Purpose This study aims to explore the association between internet addiction and problem behaviours on social networking sites using the general strain theory. Design/methodology/approach Using the purposive sampling method, a survey was conducted, which collected data from 414 college students studying in two public universities in South Australia. The Delphi method was used to develop the questionnaire used for the survey. Findings 'Results of this research indicated a significant association between internet addiction and problem behaviours on SNS. Respondents (...) who had engaged in problem behaviours on SNS had high internet addiction test scores. On the basis of this finding, the present research argues that the general strains associated with the suffering of newly emerging challenges such as internet addiction might contribute to victimisation and deviant and problem behaviours on SNS in specific and possibly in cyberspace in general. Research limitations/implications Results of the present study need to be interpreted cautiously due to many limitations it has. This research is a cross-sectional study, which might not adequately explain the associations between internet addiction and problem behaviours on SNS. Longitudinal studies involving larger samples might have added significant value to this study. The present study uses purposive sampling technique, which has limited its generalizability, and its findings may not be generalised to large populations. Originality/value Limited information is available pertaining to the association between problem behaviours on SNS and internet addiction. The present study is a pioneering effort, which argues that rapid popularity of SNS is likely to increase internet addiction and the frustration of not getting proper treatment for their internet addiction might lead to deviant behaviours on SNS. (shrink)

Pressured Into Crime: An Overview of General Strain Theory by Robert Agnew provides an overview of general strain theory, one of the leading explanations of crime and delinquency, developed by author Robert Agnew. Written to be student-friendly, Pressured Into Crime features numerous real-world examples, insightful and colorful quotes from former and active criminals, clear summaries of major points, and challenging review and discussion questions at the end of each chapter.This book provides the following:* It compares and (...) contrasts GST to other leading theories of crime, including biopsychological, control, social learning, routine activities, and social disorganization theories.* It describes the evidence on GST, including the most current research on the types of strains most likely to cause crime, why these strains cause crime, and the factors that influence the effects of strains on crime.* It employs GST to explain patterns of offending over the life course as well as age, gender, class, and race/ethnic differences in offending.* It uses GST to explain community and societal differences in crime rates.* It draws on GST to make recommendations for reducing crime.* It revises and extends GST to take into account the latest research findings.Pressured Into Crime allows students to explore this major theory in depth--reviewing the research on the theory, comparing it to other theories, and applying the theory to key issues in the study of crime. (shrink)

PurposeThe purpose of this viewpoint paper is to provide an overview of three papers included in a Special Issue of the Journal of Information Communication Ethics and Society, entitled Ethics in the Virtual World.Design/methodology/approachThe papers were chosen because they reflect three key themes in computing, ethics and society. These are: the explosion in the number of opportunities for accessing sensitive data in the health sector; the risks inherent in designing information systems through technical procedures that fail to address the human (...) character of the environments they are intended to serve; and the need to teach computing ethics to students of computing. All three articles draw on philosophical approaches to ethics and well as technical aspects of system use, system design and pedagogy, respectively.FindingsThe papers demonstrate the interdisciplinary nature of computing ethics and the contested political issues at stake in using and designing information systems.Originality/valueThis editorial viewpoint paper presents the hypothesis that the ethical issues once embodied in socio‐technical systems theory have a particular salience for the contemporary ethical debates concerning computing ethics. (shrink)

Religious and Ethical Perspectives on Global Migration examines the complicated social ethics of migration in today's world. Editors Elizabeth W. Collier and Charles R. Strain bring the perspectives of an international group of scholars toward a theory of justice and ethical understanding for the nearly two hundred million migrants who have left their homes seeking asylum from political persecution, greater freedom and safety, economic opportunity, or reunion with family members.

Feminist Theory After Deleuze addresses the encounter between one of the 20th century's most important philosophers, Gilles Deleuze, and one of its most significant political and intellectual movements, feminism. Feminist theory is a broad, contradictory, and still evolving school of thought. This book introduces the key movements within feminist theory, engaging with both Anglo-American and French feminism, as well as important strains of feminist thought that have originated in Australia and other parts of Europe. Mapping both the (...) feminist critique of Deleuze's work and the ways in which it has brought vitality to feminist theory, this book brings Deleuze into dialogue with significant thinkers such as Simone de Beauvoir, Rosi Braidotti, Judith Butler, Elizabeth Grosz and Luce Irigaray. It takes key terms in feminist theory such as, 'difference', 'gender', 'bodies', 'desire' and 'politics' and approaches them from a Deleuzian perspective. (shrink)

Social scientists have expended substantial effort to identify group patterns of deviant behavior. Yet beyond the ill-conceived treatment of sexual minorities as inherently deviant, they have rarely considered how gendered sexual identities shape participation in deviance. We argue for the utility of centering theories of gender and sexuality in intersectional deviance research. We demonstrate how this intentional focus on gender and sexuality provides important empirical insights while avoiding past pitfalls of stigmatizing sexual minorities. Drawing on theories of hegemonic masculinity, emphasized (...) femininity, and minority stress together with criminological general strain theory, we demonstrate how societal expectations and constraints generate strains among GSI groups that may lead to distinctly patterned deviance, using the case of prescription drug misuse during sex. We employ thematic analysis of 120 in-depth interviews with people who misuse prescription drugs, stratified by GSI. We identify six themes highlighting distinct pathways from strain to misuse during sex for different GSI groups: intimacy management, achieving sexual freedom, regulating sexual mood, performance confidence, increased sense of control, and managing sexual identity conflict. In this article, we demonstrate the empirical and theoretical importance of centering gender and sexuality in deviance research and provide a roadmap for theoretical integration. (shrink)

Abstract:The purpose of this paper is to suggest that at least one strain of what has come to be called “stakeholder theory” has roots that are deeply libertarian. We begin by explicating both “stakeholder theory” and “libertarian arguments.” We show how there are libertarian arguments for both instrumental and normative stakeholder theory, and we construct a version of capitalism, called “stakeholder capitalism,” that builds on these libertarian ideas. We argue throughout that strong notions of “freedom” and (...) “voluntary action” are the best possible underpinnings for stakeholder theory, and in doing so, seek to return “stakeholder theory” to its managerial and libertarian roots found in Freeman (1984). (shrink)

Moral theory has generally focused on resolving ethical dilemmas by identifying ethically sound options. Whether the focus is on consequences, duties, principles or virtues, ethical cases are often approached in ways that assume morally sound solutions can be found and followed. Such ‘ideal morality’ assumes that moral goodness is always possible, leaving people confident they have done the right thing. Such an approach becomes inadequate in disaster settings where any good solution is often difficult to see. This paper examines (...) recent work on nonideal moral theory as a useful model for disaster bioethics. This approach views moral dilemmas as situations where no choice is ideal and every option involves some element of unavoidable wrongdoing. Rather than straining for ideal answers, this approach acknowledges that sometimes the lesser of two evils is the best that can be done. Such situations inevitably lead to feelings of regret or guilt, commonly encountered in discussions of disaster bioethics. This paper explores the practical implications of nonideal approaches for disaster responders working in tragic situations. (shrink)

Following extended periods of conflict or repression, political reconciliation is indispensable to the establishment or restoration of democratic relationships and critical to the pursuit of peacemaking globally. In this book, Colleen Murphy offers an innovative analysis of the moral problems plaguing political relationships under the strain of civil conflict and repression. Focusing on the unique moral damage that attends the deterioration of political relationships, Murphy identifies the precise kinds of repair and transformation that processes of political reconciliation ought to (...) promote. Building on this analysis, she proposes a normative model of political relationships. A Moral Theory of Political Reconciliation delivers an original account of the failure and restoration of political relationships, which will be of interest to philosophers, social scientists, legal scholars, policy analysts, and all those who are interested in transitional justice, global politics, and democracy. (shrink)

The purpose of this paper is to suggest that at least one strain of what has come to be called “stakeholder theory” has roots that are deeply libertarian. We begin by explicating both “stakeholder theory” and “libertarian arguments.” We show how there are libertarian arguments for both instrumental and normative stakeholder theory, and we construct a version of capitalism, called “stakeholder capitalism,” that builds on these libertarian ideas. We argue throughout that strong notions of “freedom” and (...) “voluntary action” are the best possible underpinnings for stakeholder theory, and in doing so, seek to return “stakeholder theory” to its managerial and libertarian roots found in Freeman. (shrink)

This paper argues that libertarian political philosophers, including Robert Nozick, have erred in neglecting the problem of political obligation and that they ought to embrace an actual consent theory of political obligation and state legitimacy. It argues as well that if they followed this recommendation, their position on the subject would be correct. I identify the tension in libertarian (and especially Nozick's) thought between its minimalist and its consensualist strains and argue that, on libertarianism's own terms, the consensualist (...) class='Hi'>strain ought to prevail. I then describe the form of the consent theory that I recommend to libertarians. The paper concludes with an extended defense of this form of consent theory against contemporary liberal-egalitarian criticisms of it (both explicit and implicit), including those of Dworkin, Rawls, and their followers. Footnotesa Earlier versions of this essay were presented at the University of Michigan, Virginia Commonwealth University, and Brown University. For their lively discussions and helpful suggestions for the improvement of this essay, I am grateful to those audiences and to my fellow contributors to this volume. And for their careful reading and comments, I thank the editors of Social Philosophy and Policy. (shrink)

Rawls's theory of justice has had two parallel lives in political theory. The first is framed as an alternative to utilitarianism, and in particular utilitarianism's failure to take seriously the separateness of persons and each individual's right to pursue his or her own projects in life. The second is framed as an alternative to libertarianism, and in particular libertarianism's failure to take seriously our moral obligations to the well‐being of our fellow citizens. This chapter explores where and why (...) Rawls's “justice as fairness” and libertarianism come apart. It focuses on their respective treatments of the just distribution of wealth. Finally, in the real world one would have to worry about the strains of commitment not just for those who want to defect from “justice as fairness” once they see how things turn out for them, but also from those who never accept its normative vision. (shrink)

This essay assesses the value of social constructivist theories of science to the history of medicine. It highlights particularly the ways in which feminist theorists have turned their attention to gender as a category of analysis in scientific thinking, producing an approach to modern science that asks how it became identified with "male" objectivity, reason, and mind, set in opposition to "female" subjectivity, feeling, and nature.In the history of medicine this new work has allowed a group of scholars to better (...) explain not only how women were marginalized in the profession but also the manner in which politics, male anxiety about shifts in power relations between the sexes, social and political upheaval, professional concerns, and changes in the family all had an impact on the production of knowledge regarding the female body, including the "discovery," definition, and treatment of a wide range of female ailments, from anorexia nervosa to fibroid tumors.Building on the work in the history of medicine already accomplished, the essay offers a critical rereading of the writings of Elizabeth Blackwell, a pioneer nineteenth-century woman physician and leader of the woman's medical movement. It contends that Blackwell, who lived through a revolutionary change in medical thinking brought on by discoveries in immunology and bacteriology, remained critical of "objectivity" as the "best" form of knowing and suspicious of the laboratory medicine that promoted it so enthusiastically. Moreover, her critiques of radical objectivity and scientific reductionism deserve to be recognized as foreshadowing the maternalist strain of thinking among contemporary feminist philosophers and thinkers such as Sara Ruddick and others. (shrink)

An influential strain in the literature on state punishment analyzes the permissibility of punishment in exclusively deontological terms, whether in terms of an individual’s rights, the state’s obligation to vindicate the law, or both. I argue that we should reject a deontological theory of punishment because it cannot explain what is unjust about mass incarceration, although mass incarceration is widely considered—including by proponents of deontological theories—to be unjust. The failure of deontological theories suggests a minimum criterion of adequacy (...) for a theory of punishment: it must take aggregation sufficiently seriously that it returns plausible results when scaled up from individual cases to large public institutions. In this vein, I briefly sketch a prioritarian metric for evaluating the use of custodial sanctions as a means of creating and allocating social advantage. (shrink)

ABSTRACT One of the most important developments in twentieth-century rhetorical theory is Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca's insight that concepts, when under strain, can be split or dissociated into two separate terms. Not a simple binary, these terms remain interconnected in a value hierarchy with one term serving as the normative frame for the other. Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca theorize that either term can be dissociated further, producing a fan-type dissociation. Unlike ordinary dissociations, fan-types place three or more terms in hierarchical (...) relationship, resulting in unique rhetorical features. Fanning a dissociation can serve three basic rhetorical functions: purging undesirable elements, preserving less undesirable elements from total devaluation, and purifying desirable elements. Building on these basic functions, rhetors can perform complex rhetorical actions, from intensifying a dissociation's values to completely undoing a dissociation. Long ignored by theorists and critics, fan-types complicate our understanding of dissociation, argumentation, and value-based reasoning, and therefore deserve more scholarly attention. (shrink)

The problem of heterosis has been scrutinized from two points of view: the general experimental methodology and the interpretation of the facts in existing theories.Concerning the general experimental methodology, the relativity of the concept of heterosis is shown with respect to age and time of development of the parental strains, to the variations of the environmental conditions and to the direction of the reciprocal crosses. Therefore, in a large number of cases, experiments have taught not to be exhaustive.Concerning the existing (...) theories, heterosis is considered to be the result of a heterozygosity which can express itself at three levels, which are defined as heteroallely, heterogenomy and heterocytomy. Some works, which are well-representative for one of these three levels, are analysed, and within the results and theories of these works is looked for a point of agreement, in order to render a general hypothesis of heterosis possible. This point of agreement appears to be the cytoplasm, or more precisely, a nucleo-cytoplasmic equilibrium. In this way alone it is possible to disclose the existing continuity from crosses, as well as in the expression of the ovula-spermatozoid compatibility, which varies from lethality to hybrid vigour. From these evidences a general theory of heterosis is presented, by which heterosis is explained as the result of a disturbed nucleocytoplasmic equilibrium: it considers heterosis as a particular case of a more general law,i.e. the ovula-spermatozoid compatibility.This hypothesis is also discussed with respect to the diverse existing theories of cytoplasmic heredity. Some unsolved questions bearing on these problems are put forward, and the way to their solution has been indicated. (shrink)

There are a number of key data-centric questions that must be answered when developing classifiers for operator functional states. “Should a supervised or unsupervised learning approach be used? What degree of labeling and transformation must be performed on the data? What are the trade-offs between algorithm flexibility and model interpretability, as generally these features are at odds?” Here, we focus exclusively on the labeling of cognitive load data for supervised learning. We explored three methods of labeling cognitive states for three-state (...) classification. The first method labels states derived from a tertiary split of trial difficulty during a spatial memory task. The second method was more adaptive; it employed a mixed-effects stress–strain curve and estimated an individual’s performance asymptotes with respect to the same spatial memory task. The final method was similar to the second approach; however, it employed a mixed-effects Rasch model to estimate individual capacity limits within the context of item response theory for the spatial memory task. To assess the strength of each of these labeling approaches, we compared the area under the curve (AUC) for receiver operating curves (ROCs) from elastic net and random forest classifiers. We chose these classifiers based on a combination of interpretability, flexibility, and past modeling success. We tested these techniques across two groups of individuals and two tasks to test the effects of different labeling techniques on cross-person and cross-task transfer. Overall, we observed that the Rasch model labeling paired with a random forest classifier led to the best model fits and showed evidence of both cross-person and cross-task transfer. (shrink)

We have refined entropy theory to explore the meaning of the increasing sequence data on nucleic acids and proteins more conveniently. The concept of selection constraint was not introduced, only the analyzed sequences themselves were considered. The refined theory serves as a basis for deriving a method to analyze non-coding regions (NCRs) as well as coding regions. Positions with maximal entropy might play the most important role in genome functions as opposed to positions with minimal entropy. This method (...) was tested in the well-characterized coding regions of 12 strains of Classical Swine Fever Virus (CSFV) and non-coding regions of 20 strains of CSFV. It is suitable to analyze nucleic acid sequences of a complete genome and to detect sensitive positions for mutagenesis. As such, the method serves to formulate the basis for elucidating the functional mechanism. (shrink)

The too-often unhappy 'marriage' of political theory and political science has long been a source of anguish for both partners. Should this troubled partnership be dissolved? Or might this marriage yet be saved? Ball answers the former question negatively and the latter affirmatively. Playing the part of therapist instead of theorist, he selectively recounts a number of episodes which estranged the partners and strained the marriage. And yet, he concludes that the conflicts were in hindsight more constructive than destructive, (...) benefiting both partners in heretofore unexpected ways and perhaps paving a path toward reconciliation and rapprochement. (shrink)

Quantum Mechanics has imposed strain on traditional (dualist and representationalist) epistemological conceptions. An alternative was offered by Bohr and Heisenberg, according to whom natural science does not describe nature, but rather the interplay between nature and ourselves. But this was only a suggestion. In this paper, a systematic development of the Bohr-Heisenberg conception is outlined, by way of a comparison with the modern self-organizational theories of cognition. It is shown that a perfectly consistent non-representationalist (and/or relational) reading of quantum (...) mechanics can be reached thus. (shrink)

Whereas decades of research have cataloged striking errors in physical reasoning, a resurgence of interest in intuitive physics has revealed humans’ remarkable ability to successfully predict the unfolding of physical scenes. A leading interpretation intended to resolve these opposing results is that physical reasoning recruits a general-purpose mechanism that reliably models physical scenarios (explaining recent successes), but overly contrived tasks or impoverished and ecologically invalid stimuli can produce poor performance (accounting for earlier failures). But might there be tasks that persistently (...) strain physical understanding, even in naturalistic contexts? Here, we explore this question by introducing a new intuitive physics task: evaluating the strength of knots and tangles. Knots are ubiquitous across cultures and time-periods, and evaluating them correctly often spells the difference between safety and peril. Despite this, 5 experiments show that observers fail to discern even very large differences in strength between knots. In a series of two-alternative forced-choice tasks, observers viewed a variety of simple “bends” (knots joining two pieces of thread) and decided which would require more force to undo. Though the strength of these knots is well-documented, observers’ judgments completely failed to reflect these distinctions, across naturalistic photographs (E1), idealized renderings (E2), dynamic videos (E3), and even when accompanied by schematic diagrams of the knots’ structures (E4). Moreover, these failures persisted despite accurate identification of the topological differences between the knots (E5); in other words, even when observers correctly perceived the underlying structure of the knot, they failed to correctly judge its strength. These results expose a blindspot in physical reasoning, placing new constraints on general-purpose theories of scene understanding. (shrink)

Many liberal political philosophers hold that the state should not impose or even promote any particular conception of the good life or human flourishing. It should not, for instance, enact laws and policies designed to elevate citizens' tastes, to refine their sensibilities or to perfect their characters. Instead, the state should restrict itself to maintaining a fair framework of rights and opportunities within which all citizens can pursue their own beliefs about what constitutes a good life. Against this backdrop, Collis (...) Tahzib develops a version of perfectionist political philosophy. Whereas previous perfectionists have argued that the promotion of flourishing ways of life is permissible or legitimate, Tahzib casts perfectionism as a doctrine of justice. On this view, the implementation of laws and policies designed to promote sound ideals of the good life--ideals such as moral, intellectual and artistic excellence--is not merely a legitimate complement to justice but an essential constituent of justice. Over the years, perfectionism has faced various objections: that it is premised on values and judgements that are controversial within modern pluralistic societies; that it is unduly restrictive of freedom or autonomy; that it treats citizens as if they are children, unable to run their own lives; that it expresses the meddlesome mentality of a village busybody; that it mistakenly assumes that there are objective truths about human flourishing; and that it risks the abuse of power by incompetent, overzealous or corrupt state officials. These ideas represent some of the deepest, most vibrant and most powerful strains in liberal thought. In defending perfectionism against these charges, the arguments in A Perfectionist Theory of Justice make a novel and important contribution to longstanding debates about the philosophical foundations of liberalism. (shrink)

Perfect Harmony and Melting Strains assembles interdisciplinary essays investigating concepts of harmony during a transitional period, in which the Pythagorean notion of a harmoniously ordered cosmos competed with and was transformed by new theories about sound - and new ways of conceptualizing the world. From the perspectives of philosophy, literary scholarship, and musicology, the contributions consider music's ambivalent position between mathematical abstraction and sensibility, between the metaphysics of harmony and the physics of sound. Essays examine the late medieval and early (...) modern history of ideas concerning the nature of music and cosmic harmony, and trace their transformations in early modern musico-literary discourses. Within this framework, essays further offer original readings of important philosophical, literary, and musicological works. This interdisciplinary volume brings into focus the transformation of a predominant Renaissance worldview and of music's scientific, theological, literary, as well as cultural conceptions and functions in the early modern period, and will be of interest to scholars of the classics, philosophy, musicology, as well as literary and cultural studies. (shrink)

touch 27 Thirrdly, the straining of the eye 28 The occasions which suggest distance have in their own nature no relation to it 29 A difficult case proposed by Dr. Barrow as repugnant to all the known theories 30 This case contradicts a ...

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Max Nordau, Madison Grant, and Racialized Theories of IdeologyJohannes Hendrikus BurgersRecently, Jonathan Spiro has undertaken the Herculean task of recovering the ghost of the conservationist and anti-immigrant racist Madison Grant from a very limited archival record. Spiro’s biography is an invaluable resource that covers, in as much detail as possible, Grant’s life and thought. Although largely forgotten now, in the first half of the twentieth century Grant was a (...) leading figure in the eugenics movement that sterilized thousands of people deemed unfit to reproduce. He was also a prominent advocate of immigration restriction, and he helped southern racists ban miscegenation.1 Like other scholars before him, Spiro argues that Grant arrived at many of his views through the work of such racial scientists as Arthur de Gobineau, Francis Galton, and Houston Stewart Chamberlain.2 While he and other scholars are certainly correct in drawing such a lineage, one unlikely and hitherto unexplored parallel to Grant’s thought specifically, and American eugenics in general, was that of Hungarian cultural critic and later Zionist leader, Max Nordau. By elucidating their intellectual kinship, this paper seeks to reveal the extent to which early twentieth-century transatlantic racial discourse involved widely different actors who were at times unknowingly espousing quite similar racial views for entirely different ends. [End Page 119]The reasons why Nordau’s name has not appeared in relation to Grant are several. First, there is a lack of biographical material on Madison Grant: much of his personal correspondence was purloined or destroyed.3 Consequently, evidence that Grant had been influenced by or even read Nordau is largely circumstantial and inferential, and cannot be verified through archival documentation. Secondly, despite a recent Nordau renaissance,4 and notwithstanding certain key publications, he still remains a somewhat marginal figure in the narrative of late nineteenth century history, especially in the American context.5 Thirdly, and more importantly, after the death of Theodore Herzl, Nordau became the most prominent leader of the Zionist movement at the beginning of the twentieth century. Certainly, someone as committed to Jewish advancement and Jewish emigration to America as Nordau, was hardly likely to share similar racial views with a white supremacist, anti-immigration propagandist, and vicious anti-Semite like Grant. In fact, the only indirect textual connection between the two thinkers is the verbatim use of one of Nordau’s articles by Grant’s racist disciple Lothrop Stoddard; a connection that has only been explored very briefly in a footnote by Nordau biographer Meir Ben-Horin.6 Otherwise, there has been no attempt to see these two thinkers in the same context. Hence, contrary to current scholarly opinion about both writers, this paper will show that they both operated within the same racial framework. While making no claim here of a direct causal relationship between Nordau and Grant, I do contend that during this period there is enough intellectual crosspollination of racial theories to create a significant, not merely coincidental, overlap of ideas. Simplifying early twentieth-century racial thinking into two distinct camps of non-racists and racists is conceptually flawed, even if, as in this case, the ostensible disparities could not be greater.The idea Nordau helped introduce to America, and the idea Grant used later, was that there was a hereditary link between race and ideology. Both believed a person’s racial makeup directly influenced their political ideology. Grant and other anti-immigration nativists used this logic to justify the [End Page 120] exclusion of non-Anglo-Saxon foreigners. Unhealthy, degenerate, foreign bodies presented a danger to the body politic, not just because they were not as productive as the white “Nordics” and therefore caused a drain on the system, but, more significantly, because their inferior type made them susceptible to radical anti-American ideologies like socialism and anarchism. Accordingly, their degeneracy was both an economic strain and a political danger to post-World War I America. The tragic irony is that Nordau’s contribution to the late nineteenth-century racial science was intended to combat increasingly virulent European anti-Semitism. Instead, it ended up in the hands of anti-Semitic propagandists. In fact, at the time that Nordau was urging Jews... (shrink)

The term 'systems theory' is used to characterize a set of disparate yet related approaches to fields as varied as information theory, cybernetics, biology, sociology, history, literature, and philosophy. What unites each of these traditions of systems theory is a shared focus on general features of systems and their fundamental importance for diverse areas of life. Yet there are considerable differences among these traditions, and each tradition has developed its own methodologies, journals, and forms of anaylsis. This (...) book explores this terrain and provides an overview of and guide to the traditions of systems theory in their considerable variety. The book draws attention to the traditions of systems theory in their historical development, especially as related to the humanities and social sciences, and shows how from these traditions various contemporary developments have ensued. It provides a guide for strains of thought that are key to understanding 20th century intellectual life in many areas. (shrink)

The focus of this dissertation is the debate over classification and species realism/anti-realism in the new science of mechanism. I argue that Michael Ayers's Interpretation of Robert Boyle as a Lockean on species is incorrect. Boyle is more realist than Locke, indeed, Boyle's theory of classification was more similar to Leibniz's than to Locke's. This realist account of Boyle helps to diagnose an important connection between Leibniz and Boyle, and show Locke as a much more novel philosopher of science. (...) ;I then argue that this account of Boyle's realism reveals a new argument strain in Leibniz that allows him a better reply against Locke's species anti-realism. I thus argue against Susana Goodin's view that Leibniz's reply to Locke's anti-realist arguments in the New Essays are stronger than they appear to be. According to Goodin, Leibniz cannot refute Locke without either changing the subject or appealing to his own deep metaphysics. I argue that Leibniz can reply in a dialectically adequate, non-question begging way to Locke's argument without appealing to anything deeper than the science of mechanism. ;Finally, I show that, contra Ayers, one of Locke's motivations for his anti-realism stems from his theological heterodoxy, not from the corpuscularian hypothesis. This theological strain appears most strikingly within the context of the debate over the status of persons and the human species. In the Essay, Locke denies each of Leibniz's orthodox theses regarding the human species. Locke's denials of the orthodox theses appear to be motivated by his heterodox theological commitments. (shrink)

The pervasive nature of social media can result in excessive use and addiction, but whether excessive use of social media is good or bad for individuals' creativity is unclear. This study explored the direct and indirect impact of excessive use of WeChat on individuals' creativity in workplace, focusing on how excessive use of WeChat promotes or restrains creativity through knowledge sharing and psychological strain. Based on the person–environment fit model and motivation theory, this study examined the three paths (...) of excessive WeChat use affecting individuals' creativity in workplace. We used the structural equation model to test our research model. A survey of 364 employees revealed that excessive WeChat use directly promotes creativity and indirectly improves creativity via knowledge sharing, but excessive WeChat use does not lead to psychological strain. These findings, obtained by theoretically and empirically investigating the positive outcomes of excessive WeChat use, suggest an upside to excessive WeChat use. The implications and limitations of this study and future research on excessive-use behavior are also discussed. (shrink)

The idea that we acquire knowledge by trial and error has been one of the truly great ideas of the twentieth century. As no reader of his philosophical and autobiographical work could have failed to notice, Karl Popper credits himself for having invented this idea. The theory of trial and error or, in Popper's words, the Searchlight theory of knowledge and mind, is not just a part of Popper's comprehensive philosophy but rather one of its key features. It (...) is at the bottom of some of his most spectacular achievements in methodology, epistemology, the philosophy of biology, and even political philosophy. Indeed, it is put forward at once as a model for the growth of individual knowledge (both human and animal), the growth of life (Darwin's theory of evolution), and the growth of scientific knowledge (philosophy of science). As happens so often with innovative ideas, the Searchlight theory derives much of its glamour from the theory it rejects: the view of the mind being a tabula rasa and sense perception the origin of all (human) knowledge. Popper nicknames this empiricists' view as the Bucket theory since it conceives of the mind as nothing but the conduit for sense-impressions, an empty bucket to be filled by the accumulation and storage of information. 1 In his hands the Bucket theory collapses under the strain of philosophical arguments and scientific facts and is replaced by a theory which maintains that our knowledge of the physical world is drawn from our mind and constructed from the repertoire of knowledge dispositions we already possess. Acquiring dispositions proceeds according to the method of trial and error elimination. This method, Popper contends, consists essentially of three stages: forming a problem or expectation, trying out a number of solutions of the problem, and eliminating or discarding false solutions as erroneous. 2 A key feature of Popper's theory of trial and error elimination, and the reason for speaking of a Searchlight theory of knowledge and mind, is his insistence that problems or expectations take precedence over observations. Observations are always preceded by expectations, points of view, questions or problems which, as a searchlight, illuminate a certain area, thereby enabling the organism or the scientist to know what to observe in the first place. -/- The question arises how and when did Popper come to this theory of the growth of knowledge and mind which was to have such radical implications for the philosophy of science, epistemology, and the philosophy of psychology? My aim in this article is to trace the roots of his theory of the Searchlight. The earliest traces of the theory are to be found in his unpublished dissertation, Zur Methodenfrage der Cognitive psychology (1928). Here I will focus upon this "hasty last minute affair" written in the tradition of early German cognitive psychology and supervised by one of its most outstanding proponents, Karl Bühler. Scrutiny of this manuscript, however, reveals not so much the formative influence of Bühler as that of Otto Selz. Indeed, I will argue that Popper borrowed his crucially important Searchlight theory from Selz. Thus having found the origin of the key notion of his epistemology in psychology, the relation between psychology and philosophy in Popper's work, always fraught with tension, is up for thorough reconsideration. (shrink)

This volume collects some of today's most original and important work at the intersection of feminism and political theory. A representative and wide-ranging set of readings on feminist political thought, the authors provide large-scale critiques, and in some instances reconstructions, of important strains in political thought, including notions of equality, rights-based justice, and contract theories. The fourteen essays are organized around four major themes: "The Question of a Different Voice: Care, Justice, and Rights," "Equality and Inequality in Politics and (...) Elsewhere," "Coercion versus Consent, Public versus Private, and Sexuality," and "Trust and Responsibility.". (shrink)

The connections between the fields of queer theory and continental philosophy are strange and strained: simultaneously difficult and all too easy to ferret out, there is no easy narrative for how the two fields interconnect. Both sides of the relation seem either to disavow or simply repress any relation to the other. For example, despite the impact of Foucault's History of Sexuality, Volume One on early queer theory, current work in queer of color critique challenges the politics and (...) epistemology of placing this text in such a canonical position, particularly for the adamantly anti-foundational field of queer theory. 1 On the other hand, continental philosophy, perhaps in its ongoing beleaguered attempt to form an identity within the analytically dominated discipline of philosophy in the United States, 2 seems largely to ignore the growth of queer theory, despite the provocative and invigorating work on some of continental philosophy's most beloved topics, such as temporality, embodiment, desire, the negative, and radically anti-foundational subjectivity, epistemology, and politics. Setting aside the thorny project of their genealogical connections and disconnections, this essay turns to current trajectories in the field of queer theory, particularly the heated debates about temporality and the future, to indicate how this contemporary scholarship both draws on and exceeds a grounding in continental philosophy. (shrink)

Excerpt from A Study in Ethical Theory A. Unsophisticated Utilitarianism; B. The, Approach to Thorough-going Utilitarianism; C. The Stresses and Strains of Thorough. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the (...) original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works. (shrink)

Much controversy surrounds Schenker's mature theory and its attempt to explain musical pitch motion. Becoming Heinrich Schenker brings a new perspective to Schenker's theoretical work, showing that ideas characteristic of his mature theory, although in many respects fundamentally different, developed logically out of his earlier ideas. Robert P. Morgan provides an introduction to Schenker's mature theory and traces its development through all of his major publications, considering each in detail and with numerous music examples. Morgan also explores (...) the relationship between Schenker's theory and his troubled ideology, which crucially influenced the evolution of his ideas and was heavily dependent upon both the empirical and idealist strains of contemporary German philosophical thought. Relying where possible on quotations from Schenker's own words, this book offers a balanced approach to his theory and a unique overview of this central music figure, generally considered to be the most prominent music theorist of the twentieth century. (shrink)

A two strain HIV/AIDS model with treatment which allows AIDS patients with sensitive HIV-strain to undergo amelioration is presented as a system of non-linear ordinary differential equations. The disease-free equilibrium is shown to be globally asymptotically stable when the associated epidemic threshold known as the basic reproduction number for the model is less than unity. The centre manifold theory is used to show that the sensitive HIV-strain only and resistant HIV-strain only endemic equilibria are locally (...) asymptotically stable when the associated reproduction numbers are greater than unity. Qualitative analysis of the model including positivity, boundedness and persistence of solutions are presented. The model is numerically analysed to assess the effects of treatment with amelioration on the dynamics of a two strain HIV/AIDS model. Numerical simulations of the model show that the two strains co-exist whenever the reproduction numbers exceed unity. Further, treatment with amelioration may result in an increase in the total number of infective individuals (asymptomatic) but results in a decrease in the number of AIDS patients. Further, analysis of the reproduction numbers show that antiretroviral resistance increases with increase in antiretroviral use. (shrink)

The death of Jean Baudrillard in 2007 brought about a resurgence of feminist scholarship on his work. But in all recent feminist scholarship on Baudrillard, save for Victoria Grace’s Baudrillard’s Challenge: A Feminist Reading (2000), feminists focus on Baudrillard’s later theory of simulation, forestalling any reconsideration of his earlier text Seduction (1979). In this article I argue that a theory of seduction facilitates the unveiling of a hitherto unnoticed strain of feminist writing that proposes an ongoing challenge (...) to masculine power and politics. This strategy of seduction is one that can be traced through a history of modern feminism, from Joan Rivière’s concept of ‘womanliness’ in ‘Womanliness as Masquerade’ to Hélène Cixous’s écriture féminine in ‘The Laugh of the Medusa’ to Virginia Woolf’s ‘mulberry tree’ in Three Guineas. (shrink)

This book demonstrates that ancient Christian Gnosticism was an ancient form of cultural criticism in a mythological garb. It establishes that, much like modern forms of critical theory, ancient Gnosticism was set on deconstructing mainstream discourses and cultural premises. Strains of critical theory dealt with include the Frankfurt School, queer theory, and poststructural philosophy. The book documents how in both ancient Gnosticism and modern critical theories issues that used to serve as premises for discussion or as concepts (...) relegated to the realms of the “natural” and the “given” in their respective historical contexts, are transformed into objects of contention. The main aim of this book is to salvage the historical category of Gnosticism from its present scholarly disavowal, if only because Gnosticism, when read as a cultural, and not only a religious phenomenon, presents us an ancient form of culture criticism which would be hard to parallel until (post) modernity. While Hans Jonas remarked many years ago that “something in Gnosticism knocks at the door of our Being and of our twentieth-century Being in particular,” by the 21st century global world this something has already entered and lives with us. We can thus still benefit from another perspective, even if it comes from Mediterranean people who lived almost 2,000 years ago. (shrink)

This collection seeks to ground political theory in the study of institutions, particularly the constitutional relationship between different branches of government. It makes the case that ‘constitutionalism’ has become a thin doctrine of political restraint. Waldron wants to identify a fuller conceptual understanding of how the functions of government can be empowered and articulated. In doing so, he sets out a position that is distinct from both moralism and realism in contemporary political theory. I explore how well the (...) later distinction holds up: how successfully does Waldron’s approach marry realist concerns with the rigour of analytical political theory? I also discuss the role it leaves for the history of political thought and whether it can deal with the populist strain in contemporary politics. (shrink)

The purpose of the present work is twofold. On the one hand, it attempts to provide a critical exposition of the ethical theory of Jean-Paul Sartre. On the other hand, it strives to explain, and in a limited way to defend, the central thesis of that theory, namely, that freedom is the "highest," or most important, value. ;The study begins with an extensive discussion of Sartre's theory of freedom. Sartre's arguments for the freedom of consciousness are identified (...) and presented, and a number of widespread misunderstandings of Sartre's conception of the nature of freedom are corrected. Specifically, it is argued that, contrary to prevailing opinion, Sartre distinguishes between different senses of freedom, insists that freedom is always limited, and remains substantially consistent, throughout his intellectual career, in his understanding of the nature of freedom. ;The study next takes up Sartre's theory of values. Here the well-known strain of ethical subjectivism in Sartre's thought is presented and criticized, with the main instrument of criticism being a distinction, overlooked by Sartre, between subjectivism as a meta-ethical theory about the status of moral judgments, and subjectivism as an ontological doctrine regarding the existence of moral values. ;The study concludes with an explanation and defense of the theory that freedom is the highest value. Here the presentation of Sartre's ethical theory is brought to completion through a discussion of its neglected objectivist elements, and through a development in regard to ethics of Sartre's general theory of knowledge. It is then shown that the notion of freedom as a value underlies both the subjectivist and the objectivist phases of Sartre's ethical thought, and it is suggested that these two phases can be reconciled in a conception of ethics as a dialectic of invention and discovery. This conception is defended by way of a brief discussion of its advantages over rival ethical theories, which neglect one or the other of the stages of this dialectic. (shrink)

In this book on Marxist ethics, Norman Fischer applies abstract political philosophy and intellectual history to rarely discussed texts in terms of Marxist ethics. These include Marx's never translated German notes on Machiavelli, Montesquieu, and Rousseau, as well as Lewis Henry Morgan's' Ancient Society. Fischer's philosophical analysis of these texts demonstrates that there is a strain of Marxist ethics that is only understandable in the context of the great works of Western political theory and philosophy, particularly those that (...) emphasize the republican value of public spiritedness, the communitarian value of solidarity and the liberal values of liberty and equality. (shrink)

The phase field microelasticity theory of a three-dimensional, elastically anisotropic system of voids and cracks is proposed. The theory is based on the equation for the strain energy of the continuous elastically homogeneous body presented as a functional of the phase field, which is the effective stress-free strain. It is proved that the stress-free strain minimizing the strain energy of this homogeneous modulus body fully determines the elastic strain and displacement of the body (...) with voids and/or cracks. The proposed phase field integral equation describing the elasticity of an arbitrary system of voids and cracks is exact. The geometry and evolution of multiple voids and/or cracks are described by the phase field, which is the solution of the time-dependent Ginzburg-Landau equation. Other defects, such as dislocations and precipitates, are trivially integrated into this theory. The proposed model does not impose a priori constraints on possible void and crack configurations or their evolution paths. Examples of computations of elastic equilibrium of systems with voids and/or cracks and the evolution of cracks under applied stress are considered. (shrink)

We characterize access to empirical objects in biology from a theoretical perspective. Unlike objects in current physical theories, biological objects are the result of a history and their variations continue to generate a history. This property is the starting point of our concept of measurement. We argue that biological measurement is relative to a natural history which is shared by the different objects subjected to the measurement and is more or less constrained by biologists. We call symmetrization the theoretical and (...) often concrete operation which leads to considering biological objects as equivalent in a measurement. Last, we use our notion of measurement to analyze research strategies. Some strategies aim to bring biology closer to the epistemology of physical theories, by studying objects as similar as possible, while others build on biological diversity. (shrink)

The goal of this paper is twofold. First, it examines the pragmatic ramifications of recent research in certain areas of cognitive science (embodied mind theory, extended mind theory). Second, it shows how the Chicago pragmatists (George H. Mead, John Dewey) not only envisioned these findings but also how, within certain strains of cognitive science, their work is explicitly appreciated for important preliminary insights which help us interpret the outcomes of current research. The argumentative line of the paper revolves (...) around Mead’s and Dewey’s treatment of the relation between perception and action. Cognition, in the view of the Chicago pragmatists, is not divisible into atomistic, ontologically disconnected units but rather should be seen as an organic circuit within which stimuli and responses are mutually interdependent phases of an ongoing goal-directed active involvement of the organism in the environmental structures. According to Mead and Dewey, as well as the presently burgeoning branch of cognitive science called the “extended mind theory,” cognition is not something that takes place exclusively in our heads but should be rather seen as an objective relation between organism and the environment. On the background of Mead’s theory of the act (with its four stages – impulse, perception, manipulation, and consummation) the author points to certain surprising similarities between the pragmatists’ treatment of the notion of cognition and ideas recently suggested by defenders of the extended mind theory. (shrink)