Die Zahl der Staatsrechtler, die die Weimarer Verfassung mit Leidenschaft verteidigten, war gering; noch geringer war die Zahl derer, die auch auf ihrem Fachgebiet fruh zu einer pluralistischen Sicht von "Staat" und "Volk" - und damit nach "Westen" - durchdrangen. Zu ihnen zahlte Karl Loewenstein, der in seiner politikwissenschaftlich orientierten Verfassungslehre ein gegen die Tradition gerichtetes, entontologisiertes Staatsverstandnis entwarf, indem er Verfassung, Institutionen und Gesellschaft "realistisch" begriff. Danach ist der demokratische "Staat" nur der durch "checks and balances" kontrollierte politische Prozess, (...) der sich als Kampf um Macht auf der Grundlage einer Verfassung in offener aber zugleich verfahrensmaaig "zivilisiert-rationaler" Weise vollzieht - und der notfalls als "militant democracy" verteidigt werden muss. Dieser "Verfassungsrealismus" wird in seinen staatstheoretischen und politikwissenschaftlichen Entwicklungs- und Rezeptionslinien sowie anhand zentraler Werkaspekte erortert. (shrink)

Kaum einer hat die offene Gesellschaft in der politischen Philosophie des 20. Jahrhunderts so leidenschaftlich verteidigt wie Karl Popper. Sein Demokratieverstandnis ist eng gekoppelt an seine Wissenschaftstheorie und die Kritik an Platon, Hegel, Marx. Als Liberaler und sozialer Reformist wird er parteiubergreifend zum Stichwortgeber bundesdeutscher Politik seit den 70er Jahren. Popper-Rezeptionen finden sich bis in die Staatsrechtslehre (namentlich Peter Haberle) und das Bundesverfassungsgericht hinein. Noch heute lasst sich mit Popper gegen Diktaturen wie uberhaupt gegen Konzepte von "Gemeinschaft" Position beziehen - (...) aber auch gegen einen pseudo-liberalen, gnadenlosen Kapitalismus der "Ich-AGs". Mit Beitragen von Dorothea Frede, Peter Haberle, Herbert Keuth, Hubert Kiesewetter, Martin H. W. Mollers, Jurgen Nordmann, Harald Stelzer, Robert Chr. van Ooyen, Robert Zimmer. (shrink)

Ernst Fraenkels Neopluralismus zählt zu den 'Klassikern'. Worin zeigt sich seine Anschlussfähigkeit? Antipluralistische Traditionsbestände sind wirkmächtig geblieben. 'Lobbyismus' hat immer noch einen schlechten 'Beigeschmack'. Das Problem von Grundkonsens und Streit stellt sich insbesondere bei politischen Gegnern, die mit 'Freund-Feind-Ideologien' agieren.

Although agreement on the positive sign of the relationship between corporate social and financial performance is observed in the literature, the mechanisms that constitute this relationship are not yet well-known. We address this issue by extending management’s stakeholder theory by adding insights from psychology’s prospect decision theory and sociology’s resource dependence theory. Empirically, we analyze an extensive panel dataset, including information on disaggregated measures of social performance for the S&P 500 in the 1997–2002 period. In so doing, we enrich the (...) extant literature by focusing on stakeholder heterogeneity, perceptional framing, and disaggregated measures of corporate social performance. (shrink)

We examine the impact on firm bribery of two corporate governance devices heavily studied in corporate governance research—i.e., separation of ownership and control, and equity share of the largest shareholder. In addition, we investigate the impact of the principal–owner’s gender on firm bribery. From agency theory, we predict that firms with the owner also acting as a manager (owner–manager) are more likely to engage in bribery compared to their counterparts with separation of ownership and control. We argue that an increase (...) of the equity share of the largest shareholder can either increase or decrease firm bribery likelihood depending on the net cost-benefit effect of such bribery actions. In addition, we predict that bribery is more likely to occur when the principal–owner is male rather than female. Using a rich dataset of the World Bank Enterprise Surveys of 2002–2005, we find that the equity share of the largest shareholder is negatively and male principal–owner is positively associated with the likelihood of firm bribery. Furthermore, we reveal that owner–manager is more likely to bribe when the principal–owner is male rather than female. We also observe that the effect of owner–manager is smaller as the equity share of the largest shareholder increases. (shrink)

Although agreement on the positive sign of the relationship between corporate social and financial performance is observed in the literature, the mechanisms that constitute this relationship are not yet well-known. We address this issue by extending management’s stakeholder theory by adding insights from psychology’s prospect decision theory and sociology’s resource dependence theory. Empirically, we analyze an extensive panel dataset, including information on disaggregated measures of social performance for the S&P 500 in the 1997–2002 period. In so doing, we enrich the (...) extant literature by focusing on stakeholder heterogeneity, perceptional framing, and disaggregated measures of corporate social performance. (shrink)

Morality constructs the relationship between the self and others, providing a sense of appropriateness that facilitates and coordinates social behaviors. We start from Moral Foundation Theory (MFT), and argue that multiple moral domains can shape the meaning of public service and engender Public Service Motivation (PSM). From the lens of cognitive science, we develop a causal map for PSM by understanding the social cognition process underlying PSM, focusing on five innate moralities as the potential antecedents of PSM: Care, Fairness, Authority, (...) Loyalty, and Sanctity. Extending moral domains beyond compassion and justice can provide a disaggregated view of PSM, which may help to identify institutional and cultural variation in the meaning of PSM. We discuss the theoretical implications of synthesizing MFT and PSM literatures, and provide directions for future research that could improve our understanding of PSM. (shrink)

We develop a theory of compliance with corporate governance codes by combining insights from agency, network and reputation theories. Subsequently, we test this theory using a unique dataset with fine-grained compliance information for the book year 2004 as to 130 Dutch stock-listed corporations. We find partial support for our theory.

Bruno Latour is de eerste grote filosoof die de wereld systematisch in termen van netwerken denkt. Hij laat op intrigerende wijze zien hoe talloze uiteenlopende zaken zich met elkaar moeten vervlechten om bureaucratische organisaties, wetenschappelijke theorieën, complexe technologieën en menselijke samenlevingen tot stand te brengen. Als grondlegger van de zogenoemde actor-netwerktheorie speelt hij al meer dan veertig jaar een prominente rol in debatten over wetenschap, politiek, technologie en ecologie.0Latour is wereldwijd een van de meest geciteerde auteurs in de sociale wetenschappen, (...) maar hij staat ook in toenemende mate op de radar van kunstenaars en beleidsmakers. In al deze domeinen doet zijn denken de gemoederen hoog oplopen. Zijn critici noemen hem zowel een gevaarlijke postmodernist als een bloedeloze technocraat. Zijn bewonderaars zien zijn werk juist als een instrument om de wereld met een realistische en inclusieve blik tegemoet te treden.00Arjen Kleinherenbrink (1984) is metafysicus en filosofisch antropoloog aan de Radboud Universiteit, waar hij ook het programma Philosophy, Politics and Society coördineert. Zijn eerdere Nederlandstalige boeken zijn 'Alles is een machine' (2017) en 'Avonturen bestaan niet' (2018, met Simon Gusman). (shrink)

Many philosophers today accept that phenomenal truths cannot be explained in terms of ordinary physical truths. Two possible routes to accounting for consciousness have received much attention: the emergentist route is to accept that ordinary experience is inexplicable in physical terms but that microscopic entities as described in physics nonetheless bring about conscious experience. The second route is to argue that microscopic entities have features not described in physics which can fully explain conscious experience. The view associated with panprotopsychism is (...) that microscopic entities have no phenomenal properties. The view associated with panpsychism is that microscopic entities do have phenomenal properties. In this paper it is argued that if consciousness is extended in space only the latter view is possible. According to this argument for micropsychism, if phenomenal truths are not merely structural, all truths about a whole are truths about its parts plus structural relational truths. If there are phenomenal truths about the whole, this must be because there are phenomenal truths about its parts. It wouldn’t follow that panpsychism is true, since it does not follow that consciousness exists outside the wholes we know to be conscious, but it does follow that emergentism and protopanpsychism are false. (shrink)

We present a model-theoretic approach for reasoning about security protocols, applying recent insights from dynamic epistemic logics. This enables us to describe exactly the subsequent epistemic states of the agents participating in the protocol, using Kripke models and transitions between these based on updates of the agent's beliefs associated with steps in the protocol. As a case study we will consider the SRA Three Pass protocol and discuss the Wide-Mouthed Frog protocol.

Against Continuity is the first book to demonstrate that the beating heart of Gilles Deleuze's philosophy is a systematic ontology of irreducible, singular entities. This requires a radical break with decades of Deleuzian orthodoxy, according to which Deleuze's metaphysics revolves around the dissolution of discrete entities into a continuous world of flows and events.With reference to all of Deleuze's work, including published and untranslated seminars, as well as the recently published 'Lettres et autres textes', Arjen Kleinherenbrink critically compares Deleuze's (...) ontology to seven related contemporary thinkers: Levi Bryant, Maurizio Ferraris, Markus Gabriel, Manuel DeLanda, Graham Harman, Tristan Garcia and Bruno Latour. These comparisons establish Deleuze as an important precursor to object-oriented speculative realism and open up exciting new avenues of thought for critics and supporters of Deleuze alike. (shrink)

We live in turbulent times, our world is changing at accelerating speed. Information is everywhere, but wisdom appears in short supply when trying to address key inter-related challenges of our time such as; runaway climate change, the loss of biodiversity, the depletion of natural resources, the on-going homogenization of culture, and rising inequity. Living in such times has implications for education and learning. This book explores the possibilities of designing and facilitating learning-based change and transitions towards sustainability. In 31 chapters (...) contributors from across the world discuss (re)emerging forms of learning that not only assist in breaking down unsustainable routines, forms of governance, production and consumption, but also can help create ones that are more sustainable. The book has been divided into three parts: re-orienting science and society, re-connecting people and planet and re-imagining education and learning. This is essential reading for educators, educational designers, change agents, researchers, students, policymakers and entrepreneurs alike, who are concerned about the well-being of the planet and convinced of our ability to do better. The content and related issues can be discussed on the blog by editor Arjen Wals: Transformative learning. 'We are living in times of incertitude, complexity, and contestation, but also of connectivity, responsibility, and new opportunities. This book analyses the consequences of these times for learning in formal, non-formal, and informal education. It explores the possibilities offered by the concept of sustainability as a central category of a holistic paradigm which harmonizes human beings with Earth. To change people and to change the world are interdependent processes - this book contributes to both.' Moacir Gadotti, Director of Paulo Freire Institute, São Paulo, Brazil 'I hope you share my excitement about the innovations for sustainability that this book catalogues and analyses. While the ecological news is grim, the human news is not. Even in a time of accelerating change, people are showing their enormous capacities to learn, adapt, restore and protect.' From the Foreword by Juliet Schor, author of ‘True Wealth: how and why millions of Americans are creating a time-rich, ecologically-light, small-scale high-satisfaction economy’ 'This book implies a ‘culture of critical commitment’ in educational thinking and practice - engaged enough to make a real difference to social-ecological resilience and sustainability but reflexively critical enough to learn constantly from experience and to keep options open in working for a sustainability transformation.' From the Afterword by Stephen Sterling, Professor of Sustainability Education, Centre for Sustainable Futures, Plymouth University, United Kingdom. (shrink)

All media begin as a potential in our bodies, expand into the public domain, creating a world – and finally end again in the body, as a way of being, a range of feeling, a belief system. Media theory studies this trajectory. For media theory, media have two limits. Media cannot, by definition, make contact with the extramedial. And when media are translated into software they lose their identity and become part of something beyond media theory.

"This comprehensive volume - containing 27 chapters and contributions from six continents - presents and discusses key principles, perspectives, and practices of social learning in the context of sustainability. Social learning is explored from a range of fields challenged by sustainability including: organizational learning, environmental management and corporate social responsibility; multi-stakeholder governance; education, learning and educational psychology; multiple land-use and integrated rural development; and consumerism and critical consumer education. An entire section of the book is devoted to a number of (...) reflective case studies of people, organizations and communities using forms of social learning in moving towards sustainability. 'This book brings together a range of ideas, stories, and discussions about purposeful learning in communities aimed at creating a world that is more sustainable than the one currently in prospect....The book is designed to expand the network of conversations through which our society can confront various perspectives, discover emerging patterns, and apply learning to a variety of emotional and social contexts.' From the Foreword by Fritjof Capra, co-founder of the Center of Ecoliteracy. 'Joining what is so clear and refreshing in this book with the larger movements toward a critically democratic and activist education that is worthy of its name, is but one step in the struggle for sustainability. But it is an essential step if we are to use the insights that are included in this book.' From the Afterword by Michael Apple, author of 'Educating the ""Right"" Way: Markets, Standards, God, and Inequality'.". (shrink)

In his recent Immaterialism, Graham Harman develops a theory of social objects based on his object-oriented ontology. Whereas some of the more mainstream theories in the humanities would dissolve such objects into their material constituents or their various effects on others, object-oriented social theory theorizes them as inert, resilient entities with a private reality that exceeds their components and actions. Harman’s theory focuses on what social entities are qua objects, and consequently says little about their specificity as social objects. A (...) more complete social theory would also outline how human existence is to be understood in relation to a social world comprised of discrete and inert entities, as opposed to, for example, far more continuous material fields or networks of associations. We argue that an unexpected yet solid candidate for such an extension of object-oriented social theory already exists in Jean-Paul Sartre’s theory of practico-inert being and group formation. We first outline Harman’s and Sartre’s respective ontologies of social objects, and then discuss how their many complementarities make the latter a suitable extension of the former. (shrink)

One of the main criticisms of object-oriented ontology in its current formulation by Graham Harman is that it includes a notion of time that, upon closer inspection, renders the overall theory inconsistent. I argue that while this is indeed the case, Harman’s notion of time can be modified in a way that leaves the framework of object-oriented ontology intact. More specifically, Harman’s theory of time as a single surface tension between sensual objects and their qualities should be expanded into a (...) theory of time as a twofold of related yet irreducible temporalities. Such a theory can already be found in Gilles Deleuze’s The Logic of Sense. I argue that much of the latter theory is already tacitly presupposed in Harman’s ontology, and show that the proposed modification successfully addresses the most salient criticisms that have been voiced at Harman’s notion of time. (shrink)

The concepts of territory and ritornello cannot be separated from one another, despite the fact that scholarship tends to restrict the former to discussions of politics and the latter to discussions of art. Deleuze and Guattari deploy the combination of territory and ritornello, along with associated notions such as rhythm, milieu, counterpoint and force, as a method to describe and understand the formation, existence and relations of living beings. They understand ‘life’ to also include a variety of nonorganic entities, such (...) as social formations. Territory and ritornello provide a philosophical alternative to understanding the existence of beings in terms of an immutable, unchanging transcendent structure, such as divine revelation, politico-economic ideology or cultural identity. As such, this conceptual pair is a necessary element in translating Deleuze and Guattari's metaphysical commitment to immanence and univocity into ethical and political theory and practice. (shrink)

Some variants of Object-Oriented Ontology define entities in terms of their powers. Such variants are rooted in Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari’s theory of “machinic assemblages”. This article asks whether such entities can be metaphysical primitives with regard to similarity and change. This is the case if no further existents are needed to account for these two features of reality. According to Levi Bryant’s machine-oriented ontology, entities defined in terms of powers are such primitives. According to Manuel DeLanda’s assemblage theory, (...) they are not. DeLanda therefore holds that further metaphysical primitives must exist. After reconstructing the key features of the theories involved, I argue that Bryant’s position is ultimately more parsimonious, and that DeLanda’s theory confuses epistemological models with ontological realities. (shrink)

Research into Bergson’s philosophy downplays a key development in his first work, Time and free will. It is there that Bergson explicitly opposes himself to Kant by arguing that succession is not a temporal concept, but a spatial one. This is the crucial point of departure for Bergson’s entire philosophy, one that allows him to radically dismiss Kant’s notion of freedom in favor of one based on duration and multiplicity. This text has two aims. Firstly to add to Bergson scholarship (...) by explicating the structure and force of Bergson’s initial argument against Kant, demonstrating that his engagement with Kant is much less incremental than has been suggested in secondary literature. Secondly, to reconstruct the consequences regarding freedom that Bergson immediately draws in departing from Kant, which illustrates the profundity and originality of his thought at the very inception of his oeuvre. (shrink)

A striking feature of the relatively new philosophical genre of speculative realism is that it includes theories that explicitly seek to bridge or overcome the divide between analytic and continental philosophy. Two such theories are Markus Gabriel’s ontology of fields of sense and Tristan Garcia’s ontology of formal things. Both theories hold that all entities - be they physical, mental, fictional, technical, or otherwise - are equally and irreducibly real. This article first describes the core features of these ontologies. This (...) provides insight into these theories themselves and also gives us a glimpse of what philosophy ‘beyond the divide’ might look like. In addition, both theories are shown to be examples of what I will call ‘relational’ philosophy, or philosophy that exhaustively defines entities in terms of how they appear to or feature in other entities. I argue that all such philosophies are haunted by the ‘infinite deferral of specification,’ a specific problem that I argue renders them inconsistent. Finally, I oppose such ‘relationist’ philosophies to ‘substantialist’ ones, and suggest that this distinction might one day succeed the division between analytic and continental philosophy. (shrink)

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We examine the impact on firm bribery of two corporate governance devices heavily studied in corporate governance research—i.e., separation of ownership and control, and equity share of the largest shareholder. In addition, we investigate the impact of the principal—owner's gender on firm bribery. From agency theory, we predict that firms with the owner also acting as a manager (owner-manager) are more likely to engage in bribery compared to their counterparts with separation of ownership and control. We argue that an increase (...) of the equity share of the largest shareholder can either increase or decrease firm bribery likelihood depending on the net cost-benefit effect of such bribery actions. In addition, we predict that bribery is more likely to occur when the principal— owner is male rather than female. Using a rich dataset of the World Bank Enterprise Surveys of 2002-2005, we find that the equity share of the largest shareholder is negatively and male principal—owner is positively associated with the likelihood of firm bribery. Furthermore, we reveal that owner—manager is more likely to bribe when the principal— owner is male rather than female. We also observe that the effect of owner—manager is smaller as the equity share of the largest shareholder increases. (shrink)

Dynamic Epistemic Logic This article tells the story of the rise of dynamic epistemic logic, which began with epistemic logic, the logic of knowledge, in the 1960s. Then, in the late 1980s, came dynamic epistemic logic, the logic of change of knowledge. Much of it was motivated by puzzles and paradoxes. The number … Continue reading Dynamic Epistemic Logic →.

Dynamic Epistemic Logic This article tells the story of the rise of dynamic epistemic logic, which began with epistemic logic, the logic of knowledge, in the 1960s. Then, in the late 1980s, came dynamic epistemic logic, the logic of change of knowledge. Much of it was motivated by puzzles and paradoxes. The number … Continue reading Dynamic Epistemic Logic →.

This text gives examples of how a different kind of human experience may be explored, and how the methods used for investigating phenomena may contribute to the process of human understanding.