Fieldwork is one of the important methods in educational, social, and organisational research. In fieldwork, the researcher takes residence for a shorter or longer period amongst the subjects and settings to be studied. The aim of this is to study the culture of people: how people seem to make sense of their lives and which moral, professional, and ethical values seem to guide their behaviour and attitudes. In fieldwork, the researcher has to balance participation and observation in her attempts at (...) representation. Consequently, the researcher's academic and life-historical subjectivity are important filters for fieldwork. In general, fieldwork can be understood as processes where field reports and field analysis are determined by how the researcher interacts with and experiences the field, the events and informants in it, and how she subsequently develops an ethnography. However, fieldwork is also subjected to psychodynamic processes. In this article, I draw upon a number of research inquiries to illustrate how psychodynamic processes influence research processes: data production, research questions and methodology, relations to informants, as well as interpretation and analysis. I further investigate through a case study how the psychoanalytical concepts of "transference" and "institutional transference" can provide insight into the dynamics of efficiency and democracy at a number of Danish human service organisations. (shrink)

A major theme in recent psychoanalytic thinking concerns the use of therapist subjectivity, especially "countertransference," in understanding patients. This thinking converges with and expands developments in qualitative research regarding the use of researcher subjectivity as a tool to understanding, especially but not exclusively in observational and interview-based studies. Psychodynamic or psychoanalytic approaches to research add an emphasis on unconscious motivational processes in both researchers and research participants that impact research experience and data. Building upon Anglo-Saxon and continental traditions, this special (...) issue provides examples of the use of researcher subjectivity, informed by psychoanalytic thinking, in expanding research understanding. (shrink)

Flow is a gratifying state of deep involvement and absorption that individuals report when facing a challenging activity and they perceive adequate abilities to cope with it. The flow concept was introduced by Csikszentmihalyi in 1975, and interest in flow research is growing. However, to our best knowledge, no scoping review exists that takes a systematic look at studies on flow which were published between the years 2000 and 2016. Overall, 252 studies have been included in this review. Our review (...) provides a framework to cluster flow research, gives a systematic overview about existing studies and their findings, and provides an overview about implications for future research. The provided framework consists of three levels of flow research. In the first “Individual” level are the categories for personality, motivation, physiology, emotion, cognition, and behavior. The second “Contextual” level contains the categories for contextual and interindividual factors and the third “Cultural” level contains cultural factors that relate to flow. Using our framework, we systematically present the findings for each category. While flow research has made progress in understanding flow, in the future, more experimental and longitudinal studies are needed to gain deeper insights into the causal structure of flow and its antecedents and consequences. (shrink)

Previous accounting ethics research berates auditors for ethical lapses that contribute to the failure of Andersen (e.g., Duska, R.: 2005, Journal of Business Ethics 57, 17–29; Staubus, G.: 2005, Journal of Business Ethics 57, 5–15; however, some of the blame must also fall on regulatory and professional bodies that exist to mitigate auditors’ ethical lapses. In this paper, we consider the ethical and economic context that existed and facilitated Andersen’s failure. Our analysis is grounded in Akerlof’s (1970, Quarterly (...) Journal of Economics August, 488–500) Theory of the Market for Lemons and we characterize the market for audit reports as a market for lemons. Consistent with Akerlof’s model, we consider the appropriateness of the countervailing mechanisms that existed at the time of Andersen’s demise that appeared to have effectively failed in counteracting Andersen’s ethical shortcomings. Finally, we assess the appropriateness of the remedies proposed by the Sarbanes–Oxley Act of 2002 (SOA) to ensure that similar ethical lapses will not occur in the future. Our analysis indicates that the SOA regulatory reforms should counteract some of the necessary conditions of the Lemons Model, and thereby mitigate the likelihood of audit failures. However, we contend that the effectiveness of the SOA critically depends upon the focus and attention of the␣Public Companies Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB) towards assessing the ethical climates of public accounting firms. Assessments by the PCAOB of public accounting firm’s ethical climate are needed to sufficiently ensure that public accounting firms effectively promote and maintain audit quality in situations where unconscious bias or economic incentives may erode the public accounting firm’s independence. (shrink)

Although the foundation of financial accounting and auditing has traditionally been based upon a rule-based framework, the concept of a principle-based approach has been periodically advocated since being incorporated into the AICPA Code of Conduct in 1989. Recent high profile events indicate that the accountants and auditors involved have followed rule-based ethical perspectives and have failed to protect investors and stakeholders – resulting in a wave of scandals and charges of unethical conduct. In this paper we describe how the rule-based (...) traditions of auditing became a convenient vehicle that perpetuated the unethical conduct of firms such as Enron and Arthur Andersen. We present a model of ten ethical perspectives and briefly describe how these ten ethical perspectives impact rule-based and principle-based ethical conduct for accountants and auditors. We conclude by identifying six specific suggestions that the accounting and auditing profession should consider to restore public trust and to improve the ethical conduct of accountants and auditors. (shrink)

Recent research has damped initial promises for democratic deliberation in social media arenas. Empirical studies find only low degrees of direct reciprocal interaction among participants, a lack of consensus orientation, and accelerated forms of communication that fail to meet traditional ideals of deliberation. In line with recent literature, we argue that traditional deliberative ideals are too narrow to embrace the potential contribution of social media for deliberation about (ir-)responsible business conduct. Instead, we propose to conceptualize social media as arenas for (...) everyday talk, that is, everyday communication practices through which participants informally discuss and express opinions about current issues, thereby contributing to a broader deliberative system. In adopting this lens, we ask: How can everyday talk in social media contribute to deliberation about (ir-)responsible business conduct? Drawing on the latest insights from online deliberation studies, we develop a framework for evaluating everyday talk and propose that its deliberative quality depends on social media appropriate forms of justification, interactivity, equality, and civility. We apply this framework with an analysis of 260,224 tweets about the role of business in climate change. Based on our findings, we critically discuss how everyday talk in social media can contribute to deliberation at the intersection of business and society. (shrink)

These books will prove valuable to philosophy teachers and their students as well as to other readers who share a general interest in philosophy.

In this book, Linda Wetzel examines the distinction between types and tokens and argues that types exist (as abstract objects, since they lack a unique ...

The distinction between a type and its tokens is a useful metaphysical distinction. In §1 it is explained what it is, and what it is not. Its importance and wide applicability in linguistics, philosophy, science and everyday life are briefly surveyed in §2. Whether types are universals is discussed in §3. §4 discusses some other suggestions for what types are, both generally and specifically. Is a type the sets of its tokens? What exactly is a word, a symphony, a species? (...) §5 asks what a token is. §6 considers the relation between types and their tokens. Do the type and all its tokens share the same properties? Must all the tokens be alike in some or all respects? §7 explains some problems for the view that types exist, and some problems for the view that they don't. §8 elucidates a distinction often confused with the type-token distinction, that between a type (or token) and an occurrence of it. It also discusses some problems that occurrences might be thought to give rise to, and one way to resolve them. (shrink)

The Golden Age of postwar capitalism has been eclipsed, and with it seemingly also the possibility of harmonizing equality and welfare with efficiency and jobs. Most analyses believe that the emerging postindustrial society is overdetermined by massive, convergent forces, such as tertiarization, new technologies, or globalization, all conspiring to make welfare states unsustainable in the future. Social Foundations of Postindustrial Economies takes a second, more sociological and more institutional, look at the driving forces of economic transformation. What, as a result, (...) stands out is postindustrial diversity, not convergence. Macroscopic, global trends are undoubtedly powerful, yet their influence is easily rivalled by domestic institutional traditions, by the kind of welfare regime that, some generations ago, was put in place. It is, however, especially the family economy that hold the key as to what kind of postindustrial model will emerge, and to how evolving tradeoffs will be managed. Twentieth-century economic analysis depended on a set of sociological assumptions that, now, are invalid. Hence, to better grasp what drives today's economy, we must begin with its social foundations. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Semiotica Jahrgang: 2018 Heft: 225 Seiten: 77-102.

Recently, several scholars have argued that scientists can accept scientific claims in a collective process, and that the capacity of scientific groups to form joint acceptances is linked to a functional division of labor between the group members. However, these accounts reveal little about how the cognitive content of the jointly accepted claim is formed, and how group members depend on each other in this process. In this paper, I shall therefore argue that we need to link analyses of joint (...) acceptance with analyses of distributed cognition. To sketch how this can be done, I shall present a detailed case study, and on the basis of the case, analyze the process through which a group of scientists jointly accept a new scientific claim and at a later stage jointly accept to revise previously accepted claims. I shall argue that joint acceptance in science can be established in situations where an overall conceptual structure is jointly accepted by a group of scientists while detailed parts of it are distributed among group members with different areas of expertise, a condition that I shall call a heterogeneous conceptual consensus. Finally, I shall show how a heterogeneous conceptual consensus can work as a constraint against scientific change and address the question how changes may nevertheless occur. (shrink)

It is a commonly raised argument against the family resemblance account of concepts that there is no limit to a concept's extension. An account of family resemblance which attempts to provide a solution to this problem by including both similarity among instances and dissimilarity to non-instances has been developed by the philosopher of science Thomas Kuhn. Similar solutions have been hinted at in the literature on family resemblance concepts, but the solution has never received a detailed investigation. I shall provide (...) a reconstruction of Kuhn's theory and argue that his solution necessitates a developmental perspective wchich builds on both the transmission of taxonomies between generations and a progressive development through history. (shrink)

Scientific Change How do scientific theories, concepts and methods change over time? Answers to this question have historical parts and philosophical parts. There can be descriptive accounts of the recorded differences over time of particular theories, concepts, and methods—what might be called the shape of scientific change. Many stories of scientific change attempt to give […].

Anthropologists have provided rich field descriptions of the norms and conventions governing behavior and interactions in small-scale societies. Here, we add a further dimension to this work by presenting hypothetical moral dilemmas involving harm, to a small-scale, agrarian Mayan population, with the specific goal of exploring the hypothesis that certain moral principles apply universally. We presented Mayan participants with moral dilemmas translated into their native language, Tseltal. Paralleling several studies carried out with educated subjects living in large-scale, developed nations, the (...) Mayan participants judged harms caused as the means to a greater good as more forbidden than harms caused as a side-effect (i.e., side-effect bias). However, unlike these other populations living in large-scale societies, as well as a more educated and less rural Mayan comparison group, the target rural Mayan participants did not judge actions causing harm as worse than omissions (i.e., omission bias). A series of probes targeting the action-omission distinction suggest that the absence of an omission bias among the rural Mayan participants was not due to difficulties comprehending the dilemmas, using the judgment scale, or in attributing a greater causal role for actions over omissions. Thus, while the moral distinction between means and side-effect may be more universal, the moral distinction between actions and omission appears to be open to greater cross-cultural variation. We discuss these results in light of issues concerning the role of biological constraints and cultural variation in moral decision-making, as well as the limitations of such experimental, cross-cultural research. (shrink)

I highlight a metaphysical concern that stands in the way of more widespread adoption of causal modeling techniques such as causal Bayes nets. Researchers in some fields may resist adoption due to concerns that they don't 'really' understand what they are saying about a system when they apply such techniques. Students in these fields are repeated exhorted to be cautious about application of statistical techniques to their data without a clear understanding of the conditions required for those techniques to yield (...) genuine insight into the data. They are acutely aware that anyone can chuck some data into a software package and get what looks like an answer, even though these tests may not be well-defined for the data on which they can apparently be run. This is thus a healthy skepticism for uptake of causal modeling methods, which points directly to the need for a metaphysical understanding of causation in order to successfully use the modeling methods. Without a clear understanding of what the methods are committing to, including what it means to say that there exists a causal relationship, researchers have limited ability to identify potentially bad output, or to independently verify results. (shrink)

Many discussions between realists and non-realists have centered on the issue of reference, especially whether there is referential stability during theory change. In this paper, I shall summarize the debate, sketching the problems that remain within the two opposing positions, and show that both have ended on their own slippery slope, sliding away from their original position toward that of their opponents. In the search for a viable intermediate position, I shall then suggest an account of reference which, to a (...) degree, follows the causal theory in explaining reference as carving the world at its joints. Contrary to the causal theory, however, I submit that this world is a phenomenal world whose variable joints exist only in a historical process in which they are transmitted gradually from one generation to the next. According to this account, the joints of the phenomenal world are constituted by family resemblance, where bundles of features that span bounded areas in perceptual space underlie the joints. Furthermore, the integrity of the cognitive process by which these joints are recognized depends on a transmission process by which new generations are presented with given joints and bundles by the preceding generation. Contrary to a traditional realist account, this heritage from the preceding generation may be transformed into new joints and bundles before transmission to new generations. This permits a continuous process of referential change in which the joints and bundles at different stages in the development of a theory can be connected by chains-of-reasoning. (shrink)

Ernst Jünger is known for his war writings, but is largely ignored by contemporary phenomenologists. In this essay, I explore his e Adventurous Heart which has recently been made available in English. is work consists of a set of fragments which, when related, disclose a coherent ow of philosophical thinking. Speci cally, I show that, beneath a highly poetic and obscure prose, Jünger posits how subjective experience and poetry allow individuals to realize truth. I relate parts of Jünger’s insights to (...) contributions by Husserl, Heidegger and Merleau-Ponty, arguing that Jünger o ers a unique and valuable contribution to the phenomenological discipline. (shrink)

While most business ethics texts focus exclusively on individual decision making--what should an individual do--this resource presents the whole business ethics story. Highly realistic, readable, and down-to-earth, it moves from the individual to the managerial to the organizational level, focusing on business ethics in an organizational context to promote an understanding of complex influences on behavior. The new Fifth Edition is the perfect text for students entering the workplace, those seeking to become professionals in training, communications, compliance, in addition to (...) chief ethics officers, corporate counsel, heads of human resources, and senior executives. (shrink)

Open peer commentary on the article “Lived Experience and Cognitive Science Reappraising Enactivism’s Jonasian Turn” by Mario Villalobos & Dave Ward. Upshot: We argue that Villalobos and Ward’s criticism misses two crucial aspects of Varelian enactivism. These are, first, that enactivism attempts to offer a rigorous scientific justification for its teleological claims, and second, that enactivism in fact pays too little attention to the nature of human phenomenology and intentionality, rather than anthropomorphically over-valuing it.

The article presents a particular case of undergraduate students working on subprojects within the framework of their supervisors' (the authors') research project during Autumn Semester 2012 and Spring Semester 2013. The article's purpose is to show that an institutionalized focus on students as "research learners" rather than merely curriculum learners proves productive for both research and teaching. We describe the specific university learning context and the particular organization of undergraduate students' supervision and assistantships. The case builds on and further enhances (...) a well-established and proven university model of participant-directed, problem-oriented project work. We explore students' and researchers' experiences of being part of the collaboration, focusing on learning potentials and dilemmas associated with the multiple roles of researcher and student that characterized this particular intertwined research and education arrangement. We show that the connection to the research project assisted students to orientate, learn, and contribute in relation to empirical and theoretical aspects of research and supported the development of broad perspectives and deep analysis. (shrink)

In this volume, Brakel raises questions about conventions in the study of mind in three disciplines—psychoanalysis, philosophy of mind, and experimental philosophy. She illuminates new understandings of the mind through interdisciplinary challenges to views long-accepted. Here she proposes a view of psychoanalysis as a treatment that owes its successes largely to its biological nature—biological in its capacity to best approximate the extinction of problems arising owing to aversive conditioning. She also discusses whether or not "the mental" can have any real (...) ontological standing, arguing that a form of reductive physicalism can be sufficient ontologically, but that epistemological considerations require a branch of non-reductive physicalism. She then notes the positive implications of this view for psychiatry and psychoanalysis, Finally, she investigates the role of "consistency" in method and content, toward which experimental philosophers strive. In essence, Brakel articulates the different sets of challenges pertaining to: a) ancient dilemmas such as the mind/body problem; b) longstanding debates about the nature of therapeutic action in psychoanalysis; and c) new core questions arising in the relatively young discipline of experimental philosophy. (shrink)

This paper extends Mori’s (IEEE Robot Autom Mag 19:98–100, 2012) uncanny valley-hypothesis to include technologies that fail its basic criterion that uncanniness arises when the subject experiences a discrepancy in a machine’s human likeness. In so doing, the paper considers Mori’s hypothesis about the uncanny valley as an instance of what Heidegger calls the ‘challenging revealing’ nature of modern technology. It introduces seeming autonomy and heteronomy as phenomenological categories that ground human being-in-the-world including our experience of things and people. It (...) is suggested that this categorical distinction is more foundational than Heidegger’s existential structures and phenomenological categories. Having introduced this novel phenomenological distinction, the paper considers the limits of Mori’s hypothesis by drawing on an example from science fiction that showcases that uncanniness need not only be caused by machines that resemble human beings. In so doing, it explores how the seeming autonomy-heteronomy distinction clarifies (at least some of) the uncanniness that can arise when humans encounter advanced technology which is irreducible to the anthropocentrism that shapes Mori’s original hypothesis. (shrink)

Abstract:This field survey focused on two constructs that have been developed to represent the ethical context in organizations: ethical climate and ethical culture. We first examined issues of convergence and divergence between these constructs through factor analysis and correlational analysis. Results suggested that the two constructs are measuring somewhat different, but strongly related dimensions of the ethical context. We then investigated the relationships between the emergent ethical context factors and an ethics-related attitude (organizational commitment) and behavior (observed unethical conduct) for (...) respondents who work in organizations with and without ethics codes. Regression results indicated that an ethical culture-based dimension was more strongly associated with observed unethical conduct in code organizations while climate-based dimensions were more strongly associated with observed unethical conduct in non-code organizations. Ethical culture and ethical climate-based factors influenced organizational commitment similarly in both types of organizations. Normative implications of the study are discussed, as are implications for future theorizing, research and management practice. (shrink)

What is knowledge? Why do we want it? Is knowledge possible? How do we get it? What about other epistemic values like understanding and certainty? Why are so many epistemologists worried about luck? In ON EPISTEMOLOGY Linda Zagzebski situates epistemological questions within the broader framework of what we care about and why we care about it. Questions of value shape all of the above questions and explain some significant philosophical trends: the obsession with answering the skeptic, the flight from (...) realism, and the debate between naturalism and anti-naturalism. THE WADSWORTH PHILOSOPHICAL TOPICS SERIES (under the general editorship of Robert Talisse, Vanderbilt University) presents readers with concise, timely, and insightful introductions to a variety of traditional and contemporary philosophical subjects. With this series, students of philosophy will be able to discover the richness of philosophical inquiry across a wide array of concepts, including hallmark philosophical themes and themes typically underrepresented in mainstream philosophy publishing. Written by a distinguished list of scholars who have garnered particular recognition for their excellence in teaching, this series presents the vast sweep of today's philosophical exploration in highly accessible and affordable volumes. These books will prove valuable to philosophy teachers and their students as well as to other readers who share a general interest in philosophy. Important Notice: Media content referenced within the product description or the product text may not be available in the ebook version. (shrink)

Citizenship presents two faces. Within a political community it stands for inclusion and universalism, but to outsiders, citizenship means exclusion. Because these aspects of citizenship appear spatially and jurisdictionally separate, they are usually regarded as complementary. In fact, the inclusionary and exclusionary dimensions of citizenship dramatically collide within the territory of the nation-state, creating multiple contradictions when it comes to the class of people the law calls aliens--transnational migrants with a status short of full citizenship. Examining alienage and alienage law (...) in all of its complexities, The Citizen and the Alien explores the dilemmas of inclusion and exclusion inherent in the practices and institutions of citizenship in liberal democratic societies, especially the United States. In doing so, it offers an important new perspective on the changing meaning of citizenship in a world of highly porous borders and increasing transmigration. As a particular form of noncitizenship, alienage represents a powerful lens through which to examine the meaning of citizenship itself, argues Linda Bosniak. She uses alienage to examine the promises and limits of the "equal citizenship" ideal that animates many constitutional democracies. In the process, she shows how core features of globalization serve to shape the structure of legal and social relationships at the very heart of national societies. (shrink)

Language is infused with materiality and should therefore not be considered as an abstract system that is isolated from socio-material reality. Expressions materialise language in social practices, thus providing the necessary basis for languaging activities. For this reason, it makes sense to challenge proponents of orthodox linguistics and others who hold that language can be studied in isolation from its concrete manifestations. By exploring the relation between materiality and linguistic activity, the article extends Malafouris’ Material Engagement Theory while clarifying the (...) phenomenon of ‘linguistic denotation’. In so doing, it critiques orthodox approaches to language which trace denotation to abstract meanings and/or mental representations. The article shows how the denotative aspects of language can be cashed out in non-representational terms and, furthermore, that the interrelation of denotation and materiality is crucial to human material culture in that it allows for material engagements to transcend localised contexts. These engagements become global in Latour’s sense and, in so doing, denotation ceases to demand descriptions in terms of representations. (shrink)

Many degree programs in science and engineering aim at enabling their students to perform interdisciplinary problem solving. In this paper we present three types of expertise that are involved in different ways in interdisciplinary problem solving. In doing so we shall first characterise two important epistemological challenges commonly faced in interdisciplinary problem solving, namely the communication challenge that arises from the use of different concepts within different scientific domains, and the integration challenge that arises from the differences between domain-specific epistemological (...) standards. Next, drawing on recent work on expertise developed within science studies, we characterize the interactional expertise that is a precondition for scientists to communicate across scientific domains, and the integrational expertise that is a precondition for scientists to be able to integrate cognitive resources originating in different domains. Finally, we shall analyse how different types of interdisciplinary problem solving sets different requirements for interactional and integrational expertise and discuss the implications for science and engineering programs in higher education. (shrink)

The paper reviews the current state of play around anti-representationalist attempts at countering Clark and Toribio’s representation-hunger thesis. It introduces a distinction between different approaches to Chemero’s Radical embodied cognition thesis in the form of, on the one hand, those pushing a hard line and, on the other, those who are more relaxed about their anti-representationalist commitments. In terms of overcoming Clark and Toribio’s thesis, hardliners seek to avoid any mentioning of mental content in the activity they purport to explain. (...) Yet, the paper argues, adopting a hard line complicates this endeavor considerably and unnecessarily. Those promoting a relaxed REC, however, are better off in that they have no problem in recognizing that some types of cognition are hybrid. By turning to Hutto and Myin’s Radical Enactivism as a prime example of a relaxed approach to the REC thesis, the paper points towards the lack of continuity between covariant information and informational content as the gap that would necessarily have to be closed in order for RECers to, once and for all, be able to dismiss Clark and Toribio’s hypothesis that certain kinds of cognition are per definition off-limits to anti-representationalism. (shrink)

"First Published in 1992, Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.".

Feminist approaches within the social sciences have expanded enormously since the 1960s. In addition, in recent years, geographic perspectives have become increasingly significant as feminist recognition of the differences between women, their diverse experiences in different parts of the world and the importance of location in the social construction of knowledge has placed varied geographies at the centre of contemporary feminist and postmodern debates. Gender, Identity and Place is an accessible and clearly written introduction to the wide field of issues (...) that have been addressed by geographers and feminist scholars. It combines the careful definition and discussion of key concepts and theoretical approaches with a wealth of empirical detail from a wide-ranging selection of case studies and other empirical research. It is organized on the basis of spatial scale, examining the relationships between gender and place from the body to the nation, although the links between different spatial scales are also emphasized. The conceptual division and spatial separation between the public and private spheres and their association with men and women respectively has been a crucial part of the social construction of gendered differences and its establishment, maintenance and reshaping from industrial urbanization to the end of the millennium is a central linking theme in the eight substantive chapters. The book concludes with an assessment of the possibilities of doing feminist research. It will be essential reading for students in geography, feminist theory, women's studies, anthropology and sociology. (shrink)

It is a well-established fact in representationalist cognitive science that concrete concepts influence human perception. In radical, anti-representationalist cognitive science, however, the case is far from clear. One reason for this is that proponents of Radical Enactivism yet have to clarify whether perceptual activity involving concepts is bound to rely on mental content or if it instantiates basic, contentfree cognition. The purpose of this paper is to show that concept-involving perception instantiates REC-style basic cognition. The paper begins by considering ‘cognitive (...) projection’ as the term is introduced by Distributed Cognition research. Although being introduced as a means for exploring concept-based perception in non-representationalist terms, I argue that ‘cognitive projection’ comes with mentalist overtones and unclarities concerning its linguistic basis. With the purpose of overcoming these shortcomings, I unfold a REC-friendly reading of Wittgenstein’s writings on aspect perception, arguing that basic concept-involving perception is an instantiation of basic cognition. Concludingly, with the aim of ensuring compatibility, I make a connection between conceptual aspect perception and the REC notion of attentional anchors. The latter has been introduced to explore the role of material artefacts in the context of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics educational design but has, I submit, the potential for being extended to other practical contexts. (shrink)