How is time framed in corporate social responsibility (CSR) talk? The literature mostly fails to analyze how multiple CSR activities are framed from a temporal perspective. Moreover, those researchers who undertake temporal framing tend to overlook the role of home-country cultural characteristics. Using a mixed-method analysis of 2,720 CSR reports from developing country companies, we show that CSR talk is mostly framed in the future tense when firms communicate complex human rights issues such as slavery or child labor, while the (...) past and present tenses are more frequent when they report on philanthropy and other cause-related activities. We find that these effects are stronger when firms are from countries characterized by greater uncertainty avoidance. We contribute to the CSR communication literature by showing that temporal references in CSR talk tend to differ, depending on the company-level control of CSR activities, and by highlighting uncertainty avoidance’s role as a boundary condition for aspirational talk’s performativity. (shrink)

This paper discusses the fallacies of combination and division as they are presented by Aristotle in chapter 4 of his Sophistici Elenchi. Aristotle's examples are concise, their discussion is unclear, and it is difficult to distinguish the cases of combination from those of division. I analyse the Aristotelian examples and the interpretations offered so far. I show that these interpretations suffer from a major defect: they fail to identify a common characteristic whereby the Aristotelian examples can be classified as instances (...) of combination or division. In my reconstruction of the examples, I repair this deficiency: I give a single pattern of explanation for the fallacy of combination and another (similar) pattern for the fallacy of division. Thus, it is possible to free Aristotle from the following charges: (i) he did not clearly distinguish between combination and division, and (ii) he reduced combination and division to a single fallacy. My explanation of the fallacies uses the notion of scope of an expression: in modern terminology, the fallacy of combination can be described as ?fallacy of the wide scope?, the fallacy of division as ?fallacy of the narrow scope? (shrink)

In recent years, the contribution of various disciplines and professionals (i.e. from marketing, computer science, psychology and pedagogy) to museum management has encouraged the development of a new conception of museology. Specifically, psychology has affected the overall conception of museum and the visitors towards a more holistic vision of the museum experience as a complexity of memory, personal drives, group identity, meaning-making process, as well as leisure preferences. In this regard, psychological research contributes to advance the scientific knowledge about psychological (...) and social phenomena related to the visitor experience, as well as to design innovative technologies and future tourism services. The present contribution discusses the Socio-Cultural Activity Theory as a theoretical framework to conceptualize the museum visit as an activity mediated by the technology, and to better identify the factors shaping the interaction between the visitors and the technologies. To do so, a case study is presented: a qualitative research performed at the Ara Pacis Museum in Rome (Italy) to analyze the visitor experience of a tour that integrates augmented and virtual reality. Information derived from applying Activity Theory on visitors’ experience highlight the value of technology as mediating tool between the museum mission and the visitor experience, considering the interaction between visitors’ characteristics, museum environmental dimensions and technology’s features. (shrink)

The borders between the physical and the virtual are ever-more porous in the daily lives of those of us who live in Internet enabled societies. An increasing number of our daily interactions and transactions take place on the Internet. Social, economic, educational, medical, scientific and other activities are all permeated by the digital in one or other kind of virtual environment. Hand in hand with the ever-increasing reach of the Internet, the digital and the virtual, go concerns about trust. In (...) the increasing numbers of cross-disciplinary attempts to understand the way that the Internet is changing our societies, ‘trust’ is a truly cross-boundary word, used just as frequently by computer scientists as it is by economists, sociologists and philosophers. Concerns in the name of trust are articulated about the objects and artefacts found, accessed or bought on the Internet, about the people with whom we interact on the interact, and about the technological systems and infrastructures that enable us to carry out activities of different types. -/- This paper reflects on the implications for trust of the way we shape our technologies and they in turn shape us, for example, in the way we trust and the extent to which we can trust ourselves as trusters. The account I am working towards is an ecological and co-evolutionary view of trust and technologies, which attempts to hold in view the complex inter-relationships between the agents and other entities within and across environments. First, I consider the ways in which problems of justifying trust are analogous to problems of justifying knowledge, and claim that trust, like knowledge, cannot be justified from an external position. Second, I outline an account of internal relations drawn from phenomenology. This is followed by a discussion of three aspects of trust which are internally related to it: value, reason and morality. (shrink)

The aim of this work is to show how Edgar Morin chose Vico and Hegel as cultural points of reference while elaborating a new method as an alternative to classical scientific knowledge. The French philosopher did this specifically when he tried to re-propose the problem s of history and the event in human sciences. The origins of sociology arose from the explicit extension of the scientific method to the socio-anthropological world; that is, with the intention of studying society as a (...) natural phenomenon to which the laws of physical and biological sciences must be applied. As a tendency against this, at the end of the 1970s Morin began a process of putting sociology into historical context, which led him to a methodological revolution of sociology itself. (shrink)

The article is an exploration of online reading from the perspective of theories of reading and interpretation based on literary theory and the phenomenology of reading literary text. One of its aims is to show that such theories can make a contribution to our understanding of reading and to our design of online reading spaces. The precursor of this stance is the form of hypertext theory originally proposed by George Landow, which predicted radical changes in reading practices with an impact (...) not only on literature but on education in general. The prediction has been slow to be verified and has been criticized by empirical and psychological studies. In this article, hypertext theory is compared to the phenomenology of reading linear literary text, with particular attention paid to the role played by the notion of a text, work or ‘whole’ which is constructed or produced during the course of reading. I show that the active and engaged reading predicted by hypertext theory is available in reading linear literary text, and to a higher degree than in reading hypertext, and consider ways in which the kinds of reading process which occur in reading literature can be generalized to reading for other higher education purposes. Finally, I speculate as to the range of online technologies that could be used to encourage these reading processes, and propose an alternative online reading space. (shrink)

Pila (2009) has criticised the recommendations made by requirements engineers involved in the design of a grid technology for the support of distributed readings of mammograms made by Jirotka et al. (2005). The disagreement between them turns on the notion of “biographical familiarity” and whether it can be a sound basis for trust for the performances of professionals such as radiologists. In the first two sections, this paper gives an interpretation of the position of each side in this disagreement and (...) their recommendation for the design of technology for distributed reading, and in the third the underlying reasons for this is agreement are discussed. It is argued that Pila, in attempting to make room for mistrust as well as trust, brings to the fore the question of having and reflecting upon reasons for trust or mistrust. Pila holds that biographical familiarity is not a sound reason for trust/mistrust, as it seems to obliterate the possibility of mistrust. In response to her proposal, an analysis is proposed of the forms of trust involved in biographical familiarity. In particular, implicit trust is focused upon — as a form of trust in advance of reasons, and as a form of trust contained (in the logical sense) within other reasons. It is proposed that implicit trust has an important role in establishing an intersubjectively shared world in which what counts as a reason for the acceptability of performances such as readings of X-rays is established. Implicit trust, therefore, is necessary for professionals to enter into a “space of reasons”. To insist upon judgements made in the absence of the form of implicit trust at play in biographical familiarity is to demand that radiologists (and other relevantly similar professionals) make judgements regarding whether to trust or mistrust on the basis of reasons capable of being reflected upon, but at the same time leave them without reasons upon which to reflect. (shrink)

Certain strands of modern literature and philosophy have laid pronounced emphasis upon the impossibility of sharing the experience of dying: in the face of death, all social bonds dissolve and the human being finds himself in the deepest and most inescapable of solitudes. Greek myth, however, depicts stories in which death is physically shared by two individuals, or magically transferred from one individual to another: such stories provide a fascinating starting point for comparing ancient and modern views on the same (...) problem, or, rather, for exploring ancient perspectives on a modern problem. This article takes as its premise the idea that ‘death’ as an abstract notion is a human construct, and argues that feelings and questions associated with death, such as that of its inexorable power to isolate the dying person psychologically from the rest of mankind, are not intrinsic to the phenomenon, but instead determined by culture. (shrink)

This paper aims to focus on the Weberian concept of Weltbild, considered as one of the most important analytic instruments of his sociology. I will argue that Weltbilder have a mainly cognitive function, with a direct practical effect: they are framing devices, that allow men to orient themselves in the world. In this sense, the Weberian concept of Weltbild differs from the notion of Ideology. I will base my argument on two different elements: the peculiar theoretical status of World-images and (...) their relationship with material factors. Unlike ideologies, in fact, Weltbilder do not deal with the distinction true-false: they are conceivable as cultural constructions, the relationship with whom can only take the form of belief. Secondly, they are not simply functional products of material interests: in Weberian analysis, ideal and material factors have a mutual influence, that is not deducible by a rule. (shrink)

This article uses data from the 2020 TIAA Institute-GFLEC Personal Finance Index to show that many American families were financially fragile well before the COVID-19 pandemic hit the U.S. economy. Financial fragility is particularly severe among specific demographic groups, such as African-Americans and those with low income. The article also shows that financial fragility is strongly linked to financial literacy and that many Americans are ill-equipped to deal with the financial decisions needed to navigate through a financial crisis. Suggestions are (...) provided to deal with personal finance decisions in times of emergency. (shrink)

As data-intensive and computational science become increasingly established as the dominant mode of conducting scientific research, visualisations of data and of the outcomes of science become increasingly prominent in mediating knowledge in the scientific arena. This position piece advocates that more attention should be paid to the epistemological role of visualisations beyond their being a cognitive aid to understanding, but as playing a crucial role in the formation of evidence for scientific claims. The new generation of computational and informational visualisations (...) and imaging techniques challenges the philosophy of science to re-think its position on three key distinctions: the qualitative/quantitative distinction, the subjective/objective distinction, and the causal/non-causal distinction. (shrink)

Since the 1980s, several studies of visual perception have persuasively argued that important aspects of human vision are best accounted for not by recourse to inner mental representations but rather through socially observable actions and behaviors (e.g. Lynch 1985, Latour 1986, Lynch 1990, Goodwin 1994, Goodwin 1997, Sharrock & Coulter 1998). While there are clearly physiological mechanisms required for vision, psychological accounts of perception in terms of inner mental representations have been dislodged from their position as the basic term in (...) the interface between human beings and their environment and replaced with terms such as "social practice," and "vernacular intelligibility." The focus for these .. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie Jahrgang: 99 Heft: 2 Seiten: 129-155.

The collaborative ‹Big Science’ approach prevalent in physics during the mid- and late-20th century is becoming more common in the life sciences. Often computationally mediated, these collaborations challenge researchers’ trust practices. Focusing on the visualisations that are often at the heart of this form of scientific practice, the paper proposes that the aesthetic aspects of these visualisations are themselves a way of securing trust. Kant’s account of aesthetic judgements in the Third Critique is drawn upon in order to show that (...) the image-building capability of imagination, and the sensus communis, both of which are integral parts of aesthetic experience, play an important role in building and sustaining community in these forms of science. Kant’s theory shows that the aesthetic appeal of scientific visualisations is not isolated from two other dimensions of the visualisations: the cognitive-epistemic, aesthetic-stylistic and interpersonal dimensions, and that in virtue of these inter-relationships, visualisations contribute to building up the intersubjectively shared framework of agreement which is basic for trust. (shrink)

In a recent paper, Pila has criticised the recommendations made by requirements engineers involved in the design of a grid technology for the support of distributed readings of mammograms made by Jirotka et al. The disagreement between them turns on the notion of ‘biographical familiarity’ and whether it can be a sound basis for trust for the performances of professionals such as radiologists. In the first two sections, the paper gives an interpretation of the position of each side in this (...) disagreement and their recommendation for the design of technology for distributed reading, and in the third the underlying reasons for this disagreement are discussed. It is argued that Pila, in attempting to make room for mistrust as well as trust, brings to the fore the question of having and reflecting upon reasons for trust or mistrust. Pila holds that biographical familiarity is not a sound reason for trust/mistrust, as it seems to obliterate the possibility of mistrust. In response to her proposal, an analysis is proposed of the forms of trust involved in biographical familiarity. In particular, implicit trust is focused upon, as a form of trust in advance of reasons, and as a form of trust contained within other reasons. It is proposed that implicit trust has an important role in establishing an intersubjectively shared world in which what counts as a reason for the acceptability of performances such as readings of x-rays is established. Implicit trust, therefore, is necessary for professionals to enter into a ‘space of reasons’. To insist upon judgements made in the absence of the form of implicit trust at play in biographical familiarity is to demand that radiologists make judgements regarding whether to trust or mistrust on the basis of reasons capable of being reflected upon, but at the same time to leave them without reasons upon which to reflect. (shrink)

A controversial issue in Rousseau’s philosophy is the relationship between the people as a whole, who want the good but cannot see it, and individuals, who see the good but do not want it. This predicament has to be overcome by the Legislator, whose characteristics seem however to be inconsistent with the theory propounded in the first book of the Contrat Social. The aim of this paper is to contribute to the current debate by exploring three possible functions of this (...) key figure, which are 1. to formulate the content of constitutional law; 2. to make the people aware of their sovereignty by bringing to light the rules underlining the social contract; 3.to mediate between the political and the socio-economic sphere, that is between the sovereign people’s efforts to bring about the general will and individuals’ efforts to advance their own particular interest. Being structurally different from the first two, this last hypothesis need not be seen as conflicting with either of them. (shrink)

The author sets out to present the Nothing of nihilism as the driving force behind the history of Western thought referred to as “metaphysics”. The starting points for clarifying the thesis are found in two interpretations of nihilism in the more recent scholarly literature: the understanding of nihilism as “differentiation” and as “overcoming”. The understanding of nihilism as overcoming calls for a broader examination of Nietzsche‘s interpretation of nihilism. On the one hand, the author relies on Heidegger‘s understanding of nihilism (...) and metaphysics, according to which nihilism cannot be separated from metaphysics. At the same time, she seeks to re-formulate the question about Nothing: to what extent can Nothing be phenomenologically understood as the destructive process that reflects metaphysics in its continuously changing guises as metaphysics, i.e. as the interpretative structure that continues to emerge throughout history. The Nothing thereby shows itself as a metaphysical “prerequisite” for man‘s creative power and reality as such.Die Absicht der Autorin ist es, das Nichts des Nihilismus als Antrieb der „Metaphysik“ genannten Geschichte des abendländischen Denkens aufzuzeigen. Um diese These zu erläutern, werden zwei Nihilismusdeutungen der neueren Fachliteratur, seine Auffassung als „Differenz“ und als „Überwindung“, zum Ausgangspunkt genommen. Die Auffassung des Nihilismus als Überwindung gibt Anlass zu einer umfassenderen Erläuterung von Nietzsches Nihilismusinterpretation. Sie stützt sich einerseits auf Heideggers Nihilismusund Metaphysikauffassung, wonach der Nihilismus nicht von der Metaphysik abgetrennt werden kann. Andererseits versucht sie die Frage nach dem Nichts neu zu formulieren: Inwiefern kann das Nichts phänomenologisch als derjenige Destruktionsprozess verstanden werden, der die Metaphysik in ihren immer wechselnden Masken als Metaphysik, d. h. als in der Geschichte stets zum Zuge kommende Interpretationsstruktur erweist? Das Nichts zeigt sich dabei als metaphysische „Voraussetzung“ der Schöpferkraft des Menschen und der Wirklichkeit überhaupt.Namjera autorice je pokazati ono ništa nihilizma kao pokretačku silu “metafizikom” nazvane povijesti zapadnjačkog mišljenja. U svrhu razjašnjenja te teze za polazišne točke uzimaju se dva tumačenja nihilizma u novijoj stručnoj literaturi: shvaćanje nihilizma kao “diferencije” i kao “prevladavanja”. Shvaćanje nihilizma kao prevladavanja daje povoda za obuhvatnije razjašnjenje Nietzscheove interpretacije nihilizma. Autorica se oslanja s jedne strane na Heideggerovo shvaćanje nihilizma i metafizike, prema kojemu se nihilizam ne može odijeliti od metafizike. Ujedno pokušava iznova formulirati pitanje o ničemu: u kojoj mjeri se ništa može fenomenološki razumjeti kao onaj destruktivni proces, koji metafiziku u njezinim stalno se izmjenjujućim maskama očituje kao metafiziku, tj. kao interpretativnu strukturu koja stalno izlazi na vidjelo u povijesti. Ništa se pritom pokazuje kao metafizička “pretpostavka” stvaralačke snage čovjeka i stvarnosti uopće. (shrink)

Late archaic lyric poetry tends to obscure all pathetic and tragic elements of Achilles’ destiny present in the Iliad. The offence against his honour, his grief for Patroclus, his yearning for native Phthia, and a painful awareness of being ὠκύμορος – none of these themes play a role in the passages of Pindar, Bacchylides or Simonides where Achilles is mentioned. Yet each of these three poets operates differently with regard to the epic source, and it is worth investigating how they (...) do so. (shrink)

Knowledge does not float free of the technologies available for its production and presentation. The intimate connection between ideas and praxis - embodied, technological, social - exemplified in any knowledge practice is, in the terms of Ihde & Selinger (2004), an 'epistemology engine'. This refers to the material-semiotic connections that obtain for any specific rendering of an idea. Often this material-semiotic connection is easier to recognise in the case of art than in that of knowledge, where it appears more-or-less obvious (...) that the rendering of an idea in poetic rather than prose form, in musical rather than linguistic form, in plastic rather than digital form, makes a difference to the idea. However, it is also recognisable (if not always actually recognised) in science, where there is a keen awareness of visual media alongside or instead of discursive media. -/- Ideas on the Internet shift and change as they pass through different networks of meaning production and communication, in different media and modalities. Different disciplines and modes of knowledge have either embraced these possibilities of transmogrification or remained aloof. Philosophy is one of the latter, and seems still steadily rooted to the discursive world. However, as a discipline, it overlaps in interesting ways both with science and with art. What are the epistemology-engines that apply to philosophy, and are there specific philosophy-engines? This is the background against which the applications to e-learning in philosophy will be considered. -/- In previous work, I claimed that the nature of philosophical argument cannot simply be assumed to remain constant even in the use of relatively simple discursive technologies such as discussion boards (Carusi 2006). In the present paper I consider a range of other technologies that form the technological culture of philosophy, or which mediate it. The paper aims to open a line of enquiry into these underlying technologies and the kinds of philosophy-engine that emerge from them, individually or by way of a convergence of a set of technologies. In particular, I focus on text-mining techniques, visualisations, and modeling showing what potential they have for disturbing, derailing, re-shaping or transforming the mode, form or substance of philosophy. -/- . (shrink)

The author analyses the legal culture of our time trying to make explicit the dynamics that form the basis of the present socio-normative order through an examination of the essential changes in the world of norms and of regulations in general. In particular, the analysis focusses on the structural transformation of law and on the loss of the traditional space-time dimension of regulation in the context of globalization. In the second place, she indicates the changes in the forms of communication (...) such as the fundamental presuppositions from which the problem of the new rights is tackled. The conclusion is that the regulating and directive function of pre-global law is losing ground to new resolution techniques such as mediation. (shrink)

Background: Paediatric nurses often face complex situations requiring decisions that sometimes clash with their own values and beliefs, or with the needs of the children they care for and their families. Paediatric nurses often use new technology that changes the way they provide care, but also reduces their direct interaction with the child. This may generate ethical issues, which nurses should be able to address in the full respect of the child. Research question and objectives: The purpose of this review (...) is to describe the main ethical dimensions of paediatric nursing. Our research question was, ‘What are the most common ethical dimensions and competences related to paediatric nursing?’ Research design: A rapid evidence assessment. Method: According to the principles of the rapid evidence assessment, we searched the PubMed, SCOPUS and CINAHL databases for papers published between January 2001 and March 2015. These papers were then independently read by two researchers and analysed according to the inclusion criteria. Ethical considerations: Since this was a rapid evidence assessment, no approval from the ethics committee was required. Findings: Ten papers met our inclusion criteria. Ethical issues in paediatric nursing were grouped into three areas: (a) ethical issues in paediatric care, (b) social responsibility and (c) decision-making process. Conclusion: Few studies investigate the ethical dimensions and aspects of paediatric nursing, and they are mainly qualitative studies conducted in critical care settings based on nurses’ perceptions and experiences. Paediatric nurses require specific educational interventions to help them resolve ethical issues, contribute to the decision-making process and fulfil their role as advocates of a vulnerable population (i.e. sick children and their families). Further research is needed to investigate how paediatric nurses can improve the involvement of children and their families in decision-making processes related to their care plan. (shrink)

In clinical practice, decision-making is not performed by individual knowers but by an assemblage of people and instruments in which no one member has full access to every piece of evidence. This is due to decision making teams consisting of members with different kinds of expertise, as well as to organisational and time constraints. This raises important questions for the epistemology of medicine, which is inherently social in this kind of setting, and implies epistemic dependence on others. Trust in these (...) contexts is a highly complex social practice, involving different forms of relationships between trust and reasons for trust: based on reasons, and not based on reasons; based on reasons that are easily accessible to reflection and others that are not. In this paper, we focus on what it means to have reasons to trust colleagues in an established clinical team, collectively supporting or carrying out every day clinical decision-making. We show two important points about these reasons, firstly, they are not sought or given in advance of a situation of epistemic dependence, but are established within these situations; secondly they are implicit in the sense of being contained or nested within other actions that are not directly about trusting another person. The processes of establishing these reasons are directly about accomplishing a task, and indirectly about trusting someone else’s expertise or competence. These processes establish a space of reasons within which what it means to have reasons for trust, or not, gains a meaning and traction in these team-work settings. Based on a qualitative study of decision-making in image assisted diagnosis and treatment of a complex disease called pulmonary hypertension (PH), we show how an intersubjective framework, or ‘space of reasons’ is established through team members forging together a common way of identifying and dealing with evidence. In dealing with images as a central diagnostic tool, this also involves a common way of looking at the images, a common mode or style of perception. These frameworks are developed through many iterations of adjusting and calibrating interpretations in relation to those of others, establishing what counts as evidence, and ranking different kinds of evidence. Implicit trust is at work throughout this process. Trusting the expertise of others in clinical decision-making teams occurs while the members of the team are busy on other tasks, most importantly, building up a framework of common modes of seeing, and common ways of identifying and assessing evidence emerge. It is only in this way that trusting or mistrusting becomes meaningful in these contexts, and that a framework for epistemic dependence is established. (shrink)

The Adverse Outcome Pathway (AOP) concept is a knowledge assembly and communication tool to facilitate the transparent translation of mechanistic information into outcomes meaningful to the regulatory assessment of chemicals. The AOP framework and associated knowledgebases (KBs) have received significant attention and use in the regulatory toxicology community. However, it is increasingly apparent that the potential stakeholder community for the AOP concept and AOP KBs is broader than scientists and regulators directly involved in chemical safety assessment. In this paper we (...) identify and describe those stakeholders who currently—or in the future—could benefit from the application of the AOP framework and knowledge to specific problems. We also summarize the challenges faced in implementing pathway-based approaches such as the AOP framework in biological sciences, and provide a series of recommendations to meet critical needs to ensure further progression of the framework as a useful, sustainable and dependable tool supporting assessments of both human health and the environment. Although the AOP concept has the potential to significantly impact the organization and interpretation of biological information in a variety of disciplines/applications, this promise can only be fully realized through the active engagement of, and input from multiple stakeholders, requiring multi-pronged substantive long-term planning and strategies. (shrink)