Due to its wide-ranging reservations and lack of effective enforcement mechanisms the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) has failed to dismantle widespread and systemic discrimination. The present paper proposes a broad, theoretical, preventive and relational approach to creating and enhancing the effectiveness of novel interventions to accelerate gender equality. We describe the main elements of affective empathy (i.e. intersubjectivity, multisensory engagement and empathic embodiment) and identify potential interventions that build on those elements to (...) advance gender equality. We ultimately argue that increased empathy towards women, transwomen and girls is required to disrupt the beliefs and behaviours that lead to discrimination, and that these changes must be enacted alongside legislative reforms and community education that construct equality environments. Our affective empathy framework could have the capacity to operationalise the normative fight against gender stereotypes and inequality in line with article 5(a) of CEDAW. (shrink)

Bidirectional deep brain stimulation (DBS) platforms have enabled a surge in hours of recordings in naturalistic environments, allowing further insight into neurological and psychiatric disease states. However, high amplitude, high frequency stimulation generates artifacts that contaminate neural signals and hinder our ability to interpret the data. This is especially true in psychiatric disorders, for which high amplitude stimulation is commonly applied to deep brain structures where the native neural activity is miniscule in comparison. Here, we characterized artifact sources in recordings (...) from a bidirectional DBS platform, the Medtronic Summit RC + S, with the goal of optimizing recording configurations to improve signal to noise ratio (SNR). Data were collected from three subjects in a clinical trial of DBS for obsessive-compulsive disorder. Stimulation was provided bilaterally to the ventral capsule/ventral striatum (VC/VS) using two independent implantable neurostimulators. We first manipulated DBS amplitude within safe limits (2–5.3 mA) to characterize the impact of stimulation artifacts on neural recordings. We found that high amplitude stimulation produces slew overflow, defined as exceeding the rate of change that the analog to digital converter can accurately measure. Overflow led to expanded spectral distortion of the stimulation artifact, with a six fold increase in the bandwidth of the 150.6 Hz stimulation artifact from 147–153 to 140–180 Hz. By increasing sense blank values during high amplitude stimulation, we reduced overflow by as much as 30% and improved artifact distortion, reducing the bandwidth from 140–180 Hz artifact to 147–153 Hz. We also identified artifacts that shifted in frequency through modulation of telemetry parameters. We found that telemetry ratio changes led to predictable shifts in the center-frequencies of the associated artifacts, allowing us to proactively shift the artifacts outside of our frequency range of interest. Overall, the artifact characterization methods and results described here enable increased data interpretability and unconstrained biomarker exploration using data collected from bidirectional DBS devices. (shrink)

Food is becoming an increasingly important issue in the urban context. Urban food policies are a new phenomenon in Czechia, where urban food alternatives to the current food regime are promoted by food movements or take the form of traditional self-provisioning. This paper examines how urban food governance in Prague and Brno is constituted based on the municipalities’ relations with actors engaged in urban food alternatives. We argue that prioritizing aspects of local food system transformation compliant with the status quo (...) is non-systemic and implies a fragmentation of urban food alternatives based on different levels of social capital and radicality. We conceptualize urban food alternatives as values-based modes of production and consumption and focus on values that guide urban food governance in its participatory and territorial interplay with the actors of urban food alternatives. Our analysis reveals that the values underpinning the two cities’ progressive food policies do not match reality on the ground. We propose four types of relations between the two examined cities and aspects of the local food system transformation. Aspects compliant with the status quo, such as food waste reduction and community gardening are embraced, whereas those requiring more public intervention, such as public procurement, short supply chains, or the protection of cultivable land are disregarded, degraded, or, at most, subject to experimentation as part of biodiversity protection. Chances for a successful transformation of the local food system under such governance are low but can be increased by strengthening social capital and coalition work among urban food alternatives. (shrink)

I argue that, in order for us to be justified in believing that two theories are metaphysically equivalent, we must be able to conceive of them as unified into a single theory, which says nothing over and above either of them. I propose one natural way of precisifying this condition, and show that the quantifier variantist cannot meet it. I suggest that the quantifier variantist cannot meet the more general condition either, and argue that this gives the metaphysical realist a (...) way to rule out theses like quantifier variance without appealing to fundamentality, grounding, or "levels" of reality. (shrink)

Issued by the Schelling-Kommission der Bayerischen Akademie der Wissenschaften.

As the United Nations declared the beginning of the “Decade of Family Farming” in 2017, scholars were increasingly questioning the romanticized and uncritical use of the term to mask some structural inequalities, including patriarchal ownership, colonialism, heteronormativity, family and child labor exploitation, poor labor standards, and environmental destruction. This introduction to a special symposium on the family farm differentiates scholarly approaches to studying family farming into three categories: celebratory, reformist, and abolitionist. After summarizing the papers included in this special issue, (...) this introduction contends that it may be time to move beyond biological and marital relations when analyzing the most effective ways to solve social and environmental problems related to agricultural production. (shrink)

As the crisis around Covid-19 evolves, it becomes clear that there are numerous negative side-effects of the lockdown strategies implemented by many countries. Currently, more evidence becomes available that the lockdowns may have more negative effects than positive effects. For instance, many measures taken in a lockdown aimed at protecting human life may compromise the immune system, and purpose in life, especially of vulnerable groups. This leads to the paradoxical situation of compromising the immune system and physical and mental health (...) of many people, including the ones we aim to protect. Also, it is expected that hundreds of millions of people will die from hunger and postponed medical treatments. Other side effects include financial insecurity of billions of people, physical and mental health problems, and increased inequalities. The economic and health repercussions of the crisis will be falling disproportionately on young workers, low-income families and women, and thus exacerbate existing inequalities. As the virus outbreak and media coverage spread fear and anxiety, superstition, cognitive dissonance reduction and conspiracy theories are ways to find meaning and reduce anxiety. These behavioral aspects may play a role in the continuance of lockdown decisions. Based on theories regarding agnotology (i.e. the ways ignorance or doubt about certain topics is created by means of withholding or presenting information in a certain way), social influence, superstition and stress and coping, I seek to explain the social and behavioral aspects of human behavior in times of crises. Both the Covid-19 crisis itself as well as the resulting economic and (mental) health crisis are global problems that may require global solutions. I present a model of drivers and outcomes of lockdown behaviors and offer suggestions and a tool to counteract the negative psychological effects by means of online life crafting therapeutic writing interventions. (shrink)

Increasingly, data scientists are training machine-learning models for diagnosis, treatment selection, and resource allocation. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has given regulatory appro...

The paper invites us to revise the anthropocentric foundation of the philosophic distinction that is made between the concepts of human and animal. Following Derrida’s deconstruction, the author uncovers the systematic philosophic degradation of animals that helped to build modern humanism: human beings gave themselves the right to master non-human beings by comparing animal to man and defining it as an unequal, subordinated, and inferior being. The author suggests taking the concept of animal out of such an asymmetrically constructed binary (...) opposition. By revising “animal” idioms burdened by the anthropocentric prejudice of human sovereignty, the author calls for a biocentric ethical position of interspecies mutuality. Firstly, she questions metaphysical presuppositions that make the philosophic conception of symbiosis between human and nonhuman beings impossible. Secondly, she suggests a philosophic solution, which opens inventive ways for an ethical approach to animals, both by means of a focus on nonverbal communication and by offering new idioms related to biocentric images of animality. (shrink)

This article investigates Madison Smartt Bell’s Haitian trilogy as a neocaptivity narrative that combines in new ways the conventions of the slave narrative and the Barbary captivity narrative. Furthermore, it examines the culture-crossing of the character of Doctor Hébert in the course of the successful slave uprising of Saint Domingue. Captivity, I argue, constitutes the central theme and structuring device and also triggers Hébert’s culture-crossing in a reversed Hegelian master-slave dialectic that needs to be read together with Riau’s enslavement. Lacking (...) the social recognition of a free subject, Riau attains his independent self-consciousness through physical resistance and Saint-Domingue’s distinct black culture. Whereas Hébert learns to actively resist slavery as he crosses over into the Haitian society. In their struggles, both undergo the three phases of rites of passage. (shrink)

There are two approaches that dominate contemporary opera performances. The first may be characterised as producing a subtle, aesthetic and stylistic means of expression. The second runs up visual, interpretation and content means to their maximum expressivity and the audience is exposed to violence, sex and experience disgust. This paper analyses specific productions by renowned European theatre and opera directors, in order to shed light on the way in which opera directors cope with the threat of terrorism, sexual violence, and (...) the impact of the mass media upon the moral belief system of modern man. Within the context of the bold productions of European theatre-makers Slovak opera theatre seems conservative, gravitating towards the aesthetic aspect of opera. (shrink)

What holds a society together? Is it sufficient if a state relies on the citizens’ law-abidance only? Rousseau mistrusts a purely legal foundation of the state and searches for a bond that ties the citizens to it emotionally. The author aims to show that the civil religion Rousseau presents in the “Social Contract” is his answer to that problem. She focuses on the artificiality of civil religion which for Rousseau needs to be the product of the citizens’ will, inseparable from (...) society’s rational construction by means of the social contract. It is shown that in spite of the voluntarist positing of civil religion’s contents, Rousseau has to presuppose a theistic profession of faith: civil religion cannot produce any faith itself and therefore needs to be the beneficiary of an already existing faith of the individuals that has to be imported into the public sphere. (shrink)

The ground of the pragmatic approach to moral concepts and conceptions is its belief, that the moral concepts are rooted in social praxis and that they reflect the tensions, problems and crises present in social life. For the American philosopher Marion Smiley the category approving this approach is responsibility. Unveiling the social and historical moments, which determine our understanding of the subject of responsibility, as well as the very judgments on causal responsibility question the universalistic conceptions of moral responsibility. At (...) the same time Smiley tries to create a unified methodological frame in which the controversial problems of judging the responsibility of individual subjects. (shrink)

Trust is widely regarded as a critical component to building artificial intelligence (AI) systems that people will use and safely rely upon. As research in this area continues to evolve, it becomes imperative that the research community synchronizes its empirical efforts and aligns on the path toward effective knowledge creation. To lay the groundwork toward achieving this objective, we performed a comprehensive bibliometric analysis, supplemented with a qualitative content analysis of over two decades of empirical research measuring trust in AI, (...) comprising 1’156 core articles and 36’306 cited articles across multiple disciplines. Our analysis reveals several “elephants in the room” pertaining to missing perspectives in global discussions on trust in AI, a lack of contextualized theoretical models and a reliance on exploratory methodologies. We highlight strategies for the empirical research community that are aimed at fostering an in-depth understanding of trust in AI. (shrink)

Using an ethnographic case study based in a UK state school for 11- to 18-year-olds, this paper explores the tensions that arose when the senior leadership team (SLT) introduced a justice-based ethic-of-care that prioritized good grades and equal treatment for all pupils over a feminist ethic-of-care (preferred by most teachers in non-leadership roles) that accentuated individual pupil need and placed greater emphasis on a broader social education. Through highlighting the tensions between a feminist ethic-of-care and a more ‘masculine’ style, justice-based (...) approach to care-ethics, the paper extends the organisational care-ethics literature. We emphasise that such tensions occurred whether the different ethics were enacted by men, women, or non-binary individuals. In order to better understand the tensions between these two ethical approaches, we draw upon the theoretical work of Donald Winnicott, which highlights the importance both of maternal and paternal roles during infancy. We update Winnicott’s ideas, noting how maternal and paternal caring roles can be undertaken by people of varied gender identities. Building on Winnicott’s theory, we propose a new ‘Parentalist’ ethic-of-care, which has the potential to balance and hold together ideas of both a feminist ethic-of-care, and a justice-based ethic. A Parentalist ethic-of-care could support teachers yet recognize the context of the contemporary neo-liberal environment, where most children need to attain formal qualifications in a marketized world, and where such measures of success are highly valued. (shrink)

I explore the view that metaphysics is essentially imaginative. I argue that the central goal of metaphysics on this view is understanding, not truth. Metaphysics-as-essentially-imaginative provides novel answers to challenges to both the value and epistemic status of metaphysics.

The purpose of this paper is to advance research on CSR beyond the stalemate of economic versus ethical models by providing an alternative perspective integrating existing views and allowing for more shared dialog and research in the field. It is suggested that we move beyond making a normative case for ethical models and practices of CSR by moving beyond the question of how to manage organizational self-interest toward the question of how accurate current conceptions of the organizational self seem to (...) be. Specifically, it is proposed that CSR is not a question of how self-interested the corporation should be, but how this self is defined. Economic and ethical models of CSR are not models of opposition but exist on a continuum between egoic and post-egoic, illusory and authentic conceptions of the organizational self. This means that moving from one to the other is not a question of adopting different paradigms but rather of moving from illusion and dysfunction to authenticity and functionality, from pathology to health. (shrink)

On the basis of contemporary Czech and Slovak texts and correspondence between Czechoslovak scientists and Polish praxeologists, the study shows how praxeology, a scientific discipline that deals with human action and is primarily associated with the Polish environment and the prominent philosopher Tadeusz Kotarbiński (1886–1981), was viewed in Czechoslovakia in the 1960s and 1970s. The analysis also defines the factors that shaped the newly emerging “Czechoslovak” praxeology. One such factor was Polish–Czechoslovak (or rather Czech–Polish and Slovak–Polish) scientific relations, especially contacts (...) with the Institute of Praxeology of the Polish Academy of Sciences. The article argues that a specific “national” form of Czechoslovak praxeology crystallised in Czechoslovakia around the turn of the 1970s. Although it was based on the Polish model, the habitus of certain Czechoslovak scholars to draw on works of Marxism–Leninism, the involvement of communist ideologues in the debate about the form and future of praxeology, and the historical context of the emerging normalisation after 1968 made Czechoslovak praxeology a peculiar mix of original Polish ideas and Czechoslovak scientific practice. (shrink)

Many philosophers take purportedly logical cases of ground ) to be obvious cases, and indeed such cases have been used to motivate the existence of and importance of ground. I argue against this. I do so by motivating two kinds of semantic determination relations. Intuitions of logical ground track these semantic relations. Moreover, our knowledge of semantics for first order logic can explain why we have such intuitions. And, I argue, neither semantic relation can be a species of ground even (...) on a quite broad conception of what ground is. Hence, without a positive argument for taking so-called ‘logical ground’ to be something distinct from a semantic determination relation, we should cease treating logical cases as cases of ground. (shrink)

Logical realism is the view that there is logical structure in the world. I argue that, if logical realism is true, then we are deeply ignorant of that logical structure: either we can’t know which of our logical concepts accurately capture it, or none of our logical concepts accurately capture it at all. I don’t suggest abandoning logical realism, but instead discuss how realists should adjust their methodology in the face of this ignorance.

Aufgrund der Dominanz eines okonomistisch verengten Rationalitatsideals wird Vertrauen zunehmend als Reputationskalkul oder quasi-vertragliche Kreditbeziehung definiert. MIchaela I. ABdelhamid zeigt: Was hier als "Vertrauen" bezeichnet wird, soll vielmehr der Wertschopfung sowie der Legitimation strategischer Entscheidungen, Sanktionen und Abhangigkeitsverhaltnisse dienen. MIt verstandlichen Analysen und Begriffsscharfungen bietet sie die Grundlage, um die Probleme solcher Inszenierungen erkennen oder auch die Gegenstande sogenannter Vertrauenskrisen reflektieren zu konnen.

Abstract‘Logical Realism’ is taken to mean many different things. I argue that if reality has a privileged structure, then a view I call metaphysical logical realism is true. The view says that, first, there is ‘One True Logic’; second, that the One True Logic is made true by the mind‐and‐language‐independent world; and third, that the mind‐and‐language‐independent world makes it the case that the One True Logic is better than any other logic at capturing the structure of reality. Along the way, (...) I discuss a few alternatives, and clarify two distinct kinds of metaphysical logical realism. (shrink)

John Maurice Clark’s article “The Changing Basis of Economic Responsibility,“ published in the Journal of Political Economy, is the topical starting point for all scholars interested in economic responsibility and responsible economic action. John Maurice Clark, a leading institutional economist, reflected on the consequences of the social and economic change taking place at the turn of the last century for the responsibility of individuals, businesses, and corporations and called for the development of an economics of responsibility. This book contains in-depth (...) articles by scholars from within and beyond economics who continue on the Clark project or address actual problems calling for economic responsibility in the light of his approach. (shrink)

Anlässlich des Jubiläumsjahres 2008 werden Strukturanalogien zwischen der Musik des französischen Komponisten Olivier Messiaen und der Mystik des Flamen Jan van Ruusbroec anhand des X. Satzes aus den „Vingt Regards sur l'Enfant-Jésus" aufgezeigt, der dem „Blick des Geistes der Freude" gewidmet ist. Wie in Ruusbroecs „Zierde der geistlichen Hochzeit" finden sich in der Musik pneumatologische Bildmetaphern wie die des Tanzes, der Jagd, aber auch Übereinstimmung im Ausdruck der Freude und der Einigkeit des Geistes mit dem Vater und dem Sohn. Über (...) seine charakteristischen Farbklänge ist es Messiaen gelungen, sogar die ruusbroecsche Rede vom Minnebrand des Geistes in der Seele musikalisch umzusetzen und dem Geist der Weisheit und der Wahrheit musikalisch Ausdruck zu verleihen. Auf diese Weise trägt zeitgenössische Musik bei, das Geheimnis des Heiligen Geistes tiefer zu erfassen.On the occasion of the Messiaen jubilee 2008, this article shows analogue structures between the Music of the French composer Olivier Messiaen and the mysticism of the Flemish theologian Jan van Ruusbroec . My examination is based on the X. movement of Messiaen's "Vingt Regards sur l'Enfant-Jésus", which is dedicated to the "Vision of the Spirit of Joy". Like Ruusbroec's "Adornment of the Spiritual Marriage", the music of Messiaen contains pneumatological metaphors like the dance and the hunt, but is also accords with Ruusbroec's work in expressing the joy and unity of the Holy Spirit with the Father and the Son. Through his characteristic sound-colours, Messiaen even succeeds in musically expressing what Ruusbroec describes as the Spirit's "firebrand of love" within the soul and in giving the Spirit of wisdom and truth a musical form. This demonstrates how contemporaneous music can contribute to a deeper understanding of the mystery of the Holy Spirit. (shrink)

Scholars are increasingly exploring community-supported businesses (CSBs) as promising alternatives to conventional ones. However, researchers are so far overlooking that CSBs vary in their underlying business models, that is, how they propose, create, and capture value. We apply a multi-staged qualitative research process to carve out the differences between community-supported business models (CSBMs) that exist in practice. Our research shows that transactional and relational CSBMs differ in how they propose, create, and capture value which, in turn, has implications for the (...) resources required to thrive. (shrink)

Daniel Dennett’s compatibilism based on redefining free will via broadening the concept of self to include unconscious processes seems to disappoint certain intuitions. As Sam Harris points out, it changes the subject from the free will we seem to intuitively care about – conscious free will. This compatibilism is untenable since conscious will seems to be an illusion. However, if we take Dennett’s idea of “atmosphere of free will” and view conscious will as an important concept or “user illusion” which (...) is one of the atmosphere’s building blocks, we can see how a new compatibilism could be reached. Although from the point of view of scientific thinking conscious will seems illusory, inspired by Wilfrid Sellars’s conception of manifest and scientific images we can start to understand free will as existing on its own conceptual level. The confusion stems from mixing the two frameworks. Kompatibilismus Daniela Dennetta, založený na redefinování svobodné vůle skrze rozšíření konceptu „já“ o nevědomé procesy, se zdá být v nesouladu s jistými intuicemi. Jak upozorňuje Sam Harris, vyhýbá se té svobodné vůli, o kterou nám zřejmě intuitivně jde – vědomé svobodné vůli. Tento kompatibilismus je neudržitelný, protože vědomá vůle se zdá být iluzí. Když ale přijmeme Dennettovu myšlenku „atmosféry svobodné vůle“ a nahlédneme vědomou vůli jako důležitý koncept nebo „uživatelskou iluzi“, která je součástí této atmosféry, můžeme najít cestu k novému kompatibilismu. Ačkoliv se z vědeckého pohledu zdá být vědomá vůle iluzí, inspirováni koncepcí zjevného a vědeckého obrazu Wilfrida Sellarse můžeme porozumět svobodné vůli jako existující na své vlastní konceptuální úrovni. Zmatení přichází právě s mícháním zmiňovaných dvou rámců. (shrink)