This article explores the continuities and discontinuities of pre-Revolutionary intellectual traditions in 1920s Soviet culture and the Stalin-era cultural revolution. Through examination of the pre-revolutionary philosophical legacy underpinning Soviet musicological theory, I demonstrate that there are decisive features, such asSoviet Prometheanism, that characterize the musicology of the 1920s that both underline and differ from the pre-revolutionary philosophy of music and the musicology of the 1930s. I offer the basic outlines of aSoviet cultural theory of musicformulated by Russian music critic, historian, (...) composer and musicologist Boris Asafiev (1884–1949) in the 1920s. Explaining and describing what I mean by a particular cultural theory of music in the Soviet context forms the core issue of my article. (shrink)

Spinoza developed a highly interesting metaphysical theory of nature and individuality. In this paper, I endeavor to bring forward some ideas on how Spinozistic views on extended substance, physical world, and individuality can be approached using the concept of power as the basis of interpretation. Jonathan Bennett's ‘field metaphysical’ interpretation of Spinoza's doctrine of one extended substance has generated much discussion, and forms the other starting point of my paper. I believe that the field metaphysical interpretation enables one to deal (...) with the central questions concerning physical individuation — individuality and the persistence of individual being — in a rather novel way. My main question is this: what follows if physical individuals are seen as parts of a unified field of extended power? (shrink)

Public officials rely on performance data that are self-reported by organizations to evaluate progress on a wide range of prosocial outcomes. Policies that require public disclosure of performance in health care are thought to enable patients to select high-quality providers, which in turn may spur quality improvements as providers seek to protect their reputation or increase economic returns. Drawing on institutional theory that examines how conflicting institutional pressures influence organizational decisions, we theorize how profit orientation may mediate the response of (...) health care providers to disclosure mandates in a public health crisis. We focus on measures of data quality—completeness and accuracy—in self-reported data on COVID-19 status and outcomes generated by thousands of long-term care facilities. Using pooled regressions and a difference-in-differences style design, we find that overall, for-profit and not-for-profit facilities report similarly complete data but that for-profit facilities report less accurate data than their not-for-profit counterparts. Our results suggest that it may be important to incentivize each dimension of data quality separately to address differential institutional pressures that affect reporting practices. (shrink)

Psychometrics and the representational theory of measurement are widely used in social scientific measurement. They are currently pursued largely in isolation from one another. I argue that despite their separation in practice, RTM and psychometrics are complementary approaches, because they can contribute in complementary ways to the establishment of what I argue is a crucial measurement property, namely, representational interpretability. Because RTM and psychometrics are complementary in the establishment of representational interpretability, the current separation of measurement approaches is unfounded. 1Introduction2Two (...) Approaches to Measurement 2.1Representational theory of measurement2.2Psychometrics2.3Representational interpretability3Complementarity, Conceptually 3.1Representational theory of measurement: Conditions of representational interpretability3.2Psychometrics: Evidence of representational interpretability4Complementarity in Action 4.1What is the Rasch model?4.2Rasch and conjoint measurement5Conclusion: Critics and Fruits of Complementarity. (shrink)

We here develop a concept of an individualized niche in analogy to Hutchison’s population-level concept of the ecological niche. We consider the individualized niche as the range of environmental conditions under which a particular individual has an expected lifetime reproductive success of ≥ 1. Our concept has primarily an ecological function, as it refers to the match of an individual phenotype to its contemporary environment while we discuss evolutionary fitness as an evaluative parameter of this fit. We address four specific (...) challenges that occur when scaling the niche down from populations to individuals. In particular, we discuss the consequences of uniqueness of individuals in a population and the corresponding lack of statistical replication, the dynamic nature of individualized niches and how they can be studied either as time-slice niches, as prospective niches or as trajectory-based niches, the dimensionality of the individualized niche, that is greater than the population niche due to the additional dimensions of intra-specific niche space, how the boundaries of individualized niche space can be defined by expected lifetime reproductive success and how expected reproductive success can be inferred by marginalizing fitness functions across phenotypes or environments. We frame our discussion in the context of recent interest in the causes and consequences of individual differences in animal behavior. (shrink)

Descartes explicitly states that virtue is sufficient for attaining happiness. In this paper I argue that, within the framework he develops, this is not exactly true: more than virtuous action is needed to secure happiness. I begin by analyzing, in Section 2, the Cartesian notion of virtue in order to show the way in which it closely connects to what, for Descartes, forms the very essence of morality – the correct use of our free will. Section 3, in turn, discusses (...) Descartes’s view of happiness and its relation to the highest good. Thereby is laid the foundation for Section 4, which offers a reconstruction of the argument that virtue leads to happiness. Section 5 concludes the discussion by suggesting how and why Descartes leaves a crucial premise – an intellectual insight that consists of three main elements – unmentioned when he claims that virtue is sufficient for happiness. (shrink)

In this article, we examine the relationship between ethical organisational culture and organisational innovativeness. A quantitative empirical analysis is based on a survey of a total of 719 respondents from all levels of three Finnish organisations, both general staff and managers. The organisations belong to both the private and public sectors. The results of this study show that organisations’ ethical culture is associated with their organisational innovativeness, and that different dimensions of ethical culture are associated with different dimensions of organisational (...) innovativeness. The ethical culture of the organisation had a specific role in process and behavioural innovativeness. It was found that congruency of management was the single dimension with the highest effect on organisational innovativeness overall and specifically on process and behavioural innovativeness. These findings suggest that when organisations are aiming for specific outcomes, such as organisational innovativeness, they need to be aware of what dimensions of ethical culture are particularly relevant. (shrink)

This paper offers a new interpretation of the young Spinoza’s method of distinguishing the true ideas from the false, which shows that his answer to the sceptic is not a failure. This method combines analysis and synthesis as follows: if we can say of the object of an idea which simple things underlie it, how it can be constructed out of simple elements, and what properties it has after it has been produced, doubt concerning the object simply makes no sense. (...) The paper also suggests a way in which this methodology connects to the ontology of the Ethics. (shrink)

In this paper I argue that, contrary to what one might think, early modern rationalism displays an increasing and well-grounded sensitivity to certain metaphysical questions substantial form was designed to answer—despite the fact that the notion itself was in such disrepute, and emphatically banished from natural philosophy. This main thesis is established by examining the thought of Descartes, Spinoza, and Leibniz through the framework constituted by what have been designated as the two aspects, metaphysical and physical, of substantial form. This (...) examination shows that Descartes ends up assigning to soul a notable metaphysical task formerly assigned to substantial form, whereas Spinoza advances a theory of essences motivated by the philosophical concerns behind the two aspects of substantial form. Leibniz finally makes a sharp distinction between natural philosophy and metaphysics as he develops a dynamistic theory that deliberately aims at understanding substantial form in a new fashion. This line of development is designated as one major factor contributing to the separation of philosophy and natural science. (shrink)

In this paper I argue that the early Kant’s Physical Monadology (1756)—which attempts to solve the philosophical problem of reconciling the infinite divisibility of space with the substantial status of material bodies—is best understood within the framework of substance–accident ontology. I begin by showing how Kant relies on that ontology when arguing that composition as a relation can be taken away, leaving us with simple substances or monads. After this, I discuss apparently conflicting two interpretative camps considering the “force by (...) which the simple element of a body occupies its space” (1:482). Given that neither of them is satisfactory, I explain the way in which Kant’s theory of grounds, positing, and determinations draws on the Aristotelian theory of substances, essences, and necessary and non-necessary accidents. In causal terms, this framework amounts to a theory of powers in which both the internal determinations constitutive of a substance and the accidents they posit are causally efficacious. This enables us to see that the existing interpreting camps result from highlighting different aspects of Kant’s quite nuanced theory of monadic powers. To express that theory economically, it can be called a dual layer theory of power: monads are (1) essentially powerful substances that bring about (2) three kinds of powers—repulsive, attractive, and inertial—as accidents; from these accidents, in turn, result such properties as impenetrability, volume, shape, and cohesion. In virtue of the latter type of powers, a monad most importantly has a determinate sphere of influence by which it occupies space and prevents other things penetrating the space it fills—thereby entering in the mechanical world of bodies. The defended interpretation can thus reveal the full nature of the early Kant’s fine-grained theory of monadic powers and show it to be quite understandable in its ingenious use of a time-honored ontological framework in a post-Newtonian setting. (shrink)

This paper applies conceptual engineering to deal with four objections that have been levelled against operationalism in psychology. These objections are: operationalism leads to harmful proliferation of concepts, operationalism goes hand-in-hand with untenable antirealism, operationalism leads to arbitrariness in scientific concept formation, and operationalism is incompatible with the usual conception of scientific measurement. Relying on a formulation of three principles of conceptual engineering, I will argue that there is a useful form of operationalism that does not fall prey to these (...) four objections. (shrink)

This essay offers an in-depth reading of the geometrical illustration of Ethics IIP8S and shows how it can be used to explicate the whole architecture of Spinoza’s system by specifying the way in which all the key structural features of his basic ontology find their analogies in the example. The illustration can also throw light on Spinoza’s ontology of finite things and inform us about what is at stake when we form universal ideas. In general, my reading of IIP8S thus (...) elucidates what it means, for Spinoza, to think geometrically or to consider geometry as a model: fundamentally, geometricity is not a form of exposition but the way in which reality itself is structured. (shrink)

In this article, I examine how contemporary Finnish Jewish women understand their roles and identities as women in a small Orthodox Jewish community, on the one hand, and as members of a tiny minority in largely secular and predominantly Lutheran/Christian Finland, on the other. How do Finnish Jewish women negotiate their identities in relation to their community, strongly organised along gender lines, and in relation to Finnish society and especially its equality ideals and norms? I divide my article into four (...) sections. First, I give a short overview of the theory of intersectionality, concentrating on its possibilities and limitations for the study of religion and gender in general, and for the study of Judaism, specifically. Second, I focus on my informants’ views of the gendered practices of their Orthodox Jewish community, which, by many standards, is a very specific form of Orthodoxy, which could be called ‘Finnish Orthodoxy’. Third, I analyse my informants’ views on how they perceive being Jewish women in contemporary Finland. The intersection of the last two broad themes will highlight the realities of Finnish Jewish women in contemporary Finland. Fourth, I discuss possibilities and limitations of intersectional theorising in the light of my data. (shrink)

This paper aims to discern the limits of the highly influential Incorporation Thesis to give proper weight to our sensuous side in Kant’s theory of moral action. I first examine the view of the faculties underpinning the theory, which allows me to outline the passage from natural to rational action. This enables me to designate the factors involved in actual human agency and thereby to show that, contrary to what the Incorporation Thesis may tempt one to believe, we do not (...) always act on maxims. The result is a revised and more balanced view of how Kant sees the character of moral life. (shrink)

This study investigated the reasons that leaders have given for their leader role occupancy. By using a mixed-method approach and large leader data, we aimed to provide a more nuanced picture of how leader positions are occupied in real life. We examined how individual leadership motivation may associate with other reasons for leader role occupancy. In addition, we aimed to integrate the different reasons behind leader role occupancy into the framework of sustainable leader careers and its two indicators: leader’s health (...) and performance. The survey data consisted of 1,031 leaders from various sectors of working life. Qualitative analysis revealed that leaders mention various factors behind their leader role occupancy, resulting 26 themes. After inductive investigation of the data, theory-driven analysis focused on the sustainable career components and agency vs. non-agency. Qualitative data was quantitized based on the theory-driven categories for statistical analysis. Based on the these analysis, we found out that only Affective-Identity MTL predicted all of the studied reasons behind leader role occupancy, whereas the other motivation types did not. All of the reasons for leader role occupancy except non-agentic ones were related to both leaders’ own and their followers’ occupational well-being. Leaders with more person-related and agentic reasons for leader role occupancy experienced better occupational well-being. Person- and context-related and agentic reasons behind leader role occupancy associated also with followers’ occupational well-being, but the associations differed from those of leaders’ well-being: person-related and agentic reasons associated with followers’ exhaustion, but this association was not found among leaders. Our study provided important information for practitioners in the field of human resources and development, as it has shown that if the reasons for leader role occupancy mainly reflect circumstances or other non-person-related reasons, the experienced occupational well-being and person-career fit may remain weak. It is necessary to try to support the leadership motivation for those leaders, or to shape the job description in such a way that it can also offer the experiences of meaningfulness from aspects other than self-realization through a managerial role. (shrink)

Texto tardío publicado con motivo de una exposición de obras de Camilla Adami, “Tête-à-tête” de Jacques Derrida constituye un punto de convergencia temático alrededor de la cuestión del animal. En el presente artículo, con base en una traducción propia, que constituye la primera versión en español de esta obra, proponemos una lectura siguiendo las conjugaciones del pathos que se dan en él, identificaremos los motivos del ver y el tocar como claves para entender la postura derridiana en torno a la (...) cuestión del animal. Esta última coloca las pasiones en el corazón de una ética no antropocentrista, capaz de tomar en cuenta al resto de los animales, lejos de toda perspectiva racionalista y logocéntrica. (shrink)

Lors des dernières élections de mars 2008, le parti au pouvoir a perdu sa majorité des deux tiers pour la première fois depuis 1969. Ce phénomène qualifié de « tsunami politique » selon les critères locaux a été attribué entre autres à la montée des nouveaux médias. Ceci, ajouté à la libéralisation de l'espace démocratique dans le pays, s'est traduit par la prolifération de blogs politiques et de portails d'informations parallèles, et par l'usage des nouvelles technologies dans la campagne électorale (...) de l'opposition. Cela devrait avoir des implications significatives dans les prochaines élections alors que la Malaysia accueillera quatre millions de nouveaux électeurs. Une grande partie de cet électorat est non seulement jeune mais également urbain, plus exigeant et critique par rapport aux médias traditionnels et aux anciennes modes politiques.In the last elections of March 2008, the ruling party lost its two-thirds majority for the first time since 1969. This phenomenon called "political tsunami" by local standards was awarded among others the rise of new media. This, coupled with the liberalization of the democratic space in the country, has resulted in the proliferation of political blogs and news portals parallel, and the use of new technologies in the election campaign of the opposition. This would have significant implications in the next elections while Malaysia will host four million new voters. A large part of the electorate is not only young but also urban, more demanding and critical of traditional media and the old political ways. (shrink)

The earliest art collections of Finland’s National Gallery came into being when, as the Grand Duchy of Finland, it was an autonomous part of imperial Russia. The prevailing view of Finnish museum studies, however, sees the Finnish Art Society, the precursor of the Finnish National Gallery, as being modelled on exclusively European cultural institutions. The history of the Society and its collections have thus been seen as resistant to any alien eastern influences, and as an attempt to differentiate Finnish culture (...) from Russian art collecting practices. Drawing on the theoretical shift in cultural studies from the conception of stable, clearly demarcated cultural identities of nation states toward less rigidly defined identities, the aim of this essay is to reconstruct the hidden Russian presence in Finnish museum historiography. Based on original unpublished sources, my study shows that the earliest support of Finland’s cultural infrastructure was given by the Romanov patrons Nicholas.. (shrink)

The article traces the motif of decomposition in Derrida’s Geschlecht III. It distinguishes Derrida’s understanding of the way decomposition affects sex, language, humanity and place through a logic of dissemination and divisibility from Heidegger’s reversal of decomposition in the polysemic gathering of the land. It shows how the working of the spectral figure of mother in its link to land through natality in Geschlecht III can be extended in its biodeconstructive formulation to a question of soil as multispecies ecology.

RESUMO O artigo é dedicado a um dos problemas centrais da ciência filológica moderna - o problema da palavra artística, no entendimento do qual vemos a interseção e interação frutífera da crítica literária e da linguística. O trabalho sistematiza conceitos relevantes para o estudo moderno da palavra artística, revelando sua natureza específica, bem como define as tendências gerais que são características de cada uma das abordagens existentes. A autora enfoca no conceito de palavra de Mikhail Bakhtin, que supera os extremos, (...) próprios do signo e das abordagens ontológicas, e esclarece as diferenças básicas entre as categorias de comunicação e diálogo presentes em Bakhtin. O artigo corrobora com a definição da palavra artística como uma estrutura semântica de dois vetores, na qual a comunicação-existência consiste e se desdobra. АННОТАЦИЯ Статья посвящена одной из центральных проблем современной филологической науки - проблеме художественного слова, в осмыслении которого плодотворно пересекаются и взаимодействуют литературоведение и лингвистика. В работе систематизированы актуальные для современного изучения художественного слова концепции, выявляющие его специфику, и определены общие тенденции, характерные для каждого из существующих подходов. В центре внимания автора - концепция слова М. М. Бахтина, в которой преодолеваются крайности, характерные для знакового и онтологического подходов, прояснены базовые отличия бахтинских категорий общения и диалога. Обосновано определение художественного слова как двухвекторной смысловой структуры, в которой заключается и развертывается бытие-общение. ABSTRACT The article is devoted to one of the central problems of modern philological science - the problem of the artistic word, in the understanding of which we see the fruitful intersection and interaction of literary criticism and linguistics. The work systematizes the concepts relevant for the modern study of the artistic word, revealing its specific nature, and defines the general tendencies characteristic of each of the existing approaches. The author focuses on the word concept by M. M. Bakhtin, which overcomes the extremes, characteristic of the sign and ontological approaches, and clarifies the basic differences between Bakhtin's categories of communion and dialogue. The article substantiates the definition of the artistic word as a two-vector semantic structure, in which being-communion consists and unfolds. (shrink)

University students seek counseling to discuss concerns about their academic skills, motivation, time management and well-being. This article examines the conversational activity of normalizing recurrently used by counselors to manage students’ negative emotions and troubles-telling. Normalizing refers to an activity in which something in the interaction is made normal by labeling it ‘normal’ or ‘commonplace’ or by interpreting it in an ordinary way. Three uses for normalizing were identified in a sample of 16 videotaped counseling sessions: supporting the student’s position, (...) challenging the student and presenting the student’s problem as workable. We argue that normalizing is a means of addressing students’ problematic emotions and offering support, yet in a way that maintains an orientation toward problem solving. Furthermore, while normalizing seems to serve affiliation, suggesting that the problems are not unique, it can be treated either as delicate or as problematic by the counselors and by the students. (shrink)

The Representational Theory of Measurement is the best known account of the kind of representation measurement requires. However, RTM has been challenged from various angles, with critics claiming e.g. that RTM fails to account for actual measurement practice and that it is ambiguous about the nature of measurable attributes. In this paper I use the critical literature on RTM to formulate Representation Minimalism – a characterization of what measurement-relevant representation requires at the minimum. I argue that Representation Minimalism avoids the (...) main problems with RTM while acknowledging its usefulness as the formal foundation of representation in measurement. (shrink)

In this paper I begin by discussing the different ways in which Spinoza’s famous conatus argument has been understood, after which I present my own reconstruction of the derivation: each and every true finite thing is, in itself, an expresser of power (E1p25c, 1p34) that never acts self-destructively (E3p4) but instead strives to drive itself through opponents to produce effects as they follow from the definition of the thing in question (E1p25c, 1p34, and 3p5). This tells us something decisive about (...) the meaning of Spinoza’s doctrine: according to it, things are active causers whose “power to exist and act” has conatus character in temporality, amounting not only to striving to prolong the duration of one’s actualization but also to striving to be as active or autonomous as possible, that is, to attain a state determined by the striving subject’s essence alone. (shrink)

Spinoza is most often seen as a stern advocate of mechanistic efficient causation, but examining his philosophy in relation to the Aristotelian tradition reveals this view to be misleading: some key passages of the Ethics resemble so much what Suárez writes about emanation that it is most natural to situate Spinoza's theory of causation not in the context of the mechanical sciences but in that of a late scholastic doctrine of the emanative causality of the formal cause; as taking a (...) look at the seventeenth-century philosophy of mathematics reveals, this is in consonance also with Spinoza's geometrical cast of mind. Against this background, I examine Spinoza's essentialist model of causation according to which each thing has a formal character determined by the thing's essence and what follows from that essence. In the case of real things this essential causal architecture results in efficacy, i.e. in bringing about real effects, the key idea being that without the essential, formally structured causal thrust there would be no efficacy in the first place. I also explain how this model accounts for efficient causation taking place between finite things. (shrink)

The aim of this study was to identify the ethical problems that nurse managers encounter in their work and the role of codes of ethics in the solutions to these difficulties. The data were collected using a structured questionnaire and analysed statistically. The target sample included all nurse managers in 21 specialized health care or primary health care organizations in two hospital districts in Finland (N = 501; response rate 41%). The most common ethical problems concerned resource allocation as well (...) as providing and developing high quality care. This was the case in different managerial positions as well as in types of organization. Professional codes of ethics were used more often for problems related to patients’ care compared with issues of resource allocation. Nurse managers at middle or strategic management levels used codes of ethics more often than those in charge of a ward. More research is required to investigate ethical decision making in nursing management, especially with regard to problem solving. In addition, new guidelines and continuing education in ethics are important for management personnel. (shrink)

Theologians speak of the silence of churches' prophetic voice in the 'new' South Africa, whilst the country features amongst the socio-economically most unequal countries in the world, and the urban areas in particular continue to be characterised by segregation. In this context I ask: where is liberation theology? I spell out my reading of some of the recent voices in the liberationist discourse. In dialogue with these scholars I, firstly, argue for the faith community to be made a conscious centre (...) of liberationist debates and praxis. Secondly, I do this by suggesting two theoretical building blocks for local faith communities that wish to grow in a liberationist fashion. (shrink)

This work examines the unique way in which Benedict de Spinoza combines two significant philosophical principles: that real existence requires causal power and that geometrical objects display exceptionally clearly how things have properties in virtue of their essences. Valtteri Viljanen argues that underlying Spinoza's psychology and ethics is a compelling metaphysical theory according to which each and every genuine thing is an entity of power endowed with an internal structure akin to that of geometrical objects. This allows Spinoza to (...) offer a theory of existence and of action - human and non-human alike - as dynamic striving that takes place with the same kind of necessity and intelligibility that pertain to geometry. This fresh and original study will interest a wide range of readers in Spinoza studies and early modern philosophy more generally. (shrink)

Mobility robots may soon be among us, triggering a need for safety regulation. Robot safety regulation, however, remains underexplored, with only a few articles analyzing what regulatory approaches could be feasible. This article offers an account of the available regulatory strategies and attempts to theorize the effects of simulation-based safety regulation. The article first discusses the distinctive features of mobility robots as regulatory targets and argues that emergent behavior constitutes the key regulatory concern in designing robot safety regulation regimes. In (...) contrast to many accounts, the article posits that emergent behavior dynamics do not arise from robot autonomy, learning capability, or code unexplainability. Instead, they emerge from the complexity of robot technological constitutions coupled with near-infinite environmental variability and non-linear performance dynamics of the machine learning components. Second, the article reviews rules-based and performance-based regulation and argues that both will fail adequately constrain emergent robot behaviors. The article claims that controlling mobility robots requires a simulation-based regulatory approach. Simulation-based regulation is a novelty with significant theoretical and practical implications. The article argues that the approach signifies a radical break in regulatory forms of knowledge and temporalities. Simulations enact virtual futures to create a new regulatory knowledge type. Practically, the novel safety knowledge type may destabilize the existing conceptual space of safety politics and liability allocation patterns. (shrink)

The present article discusses different basic semiotic-scientific postulates regarding mammals’ sign activity. On the one hand, there are arguments denying animals sign activity, according to which mammals are not capable of semantic generalization on the basis of conventional linguistic values. According to another approach, mammals’ sign activity can be considered as means of ecological adaptation, that is, the features of animal behaviour based on the information, received by them through their habitat characteristics without direct visual contacts with their kind. Movement (...) elements, behavioural reactions of similar motivation and parameters of the sign field, which represents an animal’s sign-information environment, may have some numerical expression and can becalculated depending on the research tasks. Formalization of the animal activity implies simultaneous consideration of the following parameters: magnitude,intensity, anisotropy and the value of a given sign object. (shrink)

Erik Angner has argued that simultaneous endorsement of the representational theory of measurement and psychometrics leads to inconsistency. His claim rests on an implicit assumption: RTM and psychometrics are full-fledged approaches to measurement. I argue that RTM and psychometrics are only partial approaches that deal with different aspects of measurement, and that therefore simultaneous endorsement of the two is not inconsistent. The argument has implications for the improvement of measurement practices.

Benedict de Spinoza is one of the most controversial and enigmatic thinkers in the history of philosophy. His greatest work, Ethics (1677), developed a comprehensive philosophical system and argued that God and Nature are identical. His scandalous Theological-Political Treatise (1670) provoked outrage during his lifetime due to its biblical criticism, anticlericalism, and defense of the freedom to philosophize. Together, these works earned Spinoza a reputation as a singularly radical thinker. -/- In this book, Steinberg and Viljanen offer a concise (...) and up-to-date account of Spinoza’s thought and its philosophical legacy. They explore the full range of Spinoza’s ideas, from politics and theology to ontology and epistemology. Drawing broadly on Spinoza’s impressive oeuvre, they have crafted a lucid introduction for readers unfamiliar with this important philosopher, as well as a nuanced and enlightening study for more experienced readers. (shrink)

This paper argues that what interests Locke most is not whether we are free to suspend desire but the nature of the liberty that suspension grants us, and that Lockean liberty is essentially about deliberation that takes place in what has nowadays come to be called the space of reasons. This allows me to offer a novel and balanced account that carefully designates both causal and rational elements of Locke’s theory of moral agency: after having reached judgment concerning the best (...) course of action, we are to take measures, if need be, so that this cognitive achievement raises the corresponding conative element, namely an uneasiness that determines our will. Locke’s ambitious theory intends to incorporate two strong philosophical intuitions widely held incompatible: that our will is free and that impulses have an effect on our choices. The present interpretation thus throws new light on the development of Western moral thought. (shrink)

Background: Nurse managers have responsibilities relating to the quality of care, the welfare of the staff and running of the organization. Ethics plays significant role in these responsibilities. Ethical problems are part of daily management, but research in this area is limited. Objective: The aim of this study was to identify and describe ethical problems nurse managers encounter in their work to get more detailed and extensive view of these problems. Methods: The data consisted of nine interviews with nurse managers (...) at different management levels in primary healthcare and specialized healthcare organizations, and it was analysed by inductive content analysis. Ethical considerations: Permission to conduct the interviews including ethical approval was given at all participating organizations according to national standards. The respondents were informed about the aim of the study, and voluntary participation, anonymous response and confidentiality were explained to them. Findings: Four main categories were found: conflicts in practical situations, lack of appreciation, disregard of problems and experienced inadequacy. Problems could also be divided to patient-related, staff-related, organization-related and other problems. Discussion: The findings correspond with results from earlier studies but add knowledge of the nature and details of nurse managers’ ethical problems. New information is produced related to the ethical problems with nurse managers’ own courage, motivation and values. Conclusion: Nurse managers identified a variety of different ethical problems in their work. This information is useful in the development of ethics in nursing management. Further research about the frequency and intensity of nurse managers’ ethical problems is needed as well as possible differences in different levels of management. (shrink)

The article Organizational Ethical Virtues of Innovativeness, written by Elina Riivari and Anna-Maija Lämsä, was originally published electronically on the publisher’s internet portal on 3 March 2017 without open access. With the author’ decision to opt for Open Choice the copyright of the article changed on 7 February 2019 to © The Author 2019 and the article is forthwith distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, duplication, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in (...) any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made. (shrink)

This paper analyses and criticizes the idea that powers are representable as vectors. Mumford and Anjum have recently developed a vector model of powers as part of their account of dispositional causation. The purpose of this model is to represent dispositionality, i.e. a sui generis type of modality introduced by their power-based ontology, as well as to explain various features of their account of causation. In this paper, we criticise both the claim that powers are vectors and the concomitant claim (...) that the composition of causes can be understood as vector addition. We argue that powers cannot be thought of as even analogous to vectors, and that the vector model is simply misleading. We show that the root of the problem is in Mumford and Anjum’s thought that powers have magnitude and direction. (shrink)

This study participates in the discussion of the ethical culture of organizations by deepening the knowledge and understanding of the meaning of organizational ethical virtues in organizational innovativeness. The aim in this study was to explore how an organization’s ethical culture and, more specifically, organization’s ethical virtues support organizational innovativeness. The ethical culture of an organization is defined as the virtuousness of an organization. Organizational innovativeness is conceptualized as an organization’s behavioral propensity to produce innovative products and services. The empirical (...) data consisted of a total of 39 interviews from specialist organizations. Qualitative content analysis was used to analyze the data. The findings indicate that the organizational ethical virtues of feasibility, discussability, supportability, and congruency of management are those that support organizational innovativeness. The findings also show which specific elements of these virtues and related organizational practices are important to innovativeness. In addition, this study showed that the features of organizational innovativeness are not necessarily dichotomous but rather follow the ideas of virtues and are versatile in nature. (shrink)

Psychometrics is one of the main approaches to social scientific measurement. It is relied upon in drug testing, economic policymaking, recruitment, and other decision-making contexts. The first aim of this article is to introduce philosophers to key aspects of psychometrics, namely, classical test theory, item response theory, and construct validity. The second aim is to show how a debate on the nature of psychological attributes manifests in psychometrics. In this debate, realists claim that psychometric measures are indicators of independently existing (...) qualities, while operationalists argue that a measure defines its target attribute. The third and final aim is to argue that despite its poor reputation among philosophers, operationalism is a viable approach to psychometrics. (shrink)

For over four decades, feminist studies of assisted reproductive technologies have been interested in the ethical, political and personal implications of in vitro fertilization and other infertility treatments. Most work on the implications of ART for women has focused on the demanding cyclical process of trying to become pregnant by using the technology. However, less attention has been paid to the implications of experiencing IVF after the conception phase. This article tackles the under-researched topic of the aftermath of IVF, and (...) discusses the temporality of affective embodied experiences of infertility after one has stopped IVF. Drawing on an ethnographic study of peer support groups for the involuntarily childless in Finland, and on in-depth interviews with women suffering from infertility, this article juxtaposes two groups of women who have had IVF: those who have had children as a result of the procedure, and those who have not. The article proposes an exploration of experiences of childlessness after IVF as ‘lingering technological entanglements’ – that is, as affective and embodied experiences of the effects of IVF, including after the cessation of treatment. It argues that the lingering of these entanglements manifests itself in the enactment of childlessness in relation to the available technology. Furthermore, this results in parents identifying themselves as childless, even after they have gained temporal distance from IVF practices. (shrink)

The author investigates the content of the notion of subject from the evolutionary-epistemological point of view. She claims that evolutionary epistemology does not clarify this problem by itself and argues that this state of affairs raises a number of problems such as absolutization of adaptationism, biologism in knowledge, lack of a clear demarcation between animal cognition and human cognitive activity. It is argued that a man is the only subject of cognition in evolutionary epistemology. Inasmuch as person constructs and enriches (...) the environment he becomes a pressure factor by himself. This claim is argued to counter the thesis of adaptation. So adaptationist interpretation of the evolution of human cognitive activity is insufficient. The phenomenon of environmental change through the development of cognitive abilities by the person is represented in society, communication and culture. Cognition is determined by anticipating the result of purpose. In this connection, the constructive activity of the cognitive person confronted with the limitations of her own cognitive capabilities and environmental restricting factors. Thus, the evolution of man is considered as self-development, which is carried out through the creative overcoming external and internal constraints through the constructive activity of the agent of cognition. (shrink)

The paper considers the nature of knowledge in communicative action. It is emphasized that knowledge is not a hypostatized sphere. Objective meaning is an element of the discourse space, which may be defined as an interaction between speech acts, extralinguistic reality and texts. We intend to show that discourse is a purview of social schemes and standards, and its impact on communicative community is connected with the fact that the speech act is a perlocutionary effect.

Orthorexia Nervosa has gained increased attention in academia since 1997. However, like other “Exia” conditions, there is debate around its inclusion in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. This study aimed to examine the experiences of those following a diet indicative of ON in the United Kingdom. This information is essential to the development of diagnostic criteria and classification of ON. Behavioural Reasoning Theory was used to explore reasons contributing to the development of ON. Ten individuals, aged 23–35 (...) years, took part in semi-structured interviews. Inductive thematic analysis was used to analyse the results. Four themes emerged from the data—journey, social, rules/control, and ethical considerations which highlighted contributing factors to the development of ON behaviours, the impact of these behaviours on individuals' social lives, and a strive for control. These findings are the first to suggest that ON involves a more complex set of behaviours than current definitions and proposed diagnostic criteria suggest and highlight the need to consider a variety of reasons for restricted diet when developing diagnostic criteria, screening tools, and classification in the DSM. (shrink)

Boundaries have gained analytical prominence in sociology of science. Notably, there have been studies on how academics differentiate themselves from outsiders in order to secure their legitimacy. In university departments, scholars engage in boundary work to defend their intellectual communities and institutional resources. While boundary struggles are characteristic of academia, they rarely result in departmental restructuring. This article examines a case where a theoretical divide between social and cultural anthropologists and biological anthropologists led to a departmental split. The study reveals (...) a shift from peaceful coexistence to a full-blown conflict between two intellectual communities and asks, what circumstances gave rise to the activation of a latent intellectual boundary? Drawing on interview data, I demonstrate how changes in the distribution of faculty and the alignment of intellectual, seniority, and gender differences activated the latent boundary. After its activation, scholars engaged in boundary work and expressed their intellectual differences in faculty meetings and interactions with colleagues, which led to arguments about the department’s identity that hampered the unit’s operation. The study shows how boundary work among scholars can pull apart the fabric of a department, causing intellectual identities to diverge and the organization to split. (shrink)