This paper intends to address social robotics from the Actor-network theory (ANT) perspective. Starting from the critique of Seibt’s approach and the distinction between anthropomorphing and sociomorphing, the paper proposes a new methodological approach based on ANT and negotiation concepts. This approach allows us to: a) assume a more symmetrical ontology in which robots are considered as social agents, like humans; b) consider all the interactional elements as of equal importance; and c) overcome the dualistic limit that is often (...) imposed on social robotics studies, i.e., the tendency to consider only the one-to-one relationship, one man-one robot, inside the laboratory. Anthropomorphing and sociomorphing are the results of a negotiation process that cannot be reduced to a series of degrees of simulation, but must be understood as a complex interactional process between many agents and material mediations. (shrink)

An actor's mental states—whether she acted knowingly and with bad intentions—typically play an important role in evaluating the extent to which an action is wrong and in determining appropriate levels of punishment. In four experiments, we find that this role for knowledge and intent is significantly weaker when evaluating transgressions of conventional rules as opposed to moral rules. We also find that this attenuated role for knowledge and intent is partly due to the fact that conventional rules are judged (...) to be more arbitrary than moral rules; whereas moral transgressions are associated with actions that are intrinsically wrong, conventional transgressions are associated with actions that are only contingently wrong. Finally, we find that it is the perpetrator's belief about the arbitrary or non-arbitrary basis of the rule—not the reality—that drives this differential effect of knowledge and intent across types of transgressions. (shrink)

What kind of relationship do we have with artificial beings (avatars, puppets, robots, etc.)? What does it mean to mirror ourselves in them, to perform them or to play trial identity games with them? Actor & Avatar addresses these questions from artistic and scholarly angles. Contributions on the making of »technical others« and philosophical reflections on artificial alterity are flanked by neuroscientific studies on different ways of perceiving living persons and artificial counterparts. The contributors have achieved a successful artistic-scientific (...) collaboration with extensive visual material. (shrink)

In a series of recent papers, Walter Sinnott-Armstrong has used findings in social psychology to put pressure on the claim that our moral beliefs can be non-inferentially justified. More specifically, he has suggested that insofar as our moral intuitions are subject to what psychologists call framing effects, this poses a real problem for moral intuitionism. In this paper, we are going to try to add more fuel to the empirical fire that Sinnott-Armstrong has placed under the feet of the intuitionist. (...) Along the way, we first provide an overview of what Sinnott-Armstrong calls the Master Argument against intuitionism. Then we examine some of the literature on framing effects—especially as it pertains to moral philosophy. Finally, we present the results of a new study which create yet another hurdle intuitionists must clear if they want to motivate their view. It appears that in addition to being influenced by framing effects, our moral intuitions are also influenced by an actor–observer bias as well—a bias whereby we hold other people to different moral standards than we would hold ourselves even if we were in the same situation. If we’re right, the burden is on the moral intuitionist to explain why we should have faith in our moral intuitions despite the gathering evidence concerning their seeming unreliability. And by our lights, this is something that simply cannot be done from the armchair. (shrink)

Much social theory takes for granted the core conceit of modern culture, that modern actors-individuals, organizations, nation states-are autochthonous and natural entities, no longer really embedded in culture. Accordingly, while there is much abstract metatheory about "actors" and their "agency," there is arguably little theory about the topic. This article offers direct arguments about how the modern (European, now global) cultural system constructs the modern actor as an authorized agent for various interests via an ongoing relocation into society of (...) agency originally located in transcendental authority or in natural forces environing the social system. We see this authorized agentic capability as an essential feature of what modern theory and culture call an "actor," and one that, when analyzed, helps greatly in explaining a number of otherwise anomalous or little analyzed features of modern individuals, organizations, and states. These features include their isomorphism and standardization, their internal decoupling, their extraordinarily complex structuration, and their capacity for prolific collective action. (shrink)

Agency without Actors? New Approaches to collective Action is rethinking a key issue in social theory and research: the question of agency. The history of sociological thought is deeply intertwined with the discourse of human agency as an effect of social relations. In most recent discussions the role of non-humans gains a substantial impact. Consequently the book asks: Are nonhumans active, do they have agency? And if so: how and in what different ways? The volume offers a critical state-of-the-art debate (...) of internationally and nationally leading scholars within Sociology, Social Anthropology and STS on agency (Latour, Law, Michael, Rammert etc.). It fosters the productive exchange of empirical settings and theoretical views by outlining a wide range of novel accounts that link human and non-human agency. It tries to understand social-technical, political and environmental networks as different forms of agency that produce discrete and identifiable entities like humans, animals, technical artifacts. It also asks how different types of (often conflicting) agency and agents actors are distinguished in practice, how they are maintained and how they interfere with each other. (shrink)

One of the strikingly iconoclastic features of actor-network theory is its juxtaposition of the claim to be a realist perspective with denials that supposedly natural phenomena existed before scientists “made them up.” This paper explains and criticizes such arguments in the work of Bruno Latour. By combining referent and reference in the concept of assemblages, Latour provides a superficially viable way to reconcile these apparently incompatible claims. This paper will argue, however, that this conflation of referent and reference leads (...) Latour’s ontology into difficulties that can only be resolved by abandoning it in favor of a more conventional—critical—realism. (shrink)

Understanding personality effects and their role in influencing relationship quality, varied according to gender and relationship duration, could help us better understand close relationships. Participants were Chinese dating dyads and were asked to complete both the Big Five Inventory and Perceived Relationship Quality Component scales. Males and those who had a long-term relationship perceived better relationship quality; individuals who scored higher on agreeableness, conscientiousness, openness, and emotional stability enjoyed better relationship quality; gender and/or relationship duration moderated the actor effect (...) of extraversion and the partner effects of conscientiousness, emotional stability, and openness on relationship quality. Regarding the profile similarity, those couples who were more dissimilar in their profile personality had better relationship quality, especially when they were in a relatively long-term relationship. Meanwhile, with an increase in profile similarity, the males’ perceived relationship quality decreased. (shrink)

As forms of private self-regulation, multi-stakeholder initiatives have emerged as an important empirical phenomenon in global governance processes. At the same time, MSIs are also theoretically intriguing because of their inherent double nature. On the one hand, MSIs spell out CSR standards that define norms for corporate behavior. On the other hand, MSIs are also the result of corporate and stakeholder behavior. We combine the perspectives of institutional theory and club theory to conceptualize this double nature of MSIs. Based on (...) a stage model that looks at the interplay of actor and institutional dynamics, we generate insights into why actors join a voluntary MSI, how the various motivations and intentions of the actors influence the standard development, and how these as well as the MSI design are subsequently influenced by both external and internal dynamics. (shrink)

Actor‐Network Theory is a research lens that has gained popularity in the nursing and health sciences domains. The perspective allows a researcher to describe the interaction of actors (both human and non‐human) within networked sociomaterial contexts, including complex practice environments where nurses and health technology operate. This study will describe Actor‐Network Theory and provide methodological considerations for researchers who are interested in using this sociotechnical lens within nursing and informatics‐related research. Considerations related to technology conceptualization, levels of analysis, (...) and sampling procedures in Actor‐Network Theory based research are addressed. Finally, implications for future nursing research within complex environments are highlighted. (shrink)

ABSTRACTThis article addresses the identity of the legitimate actors of international law-making from the perspective of democratic theory. It argues that both states or state-based international organisations, and civil society actors should be considered complementary legitimate actors of international law-making. Unlike previous accounts, our proposed model of representation, the Multiple Representation Model, is based on an expanded, democratic understanding of the principle of state participation: it is specifically designed to palliate the democratic deficits of more common versions of the Principle (...) of State Consent. Second, it endorses a qualified version of the Principle of Civil Society Participation, one that is much more restrictive and more critical of the democratic defects of civil society actors than most of its current supporters. Finally, it reveals how the democratic strengths and deficits of both models are best approached as mirroring one another and need to be combined in a complex ac... (shrink)

The question of judgment has become one of the central problems in recent social, political and ethical thought. This paper explores Hannah Arendt's decisive contribution to this debate by attempting to reconstruct analytically two distinctive perspectives on judgment from the corpus of her writings. By exploring her relation to Aristotelian and Kantian sources, and by uncovering debts and parallels to key thinkers such as Benjamin and Heidegger, it is argued that Arendt's work pinpoints the key antinomy within political judgment itself, (...) that between the viewpoints of the political actor and the political spectator. The paper concludes by highlighting some lacunae and difficulties in the development of Arendt's account, difficulties that set challenges for those theorists (such as Seyla Benhabib and Alessandro Ferrara) who wish to appropriate and extend Arendt's contribution into the field of contemporary critical theory. Key Words: action • aesthetics • community • freedom • history • judgment • reflection. (shrink)

How should we make sense of praise and blame and other such reactions towards collective agents like governments, universities, or corporations? Collective agents can be appropriate targets for our moral feelings and judgements because they can maintain and express moral positions of their own. Moral agency requires being capable of recognising moral considerations and reasons. It also necessitates the ability to react reflexively to moral matters, i.e. to take into account new moral concerns when they arise. While members of a (...) collective agent are capable of this, the collective frames the thinking of the individual moral agents within it and affects their options in myriad ways. The moral positions thus formed and expressed belong to the collective. Crucially, unlike marginal moral agents, collective agents as moral actors can be held fully responsible for their acts and omissions. (shrink)

In this paper I discuss the ontological status of actants. Actants are argued as being the basic constituting entities of networks in the framework of Actor Network Theory (Latour, 2007). I introduce two problems concerning actants that have been pointed out by Collin (2010). The first problem concerns the explanatory role of actants. According to Collin, actants cannot play the role of explanans of networks and products of the same newtork at the same time, at pain of circularity. The (...) second problem is that if actants are, as suggested by Latour, fundamentally propertyless, then it is unclear how they combine into networks. This makes the nature of actants inexplicable. -/- I suggest that both problems rest on the assumption of a form of object ontology, i.e. the assumption that the ontological basis of reality consists in discrete individual entities that have intrinsic properties. I argue that the solution to this problem consists in the assumption of an ontology of relations, as suggested within the framework of Ontic Structural Realism (Ladyman & Ross, 2007). Ontic Structural Realism is a theory concerning the ontology of science that claims that scientific theories represent a reality consisting on only relation, and no individual entities. -/- Furthermore I argue that the employment of OSR can, at the price of little modification for both theories, solve both of the two problems identified by Collin concerning ANT. -/- Throughout the text I seek support for my claims by referring to examples of application of ANT to the context of networked learning. As I argue, the complexity of the phenomenon of networked learning gives us a convenient vantage point from which we can clearly understand many important aspects of both ANT and OSR. -/- While my proposal can be considered as an attempt to solve Collin's problems, it is also an experiment of reconciliation between analytic and constructivist philosophy of science. -/- In fact I point out that on the one hand Actor Network Theory and Ontic Structural Realism show an interesting number of points of agreement, such as the naturalistic character and the focus on relationality. On the other hand, I argue that all the intuitive discrepancies that originates from the Science and Technology Studies’ criticism against analytic philosophy of science are at a closer look only apparent. (shrink)

The global environmental and social-economic crises of industrialized agriculture have led to the emergence of agroecology as an alternative approach aiming to increase the ecological, social and economic sustainability of agri–food systems. The ‘multi-level perspective’ is now a widely used framework to understand and promote the upscaling of local innovation niches, such as agroecology, to broader scales (e.g., regional, national, international), thus reconfiguring the dominant socio-technical regimes. Additionally, emergent ‘hybrid forums’ can provide a space between niche and regime where niche (...) innovators can become important actors in scaling up and out emergent innovations. In this paper, we examine a university training program (Postgraduate Diploma in Local Agroecological Dynamization at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona), to better understand its role as a ‘hybrid forum’. Our analysis focuses especially on how the program, as an example of a hybrid forum, worked to reconfigure practices, concepts, and tools of local development practitioners. We also assess to what extent the program contributed to transitioning local development institutions toward agroecology. An online survey (n = 46) and in-depth interviews (n = 16) were carried out to determine how the training program has impacted the student’s opinions and their respective institutions. The results show that most of the students consider that they have acquired new theoretical frameworks and useful methods to re-framing their local development projects, that new alliances with multi-actor networks have been perceived, and that some internal changes of the local development practices have taken place. We conclude that the training program, as a hybrid forum, is capable of outscaling niche innovations through linkages with different kind of actors both from the niche and the regime. Political changes in the socio-technical landscape level offer an opportunity to amplify the impact of the innovations which are being generated by those multi-actor networks, but with a limited multi-level impact as far as institutional regime-actors not aligned with agroecological transition keep the most of the competencies on agri–food systems. (shrink)

Hannah Arendt’s conceptualization of political judgement has been a source of much scholarly investigation and debate in recent decades. Underlying the debate is the assumption that at least in her early writings, Arendt had an actor’s theory of judgement. In this article I challenge this common assumption. As I attempt to demonstrate, it relies on a misunderstanding, not only of Arendt’s conception of judgement, but also of her conception of agents in the public realm. Once we discard the assumption (...) of an actor’s theory of judgement, I argue, some important issues in Arendt’s theory of judgement are resolved, enabling us to perceive it as a unified, rather than self-contradictory, theory of judgement. (shrink)

The global environmental and social-economic crises of industrialized agriculture have led to the emergence of agroecology as an alternative approach aiming to increase the ecological, social and economic sustainability of agri–food systems. The ‘multi-level perspective’ is now a widely used framework to understand and promote the upscaling of local innovation niches, such as agroecology, to broader scales, thus reconfiguring the dominant socio-technical regimes. Additionally, emergent ‘hybrid forums’ can provide a space between niche and regime where niche innovators can become important (...) actors in scaling up and out emergent innovations. In this paper, we examine a university training program, to better understand its role as a ‘hybrid forum’. Our analysis focuses especially on how the program, as an example of a hybrid forum, worked to reconfigure practices, concepts, and tools of local development practitioners. We also assess to what extent the program contributed to transitioning local development institutions toward agroecology. An online survey and in-depth interviews were carried out to determine how the training program has impacted the student’s opinions and their respective institutions. The results show that most of the students consider that they have acquired new theoretical frameworks and useful methods to re-framing their local development projects, that new alliances with multi-actor networks have been perceived, and that some internal changes of the local development practices have taken place. We conclude that the training program, as a hybrid forum, is capable of outscaling niche innovations through linkages with different kind of actors both from the niche and the regime. Political changes in the socio-technical landscape level offer an opportunity to amplify the impact of the innovations which are being generated by those multi-actor networks, but with a limited multi-level impact as far as institutional regime-actors not aligned with agroecological transition keep the most of the competencies on agri–food systems. (shrink)

Most of human-robot interaction (HRI) research relies on an implicit assumption that seems to drive experimental work in interaction studies: the more anthropomorphism we can reach in robots, the more effective the robot will be in 'being social.' The notion of 'sociomorphing' was developed in order to challenge the assumption of ubiquitous anthropomorphizing. This paper aims to explore the notion of sociomorphing by analysing the possibilities offered by actor-network theory (ANT). We claim that ANT is a valid framework to (...) re-think the conceptual couple anthropomorphizing / sociomorphing and answer the following question: What kind of negotiation process and social practices can be developed in HRI, given the notion of sociomorph interactional networks? (shrink)

A long series of studies in social psychology have shown that the explanations people give for their own behaviors are fundamentally different from the explanations they give for the behaviors of others. Still, a great deal of uncertainty remains about precisely what sorts of differences one finds here. We offer a new approach to addressing the problem. Specifically, we distinguish between two levels of representation ─ the level of linguistic structure (which consists of the actual series of words used in (...) the explanation) and the level of conceptual structure (which consists of the concepts these words are used to express). We then formulate and test hypotheses both about self-other differences in conceptual structure and about self-other differences in the mapping from conceptual structure to linguistic structure. (shrink)

This is a brief response to Loïc Wacquant’s article, ‘Homines in extremis’. The response makes four contributions. First, I consider some of the reasons for the confusion surrounding the habitus concept, arguing that this confusion may be lessened (without any obvious loss) if we revert to ‘habit’ or ‘disposition’. Second, I argue that, irrespective of these terminological quibbles, it is vital that we do not conflate ‘habitus’ and ‘embodied actor’ as some accounts do. There is more to the embodied (...) actor than her habits and she can only have habits because this is so. Third, I begin to explore the point of view offered by ‘carnal ethnography’ and call for further clarification of that point of view. Finally, I note that Wacquant’s ethnography has the effect of rendering certain of Bourdieu’s ideas in a more concrete manner and foregrounding sociability, which the latter is sometimes inclined to ignore. This, I suggest, is a positive development. (shrink)

Can a machine think? More pointedly, if I am a machine, can I think? Beck answers these questions by analyzing two clusters of metaphors -- one of which dramatizes human beings as spontaneous agents (actors), and the other sees them as observers attempting to explain causally their own behavior and that of the actor (spectators). Using a hypothetical scene with two spectators, each explaining an action, and each representing a different way of viewing the world, Beck points up the (...) central philosophical problems raised by the varieties of ways in which we explain our own actions and those of others. (shrink)

The scale and asymmetry of commercial technology firms’ power over people through data, combined with the increasing involvement of the private sector in public governance, means that increasingly, people do not have the ability to opt out of engaging with technology firms. At the same time, those firms are increasingly intervening on the population level in ways that have implications for social and political life. This creates the potential for power relations of domination, and demands that we decide what constitutes (...) the legitimacy to act on the public. Business ethics and private law are not designed to answer these questions, which are primarily political. If people have lost the right to disengage with commercial technologies, we may need to hold the companies that offer them to the same standards to which we hold the public sector. This paper first defines the problem and demonstrates that it is significant and widespread, and then argues for the development of an overarching normative framework for what constitutes non-domination with regard to digital technologies. Such a framework must involve a nuanced idea of political power and accountability that can respond not only to the legality of corporate behaviour, but to its legitimacy. (shrink)

To date, journalists and most of those who study them remain wedded to a deeply modern understanding of the profession, one in which firm analytical borders separate news and newsmakers, reporters and audience, press and politics. New media technologies have begun to corrode these boundaries in practice, however. With its emphasis on socio-technical hybrids, actor-network theory offers a powerful tool for analyzing shifts in the practice of journalism under new technological conditions.

Because of the impact of close partner's touch on psychological and physical well-being by alleviating stress, it is important to explore the influence factors that underlie the stress-alleviating effect of close partner's touch. Previous studies suggested that the stress-alleviating effect was different when individuals were touched by different persons. Specifically, the stress was reduced significantly when the individual was touched by the close partner compared with the acquaintance and the stranger. However, whether the stress-alleviating effect of touch was modulated by (...) the close relationship quality is unknown. To examine this question, the participants performed a 3 × 2 within-subjects experiment. The results revealed that the stress of the participants alleviated significantly while close partners present with touch compared with without touch during facing a threat. We also found that the relationship quality of couple-members modulated touch-induced stress alleviation. Participants perceiving the low quality of alternatives and the high partners' commitment level showed stronger touch-induced stress-alleviating effect than participants perceiving the high quality of alternatives and the low partners' commitment level. The explained variance was around 16.8% jointly for actor and partner effects. These findings provide evidence for explaining the reasons for touch-induced alleviating stress and have important implications for predicting the future effect of interactive behaviors. (shrink)

This article seeks to locate the body and embodiment more centrally among the concerns of actor-network theory by exploring working bodies. Using a newly introduced national system of vocational training as an exemplary case, it explores the tension between representations of skilled human bodies—‘competencies’—as given to trainers and the ways in which these representations are incorporated into their everyday practice. Vocational training has had a long struggle with the apparent separability of subject and object—between what can be felt and (...) experienced as distinct from what can be stated, measured, and expressed in words. The argument is made that paying attention to bodies in vocational training can shed light on this struggle. Paying attention to bodies in networks can also strengthen network analyses. Like texts and other forms of materiality, ‘the body’ is not singular but multiple. Furthermore, body politics constitutes an important actor-network them e. (shrink)

Some versions of structuralism consider actors to be necessary for structural analysis; others argue that they are not. All versions of structuralism consider social structure to be analytically independent of actors. I show through examples and subsequently through deduction that this position is wrong. That is, any conceptualization of social structure necessarily involves a conception of its constituent actors. Moreover, I generalize this point to argue that the structure of scientific knowledge follows a multilevel modeling approach: theory at every level (...) of aggregation is based on actor models of appropriate units. Several practical benefits result from using actor models explicitly in structural analysis in particular, and from following the multilevel modeling approach in general. (shrink)

Many actors report a form of dual-consciousness when playing roles on stage: they react to the given circumstances as their characters would do, but they do not forget they are on the stage. This paper analyzes the concept of dual-consciousness and argues that actor dual-consciousness results from the actor’s imaginings, which both recreate the experience of the character and inform the actor about the non-reality of the experience. Keywords: Acting, actor, dual-consciousness, recreative imagination, experiential identification.

Is free will just an illusion? What is it in the brain that allows us to pursue our own actions and objectives? What is it about this organ that permits seemingly purposeful behaviour, giving us the impression we are free? This book takes a journey into the brain to examine what is about known voluntary behaviour, and why it can go wrong.

Prominent recent scholarship in global political justice has focused on creating conceptual space for international NGOs ? and sometimes also corporations and states ? as fully-fledged participants in global governance. While acknowledging the achievements of international non-state actors, I argue that core global governance tasks ? of global distribution, regulation or administration ? should not be assigned to them. Drawing from neo-republican theory, I contend that such actors fall short of the formal criteria that are necessary for constituting a global (...) public actor, because they do not have a global function and orientation. The distinction between public and private actors matters, since it conditions our expectations for them: both categories of actors are asked to avoid dominating individuals, but public actors must, in addition, protect individuals from third-party domination. (shrink)

Resumen: Algo particular de los estudios de la ciencia, tecnología y sociedad son sus formas de relacionar objetos y prácticas. La relación difiere del papel que tiene en la sociología de la ciencia y en la construcción social de la tecnología. Suele afirmarse en CTS, contradiciendo conocimientos humanistas, que la naturaleza de los actores sociales no estaría definida por adelantado. Asumir lo semiótico como algo excepcional del sujeto humano, donde los objetos sólo acreditan sus agencias a través de procesos simbólicos, (...) sería perder de vista la riqueza empírica de las prácticas colectivas que articulan lo humano y lo no-humano. En cambio, sujetos y objetos suelen pensarse en CTS como efectos sociomateriales reconfigurables de relaciones in situ. La figura del actor-red, la lectura situada de actores material-semióticos, el estudio de objetos frontera y el uso de métodos de ensamblaje son algunas de los virajes en este giro de la teoría de la acción. Aquí voy a delinear un recorrido parcial a través de sus argumentos, introduciendo el debate sobre las divisiones entre naturaleza y cultura, para examinar la noción de agencia con los conceptos de traducción, configuración, multiplicidad y no-coherencia. A modo de ejemplo, termino con una lectura sobre la socialidad y espacialidad de los cajeros automáticos.: Studies of science, technology and society are characteristics in relating objects and practices. The relationship differs from the role it has in the sociology of science and in the social construction of technology. It is usually affirmed in STS, contradicting humanities, that the nature of the social actors would not be defined in advance. Considering that the semiotic is something exceptional of the human subject, where objects only accredit their agencies through symbolic processes, would be to lose sight of the empirical richness of collective practices that articulate the human and the non-human. Instead, subjects and objects are often thought of in STS as reconfigurable sociomaterial effects of in situ relationships. The figure of the actor-network, the situated reading of material-semiotic actors, the study of boundary objects and the use of assembly methods are some of the conceptual turns in this variation of action theory. Here I will delineate a partial route to travel through its arguments, introducing the debate on the divisions of nature and culture, to examine the notion of agency with the concepts of translation, configuration, multiplicity and non-coherence. As an example, I finish with a reading on the sociality and spatiality of ATMs. (shrink)

Even though the relevance of business actors in peace processes is increasingly acknowledged, analysis of their particular roles and contributions remain sparse in peace mediation literature. This is despite the fact that such knowledge would be highly relevant for supporting mediation processes such as those ongoing in Colombia or the Philippines. This article looks at the involvement of business actors in mediation processes by tracing analysis along the entry points for involvement, the different roles that business actors can play and (...) the limitations they face. The empirical data shows that business actors mainly play a role during the pre‐ and mediation phase and therein often as a support‐giver to the mediation process. Furthermore, most of the involvement does not take place at track‐1 level but rather at track‐2 mediation processes, where mainly local business play an important role. In contrary to what is postulated by some of the literature, the relevance of utilitaristic motives is not problematic; rather a monetary motivation can also foster the credibility in a political process where a lot is at stake. (shrink)

The chapter contributes to unravelling how Actor-Network-Theory as a method of inquiry might inform the archaeological understanding of the contemporary world. To illustrate this, the author engages in an inquiry on Shin Takamatsu’s architecture following Guattari’s fascination with his architectural machines in the 1980s. Drawing on two epistemological figures-the hasty sightseer and the slow ethnographer-the chapter demonstrates two different approaches to contemporary architecture. It is argued that ANT methodologies can help to create a space in which the past, present, (...) and future are combined and are still in the process of becoming. Equipped with ANT-inspired methods, contemporary archaeologists can engage in explorations of vibrant processes and emergent world-making techniques. (shrink)

We present an inferentialist account of collective rationality and intentionality, according to which beliefs and other intentional states are understood in terms of the normative statuses attributed to, and undertaken by, the participants of a discursive practice—namely, their discursive or practical commitments and entitlements. Although these statuses are instituted by the performances and attitudes of the agents, they are not identified with any physical or psychological entity, process or relation. Therefore, we argue that inferentialism allows us to talk of collective (...) intentionality and agency without needing to posit the existence of any sort of collective psychology or mind. (shrink)

This paper aims to understand the kind of activities that industrial actors develop in order to protect their enterprises during industrial crisis conditions. A series of political unrest, insurgency, economic turmoil, deadly earthquakes, and economic embargo at the Indo- Nepal boarder escalated the industrial crisis in Nepal. The quest for sustainability of enterprises during the enduring nature of the crisis stimulated for a more detail conversation and survey. A perceptual survey of industrial actors accompanying conversation therein indicates that trade union (...) and association leaders develop positive attitude and advance specific activities for protecting their enterprises during industrial crisis conditions. The study finds that an empathic nature helps to develop a positive attitude among the industrial actors, which seems contributory for enterprises to survive during crisis conditions. The actors tend to positively perceive significance of specific activities under the conditions of difficulties and hardships and enhance immunity to the industrial crisis. This paper argues that the empathic nature of the industrial actors becomes more effective to safeguard the pluralistic interests of the stakeholders of the enterprise than the self- centric nature of the actors. The actors are not only engaged in safeguarding their claims on the industry but are also contributing—beyond their routine work—positively to strengthen the enterprise immunity during difficulties. This paper concludes with an insight of shifting managerial attention from the generic concepts like cost minimisation and product differentiation to the concepts of regularity in supply of goods and services in the business network by expanding the scope of industrial relations vertically and horizontally. The empathic nature of industrial actors enhances the effectiveness of the general system theory and social network theory by developing understanding of the role of industrial actors’ relations in sustaining and operationalizing a business network under organizational crisis conditions. (shrink)

This article is organized in four sections. The first section introduces sensing governance in terms of the governance of effects rather than causation, focusing on the work of Bruno Latour in establishing the problematic of contingent interaction, rather than causal depth, as key to emergent effects, which can be unexpected and catastrophic. The second section considers in more depth how sensing governance enables politics by other means through putting greater emphasis on relations of interaction, rather than on ontologies of being, (...) and links the methodological approach of sensing governance closely to actor network assumptions that disavow structures of causation. The final two sections analyze how correlation works to reveal new agencies and processes of emergence and how new technologies have been deployed in this area, providing some examples of how the shift from causal relations to sensing effects has begun to alter governmental approaches. (shrink)

Daniel Stoljar has recently argued that comparing the zombie argument against physicalism with another influential argument in philosophy of mind, namely, the actor argument against behaviourism, can help to show why recent objections to the zombie argument fail. In this note I want to argue that the zombie argument and the actor argument have important differences, and, because of that, Stoljar's objections to some recent critiques of the zombie argument are not successful.

This article examines how the key Orthodox actors in Moldova have reacted to challenging equal opportunities legislation. The author suggests, on the basis of an economic approach to religion, that under the conditions of a deregulated religious market they use various strategies to promote their agendas. The Moldovan Orthodox Church, autonomous within the Russian Orthodox Church, previously relied on making private bargains with the government; but this policy ended with the adoption of the 2013 Law on Ensuring Equality in the (...) Republic of Moldova. Now the Metropolitanate tries to assimilate the strategies of direct action, but without success. The so-called ‘non-mentioning’ radicals, technically being part of the Metropolitanate of Moldova, but not praying for its bishop, are involved in direct political activism – from setting up protest camps to street fighting – to confront de-stigmatization of homosexuality. The Bessarabian Metropolitanate of the Romanian Orthodox Church utilizes the strategies of European ‘public’ churches and gains influence through performing some useful social functions. This article concludes that all actors have their own advantages and weaknesses; nevertheless, so far the Metropolitanate of Moldova remains the strongest; while the other competitors are serving specific religious niches, it is this body which still possesses the potential to influence society more broadly. (shrink)

This paper seeks to address the extent to which ancient historical actors might be seen to have exhibited what might be described as rational motives. In particular, it examines a number of strategic interactions employed by the Athenian tyrant Hippias in his interactions of Aristogeiton, the protagonist of an unsuccessful coup d’etat. A secondary objective of this paper is to explore Hippias’ reactionary policies following his brother’s assassination, namely, whether Hippias’ choice of external allies, in the face of possible exile, (...) were irrational as suggested by some ancient authors. (shrink)

Democratic legitimacy is rarely associated with private governance. After all, private actors are not legitimized through elections by a demos. Instead of abandoning democratic principles when entering the private sphere of governance, however, this article argues in favour of employing alternative criteria of democracy in assessments. Specifically, this article uses the criteria of participation, transparency and accountability to evaluate the democratic legitimacy of private food retail governance institutions. It pursues this evaluation of the democratic legitimacy of these institutions against the (...) background of their ambivalent impact on the sustainability of the global agrifood system. The paper refers to a range of cases of private retail standards with different governance structures and substantial foci to illustrate its argument. (shrink)

The object of this note is to draw attention to a piece of evidence about the history of the Greek theatre which appears to have gone unnoticed, yet may be of some importance. Aelian in hisHistoria animalium11.19 reports the fate of Pantacles the Lacedaemonian, who refused to allow some actors on their way to Cythera to pass through Sparta. Later, when performing official duties as ephor, he was torn to pieces by dogs.