At the 2019 and 2021 International Conference on Environmental Psychology, discussions were held on the future of conferences in light of the enormous greenhouse gas emissions and inequities associated with conference travel. In this manuscript, we provide an early career researcher perspective on this discussion. We argue that travel-intensive conference practices damage both the environment and our credibility as a discipline, conflict with the intrinsic values and motivations of our discipline, and are inequitable. As such, they must change. This change (...) can be achieved by moving toward virtual and hybrid conferences, which can reduce researchers’ carbon footprints and promote equity, if employed carefully and with informal exchange as a priority. By acting collectively and with the support of institutional change, we can adapt conference travel norms in our field. To investigate whether our arguments correspond to views in the wider community of ECRs within environmental psychology, we conducted a community case study. By leveraging our professional networks and directly contacting researchers in countries underrepresented in those networks, we recruited 117 ECRs in 32 countries for an online survey in February 2022. The surveyed ECRs supported a change in conference travel practices, including flying less, and perceived the number of researchers wanting to reduce their travel emissions to be growing. Thirteen percent of respondents had even considered leaving academia due to travel requirements. Concerning alternative conference formats, a mixed picture emerged. Overall, participants had slightly negative evaluations of virtual conferences, but expected them to improve within the next 5 years. However, ECRs with health issues, facing visa challenges, on low funding, living in remote areas, with caretaking obligations or facing travel restrictions due to COVID-19 expected a switch toward virtual or hybrid conferences to positively affect their groups. Participants were divided about their ability to build professional relationships in virtual settings, but believed that maintaining relationships virtually is possible. We conclude by arguing that the concerns of ECRs in environmental psychology about current and alternative conference practices must be taken seriously. We call on our community to work on collective solutions and less travel-intensive conference designs using participatory methods. (shrink)

Parce qu'il se développe à partir de la réalité factuelle, le droit, comme toutes les disciplines humaines, est confronté au réel et à sa représentation. Il ne peut appréhender le monde sans déjà le rendre présent. Il l'organise et le juge. Il en est une image. Or, cette image, l'apparence, désigne tout à la fois ce qui est visible, donc directement accessible aux sens, mais également ce qui est trompeur. Quelle attitude le droit doit-il alors adopter lorsque apparence et réalité (...) sont dissociées? Peut-il aller au-delà des apparences pour reconstituer une réalité plus complète ou même contraire? Or, le droit, comme l'art mais aussi comme les sciences dures, transforme la réalité car il est affaire de fabrication. Sa normativité lui permet de distribuer la pertinence des faits, en leur attachant mi effet juridique. La théorie de l'apparence constitue alors l'une des principales illustrations du rapport particulier que le droit entretient avec le réel : le droit parvient à ne plus opposer apparence et réalité pour les rendre complémentaires. La situation ostensible étant généralement l'image de la réalité, chacun lui accorde sa confiance. Cette confiance, qui conditionne l'action, ne subsiste que parce qu'il importe peu qu'apparence et réalité soient exceptionnellement dissociées. Foi est due à l'apparence n'est plus un simple dysfonctionnement marginal du rapport qui doit s'établir entre le fait et le droit, mais un principe général, indispensable au bon fonctionnement du système juridique. Le jeu normal de la règle est paralysé ; le fait apparent triomphe de la stricte logique juridique. La confiance s'affirme, aux dépens de la norme mais le droit, conformément à sa fonction première, s'oppose ainsi à la violence et à la suspicion. Il se soucie davantage de ses effets que de ses sources et se révèle alors de plus en plus pragmatique. La norme, définie paradoxalement comme le fait de confiance, n'est plus qu'un médiateur. (shrink)

Among emotions, surprise has been extensively studied in psychology. In linguistics, surprise, like other emotions, has mainly been studied through the syntactic patterns involving surprise lexemes. However, little has been done so far to correlate the reaction of surprise investigated in psychological approaches and the effects of surprise on language. This cross-disciplinary volume aims to bridge the gap between emotion, cognition and language by bringing together nine contributions on surprise from different backgrounds - psychology, human-agent interaction, linguistics. Using different methods (...) at different levels of analysis, all contributors concur in defining surprise as a cognitive operation and as a component of emotion rather than as a pure emotion. Surprise results from expectations not being met and is therefore related to epistemicity. Linguistically, there does not exist an unequivocal marker of surprise. Surprise may be either described by surprise lexemes, which are often associated with figurative language, or it may be expressed by grammatical and syntactic constructions. Originally published as a special issue of Review of Cognitive Linguistics 13:2 (2015). (shrink)

Pop -- Anti-pop -- No synthesis: the broken form of pop -- The hillbilly paradox: uprooted authenticity -- The pop subject: democratised genius -- Hits and hooks: rationalised magic -- Pop and progress: historicised innocence.

Réunies en collectif de recherche et d'écriture, cinq femmes psychanalystes se penchent sur la question très actuelle de l'affirmation de la femme, portée par la figure inconsciente de l'Animus. Elles revendiquent une remise en cause des théories de CG Jung sur l'Animus, et des points de vue passéistes qui irriguent la littérature traitant de ce sujet à la suite du "maître". Elles témoignent ici en toute liberté de leurs expériences psychiques et de leur relation avec cette âme masculine inconsciente. Plusieurs (...) sujets sont abordés : la femme et sa créativité, le corps de la femme, l'épreuve du manque de père, l'expression de la femme et celle de la mère, la femme et la violence, la femme entre archaïsme et modernité. Un livre dont la forme fait une large part aux illustrations et au graphisme pour offrir un ensemble accessible même aux non-spécialistes. (shrink)

This article explores the cultural dimension in democratic struggle from the vantage point of the public sphere. It proposes that in the public sphere there take place competing and changing interpretations over the `public' through continuous articulation of two analytically distinct representations of public interest - democratic and communal discourses. In an empirical study of the recent credibility crisis in Hong Kong, the author demonstrates first, how the governing coalition sought to maintain its authority through a discourse of `administrative efficiency' (...) embedded in the hegemonic narrative of success, and second, how the challenging discourse of democracy regained momentum through de-mystification of the hegemonic narrative in the event of governing crises. The case study of the recent bird flu crisis offers a specific account of political and cultural challenge to bureaucratic paternalism in the postcolonial context. It is argued that the challenge was powerfully presented as the crisis became a dramatic moment of meaning reconstruction through ironic narrativizing and democratic encoding in the public sphere. (shrink)

The love of God -- Faith in God -- The presence of God -- The Word of God.

Surprise is treated as an affect in Aristotelian philosophy as well as in Cartesian philosophy. In experimental psychology, surprise is considered to be an emotion. In phenomenology, it is only addressed indirectly (Husserl, Heidegger, Levinas), with the important exception of Ricoeur and Maldiney; it is reduced to a break in cognition by cognitivists (Dennett). Only recently was it broached in linguistics, with a focus on lexico-syntactic categories. As for the expression of surprise, it has been studied in connection with evidentiality (...) in languages that encode surprise morphosyntactically. However, how surprise is encoded in languages that lack an evidential morphosyntactic system has been largely unexplored. This book provides new insights into the dynamics of surprise based on a heuristic hypothesis tested against the investigation of time, language and emotion. It is intended to arouse the interest of a multidisciplinary audience keen on crossing the disciplinary borders of phenomenology, cognitive sciences, and pragmatics. The theoretical approaches adopted in this collection of articles rely on experiments and corpus data. They advance knowledge by building on robust empirical results coming from psychology, microphenomenology, linguistics and physiology. (shrink)

The development and use of nanotechnology in the food industry have grown steadily. While visions for nanofood suggest that the applications will improve quality and safety, they are also controversial for several reasons including potential health risks coupled with difficulty in assessing low-dosage nanoparticle risks as well as values-based objections. In recent years, debate over nanofoods has sparked inquiry into factors that predict public attitudes and purchase intentions. Such studies have investigated the roles of demographics and sociographics, value predispositions toward (...) science and technology, preferences for natural products, trust in regulatory agencies, scientific knowledge, and media attention. This study assesses the role of each of these factors in shaping public attitudes toward nanofood and improves the predictive models by evaluating concepts from protection motivation theory. We find that incorporating threat and coping appraisals provides the best predictive models of public attitudes and intention to purchase nanofood products. (shrink)

Le rapport entre positif et normatif est une question méthodologique et théorique centrale en économie. À ce titre, les débats de la littérature spécialisée réclament une synthèse précise, à défaut de la cartographie exhaustive qui paraît une gageure. Le présent ouvrage le reconnaît volontiers en montrant qu'il est pertinent de revenir sur ces enjeux et qu'il est opportun d'élaborer ou d'ouvrir certaines perspectives jusqu'ici peut-être moins explorées. Le point de vue des coordinateurs de ce volume part du constat que l'étude (...) du rapport entre positif et normatif reste précieuse pour la pensée et la philosophie économiques : l'enquête met en évidence des distinctions essentielles, entre normes, valeurs et faits, ou entre l'activité de description, la prescription et l'évaluation, et concernant des notions comme la causalité dans le champ épistémique, la justice et l'intérêt dans le champ éthique. S'ajoutent des leçons instructives pour penser le rapport entre positif et normatif en défendant la primauté de l'un (le positif, le plus souvent) ou de l'autre (le normatif, plus rarement), ou en les séparant. Force est de constater que les écoles de pensée les plus divergentes peuvent se rejoindre, voire s'accorder sur des positions inattendues. Favoriser le positif, voilà qui réunit des économistes d'écoles de pensée aussi influentes et diverses que les écoles marxiste, autrichienne ou de Chicago : celles-ci, et d'autres, trouvent leur place dans ce volume, ainsi que des approches méthodologiques variées (pragmatisme, bayésianisme, théorie des négociations). S'il semble qu'un consensus valorisant les approches positives en économie y obère la recherche, à quoi est-il dû?? L'histoire de la pensée économique permet-elle de dégager quelques positions venant nuancer cette position?? Des perspectives philosophiques peuvent être adaptées à cet effet et l'importance des pratiques est également à relever, peut-être pour mieux valoriser les approches normatives en économie.Telles sont quelques-unes des approches traitées dans les onze contributions réunies dans cet ouvrage à partir d'un colloque tenu en décembre 2020. Introduction. Le positif, le normatif et la philosophie économique Chapitre 1. Économie normative et économie positive, prescription et théorie : Quesnay et Smith face à la bêtise Chapitre 2. Ni « normativité » ni « positivité » : qu'est-ce qu'une « critique » de l'économie politique? Chapitre 3. Inculquer ou extirper l'esprit du capitalisme? Chapitre 4. L'idéologie allemande. L'idéologie autrichienne Chapitre 5. Questionner la séparation entre le positif et le normatif en économie avec le pragmatisme de John Dewey Chapitre 6. De quelles normativités peut-on parler en économie? Chapitre 7. L'économie politique entre pratiques normatives, normatrices et positives Chapitre 8. Le rôle de la méthode normative dans la théorie néoclassique positive Chapitre 9. L'impossible neutralité des interventions de la Banque centrale européenne sur les marchés financiers Chapitre 10. L'économie normative sans les préférences? Chapitre 11. Aspects positifs et normatifsdu traitement du compromis dans la négociation Index des noms. (shrink)

Introduction: Probationers, offenders with less serious and non-violent offences, and under statutory supervision, have low levels of self-esteem and physical health, and high level of family conflict, and poorer quality of family relationships. This study examined the effectiveness of the existing probation service and the additional use of a positive family holistic health intervention to enhance physical, psychological, and family well-being in probationers and relationships with probation officers.Methods: Probationers under the care of the Hong Kong Social Welfare Department were randomized (...) into a care-as-usual control group, a brief intervention group receiving two 1-h individual sessions [of a brief theory-based positive family holistic health intervention integrating Zero-time Exercise and positive psychology themes of “Praise and Gratitude” in the existing probation service], or a combined intervention group receiving BI and a 1-day group activity with family members. The outcomes were physical activity, fitness performance, self-esteem, happiness, anxiety and depression symptoms, life satisfaction, quality of life, family communication and well-being, and relationships with probation officers. Self-administered questionnaires and simple fitness tests were used at baseline, 1-month and 3-month follow-up. Linear mixed model analysis was used to compare difference in the changes of outcome variables among groups, adjusted of sex, age, and baseline values. Focus group interviews were conducted. Thematic content analysis was used.Results: 318 probationers were randomized into CAU, BI, or CI group. CAU showed enhanced physical activity, fitness performance and psychological health, and family communication with small effect sizes. BI and CI showed further improved physical activity, family communication and family well-being. Additionally, CI reported greater improvements in the relationships with probation officers than CAU with a small effect size. CI also reported greater increases in physical activity and family communication than BI with small to moderate effect sizes. Qualitative feedbacks corroborated the quantitative findings.Conclusion: Our trial provided the first evidence of the effectiveness of probation service and the additional use of an innovative, relatively low-cost, theory-based brief positive family holistic health intervention. This intervention may offer a new model for enhancing probation service.Trial Registration: The research protocol was registered at the National Institutes of Health. (shrink)

An Ethics of Personality d addresses the ultimate question of modern ethics: how is morality possible after the `death of God'. It is the closing volume - General Ethics d and Philosophy of Morals d - of Agnes Heller's trilogy A Theory of Morals. d.

The Dutch law states that a physician may perform euthanasia according to a written advance euthanasia directive when a patient is incompetent as long as all legal criteria of due care are met. This may also hold for patients with advanced dementia. We investigated the differing opinions of physicians and members of the general public on the acceptability of euthanasia in patients with advanced dementia.

Studies suggest that when a language requires grammatical marking of future events, speakers prefer immediate payoffs and engage in less future-oriented behavior. If future costs of tax avoidance are non-trivial, we posit that strong future time reference in languages would lower managers’ perceptions about costs, encouraging more tax avoidance. Using a large sample of 56,243 firm-year observations across 31 countries, we find that tax avoidance is higher where FTR in the language is strong. We also find that tax avoidance is (...) more prevalent in Swiss regions with strong FTR and in US firms whose CEOs were born in countries with strong FTR. Collectively, our evidence suggests that costs of tax avoidance can be non-trivial, and that linguistically driven time perception helps explain the cross-country variation in tax avoidance. (shrink)

Objections to the use of historical case studies for philosophical ends fall into two categories. Methodological objections claim that historical accounts and their uses by philosophers are subject to various biases. We argue that these challenges are not special; they also apply to other epistemic practices. Metaphysical objections, on the other hand, claim that historical case studies are intrinsically unsuited to serve as evidence for philosophical claims, even when carefully constructed and used, and so constitute a distinct class of challenge. (...) We show that attention to what makes for a canonical case can address these problems. A case study is canonical with respect to a particular philosophical aim when the features relevant to that aim provide a reasonably complete causal account of the results of the historical process under investigation. We show how to establish canonicity by evaluating relevant contingencies using two prominent examples from the history of science: Eddington’s confirmation of Einstein’s theory of general relativity using his data from the 1919 eclipse and Watson and Crick’s determination of the structure of DNA. (shrink)

Agnes Arber's international reputation is due in part to her exceptional ability to interpret the German tradition of scholarship for the English-speaking world. The Mind and the Eye is an erudite book, revealing its author's familiarity with philosophy from Plato and Aristotle through Aquinas to Kant and Hegel; but it is not dull, because the quiet enthusiasm of the author shines through. In this book she turns from the work of a specialist in one science to those wider questions (...) which any scientist must ask at intervals. What, in short, is the relationship between the eye that sees and the mind that weighs and pronounces? An important feature of this Cambridge Science Classics reissue is the introduction provided by Professor P. R. Bell, who as a Cambridge botany student at the time that Agnes Arber was writing The Natural Philosopby of Plant Form, is uniquely able to set The Mind and the Eye in the context of contemporary biological research. (shrink)

In Wind and Whirlwind Ágnes Heller and Riccardo Mazzeo analyse utopias and dystopias in the works of philosophers and novelists and highlight the importance to find one's way avoiding the charming destructive traps.

This is an anatomy of the ethical and political preconceptions which underlie theories of justice. The author takes as her cue Hegel's description of modernity in which politics and ethics have fallen out of harmony with one another.

Agnès Bastit | : La présente contribution s’intéresse au micro-récit évangélique transmis par les Synoptiques et l’Évangile selon Thomas, qui met en scène un conflit pour la soustraction de « biens » à un « Fort » qui les détient. L’étude s’adonne dans un premier temps à une analyse des diverses formes textuelles sous lesquelles cet apologue a initialement circulé, puis à une enquête sur les diverses lectures et utilisations théologiques du thème dans l’oeuvre d’Irénée à la fin du iie (...) siècle et, au-delà, de quelques-uns de ses contemporains ou continuateurs. Du point de vue du panorama de la présence du verset et de l’histoire de son interprétation dans l’Église ancienne, la recherche a tendu à être exhaustive en ce qui concerne les trois premiers siècles, mais reste indicative pour les quatrième et cinquième siècles. La diffusion du récit dans l’Église ancienne est liée à sa fonction kérygmatique : l’économie de la rédemption de l’homme, injustement détenu par le diable, s’y trouve représentée par une action simple et efficace, reliant la vivification ultime de l’homme à sa formation puis captivité initiales, à travers le moment décisif de la libération de l’homme. | : This presentation deals with a microstory — passed down by the Synoptic gospels and the Gospel of Thomas — about a conflict due to the plundering of the “goods” possessed by a “strong one”. Our study begins with an analysis of the different textual forms in which this story circulated initially ; there follows an investigation into the various theological readings and uses of that theme in Irenaeus’s work at the end of the 2nd century, and also in the works of some of his contemporaries or later upholders of his theses. As for the general presence of that verse and the history of its interpretation in the ancient Church, research has been fairly exhaustive with regard to the first three centuries, but it remains only indicative for the 4th and 5th centuries. The propagation of that story in the ancient Church is closely related to its kerygmatic function : a simple, efficacious act sums up the economy of redemption, the rescue of man unjustly kept prisoner by the devil ; thus the story connects the ultimate revitalisation of man to his initial formation and subsequent captivity by recalling the decisive moment of man’s liberation. (shrink)

This article aims to answer the main question raised – is Rorty’s moral philosophy possible? To what extent is it possible to treat it as an authentic theory? Rorty’s criticism of Kant and the Kantians, as one of the key points of contemporary moral philosophy, determines the posture in the moral domain and provides a certain place in discourse. The article states that, despite the fact that Rorty’s moral philosophy is not based on a particular theoretical concept, it can be (...) considered as a fragmented whole consisting of several parts, one of which is the agent’s openness to the choice of moral identity. At the same time, we will critically question the position of Rorty himself – while maintaining the suspicion towards the sources of moral knowledge, he maintains an insufficient distance with one of his own sources of moral knowledge, namely historical progress. (shrink)

In this paper, I take scientific models to be epistemic representations of their target systems. I define an epistemic representation to be a tool for gaining information about its target system and argue that a vehicle’s capacity to provide specific information about its target system—its informativeness—is an essential feature of this kind of representation. I draw an analogy to our ordinary notion of interpretation to show that a user’s aim of faithfully representing the target system is necessary for securing this (...) feature. (shrink)

In this paper, I characterize visual epistemic representations as concrete two- or three-dimensional tools for conveying information about aspects of their target systems or phenomena of interest. I outline two features of successful visual epistemic representation: that the vehicle of representation contain sufficiently accurate information about the phenomenon of interest for the user’s purpose, and that it convey this information to the user in a manner that makes it readily available to her. I argue that actual epistemic representation may involve (...) tradeoffs between these and is successful to the extent that they are present. (shrink)

Scientific research is constrained by limited resources, so it is imperative that it be conducted efficiently. This paper introduces the notion of epistemic expression, a kind of representation that expedites the solution of research problems. Epistemic expressions are representations that (i) contain information in a way that enables more reliable information to place the most stringent constraints on possible solutions and (ii) make new information readily extractible by biasing the search through that space. I illustrate these conditions using historical and (...) contemporary examples of biomolecular structure determination. Then, I argue that the notion of epistemic expression parts ways with pragmatic accounts of scientific representation and an understanding of models as artifacts, neither of which require models to accurately represent. Explicating epistemic expression thus fills a gap in our understanding of scientific practice, extending Morrison and Morgan's (1999) conception of models as investigative instruments. (shrink)

Plato’s work offers insights into the corrosive impact of eros, insights central for contemporary politics. The article combines an in-depth reading of Plato with a case study, arguing for the relevance of communism. This is because love also establishes a relationship of subordination to the object of desire, which can subjugate and entrap the lover in his or her feelings. Such instrumentalization of eros in communism was promoted by adherents being supposed to love the sufferers. The obligation that to understand (...) and help the sufferers one must become a sufferer turned suffering into an autopoietic system. The acceptance of such instrumentalization of love was rendered possible first by a sense of guilt due to the system of passionate interests (Tarde and Latour), connected to the rise of capitalism as a solution for the period of civil wars, and then by the liminal conditions that emerged, especially in eastern Europe, after two world wars; conditions that were purposefully perpetuated through staging a sacrificial system, paralysing social life. The character of such liminal leaders can be analysed through the figure of the trickster, developed by anthropologists, complementing Weber’s notion of charisma. While communism disappeared as a force, contemporary political life is increasingly reduced to a politics of victimhood and suffering, where the search for the good life is replaced by the double negation of eliminating all suffering from the world – an effort that only produces the opposite result, while public reality becomes torn apart by sex scandals, confirming Foucault’s insight about the investment of desire and enslavement to sexuality. (shrink)

Japan is the world’s largest producer of love simulation games, revealing a curious feature: these games, in theory, assign female players to the unique task of seducing a male character, but, in reality, they promote the establishment of a network of friendship between women. Love cannot be achieved if this network is not carefully woven both in play and in real life. Based on the analysis of this double dynamics, outwardly contradictory, I would like to advance the following hypothesis: that (...) such games enable their users to ‘outsmart’ gender expectations. These games, called otome games, became popular in the context of a national panic related to the declining birthrate: they target the market of women who – living alone or with their parents – are held responsible for the future shortfall of the system. These new generations of women don’t start a family. They have no children. How do they manage to ward off exclusion and stigma? The study will focus on the strategies collectively devised to turn otome games into an identity-building tool, promoting friendship between players as a means of resistance against social norms. (shrink)

The second part of “Ars, Natura, Historia” focuses on the narrative techniques used by Pliny’s art history found in the Naturalis Historia. The narratological analysis of the artist anecdotes draws our attention to how Pliny’s diction is essentially rooted within rhetoric. The artist anecdotes of Naturalis Historia fulfill the role of exemplum, and as such, they become the vehicle for conveying the sets of values expounded in the encyclopedia.

Freud, Psychoanalysis and Symbolism offers an innovative general theory of symbolism, derived from Freud's psychoanalytic theory and relocated within mainstream scientific psychology. It is the first systematic investigation of the development of Freud's treatment of symbolism throughout his published works, and discovers in those writings a broad theory which is far superior to the widely accepted, narrow, 'official' view. Agnes Petocz argues that the treatment of symbolism must begin with the identification and clarification of a set of logical constraints (...) and psychological requirements which any general theory of symbolism must respect, and that these requirements have been neglected by existing accounts across a number of disciplines. Her newly proposed 'Freudian broad' theory of symbolism, by contrast, does meet these requirements, but only after it has been rehabilitated within a revised psychoanalytic context, encompassing major changes to our understanding of the concepts of unconscious and repression and the role of language. (shrink)