Digital communication technologies led to a revolution in how people interact at work: relying on computer-mediated communication technologies is now a must, rather than an alternative. This empirical study investigates how colleagues in a virtual team use synchronous online communication platform in the workplace. Inspired by the conceptualisation of web-based communication platforms as tool, place or context of social construction, we explore the discursive strategies that contribute to the construction of the team’s shared sense of purpose and identity, a collegial (...) atmosphere and consequently lead to effective collaboration. The close analyses of real-life data from a multinational workplace provide insights into the everyday communication practices of virtual team members. Our findings supplement organisational literature based on etic observations of the effectiveness of virtual work and provide a basis for further theorisations about how communication technologies affect the ecology of and discourse practices in computer-mediated communication at work. (shrink)

A citizen of Early Renaissance Florence that stepped out into the streets and entered the spaces of his civic world joined a concert of creative formal behaviors in which he was at once an actor and a spectator. His problem here was to interpret the complex web of overlapping, conflicting and simultaneous meanings he would have read in the actions and images by which the community directed him and represented itself, and find his own place and set his standing. On (...) most occasions he would probably have elected for a state of suspension, a floating of multiple possibilities he was loath to precipitate in too stable a form: in ambiguity the citizen of Florence developed a richness of signification, and found a refuge. (shrink)

Why are people and institutions more inclined to tolerate a street art piece rather than a graffiti tag? Even if legally authorized, graffiti still largely epitomizes a symptom of urban decay, while municipalities hire street artists to rehabilitate poor neighbourhoods with their stunning artworks. Starting from this assumption, the aim of this article is to understand the political roots of such negative attitude towards graffiti in the western imaginary. In doing so the article addresses graffiti as an epistemological object. First, (...) by following Jean Baudrillard, who looks at graffiti as a counter-colonial phenomenon rather than a form of self-expression, the article explores and debunks the most common epistemological attitudes towards graffiti. Second, through an accurate historical and political analysis of New York’s welfare and city planning policy, it is shown how graffiti became a pivotal topic in the politics of demonization and exclusion of the ethnical minorities during the Reagan presidency. Drawing from Craig Watkins’ notion of ‘ghettocentric imagination’ – a racial discourse produced by emphasizing images of inner-city villainy within American film production – the ideological use of graffiti aesthetics in visual communication is termed ‘toxicscape’. By displaying ‘toxicscapes’, American narrative cinema uses graffiti as fetishist visual objects that drive the audience in perceiving graffiti (and events or characters related to them) as ‘toxic objects’. Therefore, in the second part of the article, a reconstruction of the American conservative discourse involving graffiti is proposed. The text analyses toxicscapes by focusing on action-crime films of the 1970s and 1980s, such as Death Wish (Winner, 1974), Fort Apache, The Bronx (Petrie, 1981), Escape from New York (Carpenter, 1981), Colors (Hopper, 1988) and Batman (Burton, 1989). Finally, hip-hop visual narratives like Wild Style (Ahearn, 1983), Bomb the System (Lough, 2002), The Graffiti Artist (Bolton, 2004) and The Get Down (2016) are addressed as an alternative to the toxicscape for their employment of graffiti in a more progressive and dramaturgical sense. In conclusion, graffiti appear to be challenging ideological and epistemological objects. Therefore, a more accurate analysis of the graffiti discourse that stemmed in the 1970s and 1980s would provide a more critical and sophisticated perspective to the understanding of contemporary ‘street art’s’ political and cultural investment. (shrink)

A citizen of Early Renaissance Florence that stepped out into the streets and entered the spaces of his civic world joined a concert of creative formal behaviors in which he was at once an actor and a spectator. His problem here was to interpret the complex web of overlapping, conflicting and simultaneous meanings he would have read in the actions and images by which the community directed him and represented itself, and find his own place and set his standing. On (...) most occasions he would probably have elected for a state of suspension, a floating of multiple possibilities he was loath to precipitate in too stable a form: in ambiguity the citizen of Florence developed a richness of signification, and found a refuge. (shrink)

This contribution explores the role that the Sense of Responsible Togetherness (SoRT) exerts with reference to Participation and Sense of Community. The study was conducted on a university campus, as campuses represent places where academic and community lives go hand in hand and the community is heterogeneous. A questionnaire with the SoRT scale, the Participation scale and the Italian Scale of the Sense of Community (SISC) was administered to 130 university students. SoRT had a significant indirect effect on the students’ (...) Participation via their Sense of Community, suggesting that the promotion of individuals’ Sense of Responsible Togetherness within their community, along with the emotional and affective bond to it, may allow us to recover symbolic and physical spaces in which participation can be fostered. A need for and significance of interventions aimed at promoting collective actions within intermediate systems (groups, educational systems, work ones, etc.). (shrink)

Greenwashing is a phenomenon that is linked to scandals that often occur at the supply-chain level. Nevertheless, research on this subject remains in its infancy; much more is needed to advance our understanding of stakeholders’ reactions to greenwashing. We propose here a new typology of greenwashing, based on the locus of discrepancy, i.e. the point along the supply-chain where the discrepancy between ‘responsible words’ and ‘irresponsible walks’ occurs. With three experiments, we tested how the different forms of greenwashing affect stakeholders’ (...) reactions, from both ethical and business perspectives. We developed our hypotheses by building on attribution theory, which seeks to account for how observers construct perceptions about events. We had anticipated that the more internal, controllable and intentional the discrepancy is, the greater the blame attributed to a company is, and the lower the intention to invest will be. When greenwashing occurs at a company level, this results in a higher level of blame attribution, while the intention to invest falls. Indirect greenwashing refers to a misbehaviour perpetrated by a supplier who claims to be sustainable, and which results in a less negative impact on a supplied company. We also propose the vicarious greenwashing, which occurs when the behaviour of a supplier is in breach of a company’s claims of sustainability. This type of greenwashing is nevertheless detrimental to investment. The findings here advance our understanding of how greenwashing shapes stakeholders’ reactions, and highlight the need for the careful management of the supply-chain. (shrink)

Este artigo parte do entendimento de que a cientificidade na pedagogia exigiu desta área do conhecimento suprimir a experiência como elemento vital da formação do homem, enquanto elevava a comprovação e regularidade do experimento ao patamar de destaque nos seus processos. A partir desta consideração, pretende-se tratar da transformação do conceito de experiência no campo educativo. Inicialmente, abordam-se as questões relacionadas à terminologia e significação do conceito “experiência” e sua possível transformação em “experimento”, e os desdobramentos dessa transição no campo (...) pedagógico. Na sequência, analisa-se a transformação do valor da experiência que passa a ser reconhecida enquanto experimento científico aplicado à pedagogia. Para tanto, apresenta-se, a partir da leitura da literatura educacional especializada, sobretudo os manuais dedicados à formação de professores, como é abordada a temática da Pedagogia Científica, ou seja, a construção dos discursos acerca da modernização da educação por meio de obras que apresentaram expressiva circulação no Brasil durante século XX. Dentre os resultados foi possível apreender o estabelecimento de uma pedagogia do experimento, ou, em outros termos, uma biopsicopedagogia como modelo estruturante do campo teórico da pedagogia com repercussão na formação de professores, e na predominância da problemática do ensino e da aprendizagem, ou seja, a intervenção metodológica em detrimento da formação integral do homem. Por fim, chega-se à conclusão de que se está, de um lado, diante dos impeditivos de realização da experiência e, de outro lado, diante de uma demanda, cada vez mais presente, de romper com o modelo pedagógico da modernidade, rumo aos novos desafios da educação de um homem que não se deixa mais ser, simplesmente, formado. Palavras-chave: Experiência. Experimento. Educação. Pedagogia. (shrink)

Greenwashing is a phenomenon that is linked to scandals that often occur at the supply-chain level. Nevertheless, research on this subject remains in its infancy; much more is needed to advance our understanding of stakeholders’ reactions to greenwashing. We propose here a new typology of greenwashing, based on the locus of discrepancy, i.e. the point along the supply-chain where the discrepancy between ‘responsible words’ and ‘irresponsible walks’ occurs. With three experiments, we tested how the different forms of greenwashing affect stakeholders’ (...) reactions, from both ethical and business perspectives. We developed our hypotheses by building on attribution theory, which seeks to account for how observers construct perceptions about events. We had anticipated that the more internal, controllable and intentional the discrepancy is, the greater the blame attributed to a company is, and the lower the intention to invest will be. When greenwashing occurs at a company level, this results in a higher level of blame attribution, while the intention to invest falls. Indirect greenwashing refers to a misbehaviour perpetrated by a supplier who claims to be sustainable, and which results in a less negative impact on a supplied company. We also propose the vicarious greenwashing, which occurs when the behaviour of a supplier is in breach of a company’s claims of sustainability. This type of greenwashing is nevertheless detrimental to investment. The findings here advance our understanding of how greenwashing shapes stakeholders’ reactions, and highlight the need for the careful management of the supply-chain. (shrink)

Transdisciplinary research knits together knowledge from diverse epistemic communities in addressing social-environmental challenges, such as biodiversity loss, climate crises, food insecurity, and public health. This paper reflects on the roles of philosophy of science in transdisciplinary research while focusing on Indigenous and other subaltern forms of knowledge. We offer a critical assessment of demarcationist approaches in philosophy of science and outline a constructive alternative of transdisciplinary philosophy of science. While a demarcationist focus obscures the complex relations between epistemic communities, transdisciplinary (...) philosophy of science provides resources for meeting epistemic and political challenges of collaborative knowledge production. (shrink)

Although the literature on corporate social responsibility has discussed the scope and meaning of CSR extensively, confusion still exists regarding how to define the concept. One controversial issue deals with the changing legal status of CSR. Based on a review of CSR definitions and meta-studies on CSR definitions, we find that the majority of definitions leans toward voluntary CSR. However, some recent regulatory amendments toward mandatory CSR have called into question the established idea of CSR as merely a managerial tool (...) of self-regulation. In this paper, we juxtapose the evolution of CSR in India against the scholarly literature discussing voluntary-versus-mandatory CSR to understand the recent shift toward a new conceptualization of CSR as a form of co-regulation that includes elements of both voluntary and mandatory regulation. The Indian Companies Act 2013 is a remarkable example in that it replaced an older version from 1956, taking a bold step toward the integration of voluntary and mandatory aspects in the application of CSR. We present practical implications of the Indian case for businesses and discuss implications for CSR theory development; we particularly consider the evolution of the business and society relationship from a voluntary soft law approach to CSR to an increasingly hard law approach and transitory hybrid forms in-between like soft–hard law and hard–soft law. (shrink)

Background: The rapid pace of progress in medical research, the consequent need for the timely transfer of new knowledge into practice, and the increasing need for ethics support, is making the work of Ethics Committees (ECs) ever more complex and demanding. As a response, ECs in many countries exhibit large variation in number, mandate, organization and member competences. This cross-sectional study aims to give an overview of the different types of activities of Italian ECs and favour discussion at a European (...) level.Methods: A questionnaire was emailed to all Italian Ethics Committees contained in the national Registry of the Ministry of Health, enquiring whether the EC was conducting, or planning to conduct, 4 specific activities. A telephone interview was conducted to determine reasons for failure to respond.Results: Response rate was 53% (101 respondents out of 191). 20% of ECs restrict their responsibilities to research protocol review, 25% also offer ethical consultation to institutions, support on individual health care decisions and promotes educational initiatives, while the remaining 50% conduct a few of the examined activities to varying degrees. Large variation was observed across different types of hosting institutions and geographical locations.Conclusions: A common European model should be developed, defining EC functions, member selection modalities, necessary member competences, decision-making criteria and measures for work verification. In the absence of sound empirical evidence, it would be interesting to study the effectiveness and efficiency of the different existing models. (shrink)

Europe's long sixteenth century—a period spanning the years roughly from the voyages of Columbus in the 1490s to the English Civil War in the 1640s—was an era of power struggles between avaricious and unscrupulous princes, inquisitions and torture chambers, and religious differences of ever more violent fervor. Ideas of Liberty in Early Modern Europe argues that this turbulent age also laid the conceptual foundations of our modern ideas about liberty, justice, and democracy. Hilary Gatti shows how these ideas emerged (...) in response to the often-violent entrenchment of monarchical power and the fragmentation of religious authority, against the backdrop of the westward advance of Islam and the discovery of the New World. She looks at Machiavelli's defense of republican political liberty, and traces how liberty became intertwined with free will and religious pluralism in the writings of Luther, Erasmus, Jean Bodin, and Giordano Bruno. She examines how the St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre and the clash of science and religion gave rise to concepts of liberty as freedom of thought and expression. Returning to Machiavelli and moving on to Jacques Auguste de Thou, Paolo Sarpi, and Milton, Gatti delves into debates about the roles of parliamentary government and a free press in guaranteeing liberties. Drawing on a breadth of canonical and lesser-known writings, Ideas of Liberty in Early Modern Europe reveals how an era stricken by war and injustice gave birth to a more enlightened world. (shrink)

This book gathers wide-ranging essays on the Italian Renaissance philosopher and cosmologist Giordano Bruno by one of the world's leading authorities on his work and life. Many of these essays were originally written in Italian and appear here in English for the first time. Bruno is principally famous as a proponent of heliocentrism, the infinity of the universe, and the plurality of worlds. But his work spanned the sciences and humanities, sometimes touching the borders of the occult, and Hilary (...) class='Hi'>Gatti's essays richly reflect this diversity. The book is divided into sections that address three broad subjects: the relationship between Bruno and the new science, the history of his reception in English culture, and the principal characteristics of his natural philosophy. A final essay examines why this advocate of a "tranquil universal philosophy" ended up being burned at the stake as a heretic by the Roman Inquisition. While the essays take many different approaches, they are united by a number of assumptions: that, although well versed in magic, Bruno cannot be defined primarily as a Renaissance Magus; that his aim was to articulate a new philosophy of nature; and that his thought, while based on ancient and medieval sources, represented a radical rupture with the philosophical schools of the past, helping forge a path toward a new modernity. (shrink)

In this article, Lauren Gatti and Paula McAvoy explain the interdisciplinary methods that they used for developing a theory of professional judgment for teachers that they call the Ethical Long View. In developing the theory, they engaged in empirical inquiry through the solicitation of dilemmas from practicing teachers using an online survey (N = 127) and follow-up interviews with a subset of survey participants (N = 11). The interviews were developed into qualitative normative cases, which are richly described vignettes (...) of a teacher's dilemma and thinking. In between analyzing the survey data and developing the cases was a philosophically oriented recursive process that was both iterative and interdisciplinary. The qualitative work helped the authors develop the conceptual framework for the Ethical Long View and, at the same time, positioned participants as co-constructors of the ethical theory. This research draws on the tools of both applied philosophy and social science, but it belongs exclusively to neither. (shrink)

Three experiments investigated whether the similarity of relational structures influences the interpretation of spatial representations. Adults were shown diagrams of hand gestures paired with simple statements and asked to judge the meaning of new gestures. In Experiment 1 the gestures were paired with active declarative statements. In Experiment 2, the gestures were paired with conjunctive and disjunctive relations. Experiment 3 used statements similar to those used in Experiment 1, but eliminated the initial object‐to‐object mapping provided in Experiments 1 and 2. (...) In all three experiments, most participants chose an interpretation that set up a parallel relational structure between the gesture and its meaning: spatial elements were paired with conceptual elements and spatial relations were paired with conceptual relations. These results are consistent with the hypothesis that similarity of relational structures influences spatial reasoning, and have implications for analogical reasoning, diagrammatic reasoning, and language processing. (shrink)

Giordano Bruno was burnt at the stake in Rome in 1600, accused of heresy by the Inquisition. His life took him from Italy to Northern Europe and England, and finally to Venice, where he was arrested. His six dialogues in Italian, today considered a turning point towards the philosophy and science of the modern world, were written during his visit to Elizabethan London. He died refusing to recant views which he defined as philosophical rather than theological, and for which he (...) claimed liberty of expression. The papers in this volume derive from a conference commemorating the 400th anniversary of Bruno's death. Some focus on his experience in England, others on the Italian context of his thought and his impact upon others. Together they constitute a major new survey of the range of Bruno's philosophical activity, as well as evaluating his use of earlier cultural traditions and his influence on both contemporary and more modern themes and trends. (shrink)

Although mouse‐tracking has been taken as a real‐time window on different aspects of human decision‐making processes, whether purely semantic information affects response conflict at the level of motor output as measured through mouse movements is still unknown. Here, across two experiments, we investigated the effects of semantic knowledge by predicting participants’ performance in a standard keyboard task and in a mouse‐tracking task through distributional semantics, a usage‐based modeling approach to meaning. In Experiment 1, participants were shown word pairs and were (...) required to perform a two‐alternative forced choice task selecting either the more abstract or the more concrete word, using standard keyboard presses. In Experiment 2, participants performed the same task, yet this time response selection was achieved by moving the computer mouse. Results showed that the involvement of semantic components in the task at hand is observable using both standard reaction times (Experiment 1) as well as using indexes extracted from mouse trajectories (Experiment 2). In particular, mouse trajectories reflected the response conflict and its temporal evolution, with a larger deviation for increasing word semantic relatedness. These findings support the validity of mouse‐tracking as a method to detect deep and implicit decision‐making features. Additionally, by demonstrating that a usage‐based model of meaning can account for the different degrees of cognitive conflict associated with task achievement, these findings testify the impact of the human semantic memory on decision‐making processes. (shrink)

Giordano Bruno (1548-1600), who died at the stake, is one of the best-known symbols of anti-establishment thought. The theme of this volume, which is offered as a collection of essays to honor the distinguished Bruno scholar Hilary Gatti, reflects her constant concern for the principles of cultural freedom and independent thinking. Several essays deal with Bruno himself, including an analysis of the Eroici furori, a study of his reception in relation to the group known as the Novatores, and discussions (...) of several important aspects of his stay in England. The authors and texts discussed here are linked by a relentless interest in the question of authority and originality, and they range from literary figures such as Alberti (1404-72), Vasari (1511-74) and the proponents of quantitative verse in sixteenth-century England to controversial philosophers who, like Bruno, were condemned by the Church, such as Tommaso Campanella (1568-1639) and Giulio Cesare Vanini (1585-1619). Taken together, these chapters show how much that was new and revolutionary in early modern culture came from its confrontation with the past. Martin McLaughlin is Agnelli-Serena Professor of Italian at Oxford. Elisabetta Tarantino is a Teaching Fellow in the Department of Italian at the University of Warwick. (shrink)

Renaissance philosopher Giordano Bruno was a notable supporter of the new science which arose during his lifetime; his own role has been debated since the early 17th century. This work re-evaluates his contribution to the scientific revolution, emphasizing his links with the magnetic philosophers.

Giordano Bruno’s visit to Elizabethan England in the 1580s left its imprint on many fields of contemporary culture, ranging from the newly-developing science, the philosophy of knowledge and language, to the extraordinary flowering of Elizabethan poetry and drama. This book explores Bruno's influence on English figures as different as the ninth Earl of Northumberland, Thomas Harriot, Christopher Marlowe and William Shakespeare. Originally published in 1989, it is of interest to students and teachers of history of ideas, cultural history, European drama (...) and renaissance England. Bruno's work had particular power and emphasis in the modern world due to his response to the cultural crisis which had developed - his impulse towards a new ‘faculty of knowing’ had a disruptive effect on existing orthodoxies – religious, scientific, philosophical, and political. (shrink)

When used with regard to aesthetic inquiries prior to the nineteenth century, the concept of "aesthetic experience" is subjected to the criticism of those who consider its a posteriori application illegitimate. At the same time, it seems undeniable that the concept was already present and developed during the 18th century: in particular, among British empiricists. For David Hume, the concept of experience results for many reasons foundational to his aesthetic reflection, especially when analyzed from the perspective of relation/contrast with the (...) question of aesthetic judgment, alongside with the complex dialectical tension to which it gives rise between subjective aesthetic judgment and objective critical evaluation, individual appreciation and social taste, rational and sentimental reaction. (shrink)

O artigo procura situar a interpretação proposta por Theodor W. Adorno para a peça "Fim de partida", de Samuel Beckett, no contexto de sua concepção de autonomia da arte. Segundo a hipótese do trabalho, o conceito de autonomia subjaz ao diagnóstico histórico de Adorno a respeito do gênero dramático, o qual justifica sua leitura da peça como uma paródia do drama. O artigo busca mostrar os acertos dessa leitura perante a recepção inicial da peça, e também seus limites, uma vez (...) que resulta em uma abordagem da experiência teatral focada primordialmente na consideração do texto teatral, em detrimento da encenação. This article aims to situate the interpretation proposed by Theodor W. Adorno for Samuel Beckett’s play "Endgame" in the context of his conception of the autonomy of art. According to the hypothesis of this essay, the concept of autonomy underlies Adorno’s historic diagnostic about the dramatic genre, which justifies his analysis of the play as a parody of drama. The article seeks to demonstrate the successes of this reading in face of the play’s early reception, as well as its limitations, since it results in an approach to the theatrical experience primarily focused on regarding the theatrical text, at the expense of the staging. (shrink)

O artigo examina a interpretação feita por Walter Benjamin dos poemas de Charles Baudelaire marcados pela noção de ideal, a qual se opõe ao spleen. Benjamin encontra aí o esforço de rememoração de uma experiência plena, a qual constituiria, por sua vez, um elemento essencial à compreensão da modernidade como impossibilidade desta forma de experiência. Com as noções de beleza e de aura, o artigo busca ainda salientar a importância da categoria da distância para a configuração desta forma de experiência.

The paper considers the Copernicanism of Giordano Bruno (1548–1600) as a central moment of his philosophy of nature, concentrating on his two principal cosmological works, La cena de le ceneri (The Ash Wednesday Supper), written and published in London in 1584, and the Latin De immenso, published in Frankfurt in 1591. The principal characteristic of Bruno’s reading of Copernicus which is underlined is his physical realism, which was particularly complex due to his extension of the still finite Copernican cosmology to (...) infinite dimensions. The paper shows how Bruno’s use of diagrams was essential in defining the terms of his new infinite, post-Copernican cosmology, which constitutes an essential if much debated link between Copernicus himself and the great astronomers of the early seventeenth century such as Kepler and Galileo. (shrink)

Questa ricerca intende affermare la continuità del pensiero del Campanella, negata dalla maggior parte della letteratura critica, e l'impossibilità di applicare alla sua dottrina un'esegesi riduzionista a carattere immanentistico; e ciò ...

Riassunto: L’uomo ha sempre riflettuto su se stesso e sulla sua identità e la sua riflessione si è strutturata attraverso molteplici forme espressive. Le domande esistenziali nascono nell’uomo con il suo esistere. Il pensiero filosofico occidentale ha egemonizzato il campo filosofico e antropologico imponendo le proprie categorlie di pensiero come le uniche razionali e scientifiche in nome di una presunta superiorità legata a un’idea di sviluppo fondata su un modello prettamente economico. In questo articolo si cercherà di decostruire le certezze (...) scientifiche del pensiero filosofico occidentale e analizzare criticamente il suo primato evidenziando come esistano diverse forme e rappresentazioni dell’esistenza umana. Il pensiero filosofico africano ci offre una prospettiva di lettura dell’essere che contrasta con la visione antropologica occidentale, ma allo stesso tempo ha una sua dignità e coerenza logica fondata su presupposti antropologici propri. Nata come resistenza al dominio del pensiero filosofico e antropologico occidentale, la filosofia africana si è sviluppata e contaminata dalle riflessioni che l’hanno preceduta. Non esiste un pensiero puro, poiché tutte le riflessioni umane sono ibride e nascono dall’incontro e dallo scontro con le altre posizioni filosofiche. Forse è venuto il tempo per riformulare il pensiero filosofico e antropologico da un punto di vista interculturale.: Man has always reflected on himself and his identity. His reflection has been structured through multiple forms of expression. In fact, existential questions arise in man with his existence. Western philosophical thought has dominated the philosophical and anthropological field by imposing its own categories of thought as the only rational and scientific ones, in the name of an alleged superiority linked to an idea of development based on a purely economic model. This article attempts to deconstruct the scientific c certainties of Western philosophical thought and critically analyzes its primacy by highlighting how there are different forms and representations of human existence. African philosophical thought offers a perspective that contrasts with the Western anthropological vision, having its dignity and its logical coherence based on its own anthropological assumptions. Born as resistance to the domination of Western philosophical and anthropological thought, African philosophy has developed and has been contaminated by the reflections that preceded it. All human reflections are hybrid and arise from the encounter and confrontation with other philosophical positions. Perhaps the time has come to reformulate philosophical and anthropological thought from an intercultural point of view. (shrink)