Making Social Science Matter presents an exciting new approach to the social and behavioral sciences including theoretical argument, methodological guidelines, and examples of practical application. Why has social science failed in attempts to emulate natural science and produce normal theory? Bent Flyvbjerg argues that the strength of social sciences lies in its rich, reflexive analysis of values and power, essential to the social and economic development of any society. Richly informed, powerfully argued, and clearly written, this book opens up a (...) new future for the social sciences. Its empowering message will make it required reading for students and academics across the social and behavioral sciences. (shrink)

A theory of learning for the future advocates the teaching of a preparedness to respond in a creative way to difference and otherness. This includes an ability to act imaginatively in situations of uncertainties. John Dewey’s pragmatism holds the key to such a learning theory his view of the continuous meetings of individuals and environments as experimental and playful. That pragmatism has not yet been acknowledged as a relevant learning theory for the future may be due to the immediate connotation (...) and the many interpretations associated with the term ‘experience’, which is at the heart of Dewey’s educational thinking. Dewey defi ned experience in a way that is not well understood within educational research, and in a way that is easily confused with the term ‘experiential learning’. The latter refers to the importance of participants’ ‘experiences’ derived from bodily actions and stored in memory as more or less tacit knowledge. (shrink)

Real Social Science presents a new, hands-on approach to social inquiry. The theoretical and methodological ideas behind the book, inspired by Aristotelian phronesis, represent an original perspective within the social sciences, and this volume gives readers for the first time a set of studies exemplifying what applied phronesis looks like in practice. The reflexive analysis of values and power gives new meaning to the impact of research on policy and practice. Real Social Science is a major step forward in a (...) novel and thriving field of research. This book will benefit scholars, researchers and students who want to make a difference in practice, not just in the academy. Its message will make it essential reading for students and academics across the social sciences. (shrink)

This article is about nursing theories, the development of nursing knowledge and the underlying, hidden epistemology. The current technical–economical rationality in society and health care calls for a specific kind of knowledge based on a traditional Western, Socratic view of science. This has an immense influence on the development of nursing knowledge. The purpose of the article was therefore to discuss the hidden epistemology of nursing knowledge and theories seen in a broad historical context and point to an alternative epistemology (...) for a future context. It is a question about which nursing theories and what nursing knowledge should be developed in order to benefit patients and relatives of the future. We suggest that future knowledge development in nursing be developed in an interchange between theory and practice and guided by philosophy like a kind of pendulum where all three elements are treated as equals. We suggest a framework for the development of nursing knowledge based on a caring‐ethical practice, a theory on life phenomena in suffering and relationship‐based nursing, and thereby, we may be able to help patients to be cured, to recover, to be alleviated or comforted when suffering. (shrink)

In recent years, there have been many attempts at defining learning as a social phenomenon as opposed to an individual and primarily psychological matter. The move towards understanding learning as social processes has also altered the concept of knowledge as a well-defined element stored in books, brains, CD-Roms, disks, videos or on the Internet. Instead, knowledge has been perceived as a social and context related construction. The roots of the social angle within theories on learning and knowledge are much older (...) than the current literature suggests. This paper illustrates how these theories can be traced back to pragmatism as a philosophy and foundation for an educational approach introduced by the American, John Dewey, more than one hundred years ago. The paper also suggests that Dewey avoids some pitfalls that have come with the new theories, particularly the strong division between individual vs. social and school vs. everyday life learning. (shrink)

The community has legislatively conferred on external auditors a special but lucrative responsibility to provide fair and independent opinions about management''s preparation of company financial statements. In return, auditors are obliged by professional standards to act with integrity, independently and in the public interest. This study examined 174 auditors'' predisposition to provide just and fair judgements, using Kohlberg''s theory of developmental moral reasoning, one of the most widely accepted theories in justice psychology. Respondents came from five international audit firms in (...) Copenhagen. Results indicated that auditors with pre-conventional or low level of just reasoning or comprised 64 respondents, the largest group in the sample. The pre-conventional level suggests that people will act in their own self-interest and do the right only to avoid punishment. Pre-conventional auditors have the ability to "do deals", advantageous for business. When faced with an ethical crisis, however, auditors as this level will tend to focus on their own needs at the expense of others. The post-conventional or mid level of just reasoning comprised 59 auditors, second largest group in the sample. This level indicates that these auditors have the predisposition to act fairly on principal, particularly when faced with an ethical crisis. The conventional level or mid-just reasoning consisted of 51 auditors. People with a conventional level of just reasoning believe in law and order, the maintenance of the status quo, however they tend not to be critical of laws, nor authority even if those laws and authority are unjust or evil. (shrink)

The current study analyzes trans-cultural universalities and specificities in the recognition of status roles, dominance perception and social evaluation based on nonverbal cues. Using a novel methodology, which allowed to mask clues to ethnicity and cultural background of the agents, we compared impression of Germans, Americans and Arabs observing computer-animated interactions from the three countries. Only in the German stimulus sample the status roles could be recognized above chance level. However we found significant correlations in dominance perception across all countries. (...) Significant correlations were only found for evaluation between German observers and observers from the other two countries. Perceived dominance uniformly predicted the assignment of status-roles in all cultures. Microanalysis of movement behavior further revealed predictive value of specific nonverbal cues for dominance ratings. Results support the hypothesis of universalities in the processing of dominance cues and point to cultural specificities in evaluative responses to nonverbal behavior. (shrink)

[Habermas and Foucault: Thinkers for Civil Society?; ].

[Habermas and Foucault: Thinkers for Civil Society?; ].

BackgroundBefore participation in medical research an informed consent must be obtained. This study investigates whether the readability of patient information and consent documents corresponds to the average educational level of participants in rheumatological studies in the Netherlands, Denmark, and Norway.Methods24 PICDs from studies were collected and readability was assessed independently using the Gunning’s Fog Index and Simple Measure of Gobbledygook grading.ResultsThe mean score for the FOG and SMOG grades were 14.2 and 14.2 respectively. The mean FOG and SMOG grades were (...) 12.7 and 13.3 in the Dutch studies, 15.0 and 14.9 in the Danish studies, and 14.6 and 14.3 in the Norwegian studies, respectively. Out of the 2865 participants, more than 57 % had a lower educational level than the highest readability score calculated in the individual study.ConclusionsAs the readability level of the PICDs did not match the participants’ educational level, consent may not have been valid, as the participants may have had a limited understanding of what they agreed to participate in. There should be more focus on the readability of PICDs. National guidelines for how to write clear and unambiguous PICDs in simple and easily understandable language could increase the focus on the readability of PICD. (shrink)

This article addresses three main issues. First, it argues that David Laitin, in a misguided critique of Bent Flyvbjerg’s book Making Social Science Matter for being a surrogate manifesto for Perestroika, misrepresents the book in the extreme. Second, the article argues that Laitin’s claim that political science may become normal, predictive science in the natural science sense is unfounded; the claim is a dead end that perestroikans try to get beyond. Finally, the article proposes that political scientists substitute phronesis for (...) episteme and thereby avoid the trap of emulating natural science. By doing so, political scientists may arrive at social science that is strong where natural science is weak: in the reflexive analysis and discussion of values and interests aimed at praxis, which is the prerequisite for an enlightened political, economic, and cultural development in any society. (shrink)

The human genome contains about 30,000 genes, each creating several transcripts per gene. Transcript structures and expression are studied by high‐throughput transcriptomic techniques using microarrays. Generally, transcripts are not directly operating molecules, but are translated into functional proteins, post‐translationally modified by proteolysis, glycosylation, phosphorylation, etc., sometimes with great functional impact. Proteins need to be analyzed by proteomic techniques, less suited for high‐throughput. Two‐dimensional polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (2D‐PAGE), separating thousands of proteins has developed slowly over the past quarter of a century. (...) This technique is now quite reproducible and suitable for differential proteomics, comparing normal and diseased cells/tissues revealing differentially regulated proteins. 2D‐PAGE is combined with protein‐identification methods, currently mass spectrometry (MS), which has been significantly improved over the last decade. Other proteomic techniques studying protein–protein interactions are now either established or still being developed, such as peptide or protein arrays, phage display, and the yeast two‐hybrid system. The strengths and weaknesses of these techniques are discussed. BioEssays 26:901–915, 2004. © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. (shrink)

Although many aspects of the physiological and pathophysiological mechanisms remain unknown, recent advances in our knowledge suggest that the CREC proteins are promising disease biomarkers or targets for therapeutic intervention in a variety of diseases. The CREC family of low affinity, Ca2+‐binding, multiple EF‐hand proteins are encoded by five genes,RCN1,RCN2,RCN3,SDF4, andCALU, resulting in reticulocalbin, ER Ca2+‐binding protein of 55 kDa (ERC‐55), reticulocalbin‐3, Ca2+‐binding protein of 45 kDa (Cab45), and calumenin. Alternative splicing increases the number of gene products. The proteins are (...) localized in the cytosol, in various parts of the secretory pathway, secreted to the extracellular space or localized on the cell surface. The emerging functions appear to be highly diverse. The proteins interact with several different ligands. Rather well‐described functions are attached to calumenin with the inhibition of several proteins in the endoplasmic or sarcoplasmic reticulum membrane, the vitamin K12,3‐epoxide reductase, the γ‐carboxylase, the ryanodine receptor, and the Ca2+‐transporting ATPase. Other functions concern participation in the secretory process, chaperone activity, signal transduction as well as participation in a large variety of disease processes. (shrink)

This article investigates the original Chinese sources for two circular trigram arrangements that have played a crucial role in numerology associated with the Book of Changes since the Song dynasty. While attempting to clarify the nature and the origins of these and related diagrams, recent secondary literature on topic is reviewed, especially the influential articles by Schuyler Cammann.

One of the main economic debates taking place in late-nineteenth and early-twentieth-century America was between supporters of protectionism and advocates of free-trade policies. Protectionists won this debate, as the 1897 Dingley Tariff raised tariff rates to record highs. An analysis of this outcome highlights the overlapping interests of Republican politicians and business groups. Both of these groups endorsed particular economic arguments in favour of protectionism. Contemporary studies by academic economists informed the debates surrounding protectionist policies at this time, and also (...) analysed the impacts of these policies. Evidence from politicians, business owners, and economists provides a broad view of who favoured protectionist policies in turn-of-the-century America. This analysis also focuses on how the impacts of these policies were studied and presented in contemporary academic and public discourse. (shrink)

Review of MARTTA HEIKKILÄ, DECONSTRUCTION AND THE WORK OF ART. VISUAL ARTS AND THEIR CRITIQUE IN CONTEMPORARY FRENCH THOUGHT LONDON: LEXINGTON BOOKS 2021. 311 PAGES.ISBN: 1793619042.

The main thesis behind the article is that Ad Reinhardt in hisPaintings, through a ‘painting away’ of what traditionally constitutes painting, color, pictorial space and gesture, leads our attention towards visuality. The thesis shall be pursued through a discussion of two different approaches to visual sensing as aesthetic experience, one that prefaces a hermeneutical/phenomenological approach claiming sensuousness to unfold through the gesture of chiasm and ‘intertwining’, as it is formulated by Gottfried Boehm, and another, through Jean-Luc Nancy’s post-phenomenological approach accentuating (...) aesthetic experience as a gesture of distance. In the essay I shall focus on differences between the two and look into the question of how an implementation of a phenomenological chiasm and a hermeneutical claim for meaning in contrast to an epistemological and ontological focus on absence and the picture as Le distinc, leads to fundamental difference concerning the question of meaning, of interpretation. (shrink)

Arbitrary state and corporate powers are helping to turn the Internet into a global surveillance dragnet. Responses to this novel form of power have been tepid and ineffective. Liberal critiques of surveillance are constrained by their focus on privacy, security and the underlying presupposition that freedom consists only of freedom from interference. By contrast, Foucauldian critiques rejecting liberalism have been well rewarded analytically, but have proven incapable of addressing normative questions regarding the relationship between surveillance and freedom. Quite apart from (...) these debates, neorepublicans have excavated a third concept of freedom, understood as non-domination. Could neorepublicanism overcome the limitations of liberal and Foucauldian critiques of surveillance? We argue, positively, that neorepublicanism can accommodate much of the Foucauldian analyses while also incorporating a normative critique of surveillance vis-à-vis freedom. We further argue, negatively, that surveillance power has outstripped the capacities of traditional republican institutional responses to domination. We conclude by considering ways in which neorepublicanism can be recalibrated to address the novelty of surveillance power while adhering to the ideal of non-domination. Two ways of addressing the problem are proposed: an offensive, dedicated surveillance antipower and a defensive republican amplification of privacy. (shrink)

A Constituição Federal brasileira fixou um desenho estrutural de competências que permite uma ampla atuação do Supremo Tribunal Federal sobre a vida social e os ramos de governo. No entanto, a análise da teoria institucionalista estratégica sobre os julgados relativos ao processo legislativo federal demonstra que não há um panorama assimétrico entre os departamentos estatais. Na verdade, o jogo entre poderes pode criar cenários conjunturais que libertam decisões baseadas na preferência individual dos julgadores ou que restringem a autonomia da Corte (...) quando críticas ou retaliações externas ameaçam sua permanência e autoridade. (shrink)

O presente artigo pretende evidenciar o valor atribuído à arte, em especial à música, por Arthur Schopenhauer. Será articulada a relação do autor com a filosofia de Fichte e Schelling, contextualizando o seu pensamento com o movimento romântico alemão. Ademais, por meio da apresentação da sua hierarquia estética, serão apontados alguns aspectos fundamentais do autor de O mundo como vontade e representação, na medida em que essa dualidade é apontada também ao referir-se aos diferentes estilos artísticos.