Corporate sustainability can be defined as organizations’ commitment to profitability, environment, and social well-being. This study uses a transactional culture analysis of CS reporting practices to explain why some Indian organizations conform to voluntary CS reporting guidelines and others do not. The literature contains two different perspectives on culture, defined broadly as a set of values that guide people’s behavior at a given time. Most past studies typically use national culture to explain differences in CS practices across nations. This concept (...) embeds corporate cultures within the larger national culture, neglecting intranation diversity. Conversely, according to the transactional culture approach used in this study, cultures are plural and independent of geoethnic boundaries, and emerge through social transactions. TCA encourages multilevel explorations of complex social phenomena. Since CS reporting preferences are the outcome of ongoing transactions among organizational stakeholders across different levels, TCA is more appropriate for this study. Since this application requires an understanding of social accountability, the authors use Mary Douglas’s Cultural Framework, a transactional framework of social accountability. A qualitative exploration of six Indian organizations using DCF reveals different dominant forms of social accountability in these organizations: either alone or as paired hybrids. Consequently, each organization prioritizes different stakeholders and reacts differently to voluntary CS reporting guidelines. Identifying the dominant form or forms of social accountability in their organizations and understanding their underlying reasons for resisting voluntary CS guidelines enables managers to secure better collaboration for their CS initiatives. (shrink)

Some scientists suggest that it might be possible to reflect a portion of incoming sunlight back into space to reduce climate change and its impacts. Others argue that such solar radiation management (SRM) geoengineering is inherently incompatible with democracy. In this article, we reject this incompatibility argument. First, we counterargue that technologies such as SRM lack innate political characteristics and predetermined social effects, and that democracy need not be deliberative to serve as a standard for governance. We then rebut each (...) of the argument’s core claims, countering that (1) democratic institutions are sufficiently resilient to manage SRM, (2) opting out of governance decisions is not a fundamental democratic right, (3) SRM may not require an undue degree of technocracy, and (4) its implementation may not concentrate power and promote authoritarianism. Although we reject the incompatibility argument, we do not argue that SRM is necessarily, or even likely to be, democratic in practice. (shrink)

This symposium highlighted the relevance of the cultural theory pioneered by anthropologists Mary Douglas, Steve Rayner, and Michael Thompson and political scientists Aaron Wildavsky and Richard Ellis for explaining political phenomena. In this concluding article, we suggest ways in which CT can be further tested and developed. First, we describe how the theory has been applied thus far and some of the achievements of these applications. Then, we examine some of the challenges revealed by this research. Finally, we (...) discuss ways of applying CT that promise to help meet these challenges. These methods include nesting case studies and combining case study and survey research, simulations, experiments, and approaches from social neuroscience. (shrink)

Critical Realism and Marxism addresses controversial debates, revealing a potentially fruitful relationship; deepening our understanding of the social world and contibuting towards eliminating barbarism in contemporary capitalism.

According to a Kantian conception truthfulness is characterised as a requirement of respect for the agency of another. In lying we manipulate the other’s rational capacities to achieve ends we know or fear they may not share. This is paradigmatically a failure of respect. In this paper we argue that the importance of truthfulness also lies in significant part in the ways in which it supports our agential need to make sense of the world, other people, and ourselves. Since sense-making (...) is something we do together, and that we can support or undermine, it generates norms of interaction that constitute a further, distinct, mode of recognition and respect for another’s agency. But the requirements of truthfulness and support for sense-making sometimes conflict. Through a series of cases, we analyze why and when a rigid insistence on truthfulness is disrespectful of the other and undermining of their agency. (shrink)

'Post-truth', Oxford Dictionary's 2016 word of the year, appears to cover only the turn away from reason in contemporary politics. In fact the truth behind 'post-truth' is historically and philosophically more complex. As Fuller shows in this book, it reaches into the nature of knowledge itself.

Unemployment is a major concern of societies and people around the world. In addressing this phenomenon, the literature has suggested a change in unemployed people’s perceptions of this transition period. In this paper, we apply a differential approach to explore the concept of unemployment normalization, an individual emotional regulation process. The results show how the global socioeconomic context and some individual and psychological variables influence the normalization of unemployment. Thus, the age of the person but also work involvement, coping strategies, (...) locus of control, and level of self-esteem have indirect differential effects, mediated by unemployment normalization dimensions, on unemployed people’s perceived health. Only neuroticism has a direct link to subjective well-being. These results offer a new understanding of the perception of unemployment and are also discussed in the area of career and vocational counseling. (shrink)

An affirmative answer is given to the question quoted in the title.

We humans can enhance some of our mental and physical abilities above the normal upper limits for our species with the use of particular drug therapies and medical procedures. We will be able to enhance many more of our abilities in more ways in the near future. Some commentators have welcomed the prospect of wide use of human enhancement technologies, while others have viewed it with alarm, and have made clear that they find human enhancement morally objectionable. The Ethics of (...) Human Enhancement examines whether the reactions can be supported by articulated philosophical reasoning, or perhaps explained in terms of psychological influences on moral reasoning. An international team of ethicists refresh the debate with new ideas and arguments, making connections with scientific research and with related issues in moral philosophy. (shrink)

A comprehensive reference to category theory for students and researchers in mathematics, computer science, logic, cognitive science, linguistics, and philosophy. Useful for self-study and as a course text, the book includes all basic definitions and theorems, as well as numerous examples and exercises.

Quillen [17] introduced model categories as an abstract framework for homotopy theory which would apply to a wide range of mathematical settings. By all accounts this program has been a success and—as, e.g., the work of Voevodsky on the homotopy theory of schemes [15] or the work of Joyal [11, 12] and Lurie [13] on quasicategories seem to indicate—it will likely continue to facilitate mathematical advances. In this paper we present a novel connection between model categories and mathematical logic, inspired (...) by the groupoid model of (intensional) Martin–Löf type theory [14] due to Hofmann and Streicher [9]. In particular, we show that a form of Martin–Löf type theory can be soundly modelled in any model category. This result indicates moreover that any model category has an associated “internal language” which is itself a form of Martin-Löf type theory. This suggests applications both to type theory and to homotopy theory. Because Martin–Löf type theory is, in one form or another, the theoretical basis for many of the computer proof assistants currently in use, such as Coq and Agda (cf. [3] and [5]), this promise of applications is of a practical, as well as theoretical, nature. This paper provides a precise indication of this connection between homotopy theory and logic; a more detailed discussion of these and further results will be given in [20]. (shrink)

From a logical point of view, Stone duality for Boolean algebras relates theories in classical propositional logic and their collections of models. The theories can be seen as presentations of Boolean algebras, and the collections of models can be topologized in such a way that the theory can be recovered from its space of models. The situation can be cast as a formal duality relating two categories of syntax and semantics, mediated by homming into a common dualizing object, in this (...) case 2.In the present work, we generalize the entire arrangement from propositional to first-order logic, using a representation result of Butz and Moerdijk. Boolean algebras are replaced by Boolean categories presented by theories in first-order logic, and spaces of models are replaced by topological groupoids of models and their isomorphisms. A duality between the resulting categories of syntax and semantics, expressed primarily in the form of a contravariant adjunction, is established by homming into a common dualizing object, now Sets, regarded once as a boolean category, and once as a groupoid equipped with an intrinsic topology.The overall framework of our investigation is provided by topos theory. Direct proofs of the main results are given, but the specialist will recognize toposophical ideas in the background. Indeed, the duality between syntax and semantics is really a manifestation of that between algebra and geometry in the two directions of the geometric morphisms that lurk behind our formal theory. Along the way, we give an elementary proof of Butz and Moerdijkʼs result in logical terms. (shrink)

"The Knowledge Book" is a unique interdisciplinary reference work for students and researchers concerned with the nature of knowledge. It is the first work of its kind to be organized on the assumption that whatever else knowledge might be, it is intrinsically social. The book consists of 42 alphabetically arranged entries on key concepts at the intersection of philosophy and sociology - what used to be called "sociology of knowledge" but is now increasingly called "social epistemology". The entries include concepts (...) common to disciplines that in recent years have devoted more of their attention to knowledge: cultural studies, communication studies, information science, education, policy studies and business studies. Special attention is given to concepts from the emerging field of science and technology studies. Each entry presents a short, self-contained essay providing an overview of a concept and concludes with suggestions for further reading. All the entries are fully cross-referenced, allowing readers to both make connections and follow their own interests. (shrink)

This reflection on the fiftieth anniversary of Philosophy and Rhetoric begins by recalling a debate on its pages about the origins of rhetoric, which queried the relationship between Plato and the Sophists. I argue that contrary to the shared assumption of the debate, the two sides differed less over what counts as good philosophical/rhetorical practice than over whether its access should be free or restricted. An implication of this proposed shift in interpretation is that Plato and the Sophists are both (...) reasonably seen as "post-truth" thinkers, concerned more with the mix of chance and skill in the construction of truth than with the truth as such. Focusing on Plato's hostility to playwrights, I argue that at... (shrink)

This article explores the proposition that the brain, normally seen as an organ of the human body, should be understood as a biologically based form of artificial intelligence, in the course of which the case is made for a new kind of ‘brain exceptionalism’. After noting that such a view was generally assumed by the founders of AI in the 1950s, the argument proceeds by drawing on the distinction between science—in this case neuroscience—adopting a ‘telescopic’ or a ‘microscopic’ orientation to (...) reality, depending on how it regards its characteristic investigative technologies. The paper concludes by recommending a ‘microscopic’ yet non-reductionist research agenda for neuroscience, in which the brain is seen as an underutilised organ whose energy efficiency is likely to outstrip that of the most powerful supercomputers for the foreseeable future. (shrink)

I reconstruct my own journey into the history of the human sciences, which I show to have been a process of discovering the metaphysical standing of the human. I begin with Alexandre Koyré’s encounter with Edmund Husserl in the 1930s, which I use to throw light on the legacy of Kant’s ‘anthropological’ understanding of the human, which dominated and limited 19th-century science. As I show, those who broke from Kant’s strictures and set the stage for the 20th-century revolutions in science (...) - from Hegel, to John McTaggart, to Max Weber - typically were pursuing crypto-theological questions about how a finite being can comprehend an infinite universe. This journey is about the ‘common measure’ of being human, which is what links Plato to Kuhn, but has been most consistently taken up by law. I suggest that in seeking this ‘measure of man’, we may discover that to be human is not necessarily to be Homo sapiens, which would suggest a radical reorientation of the history of the human sciences. (shrink)

This article is the preface to the Russian translation of my Kuhn vs Popper. I use it as an opportunity to re-examine the difference between Kuhn and Popper on the nature of ‘revolutions’ in science. Kuhn is rightly seen as a ‘reluctant revolutionary’ and Popper a ‘permanent revolutionary’. In this respect, Kuhn sticks to the original medieval meaning of ‘revolution’ as restoration of a natural order, whereas Popper adopts the more modern meaning of ‘revolution’ that comes into fashion after the (...) French Revolution, which suggests a radical renewal. A key to understanding this difference in revolutionary mentalities lies in Kuhn’s and Popper’s respective treatment of the ‘Gestalt switch’ phenomenon. Kuhn sees the ambiguous Gestalt figure from the standpoint of the subject, and Popper from that of the experimenter. Behind this difference lies alternative interpretations of the significance of quantum mechanics for scientific epistemology, a preoccupation that Kuhn and Popper shared with the original Gestalt psychologists and is beginning engage the interest of social scientists. (shrink)

"The Knowledge Book" is a unique interdisciplinary reference work for students and researchers concerned with the nature of knowledge. It is the first work of its kind to be organized on the assumption that whatever else knowledge might be, it is intrinsically social. The book consists of 42 alphabetically arranged entries on key concepts at the intersection of philosophy and sociology - what used to be called "sociology of knowledge" but is now increasingly called "social epistemology". The entries include concepts (...) common to disciplines that in recent years have devoted more of their attention to knowledge: cultural studies, communication studies, information science, education, policy studies and business studies. Special attention is given to concepts from the emerging field of science and technology studies. Each entry presents a short, self-contained essay providing an overview of a concept and concludes with suggestions for further reading. All the entries are fully cross-referenced, allowing readers to both make connections and follow their own interests. (shrink)

This essay introduces a Focus section on “Neurohistory and History of Science” by distinguishing images of the brain as governor and as transducer: the former treat the brain as the executive control center of the body, the latter as an interface between the organism and reality at large. Most of the consternation expressed in the symposium about the advent of neurohistory derives from the brain-as-governor conception, which is rooted in a “biologistic” understanding of humanity that in recent years has become (...) bound up in various nefarious “neoliberal” political and economic agendas. However, given the sophisticated attitude that neurohistory’s leading champion, Daniel Smail, displays toward evolutionary theory’s potential impact on historical practice, he is perhaps better understood as part of the brain-as-transducer tradition. This tradition, largely suppressed in current representations of neuroscience, has a strong theological provenance, ultimately concerned with our becoming attuned to the divine frequency, not least by extending the powers of the human nervous system through technology. This essay sympathetically explores the implications of this perspective for historical practice. (shrink)

This paper is the second in a two-part series in which we discuss several notions of completeness for systems of mathematical axioms, with special focus on their interrelations and historical origins in the development of the axiomatic method. We argue that, both from historical and logical points of view, higher-order logic is an appropriate framework for considering such notions, and we consider some open questions in higher-order axiomatics. In addition, we indicate how one can fruitfully extend the usual set-theoretic semantics (...) so as to shed new light on the relevant strengths and limits of higher-order logic. (shrink)

of type theory has been used successfully to formalize large parts of constructive mathematics, such as the theory of generalized recursive definitions [NPS90, ML79]. Moreover, it is also employed extensively as a framework for the development of high-level programming languages, in virtue of its combination of expressive strength and desirable proof-theoretic properties [NPS90, Str91]. In addition to simple types A, B, . . . and their terms x : A b(x) : B, the theory also has dependent types x : (...) A B(x), which are regarded as indexed families of types. There are simple type forming operations A × B and A → B, as well as operations on dependent types, including in particular the sum x:A B(x) and product x:A B(x) types (see the appendix for details). The Curry-Howard interpretation of the operations A × B and A → B is as propositional conjunction and.. (shrink)

This brief article is intended to introduce the reader to the field of algebraic set theory, in which models of set theory of a new and fascinating kind are determined algebraically. The method is quite robust, applying to various classical, intuitionistic, and constructive set theories. Under this scheme some familiar set theoretic properties are related to algebraic ones, while others result from logical constraints. Conventional elementary set theories are complete with respect to algebraic models, which arise in a variety of (...) ways, including topologically, type-theoretically, and through variation. Many previous results from topos theory involving realizability, permutation, and sheaf models of set theory are subsumed, and the prospects for further such unification seem bright. (shrink)

ABSTRACT Massimo Dell’Utri proposes the idea of an ‘epistemological compass’, which he alleges provides a common intuitive sense of objectivity, the existence of which defenders of ‘post-truth’ positions would perversely try to deny. I argue that Dell’Utri’s choice of a compass – metaphorical or otherwise – is unfortunate because it is a device that presupposes that what appears plain to the senses is directed by hidden forces emanating from distant sources, such as the stars. More generally, the post-truth condition is (...) not about the denial of facts as ordinarily understood. Rather, it is about the denial of a privileged context in terms of which the significance of the facts should be understood. In Dell’Utri’s terms, it implies a plurality of epistemological compasses, which in turn undermines the effectiveness of the metaphor. I have described this situation as a struggle over ‘the name of the game’. In terms of philosophical logic, it is about which metalanguage provides the semantics for expressions in the object language the people try to deploy to their advantage. (shrink)

In this paper the machinery and results developed in [Awodey et al, 2004] are extended to the study of constructive set theories. Specifically, we introduce two constructive set theories BCST and CST and prove that they are sound and complete with respect to models in categories with certain structure. Specifically, basic categories of classes and categories of classes are axiomatized and shown to provide models of the aforementioned set theories. Finally, models of these theories are constructed in the category of (...) ideals. (shrink)

ABSTRACT The influence of Cassirer's work on Bakhtin's writings from the 1930s has been studied in some detail but scholars have not examined Bakhtin's early work, Toward a Philosophy of the Act (K filosofii postupka), in connection with Cassirer's philosophy. The article first reveals how attuned Bakhtin was with the intellectual Zeitgeist not only of his own times, but also that of the 20th century. The uncanny intellectual harmony between the ideas of Bakhtin and Cassirer can be seen at the (...) very beginning of Bakhtin's career. The two thinkers are united in their reception, transformation, and attempt to reconcile two antithetical philosophical positions dominant at the beginning of the 20th century: the transcendental philosophy of Kant, Neo-Kantianism, and the Lebensphilosophie of Simmel, Bergson, and Heidegger. Bakhtin and Cassirer were alarmed by the cultural pessimism and potential nihilism inherent in the position of Lebensphilosophie. Next, the author shows ways in which Bakhtin's and Cassirer's ideas resonate with those of the later 20th century Jacques Derrida. (shrink)

We show how to interpret the language of first-order set theory in an elementary topos endowed with, as extra structure, a directed structural system of inclusions (dssi). As our main result, we obtain a complete axiomatization of the intuitionistic set theory validated by all such interpretations. Since every elementary topos is equivalent to one carrying a dssi, we thus obtain a first-order set theory whose associated categories of sets are exactly the elementary toposes. In addition, we show that the full (...) axiom of Separation is validated whenever the dssi is superdirected. This gives a uniform explanation for the known facts that cocomplete and realizability toposes provide models for Intuitionistic Zermelo—Fraenkel set theory (IZF). (shrink)

William Lynch has provided an informed and probing critique of my embrace of the post-truth condition, which he understands correctly as an extension of the normative project of social epistemology. This article roughly tracks the order of Lynch’s paper, beginning with the vexed role of the ‘normative’ in Science and Technology Studies, which originally triggered my version of social epistemology 35 years ago and has been guided by the field’s ‘symmetry principle’. Here the pejorative use of ‘populism’ to mean democracy (...) is highlighted as a failure of symmetry. Finally, after rejecting Lynch’s appeal to a hybrid Marxian–Darwinism, Carl Schmitt and Thomas Hobbes are contrasted en route to what I have called ‘quantum epistemology’. (shrink)

Philip Tetlock underestimates the import of his own Expert Political Judgment. It is much more than a critical scientific evaluation of the accuracy and consistency of political pundits. It also offers a blueprint for challenging expertise more generally-in the name of scientific advancement. “Thinking the unthinkable”-a strategy Tetlock employs when he gets experts to consider counterfactual scenarios that are far from their epistemic comfort zones-has had explosive consequences historically for both knowledge and morality by extending our sense of what is (...) possible. Thinking the unthinkable might also put into question contemporary assumptions about the legitimacy of science. (shrink)

I argue that if science is to be a public good, it must be made one. Neither science nor any other form of knowledge is naturally a public good. And given the history of science policy in the twentieth century, it would be reasonable to conclude that science is in fact what economists call a ‘club good’. I discuss this matter in detail in two contexts: (1) current UK efforts to create a version of the US DARPA that would focus (...) on projects of larger, long-term societal interests – i.e. beyond the interests of the academic specialities represented in, say, the US NSF; (2) what I call the ‘organized hypocrisy’ involved in presenting science as a public good through the so-called ‘peer review’ process. (shrink)

In the spirit of the pragmatic account of quotation and reporting offered by Macagno and Walton (2017), we outline a systematic pragmatic account of rephrasing. For this purpose, we combine two interrelated methods of inquiry into the variety of uses of rephrase as a persuasive device: (i) the annotation of rephrase types to identify locutionary and illocutionary aspects of rephrase, (ii) the crowd–sourced examination of rephrase types to investigate their perlocutionary effects. As it draws on Waltonian insights and on empirical (...) and experimental research on the (mis)use of rephrase, our approach allows us to ground a novel theoretically–informed and data–driven pragmatic account of rephrase. (shrink)

In the spirit of the pragmatic account of quotation and reporting offered by Macagno and Walton (2017), we outline a systematic pragmatic account of rephrasing. For this purpose, we combine two interrelated methods of inquiry into the variety of uses of rephrase as a persuasive device: (i) the annotation of rephrase types to identify locutionary and illocutionary aspects of rephrase, (ii) the crowd–sourced examination of rephrase types to investigate their perlocutionary effects. As it draws on Waltonian insights and on empirical (...) and experimental research on the (mis)use of rephrase, our approach allows us to ground a novel theoretically–informed and data–driven pragmatic account of rephrase. (shrink)

This article introduces a set of articles written by Russian social epistemologists and science and technology studies scholars based on research conducted in the first major Russian Academy funded project on science and technology studies. Most of the articles take off from Peter Galison’s concept of scientific ‘trading zones’. However, the author develops a theme found in Ilya Kasavin’s article on ‘science as gift’, which is designed to transcend both ‘capitalistic’ and ‘communistic’ conceptions of science. However, the resulting political economy (...) of science as gift – albeit quite recognizable – resembles the practice of extortion in mutual protection rackets; hence, the ‘offer too good to refuse’.. (shrink)

I do not deny that Fuller is often right on the mark, but there comes a point when such relentless all‐round deprecation gets on one’s nerves. Roberto Torretti When as an undergraduate I first re...

This work is a step toward the development of a logic for types and computation that includes not only the usual spaces of mathematics and constructions, but also spaces from logic and domain theory. Using realizability, we investigate a configuration of three toposes that we regard as describing a notion of relative computability. Attention is focussed on a certain local map of toposes, which we first study axiomatically, and then by deriving a modal calculus as its internal logic. The resulting (...) framework is intended as a setting for the logical and categorical study of relative computability. (shrink)

Moral entrepreneurship is the fine art of recycling evil into good by taking advantage of situations given or constructed as crises. It should be seen as the ultimate generalisation of the entrepreneurial spirit, whose peculiar excesses have always sat uneasily with homo oeconomicus as the constrained utility maximiser, an image that itself has come to be universalised. A task of this essay is to reconcile the two images in terms of what by the end I call ‘superutilitarianism’, which draws on (...) the lore of both superheroes and utilitarianism. After briefly surveying the careers of three exemplars of the moral entrepreneur (Robert McNamara, George Soros and Jeffrey Sachs), I explore the motives of moral entrepreneurs in terms of their standing debt to society for having already caused unnecessary harm but which also now equips him with the skill set needed to do significant good. Such a mindset involves imagining oneself a vehicle of divine will, which would be a scary proposition had it not been long presumed by Christians touched by Calvin. In conclusion, I argue that moral entrepreneurship looks most palatable – and perhaps even attractive – if the world is ‘reversible’, in the sense that every crisis, however clumsily handled by the moral entrepreneur, causes people to distinguish more clearly the necessary from contingent features of their existence. This leads them to reconceptualise past damages as new opportunities to assert what really matters; hence, a ‘superutilitarian’ ethic that treats all suffering as less cost than investment in a greater sense of the good. (shrink)

This paper is the first in a two-part series in which we discuss several notions of completeness for systems of mathematical axioms, with special focus on their interrelations and historical origins in the development of the axiomatic method. We argue that, both from historical and logical points of view, higher-order logic is an appropriate framework for considering such notions, and we consider some open questions in higher-order axiomatics. In addition, we indicate how one can fruitfully extend the usual set-theoretic semantics (...) so as to shed new light on the relevant strengths and limits of higher-order logic. (shrink)

This paper constructs models of intuitionistic set theory in suitable categories. First, a Basic Intuitionistic Set Theory (BIST) is stated, and the categorical semantics are given. Second, we give a notion of an ideal over a category, using which one can build a model of BIST in which a given topos occurs as the sets. And third, a sheaf model is given of a Basic Intuitionistic Class Theory conservatively extending BIST. The paper extends the results in [2] by introducing a (...) new and perhaps more natural notion of ideal, and in the class theory of part three. (shrink)