Although the proportion of women in leadership positions has grown over the past decades, women are still underrepresented in leadership roles, which poses an ethical challenge to society at large but business in particular. Accordingly, a growing body of research has attempted to unravel the reasons for this inequality. Besides theoretical progress, a central goal of these studies is to inform measures targeted at increasing the share of women in leadership positions. Striving to contribute to these efforts and drawing on (...) several theoretical approaches, the present study provides a contemporary examination of whether women and men differ in their levels of power motivation and whether potential gender differences in this motivation contribute to the unequal distribution of women and men in leadership positions. Results from four studies provide converging support for these assumptions. Specifically, we found that women consistently reported lower power motivation than men. This in turn mediated the link between gender and leadership role occupancy. These results were robust to several methodological variations including samples from different populations, diverse operationalizations of power motivation and leadership role occupancy, and study design. Implications for theory and practice, including ways to contribute to a more equal gender distribution in leadership positions, are discussed. (shrink)

In recent years, personalized medicine (PM) has become a highly regarded line of development in medicine. Yet, it is still a relatively new field. As a consequence, the discussion of its future developments, in particular of its ethical implications, in most cases can only be anticipative. Such anticipative discussions, however, pose several challenges. Nevertheless, they play a crucial role for shaping PM’s further developments. Therefore, it is vital to understand how the ethical discourse on PM is conducted, i.e. on what (...) – empirical and normative – assumptions ethical arguments are based regarding PM’s current and future developments. (shrink)

Essences play a central role in Spinoza’s philosophy, not only in his metaphysics, but also in his philosophy of mind, his theory of affects, and his political philosophy. Despite their importance, however, it is surprisingly difficult to determine what exactly essences are for Spinoza. On a widespread reading, the essence of X is nothing but the concept of X. This paper argues against this identification of essences and concepts. Spinozistic concepts are maximally inclusive: the concept of X contains everything that (...) is needed to make X conceivable. The essence of X, in contrast, is more limited in scope and does not include everything that is needed to make X conceivable. Thus, Spinoza avoids the ‘overloading’ of essences and the problems that would ensue. The account developed in this paper has a surprising implication, namely that the essences of non-divine, singular things do not suffice to render these things fully conceivable on Spinoza’s view. Thus, Spinoza breaks with a tradition according to which the essence of a thing states ‘what the thing is.’ As a result, his conception of essence is much further removed from traditional Aristotelian accounts, and from other seventeenth-century accounts, than usually acknowledged. (shrink)

This entry reviews Carnap's philosophical views on the quantum mechanics of his time. It also offers some thoughts on how he might have reacted to some recent developments in the foundations of quantum mechanics.

What does it mean to be a community and to be in a community? Can this social phenomenon be analogized to an individual person with her interwoven opinions, wants, and desires? Or is a community a phenomenon sui generis that requires its own methods and tools for research? Concretely: What does it mean that a community may achieve certain acts? And what about the intentional object of such an act, which has also been referred to as “social act”? These questions (...) raise the methodological ones: how is it even possible to characterize a community, such that it can be said to issue social acts? And how can such an inquiry be carried out, does it require an outside perspective or one from within a community, or can it be done by both? (shrink)

The Aristotelian account of change—according to which no individual can survive a change of species because an individual's essence is, at least in part, determined by its species membership—remains popular in the seventeenth century. One important, but often overlooked dissenting voice comes from Anne Conway. Unlike many of her contemporaries, Conway firmly rejects the Aristotelian account of change. She instead endorses the doctrine of Radical Mutability, the view that a creature can belong to different species at different times. A horse, (...) for example, can gradually become a human being and yet remain the same individual. Why, though, is Conway so opposed to the prima facie appealing Aristotelian account of change? This paper claims that she levels two arguments against this account which have been largely neglected so far. First, she argues that there could be no causal interaction between creatures belonging to different species with distinct essences, because cause and effect would be too dissimilar in that case. Second, Conway argues that the Aristotelian model is inconsistent with divine goodness because it allows for the annihilation of creatures and because it imposes arbitrary restrictions on the capacity of creatures to improve. (shrink)

The belief that White people are targeted victims of dispossession, displacement, and genocide has spread with shocking intensity since Donald Trump’s 2016 electoral college victory. Although this Great Replacement myth may seem absurd and irrational, its destructive real-world consequences force the question: what explains its efficacy and appeal? Drawing on White nationalists Greg Johnson and Tucker Carlson, I argue that the Great Replacement myth functions as an explanation for the real socioeconomic decline that has culminated in deaths of despair. I (...) then explore this decline’s sociohistorical context to argue that deaths of despair are consequences of political-economic domination reinforced by White supremacy. Put otherwise, these deaths result from socioeconomic violence that White people have inflicted on each other. I conclude that the real problem “the White race” faces today is not a Great Replacement but a Slow White Suicide. (shrink)

For years as an award-winning war reporter, Sebastian Junger traveled to many front lines and frequently put his life at risk. And yet the closest he ever came to death was the summer of 2020 while spending a quiet afternoon at the New England home he shared with his wife and two young children. Crippled by abdominal pain, Junger was rushed to the hospital by ambulance. Once there, he began slipping away. As blackness encroached, he was visited by his (...) dead father, inviting Junger to join him. "It's okay," his father said. "There's nothing to be scared of. I'll take care of you." That was the last thing Junger remembered until he came to the next day when he was told he had suffered a ruptured aneurysm that he should not have survived. This experience spurred Junger--a confirmed atheist raised by his physicist father to respect the empirical--to undertake a scientific, philosophical, and deeply personal examination of mortality and what happens after we die. How do we begin to process the brutal fact that any of us might perish unexpectedly on what begins as an ordinary day? How do we grapple with phenomena that science may be unable to explain? And what happens to a person, emotionally and spiritually, when forced to reckon with such existential questions? (shrink)

The objective of this research is to understand, predict and explain what factors influence organizations and induce individuals to accept technology. Through the methodology of content analysis and based on the Web of Science database and through the MAXQDA software, this document analyzes and reviews the ten most important theories and models of technology acceptance used in recent years. This review offers a holistic view that will help future researchers to select the most appropriate theories to apply to their field (...) of study. (shrink)

Zusammenfassung Eine Untersuchung der diplomatischen Kontakte zwischen östlichem und westlichem Kaisertum im 10. Jahrhundert kann praktisch nur auf zwei umfangreichere Quellen zurückgreifen: den Legationsbericht des Liudprand von Cremona und die Briefe des byzantinischen Metropoliten und Synkellos Leon von seiner Westreise 996/998. Beide Texte sind keine offiziellen Dokumente, wie sie für das 9. Jahrhundert noch in beachtlicher Dichte vorliegen, aber sie geben daher nicht nur den Ereignissen, sondern auch Haltungen, Motivationen und individuellen Wahrnehmungen breiteren Raum, so daß sich ein in Teilen (...) lebendigeres Bild dieser Diplomatie eruieren läßt. Dagegen treten theoretische Prämissen deutlich zurück. Selbst bei Liudprand, im Umgang mit dessen Legatio starke quellenkritische Vorbehalte nicht unberücksichtigt bleiben dürfen, wird die „Zweikaiserfrage“ nur an wenigen Stellen Gegenstand, und Leon vermeidet offenbar jede Äußerung dazu. Dabei wäre eine Auseinandersetzung mit „unverschämten“ Ansprüchen des Westens auf die Basileia ein rhetorisch für ihn sicher ebenso angemessener Stoff gewesen wie die Verdammung des Philagathos. Im Vergleich beider Autoren ergeben sich zudem interessante Parallelen: beide haben ein ambivalentes Rom-Bild, beide können persönliche Feindbilder wirkmächtig stilisieren und mit politischen Argumenten vernetzen, vor allem aber entwickeln beide wirkungsvolle Mechanismen zur Verdrängung einer faktischen Zwangssituation und erwecken die Illusion, unabhängig handeln zu können oder mindestens rhetorische Überlegenheit gezeigt zu haben. Das hat in der Literatur nicht selten zu einer Überbewertung ihrer tatsächlichen politischen Rolle geführt. So dürfte Leon von Synada bei der Erhebung seines persönlichen Feindes Johannes Philagathos zum Gegenpapst 997 in Rom kaum mehr als eine legitimatorische Funktion zugekommen sein, obgleich er für sich in Anspruch nimmt, das ganze Geschehen initiiert und (zunächst) erfolgreich zum Ergebnis geführt zu haben. Stattdessen lassen sich durchaus Gründe für ein Zerwürfnis zwischen Otto III. und Johannes Philagathos im Vorfeld von dessen Rebellion benennen, insbesondere der Entzug der Abtei Nonantola durch den Kaiser, der eben nicht eine Reaktion auf das neue Gegenpapsttum darstellt, sondern ein Motiv zum endgültigen Bruch des Philagathos mit seinem kaiserlichen Schüler. Das eigentlich überraschende Faktum ist aber, daß die in ihrer Herrschaftsauffassung sehr anspruchsvolle Gestalt Ottos III. offenbar keine ideologische Konfrontation mit dem nicht minder selbstbewußten Basileios II. provozierte. Auch dies rechtfertigt es, die Bedeutung des Zweikaiserproblems gegenüber den zahlreichen politischen, territorialen und kirchenadministrativen Faktoren des Gegensatzes beider Seiten, welche beispielsweise in der Spätphase der Herrschaft Ottos I. und von 981-983 bei Otto II. unverkennbar hervortreten, zu relativieren. Daß das westliche Kaisertum also überhaupt in einem signifikanten Maße Gegenstand byzantinischer „Außenpolitik“ geworden ist, das verdankt es zweifellos primär der territorialen Bindung an Italien. (shrink)

Ausgangpunkt ist die zentrale Position des Solipsismus im Fruhwerk Wittgensteins. Die metaphysischen wie epistemologischen Implikationen solipsistischer Philosophie werden unterstutzt durch den Nachlass durch das Werk Wittgensteins verfolgt. Entscheidend ist dabei die These, dass Wittgenstein immer eine spezielle Form des ontologischen Solipsismus vertreten hat. Vor diesem Hintergrund lassen sich die Zeichentheorie sowie die Konzeption der Sprachspiele verstehen. Auch die Problematik der Gebrauchstheorie und des Regelfolgens beim Sprechen mussen neu gewichtet werden.".

The ability to anticipate team members' actions enables joint action towards a common goal. Task knowledge and mental simulation allow for anticipating other agents' actions and for making inferences about their underlying mental representations. In human–AI teams, providing AI agents with anticipatory mechanisms can facilitate collaboration and successful execution of joint action. This paper presents a computational cognitive model demonstrating mental simulation of operators' mental models of a situation and anticipation of their behavior. The work proposes two successive steps: (1) (...) A hierarchical cluster algorithm is applied to recognize patterns of behavior among pilots. These behavioral clusters are used to derive commonalities in situation models from empirical data (N = 13 pilots). (2) An ACT-R (adaptive control of thought - rational) cognitive model is implemented to mentally simulate different possible outcomes of action decisions and timing of a pilot. model tracing of ACT-R allows following up on operators' individual actions. Two models are implemented using the symbolic representations of ACT-R: one simulating normative behavior and the other by simulating individual differences and using subsymbolic learning. Model performance is analyzed by a comparison of both models. Results indicate the improved performance of the individual differences over the normative model and are discussed regarding implications for cognitive assistance capable of anticipating operator behavior. (shrink)

Al-Jāḥiẓ: In Praise of Books. By James E. Montgomery. Edinburgh Studies in Classical Arabic Literature, vol. 2. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2013. Pp. vi + 586. $160, £95.

Résumé L'article vise à montrer que le langage est intimement lié au monde social et que la clarification d'une telle relation dépend du fait de considérer sur un même plan les énoncés et les actions, ce qui conduit à considérer l'énonciation par le langage comme un type de comportement partagé. Cela signifie que la langue ne sert pas seulement les besoins de la vie sociale en tant que moyen d'intercompréhension. De façon relativement autonome, le langage fonctionne dans des conditions de (...) réalisation qui sont des relations sociales très segmentées et hiérarchisées. L'hypothèse est qu'il est nécessaire, comme point de départ de l'analyse du caractère social du langage, de reconnaître la valeur performative qu'ont les énoncés, du fait qu'ils contiennent, dans le domaine des actes de langage, un certain pouvoir effectif ajusté aux conditions sociales qui détermine leur énonciation. Resumen El artículo tiene el objetivo de mostrar que el lenguaje está íntimamente vinculado con el mundo social y que aclarar tal relación depende de considerar en un mismo plano de dependencia a los enunciados y a las acciones - lo que lleva a considerar al lenguaje como un tipo de comportamiento compartido. Eso quiere decir que el lenguaje no solo sirve a las necesidades de la vida social como medio de intercomprensión. Sobre un fondo relativamente autónomo -caracterizable en las consideraciones sobre los matices semánticos introducidos por las significaciones implícitas- el lenguaje funciona en condiciones de realización que son relaciones sociales altamente segmentadas y jerarquizadas. La hipótesis es que el lenguaje se realiza socialmente en la medida en que facilita a los individuos una forma de contacto. Pero también insistimos en que como punto de partida para el análisis del carácter social del lenguaje es necesario reconocer el valor performativo que tienen los enunciados en cuanto comportan, en el ámbito de los hechos del habla, un cierto poder realizativo ajustado a condiciones sociales que determinan los caminos de tal realización. (shrink)

In this book, an international team of scholars from leading American, British and Continental European universities presents original ideas about religious epistemology, the philosophy of God's action in the world, including the problem of evil and Divine Providence, and the philosophical challenge of religious diversity.

Despite the implied critical stance of dystopian narratives, there is a strand of beautiful, aesthetically pleasant dystopias—inherently ambivalent texts that are—both fascinating and horrifying. Drawing from examples in literature and television, this article argues that “beautified dystopias” generate a surplus of aesthetic enjoyment, harboring a mystifying potential in tension with the critical-satirical potential of dystopias. In a rereading of Yevgeny Zamyatin's We, this article first examine how D-503's aestheticizing voice—although undeniably constructed for a satirical effect—fosters a degree of fascination toward (...) the dystopian world in excess of Zamyatin's intentions. Second, taking Black Mirror's “Fifteen Million Merits” as an example of contemporary televisual dystopias, this article argues that the supposedly ironic construction of beautified cinematic mise-en-scènes deepens and complicates the underlying ambivalence of “beautified dystopias.” The author's assumption is that this is not an exceptional case, but rather an integral part of the current dystopian structure of feeling. (shrink)

Este artículo tiene como objetivo analizar la construcción subjetiva de un rapero de Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires en su obra artística y su vida cotidiana. Se plantea que la forma de elaborar su personaje público se relaciona con las categorías nativas de “jugársela” y “estar jugado”, lo que se conecta a corrientes de individualización más amplias asociadas al uso de las redes sociales, la espiritualidad de la Nueva Era, la psicologización y el propio dispositivo rapero. De esta forma —mediante (...) el análisis de letras de canciones, video clips, posteos en Instagram, situaciones de campo y entrevistas—, se describe cómo Núcleo —el rapero en cuestión— presenta sus “fragilidades” y “fuerzas” enfatizando su activación personal y las relaciones con otros; extiende sus vínculos a las “energías”; se exhibe como alguien apegado a la “cultura hip-hop”; y como una persona responsable ante su familia. De tal modo, establece una particular relación entre lo individual y lo colectivo que permite indagar en una singular figura de individuo presente en las clases populares de la Argentina contemporánea, que se diferencia de un tipo de individualismo que se adjudica a las concepciones neoliberales. (shrink)

Starting with an empirical study of several Jehovah’s Witnesses1 congregations we aim to highlight the social mechanisms of religious conversion and the phases an individual passes through before becoming a Witness. By applying Lewis Rambo’s systemic stage model of conversion we are able to identify a series of elements that characterize the conversion to this religion in Romania, such as: social filtering, delegitimation of the previous religion, and incipient identification with the Witnesses’ group. The article asserts that the Witnesses’ decision (...) to convert implies the deliberate assumption of the others’ disapproval and even social stigmatization. Nevertheless they opt for this religious status because the immediate benefits brought by the religious community and the future benefits of the earthly Heaven offer them sufficient motives for becoming Witnesses. (shrink)

Addiction is a widespread problem affecting people from different regions, generations, and classes. It is often analysed as a problem consisting in compulsion or poor choice-making. Recently, however, integrated analyses of compulsion and choice have been called for. In this paper, I argue that the capability approach highlights the well-being loss at stake in cases of addiction, whether they are described as stemming from compulsion, poor choice-making, or some combination thereof. The relevant capabilities obtain when combinations of individual, socio-political, and (...) environmental factors jointly facilitate abstention. On this complementary evaluative analysis, people’s capabilities to abstain are shown to be undermined by how different kinds of factors interact with each other. The upshot is that without committing to an empirical view of the nature of addiction that must capture each case, the capabilitarian analysis helps highlight a central goal of addiction-related well-being policy-work, namely to promote people’s genuine opportunities to abstain. (shrink)

Schoene-Seifert's and Stier's thought-provoking target article (2013) addresses so many complex issues that it seems impossible to provide a comprehensive commentary in this space. Therefore, we co...

If we look for the ideal of language that goes through the philosophical tradition, we immediately find the linguistic paradigm ruled by the logical empire. This one sets the limit between reason and the meaningless silence. Nevertheless, we can ́t ignore the other logic that has fissured the monolithic rationality, opening the possibilities of other way of thinking and also thinking the other. Blanchot has been one of the most important exponents of that other reason and has received Kafka ́s (...) great influence, so bringing his thought to literature perhaps made Blanchot think of the outside.  . (shrink)

Racjonalizm w kulturze europejskiej istnieje już od starożytności. Jednak w każdej z epok, przyjmował różną postać: metafizyczną, klasyczną i pragmatyczną. Te różne postacie racjonalizmu miały wpływ na kształtowanie się w przestrzeni duchowej podobnych postaw, poglądów i paradygmatów. I tak, w starożytności racjonalizm nie był przeciwieństwem metafizyki, wręcz się z nią łączył, w średniowieczu nastąpił podział na racjonalizm metafizyczny, który łączył się on z chrześcijaństwem, i racjonalizm, który po nowożytności zyskał miano klasycznego. Natomiast w dobie współczesności racjonalizm przybrał formę pragmatyczną i (...) teoretyczną w różnych społecznych ideach, będąc dalekim od tego, co w starożytności określano mianem praktyki, a to z kolei przełożyło się na społeczne problemy, które nazwać można kryzysem kultury. (shrink)