In certain contexts reasoners reject instances of the valid Modus Ponens and Modus Tollens inference form in conditional arguments. Byrne (1989) observed this suppression effect when a conditional premise is accompanied by a conditional containing an additional requirement. In an earlier study, Rumain, Connell, and Braine (1983) observed suppression of the invalid inferences "the denial of the antecedent" and "the affirmation of the consequent" when a conditional premise is accompanied by a conditional containing an alternative (...) requirement. Here we present three experiments showing that the results of Byrne (1989) and Rumain et al. (1983) are influenced by the answer procedure. When reasoners have to evaluate answer alternatives that only deal with the inferences that can be made with respect to the first conditional, then suppression is observed (Experiment 1). However, when reasoners are also given answer alternatives about the second conditional (Experiment 2) no suppression is observed. Moreover, contrary to the hypothesis of Byrne (1989), at least some of the reasoners do not combine the information of the two conditionals and do not give a conclusion based on the combined premise. Instead, we hypothesise that some of the reasoners have reasoned in two stages. In the first stage, they form a putative conclusion on the basis of the first conditional and the categorical premise, and in the second stage, they amend the putative conclusion in the light of the information in the second premise. This hypothesis was confirmed in Experiment 3. Finally, the results are discussed with respect to the mental model theory and reasoning research in general. (shrink)

Drawing on Stalnaker’s projection strategy, a revised version of the Ramsey test, and Dudman’s account of the evaluation of projective conditionals (e.g., “If Hitler invades England, Germany will win the war” and “If Hitler had invaded England, Germany would have won the war”), I offer a novel truth-conditional account of the semantics of a range of English conditionals. This account resolves some key puzzles in the philosophical literature about semantic differences between maximally similar conditionals of different types (including some (...) parallel indicative and subjunctive conditionals) without assuming that the word “if” is ambiguous. It does so by explaining these semantic differences on the basis of semantic properties of the clauses combined by “if” and temporal factors arising from these properties. (shrink)

This paper is motivated by the need to respond to the spread of influential misinformation and manufactured ignorance, which places pressure on the work of experts in various sectors. To meet this need, the paper discusses the conditions required for expert testimony to evolve a reconceptualisation of negative capability as a new form of epistemic humility. In this regard, professional knowledge formation is not considered to be separate from the institutional and social processes and values that uphold its production. Drawing (...) attention to the structural and relational aspects of ignorance, as opposed to the individualistic and internal aspects, we rely on the sociology of knowledge, the social epistemologies and the feminist epistemologies that have played a fundamental role in the development of the investigation of ignorance. First, we analyse the criteria for epistemic humility based on prior theoretical discussions concerning negative knowledge as a form of reflective practice. Then, we seek to determine what kinds of strategies, virtues and skills experts need to have so as to ‘manage ignorance’ in socially complex situations. Finally, we suggest the reformulation of negative expertise as a phronetic skill for navigating through situations of ignorance and uncertainty in an epistemically and socially responsible manner. (shrink)

To make possible the integration proposed by Domjan et al., psychologists first need to close the research gap between behavioral ecology and the study of Pavlovian conditioning. I suggest two strategies, namely, to adopt more behavioral ecological approaches to social behavior or to co-opt problems already addressed by behavioral ecologists that are especially well suited to the study of Pavlovian conditioning.

Gangestad & Simpson present an evolutionary functional analysis of mating strategies. This commentary interprets their argument using a central concept from life history theory, return from investment. Incorporating return from investment allows further specification of costs and benefits from short-term mating in women as well as men and in ecological settings of high environmental variation in mortality and resource availability.

Braddon-Mitchell , Hawthorne , and Stalnaker provide a physicalistic argument that depends on the following two conditionals. If we experience dualistic pain, zombies are possible. On the other hand, if the actual world is physicalistic, zombies are impossible. Based on these conditionals, it is derived that zombies are conceivable but this does not entail their possibility. This line of argument for physicalism is referred to as the Conditional Analysis Strategy . I claim that the CAS does not help physicalists (...) defuse the zombie argument. To show this, I first suggest that there are three possible interpretations of the strategy: the CAS explains the zombie intuition by virtue of the conceivability of zombies; the CAS conditionally disproves the entailment-link from conceivability to possibility; the CAS unconditionally denies the entailment-link. I argue that none of the three understandings brings good news to physicalism. (shrink)

How do people survive under extreme conditions? Will selfish, non-cooperating free-rider types – the solo players – have the best chances of surviving? Or would cooperating, hard-working types – the team players – have higher chances? All morale put aside, it is interesting to know whether non-cooperation or cooperation pays off in a game characterized by scarcity and hard competition for survival. A study of people in such a Hobbesian state of nature can also teach us important lessons about social (...) dynamics in contemporary, prosperous societies. An interesting case of ‘The survival game’ can be found in Solzhenitsyn’s (1963 [1962]) self-biographical book, One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, depicting life in a Soviet Gulag prison camp in Siberia January 1951. We use Solzhenitsyn’s work as evidence of the interplay between five player types among prisoners: Cooperative blind-riders (BRs), hard-riders (HRs) and tough-riders (TRs), i.e. the so-called ‘toilers’; non-cooperative easy-riders (ERs), looked upon by the toilers as ‘bastards’, ‘screws’ and ‘errand boys’; and finally Low-riders (LRs), comprising ‘goners’ and ‘jackals’. The main research question addresses the successfulness of the survival strategies of the five player types. Apart from a Multiple Player Approach (MPA) that may be seen as a further development of second-generation theory of collective action (Ostrom & Ahn, 2009), we apply Goffman’s (1959) dramaturgical theory on our case. Hence, we argue that impression management at two different ‘stages’ – the Brigade stage and the Camp stage – is crucial for survival for hard-riding as well as for easy-riding players, in particular strategic masking. Seeking to unite Goffman and game-theoretic MPA, our overall purpose is to make a theoretical contribution to “game-related sociology” (Swedberg, 2001). (shrink)

SARS-CoV-2 vaccines are indispensable allies in the fight against COVID-19. Behavioral and cognitive scientists have argued for taking advantage of insights from their fields of investigations in shaping anti-COVID policies. B&C scientists extensively discussed the methodological and practical issues that arise in translating B&C research results into policy interventions aimed to boost vaccination, Nevertheless, the same cannot be said for the ethical aspects. In the present work, we discuss the ethics of nudging vaccination in light of the “alien control” objection, (...) a kind of control whereby an agent has the power to influence the choice of another agent, and the latter cannot control such power. We proceed as follows. We begin by presenting several cases of mandatory policies avaiable to policymakers to boost the vaccine rate. Next, we point out that insights from B&C sciences can inform mandatory policies and open up ways to enhance them. In section 3, we focus on untraditional policy tools, viz. nudges. In the second part of the article, we introduce the debate on the ethics of nudges, focusing on the “alien control” objection and its relevance for the citizens’ freedom and autonomy. We therefore discuss the original point of the paper. We argue that, referring to nudging vaccination, a somehow neglected ethical issue posed by nudges emerges. Our point is that nudges do not exert exclusively an influence over a targeted behavior. Indeed, nudges impose as well a political influence by which citizens are treated as means to succeed in achieving a peculiar, and potentially controversial, political aim. We argue that, due to what we propose to call the “political multi-justifiability" of nudges, their political influence cannot be detected by citizens. This leads to the threat of alien control. In the last section, we draw some tentative conclusions, suggest a possible solution and its practical advantages. (shrink)

Ernest Adams has claimed that a probabilistic account of validity gives the best account of our intuitive judgements about the validity of arguments. In particular, he claims, it has the best hope of accounting for our judgements about many arguments involving conditionals. Most of the examples in the literature on this topic have been arguments framed in the language of propositional logic. I show that once we consider arguments involving predicates and involving identity, Adams’s strategy is less successful.

Making sense of our reasoning in disputes about necessary truths requires admitting nonvacuous counterpossibles. One class of these is the counteressentials, which ask us to make contrary to fact suppositions about essences. A popular strategy in accounting for nonvacuous counterpossibles is to extend the standard possible worlds semantics for subjunctive conditionals by the addition of impossible worlds. A conditional A □-> C is then taken to be true if all of the nearest A worlds are C worlds. I argue (...) that a straightforward extension of the standard possible worlds semantics to impossible worlds does not result in a viable account of counteressentials and propose an alternative covering law semantics for counteressentials. (shrink)

Recently, reliable interindividual differences were found for the way how individuals process multiple tasks and how they organize their responses. Previous studies have shown mixed results with respect to the flexibility of these preferences. On the one hand, individuals tend to adjust their preferred task processing mode to varying degrees of risk of crosstalk between tasks. On the other, response strategies were observed to be highly stable under varying between-resource competition. In the present study, we investigated whether the stability (...) of response strategies also persists with increased risk of crosstalk or whether individuals adjust their choice of response strategy, similar to what has been found at the level of task processing modes. Besides, related differences in multitasking efficiency were assessed. For this purpose, 53 participants performed the Free Concurrent Dual-Tasking paradigm, which allows them to control their task scheduling and response organization. The participants completed the FCDT paradigm under two conditions including task pairs characterized by either low or high levels of risk of crosstalk. The free choice of task scheduling resulted in the previously found distinct response patterns, best described as blocking, switching or response grouping. Remarkably, we did not find any notable adjustments of strategies of response organization to the extent of crosstalk. However, we observed suspected performance decrements of a switching strategy in the condition of high risk of crosstalk. The results suggest that individual strategies of response organization are stable habits. Further, they illustrate disadvantages of switching vs. blocking strategies of response organization in case of high task similarity. (shrink)

Life strategy in personal dimension could be identified as a complex phenomenon, which includes main key dimensions and categories that characterize person’s life and behavior. Life strategy is a way of life self-determining, self-establishing, self-expression and self-organizing as well as the ability to bring living conditions according with personality own values and individual uniqueness. The student life strategies directly connected with higher education. Author’s sociological research examines the main features of life strategies of modern Ukrainian students. In the (...) article, the author's typology of the main types of life strategies of students is proposed. The tipology reflects the crucial connection with the appropriate understanding of the place and role of higher education: career-pragmatic, universal education, and adaptive-conformist. (shrink)

Effects of globalization have amplified the magnitude and frequency of corporate abuses, particularly in developing economieswhere weak or absent rules undermine social norms and principles. Improving multinational enterprises’ (MNEs) ethical conduct is a factor of both the ability of firms to change behaviors in the direction of the moral good, and their willingness to do so. Constraints and enablers of a firm’s ability to act ethically emanate from the external environment, including the industry environment of which the firm is a (...) resident, and the host country environment in which it operates. A firm’s willingness to engage in ethical conduct is determined by the effective bundling of internal resources and the commitment of those resources to social ends. The interaction of external and internal conditions carves out categories of expected firm behaviors and suggests interventions that would push these behaviors in a more positive ethical direction. With reference to integrative social contracts theory (ISCT), these categories of firms are examined, and a conceptual model for analysis is developed to explain the drivers of corporate choices in the adoption and implementation of codes of conduct, and the relative power of relevant communities to the process. (shrink)

Adolescence signifies a transition from the use of prereproductive to reproductive strategies in the life history of Homo sapiens. Insofar as human generations overlap, events at adolescence, surrounding the onset of puberty, offer a unique glimpse into human adaptation from the point of view of the changing strategies of both parents and offspring. The timing of puberty is an important life history trait that varies between species, but also between and within the sexes in human beings. The onset (...) of puberty marks the beginning of the reproductive life, is affected by previous experience, and serves as a trigger for behavioral change. Surbey (1988, 1990) reported relationships between father absence, heightened levels of childhood stress, and early menarche and considered them within the context of human evolutionary history. Subsequently, similar findings have been reported in a number of human populations and have been interpreted from several evolutionary perspectives. This article discusses the extent to which these and related findings regarding alterations in the timing of human puberty reflect evolved parental or offspring strategies. It entails a consideration of the applicability of the concepts of phenotypic plasticity, nonadaptive genetic variation, and conditional and alternative reproductive strategies in describing the interwoven nature of strategies employed by parent and child in the transition at adolescence. (shrink)

Although perceptual grouping has been widely studied, its mechanisms remain poorly understood. We propose a neural model of grouping that, through top-down control of its circuits, implements a grouping strategy involving both a connection strategy (which elements to connect) and a selection strategy (that defines spatiotemporal properties of a selection signal to segment target elements and facilitate identification). We apply the model to a letter discrimination task that investigated relationships among uniform connectedness and the grouping principles of proximity and shape (...) similarity. Participants reported whether small circles formed a global letter E or H, and these circles could be connected by a line or be embedded in a matrix of squares. In the model, a good grouping strategy for this task consists of a connection strategy that connects circles but not squares for all conditions and a selection strategy that uses a selection signal of varying size, depending on whether squares were present. Consistent with empirical results, which were verified in two replication studies, model performance is worse with distractor squares, and line connectors improve performance only in the condition with squares. Rather than relying on abstract grouping principles, we show how the empirical results can be explained in terms of observers implementing a task-dependent grouping strategy that promotes overall performance. (shrink)

While firms' engagement with Corporate Social Responsibility has been associated with positive performance impacts, little is known about the incorporation of the United Nations 2030 Agenda into business practices. Precisely, although the literature suggests that firms are pursuing the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), there are limited insights on their strategy to implement them in the context of developing countries. To address this gap, we conducted a comprehensive large-scale investigation of 2030 Agenda adoption by Brazilian companies. Accordingly, the analysis of our (...) multicase study reveals (1) variations on the business opportunities brought by the SDGs depending on the firm position in the value chain, (2) which SDGs and target stakeholders are addressed through corporate policies and practices, (3) the different ways firms embrace the SDGs to pursue ambidexterity. Our findings clarify how firms in the developing countries interpret the institutional pressures and assemble their internal resources to respond to the SDGs challenges. Boundary conditions and policy implications are further discussed. (shrink)

Effects of globalization have amplified the magnitude and frequency of corporate abuses, particularly in developing economieswhere weak or absent rules undermine social norms and principles. Improving multinational enterprises’ (MNEs) ethical conduct is a factor of both the ability of firms to change behaviors in the direction of the moral good, and their willingness to do so. Constraints and enablers of a firm’s ability to act ethically emanate from the external environment, including the industry environment of which the firm is a (...) resident, and the host country environment in which it operates. A firm’s willingness to engage in ethical conduct is determined by the effective bundling of internal resources and the commitment of those resources to social ends. The interaction of external and internal conditions carves out categories of expected firm behaviors and suggests interventions that would push these behaviors in a more positive ethical direction. With reference to integrative social contracts theory (ISCT), these categories of firms are examined, and a conceptual model for analysis is developed to explain the drivers of corporate choices in the adoption and implementation of codes of conduct, and the relative power of relevant communities to the process. (shrink)

This paper addresses the apparent mismatch between the normative and descriptive literatures in the cognitive science of conditional reasoning. Descriptive psychological theories still regard material implication as the normative theory of the conditional. However, over the last 20 years in the philosophy of language and logic the idea that material implication can account for everyday indicative conditionals has been subject to severe criticism. The majority view is now apparently in favour of a subjective conditional probability interpretation. A (...) comparative model fitting exercise is presented that shows that a conditional probability model can explain as much of the data on abstract indicative conditional reasoning tasks as psychological theories that supplement material implication with various rationally unjustified processing assumptions. Consequently, when people are asked to solve laboratory reasoning tasks, they can be seen as simply generalising their everyday probabilistic reasoning strategies to this novel context. (shrink)

The complexity of the physiological phenotype currently prevents us from identifying an integrative measure to assess how the internal state and environmental conditions modify life‐history strategies. In this article, it is proposed that shorter telomeres should lead to a faster pace‐of‐life where investment in self‐maintenance is decreased as a means of saving energy for reproduction, but at the cost of somatic durability. Inversely, longer telomeres would favor an increased investment in soma maintenance and thus a longer reproductive lifespan (i.e., (...) slower pace‐of‐life). Under this hypothesis, telomere dynamics could be such an integrative mediator, which will assemble the information about oxidative stress levels, inflammation status and stress reactivity, and relate this information to the potential lifespan of the organism and its pace‐of‐life strategy. The signaling function of telomere dynamics can also reach over generations, a phenomenon in which the telomere lengths of gametes would provide a channel through which offspring would receive information about their environment early in their development, hence increasing the possibilities for developmental plasticity. -/- . (shrink)

Cause- related marketing is an effective marketing tool for promoting corporate span class =' span

Business Ethics in Applied Ethics

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Comme tous les autres projets humains, les politiques de santé publique sont souvent affectées par des imperfections et des erreurs. Cependant, elles sont mieux ancrées dans les résultats de la recherche scientifique que d’autres actions humaines en général, et politiques gouvernementales en particulier. D’une manière générale, les données sur lesquelles reposent les politiques de santé publique remplissent les conditions suivantes : méthodes de recherche rigoureuses, tests indépendants et précis, reproductibilité des résultats, mesure du taux d’erreur, capacité à écarter des hypothèses (...) rivales et un degré d’acceptation satisfaisant au sein de la communauté scientifique. Les politiques de santé publique comprennent des campagnes de vaccination de la population, en particulier des enfants. Ces actions de vaccination sont considérées comme sûres et efficaces par les institutions publiques, les organisations de santé, les médecins et les chercheurs en santé. Malgré cela, un nombre croissant de parents choisit de ne pas vacciner leurs enfants. Les fausse nouvelles sur les vaccins publiées dans les médias, en particulier dans les nouveaux médias, par les influenceurs, ont contribué certainement à cette tendance. Ces influenceurs sont insuffisamment qualifiés ou totalement non qualifiés pour commenter l’innocuité et l’efficacité des vaccins dans les médias. Par conséquent, ils ne peuvent pas produire des données fiables et des opinions qualifiées, c’est-à-dire des informations indépendantes, précises, pertinentes, fiables et complètes. Cependant, ces influenceurs parviennent à influencer, dans une large mesure, le comportement des parents en matière de vaccination. La stratégie de lutte contre les fausses nouvelles en publiant des preuves contraires est évidemment nécessaire, mais pas suffisante parce que beaucoup de fausses infos sur les vaccins fonctionnent comme des mythes. Etant fixées d’une manière partiellement irrationnelle, les mythes anti-vaccination ne peuvent être démystifiés seulement avec les dernières preuves scientifiques. C’est pourquoi il est nécessaire d’envisager des stratégies de relations publiques capables d’influencer des opinions collectives irrationnelles. (shrink)

In this article I consider the role of passing and performance in the everyday lives of alkaptonuria and vitiligo patients. Race, LGBTQ, gender and disability scholars have long used the term passing to describe sub-groups of people within marginal populations who intentionally manipulate their bodies or alter their behaviour in order to claim identities that are not socially assigned to them at birth. In this paper I demonstrate the effectiveness of the passing strategies that patients use in order to (...) mitigate their disease symptoms and render them invisible, thus enabling them to pass as “healthy” or unaffected by their condition. I further consider how patients who choose not to pass utilise resistance strategies in order to generate awareness of their disease and encourage funding for it. I conclude by assessing the effectiveness of these strategies in determining whether or not patients can pass, and the ways in which this is aided or hindered by their social and economic status. (shrink)

The paper explores the model of sociability, interaction and participation as political elements of postmodern art. The postmodern condition emerged after the failure of the main idea of modernism, which was based on the belief in the progress and emancipation of humanity, namely, after the collapse of large speculative narratives such as idealism, scientism, Marxism or a utopia of changing the world through art. Not surprisingly, therefore, the principal thesis in it is that art no longer has the role attributed (...) to it since the 19th century, the one of political struggle, criticism of society or social engagement, namely, it no longer has the function of criticism, of something that acts as a warning and is avant-gardly opposed to everything that exists. Contrary to this view, this paper seeks to present the critical and political potential of postmodern art, focusing on post-1990s artistic practice and its emphasis on relationships, encounters and interaction with audiences. It is an appropriation of avant-garde strategies, but with a historical distance and in a different context. (shrink)

A complementary strategy can be defined as any organizing activity which recruits external elements to reduce cognitive loads. Typical organizing activities include pointing, arranging the position and orientation of nearby objects, writing things down, manipulating counters, rulers or other artifacts that can encode the state of a process or simplify perception. To illustrate the idea of a complementary strategy, a simple experiment was performed in which subjects were asked to determine the dollar value of collections of coins. In the no-hands (...) condition, subjects were not allowed to touch the coin images or to move their hands in any way. In the hands condition, they were allowed to use their hands and fingers however they liked. Significant improvements in time and number of errors were observed when S's used their hands over when they did not. To explain these facts, a brief account of some commonly observed complementary strategies is presented, and an account of their potential benefits to perception, memory and attention. (shrink)

This article addresses a theoretical gap in the literature by highlighting the significance of nonbargaining nonmarket strategies of firms. Relying on neo-statist political theory, we propose a theoretical model that hypothesizes a reliance on nonbargaining nonmarket strategies in situations marked by historically and situationally conditioned weakness of societal forces relevant to a firm (including the firm itself) as well as when relevant state institutions display high degrees of professional, structural, and ideological bureaucratic insularity. We survey 165 managers (each (...) representing a separate firm) from 14 countries in Eastern Europe and Central Asia about the strategic importance of the nonmarket strategic initiatives. Our novel survey instrument captures a broader range of nonmarket strategic initiatives than previous empirical research has examined. The survey results provide preliminary support for our model, although the findings suggest the need for more research in different regional contexts. (shrink)

Sex-biased investment in children has been explored in a historic population in northern England, 1600 to 1800, following a family reconstitution study. An examination of the wills and other available data identified three social groups: the elite, tradesmen, and subsistence farmers. The community lived under marginal conditions with poor and fluctuating levels of nutrition; infant and child mortalities were high. Clear differences were found between the social groups, and it is suggested that the elite wetnursed their daughters whereas the elite (...) mother breast-fed her sons for only a short period and introduced supplementary feeding early. The wives of the tradesmen probably breast-fed both sexes for the same length of time. Subsistence farmers may have weaned their sons earlier than daughters. The results are discussed in terms of possible differences in investment strategies. The investment strategy of the elite group was probably male-biased but may, in practice, have favored the female offspring. (shrink)

In this article, we examine the relationship of the multinational firm’s market environment, stakeholders, resources, and values to the development of strategic social planning and strategic social positioning. Using a sample of multinational enterprises in Mexico, we examine the relationship of these different ways of conducting social strategy to the creation of value by the firm. The market conditions of munificence and dynamism, and the resource for continuous innovation are found to be related to strategic social positioning. The social responsibility (...) orientation of the firm is related to strategic social planning. Positioning is related to value creation for the multinational firm, but planning is not. We discuss the implications of these findings for research and practice. (shrink)

In an earlier paper in these pages (2008), we explored the puzzling link between dispositions and conditionals. First, we rehearsed the standard counterexamples to the simple conditional analysis and the refined conditional analysis defended by David Lewis. Second, we attacked a tempting response to these counterexamples: what we called the ‘getting specific strategy’. Third, we presented a series of structural considerations that pose problems for many attempts to understand the link between dispositions and conditionals. Finally, we developed our (...) own account of this link, which avoids all of the standard counterexamples and comports with the relevant structural considerations. In this paper, we reply to some objections. (shrink)

Long before the origins of agriculture human ancestors had expanded across the globe into an immense variety of environments, from Australian deserts to Siberian tundra. Survival in these environments did not principally depend on genetic adaptations, but instead on evolved learning strategies that permitted the assembly of locally adaptive behavioral repertoires. To develop hypotheses about these learning strategies, we have modeled the evolution of learning strategies to assess what conditions and constraints favor which kinds of strategies. (...) To build on prior work, we focus on clarifying how spatial variability, temporal variability, and the number of cultural traits influence the evolution of four types of strategies: (1) individual learning, (2) unbiased social learning, (3) payoff-biased social learning, and (4) conformist transmission. Using a combination of analytic and simulation methods, we show that spatial—but not temporal—variation strongly favors the emergence of conformist transmission. This effect intensifies when migration rates are relatively high and individual learning is costly. We also show that increasing the number of cultural traits above two favors the evolution of conformist transmission, which suggests that the assumption of only two traits in many models has been conservative. We close by discussing how (1) spatial variability represents only one way of introducing the low-level, nonadaptive phenotypic trait variation that so favors conformist transmission, the other obvious way being learning errors, and (2) our findings apply to the evolution of conformist transmission in social interactions. Throughout we emphasize how our models generate empirical predictions suitable for laboratory testing. (shrink)

The paper advances a realist analytical model for case studies of national soft power policies. First, it argues that for the purposes of realist analysis, a soft power policy must be considered as a rational strategy pursued under the conditions of competition. Furthermore, it emphasises the importance of taking into account the specificities of the recipient state as well as the fact that a soft power strategy is targeted at both its elite and its public. In addition, the article substantiates (...) the necessity to draw a clear-cut distinction between soft power sources and instruments and shows possible shortcomings that research can have should this distinction fail to be made. Finally, the paper discusses the impact of a competitor’s presence on a soft power strategy and specifies the terms under which disregarding this impact may engender a wrong conclusion. (shrink)

The article examines the social dimensions of poverty in the context of gender, dalit, tribal and Muslim minorities in the country. Reviewing the process of globalisation in the country, it notes that the largest section of workers continue to work in the unorganised sector. The shifting of global capital to the South and particularly to India has increased opportunities for women to work in the garment export industry. Characterised by low pay and poor working conditions, the industry exploits women. The (...) fear of job loss has led to new forms of resistance by women workers not only at the workplace but within the community linking with social movements for protection and advancement. Small and marginal farmers including women agricultural workers are impacted by global markets leading to destruction of rural livelihoods. Dalit women have demonstrated how to create household food security by internalising inputs and creating alternative markets. Policy planners need to learn from these experiences and upscale at a national level. Regenerating commons and promoting non-chemical agriculture are other means to restore ecological balance and economic health of the agriculture sector. Tribal, dalit and Muslim minority socio-economic rights are eroded further due to the process of globalisation. To move towards more inclusive growth, public spending on education and health has to increase. Responding to people's movements the state needs to implement pro-people policies and programmes. Mobilising women into SHGs is seen as a panacea to ensure women's development. Currently, it has created a debt burden on women. An alternative agenda for empowerment is outlined for action. (shrink)

In this journal theme introduction, first, I explain how comparative philosophy as explored in the journal Comparative Philosophy is understood and how it is intrinsically related to the constructive engagement strategy. Second, to characterize more clearly and accurately some related methodological points of the constructive-engagement strategy, and also to explain how constructive engagement is possible, I introduce some needed conceptual and explanatory resources and a meta-methodological framework and endeavor to identify adequacy conditions for methodological guiding principles in comparative studies. Third, (...) as a case analysis, I show how the constructive-engagement reflective practice bears on recent studies of Chinese and comparative Chinese-Western philosophy, especially in the past decade, for two purposes: to illustrate the foregoing theoretic characterization of the constructive engagement strategy, and to identify and explain some constructive morals that might have general significance for comparative studies. (shrink)

The overall strategy of Lycan’s paper is to distinguish three kinds of conditional assertion theories, and then to show, in order, how they are variously afflicted by a set of problems. The three kinds of theory were the Quine-Rhinelander theory (or the Simple Illocutionary theory), The Semanticized Quine-Rhinelander, and the No Truth Value theory (or NTV). This strategy offers considerable clarity, but it comes at a cost, for what I take to be the best version of a conditional (...) assertion theory contains core parts of all three theories. In what follows, I will suggest that many of the objections offered by Lycan can be dealt when all the pieces are taken into consideration at the same time. But I will also suggest that a refined version of what Lycan called the Immediate Implausibility objection does show us that the conditional assertion theory is false. (shrink)

The contentious question of bilingual processing cost may be recast as a fresh question of code-switching (CS) strategies—quantitative preferences and structural adjustments for switching at particular junctures of two languages. CS strategies are established by considering prosodic and syntactic variables, capitalizing here on bidirectional multi-word CS, spontaneously produced by members of a bilingual community in northern New Mexico who regularly use both languages (Torres Cacoullos and Travis, 2018). CS strategies become apparent by extending the equivalence constraint, which (...) states that bilinguals avoid CS at points of word placement conflict (Poplack, 1980), to examine points of inconsistent equivalence between the languages. Such sites of variable equivalence are junctures where the word strings of the two languages are equivalent only sometimes due to language-internal variable structures. A case in point for the English-Spanish language pair is the boundary between main and complement clauses, where a conjunction occurs always in Spanish but variably in English. The prosodic distancing strategy is to separate the juncture of the two languages. Here the complement clause appears in a different prosodic unit from the main clause, disproportionately as compared both with monolingual benchmarks and with bilinguals' own unilingual English and Spanish. Prosodic distancing serves to mitigate variable equivalence. The syntactic selection strategy is to opt for the variant that is more quantitatively available and more discourse neutral. Here the preference is for the Spanish complementizer que—regardless of main or complement clause language— which is the more frequent option in bilinguals' combined experience in both their languages, whereas English complementizer that is subject to a number of conditioning factors. Syntactic selection serves to restore equivalence at sites of variable equivalence. Discovery of community CS strategies may spur reconsideration of processing cost as a matter of relative difficulty, which will depend on bilinguals' prosodic and syntactic choices at particular CS sites. (shrink)

This paper looks at an argument strategy for assessing the epistemic closure principle. This is the principle that says knowledge is closed under known entailment; or (roughly) if S knows p and S knows that p entails q, then S knows that q. The strategy in question looks to the individual conditions on knowledge to see if they are closed. According to one conjecture, if all the individual conditions are closed, then so too is knowledge. I give a deductive argument (...) for this conjecture. According to a second conjecture, if one (or more) condition is not closed, then neither is knowledge. I give an inductive argument for this conjecture. In sum, I defend the strategy by defending the claim that knowledge is closed if, and only if, all the conditions on knowledge are closed. After making my case, I look at what this means for the debate over whether knowledge is closed. (shrink)

Understanding the flow of knowledge in multi-agent protocols is essential when proving the correctness or security of such protocols. Current logical approaches, often based on model checking, are well suited for modeling knowledge in systems where agents do not act strategically. Things become more complicated in strategic settings. In this paper we show that such situations can be understood as a special type of game – a knowledge condition game – in which a coalition “wins” if it is able to (...) bring about some epistemic condition. This paper summarizes some results relating to these games. Two proofs are presented for the computational complexity of deciding whether a coalition can win a knowledge condition game with and without opponents (Σ2P-complete and NP-complete respectively). We also consider a variant of knowledge condition games in which agents do not know which strategies are played, and prove that under this assumption, the presence of opponents does not affect the complexity. The decision problem without opponents is still NP-complete, but requires a different proof. (shrink)

The central argument for animalism is the thinking animal problem : if you are not an animal, there are two thinkers within the region you occupy, i.e., you and your animal body. This is absurd. So you are an animal. The main objection to this argument is the thinking brain problem : animalism faces a problem that is structurally analogous to TAP. Specifically, if animalism is true, you and your brain both think. This is absurd. So animalism is false. The (...) purpose of this paper is to propose strategies animalists can endorse to solve TBP. I first show that animalists can solve TBP by arguing that it is not sound. This solution to TBP raises questions about personal identity over time and the mereological relation between the person and the brain. I argue that animalists can answer the personal identity question by endorsing non-biological persistence conditions as well as biological ones. For the mereological question, I first show that animalism is incompatible with four-dimensionalism and eliminativism. I then argue that animalists should endorse the dominant sortal account to answer the mereological question. (shrink)

ABSTRACT This article contributes to methodological debates in contemporary critical theory regarding the scope and features of immanent critique. I spell out the philosophical commitments presupposed by this approach to criticism and identify its basic features by comparing it with more recognizable argumentative or interpretative strategies. This comparison yields three immanent-critical requirements – for inherence, contradiction, and access – which bring into relief the heuristic and ampliative character of immanent criticism. Yet, these requirements also imply that “immanent critique” is (...) not a method in any strict sense, since they are multiply interpretable and hence generative of distinctive critical comportments. (shrink)

Four experiments examined the strategies that individuals develop in sentential reasoning. They led to the discovery of five different strategies. According to the theory proposed in the paper, each of the strategies depends on component tactics, which all normal adults possess, and which are based on mental models. Reasoners vary their use of tactics in ways that have no deterministic account. This variation leads different individuals to assemble different strategies, which include the construction of incremental diagrams (...) corresponding to mental models, and the pursuit of the consequences of a single model step by step. Moreover, the difficulty of a problem (i.e., the number of mental models required by the premises) predisposes reasoners towards certain strategies. Likewise, the sentential connectives in the premises also bias reasoners towards certain strategies, e.g., conditional premises tend to elicit reasoning step by step whereas disjunctive premises tend to elicit incremental diagrams. (shrink)

Methodological strategies for the identification and synthesis of ‘evidence’ to support decision‐making in relation to complex healthcare systems and practices This paper addresses the limitations of current methods supporting ‘evidence‐based health‐care’ in relation to complex aspects of care, including those questions that are best supported by descriptive or non‐empirical evidence. The paper identifies some new methods, which may be useful in aiding the synthesis of data in these areas. The methods detailed are broadly divided into those that facilitate the (...) identification of evidence and those that enable the interpretation of the data retrieved. To illustrate some of the issues involved, reference is made to a multimethod review recently completed by the authors, which aimed to identify factors that promote continuity in the transition from child to adult health and social care. It is argued that as healthcare organisations are becoming increasingly preoccupied with the evidence base of practice, such methods may help ensure that aspects of care and approaches that are outside the dominant pharmaco‐medical domain maintain a prominent position on the healthcare agenda while remaining open to external scrutiny. Healthcare professionals who use such approaches need to know their relative utility and benefits to inform clinical decisions, so as to ensure that best practice is observed. (shrink)

Within the strategy that we call avant-garde there are two sets of tactics, one immediate, the other long term. One set could be called a tactics of short-term attention, and it is this set that has been most often noticed. Shock, surprise, self-promotion, the baiting of middle-class solemnity, outrage, a subversive playfulness, a deliberate frustration of habitual expectations, an apparent difficult or refusal of communication, a banality where profundity and seriousness were earlier the norm: these are a few of the (...) tactics that again and again appeared as part of the competitive marketplace strategy for advertising the new.To be a notorious artist was always halfway to becoming a famous one, and many were willing to take the chance that once conditions were right the slight move from notoriety to fame could be accomplished. These tactics made it clear that the problem for an artist within the modern period was first of all to stand out within a crowd, within a surplus of candidates for the few places available nationally or internationally. The rivalry for initial attention under modern conditions set every artist the question of how his own work might have clear identity and felt importance. This was, in an age of products and advertising, the problem of how to turn a style into a brand. Philip Fisher is professor of English at Harvard University and the author of Hard Facts . The essay published here forms part of his forthcoming book Making and Effacing Art. He is currently at work on a book on the philosophical and literary history of the Passions. (shrink)

Four experiments examined the strategies that individuals develop in sentential reasoning. They led to the discovery of five different strategies. According to the theory proposed in the paper, each of the strategies depends on component tactics, which all normal adults possess, and which are based on mental models. Reasoners vary their use of tactics in ways that have no deterministic account. This variation leads different individuals to assemble different strategies, which include the construction of incremental diagrams (...) corresponding to mental models, and the pursuit of the consequences of a single model step by step. Moreover, the difficulty of a problem (i.e., the number of mental models required by the premises) predisposes reasoners towards certain strategies. Likewise, the sentential connectives in the premises also bias reasoners towards certain strategies, e.g., conditional premises tend to elicit reasoning step by step whereas disjunctive premises tend to elicit incremental diagrams. (shrink)