Recent studies have shed light on the emergence of Southern sustainability initiatives in commodity-based value chains. These initiatives position themselves as countering the exclusionary nature of many global multi-stakeholder initiatives, as critically analysed by previous studies. However, a common theoretical perspective on the inclusiveness of MSIs is still lacking. By drawing on the theory of regimes of engagement, we develop a theoretical framework which helps understanding the overt and subtle practices of including or excluding different stakeholders in MSIs. We apply (...) this framework to ‘Trustea’, an Indian MSI for sustainable tea production, to further investigate the ‘inclusiveness paradigm’ of Southern sustainability initiatives. Our findings highlight the complexity of stakeholder engagement across the different phases of Trustea’s development, from initiation and code development to formal launch and roll-out. We find that different types of engagement can exist in parallel. Justifiable engagement is expressed in the participating organisations’ reference to a shared common goal of Trustea, whereas familiar engagement is linked to the rootedness of the individuals involved in the Indian tea industry. Strategic engagement, in turn, comes to the fore through the strong emphasis on developing an Indian code for sustainable tea production and promoting adoption among tea growers. The importance of reaching this objective has led to the replication of exclusionary patterns also noted for global MSIs, as small-scale producers and other weak actors have been largely excluded from decision-making processes, despite informal efforts aimed at substitution of representation. (shrink)

An updated edition of a groundbreaking work on the global financial crisis from a postfordist perspective. The 2010 English-language edition of Christian Marazzi's The Violence of Financial Capitalism made a groundbreaking work on the global financial crisis available to an expanded readership. This new edition has been updated to reflect recent events, up to and including the G20 summit in July 2010 and the broad consensus to reduce government spending that emerged from it. Marazzi, a leading figure in (...) the European postfordist movement, argues that the processes of financialization are not simply irregularities between the traditional categories of wages, rent, and profit, but rather a new type of accumulation adapted to the processes of social and cognitive production today. The financial crisis, he contends, is a fundamental component of contemporary accumulation and not a classic lack of economic growth. Marazzi shows that individual debt and the management of financial markets are actually techniques for governing the transformations of immaterial labor, general intellect, and social cooperation. The financial crisis has radically undermined the very concept of unilateral and multilateral economico-political hegemony, and Marazzi discusses efforts toward a new geomonetary order that have emerged around the globe in response. Offering a radically new understanding of the current stage of international economics as well as crucial post-Marxist guidance for confronting capitalism in its newest form, The Violence of Financial Capitalism is a valuable addition to the contemporary arsenal of postfordist thought. This edition includes the glossary of the esoteric neolanguage of financial capitalism—”Words in Crisis,” from “AAA” to “toxic asset”—written for the first English-language edition, and offers a new afterword by Marazzi. (shrink)

We focus on issues of learning assessment from the point of view of an investigation of philosophical elements in teaching. We contend that assessment of concept possession at school based on ordinary multiple-choice tests might be ineffective because it overlooks aspects of human rationality illuminated by Robert Brandom’s inferentialism––the view that conceptual content largely coincides with the inferential role of linguistic expressions used in public discourse. More particularly, we argue that multiple-choice tests at schools might fail to accurately assess the (...) possession of a concept or the lack of it, for they only check the written outputs of the pupils who take them, without detecting the inferences actually endorsed or used by them. We suggest that school tests would acquire reliability if they enabled pupils to make the reasons of their answers or the inferences they use explicit, so as to contribute to what Brandom calls the game of giving and asking for reasons. We explore the possibility to put this suggestion into practice by deploying two-tier multiple-choice tests. (shrink)

Résumé Le processus de dématérialisation du processus productif laisse émerger la puissance d’un capital fixe qui se présente aujourd’hui immédiatement comme « capital vivant », comme travail vivant mobilisé dans un système de production de l’homme par l’homme. Le revenu garanti devient alors, sous la plume de Christian Marazzi, « biorevenu », un revenu pour garantir l’autonomie du vivant par rapport au mode de production historiquement déterminé.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Let Me Pay Taxes!Alessia MinicozziThe first memory I have of knowing that I was different was when I was five years old and a caseworker entered my house to verify that I existed.At the age of one and a half, I was diagnosed with a chronic disease called Spinal Muscular Atrophy, Type II (SMA). This left me in need of constant care and, at times, hospitalizations. My whole (...) life, I’ve been confined to a wheelchair, and the disease has always affected me profoundly, on a physical and mental level. I have limited range of motion and strength in my arms, muscle weakness affects my speech and breathing, and, like a monkey on my back, SMA has been a constant reminder of my fragility and mortality.In order to comply with Pennsylvania’s disability requirements, a state–appointed caseworker had to make regular home visits to make sure my needs were being met under my parents’ care and that my parents were not lying about my medical needs. These visits would leave me confused and annoyed. I still remember the events that took place the first time a caseworker entered my house and the emotional impact it had on me.The time read 8:09 a.m. on my white clock radio. I wore my favorite pink satin nightgown. My mother came to lift me out of bed and enclose me in my robe. She whispered in my ear that a gentleman was here to meet me—he’d arrived early—and he wanted to ask me some questions. As my mother carried me down the flight of stairs and sat me in my wheelchair, I felt the man’s eyes on our every move. This strange man sat with a scrutinizing look and asked me if I live in this house and do I normally wake up so late? I quickly turned to my [End Page 210] mother and gave her a perplexed stare. Why was this person here at all, and what right did he have to inquire about me like this?Later, my mother would explain that the man was there to make sure that she was not lying when she asked the government for money to care for me. I endured countless visits from that caseworker over many years. Finally, I asked my mother, “When is this man going to stop visiting me and asking me the same questions?” She looked at me and tenderly replied that when my father finished his residency program, then we would have enough money to pay for all my care. I accepted this response and continued playing with my Barbie. Two years later, my father completed his residency program and the visits from the caseworker stopped.In eighth grade, I left an all disabled school and enrolled in a mainstream public school, which seemed odd to me. I asked my parents why the change in schools? My parents explained that they will not live forever and in order for me to live outside an institution, I will need a salary that is above average to pay for personal care. They went on to explain that the only way to accomplish this goal is to succeed in school and to perform better than everyone else. They informed me that because I use a wheelchair, prospective employers will view me as daunting and they may be less likely to hire me. They stressed that the only way to stand out above other non–disabled candidates is to excel in an academic environment. Mom and Dad have always ended the conversation by reassuring me that as long as they are alive, they will make sure I accomplish everything I set out to achieve and that I never feel alone.Since that conversation over twenty years ago, I had only one goal in mind: employment. The possibility of being institutionalized has always been my motivation for persevering through late nights of writing papers and studying for exams. As promised, my parents were the ones who proofread my papers and stayed up with me in order to help me to bed once I was done. When I graduated from the University of... (shrink)

Christian Marazzi's first book: a post-Fordist classic on the roots to economic crises in the contemporary age. Communication as work: we have recently experienced a profound transformation in the processes of production. While the assembly line excluded any form of linguistic productivity, today, there is no production without communication. The new technologies are linguistic machines. This revolution has produced a new kind of worker who is not a specialist but is versatile and infinitely adaptable. If standardized mass production was (...) dominant in the past, today we produce an array of different goods corresponding to specific consumer niches. This is the post-Fordist model described by Christian Marazzi in Capital and Affects. Tracing the development of this new model of labor from Toyota plants in Japan to the most recent innovations, Marazzi's critique goes beyond political economy to encompass issues related to social life, political engagement, democratic institutions, interpersonal relations, and the role of language in liberal democracies. This translation at long last makes Marazzi's first book available to English readers. Capital and Affects stands not only as the foundation to Marazzi's subsequent work, but as foundational work in post-Fordist literature, with an analysis startlingly relevant to today's troubled economic times. This Semiotext edition includes the afterword Marazzi wrote for the 1999 Italian edition. (shrink)

Studies on age-related differences in risk perception in a real-world situation, such as the recent COVID-19 outbreak, showed that the risk perception of getting COVID-19 tends to decrease as age increases. This finding raised the question on what factors could explain risk perception in older adults. The present study examined age-related differences in risk perception in the early stages of COVID-19 lockdown, analyzing variables that can explain the differences in perception of risk at different ages. A total of 1,765 adults (...) aged between 18 and 87 years old completed an online survey assessing perceived risk severity and risk vulnerability of getting COVID-19, sociodemographic status, emotional state, experience relating to COVID-19, and physical health status. Results showed that the older the participants, the lower the perceived vulnerability to getting COVID-19, but the higher the perceived severity. Different predictors explain the perception of risk severity and vulnerability at different ages. Overall, self-reported anxiety over the pandemic is a crucial predictor in explaining risk perceptions in all age groups. Theoretical and practical implications of the empirical findings are discussed. (shrink)

On the one hand, it is often assumed that the Rubber Hand Illusion (RHI) is constrained by a structural body model so that one cannot implement supernumerary limbs. On the other hand, several recent studies reported illusory duplication of the right hand in subjects exposed to two adjacent rubber hands. The present study tested whether spatial constraints may affect the possibility of inducing the sense of ownership to two rubber hands located side by side to the left of the subject's (...) hand. We found that only the closest rubber hand appeared both objectively (proprioceptive drift) and subjectively (ownership rating) embodied. Crucially, synchronous touch of a second, but farther, rubber hand disrupted the objective measure of the RHI, but not the subjective one. We concluded that, in order to elicit a genuine RHI for multiple rubber hands, the two rubber hands must be at the same distance from the subject's hand/body. (shrink)

Recent studies have shown that making accurate passage of time judgments (POTJs) for long-time intervals is an important cognitive ability. Different temporal domains, such as circadian typology (biological time) and time perspective (psychological time), could have an effect on subjective POTJs, but few studies have investigated the reciprocal influences among these temporal domains. The present study is the first systematic attempt to fill this gap. A sample of 222 participants (53.20% females; 19–60 years) filled in the Zimbardo Time Perspective Inventory (...) for the measurement of time perspective, the reduced version of the Morningness-Eveningness Questionnaire (rMEQ) for chronotypes, and an ad-hoc questionnaire assessing sleep habits during weekdays and the weekend (for social jetlag). The POTJ was measured using a modified version of a pictorial timeline presented at five different moments. Also, participants judged how different temporal expressions were related to the past, present, and future along a 7-point Likert scale. After confirming the association between eveningness and present-hedonism orientation and morningness and future-orientation, we found that evening-types produced higher scores for future expressions. The subjective POTJ expressed in minutes was predicted by Deviation from Balanced Time (DBTP), present-fatalism orientation, and social jetlag. Finally, the rMEQ score, past-positive orientation, and DBTP predicted the difference between subjective and objective POT. The results are discussed offering an explanation in terms of the interconnections between circadian typology, individual time perspective, and the sense of the POT, suggesting the multicomponent nature of the concept of time. (shrink)

From the mystical experiences of religious visions to the most degenerate forms of violence and pornography, the image, be it perceptual or conceptual, has imposed itself as a powerful form of human expression. The evocative, emotional and communicative power of images has been at the centre of a complex, often conflictual relationship in different societies, between exterior and internal forms of representation. Western history has passed alternately through periods of iconophilia and iconophobia, while various cultures have accorded different significance to (...) the capacity of vision to express and reinforce both the ideological and the political sphere. Referring to various examples, the article suggests that the pervasive presence of vision, far from being a self-evident, given element, is at the core of a problematic work of interpretation within the cultural contexts of societies. What appears to the eye can be considered the mirror of true reality or, alternatively, an ambiguous and superficial representation of it, in a dialectic confrontation between the iconic and the mental. (shrink)

On March 29,2000, in U.S. v. Wood, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit held that a physician cannot be convicted of murder simply for adopting, in an emergency setting, a risky course of treatment intended to prolong life that, when carried out, effectively hastened death. Finding the government's evidence flawed, based on several evidentiary errors and an erroneous denial of a motion for judgment of acquittal on murder charges, the court reversed the conviction of involuntary manslaughter and (...) ordered a new trial.Virgil Dykes, an 86-year-old man, was suffering from severe abdominal pain when he arrived at the Veterans Administration hospital in Muskogee, Oklahoma, on February 5, 1994. (shrink)

The various institutional reforms which have led since the end of the 70s to the « privatisation of currency » have formed the main base on which the subsequent power of finance has been built, and, concurently, the dismantling of Welfare could take place. Core of this was the so-called autonomy of central banks, as their « umbilical cord » to national treasuries was severed. From then on, deficit financing and « keynesian » social expenditures became near-impossible. Emphasizing the autonomy (...) of central banks from politics was mostly an institutional mutation meant to free monetary policies from social pressure and make it totally subordinate to rent creation and financial accumulation. No wonder then that « securitisation » of the public debt closely followed on the prohibition to deficit financing social expenditures. And then the outcome was not a reduction, but an explosion of public debt! And as debt servicing becomes a principal item on the budget, the « excessive costs » of welfare provisions is blamed, and a further break-down of social services is called for. It is in the same vein that price inflation is controlled, but assets inflation and speculative bubbles dominate « developped » economies. Meanwhile, in order to compensate for increasing income inequalities and diminishing welfare benefits, an exacerbated form of « private households deficit spending »has come into its own, as witnessed by the subprime crisis and mounting credit card defaults. So we are moving from an entitlements-based provision of social goods to one based on the pure logic of capital and its cycles. The only way out lies in the resocialisation of currency, profound fiscal reforms, the demise of rent-seeking, and the institution of an universal « basic income ». (shrink)

In this paper I individuate some important differences between formal inference and material inference and how they affect two different ways of understanding human reasoning. I will claim that understanding reasoning as characterised by formal inference can generate epistemic injustice in education. To explain this claim, I will go through two examples of errors in evaluation. In the first one—the “shelves case” — I will show how epistemic injustice generates oppression because it does not take into account the difference generated (...) by the consideration of individuals as concrete individuals rather than abstract individual or “the generalised other”. I will contend that given the nature of human reasoning, thought is not reducible to "logical" reasoning but rather requires knowledge of conceptual contents. In the second example—the “Backtracking fallacy”—I will contend that a fallacy in assessment procedures may arise from the lack of distinction between the "public" framework of knowledge and individual epistemic states. From what will emerge about the two examples, the importance of the transmission of cultural heritage, in the form of knowledge and content, also as the sets of inferences involving concepts, will be seen. For it becomes necessary to set aside the misleading idea that these legacies are mere conceptual structures that have always been implicitly present in the student’s mind, and that it is sufficient to stimulate the student’s mind to make them explicit. -/- . (shrink)

John Tradescant the Elder was probably born in England in the 1570s. The earliest known historical record of his life documents his marriage to Elizabeth Day, at Meopham on 18 June 1607.1 A long career working as gardener in the service of England’s nobility—among his employers were Robert and William Cecil, Edward Wotton, and George Villiers —provided numerous opportunities for travel abroad in pursuit of the exotic species for which his eminent employers clamored. As a result of his voyages, Tradescant (...) not only imported hundreds of plant varieties for his clients, but also amassed thousands of artefacts and other.. (shrink)

Little is known about the impact of success and failure events on age-related changes in affect states and, particularly, in self-esteem levels. To fill this gap in the literature, in the present study changes in affect and self-esteem in 100 young (19 - 30 years) and 102 older adults (65-81 years) were assessed after participants experienced success and failure in a demanding cognitive task. Overall, the success-failure manipulation induced changes on affect states and on state self-esteem, not on trait self-esteem. (...) Regarding age differences, older and young adults were affected to the same extent by experiences of successes and failures. Theoretical considerations of the empirical findings are provided in the general discussion. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to emphasize the theoretical and aesthetical meanings of Plessner’s aesthesiology. His theory on the unity of the senses allows to legitimate the normative sense of sensibility and his pregnancy to understand the organization of experience. Such an aesthetical perspective has also relevant implications for Plessner’s philosophical anthropology and his theory of eccentric positionality of human being, which is mainly a theory on the body-mind philosophical conjunction.

In this piece we explore the COVID pandemic as an opportunity for the articulation and realization of digital health futures. Our discussion draws on an engagement with emergent discourse around COVID-19 and ongoing work on imaginaries of future care associated with digital tools for the detection of cognitive decline and the risk of dementia. We describe how the post-COVID futures of digital health are narrated in terms of the timing and speed with which they are being brought into being, as (...) market actors attempt to establish the scale and durability of the COVID transformation. However, we also point to the particularly spatial changes to medical practice they envisage. In a time of distancing and isolation, the ability to operate effectively at a distance has become integral to the future of medical assessment, diagnosis and care. However, spatialized promises of digital health and the ability to act remotely are unevenly spread – some organizations and entities inevitably have greater reach. (shrink)

Philosophers have claimed that education aims at fostering disparate epistemic goals. In this paper we focus on an important segment of this debate involving conversation between Alvin Goldman and Harvey Siegel. Goldman claims that education is essentially aimed at producing true beliefs. Siegel contends that education is essentially aimed at fostering both true beliefs and, independently, critical thinking and rational belief. Although we find Siegel’s position intuitively more plausible than Goldman’s, we also find Siegel’s defence of it wanting. We suggest (...) novel argumentative strategies that draw on Siegel’s own arguments but look to us more promising. (shrink)

This paper reports an experiment designed to test whether prior consultation within a group affects subsequent individual decision-making in tasks where demonstrability of correct solutions is low. In our experiment, subjects considered two paintings created by two different artists and were asked to guess which artist made each painting. We observed answers given by individuals under two treatments: In one, subjects were allowed the opportunity to consult with other participants before making their private decisions; in the other, there was no (...) such opportunity. Our primary findings are that subjects in the first treatment evaluate the opportunity to consult positively, but they perform significantly worse and earn significantly less. (shrink)

The anti-global movement as the growth of new economies in peripheries contrast the symbolic leadership of American brands. The terrorist attacks on New York and Washington, highly symbolic too, appeared at the very moment when the new economy crisis became obvious. It is not possible to grow up information means too much, because consumers cannot pay them attention enough. But the knowledge produced by multitudes remain in their brain while crisis is around.

The self/non-self distinction is essential for survival, but its neural bases are poorly understood. Studies have sought neural specificity for 'self ' in cortical regions. However, behavioural evidence showing that humans are able to single out self-relevant information in the absence of awareness suggests that the cognitive self/non-self distinction might be rooted in subcortical structures involved in automatic, unconscious functions. Here we employ subliminal presentation of self and non-self faces and repetition suppression to show neural specificity for 'self ' in (...) the brainstem reticular formation, providing the first evidence for self/non-self distinction in subcortical structures. Our finding suggests that the brainstem may act as a neural substrate for the sense of 'self '. (shrink)

Our commentary addresses two issues that are not developed enough in the target article. First, the model does not clearly address the distinction among external objects, external body parts, and internal bodies. Second, the authors could have discussed further the role of body schema with regard to its dynamic character, and its role in perspective and in imitation.

With the advent of the severe acute respiratory syndrome-Corona Virus type 2 pandemic, the theme of emotion recognition from facial expressions has become highly relevant due to the widespread use of face masks as one of the main devices imposed to counter the spread of the virus. Unsurprisingly, several studies published in the last 2 years have shown that accuracy in the recognition of basic emotions expressed by faces wearing masks is reduced. However, less is known about the impact that (...) wearing face masks has on the ability to recognize emotions from subtle expressions. Furthermore, even less is known regarding the role of interindividual differences in emotion processing. This study investigated the perception of all the six basic emotions, both as a function of the face mask and as a function of the facial expressions’ intensity in terms of participants’ uncertainty in their responses, misattribution errors, and perceived intensity. The experiment was conducted online on a large sample of participants. Participants completed the 20-item Toronto Alexithymia Scale and the Autistic Spectrum Quotient and then performed an emotion-recognition task that involved face stimuli wearing a mask or not, and displaying full or subtle expressions. Each face stimulus was presented alongside the Geneva Emotion Wheel, and participants had to indicate what emotion they believed the other person was feeling and its intensity using the GEW. For each combination of our variables, we computed the indices of ‘uncertainty’, ‘bias’, and ‘perceived intensity’. We found that face masks increase uncertainty for all facial expressions of emotion, except for fear when intense, and that disgust was systematically confused with anger. Furthermore, when faces were covered by the mask, all the emotions were perceived as less intense, and this was particularly evident for subtle expressions. Finally, we did not find any evidence of a relationship between these indices and alexithymic/autistic traits. (shrink)