School-based Physical Education is important, especially to students with disabilities whose participation in physical activities out of school is limited. The development over time of participation-related constructs in relation to students’ perceived functioning and achievement is explored. Students in mainstream inclusive secondary school self-rated their PE-specific self-efficacy, general school self-efficacy, aptitude to participate in PE, and perceived physical and socio-cognitive functional skills at two timepoints, year 7 and year 9. Results were compared between three groups of students with: disabilities, high (...) grades, or low grades in PE. Over time, perceived physical skills of students with disabilities became strongly associated with self-efficacy and aptitude to participate. Perceived socio-cognitive skills in the study sample improved and had a positive effect on PE-specific self-efficacy. Efforts should be made to limit the accelerated negative impact of perceived restricted functioning of students with disabilities. Grading criteria need to be developed to comply with standards adapted to fit abilities of students with disabilities. Meaningful learning experiences appear to be created when participation is promoted and capacity beliefs are boosted. Allocating resources to support the development of students’ socio-cognitive skills seem to have potential for overall positive school outcome. (shrink)

The discovery of Palaeolithic cave art in the late 19th century entails many problems, some of which are perceptual. Presenting doxology as a post-phenomenological way of approaching epistemic and perceptual questions, this article draws on the problematics of cave art and contemporary cognitive science to discuss the process of perception — what it takes to see what one sees — in caves (and elsewhere). The article concludes that in order to see and perceive anything at all, both our physical and (...) our conceptual resources — the light of the sun as well as the light of the mind, as Empedocles might have said — are needed. The light of the mind is always inextricably linked to doxa. Thus, the article argues that a doxological approach to questions of perception and knowledge is required. (shrink)

SummaryHow can the immense amount of suffering and waste inherent in the evolutionary process be reconciled with the existence of a perfectly good and omnipotent God? A widely embraced proposal in the area of “evolutionary theodicy” is the so-called “Only Way”-argument. This argument contends that certain valuable goods – in particular, creaturely independence and human freedom – can only come about through a genuinely indeterministic and partly uncontrolled process of evolution. In a previous article, I have argued that the “Only (...) Way”-argument can be defeated by a “Twin Earth”-thought experiment: If God is omnipotent, he could have created – directly, without evolution – creatures that are molecule-for-molecule identical to those that he actually created through evolution. If the creatures that he actually created have freedom and independence, there is no valid reason to deny that the non-evolved “twin creatures” would also be free and independent. Recently, Eikrem and Søvik have suggested a way of blocking my Twin Earth-argument by appealing to the distinction between type-values and token-values. While ES admit that the Twin Earth-argument shows the non-necessity of evolution for the existence of certain type-goods, they argue that an evolutionary creation can be justified by appeal to valuable token-goods that could not have existed without evolution. In this article, I respond to ES’s token-goods argument by showing that it is incompatible with a basic presupposition of “Only Way” evolutionary theodicies, namely the claim that the evolutionary process is genuinely indeterministic and partly uncontrolled. (shrink)

The European Legacy, Volume 17, Issue 5, Page 685, August 2012.

Measures of happiness are increasingly being used throughout the social sciences. While these measures have attracted numerous types of criticisms, a crucial aspect of these measures has been left largely unexplored—their calibration. Using Eran Tal’s recently developed notion of calibration we argue first that the prospect of continued calibration of happiness measures is crucial for the science of happiness, and second, that continued calibration of happiness measures faces a particular problem—The Two Unknowns Problem. The Two Unknowns Problem relies on the (...) claim that individuals are necessarily a part of the measurement apparatus in first person measures of happiness, and the claim that we have no reason to believe that the evaluation standards people employ are invariant across individuals and time. We argue that calibrating happiness measures therefore involves solving an equation with two unknowns—an individual’s degree of happiness, and their evaluation standards—which is, generally, not possible. Third, we consider two possible escape routes from this problem and we suggest that the most promising route requires yet unexplored empirical and theoretical work on linking happiness to behavioral or neural evidence. (shrink)

According to the alternative semantics for focus, the semantic reflec of intonational focus is a second semantic value, which in the case of a sentence is a set of propositions. We examine a range of semantic and pragmatic applications of the theory, and extract a unitary principle specifying how the focus semantic value interacts with semantic and pragmatic processes. A strong version of the theory has the effect of making lexical or construction-specific stipulation of a focus-related effect in association-with-focus constructions (...) impossible. Furthermore, while focus has a uniform import, the sources of meaning differences in association with focus are various. (shrink)

This article examines the contention that the central concepts of C. S. Peirce’s semeiotic are inherently communicational. It is argued that the Peircean approach avoids the pitfalls of objectivism and constructivism, rendering the sign-user neither a passive recipient nor an omnipotent creator of meaning. Consequently, semeiotic may serve as a useful general framework for studies of learning processes.

Part of the standard protection of decisionally incapacitated research subjects is a prohibition against enrolling them unless surrogate decision makers authorize it. A common view is that surrogates primarily ought to make their decisions based on what the decisionally incapacitated subject would have wanted regarding research participation. However, empirical studies indicate that surrogate predictions about such preferences are not very accurate. The focus of this article is the significance of surrogate accuracy in the context of research that is not expected (...) to benefit the research subject. We identify three morally relevant asymmetries between being enrolled and not being enrolled in such non-beneficial research, and conclude that when there is a non-negligible probability that surrogates’ predictions are wrong, it will generally be better to err on the side of not authorizing enrollment. (shrink)

Together with large biobanks of human samples, medical registries with aggregated data from many clinical centers are vital parts of an infrastructure for maintaining high standards of quality with regard to medical diagnosis and treatment. The rapid development in personalized medicine and pharmaco-genomics only underscores the future need for these infrastructures. However, registries and biobanks have been criticized as constituting great risks to individual privacy. In this article, I suggest that quality with regard to diagnosis and treatment is an inherent, (...) morally normative requirement of health care, and argue that quality concerns in this sense may be balanced with privacy concerns. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Semiotica Jahrgang: 2018 Heft: 220 Seiten: 269-299.

The contribution of this work is a classification of corporate social action underlying the Social Ratings Data compiled by Kinder Lydenburg Domini Analytics, Inc. We compare extant typologies of corporate social action to the results of our exploratory factor analysis. Our findings indicate four distinct latent constructs that bear resemblance to concepts discussed in prior literature. Akey finding of our research is that positive and negative social action are both empirically and conceptually distinct constructs and should not be combined in (...) future research. Additionally, we recommend that some prior research results be reconsidered to determine whether these newly derived measures might clarify some previous findings. (shrink)

Decision making for incompetent patients is a much-discussed topic in bioethics. According to one influential decision making standard, the substituted judgment standard, a surrogate decision maker ought to make the decision that the incompetent patient would have made, had he or she been competent. Empirical research has been conducted in order to find out whether surrogate decision makers are sufficiently good at doing their job, as this is defined by the substituted judgment standard. This research investigates to what extent surrogates (...) are able to predict what the patient would have preferred in the relevant circumstances. In this paper we address a methodological shortcoming evident in a significant number of studies. The mistake consists in categorizing responses that only express uncertainty as predictions that the patient would be positive to treatment, on the grounds that the clinical default is to provide treatment unless it is refused. We argue that this practice is based on confusion and that it risks damaging the research on surrogate accuracy. (shrink)

In this article, I first interpret and evaluate the main argument of E. V. R. Kojonen's book, The Compatibility of Evolution and Design. I then address a challenge against this argument (as well as against design arguments in general), namely, the problem of seemingly malevolent and bad designs in nature. Evolutionary theodicists commonly deal with this problem by assuming that the evolutionary process is not fully under God's control. This solution, however, is deeply problematic from the perspective of classical theism. (...) I therefore suggest another approach to the problem, inspired by the thought of Thomas Aquinas. (shrink)

In this article it is suggested that the discourse entailing the realization of a dystopia of totalitarian surveillance, far from being a grounded fact, on the contrary, works as a screen sheltering us from the fact that we are reaching a point where we are nothing more than depersonalized, emptied forms of interest neither to corporations nor to each other; instead, we are moving towards the liquification of subjectivity as such. When our user data is “taken hostage” we are emptied (...) of personal features, submitted to a process of dissolution rather than prying surveillance. It is tempting to suggest that the various repetitions of the Orwellian theme is a basic fantasy protecting us from the ever increasing gaps in the global virtual order; working to cover up the real of digital capitalism following a desperate logic by which only nightmares suffice. What if the furthering of the digital paradigm, with its potential to add yet another layer of virtuality to experience leads, not to an increase of (Orwellian) control, but on the contrary overturns the house of cards of (symbolic) reality, exposing the core of the illusions of the self and the subject? (shrink)

There are various global problems we find ourselves faced with and those problems necessitate a new kind of ethic, a global one. I will argue that while there are several ways of understanding it one is more adequate than others. That claim has implications for the kind of basis suitable for global ethic, namely that we need a political ethic, such as liberalism. I will also take up some general objections which this kind of global ethic is able to give (...) good replies. (shrink)

Incompetent patients need to have someone else make decisions on their behalf. According to the Substituted Judgment Standard the surrogate decision maker ought to make the decision that the patient would have made, had he or she been competent. Objections have been raised against this traditional construal of the standard on the grounds that it involves flawed counterfactual reasoning, and amendments have been suggested within the framework of possible worlds semantics. The paper shows that while this approach may circumvent the (...) alleged problem, the way it has so far been elaborated reflects insufficient understanding of the moral underpinnings of the idea of substituted judgment. Proper recognition of these moral underpinnings has potentially far-reaching implications for our normative assumptions about accuracy and objectivity in surrogate decision making. (shrink)

A social conception of science -- The pursuit of forms -- Beyond the doctrine of signs -- Structures of mediation -- Signs in action -- Prospects of communication -- From a rhetorical point of view.

Reflexive Methodology established itself as a groundbreaking success, providing researchers with an invaluable guide to a central problem in research methodology – how to put field research and interpretations in perspective, paying attention to the interpretive, political, and rhetorical nature of empirical research. Now thoroughly updated, the Second Edition includes a new chapter on positivism, social constructionism, and critical realism, and offers new conclusions on the applications of methodology. It provides further illustrations and updates that build on the acclaimed and (...) successful First Edition. (shrink)

In Peirce’s Account of Purposefulness, Gabriele Gava tackles one of the thorniest questions in Peirce research, namely the problem of Peirce’s relationship to Kantian philosophy. The leading argument of the book amounts to what may be the most sustained defence of a transcendental reading of Peirce’s thought since Karl-Otto Apel’s pioneering efforts. In pursuing this path, Gava is not exactly moving through uncharted terrain; but nor has he chosen the road most travelled in recent times. For...

(1989). Three waves of political mobilization in Western Europe and the coming of a fourth. World Futures: Vol. 26, European Perspectives II, pp. 155-191.

This article is a detailed discourse analytic study about the transformation of three social research reports into television news, above all through the reporter–source interview. The focus is on how questions are used to probe responses and explanations and how these are either omitted from or incorporated into the final news stories. By this unique research design the interactional conduct of the reporter–source interview as well as some aspects of question design applied in the interview are described. It is argued (...) that both the interviews as well as the editing of the news stories are guided by ‘narrative relevance’, i.e. the reporter’s preliminary idea of what the emerging story should/could look like, rather than by the actual outcome of the interviews. (shrink)

In this article, I first reflect on the background of the debate between myself and Eikrem and Søvik and make some clarificatory remarks about the term “Only Way argument”, which figured in the article that started the exchange. I then map areas of agreement and disagreement between us, with an eye to discerning promising and less promising paths forward in the field of evolutionary theodicy. Finally, I respond to Eikrem’s and Søvik’s criticism of my previous arguments about token-goods.

Evolutionary theodicies are attempts to explain how the enormous amounts of suffering, premature death and extinction inherent in the evolutionary process can be reconciled with belief in a loving and almighty God. A common strategy in this area is to argue that certain very valuable creaturely attributes could only be exemplified by creatures that are produced by a partly random and uncontrolled process of evolution. Evolution, in other words, was the only possible way for God to create these kinds of (...) creatures. This article presents and examines two versions of the “only way”-argument. The anthropocentric version tries to justify God’s use of evolution by reference to the value of human freedom, and argues that freedom presupposes that God lets go of full control over the process of creation . The non-anthropocentric version presents a similar argument with respect to more inclusive creaturely properties, such as that of being “truly other” than God, or of being a “creaturely self” with a certain degree of autonomy in relation to God . With the help of a number of thought-experiments of the “Twin-Earth”-type, the author argues that both the anthropocentric and the non-anthropocentric only way-arguments fail. (shrink)