A variety of recent work in epistemology employs a notion of normality to provide novel theories of knowledge or justification. While such theories are commonly advertised as affording particularly strong epistemic logics, they often make substantive assumptions about the background notion of normality and its logic. This article takes recent normality-based defences of the KK principle as a case study to submit such assumptions to scrutiny. After clarifying issues regarding the natural language use of normality claims, the article isolates a (...) number of choice points regarding the role of contingency, context-sensitivity and similarity in our theorizing with normality. It turns out that both weaker and stronger logics of normality can be motivated depending on how such choices are resolved. And yet securing logics of normality strong enough for normality to play its envisaged role in epistemology may have unwelcome downstream consequences for the resultant theories of knowledge or justification. (shrink)

Qualifications with 'as' or 'qua' are widely used in philosophy, yet how precisely such qualifications work is poorly understood. While extant work on the topic is rife with revisionary assumptions about the nature of individuals, truth, and identity, this article shows that no baroque theory is required to account for such qualifications. I develop and defend a simple theory on which qua-qualifications ascribe relational properties to individuals, and show that the proposal affords a clear metaphysical analysis of the puzzle cases (...) of interest. Moreover, the theory makes adequate predictions about the linguistic behaviour of qua-qualifications and helps us think more clearly about their logic. Since this is more than any extant competing theory can claim, the proposal offers the best account of qua-qualification to date. (shrink)

A growing consensus in the literature on agentive modals has it that ability modals like ‘can’ or ‘able to’ have a _dual_, i.e. interpretations of ‘must’ or ‘cannot but’ which stand to _necessity_ as ability stands to _possibility_. We argue that this thesis (which we call ‘Agentive Duality’) is much more controversial than meets the eye. While Agentive Duality follows from the orthodox possibility analysis of ability given natural assumptions, it sits uneasily with a wide range of alternative proposals which (...) are unified by the idea that ability requires _control_. In particular, we show that against the background of a control requirement on ability, Agentive Duality can be used to derive absurd predictions featuring this dual. Far from being a purely definitional thesis, Agentive Duality thus affords a new lens through which to assess the long-standing debate between possibility analyses of ability and their discontents. (shrink)

Moral development has become an integral part in military training and the importance of moral judgment and behavior in military operations can hardly be overestimated. Many armed forces have integrated military ethics and moral decision-making interventions in their training programs. However, little is known about the effectiveness of these interventions. This study examined the effectiveness of a 1-week training program in moral decision making in the Swiss Armed Forces. The program was based on a strategy-based interactional moral dilemma approach. Results (...) of this quasi-experimental intervention study showed significant improvements in content-related (moral and instrumental awareness, quality of moral information processing, development of compensatory actions) as well as process-related (situational analysis, development and evaluation of alternative solutions, justification of decision) aspects in moral decision making. Results of a follow-up test indicated positive long-term effects with regard to moral and instrumental awareness and process-related aspects. Findings are discussed, and consequences for leadership development programs and further research are explored. (shrink)

Contributing to a rising number of Critical Data Studies which seek to understand and critically reflect on the increasing datafication and digitalisation of governance, this paper focuses on the field of school monitoring, in particular on digital data infrastructures, flows and practices in state education agencies. Our goal is to examine selected features of the enactment of datafication and, hence, to open up what has widely remained a black box for most education researchers. Our findings are based on interviews conducted (...) in three state education agencies in two different national contexts, thus addressing the question of how the datafication and digitalisation of school governance has not only manifested within but also across educational contexts and systems. As our findings illustrate, the implementation of data-based school monitoring and leadership in state education agencies appears as a complex entanglement of very different logics, practices and problems, producing both new capabilities and powers. Nonetheless, by identifying different types of ‘doing data discrepancies’ reported by our interviewees, we suggest an analytical heuristic to better understand at least some features of the multifaceted enactment of data-based, increasingly digitalised governance, within and beyond the field of education. (shrink)

It is both a matter of everyday experience and a tenet of sociological theory that people often occupy a range of social roles and identities, some of which are associated with mutually incompatible properties. But since nothing could have incompatible properties, it is not clear how this is possible. It has been suggested, notably by Kit Fine (1982, 1999, 2006), that the puzzling relation between a person and their various social roles and identities can be explained by admitting an ontology (...) of social qua objects—objects constituted by, yet distinct from, the persons on which they are based. This article argues that admitting even a rich ontology of such qua objects does not suffice to explain the puzzle cases of interest. Instead, alternative resources are required which, once available, diminish the motivation for adopting an ontology of social qua objects in the first place. The paper concludes by considering whether there remains work for social qua objects in explaining differences in persistence conditions between a person and the social individuals to which they may give rise, but reaches a negative verdict. Social qua objects, if they exist, have little work to do in our theorizing about the relation between a person and their various social roles and identities. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Vaiśeṣikasūtra – A Translation by Ionut Moise and Ganesh U. ThiteNils Seiler (bio)Vaiśeṣikasūtra – A Translation. By Ionut Moise and Ganesh U. Thite. London: Routledge, 2021. Pp. viii + 294. Paper $48.95, isbn 978-1-032005-90-4.Vaiśeṣikasūtra – A Translation by Ionut Moise and Ganesh U. Thite serves as an introduction to Vaiśeṣika thought and an introduction to the seventh-century commentary (vṛtti) on the Vaiśeṣikasūtra by Candrānanda. Their book is (...) primarily intended for non-specialists. As Moise notes, "The aim of this edition of Vaiśeṣikasūtra is, therefore, to introduce students of Western philosophy to some of the categories of Indian philosophy, and by way of this to demonstrate the necessity of conceptual correlation between Indian philosophy (particularly Vaiśeṣika) and the perennial and insoluble questions of today's World philosophy" (p. 6). Besides ShashiPrabha Kumar's Classical Vaiśeṣika in Indian Philosophy: On Knowing and What is to Be Known (2013) and the brief summaries included in surveys such as Raffaele Torella's The Philosophical Traditions of India: An Appraisal (2011), there is very little secondary literature in English that offers a general introduction to Vaiśeṣika thought, especially for non-specialists. Moise and Thite's work attempts to help fill this gap, but their work would have benefited from a longer, more descriptive introduction to Vaiśeṣika (à la Kumar and Torella). Primary literature in English on Vaiśeṣika is not much better. For example, as Moise and Thite note, only excerpts of Candrānanda's commentary have been translated into English. Thus, unlike Halbfass (1992), Nozawa (1993), and Thakur (2003) (p. ix), Moise and Thite offer the first complete translation of the earliest extant commentary on the Vaiśeṣikasūtra.The book is divided into three main parts: chapter 1 provides a brief introduction to Vaiśeṣika philosophy and a summary of Candrānanda's commentary, chapter 2 outlines the current state of manuscripts of the Vaiśeṣikasūtra and Vaiśeṣikasūtravṛtti, and chapter 3 contains a transliteration and translation of the Vaiśeṣikasūtravṛtti. The authors also include three appendices, two of which situate Vaiśeṣika philosophy within world philosophy and within its own commentarial tradition, and one of which outlines the extant manuscripts of the Vaiśeṣikasūtra and Vaiśeṣikasūtravṛtti.Moise uses chapter 1 to familiarize his philosophical audience with the tradition of Vaiśeṣika. He does this by drawing attention to the history of Greek and Indian thought, highlighting similarities between these traditions, and emphasizing the importance of naturalism, metaphysics, and ontology in both [End Page 1] traditions. Although it may seem an idiosyncratic way to introduce Indian philosophy, Moise uses the Greek tradition to build a foundation from which those unfamiliar with Indian thought may find a way into the tradition of Vaiśeṣika. This approach is more than pedagogical. Moise argues that his "preliminary survey on the Pre-Socratic Greek philosophy [sic] is important because of their conspicuous resemblance with the problems raised by the early Vedic and Upaniṣadic seers" (p. 2). The similarity between Greek and Vedic thought is essentially metaphysical, according to Moise. But there are also meaningful differences between the questions Greek and Indian thinkers pose and the answers they provide and attending to these differences can be philosophically fruitful. As Moise argues, "by matching unrelated systems of thought (Indian, Greek, analytic, and so forth), our knowledge rebuilds and reconstructs while the ontic definitions of the world gain more clarity than has ever been possible" (p. 6).According to Moise, Vaiśeṣika philosophy can challenge our metaphysical and ontological notions. Specifically, he argues that Vaiśeṣika ontology provides an alternative to the problematic dualism of matter and form in Aristotelian thought, as well as to the notions of essence and existence in the Medieval Scholastics (p. 4). Moise argues that disparate philosophical traditions can problematize and influence our understanding of philosophy: "In short, Indian philosophies begin, change, and challenge the scope of ontology" and... (shrink)

When people simultaneously occupy multiple social identities, ascriptions of disadvantage and advantage, as well as our reasoning with them, need to be handled with care. For instance, as various US-American courts have come to acknowledge, we cannot in general reason from the premise that someone has neither been discriminated against as a woman nor as a Black person to the conclusion that they have not been discriminated against as a Black woman. In this article, I show how, by systematising such (...) qualified ascriptions of disadvantage (and advantage), as well as the patterns of reasoning involving them, we can articulate and defend central theses of intersectionality theory in remarkably general terms, and without having to commit to a particular metaphysics of intersectional identity. (shrink)

This article engages with pragmatic sociology to understand an environmental dispute and its underlying moral issues in a direct-democratic and bottom-up setting. The non-establishment of a planned national park in the Swiss Alps serves as a case study to analyse principles of worth presented in national park negotiations. We point to the complex nature of conservation negotiations and argue that loosely defined ideas of the common good can lead to additional difficulties for a bottom-up project. Moreover, we open up new (...) ground for discussion concerning the interplay of nature conservation and direct democracy. (shrink)

Barbara Vetter proposes that certain epistemic and metasemantic challenges to our theorizing about metaphysical modality can be met by an approach which generalizes from every day paradigms of objective modality – notably the abilities and dispositions familiar to us “from the context of action” – to give content to the more abstract notion of a most general objective modality: metaphysical modality. I argue that the ability ascriptions which are central to our day to day practical reasoning are permeated with opacity (...) and therefore make for problematic paradigms of an objective modality. While Vetter could retrospectively “purify” her sample of paradigms, this would leave her in a similar position as those who seek to restrict a particularly broad modality, e.g. a priori conceivability, to its objective core. I conclude by taking on Vetter’s pessimistic conjecture that proponents of different approaches to the metasemantic challenge operate under assumptions so dramatically different that we should not expect them to even share a subject matter. Against this, I give an argument which suggests that so long as there is agreement regarding the theoretical role of metaphysical modality, it would be surprising if it made a difference whether one approached metaphysical modality by generalizing from one well-understood modality rather than by restricting another. Keywords: objective modality, abilities, opacity, broadest necessity. (shrink)

Dieses Buch konzipiert Virtualität in Anlehnung an Gilles Deleuze nicht im Gegensatz zu Realität, sondern zu Aktualität und verknüpft dieses Verhältnis mit den Begriffen von Medium und Form bei Niklas Luhmann. Sand fungiert dann als metaphorisches Modell für Virtualität, da er besonders 'medial', d. h. offen für die Bildung und Auflösung von Formen ist. Diese Prozesse werden inkl. ihrer Implikationen in Literatur, Theorie und Kunst untersucht.

One of the main goals of the Institute “Vienna Circle”, founded in October 1991, is to do justice to its second name and establish itself as a “Society for Advancement of the Scientific World View”. This includes the effort to document and further develop the work and influence of the Vienna Circle and its “periphery” in areas of science and adult education, as well as “the cultivation and application of logical empiricism, critical rationalism, and linguistic analysis in the sense of (...) a scientific philosophy and coordinated with general socio-cultural developments”. (shrink)

This paper tries to provide a reading of vie american political culture and party-system in the light of Rokkan's center vs periphery perspective. Governor Carter's election as the democratic party nominee is the starting point of an analysis based on a theory of political cleavages and integration of conflicts.

This essay explores how the human biological self is socially constructed, and rejects various truisms that define our character. Rather than being stand-alone entities, the human biological self forms what biologists call “superorganisms” and what I call “poly-super-organisms.” Thus, along with prokaryotes , viruses, and other entities, we are combined in an inseparable menagerie of species that is spread across multiple bodies. Biologists claim that only males and females are organisms. As described here, however, human sperm and eggs are equally (...) entitled to that rank. Much about human reproduction is also socially constructed. For example, contrary to scientific wisdom, humans have always reproduced both sexually and asexually. Moreover, human life does not begin between conception and birth, and neither event creates new life. In addition, some cancer cells are organisms; they are contagious entities formed by asexual human reproduction. Finally, while science universally describes humans as being living entities, accumulating evidence makes clear that the life concept is failing. In fact, much that originates from human bodies does not fall under current biological or cultural classifications.How we construct the human biological self has consequences for understanding our health, how we reproduce, and what we are. These social constructions greatly influence our views on abortion, stem-cell research, human cloning, and our post-human future. A more accurate construction of the human biological self will help us better navigate these contentious issues. (shrink)

The proposed national PrEP program would serve people who are uninsured as well as those enrolled in Medicaid. In this article, the authors propose a set of recommendations for the proposed program’s implementers as well as state Medicaid agencies and Medicaid managed care organizations to ensure PrEP access for people enrolled in Medicaid, addressing gaps without undermining the important role of the Medicaid program in covering and promoting PrEP.

Objective: To examine the current ethical review process of ethics committees in a non-pharmacological trial from the perspective of a clinical investigator.Design: Prospective collection of data at the Study Centre of the German Surgical Society on the duration, costs and administrative effort of the ERP of a randomised controlled multicentre surgical INSECT Trial between November 2003 and May 2005.Setting: Germany.Participants: 18 ethics committees, including the ethics committee handling the primary approval, responsible overall for 32 clinical sites throughout Germany. 8 ethics (...) committees were located at university medical schools and 10 at medical chambers. Duration was measured as days between submission and receipt of final approval, costs in euros and administrative effort by calculation of the product of the total number of different types of documents and the mean number of copies required .Results: The duration of the ERP ranged from 1 to 176 days. The median duration was 26 days at MSUs compared with 34 days at medical chambers. The total cost was €2947. 1 of 8 ethics committees at universities and 8 of 10 at medical chambers charged a median fee of €162 . The administrative effort for primary approval was 30. Four ethics committees required a higher administrative effort for secondary approval .Conclusion: The ERP for non-pharmacological multicentre trials in Germany needs improvement. The administrative process has to be standardised: the application forms and the number and content of the documents required should be identical or at least similar. The fees charged vary considerably and are obviously too high for committees located at medical chambers. However, the duration of the ERP was, with some exceptions, excellent. A centralised ethics committee in Germany for multicentre trials such as the INSECT Trial can simplify the ERP for clinical investigators in and outside the country. (shrink)

Volume 20, Issue 10, October 2020, Page 36-39.

The aim of this tentative article is to bring some further empirical evidence in order to validate Stein Rokkan's "Conceptual Map of Europe". Therefore a set of variables are suggested: territorial-cultural and territorial-economic.Some indicators are proposed to provide some measurement of the variables, such as Beaufays Federalism scale or a new Mediatie centralization scale.

This article is concerned with the epistemological and methodological problems related to the taxonomy of political parties whett based on noorganizational criteria.The study of parties represents a starting point for modern Political Science : i.e. the seminal researches of Bryce, Ostrogorski and Michels. However this important field of knowledge hasn't known that much progress since the classical Duverger's Political Parties. Why?Two kind of approaches are used in order to classify parties: individualistic versus holistic. «Individualistic classifications» often suffer from a lack (...) of theoretical background. Same of them use a spurious criterium like party names : i.e. Radical means extreme-left in the USA and conservatism in Switzerland, secularist activism in Italy and evangelical left in the Netherlands etc.Some classifications are based on political platforms which is a meaningless criterium: «A general election campaign is about a choice between organizations, not ideas.» The third criterium is far better: policies really implemented by political parties. However when properly used it gives a typology of countries, not parties.«Holistic classifications» either functionnalist or marxist opposed each other : the first stressed on equilibrium, the latter on class warfare. One suggests Rokkan's four cleavages paradigm to classify parties : each side of a cleavage should correspond to a definite «Political Family».Which items to use in order to assess a party to a permanent cleavage line? The historical function performed by the party at its creation. The sociological structure of the party's : electorate, membership and inner group; The linkage structure between the party and a given network of pressure groups, movements and associations. (shrink)

ZusammenfassungNoch nie ist genauer bedacht worden, auf welche »Fehler« Kafka in seiner Strafkolonie-Erzählung aufmerksam geworden ist. Geht man der Frage nach, erkennt man, dass ein »unverwischbarer« Widerspruch die gesamte Handlung durchzieht: Einerseits ist das Hinrichtungsverfahren in der Strafkolonie allgemein bekannt, andererseits dürfen die Verurteilten nichts darüber wissen, wenn es seinen Zweck erfüllen soll. Woher kommen dann die vielen ahnungslosen Delinquenten, die der Offizier mit seinem »Apparat« hinrichtet? Diese im Text nie berührte Unklarheit hat weitere Widersprüche zur Folge und lässt überdies (...) erkennen, dass man sich auch auf den Reisenden als Beurteiler nicht verlassen kann. Eine befriedigende Auflösung der Unstimmigkeiten findet sich nicht. Es gibt da tatsächlich einen »Wurm, der selbst das Volle der Geschichte hohl macht«, wie Kafka selbst festgestellt hat.Serious consideration has never been given to the »mistakes« which aroused Kafka’s attention in his narrative, The Penal Colony. An exact investigation indicates that an »indelible« contradiction permeates the entire plot: On the one hand, the special kind of execution is generally known throughout the penal colony; on the other hand, the condemned are not supposed to know of it so that it can serve its purpose. So where do the many unknowledgeable delinquents come from, to be executed by the officer with his »apparatus«? This ambiguity, which is never touched upon in the text, results in further contradictions and also shows that one cannot rely upon the traveler as an evaluator. There is no satisfactory solution of the inconsistencies: it is really a »worm« in the story »which hollows out the substance of it«, as Kafka himself determined. (shrink)

This book focuses on the often-overlooked mid period of Socialism in twentieth century Poland, tracing the transgressive variations of humanist thought that emerged as forms of resistance amid the intellectual crisis of the late 1960s and early 1970s. It analyses how an upsurge in anti-Semitism and discourses of exclusion in the period stimulated environmental explorations beyond the hegemonic notion of the human subject and humanity. Readers will find a synthetic analysis not only of the atmosphere of the mid-socialist period, but (...) also of fragmented, decentered, and marginalised phenomena in film, literature, theory, and theatre, in which transgressive moments in well-known work such as the theatre of Tadeusz Kantor, Stanisław Lem's writing, Maria Janion's cultural studies, or Jerzy Skolimowski's early films feature alongside artistic output that was never broadly known or is mostly forgotten now. By acknowledging the specificities of transgressive humanism in socialist Poland, the book enriches post-anthropocentric theory with a distinct perspective from the so-called semi-periphery. The volume is relevant for scholars of post-humanist studies, the history of knowledge, studies on socialist Europe and Polish studies. (shrink)

The present study aimed to examine the longitudinal promotive and protective role of process quality in regular early childhood education and care (ECEC) centers in the context of early cumulative family risks on children’s social–emotional development from early to middle childhood. The sample consisted of 293 (T1;Mage = 2.81), 239 (T2;Mage = 3.76), and 189 (T3;Mage = 9.69) children from 25 childcare centers in Switzerland. Fourteen familial risk factors were subsumed to a family risk score at T1. Parents and teachers (...) reported on children’s conduct problems (CP), emotional problems (EP), and prosocial behavior (PB) at T2 and T3. Childcare process quality was assessed at T2 using external observations of teaching and interaction, provisions for learning, and key professional tasks. Results showed that early family risks were positively associated with CP and EP and negatively associated with PB in the long term. High-quality teaching and interaction as well as caregivers’ professional behavior in terms of systematic observation, documentation, and planning of children’s individual learning processes and needs protected children from the undesirable long-term effects of early family risks on conduct problems, emotional problems, and prosocial behavior from early to middle childhood. The results indicate that a high process quality in ECEC might serve as an essential contextual protective factor in the development of resilience in children at risk. (shrink)

Die sogenannte ‚Hochzeitszahl’ aus Platons Staat gilt wohl zu Recht als eines der bedeutendsten, noch immer ungelösten Rätsel der Antike. In einem kunstvoll verschlüsselten Text deutet Platons Sokrates an, auf welche Weise der Idealstaat als gerechteste und glücklichste Form einer menschlichen Gemeinschaft seine politische Kontinuität erhalten kann: Es genügt nicht nur, dass die amtierende Führungsschicht von bestqualifizierten, für sich selbst aber besitzlosen Philosophinnen und Philosophen ihre potenziellen Nachfolger aufs Beste ausbildet, nein, gemäß pythagoreischer Lehre muss bereits bei deren Zeugung darauf (...) geachtet werden, dass die Paarung ihrer idealen Eltern zu einem Zeitpunkt erfolgt, der auch vom kosmischen Lebensrhythmus des Universums her geeignet ist, der künftigen Elite das optimale Rüstzeug für ihre göttliche Aufgabe schon vorgeburtlich mitzugeben. Diese Geheimformel stellt ein faszinierendes Beispiel für das ganzheitliche Denken der alten Pythagoreer dar, in welchem heilige Mathematik, naturwissenschaftliche Himmelsmechanik und die schöpferische Liebesfunktion eines lebendigen, von naturgesetzlicher Harmonie und Weisheit erfüllten Universums noch eine untrennbare Einheit bilden. The so-called “wedding number” in Plato’s Republic is rightly considered one of the most important unsolved riddles of antiquity. This secret formula is a fascinating example of the holistic thought of the ancient Pythagoreans, in which divine mathematics, scientific celestial astronomy, and the creative function of love in a living universe full of naturally ordained harmony and wisdom still form an indivisible whole. (shrink)

740 page life in letters, including all Hegel's available letters at time of publication by Indiana University Press in 1984 tied together by a running commentary by Clark Butler. The volume is in a searchable PDF format. Publication was supported by a Major Grant by the National Endowment of the Humanities (NEH).

The present study aimed to examine the promotive and protective role of general self-efficacy and positive self-concept in the context of the effects of early familial risk factors on children’s development of emotional problems from early to middle childhood. A total of 293, 239, and 189 children from 25 childcare centers took part in the present study. Fourteen familial risk factors were assessed at T1 using an interview and a questionnaire that were administered to children’s primary caregivers. These 14 familial (...) risk factors were used to compute a familial risk factors score. Primary caregivers also reported on their children’s emotional problems at T2 and T3 and on their children’s general self-efficacy at T2. Children reported on their positive self-concept at T2. Results showed that early familial risk factors were positively associated with emotional problems in the short and long term, although the long-term effect was small and non-significant. Further, the pattern of effect sizes of both promotive and protective effects of general self-efficacy as well as positive self-concept was found to be consistent in the short term. However, in the long term, no consistent support for either the promotive or the protective role of general self-efficacy or positive self-concept was found. These results suggest that general self-efficacy and positive self-concept might contribute to promote mental health and to protect from undesired effects of familial risk factors in the short term. Possible reasons for a lack of long-term effects are discussed along with practical implications. (shrink)

The first aim of the article is to present the lineage of party organizations integrating several "classical" approaches. Therefore a second aim is to set up a structural model able to catch the evolution of any typeof modern party organization.One assumes that Party Structure is an invariable element which subsumes several organizational translations. Same are protopartisan translations : leagues, armed and unarmed f actions, parliamentary groups. Some are partisan translations : modern party organizations. This assumptions means a corollary: organizations tend (...) to adapt to the kind of party competition they have to afford in order to have accessto governmental power. The model combines the assumptions in a two dimensional matrix.The first dimension is concerned with the organization's major historical goal. It takes three values : a) to elect of MP's ; b) to promote a Weltanschauung; c) to elect the President.The second deals with mobilization and takes three values : adapted 1 ° to the age of «Registration Societies» ; 2° the age of «One man, one vote system» ; 3° the post McLuhan age of electronic media.The combination of the dimensions gives three lineages: Cadre Parties including Notability Parties, Voters Parties and Indirect Parties; Mass Parties including Activist Parties and Social Integration Parties; MachineParties. (shrink)