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)

Contemporary discussion concerning institutions focus on, and mostly accept, the Searlean view that institutional objects, i.e. money, borders and the like, exist in virtue of the fact that we collectively represent them as existing. A dissenting note has been sounded by Smit et al. (Econ Philos 27:1–22, 2011), who proposed the incentivized action view of institutional objects. On the incentivized action view, understanding a specific institution is a matter of understanding the specific actions that are associated with the institution and (...) how we are incentivized to perform these actions. In this paper we develop the incentivized action view by extending it to institutions like property, promises and complex financial organisations like companies. We also highlight exactly how the incentivized action view differs from the Searlean view, discuss the method appropriate to such study and discuss some of the virtues of the incentivized action view. (shrink)

What does being money consist in? We argue that something is money if, and only if, it is typically acquired in order to realise the reduction in transaction costs that accrues in virtue of agents coordinating on acquiring the same thing when deciding what thing to acquire in order to exchange. What kinds of things can be money? We argue against the common view that a variety of things (notes, coins, gold, cigarettes, etc.) can be money. All monetary systems are (...) best interpreted as implementing the same basic protocol. Money, i.e. the thing that we coordinate on acquiring in order to lower our transaction costs, is, in all cases, a set of positions on an abstract mathematical object, namely a relative ratio scale. The things that we ordinarily call ‘money’ are merely records of positions on such a scale. (shrink)

In our earlier work, we argued, contra Searle, that institutional facts can be understood in terms of non-institutional facts about actions and incentives. Butchard and D’Amico claim that we have misinterpreted Searle, that our main argument against him has no merit and that our positive view cannot account for institutional facts created via joint action. We deny all three charges.

Contemporary theories of institutions as clusters of stable solutions to recurrent coordination problems can illuminate and explain some unresolved difficulties and problems adhering to institutional definitions of art initiated by George Dickie and Arthur Danto. Their account of what confers upon objects their institutional character does not fit well with current work on institutions and social ontology. The claim that “the artworld” confers the status of “art” onto objects remains utterly mysterious. The “artworld” is a generic notion that designates a (...) sphere of human activity that involves practices that create goals that have led to the emergence of formal and informal institutions. But those institutions, rather than magically “creating” objects subjected to esthetic appreciation, merely solve familiar and ubiquitous coordination problems created by artistic activity in ways other institutions in other areas solve similar and/or analogous coordination problems. (shrink)

Declarations like “this meeting is adjourned” make certain facts the case by representing them as being the case. Yet surprisingly little attention has been paid to the mechanism whereby the utterance of a declaration can bring about a new state of affairs. In this paper, we use the incentivization account of institutional facts to address this issue. We argue that declarations can serve to bring about new states of affairs as their utterance have game theoretical import, typically in virtue of (...) the utterer signaling a commitment to act in an incentive-changing way. (shrink)

Recent empirical work indicates that reduced autobiographical memory specificity can act as an avoidant processing style. By truncating the memory search before specific elements of traumatic memories are accessed, one can ward off the affective impact of negative reminiscences. This avoidant processing style can be viewed as an instance of what Erdelyi describes as the “subtractive” class of repressive processes.

BackgroundThe rating of perceived exertion scales with respiratory and muscular illustrations are recognized as simple and practical methods to understand individual psychometric characteristics in breathing and muscle exertion during exercise. However, the implementation of respiratory and muscular RPE to quantify training load in futsal training camps has not been examined. This study investigates respiratory and muscular RPE relationships during domestic training camps and overseas training camps in an under 20 futsal national team.MethodsData collected from eleven field players were used for (...) comparison in this study. All players reported Borg CR10 RPE and 7-scales respiratory RPE and muscular RPE after training sessions and matches. Additionally, total distance covered and training impulse were used to quantify external and internal loads via the Polar Team Pro system. Paired-sample t-tests were used to compare the RPECR10, RPErespiration, RPEmuscle, TD, and TRIMP between DTC and OTC. Furthermore, linear regression was performed to determine the relationships among all RPE scales, TD, and TRIMP.ResultsThe RPECR10, TD, and TRIMP showed significant difference between DTC and OTC. Furthermore, linear regression analyses showed significant correlation between RPErespiration and RPEmuscle, RPECR10 and RPErespiration, and RPECR10 and RPEmuscle.ConclusionPictorial RPErespiration or RPEmuscle can be used as an alternative to quantify perceived measures of internal loads during DTC and OTC in futsal players. Interpretation of perceived measures of training load and cardiac-related responses in association with external training loads during short-term training camps would be useful in further understanding the demands of futsal players’ experience in these circumstances. (shrink)

The current theoretical paper presents a comprehensive overview of findings from research attempting to understand what happens with expatriates and their families while living abroad. Our paper draws on research on adjustment of individual family members (expatriates, their partners, and children) and families as a whole, across different literatures (e.g., cultural psychology, family psychology, stress literature). The key challenges of expatriation are discussed, as well as family members’ resources. Our findings lead to the following conclusions: First, there is lack of (...) systematic research as studies are either missing a theoretical background or largely neglect the multi-informant approach. A comprehensive theory of expatriate family adjustment integrating multiple theoretical perspectives, including the culture identity formation and the impact of home country and host country culture, is called upon. Second, the majority of studies paid little attention to define the concept of family or failed to take into account the cultural aspect of relocation. Third, there is a call for more longitudinal studies including all family members as adjustment is a process that unfolds over time and therefore cannot be sufficiently explained by cross-sectional studies. Suggestions for future research and practical implications are provided, with a special focus on how families could be assisted during their adjustment process. (shrink)

Background: Monitoring the daily change in resting heart rate variability can provide information regarding training adaptation and recovery status of the autonomic nervous system during training camps. However, it remains unclear whether postural stabilization is essential for valid and reliable ultra-short-term recordings in short-term overseas training camps.Design: Observational and longitudinal study.Purpose: This study aimed to investigate ultra-short-term heart rate variability recordings under stabilization or post-stabilization periods in four overseas training camps.Participant: Twenty-seven U-20 male national team futsal players voluntarily participated in (...) this study.Method: Resting HRV was evaluated for 10 min during the early morning of each training camp. The natural logarithm of the root mean square of successive normal-to-normal interval differences was used for comparisons. Time segments of HRV were divided into two periods with three measures within each: the first 30-s, the first 60-s, and the 5-min standard during stabilization; the first 30-s, the first 60-s, and the 5-min standard after stabilization.Result: The results demonstrated trivial to small ES, very large to nearly perfect ICC, and narrow range of SEM when all time segments of HRVUST were compared to the 1st_5 min and 2nd_5 min HRV. Furthermore, the magnitude of the correlation coefficients ranged from very high to nearly perfect for all the time segments. The HRVUST posted excellent agreement in all time segments with/without postural stabilization. Trivial to small levels of effect size in all time segments of LnRMSSDmean and LnRMSSDcv across overseas training camps was identified.Conclusion: The first 30 or 60-s LnRMSSD recordings can be used to evaluate daily cardiac-autonomic function during overseas training camps in futsal players. The process for stabilization seems to be unnecessary for measuring the morning resting LnRMSSD in overseas training camps among young adult futsal players. (shrink)

This article explores J.G.A. Pocock's insight that “traces” of civic republican discourse survived within the dominant liberal paradigm of modern political thought. It does so by tracking classical republican themes in the works of American pragmatist John Dewey and English pluralist Harold Laski. The main contribution of the article is to show that the 1920s pluralist theory of the state can be interpreted as a reformulation of the classical republican critique of modern liberal conceptions of state sovereignty. In particular, I (...) suggest that Laski can be viewed as a kind of republican pluralist inspired by Aristotle and Harrington as well as by American pragmatism, itself a late outgrowth of the republican tradition in US history. (shrink)

This article explores J.G.A. Pocock’s insight that “traces” of civic republican discourse survived within the dominant liberal paradigm of modern political thought. It does so by tracking classical republican themes in the works of American pragmatist John Dewey and English pluralist Harold Laski. The main contribution of the article is to show that the 1920s pluralist theory of the state can be interpreted as a reformulation of the classical republican critique of modern liberal conceptions of state sovereignty. In particular, I (...) suggest that Laski can be viewed as a kind of republican pluralist inspired by Aristotle and Harrington as well as by American pragmatism, itself a late outgrowth of the republican tradition in US history. (shrink)

In this review I discuss Joseph Almog's book "Referential Mechanics". The book discusses direct reference as conceived by three of its founding fathers, Kripke, Kaplan and Donnellan, and introduces Almog's ambitious project of providing a referential semantics to all subject-phrases. I offer a brief overview of its four chapters and point out some of their virtues and shortcomings.

Cohen Kadosh, Tzelgov, and Henik [Cohen Kadosh, R., Tzelgov, J., and Henik, A. (2008). A synesthetic walk on the number line: The size effect. Cognition, 106, 548-557] present a new paradigm to probe properties of the mental number line. They describe two experiments which they argue to be inconsistent with the exact small number model proposed by Verguts, Fias, and Stevens [Verguts, T., Fias, W., Stevens, M. (2005). A model of exact small-number representation. Psychonomic Bulletin and Review, 12, 66-80]. We (...) discuss the data, assumptions, and conclusions of Cohen Kadosh et al.'s paper in relation to existing models of numerical cognition. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy, Psychiatry, & Psychology 9.3 (2002) 281-283 [Access article in PDF] This Is Not Here Katherine Morris How, if at all, are we to characterize psychiatric patients' (and others') descriptions of so-called depersonalization experiences? What exactly are they saying when they say, for example, "I have no self" or "I feel as if I don't belong to my own body" or "Nothing seems real"? Filip and Susanna Radovic attempt (...) to use a combination of conceptual and phenomenological analysis to answer this question. The importance of this, they suggest, is to enable a better definition of the depersonalization syndrome, better classification of symptoms as belonging or not belonging to this syndrome, and better theories of the relevant psychopathological processes.Their conceptual analysis focuses on ambiguities in the words unreal and feel, because "It feels unreal" is a characteristic expression of a depersonalization experience, and on the "as-if" element of these descriptions, because patients will often say "It feels as if everything is unreal." The phenomenological analysis consists in fleshing out some of these senses. These analyses are supplemented with a helpful table and a discussion section distinguishing expressions of depersonalization experiences from similar-sounding expressions from everyday life; for example, "existential reflections" on the one hand, and exclamations like "Did I win? I cannot believe it, it feels so unreal!" on the other. But I focus here on the analyses. Unreal and Feels So, first, they claim that the word unreal has at least three different uses: (1) "nonexistent", (2) "artificial, fake, or made up," and (3) "failing to satisfy some important criterion of the kind in question," which they also express as "not normal" or "unusual," and even "unfamiliar."Already this analysis seems to me to go importantly awry. As Austin famously argued, the word real has multiple senses, including the ones picked out here. 1 But, as he also argued, real, precisely, does not always contrast with unreal; hence an ambiguity in the word real does not imply an ambiguity in the word unreal. An artificial diamond is, indeed, not a real diamond (sense [2])—but it is not an unreal diamond! 2 Again, a friend who does not help you in your hour of need is a "false friend," that is, "not a real friend" (sense [3])—but he is not an unreal friend. Finally, they are surely wrong to equate the false friend's "failure to satisfy some important criterion of friendship" with his being "abnormal" or "unusual" (a fortiori "unfamiliar"). Someone who is "not a real friend" or "not a true friend" is not an unusual or an unfamiliar (sort of) friend!What of their analysis of the ambiguity in feels? (a) Sometimes, they imply, feels means roughly "is believed to be."" (b) At other times, it refers to a specific type of quasi-sensory experience. 3 Thus, I suppose, if I say "I feel ill," I may either mean that I believe myself to be ill or that I am experiencing some characteristic feeling like nausea or dizziness. Hence, feels unreal may either mean "is believed to be unreal" or characterize a specific type of experience.But, as they note, the (alleged) treble ambiguity in unreal means that feels unreal in sense (a) is itself trebly ambiguous, and they suggest that all [End Page 281] three senses may be relevant to characterizing depersonalization experiences. They primarily focus on sense (a3). The thought, as far as I understand it, is that just as a "real friend" is one who helps you in your hour of need, so a "real self" is (inter alia) one that experiences itself as an agent or author of its actions, and a "real world" one full of life and engaging. Thus to say that your self "feels unreal" in sense (a3) is to say that in not experiencing your self as agent or author you recognize that "real selves" do so, and to say that the world "feels unreal" is to say that in experiencing it as lifeless and unengaging you recognize that "real worlds" are not so experienced.So far, so good. But they... (shrink)

I propose a theory aimed at advancing scholarly research in social entrepreneurship. By highlighting the key trade-off between value creation and value capture and explaining when situations of simultaneous market and government failure may arise, I suggest that social entrepreneurship is the pursuit of sustainable solutions to neglected problems with positive externalities. I further discuss the situations in which problems with externalities are likely to be neglected and derive the central goal and logic of action of social entrepreneurs, in contrast (...) to commercial entrepreneurs. Overall, this article provides a conceptual framework that allows understanding the growing phenomena of social entrepreneurship and its role in the functioning of modern society. (shrink)

In this article, I shall explore the social dimension of Friedrich Nietzsche's views on self-fashioning, focusing on the interpretation offered by Alexander Nehamas. First, I shall briefly present Nehamas's understanding of Nietzsche's views on self-fashioning and the overall significance of their social aspects. Then I shall investigate the necessity of the audience to assess one's attempt at self-fashioning. Furthermore, I shall explore how one's pursuit of self-fashioning is influenced by and influences other similar efforts. Finally, the article will reveal the (...) role of contest in the phenomenon of influence. (shrink)

The article proposes to analyse whether the current configuration of national migration legislation from Arendt's perspective on the universalization of human rights and Agamben's reflections on bare life and the state of exception demonstrates its capacity to protect the human rights of people undergoing forced migration. To this end, a literature review of a bibliographical nature was used, using the historical procedure method. In order to interpret the effectiveness of the current configuration of the human rights of this vulnerable group, (...) an analysis of international and national legislation on migration was carried out, focusing mainly on the case of the New Brazilian Migration Law. To this end, a theoretical discussion was built to understand how human rights are framed considering the situation of migration and statelessness in the face of an increasingly prevalent state of exception. It was noted that the constitutive fragility of forced migrants is a perennial situation, aggravated by the political inaction of nation states. It has also been noted that there is a need for states and international organizations to adopt new practices to promote the human dignity of forced migrants. (shrink)

The social cognition of domestic cats is a scarcely studied topic due to the reputation of the animal as individualistic. Nevertheless, cats are capable of cognitively demanding cooperative activities such as a communal nest-moving. The cognitive abilities of free-ranging cats are evaluated against the background of the shared intentionality hypothesis, proposed by a research group of Michael Tomasello. Although their comparative studies are carried out on chimpanzees, they are valuable as a source of conceptual work linking empirical cognitive studies with (...) the philosophical accounts of joint agency. We critically analyze theoretical cognitive concepts interpreting the triadic interactions of great apes and the collective hunting among chimpanzees. Contrary to the shared intentionality hypothesis, it is argued that cats have cognitive abilities to share attention, truly cooperate and constitute shared meanings. Finally, we introduce the concept of the natural interaction ritual by Randall Collins and outline its significance for our case study about cats as well as for a general biosemiotic theory of the development of symbols. (shrink)

Mysterianism has become a popular stance in philosophy of consciousness and other philosophical subdisciplines. The aim of this paper is to show that mysterianism is not justified, mainly because its inclination to epistemic defeatism and the misunderstanding of the division of epistemic labour. In the first part, I will present the history of mysterianism in the 19th and 20th century philosophy. Then, in the second part, I will point out how epistemic defeatism is founded in the unwarranted philosophical futurology. The (...) third part will deal with the division of labour in society, language and knowledge. Because of the division of epistemic labour, the understanding is distributed among numerous agents without possibility of individual comprehension. Finally, I will coin the term “ignorance illusion” that plays the central role in the mysterians’ worldview. (shrink)

In zijn jongste boek, Kritiek van de interpreterende rede, bekijkt Filip Buekens de centrale thema's in de taalfilosofie van Davidson. Vertrekkend vanuit de stelling dat spreken en verstaan een vorm van rationeel handelen is, wordt onderzocht hoe een theorie voor een taal (in de vorm van een Tarskiaanse waarheidstheorie) wordt geconstrueerd vanuit het standpunt van een 'radicale interpretator' die inzicht wil krijgen in het talig handelen van personen. In een uitgebreide vergelijking met de filosofie van Michael Dummett en W.V. Quine (...) worden de specifieke uitgangspunten van Davidson verhelderd. Daarbij gaat vooral aandacht naar de constitutieve principes die het verstaan van anderen en het begrijpelijk zijn voor anderen mogelijk maken. Davidson verbindt aan dit project belangrijke metafysische conclusies. Deze worden uitgebreid toegelicht. Zo bespreekt de auteur de anti-sceptische argumenten van Davidson, het probleem van de onbepaaldheid van de referentie-relatie en Davidson's afwijzing van het relativisme. In een laatste hoofdstuk wordt de filosofie van Davidson getoetst aan belangrijke taalfilosofische discussies die de jongste jaren gevoerd werden: essentialisme, het volgen van regels, het probleem van de lingu. (shrink)

In Ancient Greece, when philosophy began, it included all the theoretical knowledge. But later, in the time of Aristotle, specialized sciences started to emerge and the scope of philosophy grew smaller and smaller. The question is what to do when philosophy has lost its competence to deal with any relevant topic. The paper discusses three possible views of the relation between philosophy and science: anti-scientism, conceptual analysis and naturalism. All these approaches deal with various disadvantages. For anti-scientism it is mainly (...) the inability to explain the unprecedented success of modern science. Proponents of conceptual analysis are confronted with Quine’s attack on analytic statements and its consequences for a priori truths. Finally, naturalistic philosophers might be threatened by hegemony of science and its universal application of hypothetico-deductive method. The worst scenario for naturalistic philosophers is not as bad as some worry. Philosophers can solve their traditional problems using the knowledge of well-established special sciences, even though they might play the role of high-end science journalists. (shrink)

Toulmin is one of the three or four best-known philosophers of science who, beginning in the late 1950’s, attempted a thoroughgoing criticism of logical positivism (the philosophy of science which predominated at that time). The paper argues that Toulmin depends upon the same sort oftheory-observation dichotomy which resulted in many of the difficulties which bedeviled logical positivism. Thus Toulmin’s criticism is neither as radical nor as trouble-free as many suppose.

Toulmin is one of the three or four best-known philosophers of science who, beginning in the late 1950’s, attempted a thoroughgoing criticism of logical positivism (the philosophy of science which predominated at that time). The paper argues that Toulmin depends upon the same sort oftheory-observation dichotomy which resulted in many of the difficulties which bedeviled logical positivism. Thus Toulmin’s criticism is neither as radical nor as trouble-free as many suppose.

This paper analyses Bohr’s complementarity framework and applies it to biosemiotic studies by illustrating its application to three existing models of living systems: mechanistic biology, Barbieri’s version of biosemiotics in terms of his code biology and Markoš’s phenomenological version of hermeneutic biosemiotics. The contribution summarizes both Bohr’s philosophy of science crowned by his idea of complementarity and his conception of the phenomenon of the living. Bohr’s approach to the biological questions evolved – among other things – from the consequences of (...) an epistemological lesson of quantum theory and in light of complementarity of observer as a priori living creature and ex post scientific explanation of the living. In a manifestation of the phenomenon of the living, each model of living system and its description makes accessible – from its own presuppositions, contexts and concepts – some features which are not accessible from the others. Nevertheless, for a general understanding of that phenomenon, incompatible sophisticated approaches are equally necessary. Bohr’s epistemology of complementarity turns out to be a heuristic and methodical framework for testing the extent to which biosemiotics can become one of the special sciences or its potential as a cross-disciplinary branch of study. (shrink)

Finding the demarcation criterion for the identification of scientific knowledge is the most important task of normative epistemology. Pseudoscience is not a harmless leisure activity, it can pose a danger to the functioning of liberal democratic societies and the well-being of their citizens. First, there is an outline of how to define science instrumentally without slipping into the detrimental heritage of conceptual essentialism. The second part is dedicated to Popper’s falsification criterion and the objections of its opponents, which eventually led (...) to the abandonment of “naïve” falsificationism. Then I present two promising solutions to the problem, namely the ostensive definition of pseudoscience and the cognitive research of pseudoscientific thinking. In conclusion, I suggest to further extend the typology of alternatives to science to include parascience. (shrink)

Because philosophical reflections on touch usually start from our ability to perceive properties of objects, they tend to overlook features of touch that are crucial to correct understanding of tactual perception. This paper brings out these features and uses them to develop a general reconception of the sense of touch. I start by taking a fresh look at our ability to feel, in order to reveal its vital role. This sheds a different light on the skin's perceptual potential. While it (...) is commonly observed that tactile experiences have two intentional objects, an external object and one's own body, I will advance a more accurate alternative: in tactile experiences, one becomes aware of what one's body undergoes. This alternative not only fits better with tactility's vital role; it is also key to explaining how active touching provides for a unique contribution to our perceptual relation to material objects. By thus connecting tactility's vital role to the way we rely on touch while manipulating objects, this essay offers a cross-sectional survey of our tactile powers that reveals the interplay between sensing and touching. (shrink)

Until a decade ago, a comprehensive contestation of the so-called?transitional? paradigm was largely missing in the post-socialist era. This reality changed in the last ten years, especially in the region of former Yugoslavia. Some social movements in this region have started questioning the very essence of the economic and social misconceptions of the post-socialist condition. This paper first provides an elaboration of the very conceptual edifice of the ruling paradigm, as well as a theoretical and methodological framework. It goes on (...) to map out the epistemic discursive content of the respective social movements in Belgrade, Zagreb and Sarajevo, thereby assessing the conceptual content of their critique of the post-socialist transitional paradigm. Finally, given the similarities between Serbia, Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina, the paper seeks to explain variations in the critique by how the structural and contextual features impact the perspective from which it is constructed. (shrink)

The Polish football fans community has been recently in the scope of several academic studies, concerning – mostly – numerous deviations presented by its members. What has been left underestimated is the formal and practical capacity the football fans community to influence both the public opinion, as well as local and national governments. Albeit controversial, the “fanatic” football fans characteristics are inherently inscribed in the personal identities of the group’s members; they exceed simple “friend-foe” distinctions, rather consisting of a complex (...) set of social and political views, rooted in communitarian and neo-conservative philosophies. In my lecture, I wish to discuss how the football fans community reacts to both theoretical projects of the post-modern society and its practical implementations. By stressing out the declared criticism of the changes taking place in modern society, I wish to evoke the neglected dimension of the football fans society – that of a conservative educator and political actor. (shrink)

How should we use intellectual history to inform our thinking about freedom in the advent of digital technologies? Quentin Skinner argues that prevalent liberal idiom is unable to address the political challenges in the world of big tech. While liberals consider these challenges in terms of invasion of individual privacy, in Skinner's neo-Roman – and once widely accepted – perspective, the growing datafication of contemporary societies should be considered an affront to liberty. By invoking the figure of ‘paths not taken’, (...) the author of Liberty before liberalism shows, how we may learn from the past without abandoning commitments to contextual accuracy of historical investigation. The interview will be published in Polish in ‘Przegląd Polityczny’ [Political Review]. (shrink)