The author portrays the reception of Janusz Korczak’s writings and ideas in Israel. She presents Israeli writers both Polish- and Israeli-born, considering their writings as consequence of extensive interest in universal values and universal figure suck as Janusz Korczak.

Stewardship—the caring for fellow human beings as well as the nonhuman world—is receiving increasing attention from scholars in the field of global environmental change. Recent publications underscore that stewardship is becoming a key norm within the global international system of states, but that in remaining state-centric, stewardship fails to create a deeper systemic transformation of the international system’s normative structure. In this article, we examine whether stewardship also underpins hybrid governance arrangements, which are a combination of public requirements and private (...) standards, with a specific emphasis on certification. We argue that a stewardship ethos requires citizenship, compassion and sufficiency. We, thus, contribute to the burgeoning literature on certification by focusing on normative principles that are fundamental for sustainability governance, but have so far been neglected in governance research. Empirically, we are able to reveal broader implications of the normative transformations underway in global sustainability governance. To add depth to our analysis, we concentrate on palm oil, an agricultural commodity, which serves for food purposes and as a substitute for fossil fuels to mitigate global warming. Palm oil is representative of the interlinkages between social and environmental objectives, which are at the core of the notion of stewardship as conceptualized in this article. We find that stewardship underpins hybrid governance arrangements but momentarily it is realized only in niches. We argue that in order to move to a state of global stewardship, we need a bolder public policy agenda which respects environmental limits, acknowledges boundaries for the global poor, and allows for the expression of emotions in public dialogue. (shrink)

BackgroundSocial cognition and competence are a key part of daily interactions and essential for satisfying relationships and well-being. Pediatric neurological and psychological conditions can affect social cognition and require assessment and remediation of social skills. To adequately approximate the complex and dynamic nature of real-world social interactions, innovative tools are needed. The aim of this study was to document the performance of adolescents on two versions of a serious video game presenting realistic, everyday, socio-moral conflicts, and to explore whether their (...) performance is associated with empathy or sense of presence, factors known to influence social cognition.MethodsParticipants first completed a pre-test measure of socio-moral reasoning based on three dilemmas from a previously validated computer task. Then, they either played an evaluative version or an adaptive version of a video game presenting nine social situations in which they made socio-moral decisions and provided justifications. In the evaluative version, participants’ audio justifications were recorded verbatim and coded manually to obtain a socio-moral reasoning maturity score. In the adaptive version, tailored feedback and social reinforcements were provided based on participant responses. An automatic coding algorithm developed using artificial intelligence was used to determine socio-moral maturity level in real-time and to provide a basis for the feedback and reinforcements in the game. All participants then completed a three-dilemma post-test assessment.ResultsThose who played the adaptive version showed improved SMR across the pre-test, in-game and post-test moral maturity scores, F = 9.81, pHF < 0.001, ϵ2 = 0.21, but those who played the Evaluative version did not. Socio-moral reasoning scores from both versions combined did not correlate with empathy or sense of presence during the game, though results neared significance. The study findings support preliminary validation of the game as a promising method for assessing and remediating social skills during adolescence. (shrink)

Building from an interactionist view of ethics, this study sought to integrate individual and contextual factors for understanding ethical perceptions in teams. Given the proximal nature of team members, this study specifically explored how individuals comparatively evaluate their own ethical behaviors and team members’ ethical behaviors to arrive at a perception of ethical person–group fit within a team. Grounding our theoretical arguments in relational schemas theory, we demonstrate that interpersonal ethical perceptions can have distal impacts on perceptions of team functioning. (...) The results support the hypotheses that a perceived ethical incongruence between the self and other team members negatively influenced perceptions of relationship conflict and ultimately information sharing. By exploring individual and team level aspects of ethics concurrently, we contribute to a deeper understanding of contextual forces in ethics through an interactionist approach. (shrink)

The subject of life, birth and death constitutes one of the main topics in Democritus’ reflection on human questions. He seeks to understand what men think about the processes of birth and death and how they, accordingly, determine their behavior and attitudes. His reflections comprise a wide range of perspectives and aspects that include examining human behaviour and investigating how it reveals a certain temperament or inclination, inquiring about the nature of these processes and extending the analyses of the processes (...) of birth and death to whole beings through the couple generation-corruption. In the present paper, I intend to examine the main theses and arguments which appear in the testimonies and fragments through which Democritus’ thought was transmitted from antiquity. Furthermore, I will also discuss the hypotheses that for Democritus the most important opposition was not life-death, but rather birth-death and that, at the same time, his idea of nature and life comprises both processes in the perspective of atomistic philosophy. I shall show that corruption has to be considered in two different ways, that is, in the context of physical processes that keep the kosmos in its persistence and in the context of the existence of natural beings, both living and lifeless. (shrink)

As part of an ongoing process of Indigenous Nation Building, Gugu Badhun Nation is engaged in developing an economy according to Gugu Badhun values. Rather than simply mimicking capitalism, the practice of visioning this economy begins with considering core cultural principles for the Nation. Sharing is central for Gugu Badhun, and we argue that sharing is considered an act of sovereignty stemming from Gugu Badhun law. Other factors emerge from the focus on sharing, such as the responsibility to look after (...) one another, Country, plants and animals, and neighbouring Nations. This articulation of sharing as sovereignty illustrates Indigenous conceptions of sovereignty as a verb, rather than a noun. Storytelling is one way that Gugu Badhun enacts economic sovereignty through centring the Nation. Our research demonstrates the transformative potential of Indigenous Nation Building and Gugu Badhun people’s freedom to consider and express a preference for alternative economies. (shrink)

How is medical knowledge made? There have been radical changes in recent decades, through new methods such as consensus conferences, evidence-based medicine, translational medicine, and narrative medicine. Miriam Solomon explores their origins, aims, and epistemic strengths and weaknesses; and she offers a pluralistic approach for the future.

Argument“The Case of Ellen West” was published by the Swiss psychiatrist, Ludwig Binswanger, in 1944–1945. The case-history depicts the illness and suicide of a young woman who was his patient twenty years earlier. It came to be considered one of the paradigmatic studies of the newly established discipline ofDaseinsanalyse, an attempt to synthesize existential philosophy and therapeutic practice. This paper analyzes the case-study, employing newly uncovered archival material to expose important details regarding the treatment of Ellen West and the posthumous (...) writing of her case-history. The richness of the archival sources and the various historiographical characteristics they exhibit raise methodological questions about the potentialities and limitations of historical representation. The new data will thus serve as a platform from which to explore and discuss more generally the problems involved in historical reconstruction – of both subjective experience and clinical knowledge – and the questions of authorship and intertextuality in the genre of the case-history. (shrink)

David Hunter’s On Believing is an ambitious, extremely carefully argued, discussion of what it means to believe. He urges readers to re-think the way to categorize beliefs (or more precisely believ...

In this paper, I begin by defending permissivism: the claim that, sometimes, there is more than one way to rationally respond to a given body of evidence. Then I argue that, if we accept permissivism, certain worries that arise as a result of learning that our beliefs were caused by the communities we grew up in, the schools we went to, or other irrelevant influences dissipate. The basic strategy is as follows: First, I try to pinpoint what makes irrelevant influences (...) worrying and I come up with two candidate principles. I then argue that one principle should be rejected because it is inconsistent with permissivism. The principle we should accept implies that it is sometimes rational to maintain our beliefs, even upon learning that they were caused by irrelevant influences. (shrink)

The question of whether it is ever permissible to believe on insufficient evidence has once again become a live question. Greater attention is now being paid to practical dimensions of belief, namely issues related to epistemic virtue, doxastic responsibility, and voluntarism. In this book, McCormick argues that the standards used to evaluate beliefs are not isolated from other evaluative domains. The ultimate criteria for assessing beliefs are the same as those for assessing action because beliefs and actions are both products (...) of agency. Two important implications of this thesis, both of which deviate from the dominant view in contemporary philosophy, are 1) it can be permissible to believe for non-evidential reasons, and 2) we have a robust control over many of our beliefs, a control sufficient to ground attributions of responsibility for belief. (shrink)

For the last forty years, two claims have been at the core of disputes about scientific change: that scientists reason rationally and that science is progressive. For most of this time discussions were polarized between philosophers, who defended traditional Enlightenment ideas about rationality and progress, and sociologists, who espoused relativism and constructivism. Recently, creative new ideas going beyond the polarized positions have come from the history of science, feminist criticism of science, psychology of science, and anthropology of science. Addressing the (...) traditional arguments as well as building on these new ideas, Miriam Solomon constructs a new epistemology of science. After discussions of the nature of empirical success and its relation to truth, Solomon offers a new, social account of scientific rationality. She shows that the pursuit of empirical success and truth can be consistent with both dissent and consensus, and that the distinction between dissent and consensus is of little epistemic significance. In building this social epistemology of science, she shows that scientific communities are not merely the locus of distributed expert knowledge and a resource for criticism but also the site of distributed decision making. Throughout, she illustrates her ideas with case studies from late-nineteenth- and twentieth-century physical and life sciences. Replacing the traditional focus on methods and heuristics to be applied by individual scientists, Solomon emphasizes science funding, administration, and policy. One of her goals is to have a positive influence on scientific decision making through practical social recommendations. (shrink)

The work of Tversky, Kahneman and others suggests that people often make use of cognitive heuristics such as availability, salience and representativeness in their reasoning and decision making. Through use of a historical example--the recent plate tectonics revolution in geology--I argue that such heuristics play a crucial role in scientific decision making also. I suggest how these heuristics are to be considered, along with noncognitive factors (such as motivation and social structures) when drawing historical and epistemological conclusions. The normative perspective (...) is community-wide, contextual, and instrumental. (shrink)

The paper discusses two recent approaches to schizophrenia, a phenomenological and a neuroscientific approach, illustrating how new directions in philosophy and cognitive science can elaborate accounts of psychopathologies of the self. It is argued that the notion of the minimal and bodily self underlying these approaches is still limited since it downplays the relevance of social interactions and relations for the formation of a coherent sense of self. These approaches also illustrate that we still lack an account of how 1st (...) and 3rd person observations can fruitfully go together in an embodied account of disorders of the self. Two concepts from enactive cognitive science are introduced, the notions of autonomy and sense-making. Based on these, a new proposal for an enactive approach to psychopathologies of the self is outlined that integrates 1st and 3rd person perspectives, while strongly emphasising the role of social interactions in the formation of self. It is shown how the enactive framework might serve as a basis for an alternative understanding of disorders of the self such as schizophrenia, as a particular form of socially constituted self-organisation. (shrink)

The article deals with larger stretches of talk-in-interaction and argues in favor of a descriptive approach, which integrates the structural requirements of global organization, the special type of sequential orderliness within larger units as well as the genre-orientation of these units. Drawing on previous work in conversation analysis, discourse analysis and the sociological genre analysis, the article introduces GLOBE as an analytical tool which functionally links discourse units to conventionalized communicative purposes. GLOBE reconstructs the interactive achievement of genre-oriented discourse units (...) in a three-branch analysis of jobs, devices and forms. The analytical potential of GLOBE is demonstrated in the exemplary genre-contrastive analysis of a narrative, an explanative and an argumentative excerpt. On the basis of the analyses of the three genres, the overarching constitution of genre-oriented global units is then explicated. (shrink)

The ArgumentThis paper describes the way in which a simple device, the pregnancy wheel, has been used by the medical profession to impose a new way of measuring and experiencing pregnancy.The change involves counting in weeks instead of counting in months and it is gradually replacing a commonsensical method that had deep physiological and cultural roots. In contrast, the medical methodology of counting forty weeks is more complicated and lacks direct connections to the events of pregnancyIn the encounter between the (...) doctor and the pregnant woman the pregnancy wheel has a variety of uses, among them determinations of the age and estimated size of the fetus.It plays an additional role, however, in the medicalization of pregnancy by providing the doctor with privileged information. It also influences modes of thinking through the way in which it deals with the question of the beginning of pregnancy, a question that has clear moral implications. (shrink)

Many studies show a developmental advantage for transitive sentences with familiar verbs over those with novel verbs. It might be that once familiar verbs become entrenched in particular constructions, they would be more difficult to understand (than would novel verbs) in non-prototypical constructions. We provide support for this hypothesis investigating German children using a forced-choice pointing paradigm with reversed agent-patient roles. We tested active transitive verbs in study 1. The 2-year olds were better with familiar than novel verbs, while the (...) 2½-year olds pointed correctly for both. In study 2, we tested passives: 2½-year olds were significantly below chance for familiar verbs and at chance for novel verbs, supporting the hypothesis that the entrenchment of the familiar verbs in the active transitive voice was interfering with interpreting them in the passive voice construction. The 3½-year olds were also at chance for novel verbs but above chance with familiar verbs. We interpret this as reflecting a lessening of the verb-in-construction entrenchment as the child develops knowledge that particular verbs can occur in a range of constructions. The 4½-year olds were above chance for both familiar and novel verbs. We discuss our findings in terms of the relative entrenchment of lexical and syntactic information and to interference between them. (shrink)

Proclus, an early figure in the tradition ascribing mathematical intermediates to Plato, has been neglected by more recent proponents of this interpretation. We argue that Proclus’ position should be reconsidered, for he anticipated significant problems arising from what has come to be the typical view of intermediates. To address these concerns, Proclus distinguishes between the intermediates studied in mathematics and the objects described by mathematical theorems.

Recent field studies have broadened our view on cultural performances in animals. This has consequences for the concept of cumulative culture. Here, we deconstruct the common individualist and differential approaches to culture. Individualistic approaches to the study of cultural evolution are shown to be problematic, because culture cannot be reduced to factors on the micro level of individual behavior but possesses a dynamic that only occurs on the group level and profoundly affects the individuals. Naive individuals, as a prerequisite of (...) an atomistic perspective, do not exist. We address the construction of a social approach to culture by introducing an inevitable social embedding of the individual development of social beings. The sociological notion of “habitus” as embodied cultural capital permits us to understand social transmission of behavioral components on a very basic level, resulting in a cumulative effect. Bits of information, movement, handling of material, attitudes, and preferences below distinct functional units are acquired through transfer mechanisms simpler than emulation and imitation such as peering, participation, co-performance, or engagement with a material environment altered by group members. The search for a zero point of cumulative culture becomes as useless as the search for a zero point of culture. Culture is cumulative. (shrink)

From the Ancient Greeks, through medieval Christian doctrine, and into the modern age, philosophers have long held envy to be irrational, a position that increasingly accompanies the political view that envy is not a justification for redistributing material goods. After defining the features of envy, and considering two arguments in favour of its irrationality, this article opposes the dominant philosophical and political consensus. It does so by deploying Rawls's much-ignored concept of ‘excusable envy’ to identify a form of envy that (...) is not imprudent and does not mis-describe. With this work completed, the article then argues – no doubt controversially – that excusable envy constitutes good grounds for redistribution or inequality-mitigation. In so doing, the article throws light on the moral significance of certain forms of uncivil disobedience, and also offers a new vocabulary for popular ‘politics of envy’ debates, which are yet to acknowledge the role of social institutions in reproducing envy-excusing economic inequalities. (shrink)

El presente artículo aborda tres aportes de la deconstrucción de Jacques Derrida a la crítica al nacionalismo en distintos momentos de su obra: a) la deconstrucción del mito de los orígenes como ideal de pureza que expone con la lógica del suplemento; b) la crítica a la noción de un idioma nacional pensado como el idioma de un “nosotros” a partir de una comunidad de espíritu y c) la deconstrucción de un nacionalismo a la vez cosmopolita y humanista, inclusive en (...) filosofías críticas del humanismo y contrarias a cualquier determinación racial o natural. (shrink)

The thought of the ancient atomists about the activity of the soul in the body is an important chapter in the history of reflection on the soul in ancient philosophy. A review of testimonies and fragments attributed to Democritus of Abdera shows its singular conception of the soul as a complex network of transactions through which it exercises, inside compound bodies, its role in driving principle of beings animated. These texts show the tension and dynamism that characterize the activity of (...) the soul and especially the close relationship between the activities of perceiving and thinking, essential activities to the economy of living beings, now for what is the management of biological life, now in terms of knowledge and human action. What we propose here is to examine how Democritus conceived the activity of the soul in its complexity and the various operations through which it accomplishes its function in the animation and the maintenance of life of animate beings, and particularly of human life. To do this, we will take as a basis the testimonies referred to the nature of the soul – especially the testimony of Aristotle and his disciples and commentators – and then examine the activities through which proceeds its role of motor principle, namely the sensations and the intellection. And, finally, we intend to demonstrate that these operations should not be considered, in the context of atomist thought, as two independent and opposed faculties or activities, but as two different levels or degree, contiguous and complementary, of one and the same activity. (shrink)

The article looks at Novi ecclesiastico-scholastici Annales (…), a periodical which is a significant resource in book culture research. The authors focus mainly on book distribution and propagation in Protestant communities during the last decade of the 18th century.

Riassunto: Il presente studio indaga il modo in cui gli scienziati percepiscono la dimensione estetica nella propria attività e nei propri oggetti di studio, al punto da essere un criterio che orienta il loro lavoro; si cercherà pertanto di enucleare le proprietà che caratterizzano il tipo di bellezza da loro riscontrato, facendo riferimento agli scritti di Michael Polanyi. L’autore offre importanti spunti per chiarire il problema della validità di tale uso della bellezza scientifica. La questione è ancor più interessante perché, (...) se la bellezza è legittimamente un criterio scientifico, ne risulta un legame tra scienza e persona (infatti il senso estetico è proprio della persona). Tale bellezza ha caratteristiche specifiche: è intellettuale, strettamente dipendente dall’ordine, dall’intero e dalle relazioni. Inoltre, essa è il termine di una delle cosiddette passioni scientifiche o intellettuali degli scienziati: il ricercatore desidera la bellezza intellettuale e ne è (momentaneamente) appagato. Per Polanyi, la bellezza intellettuale è essenziale alla verità scientifica e ha il potere di rivelare la verità sul mondo naturale. Allo stesso tempo, però, tale standard di bellezza è sempre posto da noi e per noi stessi. Emergono così le tensioni polanyiane a riguardo del realismo. L’articolo propone una soluzione, a favore del criterio di bellezza, che può risultare utile anche per il progresso della ricerca scientifica. (shrink)

A new, social epistemology of science that addresses practical as well as theoretical concerns.

A defense of imprecise credences (and other imprecise doxastic attitudes).

In this paper I argue that while Noë’s actionist approach offers an excellent elaboration of classical approaches to conceptual understanding, it risks underestimating the role of social interactions and relations. Noë’s approach entails a form of body-based individualism according to which understanding is something the mind does all by itself. I propose that we adopt a stronger perspective on the role of sociality and consider the human mind in terms of socially enacted autonomy. On this view, the mind depends constitutively (...) on engaging with and relating to others. As a consequence, conceptual understanding must be seen as a co-achievement. It is a fragile endeavour precisely because it depends not only on the individual but also on the continuous contribution of other subjects. (shrink)

Theories and models are not equivalent. I argue that an orientation towards models as a primary carrier of nursing knowledge overcomes many ongoing challenges in philosophy of nursing science, including the theory–practice divide and the paradoxical pursuit of predictive theories in a discipline that is defined by process and a commitment to the non‐reducibility of the health/care experience. Scientific models describe and explain the dynamics of specific phenomenon. This is distinct from theory, which is traditionally defined as propositions that explain (...) and/or predict the world. The philosophical case has been made against theoretical universalism, showing that a theory can be true in its domain, but that no domain is universal. Subsequently, philosophers focused on scientific models argued that they do the work of defining the boundary conditions—the domain(s)—of a theory. Further analysis has shown the ways models can be constructed and function independent of theory, meaning models can comprise distinct, autonomous “carriers of scientific knowledge.” Models are viewed as representations of the active dynamics, or mechanisms, of a phenomenon. Mechanisms are entities and activities organized such that they are productive of regular changes. Importantly, mechanisms are by definition not static: change may alter the mechanism and thereby alter or create entirely new phenomena. Orienting away from theory, and towards models, focuses scholarly activity on dynamics and change. This makes models arguably critical to nursing science, enabling the production of actionable knowledge about the dynamics of process and change in health/care. I briefly explore the implications for nursing—and health/care—knowledge and practice. (shrink)