Based on the assumption that consumers will reward firms for their support of social programs, many organizations have adopted corporate social responsibility (CSR) practices. Drawing on social identity theory, a model of influence of CSR on loyalty is developed and tested using a sample of real consumers. Results demonstrate that CSR initiatives are linked to stronger loyalty both because the consumer develops a more positive company evaluation, and because one identifies more strongly with the company. Moreover, identity salience is shown (...) to play a crucial role in the influence of CSR initiatives on consumer loyalty when this influence occurs through consumer-company identification. A strong identifier is not necessarily in a constant state of salience, but activating identity salience of a particular consumer social identity (a company) will affect consumer reactions to product stimuli, increasing consumer loyalty. (shrink)

The extent to which people identify with an organization is dependent on the attractiveness of the organizational identity, which helps individuals satisfy one or more important self-definitional needs. However, little is known about the antecedents of company identity attractiveness (IA) in a consumer–company context. Drawing on theories of social identity and organizational identification, a model of the antecedents of IA is developed and tested. The findings provide empirical validation of the relationship between IA and corporate associations perceived by consumers. Our (...) results demonstrate that the Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) contribution to company IA is much stronger than that of Corporate Ability (CA). This may be linked to increasing competition and of decreasing CA-based variation in the marketplace. (shrink)

Prior research has found attributions to mediate the relationship between the elements of corporate social responsibility activities and consumer responses to firms; however, the question of what variables determine consumer attributions of CSR remains partially unaddressed. This article analyzes why consumers make attributions of CSR that are either positive, or negative. The results obtained from two empirical studies indicate that company–cause fit, corporate ability, and interpersonal trust have a positive influence on the motives that consumers attribute to CSR, whereas corporate (...) hypocrisy has a negative effect. This research contributes to our understanding of the psychological mechanisms underlying impactful consumer judgments and provides guidance for organizations in responding to such evaluations. (shrink)

James Tabery Helen Longino’s Studying Human Behavior is an overdue effort at a nonpartisan evaluation of the many scientific disciplines that study the nature and nurture of human behavior, arguing for the acceptance of the strengths and weaknesses of all approaches. After years of conflict, Longino makes the pluralist case for peaceful coexistence. Her analysis of the approaches raises the following question: how are we to understand the pluralistic relationship among the peacefully coexisting approaches? Longino is ironically rather unpluralistic about (...) her pluralism, forcing a choice between integrative pluralism and her preferred ineliminative pluralism. I hope to show that the analysis of approaches she offers actually accommodates a pluralism that is both integrative and ineliminative.Approaches to studying human behaviorPhilosophy of biology took shape as a discipline in the 1970s. This disciplinary formation over. (shrink)

Helen Longino seeks to break the current deadlock in the ongoing wars between philosophers of science and sociologists of science--academic battles founded on disagreement about the role of social forces in constructing scientific knowledge. While many philosophers of science downplay social forces, claiming that scientific knowledge is best considered as a product of cognitive processes, sociologists tend to argue that numerous noncognitive factors influence what scientists learn, how they package it, and how readily it is accepted. Underlying this disagreement, however, (...) is a common assumption that social forces are a source of bias and irrationality. Longino challenges this assumption, arguing that social interaction actually assists us in securing firm, rationally based knowledge. This important insight allows her to develop a durable and novel account of scientific knowledge that integrates the social and cognitive. Longino begins with a detailed discussion of a wide range of contemporary thinkers who write on scientific knowledge, clarifying the philosophical points at issue. She then critically analyzes the dichotomous understanding of the rational and the social that characterizes both sides of the science studies stalemate and the social account that she sees as necessary for an epistemology of science that includes the full spectrum of cognitive processes. Throughout, her account is responsive both to the normative uses of the term knowledge and to the social conditions in which scientific knowledge is produced. Building on ideas first advanced in her influential book Science as Social Knowledge, Longino brings her account into dialogue with current work in social epistemology and science studies and shows how her critical social approach can help solve a variety of stubborn problems. While the book focuses on epistemological concerns related to the sociality of inquiry, Longino also takes up its implications for scientific pluralism. The social approach, she concludes, best allows us to retain a meaningful concept of knowledge in the face of theoretical plurality and uncertainty. (shrink)

This is an important book precisely because there is none other quite like it.

"--Richard Grandy, Rice University "This is the first compelling diagnosis of what has gone awry in the raging 'science wars.

In Studying Human Behavior, Helen E. Longino enters into the complexities of human behavioral research, a domain still dominated by the age-old debate of “nature versus nurture.” Rather than supporting one side or another or attempting..

The current literature shows great interest in the issue of gender diversity on boards of directors. Some studies have hypothesized a direct relationship between diversity and the value of the firm, but not many examine the intermediate mechanisms that may exert an influence on such relationships. We employ two stages of GMM estimation methodology to exhibit evidences of the relationship between gender diversity and compensation of top managers in the Spanish context. Results show that gender diversity positively affects the effectiveness (...) of boards—in terms of composition, structure, size and functioning—influencing a proper design of top managers compensation linked to company performance. Evidences suggest that legislative actions aimed at increasing the presence of women on boards of directors are justified not only for ethical reasons, but also for reasons of economic efficiency. (shrink)

What are we trying to explain when we explain behavior? How is behavior conceptualized as an object of study and how else might it be conceptualized? Longino urges pluralism with respect to causes and explanations of behavior. This paper extends Longino’s analysis to the object of those explanations and urges pluralism with respect to behavior itself. The paper proposes that there are three ways in which behavior can be conceptualized, each of which opens to different kinds of research questions.

The proposal of anything like a feminist epistemology has, I think, two sources. Feminist scholars have demonstrated how the scientific cards have been stacked against women for centuries. Given that the sciences are taken as the epitome of knowledge and rationality in modern Western societies, the game looks desperate unless some ways of knowing different from those that have validated misogyny and gynephobia can be found. Can we know the world without hating ourselves? This is one of the questions at (...) the core of discussions of feminist epistemology. It has spinoffs, e.g., can we know the world in ways that will permit women as well as men to thrive? Can we know the world without hating any human group? and so on. Now, these questions might be answered in a way that does not require any rethinking of fundamental philosophical issues. Some philosophers might argue that sexism in the sciences from Aristotle to human sociobiology results from a masculinist blinding that impedes the normal workings of the human cognitive apparatus. Unblinded, that apparatus produces real knowledge rather than ideology. Or: that was then, this is now. This somewhat overestimates the progress made in the sciences in the last 20 years, but can be read as a promissory note. (shrink)

Research on sexual orientation attempts to reduce it to a monocausal phenomenon, whether that be biology (genes, hormones) or social environment (parenting patterns). None of these fully accounts for the diversity of erotic attraction and behavior, and indeed these reductionist strategies either misrepresent many forms of sexual behavior or erase them from our ontology. Understanding is better served by first acknowledging the variety of roles of sexual interaction in human life, rather than treating sex as a single kind of phenomenon.

Underdetermination arguments support the conclusion that no amount of empirical data can uniquely determine theory choice. The full content of a theory outreaches those elements of it (the observational elements) that can be shown to be true (or in agreement with actual observations).2 A number of strategies have been developed to minimize the threat such arguments pose to our aspirations to scientific knowledge. I want to focus on one such strategy: the invocation of additional criteria drawn from a pool of (...) cognitive or theoretical values, such as simplicity or generality, to bolster judgements about the worth of models, theories, and hypotheses. What is the status of such criteria? Larry Laudan, in Science and Values, argued that cognitive values could not be treated as self-validating, beyond justification, but are embedded in a three-way reticulational system containing theories, methods, and aims or values, which are involved in mutually supportive relationships (Laudan, 1984). My interest in this paper is not the purportedly self-validating nature of cognitive values, but their cognitive nature. Although Laudan rejects the idea that what he calls cognitive values are exempt from rational criticism and disagreement, he does seem to think that the reticulational system he identifies is independent of non-cognitive considerations. It is this cognitive/non-cognitive distinction that I wish to query in this paper. Let me begin by summarizing those of my own views about inquiry in which this worry about the distinction arises. (shrink)

Traits like simplicity and explanatory power have traditionally been treated as values internal to the sciences, constitutive rather than contextual. As such they are cognitive virtues. This essay contrasts a traditional set of such virtues with a set of alternative virtues drawn from feminist writings about the sciences. In certain theoretical contexts, the only reasons for preferring a traditional or an alternative virtue are socio-political. This undermines the notion that the traditional virtues can be considered purely cognitive.

Much work performed under the banner of social epistemology still centers the problems of the individual cognitive agent. AU distinguishes multiple senses of "social," some of which are more social than others, and argues that different senses are at work in various contributions to social epistemology. Drawing on work in history and philosophy of science and addressing the literature on testimony and disagreement in particular, this paper argues for a more thoroughgoing approach in social epistemology.

This paper explores a number of recent proposals regarding "feminist science" and rejects a content-based approach in favor of a process-based approach to characterizing feminist science. Philosophy of science can yield models of scientific reasoning that illuminate the interaction between cultural values and ideology and scientific inquiry. While we can use these models to expose masculine and other forms of bias, we can also use them to defend the introduction of assumptions grounded in feminist political values.

Este artículo plantea que ciertas situaciones en las que nos vemos obligados a prestar atención a los riesgos que tomamos al confiar, como la amenaza de violencia o la ruptura de la confianza, motivan una forma particular de confianza en la cual nos interesa tomar consciencia de las creencias, valoraciones e intenciones prácticas implicadas al confiar. Tras describir fenomenológicamente, desde una perspectiva husserliana, la estructura de esta forma de confianza, denominada confianza reflexiva o racional, se expone por qué su análisis (...) filosófico puede contruibuir a aclarar problemáticas epistemológicas y éticas que se desprenden del carácter social de nuestra existencia. En la parte final del artículo se sugiere que el concepto de confianza reflexiva o racional puede servir para entender problemáticas relacionadas con la posverdad y para discernir algunas formas básicas de dominación y de complicidad con la dominación. (shrink)

The practice of taking hand-written notes in lectures has been rediscovered recently because of several studies on its learning efficacy in the mainstream media. Students are enjoined to ditch their laptops and return to pen and paper. Such arguments presuppose that notes are taken in order to be revisited after the lecture. Learning is seen to happen only after the event. We argue instead that student’s note-taking is an educational practice worthy in itself as a way to relate to the (...) live event of the lecture. We adopt a phenomenological approach inspired by Vilém Flusser’s phenomenology of gestures, which assumes that a gesture like note-taking is always an event of thinking with media in which a certain freedom is expressed. But Flusser’s description of note-taking focusses on the individual note-taker. What about students’ note-taking in a lecture hall as a collective gesture? Nietzsche considered note-taking ‘mechanical,’ as if students were automatons who mindlessly transcribed a verbal flow, while Benjamin considered it an inaesthetic gesture: at best, boring; at worst, ‘painful to watch.’ In contrast, we argue that the educational potentiality of note-taking—or better, note-making—can be grasped only if we account for its mediaticity (as writing that displaces the voice), together with but distinct from its political potentiality as a collective mediality (as a ‘means without end’). Note-taking enables us to see how collective thinking emerges in the lecture, a kind of thinking that belongs neither to the lecturer nor the student, but emerges in the relation of attention established between the lecturer, students and their object of thought. (shrink)

Scientific pluralism is an issue at the forefront of philosophy of science. This landmark work addresses the question, Can pluralism be advanced as a general, philosophical interpretation of science? Scientific Pluralism demonstrates the viability of the view that some phenomena require multiple accounts. Pluralists observe that scientists present various—sometimes even incompatible—models of the world and argue that this is due to the complexity of the world and representational limitations. Including investigations in biology, physics, economics, psychology, and mathematics, this work provides (...) an empirical basis for a consistent stance on pluralism and makes the case that it should change the ways that philosophers, historians, and social scientists analyze scientific knowledge. Contributors: John Bell, U of Western Ontario; Michael Dickson, U of South Carolina; Carla Fehr, Iowa State U; Ronald N. Giere, U of Minnesota; Geoffrey Hellman, U of Minnesota; Alan Richardson, U of British Columbia; C. Wade Savage, U of Minnesota; Esther-Mirjam Sent, U of Nijmegen. Stephen H. Kellert is professor of philosophy at Hamline University and a fellow of the Minnesota Center for Philosophy of Science. Helen E. Longino is professor of philosophy at Stanford University. C. Kenneth Waters is associate professor of philosophy and director of the Minnesota Center for Philosophy of Science. (shrink)

The proposal of anything like a feminist epistemology has, I think, two sources. Feminist scholars have demonstrated how the scientific cards have been stacked against women for centuries. Given that the sciences are taken as the epitome of knowledge and rationality in modern Western societies, the game looks desperate unless some ways of knowing different from those that have validated misogyny and gynephobia can be found. Can we know the world without hating ourselves? This is one of the questions at (...) the core of discussions of feminist epistemology. It has spinoffs, e.g., can we know the world in ways that will permit women as well as men to thrive? Can we know the world without hating any human group? and so on. Now, these questions might be answered in a way that does not require any rethinking of fundamental philosophical issues. Some philosophers might argue that sexism in the sciences from Aristotle to human sociobiology results from a masculinist blinding that impedes the normal workings of the human cognitive apparatus. Unblinded, that apparatus produces real knowledge rather than ideology. Or: that was then, this is now. This somewhat overestimates the progress made in the sciences in the last 20 years, but can be read as a promissory note. (shrink)

According to John Cassian, God bestows his supernatural grace only upon men who transcend Christian legalism and take up Christ’s consilium perfectionis. God’s grace is merited by men who strive to perfection. In so doing, they place themselves sub gratia Christi. For Cassian, the true Christian community is composed solely of ascetics who have set themselves apart from ordinary Christians in order to attain the highest good to which human nature must aspire – theperennial contemplation of God. As Cassian has (...) it, it is the main concern of the ascetic bishop to convey to ordinary Christians the call to perfection. (shrink)

We conducted a thorough investigation of the impact of representativeness on reasoning and metacognitive processes by employing the Linda problem. In congruent versions, the more representative res...

Volume 20, Issue 7, July 2020, Page 182-184.

In this article, we suggest that the study of social interactions and the development of a “sense of agency” in joint action can help determine the content of relevant explanations to be implemented in artificial systems to make them “explainable.” The introduction of automated systems, and more broadly of Artificial Intelligence, into many domains has profoundly changed the nature of human activity, as well as the subjective experience that agents have of their own actions and their consequences – an experience (...) that is commonly referred to as sense of agency. We propose to examine the empirical evidence supporting this impact of automation on individuals’ sense of agency, and hence on measures as diverse as operator performance, system explicability and acceptability. Because of some of its key characteristics, AI occupies a special status in the artificial systems landscape. We suggest that this status prompts us to reconsider human–AI interactions in the light of human–human relations. We approach the study of joint actions in human social interactions to deduce what key features are necessary for the development of a reliable sense of agency in a social context and suggest that such framework can help define what constitutes a good explanation. Finally, we propose possible directions to improve human–AI interactions and, in particular, to restore the sense of agency of human operators, improve their confidence in the decisions made by artificial agents, and increase the acceptability of such agents. (shrink)

Scientific pluralism is an issue at the forefront of philosophy of science. This landmark work addresses the question, Can pluralism be advanced as a general, philosophical interpretation of science?

In Science, Truth, and Democracy, Philip Kitcher develops the notion of well-ordered science: scientific inquiry whose research agenda and applications are subject to public control guided by democratic deliberation. Kitcher's primary departure from his earlier views involves rejecting the idea that there is any single standard of scientific significance. The context-dependence of scientific significance opens up many normative issues to philosophical investigation and to resolution through democratic processes. Although some readers will feel Kitcher has not moved far enough from earlier (...) epistemological positions, the book does represent an important addition to literature on science, society, and values. (shrink)

Summarizes author’s contextual empiricism and uses it to analyze the difference between neuro-endocrinological accounts of presumed behavioral sex differences and neuro-selectionist accounts. Contextual empiricism is a philosophical approach that both shows how feminist critique works in the sciences and makes a contribution to general philosophy of science.

Feminist scholars advocate the adoption of distinctive values in research. While this constitutes a coherent alternative to the more frequently cited cognitive or scientific values, they cannot be taken to supplant those more orthodox values. Instead, each set might better be understood as a local epistemology guiding research answerable to different cognitive goals. Feminist scholars advocate the adoption of distinctive values in research. While this constitutes a coherent alternative to the more frequently cited cognitive or scientific values, they cannot be (...) taken to supplant those more orthodox values. Instead, each set might better be understood as a local epistemology guiding research answerable to different cognitive goals. (shrink)