W niniejszym artykule przedstawiliśmy filozoficzną argumentację na rzecz definicji doradztwa filozoficznego opracowaną przez Polskie Towarzystwo Doradztwa Filozoficznego. Omawiana profesja została pokazana jako forma ponowoczesnego poradnictwa dialogowego opierająca się na procesie filozofowania. Filozofowanie rozumiane jest przez nas zarówno jako forma pracy logiczno-analitycznej jak i towarzyszenie klientowi poprzez uważną obecność. Obecność ta warunkuje możliwość zadawania pytań o charakterze egzystencjalnym, umożliwia lepsze poznanie siebie, odnalezienie swojej filozofii życia oraz poszerzenie rozumienia podejmowanych kwestii. Zaprezentowaliśmy też metodykę pracy doradcy filozoficznego. Zaakcentowane zostały także niezbędne kompetencje, (...) które posiadać powinien doradca filozoficzny. (shrink)

Cet article présente les solutions utilisées pour le Corpus électronique des textes polonais des 17e et 18e siècles afin d’adapter son jeu de balises grammaticales à l’évolution du système morphologique qui a eu lieu au cours de la période. Les 17e et 18e siècles ont été marqués en effet par la formation d’une nouvelle catégorie grammaticale, appelée « masculine-personality » (Pl. *męskoosobowość*). Cette époque marque une transition de l’état ancien à l’état moderne et se caractérise par une variation significative des (...) terminaisons des formes plurielles N, A et V des noms masculins animés à cette époque. Par conséquent, le jeu de balises utilisé pour annoter le corpus, qui a été créé à l’origine pour le polonais moderne, a dû être légèrement modifié à cet égard. La deuxième partie de l’article décrit les recherches menées à l’aide de ce système d’annotation, qui ont montré que la différenciation des terminaisons flexionnelles des noms masculins personnels et impersonnels en polonais était déjà avancée au 17e siècle et presque achevée à la fin du 18e siècle. (shrink)

Inclusion of children in medical decision making, to the extent of their ability and interest in doing so, should be the default position, ensuring that children are routinely given a voice. However, optimizing the involvement of children in their health care decisions remains challenging for clinicians. Missing from the literature is a stepwise approach to assessing when and how a child should be included in medical decision making. We propose a systematic approach for doing so, and we apply this approach (...) in a discussion of two challenging clinical cases. The approach is informed by a literature review, and is anchored by case studies of teenagers' refusal of clinical care, regulatory requirements for research assent, and the accepted approach to involving cognitively impaired adults in medical decisions. (shrink)

The article reviews the book Słowa i zbawienie. Dyskurs religijny w perspektywie filozofii Hilarego Putnama [Words and Salvation: Religious Discourse in the Perspective of Hilary Putnam's Philosophy], by Piotr Sikora.

Two experiments probed the role of strategies used in social conflicts on perception of agency and communion. In study 1, persons who revealed prosocial orientation were perceived as less agentic, but more communal than those who revealed competitive orientation. In study 2 these findings were replicated in the context of organizational conflict, those who decided to use confrontational strategies were also perceived as more agentic, although less communal than these who used cooperative strategies. In line with the theory of power (...) effects on objectification of social targets, the perceived agency and communion were differently linked to superior’s and subordinate’s evaluation. While perceived agency predicted the subordinate’s evaluation, perceived communion predicted superior’s evaluation, but not the other way round. Moreover, perception of communion mediated the negative effect of confrontational strategies on supervisor’s evaluation. On the other hand, perceived agency suppressed the effect of strategies on subordinate’s evaluation. (shrink)

ABSTRACT:Clinical ethics consultants bear witness to the direct harms of intersecting axes of oppression—such as racism and classism—as they impinge on elucidating and resolving ethical dilemmas in health care. Health Care Ethics Consultation (HCEC) professional guidance supports recognizing and analyzing power dynamics and social-structural obstacles to good care. However, the most relied upon bioethical principles in clinical ethics have been criticized for insufficiency in this regard. While individual ethics consultants have found ways to expand their approaches, they do so in (...) an ad hoc way without frameworks to guide consistency. Motivated by the practical expertise of clinical ethicists, this essay offers a new framework to support openness to analyzing power imbalances and respecting marginalized voices and values. This framework is grounded in transformative justice, where the aim is to take responsibility for oppression by centering and responding to moral perspectives and value systems that are all too often silenced. (shrink)

The paper deals with the problem of translating selected insolvency terminology from Polish into English and from English into Polish. The re- search corpora encompassed the Insolvency Act 1986 as amended and Ustawa z dnia 28 lutego 2003. Prawo upadłościowe i naprawcze [the Act on Polish Insolvency and Rehabilitation Law of 28th February 2003 as amended]. The research methods included: the comparison of parallel texts, the method of axiomatisation of the legal linguistic reality, the termino- logical analysis of the corpus (...) material, the concept of adjusting the target text to the communicative needs and requirements of the community of recipients and the techniques of providing equivalents for non-equivalent terminology. The research hypothesis has been so formulated that the parametrisation of legal reality may assist in finding more adequate equivalents and determine differences in meaning of compared source and target language terms, which in turn facilitates the choice of a more adequate technique of providing equivalents for non-equivalent or partially equivalent legal terminology meeting the com- municative needs of translation recipients. The research results revealed that insolvency terminology is highly system-bound and available equivalents may often be misleading for the community of target text recipients. (shrink)

The author intends to present evolutionary and revolutionary changes in legal terminology. Legal terminology changes as a result of language usage, technological development, political and social changes and even economy reasons. The following research methods have been applied: the terminological analysis of the research material and the analysis of pertinent literature. The research material included legislation from the United Kingdom, the United States of America, Canada and Australia. The author focuses on terminological changes resulting from social transformations. Selected terms and (...) their transformation in respect to meaning and form are elaborated on in the paper. Finally, the author draws conclusions that translation of such terminology should aim at communication precision and many of them may be false friends in interlingual communication. (shrink)

The aim of the article is to discuss the legal language transformations from a diachronic perspective taking into account the following factors: (i) spatial and temporal, (ii) linguistic norm changes, (iii) political, (iv) social (customs), and (v) globalization as well as (vi) EU-induced. Spatial and temporal factors include legal relations influenced by climate and the cycles of nature. Linguistic factors include spelling reforms and grammatical changes each language undergoes, for example, as a result of usage. As far as the law (...) is concerned, normative changes can be observed when laws are amended. Other factors such as customs, usage, etc. cannot be neglected when discussing the language of the law. Analogously political correctness and usage can be observed in gender sensitive language and the introduction of such terms as chairperson instead of chairman. Social factors should not be overlooked. As a result of social changes, numerous terms have been introduced to legal lexicons in many countries starting with same-sex unions or same-sex-marriages. The so-called political correctness enforces some language changes and leads to the introduction of new terms and at the same time the abandonment of others. Consequently, some terms cease to be used and consequently become archaic. The aim of the article is to focus on diachronic changes in legal languages and present the communication problems resulting from them from intra- and inter-lingual perspectives. (shrink)

This paper presents a study of Rāmacandra–Guṇacandra’s theory of aesthetics in light of the Kashmiri rasa ideology and demonstrates that the Jain authors offer a new and original conceptualization of aesthetic experience, in which the spectator remains cognitively active in the course of watching the drama. In their model, the relationship between rasa and pleasure is mediated by a cognitive error, and the feeling of pleasure does not coincide with the savoring of rasa but emerges after the savoring of rasa (...) ceases. This paper argues that Rāmacandra and Guṇacandra demystify the Kashmiri theory of aesthetics by identifying affinities between the lived world and the fictive world of drama and by rendering the regular means of knowledge, such as inference and memory, as instrumental for the experience of rasa. It further suggests that this new conceptualization, in which pleasure is contingent upon the dissolution of illusion, may have facilitated the development of playwrighting among Jain monks from the twelfth century on. (shrink)

My paper focuses on one of the most influential, but hardly explored, scholar of the phyi dar period *Jñānākara. *Jñānākara’s *Mantrāvatāra and his auto-commentary, *Mantrāvatāra-vṛtti, which have been lost in the original Sanskrit, but can be accessed in Tibetan translation as Gsang sngags la ’jug pa and Gsang sngags la ’jug pa’i ’grel pa respectively, provides a comprehensive picture of doctrinal debate that dominated the scene in the intellectual history of the eleventh-century Indo-Tibetan world, through demonstrating various perspectives on tantric (...) practices that were forced to enter the battlefield of a critical discussion during the ‘tantric age’. The paper will try to reconstruct the most controversial issues of this debate, such as ‘cenobitic fornication’—that is whether monks should obtain tantric initiation and engage in the practices in which copulation was a central part—and the so-called wrathful rites. Motivated by polemical ends, *Jñānākara’s *Mantrāvatāra aims at establishing its self-authenticity and preeminence by contrasting its ‘correct tantric practice’ with the so-called ‘perverse tantric practice’ promoted by ‘frauds’ and attributing to them, often pejoratively, erroneous or willful misappropriation of tantric scriptures. In this context, the making of orthodoxy goes hand in hand with questioning the legitimacy of certain tantric practices. (shrink)

The purpose of this paper is an attempt to present and analyse one of the most intriguing and unique elements of Leibniz’s philosophy of right—the relationship between love and justice —mainly based on selected excerpts from the Elementa Iuris Naturalis and the preface to the Codex Iuris Gentium Diplomaticus. The author presents the characteristics of this close connection and she tries to answer the question about the reasons for this relationship referring to the metaphysical assumptions and principles of Leibniz’s philosophy. (...) With respect to the latter the author also explains significance of the connection between love and justice in Leibniz’s philosophy of right as a part of his whole philosophical system. (shrink)

In synesthesia, a certain stimulus (eg grapheme) is associated automatically and consistently with a stable perceptual-like experience (eg color). These associations are acquired in early childhood and remain robust throughout the lifetime. Synesthetic associations can transfer to novel inducers in adulthood as one learns a second language that uses another writing system. However, it is not known how long this transfer takes. We found that grapheme-color associations can transfer to novel graphemes after only a 10-minute writing exercise. Most subjects experienced (...) synesthetic associations immediately after learning a new Glagolitic grapheme. Using a Stroop task, we provide objective evidence for the creation of novel associations between the newly learned graphemes and synesthetic colors. Also, these associations generalized to graphemes handwritten by another person. The fast learning process and the generalization suggest that synesthesia begins at the semantic level of representation with the activation of a certain concept (the inducer), which then, uniquely for the synesthetes, activates representations at the perceptual level (the concurrent). Thus, the results imply that synesthesia is a much more flexible and plastic phenomenon than has been believed until now. (shrink)

Though a common language of science allows for easier communication of the results among researchers, the use of lingua franca also comes with the cost of losing some of the diverse ideas and results arising from the plurality of languages. Following Quine’s famous thesis about the indeterminacy of translation, we elaborate on the inherent loss of diverse ideas when only one language of science is used. Non-native speakers sometimes experience epistemic injustice due to their language proficiency and consequently, their scientific (...) insights get marginalized. Thus, it is important epistemically to include the results of all researchers independent of their native language. As a solution, we promote epistemic equity and inclusion both on the individual level and on the level of the scientific community. Epistemic equity means that researchers who suffer disadvantages because of their language skills get support from the rest of the scientific community that will compensate for their disadvantage and at the same time facilitate their epistemic inclusion. This can be achieved through the introduction of mitigating agents – the individuals and organizations that ought to serve as a communication bridge between individual researchers and the scientific community. (shrink)

In the present paper we consider the specific relationship between communal and agentic functioning of narcissistic individuals. The study was aimed to test whether narcissist’s aggression is due to not only negative information about their agency but also positive information about their communion. Whereas the first effect is well- documented in empirical studies, the second effect has been revealed in our prior research. The results of the present study confirmed both effects: negative information about one’s agency increased aggressive tendencies and (...) decreased state self-esteem, while positive information about one’s communion resulted only in displaced aggression. The aggressive response to positive communal information is discussed as the success-as-aflaw effect, which we mean as inverse of the failure-as-an asset effect. According to the success-as-a-flaw effect, positive outcomes in the communal domain, considered by narcissists to be an evidence of low-status, are threatening for the grandiose self, based on the domain of agency. The social cognitive and clinical approach is employed to interpret these results. (shrink)

There is scarcely a sentence in the New Testament that could have unleashed a wider reception history than Paul‘s comparison of the letter and the spirit in the third chapter of the Second Epistle to the Corinthians: “For the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life.” In Patristics two diverging lines of reception can be identified, which, depending on the perspective, emphasise the hermeneutic or the soteriological side of the formula more strongly. This paper investigates the antithesis of spirit and (...) letter at various stations of its reception history from Late Antiquity to the late Middle Ages and ventures to profile the contrast primarily as the hermeneutic relationship between the object and the reading event. (shrink)

This paper offers a memoir of living with Zygmunt Bauman. It begins with the early encounter of Bauman and Aleksandra Kania in Warsaw in 1954, where both were Masters students working with the humanist Marxist Adam Schaff. Kania and Bauman followed their separate life paths for decades, though they were both postwar communists and reconstructionists. Much later, the loss of their partners led to union, in Leeds and across the globe in travel. This is a story of friendship and (...) mutual enthusiasms, then intimacy between two working sociologists. There are also some apparent differences, as between the Lark and the Owl, or between Phosphorous and Hesperus. Life together leads especially to Italy, and to Pope Francis. This is a reflection on what Bauman called the art of life. (shrink)

Author: Horecka Aleksandra Title: THE CONCEPT OF AESTHETICAL VALUE IN TATARKIEWICZ’S PAPERS (Pojęcie wartości estetycznej w pracach Władysława Tatarkiewicza) Source: Filo-Sofija year: 2011, vol:.13/14, number: 2011/2-3, pages: 601-615 Keywords: WŁADYSŁAW TATARKIEWICZ, AESTHETICAL VALUE, ONTOLOGICAL CATEGORY Discipline: PHILOSOPHY Language: POLISH Document type: ARTICLE Publication order reference (Primary author’s office address): E-mail: www:The purpose of this paper is to report and analyse the main theses of Tatarkiewicz’s theory of aesthetic value. We concentrate on ontological problems – what is aesthetical value and (...) what is the ontological category of valuable object. Tatarkiewicz claims, that: “The term ‘value’ refers to an abstract: property of thing, or to a concrete: to thing endowed with this property”. Many types of aesthetic value (aesthetic value in narrow sense, literary value and poetical value) exist. The only difference between using concept of aesthetic value only in positive sense and using concept of aesthetic value both – in positive and negative sense – is formal. Concerning thesis (1) we claim, that expression “thing” in Tatarkiewicz’s theory is the synonym for “physical object”; not only material objects, but also physical events and processes are Tatarkiewicz’s things as well. In our opinion the concept of aesthetic value proposed by Tatarkiewicz is objective, therefore formulation of thesis of aesthetic subjectivity, which Tatarkiewicz also did, is problematical. Using Tatarkiewicz’s terminology, we construct concept of value as a state of affairs (that some object is endowed with value-property) and we accept monocathegoriality of values (value is a property, a thing endowed with this property or a state of affairs). Concerning thesis (2) we divide all objects into semantic and asemantic and we claim, that in Tatarkiewicz’s theory, only asemantic objects or semantic but semantically uninterpreted object could be endowed with aesthetic value in narrow sense. The aesthetic value in narrow sense is its property considering its appearance or structure. As to the literary and poetical values – they are ascribed to semantic object in consideration of represented object. Concerning thesis (3) we argue, that it is significant whether we use concept of value only in positive sense or both – in positive and negative sense. Only in language with both expressions (“positive aesthetic value” and “negative aesthetic value”) we can formulate the theses about aesthetically neutral objects. (shrink)

This paper argues that the missing voice in clinical ethics is that of informal caregivers. Despite their substantial contribution to care provided to individuals with disabilities, chronic illness or dementia, informal caregivers are rarely thought of as members of the healthcare team and their narratives are rarely listened to and included in clinical and ethical decisions. Addressing this gap, this paper discusses the reasons for the systemic misrecognition of informal caregivers in healthcare systems and argues for their greater narrative inclusion (...) on the clinical, legal and social planes. (shrink)

The subject of the paper is a philosophical analysis of the womanhood in the context of M. Merleau-Ponty`s ontology of corporeality (la chair). The womanhood is grasped (after Levinas) as a cosmic element, penetrating the tissue of the embodiment of the logos of the world. As an element of the same ontological level as death, the womanhood on the one hand brakes up the stability instilled in the human world and introduces an anxiety into a plural entity. On the other (...) hand it also brings in a vigil, which generates responsibility for the stability instilled in the human world. (shrink)

Il est question dans cet article de l’évolution de l’idée de «nation» en France au cours du XVIIIe siècle. Beaucoup d’historiens pensent qu’on peut identifier les débuts de la conscience nationale française déjà au sein de la population de la France médiévale, alors que pour la plupart des sociologues la nation n’est qu’une construction intelectuelle créée par les intelligentsias européennes pendant les XVIIIe et XIXe siècles. Les protagonists de la Révolution prétendirent d’agir au nom de la Nation Française en tant (...) qu’une communauté ethnique, linguistique et culturelle. Cette conception moderne de la nation, quand et comment fût-elle née en? (shrink)

Communication in law provides a space for alternatives, a Third Space, wherein boundaries between various systems are strongly anchored to a country’s language, history and societal development. Transfers, modifications, and integrations of such systems into other target languages may result in many effects of distortions and appropriations, reformulations and renewals as well as of misinterpretations in communication. Hence, Third Space is a necessary prerequisite for negotiation, transformation and translation from culture A to culture B, since it operates as a multi-stage (...) dynamic where such mechanisms should be analyzed in a fair and equitable manner. (shrink)

Human culture is built upon nature to help humans adapt to their environment – first natural, but later natural-cultural. Cultural practices are aimed at aiding survival in changing environments, and in different settings they meet different environmental pressures, causing later changes in trajectories. According to cultural evolutionism, behaviours, ideas and artefacts are subject to inheritance, competition, accumulation of modifications, adaptation, geographical distribution, convergence and changes of function – these are mechanisms present also in biological evolution. In the following paper, we (...) examine women’s dance and physical exercise practices, which contain similar postures performed in comparable circumstances, as found in initiation ritual dances in chosen East African communities and in Slavic gymnastics for women in the Belarusian tradition. In times of globalization and the mixing of cultures, the position on knees and elbows is recontextualized in a visually attractive form of contemporary dances like Kangamoko and Baikoko, or more widely different variants of ‘twerking’ and reconstructed physical exercises. Approaching ‘twerking’ positions, especially on knees and elbows as a cross-genre performance, we find common roots in the communal support for women’s good wife and mother status teachings in various cultures, showing the importance of women’s circles, women’s health and well-being for the community. (shrink)

Memrise is an educational tool available both online and for mobile devices. Memrise uses flashcards and mnemonic techniques to aid in teaching foreign languages and memorizing information from other subjects, e.g. geography, law or mathematics. Memrise courses are created by its users through the process of crowdsourcing; therefore they are tailored to the individual needs of the users and may focus on the specific content of a particular coursebook or classes. The paper will attempt to present possibilities of using memrise (...) in teaching and learning legal English vocabulary during a tertiary course leading to TOLES certificate examination. The paper will look at various types of exercises which facilitate memorizing vocabulary, learning collocations, prepositional phrases, develop the skill of paraphrasing and defining legal terms of art in plain English. Application of the crowdsourcing method enables the learners to participate in the process of the course creation and constitutes for them a supplementary, out of class exposure to the target language. The second part of the paper will discuss the results of the research conducted by the author among her law students. The aim of the research was to investigate the students′ opinions about memrise as a tool which might facilitate individual learning of the specialist language, as well as to assess whether memrise may influence the test results achieved by the students during the legal English course. The paper will contrastively analyse the progress tests results achieved by the students who have used memrise to revise and recycle language material and those who have chosen traditional methods of learning. The research also attempted to address the question whether the students who had been the contributors to the content of memrise courses had performed better in tests than those who had only been the users. (shrink)

The study investigated psychometric properties of the Sport Motivation Scale-6, assessing intrinsic regulation, four extrinsic regulation constructs, and amotivation among athletes competing at a regional and national level. In particular, we tested the factorial structure of SMS-6, its short-term stability, and the associations of SMS-6 constructs with self-efficacy, self-esteem, motivational climate, and satisfaction with sport performance. Participants were 197 athletes, representing team and individual disciplines. The measurement was repeated at the three-week follow-up. Results yielded support for the six first-order factor (...) structure. More autonomous forms of motivation were related to higher levels of self-efficacy, performance satisfaction, and taskoriented motivational climate in sport organizations. Sequential multiple mediation analysis showed that the association between general self-efficacy and performance satisfaction at a follow-up was mediated by introjected regulation and personal-barrier self-efficacy. (shrink)

Scientists, humanists, and art lovers alike value art not just for its beauty, but also for its social and epistemic importance; that is, for its communicative nature, its capacity to increase one's self-knowledge and encourage personal growth, and its ability to challenge our schemas and preconceptions. However, empirical research tends to discount the importance of such social and epistemic outcomes of art engagement, instead focusing on individuals' preferences, judgments of beauty, pleasure, or other emotional appraisals as the primary outcomes of (...) art appreciation. Here, we argue that a systematic neuroscientific study of art appreciation must move beyond understanding aesthetics alone, and toward investigating the social importance of art appreciation. We make our argument for such a shift in focus first, by situating art appreciation as an active social practice. We follow by reviewing the available psychological and cognitive neuroscientific evidence that art appreciation cultivates socio-epistemic skills such as self- and other-understanding, and discuss philosophical frameworks which suggest a more comprehensive empirical investigation. Finally, we argue that focusing on the socio-epistemic values of art engagement highlights the important role art plays in our lives. Empirical research on art appreciation can thus be used to show that engagement with art has specific social and personal value, the cultivation of which is important to us as individuals, and as communities. (shrink)

Statistical methods used by healthcare entities enable the collection of various information about the structure and characteristics of treated patients. They are an important source of knowledge, and form a database that plays an important role in entity management theory. In the presented study, we analysed the hospital stays of patients treated in all hospital wards of the 3rd City Hospital in Łodź during 2012. The following, in particular, were taken into account: admittance procedure, discharge procedure, age and sex of (...) hospitalised persons. Patients in over 55% of cases were admitted using the sud- den admittance procedure. At the same time, over 3/4 of the stays ended with a referral for further treatment in ambulatory conditions, and death occurred in approx. 5% of hospitalisations. By comparing the discharge procedures, the percentage of deaths in the Anaesthesiology and Intensive Care Wards can be seen clearly. Internal wards are next in turn. The biggest differences in the length of hospitalisation between the studied institution and the NFZ data concern the E77, A49, A48, A87, A33, D18, E16, E61 and G37 groups. (shrink)

THE NATURE OF HISTORISM. THE MAIN CONCEPTS AND THESES OF ERNST TROELTSCH’S INTERPRETATION The article aims to present the main elements of Ernst Troeltsch’s conception of historism. Historism is understood here as a way of thinking (in science or worldview), which is directed to explain things as products of a historical process. In this view, there is no place for any absolute or universal solutions, causes and rules (thus historism is something completely different from historicism in K.R. Popper’s sense). In (...) the first step, the author tries to show the philosophical context of Troeltsch’s thought (Hegel, Dilthey, Neo-Kantianism, Fenomenology) and to present some of the most important ideas connected with historism (like irrationalism, subjectivism, relativism and individuality). The main part of the article discusses Troeltsch’s conception according to the first chapter of his “Historismus und seine Probleme.” This part presents Troeltsch’s opinion about the crisis of historism and his vision of the real philosophy of history, which should be based on a formal logic of history. Keywords: HISTORISM, ERNST TROELTSCH, PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY. (shrink)

Dementia will soon be ranked as the world’s largest economy. At present, it ranges from the 16th to 18th place, with countries such as Indonesia, the Netherlands, and Turkey. Dementia is not only a financial challenge, but also a philosophical one. It provokes a paradigm shift in the traditional view of healthcare and expands the classic concepts of human personhood and autonomy. A promising response to these challenges is the idea of cooperative solidarity. Cooperative solidarity, contrary to its ‘humanitarian’ version, (...) promotes spontaneous teamwork and individual initiative. It obliges us not only to help 'the suffering, the troubled and the disadvantaged’, but above all to support those who already do so for spontaneous moral or affective reasons. In the field of dementia study, solidary initiatives are described within the framework of supportive care. (shrink)

In this empirical study, we investigate the variation in firms’ response to institutional pressure for gender-balanced boards, focusing specifically on the preservation of prevailing practices of director selection and its impact on the representation of women on the board of directors. Using 8 years of data from publicly listed Nordic corporations, we show societal pressure to be one of the determinants of female directorship. Moreover, in some corporations, the director selection process may work to maintain “a traditional type of board”. (...) In such boards, demographic diversity among male members appears to be associated with a lower share of female directors, although we cannot establish wether this reflects discrimination or a desire to maintain critical competencies. With this paper we add to the theoretical understanding of the factors underlying female board appointments by adopting an institutional theory lens to study female board representation. Viewing the demands for gender-balanced boards in terms of societal pressure for the de-institutionalization of the prevailing norms and practices, we highlight preferences for maintaining established practices as a potentially important barrier to institutional change. On these grounds, we conjecture on the relationship between the gender diversity of boards and other diversity dimensions. We suggest that a board room gender quota is supplemented by policies to ensure the transparency of board changes, in order to prevent the crowding out of other diversity dimensions. (shrink)

This article reconstructs Lev Shestov’s views on the Christian faith and, more specifically, his exploration of religious philosophy. Shestov was raised in the Jewish tradition, and as a mature man he was baptized in the Orthodox Church. The article shows the twists and turns of his intellectual quest, which took him from Marxism, via criticism of 19th century intellectualism, to religious philosophy.