What makes trust such a powerful concept? Is it merely that in trust the whole range of social forces that we know play together? Or is it that trust involves a peculiar element beyond those we can account for? While trust is an attractive and evocative concept that has gained increasing popularity across the social sciences, it remains elusive, its many facets and applications obscuring a clear overall vision of its essence. In this book, Guido Möllering reviews a broad (...) range of trust research and extracts three main perspectives adopted in the literature for understanding trust. Accordingly, trust is presented as a matter of reason, routine or reflexivity. While all these perspectives contribute something to our understanding of trust, Möllering shows that they imply, but cannot explain, ‘suspension’ – the leap of faith that is typical of trust. He therefore proposes a new direction in trust research that builds on existing perspectives but places the suspension of uncertainty and vulnerability at the heart of the concept of trust. Beyond a purely theoretical line of argument, the author discusses implications for empirical studies of trust and presents original case material that captures the experience of trust in terms of reason, routine, reflexivity and suspension. Möllering concludes by suggesting how the new approach can enhance the relevance of trust research and its contributions to broader research agendas concerning the constitution of positive expectations in the face of prevalent uncertainty and change at various levels in our economies and societies. The book is essential reading for anyone who wants to gain a thorough understanding of trust. It can serve as a general introduction for advanced students and scholars in the social sciences, especially in economics, sociology, psychology and management. For more experienced researchers, it is a challenging and provocative critique of the field and a new approach to understanding trust. (shrink)

This article discusses how cross-sector partnerships (CSPs) for sustainability manage the paradoxical tension between stakeholder inclusiveness and administrative efficiency. Drawing on qualitative data from a case study of a CSP focused on urban sustainability, we show how the inclusiveness–efficiency paradox unfolded throughout the studied collaboration. We discuss how the paradox reemerged in a different guise within each phase of the partnership and how three practices of paradox management helped actors to cope with the tension: “customized inviting” (during the formation phase), (...) “sequential including” (during the preparation phase), and “tailored instructing” (during the implementation phase). On the basis of these findings, we argue that (a) the paradox reoccurred throughout the phases of the CSP because the three paradox management practices accentuated boundaries, thereby helping to resolve the paradox temporarily while at the same time creating grounds for the paradox to resurface, and (b) that the three paradox management practices can be theorized as a special type of boundary work that “plays up” relevant differences between actor groups and thereby ensures collaboration. (shrink)

Pt. 1. Conceputal issues -- pt. 2. Qualitative research -- pt. 3. Quantitative approaches.

With the growing interest in trust in the social sciences, this second edition of the Handbook of Research Methods on Trust provides a fully updated and extended account of quantitative, qualitative and mixed methods for empirical research. While many researchers have already drawn inspiration and insight from the previous edition, the dynamic development of trust research calls for further and deeper engagement with methodological issues, particular methods, practical research experience, and current challenges and innovations as offered by this new edition.

In this review of Brooke Harrington's edited collection of essays on deception, written by people from different disciplines and giving us a good "status report" on what various disciplines have to say about deception and lying, I reject social psychologist Mark Frank's taxonomy of passive deception, active consensual deception, and active non-consensual deception (active consensual deception is not deception), as well as his definition of deception as "anything that misleads another for some gain" ("for gain" is a reason for engaging (...) in deception, not part of its definition). I also take issue with management professor Guido Mollering's claim that all deception involves a violation of trust. (shrink)

According to virtue epistemology, the main aim of education is the development of the cognitive character of students (Pritchard, 2014, 2016). Given the proliferation of technological tools such as ChatGPT and other LLMs for solving cognitive tasks, how should educational practices incorporate the use of such tools without undermining the cognitive character of students? Pritchard (2014, 2016) argues that it is possible to properly solve this ‘technology-education tension’ (TET) by combining the virtue epistemology framework with the theory of extended cognition (...) (EXT) (Clark and Chalmers, 1998). He argues that EXT enables us to consider tools as constitutive parts of the students’ cognitive system, thus preserving their cognitive character from technologically induced cognitive diminishment. The first aim of this paper is to show that this solution is not sufficient to solve the TET. Second, I aim to offer a complementary and more encompassing framework of tool-use to address the TET. Then, I apply it to the educational uses of ChatGPT as the most notable example of LLM, although my arguments can be extended to other generative AI systems. To do so, in Sect. 1.1, I present Pritchard’s framework of cognitive character and virtue epistemology applied in education, to which I am committed in this treatment. In Sects. 2 and 3, I respectively illustrate Pritchard’s (2014) solution to the TET, and I highlight the general limitations of his proposal. Thus, in Sect. 4.1 I characterize ChatGPT as a computational cognitive artifact using Fasoli’s (2017, 2018) taxonomy of cognitive artifacts. In Sect. 4.2, I introduce my proposal, which combines Pritchard’s account of virtue epistemology with Fasoli’s (2017, 2018) taxonomy of cognitive artifacts to address the TET. Finally, in Sect. 5.1, I present some epistemically virtuous uses of ChatGPT in educational contexts. To conclude, I argue in favor of a multidisciplinary approach for analyzing educational activities involving AI technologies such as ChatGPT. (shrink)

Many political libertarians argue, or assume, that negative moral duties (duties not to harm others) prevail over positive moral duties (duties to aid others), and that the legal system ought to reflect such pre-eminence. I call into question this strategy for defending a libertarian order. I start by arguing that a successful account of the well-known case of a runaway trolley that is about to kill five innocents unless a passer-by diverts it onto one innocent, killing him, should point to (...) (i) the ex ante advantage to all six of being subject to a policy of redirection of runaway trolleys, and (ii) the causal structure of killing vs. letting-die choices. I then argue that this account of the trolley case entails that legal systems reflecting the relative stringency of negative and positive moral duties should uphold redistributive measures at odds with libertarianism. The assumption that the legal system ought to reflect, through non-causal routes, moral principles and their relative weights leads to either an ideal-theory (in Rawls's sense) assessment of libertarianism or a symbolic account of the relationships between morality and law. Libertarians should undermine this assumption if they hope to offer an all-things-considered case for free markets. (shrink)

A clear understanding of the notion of phenomenological reduction is crucial for any evaluation of the claims of Husserlian phenomenology. The phenomenological reduction is said to be the distinctive step one has to take if one is to enter the realm of phenomenology proper. Husserl labored all his life to find the best way which would lead the nonphenomenologist into the new land which he thought he had discovered. Commentators have classified the ways discussed by Husserl under at least three (...) main headings: the Cartesian way, the way through psychology, and the way through ontology. In each of these ways, one is urged to perform a phenomenological reduction. But since the ways are different, the step also of the phenomenological reduction varies somewhat for each approach. Husserl and his interpreters tried hard to clarify these subtle distinctions, but up to now their ways of speaking have proven rather opaque, especially to philosophers accustomed to the standards of clarity of Analytic Philosophy. (shrink)

The conceptualization of the lifeworld of any species includes a reformation of the matter found in the environment into concepts which make up the species-specific Umwelt. This paper argues that the human agency in conceptualising the Umwelt necessarily transforms what we usually call “nature” into so-called “culture”. Ultimatively, this human activity has two consequences which we cannot escape, but which have an influence not only on our perception of the environment, but also on our theorising about what has been called (...) the “nature-culture divide”, the “semiotic threshold” respectively: First, any environmental perception is at once conceived of in cultural terms. Second, whatever “nature” may be, our including it into the cultural discourse removes it from our immediate cognition. (shrink)

The conceptualization of the lifeworld of any species includes a reformation of the matter found in the environment into concepts which make up the species-specific Umwelt. This paper argues that the human agency in conceptualising the Umwelt necessarily transforms what we usually call “nature” into so-called “culture”. Ultimatively, this human activity has two consequences which we cannot escape, but which have an influence not only on our perception of the environment, but also on our theorising about what has been called (...) the “nature-culture divide”, the “semiotic threshold” respectively: First, any environmental perception is at once conceived of in cultural terms. Second, whatever “nature” may be, our including it into the cultural discourse removes it from our immediate cognition. (shrink)

In the United States most people have adopted a worldview based on the core tenets of liberal democracy, capitalism, science, religion and the social sciences. Scientific advances, though, have persuaded many individuals to revise this traditional view and adopt an alternative belief system. Thus some people embrace social democracy, regulated capitalism or a more extreme political philosophy. Others adopt non-theistic religions or break their affiliation with any religion. The latter include naturalists who reject supernatural explanations and take science as the (...) best description of reality. Many people reject the blank slate doctrine and hold that human behaviour results from the interaction of the environment with innate biological factors. (shrink)

Pincione argues that procedural constitutional guarantees of market freedoms best protect individuals from domination. If he is right, Philip Pettit's claim that various forms of state interference with private markets are needed to forestall domination will prove to be unwarranted. Pincione further contends that market freedoms are best protected by procedural rules for political decision-making, as opposed to constitutional guarantees of private property and other substantive rules.Central to his position are claims that the dispersion of economic power precludes domination, and (...) that free entry into markets furthers such dispersion. As against the idea that the state is in a better position to disperse economic power, Pincione argues that the constitutional provisions needed to implement that idea are contestable, and to that extent require interpretive powers that themselves involve domination. Only a constitution that, as a side effect of its procedures for political decision making, generates full private property rights holds out hope of shielding citizens from domination. This is so, because a plurality of suppliers of goods and services is a structural feature of the free market, in a sense of “structural” that matters for measurements of domination based on fairly uncontroversial claims about persons and resources. (shrink)

Naturalism is a worldview that rejects supernatural events and affirms that a complete account of reality can be given by entities and processes that occur in the natural world. It has a political, moral and spiritual dimension compatible with the Humanist Manifesto. In this paper, I present a description of naturalism based on recent developments in physics and biology. In my view, naturalism is based on scientific realism and accepts indeterminism as postulated by quantum mechanics. Because I cannot prove that (...) only physical entities populate the world, I embrace methodological rather than ontological naturalism. I believe that complex systems exhibit behaviors such as emergence and chaos that can only be explained by non-reductive physicalism. We do not know the origin of life or the universe but there are many plausible theories under investigation. The theory of evolution is the best explanation we have for the amazing variety and complexity in the living world. It is unclear how brain events cause mind events; I suspect that mind is an emergent property of neural circuits in the brain. Religious beliefs have a socialevolutionary origin; I am an agnostic who rejects positive atheism and agrees that science may be compatible with Deism, pantheism and some liberal religions. (shrink)

Studying the Belgian military and foreign policy from 1934 till 1937, one can conclude to the following working hypotheses. The conflict between the King and the Cabinet about the competency over military policy and military command has had a large influence on the acute phase of the Question Royale 1940-1950.The policy of independence of 1936 which has been imputed later on to the King and for which He has been blamed, is rather contained in the military and foreign policy of (...) the successive Belgian governments from 1930 on, inspired by Paul Hymans, minister of foreign affairs at that time. (shrink)

Brentano hat in seinen Analysen der Wahrnehmung zwei wichtige Punkte hervorgehoben: (a) daß die innere Wahrnehmung nur ein Bewußtsein "nebenbei" sei; und (b) daß die äußere Wahrnehmung ein räumlich Ausgedehntes (und nicht eine Idee) zum Objekt habe. Er ging aber nicht weit genug, sondern blieb dem Kartesianismus verhaftet, indem er die innere Wahrnehmung immer noch ein Erkennen nannte, und andererseits vom Objekt der äußeren Wahrnehmung sagte, daß es in Wahrheit gar nicht bestehe. Wenn man aber weiter geht und zugesteht, daß (...) die sogenannte innere Wahrnehmung gar kein eigentliches Erkennen ist, und daß es im Gegenteil die äußere Wahrnehmung ist, welche die Wirklichkeit erkennt, dann wird es unmöghch, sich in der Erkenntnistheorie mit Descartes auf unmittelbare untrügliche Evidenz zu berufen. Descartes bleibt aber insofern im Recht, als es trotz allem sinnvoll bleibt, zur Rechtfertigung von Erkenntnissen auf die sogenannte innere Wahrnehmung zu verweisen. (shrink)

Most attempts at parliamentary reform in Belgium are prompted by the desire to support a Parliament which is being marginalized by political actors such as the government and the parties. These efforts are inspired by traditional constitutional thinking. Initially parliaments were designed as democratie bodies which should challenge the aristocratie government. Nowadays, parliament has quite another function. It has to facilitate the political information and to counteract the incompetence of citizens who are willing but unable to participate in an increasingly (...) complex political system.Reform should aim at restoring the significance ofpublic debates in parliament.In order to be informative these debates should focus on important issues of the political agenda and catch the attention of the general public. Within the constraints of our political system it should be possible to upgrade the early debates on budget allocations and the late debates on the evaluation of public policy effectiveness. (shrink)

The hypothesis to explain the often puzzling variability of political language in Parliament is that phenotypical elements of political speech such as emotionality, hostility, and oratorical style can be explained by structuralelements, that is by various aspects of the issues under debate.The data led us to criticize the more common cultural hypothesis, which would explain the variations of political language by linking it to the political culture of the members of parliament. As a result the evolutionof political language would be (...) a global one, appearing in all policy domains. This was by no means the case. The evolution of political language between 1950 and 1970 is on the contrary a strongly differentiated one.The structural hypothesis performs much better both for the short- and for the medium-term variations. The expression of hostility during parliamentary debates can be explained satisfactorily by the stakes of the game. The expression of emotion seems to stem both from these stakes and from the level of aggregation of the issue. Finally, various aspects of oratorical style, such as the invocation of values, the principled motivation of proposals and the deductive logic used to legitimize the position taken, all seem to be derived from the level of aggregation and, most of the time, from the ideological contents of the issue as well. As a result we get a profile of political language which is rather tightly controlled by the opportunities and the necessities of the political agenda and much less by all kinds of extraneous factors. (shrink)

A political science program at the licenciate level is currently offered by the Department of the Political and the Social Sciences at the Universitaire Instelling Antwerpen. It was able to do so with the cooperation of staff-members of other departments and other institutes of the University of Antwerp. The prÓgram is mainly focused on international polities and more specifically on European integration, North-South and East-West relations, as seen from the perspective of Belgian and West-European policy-makers. lts methodology is multidisciplinary and (...) encompasses politological and juridical as well as historical and economical perspectives. In the wake of the first encouraging from the student population, the Department has decided to strenghten further this Political Science branch of its program. It intends to invest more in full-time academie personnel and to add some more theoretical background courses to the present courses which emphasize mainly practical knowledge. Last but not least, it has initiated what it hopes shall be a new tradition of empirical research into the political culture and behaviour of international and supranational policy makers. (shrink)

L’indagine condotta su alcuni personaggi finora rimasti nell’ombra, ma che ebbero un peso notevole, se non determinante, sul destino del filosofo, permette di ricostruire il complotto ordito dall’Inquisizione Cattolica per arrivare a mettere le mani su Giordano Bruno. La minuziosa e circostanziata ricostruzione dei fatti si integra perfettamente con altre recenti ricerche dello stesso genere.

Brentano hat in seinen Analysen der Wahrnehmung zwei wichtige Punkte hervorgehoben: (a) daß die innere Wahrnehmung nur ein Bewußtsein "nebenbei" sei; und (b) daß die äußere Wahrnehmung ein räumlich Ausgedehntes (und nicht eine Idee) zum Objekt habe. Er ging aber nicht weit genug, sondern blieb dem Kartesianismus verhaftet, indem er die innere Wahrnehmung immer noch ein Erkennen nannte, und andererseits vom Objekt der äußeren Wahrnehmung sagte, daß es in Wahrheit gar nicht bestehe. Wenn man aber weiter geht und zugesteht, daß (...) die sogenannte innere Wahrnehmung gar kein eigentliches Erkennen ist, und daß es im Gegenteil die äußere Wahrnehmung ist, welche die Wirklichkeit erkennt, dann wird es unmöghch, sich in der Erkenntnistheorie mit Descartes auf unmittelbare untrügliche Evidenz zu berufen. Descartes bleibt aber insofern im Recht, als es trotz allem sinnvoll bleibt, zur Rechtfertigung von Erkenntnissen auf die sogenannte innere Wahrnehmung zu verweisen. (shrink)