Dans le cadre de notre thèse, nous avons confronté les Lais de Marie de France datant du xiie siècle qui présentent la particularité alors inédite d’avoir pour auteur une femme et le Genji Monogatari de Murasaki Shikibu (une femme également), écrit au xie siècle au Japon, qui fait aussi figure d’exception dans un paysage scriptural majoritairement masculin, a fortiori pour une œuvre d’une telle ampleur. Le rapprochement entre les deux œuvres était avant tout motivé par une thématique de fond, l’imaginaire (...) féminin, déployé dans deux cultures géographiquement et sociologiquement éloignées, cependant immergées dans un milieu élitiste, celui de la Cour. Ce choix s’inscrivait surtout dans la perspective d’une approche mythocritique plutôt que strictement littéraire, dont l’intérêt se situait en deçà du cadre du texte, puisqu’il puisait dans la mythologie fondatrice des deux cultures, source de l’émergence d’un imaginaire féminin à des époques chiches de féminité. Or, cette analyse, que nous avons qualifiée de contrastive, a permis l’ouverture de la réflexion sur d’autres perspectives que seul autorisait un tel rapprochement ; elle a également cherché à distinguer, parmi les motifs communs aux deux textes, ceux qui relevaient d’une universalité (contextuelle) de ceux qui relevaient d’une commune origine eurasiatique. La réflexion était axée sur la notion d’altérité selon une acception très large mais concentrée sur la représentation par l’imaginaire féminin de l’Autre sexe et d’un Ailleurs avant tout textuel et narratif. (shrink)

This article deals with the notion of jurisdictional discourse, which, as a specific type of complex discourse, always poses a real challenge to translators. The authors present a contrastive analysis of the texts of legal decisions in French, German and Polish in order to demonstrate the difficulties in translation and the consequences which they entail, and to suggest a strategy for overcoming them. Firstly, the authors briefly compare the texts of judicial decisions indicating their characteristics both in terms of (...) the macrostructure of the text and in terms of syntactic and lexical units. Secondly, they explain the origin of the difficulties in translation resulting from the qualitative differences of the legal systems. Thirdly, the different types of difficulties are described and illustrated by practical examples, in order to make experienced translators and apprentice translators sensitive to them. The corpus used for the analysis consists of the integral and documented texts of the French, German and Polish judgments rendered in matters of civil law [37]. It should also be noted that the analyzed texts are comparable texts, which are a valuable tool for translators and allow them to acquire means of expression that are as natural as possible [40]. Regarding the methodology, the authors adopt for the analysis the contrastive method, borrowed from the theory of cultural transfer [15]. (shrink)

Jonathan Schaffer introduced a new type of causal structure called 'trumping'. According to Schaffer, trumping is a species of causal preemption. Both Schaffer and I have argued that causation has a contrastive structure. In this paper, I analyze the structure of trumping cases from the perspective of contrastive causation, and argue that the case is much more complex than it first appears. Nonetheless, there is little reason to regard trumping as a species of causal preemption.

La présente contribution propose une analyse d’un type particulier d’élément initial, celui des commentaires énonciatifs, dans un corpus composé d’articles de recherche économique, en français et en anglais. Le postulat de départ est que leur emploi peut être très dépendant à la fois du contexte précis de production et de la langue concernée. Sont pris en compte la composition syntaxique des éléments initiaux de commentaires, leurs valeurs sémantiques précises, la nature du sujet grammatical qu’ils précèdent (groupe nominal, pronom personnel, (...) pronom impersonnel), leur rang et leur agencement dans le cas de séquences de plusieurs éléments initiaux ainsi que leurs fonctions discursives et pragmatiques. L’approche fait ressortir un certain nombre de variations dans les emplois de cette catégorie d’élément initial par les auteurs anglophones et francophones dans leurs articles. (shrink)

The general process view of learning, which guided research into learning for the first half of this century, has come under attack in recent years from several quarters. One form of criticism has come from proponents of the so-called biological boundaries approach to learning. These theorists have presented a variety of data showing that supposedly general laws of learning may in fact be limited in their applicability to different species and learning tasks, and they argue that the limitations are drawn (...) by the nature of each species' adaptation to the particular requirements of its natural environment. The biological boundaries approach has served an important critical function in the move away from general process learning theory, but it is limited in its ability to provide an alternative to the general process approach. In particular, the biological boundaries approach lacks generality, it is in some respects subservient to the general process tradition, and its ecological content is in too many cases limited toex post factoadaptive explanations of learning skills. A contrasting, ecological approach to learning, which can provide a true alternative to general process theory, is presented. The ecological approach begins by providing an ecological task description for naturally occurring instances of learning; this step answers the question:Whatdoes this animal learn to do? The next step is an analysis of the means by which learning occurs in the course of development, answering the question:Howdoes the animal learn to do this? On the basis of such analyses, local principles of adaptation are formulated to account for the learning abilities of individual species. More global principles are sought by generalization among these local principles and may form the basis for a general ecological theory of learning. (shrink)

We present a unified treatment of contrast and denial as slightly different instantiations of the same discourse schema. Both denial and contrast are analysed as involving a revision operation, what sets them apart is merely the type of information being retracted. The formal analysis requires a representational framework that separates different types of information and is therefore implemented in Layered DRT. One of our selling points is the account of the uses of rectification vs. contrastive particles (like German sondern/aber) (...) we get for free with our unification. (shrink)

Le présent article revient sur la polémique qui anime les sphères politiques européenne et française depuis les années 1990 autour de la suppression du mot « race » des textes normatifs. Au-delà des enjeux idéologiques que ce débat cristallise, il propose d’élargir la perspective d’analyse à un phénomène plus englobant : la confrontation d’ordres juridiques hétérogènes engagés dans des processus intégratifs : « le droit français et le droit communautaire diffèrent dans leur démarche en matière de lutte contre les (...) discriminations ». Si le droit français « dit » la race, il lui nie une existence normative. A l’inverse, le droit de l’Union en fait un critère distinctif susceptible d’activer des dispositions juridiques liées au principe de non-discrimination. Ce changement de paradigme conduit le juge interne à modifier son approche traditionnelle des droits de l’Homme fondée sur le principe d’égalité. Les décisions du juge et du rapporteur public portent les traces d’aménagements dénominatifs lorsqu’il raisonne dans le cadre d’une approche plus relativiste, légitimant la différence de traitement. (shrink)

Two apparently mutually exclusive ideas about the relation between contrastive and non-contrastive explanations can be found in the literature. According to contrastivists, all explanation is contrastive explanation and the supposed existence of non-contrastive explanations can be revealed to be an illusion. According to non-contrastivists, on the other hand, contrastive explanation can be fully analysed in terms of non-contrastive explanation, and is thus not of fundamental importance. In the current article, I discuss the main arguments (...) in favour of and against each of the two positions. This discussion leads to the idea that contrastive explanations are to be understood as parts of a bigger, more complete non-contrastive explanation; but that all actual explanations explain only a limited set of contrasts. I conclude that, once the relation between contrastive and non-contrastive explanations is understood correctly, there remains no substantial issue to divide contrastivism and non-contrastivism. (shrink)

Metaphysicians, ethical theorists and philosophers of law squabble endlessly about what it is for a person to act — or perhaps even to ‘will’ — more or less freely. A vital issue in this controversy is how we should analyse two obvious but surprisingly problematical contrasts. The first antithesis is between things we do because we are forced, and deeds we perform because we want to — sometimes after having discovered preponderant reasons in their favour. The other polarity is (...) more general. In most situations, if I act on my desire, I act more freely than if I had not had the desire. But what if my attitude is the product of childhood conditioning — or later brainwashing, brain surgery, hypnosis, behaviour modification, alcoholisim, narcotics addiction, neurosis, psychosis or worse? Then isn't my autonomy diminished? What is it about these latter desires, or their origin, that differentiates them from their unthreatening congeners? (shrink)

In this paper we introduce a theoretical framework and a logical application for analysing the semantics and pragmatics of contrastive conjunctions in natural language. It is shown how expressions like although, nevertheless, yet, and but are semantically definable as connectives using an operator for implication in natural language and how similar pragmatic principles affect the behaviour of both contrastive conjunctions and indicative conditionals. Following previous proposals, conditions on contrast in a conjunction are analysed as presuppositions of die conjunction. (...) Further linguistic evidence leads to a distinction between restrictive and non-restrictive connectives of contrast, and consequently between direct and indirect contrast, which are given a precise definition. A general interface for a theory of contrast using possible world semantics for implication is then presented. As a test case, we show how this interface is applicable to the semantics for conditionals that was introduced by Veltman in his article 'Data semantics and the pragmatics of indicative conditionals' (1986). This application yields an extension of Veltman's Data Logic, called Contrastive Data Logic Once appropriate modifications are added to Veltman's pragmatic considerations, we show that contrastive data logic provides an adequate tool for the analysis of substantial linguistic data concerning contrast and implication in natural language. (shrink)

Meditation is an umbrella term for a number of mental training practices designed to improve the monitoring and regulation of attention and emotion. Some forms of meditation are now being used for clinical intervention. To accompany the increased clinical interest in meditation, research investigating the neural basis of these practices is needed. A central hypothesis of contemplative neuroscience is that meditative states, which are unique on a phenomenological level, differ on a neurophysiological level. To identify the electrophysiological correlates of meditation (...) practice, the electrical brain activity of highly skilled meditators engaging in one of six meditation styles was recorded. A mind-wandering task served as a control. Lempel–Ziv complexity showed differences in nonlinear brain dynamics during meditation compared with mind wandering, suggesting that meditation, regardless of practice, affects neural complexity. In contrast, there were no differences in power spectra at six different frequency bands, likely due to the fact that participants engaged in different meditation practices. Finally, exploratory analyses suggest neurological differences among meditation practices. These findings highlight the importance of studying the electroencephalography correlates of different meditative practices. (shrink)

Geoengineering is typically defined as a techno-scientific response to climate change that differs from mitigation and adaptation, and that includes diverse individual technologies, which can be classified as either solar radiation management or carbon dioxide removal. We analyse the representation of geoengineering on Wikipedia as a way of opening up this dominating, if contested, model for further debate. We achieve this by contrasting the dominating model as presented in the encyclopaedic article texts with the patterns of hyper-link associations between (...) the articles. Two datasets were created tracing the geoengineering construct on Wikipedia, shedding light on its boundary with its context, as well as on its internal structure. The analysis shows that the geoengineering category tends to be associated on Wikipedia primarily with atmospheric solar radiation management rather than land-based carbon dioxide removal type technologies. The results support the notion that the dominant model of defining and classifying geoengineering technology has been beneficial for solar radiation management type technologies more than for land-based carbon dioxide removal ones. The article also demonstrates that controversy mapping with Wikipedia data affords analysis that can open up dominating definitions and classifications of technologies, and offer resistance to their frequent naturalising and decontextualising tendencies. This work is in line with recent work on digital sociology, but the article contributes a new methodology and reports on the first empirical application of controversy mapping using Wikipedia data to a technology. (shrink)

The article suggests that in a modern context, where value pluralism is a prevailing and possibly, even ethically desirable interaction condition, institutional economics provides a more viable business ethics than behavioural business ethics, such as Kantianism or religious ethics. The article explains how the institutional economic approach to business ethics analyses morality with regard to an interaction process, and favours non-behavioural, situational intervention with incentive structures and with capital exchange. The article argues that this approach may have to be prioritised (...) over behavioural business ethics, which tends to analyse morality at the level of the individual and favours behavioural intervention with the individual’s value, norm and belief system, e.g. through ethical pedagogy, communicative techniques, etc. Quaker ethics is taken as an example of behavioural ethics. The article concludes that through the conceptual grounding of behavioural ethics in the economic approach, theoretical and practical limitations of behavioural ethics, as encountered in a modern context, can be relaxed. Probably only then can behavioural ethics still contribute to raising moral standards in interactions amongst the members (stakeholders) of a single firm, and equally, amongst (the stakeholders of) different firms. (shrink)

I argue that non-epistemic values are necessarily embedded in the measure of evidential strength of contrastive evidence. When evidence is contrastive, evidence is stronger the more it favours a hypothesis over a set of plausible, mutually exclusive alternative hypotheses. In such a contrastive epistemic setting, evidence has an effect not only on a particular hypothesis, but on the whole probability distribution over the set of alternative hypotheses. A natural way of analysing the incremental impact of new evidence (...) on a set of alternative hypotheses is in terms of uncertainty or ‘entropy’ reduction. There is no unique single measure of uncertainty/entropy, however, and, consequently, no single unique measure of uncertainty reduction. Finally, I argue that the ‘right’ measure of entropy reduction, and hence of evidential strength, depends on the pragmatic context and non-epistemic values. (shrink)

Several authors within psychology, neuroscience and philosophy take for granted that standard empirical research techniques are applicable when studying consciousness. In this article, it is discussed whether one of the key methods in cognitive neuroscience – the contrastive analysis – suffers from any serious confounding when applied to the field of consciousness studies; that is to say, if there are any systematic difficulties when studying consciousness with this method that make the results untrustworthy. Through an analysis of theoretical arguments (...) in favour of using contrastive analysis, combined with analyses of empirical findings, I conclude by arguing for three factors that currently are confounding of research using contrastive analysis. These are (1) unconscious processes, (2) introspective reports, and (3) attention. (shrink)

What is extremism, and how can it be countered? According to a recent account by (Cassam, 2021), there are three kinds of extremism: ideological, methodological, and psychological. The psychological kind – what Cassam calls ‘mindset extremism’ – is used by Cassam to explain what leads individuals to resort to extreme methods. From there we can say that methods extremism can be countered by preventing people from becoming mindset extremists. This paper outlines Cassam’s overall theory, and challenges it in two respects. (...) First, it is argued that whilst mindset extremism does account for some individuals, it applies more readily to groups in a way analogous to the contrast between individual and group belief. This creates space for an account of group mindset extremism. Second, I propose that Cassam’s account of the role mindset extremism occupies in predicting an individual’s turn to extreme methods underplays the social aspects that lead the individual to form the mindset. By acknowledging these social and group properties, we can begin to develop a social epistemology of extremism. (shrink)

The paper contrasts two approaches to the analysis of hope: one that takes its departure from a view broadly shared by Hobbes, Locke and Hume, another that fits better with Aquinas's definition of hope. The former relies heavily on a sharp distinction between the cognitive and conative aspects of hope. It is argued that while this approach provides a valuable source of insights, its focus is too narrow and it rests on a problematic rationalistic psychology. The argument is supported by (...) a discussion of hope understood as a stance and by a consideration of the phenomenological contrast between expectation and anticipation. The paper concludes with some reflections on the relation between hope and illusion and the idea of responsible hope. (shrink)

Leibniz looked upon space as an order of co-existing, independent things which differ from each other. Starting from this approach, we may ask whether two specific differences among given things - e.g. one between A and B, the other between C and D - in their turn differ from one another. Steiner, inspired by Leibniz’s approach, showed that on this second level of abstraction they indeed do. However, if we proceed to a third level of abstraction, comparing differences observed on (...) the second stage of abstraction, we shall no longer detect any material, “palpable” difference. In short: Setting off from the co-existence of different things and analysing whether qualitative, material differences are still evident on a second and a third level of abstraction, we are led to conceive space as a system comprising three qualitatively discernible dimensions. - Concerning time, Leibniz and Steiner looked upon it as an arrangement of items succeeding one another. To understand this requires - if we follow Leibniz − to be able to perceive motion. Now, most moving items are passively driven into motion, depending on an external source which imparts the movement. In contrast to that, an actively moving thing generates within itself the impulse to modify its location in relation to other items. Within the world of sensory perceptions, “organic bodies” ( i.e. organisms) are capable of self-motion to a certain extent. Nonetheless, a true primary self-motion can only be postulated of a completely independent being. Herewith, Leibniz’s approach to the origin of motion and the therein implied up-welling of time reveals itself to be intimately related to lines of thought developed by Plato, Aristotle, and Plotinus - albeit employing completely different terms. (shrink)

ResumeLa question du filtrage de ľinformation génétique dans la cellule est fondamentale. Comment la cellule sélectionne‐t‐elle, avant de les transformer en RNA puis en protéines, certaines parties bien déterminées de son information génétique? Il ne sera probablement pas possible de donner une explication cohérente du développement embryonnaire, de la différentiation cellulaire et du maintien de ľétat différencie tant que nous n'aurons pas repondu de manière satis‐faisante à cette question.Dans un premier chapitre, quelques notions de base concernant ľexpression génétique sont préséntées. (...) Le dogme de flux de ľinformation génétique dans la cellule, DNARNA protéine est valable à la fois pour les procaryotes et les eucaryotes malgré des différences significatives au niveau de la structure et de la régulation des gènes. Contrairement aux génes procaryotes, la plu‐part des gènes eucaryotes sont morcelés. Le DNA codant pour une protéine est interrompu par des régions non‐codantes dont les transcrits sont éliminés par excision pendant la maturation du RNA messager ultérieurement traduit en protéine. Une grande variété de mécanismes interviennent dans la régulation de ľactivité de ces gènes.Le pouvoir et les limites des méthodes modernes de ľanalyse structurale et fonctionnelle des génes sont discutés dans la deuxième partie de ľarticle. Ľhybridation moléculaire reposant sur la complémentarité des bases azotées des acides nucléiques joue un rôle déterminant dans ľétude de la complexity des génomes et de leur expression. Récemment, ľapplication de la technologie du DNA recombinant et des techniques annexes a permis ľisolement ainsi que la caractérisation de plusieurs génes eucaryotes. La question de ľexpression différentielle de ces génes est actuellement intensément étudiée dans plusieurs systèmes de transcription ayant chacun ses points forts et ses faiblesses.En guise de conclusion, quelques implications de ľessor prodigieux que connaît la génétique moléculaire sont discutées.SummaryThe question of selective expression of genetic information in the cell is fundamental. How does a cell choose particular parts of its genetic information prior to transforming them into RNA and then into proteins? It will probably not be possible to give a coherent explanation of embryonic development, of cell differentiation, and of the maintenance of the differentiated state as until we have answered this question satisfactorily.In the first chapter, several basic notions concerning genetic expression are presented. The central dogma of the flow of genetic information in the cell, DNARNA‐ protein is valid both for prokaryotes and eukaryotes despite significant differences at the level of gene structure and regulation. In contrast to prokaryotic genes, most eukaryotic genes are split. The DNA coding for a protein is interrupted by non‐coding regions whose transcripts are eliminated by excision during the maturation of the messenger RNA which will subsequently be translated into protein. A wide variety of mecanisms are implicated in the regulation of these genes.The scope and limits of modern methods for the structural and functional analyses of genes are discussed in the second part of the article. Molecular hybridization, which is based on the complementarity between the bases of the nucleic acids, plays a key role in the study of the complexity and expression of genes. Recently, the application of recombinant DNA technology and associated techniques has allowed the isolation as well as the characterization of several eukaryotic genes. The question of the differential expression of these genes is currently studied intensively in many transcription systems which all have their strengths and weaknesses.As a conclusion, several implications of the prodigious progress of molecular genetics are discussed.ZusammenfassungDie Frage nach der selektiven Expression der genetischen Information in der Zelle ist fundamental. Wie wählt eine Zelle bestimmte Teile ihrer genetischen Information, um diese dann in RNA und Proteine zu übersetzen? Wahrscheinlich wird es nicht möglich sein, eine vollständige Erklärung für die Embryonalentwicklung, für die Zeildifferenzierung und für di Aufrechterhaltung des differenzierten Zustandes zu geben, bevor wir eine befriedigende Antwort auf diese Frage gefunden haben.Im ersten Kapitel sind mehrere grundlegende Erkenntnisse über die Genexpression dargestellt. Das zentrale Dogma über den Fluss der genetischen Information in der Zelle, DNA RNA Protein, gilt sowohl für Prokaryonten als auch für Eukaryonten trotz bedeutender Unterschiede auf der Ebene der Genstruktur und Genregulation. Im Gegensatz zu den Genen von Prokaryonten sind die meisten Gene der Eukaryonten unterteilt. Die DNA, welche für ein Protein kodiert, ist durch nicht‐kodierende Regionen unterbrochen, welche wahrend des Reifungsprozesses der messenger RNA herausgeschnitten werden. Diese messenger RNA wird schliesslich in ein Protein iibersetzt. Sehr verschiedenartige Mechanismen sind an der Regulation dieser Gene beteiligt.Im zweiten Teil des Artikels werden Ziele und Grenzen moderner Methoden zur Analyse von Struktur und Funktion von Genen diskutiert. Molekulare Hybridisation, welche auf der Komplementarität zwischen den Basen der Nukleinsäuren beruht, spielt eine Schlüsselrolle in der Analyse der Komplexität und Expression der Gene. Die Anwendung der rekombinanten DNA Technologie sowie damit zusammenhängender Methoden hat kürzlich die Isolierung und Charak‐terisierung verschiedener eukaryontischer Gene erlaubt. Die Frage nach der differenziellen Expression dieser Gene wird gegenwärtig mit Hilfe verschiedener Transkriptionssysteme, welche alle ihre Stärken und Schwächen haben, intensiv studiert.Zusammenfassend werden verschiedene Implikationen des gewaltigen Fortschrittes der molekularen Genetik diskutiert. (shrink)

After gene duplication, mutations cause the gene copies to diverge. The classical model predicts that these mutations will generally lead to the loss of function of one gene copy; rarely, new functions will be created and both duplicate genes are conserved. In contrast, under the subfunctionalization model both duplicates are preserved due to the partition of different functions between the duplicates. A recent study(1) provides support for the subfunctionalization model, identifying several expressed gene duplicates common to humans and mice that (...) contain regions conserved in one duplicate but variable in the other (and vice versa). We discuss both the methodology used in this study and also how gene phylogeny may lead to additional evidence for the importance of subfunctionalization in the evolution of new genes. BioEssays 23:873–876, 2001. © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. (shrink)

In Vytal and Hamann (2010) we reported a neuroimaging meta-analysis that found that basic emotions can be distinguished by their brain activation correlates, in marked contrast to Lindquist et al.'s conclusions in the target article. Here, I discuss implications of these findings for understanding emotion, outline limitations of using meta-analyses and neuroimaging as the sole basis for deciding between emotion views, and suggest that these views are essentially compatible and could be adapted and combined into an integrated emotion framework.

This paper offers a sustained philosophical meditation on contrasting interpretations of the emotion of shame within four academic discourses—social psychology, psychological anthropology, educational psychology and Aristotelian scholarship—in order to elicit their implications for moral education. It turns out that within each of these discourses there is a mainstream interpretation which emphasises shame’s expendability or moral ugliness (and where shame is typically described as guilt’s ugly sister), but also a heterodox interpretation which seeks to retrieve and defend shame. As the heterodox (...) interpretation seems to offer a more realistic picture of shame’s role in moral education, the provenance of the mainstream interpretation merits scrutiny. I argue that social scientific studies of the concept of shame, based on its supposed phenomenology, incorporate biases in favour of excessive, rather than medial, forms of the emotion. I suggest ways forward for more balanced analyses of the nature, moral justification and educative role of shame. (shrink)

COVID-19 has had a profound impact on the lives of all human beings. Emerging technologies have made significant contributions to the fight against the pandemic. An extensive review of the application of tech- nology will help facilitate future research and technology development to provide better solutions for future pan- demics. In contrast to the extensive surveys of academic communities that have already been conducted, this study explores the IT community of practice. Using GitHub as the study target, we analysed the (...) main functionalities of the projects submitted during the pandemic. This study examines trends in projects with different functionalities and the relationship between functionalities and technolo- gies. The study results show an imbalance in the number of projects with varying functionalities in the GitHub community, i.e., applications account for more than half of the projects. In contrast, other data analysis and AI projects account for a smaller share. This differs significantly from the survey of the academic community, where the findings focus more on cutting-edge technologies while projects in the community of practice use more mature technologies. The spontaneous behavior of developers may lack organization and make it challenging to target needs. Keywords: COVID, communities of practice, technologies, functionalities. (shrink)

In the film Never Let Me Go, clones are forced to donate their organs anonymously. As a work of fiction, this film can be regarded as a negotiation of limited agency, since the clones are depicted as vulnerable individuals. Thereby, it evokes a confrontation with underprivileged positions in technocratic societies, encouraging the audience to take the perspective of the marginalised. The clones are situated in ‘privileged deprivation’; from the audience’s point of view, they are unable to evolve into autonomous agents—but (...) from their own perspective within the dystopian system, they are still ‘privileged’. In this paper, we analyse the depiction of the clones’ personal development. Further, we examine references to bioethical aspects as well as technologies that affect the human body both on a micro and macro level—cloning and its impact on the human embryo and organ donation practised on the full-grown human body. We argue that this film as a reference for the discussion in popular culture focuses on individuals who do not profit from modern technical progress or do not have enough agency to refuse it. To make this point, we analyse the film’s fictional story, set in a form of alternate history, as a negotiation of a historical context which brings out the idea of neglected voices. (shrink)

The moral reasoning capacity of managementstudents in Fiji and in Singapore, twoculturally distinct nations, was examinedusing the Defining Issue Test (DIT). Statistical analyses of the data revealed amarked difference in the reasoning capacity of thetwo groups. In the Fiji sample, religion andrace were found to have a moderating effect onmoral judgment. In the Singapore sample, age,race and religion were found to have asignificant correlation with moral judgment. The data were subjected to paired-samplest-tests using p-score as a dependent variable. The results (...) showed significant differences onthe p-score, recording a comparatively weakerreasoning capacity among the Fiji subjects. Theresults overwhelmingly confirms the assumptionthat culture plays a definite role indetermining one's moral judgment over andabove other variables. The implications offindings for cross-cultural management arediscussed. (shrink)

There can be little doubt that human consciousness is now suffused with narrative. In the West, narrative is the focus of a number of lucrative industries and narratives proliferate as never before. The importance of popular genres in current narrative is an index of the demise of authorship in the face of new media and has necessitated the renewal of the term "genre" in narrative analysis over the last hundred years or so. However. this article attempts to make clear that (...) the concept of genre and the notion of a textual formula in narrative are not the same thing. Genre, in contrast to formula, is concerned precisely with the issue of how audiences receive narrative conventions; however, much genre theory has treated genre as a purely textual entity. The current article argues that genre should properly be considered as an "idea" or an "expectation" barboured by readers and identifies in textual-based genre theory of the last two thousand years the perpetuation of ahistoricality and canonisation. (shrink)

Modern philosophical analyses of mysticism impoverish mysticism with a common understanding that the life and the language of the mystic is a separate category from that of the mystical experience. It is my contention, however, that such an understanding runs counter to what the mystics themselves attest to. ;William James's understanding of mysticism is that it serves as the means towards the circumvention of an individual's religious tradition. This view is contrary to the understanding of mysticism put forth by the (...) sixth century Christian mystic, Dionysius the Areopagite, who stressed the communal nature of the mystical life. Related to this is the analysis of the mystic's language suggested by W. T. Stace. For Stace, the mystic enters into a peculiar mystical state of consciousness, one that is characterized as inherently paradoxical. Because of this, the mystic is "embarrassed" by the language he or she employs. But in contrast, the 13th century Dominican, Meister Eckhart, employs a deliberate apophatic strategy in his use of the paradox. And finally, Steven T. Katz argues that the mystic's life and language "shapes" the mystical experience. But such a view, again, only separates the life and language of the mystic from that of the experience. St. John of the Cross taught that only through a life of love can one come to know God. This is not a contingent relationship for St. John. ;In contrast to these modern philosophical analyses of mysticism, Ludwig Wittgenstein's philosophical work can be seen to be in concert with much of what the mystics themselves attest to. Wittgenstein urges one to attend to the "grammar" of a language in order to understand its meaning. Therefore, with an examination and application of Wittgenstein's thought, the philosophical impositions cited above can be avoided. Such an approach is thus more promising to the study of mysticism for it pays attention to the life of the mystic in which the mystic's words ultimately have their meaning. (shrink)

The article analyses the process of transformation and reinvention of patriarchal gender order at times of radical changes caused by violent conflict and life in emigration. The case study draws a comparison between younger and older generations of Chechen women in Austria, Poland and Germany and their radically different gender practices. The analysis shows that the turn towards more conservative gender relations, which can be observed among the younger generation, cannot be explained by a reference to the Chechen culture as (...) inherently patriarchal. Nor can it be ascribed solely to the insufficient reception and the lack of recognition experienced by refugees in the receiving countries. Rather, it is an outcome of women’s different conditions of socialization that have affected their hierarchy of values and continue to exert significant influence on their adaptation strategies in exile; most notably, on how the women perceive and make use of the opportunity structures in the receiving contexts. (shrink)

Even though integrity is widely considered to be an essential aspect of research, there is an ongoing debate on what actually constitutes research integrity. The understanding of integrity ranges from the minimal, only considering falsification, fabrication and plagiarism, to the maximum, blending into science ethics. Underneath these obvious contrasts, there are more subtle differences that are not as immediately evident. The debate about integrity is usually presented as a single, universal discussion, with shared concerns for researchers, policymakers and ‘the public’. (...) In this article, we show that it is not. There are substantial differences between the language of research integrity in the scientific arena and in the public domain. Notably, scientists and policymakers adopt different approaches to research integrity. Scientists tend to present integrity as a virtue that must be kindled, while policy documents and newspapers stress norm enforcement. Rather than performing a conceptual analysis through philosophical reasoning and discussion, we aimed to clarify the discourse of ‘scientific integrity’ by studying its usage in written documents. To this end, large numbers of scientific publications, policy documents and newspaper articles were analysed by means of scientometric and content analysis techniques. The texts were analysed on their usage of the term ‘integrity’ and of frequently co-occurring terms and concepts. A comparison was made between the usage in the various media, as well as between different periods in which they were published through co-word analysis, mapping co-occurrence networks of significant terms and themes. (shrink)

An effort of proponents of relativity theory to find evidence for the so-called gravitational red-shift of spectral lines as one of the experimental consequences of Einstein's generalized theory of relativity is reconsidered with reference to hitherto unpublished documents. It is shown how much interest Albert Einstein in fact took, around 1920, in the data analysis of Leonhard Grebe and Albert Bachem, who tried to explain why most earlier efforts to find the gravitational red-shift had failed. They carefully measured the line (...) profiles of the spectral lines both in the sun's Fraunhofer lines and in pressure-independent laboratory comparison spectra. Then they rejected all lines with strong neighbouring lines which could cause apparent shifts of the line centres; the remaining seven well-isolated lines showed the gravitational red-shift with acceptable accuracy. Nevertheless, their claim to have successfully isolated the relativistic effect never convinced the astrophysicists of their day—the reasons for the scientific community's scepticism, contrasted against the enthusiastic group of Einstein sympathizers, are also discussed. (shrink)

This paper distinguishes two versions of Ryle's notion of 'logical geography'. Logical geography: The network of relationships between current uses of a collection of concepts. (Probably what Ryle meant by the term.) Logical topography Features of the portion of reality, or types of portions of reality, related to a given set of concepts, where the reality may be capable of being divided up in different ways using different networks of relationships between concepts. -/- Studying/analysing logical topography includes evaluating the alternative (...) divisions in terms of the theories or applications that are supported by the different sets of concepts, or perhaps some other uses of the concepts. -/- On re-reading Appendices III and IV of my Oxford DPhil thesis "Knowing and Understanding Relations between meaning and truth, meaning and necessary truth, meaning and synthetic necessary truth",, online here, I found to my surprise that several of the topics discussed below had been discussed in those two Appendices, and that the distinction between logical topography and logical geography was made in Appendix IV, discussing conceptual analysis, even though I did not use these words. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to explore some of the possibilities, advantages and difficulties of corpus-based analyses of semantic and pragmatic aspects of language in one particular field, namely the linguistic expression of emotion concepts. For this purpose, a methodological procedure is proposed and an exemplary analysis of the emotion concept “fear” in English is performed. The procedure combines Kövecses' lexical approach and Stefanowitsch's metaphorical pattern analysis with additional concepts from corpus linguistics such as semantic preference and semantic prosody. (...) The results of the study show that such a corpus-based analysis of emotion words offers several advantages. Firstly, by exploring the surroundings of the search word in a vast amount of text, we are not only able to find evidence of conceptual metaphor and metonymy that structure the emotion concept and of related emotion concepts, but also we can enrich the description of the emotion concept with information from a series of dimensions and add a pragmatic viewpoint by revealing an explicit or implicit evaluation of the emotion. The second advantage offered by a corpus-based approach lies in the possibility of quantifying results, i.e., comparing the frequency, productivity and creative use of individual metaphors and metonymies, which is especially interesting in view of contrastive studies. (shrink)

Being in a romantic relationship is characterized by a high degree of intimacy and affective involvement. Affective behavior indicates the emotional content in couple interactions and therefore promotes an understanding of the evolution of romantic relationships. When couples are also parents, their affective behavior reflects their romantic and coparental bonds. In this paper, we present an observation of parent couples’ affective behavior during a coparenting conflict discussion task to document whether and how much it improved during couple therapy. Two contrasting (...) cases of affective behavior change are included. Observational coding of affective behavior within pre- and post-intervention coparenting conflict discussion tasks was carried out to compute means and CIs for each partner in both cases. In addition, the partners’ coparental and romantic satisfaction were evaluated through validated self-report questionnaires in pre- and post-intervention assessments; this helped document whether the partners’ coparental and romantic satisfaction were dissimilar between the two cases. Finally, a clinical analysis of both cases was realized with the contribution of the therapists to investigate possible differences within therapy sessions. Statistical analyses revealed negative means of affective behavior for couple A in the pre-intervention assessment and positive means in the post-intervention assessment. Partners from couple B had negative means of affective behavior in the pre- and post-intervention assessments. Results concerning coparental and romantic satisfaction differed: Couple A’s coparental satisfaction slightly increased and the romantic satisfaction somewhat decreased, whereas couple B’s coparental satisfaction remained stable and the romantic satisfaction slightly increased between the pre- and post-intervention assessments. The clinical analysis revealed that the interactional quality of couple A slightly improved within therapy sessions and that both partners succeeded in working together as coparents, notwithstanding their romantic distress. Couple B conveyed coparental distress and exhibited poor interactional quality throughout therapy sessions (e.g., repeated criticism and contempt). This study contributes to enriching the more traditional empirical research methods in the field of couple psychotherapy, as it takes into account microlevel affective changes within parent couples’ interactions in addition to self-reported data. Furthermore, the analysis of therapy sessions supports the importance of working with affective behavior in couple therapy. (shrink)

Chakravartty puts forward a view of scientific knowledge that conceives of properties attributed to objects by scientific models as dispositions. Those dispositions refer to the capacity of an object to behave differently in different circumstances. This pluralism of behaviour is intended to show that perspectivalism does not exclude the possibility of non-perspectival knowledge. To support this claim, he offers an analogy between conflicting models and contrastive explanations. I examine the strength of the purported analogy between conflicting models and (...) class='Hi'>contrastive explanations. Then, I analyse this dispositionalist account of properties in order to assess whether ontological pluralism can meet the challenge that conflicting models pose to the scientific realism. To conclude, I contend that to accomplish this goal, a more detailed account of dispositional properties should be provided, as well as a theory of explanatory relevance. (shrink)

Focusing on media discourse and adopting a Critical Discourse Analysis—linguistic and rhetorical—perspective, this paper explores the role of the media in influencing citizens’ behaviour towards the COVID-19 crisis. The paper evaluates the set of potentially persuasive lexical items and emotional implicatures used by two quality newspapers, i.e. The Guardian and El País, to report on the pandemic during the three waves—the periods between the onset and trough of virus contamination—that occurred until March 2021. A representative, ad-hoc, comparable corpus was compiled (...) in English and Spanish comprising the news on the pandemic that appeared in the aforementioned newspapers during the three established time periods. The corpora were uploaded to Sketch Engine, which was used to first detect and analyse different categories of word frequency, and then assign negative or positive polarity. Lexical keyness was secondly analysed to categorize emotional implicatures of control, metaphors, signals of epistemic asymmetry and positive implicatures in order to discern how they become weapons of negative or positive persuasion. The ultimate end of the study was to critically analyse and contrast the lexicon and rhetoric used by these two newspapers during this time period so as to unveil the stance taken by governments and health institutions—voices of authority—to disseminate words of control and persuasion with the aim of exerting influence on the behaviour of citizens in UK and Spain. (shrink)

This paper assesses James M. Buchanan's claim of following a positive approach in stark contrast to the normative approach to public finance of Richard A. Musgrave. The goal of this paper is to shed light on the foundations of modern American public finance by analysing one aspect of the methodology of its two most prominent fathers. I show (1) that it is difficult to distinguish Musgrave's and Buchanan's theories of public goods along the positive/normative dividing line and (2) that Buchanan's (...) theory can also be considered normative. In the first three parts, I follow the Weberian methodological tradition in looking for value judgements in the theories, and by reflecting on the nature of ideal types. In the last part, I propose a broader interpretation of Buchanan's methodological stance within the academic context of the 1960s. (shrink)

Self-consciousness is often described as the ability to entertain I-thoughts. The traditional “linguistic approach” to self-consciousness analyzes the linguistic expressions of I-thoughts. In contrast to this, I will pursue a “cognitive approach” which aims at explaining self-consciousness on the grounds of the underlying self-representations . My analysis of I-thoughts reveals different levels of self-representation: A non-conceptual level on which the self is only represented implicitly, and hence misattribution cannot occur. A conceptual level on which some perceived property is explicitly attributed (...) to the self, and hence misattribution can occur. Misidentifications are only possible for I-thoughts that are grounded on the body-image and the self-image, which are stored collections of self-representations. Since, as I will argue, introspection and perception are very similar in the relevant aspects , the same levels of representations have to be assumed on the meta-representational level. Hence, there are different levels of self-consciousness which are grounded in different levels of self-representation. (shrink)

ABSTRACTRemembering to perform a behaviour in the future, prospective memory, is essential to ensuring that people fulfil their intentions. Prospective memory involves committing to memory a cue to action, and later recognising and acting upon the cue in the environment. Prospective memory performance is believed to be influenced by the emotionality of the cues, however the literature is fragmented and inconsistent. We conducted a systematic search to synthesise research on the influence of emotion on prospective memory. Sixty-seven effect sizes were (...) extracted from 17 articles and hypothesised effects tested using three meta-analyses. Overall, prospective memory was enhanced when positively-valenced rather than neutral cues were presented. In contrast, negatively-valenced cues did not enhance prospective memory overall, but this effect was moderated by the timing of the emotional manipulation. Prospective memory performance was improved when negatively-valenced... (shrink)