Climate change goals and actions are often discussed with reference to their feasibility. However, in the climate change literature, there is no agreed upon understanding of what feasibility means. In this paper, insights from political philosophy are used to address this problem in a two-fold way. First, different uses of the term feasibility in the climate change context are critically analyzed, surfacing problematic uses that can have severe consequences for what goals or actions are considered. Second, the ‘conditional probability account (...) of feasibility’ is presented as a positive account of how feasibility should be understood in the climate change context, and applied to the case of managed retreat as an approach for adaptation to sea level rise. Together, the critical analysis and the positive proposal furthers a necessary discussion on feasibility in the context of climate change. (shrink)

Value sensitive design aims at creating better technology based on social and ethical values. However, VSD has not been applied to long-term and uncertain future developments, such as societal planning for climate change. This paper describes a new method that combines elements from VSD with scenario planning. The method was developed for and applied to a case study of adaptation to sea level rise in southern Sweden in a series of workshops. The participants of the workshops found that the method (...) provided a framework for discussing long-term planning, enabled identification of essential values, challenged established planning practices, helped find creative solutions, and served as a reminder that we do not know what will happen in the future. Finally, we reflect on the limitations of the method and suggest further research on how it can be improved for value sensitive design of adaptation measures to manage uncertain future sea level rise. (shrink)

In the field of responsibility and climate change, much attention has been paid to actions and what we need to do in order to take responsibility. This paper shifts the perspective from what we should do to how we should be in order to be responsible. Looking at the case of local adaptation to sea level rise, the question of what characterizes a responsible planner is addressed. Departing from the idea of professional virtues, aspirational characteristics are extrapolated from three codes (...) of ethics for planners. The identified virtues are discussed in relation to the central challenges of adaptation to sea level rise, giving an indication of which virtues are most important in this given context. When placing the responsible planner in an institutional context, it is evident that while a virtue perspective should not replace a system analysis, it provides a valuable complement to the traditional action-focused discourse on responsible adaptation. (shrink)

Adults who stutter (AWS) have demonstrated atypical coordination of motor and sensory regions during speech production. Yet little is known of the speech-motor network in AWS in the brief time window preceding audible speech onset. The purpose of the current study was to characterize neural oscillations in the speech-motor network during preparation for and execution of overt speech production in AWS using magnetoencephalography (MEG). Twelve AWS and twelve age-matched controls were presented with 220 words, each word embedded in a carrier (...) phrase. Controls were presented with the same word list as their matched AWS participant. Neural oscillatory activity was localized using minimum-variance beamforming during two time periods of interest: speech preparation (prior to speech onset) and speech execution (following speech onset). Compared to controls, AWS showed stronger beta (15-25Hz) suppression in the speech preparation stage, followed by stronger beta synchronization in the bilateral mouth motor cortex. AWS also recruited the right mouth motor cortex significantly earlier in the speech preparation stage compared to controls. Exaggerated motor preparation is discussed in the context of reduced coordination in the speech-motor network of AWS. It is further proposed that exaggerated beta synchronization may reflect a more strongly inhibited motor system that requires a stronger beta suppression to disengage prior to speech initiation. These novel findings highlight critical differences in the speech-motor network of AWS that occur prior to speech onset and emphasize the need to investigate further the speech-motor assembly in the stuttering population. (shrink)

During the COVID-19 lockdown, individuals were forced to remain at home, hence severely limiting the interaction within environmental stimuli, reducing the cognitive load placed on spatial competences. The effects of the behavioral restriction on cognition have been little examined. The present study is aimed at analyzing the effects of lockdown on executive function prominently involved in adapting behavior to new environmental demands. We analyze non-verbal fluency abilities, as indirectly providing a measure of cognitive flexibility to react to spatial changes. Sixteen (...) students, evaluated before the start of the lockdown in a battery of psychological tasks exploring different cognitive domains, have been reassessed during lockdown. The assessment included the modified Five-Point Test to analyze non-verbal fluency abilities. At T2, the students were also administered the Toronto Alexithymia Scale. The restriction of behaviors following a lockdown determines increased non-verbal fluency, evidenced by the significant increase of the number of new drawings. We found worsened verbal span, while phonemic verbal fluency remained unchanged. Interestingly, we observed a significant tendency to use the left part of each box in the m-FPT correlated with TAS-20 and with the subscales that assess difficulty in describing and identifying feelings. Although our data were collected from a small sample, they evidence that the restriction of behaviors determines a leftward bias, suggesting a greater activation of the right hemisphere, intrinsically connected with the processing of non-verbal information and with the need to manage an emotional situation. (shrink)

This paper critically analyses one of the unexpected results of qualitative research aimed at detecting the presence of unethical business practices in Slovakia. The authors seek to find out why entrepreneurs participating in this research do not take responsibility for the development of business ethics and why, in their primary reflections on unethical practices in the Slovak business environment, have they shifted it almost completely to the State level (1), and whether their attitude is morally justified (2). The main theoretical (...) foundation in the following analysis is the theory of development of business ethics on three levels (micro, mezzo and macro), also known as the “subject-matter of business ethics” approach. The paper discusses attitudes of the research sample, including Slovak entrepreneurs and company representatives, towards the State, and the consecutive critical reflection of their opinions shows that businesspersons tend to give up on their own proactive approach to the development of business ethics and position themselves in the role of an “expectant” instead of a “creator” of ethical standards in society. Furthermore, the paper points out that businesses lack ethical self-reflection in relation to corruption, more precisely, they lack reflection of their place in the corrupt relationship with the State. Given these findings, the paper concludes that an essential basis for the long-term development of business ethics in our country is the establishment of partnerships between the State and business entities, while recognizing the place of nongovernmental democratic institutions. (shrink)

Agreement attraction is a cross-linguistic phenomenon where a verb occasionally agrees not with its subject, as required by grammar, but instead with an unrelated noun (“The key to the cabinets were…”). Despite the clear violation of grammatical rules, comprehenders often rate these sentences as acceptable. Contenders for explaining agreement attraction fall into two broad classes: Morphosyntactic accounts specifically designed to explain agreement attraction, and more general sentence processing models, such as the Lewis and Vasishth model, which explain attraction as a (...) consequence of how linguistic structure is stored and accessed in content-addressable memory. In the present research, we disambiguate between these two classes by testing a surprising prediction made by the Lewis and Vasishth model but not by the morphosyntactic accounts, namely, that attraction should not be limited to morphosyntax, but that semantic features of unrelated nouns equally induce attraction. A recent study by Cunnings and Sturt provided initial evidence that this may be the case. Here, we report three single-trial experiments in English that compared semantic and agreement attraction and tested whether and how the two interact. All three experiments showed strong semantically induced attraction effects closely mirroring agreement attraction effects. We complement these results with computational simulations which confirmed that the Lewis and Vasishth model can faithfully reproduce the observed results. In sum, our findings suggest that attraction is a more general phenomenon than is commonly believed, and therefore favor more general sentence processing models, such as the Lewis and Vasishth model. (shrink)

Cognitive Science, Volume 46, Issue 2, February 2022.

The aim of this article is to critically reflect on the Polish transformation taking place in the interpretation of business law in the form of legal clarifications that can be qualified as a soft law guidance. The article attempts to address the following questions: does the new Polish legal framework offer really novel approaches to the interpretation of business law and/or its tools? What are the peculiarities that characterize the new instrument for the interpretation of business law in the form (...) of legal clarifications? What are the pros and cons of legal clarifications? What is the potential practical importance of the introduced interpretation tool, in particular in the context of certain previously existing tools for the interpretation of legal texts? To this end, first, the article sheds light into types of the interpretation of legal texts as well as soft law guidance. Second, it analyses the distinctive features of legal clarifications. Third, it contains the concise comparison of legal clarifications to certain previously existing instruments. In the last part before the conclusion, the topic required an attempt at an assessment. The point of the analysis in this article was both descriptive and normative. (shrink)

We shall defend two theses: (a) if a decision situation exhibits a certain causal structure, then decision theory is in trouble, because the derivation of expected utilities fails; (b) this causal structure in fact obtains in a specific, but very common kind of situation, namely, when the intrinsically evaluated psychological states are in the domain of the utility function. It will be apparent that the problem is but a variant of Joseph Butler's criticism of hedonism. Thus, in a sense, the (...) point of our paper is that modern theorizing about practical deliberation has not dealt seriously with Butler's criticism. (shrink)

Our claim in this paper is that not being identified as the data source might cause harm to a person or group. Therefore, in some cases the default of anonymisation should be replaced by a careful deliberation, together with research subjects, of how to handle the issues of identification and confidentiality. Our prime example in this article is community participatory research and similar endeavours on indigenous groups. The theme, content and aim of the research, and the question of how to (...) handle property rights and ownership of research results, as well as who should be in charge of the research process, including the process of creating anonymity, should all be answered, before anonymity is accepted. (shrink)

Recent scholarship increasingly defines Islamophobia as a form of racism. The possibility that Islamophobia could also manifest itself as religious or cultural bigotry is generally overlooked. This article argues that although anti-Islam bigotry is intertwined with anti-Muslim racism, the two are conceptually distinct. Making this distinction allows us to better analyze, unmask, and critically assess Islamophobia. The article conceptually explores the similarities and differences between anti-Muslim racism and anti-Islam bigotry. It finds that although anti-Islam bigotry implies a prejudicial rejection of (...) an essentialized idea of Islam, it understands religion or culture to be an individual choice and allows for the possibility that Muslims convert or assimilate. As such, it differs from anti-Muslim racism, which implies that the Muslim identity and the negative characteristics associated with Islam are innate and unchangeable. The article argues that contemporary Islamophobic political discourse in Europe is predominantly racist, although it hides behind a cloak of anti-Islam bigotry. (shrink)

This paper examines Cécile Fabre’s cosmopolitan reductionist approach to war. It makes three main points. First, I show that Fabre must ‘thin down’ justice’s content in order to justify the cosmopolitan claim that the same rights and duties bind people everywhere. Second, I investigate Fabre’s account of the values at stake in national sovereignty and territorial integrity. Can cosmopolitanism explain why it is permissible to fight in defense of one’s political community? I doubt it. I argue that Fabre’s reductionist approach (...) cannot justify national self-defense in many cases. Finally, I explore the role that authoritative institutions play in specifying the rights and duties we have under cosmopolitan justice. I believe Fabre takes an overly simple view of the relationship between rights, duties, and authoritative institutions. A more complex account may leave less space for private war on the part of individuals than she does. (shrink)

The nonconscious orientation of attention to famous faces was investigated using masked 17 ms stimulus exposure. Each trial presented a simultaneous pair of one famous and one unfamiliar face, matched on physical characteristics, one each in left visual field (LVF) and right visual field (RVF). These were followed by a dot probe in either LVF or RVF to which participants made a speeded two-alternative forced-choice discrimination response. Participants subsequently evaluated the affective valence (good/evil) of the famous persons on a 7-point (...) scale. Higher accuracy of dot probe discrimination in the same visual field (VF) as the famous face suggested that attention was oriented towards faces of persons evaluated “good”, but a reverse orientation effect was observed for those evaluated “evil”. The awareness check presented the same face pairs under the same conditions, and participants were at chance in a task of selecting the famous face in each pair. The results suggest that famous faces can be identified without awareness, and that attention is attracted by the faces of famous persons not regarded as “evil”. (shrink)

In the Edwardian period, the essays, novels, and criticism of G.K. Chesterton gave voice to a unique but emblematic form of patriotic anti-imperialism. The article places his views in the context of the Liberal Little Englander reaction to the Boer War, and offers two comparative case studies. The first focuses on Chesterton's inheritance of the late-Victorian anti-imperialist rhetoric of William Morris; the second assesses his fraught relationship with internationalism, as represented in the writings of Morris's political collaborator, E.B. Bax. Chesterton's (...) radical populist patriotism, it turns out, had more in common with contemporary socialist ideologies than the currently prevailing view of its parochialism would allow. ☆ I am grateful to Peter Mandler, Julia Stapleton, and Tom Deveson for their input. (shrink)

Deception is a reasonably common part of daily life that society sometimes demonstrates a degree of acceptance of, and occasionally people are very willing to be deceived. But can a computer identify deception and distinguish it from that which is not deceptive? We explore deception in various guises, differentiating it from lies, and highlighting the influence of medium and message in both deception and its detection. Our investigations to date have uncovered disagreements relating to the measurements of such cues, and (...) variations in interpretations, as could be problematic in building a deception detection system. (shrink)

Quantification over individuals, times, and worlds can in principle be made explicit in the syntax of the object language, or left to the semantics and spelled out in the meta-language. The traditional view is that quantification over individuals is syntactically explicit, whereas quantification over times and worlds is not. But a growing body of literature proposes a uniform treatment. This paper examines the scopal interaction of aspectual raising verbs (begin), modals (can), and intensional raising verbs (threaten) with quantificational subjects in (...) Shupamem, Dutch, and English. It appears that aspectual raising verbs and at least modals may undergo the same kind of overt or covert scope-changing operations as nominal quantifiers; the case of intensional raising verbs is less clear. Scope interaction is thus shown to be a new potential diagnostic of object-linguistic quantification, and the similarity in the scope behavior of nominal and verbal quantifiers supports the grammatical plausibility of ontological symmetry, explored in Schlenker (2006). (shrink)

ABSTRACTThis essay examines two anonymous pamphlets that have sometimes been attributed to John Millar: the ‘Letters of Sidney’, and the ‘Letters of Crito’, both published in 1796 by the Scots Chronicle. It outlines the political context for the pamphlets’ publication and the evidence for and against Millar's authorship, and reassesses their contents' significance for our interpretation of Millar's other writings. While the ‘Letters of Crito’ present a classically Foxite critique of Pitt's ministry and Britain's war against revolutionary France, the ‘Letters (...) of Sidney’ put forth a more theoretical defence of property reform based upon a Smithian theory of justice. Yet taken together, the essay demonstrates the pamphlets offer new insights into the political discussions that were taking place in Scottish Foxite Whig circles in the 1790s. They also provide a snapshot of the various ways in which the theories of the Scottish Enlightenment could be used by Millar and his circle of friends and students to interpret the political context of the mid-1790s, as the French Revolution was transforming the political language of its English and Scottish contemporaries. (shrink)

Analyses of participation usually assume a dichotomy between 'instrumental' and 'transformative' approaches. However, this study of voluntary biological monitoring experiences and outcomes finds that they cannot be fitted into such a dichotomy. They can enhance the information base for environmental management; change participants through education about scientific practice and ecological change; lead to changes in life direction or group organisation; and influence decision-makers. Personal transformation can take place within a conventionally top-down context. Conversely, grassroots data collection can shore up the (...) status quo and protect local interests. Partnerships between actors can provide distinct but complementary and mutually rewarding outcomes. Power is not located in a data-consuming centre, and data are not meaningless materials that leave the collector unmoved. A more dynamic model of human-nature relations is presented which connects humans and information in the participatory process. (shrink)

How might Strathernian comparison extend anthropology beyond human exceptionalism? This essay explores how a fungal spore might guide attention to more-than-human nature. The exercise allows us to reflect on knowledge tools we use for understanding human as well as nonhuman social relations.

Aristoxenus's "Elements of Rhythm" stands as the earliest extant scientific treatise on rhythm, with only the second book enduring to our present day, albeit in an incomplete state. Demonstrating his allegiance to Aristotle, Aristoxenus employs Aristotelian concepts and investigative methods throughout his work. Notably, he introduces a conceptual division between the substance of rhythm (rhythmizomenon) and its rhythmic structure (rhythmos). Drawing parallels to Aristotle's temporal theory, Aristoxenus goes further by proposing a novel concept—the "protos chronos," denoting the smallest unit of (...) time. This nuanced exploration not only enriches our understanding of rhythm but also exemplifies Aristoxenus' adept application of Aristotelian principles in advancing the discourse on musical theory. (shrink)

Anna Alexandrova on value judgements and the measurement of well-being.

This article explores one aspect of digital politics, the politics of videos and more specifically of DAESH recruitment videos. It proposes a practice theoretical approach to the politics of DAESH recruitment videos focused on the re-production of regimes of (in)visibility. The article develops an argument demonstrating specifically how digital and commercial logics characterize the aesthetic, circulatory, and infrastructuring practices re-producing the regime of (in)visibility. It shows that digital/commercial logics are at the heart of the combinatorial marketing of multiple, contradictory images (...) of the DAESH polity in the videos; that they are core to the participatory, entrepreneurial, individualized and affective processes of contagion determining whom the videos reach and involve; and that they shape the sorting, linking, flagging and censoring of the videos that define their accessibility on the internet. The theoretical and political cost of overlooking these digital and commercial characteristics of DAESH visibility practices are high. It perpetuates misconceptions of how the videos work and what their politics are and it reinforces the digital Orientalism/occidentalism in which these misconceptions are anchored. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Narrative Formulation RevisitedOn Seeing the Person in Mental Health RecoveryAnna Bergqvist (bio)The use of narrative in mental health contexts models consciousness as something necessarily embodied, as already part of the world, in an inherently value-laden and perspectival way. As such narrative presents a powerful tool for critical reassessment and reevaluation of preconceived ideas in relating to difficult concepts in clinical interactions.Narrative structures can reveal psychological differences between persons in (...) a way that matters for the provision of effective treatment and management. As emphasized by Solomon (2015), narrative reasoning is also motivated by distinctly first-personal concerns that are operative in the practitioner–client relationship. I maintain that the dynamics of that interpersonal relationship are part and parcel of what it means to address the patient's needs to be seen as a person in humanistic empathetic care—without thereby reducing truth to an individual person's perspective to encourage positive transformation.1The notion of empowering narratives to encourage positive change is a core concept behind the emphasis on the critical role of empathy in explaining human development and psychoanalytic change within the self-psychology tradition but is also key to recovery-based models of the significance of person-centered quality of life in medicine more generally. This is defined in mental health as recovering a good quality of life as determined by the values of (by what matters or is important to) the individual concerned (Allott, Loganathan, & Fulford, 2002; Fulford, 1989, 2004; Fulford, Peile, & Carroll, 2012). The importance of strengths in this regard was reflected for example in the UK government program on values-based mental health assessment. The 3 Keys program, as it was called (National Institute for Mental Health in England, NIMHE, and the Care Services Improvement Partnership, 20082) identified three shared 'keys' to good practice in mental health assessment: three things that were identified in a wide-ranging consultation as being important alike by health professionals of all kinds and by 'service users' thus understood as patients and carers (Fulford, Duhig, Hankin, Hicks, & Keeble, 2015a; Fulford, Dewey, & King, 2015b). The third of these keys was defined in [End Page 7] the subsequently published Good Practice Guidance, as "a person-centred focus that builds on the strengths, resiliencies and aspirations of the individual service user as well as identifying his or her needs and challenges" (NIMHE, 2008: 6); and the guidance included a number of real-life case examples of best recovery practice reflecting this aspect of mental health care (Slade et al., 2014).What my (Bergqvist, 2018, 2020, 2022, forthcoming) account adds to this claim is that while such choices are revelatory or expressive of a distinctly first-personal stance, they do not constitute or determine selfhood and self-interpretation in a fixed way. Moreover, the reason is that one can also adopt a second-personal stance on one's own experience and address oneself, where the relationship between the first- and the second-personal narrative perspective on experience and self-understanding is itself a dynamic and open-ended evaluative process.Anna Bergqvist Anna Bergqvist is Reader in Philosophy at Manchester Metropolitan University since 2021, and has been Postgraduate Research Coordinator and AHRC North West Doctoral Pathway Consortium Lead for Philosophy since 2020. I was elected to a Visiting Fellowship at St Catherine's College University of Oxford for Michaelmas Term 2021. Her service to the profession out with the University includes acting as Secretary of the World Psychiatric Association (WPA) Section for Philosophy & Humanities in Psychiatry (October 2020 – present), Executive Committee Member of the Royal College of Psychiatry (RCPsych) SIG in Philosophy (February 2020 – present) and External Examiner, University of Liverpool (November 2019 – present, 4-year tenure). She is also Director of the Values-based Theory Network at St Catherine's Collaborating Centre for Values-based Practice at the University of Oxford, and Member of its Whiteness and Race Equality Network. Her approach to philosophy bridges the disciplines of moral philosophy, moral psychology and philosophy of psychiatry to improve lives through her reputable expertise in moral perception and co-production as a mechanism for change.Notes1. Here I side with Goldie (2012) and Solomon (2015), who... (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Journal of Ancient History Jahrgang: 4 Heft: 2 Seiten: 240-264.

Where social occasions, in the context of nightclubs and music venues, are bounded, the space of the entrance is accomplished via regulation of attendees by workers. This regulation ensures: the venue stays within capacity; people have been invited or pay the fee; entry to ‘undesirables,’ such as drunks, is prohibited. This paper draws from experience of attending social occasions and being a doorperson to categorise and examine methods of entering where access is restricted. Often methods require attendees to engage in (...) visible dialogue with the doorperson; where methods are invisible, attendees can circumvent access restrictions whilst a semblance of order is maintained. (shrink)

Is democracy necessarily bound to territorial spaces and boundaries, or can democratic processes and institutions dispense with territorial ties? To answer this question, which arises, for example, in debates about democracy beyond the state, this article reconstructs conceptions of territory influential in democratic theory, as well as in recent debates on transnational citizenship and territorial rights. It establishes the container-space, social-space, and place conceptions of territory, and negotiates a nuanced and multi-dimensional understanding of territorial spaces and boundaries and their relations (...) to democracy. Based on this conception, democracy does not necessarily depend on (a) territory. Neither, however, should this connection be dismissed lightly. Instead, proponents of both the preservation and the loosening of ties between democracy and territory need to answer two distinct, yet complementary questions concerning (1) the justification of territorial spaces and boundaries as social spaces, and (2) the functions they fulfil as container spaces. Exclusive place conceptions of territory, however, are not consistent with the proposed understanding of territory. In the final part, this article negotiates institutional perspectives for plural democratic spaces and boundaries by briefly reviewing theoretical sketches on democracy beyond the state, as well as developing constellations of nested political spaces within the European context. (shrink)

In the most general terms, the Logical Connection Argument states that theory and practice are two inseparable aspects of the same thing. Every action, linguistic or otherwise, is an indivisible unity of content and the means by which it is expressed. Alternatively, we may talk of the inseparability of content and form, meaning and act of expression, goal and method or means of its realization, and so forth. The argument was meant to prove that intentions cannot be treated as causes (...) in social scientific explanation, but it did it at the cost of making any meta-analysis, and hence, critique, highly problematic. My position is that the LCA is indeed logical, and hence irrefutable. Nonetheless, we can distinguish between “raw” and “refined” versions of the argument. The refined version maintains that while ultimately and ideally, the content and means of expression presuppose one another in the sense that a content is inconceivable without a form, and vice versa, in reality there is never a perfect match between aims and methods. In typical circumstances, we do not have a precise sense of what we are doing; the meaning of our actions is gradually discovered in the course of exploratory behaviors, of which critique is an indispensable part. In this contribution, I venture to examine the problem from a neuropsychological perspective with the view to showing in exactly what sense and to what extent explorative behaviors and associated motivations preside over other activities. I argue that content is always underdetermined with respect to its form, and hence the alleged internal connection between them is not a given, but rather amounts to a regulative principle which motivates mutual adjustments. (shrink)

The paper’s main objective is to bring out the original project of philosophy and history of science, underlying the famous works of Thomas Kuhn. In defiance of what is commonly envisaged, the model of scientific revolutions is demonstrated as a promising conceptual frame to be used with the purpose to reconstruct the development of modern and contemporary science. The analysis of the logic of explanation of scientific changes elaborated by Kuhn is based on two canonical monographs: The Structure of Scientific (...) Revolutions and Copernican Revolution. It is argued that the standard, widespread interpretation of the model, assuming the drastic conceptual cuts to occur as a result of a paradigm change, is essentially untenable. In fact, the model implies that each change leads to the higher level order and is susceptible to rational reconstructions. Kuhn’s conception is subsequently confronted with Stefan Amsterdamski’s notion of ideal of science, with the intention of showing that the reversal of the relationship between explanans and explanandum as established inaforementioned works would have damaging consequences in terms of reconstructive attempts in history of science. It is shown that what is of most value in Amsterdamski’s workis indeed strictly Kuhnian in character. (shrink)

Coffee producers in many parts of the world have the option of either becoming a member of and selling their coffee to a Fairtrade and organic co-operative, or selling it to a “coyote”, the Central American nickname for intermediary purchaser. This study investigates why different producers make different choices, looking at both material and immaterial costs and benefits of the two choices. A qualitative study from Chiapas finds that a main reason for not choosing the co-operatives is the production requirements (...) that follow organic certification. A survey on production costs confirms that members of an organic co-operative have more work hours than non-members in the same area. A probit analysis indicates that both coffee plot size and number of working household members influence the producers’ decision on sales channel. However, the study also finds that aspects not related to the organic production requirements can affect the choice, such as the level of trust in co-operative leadership, and the co-operatives’ payment systems. (shrink)

In his treatise "Elementa harmonica," Aristoxenus of Tarentum formulated a distinctive philosophical framework within the realm of sound exploration, deviating from the harmonics theory advanced by the Pythagoreans. A pivotal disparity lies in the methodological approach to research. Aristoxenus posited meticulous observation of acoustic phenomena as the foundational step in all inquiries, constituting a fundamental criterion for truth. He asserted that perception alone could authenticate the fidelity of the observed state of affairs. Aristoxenus vehemently opposed the Pythagorean disregard for auditory (...) testimony, deeming it a notable methodological lapse. According to him, the harmonikos must serve as a vigilant observer of acoustic phenomena, equipped with a discerning and cultivated musical ear. (shrink)

This study delves into the unexplored intersection of Socinianism, a religious movement challenging Christian orthodoxy in the Early Modern period, and Tacitism, a political discourse inspired by Tacitus. Both fostered critical thinking, intertwining in nuanced ways. Socinianism’s theological skepticism questioned established beliefs, while Tacitism scrutinized historical and political accounts. Their controversial nature resulted in covert existence among elite intellectuals, shaping socio-political discourse. Socinianism’s theological nonconformity, akin to Tacitism’s critique of traditional political narratives, often sparked conflicts with authorities, revealing the intricate (...) relationship between religion and politics in the Early Modern Era and influencing the development of secular thought. (shrink)