In the end of the 60s Roland Barth, Julia Kristeva, and Michel Foucault provoked a rising tide of interest in the problem of literary authorship that almost was forgotten by western literary criticism at the time. The French scientists said a little new in essence comparing with the school of ‘new criticism‘, in which at least since the 20s of the last century the concept of author was driven to periphery of literary work. Roland Barth simply announces that author is (...) dead. The most important issue being elicited from the articles written by Roland Barth and Michel Foucault on the theory of authorship can be sound like this: the category of author is not an eternal but historically coming entity and its genesis started not earlier than in early Modern age. The examples regarded by Michel Foucault unambiguously lead to the phenomenon of William Shakespeare. Michel Foucault had underlined that a ‘function of author‘ is the constitutive part of any literary work. However, this category does not exist a priori; it needs a complicate procedure, which differs for different literary works and ages. This procedure is not the mere index to the concrete human being. The reason is not in the fact that these beings can be counted more than one or the name on the title does not belong to any of human beings. The matter is the author ought to be connected with the literary work in a special way. (shrink)

Counterfactual thinking involves the imagination of non-factual alternatives to reality. We investigated the spontaneous generation of both upward counterfactuals, which improve on reality, and downward counterfactuals, which worsen reality. All subjects gained $5 playing a computer-simulated blackjack game. However, this outcome was framed to be perceived as either a win, a neutral event, or a loss. "Loss" frames produced more upward and fewer downward counterfactuals than did either "win" or "neutral" frames, but the overall prevalence of counterfactual thinking did not (...) vary with outcome valence. In addition, subjects who expected to play the game again made more upward counterfactuals and were less satisfied with the outcome than were subjects who did not expect to play again. However, once subjects saw the cards from which they could have selected had they "hit" again (two winning cards and two losing cards), all subjects generated primarily upward counterfactuals and showed a corresponding decrease in satisfaction. These results implicate both cognitive and motivational factors in the generation of counterfactuals and tell us something about the functional value of counterfactual thinking: downward counterfactuals provide comfort; upward counterfactuals prepare one for the future. (shrink)

Psillos has recently argued that van Fraassen’s arguments against abduction fail. Moreover, he claimed that, if successful, these arguments would equally undermine van Fraassen’s own constructive empiricism, for, Psillos thinks, it is only by appeal to abduction that constructive empiricism can be saved from issuing in a bald scepticism. We show that Psillos’ criticisms are misguided, and that they are mostly based on misinterpretations of van Fraassen’s arguments. Furthermore, we argue that Psillos’ arguments for his claim that constructive empiricism itself (...) needs abduction point up to his failure to recognize the importance of van Fraassen’s broader epistemology for constructive empiricism. Towards the end of our paper we discuss the suspected relationship between constructive empiricism and scepticism in the light of this broader epistemology, and from a somewhat more general perspective. (shrink)

Many philosophers deny that happiness can be equated with pleasurable experiences. Nozick introduced an experience machine thought experiment to support the idea that happiness requires pleasurable experiences that are “in contact with reality.” In this thought experiment, people can choose to plug into a machine that induces exclusively pleasurable experiences. We test Nozick’s hypothesis that people will reject this offer. We also contrast Nozick’s experience machine scenario with scenarios that are less artificial, and offer options which are less invasive or (...) disruptive than being connected to a machine, specifically scenarios in which people are offered an experience pill or a pill that improves overall functioning. (shrink)

Effects of perceived control and close alternative outcomes were examined. Subjects played a computer-simulated "wheel-of-fortune" game with another player in which two wheels spun simultaneously. Subjects had either control over spinning the wheel or control over which wheel would determine their outcome and which would determine the other player's outcome. Results showed that (a) subjects generated counterfactuals about the aspect of the game that they controlled, (b) the direction of these counterfactuals corresponded to the close outcome associated with the aspect (...) they controlled, and (c) close counterfactuals predicted affective responses to the outcome of the wheel spin. Cognitive and motivational implications of the influence of perceived control on counterfactual generation are discussed. (shrink)

Autorzy artykułu argumentują, że libertarianie (tacy jak Murray Rothbard, Stephan Kinsella), którzy jednocześnie podpisują się pod zasadą proporcjonalności w obronie własności prywatnej oraz pod poglądem, iż posiadanie prawa własności prywatnej oznacza posiadanie prawa do jej obrony, popadają tym samym w dylemat polegający na tym, iż jeżeli jedynym sposobem obrony prawa własności prywatnej jest jego nieproporcjonalna obrona, to to własności tej - wbrew temu, co ów pogląd głosi - nie towarzyszy prawo do jej obrony. Najlepiej uzasadnionym sposobem wyjścia z tego dylematu (...) jest osłabienie peremptoryjności praw własności prywatnej, czyli skonceptualizowanie tychże praw jako absolutnych jedynie w słabym sensie tego słowa (korzystając z dystynkcji zaproponowanej przez Matthew H. Kramera). Z kolei libertarianie, którzy tak jak Walter Block chcieliby wybrnąć z rzeczonego dylematu poprzez zastąpienie zasady proporcjonalności zasadą delikatności, popadają w innego rodzaju problemy (nieintuicyjność moralną czy ogólną niekoherencję), co jest tylko kolejnym argumentem na rzecz tezy, iż osłabienie wymogów praw własności prywatnej jest najlepiej uzasadnionym sposobem przezwyciężenia rozważanego tu dylematu. (shrink)

Central and East Europeans have a great deal in common, both historically and culturally, with West Europeans and North Americans, but tend to be more interdependent. Interdependence has been shown to be linked to holistic cognition. East Asians are more interdependent than Americans and are more holistic. If interdependence causes holism, we would expect Central and East Europeans to be more holistic than West Europeans and North Americans. In two studies we found evidence that Central and East Europeans are indeed (...) more holistic than Westerners on three tasks, one of which examined categorization and two of which measured patterns of visual attention. These studies support the argument that cross-cultural differences in cognition are due to society level differences in independence/interdependence. (shrink)

Corruption in the construction industry is a serious problem in China. As such, fighting this corruption has become a priority target of the Chinese government, with the main effort being to discover and prosecute its perpetrators. This study profiles the demographic characteristics of major incidences of corruption in construction. It draws on the database of the 83 complete recorded cases of construction related corruption held by the Chinese National Bureau of Corruption Prevention. Categorical variables were drawn from the database, and (...) ‘association rule mining analysis’ was used to identify associations between variables as a means of profiling perpetrators. Such profiling may be used as predictors of future incidences of corruption, and consequently to inform policy makers in their fight against corruption. The results signal corruption within the Chinese construction industry to be correlated with age, with incidences rising as managers’ approach retirement age. Moreover, a majority of perpetrators operate within government agencies, are department deputies in direct contact with projects, and extort the greatest amounts per case from second tier cities. The relatively lengthy average 6.4-year period before cases come to public attention corroborates the view that current efforts at fighting corruption remain inadequate. (shrink)

Similarity spaces are standardly constructed by collecting pairwise similarity judgments and subjecting those to a dimension-reduction technique such as multidimensional scaling or principal component analysis. While this approach can be effective, it has some known downsides, most notably, it tends to be costly and has limited generalizability. Recently, a number of authors have attempted to mitigate these issues through machine learning techniques. For instance, neural networks have been trained on human similarity judgments to infer the spatial representation of unseen stimuli. (...) However, these newer methods are still costly and fail to generalize widely beyond their initial training sets. This paper proposes leveraging prebuilt semantic vector spaces as a cheap alternative to collecting similarity judgments. Our results suggest that some of those spaces can be used to approximate human similarity judgments at low cost and high speed. (shrink)

The present paper discusses the problem of quantum-mechanical properties of a subject’s consciousness. The model of generalized economic measurements is used for the analysis. Two types of such measurements are analyzed – transactions and technologies. Algebraic ratios between the technology-type measurements allow making their analogy with slit experiments in physics. It has been shown that the description of results of such measurements is possible both in classical and in quantum formalism of calculation of probabilities. Thus, the quantum-mechanical formalism of the (...) description of states appears as a result of idealization of the selection mechanism in the proprietor's consciousness. (shrink)

The main purpose of the study is to determine the key aspects of the mechanisms of state management of the exchange of information about cyberattacks, cyber incidents, and information security incidents. The methodology includes a set of theoretical methods. Modern government, on the one hand, must take into account the emergence of such a new weapon as cyber, which can break various information systems, can be used in hybrid wars, influence political events, pose a threat to the national security of (...) any state. As a result of the study, key elements of the mechanisms of state management of the exchange of information about cyberattacks, cyber incidents, and information security incidents were identified. (shrink)

Management of modern economic systems in the context of increasing influence of different types of risks requires significant improvement. Among such systems are logistics systems, which play an important role in the optimization of economic processes and require the use of information technology, which will facilitate faster and more accurate management decisions making. The purpose of scientific work is to develop a new approach to risk management of logistics systems, which will allow to plan more effectively, evaluate and control logistics (...) processes by using information technology. To ensure more flexible risk management, it is possible to change the parameters and configuration of the recommended model in accordance with the conditions of its formation. (shrink)

O presente artigo tem por objetivo apresentar a relação entre biopolítica e nazismo à luz da obra de Michel Foucault e Giorgio Agamben. Para Foucault, o nazismo utilizou-se do racismo de Estado para proteger uma raça e legitimar a morte daqueles que representavam uma espécie de perigo biológico. Seguindo a mesma via, Agamben nos convida a refletir sobre os campos de concentração não como um fato histórico superado, mas como uma estrutura de poder que vem sendo cada vez mais utilizada (...) nas democracias contemporâneas, marcada pela vigência do estado de exceção e produção da vida nua.Palavras-chave: Foucault.Agamben.Biopolítica. Campo. AbstractThis article aims to present the relationship between biopolitics and Nazism in the light of the work of Michel Foucault and Giorgio Agamben. According to Foucault, Nazism used state racism to protect a race and legitimize the death of those who represented a kind of biological danger. Following the same path, Agamben invites us to reflect on the concentration camps not as an outdated historical fact, but as a power structure which has been increasingly used in contemporary democracies, marked by the validity of the state of exception and production of bare life.Keywords: Foucault. Agamben. Biopolitics. Field. ORCID https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1386-955X. (shrink)

There is no empirical research exploring how substance abuse therapists perceive and manage their professional role or privacy boundaries. This study explores their attitudes associated with self-disclosure and dual relationships. Ten therapists, five who had recovered and five who had never been substance dependent, shared their work experiences during semi-structured, in-depth interviews, which have been subjected to interpretative phenomenological analysis. While nonneophytes were generally reluctant to share personal information or establish alternative forms of relationship with current or former clients, neophytes (...) were more open to using self-disclosure and admitted changing professional relationships into friendships. These findings are discussed in relation to ethical codes, training and supervision in substance abuse treatment. (shrink)