This article provides a review of scholarly approaches to assessing the impact of certification standards for sustainability. While we observe that some theoretical advances have afforded a better understanding of the potential impacts of adopting such standards, we also find that progress has been constrained due to a strong emphasis on assessing impact via linear causal pathways. This linear focus on the net effects for single stakeholders, such as farmers and producers, local communities and ecosystems, falls short of adequately capturing (...) the broader impact of certifications across social and ecological dimensions. Inspired by theories on complex systems thinking, we present a framework based on a systems-based impact logic that better captures and assesses the impacts of certification standards within broader social-ecological systems. Our framework can be used as a heuristic to design impact-related studies and assess the impact of certification standards across disciplinary vantage points and empirical contexts. (shrink)

Transparency has achieved a mythical status in society. Myths are not false accounts or understandings, but deep-seated and definitive descriptions of the world that ontologically ground the ways in which we frame and see the world around us. We explore the mythical nature of transparency from this perspective, explain its social-historical underpinnings and discuss its influence on contemporary organizations. In doing so, we also theorize in a more general sense about the relationship between myth, as a foundational understanding and description (...) of the world, and the constellation of metaphors, as specific ways of framing and seeing organizational reality, to which it gives rise. While observations and evidence can always be adduced to challenge a particular set of metaphors, the endogenous force of the myth may sustain the overall project. This process is explained with a detailed analysis of the transparency myth. (shrink)

In this paper, we explore the empirical phenomenon of large multinational corporations acquiring socially oriented enterprises, such as the Unilever–Ben & Jerry’s, and the L`Oréal-The Body Shop takeovers. When focusing on these cases, we argue that variance in organisational identity orientations, as the dominant logic of managers within the acquiring organisations, determines whether MNCs consider the transaction not only in financial terms, but also decide to adopt “social technology” in the form of CSR-related organisational practices from the acquired unit. We (...) argue that in turn based on a “match” with the organisational identity of the acquired unit, managers will opt to adopt CSR practices more fully or selectively, and in more substantial or symbolic ways. With these propositional arguments we not only aim to contribute to the literature on CSR adoption by MNCs, but we also set out to develop theory on the widespread but so far undocumented phenomenon of MNCs “buying CSR” by acquiring socially oriented enterprises. (shrink)

What determines the subjective intensity of emotions? Four major groups of determinants are hypothesised: concerns (strength and relevance), appraisal, regulation, and individual differences. During six weeks subjects reported an emotion every week and answered questions on a computer. It appears that all four groups of supposed determinants are correlated with emotional intensity, the concern variables show the highest correlations. The importance of the determinants is not always the same, there are differences between the emotions and between the dimensions of emotional (...) intensity. The relation between regulation and emotional intensity is complex: Causal relations are expected in both directions. On the one hand, a more intense emotion requires more regulation (positive causal effect), and on the other, regulation will decrease the intensity (negative causal effect). Indications of the existence of both relations are found. Regulation and intensity are positively correlated. The canonical correlation of overall felt intensity and the regulation effort with the determinants is higher than the multiple correlation of only the overall felt intensity with the determinants. (shrink)

Parental involvement and teacher perceptions of parental involvement in the education of children were studied in relation to level of parental education and pupil achievement. A questionnaire was administered to 218 parents and 60 teachers. Correlational analyses and paired?sample analyses showed teacher perceptions to be weakly related to parental reports of their own involvement and to operate at a different level. Regression analyses and analyses of variance showed teacher perceptions of parental involvement to affect pupil achievement more strongly than parental (...) reports. The results suggest that teacher perceptions of parents may be stereotyped and that such stereotypes can clearly affect academic results. (shrink)

Studie over de visie van de Duitse filosoof (1844-1900) op de menselijke natuur.

In this article, I turn my attention to the figure of the ignorant master, Joseph Jacotot, that is depicted in The Ignorant Schoolmaster. Five Lessons in Intellectual Emancipation (1991). I will show that the voice of Jacotot can actually be read as a reaction against the progressive figure of the teacher which, following Rancière's view, can be seen as effecting a stultification. In some respects, however, Rancière's analysis of the pedagogical order no longer seems to be valid in today's partly (...) reconfigured, pedagogical order that depicts the teacher in terms of facilitation. Yet, the figure of the facilitator can be seen as effecting a stultification as well. Therefore, I will stress that Jacotot's voice is highly relevant today. The most important difference between the figure of the (old and current) figure of the stultifyer and that of the ignorant master is identified in their starting point. The stultifying master starts from the assumption of inequality. S/he transforms taught material (words, text, images, etc.) into objects of knowledge or resources for competence development that open the door to another world. The ignorant master (Jacotot) assumes equal intelligence and draws attention to a thing in common. According to Rancière, the ignorant master keeps the door closed and puts his/her students in the presence of a thing in common. (shrink)

This pioneer study of Aristotle's theory of deduction in early medieval Islam provides invaluable first-hand information on both the classical and the Islamic ...

ABSTRACTDrawing upon archival material, this article offers an overview and discussion of the manner in which the topic of representative democracy was addressed during conferences of the Mont Pèlerin Society in the period between 1947 and 1998. I contend that the most common critique of democracy amongst MPS members was that democratic politics has the tendency to lead to interventions in the economy, thus distorting or even destroying the market mechanism. Yet most members were simultaneously convinced that democracy is a (...) necessary condition of individual liberty, which meant that democracy, rather than being either a mere nuisance or an irredeemable obstacle that must be rejected wholesale, posed a genuine problem for them. Whilst at MPS conferences a myriad of solutions to the problem of democracy was explored, one such solution was suggested most often and theorized most thoroughly, namely the imposition of constitutional limits on popular power; a proposal that often amounted to an attempt radically to circumscribe citizens’ influence on the legislature. I conclude by reflecting upon the implications of these findings for the scholarly study of neoliberal thought on democracy. (shrink)

Hoe kunnen we ons leven vormgeven? In zijn magnum opus Iemand zijn laat filosoof Joep Dohmen zien op welke manieren wij ons kunnen ontwikkelen tot zelfstandige en betrokken mensen. In de voorbije decennia hebben we onze joods-christelijke traditie achter ons gelaten en zijn we in een neoliberale samenleving terechtgekomen, die zich kenmerkt door een verregaande individualisering. Vrij zijn om je eigen leven te leiden is de hartenwens van de laatmoderne mens. Maar de vervulling daarvan blijkt verre van eenvoudig. (...) class='Hi'>Joep Dohmen herneemt in 'Iemand zijn' de klassieke visie op filosofie als persoonlijke vorming. Centraal in zijn vormingsleer staan de individuele persoon en diens mogelijkheden om het eigen actorschap te ontwikkelen en te vormen. In het voetspoor van Socrates, Plato en Aristoteles, Erasmus en Montaigne, Rousseau en Kant, Nietzsche en Foucault, Neiman en Nussbaum laat Joep Dohmen zien hoe wij - dankzij een goed zelfbeeld en zelfdiscipline - beter gemotiveerd en geèengageerd in het leven kunnen staan. Omdat we als individu altijd te midden van anderen opgroeien, is vorming altijd ook sociale vorming. Dankzij deze filosofische bestaansethiek zijn we in staat een betekenis- en zinvol leven te leiden."--Publisher information. (shrink)

Overzicht van leven en gedachtegoed van tien bekende filosofen/schrijvers betreffende de kunst om ethisch en zinvol te leven.

Amsterdam University Press is a leading publisher of academic books, journals and textbooks in the Humanities and Social Sciences. Our aim is to make current research available to scholars, students, innovators, and the general public. AUP stands for scholarly excellence, global presence, and engagement with the international academic community.

Religious beliefs are often singled out for special treatment in secular liberal societies. Yet if a legal exemption is granted for a belief with a religious foundation, the question arises whether a similar, non‐religious moral belief must also be granted an exemption. I argue that common reasons for favoring religious over non‐religious beliefs fail to provide a convincing moral case for drawing a distinction of this nature. I focus on arguments concerning the role of religious beliefs in constituting an individual's (...) identity and the transcendental nature of religion, which lead me to consider in the final section the role of choice in religious belief. (shrink)

This article proposes a rethinking of Bourdieu’s habitus as context-specific, multiple, and decentralized based on nine months of participant-observation fieldwork with dumpster divers in New York City. Dumpster divers are mostly white, college-educated people in their twenties and thirties who eat food from retail trash as a lifestyle choice. Sociologists have recently theorized culture as a fragmented, incoherent “toolkit” of cultured capacities acquired throughout the lifetime. Bourdieu on the contrary, theorized socialized culture as habitus, a relatively durable, classed structure acquired (...) during childhood. While he recognized the possibility of acquiring “specific” habitus (Bourdieu 2000) later in life, he never developed the theoretical implications of socialization across multiple contexts. Building on ethnographic evidence of dumpster divers’ contradictory pursuit of food taste through the distasteful behavior of eating from the trash, I develop an alternative model of habitus as interlinked bundles of dispositions acquired in specific contexts. To theorize the bundled quality of habitus, I introduce what I call the practical congruity of dispositions. I show how rather than being disparate elements of a cultural repertoire, ways of seeing, common sense, dexterity, and orientations “make sense” in conjunction as actors mobilize them in specific contexts: dumpster diving acquires a commonsensical character based on the practical sense practitioners acquire. My understanding of habitus goes beyond the fragmentation assumed in notions of culture as a repertoire of cultured capacities, on the one hand, and the continuity and coherence premised in notions of primary and secondary habitus, on the other hand. (shrink)

Understanding natural phenomena is an important aim of science. Since the turn of the millennium the notion of scientific understanding has been a hot topic of debate in the philosophy of science. A bone of contention in this debate is the role of truth and representational accuracy in scientific understanding. So-called factivists and non-factivists disagree about the extent to which the theories and models that are used to achieve understanding must be true or accurate. In this paper we address this (...) issue by examining a case from the practice of synthetic chemistry. We investigate how understanding is obtained in this field by means of an in-depth analysis of the famous synthesis of periplanone B by W. Clark Still. It turns out that highly idealized models—that are representationally inaccurate and sometimes even inconsistent—and qualitative concepts are essential for understanding the synthetic pathway and accordingly for achieving the synthesis. We compare the results of our case study to various factivist and non-factivist accounts of how idealizations may contribute to scientific understanding and conclude that non-factivism offers a more plausible interpretation of the practice of synthetic chemistry. Moreover, our case study supports a central thesis of the non-factivist theory of scientific understanding developed by De Regt, namely that scientific understanding requires intelligibility rather than representational accuracy, and that idealization is one way to enhance intelligibility. (shrink)

Contributed articles presented at a conference.

We describe and analyse how large herbivores strongly diminished a woody vegetation, dominated by the unpalatable shrub Sambucus nigra L. and changed it into grassland. Density of woody species and cover of vegetation were measured in 1996, 2002 and 2012 in the grazed Oostvaardersplassen. In 2002 and 2012 we also measured density and cover in an ungrazed control site. In 2002 we measured intensity of browsing and bark loss of Sambucus shrubs in the grazed and control sites. In the grazed (...) site the density of Sambucus and Salix spp. declined significantly between 1996 and 2012, and large areas changed into grassland. In the control site the density of Sambucus increased significantly during this period, the density of Salix spp. did not change, and the vegetation consisted of a mixture of woody species and a field layer dominated by tall herbs. In 2002 and 2012 the percentages of dead Sambucus shrubs were significantly higher in the grazed site than in the control site. In 2002 the percentages of twigs browsed and ring barked stems of Sambucus shrubs were significantly higher in the grazed site than in the control site. Our results show that debarking caused mature Sambucus shrubs to die, but that heavy browsing may have helped this process. Our results also point to a significant neighbour effect on the break down of Sambucus, suggesting that Aggregational Resistance and Associational Palatability were both active. Essential conditions for the break down of this woody vegetation were the presence of large herbivores, the low ratio between the areas of summer and winter feeding habitats and the competition amongst herbivores. Browsing may have been responsible for seedling death, as seedlings were found only in the control site and not on the old and newly established grasslands in the grazed site. (shrink)

This article engages with the limits of Ernesto Laclau's theory of populism, focusing on the logic of popular identification. The central argument is that the Laclauian framework is incapable of accounting for recent forms of populism that articulate a decolonial mode of identification. More specifically, the article shows that for Laclau, leadership and exclusion are necessary components of popular identification, in which the identity of ‘the people' depends on the prior symbolic articulation of both an enemy and a leader. Although (...) this theory of populism is well-positioned to explain how populist leadership functioned in several mid-century Latin American varieties of populism, it founders when faced with more recent forms of populist identification. Careful analysis of contemporary Ecuadorian and Bolivian populisms shows that these implicitly reject the Laclauian model of identification, articulating instead a decolonial model that advocates the plurality of identities and mobilises rich national histories of anti-colonial resistance. (shrink)

Philosophical and medical excellence notwithstanding, Avicenna was far from being an otherwordly person who buried himself in his books. He had an extraordinarily adventurous life and is reported to have been fond of good food, drink, and lovemaking. This article discusses the wellknown but quite unusual view that he died of having too much sex. A detailed analysis of the sources and a common-sense approach to some of their medical claims will show that this allegation is not supported by any (...) evidence whatsoever. Quite the opposite: it will be argued that the main source on which all later reports must taken to depend has been tampered with in two places to produce the image that we know. Thus, we must assume that people hostile to Avicenna and his philosophy are behind this, their forgery most likely having been committed in the first half of the twelfth century AD. (shrink)

Naṣīr al-Dīn Ṭūsī’s _Nasirean Ethics_ is the single most important work on philosophical ethics in the history of Islam. A fine example of medieval Persian-to-Arabic translation technique, this first edition carefully reproduces Middle Arabic elements that can be found throughout the text.

This chapter contains sections titled: Introduction Jacotot's Experiment The Stultifying Master The Ignorant/Emancipating Master The Public Role of the Teacher Conclusion Notes References.

As offshoots of and reactions to neoliberalism continue to dominate our political imaginary, the scholarly critique of neoliberal thought remains urgent and timely. This article engages with two re...

‘Non-Fascist Living’: Identity, Subjectivity, Resistance This article explores a recent form of academic and artistic resistance to contemporary modalities of fascism. This form of resistance is premised upon the argument that fascism lodges itself in the deepest recesses of the self, manifesting as fascist desires and beliefs. As such, traces of fascism are present in everyone, including people who do not otherwise hold fascistic ideas. This position goes on to argue that any critic of fascism must accordingly identify and eradicate (...) such traces inside her own subjectivity, by means of an ethics of ‘non-fascist living’. Critically examining the philosophical presuppositions of this position, the article asks what implicit conception of the subject and its relation to resistance is at work here. It brings this position into conversation with Michel Foucault, upon whose work it draws but whose understanding of resistance, it is argued, it reconceptualises. The article concludes by reflecting on the implications of this form of resistance for critical philosophical practice. (shrink)

The colors we perceive are the outcome of an attempt to meaningfully order the spectral information from the environment. These colors are not the result of a straightforward mapping of a physical property to a sensation, but arise from an interaction between our environment and our visual system. Thus, although one may infer from a surface’ reflectance characteristics that it will be perceived as “colored,” true colors only arise by virtue of the interaction of the reflected light with the eye (...) (and brain) of an observer. (shrink)

This study was designed to investigate the trust relationship between parents and teachers in first grade. Additional research questions were whether trust was related to ethnicity and reading performance. The five facets of trust; benevolence, reliability, competence, honesty and openness, were measured on a 4-point Likert scale. Reading performance was measured by the three-minute test. Parents were found to have more trust in the reliability, competence and honesty of teachers than teachers in parents. Native-Dutch and immigrant parents have the same (...) trust level towards their children?s teacher. However, teachers reported lower trust levels on all five facets of trust for immigrant parents. Our findings indicated that ethnicity has no influence on parents trust in teachers, but ethnicity may explain teachers? trust in parents. Some support was found for the assumption that teachers? trust plays a role in reading performance. Children were found to have higher reading performance when teachers reported higher trust in the benevolence and openness of parents. (shrink)

We used attractiveness judgements as a proxy to visualize the ideal female and male body for male and female participants and investigated how individual differences in the internalization of cultural ideals influence these representations. In the first of two studies, male and female participants judged the attractiveness of 242 male and female computer-generated bodies which varied independently in muscle and adipose. This allowed us to map changes in attractiveness across the complete body composition space, revealing single peaks for the attractiveness (...) of both men and women. In the second study, we asked our participants to choose the most attractive male and female bodies in a method of adjustment task in which they could independently vary muscle and adipose to create the most attractive body. We asked whether individual differences in internalization of cultural ideals, drive for muscularity, eating disorder symptomatology and depressive symptoms could systematically shift the location of peak attractiveness in body composition space. We found a clear preference by both genders for a male body with high muscle and low adipose, and a toned, low adipose female body. The degree of internalization of cultural ideals predicted large individual differences in the composition of the most attractive bodies. (shrink)

We consider two scenarios of the Hotelling–Downs model of spatial competition. This setting has typically been explored using pure Nash equilibrium, but this paper uses point rationalizability (Bernheim, Econometrica J Economet Soc 52(4):1007–1028, 1984) instead. Pure Nash equilibrium imposes a correct beliefs assumption, which may rule out perfectly reasonable choices in a game. Point rationalizability does not have this correct beliefs assumption, which makes this solution concept more natural and permissive. The first scenario is the original Hotelling–Downs model with an (...) arbitrary number of agents. Eaton and Lipsey (Rev Econ Stud 42(1):27–49, 1975) used pure Nash equilibrium as their solution concept for this setting. They showed that with three agents, there does not exist a pure Nash equilibrium. We characterize the set of point rationalizable choices for any number of agents and show that as the number of agents increases, the set of point rationalizable choices increases as well. In the second scenario, agents have limited attraction intervals (Feldman et al. Variations on the Hotelling–Downs model. In: Thirtieth AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence, pp 496–501, 2016). We show that the set of point rationalizable choices does not depend on the number of agents, apart from this number being odd or even. Furthermore, the set of point rationalizable choices shrinks as the attraction interval increases. (shrink)

Self-surveillance and self-experimentation are of concern to everyone interested in finding out the factors that increase one's risk of stroke from.

Colour constancy refers to the ability to extract information about surface colours independently of illumination conditions. A ripe strawberry, for example, appears the same red when viewed under a blue sky or a reddish sunset. Since Land's pioneering work, discussion has centred on the issue whether colour constancy is achieved primarily in the retina or visual cortex. Recently, the debate has shifted to a consideration of the constraints imposed by various psychophysical tasks and instructions. Humans can judge illuminant colour, reflected-light (...) colour, surface colour, and the relationship between surface colours within a scene. Such observations suggest that colour constancy may not be a unitary phenomenon, and that its different aspects may be mediated at different levels in the visual system. Several questions therefore arise: are the tasks of surface estimation and illuminant estimation complementary, insofar as good performance in one implies poor performance in the other? How does retinal adaptation alter performance? Is colour vision tuned to the statistical composition of natural surfaces and illuminants? What role does colour-opponent processing in retina and cortex play in colour constancy? These and related questions are explored here in order to better understand what we mean when we ask: "Why do strawberries look red?". (shrink)

It has been widely theorized and empirically proven that self-regulated learning is related to more desired learning outcomes, e.g., higher performance in transfer tests. Research has shifted to understanding the role of SRL during learning, such as the strategies and learning activities, learners employ and engage in the different SRL phases, which contribute to learning achievement. From a methodological perspective, measuring SRL using think-aloud data has been shown to be more insightful than self-report surveys as it helps better in determining (...) the link between SRL activities and learning achievements. Educational process mining on the basis of think-aloud data enables a deeper understanding and more fine-grained analyses of SRL processes. Although students’ SRL is highly contextualized, there are consistent findings of the link between SRL activities and learning outcomes pointing to some consistency of the processes that support learning. However, past studies have utilized differing approaches which make generalization of findings between studies investigating the unfolding of SRL processes during learning a challenge. In the present study with 29 university students, we measured SRL via concurrent think-aloud protocols in a pre-post design using a similar approach from a previous study in an online learning environment during a 45-min learning session, where students learned about three topics and wrote an essay. Results revealed significant learning gain and replication of links between SRL activities and transfer performance, similar to past research. Additionally, temporal structures of successful and less successful students indicated meaningful differences associated with both theoretical assumptions and past research findings. In conclusion, extending prior research by exploring SRL patterns in an online learning setting provides insights to the replicability of previous findings from online learning settings and new findings show that it is important not only to focus on the repertoire of SRL strategies but also on how and when they are used. (shrink)