Since the 1960s, shamanism has become one of the landmarks for a new way of life and a more respectful relationship of humans with nature in the Western world. Both researchers and practitioners regard the foundation of shamanism as being animism – an understanding of the connection of all living beings. The role of the community is highlighted in shamanism as the shaman is expected to work for his community. Shamanistic techniques vary according to the society or place where it (...) is practised. In the study of neo-shamanism in the post-modern world, autoethnographic research has been seen as necessary, especially in order to explore the experience of the shaman. In this article we ask what has changed in the perceptions of the community in the study of shamanism and how this change has influenced the position of the researcher. Our article reflects on the resolution of the diversity and sameness through autoethnography, where the researcher is located not only in the experience, but also in its interpretation – which highlights great challenges in contextualizing the study, in writing on the concepts concerned, and indeed in the entire research process. (shrink)

How do business leaders make ethical decisions? Given the significant and wide-spread impact of business people’s decisions on multiple constituents, how they make decisions matters. Unethical decisions harm the decision makers themselves as well as others, whereas ethical decisions have the opposite effect. Based on data from a study on strategic decision making by 16 effective chief executive officers, I propose a model for ethical decision making in business in which reasoning and intuition interact through forming, recalling, and applying moral (...) principles necessary for long-term success in business. Following the CEOs in the study, I employ a relatively new theory, rational egoism, as the substantive content of the model and argue it to be consistent with the requirements of long-term business success. Besides explaining the processes of forming and applying principles, I briefly describe rational egoism and illustrate the model with a contemporary moral dilemma of downsizing. I conclude with implications for further research and ethical decision making in business. (shrink)

Reflective processing is a joint social action that develops in interaction. Using conversation analysis and discursive psychology, this article focuses on self-reflective turns of talk in group counselling for adults at risk of type 2 diabetes. We show how reflective processing unfolds in patterns of interaction, wherein group members take an observing, evaluating or interpreting position towards their own actions and experiences. Self-reflective talk is neither exclusively dependent on counsellors’ actions nor limited to the niches the counselling programme structure offers. (...) Self-reflective talk is one method of generating joint reflective processing. Such talk makes a topic available for discussion by connecting details of counselling with individuals’ experiences and enabling sharing. Self-reflective talk thus serves as a way for group members to participate in constructing a lifestyle problem, to invite or provide sharing of experiences and to display their orientation to the institutional task at hand. (shrink)

According to conventional morality, either a business manager maximizes profits and compromises on morality, or sacrifices profits in order to remain moral. Woiceshyn explains why this is a false dichotomy and offers rational egoism as an alternative moral code to managers who want to be both profitable and moral.

The novel coronavirus pandemic (COVID-19) has had far-reaching effects on public health around the world. Attempts to prevent the spread of the disease by quarantine have led to large-scale global socioeconomic disrup- tion. During the outbreak, public authorities and politicians have struggled with how to manage widespread ignorance regarding the virus. Drawing on insights from social epistemology and the emerging interdisciplinary field of ignorance studies, this article provides evidence that the temporality of non- knowing and its intersection with knowing is (...) a force that leads political decision-making during a crisis. Illuminating the epistemic analysis with statements given by the Finnish government to the media in decision- making documents and in press conferences, this paper proposes that a crisis situation, itself, seems to demand from political decision-makers dynamic action while simultaneously knowing little (‘non-knowing’) about the different fronts of tackling the pandemic. We conclude that non-knowing must be recognized explicitly as an enduring and central condition in deci- sion-making, which we call ‘epistemic humility.’. (shrink)

Although music and other forms of art can develop in diverse directions, they are linked to the genetic profiles of populations. Hearing music is a strong environmental trigger that serves as an excellent model to study the crosstalk between genes and the environment. We propose that the ability to enjoy and practice music requires musical aptitude, which is a common and innate trait facilitating the enjoyment and practice of music. The innate drive for music can only have arisen by exposure (...) to music, and it develops with motivation and training in musically rich environments. Recent genomic approaches have shown that the genes responsible for inner ear development, auditory pathways and neurocognitive processes may underlay musical aptitude. It is expected that genomic approaches can be applied to musical traits and will reveal new biological mechanisms that affect human evolution, brain function, and civilisation. (shrink)

A humanoid robot named ‘Sophia’ has sparked controversy since it has been given citizenship and has done media performances all over the world. The company that made the robot, Hanson Robotics, has touted Sophia as the future of artificial intelligence. Robot scientists and philosophers have been more pessimistic about its capabilities, describing Sophia as a sophisticated puppet or chatbot. Looking behind the rhetoric about Sophia’s citizenship and intelligence and going beyond recent discussions on the moral status or legal personhood of (...) AI robots, we analyse the performativity of Sophia from the perspective of what we call ‘political choreography’: drawing on phenomenological approaches to performance-oriented philosophy of technology. This paper proposes to interpret and discuss the world tour of Sophia as a political choreography that boosts the rise of the social robot market, rather than a statement about robot citizenship or artificial intelligence. We argue that the media performances of the Sophia robot were choreographed to advance specific political interests. We illustrate our philosophical discussion with media material of the Sophia performance, which helps us to explore the mechanisms through which the media spectacle functions hand in hand with advancing the economic interests of technology industries and their governmental promotors. Using a phenomenological approach and attending to the movement of robots, we also criticize the notion of ‘embodied intelligence’ used in the context of social robotics and AI. In this way, we put the discussions about the robot’s rights or citizenship in the context of AI politics and economics. (shrink)

Many experts have emphasised that chatbots are not sufficiently mature to be able to technically diagnose patient conditions or replace the judgements of health professionals. The COVID-19 pandemic, however, has significantly increased the utilisation of health-oriented chatbots, for instance, as a conversational interface to answer questions, recommend care options, check symptoms and complete tasks such as booking appointments. In this paper, we take a proactive approach and consider how the emergence of task-oriented chatbots as partially automated consulting systems can influence (...) clinical practices and expert–client relationships. We suggest the need for new approaches in professional ethics as the large-scale deployment of artificial intelligence may revolutionise professional decision-making and client–expert interaction in healthcare organisations. We argue that the implementation of chatbots amplifies the project of rationality and automation in clinical practice and alters traditional decision-making practices based on epistemic probability and prudence. This article contributes to the discussion on the ethical challenges posed by chatbots from the perspective of healthcare professional ethics. (shrink)

We analyze a series of interviews with Estonian humanities researchers to explore topics related to the beginning of academic careers and the relationships with supervisors and mentors. We show how researchers strive to have meaningful relationships and produce what they consider quality research in the conditions of a system that is very strongly oriented towards internationalization and project-based funding, where their efforts are compromised by a lack of policies helping them establish a stable position in academia. Leaving researchers to face (...) these obstacles alone places a great burden on them and may lead to a loss of talent in academia. Identifying and addressing these issues is thus important for both the well-being of early career researchers and the future of academia. (shrink)

Jc Beall and Greg Restall (Logical Pluralism. Clarendon Press, Oxford, 2006) propose a logical pluralism where the corresponding connectives in each logic mean the same thing. They contrast this with a Carnapian pluralism, where different logics have corresponding connectives which do not share meanings. I will show that due to the manner in which connectives are given their meaning by Beall and Restall, relevant negation and intuitionistic negation cannot mean the same thing. Thus, their pluralism is at least partly Carnapian, (...) as not all the logics involved can have their corresponding connectives share meanings. (shrink)

The aim of the paper is to discuss some possible connections between philosophical proposals about the social organisation of science and developments towards a greater democratisation of science policy. I suggest that there are important similarities between one approach to objectivity in philosophy of science—Helen Longino’s account of objectivity as freedom from individual biases achieved through interaction of a variety of perspectives—and some ideas about the epistemic benefits of wider representation of various groups’ perspectives in science policy, as analysed by (...) Mark Brown. Given these similarities, I suggest that they allow one to approach developments in science policy as if one of their aims were epistemic improvement that can be recommended on the basis of the philosophical account; analyses of political developments inspired by these ideas about the benefits of inclusive dialogue can then be used for understanding the possibility to implement a philosophical proposal for improving the objectivity of science in practice. Outlining this suggestion, I also discuss the possibility of important differences between the developments in the two spheres and show how the concern about the possible divergence of politically motivated and epistemically motivated changes may be mitigated. In order to substantiate further the suggestion I make, I discuss one example of a development where politically motivated and epistemically motivated changes converge in practice—the development of professional ethics in American archaeology as analysed by Alison Wylie. I suggest that analysing such specific developments and getting involved with them can be one of the tasks for philosophy of science. In the concluding part of the paper I discuss how this approach to philosophy of science is related to a number of arguments about a more politically relevant philosophy of science. (shrink)

We are logical pluralists who hold that the right logic is dependent on the domain of investigation; different logics for different mathematical theories. The purpose of this article is to explore the ramifications for our pluralism concerning normativity. Is there any normative role for logic, once we give up its universality? We discuss Florian Steingerger’s “Frege and Carnap on the Normativity of Logic” as a source for possible types of normativity, and then turn to our own proposal, which postulates that (...) various logics are constitutive for thought within particular practices, but none are constitutive for thought as such. (shrink)

Philosophy of science is showing an increasing interest in the social aspects and the social organisation of science—the ways social values and social interactions and structures play a role in the creation of knowledge and the ways this role should be taken into account in the organisation of science and science policy. My thesis explores a number of issues related to this theme. I argue that a prominent approach to the social organisation of science—Philip Kitcher’s well-ordered science—runs into a number (...) of problems. They undermine its philosophical plausibility and practical usefulness. I agree with Kitcher that arguments about the social organisation of science should recognise profound societal consequences of science. Kitcher argues that the appropriate organisation of science should therefore take into account laypersons’ values and needs when making decisions concerning research planning, evaluation and application. My criticisms show that this is not enough. Drawing on Helen Longino ideas, I argue that laypersons’ perspectives and knowledge may also be relevant when doing research. In order to show how more inclusive research practices may be possible, I discuss connections between philosophy of science and some developments in science policy, which has also recently shown considerable interest in democratic participation. I demonstrate how public participation experiments in science policy may sometimes be close enough to what the philosopher would recommend. Their analysis can thus be helpful for understanding how societal developments may provide opportunities for the involvement of laypersons in science and what factors may endanger its success. I conclude that a way to pursue a more socially relevant philosophy of science is to focus on the points of contact and possibilities of cooperation between philosophical proposals and these public participation initiatives. (shrink)

The paper analyses issues related to supervision and support of early career researchers in Estonian academia. We use nine focus groups interviews conducted in 2015 with representatives of social sciences in order to identify early career researchers’ needs with respect to support, frustrations they may experience, and resources they may have for addressing them. Our crucial contribution is the identification of wider support networks of peers and colleagues that may compensate, partially or even fully, for failures of official supervision. On (...) the basis of our analysis we argue that support for early career researchers should take into account the resources they already possess but also recognise the importance of wider academic culture, including funding and employment patterns, and the roles of supervisors and senior researchers in ensuring successful functioning of support networks. Through analysing the conditions for the development of early career researchers – producers of knowledge – our paper contributes to social epistemology understood as analysis of specific forms of social organisation of knowledge production. (shrink)

Philip Kitcher argued that the freedom to pursue one's version of the good life is the main aim of Mill's argument for freedom of expression. According to Kitcher, in certain scientific fields, political and epistemological asymmetries bias research toward conclusions that threaten this most important freedom of underprivileged groups. Accordingly, Kitcher claimed that there are Millian grounds for limiting freedom of inquiry in these fields to protect the freedom of the underprivileged. -/- I explore Kitcher's argument in light of the (...) interpretation Helen Longino gave to Mill's argument. She argued that free critical dialogue in the community allows bias to be overcome, through intersubjective criticism of hypotheses and the background assumptions that frame them. I suggest that Longino's approach allows for the identification of the fundamental problems of the research programs Kitcher targeted, and for the rejection of their claims to knowledge. Thus it is possible to address Kitcher's problem without limiting freedom of speech. (shrink)

The aim of this chapter is to shed light on the power-related infrastructural dynamic that actualises in the interrelations of big data collection and the bodily movement of urbanites in contemporary cities. By drawing from Husserl’s and Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenologies of the body and combining them with recent theorisations on choreography, material media theory and critical technology studies, the authors address city dwellers’ embodied relations with mobile devices and ambient technologies as integral to the micro-, meso- and macro-level production of urban (...) infrastructures. By way of discussing the technologically mediated kinaesthesia and movement trajectories of lived bodies, the chapter develops a novel conceptualisation of urban choreography for exploring the mechanisms through which dwelling-in-the-city today functions in a globally extensive cybernetic feedback loop with profit-motivated and surveillant big data operations. (shrink)

We examined whether differences in climate-friendly choices between the supporters of left-wing and right-wing ideologies are based on different moral foundations. Moreover, we compared general and issue-specific endorsement of moral foundations applied to climate change. Study 1 examined the endorsement of general moral foundations of university students living in Finland. Individualizing foundations were associated with increased climate-friendly choices and binding foundations were associated with decreased climate-friendly choices; the endorsement of moral foundations made the effect of political orientation disappear. In Study (...) 2 we developed and tested an issue-specific measure of moral foundations. The issue-specific endorsement of both types of foundations was directly associated with increased climate-friendly consumption. Binding foundations were associated with the avoidance of climate-friendly choices through right-wing orientation. These findings increase our understanding of differences between general and issue-specific moral concerns and their association to political orientation and pro-environmental behavior. (shrink)

This article examines how the interactive capabilities of companion robots, particularly their materiality and animate movements, appeal to human users and generate an image of aliveness. Building on Husserl’s phenomenological notion of a ‘double body’ and theories of emotions as affective responses, we develop a new understanding of the robots’ simulated aliveness. Analyzing empirical findings of a field study on the use of the robot Zora in care homes for older people, we suggest that the aliveness of companion robots is (...) the result of a combination of four aspects: 1) material ingredients, 2) morphology, 3) animate movements guided by software programs and human operators as in Wizard of Oz-settings and 4) anthropomorphising narratives created by their users to support the robot’s performance. We suggest that narratives on affective states, such as, sleepiness or becoming frightened attached to the robot trigger users’ empathic feelings, caring and tenderness toward the robot. (shrink)

Over the past four decades, software engineering has emerged as a discipline in its own right, though it has roots both in computer science and in classical engineering. Its philosophical foundations and premises are not yet well understood. In recent times, members of the software engineering community have started to search for such foundations. In particular, the philosophies of Kuhn and Popper have been used by philosophically-minded software engineers in search of a deeper understanding of their discipline. It seems, however, (...) that professional philosophers of science are not yet aware of this new discourse within the field of software engineering. Therefore, this article aims to reflect critically upon recent software engineers’ attempts towards a philosophy of software engineering and to introduce our own philosophical thoughts in this context. Finally, we invite the professional philosophers of science to participate in this interesting new discourse. (shrink)

PurposeRobots have a history of replacing human labor in undesirable, dirty, dull and dangerous tasks. With robots now emerging in academic and human-centered work, this paper aims to investigate psychological implications of robotizing desirable and socially rewarding work.Design/methodology/approachTesting the holistic stress model, this study examines educational professionals’ stress responses as mediators between robotization expectations and future optimism in life. The study uses survey data on 2,434 education professionals.FindingsRespondents entertaining robotization expectations perceived their work to be less meaningful and reported more (...) burnout symptoms than those with no robotization expectations. Future optimism about life was not affected by robotization expectations alone, but meaninglessness and burnout symptoms mediated the relation between expectations of robotization and future optimism.Practical implicationsRobotization may be viewed as challenging the meaningfulness of educational work by compromising ethical values and interaction. To prevent excess stress among personnel, robotization should be planned together with employees in co-operation negotiations. This implicates the need for co-designing technological changes in organizations especially in the cases of social use of robots.Originality/valueWork’s meaningfulness in robotization is a novel research topic and a step toward socially sustainable robotization. (shrink)

In her analysis of the politics of biotechnology, Sheila Jasanoff argued that modern democracy cannot be understood without an analysis of the ways knowledge is created and used in society. She suggested calling these ways to “know things in common” civic epistemologies. Jasanoff thus approached knowledge as fundamentally social. The focus on the social nature of knowledge allows drawing parallels with some developments in philosophy of science. In the first part of the paper, I juxtapose Jasanoff’s account with the philosopher (...) Helen Longino’s approach. Longino argued that objectivity of scientific knowledge is made possible by the social nature of knowledge production. In the process of community-wide discussion, claims that are not intersubjectively acceptable are rejected and communally acceptable knowledge emerges. Longino called this knowledge-creating critical dialogue transformative. I suggest that Longino’s account can be seen as providing epistemological support for the civic epistemologies Jasanoff described. They are capable of producing knowledge in the normative philosophical sense of the word to the degree that they are able to support this transformative critical dialogue. In the second part of the paper, I explore in the light of Longino’s criteria for effective knowledge-productive dialogue one of the controversies in biotechnology policy that Jasanoff analysed. I suggest that Longino’s criteria allow identifying some fundamental obstacles for initiating and maintaining this kind of responsive critical dialogue and that the controversy can be seen as caused by inability to overcome these obstacles. In such a case, the controversy signals an epistemic failure as well as a failure of democratic policy. (shrink)

This essay critically considers the differences and complementarities between Emmanuel Levinas’s and Jean-Luc Nancy’s respective accounts of ontology and ethics. A comparative reading reveals that while both insist upon a relational conceptualization of subjectivity, they base relationality on differing notions of alterity. The simultaneous proximity and distance between these two thinkers’ respective transphenomological quests yield critical force that enables a mutual critique, while opening up productive avenues for overcoming some of the problems inherent to their views.

Organizations are altering their office settings to non-territorial workspaces, where employees do not have assigned desks but are supposed to choose freely where they sit. In this context, the metaphor of the nomad appears to be an understandable way to position the employees of organizations within non-territorial workspaces. Drawing on the empirical data of a study of organizational change in a Nordic media company, this study applied the discursive resources from the field of institutional interaction in the analysis. This article (...) presents how the participants employed the same metaphor of the nomad as a rhetorical strategy to support and resist change, and suggests that the use of a particular discourse does not necessarily contribute to the desired outcomes. Furthermore, the study shows how constructing senses of legitimacy involves the use of the same metaphor to construct arguments and counter-arguments toward the change. (shrink)

This paper is motivated by the need to respond to the spread of influential misinformation and manufactured ignorance, which places pressure on the work of experts in various sectors. To meet this need, the paper discusses the conditions required for expert testimony to evolve a reconceptualisation of negative capability as a new form of epistemic humility. In this regard, professional knowledge formation is not considered to be separate from the institutional and social processes and values that uphold its production. Drawing (...) attention to the structural and relational aspects of ignorance, as opposed to the individualistic and internal aspects, we rely on the sociology of knowledge, the social epistemologies and the feminist epistemologies that have played a fundamental role in the development of the investigation of ignorance. First, we analyse the criteria for epistemic humility based on prior theoretical discussions concerning negative knowledge as a form of reflective practice. Then, we seek to determine what kinds of strategies, virtues and skills experts need to have so as to ‘manage ignorance’ in socially complex situations. Finally, we suggest the reformulation of negative expertise as a phronetic skill for navigating through situations of ignorance and uncertainty in an epistemically and socially responsible manner. (shrink)

Typically, a logic consists of a formal or informal language together with a deductive system and/or a model-theoretic semantics. The language is, or corresponds to, a part of a natural language like English or Greek. The deductive system is to capture, codify, or simply record which inferences are correct for the given language, and the semantics is to capture, codify, or record the meanings, or truth-conditions, or possible truth conditions, for at least part of the language.

1 The question of expression is essential for artistic practices; it designates how a material is articulated through sculptural gestures, how a musical idea is shaped by the dancer’s movements, an...

This chapter discusses imaginary technologies that do not exist yet but are expected to be implemented in clinical work in the near future. Adopting a phenomenological view on the politics of organizational time, we illuminate how the rhetoric of futurity and protentional anticipation dominate managerial acts in healthcare organizations. This future-oriented management includes strategies of risk assessment, investments in emerging technologies, and other actions to reduce external uncertainty and move towards an enhanced capacity to cope with potential challenges. However, we (...) suggest that potentially harmful consequences of emerging technologies cannot be established reliably in advance by investigation, experiments, and risk assessments. The phenomenological notion of embodied information infrastructure allows us to consider how visions of complex technologies intertwine with clinical practices in healthcare professionals’ work. We use two examples of imaginary technologies—automated decision-making systems and care robotics—to concretize how the line between imaginary technologies and existing technologies becomes increasingly volatile in healthcare organizations. (shrink)

Anna Leuschner argues that there is problematic circularity in Helen Longino's approach that postulates the existence of some shared norms as a necessary precondition for well-functioning pluralistic communities. As an alternative, Leuschner proposes to approach the establishing of more pluralistic communities through political means on a case-by-case basis, taking relevant epistemic and political factors into account. In this paper, I argue that there is an alternative understanding of norms that avoids circularity. I do so by drawing on Isabelle Peschard's discussion (...) of shared practice. I go on to show that norms, so understood, are important in the cases where a political decision may not alone be sufficient for establishing a successful community. Specifically, I discuss pluralistic communities that include laypersons in possession of relevant expertise as an example. (shrink)

According to Helen Longino, objectivity is necessarily social as it depends on critical interactions in com- munity. Justin Biddle argues that Longino’s account presupposes individuals that are completely open to any criticism; as such individuals are in principle able to criticise their beliefs on their own, Longino’s account is not really social. In the first part of my paper I argue that even for completely open individuals, criticism for maintaining objectivity is only possible in community. In the second part I (...) question Biddle’s interpretation of Longino’s conception of the individual. I conclude that objectivity as Longino describes it is necessarily social. (shrink)

Rudolf Carnap’s logical pluralism is often held to be one in which corresponding connectives in different logics have different meanings. This paper presents an alternative view of Carnap’s position, in which connectives can and do share their meaning in some contexts. This re-interpretation depends crucially on extending Carnap’s linguistic framework system to include meta-linguistic frameworks, those frameworks which we use to talk about linguistic frameworks. I provide an example that shows how this is possible, and give some textual evidence that (...) Carnap would agree with this interpretation. Additionally, I show how this interpretation puts the Carnapian position much more in line with the position given in Shapiro than had been thought before. (shrink)

Food has become a prominent object of everyday moral discussions. This study examines how gender, political orientation, and country of origin are connected to moral foundation endorsement in food-related moral thinking. Respondents were university students (N = 371) from Finland, Denmark, and Italy who completed a word association task, in that given stimulus words were “ethical food” and “unethical food.” Results showed a presence of five moral foundations in the data, and indicated high prevalence of the Purity/Sanctity foundation in food-related (...) moral thinking. As expected, gender differences emerged in the endorsement of the Fairness/Reciprocity and the Purity/Sanctity foundations. Also, between-country differences emerged in four of the five moral foundations, indicating that even within Europe countries may differ from each other in their endorsement of foundations. The results also verified the previously found effect of political orientation in three of the five moral foundations, although the study used a completely new and different type of method compared with previous studies. The study concludes by proposing more cross-national comparative studies where the focus is on the specific objects of moral thinking. (shrink)

There has been a particular emphasis on knowledge and competence as increasingly important resources for successful enterprises. This notion of knowledge is based on “positive knowledge” that knowing is merely a constructive, linear and accumulative process. We will introduce the notion of “negative knowledge” that involves “giving up” or “bracketing” knowledge in certain situations. When experts encounter something that is incompatible with their knowledge, they should be sensitive enough to recognise a new situation by suspending their action. In addition to (...) exploring the idea of “unlearning”, the paper introduces three other aspects of negative knowledge: “to know what we do not know”, “to know what not to do” and the value of failures. Negative knowledge seems to be possible, useful, and even necessary in expert organisations since old ways of thinking or knowing something often prevent us to see new potentials. (shrink)

Logical pluralism is the theory that there is more than one right logic. Logical instrumentalism is the view that a logic is a correct logic if it can be used to fruitfully pursue some deductive inquiry. Logical instrumentalism is a version of logical pluralism, since more than one logic can be used fruitfully. In this paper, I will show that a logical instrumentalist must accept linear logic as a correct logic, since linear logic is useful for studying natural language syntax. (...) I further show that this means that the logical instrumentalist must accept a wide range of connectives, in particular concatenation. I end by explaining why this is a feature rather than a bug. (shrink)

Substance-abusing women are vulnerable to specific kinds of epistemic injustice, including stigmatization and discrimination. This article examines the development of the epistemic agency of female substance abusers by asking: How does the use of a formal discussion protocol in community rehabilitation interaction alleviate epistemic injustice and strengthen the epistemic agency of substance abusers? The data were collected in a Finnish rehabilitation center by videotaping six group discussions between social workers, peer support workers, and rehabilitation clients with substance abuse problems. Of (...) these data, one recorded group discussion between four female participants—two rehabilitation clients, a peer support worker, and a social adviser—was used in this paper. Using conversational analysis, the findings indicate that, through the collaborative activities of sharing experiential knowledge about substance abuse and discussing the experiences of abuse in the rehabilitation interaction, substance abusers can develop novel ways to strengthen their epistemic agency by enhanced self-awareness. The discussion protocol is an epistemic tool that professionals and clients can learn to use in ethically and epistemologically successful ways in interaction. The use of a discussion protocol is an example of social professionals’ clinical knowledge of intensifying collaboration and sharing experiential knowledge in community rehabilitation and other substance abuse services. (shrink)

Restall :279–291, 2014) proposes a new, proof-theoretic, logical pluralism. This is in contrast to the model-theoretic pluralism he and Beall proposed in Beall and Restall :475–493, 2000) and in Beall and Restall. What I will show is that Restall has not described the conditions on being admissible to the proof-theoretic logical pluralism in such a way that relevance logic is one of the admissible logics. Though relevance logic is not hard to add formally, one critical component of Restall’s pluralism is (...) that the relevance logic that gets added must have connectives which mean the same thing as the connectives in the already admitted logic. This is what I will show is not possible. (shrink)

Given the plethora of research conducted in the field of spirituality and mysticism over the last 30 years, it is almost a superhuman feat to keep up with the explosion of information. Of necessity, in a limited article of this nature, it is possible to discuss only a few salient aspects of the spirituality and mysticism phenomenon and by so doing contribute to ongoing research in this important domain. Contemporary spiritualties encompass the whole range of human experience and new variants (...) are emerging; for example, the relatively recent Contemplative Studies, a cognate and close companion to Spirituality. Crossing inter-religious boundaries enhances studies in Mysticism; natural mysticism is clearly in the foreground; and breaking research in neurotheology sheds light on the nature of the ‘mystical mind’. Discussion of the value or otherwise of techniques and methods of the mystical journey continues unabated. Of great value for today’s frenetic, Internet-crazy world is the path of mystical silence. By contributing to a discussion of these issues, it is hoped that the threads of spirituality and mysticism will continue to share their colour in a world desperate for beauty and peace. (shrink)

Controversy arose when a humanoid robot named “Sophia” was given citizenship and did performances all over the world. Why should some robots gain citizenship? Going beyond recent discussions in robot ethics and human–robot interaction, and drawing on phenomenological approaches to political philosophy, actor-network theory, and performance-oriented philosophy of technology, we propose to interpret and discuss the world tour of Sophia as a political choreography: we argue that the media performances of the Sophia robot were politically choreographed to advance economic interests. (...) Using a phenomenological approach and attending to the performance and movement of robots and illustrating our discussion with media material of the Sophia performance, we explore the mechanisms through which the media spectacle and robotic performance advanced the economic interests of technology industries and their governmental promotors. (shrink)

The approach to expert communities and political representation of non-experts in Harry Collins and Robert Evans’ elective modernism reflects the conviction that experts are not representative of ordinary citizens. I use an analysis of aspects of representation and the argument from inductive risk to argue that experts can be seen as representative of non-experts, when we understand representation as resemblance based on shared social perspectives and acknowledge the inevitable involvement of such perspectives in decisions under inductive risk. This, in turn, (...) has implications for some of the proposals about practices and institutions made in elective modernism. (shrink)

Social robotics designed to enhance anthropomorphism and zoomorphism seeks to evoke feelings of empathy and other positive emotions in humans. While it is difficult to treat these machines as mere artefacts, the simulated lifelike qualities of robots easily lead to misunderstandings that the machines could be intentional. In this post-anthropocentrically positioned article, we look for a solution to the dilemma by developing a novel concept, “abiozoomorphism.” Drawing on Donna Haraway’s conceptualization of companion species, we address critical aspects of why robots (...) should not be categorized with animals by showing that the distinction between nonliving beings and living beings is still valid. In our phenomenologically informed approach to social robotics, we propose that the concept of abiozoomorphism makes it possible to transcend the strong ethos of biotism that prevails in both robot design and academic research on social robots. (shrink)

The paper discusses kinaesthetic empathy based on the German philosopher Edith Stein’s theory of empathy. Applying Stein’s study of empathy, this paper examines empathy as a particular form of the act of knowing. Instead of a mere emotion, empathy entails a re-living or a placing ourselves ‘inside’ another’s experience. We may grasp another’s living, moving body as another centre orientation of the world through our own kinaesthetic sense and body topography. Kinaesthetic empathy seems to have a partial capacity to make (...) sense of others’ experiential movements and reciprocally our own bodily movements. It makes possible to understand the non-verbal kinetic experiences through which we may acquire knowledge of the other’s bodily movements on the basis of our own body topography. There is recognition that we never reach the other’s primordial movement experience. (shrink)

Tech companies have eagerly utilised mindfulness techniques in order to increase both creativity and productivity among their managers and employees. However, while a growing number of studies within fields of clinical psychology and psychiatry suggest that mindfulness provides myriad health benefits, such literature does not critically evaluate the societal and affective influences of mindfulness and other wellness practices on working bodies. By focusing on discourses related to mindfulness training, this paper explores the conception of ‘being present’. Drawing on the phenomenology (...) of the body, affect theory, and critical mindfulness studies, we develop a new theoretical framework for analysing mindfulness as a somatic and social force in technology-driven business contexts. Using research material drawn from the online advertising of mindfulness programmes for managers, this paper describes ‘presence’ as a new labour concept associated with the cultivated performance skill of the managerial body in the era of late capitalism. We conclude that mindfulness training – transforming the somatic into an affective investment – has transformed Buddhist meditation into capital that can be bought and consumed. (shrink)

During the corona pandemic, politicians have been forced to make urgent decisions under pressure while balancing between challenging options: protecting citizens’ health or causing major social and economic difficulties through security measures. Part of the dilemma has been whether the chosen security measures are oversized, causing fundamental economic and social problems, or not sufficiently enough, thus putting people’s lives at risk. In illustrating our discussion with actions taken by press conferences (PCs) of the Finnish Government, we discuss how nonknowing has (...) governed political decision-making in the corona crisis and how tackling the pandemic has required politicians and experts to develop a capability of dealing with the epistemic conditions of nonknowledge. When information about the virus was constantly updated, the epistemic states of ‘not-yet-known’ or ‘partly-known’ substantially affect the rhythms in which political decisions are made in managing the spread of COVID-19. We suggest that Prime Minister Marin and her cabinet developed a policy of epistemic humility where the legitimation of decision is not based on scientific knowledge but rather on the temporality of nonknowing. The crisis created a favourable momentum for addressing issues of nonknowing in politics, which are easily kept outside of the public attention. (shrink)

Public sector institutions are increasingly investing resources in data collection and data analytics to provide better public services at lower cost, to anticipate demand for services, to identify high-risk groups, and to develop targeted interventions. Prior research has shown that the media shape understanding of the possibilities of technology and creates related expectations. In this article we explore how artificial intelligence and emerging data-driven technologies are made familiar and by whose voices they are talked about in the media. Empirically, we (...) explore communication materials and media coverage from the joint AI experiment between the City of Espoo and Tieto Corporation in 2017–18. In this experiment, Tieto Corporation combined customer data from the City of Espoo’s social and health care and early childhood education from 2002–2016 and analysed this data using artificial intelligence methods. Theoretically, we draw on the tradition of the social construction of technology and especially its branch that focuses on the domestication of technologies. The results show that the means of narration used by the media – repetition and highlighting the voice of the representatives of the institutional actors involved in the AI experiment – strengthen the agency and interests of the parties involved as well as their visibility in the media, while reducing the space for possible critical discussion. We argue that this way, AI is made familiar and acceptable to citizens and in public services in Finland. (shrink)