Polis religion has become the dominant model for the description of ritual activity in ancient Greek communities. Indeed, scholars have invoked polis religion to try to resolve the much-debated question of the definition of magic vs. religion, arguing that particular ‘magical’ practices, and their practitioners, do not belong to ‘collective polis religion.’ However, the relationship to polis religion of a ‘magical’ practice such as the writing of binding spells is surely more ambiguous, as well as of other cult activity relating (...) (in various ways) to the worship of Dionysos. Further examination suggests that defining what it means for ritual activity to be integrated within the schema of polis religion becomes increasingly difficult as we examine the variety of cult organisations and the different levels and types of involvement by the polis. This paper argues that social network theory may be able to overcome these conceptual difficulties. This approach can offer an alternative, more fluid construction of ancient Greek religion, which allows us to take account of coexisting, sometimes overlapping, networks of ritual activities. (shrink)

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

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

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

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

This chapter surveys essentialist and anti-essentialist theories of sex and gender. It does so by engaging three approaches to sex and gender: externalism, internalism, and contextualism. The chapter also draws attention to two key debates about sex and gender in the feminist literature: the debate about the sex/gender distinction (the distinction debate) and the debate about whether sex and gender have essences (the essentialism/anti-essentialism debate). In addition, it describes three problems that theories of sex and gender tend to face: the (...) Inclusion Problem, the Definition Problem, and the Exclusion Problem. Lastly, the chapter highlights why the division between essentialist and anti-essentialist accounts of sex and gender is not clear. (shrink)

International business organizations are regularly addressed on their corporate social responsibility (CSR). As illustrated in this paper, it is not yet clear exactly what CSR means to organizations and how to deal with it. In this paper, the authors explore how a sensemaking approach helps to understand the business challenges of CSR within an organizational context. The theories of Karl Weick are applied to the experiences of CSR in Royal Dutch Shell. The authors argue that the key to CSR in (...) international business organizations is to engage stakeholders and start a process of joint sensemaking. Three main competencies are crucial in this: the competency to engage stakeholders through listening and understanding; the creation of an organizational language so that CSR makes sense to members of the organization; and recognizing the momentum of taking action. (shrink)

NoViolet Bulawayo’s recently published novel titled, Glory, fictionalises the tragic fall of Robert Mugabe from the helm of power. The removal of Mugabe from power through the 2017 “military coup” engendered a problematic narrative that depicted the former first lady, Grace Mugabe as the biblical Eve’s doppelganger. The purported resemblance of Eve, a character from sacrosanct text, and Grace of contemporary Zimbabwe is often based on mythical and misogynist (mis)interpretations of the former as an epitome of sin and the latter (...) as instrumental to Mugabe’s demise. Arguably, the construct of Eve in Zimbabwe and the personified allegory in the fictive society of Bulawayo is profoundly laden with semantics and tropes of power together interwoven with innuendoes that denigrate women. This article reflected upon the ‘blame Eve myth’ with interlocking discourses of toxic politics and religion that reinforce phallocentric attitudes and practices that denigrate the female gender in Zimbabwe. Ecofeminism enriches the discussions of the novel Glory as a satire that provides imperative fictional sites to chart these intricate discourses. Ecofeminist framework offers insights that enrich the discussions of Eve’s myth and other representations which disparage women in the novel, Glory. The study concludes that blaming Grace Mugabe in her fictional doppelganger Marvelous, symbolically illuminates how women and the feminised nature are both insulted and held accountable for woes that befall humanity in both the fictive nation of Jidada and its referent Zimbabwe. Contribution: Ecofeminist conceptual framework has rarely been used to examine the complex connection between gender, politics, religion and nature in Zimbabwean fictional writing. Thus, this study offered fresh insights that are significant in understanding these subjects from a multidisciplinary perspective because the analyses and readings of the novel were based on literary criticism, political discourse and theology. (shrink)

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

Zusammenfassung Der Beitrag widmet sich der Einführung und Etablierung des Mädchenturnens mit Schwerpunkt auf den preußischen Schulen, wie es sich an der Wende vom 19. zum 20. Jahrhundert bis zum Ersten Weltkrieg vollzogen hat. Die Frage richtet sich dabei auf die Art und Weise, wie dieser Prozess verlief, aber auch darauf, weshalb die Ausdehnung des Schulturnens auf die Mädchen mit einiger Verzögerung gegenüber dem Knabenturnen zu einem bestimmten Zeitpunkt schließlich stattgefunden hat. Als Grundlage der Untersuchung dienen normative Quellen ebenso wie (...) einschlägige Zeitschriftenliteratur, anhand derer sich der die Entwicklungen begleitende Diskurs rekonstruieren lässt. Ein besonderer Fokus richtet sich dabei auf die Rolle des sich wandelnden Körper- und Geschlechterwissens, wie es sich in zeitgenössischen wissenschaftlichen Texten und populären Büchern zum Thema Leibesübungen und Gesundheit manifestiert hat. (shrink)

Article published in Stance by Wolfe and Grosz.

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

This article echoes those voices that demand new approaches and ‹senses’ for management education and business programs. Much of the article is focused on showing that the polemic about the educative model of business schools has moral and epistemological foundations and opens up the debate over the type of knowledge that practitioners need to possess in order to manage organizations, and how this knowledge can be taught in management programs. The article attempts to highlight the moral dimension of management through (...) a reinterpretation of the Aristotelian concept of practical wisdom. I defend the ideas that management is never morally neutral and that Aristotelian practical wisdom allows the recovery of moral considerations in management practice. I analyze the impact and implications that the introduction of practical wisdom in business schools entails for the conception and objectives of management education. This view reconfigures management education in terms of attention to values, virtues and context. Therefore, management programmes should prepare students to critically evaluate what they hear and to make decisions coherent with their values and virtues. In the final section, I reflect on the pedagogical implications of this approach. I point out that an integrated model of ethics and practical wisdom promotes education of cognition and education of affect as well. I provide an example to illustrate my perspective and to support my conclusions. (shrink)

During the last decades, in different places and under different circumstances, some physicians and other health professionals have supported state violence. The Holocaust is a prime example for how doctors can cooperate with the state to plan, give ideological support to and implement violent policies. As a consequence of the Industrial Revolution, people gained access to health promotion and health protection, not as an achievement of the welfare state, but as a tool necessary to maintain healthy and more productive workers. (...) Gradually, all social strata, employees and their relatives gained access to health coverage. Physicians as a group increased in number and changed the structure of their profession by establishing a symbiotic relationship with the state. Between the state and the medical class, different models of cooperation can be distinguished. In general, we can affirm that with the implementation of a public health system, greater interdependence among the state and the medical class was established. In the case of authoritarian or totalitarian regimes, the support of the medical class for violent policies depends on the degree of previous cooperation. National Socialist Germany and the Soviet Union are two striking examples of totalitarian states in which strong public health systems and subsequent close cooperation between the medical class and the state can be observed. In both countries, violent state policies were quickly accepted and integrated into medical practice. Practices such as forced sterilization, murder of patients or experimentation with prisoners were prevalent under National Socialism. The abuse of psychiatry as tool for exerting power was common in the Soviet Union. South American dictatorships constitute examples of totalitarian states with weak previous cooperation between the medical class and the state, as they did not have strong public health systems. In those countries, support for state violence can be found, such as participation of health care professionals in torture or abduction of babies, but cooperation was not as strong as in Nazi Germany or the Soviet Union. In other cases in which no strong previous relationship existed between medicine and the state, authoritarian regimes were not accompanied by medical support for violence, such as in the case of the Rwandan genocide or in Cambodia, where doctors were persecuted and murdered based on their membership of the bourgeois class. (shrink)

On 25th October 1946, in a crowded room in Cambridge, Ludwig Wittgenstein and Karl Popper came face to face for the first and only time. The meeting was a disaster, their loud and aggressive confrontation became the stuff of legend. This book tells what really went on in that room.

En Self-Constitution. Agency, Identity, and Integrity (2009), Christine Korsgaard defiende la conclusión de que el imperativo categórico rige la acción humana porque es el único principio que permite alcanzar la unidad psíquica plena, la cual, según Korsgaard, es un prerrequisito esencial para la acción efectiva. Para los agentes humanos, alcanzar esa unidad -que consiste en hacer coherentes distintos impulsos hacia la acción- es una actividad constante, denominada "autoconstitución". De acuerdo con Korsgaard, ésta es la fuente originaria de la normatividad y (...) de las identidades prácticas e incluso de la identidad personal. Después de exponer las ideas centrales del libro, presento dos objeciones: primero, critico la equiparación del imperativo categórico con la autoconstitución exitosa, pues no toda falla de auto-constitución es una falla moral. Segundo, argumento que la tesis de que la identidad personal es producto de la autoconstitución es problemática y que, al defenderla, Korsgaard confunde identidad práctica con identidad personal. In Self-Constitution. Agency, Identity, and Integrity (2009), Christine Korsgaard argues that the categorical imperative rules human action because it is the sole principle that allows us to reach the complete psychic unity that, Korsgaard thinks, is an essential prerequisite for effective action. Reaching this unity -which consists in making cohere diverging impulses for action- is for human agents a constant activity called "self-constitution." According to Korsgaard, this activity is the source of normativity, of human practical identities and even of personal identity. After explaining the main ideas of the book, I present two objections. First, I criticize the linkage of the categorical imperative to successful self-constitution, for not every failure of the latter counts as a moral failure. Second, I argue that the thesis that personal identity is a product of self-constitution is problematic and that it betrays a confusion between practical identity and personal identity. (shrink)

La adolescencia es un periodo crítico de la vida para el desarrollo de depresión. Durante este periodo la prevalencia de adolescentes que sufren trastornos depresivos aumenta considerablemente, debido a múltiples factores biológicos, sociales y psicológicos. Además entre los 14 y 18 años emergen importantes diferencias de género en depresión, de forma que al final de este periodo las tasas de depresión en las chicas llegan a doblar las observadas en los chicos (Hankin et al., 1998). Estas diferencias tenderán a mantenerse (...) a lo largo del ciclo vital. De este modo las estadísticas indican que en la vida adulta las mujeres experimentan el Trastorno Depresivo Mayor dos veces más que los hombres, siendo las diferencias aún mayores para el Trastorno Distímico. (shrink)

This case study discusses the scope of responsibilities and the basis of legitimacy of multinational corporations in a complex operating environment. In January 2013 a precedent was set when Shell was held liable in The Hague for oil pollution in the Niger Delta. The landmark ruling climaxed the ongoing dispute over the scope of Shell’s responsibilities for both the company’s positive and negative impact. Shell’s was considered a forerunner in corporate social responsibility and had even assumed public responsibilities in a (...) context of a public responsibility void. However, the company remained a regular target of civil society activism and legal proceedings concerned with malpractice. The court case attracted international attention for its novelty and increasing media and civil society pressure required immediate action. How can Shell respond to this negative publicity to keep its license to operate? What is the scope of the company’s responsibilities in such a controversial human rights context? Students are expected to discuss these questions going beyond a simple moralistic or liability thinking. They are encouraged to take into account the complex structural processes that connect persons and institutions in very different social and geographical positions. The experiences of Shell are an excellent case in point since attention is drawn to the background conditions of globally operating companies, in which the isolation of perpetrators based on causality is not realistic. The case also reveals the particular challenges, which MNCs face in the context of increasing demands to take on public responsibilities while respecting their economic mandate. (shrink)

It is widely thought that knowledge is factive – only truths can be known. However, this view has been recently challenged. One challenge appeals to approximate truths. Wesley Buckwalter and John Turri argue that false-but-approximately-true propositions can be known. They provide experimental findings to show that their view enjoys intuitive support. In addition, they argue that we should reject the factive account of knowledge to avoid widespread skepticism. A second challenge, advanced by Nenad Popovic, appeals to multidimensional geometry to build (...) a case where it seems intuitive that a person knows p even though p is false. In addition, Popovic argues that we should reject the factive account of knowledge because most of us would not become widespread skeptics if we discovered that ordinary objects in our world are actually four-dimensional. In this paper, we defend the factive account of knowledge against these arguments by challenging the intuitive appeal of the cases and arguing that there is no real threat of widespread skepticism for the factive account of knowledge. (shrink)

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

International business organizations are regularly addressed on their corporate social responsibility (CSR). As illustrated in this paper, it is not yet clear exactly what CSR means to organizations and how to deal with it. In this paper, the authors explore how a sensemaking approach helps to understand the business challenges of CSR within an organizational context. The theories of Karl Weick are applied to the experiences of CSR in Royal Dutch Shell. The authors argue that the key to CSR in (...) international business organizations is to engage stakeholders and start a process of joint sensemaking. Three main competencies are crucial in this: the competency to engage stakeholders through listening and understanding; the creation of an organizational language so that CSR makes sense to members of the organization; and recognizing the momentum of taking action. (shrink)

According to the “discrimination argument,” it would be discriminatory and hence impermissible to categorically exclude people with mental illness (PMI) from access to assisted suicide (AS) if AS is accessible to people with somatic illnesses. In objection to this, it could be argued that excluding PMI is not discriminatory, but rather based on their inability to meet certain eligibility criteria for AS. Which criteria are deemed necessary depends on the approach taken to justifying AS. In this article, we describe two (...) distinct ethical approaches to justifying AS and the eligibility criteria they entail and examine whether PMI can fulfill these criteria. A widespread “joint” approach based on beneficence and autonomy assumes that AS is justified when it alleviates the severe and irremediable suffering of a person who autonomously requests AS. An alternative, exclusively autonomy‐based approach assumes that providing AS is justified when a person's request is autonomous, regardless of whether AS is in her best interests. The latter approach underlies an important judgment of the German Federal Constitutional Court from 2020. We argue that PMI can in principle fulfill both beneficence‐ and autonomy‐based eligibility criteria for AS, and that a blanket exclusion of all PMI from AS is thus discriminatory on either approach. However, depending on which approach is taken, there are differences regarding the subgroups of PMI that would be eligible for AS. Whether the exclusion of specific PMI is discriminatory therefore depends on how we understand and justify AS. (shrink)

A large part of the explainable AI literature focuses on what explanations are in general, what algorithmic explainability is more specifically, and how to code these principles of explainability into AI systems. Much less attention has been devoted to the question of why algorithmic decisions and systems should be explainable and whether there ought to be a right to explanation and why. We therefore explore the normative landscape of the need for AI to be explainable and individuals having a right (...) to such explanation. This exploration is particularly relevant to the medical domain where the (im)possibility of explainable AI is high on both the research and practitioners’ agenda. The dominant intuition overall is that explainability has and should play a key role in the health context. Notwithstanding the strong normative intuition for having a right to explanation, intuitions can be wrong. So, we need more than an appeal to intuitions when it comes to explaining the normative significance of having a right to explanation when being subject to AI-based decision-making. The aim of the paper is therefore to provide an account of what might underlie the normative intuition. We defend the ‘symmetry thesis’ according to which there is no special normative reason to have a right to explanation when ‘machines’ in the broad sense, make decisions, recommend treatment, discover tumors, and so on. Instead, we argue that we have a right to explanation in cases that involve automated processing that significantly affect our core deliberative agency and which we do not understand, because we have a general moral right to explanation when choices are made which significantly affect us but which we do not understand. (shrink)

Goldman joins the ranks of epistemologists, philosophers, and science studies scholars trying to use economic models of science. For Goldman, these models are part of social rather than individual epistemics. His hope is that these models will illustrate that non-epistemic goals of individual scientists such as professional success do not necessarily undermine epistemic aims of science such as the acquisition of truth. This paper shows that there are inconsistencies between Goldman's individual and social epistemics, that these models do not live (...) up to Goldman's standards of evaluation, and that the economic models that Goldman uses are not social. (shrink)

Governments, companies, and citizens all think trust is important. Especially today, in the networked era, where we make use of all sorts of e-services and increasingly interact and buy online, trust has become a necessary condition for society to thrive. But what do we mean when we talk about trust and how does the rise of the Internet transform the functioning of trust? This books starts off with a thorough conceptual analysis of trust, drawing on insights from - amongst others (...) philosophy and sociology - to sharpen our understanding of the topic. The book explains how the arrival of large systems - such as the internet - has changed the character of trust which today is no longer based on interpersonal interactions but has become completely mediated by technologies. Based on the layered building plan of the Internet itself, a new conceptual lens called 4 Cs is developed to analyse and understand trust in the networked era. The 4Cs refer to the 4 layers which all have to be taken into account to assess trust online, namely: context, code, codification, and curation. The 4Cs bring together the firsthand experiences of the user (context), the sort of technology that is being used (code), the legal implication (codification) and business interests (curation) in order to get a clear picture of the trust issues that may arise. In the final part of the book some real-life cases are discussed (digital hotel keys, Airbnb, online personalization) to illustrate how trust -analysed through the 4 Cs lens- might flourish or be challenged in our current networked era. (shrink)

Thomas Reid: Theory of Action Thomas Reid made important contributions to the fields of epistemology and philosophy of mind, and is often regarded as the founder of the common sense school of philosophy. However, he also offered key arguments and observations concerning human agency and morality. Reid carefully criticized the views of his contemporaries, and defended … Continue reading Reid: Theory of Action →.

En las últimas décadas el campo de la creación artística ha constituido un espacio privilegiado de reflexión, crítica cultural, cuestionamiento ético, y experimentación tanto estética como técnica en el que se han ensayado las más variadas visiones de la evolución, de la transformación de las relaciones con la naturaleza y de la auto-comprensión del ser humano. Dentro del debate abierto por la biología sintética, este artículo aspira a remarcar que tanto el bioarte como el arte genético, el arte transgénico y (...) el biohacking, constituyen poderosas herramientas de debate social cuyas dimensiones éticas y estéticas deben ser revisadas y tratadas detalladamente. (shrink)

Tras repasar el contexto filosófico en el que Nelson Goodman fragua su filosofía y del que es indudable heredero, el estudio se centra en su concepción simbólica de las obras de arte, más concretamente en su análisis de la representación pictórica, su relación con el realismo y los problemas que la apelación al concepto de semejanza generan en este campo.

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate how changes in K-12 educational delivery methods in the USA impacts students as 1:1 device programs become a required tool for learning. This change produces gaps in knowledge and understanding of the digital environment and exposes minors to risk. Mandatory technology integration by school districts places the ethical responsibility on school districts to prepare students to use the digital environment to mitigate risk. Design/methodology/approach The author’s literature review focused on the impact (...) of personal device integration in education on students. The author surveyed teachers in the district on what they perceived as risk to students accessing the digital environment and what they believe creates value in digital citizenship instructional content. The author also gathered information while serving on the school district technology steering committee and digital citizenship working group. Findings Mandatory 1:1 device programs used for learning provide unlimited access to the digital environment. This technology integration creates digital knowledge gaps in understanding among students and exposes them to risk or dangers such as loss of privacy, psychological harms and engaging in or being a victim of illegal online activities. School districts are responsible for providing a remedy to close this gap and mitigate risk by developing learning content resources for teachers. Social implications As 1:1 device programs continue to grow in school districts in the USA, it is essential for students to learn to apply protocols and understand norms of the digital world. Providing a digital citizenship curriculum in a format such as a Google Site will offer educators access to instructional content that teaches students to apply protocols, understand norms of the internet and social media and foster critical thinking to analyze power structures, biases and recognize manipulation online. Student must learn how to apply rules that challenge assumptions behind the digital content they see, and they must be able to identify and resolve digital practices and behaviors that are problematic, so they are prepared to participate in a digital society. Originality/value This perspective may be relevant to school districts contemplating personal device integration, providing insight into how 1:1 device use impacts students and develops an ethical position for creating digital citizenship resources for teachers. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Kant-Studien Jahrgang: 110 Heft: 1 Seiten: 1-48.