Economic forecasting is famously unreliable. While this problem has traditionally been blamed on theories such as the efficient market hypothesis or even the butterfly effect, an alternative explanation is the role of money – something which is typically downplayed or excluded altogether from economic models. Instead, models tend to treat the economy as a kind of barter system in which money's only role is as an inert medium of exchange. Prices are assumed to almost perfectly reflect the (...) 'intrinsic value' of an asset. This paper argues, however, that money is better seen as an inherently dualistic phenomenon, which merges precise number with the fuzzy concept of value. Prices are not the optimal result of a mechanical, Newtonian process, but are an emergent property of the money system. And just as quantum physics has its uncertainty principle, so the economy is an uncertain process which can only be approximated by mathematical models. Acknowledging the dynamic and paradoxical qualities of money changes our ontological framework for economic modelling, and for making decisions under uncertainty. Applications to areas of risk analysis, forecasting and modelling are discussed, and it is proposed that a greater appreciation of the fundamental causes of uncertainty will help to make the economy a less uncertain place. (shrink)

Local Currencies, Local Exchange Trading Systems, and Time Banks are all part of a new social movement that aims to restrict money's purchasing power within a certain geographic area, or within a certain community. According to their proponents, these restrictions may contribute to building sustainable local economies, supporting local businesses and creating “warmer” social relations. This article inquires whether the overall enthusiasm that surrounds alternative currencies is justified. It argues that the potential benefits of these currencies are (...) not sufficient to justify the restrictions they impose on money's purchasing power. Turning these currencies into effective channels of change, by increasing their scope and their strength, could severely hinder the pursuit of social justice, in a way that is probably not even necessary for achieving their objectives. The paper concludes that large-scale limitations of money's purchasing power are, therefore, undesirable. (shrink)

This article extends the critique of finance to money itself. It argues that our understanding of money has been distorted by a series of myths about its origin and nature, in particular, the claim that money emerged from the adoption of precious metal coinage in market systems. These myths obscure the social and political history of money and the role of states in money creation and circulation. Neoliberal ideology, by contrast, adopts a “handbag economics” (...) that treats the state as a dependent household rather than an economic actor in its own right. An alternative view of money is put forward that sees money as a social and political construct and not just a passive reflection of market activity. It is argued that the sovereign power to create money should be recognized, reclaimed, and democratized as a public resource. (shrink)

Summary John Locke intervened in two major debates in which the issue of species featured: (1) the question of whether species designations are based on real essences or only nominal essences (discussed in the Essay), and (2) the debate over the recoinage of English currency in the 1690s, in which Locke argued for a restoration of silver depleted by widescale clipping (discussed in his economic writings published between 1692–95). This article investigates Locke's position on the recoinage and considers alternative (...) proposals in the period, including those which advocated the introduction of a ‘new species’ of money in the form of credit, based on land. Locke opened the space, philosophically, for innovations in defining money, but endorsed a narrower conception of money as silver by weight alone (not by its stamp or denomination). His rationale for doing so exposes his attachment to shared systems of measurement, intersubjective agreement and ways of stabilizing meaning by reference to external criteria (in this case, the weight of silver, a measure that functioned internationally). This suggests a pattern of attempting to constrain the nominalism that his system otherwise foregrounded. (shrink)

In Monetary Evolution, Free Banking, and Economic Order, Stephen Horwitz has provided an excellent review of the profound problems in the neoclassical theory of money and an important statement of the alternative Austrian?school approach. However, Horwitz's ?free banking? perspective rests on a false dichotomy between intervention and spontaneous order. In using the extreme case of an entirely undesigned evolutionary process to counter the equally extreme proposition that social order can be wholly designed, Horwitz loses sight of the messy (...) world of intermediate realities and possibilities. Even if money has strong spontaneous qualities, the state may play a vital role in the evolution of the financial system. (shrink)

The paper presents the findings of ethnographic research and a survey of a Local Exchange Trading Scheme in North-East London and asks the question of whether the scheme delivers on the aims and objectives of its members. The research found that whilst its members express a strong politically motivated desire for an alternative to the prevailing economic system, the LETS scheme falls short of delivering on those ambitions. The findings raise the question of whether there is anything intrinsic to (...) this form of local community currency that leads it to be more inclusive, egalitarian and fair. (shrink)

In recent years social financiers have been increasingly investing in alternative food systems to improve sustainability outcomes. However, social finance for alternative food systems remains small and marginalized. This article seeks to understand why this approach is not yet making a larger impact towards food system transformation. It does so by investigating a specific application of social finance through the case of Slow Money to get answers as to why social finance occupies a niche role (...) in food system transformation. These answers provide helpful lessons for Alternative Food Networks (AFNs) seeking to transform food systems towards greater sustainability. This study tracks the intended impacts of these initiatives and provides insights about the potential role of social finance for promoting AFNs. Key themes emerged regarding the ability of social financing initiatives to support AFNs and transform the food system for greater sustainability. These themes resonate with the literature on AFNs in meaningful ways, but also highlight an important contradiction between systemic change and individual action. The findings show that the Slow Money model contains some useful elements for radical transformation but is ultimately limited in its ability to support deeper, transformative change. The conclusion advances recommendations for ways of enhancing the transformative potential of community financing initiatives in light of the findings, emphasizing the role of public investments. (shrink)

This study considers cultural crowdfunding as a heterogeneous system that allows money and attention to flow from backers to founders of cultural projects in diverse cultural sectors and focuses on the nature of the standards governing it. It analyzes Kickstarter’s corporate blog since the platform’s launch and finds indications that social media practices are increasingly naturalized as integral to crowdfunding and that social media architectures are increasingly adopted by the crowdfunding platform. This, I argue, has a potential exclusionary effect. (...) At the same time, the analysis finds evidence that Kickstarter is striving to develop an independent capacity to set aesthetic standards, which might moderate that effect and help constitute crowdfunding as an alternative decentralized arena for the funding of culture. (shrink)

Alternative Learning System (ALS) has been adopted in Philippine basic education, yet there is no academic institution in the region prepares ALS teachers in teaching life skills. ALS teachers graduated from different programs of teacher education for formal education. In response, an extension project was conceptualized and implemented to enhance the teaching capacity and effectiveness of ALS teachers. Case study was conducted to evaluate the effectiveness of the project. It explored the transfer of life skills among ALS teachers. Data (...) were collected from multiple sources. Interview and written responses, and feedbacks were analyzed using thematic narrative analysis. Other data were analyzed using document and descriptive analyses. The project had achieved its objectives and rated best by participants. These indicate that the project was implemented effectively and successfully. ALS teachers have acquired life skills and transferred them to others. Thus, the project has made a difference in the lives of these teachers. (shrink)

In this paper, we critically interrogate the benefits of an interdisciplinary and theoretically diverse dialogue between ‘local food’ and ‘alternative food networks’ and outline how this dialogue might be enriched by a closer engagement with discourses of food sovereignty and the politics of scale. In arguing for a shift towards a greater emphasis on food sovereignty, we contend that contemporary discourses of food security are inadequate for the ongoing task of ensuring a just and sustainable economy of food. Further, (...) rather than treating the local and the global as ontologically given categories around which to contest the politics of food, it is our contention that recognising the socio-spatial aspects of the politics of scale has the potential to reinvigorate discourses of food security, food sovereignty and AFNs. Understanding scale as both fixed to a degree as well as contingent and dynamic has implications for an understanding of the role of food systems, for how the rescaled state privileges certain food systems and the possibilities for resistance through ‘jumping scale’ and food utopias. All of these aspects are significant if we are to fully comprehend and contest the challenges of envisioning and enacting real utopias of food sovereignty. (shrink)

Alternative food systems have arisen to address societal concerns with the treatment of Nonhuman Animals in food production. This paper presents an abolitionist Nonhuman Animal rights approach and critiques these alternative systems as problematic in regards to goals of considering the rights or welfare of Nonhuman Animals. It is proposed that the trend in social movement professionalization within the structure of a non-profit industrial complex will ultimately favor compromises like “humane” products over more radical abolitionist solutions (...) to the detriment of Nonhuman Animals. This paper also discusses potential compromises for alternative food systems that acknowledge equal consideration for Nonhuman Animals, focusing on grassroots veganism as a necessary component for consistency and effectiveness. (shrink)

In this paper we describe an approach to practical reasoning, reasoning about what it is best for a particular agent to do in a given situation, based on presumptive justifications of action through the instantiation of an argument scheme, which is then subject to examination through a series of critical questions. We identify three particular aspects of practical reasoning which distinguish it from theoretical reasoning. We next provide an argument scheme and an associated set of critical questions which is able (...) to capture these features. In order that both the argument scheme and the critical questions can be given precise interpretations we use the semantic structure of an Action-Based Alternating Transition System as the basis for their definition. We then work through a detailed example to show how this approach to practical reasoning can be applied to a problem solving situation, and briefly describe some other previous applications of the general approach. In a second example we relate our account to the social laws paradigm for co-ordinating multi-agent systems. The contribution of the paper is to provide firm foundations for an approach to practical reasoning based on presumptive argument in terms of a well-known model for representing the effects of actions of a group of agents. (shrink)

Many scientific models in biology are how-possibly models. These models depict things as they could be, but do not necessarily capture actual states of affairs in the biological world. In contemporary philosophy of science, it is customary to treat how-possibly models as second-rate theoretical tools. Although possibly important in the early stages of theorizing, they do not constitute the main aim of modelling, namely, to discover the actual mechanism responsible for the phenomenon under study. In the paper it is argued (...) that this prevailing picture does not do justice to the synthetic strategy that is commonly used in biological engineering. In synthetic biology, how-possibly models are not simply speculations or eliminable scaffolds towards a single how-actually model, but indispensable design hypotheses for a field whose ultimate goal is to build novel biological systems. The paper explicates this by providing an example from the study of alternative genetic systems by synthetic biologist Steven Benner and his group. The case will also highlight how the method of synthesis, even when it fails, provides an effective way to limit the space of possible models for biological systems. (shrink)

The utilization of alternative medical therapies and practitioners has increased dramatically in the U.S. in the last two to three decades. This trend seems paradoxical when one considers the rapid advances taking place in biomedical knowledge and technology during this same time period. Observers both inside and outside of the medical profession have attempted to explain the rising popularity of alternative medicine by proposing that it signals a growing sense of dissatisfaction and disenchantment with professional biomedical practices on (...) the part of the lay public. This paper challenges this thesis and offers an alternative explanation, arguing that the rise of alternative medicine is a consequence of the success and expanding influence of biomedicine rather than its failure and declining authority. The argument presented draws primarily on Ulrich Beck’s “risk society” perspective and theory of “reflexive modernization,” with specific attention to his analysis of the “reflexive scientization” process. The application of this perspective allows us to understand the emergence and development of alternative medicine as an unanticipated consequence of the process of reflexive biomedicalization in the late modern era. (shrink)

Scientists are typically responsible for greater greenhouse gas emissions than the general population. These ‘extra’ emissions are largely due to frequent travel, often by airplane, to professional and academic meetings. In the following commentary, we explore how employing mixed modes of transportation, particularly by prioritizing train travel, can significantly reduce the environmental costs associated with attending conferences. Estimating travel distances for attendants to recent meetings, we demonstrate that the proposed strategy has the potential to decrease emissions, even when considering exotic, (...) remote (and potentially enticing) locations. Our suggestions are easy to implement, can be combined with previous proposals for reducing emissions, and provide an opportunity for scientists to convey an important message to the general public. This message is not confined to our particular example and we hope that it will encourage ecologists, sociologists and other scientists, historians and philosophers to pursue additional creative behavioural solutions in order to reduce our impact on an increasingly stressed ecosphere. (shrink)

Spatial localization, often demarcated by food miles, has emerged as the dominant theme in movements for more socially just and environmentally benign alternative food systems, especially in industrialized countries such as the United States. We analyze how an emphasis on spatial localization, combined with the difficulty of defining and measuring adequate indicators for alternative food systems, can challenge efforts by food system researchers, environmental writers, the engaged public, and advocacy groups wanting to contribute to alternative (...) food systems, and facilitates exploitation by the mainstream players using “localwash” to maintain the status quo. New indicators are urgently needed because research shows that spatial localization in general and minimized food miles in particular are not adequate or even required for most of the goals of alternative food systems. Creating indicators to operationalize goals for alternative, local food systems requires asking the right questions to make sure indicators are not misleading us: What are the goals of alternative food systems? What actions and policies will most effectively achieve those goals? What is the potential of reducing food miles as an action and a policy for achieving goals? What are the best indicators for measuring progress toward goals? We discuss how these questions can be answered for a wide range of alternative food system goals via four categories according to the role of food miles reduction as an action and policy in promoting them: necessary and sufficient, necessary but not sufficient, potentially important, and potentially supportive. (shrink)

This study aims to identify the necessary strategies for the development of a sustainable financial system. For this purpose, a novel approach could be provided for soft computing with Gaussian-based fuzzy DEMATEL approach to understand the significant levels and impact-relation degrees of these criteria. For robustness check, this evaluation has also been performed for triangular and trapezoidal fuzzy sets. There are many novelties of this study. Firstly, computer science has a significant role in the decision-making process. Another specificity is that (...) the use of Gaussian numbers with fuzzy numbers is a new area. In addition, interval type-2 fuzzy sets also provide a significant advantage in decision-making under uncertainty. The results demonstrate that the size of the alternative financing, investment in efficient projects, and effective advertisement/promotions are the most important items to affect the performance of alternative banking system of emerging economies. Hence, it is recommended that the new banking applications should be applied by the state or the state can provide some incentives for foreign banks to invest in emerging economies, such as tax reduction. Another important point is that the financial intermediations should generate a component financial analysis team to examine the financial reports of the companies in detail so that the financial credibility of these companies can be evaluated more effectively. (shrink)

We investigate the philosophical significance of the existence of different semantic systems with respect to which a given deductive system is sound and complete. Our case study will be Corcoran's deductive system D for Aristotelian syllogistic and some of the different semantic systems for syllogistic that have been proposed in the literature. We shall prove that they are not equivalent, in spite of D being sound and complete with respect to each of them. Beyond the specific case of (...) syllogistic, the goal is to offer a general discussion of the relations between informal notions—in this case, an informal notion of deductive validity—and logical apparatuses such as deductive systems and (model-theoretic or other) semantic systems that aim at offering technical, formal accounts of informal notions. Specifically, we will be interested in Kreisel's famous 'squeezing argument'; we shall ask ourselves what a plurality of semantic systems (understood as classes of mathematical structures) may entail for the cogency of specific applications of the squeezing argument. More generally, the analysis brings to the fore the need for criteria of adequacy for semantic systems based on mathematical structures. Without such criteria, the idea that the gap between informal and technical accounts of validity can be bridged is put under pressure. (shrink)

The defetishization thesis claims alternative markets can lead to a more honest, less mystified relationship with food production and, in turn, strengthen civil society. Drawing from Marxian political economic and environmental sociological theory, I make three general claims: capitalism is inherently ecologically and socially harmful; “ethical” commodities derived from alternative markets cannot fundamentally counteract the pervasiveness and scale of ; and, because of and, ethical consumerism does not defetishize the commodity form, but acts as a new layer of (...) commodity fetishism that masks the harms of capitalism by convincing society that the harms of capitalism can be rehabilitated with the commodity form itself. Prescriptively, I argue traditional, large-scale political tactics would be needed for “defetishization” to take place. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to explore the ethical dimension of hawala, an ancient informal financial practice rooted in Islamic moral traditions. Widely used in countries with an Islamic background and their diasporas, hawala is considered an important vehicle for the financial and economic development of some less developed countries. Nevertheless, in Western countries, hawala is regarded with suspicion due its controversial ethical nature. Unlike other Islamic financial institutions, the controversial questions are not the legitimacy of profit sources or (...) the interest charged, but rather the lack of transparency that surrounds hawala transactions. Yet, the literature on hawala has neglected its ethical perspective. Our study delves into this dimension with a critical approach, using the Triple Font Theory, grounded on virtue ethics. We conclude that if hawala transactions are carried out with honesty, and fairness, this practice deserves a positive ethical appraisal. However, it is necessary to implement efficient regulatory measures to guarantee that the system is not abused by money launders and criminals. In practice, it becomes imperative to bring over a change in the regulatory approach to hawala toward a more ethically, culturally, and economically sensitive strategy. Thus, future research should focus on how “hyper-norms” or fundamental principles inherent to humanity, which are common to both “formal” and “informal,” “Western” and “non-Western” financial practices, could run the new AML/ctf regulation agenda. (shrink)

Many philosophers have claimed that intentional ascription is not possible if alien peoples are truly radically different from ourselves. At the same time, many anthropologists have claimed that the people they study think very differently from the way that we do. I claim that it is possible for both the anthropologists and the philosophers to be right. Giving intentional descriptions is problematic for people unlike ourselves, but anthropologists can, and do give good descriptions of alien mental states using descriptions not (...) unlike those given in certain formulations of cognitive psychology. (shrink)

(2013). Life, Money, and the Deep Tangled Roots of Systemic Change for Sustainability. World Futures: Vol. 69, Reclaiming Free Enterprise: The Scientific and Human Story, pp. 555-571.

Contemporary mainstream economics cannot be seen as disconnected from philosophical concerns. On the contrary, it should be understood as a defence for a specific philosophy, namely, crude quantitative hedonism where money would measure pleasure and pain. Disguised among a great mathematical apparatus involving utility functions, supply, and demand, lies a specific hedonist philosophy that every year is lectured to thousands of economic and business students around the world. This hedonist philosophy is much less sophisticated than that in ancient hedonist (...) philosophers as Epicurus or Lucretius. Furthermore, it does not solve any of the systematic difficulties regularly faced by hedonist philosophy. However, the argument that economics is detached from philosophy works as a rhetorical artifice to protect its dominant underlying philosophy: Philosophical disputes would have to be addressed within the biased mathematical apparatus of quantitative hedonism. Economists and business students must learn to identify the underlying philosophy in mainstream economics and alternative philosophical systems. (shrink)

In The Construction of Social Reality, John Searle develops a theory of institutional facts and objects, of which money, borders and property are presented as prime examples. These objects are the result of us collectively intending certain natural objects to have a certain status, i.e. to ‘count as’ being certain social objects. This view renders such objects irreducible to natural objects. In this paper we propose a radically different approach that is more compatible with standard economic theory. We claim (...) that such institutional objects can be fully understood in terms of actions and incentives, and hence the Searlean apparatus solves a non-existent problem. (shrink)

Scholarly debates on sustainable consumption have generally overlooked alternative agro-food networks in the economies outside of Western Europe and North America. Building on practice-based theories, this article focuses on informal raw milk markets in post-socialist Lithuania to examine how such alternative systems emerge and operate in the changing political, social, and economic contexts. It makes two contributions to the scholarship on sustainable consumption. In considering semi-subsistence practices and poverty-driven consumption, this article argues for a richer, more critical, (...) and inclusive theory of sustainability that takes into consideration vernacular forms of exchange and approaches poor consumers as subjects of global history. Second, it revisits practice theories and infrastructures of consumption approaches to consider ruptures, discontinuities, and historical change in infrastructures as a way to account for inequalities and experiences of marginalization. (shrink)

Alternative cleavage and polyadenylation (APA) can diversify coding and non‐coding regions, but has particular impact on increasing 3′ UTR diversity. Through the gain or loss of regulatory elements such as RNA binding protein and microRNA sites, APA can influence transcript stability, localization, and translational efficiency. Strikingly, the central nervous systems of invertebrate and vertebrate species express a broad range of transcript isoforms bearing extended 3′ UTRs. The molecular mechanism that permits proximal 3′ end bypass in neurons is mysterious, (...) and only beginning to be elucidated. This landscape of neural 3′ UTR extensions, many reaching unprecedented lengths, may help service the unique post‐transcriptional regulatory needs of neurons. A combination of approaches, including transcriptome‐wide profiling, genetic screening to identify APA factors, biochemical dissection of alternative 3′ end formation, and manipulation of individual neural APA targets, will be necessary to gain fuller perspectives on the mechanism and biology of neural‐specific 3′ UTR lengthening. (shrink)

This paper presents a constructivist grounded theory on the decision-making process that UK home and alternative educators undertake and the related influencing factors. Twenty-one participants from a diverse range of backgrounds were interviewed between one and three times over a two-year period. Some were current home and alternative educators and others were undecided, or had changed their minds about home educating. The core process is entitled ‘Stepping out of the system?’ It was constructed from three main categories: attitudinal (...) direction, surveying the landscape and negotiating obstacles. Parents have opinions of school that developed before they began to consider how to educate their child; attitudes which are affect laden and guide the process of information gathering. The surveying the landscape stage involves both formal research and informal methods such as hearing the views of others and acting upon their own feelings. The final stage, negotiating obstacles, involves finding practical solutions to barriers they may face. The grounded theory is enriched and deepened by Reddy’s (2010) concept of emotional refuges. (shrink)

This article argues for a task-based approach to identifying and individuating cognitive systems. The agent-based extended cognition approach faces a problem of cognitive bloat and has difficulty accommodating both sub-individual cognitive systems ("scaling down") and some supra-individual cognitive systems ("scaling up"). The standard distributed cognition approach can accommodate a wider variety of supra-individual systems but likewise has difficulties with sub-individual systems and faces the problem of cognitive bloat. We develop a task-based variant of distributed cognition (...) designed to scale up and down smoothly while providing a principled means of avoiding cognitive bloat. The advantages of the task-based approach are illustrated by means of two parallel case studies: re-representation in the human visual system and in a biomedical engineering laboratory. (shrink)

Stanovich & West's dual-system represents a major development in an understanding of reasoning and rationality. Their notion of System 1 functioning as a computational escape hatch during the processing of complex tasks may deserve a more central role in explanations of reasoning performance. We describe examples of apparent escape-hatch processing from the reasoning and judgement literature.

The teikei movement is a Japanese version of the alternative food movement, which emerged around the late 1960s and early 1970s. Similar to now well-known Community Supported Agriculture, it is a farmer-consumer partnership that involves direct exchanges of organic foods. It also aims to build a community that coexists with the natural environment through mutually supportive relationships between farmers and consumers. This article examined the history of the teikei movement. The movement began as a reaction to negative impacts of (...) mechanized and chemically intensive agriculture promoted by the Japanese government. The movement experienced a rapid expansion in the early 1980s, and then gradually declined thereafter. The organic market expansion and certification system intersected with both cultural and gender role changes, impacting the teikei movement negatively. Consequently, the membership of teikei consumer groups has shrunk. Furthermore, the March 2011 Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant accident caused unprece dented damage to organic farmers in the affected regions. Despite the scientific uncertain about the safety level of radiation exposure, the organic farmers and the teikei consumer groups managed the situation and found a way to inspect radiation contamination. They did so with the support by networking with other teikei-related actors. This response to the nuclear power plant accident suggests that although the level of embeddedness presumably varies among teikei actors, ethics guided by the teikei principles are effective in forging a resilient partnership between farmers and consumers and in keeping the teikei system alive as an agent for social change. (shrink)

Alternative food networks (AFN) are argued to provide platforms to re-socialize and re-spacealize food, establish and contribute to democratic participation in local food chains, and foster producer–consumer relations and trust. As one of the most recent examples of AFN, Participatory Guarantee Systems (PGS) have gained notable traction in attempting to redefine consumer-producer relations in the organic value chain. The participation of stakeholders, such as consumers, has been a key element theoretically differentiating PGS from other organic verification systems. (...) While research on farmer participation in PGS is attracting interest, consumer participation is still widely overlooked. Using a mixed methods approach, this paper describes five PGS markets in Mexico, Chile and Bolivia. A survey was conducted with consumers in the PGS markets to explore their awareness of the PGS, how consumers participate in the PGS, and their level of trust in the respective PGS and its certified products. Results showed a low level of awareness of PGS among market consumers, few participation possibilities, and minimal consumer participation overall. Nevertheless, trust in organic quality was generally high. Consumers primarily relied on the direct relationship with producers and the PGS market itself as sources of trust. These results provide novel insight into PGS consumer-market interactions, and contribute to discussions concerning social embeddedness, awareness and participation within AFN. (shrink)

Social and environmental shocks associated with freshwater management are inherently tied with the lives and well-being of all global citizens. Thus, exploring key actors’ roles is a critical element of this grand challenge. Utilizing an inductive multiple case study, we explore sustainability leadership and subsequent organizational perspective-taking behaviours initiated by actors within freshwater management in response to the grand challenge. A vibrant inductive model elicited three main themes: identifying conditions for organizational perspective-taking, modifying organizational frames of reference and emergence of (...) multi-level influence. The discussion extracts critical insights for sustainability leadership and highlights complexities involved in facilitating effective decision-making among diverse actors. Fundamentally, this article contributes a distinct multi-level systems framework for sustainability leadership drawing from social–ecological systems theory and organizational resilience. We conclude by offering future research opportunities within sustainability leadership designed to bridge the gap between grand challenges and our abilities to solve them. (shrink)

Suppose that you prefer A to B, B to C, and C to A. Your preferences violate Expected Utility Theory by being cyclic. Money-pump arguments offer a way to show that such violations are irrational. Suppose that you start with A. Then you should be willing to trade A for C and then C for B. But then, once you have B, you are offered a trade back to A for a small cost. Since you prefer A to B, (...) you pay the small sum to trade from B to A. But now you have been turned into a money pump. You are back to the alternative you started with but with less money. This Element shows how each of the axioms of Expected Utility Theory can be defended by money-pump arguments of this kind. The Element also defends money-pump arguments from the standard objections to this kind of approach. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core. (shrink)

Alternative dispute resolution occurs outside the litigation process. The alternative dispute resolution (ADR) movement in North America has emphasized viable alternatives to the litigation framework, such as arbitration, mediation, med-arb, multi-party facilitation, non-legal negotiation, mini-trials, administrative hearings, private judging (“renta-judge”), fact finding, and moderated settlement conferences. This essay addresses argument in the dominant alternatives: arbitration, mediation, and multi-party facilitation. Prior to comparing argument in these ADR systems, each will be briefly described.

This conceptual paper addresses Management Accounting and Control Systems (MACS) from a communication process perspective as opposed to a functionaldesign perspective. Its arguments originate from a social-constructionist perspective on the organization. Its line of argument is that building a social theoryof a social phenomenon such as MACS, demands that attention be paid to the characteristics of the communication process. An existing theoretical frameworkthat does the same is Giddens’ structuration theory, but it is only partly satisfactory because it refuses to (...) consider communication-as-interaction from a dynamiccontextual perspective, instead falling back on an argument related to the behavioural aspects of agency. An alternative is a semiotic-based communicationperspective that includes context as well as addresses the epistemological level of a MACS theory based on communication. The semiotic model of Jakobson is provided and developed as a specific alternative. (shrink)

Contemporary Humeans treat laws of nature as statements of exceptionless regularities that function as the axioms of the best deductive system. Such ‘Best System Accounts’ marry realism about laws with a denial of necessary connections among events. I argue that Hume’s predecessor, George Berkeley, offers a more sophisticated conception of laws, equally consistent with the absence of powers or necessary connections among events in the natural world. On this view, laws are not statements of regularities but the most general rules (...) God follows in producing the world. Pace most commentators, I argue that Berkeley’s view is neither instrumentalist nor reductionist. More important, the Berkeleyan Best System can solve some of the problems afflicting its Humean rivals, including the problems of theory choice and Nancy Cartwright’s ‘facticity’ dilemma. Some of these solutions are available in the contemporary context, without any appeal to God. Berkeley’s account deserves to be taken seriously in its own right. (shrink)