The evidence on gender discrimination in lending remains controversial. To capture gender biases in banks’ loan allocations, we observe the impact on the applicants of a microfinance institution and exploit the natural experiment of a regulatory change imposing a strict EUR 10,000 loan ceiling on microcredit. Descriptive statistics indicate that the presence of the ceiling is associated both with bank-MFI co-financing and with harsher treatment of female borrowers. To investigate causal links, we develop an econometric approach that addresses the concerns (...) of selection biases, multicollinearity, and endogeneity. Our empirical findings suggest that the change in the MFI’s gender-related attitude was triggered by banks through co-financing. Hence, we speculate that co-financing pushes ceiling-constrained MFIs to import whatever biases in loan granting that the banks are prone to. Overall, this paper stresses that apparently benign regulations such as loan ceilings can significantly harm the women’s empowerment efforts made by MFIs. (shrink)
This paper explores the perennial objection to passibilism that an omnipotent being could not experience emotions because emotions are essentially passive and outside the subject's control. Examining this claim through the lens of some recent philosophy of emotion, I highlight some of the ways in which emotions can be chosen and cultivated, suggesting that emotions are not incompatible with divine omnipotence. Having concluded that divine omnipotence does not exclude emotional experience in general , I go on to address an objection (...) to the idea that God experiences the emotions involved in suffering in particular , suggesting one possible way of arguing that God's suffering is chosen while also maintaining the authenticity of divine suffering. (shrink)
Contemporary debates on God’s emotionality are divided between two extremes. Impassibilists deny God’s emotionality on the basis of God’s omniscience, omnipotence and incorporeality. Passibilists seem to break with tradition by affirming divine emotionality, often focusing on the idea that God suffers with us. Contemporary philosophy of emotion reflects this divide. Some philosophers argue that emotions are voluntary and intelligent mental events, making them potentially compatible with omniscience and omnipotence. Others claim that emotions are involuntary and basically physiological, rendering them inconsistent (...) with traditional divine attributes. Thinking Through Feeling: God, Emotion and Passibility creates a three-way conversation between the debate in theology, contemporary philosophy of emotion, and pre-modern (particularly Augustinian and Thomist) conceptions of human affective experience. It also provides an exploration of the intelligence and value of the emotions of compassion, anger and jealousy. (shrink)
Nudging is considered a promising approach for behavioural change. At the same time, nudging has raised ethical concerns, specifically in relation to the impact of nudges on autonomous choice. A complexity is that in this debate authors may appeal to different understandings or dimensions of autonomy. Clarifying the different conceptualisations of autonomy in ethical debates around nudging would help to advance our understanding of the ethics of nudging. A literature review of these considerations was conducted in order to identify and (...) differentiate between the conceptualisations of autonomy. In 33 articles on the ethics of nudging, we identified 280 autonomy considerations, which we labelled with 790 unique autonomy codes and grouped under 61 unique super-codes. Finally, we formulated three general conceptualisations of autonomy. Freedom of choice refers to the availability of options and the environment in which individuals have to make choices. Agency involves an individual's capacity to deliberate and determine what to choose. Self-constitution relates to someone's identity and self-chosen goals. In the debate about the ethics of nudging, authors refer to different senses of autonomy. Clarifying these conceptualisations contributes to a better understanding of how nudges can undermine or, on the other hand, strengthen autonomy. (shrink)
Kant’s account of the feeling of moral respect has notoriously puzzled interpreters: on the one hand, moral action is supposed to be autonomous and, in particular, free of the mediation of any feeling on the other hand, the subject’s grasp of the law somehow involves the feeling of moral respect. I argue that moral respect for Kant is not, pace both the ‘intellectualists’ and ‘affectivists,’ an effect of the determination of the will by the law – whether it be a (...) mere effect or the motivating cause of action – but is instead identical to it. Drawing on Kant’s general account of feeling as the awareness of how representations and their objects harm or benefit our own powers, I argue that the identity between moral respect and the determination to action contains two elements. Moral respect is, first, a form of practical self-consciousness which constitutes the subject’s recognition of the moral law and thus of herself as intrinsically bound by it, i. e., as a moral agent. Second, respect is a capacity for receptive awareness of particular features of our environment as well as other persons insofar as they benefit and harm us as moral agents. Thereby moral respect affords us awareness in concreto of particular, morally-conditioned ends. In this way moral respect provides the key for a Kantian account of genuinely free practical receptivity. (shrink)
Despite the ubiquity of uncertainty, scientific attention has focused primarily on probabilistic approaches, which predominantly rely on the assumption that uncertainty can be measured and expressed numerically. At the same time, the increasing amount of research from a range of areas including psychology, economics, and sociology testify that in the real world, people’s understanding of risky and uncertain situations cannot be satisfactorily explained in probabilistic and decision-theoretical terms. In this article, we offer a theoretical overview of an alternative approach to (...) uncertainty developed in the framework of the ecological rationality research program. We first trace the origins of the ecological approach to uncertainty in Simon’s bounded rationality and Brunswik’s lens model framework and then proceed by outlining a theoretical view of uncertainty that ensues from the ecological rationality approach. We argue that the ecological concept of uncertainty relies on a systemic view of uncertainty that features it as a property of the organism–environment system. We also show how simple heuristics can deal with unmeasurable uncertainty and in what cases ignoring probabilities emerges as a proper response to uncertainty. (shrink)
Although the world of sports has witnessed numerous corruption scandals, the effects of perceived corruption in sports have not been sufficiently investigated in the literature. The aim of this paper is to examine how sports team identification weakens people’s perceptions of corruption in sports, and how it dampens corruption’s negative effects on spectator behavior. The study also examines how prevalent social norms regarding corruption in a country strengthen or weaken these effects. A survey of 1,005 sports spectators from four Sub-Saharan (...) African countries reveals how the interplay between team identification and perceived corruption can encourage or discourage sports attendance under different conditions. Corruption is investigated through the theoretical lenses of the pluralistic nature of morality. Findings indicate that particularistic values linked to moral obligations toward the team collide with the universalistic values that demand fairness in sports. In addition, social norms of corruption moderate the clash between universalistic and particularistic values. (shrink)
It has been widely accepted that Kant holds the “Opacity Thesis,” the claim that we cannot know the ultimate grounds of our actions. Understood in this way, I shall argue, the Opacity Thesis is at odds with Kant's account of practical self-consciousness, according to which I act from the (always potentially conscious) representation of principles of action and that, in particular, in acting from duty I act in consciousness of the moral law's determination of my will. The Opacity Thesis thus (...) threatens to render acting from duty unintelligible. To diffuse the threat, I argue, first, that we need not attribute the Opacity Thesis to Kant. Kant's concern with the ubiquity of moral self-opacity does not imply the strong skeptical conclusion that knowledge of the grounds of one's action is impossible. Second, I show how moral self-opacity in cases of morally bad action emerges from the intrinsic inability of representing oneself, insofar as one is pursuing the indeterminate end of “happiness.” Thus, moral self-opacity does not undermine the will's self-consciousness but is born of it. (shrink)
There are two main approaches in the phenomenological understanding of the unconscious. The first explores the intentional theory of the unconscious, while the second develops a non-representational way of understanding consciousness and the unconscious. This paper aims to outline a general theoretical framework for the non-representational approach to the unconscious within the phenomenological tradition. In order to do so, I focus on three relevant theories: Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenology of perception, Thomas Fuchs’ phenomenology of body memory, and Edmund Husserl’s phenomenology of (...) affectivity. Both Merleau-Ponty and Fuchs understand the unconscious as a “sedimented practical schema” of subjective being in the world. This sedimented unconscious contributes to the way we implicitly interpret reality, fill in the gaps of uncertainty, and invest our social interactions with meaning. Husserl, however, approaches the unconscious in terms of affective non-vivacity, as a sphere of sedimentation and the horizon of the distant past which stays affectively connected to the living present. Drawing on these ideas, I argue that these two accounts can reinforce one another and provide the ground for a phenomenological understanding of the unconscious in terms of the horizontal dimension of subjective experience and a non-representational relation to the past. (shrink)
We offer an analysis of future morphemes as epistemic operators. The main empirical motivation comes from the fact that future morphemes have systematic purely epistemic readings—not only in Greek and Italian, but also in Dutch, German, and English will. The existence of epistemic readings suggests that the future expressions quantify over epistemic, not metaphysical alternatives. We provide a unified analysis for epistemic and predictive readings as epistemic necessity, and the shift between the two is determined compositionally by the lower tense. (...) Our account thus acknowledges a systematic interaction between modality and tense—but the future itself is a pure modal, not a mixed temporal/modal operator. We show that the modal base of the future is nonveridical, i.e. it includes p and ¬p worlds, parallel to epistemic modals such as must, and present arguments that future morphemes are a category that stands in between epistemic modals and predicates of personal taste. We identify, finally, a subclass of epistemic futures which are ratificational, and argue that will is a member of this class. (shrink)
On 25 May 2020, Officer Derek Chauvin asphyxiated George Floyd in Minneapolis — a murder that was captured in a confronting nine-minute bystander video that set off a firestorm of activity on online social networks, in the streets of the United States, and even worldwide. These protests captured the collective rage, dissatisfaction, and resentment personally and vicariously experienced towards the widespread systematic injustice and mistreatment of African Americans by police and vigilantes. The scale of these protests, both online and in (...) the streets, has been estimated to have far exceeded the civil rights marches of the 1960s (Buchanan et al. 2020). Considering the widespread extent of these protests, our research aims to analyse conflictual intergroup moral dynamics in terms of the reactive attitudes expressed by distinct online communities on Twitter. This paper examines the extent to which the Strawsonian (1962) reactive attitudes framework is applicable to the Twitter discourse around the Black Lives Matter protests reignited by the murder of George Floyd. In particular, we argue that the Strawsonian framework is inadequate to understand a range of prevalent attitudes expressed in this discourse — attitudes that we call reactionary as opposed to merely reactive. Reactionary attitudes include counter-indignation on behalf of the accused rather than Strawsonian indignation on behalf of the victim of a moral wrong. We document the expression of such attitudes among the right-wing participants in the online discourse about the Black Lives Matter movement. (shrink)
The focus of this paper is to discuss the semiotic aspects of our findings from a project we conducted in the frame of Emotional Text Analysis paradigm. In the project, we intended to create a computer text classifier capable of effectively classifying texts into emotional categories. We agreed that we would need discrete data samples to input into it. For this, we asked 178 informants to give a verdict on the dominant emotion of 48 sample texts. Prior to their assessment (...) of the texts, the informants responded to a questionnaire used to estimate their empathic tendency. A detailed analysis of the informants’ assessments and personal empathetic tendency scores showed a positive correlation. Subsequently, our interest was piqued by the issue of how emotions could be triggered by conventional signs. Our findings seem to suggest that words are only used as an expression form insofar as they embody another type of semiotic complexity, thus diverging from the traditional Pearcian triad. In order to develop on these findings, it is therefore the main objective of this paper to provide a biosemiotic model of representation/interpretation of emotions, with particular attention paid to the eliciting of emotions as sign types. In this endeavour, we draw upon K. Kull’s concept of emonic semiotic model realization. Our suggestion is that, when one processes a text that elicits an emotional response, two semiotic facets are relevant: indexicality and emonicity. We argue that it is a main empathetic function to enforce the emonic model of semiosis over the indexical in situations where the interpreter has a choice between the two. As such, the hypothesis of the study is that emotions facilitate a particular type of semiotic mechanism, relying on the mimesis principle. (shrink)
In this paper, I discuss the distribution and interpretation of free choice items (FCIs) in Greek, a language exhibiting a lexical paradigm of such items distinct from that of negative polarity items. Greek differs in this respect from English, which uniformly employs any. FCIs are grammatical only in certain contexts that can be characterized as nonveridical (Giannakidou 1998, 1999), and although they yield universal-like interpretations in certain structures, they are not, I argue, universal quantifiers. Evidence will be provided that FCIsare (...) indefinites; the quasi-universal effect is shown to be the result of binding by an operator with universal force. Additionally, the limited distribution of FCIs in non veridical contexts can be accounted for by analyzing them as indefinites which must always be interpreted in an intensional type. The difference between ``regular'' indefinites and FCIs, therefore, is reduced to a type difference which captures the fact that only the latter exhibit limited distribution: because of their intensional type, FCIs will be grammatical only in contexts providing alternatives (worlds or situations), and nonveridical contexts do exactly this. By contrast, FCIs are excluded from veridical and episodic contexts because these provide no alternatives and hence do not satisfy the lexical semantic requirement ofFCIs. The proposed analysis is supported by data from other languages as well (Spanish, Catalan,French) and has important consequences regarding the analysis of English any. If FCIs are not universal quantifiers but indefinites, then the usual ambiguity thesis (free choice any being universal, negative polarity any an existential) can no longer be maintained, at least not as one in terms of quantificational force. (shrink)
This paper examines the impact of corporate social responsibility disclosure on corporate reputation as perceived by non-professional stakeholders. Proponents of CSR disclosure argue that CSR disclosure can be considered as a tool for reputation management. We empirically investigate this claim using a reputation index which tracks the general public’s perceptions of corporate reputation over time. In our analysis, we focus on disclosure in stand-alone CSR reports and control for CSR performance. We find that, in contrast to the common belief, stand-alone (...) CSR reports do not influence corporate reputation among non-professional stakeholders. However, we are able to document that stand-alone CSR reports influence corporate reputation among professional stakeholders. We also provide some evidence that transparent CSR disclosure on corporate websites can influence corporate reputation among non-professional stakeholders. (shrink)
While the impassibility debate has traditionally been construed in terms of whether God suffers, recent philosophy of religion has interpreted it in terms of whether God has emotions more generally. This article surveys the philosophical literature on divine im/passibility over the last 25 years, outlining major arguments for and against the idea that God has emotions. It argues that questions about the nature and value of emotions are at the heart of the im/passibility debate. More specifically, it suggests that presuppositions (...) about the dichotomy between emotions and reason (or the ‘heart and the head’) have negatively impacted the debate. It contends that the debate can only move forward in response to serious reflection on our affects as we experience them, aided by historical and anthropological as well as contemporary philosophical perspectives. (shrink)
The main claim of this paper is that a general theory of negative concord (NC) should allow for the possibility of NC involving scoping of a universal quantifier above negation. I propose that Greek NC instantiates this option. Greek n-words will be analyzed as polarity sensitive universal quantifiers which need negation in order to be licensed, but must raise above negation in order to yield the scoping ∀¬. This gives the correct interpretation of NC structures as general negative statements. The (...) effect is achieved by application of QR, and the account is fully compositional, as only sentence negation is the vehicle of logical negation ¬. Greek n-words are also compared to nwords in Romance, Slavic, and Hungarian. This analysis, if correct, has two important.. (shrink)
Limited distribution phenomena related to negation and negative polarity are usually thought of in terms of affectivity where affective is understood as negative or downward entailing. In this paper I propose an analysis of affective contexts as nonveridical and treat negative polarity as a manifestation of the more general phenomenon of sensitivity to (non)veridicality (which is, I argue, what affective dependencies boil down to). Empirical support for this analysis will be provided by a detailed examination of affective dependencies in Greek, (...) but the distribution of any will also be shown to follow from (non)veridicality. (shrink)
Pointing to broad symmetries between the idea that God is omniscient, omnipotent and all-good, and the idea that God is omniscient, omnipotent but all-evil, the evil-God challenge raises the question of why theists should prefer one over the other. I respond to this challenge by drawing on a recent theory in epistemology, pragmatic encroachment, which asserts that practical considerations can alter the epistemic status of beliefs. I then explore some of the implications of my argument for how we do philosophy (...) of religion, arguing that practical and contextual as well as alethic considerations are properly central to the discipline. (shrink)
The article aims to study the genesis of understanding the causes of social discrimination from its traditional manifestations to the era of digitalization and artificial intelligence. The methodological basis of this scientific article was formed by the approaches, methods and principles of scientific research. The authors independently check existing theories and previous results of practical research in the field of social discrimination, as well as discover new modern forms of its manifestation generated by the action of artificial intelligence and subject (...) them to open discussion, offering their vision of solving the problem of neutralizing the risks spread by the use of artificial intelligence technologies concerning certain social groups of people. In this article, the authors continue their case studies in exploring the ethics of artificial intelligence and the benefits and risks of its ubiquity and use. (shrink)
The main focus of this article is the occurrence of some polarity items (PIs) in the complements of emotive factive verbs and only. This fact has been taken as a challenge to the semantic approach to PIs (Linebarger 1980), because only and factive verbs are not downward entailing (DE). A modification of the classical DE account is proposed by introducing the notion of nonveridicality (Zwarts 1995, Giannakidou 1998, 1999, 2001) as the one crucial for PI sanctioning. To motivate this move, (...) it is first shown that two solutions in the direction of weakening classical monotonicity do not work: Strawson DE (von Fintel 1999) and weak DE (Hoeksema 1986). Weakening DE systematically either overgenerates or undergenerates, in either case failing to characterize the correct set of licensers. Nonveridicality is introduced as a conservative extension of DE and is shown to account for PIs also in contexts that are not DE (i.e. questions, modal verbs, imperatives, directive propositional attitudes). This theory, augmented with the premise that certain PIs (i.e. the liberal class represented by any) are subject to a weaker polarity dependency identified not as LICENSING but as RESCUING by nonveridicality, explains the occurrence of this particular class with only and emotive factive verbs. Crosslinguistic comparisons illustrate that the occurrence of PIs with only and emotive factives is not a general phenomenon, and further support the dual nature of polarity dependency and the semantic characterization of the elements that license or rescue PIs. (shrink)
Law is known to exist only being articulated in a language and discourse, and the students’ ability to comprehend and use its meta-language is one of the main goals for English for Legal Purposes teaching. The knowledge of terminology enables students to fit new information into the framework of the legal system they are studying. The acquisition of terminology in a foreign language implies knowledge of both conceptual content and the means of its verbalization. This article argues for a cognitive (...) approach to teaching Legal English, and frame modelling as an effective method of teaching and learning legal terminology. The heterogeneous structure of legal concepts suggests the possibility of framing their verbal representations. From this perspective, legal terminology is viewed as a frame structure. Depending on the instructional objective, frame modelling may be circumscribed around a specific concept or frame level. (shrink)
This paper explores the role that the scalar properties and presuppositions of even play in creating polarity sensitive even meanings crosslinguistically (henceforth EVEN). I discuss the behavior of three lexically distinct Greek counterparts of even in positive, negative, subjunctive sentences, and polar questions. These items are shown to be polarity sensitive, and a three-way distinction is posited between a positive polarity (akomi ke), a negative polarity (oute), and a ‘flexible scale’even(esto) which does not introduce likelihood, but is associated with scales (...) made salient by the context. The analysis is a refinement of Rooth’s original idea that negative polarity is involved in the interpretation of English even, and establishes further that the “negative” polarity domain of EVEN includes a sensitivity that is not strictly speaking negative (flexible scale esto). The distributional restrictions of EVEN items are shown to follow from distinct presuppositions (positive polarity and flexible scale EVEN), or from their lexical featural specification (negative polarity EVEN), a result that squares neatly with the fact that ill-formedness is systematic pragmatic deviance in the former case but robust ungrammaticality in the latter. This result supports the by now widely accepted view that polarity dependencies are not of uniform nature, and that we need to distinguish presupposition failures (which are weaker and possibly.. (shrink)
This paper investigates the impact of personal attributes and organizational conditions on attitudes toward corporate misdeeds. On the basis of social cognitive theory, we develop hypotheses that are tested against data collected from 215 German employees using an online survey. Our findings suggest that personal attributes have a much greater impact on ethical attitudes than organizational conditions. Further, a moderating effect of control-oriented culture on the relationship between personality traits and attitudes toward corporate misdeeds is found. We derive implications for (...) human resource management and further theory development. (shrink)
Moralising accounts of depression include the idea that depression is a sin or the result of sin, and/or that it is the result of demonic possession which has occurred because of moral or spiritual failure. Increasingly some Christian communities, understandably concerned about the debilitating effects these views have on people with depression, have adopted secular folk psychiatry’s ‘medicalising’ campaign, emphasising that depression is an illness for which, like (so-called) physical illnesses, experients should not be held responsible. This paper argues that (...) both moralising and medicalising models of depression are intellectually and practically (pastorally and therapeutically) problematic, gesturing towards more promising emphases. (shrink)
In modern ELP teaching practices online media products are commonly used as resources of educational content. Although the idea that ICT has brought classrooms in our pockets is generally perceived as a positive trend, the overview of recent inquiries into the use of technology in education has revealed a number of contradictory findings connected with multimedia learning. On the one hand, a multiplicity of strengths of online environments such as YouTube channels, Apps, podcasts, etc. is highlighted in the studies exploring (...) the potential of multimedia applications for language learning. On the other hand, there is a significant number of studies which demonstrate opposite observations resulting from the research of the effects of the medium on learning outcomes: some authors argue that students overwhelmingly prefer print over electronic formats for learning purposes, others infer that multiple factors affect learners’ actual behaviors and there is no solid evidence proving the priority of one over the other. Cognitive psychologists are more precise in this point: looking into how people process information they affirm that to be effective instructional framework should not ignore human cognitive architecture. Drawing upon recent studies in the field of designing educational media with regard of cognitive, behavioral, and attitudinal aspects of learning the exploratory study reported in this paper attempts to bridge the cognitive and educational theories to specify the framework of technology-based classes for ELP students. Through three courses of in-depth structured interviews with 58 Russian undergraduate law students doing an ELP course in Saratov State Law Academy, Russia, particular focus was placed on an individual learner’s information coding style, information processing style and reading style. The results of the research suggest some ideas on developing an instructional framework for ELP technology-based classroom tuition taking considering the principles of cognitive teaching. (shrink)
Polarity phenomena in language are pervasive and quite diverse. A quite familiar polarity item (PI) is any. Any a PI because it exhibits limited distribution: it is ungrammatical in positive sentences, but becomes fine with negation, in questions, with modal verbs, and in the scope of downward entailing quantifiers like few.
In this paper we reconsider the issue of free choice and the role of the wh-morphology employed in it. We show that the property of being an interrogative wh-word alone is not sufficient for free choice, and that semantic and sometimes even morphological definiteness is a pre-requisite for some free choice items (FCIs) in certain languages, e.g. in Greek and Mandarin Chinese. We propose a theory that explains the polarity behaviour of FCIs cross-linguistically, and allows indefinite (Giannakidou 2001) as well (...) as definite-like FCIs. The difference is manifested as a lexical distinction in English between any (indefinite) and wh-ever (definite); in Greek it appears as a choice between a FCI nominal modifier (taking an NP argument), which illustrates the indefinite option, and a FC free relative illustrating the definite one. We provide a compositional analysis of Greek FCIs in both incarnations, and derive in a parallel manner the Chinese FCIs. Here the definite versus indefinite alternation is manifested in the presence or absence of dōu, which we take to express the maximality operator. It is thus shown that what we see in the morphology of FCIs in Greek is reflected in syntax in Chinese. Our analysis has important consequences for the class of so-called wh-indeterminates. In the context of current proposals, free choiceness is taken to come routinely from interrogative semantics, and wh-indeterminates are treated as question words which can freely become FCIs (Kratzer and Shimoyama 2002). Our results from Mandarin and Greek emphasize that wh-indeterminates do not form a uniform class in this respect, and that interrogative semantics alone cannot predict either sensitivity of free choice to definiteness, or the polarity behaviour of FCIs. (shrink)
In this paper, I examine the syntax-semantics of subjunctive clauses in (Modern) Greek. These clauses are headed by the particle na and contain a dependent verbal form with no formal mood features: the perfective nonpast (PNP). I propose that the semantics of na is temporal: it introduces the variable now (n) into the syntax. This is necessary because the apparent present tense in the PNP cannot introduce n. The PNP, instead, contains a dependent time variable. This variable cannot be interpreted (...) as a free variable – hence it cannot be identified with the utterance time of the context. This analysis relies on two premises. One is the (quite influential) idea that pronouns and tenses are analogous creatures (Partee 1973, 1984, Heim 1998, Kratzer 1998, and others). The other premise is that at least some polarity items are expressions that contain variables that cannot be interpreted deictically (Giannakidou 1998, 2001). In the present work I suggest to enlarge the domain of phenomena that can receive a unified treatment across individuals, worlds, and tenses, and treat the subjunctive mood as a non-deictic time, thus an instance of a polarity dependency of the temporal kind. It is my hope that the analysis proposed here for the PNP can be used to analyze verbal subjunctives in Romance languages, and perhaps also infinitival forms in English, but investigation of this question will have be left for the future. (shrink)
In this chapter, we discuss the distribution and lexical properties of common varieties of negative polarity items (NPIs) and positive polarity items (PPIs). We establish first that NPIs can be licensed in negative, downward entailing, and nonveridical environments. Then we examine if the scalarity approach (originating in Kadmon and Landman 1993) can handle the attested NPI distribution and empirical variation. By positing a unitary lexical source for NPIs—widening, plus EVEN— scalarity fails to capture the fact that a significant number of (...) NPIs are not scalar, and does not predict correctly NPI distribution in nonveridical contexts. It also misses the variation within the scalar class between broader (any) and narrow NPIs (either). Finally, scalarity predicts weaker effects (contradictions, presupposition failures) with ill-formed NPIs than is actually the case. The variation approach (Giannakidou 1998, 2001, 2007), on the other hand, posits that besides scalarity, NPIs can be created because of the presence of a variable in the NPI that cannot be interpreted deictically. This approach, by allowing more lexical sources for NPIs, is consistent with the diversity of NPIs, and extends easily to PPIs, which, as a class, appear to be non-scalar (Szabolcsi 2004 for some). Here one can again advance the argument that PPI-status is due to various sources including referentiality (some), and speaker commitment (with PPI adverbs; Ernst 2008). (shrink)
Erroneous gambling-related beliefs can be defined as beliefs that imply a failure to recognise how commercial gambling activities are designed to generate a guaranteed loss to players. In t...
Davydov’s mathematics curriculum was designed according to the principles of the Cultural Historical Activity Theory. In this study, we analyzed some developmental effects of its realization in Grade 1, in relation to the children’s school readiness level, and their teacher’s experience. We assessed two groups of developmental effects: some general math abilities ; and some abilities, which are very specific to Davydov’s mathematics curriculum. At the beginning of the Grade 1, we divided all participants into three groups according to their (...) level of motivation, voluntary regulation, and logical preservation in terms of J. Piaget. After 1 year we measured general effects again and also measured specific effects. The results showed that all the children became significantly better in all general math abilities. It was also found that progress in math abilities does not depend on the initial level of school readiness of children. Children with different levels of voluntary regulation, motivational readiness, and the level of logical preservation show improvements in general math abilities. As for the mathematical skills specific to the Davydov’ program, the achieved level of their development is also not related to the initial parameters of readiness for school. Also, there were no differences in improvements in general effects and in specific effects between the classes with experienced and not-so-experienced teacher. So, there are some reasons to believe that the level of the child’s actual development does not play a fundamental role for education, which built in accordance with the principles of CHAT. (shrink)
This article examines how the key Orthodox actors in Moldova have reacted to challenging equal opportunities legislation. The author suggests, on the basis of an economic approach to religion, that under the conditions of a deregulated religious market they use various strategies to promote their agendas. The Moldovan Orthodox Church, autonomous within the Russian Orthodox Church, previously relied on making private bargains with the government; but this policy ended with the adoption of the 2013 Law on Ensuring Equality in the (...) Republic of Moldova. Now the Metropolitanate tries to assimilate the strategies of direct action, but without success. The so-called ‘non-mentioning’ radicals, technically being part of the Metropolitanate of Moldova, but not praying for its bishop, are involved in direct political activism – from setting up protest camps to street fighting – to confront de-stigmatization of homosexuality. The Bessarabian Metropolitanate of the Romanian Orthodox Church utilizes the strategies of European ‘public’ churches and gains influence through performing some useful social functions. This article concludes that all actors have their own advantages and weaknesses; nevertheless, so far the Metropolitanate of Moldova remains the strongest; while the other competitors are serving specific religious niches, it is this body which still possesses the potential to influence society more broadly. (shrink)
In line with recent developments in leadership research which conceptualise leadership as a discursive and collaborative process rather than a set of static attributes and characteristics displayed by individuals, this paper explores some of the discursive processes through which leadership emerges in a sports team. Drawing on over ten hours of naturally occurring interactions among the players of a women’s netball team in the UK, and applying the concepts of deontic and epistemic status and stance, we identify and describe some (...) of the specific processes through which leadership is claimed and assigned, as well as rejected, passed on, and eventually accepted by different team members at different points throughout an interaction. While the processes outlined in our analysis contribute to theoretical discussions regarding the notion of emergent leadership, this paper also demonstrates the benefits of taking a discourse analytical approach to leadership, and outlines how such an approach enables researchers to empirically capture emergent leadership in situ. (shrink)
The paper is an attempt to understand the nature of political religion using Russian Orthodoxy as an example. Political religion is different from the use of religion for political purposes: from "public religions" seeking to be a part of a pluralistic society; from "civic religion" (sacralization of political processes and institutions) and from fundamentalism. Contrary to fundamentalism, political religions aim not at revitalizing the past, but at addressing the most vital issues of modernity. Politicization of Orthodoxy in Russia may seem (...) unlikely due to obvious political passivity of the Russian Orthodox Church and to the fact that people in Russia are rather religiously indifferent and theologically ignorant. But the paper demonstrates that political activity is typical not for the leaders of an institutionalized religion but for a religiously minded intelligentsia. Global experience also shows that politicization is most likely to occur in an area where people have just returned to their semi-forgotten religious beliefs and where the majority of population does not observe the rituals and does not know the fundamentals of religion. Growing number of people who identify themselves as Russian Orthodox, having, at the same time, no sufficient knowledge of this religion provokes the emergence of mediatory ideologies, which are Pan-Slavism (the idea of a union of all Orthodox Slavic nations) and Eurasianism (the idea of a union between the Orthodox and the Islamic world). From the fundamentalist viewpoint both ideologies should be defined as heretic. Pan- Slavism is heretic because it views Orthodoxy as a kind of Slavic tribal religion and strips Orthodoxy from its universalism. Eurasianist vision of Orthodoxy is so broad that any difference between "Orthodoxy" and "non-Orthodoxy" disappears. (shrink)
Contemporary literature on the divine im/passibility debate has been concerned, among other things, with the intellectual and cultural context in which twentieth century passibilism arose. Foremost among the cultural and intellectual factors cited as occasioning the rise of passibilism are the moral evils and consequent suffering that have occurred during the twentieth century and which have become focal for both theology and the philosophy of religion. This paper seeks to clarify the way in which the modern experience of and response (...) to suffering has affected modern theology and philosophy of religion with respect to the im/passibility debate. The paper begins by establishing the unintelligibility of the claim that the rise of passibilism is due to an increase in suffering, and criticising other models of the relationship between the rise of passibilism and the experience of suffering. Having concluded that existent models of the relation between passibilism and suffering are unsatisfactory, the paper suggests that belief in a suffering God has arisen as a response to the psychological need, in the face of suffering, for a transcendent fellow sufferer, previously fulfilled by prayers to the saints and reflections upon the particular sufferings of Christ. In so doing, the paper highlights some of the frequently overlooked deep-rooted issues inherent in the im/passibility debate, and points to essentially Protestant qualities found in passibilist theology and philosophy of religion. (shrink)
Movement abnormalities are prevalent across all stages of schizophrenia contributing to poor social functioning and reduced quality of life. To date, treatments are scarce, often involving pharmacological agents, but none have been shown to improve movement abnormalities effectively. Virtual reality is a tool used to simulate virtual environments where behavioral performance can be quantified safely across different tasks while exerting control over stimulus delivery, feedback and measurement in real time. Sensory information is transmitted via a head mounted display allowing users (...) to directly interact with virtual objects and bodies using gestures and body movements in the real world to perform different actions, permitting a sense of immersion in the simulated virtual environment. Although, VR has been widely used for successful motor rehabilitation in a variety of different neurological domains, none have been exploited for motor rehabilitation in schizophrenia. The objectives of this article are to review movement abnormalities specific to schizophrenia, and how VR can be utilized to restore and improve motor functioning in patients with schizophrenia. Constructing VR-mediated motor-cognitive interventions that can help in retaining and transferring the learned outcomes to real life are also discussed. (shrink)