We consider collective quantification in natural language. For many years the common strategy in formalizing collective quantification has been to define the meanings of collective determiners, quantifying over collections, using certain type-shifting operations. These type-shifting operations, i.e., lifts, define the collective interpretations of determiners systematically from the standard meanings of quantifiers. All the lifts considered in the literature turn out to be definable in second-order logic. We argue that second-order definable quantifiers are probably not (...) expressive enough to formalize all collective quantification in natural language. (shrink)

This article studies the monotonicity behavior of plural determinersthat quantify over collections. Following previous work, we describe thecollective interpretation of determiners such as all, some andmost using generalized quantifiers of a higher type that areobtained systematically by applying a type shifting operator to thestandard meanings of determiners in Generalized Quantifier Theory. Twoprocesses of counting and existential quantification thatappear with plural quantifiers are unified into a single determinerfitting operator, which, unlike previous proposals, both capturesexistential quantification with plural determiners and (...) respects theirmonotonicity properties. However, some previously unnoticed factsindicate that monotonicity of plural determiners is not always preservedwhen they apply to collective predicates. We show that the proposedoperator describes this behavior correctly, and characterize themonotonicity of the collective determiners it derives. It is proved thatdeterminer fitting always preserves monotonicity properties ofdeterminers in their second argument, but monotonicity in the firstargument of a determiner is preserved if and only if it is monotonic inthe same direction in the second argument. We argue that this asymmetryfollows from the conservativity of generalized quantifiers innatural language. (shrink)

This book attempts to marry truth-conditional semantics with cognitive linguistics in the church of computational neuroscience. To this end, it examines the truth-conditional meanings of coordinators, quantifiers, and collective predicates as neurophysiological phenomena that are amenable to a neurocomputational analysis. Drawing inspiration from work on visual processing, and especially the simple/complex cell distinction in early vision (V1), we claim that a similar two-layer architecture is sufficient to learn the truth-conditional meanings of the logical coordinators and logical quantifiers. As a (...) prerequisite, much discussion is given over to what a neurologically plausible representation of the meanings of these items would look like. We eventually settle on a representation in terms of correlation, so that, for instance, the semantic input to the universal operators (e.g. and, all)is represented as maximally correlated, while the semantic input to the universal negative operators (e.g. nor, no)is represented as maximally anticorrelated. On the basis this representation, the hypothesis can be offered that the function of the logical operators is to extract an invariant feature from natural situations, that of degree of correlation between parts of the situation. This result sets up an elegant formal analogy to recent models of visual processing, which argue that the function of early vision is to reduce the redundancy inherent in natural images. Computational simulations are designed in which the logical operators are learned by associating their phonological form with some degree of correlation in the inputs, so that the overall function of the system is as a simple kind of pattern recognition. Several learning rules are assayed, especially those of the Hebbian sort, which are the ones with the most neurological support. Learning vector quantization (LVQ) is shown to be a perspicuous and efficient means of learning the patterns that are of interest. We draw a formal parallelism between the initial, competitive layer of LVQ and the simple cell layer in V1, and between the final, linear layer of LVQ and the complex cell layer in V1, in that the initial layers are both selective, while the final layers both generalize. It is also shown how the representations argued for can be used to draw the traditionally-recognized inferences arising from coordination and quantification, and why the inference of subalternacy breaks down for collective predicates. Finally, the analogies between early vision and the logical operators allow us to advance the claim of cognitive linguistics that language is not processed by proprietary algorithms, but rather by algorithms that are general to the entire brain. Thus in the debate between objectivist and experiential metaphysics, this book falls squarely into the camp of the latter. Yet it does so by means of a rigorous formal, mathematical, and neurological exposition – in contradiction of the experiential claim that formal analysis has no place in the understanding of cognition. To make our own counter-claim as explicit as possible, we present a sketch of the LVQ structure in terms of mereotopology, in which the initial layer of the network performs topological operations, while the final layer performs mereological operations. The book is meant to be self-contained, in the sense that it does not assume any prior knowledge of any of the many areas that are touched upon. It therefore contains mini-summaries of biological visual processing, especially the retinocortical and ventral /what?/ parvocellular pathways computational models of neural signaling, and in particular the reduction of the Hodgkin-Huxley equations to the connectionist and integrate-and-fire neurons Hebbian learning rules and the elaboration of learning vector quantization the linguistic pathway in the left hemisphere memory and the hippocampus truth-conditional vs. image-schematic semantics objectivist vs. experiential metaphysics and mereotopology. All of the simulations are implemented in MATLAB, and the code is available from the book’s website. • The discovery of several algorithmic similarities between visison and semantics. • The support of all of this by means of simulations, and the packaging of all of this in a coherent theoretical framework. (shrink)

While the control of cell migration by biochemical and biophysical factors is largely documented, a precise quantification of cell migration parameters in different experimental contexts is still questionable. Indeed, these phenomenological parameters can be evaluated from data obtained either at the cell population level or at the individual cell level. However, the range within which both characterizations of cell migration are equivalent remains unclear. We analyse here to which extent both sources of data could be integrated within a unified (...) description of cell migration by considering the motility of the endothelial cell line EAhy926. Using time-lapse video-microscopy and associated analysis of digital image time series, we quantified EAhy926 random motility coefficient, migration speed and trajectory persistence time in two different migration assays: the in vitro wound healing assay, and the cell-populated agarose drop assay. In order to analyse the agreement between independent quantifications of cell motility based either on individual cell analysis or cell population dynamic analysis, a theoretical multi-agents cellular model was developed and discussed as a possible theoretical framework able to unify these multi-scale data. Model simulations especially reveal the potential bias induced by cell proliferation and cell-cell adhesion when cell migration parameters are estimated from the extensively used in vitro wound healing assay. (shrink)

This edited volume explores the intersection of medicine and philosophy throughout history, calling attention to the role of quantification in understanding the medical body. Retracing current trends and debates to examine the quantification of the body throughout the early modern, modern and early contemporary age, the authors contextualise important issues of both medical and philosophical significance, with chapters focusing on the quantification of temperaments and fluids, complexions, functions of the living body, embryology, and the impact of quantified (...) reasoning on the concepts of health and illness. With insights spanning from the sixteenth century to the nineteenth century, this book provides a wide-ranging overview of attempts to ‘quantify’ the human body at various points. Arguing that medicine and philosophy have been constantly in dialogue with each other, the authors discuss how this provided a strategic opportunity both for medical thought and philosophy to refine and further develop. Given today’s fascination with the quantification of the body, represented by the growing profusion of self-tracking devices logging one’s sleep, diet or mood, this collection offers an important and timely contribution to an emerging and interdisciplinary field of study. -/- . (shrink)

Ordinary English contains different forms of quantification over objects. In addition to the usual singular quantification, as in 'There is an apple on the table', there is plural quantification, as in 'There are some apples on the table'. Ever since Frege, formal logic has favored the two singular quantifiers ∀x and ∃x over their plural counterparts ∀xx and ∃xx (to be read as for any things xx and there are some things xx). But in recent decades it (...) has been argued that we have good reason to admit among our primitive logical notions also the plural quantifiers ∀xx and ∃xx. More controversially, it has been argued that the resulting formal system with plural as well as singular quantification qualifies as ‘pure logic’; in particular, that it is universally applicable, ontologically innocent, and perfectly well understood. In addition to being interesting in its own right, this thesis will, if correct, make plural quantification available as an innocent but extremely powerful tool in metaphysics, philosophy of mathematics, and philosophical logic. For instance, George Boolos has used plural quantification to interpret monadic second-order logic and has argued on this basis that monadic second-order logic qualifies as “pure logic.” Plural quantification has also been used in attempts to defend logicist ideas, to account for set theory, and to eliminate ontological commitments to mathematical objects and complex objects. (shrink)

I provide a classification of varieties of pantheism. I argue that there are two different kinds of commitments that pantheists have. On the one hand, there is an ontological commitment to the existence of a sum of all things. On the other hand, there is an ideological commitment: either collectively or distributively, the sum of all things is divine.

This extended collection of papers is the result of putting recent ideas on quantification to work on a wide variety of languages.

This article addresses nominal quantification in English in relation to discrete and continuous quantity, the two semantic categories of discrete and continuous / mass being analysed as interpretations of syntax. It re-examines the hypothesis of non-quantifiable continuous nouns as well as some theoretical questions such as overloaded definitions, unexploited oppositions or notions found without an explicit definition, as is sometimes the case with the concept of collective. The study then proceeds to examine semantic multiplicity in connection with grammatical (...) number. Plural is examined in association with numerals and fuzzy quantifiers. The singular category also also yields interpretations of multiplicity, whether with mass-nouns or with discrete collective nouns. This, together with the possible conversion of the latter into mass-nouns, draws one’s attention to a mode of reference shared by mass nouns and collective discrete nouns. (shrink)

When viewed as the most comprehensive theory of collections, set theory leaves no room for classes. But the vocabulary of classes, it is argued, provides us with compact and, sometimes, irreplaceable formulations of largecardinal hypotheses that are prominent in much very important and very interesting work in set theory. Fortunately, George Boolos has persuasively argued that plural quantification over the universe of all sets need not commit us to classes. This paper suggests that we retain the vocabulary of classes, (...) but explain that what appears to be singular reference to classes is, in fact, covert plural reference to sets. (shrink)

Collective entities and collective relations play an important role in natural language. In order to capture the full meaning of sentences like The Beatles sing Yesterday, a knowledge representation language should be able to express and reason about plural entities — like the Beatles — and their relationships — like sing — with any possible reading (cumulative, distributive or collective).In this paper a way of including collections and collective relations within a concept language, chosen as the (...) formalism for representing the semantics of sentences, is presented. A twofold extension of theA–C concept language is investigated: (1) special relations introduce collective entities either out of their components or out of other collective entities, (2) plural quantifiers on collective relations specify their possible reading. The formal syntax and semantics of the concept language is given, together with a sound and complete algorithm to compute satisfiability and subsumption of concepts, and to compute recognition of individuals. (shrink)

Although Harry Woolf’s great collective volume Quantification mostly overlooked biology, Thomas Kuhn’s chapter there on the role of quantitative measurement within the physical sciences maps quite well onto the forms of reasoning that actually persuade us as biologists 50 years later. Kuhn distinguished between two contexts, that of producing quantitative anomalies and that of resolving them. The implied form of reasoning is actually C. S. Peirce’s abduction or inference to the best explanation: “The surprising fact C is observed; (...) but if A were true, C would be a matter of course; hence there is reason to suspect that A is true.” This article reviews abduction and the Kuhnian dichotomy in a range of classic examples where quantitative reasoning has ended arguments in the natural sciences. Included are John Snow’s discovery of the cause of cholera, Jean Perrin’s proof that atoms exist, the discovery of the double helix, the Alvarezes’ explanation of the extraterrestrial origin of the Cretaceous-Tertiary extinction, and current examples in passive smoking, ulcers, and the anthropogenicity of global warming. Modern biology is a quantitative science to the extent that we operate by “strong inference,” the insistence that our data are surprising on everybody else’s hypotheses but follow as a matter of course from our own, and that we demand numerical consilience whenever we infer across levels of analysis or across disciplines. (shrink)

This book details how quantification can serve both as evidence and as an instrument of government, whether when dealing with statistics on employment, occupational health and economic governance, or when developing public management or target-driven policies. In the process, it presents a thought-provoking homage to Alain Desrosières, who pioneered ways to study large numbers and the politics underlying them. It opens with a summary of Desrosières's contributions to the field in which several generations of researchers detail how this statistician (...) and historian profoundly influenced them. This tribute, based on personal testimonies, bears witness to the vitality of the school of thought and analytical framework Desrosières initiated. Next, a collection of essays explores the statistical argument in the neoliberal era, examining issues such as counting the homeless in Europe, measuring the performance of public services, and quantifying the effects of public action on the unemployed in France. The third part details the uses of quantification. It reveals that although statistics are frequently used to the advantage of those in power, they can also play a vital role in challenging and resisting both the conventions underlying the measurements as well as the measurements themselves.Featuring the work of economists, historians, political scientists, sociologists, and statisticians, this title provides readers with a thoughtful look at an influential figure in the history of statistics. It also shows how statistics are used to direct public policy, the degree of conflict that is possible in their production, and the disputes that can develop around their uses. (shrink)

BackgroundThe rating of perceived exertion scales with respiratory and muscular illustrations are recognized as simple and practical methods to understand individual psychometric characteristics in breathing and muscle exertion during exercise. However, the implementation of respiratory and muscular RPE to quantify training load in futsal training camps has not been examined. This study investigates respiratory and muscular RPE relationships during domestic training camps and overseas training camps in an under 20 futsal national team.MethodsData collected from eleven field players were used for (...) comparison in this study. All players reported Borg CR10 RPE and 7-scales respiratory RPE and muscular RPE after training sessions and matches. Additionally, total distance covered and training impulse were used to quantify external and internal loads via the Polar Team Pro system. Paired-sample t-tests were used to compare the RPECR10, RPErespiration, RPEmuscle, TD, and TRIMP between DTC and OTC. Furthermore, linear regression was performed to determine the relationships among all RPE scales, TD, and TRIMP.ResultsThe RPECR10, TD, and TRIMP showed significant difference between DTC and OTC. Furthermore, linear regression analyses showed significant correlation between RPErespiration and RPEmuscle, RPECR10 and RPErespiration, and RPECR10 and RPEmuscle.ConclusionPictorial RPErespiration or RPEmuscle can be used as an alternative to quantify perceived measures of internal loads during DTC and OTC in futsal players. Interpretation of perceived measures of training load and cardiac-related responses in association with external training loads during short-term training camps would be useful in further understanding the demands of futsal players’ experience in these circumstances. (shrink)

Much of the ontology made in the analytic tradition of philosophy nowadays is founded on some of Quine’s proposals. His naturalism and the binding between existence and quantification are respectively two of his very influential metaphilosophical and methodological theses. Nevertheless, many of his specific claims are quite controversial and contemporaneously have few followers. Some of them are: (a) his rejection of higher-order logic; (b) his resistance in accepting the intensionality of ontological commitments; (c) his rejection of first-order modal logic; (...) and (d) his rejection of the distinction between analytic and synthetic statements. I intend to argue that these controversial negative claims are just interconnected consequences of those much more accepted and apparently less harmful metaphilosophical and methodological theses, and that the glue linking all these consequences to its causes is the notion of extensionality. (shrink)

The formal semantics that we have proposed for definite and indefinite descriptions analyzes them both as variable-binding operators and as referring terms. It is the referential analysis which makes it possible to account for the facts outlined in Section 2, e.g. for the purely ‘instrumental’ role of the descriptive content; for the appearance of unusually wide scope readings relative to other quantifiers, higher predicates, and island boundaries; for the fact that the island-escaping readings are always equivalent to maximally wide scope (...) quantifiers; and for the appearance of violations of the identity conditions on variables in deleted constituents. We would emphasize that this is not a random collection of observations. They cohere naturally with each other, and with facts about other phrases that are unambigously referential.We conceded at the outset of this paper that the referential use of an indefinite noun phrase does not, by itself, motivate the postulation of a referential interpretation. Our argument has been that the behavior of indefinites in complex sentences cannot be economically described, and certainly cannot be explained, unless a referential interpretation is assumed. It could be accounted for in pragmatic terms only if the whole theory of scope relations and of conditions on deletion could be eliminated from the semantics and incorporated into a purely pragmatic theory. But this seems unlikely. (shrink)

This article proposes a new logical framework for NL quantification. The framework is based on Generalized Quantifiers, Skolem-like functional dependencies, and Maximality of the involved sets of entities. Among the readings available for NL sentences, those where two or more sets of entities are independent of one another are particularly challenging. In the literature, examples of those readings are known as Collective and Cumulative readings. This article briefly analyzes previous approaches to Cumulativity and Collectivity, and indicates (Schwarzschild in (...) Pluralities. Kluwer, Dordrecht, 1996) as the best proposal so far to deal with these readings. Then, it incorporates its insights in the logical framework defined in Robaldo (J Philos Log 39(1):23–58, 2009a), leading to a scalable logical account for NL quantification. (shrink)

This paper introduces some of the main components of a novel type theoretical semantics for quantifi- cation with plural noun phrases. This theory, unlike previous ones, sticks to the standard generalized quantifier treatment of singular noun phrases and uses only one lifting operator per semantic category (predicate, quantifier and determiner) for quantification with plurals. Following Bennett (1974), plural individuals are treated as functions of type ¢¡ . Plural nouns and other plural predicates accordingly denote £ ¢¡¥¤¦¡ functions. Such predicates (...) do not match the standard £ ¢¡¥¤ £§£ ¢¡¨¤©¡¥¤ type of determiners. Following Partee and Rooth (1983), type mismatches are resolved using type shifting operators. These operators derive collectivity with plurals, keeping the analysis of singular noun phrases, where no type mismatch arises, as in Barwise and Cooper (1981). A single type shifting operator for determiners combines into one reading the existential shift and the counting (neutral) shift of Scha (1981) and Van der Does (1993). This operator combines the conservativity principle of generalized quantifier theory with Szabolcsi’s (1997) existential quantification over witness sets. The unified lift prevents unmotivated ambiguity as well as the monotonicity ill of existential lifts pointed out by Van Benthem.. (shrink)

If a company’s share price rises when it sacks workers, or when it makes money from polluting the environment, it would seem that the accounting is not being done correctly. Real costs are not being paid. People’s ethical claims, which in a smaller-scale case would be legally enforceable, are not being measured in such circumstances. This results from a mismatch between the applied ethics tradition and the practice of the accounting profession. Applied ethics has mostly avoided quantification of rights, (...) while accounting practice has embraced quantification, but has been excessively conservative about what may be counted. The two traditions can be combined, by using some of the ideas economists have devised to quantify difficult-to-measure costs and benefits in environmental accounting. (shrink)

This paper develops the metaphysical hypothesis that there are irreducibly collective pluralities, pluralities of objects that do not have a singular object among them. A way to formulate this hypothesis using plural quantification will be proposed and the coherence of irreducibly collective existence will be defended. Furthermore, irreducibly collective existence will be shown to allow for bottomless scenarios that do not involve things standing in relations of parthood. This will create logical space for an anti-atomistic form (...) of mereological nihilism. (shrink)

We prove the following surprising property of Heyting's intuitionistic propositional calculus, IpC. Consider the collection of formulas, φ, built up from propositional variables (p,q,r,...) and falsity $(\perp)$ using conjunction $(\wedge)$ , disjunction (∨) and implication (→). Write $\vdash\phi$ to indicate that such a formula is intuitionistically valid. We show that for each variable p and formula φ there exists a formula Apφ (effectively computable from φ), containing only variables not equal to p which occur in φ, and such that for (...) all formulas ψ not involving $p, \vdash \psi \rightarrow A_p\phi$ if and only if $\vdash \psi \rightarrow \phi$ . Consequently quantification over propositional variables can be modelled in IpC, and there is an interpretation of the second order propositional calculus, IpC2, in IpC which restricts to the identity on first order propositions. An immediate corollary is the strengthening of the usual interpolation theorem for IpC to the statement that there are least and greatest interpolant formulas for any given pair of formulas. The result also has a number of interesting consequences for the algebraic counterpart of IpC, the theory of Heyting algebras. In particular we show that a model of IpC2 can be constructed whose algebra of truth-values is equal to any given Heyting algebra. (shrink)

Les sociétés contemporaines entretiennent un rapport ambivalent au risque : elles sont promptes à s’alarmer pour des risques collectifs, tout en valorisant les prises de risque individuelles. Cet article s’attache à resituer les interprétations sociologiques de ces prises de risque délibérées, en particulier celles de Lyng et Le Breton, dans le cadre de la société du risque décrite par Beck et Giddens. Les prises de risque apparaissent alors comme la réaction à un environnement devenu très incertain et anxiogène. Ce cadre (...) interprétatif invite aussi à nuancer l’opposition entre prises de risque adultes et adolescentes. Si les premières se concrétisent plus souvent dans la pratique d’un sport extrême, tandis que les secondes s’avèrent plus transgressives, il est possible que ce contraste traduise surtout des moyens matériels différenciés. Les données quantitatives du Baromètre Santé 2000 permettent enfin de tester empiriquement quelques hypothèses relatives à ces interprétations.Risk has an ambivalent status in contemporary societies : great fears of collective risks coexist with an increasing taste for individual risk-taking. This article aims at reframing Lyng and Le Breton’s sociological interpretations of voluntary risk-taking in a broader scope, derived from the « risk society » described by Beck and Giddens. From this viewpoint, such behaviours are individual responses to an environment in which uncertainty is causing anxiety, and adolescent risky behaviours are not so different from those of adults. If adolescents are more prone to take risks in illegal ways, it can result from a restricted access to expensive extreme sports. Using quantitative data from the French survey Baromètre Santé 2000, the article ends with an empirical test of some hypotheses deriving from these interpretations. (shrink)

Frege explained the notion of generality by stating that each its instance is a fact, and added only later the crucial observation that a generality can be inferred from an arbitrary instance. The reception of Frege’s quantifiers was a fifty-year struggle over a conceptual priority: truth or provability. With the former as the basic notion, generality had to be faced as an infinite collection of facts, whereas with the latter, generality was based on a uniformity with a finitary sense: the (...) provability of an arbitrary instance. (shrink)

In this paper, I present an argument for a rational norm involving a kind of credal attitude called a quantificational credence – the kind of attitude we can report by saying that Lucy thinks that each record in Schroeder’s collection is 5% likely to be scratched. I prove a result called a Dutch Book Theorem, which constitutes conditional support for the norm. Though Dutch Book Theorems exist for norms on ordinary and conditional credences, there is controversy about the epistemic significance (...) of these results. So, my conclusion is that if Dutch Book Theorems do, in general, support norms on credal states, then we have support for the suggested norm on quantificational credences. Providing conditional support for this norm gives us a fuller picture of the normative landscape of credal states. (shrink)

Scientists now agree that common diseases arise through interactions of genetic and environmental factors, but there is less agreement about how scientific research should account for these interactions. This paper examines the politics of quantification in gene–environment interaction research. Drawing on interviews and observations with GEI researchers who study common, complex diseases, we describe quantification as an unfolding moral economy of science, in which researchers collectively enact competing “virtues.” Dominant virtues include molecular precision, in which behavioral and social (...) risk factors are moved into the body, and “harmonization,” in which scientists create large data sets and common interests in multisited consortia. We describe the negotiations and trade-offs scientists enact in order to produce credible knowledge and the forms of discipline that shape researchers, their practices, and objects of study. We describe how prevailing techniques of quantification are premised on the shrinking of the environment in the interest of producing harmonized data and harmonious scientists, leading some scientists to argue that social, economic, and political influences on disease patterns are sidelined in postgenomic research. We consider how a variety of GEI researchers navigate quantification’s productive and limiting effects on the science of etiological complexity. (shrink)

For a theory T, we study relationships among IΔ n +1 (T), LΔ n+1 (T) and B * Δ n+1 (T). These theories are obtained restricting the schemes of induction, minimization and (a version of) collection to Δ n+1 (T) formulas. We obtain conditions on T (T is an extension of B * Δ n+1 (T) or Δ n+1 (T) is closed (in T) under bounded quantification) under which IΔ n+1 (T) and LΔ n+1 (T) are equivalent. These conditions (...) depend on Th Πn +2 (T), the Π n+2 –consequences of T. The first condition is connected with descriptions of Th Πn +2 (T) as IΣ n plus a class of nondecreasing total Π n –functions, and the second one is related with the equivalence between Δ n+1 (T)–formulas and bounded formulas (of a language extending the language of Arithmetic). This last property is closely tied to a general version of a well known theorem of R. Parikh. Using what we call Π n –envelopes we give uniform descriptions of the previous classes of nondecreasing total Π n –functions. Π n –envelopes are a generalization of envelopes (see [10]) and are closely related to indicators (see [12]). Finally, we study the hierarchy of theories IΔ n+1 (IΣ m ), m≥n, and prove a hierarchy theorem. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Feminist Studies 45, no. 1. © 2019 by Feminist Studies, Inc. 129 Miriam Kienle Dear Data: Feminist Information Design’s Resistance to Self-Quantification Every Sunday for one year, information designers Giorgia Lupi and Stefanie Posavec sent each other a hand-drawn postcard that featured a data visualization of their week as it pertained to a single aspect of their daily lives: doors opened, clocks checks, sounds heard, smells perceived, and (...) so on (figs. 1–4). With this series of postcards exchanged between Brooklyn and London, Lupi and Posavec gained intimate knowledge of one another through their small/slow data, and at the same time, they produced a critical examination of the capture, interpretation, and visualization of their daily data from a uniquely feminist perspective. Although the field of information design prizes clear, efficient, and seamless presentations of quantified activity, Lupi and Posavec’s Dear Data (2015) is comprised of visualizations that underscore complexity over clarity, present questions rather simply display information, and expose the instability of data itself.1 Against the quantification of embodied experience into seemingly objective and all-encompassing datasets, Dear Data instead looks at data from a feminist perspective, as tied to concrete bodies, localities, and temporalities and visualized in a manner 1. The approach to infographics that prioritizes efficiency, accuracy, and elegance, and thus suppresses the constructed and interpretative nature of both data and its visualization, is perhaps most attributed to Edward Tufte. For Tufte’s aims and methods, see Edward R. Tufte, The Visual Display of Quantitative Information (Cheshire, CT: Graphics Press, 2001). 130 Miriam Kienle that is incomplete, contingent, and constructed.2 This paper will analyze Lupi and Posavec’s designs as providing a model for a feminist approach to data visualization—a model imperative in an age in which the quantitative information (much like a binary understanding of gender) is too often treated as a self-evident fact rather than what feminist philosopher Donna Haraway famously called “situated knowledges.”3 Recently acquired by MoMA’s architecture and design collection, the Dear Data project not only stands out in the collection as the product of two female designers working in the male-dominated fields of technology and design, but also as a project that stresses feminist knowledge production by underscoring how data voids shape datasets and debunking the myth that the world is data that can be captured and visualized with neutral, distanced, and all-encompassing technologies of vision. As Catherine D’Ignazio and Lauren Klein describe in Data Feminism, data visualization from a feminist perspective understands that “bar charts might seem neutral and objective, but are in fact the result of very human and necessarily imperfect design processes.”4 Such a perspective is evident across Dear Data. Take, for example, “Week 42: A week of laughter” (fig. 5). On the key in Posavec’s visualization, she notes: “I tried to capture my laughs which was really hard + got in the way of the enjoying life, hence the data voids. / For a card about laughter I am sad about how this card turned out.”5 This willingness to show the gaps in her data, the complexities of her process, and the imperfections of her visualizations contrasts with the seamless and straightforward displays of information 2. For a feminist approach to data visualization, see Catherine D’Ignazio and Lauren Klein, Data Feminism (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2019), ebook; Catherine D’Ignazio, “What Would Feminist Data Visualization Look Like?” Center for Civic Media. Massachusetts Institute of Technology (blog), December 20, 2015, https://civic.mit.edu/feminist-data-visualization; and Johanna Drucker, Graphesis: Visual Forms of Knowledge Production (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2014). 3. Donna Haraway, “Situated Knowledges: The Science Question in Feminism and the Privilege of Partial Perspective,” Feminist Studies 14, no. 3 (1988): 575–99. 4. D’Ignazio and Klein, introduction to their Data Feminism. 5. Giorgia Lupi and Stefanie Posavec, Dear Data (New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 2016), 231. Miriam Kienle 131 or what infographic guru Edward Tufte describes as “Designs so good that they are invisible.”6 Counter to the invisible and seemingly objective visualizations of our personal data to which we have become accustomed (on calorie counters, credit card statements, etc... (shrink)

Individuals frequently utilize social media platforms (SMPs) to express their positive features and receive recognition. Axel Honneth proposes that recognition plays an essential role in social life, explaining both social conflicts and guiding normative social development. While SMPs appear as a perfect tool for the pursuit of recognition, they often fail to achieve the intended results. This paper argues that the failure to achieve recognition through SMPs occurs because SMPs operate according to the neoliberal principle of competition. Competition arises because (...) several structural affordances (quantification, homogeneity, and availability of information) allow for comparing different expressions of recognition. I argue that the competitive pursuit of recognition on SMPs results in several problematic developments, causing the manifestation of perfectionism, ressentiment, and collective narcissism. I conclude that the normative potential of Honneth’s theory is compromised if recognition is pursued competitively. (shrink)

Individuals frequently utilize social media platforms (SMPs) to express their positive features and receive recognition. Axel Honneth proposes that recognition plays an essential role in social life, explaining both social conflicts and guiding normative social development. While SMPs appear as a perfect tool for the pursuit of recognition, they often fail to achieve the intended results. This paper argues that the failure to achieve recognition through SMPs occurs because SMPs operate according to the neoliberal principle of competition. Competition arises because (...) several structural affordances (quantification, homogeneity, and availability of information) allow for comparing different expressions of recognition. I argue that the competitive pursuit of recognition on SMPs results in several problematic developments, causing the manifestation of perfectionism, ressentiment, and collective narcissism. I conclude that the normative potential of Honneth’s theory is compromised if recognition is pursued competitively. (shrink)

First published in 1998. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

This paper argues that professionals who make boundary-related decisions should be guided by relationship-based practice. In our roles as service users and professionals, drawing from our lived experiences of professional relationships, we argue we need to move away from distance-based practice. This includes understanding the boundary stories and narratives that exist for all of us – including the people we support, other professionals, as well as the organisations and systems within which we work. When we are dealing with professional boundary (...) issues, we should centre relationship-building skills that are central to many other aspects of our work. Skills that foster relationships at all levels – between professionals, service users, and services – need to be revalued. Our final recommendation is to create, develop, and foster safer spaces within and outside of organisations, as well as inter-professionally, for the discussion and exploration of boundary-related issues and practice. We are interested in hearing from those with experiences of being marginalised by boundaries so that they can inform a reshaping of our collective ideas around boundary related practices. To foster relationship-based practices in organisations, we have outlined several recommendations here; however, we recognize that these do not go far enough, and that collective action is needed to inform systemic change. (shrink)