Sosyolojinin yeni bir alt dalı olarak 1990’lı yıllarda ortaya çıkan sınır sosyolojisi, sınır ve toplum ilişkilerinin karşılıklı etkileşimini konu edinen ve sınır ve toplumsal değişme arasındaki ilişkiyi anlamayı amaçlayan bir bilimsel disiplindir. Soğuk Savaşın son bulması ve Sovyetler Birliği’nin çöküşü, Berlin Duvarı’nın yıkılması, yeni devletlerin ortaya çıkması, Avrupa Birliği’nin genişlemesi, küreselleşme ve teknolojik gelişmeler sınır sosyolojisinin ortaya çıkmasında doğrudan doğruya etkili olmuştur. Söz konusu gelişmeler sınırların yeniden düşünülmesini gerektirmiştir. Toplumların kuruluşunda sınırların nerede yer aldığı, sınırların kimlik ifade etmede nasıl bir (...) role sahip olduğu, sınırların nasıl algılandıkları ve sınırötesi ilişkilerin nasıl şekillendiği sınır sosyolojisinin temel sorularını oluşturur. Bu çalışmanın temel sorunsalı, sınır sosyolojisinin bağımsız bir disiplin olarak gelişiminde kapsamının, yönteminin ve tarihsel gelişiminin nasıl bir rol oynadığıdır. Bu sorunsal çerçevesinde sınırların farklı anlamları içerdiği, psikolojik, sosyolojik, siyasal, ekonomik, kültürel, dinsel, etnik, dilsel, toplumsal cinsiyet, mekân, güvenlik, milliyetçilik, göç ve küreselleşme gibi boyutları taşıdığı ve değişik toplumsal işlevlere sahip olduğu görülmüştür. Sınır sosyolojisinin sosyolojinin bir alt dalı olarak gelişim gösterdiği, sosyologların sınır ve toplum ilişkilerini görünür kıldıkları, sınırların tarihsel bir perspektiften inşa edildiği, genel sosyolojinin yanı sıra sınır sosyolojisinin kendisine özgü yönteminin olduğu ve sınırlarla ilgili sosyolojik çalışmaların bir tarihsel süreklilik taşıdığı tespit edilmiştir. Bu bağlamda, sınır sosyolojisinin sosyolojide yeni bir alan olarak geliştiği anlaşılmıştır. (shrink)

Deliberative analysis enables us to weigh features, simulate futures, and arrive at good, tractable decisions. So why do we so often eschew deliberation, and instead rely on more intuitive, gut responses? We propose that intuition might be prescribed for some decisions because people’s folk theory of decision-making accords a special role to authenticity, which is associated with intuitive choice. Five pre-registered experiments find evidence in favor of this claim. In Experiment 1 (N = 654), we show that participants prescribe intuition (...) and deliberation as a basis for decisions differentially across domains, and that these prescriptions predict reported choice. In Experiment 2 (N = 555), we find that choosing intuitively vs. deliberately leads to different inferences concerning the decision-maker’s commitment and authenticity—with only inferences about the decision-maker’s authenticity showing variation across domains that matches that observed for the prescription of intuition in Experiment 1. In Experiment 3 (N = 631), we replicate our prior results and rule out plausible confounds. Finally, in Experiment 4 (N = 177) and Experiment 5 (N = 526), we find that an experimental manipulation of the importance of authenticity affects the prescribed role for intuition as well as the endorsement of expert human or algorithmic advice. These effects hold beyond previously recognized influences on intuitive vs. deliberative choice, such as computational costs, presumed reliability, objectivity, complexity, and expertise. (shrink)

The present study is an attempt to contribute to the debates on the relationship between spiritual traditions and Descartes’s Meditations. Taking its point of departure from Pierre Hadot’s inspiring studies, the article aims to describe the nature of the philosophical practice that Meditations embodies and to discuss the ways in which the work can be located in the history of the relations between theory and practice. To this end, Hadot’s suggestion that Meditations should be read as a set of spiritual (...) exercises will be criticized through an analysis of the nature of the “non-argumentative” or “experiential” level that is at work in Descartes’s text. By showing that the transformation intended by Descartes does not reach beyond the level of cognition, it will be argued that even though Descartes makes use of certain key elements of the spiritualist literature, he belongs to the modern age of “philosophy without spirituality.”. (shrink)

The present study is an attempt to contribute to the debates on the relationship between spiritual traditions and Descartes’s Meditations. Taking its point of departure from Pierre Hadot’s inspiring studies, the article aims to describe the nature of the philosophical practice that Meditations embodies and to discuss the ways in which the work can be located in the history of the relations between theory and practice. To this end, Hadot’s suggestion that Meditations should be read as a set of spiritual (...) exercises will be criticized through an analysis of the nature of the “non-argumentative” or “experiential” level that is at work in Descartes’s text. By showing that the transformation intended by Descartes does not reach beyond the level of cognition, it will be argued that even though Descartes makes use of certain key elements of the spiritualist literature, he belongs to the modern age of “philosophy without spirituality.”. (shrink)

The aim of the present paper is to reconsider Augustine’s role in the history of the concept of self. Our analysis is based on Charles Taylor's account of the Augustinian inward turn. Taylor argues that Augustine's project played a key role in the development of the modern notion of self, because the idea of "inward turn" led the thinker to give the idea of "self-reflexivity" a major position and made him the forefather of the Cartesian cogito. However, we think that (...) it is inappropriate to take the notion of "self-reflexivity" as the essential component of the Augustinian inward turn. We argue that Augustine's real contribution to the history of the notion of self is to be found in the "private" character of his idea of inward turn, and not in the notion of self-reflexivity. Hence, by comparing the differences between Augustine's and Plotinus' notions of "inward turn," we show how Augustine broke with the tradition and put forward a new understanding of inward turn. (shrink)

A historical investigation of the exclusion of Africa and Asia from modern histories of philosophy.

Our reply focuses on three key themes raised in the symposium. First, we discuss an enduring issue in Marxist International Relations: ‘the problematic of the international’ and the problems of methodological internalism. We examine how our interlocutors have responded to this problematic and why we consider these responses insufficient. Specifically, we suggest that the source of our disagreement is grounded in two divergent understandings of the problem of internalism itself. We then reassert the value of our chosen response to the (...) problematic – uneven and combined development. Second, we respond to the criticism that our extension ofUCDas a ‘transmodal’ general abstraction is problematic by further explicating the significance and role of general abstractions in Marxist theory – a point yet addressed by our critics. Finally, we return to the fundamental question at the core of the transition debate: what is capitalism and how do we theorise it? (shrink)

This article seeks to reassess the potential merits and weaknesses of the Subaltern Studies project through the prism of Vivek Chibber’s much-publicised and controversial bookPostcolonial Theory and the Specter of Capital. By critically examining Chibber’s work, the article aims to better pinpoint exactly what is ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ with the Subaltern Studies project, while drawing out some productive points of engagement between Marxism and postcolonial theory more generally. In particular, we argue that an understanding of the origins of capitalist modernity (...) remains a relatively unexplored omission within postcolonial thought that problematises their broader project of ‘provincialising Europe’. Against this backdrop, the article explores the affinities between Leon Trotsky’s notion of uneven and combined development and postcolonialism, demonstrating how the former can provide a theoretical solution to the problem of Eurocentrism that the Subaltern Studies project correctly identifies but inadequately conceptualises. (shrink)

Arbitrary communication systems can emerge from iconic beginnings through processes of conventionalisation via interaction. Here, we explore whether this process of conventionalisation occurs with continuous, auditory signals. We conducted an artificial signalling experiment. Participants either created signals for themselves, or for a partner in a communication game. We found no evidence that the speech-like signals in our experiment became less iconic or simpler through interaction. We hypothesise that the reason for our results is that when it is difficult to be (...) iconic initially because of the constraints of the modality, then iconicity needs to emerge to enable grounding before conventionalisation can occur. Further, pressures for discrimination, caused by the expanding meaning space in our study, may cause more complexity to emerge, again as a result of the restrictive signalling modality. Our findings have possible implications for the processes of conventionalisation possible in signed and spoken languages, as the spoken modality is more restrictive than the manual modality. (shrink)

The debate over news ombudsmen remains at a seemingly irreconcilable impasse, and less relevant as journalism shifts away from print and traditional newsroom structures in the new-media age. There are fewer than 30 ombudsmen at U.S. media outlets today, according to the Organization of News Ombudsmen (Ombudsmen, 2010). We argue that the greatest failure of ombudsmanship is that it does not go far enough in giving voice and visibility to the ombudsman's work, including interacting with community. Media news outlets can (...) best serve the public trust by fulfilling the journalistic mission of civic transformation through empowerment advocated by Christians, Ferre, and Fackler (1993). As the vanguard of the communitarian approach of ?person-in-community,? the ideal ombudsman would be just that: a person in the community. The ethical goal of ombudsmanship should be not to promote an apologist from within the ranks but rather to facilitate a community conversation. We propose integrating the ideal ombudsman (which we redefine and rename as the ethics examiner) with the best practices of successful news councils (hereafter called media councils in a return to their original name and to encompass a broader universe of information outlets). (shrink)

How (Not) to Be Secular is what Jamie Smith calls "your hitchhiker's guide to the present" -- it is both a reading guide to Charles Taylor's monumental work A Secular Age and philosophical guidance on how we might learn to live in our times. Taylor's landmark book A Secular Age (2007) provides a monumental, incisive analysis of what it means to live in the post-Christian present -- a pluralist world of competing beliefs and growing unbelief. Jamie Smith's book is a (...) compact field guide to Taylor's insightful study of the secular, making that very significant but daunting work accessible to a wide array of readers. Even more, though, Smith's How (Not) to Be Secular is a practical philosophical guidebook, a kind of how-to manual on how to live in our secular age. It ultimately offers us an adventure in self-understanding and maps out a way to get our bearings in today's secular culture, no matter who "we" are -- whether believers or skeptics, devout or doubting, self-assured or puzzled and confused. This is a book for any thinking person to chew on. (shrink)

This chapter provides an introduction to higher-order metaphysics as well as to the contributions to this volume. We discuss five topics, corresponding to the five parts of this volume, and summarize the contributions to each part. First, we motivate the usefulness of higher-order quantification in metaphysics using a number of examples, and discuss the question of how such quantifiers should be interpreted. We provide a brief introduction to the most common forms of higher-order logics used in metaphysics, and indicate a (...) number of questions which can be raised in such systems using logical vocabulary alone. Using a further example, we return to applications of higher-order logics in metaphysics. We also mention key developments in the history of higher-order logic as it pertains to metaphysics. Finally, we mention certain arguments which have been raised against the use of higher-order logic, and some ways of responding to them. (shrink)

Practical deliberation often involves conditional judgements about what will (likely) happen if certain alternatives are pursued. It is widely assumed that the conditionals useful in deliberation are counterfactual or subjunctive conditionals. Against this, I argue that the conditionals of deliberation are indicatives. Key to the argument is an account of the relation between 'straightforward' future-directed conditionals like ' If the house is not painted, it will soon look quite shabby' and * "w e r e ' ' e d F (...) D C s like ' If the house were not to be painted, it would soon look quite shabby': an account on which both of these types of FDCs are grouped with the indicatives for semantic treatment and on which, while conditionals of both types are properly used in means/ends deliberations, those of the ' were'ed-up variety are especially well suited for that purpose. (shrink)

In the traditional form of canonical quantization, certain field components (not having “conjugate” momenta) must be regarded as noncanonical. This long-known distinction enters modern gauge theories, when they are canonically quantized as by Kugo and Ojima. We avoid that peculiarity by not using any conjugate “momenta” at all. In our formulation, canonical quantization can be related to Feynman's path integral.

Aggregating individuals’ consistent attitudes might produce inconsistent collective attitudes. Some groups therefore need the capacity to form attitudes that are irreducible to those of their members. Such groups, group-agent realists argue, are agents in control of their own attitude formation. In this paper, however, I show how group-agent realism overlooks the important fact that groups consist of strategically interacting agents. Only by eliminating group agency from our social explanations can we see how individuals vote strategically to gain control of their (...) groups and produce collective attitudes we cannot make sense of if we treat groups as agents. (shrink)

'Pataphysics: The Poetics of an Imaginary Science is a survey that attempts to describe a hypothetic philosophy--the avant-garde pseudo-science imagined by Alfred Jarry. 'Pataphysics is a supplement to metaphysics, accenting it, then replacing it, in order to create a philosophic alternative, whose discipline can study cases, not of conception, but of exception: variance , alliance , and deviance . 'Pataphysics synthesizes the romantic schism between a literal, scientized discourse and a figural, poeticized discourse, and my thesis suggests that this revision (...) of the signifier "science" by 'pataphysics is symptomatic of a postmodern transition in science from a paradigm of absolutism to a paralogy of relativism. Structured as a descriptive explication, which emphasizes a theoretical perspective, this survey is divided into five chapters: the first chapter recounts the history of the conflict between science and poetry ; the second chapter examines the avant-garde pseudo-science of 'pataphysics itself ; and finally, the last three chapters discuss the influence of 'pataphysics upon the poetics of its subsequent successors . While my thesis focuses upon theories of textual poetics rather than poetry itself , my thesis does nevertheless strive to be as conceptually encyclopedic as 'pataphysics itself: instead of normalizing 'pataphysics within one theoretical perspective, this survey alludes intermittently to 'pataphysical enterprises that constitute exceptions to such a genealogy of Jarryites. What is at stake is the status of poetry in a world of science. How might poetry reclaim its own viable truth? How might science benefit from its own poetic irony? For the postmodern condition, such questions have already opened up a novel space for speculative imagination; hence, this survey presents itself as a kind of primer for a future of possible research. (shrink)

BackgroundIn their research reports, scientists are expected to discuss limitations that their studies have. Previous research showed that often, such discussion is absent. Also, many journals emphasize the importance of avoiding overstatement of claims. We wanted to see to what extent editorial handling and peer review affects self-acknowledgment of limitations and hedging of claims.MethodsUsing software that automatically detects limitation-acknowledging sentences and calculates the level of hedging in sentences, we compared the submitted manuscripts and their ultimate publications of all randomized trials (...) published in 2015 in 27 BioMed Central (BMC) journals and BMJ Open. We used mixed linear and logistic regression models, accounting for clustering of manuscript-publication pairs within journals, to quantify before-after changes in the mean numbers of limitation-acknowledging sentences, in the probability that a manuscript with zero self-acknowledged limitations ended up as a publication with at least one and in hedging scores.ResultsFour hundred forty-six manuscript-publication pairs were analyzed. The median number of manuscripts per journal was 10.5 (interquartile range 6–18). The average number of distinct limitation sentences increased by 1.39 (95% CI 1.09–1.76), from 2.48 in manuscripts to 3.87 in publications. Two hundred two manuscripts (45.3%) did not mention any limitations. Sixty-three (31%, 95% CI 25–38) of these mentioned at least one after peer review. Changes in mean hedging scores were negligible.ConclusionsOur findings support the idea that editorial handling and peer review lead to more self-acknowledgment of study limitations, but not to changes in linguistic nuance. (shrink)

In this short but meaty book, Peter Unger questions the objective answers that have been given to central problems in philosophy. As Unger hypothesizes, many of these problems are unanswerable, including the problems of knowledge and scepticism, the problems of free will, and problems of causation and explanation. In each case, he argues, we arrive at one answer only relative to an assumption about the meaning of key terms, terms like "know" and like "cause," even while we arrive at an (...) opposite answer relative to quite different assumptions, but equally arbitrary assumptions, about what the key terms mean. (shrink)