Biologie de synthèse, nanotechnologies, liste sans fin de nouveaux gadgets électroniques, de nouveaux artefacts robotiques... La course permanente à l'innovation irresponsable impose au corps social de se soumettre aux développements de multiples nouveautés technologiques. Appauvrissement des ressources, accroissement de la pollution, surveillance toujours plus méticuleuse des Etats et des individus, solitude au travail, en sont le résultat. Surmonter ces problèmes exige de revenir sur l'idée de nature, en prenant conscience qu'il n'y a pas une nature en soi, à notre service, (...) dans laquelle nous pourrions puiser sans fin, mais que l'idée que nous nous faisons d'elle s'est constituée progressivement depuis la fin du XVIe siècle. C'est cette fabrique de l'idée de nature à l'époque moderne et de ses conséquences qui fait l'objet de ce livre. Pourquoi avons-nous abandonné notre existence et notre responsabilité pour la fascination du détour technologique? Résolument à contre-courant, l'auteur rend possible une critique et un dépassement de l'emprise " inéluctable " de l'innovation, de l'économie libérale utilitariste et de la technique sur notre avenir. (shrink)

In this text Hasse presents a new, inclusive, posthuman learning theory, designed to keep up with the transformations of human learning resulting from new technological experiences, as well as considering the expanding role of cyborg devices and robots in learning. This ground-breaking book draws on research from across psychology, education, and anthropology to present a truly interdisciplinary examination of the relationship between technology, learning and humanity. Posthumanism questions the self-evident status of human beings by exploring how technology is changing what (...) can be categorised as "human". In this book, the author applies a posthumanist lens to traditional learning theory, challenging conventional understanding of what a human learner is, and considering how technological advances are changing how we think about this question. Throughout the book Hasse uses vignettes of her own research and that of other prominent academics to exemplify what technology can tell us about how we learn and how this can be observed in real-life settings. Posthumanist Learning is essential reading for students and researchers of posthumanism and learning theory from a variety of backgrounds, including psychology, education, anthropology, robotics and philosophy. (shrink)

Que savons-nous de l'avenir? Quel sera l'état de nos connaissances dans quarante ans? Comment pouvons-nous l'entrevoir sans faire de science-fiction? Ce livre apporte une réponse, par une réflexion prospective sur la science et la technologie à l'horizon 2050 : des "ruptures" (des nouveaux concepts, des théories nouvelles) pourraient-elles changer la donne? Parviendrons-nous à mieux comprendre les mécanismes du vivant et de la conscience? Pouvons-nous envisager un renouvellement des théories de la matière et de l'univers et l'avènement d'une nouvelle informatique, etc.? (...) La prospective prend en compte les besoins de la société (dans les domaines de l'énergie, du travail, de la santé et de l'alimentation, de la sécurité) qui auront un impact sur la recherche (une nouvelle robotique, l'utilisation en médecine des thérapies géniques, des innovations dans l'énergie, etc.). Elle doit aussi anticiper l'évolution des liens entre science et société : la recherche, vecteur de l'"économie de la connaissance", échappera-t-elle à la dictature du temps court et rendra-t-elle le monde plus lisible? Une nouvelle géopolitique de la science et de la technologie et de nouveaux modes de production des connaissances émergeront-ils? Comment engager le débat sur les choix technologiques et la dimension éthique des enjeux? C'est à ces questions que l'auteur, armé de sa longue expérience de responsable de la politique scientifique française, tente ici de répondre, à travers des scénarios du futur. (shrink)

"Cet essai de bioéthique propose de penser l'Homme et son avenir à travers une innovation technologique extraordinaire : les implants cérébraux. Utilisés déjà dans des contextes de maladies, leur développement actuel laisse espérer pouvoir contrôler bientôt des dispositifs robotiques en connectant le cerveau à des ordinateurs équipés d'intelligences artificielles. Si les premiers résultats sont très encourageants, ces interfaces cerveau-machines posent néanmoins un questionnement éthique majeur. Que devient l'Homme si son cerveau fonctionne avec un dispositif électronique "intelligent" implanté? Pourrait-on percer les (...) secrets de ses pensées? Pourrait-on augmenter son intelligence ou sa mémoire? Afin d'appréhender ces trois questions, cet essai commence par penser l'Homme et son rapport aux technologies : la vulnérabilité humaine n'appelle-t-elle pas le recours aux techniques et technologies pour habiter le monde? Pour aider certaines personnes en situation de handicap, n'a-t-on pas besoin parfois de dépasser techniquement les limites de la nature humaine? Mais peut-on pour autant tout se permettre, même pour compenser un handicap? Comment accompagner les chercheurs dans leur propre questionnement? Ne serait-ce qu'une question de bon et de mauvais usage des techniques et technologies? C'est cette aventure philosophique et bioéthique que propose cet essai.". (shrink)

Innovations permeate healthcare settings on an ever-increasing scale. Health technology innovations impact our perceptions and experiences of health, care, disease, etc. Because of the fast pace these HTIs are being introduced in different healthcare settings, there is a growing societal consensus that these HTIs need to be governed by ethical reflection. This paper reports a systematic review of argument-based literature which focused on articles reporting on ethical frameworks to screen or evaluate HTIs. To do this a four step methodology was (...) followed: Literature search conducted in five electronic literature databases; Identification of relevant articles; Development of data-extraction tool to analyze the included articles; Analysis, synthesis of data and reporting of results. Fifty-seven articles were included, each reporting on a specific ethical framework. These ethical frameworks existed out of characteristics which were grouped into five common ones: Motivations for development and use of frameworks; Objectives of using frameworks; Specific characteristics of frameworks ; Ethical approaches and concepts used in the frameworks; Methods to use the frameworks. Although this multiplicity of ethical frameworks shows an increasing importance of ethically analyzing HTIs, it remains unclear what the specific role is of these analyses. An ethics of caution, on which ethical frameworks rely, guides HTIs in their design, development, implementation, without questioning their technological paradigm. An ethics of desirability questions this paradigm, without guiding HTIs. In the end, a place needs to be found in-between, to critically assess HTIs. (shrink)

Democratic innovations have been widely presented by both academics and practitioners as a potential remedy to the crisis of representative democracy. Many argue that deliberation should play a pivotal role in these innovations, fostering greater citizen participation and political influence. However, it remains unclear how digitalization affects the quality of deliberation—whether digital democratic innovations (DDIs) undermine or enhance deliberation. This paper takes an inductive approach in political theory to critically examine three features of online deliberation that matter for deliberative democracy: (...) scale, transparency, and the facilitation of equality. It argues that the enhancement of equality should be given special attention when designing and implementing deliberative DDIs. Equality is a basic democratic value that is crucial for the intrinsic quality of deliberation. One way of enhancing equality through digital deliberative practices is via AI facilitation, which can assist human facilitators and help mitigate power dynamics, often present in non-digital settings. (shrink)

Inclusive businesses that combine profit making with social impact are claimed to hold the potential for poverty alleviation while also creating new entrepreneurial and innovation opportunities. Current research, however, offers little insight on the processes through which for-profit business organizations introduce social innovations that can profitably create social impact. To understand how social innovations emerge and become sustained in business organizations, we studied a telecom firm in Kenya that successfully extended financial services across the country through a number of mobile (...) banking innovations. Our qualitative analysis revealed the strong role of being embedded in local networks and structures for initiating and implementing social innovations. Strong embeddedness enhanced the pragmatic and ethical imperative for internalizing social issues, but also provided access to diverse resources for implementing and legitimizing social innovations. However, hybridization processes that emphasized social issues introduced organizational tensions by increasing goal diversity and requiring adapting organizational processes and structures. The case shows how developing a mission-driven identity enabled the sustenance of social innovations by providing a meta-narrative that bridged goal diversities and rationalized organizational change. (shrink)

Attempts to explain the origin of macroevolutionary innovations have been only partially successful. Here it is proposed that the patterns of major evolutionary transitions have to be understood first, before it is possible to further analyse the forces behind the process. The hypothesis is that major evolutionary innovations are characterized by an increase in organismal autonomy, in the sense of emancipation from the environment. After a brief overview of the literature on this subject, increasing autonomy is defined as the evolutionary (...) shift in the individual system–environment relationship, such that the direct influences of the environment are gradually reduced and a stabilization of self-referential, intrinsic functions within the system is generated. This is described as relative autonomy because numerous interconnections with the environment and dependencies upon it are retained. Features of increasing autonomy are spatial separations, an increase in homeostatic functions and in body size, internalizations and an increase in physiological and behavioral flexibility. It is described how these features are present in different combinations in the major evolutionary transitions of metazoans and, consequently, how they should be taken into consideration when evolutionary innovations are studied. The hypothesis contributes to a reconsideration of the relationship between organisms and their environment. (shrink)

Science and the History of the Sciences. Conceptual Innovations Through Historicizing Science in the Eighteenth Century. The historical reconstruction of science is linked to philosophical discussions of the eighteenth century in many ways. The historiography of philosophy and the historiography of science share the conceptual problem to assemble the multitude of scientific and philosophical practices under general concepts. The historical analysis of scientific progress offers a clue by problematizing definitions of “science” and “sciences” as well as the system of sciences (...) as a whole. By analyzing these conceptual problems and the typology of historical enterprises of the eighteenth century, this paper will discuss the close interrelations which existed between philosophical and historical discourses of eighteenth‐century reflection on science. (shrink)

Mutational robustness facilitates evolutionary innovations. Gene duplications are unique kinds of mutations, in that they generally increase such robustness. The frequent association of gene duplications in regulatory networks with evolutionary innovation is thus a special case of a general mechanism linking innovation to robustness. The potential power of this mechanism to promote evolutionary innovations on large time scales is illustrated here with several examples. These include the role of gene duplications in the vertebrate radiation, flowering plant evolution and heart development, (...) which encompass some of the most striking innovations in the evolution of life. BioEssays 30:367–373, 2008. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. (shrink)

The aim of the article is an attempt to analyze the impact of the pandemic crisis on innovations created by economic entities. The ongoing economic downturn has reasons different from previous economic peturbations, and has much more extensive effects across the entire global economy. Hence the need to analyze not individual economies as trends in the emergence of innovations initiated or significantly accelerated by the pandemic crisis. The analysis was made on the basis of reports from institutions such as the (...) World Economic Forum, OECD or ESPAS, as well as preliminary studies conducted in some countries. It should be emphasized that due to the ongoing perturbations and the pandemic not ending, precise research results will be possible to obtain in later years. (shrink)

Summary of the major innovations of Emil du Bois-Reymond (1818-1896).

The recent progression in AI, nanomedicine and robotics have increased concerns about ethics, policy and law. The increasing complexity and hybrid nature of AI and nanotechnologies impact the functionality of “law in action” which can lead to legal uncertainty and ultimately to a public distrust. There is an immediate need of collaboration between Central Asian biomedical scientists, AI engineers and academic lawyers for the harmonization of AI, nanomedicines and robotics in Central Asian legal system.

Social innovations (SIs) offer creative solutions to complex social problems and often require the exchange of necessary resources, knowledge, and expertise among various actors. These actors form an ecosystem that can support the development of successful SIs. In this special topic forum introduction, we first discuss the literature related to the support function of ecosystems. We use the theoretical lens of prosocial behavior to explain the various types of support in an ecosystem. We argue that there are three archetypes of (...) support in ecosystems, namely, altruistic, communitarian, and commercial support. Subsequently, we present the three papers accepted for publication in the special topic forum. One paper refers to the three support archetypes, although indirectly, while the other two refer to one specific archetype of ecosystem support for SIs. This introductory paper concludes with discussion on the opportunities for future research. Without a clear understanding of the different archetypes of support, it would be difficult for both scholars and practitioners to design vibrant ecosystems in assistance to SI. (shrink)

In Chinese tradition Confucianism has been always both a philosophy of moral self-cultivation for the human individual and an ideological guide for political institutional policy and governmental action. After the May 4th Movement of 1919 (WusiYundong ), Confucianism lost much of its moral appeal and political authority and entered a kind of limbo, bearing blame for the backwardness and weakening of China. Now that China has asserted its political rights among world nations, it seems natural to ask whether Confucianism as (...) a philosophy has a modern or even postmodern role to play for building modern China and for enlightening the world. This question is even more meaningful in light of the fact that there is a genuine need felt in China for a return to its Confucian heritage and vision for purposes of sustaining societal harmonization and reconstructing cultural identity in the modern world. (shrink)

The present article conceptualizes morally controversial innovations as a category of innovations that raise ethical issues due to their potentially undesirable long-term consequences on society or the natural environment. Then, it analyzes the case of biofuel crops by applying an extended version of the theory of planned behavior, which includes moral norm and ethical self-identity. The obtained results show that attitude and subjective norms are positively related to farmers' intention to grow biofuel crops. Yet the intention of those farmers with (...) a higher ethical self-identity is also influenced by perceived behavioral control and moral norm. In particular, moral norm negatively affects their intention to grow biofuel crops, thus restraining the adoption of this innovation. Implications for theory, as well as for policymakers interested in promoting the diffusion of morally controversial innovations, are discussed. (shrink)

In Chinese tradition Confucianism has been always both a philosophy of moral self-cultivation for the human individual and an ideological guide for political institutional policy and governmental action. After the May 4th Movement of 1919, Confucianism lost much of its moral appeal and political authority and entered a kind of limbo, bearing blame for the backwardness and weakening of China. Now that China has asserted its political rights among world nations, it seems natural to ask whether Confucianism as a philosophy (...) has a modern or even postmodern role to play for building modern China and for enlightening the world. This question is even more meaningful in light of the fact that there is a genuine need felt in China for a return to its Confucian heritage and vision for purposes of sustaining societal harmonization and reconstructing cultural identity in the modern world. (shrink)

The past three decades have witnessed a sharp reduction in the rate of growth of public research funding, and sometimes an actual decline in its level. In many countries, this decline has been accompanied by substantial changes in the ways that such funding has been allocated and monitored. In addition, the institutions governing how research is directed and conducted underwent significant reforms. In this paper we examine how these changes have affected scientists’ research goals and practices by comparing the development (...) of three scientific innovations in four European countries, namely Germany, the Netherlands, Switzerland, and Sweden. We find that the increased number of actors exercising authority over research goals does not necessarily lead to a greater diversity of interests funding research. A narrowing of goals and frameworks is especially probable when the increasing importance of external project funding is combined with reductions in state financing of universities and public research institutes. Finally, the growing standardisation of project cycle times and resource packages across funding agencies and scientific communities make it more difficult for researchers to pursue projects that deviate from these norms, especially, if they challenge mainstream beliefs and assessment criteria. (shrink)

Great individuals are assumed to cause the success of radical innovations--thus Henry Ford is depicted as the one who established the automobile industry in America. Hayagreeva Rao tells a different story, one that will change the way you think about markets forever. He explains how "market rebels"--activists who defy authority and convention--are the real force behind the success or failure of radical innovations. Rao shows how automobile enthusiasts were the ones who established the new automobile industry by staging highly publicized (...) reliability races and lobbying governments to enact licensing laws. Ford exploited the popularity of the car by using new mass-production technologies. Rao argues that market rebels also establish new niches and new cultural styles. If it were not for craft brewers who crusaded against "industrial beer" and proliferated brewpubs, there would be no specialty beers in America. But for nouvelle cuisine activists who broke the stranglehold of Escoffier's classical cuisine in France, there would have been little hybridization and experimentation in modern cooking. Market rebels also thwart radical innovation. Rao demonstrates how consumer activists have faced down chain stores and big box retailers, and how anti-biotechnology activists in Germany penetrated pharmaceutical firms and delayed the commercialization of patents. Read Market Rebels to learn how activists succeed when they construct "hot causes" that arouse intense emotions, and exploit "cool mobilization"--unconventional techniques that engage audiences in collective action. You will realize how the hands that move markets are the joined hands of market rebels. (shrink)

The development of citizenship in the framework of European integration has been marked by conceptual innovations. This article concentrates on three of its elements: antidiscrimination rights, the concept of Union Citizenship, and the right to free movement. In these cases, either concepts were newly coined, or already-established concepts were newly interpreted in the context of the European Union by the European Commission or by the Council. In a second step, they were then incorporated into new EU citizenship laws and then (...) transferred into national legislation and national political and administrative practice. During the implementation phase in the member states, the innovations often led to conflicts related to the interpretation of the new concepts in political and administrative practice. The article discusses the related processes as a pattern of conceptual innovation by law making that is typical for the EU. (shrink)

Historically, the sociology of emotion has been relatively long on theory and short on methods. This collection of articles seeks to remedy this by introducing new ways to capture the four factors of emotion, as articulated by Thoits : meaning, expression, label, and physiology. As a group, these studies reify existing dichotomies in the literature—that is, emotional experience versus emotional expression—and seek to reconcile them. Additionally, they all champion the use of mixed methods—either simultaneously or sequentially—adopting some combination of direct (...) or indirect observation, subjective understanding/experience, and physiological change. Using examples drawn for their own research, the authors provide new ways to capture emotion that will carry emotion scholars into the next four decades of research. (shrink)

Depuis les années 1960, Gilbert Durand a fondé et développé une méthodologie et une épistémologie novatrices de l'étude des imaginaires individuels et culturels qui ont inspiré une Ecole de Grenoble, qui n'a cessé d'essaimer à travers un grand nombre de centres de recherches en France et dans le monde. Sa pensée, connue à travers la mythocritique et la mythanalyse, enrichie par une vaste culture historique et pluriculturelle, a été appliquée dans les domaines les plus divers des sciences humaines et sociales. (...) Loin d'être un système clos, son oeuvre a inspiré une épistémologie ouverte qui a permis, sur la base des acquis fondamentaux, de se préciser, de s'adapter à des champs nouveaux, de recevoir les apports d'autres écoles, courants ou traditions culturelles. Les contributions ici rassemblées permettront de mieux situer l'émergence de la problématique de l'imaginaire dans différentes disciplines ou champs d'études, de présenter les innovations théoriques apportées par l'anthropologie de l'imaginaire de G Durand, d'illustrer les innovations qu'elles auront permises, d'amorcer des éléments de prospective pour les chantiers actuellement en cours d'exploration. (shrink)

Foreword: Mathesis as a philosophy of the beauty of music -- The constructive relationships between music and mathematics : the Pythagorean conception of universal music and its spread in the worldview of later periods -- Semantic interpretation of the interaction between music and mathematics : mystic middle ages and the sacral baroque -- Constructive aspects of the interaction between music and other arts -- Musica mathematica in practice : aspects of analysis -- Constructive aspects of music composition -- Semantic aspects (...) of music composition -- The mathematized musical graph -- Implications of modern mathematical theories. (shrink)

This study examined the drivers of climate change innovations and the effects of these innovations on firm outcomes in a sample of 203 firms in the South Australian wine cluster. The results of structural equation modeling analysis suggest that absorptive capacity has a direct effect on climate change innovations, and stimulates knowledge exchanges between firms in the cluster. KEs between firms in the cluster in turn directly affect the climate change innovations. The findings suggest a perhaps counterintuitive interrelationship between firm- (...) and cluster-level impacts, in which KEs between firms in the cluster play a partial mediating role in the innovation process. The study further finds that climate change innovations are related to firm performance and reductions in greenhouse gases : mitigative innovations lead to greater GHG reductions while adaptive innovations impact on FP. Contributions of the findings are discussed, as are future research directions. (shrink)

This article gives an overview of the visual culture shared by a number of scientists studying human variation in the first half of the 20th century. This was a time when most scientists shared the conceptual and terminological framework of ‘racial classifications’ to capture the structure of human variation. Clearly, drawings – and later photographs – of people from all over the world constituted a crucial part of the well-established visual culture concerned with human variation. The article, however, focuses on (...) the representational tools for visualizing aspects of human variation that were not so obvious to the eye of the observer. It contextualizes researchers’ strategies of visualizing human diversity within the pictorial traditions of relevant fields, particularly physical anthropology and human genetics. Starting from 1900, the article demonstrates how scientists built up a rich visual repertoire for understanding human diversity, one that integrated maps, tables, photos, drawings, diagrams, family and phylogenetic trees. The representations included abstract and non-abstract elements, but increasingly rested on diagrammatic visualizations. Notably, although these diagrammatic visualizations grew in sophistication and methodological rigor, they were rarely used in academic textbooks. More often, mixed strategies of visualizations – diagrammatic elements integrated into non-diagrammatic images – were chosen as representations for human diversity. In the postwar period, most of those visualizations disappeared from scientific publications, but not from popular media. For the scientific publications, one can argue that a number of scientists paid specific attention to visualizations and their deterministic potential. Some argued that particularly maps and trees were altogether problematic in their visualization of human evolution and human diversity. Others sought out new and better ways of constructing trees and maps to visualize truth-claims about human diversity. Here, diagrammatic elements played a key role. Notably, researchers who employed typological approaches for physical anthropology, and who admitted that there was a moment of intuition in their practices, aspired to meet the demands of mechanical objectivity by establishing abstract inscriptions of their typological assessments. (shrink)

In recent decades, the expansion of economic activity has been accompanied by negative environmental impacts. In response, there have been dramatic changes worldwide in terms of an increased demand for environmentally friendly products and services. To achieve these eco-innovations, firms have sought to acquire knowledge and implement operational flexibility by cooperating with different agents such as universities through a value cocreation system that is also expected to enhance firms’ performance. Using a sample of 250 companies, the present paper examines the (...) role of cooperation with universities in the development of diverse environmental innovations and building operational flexibility and, through this, improving firm performance. Results show that firms that value cooperation with universities develop a wider range of environmental innovations and increase their sales and benefits. (shrink)