This paper introduces the Eight Dimensional Methodology for Innovative Thinking (the Eight Dimensional Methodology), for innovative problem solving, as a unified approach to case analysis that builds on comprehensive problem solving knowledge from industry, business, marketing, math, science, engineering, technology, arts, and daily life. It is designed to stimulate innovation by quickly generating unique “out of the box” unexpected and high quality solutions. It gives new insights and thinking strategies to solve everyday problems faced in the workplace, by helping decision (...) makers to see otherwise obscure alternatives and solutions. Daniel Raviv, the engineer who developed the Eight Dimensional Methodology, and paper co-author, technology ethicist Rosalyn Berne, suggest that this tool can be especially useful in identifying solutions and alternatives for particular problems of engineering, and for the ethical challenges which arise with them. First, the Eight Dimensional Methodology helps to elucidate how what may appear to be a basic engineering problem also has ethical dimensions. In addition, it offers to the engineer a methodology for penetrating and seeing new dimensions of those problems. (shrink)

The essays in Politics, Nature, and Piety take up the central question of political philosophy: What is the good life, and what place do nature, politics, and piety have in that life? 'The unity of the essays,' Alex Priou writes in his introduction, 'lies in the various tensions explored: between ancients and moderns, religion and philosophy, magnanimity and prudence, justice and friendship, and, most fundamentally, spiritedness and the intellect.' Laurence Berns proves an excellent guide for beginning one's study of the (...) great books of political philosophy, from Plato to the present." --Publisher's description. (shrink)

No one really knows where nanotechnology is leading, what its pursuit will mean, and how it may affect human and other forms of life. Nevertheless, its research and development are moving briskly into that unknown. It has been suggested that rapid movement towards 'who knows where' is endemic to all technological development; that its researchers pursue it for curiosity and enjoyment, without knowing the consequences, believing that their efforts will be beneficial. Further, that the enthusiasm for development comes with no (...) malicious intent but rather from simple ignorance. Contrary to that commonly held perception about the collective pursuit of technological development, there are individual research scientists and engineers who are quite willing to reflect on the meaning of their work in nanotechnology. Nanotalk is a book of conversations and explorations with thirty five such nano-research scientists and engineers who share their ideas, experiences, perceptions, and beliefs about their work, humanity, nature, change, and the future of the world with nanotechnology. Precisely because of the unknowable nature of nanotechnology research and development, conscientious foresight and ethical reflection are warranted every step of the way. Not only do nanotechnology research and development represent enormous financial commitments, but they also require a profound leap of faith regarding its possible outcomes. Using these conversations as the basis of reflection and deliberation, the author explores the possible significance of nanotechnology to humanity and how it might be pursued conscientiously and ethically. (shrink)

_Everyday Life and the Sacred_ offers gender sensitive interdisciplinary perspectives from the fields of feminist theology and religious studies on the everyday and the sacred. The volume aims to re-configure the current domain of religion and gender studies.

Crowdfunding platforms have revolutionized entrepreneurial finance, with 200 billion dollars expected to be dispersed annually to entrepreneurs and small business owners by 2020. Despite the importance of this growing phenomenon, our knowledge of the dynamics of successful lending-based prosocial crowdfunding and its implications for the business ethics literature remain limited. We use a social responsibility lens to examine whether crowdfunders on a lending-based prosocial platform lend their money based on altruistic or strategic motives. Our results indicate that the dynamics of (...) prosocial lending-based crowdfunding are somewhat consistent with traditional forms of financing. Specifically, despite a prosocial setting in nature, crowdfunders tend to act strategically, positively responding to signals of quality and low risk. Notably, we also find that projects that are high on both financial and social appeal receive the highest average amount of funding. Furthermore, language on the lender’s profile indicating ability to pay is positively related to both funding success and funding amount. Our study contributes to filling the gap in the business ethics literature about the dynamics of lending-based prosocial crowdfunding, and the strategic and altruistic ethical motives that drive lenders in such endeavors. (shrink)

Contents include: an introduction to contemporary debates in jurisprudenceThe quest for certaintyRights, principles and interpretive communitiesThe authority of ...

La gouvernementalité algorithmique répond à l’appel à la transparence par la mise en corrélation de données numériques semblant créer un double du réel parfaitement adéquat. Cette opération de représentation du réel peut être questionnée comme celle d’un langage, et même d’une écriture ; mais en s’appuyant sur les travaux de Jacques Derrida, on peut s’apercevoir que ce langage serait alors privé de sa capacité à induire reprise, correction, ajustement. C’est sur ce mythe d’une totalité close sur elle-même, sans reste, que (...) repose le mot d’ordre de la transparence. (shrink)

Résumé Avec la cosmologie de la philosophie de l’organisme, Whitehead poursuit son enquête sur les principes de la connaissance naturelle, dans l’idée de faire se correspondre les données phénoménologiques directes et la physique de son temps. En prenant pour modèle le corps percevant, cette métaphysique fait des individus durables les centres d’où s’élabore la connaissance objective. Nous y gagnons sécurité et cohérence dans un monde en perpétuel devenir où les lois de la nature sont elles-mêmes contingentes. Mais le parcours génératif (...) du sens qu’étudie la partie III de Process and Reality interroge : en amont de toute ontologie, l’espace tensif dans lequel la théorie des préhensions inscrit la discussion ne relève-t-il pas plutôt de l’existence sémiotique? (shrink)

To what extend can the universal be exposed to sped struggles and partial claimings ? Taking into account the fragmentation of the political fabric, without dropping the emancipation ideal, induces to begin a positive deconstruction of the universal, to make it come within the division framework, to understand it in its hegemonic singularity, within the particular that sustains it, that subverts it, but that also accepts to subvert itself in the strategy. The point is then to refuse any neutral and (...) direct understanding of the universal, and any hope of a simple, definite and dull subsumption of the particular within the universal. (shrink)

Although 80–90% of adults are seropositive for antibodies against the human parvovirus adeno‐associated virus (AAV), infection has not been associated with either symptoms or disease. In cell culture, AAV infection is not productive unless there is a coinfection with a helper virus, either adenovirus or any type of herpes virus; in the absence of a helper virus coinfection the viral genome is integrated into the genome, usually at a specific site on chromosome 19q13.3‐qter. The integrated genome can be activated and (...) rescued by subsequent super infection by a helper virus. The high frequency of site‐specific integration by AAV and the lack of associated disease have encouraged the use of AAV as a vector for gene therapy. This review will focus on the molecular mechanisms involved in the establishment of, and rescue from, the latent state and their relevance to use of AAV as a vector. (shrink)

Prosocial crowdfunding was originally conceived as a financial mechanism to assist vulnerable unbanked populations, typically excluded from formal financial markets. It subsequently grew into a billion-dollar scheme (Kiva 2020a, https://www.kiva.org/blog/1-billion-in-life-changing-loans ) in the multi-billion-dollar crowdfunding industry. However, recent evidence claims prosocial crowdfunding may be shifting away from its goal to support the poor and underserved. Drawing on a composite social responsibility and framing theory framework, we examine the role that vulnerability plays in successfully raising funds in a prosocial crowdfunding context. (...) We conduct multilevel logistic regressions on a sample of microloans allocated to 105,727 ventures in 64 countries. Our results indicate that applying for funds through a field partner which caters to vulnerable populations may in fact have a negative effect on the entrepreneur’s request to be fully funded. Notwithstanding, framing the entrepreneur as being female or rural as key characteristics of individual vulnerability increases the project’s likelihood to be fully funded. This conflict offers noteworthy theoretical and practical implications for ethics in prosocial crowdfunding, an understudied field of research. (shrink)

Nanotechnology, the emerging capability of human beings to observe and organize matter at the atomic level, has captured the attention of the federal government, science and engineering communities, and the general public. Some proponents are referring to nanotechnology as “the next technological revolution”. Applications projected for this new evolution in technology span a broad range from the design and fabrication of new membranes, to improved fuel cells, to sophisticated medical prosthesis techniques, to tiny intelligent machines whose impact on humankind is (...) unknowable. As with the appropriation of technological innovation generally, nanotechnology is likely to eventually bring dramatic and unpredictable new capabilities to human material existence, along with resulting ethical challenges and social changes to be reconciled. But as of yet, aside from a few simple new consumer goods, such as paint, rackets and fabric coatings, nanotechnology is undeveloped. Its social and ethical dimensions are not apparent. Even still, given the stated goals of the various nanotechnology initiatives to rearrange matter with increasing atomic precision, the impact of nanotechnology on human life and society is likely be profound. It is very difficult, however, to make accurate predictions about the future impact of nanotechnology development on humanity. At this time, the most important role for ethics analysis is to contribute to a humanitarian, conscientious approach to its development. This paper suggests that such an approach requires that attention be given to the roles of imagination, meaning-making, metaphor, myth and belief. (shrink)

Der Band präsentiert die 21 wichtigsten Enzyklopädie- und Lexikonartikel des 16. bis 19. Jahrhunderts zum Themenfeld "Gedächtnis, Gedächtnislehre, Gedächtniskunst" mit Kommentaren, Übersetzungen (aus dem Lateinischen, Italienischen und Spanischen), ausführlicher Bibliographie und einem Nachwort, das das Verhältnis von frühneuzeitlicher Mnemonik und Enzyklopädik erörtert. Eröffnet wird hiermit eine mehrbändige Reihe »Documenta Mnemonica« (ca. 6 Bände), die die wichtigsten einschlägigen Zeugnisse seit der Antike bis zum Ende der Frühen Neuzeit in mehrsprachigen, kommentierten Quelleneditionen, Quellenverzeichnissen und Forschungsbibliographien dem internationalen Wissenschaftsdiskurs bequem und verläßlich zugänglich (...) macht. (shrink)

This opinion paper takes aim at an error made recently by Clarivate Analytics in which it sent out an email that congratulated academics for becoming exclusive members of academia’s most cited elite, the Highly Cited Researchers. However, that email was sent out to an undisclosed number of non-HCRs, who were offered an apology shortly after, through a bulk mail, which tried to down-play the importance of the error, all the while praising the true HCRs. When Clarivate Analytics senior management was (...) contacted, the company declined to offer an indication of the number of academics who had been contacted and erroneously awarded the HCR status. We believe that this regrettable blunder, together with the opacity offered by the company, fortify the corporate attitude about the value of the journal impact factor, and what it represents, namely a marketing tool that is falsely used to equate citations with quality, worth, or influence. The continued commercialization of metrics such as the JIF is at the heart of their use to assess the “quality” of a researcher, their work, or a journal, and contributes to a great extent to driving scientific activities towards a futile endeavor. (shrink)

Societal and ethical implications of nanotechnology have become a hot topic of public debates in many countries because both revolutionary changes and strong public concerns are expected from its development. Because nanotechnology is, at this point, mostly articulated in visionary and futuristic terms, it is difficult to apply standard methods of technology assessment and even more difficult to consider it in engineering ethics courses. In this article, the authors suggest using selected science fiction stories in the engineering ethics classroom to (...) provide students with ethical skills and cultural knowledge required for engaging in public debates and for responsible decision making. Against the background of general debates on teaching engineering ethics, they do so by discussing the advantages and possible drawbacks of this approach and by presenting two examples of nano-science fiction classics. (shrink)

By way of introduction, Thomas Berns reveals the thrust of a work which seeks to think conflict as something that must be sustained. Sustaining it means not only inscribing the order represented by the law within the disorder of conflict, but also establishing war as the permanent horizon of peace. That is, law is established only as violence, and can only be thought as permanently vulnerable to corruption. In short, this is precisely that with which a politics centred on sovereignty (...) breaks. (shrink)

La guerre peut-elle être un objet de la philosophie? Si la réalité guerrière obsède les philosophes, elle leur oppose néanmoins une résistance permanente. En parcourant les représentations de la guerre produites de Platon à Clausewitz, et en mettant à nu les stratégies constantes et les impensés qui les sous-tendent, on constate que le philosophe n'a cessé de manquer un enjeu guerrier qu'il ne peut toucher qu'en le neutralisant. Quelques figures à la fois persistantes et exclues de ces philosophies de la (...) guerre - l'esclave, le pirate, le colonisé..., de même que des pratiques philosophiques restées plus marginales - la pensée romaine, le matérialisme machiavélien, la déconstruction..., permettent cependant de bousculer ce discours neutralisant et, ce faisant, de révéler une certaine compromission de la philosophie dans la guerre."--Page 4 of cover. (shrink)

Die Universalitat der Gedanken, die Goethe in seinen dichterischen und wissenschaftlichen Werken schopferisch realisierte, beruhrte tiefe Einsichten der Philosophie. ALs deren Denker im eigentlichen Sinne wollte er nie verstanden werden - trotz seines fundamentalen Interesses an metaphysischen Grundfragen. Goethes Aussagen sind stets mit den Augen dichterischer Anschauung aufgefasst worden, weil er sah, dass die analogisch-bildhafte Zusammenschau tiefer in die vom Gottlichen herruhrende Gestaltung der Natur mit ihrer symbolisierenden Bilderwelt eindringen kann. DAs gilt besonders fur die Lehre von der Ewigkeit des (...) Seins und der Gattungs- und Artformen, welche die Urphanomene oder gottlichen Urideen symbolisieren. ES ist unmoglich Goethes Realismus der lebendigen Form auf Platon, Aristoteles, Plotin oder Thomas von Aquin (dem er unerkannt nahe war) und die deutsche Mystik oder Leibniz festzulegen. Goethe lehnte die rationalistische Schulphilosophie und die zeitgenossische Transzentalphilosophie ab. SEin Genie grundete originar auch in alteren Traditionen. (shrink)

How to introduce 'politics' as a specific concept within a deconstructive style of thinking? In order to answer this question, this contribution compares Derrida with Laclau. According to the former the starting-point of a deconstructive style of thinking is différance. It links together the economic detour of homecoming and the relation to otherness. Laclau's analysis of politics as hegemonization within a situation of undecidability presupposes this notion of différance and can therefore be useful in introducing politics within a deconstructive style (...) of thinking. But there still is a major difference between Derrida and Laclau's decisionism: if différance as the relation without relation of economy and otherness cannot avoid decisions based on power in order to stabilize the social, these decisions are always marked by passivity and therefore deconstructible in the name of 'justice' that exceeds politics even if it takes place nowhere but within politics. Key Words: decisionism • . Derrida • . hegemony • . Laclau • . law. (shrink)

This article describes political discourse on domestic violence that obscures men's violence while placing the burden of responsibility on women. This perspective, which the author calls patriarchal resistance, challenges a feminist construction of the problem. Using a qualitative analysis of men's and political magazines, the author describes two main discursive strategies used in the resistance discourse: degendering the problem and gendering the blame. These strategies play a central role in resisting any attempts to situate social problems within a partiarchal framework. (...) It is argued that this is a political countermovement to the feminist constructions of domestic violence as opposed to a serious concern about women's violence and male victims. Three major implications this resistance discourse has are the normalization of intimate violence, the diversion of attention from men's responsibility and cultural and structural factors that foster violence, and the distortion of women's violence. (shrink)

Contributors use a variety of theoretical frameworks to analyze distinct areas of Craven’s work, including ecology, auteurism, philosophy, queer studies, and trauma. Scholars of cinema studies, horror, and ecology will find this book of particular interest.

The pirate is a figure that is both marginal to war – since he is excluded from it – and central – since he is regularly called upon to define it. From a few evocations of this figure by Bodin, Grotius and Hobbes, all of which are based on Thucydides, we want to bring to light a normativity that is specific and immanent to the space of warlike violence.

Nous sommes entrés dans l'âge de la transparence. L'opacité des normes a laissé la place à la limpidité des faits. Les actes de gouvernement ne réclament plus de décision et prétendent s'imposer depuis le réel. Mais s'agit-il vraiment d'un phénomène nouveau? Ne doit-on pas plutôt considérer la transparence comme un dispositif politique aussi ancien que la modernité? Et si, loin de trouver sa source dans le néo-libéralisme, la transparence la trouvait plutôt dans les théories et pratiques du recensement qui apparaissent (...) à la fin de la Renaissance? Avec le recensement, naissait l'idée qu'il est possible de gouverner à partir des faits, sans devoir passer par l'édiction d'une norme -- l'idée du gouvernement sans gouvernement, ou comment se passer du droit pour imposer une politique. Pages de début 1. Gouverner sans gouverner 2. Finalités : au-delà et en deçà de la loi, le menu et le global 3. Outil : le censeur romain 4. Grandes quantités : la population 5. Nombre : mathématisation du monde et savoir ordinaire 6. Compter : des livres secrets des marchands à la clarté des tableaux 7. Recenser : le censeur chez Bodin 8. Normes collectives non juridiques 9. Prélever 10. Entrer dans le secret des maisons : la domestication du politique 11. David : l'interdit biblique du dénombrement 12. Morales de la quantification 13. Suites statistiques : gouverner de manière inoffensive 14.Médiocrité gouvernementale Pages de fin. (shrink)