Research documents that many chronic non-malignant pain patients experience existential, spiritual and religious needs; however, research knowledge is missing on if and how physicians approach these needs. We conducted a systematic review to explore the extent to which physicians address these needs in their communication with chronic non-malignant pain patients and to explore the facilitators and challenges of this communication. We followed the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses guidelines, searching Embase, Medline, Scopus and PsycINFO. The quality of (...) the included articles was assessed based on design-specific screening tools. We included four of 2337 screened articles and found the quality to be good. Physicians’ communication about existential, spiritual and religious needs was given low priority and depended on the patients’ own initiative, except when clinicians were interested in holistic care. Patient dissatisfaction with the physician’s attention to these needs was related to higher pain and depression. Physicians’ challenges for addressing these needs were their tendency to prioritize physiological aspects and close further elaboration of existential needs when addressed by the patients. The main facilitator was the individual physician’s willingness to listen with openness and empathy to the patients’ existential concerns. A tentative conclusion is that physicians rarely meet the existential, spiritual and religious needs of their chronic non-malignant pain patients. This might be due to higher priority of physical aspects, lack of time and a lack of knowledge about the importance of and training in the ability to address these needs. Further research is needed on physicians’ communication about existential, spiritual and religious needs and on their training in here. (shrink)

The Golden Age of postwar capitalism has been eclipsed, and with it seemingly also the possibility of harmonizing equality and welfare with efficiency and jobs. Most analyses believe that the emerging postindustrial society is overdetermined by massive, convergent forces, such as tertiarization, new technologies, or globalization, all conspiring to make welfare states unsustainable in the future. Social Foundations of Postindustrial Economies takes a second, more sociological and more institutional, look at the driving forces of economic transformation. What, as a result, (...) stands out is postindustrial diversity, not convergence. Macroscopic, global trends are undoubtedly powerful, yet their influence is easily rivalled by domestic institutional traditions, by the kind of welfare regime that, some generations ago, was put in place. It is, however, especially the family economy that hold the key as to what kind of postindustrial model will emerge, and to how evolving tradeoffs will be managed. Twentieth-century economic analysis depended on a set of sociological assumptions that, now, are invalid. Hence, to better grasp what drives today's economy, we must begin with its social foundations. (shrink)

This study examines the impact of board gender diversity on financial misconduct. The findings suggest firms with gender-diverse boards commit fewer financial reporting mistakes and engage in less fraud. The findings hold after accounting for the potentially endogenous nature of board demographic characteristics via instrumental variable approach. Furthermore, the findings are consistent in pre- and post-regulation periods and hold for firms with good and bad governance. The findings do not seem driven by differences in effort or quality, in terms of (...) independence and expertise, of female and male directors. The benefit derived from increasing the number of female directors on corporate boards seems to diminish at higher levels of gender diversity, indicating that impact of gender diversity on decreasing the likelihood of financial misconduct may be a result of a change to board group dynamics. (shrink)

Drawing on the transformative potential of critical-theoretical learning grounded in the CHAT framework of recognizing the bi-directional relationship between learning and development, the present paper is an investigation of how nine American community college students participating in a critical learning community (Peer Activist Learning Community) make sense of and position themselves towards the pursuit of higher education. The paper has two key findings: (1) students primarily draw on vocational discourse paired with a conceptualization of learning as rote learning (i.e. memorization (...) and acquisition of skills) in making sense of their pursuit of higher education, and (2) students embody a transitional positioning toward the community college, which poses the ontological challenge of belonging to an academic institution while seeking to negate this belonging. The findings are framed and discussed in particular through the lens of the transformative activist stance (Stetsenko) with an emphasis on the recognition of education as the process of becoming human as well as with a focus on the transformative potential of meaningful learning experiences. I conclude by suggesting the need for transforming the aim of retention studies as well as put forward the suggestion of re-conceptualization the concept of belongingness in educational psychology in light of the CHAT framework. (shrink)

This paper discusses the Uniqueness Thesis, a core thesis in the epistemology of disagreement. After presenting uniqueness and clarifying relevant terms, a novel counterexample to the thesis will be introduced. This counterexample involves logical disagreement. Several objections to the counterexample are then considered, and it is argued that the best responses to the counterexample all undermine the initial motivation for uniqueness.

A key question in the philosophy of logic is how we have epistemic justification for claims about logical entailment (assuming we have such justification at all). Justification holism asserts that claims of logical entailment can only be justified in the context of an entire logical theory, e.g., classical, intuitionistic, paraconsistent, paracomplete etc. According to holism, claims of logical entailment cannot be atomistically justified as isolated statements, independently of theory choice. At present there is a developing interest in—and endorsement of—justification holism (...) due to the revival of an abductivist approach to the epistemology of logic. This paper presents an argument against holism by establishing a foundational entailment-sentence of deduction which is justified independently of theory choice and outside the context of a whole logical theory. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Semiotica Jahrgang: 2018 Heft: 225 Seiten: 77-102.

Which non-human animals are phenomenally conscious? In this paper I argue that the distribution of phenomenal consciousness in the animal world is ultimately an unsolvable issue, because of an underlying problem inherent in the field: what I call the Kinda Hard Problem. The Kinda Hard Problem arises because the grounds on which we base our consciousness attributions to humans third-personally are either unavailable or ambiguous once we move to the animal case. Its nature is that of an epistemic problem: we (...) cannot collect enough evidential grounds to justify attributions of phenomenal consciousness (and attributions of its lack) to non-human animals. Thus, it is impossible to ground rational belief one way or another regarding animal consciousness. This paper presents the problem and explains how it differs from other problems of consciousness. (shrink)

This brief text assists students in understanding Kuhn's philosophy and thinking so they can more fully engage in useful, intelligent class dialogue and improve their understanding of course content. Part of the Wadsworth Notes Series, (which will eventually consist of approximately 100 titles, each focusing on a single "thinker" from ancient times to the present), ON KUHN is written by a philosopher deeply versed in the philosophy of this key thinker. Like other books in the series, this concise book offers (...) sufficient insight into the thinking of a notable philosopher, better enabling students to engage in reading and to discuss the material in class and on paper. (shrink)

Chicana feminist writers have written eloquently about the condition of women in their communities. Many of them have aligned themselves with and participated in various political movements. This practice has infused their theorizing with various influences which makes them similar to other feminist theorists but also different. This paper provides an overview of how Chicana feminist writings address the ethnic specific ways in which gender oppression is imposed on them and their proposals for liberation.

In recent years, autonomous systems have become an important research area and application domain, with a significant impact on modern society. Such systems are characterized by different levels of autonomy and complex communication infrastructures that allow for collective decision-making strategies. There exist several publications that tackle ethical aspects in such systems, but mostly from the perspective of a single agent. In this paper we go one step further and discuss these ethical challenges from the perspective of an aggregate of autonomous (...) systems capable of collective decision-making. In particular, in this paper, we propose the Caesar approach through which we model the collective ethical decision-making process of a group of actors—agents and humans, as well as define the building blocks for the agents participating in such a process, namely Caesar agents. Factors such as trust, security, safety, and privacy, which affect the degree to which a collective decision is ethical, are explicitly captured in Caesar. Finally, we argue that modeling the collective decision-making in Caesar provides support for accountability. (shrink)

In this article, I will try to explain the meaning of the word zihâr, translated as oath of the back, trying only to situate it in its context and to bring an elucidation of the subject`s origin. The zihâr is a type of repudiation used by a husband against his wife in the times of gâhiliyya (the ante-Islamic period), by using a solemn divorce formula which consists in saying: "let (her) be from now on as the back of my mother". (...) Therefore, backing up on this formula, I want to try to clarify this concept. (shrink)

The magical number three has provided the template for this comparative study of Freudian psycho-analysis and Husserlian phenomenology. "Three" should be considered the number of dialectics; the method in the study to let three distinct thematisations succeed each other should find its legitimation in dialectics. The relationship between psycho-analysis and phenomenology as that between two dialectic theories might well call for a dialectic interpretation. It should be difficult from a straightforward and unambiguous interpretation to give full credit to the rich (...) and equivocal meaning of psycho-analysis and phenomenology. I hope to have shown in the presentation above, that it is possible by accentuating different sides of the two scientific disciplines to reach different conclusions regarding their relationship. For a full account of this relationship these different conclusions should be placed together and viewed in their internal coherence as a dialectical unity. Thus none of the three sections of the text should be considered apart from the others. In the first section of the paper, the first thematisation, I tried to spell out the discrepancies between Freud and Husserl as clearly as possible. The point of departure here was the Freudian notion of the "psychical apparatus," and Husserl's doctrine of "intentional consciousness." The models built around these central notions can be shown to have a paradigmatic meaning for the development of Freud's and Husserl's psychological projects. Conceiving the subject as psychical apparatus, Freud thought it possible to make psychology a natural science. The subject could be treated like a mechanical apparatus, that is a machine admitting the general laws of motion. - In contrast, Husserl thought psychology should depart from natural science in its scientific selfunderstanding, and join the humanities instead. Psychology's departure from natural science, Husserl found legitimized in the subject's essential character of intentional consciousness. According to Husserl, man as a conscious being could not be reduced to a thing in the natural world. On the contrary, the aprioric basis for the world should be found in intentional consciousness, which constitutes the "world" as a meaningful coherence related to the subject. Freud's and Husserl's conceptions of psychology were traced to historical roots in respectively positivism, naturalism and mechanical materialism on the one hand, and rationalism, humanism and idealism on the other. In this first interpretation the relationship between psycho-analysis and phenomenology seemed to be antithetical, the two theoretical projects representing opposite poles with regard to cartesian dualism. Although in some ways caricaturing the theories in this one-sided interpretation, I tried to show, that such interpretation is possible with bases in the texts of Freud and Husserl. The decided one-sidedness of the first thematisation should, however, be balanced by the competing interpretation in the second section of the paper. In the second thematisation, I tried to show, that both psycho-analysis and phenomenology in their concrete psychological projects went beyond their points of departure. Although Freud as a scientist of the 19th century naturally found his theoretical language in the successful natural sciences, from which his scientific career started, he decisively broke with this frame of reference in his descriptions of the pathological problems from his clinical praxis. In contrast to the abstract metapsychology of the psychical apparatus, Freud in his clinical psychology departed from mechanism in his attempts to interpret the meaning of the patient's neurotic symptom. The clinical attitude of Freud might resemble phenomenologists' openness towards the meaning of the phenomena, and the case-histories of Freud often read like clinical analyses stemming from existential- phenomenological psychiatrists. - Correspondingly, although Husserl started from the tradition of German philosophy of consciousness, also he can be seen to go beyond the premises of his wellsprings. Starting with a notion of intentionality as consciousness's active positing meaningful objects, Husserl later was led to consider a deeper level of intentionality, a "functioning intentionality," that would situate the subject in a "world" prior to any thematic perceptual act. With the notion of functional intentionality and its further development in Merleau-Ponty's philosophy of the "body-subject," phenomenology seems to have come close to the Freudian doctrine of the unconscious. From this second interpretation it seemed to follow, that a meeting between psycho-analysis and phenomenology should be possible, by cutting off the mechanistic parts from psychoanalysis and the idealistic parts from phenomenology. The hindrance for such meeting should apparently be found in the divergent theoretical prejudices stemming from the ideological climates in which the theories were hatched. None of these two apparently contradictory interpretations, that of the first and second thematisation, should, however, rule out the other. To the question which interpretation is the right one, we should answer "both... and," or perhaps better "Neither... nor." Freud and Husserl in fact held contradictory views in their explicit scientific self-understanding. On the other hand, much of the controversy was caused by theoretical prejudices not essential to the central enterprise of psycho-analysis and phenomenology. And yet, the theoretical work of Freud and Husserl should be considered in its entirety, not omitting parts that do not fit the interpretative context. Freud's mechanistic theories must be read in connection with his clinical/phenomenological psychology, Husserl's doctrine of transcendental consciousness together with his concrete analyses of the world and the body. Freud sticked to his mechanistic metaphors throughout his life, not just because mechanic materialism was his scientific point of departure, but also because he found the models of the psychical apparatus useful to picture the subject-matter of psycho-analysis, the unconscious as it is discovered by the analytic method. Correspondingly, Husserl found in transcendental idealism a metaphysical horizon apparently suited for his main theoretical project, to un-cover by phenomenological reflexion man in his free and conscious being. In this way Freud's materialism and Husserl's idealism might find their limited justification, not in the absolutistic sense set forth in the first section, but in relation to their weighting different aspects of the subject/object dialectic of man. This point of view I tried to explicate in the third section of this paper. In the subject/object dialectic Freud seems to underline man's existence as object, his being ruled by the mechanic, the irrational, the infantile, the unconscious. In contrast, Husserl underlines man's existence as subject, his free and conscious openness towards the world and the future. This difference I characterized with the notions of Ricoeur as respectively an "archeology" and a "teleology" of the subject. And yet the difference between Freud and Husserl is that of a weighting different sides of the subject/object dialectic, not of an exclusive thematisation of man as either subject or object. Freudian archaeology is supplemented by an implicit teleology, Husserlian teleology by an implicit archeology. On the background of such interpretation the relationship between psycho-analysis and phenomenology should be seen neither as the polarity of the first thematisation, nor as the synthesis of the second. Psycho-analysis and phenomenology both contradict and imply each other in a relationship that should be termed dialectical. With this third interpretation the paper ended. At last I noted that the problems raised by the controversy on the subject/object dialectic of man should not easily be solved. Instead, the question "what is man" should have to be answered continuously in a concrete historical reflextion or dialogue. Yet I think it safe to conclude, that any psychological consideration has to take into consideration, both man's archeological and his teleological features, thus not allowing the one perspective completely to rule out the other. (shrink)

The main thesis of Heyes' book is that all of the domain-specific learning mechanisms that make the human mind so different from the minds of other animals are culturally created and culturally acquired gadgets. The only innate differences are some motivational tweaks, enhanced capacities for associative learning, and enhanced executive function abilities. But Heyes' argument depends on contrasting cognitive gadgets with cognitive instincts, which are said to be innately specified. This ignores what has for some years been the mainstream nativist/anti-empiricist (...) view, which commits only to partially specified learning systems that become elaborated and built through domain-specific learning. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is threefold. Firstly, §1 and §2 introduce the novel concept logical akrasia by analogy to epistemic akrasia. If successful, the initial sections will draw attention to an interesting akratic phenomenon which has not received much attention in the literature on akrasia (although it has been discussed by logicians in different terms). Secondly, §3 and §4 present a dilemma related to logical akrasia. From a case involving the consistency of Peano Arithmetic and Gödel’s Second Incompleteness Theorem (...) it’s shown that either we must be agnostic about the consistency of Peano Arithmetic or akratic in our arithmetical theorizing. If successful, these sections will underscore the pertinence and persistence of akrasia in arithmetic (by appeal to Gödel’s seminal work). Thirdly, §5 concludes by suggesting a way of translating the dilemma of arithmetical akrasia into a case of regular epistemic akrasia; and further how one might try to escape the dilemma when it’s framed this way. (shrink)

Default logic has been a very active research topic in artificial intelligence since the early 1980s, but has not received as much attention in the philosophical literature thus far. This paper shows one way in which the technical tools of artificial intelligence can be applied in contemporary epistemology by modeling a paradigmatic case of deep disagreement using default logic. In §1 model-building viewed as a kind of philosophical progress is briefly motivated, while §2 introduces the case of deep disagreement we (...) aim to model. On the heels of this, §3 defines our formal framework, viz., a refined Horty-style default logic. §4 then uses the framework to model deep disagreement, and finally §5 provides a critical discussion of the result. (shrink)

Recently, several scholars have argued that scientists can accept scientific claims in a collective process, and that the capacity of scientific groups to form joint acceptances is linked to a functional division of labor between the group members. However, these accounts reveal little about how the cognitive content of the jointly accepted claim is formed, and how group members depend on each other in this process. In this paper, I shall therefore argue that we need to link analyses of joint (...) acceptance with analyses of distributed cognition. To sketch how this can be done, I shall present a detailed case study, and on the basis of the case, analyze the process through which a group of scientists jointly accept a new scientific claim and at a later stage jointly accept to revise previously accepted claims. I shall argue that joint acceptance in science can be established in situations where an overall conceptual structure is jointly accepted by a group of scientists while detailed parts of it are distributed among group members with different areas of expertise, a condition that I shall call a heterogeneous conceptual consensus. Finally, I shall show how a heterogeneous conceptual consensus can work as a constraint against scientific change and address the question how changes may nevertheless occur. (shrink)

Intelligence, genius and mental ability were a cluster of traits that received much attention in eugenics discourse. Intelligence was regarded as one of the good qualities superior men possessed, in turn beneficial for society as a whole. On the other hand, the socially problematic or unproductive were identified as being of inferior mental quality: “feeble-minded”. By and large, eugenicists thought that (1) intelligence was a unitary psychological trait that could be measured, being quantified as an intelligence quotient (IQ); (2) intelligence (...) was paired with educational achievement, reputation, and economic success; (3) a certain degree of intelligence was necessary to act morally and to foresee the consequences of one’s actions. Despite the prominent role of intelligence in the history of eugenics, there is considerable lack of clarity in what this general mental ability was considered to be. (shrink)

Sociologist Niklas Luhmann argued that the law functions as society’s immune system by regulating conflicts that threaten the certainty of expectation structures. In this article, we argue that law itself has become a target of new social immune mechanisms. Since the 1980s, welfare states have increasingly seen their own structures as a threat. Today, the ideal is a public sector consisting of organizations that constantly emerge anew by selecting the structures that fit each specific moment, case, and citizen. To protect (...) public sector organizations against their own structures, ‘potentialization’ now functions as a social autoimmune mechanism by initiating a constant search for new openings and possibilities. This critique of structures includes a critique of legal structures like rights. Looking at the Danish law of early retirement as our empirical case, this paper analyzes, how the tension between law and ‘potentialization’ is built into the law itself. While the law gives citizens certain rights to early retirement, it simultaneously ‘protects’ against the same rights by potentializing citizens. ‘Potentialization’ here functions as a mechanism that protects the operations of a system against its legal structures. It functions by ‘un-relating’ those operations from the structures. This means that when citizens claim their right to pensions, the social workers can reject them on the grounds of a right to a future that is not foreclosed and ‘parked’ on a pension. The paper’s contribution is to show how potentialization works by dissolving even fundamental legal expectations. This profoundly transforms the relationship between the citizen and the public sector. (shrink)

In this article, I will try to explain the meaning of the word zihâr, translated as oath of the back, trying only to situate it in its context and to bring an elucidation of the subject`s origin. The zihâr is a type of repudiation used by a husband against his wife in the times of gâhiliyya (the ante-Islamic period), by using a solemn divorce formula which consists in saying: "let (her) be from now on as the back of my mother". (...) Therefore, backing up on this formula, I want to try to clarify this concept. (shrink)

Anhedonia is the diminished motivation and sensitivity to pleasurable stimuli. It has been reported to be more prevalent in patients with chronic pain as compared to healthy controls. Endometriosis is a chronic inflammatory systemic disease with a significant psychosocial impact that compromises wellbeing and the day-to-day life of patients. Women with endometriosis show significant psychological distress, even more pervasive when chronic pelvic pain is present. In the current review we will discuss the role of anhedonia in endometriotic chronic pelvic pain. (...) We will also present new lines of research that could lead to more fully clarifying the psychological impact of endometriosis and its detrimental repercussions to quality of life and mental health. (shrink)

This paper extends Mori’s (IEEE Robot Autom Mag 19:98–100, 2012) uncanny valley-hypothesis to include technologies that fail its basic criterion that uncanniness arises when the subject experiences a discrepancy in a machine’s human likeness. In so doing, the paper considers Mori’s hypothesis about the uncanny valley as an instance of what Heidegger calls the ‘challenging revealing’ nature of modern technology. It introduces seeming autonomy and heteronomy as phenomenological categories that ground human being-in-the-world including our experience of things and people. It (...) is suggested that this categorical distinction is more foundational than Heidegger’s existential structures and phenomenological categories. Having introduced this novel phenomenological distinction, the paper considers the limits of Mori’s hypothesis by drawing on an example from science fiction that showcases that uncanniness need not only be caused by machines that resemble human beings. In so doing, it explores how the seeming autonomy-heteronomy distinction clarifies (at least some of) the uncanniness that can arise when humans encounter advanced technology which is irreducible to the anthropocentrism that shapes Mori’s original hypothesis. (shrink)

Publication date: 29 September 2016 Source: Author: Aida Cornelia Stoian This study highlights the results of an empirical research, whose purpose was to study the teachers` option of primary and preschool education to use learning situations for training pupils’ skills in relation to seniority in teaching and learning environment and to identify of the level of conceptual representation of the learning situations term in the opinion of teachers in primary and preschool education.We made a questionnaire in order to identify (...) the frequency teachers can organize learning situations and the teachers` conceptual representations of learning situation.The results have confirmed the conclusions to get teachers` adhesion to organize learning situations for pupils’ skills training, to develop teachers’ skills in harmonizing all the methods, means and teaching strategies with the objective and subjective factors determining the interaction between teachers and pupils. (shrink)

I highlight a metaphysical concern that stands in the way of more widespread adoption of causal modeling techniques such as causal Bayes nets. Researchers in some fields may resist adoption due to concerns that they don't 'really' understand what they are saying about a system when they apply such techniques. Students in these fields are repeated exhorted to be cautious about application of statistical techniques to their data without a clear understanding of the conditions required for those techniques to yield (...) genuine insight into the data. They are acutely aware that anyone can chuck some data into a software package and get what looks like an answer, even though these tests may not be well-defined for the data on which they can apparently be run. This is thus a healthy skepticism for uptake of causal modeling methods, which points directly to the need for a metaphysical understanding of causation in order to successfully use the modeling methods. Without a clear understanding of what the methods are committing to, including what it means to say that there exists a causal relationship, researchers have limited ability to identify potentially bad output, or to independently verify results. (shrink)

In this paper, the ethics of otherness of Emmanuel Levinas, for whom the nudity of the Face (visage) is never a matter of style but moral conscience, encounters the theory of (cultural) dialogical action, foundation for Paulo Freire’s pedagogy of the oppressed and its denunciation-enunciation of dehumanization and oppression. For both authors, violence gets the meaning of possession, way throughout an entity, although existing, is partially negated. Such partiality, when negating the independence of the entity, states oppression, as it negates (...) the oppressed vocation to be more. Oppression kills life. Whereas, it is through the conscience of such condition of beingfor-other that the proper possibility of humanity can be thought, because the relation to the other or to the collective is our relation, irreducible to understanding. To recognize such subversion, therefore, is to recognize that as the oppressed free themselves, they avoid to get back to an oppressive regime. In doing so, they free their prior oppressors, they inaugurate love. Is it not to assume, in essence, that ethics is a construction of sense of life since the encounter with the Other? KEY WORDS – Humanism. Freedom. Ethics of otherness. Pedagogy of the oppressed. Social transformation. (shrink)

Language is infused with materiality and should therefore not be considered as an abstract system that is isolated from socio-material reality. Expressions materialise language in social practices, thus providing the necessary basis for languaging activities. For this reason, it makes sense to challenge proponents of orthodox linguistics and others who hold that language can be studied in isolation from its concrete manifestations. By exploring the relation between materiality and linguistic activity, the article extends Malafouris’ Material Engagement Theory while clarifying the (...) phenomenon of ‘linguistic denotation’. In so doing, it critiques orthodox approaches to language which trace denotation to abstract meanings and/or mental representations. The article shows how the denotative aspects of language can be cashed out in non-representational terms and, furthermore, that the interrelation of denotation and materiality is crucial to human material culture in that it allows for material engagements to transcend localised contexts. These engagements become global in Latour’s sense and, in so doing, denotation ceases to demand descriptions in terms of representations. (shrink)

Ernst Jünger is known for his war writings, but is largely ignored by contemporary phenomenologists. In this essay, I explore his e Adventurous Heart which has recently been made available in English. is work consists of a set of fragments which, when related, disclose a coherent ow of philosophical thinking. Speci cally, I show that, beneath a highly poetic and obscure prose, Jünger posits how subjective experience and poetry allow individuals to realize truth. I relate parts of Jünger’s insights to (...) contributions by Husserl, Heidegger and Merleau-Ponty, arguing that Jünger o ers a unique and valuable contribution to the phenomenological discipline. (shrink)

In this article, we expand the analytical and theoretical foundations of the study of knowledge commons in the context of more classical agrarian commons, such as seed commons. We show that it is possible to overcome a number of criticisms of earlier work by Ostrom on natural commons and its excludability/rivalry matrix in addressing the inclusive social practices of “commoning”, defined as a way of living and acting for the preservation of the commons. Our empirical analysis emphasizes, using the most (...) recent advances in the IAD/ses framework, the distributed and collaborative knowledge governance in a French peasant seed network as a key driver for reintroducing cultivated agrobiodiversity and on-farm seed conservation of ancient and landrace varieties. These inclusive peasant seed groups developed alternative peer-to-peer models of collaborative peasant-led community-based breeding and grassroots innovations in the search for more resilient population varieties. Our results highlight the various models of collective action within the network and discuss the organizational tradeoffs of opting out of peasant seed activities and recreating a shared collective knowledge base on the benefits of restoring cultivated agrobiodiversity. It helps us better understand how modern peasant seed groups function as epistemic communities which contributes to envisioning alternative agricultural systems. (shrink)

Many discussions between realists and non-realists have centered on the issue of reference, especially whether there is referential stability during theory change. In this paper, I shall summarize the debate, sketching the problems that remain within the two opposing positions, and show that both have ended on their own slippery slope, sliding away from their original position toward that of their opponents. In the search for a viable intermediate position, I shall then suggest an account of reference which, to a (...) degree, follows the causal theory in explaining reference as carving the world at its joints. Contrary to the causal theory, however, I submit that this world is a phenomenal world whose variable joints exist only in a historical process in which they are transmitted gradually from one generation to the next. According to this account, the joints of the phenomenal world are constituted by family resemblance, where bundles of features that span bounded areas in perceptual space underlie the joints. Furthermore, the integrity of the cognitive process by which these joints are recognized depends on a transmission process by which new generations are presented with given joints and bundles by the preceding generation. Contrary to a traditional realist account, this heritage from the preceding generation may be transformed into new joints and bundles before transmission to new generations. This permits a continuous process of referential change in which the joints and bundles at different stages in the development of a theory can be connected by chains-of-reasoning. (shrink)

The paper reviews the current state of play around anti-representationalist attempts at countering Clark and Toribio’s representation-hunger thesis. It introduces a distinction between different approaches to Chemero’s Radical embodied cognition thesis in the form of, on the one hand, those pushing a hard line and, on the other, those who are more relaxed about their anti-representationalist commitments. In terms of overcoming Clark and Toribio’s thesis, hardliners seek to avoid any mentioning of mental content in the activity they purport to explain. (...) Yet, the paper argues, adopting a hard line complicates this endeavor considerably and unnecessarily. Those promoting a relaxed REC, however, are better off in that they have no problem in recognizing that some types of cognition are hybrid. By turning to Hutto and Myin’s Radical Enactivism as a prime example of a relaxed approach to the REC thesis, the paper points towards the lack of continuity between covariant information and informational content as the gap that would necessarily have to be closed in order for RECers to, once and for all, be able to dismiss Clark and Toribio’s hypothesis that certain kinds of cognition are per definition off-limits to anti-representationalism. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Cartographic Memory: Social Movement Activism and the Production of Space by Juan HerreraAída R. GuhlincozziCartographic Memory: Social Movement Activism and the Production of Spaceby juan herrera Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 2022Juan Herrera’s historical recounting of Latino activism in Fruitvale, California, in Cartographic Memory: Social Movement Activism and the Production of Space is stellar. In fact, the case focused on by Herrera as an example of activism producing (...) space and creating change in the name of social justice is not the only top-quality contribution to Latinx geographies to be found in this book. Herrera’s conceptualization of “cartographic memory” builds on the intertwining of Latinx writers and historians with traditional spatial thought from the history of geography. His definition of “cartographic memory” as a “political remaking of urban geography and therefore a selective mapping” adds to the broader oeuvre of activism and space coming out in recent years (14).The geographic location for Cartographic Memory comes from the author’s long history of working in and around Fruitvale as both a volunteer and community member. As a new resident of the Oakland area, Herrera mistakenly navigated himself to Fruitvale, where he found the elements of the place clearly speaking to a cultural aesthetic of Latin-idad. Intrigued, Herrera began volunteering in the area, and learned more of the long activist history of the space. That activist history, Herrera argues, has long been under-studied, or even forgotten, in Chicano activist history, and merits recognition. Herrera’s efforts with [End Page 139] this book go a long way to gathering together that spatial history and reconstructing it for the reader through interviews and oral histories with numerous activists, extensive archival research, and ethnography focusing on the 1960s and 1970s Mexican-American activist mobilization in support of the Chicano movement.The power of the focus on Fruitvale must be recognized, as Herrera also makes space for intently peeling apart the layers of nonprofit funding, social movements, and community-building and support. The chapter, “Revolution Interrupted,” is about the funding situation of the Unity Council in Fruitvale and how the funding structure was constructed over time in the context of the political and economic opportunities of the 1960s. It speaks to how this had a profound effect on the organizers and community given the shift from grassroots to institutional funding. This chapter opens the book with a focus on the national scope of funding opportunities for organizations in the 1960s that focused on race and ethnicity. Through this lens are explored the effects of local political actions—such as the 1969 speech by San Antonio-based Mexican American Youth Organization (MAYO) leader Jose Angel Gutierrez—on funding at the federal level. Because of the perceived militancy of these remarks, the U.S. Congress became concerned, and eventually passed the 1969 Tax Reform bill, limiting the types of projects that could be funded philanthropically. This type of multi-scale understanding of Fruitvale activism is threaded throughout the entire book, from chapter 1, “Making Place,” in which Herrera summarizes activist perspectives on Fruitvale as emphasizing “not only how the neighborhood itself [produced] a geography of activism but also how it was interconnected to other places of struggle throughout the United States” (emphasis in original; 33).Herrera also navigates the interactions of race, ethnicity, and space, tracing how coalitions, influences on political efforts, and collaboration took place throughout Fruitvale and Oakland during this period. His second chapter, “The Other Minority,” identifies where Black Panther Party-related work occurred; the marketization that began to occur of a non-threatening, non-Black “Latino” identity; the effect that this had on activist efforts; and more. Importantly, in this chapter Herrera’s interviews reveal that part of the interest in these coalitions came from the clear organizational success Black activists had achieved in their [End Page 140] work, leading Mexican American activists in Oakland to pursue similar efforts. One interviewee, Herman Gallegos, a prominent activist at the time, spoke of recalling an event where Black men would gather monthly to focus on leadership. Thinking highly of them, he says that he recognized them as future “mayors, judges... [but] kept thinking... (shrink)

In recent years, social networks have made significant progress and the number of people who use them to communicate is increasing day by day. The vast amount of information available on social networks has led to the importance of using friend recommender systems to discover knowledge about future communications. It is challenging to choose the best machine learning approach to address the recommender system issue since there are several strategies with various benefits and drawbacks. In light of this, a solution (...) based on the stacking approach was put out in this study to provide a buddy recommendation system in social networks. Additionally, a decrease in system performance was caused by the large amount of information that was accessible and the inefficiency of some functions. To solve this problem, a particle swarm optimization algorithm to select the most efficient features was used in our proposed method. To learn the model in the objective function of the particle swarm algorithm, a hybrid system based on stacking is proposed. In this method, two random forests and Extreme Gradient Boosting had been used as the base classifiers. The results obtained from these base classifiers were used in the logistic regression algorithm, which has been applied sequentially. The suggested approach was able to effectively address this issue by combining the advantages of the applied strategies. The results of implementation and evaluation of the proposed system show the appropriate efficiency of this method compared with other studied techniques. (shrink)

It is a well-established fact in representationalist cognitive science that concrete concepts influence human perception. In radical, anti-representationalist cognitive science, however, the case is far from clear. One reason for this is that proponents of Radical Enactivism yet have to clarify whether perceptual activity involving concepts is bound to rely on mental content or if it instantiates basic, contentfree cognition. The purpose of this paper is to show that concept-involving perception instantiates REC-style basic cognition. The paper begins by considering ‘cognitive (...) projection’ as the term is introduced by Distributed Cognition research. Although being introduced as a means for exploring concept-based perception in non-representationalist terms, I argue that ‘cognitive projection’ comes with mentalist overtones and unclarities concerning its linguistic basis. With the purpose of overcoming these shortcomings, I unfold a REC-friendly reading of Wittgenstein’s writings on aspect perception, arguing that basic concept-involving perception is an instantiation of basic cognition. Concludingly, with the aim of ensuring compatibility, I make a connection between conceptual aspect perception and the REC notion of attentional anchors. The latter has been introduced to explore the role of material artefacts in the context of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics educational design but has, I submit, the potential for being extended to other practical contexts. (shrink)

In verschiedenen Beiträgen dieses Bandes wird soziologisch und ästhetisch, kunst- und literaturwissenschaftlich erörtert, wie aus ästhetischen Erfahrungen Widerstandskraft gegen Zerstörung und Selbstzerstörung entwickelt wird. Es wird gezeigt, dass Kunst und Gesellschaft nicht ohne ästhetischen Widerstand zu machen sind. Dieser äußert sich nicht nur in der Produktion und in der Rezeption von Kunst, sondern auch in vielfältigen Praxen der Lebenswelt. Welche Rolle spielt ästhetische Erfahrung heute für die Fragen des guten Lebens und wie ist Ästhetik mit dem Leben selbst verbunden? Wie (...) kann das Verhältnis von Ethik und Ästhetik heute gesellschaftlich und politisch gedacht und vermittelt werden? Und vor allem: Wie kann der Destruktionsdynamik als Sucht und Sog gesellschaftlicher Selbstzerstörung durch ästhetischen Widerstand wirksam Einhalt geboten werden? (shrink)

Open peer commentary on the article “Lived Experience and Cognitive Science Reappraising Enactivism’s Jonasian Turn” by Mario Villalobos & Dave Ward. Upshot: We argue that Villalobos and Ward’s criticism misses two crucial aspects of Varelian enactivism. These are, first, that enactivism attempts to offer a rigorous scientific justification for its teleological claims, and second, that enactivism in fact pays too little attention to the nature of human phenomenology and intentionality, rather than anthropomorphically over-valuing it.

Many people alive today grew up during the so-called Cold War and even more experienced the fall of the Berlin Wall. The Cold War can be taken as the name of the order of international relations during four decades of the twentieth century. In the following, I want first to comment on the concept of world order and the related one of institution (law). Then I shall deal with the relation between these concepts and various schools in international politics. Next, (...) I will pay attention to the ethical dimensions of those schools. And finally, I want to reflect on the place of theology in the ethics of international relations. My thesis is (1) that theological ethics has an important role to play in understanding contemporary international politics (IP); (2) that if theological ethics takes a Lutheran starting point, it will endorse elements both in the liberal and the realist tradition of international relations theory. As I regard Kant and Kissinger as representatives of the two schools, I hope that explains my somewhat provocative title. (shrink)

Este artículo tiene por objeto el analizar la violencia obstétrica en el contexto de nuestras sociedades modernas, tomando como punto de referencia las relaciones que los sujetos y esas sociedades establecen con los cuerpos humanos. Para esto, se emplearán las herramientas ofrecidas por la filosofía, la bioética y la antropología (tanto la positiva como la negativa), entendiendo que la violencia obstétrica ni comienza ni se agota en el ámbito médico, sino que ha de atenderse también a sus dimensiones histórico-culturales y (...) de género. (shrink)

Postphenomenologists and performativists criticize classical approaches to phenomenology for isolating human subjects from their socio-material relations. The purpose of this essay is to repudiate their criticism by presenting a nuanced account of phenomenology thus making it evident that phenomenological theories have the potential for meshing with the performative idiom of contemporary science and technology studies. However, phenomenology retains an apparent shortcoming in that its proponents typically focus on human–nonhuman relations that arise in localized contexts. For this reason, it seems to (...) contrast with one of the core assumptions behind practical ontologies: that socio-practical significance extends beyond an agent’s immediate situatedness in a localized context. Turning to Heidegger’s phenomenology and his notion of ‘de-distancing’, the essay explores how localized phenomena that pertain to human experience connect with global practices and, thus, the possibility of consilience between phenomenological research and present-day STS. (shrink)

Chicana feminist writers have written eloquently about the condition of women in their communities. Many of them have aligned themselves with and participated in various political movements. This practice has infused their theorizing with various influences which makes them similar to other feminist theorists but also different. This paper provides an overview of how Chicana feminist writings address the ethnic specific ways in which gender oppression is imposed on them and their proposals for liberation.