This article presents the results of a systematic literature review on religiosity and spirituality, particularly in the work context. We aimed to verify the state-of-the-art of scientific production related to these themes. To achieve the proposed objective, we identified 312 articles published in journals in the period between 1960 and 2018 using a rigourous method of analysis and sorting, which resulted in 52 appropriate studies. The analyses presented are based on the three bibliometric laws: those of Lotka, Bradford and Zipf. (...) This article brings contributions that encompass four approaches: measurement scales of spirituality and religiosity; behavioural benefits of religiosity in individuals; insertion of religiosity and spirituality in social service practice; and research directions. This research presents technical and managerial implications to provide theoretical support for the creation of programmes and/or practices of spirituality and religion in the workplace as an effective strategy, towards ethical attitudes. Also, this study contributes to the methodological achievement of SLRs in the field of religion in the workplace, highlighting an effective method for thematic mapping, and holistically identifying new research topics and directions, especially because of the several guidelines presented. (shrink)

This paper addresses word learning for human–robot interaction. The focus is on making a robotic agent aware of its surroundings, by having it learn the names of the objects it can find. The human user, acting as instructor, can help the robotic agent ground the words used to refer to those objects. A lifelong learning system, based on one-class learning, was developed. This system is incremental and evolves with the presentation of any new word, which acts as a class to (...) the robot, relying on instructor feedback. A novel experimental evaluation methodology, that takes into account the open-ended nature of word learning, is proposed and applied. This methodology is based on the realization that a robot’s vocabulary will be limited by its discriminatory capacity which, in turn, depends on its sensors and perceptual capabilities. The results indicate that the robot’s representations are capable of incrementally evolving by correcting class descriptions, based on instructor feedback to classification results. In successive experiments, it was possible for the robot to learn between 6 and 12 names of real-world office objects. Although these results are comparable to those obtained by other authors, there is a need to scale-up. The limitations of the method are discussed and potential directions for improvement are pointed out. (shrink)

A geografia viúva da revolução -- A impotência das teorias críticas no domínio prático e a lógica dos maus perdedores -- Das origens às novas gerações da geocrítica : a doutrinação no sistema de ensino -- A geografia escolar : doutrinação ideológica e incapacidade de desenvolver competências -- Um balanço final e um último questionamento.

We present an experiment designed to investigate three different mechanisms to achieve impartiality in distributive justice. We consider a first-person procedure, inspired by the Rawlsian veil of ignorance, and two third-party procedures, an involved spectator and a detached observer. First-person veiled stakeholders and involved spectators are affected by an initially unfair distribution that, in the stakeholders’ case, is to be redressed. We find substantial differences in the redressing task. Detached observers propose significantly fairer redistributions than veiled stakeholders or involved spectators. (...) Risk preferences partly explain why veiled stakeholders propose less egalitarian redistributions. Surprisingly, involved spectators, who are informed about their position in society, tend to favour stakeholders holding the same position as they do after the initial distribution. (shrink)

Este artigo tem por objetivo analisar o projeto arquitetônico de fundamentação da ética do discurso desenvolvido por Karl-Otto Apel, a partir da década de 70. Pretendemos mostrar que Apel, a partir da linguagem, buscará desenvolver uma ética da responsabilidade para a sociedade global. Neste sentido, a linguagem enquanto médium intransponível de toda reflexão teórica e prática fundamenta uma intersubjetividade, que torna possível uma ética do acordo mútuo. Esta ética buscará dar conta, não apenas do plano normativo, mas, levará em consideração, (...) também, o âmbito prático de fundamentação. (shrink)

We perform an experimental investigation using a dictator game in which individuals must make a moral decision —to give or not to give an amount of money to poor people in the Third World. A questionnaire in which the subjects are asked about the reasons for their decision shows that, at least in this case, moral motivations carry a heavy weight in the decision: the majority of dictators give the money for reasons of a consequentialist nature. Based on the results (...) presented here and of other analogous experiments, we conclude that dicator behavior can be understood in terms of moral distance rather than social distance and that it systematically deviates from the egoism assumption in economic models and game theory. (shrink)

Neste artigo analisaremos como a filosofia de Charles Sanders Peirce influencia o pensamento de Karl-Otto Apel na elaboração da sua ética do discurso. Pretendemos mostrar que Apel compreende que Peirce elabora uma transformação da filosofia transcendental kantiana, substituindo o “eu penso” por um “eu argumento”, neste viés Peirce demonstrou a existência de um acordo mútuo intersubjetivo dentro da comunidade científica. Sendo que, este acordo é mediado pela linguagem, e se dá em função da garantia da verdade das proposições. Conclui-se que (...) Apel ver em Peirce a introdução de uma ética mínima que supera o solipsismo metódico, e se baseia na intersubjetividade, tornando possível um acordo mútuo, que mais tarde será a base para a fundamentação pragmático-transcendental da ética do discurso. (shrink)

Neste artigo abordaremos a questão da mentira, em Kant, vinculando a questões de ordem moral. Pois, sendo a ética e o direito ramos da moral, o problema da mentira encontra-se em saber se ela é uma questão ética ou jurídica, ou se é um problema moral, que engloba tanto a ética como o direito, que não legitimam tal ato. Iniciaremos esta unidade com a análise dos conceitos de moral, ética e direito buscando compreender o que constitui cada um desses campos (...) da cultura e qual a distinção entre ambos. Em seguida trataremos, em especial, da questão da mentira na filosofia prática de Kant, abordando o seu posicionamento ético sobre o ato de mentir, onde é levantada a questão em saber se uma falsa declaração pode ser legitimada ou não. Por fim, analisaremos o debate entre Kant e Benjamim Constant, sobre a problemática da mentira, onde será tratada a questão de um suposto direito de mentir e dos princípios gerais e intermediários, a saber, se é possível a aplicação de um princípio geral de forma absoluta isolada sem o auxílio de princípios intermediários. (shrink)

There are numerous studies that, from different perspectives, have dealt with the debate held in the Spanish Empire during the 16th century on the slavery of the American Indians, starring –among others– by Francisco de Vitoria and his disciples from the School of Salamanca, and also –outside the academic sphere– by Fray Bartolomé de las Casas and Juan Ginés de Sepúlveda. The purpose of this work is to study whether this debate made its mark in Spanish society. For this, it (...) is analyzed three theatrical pieces from the Golden Age signed by playwrights of the stature of Tirso de Molina, Lope de Vega and Pedro Calderón de Barca, who –given their enormous popularity– had the capacity to reach the wide audience that congregated in the corrals of comedies. Were these three writers influenced by the controversy over the Indians carried out, among other authors, by Vitoria, Las Casas and Sepúlveda? Did they fully grasp in their works the subtle debate that Vitoria, Las Casas and Sepúlveda maintained when they interpreted Aristotelian arguments on slavery and the consequences that derived from them in terms of the possibility of enslaving or not the Indians? (shrink)

The review is devoted to a joint monograph of Phenomenological Approaches to Intersubjectivity and Values published in 2019. The peculiarity and novelty of this monograph is that it is devoted not so much to the cognitive and epistemological aspects of phenomenology of intersubjectivity as to ethical, existential and value problems of relations with the Others, presented in various phenomenological concepts. One of the advantages of the work is the pluralistic approach, which allows the reader to get acquainted with the solutions (...) to the problem of intersubjectivity posed by a number of the most prominent phenomenologists, i. e. Husserl, Scheler, Heidegger, Sartre, Marcel, Levinas and others. The book traces the idea that emerging of the topic of intersubjectivity in phenomenology caused a socio-ethical and axiological shift in the phenomenological movement. Considering moving of modern philosophy towards “the intersubjective paradigm”, the aim of the authors of the monograph to show the relevance and innovation of phenomenology in discussing the problems of the Other, communication and ethics can be assessed as a promising theoretical project. Whereas critics of the phenomenological movement reproached “methodological solipsism” of phenomenology, which develops Cartesian-Kantian subjectivism, a serious analysis of the works of the most prominent representatives of the phenomenological tradition leads the authors of the monograph to the conclusion that a phenomenological subject is social in its essence. The review draws a conclusion that the joint monograph brings into sharp focus that phenomenology is in possession of deep and diverse ways of studying the common being of people and collectively shared values. (shrink)

There is not one but many ways to picture the world--Australian "x-ray" pictures, cubish collages, Amerindian split-style figures, and pictures in two-point perspective each draw attention to different features of what they represent. Understanding Pictures argues that this diversity is the central fact with which a theory of figurative pictures must reckon. Lopes advances the theory that identifying pictures' subjects is akin to recognizing objects whose appearances have changed over time. He develops a schema for categorizing the different ways (...) pictures represent--the different kinds of meaning they have--and argues that that depiction's epistemic value lies in its representational diversity. He also offers a novel account of the phenomenology of pictorial experience, comparing pictures to visual prostheses like mirrors and binoculars. (shrink)

Empirical research on aesthetic response poses two challenges to philosophy. The more familiar challenge is that scientific explanations of aesthetic responses debunk what we take to be our reasons for those responses. One reaction to this challenge is an accommodation strategy that seeks to reconcile the scientific findings with an improved understanding of our normative reasons. This paper presents a more fundamental challenge: a well-established body of research in social psychology indicates that we routinely confabulate the reasons we give for (...) our aesthetic response. This challenges the accommodation strategy and suggests that philosophy should adopt a more radical naturalism about aesthetic response. (shrink)

Designing an ontology that meets the needs of end-users, e.g., a medical team, is critical to support the reasoning with data. Therefore, an ontology design should be driven by the constant and efficient validation of end-users needs. However, there is not an existing standard process in knowledge engineering that guides the ontology design with the required quality. There are several ontology design processes, which range from iterative to sequential, but they fail to ensure the practical application of an ontology and (...) to quantitatively validate end-user requirements through the evolution of an ontology. In this paper, an ontology design process is proposed, which is driven by end-user requirements, defined as Competency Questions. The process is called CQ-Driven Ontology DEsign Process and it includes activities that validate and verify the incremental design of an ontology through metrics based on defined CQs. CODEP has also been applied in the design and development of an ontology in the context of a Mexican Hospital for supporting Neurologist specialists. The specialists were involved, during the application of CODEP, in collecting quality measurements and validating the ontology increments. This application can demonstrate the feasibility of CODEP to deliver ontologies with similar requirements in other contexts. (shrink)

Educators across the nation are engaged in well-meaning efforts to address diversity in schools given the current context of NCLB, Race to the Top, and the associated pressures of standardization and accountability. Through rich ethnographic accounts of teachers in two demographically different secondary schools in the same urban district, Angelina E. Castagno investigates how whiteness operates in ways that thwart even the best intentions and common sense—thus resulting in educational policies and practices that reinforce the status quo and protect (...) whiteness rather than working toward greater equity. Whereas most discussions of the education of diverse students focus on the students and families themselves, _Educated in Whiteness_ highlights the structural and ideological mechanisms of whiteness. In schools, whiteness remains dominant by strengthening and justifying the status quo while simultaneously preserving a veneer of neutrality, equality, and compassion. Framed by critical race theory and whiteness studies, this book employs concepts like interest convergence, a critique of liberalism, and the possessive investment in whiteness to better understand diversity-related educational policy and practice. Although in theory most diversity-related educational policies and practices are intended to bring about greater equity, too often in practice they actually maintain, legitimate, and so perpetuate whiteness. Castagno not only sheds light on this disconnect between the promises and practices of diversity-related initiatives but also provides insight into _why_ the disconnect persists. (shrink)

Este ensaio expõe parte de uma pesquisa sobre a relação entre natureza e política,com ênfase nos processos de naturalização da vida humana na filosofia políticacontemporânea. O totalitarismo e o domínio total em Hannah Arendt é o aspecto dapesquisa sobre o qual iremos nos deter neste texto. Partiremos do totalitarismo como categorianarracional. Apresentaremos a novidade da forma totalitária de governar; sua base napassagem da questão judaica ao mal radical; as alterações, relacionadas ao tema do poder,serão expostas a partir dos elementos tipificadores (...) do totalitarismo segundo Arendt:massificação, propaganda, movimento-organização, solidão e campos de concentração. (shrink)

This article presents a theoretical model of the self processes involved in autobiographical memories and proposes competing hypotheses for the role of visual perspective in autobiographical memory retrieval. Autobiographical memories can be retrieved from either the 1st person perspective, in which individuals see the event through their own eyes, or from the 3rd person perspective, in which individuals see themselves and the event from the perspective of an external observer. A growing body of research suggests that the visual perspective from (...) which a memory is retrieved has important implications for a person’s thoughts, feelings, and goals, and is integrally related to a host of self-evaluative processes. We review the relevant research literature, present our theoretical model, and outline directions for future research. (shrink)

In recent years, online “involuntary celibate” or “incel” communities have been linked to various deadly attacks targeting women. Why do these men react to romantic rejection with not just disappointment, but murderous rage? Feminists have claimed this is because incels desire women as objects or, alternatively, because they feel entitled to women’s attention. I argue that both of these explanatory models are insufficient. They fail to account for incels’ distinctive ambivalence toward women—for their oscillation between obsessive desire and violent hatred. (...) I propose instead that what incels want is a Beauvoirian “Other.” For Beauvoir, when men conceive of women as Others, they represent them as simultaneously human subjects and embodiments of the natural world. Women function then as sui generis entities through which men can experience themselves as praiseworthy heroes, regardless of the quality of their actions. I go on to give an illustrative analysis of Elliot Rodger’s autobiographical manifesto, “My Twisted World.” I show how this Beauvoirian model sheds light on Rodger’s racist and classist attitudes and gives us a better understanding of his ambivalence toward women. It therefore constitutes a powerful and overlooked theoretical alternative to accounts centered on objectification and entitlement. (shrink)

In this paper we present two types of logics and \ ) where certain p-adic functions are associated to propositional formulas. Logics of the former type are p-adic valued probability logics. In each of these logics we use probability formulas K r,ρ α and D ρ α,β which enable us to make sentences of the form “the probability of α belongs to the p-adic ball with the center r and the radius ρ”, and “the p-adic distance between the probabilities of (...) α and β is less than or equal to ρ”, respectively. Logics of the later type formalize processes of thinking where information are coded by p-adic numbers. We use the same operators as above, but in this formalism K r,ρ α means “the p-adic code of the information α belongs to the p-adic ball with the center r and the radius ρ”, while D ρ α,β means “the p-adic distance between codes of α and β are less than or equal to ρ”. The corresponding strongly complete axiom systems are presented and decidability of the satisfiability problem for each logic is proved. (shrink)

One of the key insights of Simone de Beauvoir’s The Second Sex is the idea that gender-based subordination is not just something done to women, but also something women do to themselves. This raises a question about ethical responsibility: if women are complicit, or actively implicated in their own oppression, are they at fault? Recent Beauvoir scholarship remains divided on this point. Here, I argue that Beauvoir did, in fact, ethically criticize many women for their complicity, as a sign of (...) what she called “bad faith”. I challenge recent accounts by Nancy Bauer and Manon Garcia, who both read Beauvoir as exonerating complicit women. According to this reading, women emerge as human “freedoms” within a social world where a “destiny” of inferiority is already prepared for them. Their self-subordination is then an inevitable product of acting in a patriarchal world. I argue, however, that this interpretation generates a crucial tension, leading Bauer and Garcia to call on women to stop being complicit, while also claiming they cannot avoid complicity. I propose instead a different interpretation, on which feminine complicity is often fueled by criticizable ethical attitudes that are far from inevitable. By revisiting Beauvoir’s notion of “bad faith”, I show that this account is compatible with recognizing the limitations imposed on women’s agency and I show that this feminist ethical criticism is itself an important part of a collective project of social transformation. (shrink)

Lemogne and colleagues offer an interesting extension to their previous work on visual perspective and depression: Individuals at-risk for depression , without a history of mood disorders, report retrieval of positive memories from the 3rd person perspective. Their findings suggest that the retrieval of positive experiences from the 3rd person perspective may be a risk-factor for depression, not just a lingering consequence of it. Their study, however, also reports a genetic association in a severely underpowered sample. Rather than focusing on (...) gene x environment interactions, which large, well-powered studies on related phenotypes have failed to detect, a greater understanding of the phenomenology of visual perspective may be a more fruitful avenue for future research. (shrink)

An outstanding group of leaders left evidence that a richer and more sustainable democracy could be achieved with American independence and democratic principles integrated into a new republican form of government. They were moved by principles that are the very spirit of democracy. These principles are needed to enhance democracy and improve well-being. Using the constructivist tradition of grounded theory and Aristotle’s conception of abstraction, the article proposes a theory of the first principles of democracy based on substantive data: the (...) Declaration of Independence, the Articles of Confederation, The Federalist Papers, and the United States Constitution. Knowledge, fairness, human dignity, hope, unity, and security are the first principles of democracy and are regarded as the bedrock of democracy and a government framework for the people. This theory contributed to a formal model of democratic social change. It also contributes a conceptual framework that supports Solum’s semantic originalism, a theory of constitutional interpretation. The principles of democracy can revitalize democracy and provide new possibilities by protecting education as an innate human right, abolishing capital punishment, criminalizing private prisons on the stock market, and reevaluating the proportionality of prison sentences. (shrink)

The article presents musicological and existentialist philosophical discourses on renaissance and baroque structures in the works of two contemporary classical composers. The existentialist point of view is imposed due to the examination of contemporary music works in which historically conditioned practices are also found. Being and Time and Introduction to Metaphysics by Martin Heidegger serve as a starting point for the reflections. The two works D’Om Le Vrai Sens by Kaija Saariaho and Concerto Grosso “Sun Reflections” by Yordan Goshev are (...) stylistically very different but the first bears renaissance and the second – baroque features respectively. In consequence, Der Man or Das Man is defined by the opposition between renaissance humanism and the metaphysics of Being. (shrink)

Mercier and Sperber (MS) have ventured to undermine an age-old assumption in logic, namely the presence of premise-conclusion structures, in favor of two novel claims: that reasoning is an evolutionary product of a reason-intuiting module in the mind, and that theories of logic teach next to nothing about the mechanisms of how inferences are drawn in that module. The present paper begs to differ: logic is indispensable in formulating conceptions of cognitive elements of reasoning, and MS is no less exempt (...) from taking notice of premise-conclusion structures than the commonplace theories of reasoning are. Our counterclaim is realized in terms of diagrammatic reasoning dating back to Charles Peirce’s pragmaticism. The upshot is that pragmatist logic restores the premise-conclusion structures in argumentation, supplants reason-intuition module with logical content, and validates good reasoning as an indispensable resource evident to all rational minds that claim ownership of reason and understanding. (shrink)

This article considers two alternative responses to the question of the motivation behind the suspensive argumentation developed by the Pyrrhonic version of the ancient scepticism and also shows their respective difficulties: a) the therapeutic motivation, that takes the suspension of assent for the condition to reach not only a state of mental tranquillity concerning matters of opinion but also a moderate attitude towards passions; b) the epistemic motivation, which states that the suspension corresponds to the unique possibility to preserve philosophical (...) life in the absence of rational criteria to decide among competing philosophical theories. The latter kind of motivation, which consists in creating propitious conditions for the search for the truth, has nothing to do with the methodic motivation characterizing the modern reception of ancient scepticism. Although this motivation was not present in the Pyrrhonic scepticism, it could not be unknown to the academic sceptics because of their Socratic origins. (shrink)

Developing World Bioethics, Volume 22, Issue 2, Page 76-85, June 2022.

The first part of my paper offers a brief characterization of what I call the non-hegemonic tradition of interpretation of Nietzsche's metaphilosophical program. In the second part, I suggest some small adjustments in the main argument of this tradition of interpretation. In general terms, the non-hegemonic tradition can be characterised by the claim that Nietzsche is a legitimate heir of the metaphilosophical programme first formulated by Friedrich Albert Lange in his ˜History of Materialism and Critique of its Significance for the (...) Present". None of the main interpreters of Nietzsche that I affiliate with this tradition of interpretation has formulated this claim quite explicitly, but I do not think that this characterization is inappropriate and I submit they could all accept it in the terms put forward in the present article. The main thesis states that Lange provides Nietzsche not so much with substantive theses as with the formal aspects of a philosophical programme whose content is drawn from other sources. This is the case, for example, in the attempt (in his early works) to mobilise Schopenhauer's metaphysics without committing himself to his epistemic claims. The attempt to execute this programme is surrounded by tensions that result not so much from Lange's sceptical theses as from what ultimately motivates them: the imperative of intellectual consciousness. This conflict remains unresolved as long as Nietzsche remains committed to the thesis of practical idealism according to which it is up to philosophy to satisfy certain metaphysical needs that are anthropologically unavoidable. The commitment to this anthropological thesis is what effectively places the young Nietzsche in the company of Kant, Schopenhauer and Lange. As soon as Nietzsche has abandoned this youthful commitment, he is prepared to revise his metaphilosophical convictions. (shrink)

This paper discusses two theses about Plato that Nietzsche defends in his lectures on the Athenian philosopher offered by him at the University of Basel during the 1870s. Nietzsche’s first claim concerns Plato’s philosophy: relying on Aristotle, Nietzsche holds that Plato was initially brought to a metaphysically motivated version of scepticism as a result of his affiliation to the Cratilian interpretation of Heraclitus. Although the Socratic method of defining and testing concepts as well as its metaphysical complement, the theory of (...) Forms, has allowed Plato to overcome this kind of metaphysically motivated scepticism, Nietzsche argues that such an overcoming is only provisional if one needs to accept the authenticity of Parmenides, then the arguments displayed in this later dialogue lead to a sceptical conclusion regarding the theory of Forms. The second claim advanced by Nietzsche in his lectures concerns Plato’s philosophical character, which is identified with the figures of the legislator and the political reformer. According to Nietzsche, all of Plato’s philosophical commitments must ultimately be interpreted in the light of his political project, for here there is no place for scepticism anymore. (shrink)

Finally, the first book started Peirceana. Peirceana is expected as a new series that provides access to both Peirce’s mostly unpublished late works and secondary papers, in which ideas of this American philosopher are developed. This edition is opened with three volumes on Peirce’s manuscripts on “Logic of the Future.” The thinker gave this definition to his theory of existential graphs, i.e., a diagrammatical logical project that includes three sections. The sections can roughly correspond to propositional logic, first-order logic and (...) modal logic. The theory of existential graphs is a particular conception. It predicts ideas of proof theory, mathematics of continuity, and cognitive sciences. Besides, it has an impressive philosophical foundation and perfectly emphasizes the importance of diagrammatic notations. Since many writings are published here for the first time, the edition per se is a significant event for the history of logic. However, Peirceana can do more than this. It urges to think of how the logic of 20‒21st centuries would have looked like if Peirce’s intentions were discovered earlier. At the same time, it clarifies the ground for contemporary investigations. Today we have a bunch of papers about various non-classical modifications, extensions, restrictions, and applications of the original theory. Peirceana is projected as the publication that can gather specialists (logicians, philosophers, as well as IT and cognitive science scholars) who are interested in the development of Peirce’s approach. It lets the readers reconsider our ordinary logical conceptions (e.g., reasoning, logical and language analysis, and others) as well as the conventional understanding of the evolution of modern logic. The current paper has two objectives: firstly, it estimates this diplomatic partly critical edition with its several thoroughly elaborated introductions, and secondly, it briefly introduces the existential graphs theory. A set of examples demonstrates the basic principles of this system. (shrink)

Although marijuana use is highly prevalent among university students in Argentina, little is known about the factors that distinguish frequent marijuana users from sporadic users. For this reason, the present study investigated the possible variations in the contexts of consumption, motives for consumption, perceived norms, and protective behavioral strategies among university students with frequent or sporadic marijuana use, and analyzed the usefulness of this set of variables to distinguish between these two types of users. For this purpose, a sample of (...) 1083 Argentine university students completed an online survey on substance use. In particular, this work was conducted with the subsample that reported using marijuana in the last 30 days. The survey asked about marijuana use and associated negative consequences, as well as motives for use, perceived social norms, and protective behavioral strategies. As a result, frequent users had a higher number of negative consequences than sporadic users, and a distinctive profile was found on a set of variables. At the multivariate level, cheerleading motives, protective behavioral strategies, solo use, and college party use discriminated significantly between the two classes of users. Overall, the findings revealed heterogeneous subpopulations of marijuana users that differ not only in use and its consequences, but also in contexts of use and in a set of relevant variables. These distinct subpopulations require different and specific interventions. (shrink)

Few scholars have explored the founding documents to identify the deliberate social change strategy that led to America's independence and a new form of government that was of, by, and for the people. This study aimed to apply a post-hoc polytheoretical framework of power to the findings of a democratic social change study to understand the dynamics of power between Great Britain and the American colonists. The original study employed the constructivist grounded theory tradition to explore democracy in the Declaration (...) of Independence, the Articles of Confederation, The Federalist Papers, and the United States Constitution. This produced two frameworks of power strategies, one empowering and the other demoralizing: principles of democracy and anti-democratic tenets. To gain a holistic perspective of the interplay of power, a polytheoretical framework of power consisting of theories of power proposed by Marx and Engels, Bourdieu, and Foucault was employed to discuss the findings. The findings suggested that democratic social change interacts with structural forces, culture, and power strategy selection. This could provide an alternative lens through which to explore whether people of color in America were used instrumentally to sustain democracy. (shrink)

Published data and studies on research misconduct, which focuses on researchers in Malaysia, is still lacking, therefore, we decided that this was an area for investigation. This study provides qualitative results for the examined issues through series of in-depth interviews with 21 researchers and lecturers in various universities in Malaysia. The aims of this study were to investigate the researchers’ opinions and perceptions regarding what they considered to be research misconduct, their experience with such misconduct, and the factors that contribute (...) to research misconduct. Our findings suggest that the most common research misconducts that are currently being witnessed in Malaysian universities are plagiarism and authorship disputes, however, researchers seldom report incidents of research misconduct because it takes too much time, effort and work to report them, and some are just afraid of repercussions when they do report it. This suggests possible loopholes in the monitoring system, which may allow some researchers to bypass it and engage in misconduct. This study also highlights the structural and individual factors as the most influential factors when it comes to research misconduct besides organizational, situational and cultural factors. Finally, this study highlights the concerns of all participants regarding the ‘publish or perish’ pressure that they believe would lead to a hostile working environment, thus enhancing research misconduct, as researchers tend to think about their own performance rather than that of whole team or faculty. Consequently this weakens the interpersonal relationships among researchers, which may compromise the teaching and supervision of junior researchers and research students. (shrink)