To address the multiple grand challenges facing humanity, there is an urgent need for businesses to become more sustainable. This study explores the implementation of sustainability initiatives through an interview-based single case study of an organization in the food and beverage industry. Specifically, this study adopts a Natural-Resource-Based View of the firm to examine the role of organizational culture and structure in the implementation process. It argues that to successfully implement sustainability initiatives, a flexible structure and a green organizational culture (...) grounded in a shared sustainability vision are essential. The findings reveal that, despite the in-practice flat organizational structure of the case organization, there was limited knowledge of the organization's sustainability vision among organizational members across all organizational levels. This could be attributed to a lack of internal communication within the organization, which constitutes a barrier to the successful dissemination of green values throughout the organization's family-like, inclusive, and diverse work environment. This study proposes a three-part approach for practitioners attempting to implement sustainability initiatives: (1) enhance organizational awareness and communication of the sustainability vision; (2) cultivate a green organizational culture; and (3) advocate for a collaborative, inclusive and decentralized approach to fostering sustainability. This approach is vital not only for sustaining the organization's competitive advantage but also for achieving improved environmental and social outcomes. (shrink)

In this essay I will examine the various ways in which the concept of decision emerges in the writings of Kierkegaard focusing mainly on the Philosophical Fragments and the Postscript. This prepares the way for revisiting Kierkegaard’s concept of decision. Doing so indicates the radical way in which Kierkegaard connects the concept of decision to an aporia. The crucial existential concept of decision not only concerns the difficulty, or even the impasse, pertaining to knowledge, but also relates to the question (...) of how the singular finds his or her own way through existence. (shrink)

In this paper we argue that transnational as well as national political demands and expectations on the educational field are contributing to produce four ideological-based educational leadership discourses in the literature. In order to conceptualize these discourses, we turn to the work of Schmidt and Zizek. On that basis we identify four dominant educational leadership discourses: a personhood-based discourse, a profession-based discourse, a standard-based discourse, and a resource-based discourse. These discourses have—as we will show—various consequences for the way we think (...) and talk about education and educational leadership in our age. Using examples that stem from a project about educational leadership in Danish upper secondary school, we will illustrate how educational leaders’ beings and doings are ‘regulated’ by these discourses, which place them in a tension field where different and conflicting fantasies seem to be played out. Then, we will discuss how these fantasies can be challenged and how we can think and speak more intellectually about education and educational leadership. By using the term intellectual we are referring to educational leaders’ ability as human beings to critically reflect on their contemporary doings and beings within and beyond the existing social order. Hopefully this can help them to establish new ways for discussing not only what educational leadership is and should be about, but also what it could be about. (shrink)

In an increasingly technology-textured environment, smart, intelligent and responsive technology has moved onto the body of many individuals. Mobile phones, smart watches and wearable activity trackers are just some of the technologies that are guiding, nudging, monitoring and reminding individuals in their day-to-day lives. These devices are designed to enhance and support their human users, however, there is a lack of attention to the unintended consequences, the technology non-neutrality and the darker sides of becoming human-tech hybrids. Using the extended mind (...) theory and agential intra-action, we aim at exploring how human-technology hybrids gain collective skills and how these are put to use; how agency is expressed and how this affects the interactions; and what the darker sides are of being a human-technology hybrid. Using a qualitative method, we analyze the experiences of using a wearable activity tracker, with a specific focus on how the tracker and the individual solve tasks, share competences, develop new skills and negotiate for agency and autonomy. We contribute with new insight on human-tech hybridity and present a concept referred to as the agency pendulum, reflecting the dynamism of agency. Finally, we demonstrate how the extended mind theory and agential intra-action as a combined theoretical lens can be used to explore human-tech hybridity. (shrink)

This ambitious book presents a new interpretation of Chinese thought guided both by a philosopher's sense of mystery and by a sound philosophical theory of meaning. That dual goal, Hansen argues, requires a unified translation theory. It must provide a single coherent account of the issues that motivated both the recently untangled Chinese linguistic analysis and the familiar moral-political disputes. Hansen's unified approach uncovers a philosophical sophistication in Daoism that traditional accounts have overlooked. The Daoist theory treats the (...) imperious intuitionism that alienates critical thinkers as a feature of Confucianism alone. Freed from the view that Confucianism is the core of Chinese thought and from myopic Confucian interpretations, Chinese thinkers emerge as unmistakably philosophical. (shrink)

Purpose. The purpose of this study is to investigate how professionals learn from varying experiences with errors in health-care digitalization and develop and use negative knowledge and digital ignorance in efforts to improve digitalized health care. Design/methodology/approach. A two-year qualitative field study was conducted in the context of a public health-care organization working with digital patient communication. The data consisted of participant observation, semistructured interviews and document data. Inductive coding and a theoretically informed generation of themes were applied. Findings. The (...) findings show that both health-care and digital communication professionals learn through experiences with digital “rule-” and “knowledge-based” errors in patient communication and develop negative knowledge and awareness of digital ignorance. In their joint efforts, they use negative knowledge to “bend the rules” and to explore digital ignorance in efforts to improve patient communication. Originality/value. This study provides insight into the importance of collaboration between professionals with varying experience of errors in digitalizing patient communication. Such collaboration is required to acknowledge own shortcomings and create complementary negative knowledge to improve digital patient communication. This is particularly important when working with innovative digitalization in health care. (shrink)

Working from Fredric Jameson’s quote and recognizing his suggestion of a need for ‘the invention and projection of a global cognitive mapping’ as an integral part of what comes after postmodernism,...

This article addresses the Danish concept ‘sammenhængskraft’ in its shifting articulations in the Danish public debate from 1994-2010. By combining a discursive analytical approach with Reinhart Koselleck’s notion of asymmetric counterconcepts it is demonstrated how the concept is embedded in various political discourses. Through this process, which is described as a semantic battle, it gradually changes its meaning from an open social political concept used in particular when discussing future socio political challenges in the well fare state to a national (...) conservative – and defensive – key concept. It is argued that when usedin a political conflict as a conceptual tool with which to fight the enemy the term ‘sammenhængskraft’ creates disintegration rather than cohesion. (shrink)

This article explores the interesting connection between social movements and new social media also referred to as web 2.0. It is argued that the public as well as parts of the scientific debate about the impact of new media on social change is to a large degree dominated by two rigid camps, namely Internet-utopians on the one side and Internet-sceptics on the other side. Both positions tend to degenerate into technological determinism. Furthermore, they ignore the long tradition for the critical (...) study of alternative media and their role as critical and oppositional communication tools for social movements. In order to analyse how social movements challenge dominant and hegemonic worldviews, the article calls for a socially oriented media theory with a sensibility for analytical concepts and frameworks. Such a theoretical and contextual framework can be used in order to produce empirically based insights into the relation between protest movements, social media use and actual political change. (shrink)

Since the mid-2000s, a number of Western countries have witnessed an increase in the number of children born into ‘alternative’ or ‘queer’ families. Parallel with this queer baby boom, online media technologies have become intertwined with most people’s intimate lives. While these two phenomena have appeared simultaneously, their integration has seldom been explored. In an attempt to fill this gap, the present article explores the ways in which contemporary queer reproduction is interwoven with online media practices. Importantly, the article does (...) not understand online media as a technology that simply facilitates queer kinship; rather, it argues that online media technology is a reproductive technology in its own right. Drawing on empirical examples of media practices of kinning, such as online shopping for donor sperm and locating ‘donor siblings’ via online fora such as Facebook, the article analyses the merging and intersection of online media and queer kinship. These analyses serve as a foundation for an exploration of contemporary kinship and the development of a new theoretical framework for contemporary queer reproduction. Empirically, the examples are from single women’s (i.e. solo mothers) and lesbian couples’ family making. Using Weston's work on ‘chosen families’ as a backdrop for discussion, the article describes families of choice in light of new online kinship connections. In particular, the article focuses on online-initiated connections between donor siblings and how such connections can re-inscribe biology as important to queer kinship. Furthermore, it closely examines how media technology guides queer reproduction in particular directions and how technology causes becoming as a family. (shrink)

When not acting in ways that are recognised as physical self-defence, women are often – in psychology and in other dominant discourses – generalised as inherently passive during subjection to sexualised coercion (rape and attempted rape). Likewise, in the aftermaths, their (in)actions are frequently pathologised as ‘maladaptive coping strategies’. We present theoretically and empirically based arguments for an agency-oriented approach to women’s perspectives on sexualised coercion. Agency is understood as intentional, situated and strategic. Sexualised coercion is not generalised as a (...) single “traumatic” event, but conceptualised as life events. Meanings of coercion are embedded in social activities connected to discourses on ‘rape’ and ‘trauma’. Thus personal meanings of subjection are understood as developed in and through participation in trajectories across diverse contexts. Adopted in our study, this approach points to the great diversity of personal meanings of sexualised coercion. Moreover, it reveals intimate connections between situated, personal and dominant discursive meanings of coercion, and women’s strategies of (in)actions during and in the aftermaths of the events. Our analysis of participants’ perspectives also indicates an imperative need for reinterpreting concepts such as ‘victim’ and ‘passivity’. In a reinterpretation women, although subjected to sexualised coercion, emerge as subjects both during subjection and in the aftermaths. Furthermore their seemingly pathological behaviour may be re-conceptualised as person ally sense-making strategies of action in reflected attempts at (re)formulating and (re)organising their life strategies. (shrink)

In this article we refine the design ofcontext shifting experiments, which play a central role in contextualist debates, and we subject a large number of scenarios involving different types of expressions of interest to contextualists, including ‘know’ and color adjectives like ‘green’, to experimental investigation. Our experiment (i) reveals an effect of changing contexts on the evaluation of uses of the sentences that we examine, thereby overturning the absence of results reported in previous experimental studies (so‐callednull results), (ii) uncovers evidence (...) for a ‘truth bias' in favor of positive over negative sentences, and (iii) reveals previously unnoticed distinctions between the strength of the contextual effects displayed by scenarios involving knowledge ascriptions and scenarios concerning color and other miscellaneous scenarios. (shrink)

Paradox theory offers a unique approach through which the complex and often conflicting aspects of corporate sustainability (CS) can be addressed. Although a growing body of literature has focused on the organizational-level outcomes of a paradox approach to sustainability, we know less about how such an approach creates business contributions to sustainable development beyond the organization (societal sustainability). The present study addresses this gap in research through a qualitative meta-analysis of 32 empirical case studies. While the analyzed studies confirmed the (...) effectiveness of a paradox approach to managing CS tensions from an organizational perspective, indications of contributions to societal sustainability were ambiguous. This finding led to the creation of a typology of response–outcome pathways. These pathways illustrate variations in the societal sustainability outcomes of CS paradox responses based on the moderating effects of three factors: level of commitment to sustainability, the approach to stakeholder engagement, and the level of strategy–practice alignment. This analysis contributes to the CS paradox perspective by offering important boundary conditions to the commonly held assumption that a paradox approach leads to superior business contributions to sustainability and highlights the need for research that examines outcomes of extant CS approaches beyond the organization. (shrink)

I call an experiment “crucial” when it makes possible a decisive choice between conflicting hypotheses. Joharmsen's selection for size and weight within pure lines of beans played a central role in the controversy over continuity or discontinuity in hereditary change, often known as the Biometrician-Mendelian controversy. The “crucial” effect of this experiment was not an instantaneous event, but an extended process of repeating similar experiments and discussing possible objections. It took years before Johannsen's claim about the genetic stability of pure (...) lines was accepted as conclusively demonstrated by the community of geneticists. The paper also argues that crucial experiments thus interpreted contradict certain ideas about the underdetermination of theories by facts and the theory-ladenness of facts which have been influential in recent history and sociology of science. The acceptance of stability in the pure lines did not rest on prior preference for continuity or discontinuity. And this fact permitted a final choice between the two theories. When such choice is characterized as “decisive” or “final”, this is not meant in an absolute philosophical sense. What we achive in these cases is highly reliable empirical knowledge. The philosophical possibility of drawing (almost) any conclusion in doubt should be distinguished from reasonable doubt in empirical science. (shrink)

The aim of this essay is to reflect on the place and importance of the question of address and to show how it comes to the fore in Søren Kierkegaard’s writings. What shall be attempted, with regard to Kierkegaard’s already widely recognized renown as an existential thinker, is to catch a glimpse of issues that make up the larger background in which the question of address is embedded. In doing so, the essay explores several features of Kierkegaard’s inquiry into the (...) question of existence in the Concluding Unscientific Postscript and connect them with the notion of the reader. This latter notion provides a way of understanding the singularity of voice, while offering an account of the testimony to existence. After a brief recapitulation, the essay identifies in conclusion unresolved issues relating to speech, silence, confidentiality, and listening. (shrink)

When experimental participants are given the chance to reflect and revise their initial judgments in a dynamic conversational context, do their responses to philosophical scenarios differ from responses to those same scenarios presented in a traditional static survey? In three experiments comparing responses given in conversational contexts with responses to traditional static surveys, we find no consistent evidence that responses differ in these different formats. This aligns with recent findings that various manipulations of reflectiveness have no effect on participants’ judgments (...) about philosophical scenarios. Although we did not find a consistent quantitative effect of format (conversation vs. static survey), conversational experiments still provide qualitative insights into debates about how participants are understanding (or misunderstanding) the scenarios they read in experimental studies, whether they are replacing difficult questions with questions that are more easily answered, and how participants are imagining the scenarios they read in ways that differ from what is explicitly stated by experimenters. We argue that conversational experiments—"Socratic questionnaires"—help show what is going on “under the hood” of traditional survey designs in the experimental investigation of philosophical questions. (shrink)

This paper defends a challenge, inspired by arguments drawn from contemporary ordinary language philosophy and grounded in experimental data, to certain forms of standard philosophical practice. The challenge is inspired by contemporary philosophers who describe themselves as practicing “ordinary language philosophy”. Contemporary ordinary language philosophy can be divided into constructive and critical approaches. The critical approach to contemporary ordinary language philosophy has been forcefully developed by Avner Baz, who attempts to show that a substantial chunk of contemporary philosophy is fundamentally (...) misguided. I describe Baz’s project and argue that while there is reason to be skeptical of its radical conclusion, it conveys an important truth about discontinuities between ordinary uses of philosophically significant expressions (“know”, e.g.) and their use in philosophical thought experiments. I discuss some evidence from experimental psychology and behavioral economics indicating that there is a risk of overlooking important aspects of meaning or misinterpreting experimental results by focusing only on abstract experimental scenarios, rather than employing more diverse and more ecologically valid experimental designs. I conclude by presenting a revised version of the critical argument from ordinary language. (shrink)

Existing research on the formation of employee ethical climate perceptions focuses mainly on organization characteristics as antecedents, and although other constructs have been considered, these constructs have typically been studied in isolation. Thus, our understanding of the context in which ethical climate perceptions develop is incomplete. To address this limitation, we build upon the work of Rupp to develop and test a multi-experience model of ethical climate which links aspects of the corporate social responsibility, ethics, justice, and trust literatures and (...) helps to explain how employees’ ethical climate perceptions form. We argue that in forming ethical climate perceptions, employees consider the actions or characteristics of a complex web of actors. Specifically, we propose that employees look outward at how communities are impacted by their organization’s actions, upward to make inferences about the ethicality of leaders in their organizations, and inward at their own propensity to trust others as they form their perceptions. Using a multiple-wave field study conducted at a privately held US corporation, we find substantial evidence in support of our model. (shrink)

We investigate claims about the frequency of "know" made by philosophers. Our investigation has several overlapping aims. First, we aim to show what is required to confirm or disconfirm philosophers’ claims about the comparative frequency of different uses of philosophically interesting expressions. Second, we aim to show how using linguistic corpora as tools for investigating meaning is a productive methodology, in the sense that it yields discoveries about the use of language that philosophers would have overlooked if they remained in (...) their "armchairs of an afternoon", to use J.L. Austin’s phrase. Third, we discuss facts about the meaning of "know" that so far have been ignored in philosophy, with the aim of reorienting discussions of the relevance of ordinary language for philosophical theorizing. (shrink)

We analyse the connection between the computability and continuity of functions in the case of homomorphisms between topological algebraic structures. Inspired by the Pour-El and Richards equivalence theorem between computability and boundedness for closed linear operators on Banach spaces, we study the rather general situation of partial homomorphisms between metric partial universal algebras. First, we develop a set of basic notions and results that reveal some of the delicate algebraic, topological and effective properties of partial algebras. Our main computability concepts (...) are based on numerations and include those of effective metric partial algebras and effective partial homomorphisms. We prove a general equivalence theorem that includes a version of the Pour-El and Richards Theorem, and has other applications. Finally, the Pour-El and Richards axioms for computable sequence structures on Banach spaces are generalised to computable partial sequence structures on metric algebras, and we prove their equivalence with our computability model based on numerations. (shrink)

This paper describes the historical background and early formation of Wilhelm Johannsen's distinction between genotype and phenotype. It is argued that contrary to a widely accepted interpretation his concepts referred primarily to properties of individual organisms and not to statistical averages. Johannsen's concept of genotype was derived from the idea of species in the tradition of biological systematics from Linnaeus to de Vries: An individual belonged to a group - species, subspecies, elementary species - by representing a certain underlying type. (...) Johannsen sharpened this idea theoretically in the light of recent biological discoveries, not least those of cytology. He tested and confirmed it experimentally combining the methods of biometry, as developed by Francis Galton, with the individual selection method and pedigree analysis, as developed for instance by Louis Vilmorin. The term "genotype" was introduced in W. Johannsen's 1909 treatise, but the idea of a stable underlying biological "type" distinct from observable properties was the core idea of his classical bean selection experiment published 6 years earlier. The individual ontological foundation of population analysis was a self-evident presupposition in Johannsen's studies of heredity in populations from their start in the early 1890s till his death in 1927. The claim that there was a "substantial but cautious modification of Johannsen's phenotype-genotype distinction" from a statistical to an individual ontological perspective derives from a misreading of the 1903 and 1909 texts. The immediate purpose of this paper is to correct this reading of the 1903 monograph by showing how its problems and results grow out of Johannsen's earlier work in heredity and plant breeding. Johannsen presented his famous selection experiment as the culmination of a line of criticism of orthodox Darwinism by William Bateson, Hugo de Vries, and others. They had argued that evolution is based on stepwise rather than continuous change in heredity. Johannsen's paradigmatic experiment showed how stepwise variation in heredity could be operationally distinguished from the observable, continuous morphological variation. To test Galton's law of partial regression, Johannsen deliberately chose pure lines of self-fertilizing plants, a pure line being the descendants in successive generations of one single individual. Such a population could be assumed to be highly homogeneous with respect to hereditary type, and Johannsen found that selection produced no change in this type. Galton, he explained, had experimented with populations composed of a number of stable hereditary types. The partial regression which Galton found was simply an effect of selection between types, increasing the proportion of some types at the expense of others. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy, Psychiatry, & Psychology 10.1 (2003) 57-62 [Access article in PDF] Listening to People Or Listening to Prozac?Another Consideration of Causal Classifications Jennifer Hansen Keywords causal classification, descriptivism, melancholia, neurasthenia, depression, cultural relativism. The shape and detail of depression have gone through a thousand cartwheels, and the treatment of depression has alternated between the ridiculous and the sublime, but the excessive sleeping, inadequate eating, suicidiality, withdrawal from social (...) interaction, and relentless despair are all as old as the hill tribes, if not as old as the hills. In the years since man achieved the capacity for self-reference, shame has come and gone; treatments for bodily complaints have alternated and crossed with treatments for spiritual ones; pleas to external gods have echoed pleas to internal demons. To understand the history of depression is to understand the invention of human being as we now know and are him. Our Prozac-popping, cognitively focused, semi-alienated postmodernity is only a stage in the ongoing understanding and control of mood and character. (Solomon 2001, 286) ALTHOUGH ANDREW SOLOMON clearly believes that "the shape and detail of depression have gone through a thousand cartwheels," Jennifer Radden gives us pause before assuming that depression is just another name for Dame Melancholy. Solomon's claim depends on a deeper metaphysical claim about the nature of depression and its causes. The current method of psychiatric nosology, descriptivism, does not necessarily support equating melancholia and depression. Furthermore, it appears that adopting descriptivism as the sole method of classifying mental disorders commits us to cultural relativist psychiatry. Below I reconsider whether we want to rule out causal classifications and suggest that embracing both descriptivism and causal classifications offer us greater possibilities in understanding human illness and culture.Although the occasion for Jennifer Radden's essay is to investigate whether or not melancholia and depression refer to the same thing, her essay detours into a consideration of extra-descriptivist models of psychiatric illness versus the descriptivism of current psychiatric nosology. This detour turns out to be warranted; her purely academic question yields to a timelier question concerning the proper methodology for classifying mental disorders. Whereas debates about psychiatric nosology are perennial, the recent success of the new generation of antidepressants [End Page 57] is reviving biological psychiatry and its search for the neurochemical origins of depression. Hence, embedded in Radden's question concerning whether or not melancholia is the same thing as clinical depression, is another important question concerning the causes of mental illness, particularly depression.Currently, with its descriptivist approach, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) does not classify mental illness, such as clinical depression, based on underlying causes. The cluster of symptoms and behavioral signs that lead a clinician to diagnose one as depressed that are contained in either the DSM or the International Classification of Diseases (ICD) may be too fuzzy or elusive to give any clear distinction between major depression, mild depression, and the blues. For example, one group of epidemiologists points out that [t]he DSM-III, DSM-III-R, and DSM-IV acknowledge that depression, like many mental disorders, has no currently obvious natural classes... If natural classes of depression exist, then their nosology awaits the discovery of distinct and reliable genetic, biological, clinical, or other predictors of risk, severity, or clinical course. Clinicians have a tradition of separating depressions into subtypes; however, this subtyping has not yet led to clear-cut delineations of syndromes in populations. (Kaelber 1995, 4) The evidence is still insufficient to establish the biological or psychological origins of depression. Although many theories exist that explain why people become depressed, scientifically we are not yet in a position to determine which is the right theory. From a pragmatic perspective, however, whether or not we know what causes depression, we can nonetheless attempt to alleviate suffering from depression. And it is with this goal in mind that the DSM-IV and ICD-10 classify mental disorders.Now, given that our current methodology for psychiatric nosology does not establish causes, it is also insufficient for determining what... (shrink)

When faced with the threat of negative reputation spillover from an alliance partner accused of environmental misconduct, the focal firm must decide whether to adopt a supportive or non-supportive response. We argue that this decision denotes a commitment escalation dilemma, but that factors previously found to increase escalation tendencies lead to de-escalation in our crisis contagion context. Specifically, we derive four hypotheses from this reverse effect proposition, and test these using a policy-capturing survey targeting Norwegian CEOs. We found that firms (...) are more likely to select an adversary response when the alliance is of high strategic importance and has high termination costs. Conversely, firms are more likely to select an advocacy response when the alliance is of low strategic importance and has low termination costs and when the CEO was not involved in the formation of the alliance. Overall, our study answers a call for a more nuanced understanding of commitment escalation and the theory’s boundary conditions by introducing reputation spillover crisis as a contextual influencer of escalation behavior. It also extends the reputation literature and provides new evidence that reputation concerns can instigate ethical decision-making. (shrink)

This paper sets out the felicity conditions for metalinguistic proposals, a type of directive illocutionary act. It discusses the relevance of metalinguistic proposals and other metalinguistic directives for understanding both small- and large-scale linguistic engineering projects, essentially contested concepts, metalinguistic provocations, and the methodology of ordinary language philosophy. Metalinguistic proposals are compared with other types of linguistic interventions, including metalinguistic negotiation, conceptual engineering, lexical warfare, and ameliorative projects.

Are color adjectives ("red", "green", etc.) relative adjectives or absolute adjectives? Existing theories of the meaning of color adjectives attempt to answer that question using informal ("armchair") judgments. The informal judgments of theorists conflict: it has been proposed that color adjectives are absolute with standards anchored at the minimum degree on the scale, that they are absolute but have near-midpoint standards, and that they are relative. In this paper we report two experiments, one based on entailment patterns and one based (...) on presupposition accommodation, that investigate the meaning of scalar adjectives. We find evidence confirming the existence of subgroups of the population who operate with different standards for color adjectives. The evidence of interpersonal variation in where standards are located on the relevant scale and how those standards can be adjusted indicates that the existing theories of the meaning of color adjectives are at best only partially correct. We also find evidence that paradigmatic relative adjectives ("tall", "wide") behave in ways that are not predicted by the standard theory of scalar adjectives. We discuss several different possible explanations for this unexpected behavior. We conclude by discussing the relevance of our findings for philosophical debates about the nature and extent of semantically encoded context sensitivity in which color adjectives have played a key role. (shrink)

We analyse the connection between the computability and continuity of functions in the case of homomorphisms between topological algebraic structures. Inspired by the Pour-El and Richards equivalence theorem between computability and boundedness for closed linear operators on Banach spaces, we study the rather general situation of partial homomorphisms between metric partial universal algebras. First, we develop a set of basic notions and results that reveal some of the delicate algebraic, topological and effective properties of partial algebras. Our main computability concepts (...) are based on numerations and include those of effective metric partial algebras and effective partial homomorphisms. We prove a general equivalence theorem that includes a version of the Pour-El and Richards Theorem, and has other applications. Finally, the Pour-El and Richards axioms for computable sequence structures on Banach spaces are generalised to computable partial sequence structures on metric algebras, and we prove their equivalence with our computability model based on numerations. (shrink)

Social network analysis (SNA) is an increasingly popular approach that provides researchers with highly developed tools to map and analyze complexes of social relations. Although a number of network scholars have explicated the assumptions that underpin SNA, the approach has yet to be discussed in relation to established philosophies of science. This article argues that there is a tension between applied and methods-oriented SNA studies, on the one hand, and those addressing the social-theoretical nature and implications of networks, on the (...) other. The former, in many cases, exhibits positivist tendencies, whereas the latter incorporate a number of assumptions that are directly compatible with core critical realist views on the nature of social reality and knowledge. This article suggests that SNA may be detached from positivist social science and come to constitute a valuable instrument in the critical realist toolbox. (shrink)

Decision-makers frequently struggle to base their choices on an exhaustive evaluation of all options at stake. This is particularly so when the choice problem at hand is complex, because the available alternatives are hard to compare. Rather than striving to choose the most valuable alternative, in such situations decision-makers often settle for the choice of an alternative which is not inferior to any other available alternative instead. In this paper, we extend two established models of boundedly rational choice, the categorize (...) then choose heuristic and the rational shortlist method, to incorporate this kind of “indecisive” choice behavior. We study some properties of these extensions and provide full behavioral characterizations. (shrink)

Employing the theory of Birkhoff polarities as a model of model theory yields an inductively defined dual structure which is a formalization of semantics and which allows for simple proofs of some new results for model theory.