleurs et ingénieurs militaires. Cette instruction s’appuie dès le départ sur les mathématiques. Dans cet article, nous présentons et étudions les différents programmes sur la longue période. Les évolutions, les changements mais aussi les constances sont évalués et nous donnons les raisons de ceux-ci. L’âge de recrutement, le poids du Board of Ordnance ou encore les diverses guerres ont aussi une influence (...) importante sur la place des mathématiques dans les programmes. Par ailleurs, le peu de turn-over des professeurs entraîne aussi une inertie de l’enseignement des mathématiques. In 1741, the Royal Military Academy at Woolwich was created by the Board of Ordnance in order to instruct artillery officers and military engineers. From the beginning, the teaching was mainly based on mathematics. In this paper, we study different curricula and point out the long-term evolution as well as continuity in mathematical learning and we give reasons for them. The age of recruitment, the authority of the Board of Ordnance and several wars had an influence on the role of mathematics in the syllabus. Furthermore, the low turnover of professors led to inertia in the teaching of mathematics. (shrink)

En 1741, la Royal Military Academy de Woolwich est créée par le Board of Ordnance afin d’instruire les futurs artilleurs et ingénieurs militaires. Cette instruction s’appuie dès le départ sur les mathématiques. Dans cet article, nous présentons et étudions les différents programmes sur la longue période (entre 1741 et les années 1860). Les évolutions, les changements mais aussi les constances sont évalués et nous donnons les raisons de ceux-ci. L’âge de recrutement, le poids du Board of Ordnance ou encore les (...) diverses guerres ont aussi une influence importante sur la place des mathématiques dans les programmes. Par ailleurs, le peu de turn-over des professeurs entraîne aussi une inertie de l’enseignement des mathématiques. In 1741, the Royal Military Academy at Woolwich was created by the Board of Ordnance in order to instruct artillery officers and military engineers. From the beginning, the teaching was mainly based on mathematics. In this paper, we study different curricula and point out the long-term (between 1741 and the 1860s) evolution as well as continuity in mathematical learning and we give reasons for them. The age of recruitment, the authority of the Board of Ordnance and several wars had an influence on the role of mathematics in the syllabus. Furthermore, the low turnover of professors led to inertia in the teaching of mathematics. (shrink)

En 1741, la Royal Military Academy de Woolwich est créée par le Board of Ordnance afin d’instruire les futurs artilleurs et ingénieurs militaires. Cette instruction s’appuie dès le départ sur les mathématiques. Dans cet article, nous présentons et étudions les différents programmes sur la longue période (entre 1741 et les années 1860). Les évolutions, les changements mais aussi les constances sont évalués et nous donnons les raisons de ceux-ci. L’âge de recrutement, le poids du Board of Ordnance ou encore les (...) diverses guerres ont aussi une influence importante sur la place des mathématiques dans les programmes. Par ailleurs, le peu de turn-over des professeurs entraîne aussi une inertie de l’enseignement des mathématiques. In 1741, the Royal Military Academy at Woolwich was created by the Board of Ordnance in order to instruct artillery officers and military engineers. From the beginning, the teaching was mainly based on mathematics. In this paper, we study different curricula and point out the long-term (between 1741 and the 1860s) evolution as well as continuity in mathematical learning and we give reasons for them. The age of recruitment, the authority of the Board of Ordnance and several wars had an influence on the role of mathematics in the syllabus. Furthermore, the low turnover of professors led to inertia in the teaching of mathematics. (shrink)

This paper explores the strategies organizations use to demonstrate their accountability for biodiversity and legitimize their impact in this area through the use of techniques of neutralization. Neutralization aims to manage stakeholder impressions on very socially sensitive issues. Based on the content analysis of 148 sustainability reports from mining organizations, the study sheds light on the successful use of rhetoric in reports on non-measurable and potentially unaccountable issues. Specifically, the study shows that mining organizations use four main techniques of neutralization (...) when they explain their impact on biodiversity. When they address stakeholders, they defend their social legitimacy and environmental responsiveness using one of the four techniques: they claim of a net positive or neutral impact on biodiversity, they deny that they have a significant impact, they distance themselves from the impact of their actions, and they play down their responsibilities. The study contributes to the literature on corporate sustainability and accounting for stakeholders. It focuses on under-researched issues such as the management of biodiversity and the tactics used to rationalize negative impacts. The study also bridges the gap between theories about organizational legitimacy, impression management, and techniques of neutralization. (shrink)

The study of classes of models of a finite diagram was initiated by S. Shelah in 1969. A diagram D is a set of types over the empty set, and the class of models of the diagram D consists of the models of T which omit all the types not in D. In this work, we introduce a natural dependence relation on the subsets of the models for the 0-stable case which share many of the formal properties of forking. This (...) is achieved by considering a rank for this framework which is bounded when the diagram D is 0-stable. We can also obtain pregeometries with respect to this dependence relation. The dependence relation is the natural one induced by the rank, and the pregeometries exist on the set of realizations of types of minimal rank. Finally, these concepts are used to generalize many of the classical results for models of a totally transcendental first-order theory. In fact, strong analogies arise: models are determined by their pregeometries or their relationship with their pregeometries; however the proofs are different, as we do not have compactness. This is illustrated with positive results as well as negative results . We also give a proof of a Two Cardinal Theorem for this context. (shrink)

In 1887 Helmholtz discussed the foundations of measurement in science as a last contribution to his philosophy of knowledge. This essay borrowed from earlier debates on the foundations of mathematics, on the possibility of quantitative psychology, and on the meaning of temperature measurement. Late nineteenth-century scrutinisers of the foundations of mathematics made little of Helmholtz’s essay. Yet it inspired two mathematicians with an eye on physics, and a few philosopher-physicists. The aim of the present paper is to situate Helmholtz’s contribution (...) in this complex array of nineteenth-century philosophies of number, quantity, and measurement.Author Keywords: Helmholtz; Measurement; Arithmetic; P. Du Bois-Reymond; H. and R. Grassmann; J. von Kries. (shrink)

Dans les nations industrialisées, les goûts des individus sont désormais employés à doper la consommation. L'industrialisation de la jouissance privilégie le superflu au nécessaire, la sensibilité à la raison, la séduction à la faculté de juger. Pourtant, avec l'exploitation du goût, le capitalisme est loin d'avoir découvert une terre inconnue. A l'âge classique, la noblesse de cour cultivait un style de vie commandé par les loisirs et le goût, tout en faisant du bon goût un critère de distinction et de (...) promotion individuelle. Ces relations de compétition entre courtisans ont-elles été les premières notes en prélude au libéralisme? Si l'improductivité, au sens économique, a pu constituer une valeur fondatrice du goût, comment l'industrie a-t-elle pu transformer le goût en moteur économique de la consommation? Le devenir esthétique du capitalisme repose sur la captation et la conversion de ce qu'il aurait de plus individuel en valeurs mesurables, échangeables et massifiables, susceptibles de coloniser les moindres recoins de l'existence et de al culture. L'ouvrage montre que les enjeux du capitalisme esthétique excèdent le territoire angélique des agréments : les batailles esthétiques sont au cœur d'une guerre économique pour le contrôle des émotions et des affections. (shrink)

A l'aune de la philosophie marginalisant le goût et la cuisine, Jean-Jacques Rousseau parait occuper une place à part et novatrice. Tout en condamnant l'hybris des facéties gastronomiques, il valorise le goût par son lien étroit avec les besoins, avec l'amour de soi, sens utile à juguler les faux désirs et déjouer l'amour-propre. Toutefois, dans l'Emile, ce sens tend à souffrir de la préséance de l'appétit, notion essentielle car utile en société à reconditionner la faim, réorganiser les besoins jusqu'aux moyens (...) de les satisfaire, afin de récréer, par le truchement de la dépense physique, la mesure du plaisir faisant défaut à l'homme civil. En outre, jusqu'à quel point ce schéma de subjectivation par l'appétit est-il compatible avec le dessein politique? (shrink)

Pour faire l'histoire des fondements philosophiques et politiques de l'engagement civique et humanitaire, ce livre part de l'invention des héros civiques à Rome à la fin de la République. C'est alors que sont recensés et décrits de manière insistante les exploits vertueux de quelques personnages qui se sacrifièrent ou sacrifièrent leur confort pour le bien de tous : Scaevola, Marcus Curtius, P. Decius Mus et d'autres encore, dont le souvenir s'estompa, jusqu'à ressurgir soudainement dans le contexte des républiques italiennes du (...) Moyen Age.0Cette enquête analyse la façon dont ces héros civiques ont été utilisés à travers l'histoire, depuis l'humanisme italien jusqu'à l'activisme révolutionnaire en passant par le culte de la gloire des monarchies européennes et la naissance du concept d'humanité. Elle dévoile par là les origines de l'engagement politique moderne. (shrink)

This paper analyses the differing receptions of the Old French Partonopeus de Blois in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries by revisiting a little known text, a peculiar prolongation in the form of an Art d'aimer which has been added to a versified French translation of the Disciplina clericalis. This continuation exists in only one manuscript; recent advances in technology and new research have allowed the author to determine that quite large parts of this Art d'aimer have been borrowed from Partonopeus. (...) He analyses these borrowings, reassesses the judgments of his predecessors, and concludes that Partonopeus de Blois might have had a much greater literary impact on the authors of other Old French texts than has previously been thought. (shrink)