What happens to politics in the postmodern condition? The Politics of Postmodernity is a political tour de force that addresses this key contemporary question. Politics in postmodernity is carefully contextualized by relating its specific sphere - the polity - to those of the economic, social, technological and cultural. The authors confront globalization and the notion of postmodernity as disorganized capitalism. They analyze the role of the mass media, the changing ways in which politics is used, the role of the state (...) and the progressive potential of politics in postmodern times. Closing with a postscript on the future of the discipline of political science, this book offers a profound yet highly accessible account. (shrink)

In Talk About Beliefs, Mark Crimmins claims that de re belief reports are not nearly as common as they are generally thought to be. In the following paper, I take issue with this claim. I begin with a critique of Crimmins’arguments on behalf of the claim, and then follow with an argument on behalf of the opposing claim: that de re belief reports are indeed quite common. In defending this claim, I make some observations about the nature of tacit reference, (...) a phenomenon central to Crimmins’account of belief reports. (shrink)

To systematically answer two questions “how does language work?” and “where does linguistic meaning come from?” this paper argues for SocialConstructivism of Language and Meaning which consists of six theses: the primary function of language is communication rather than representation, so language is essentially a social phenomenon. Linguistic meaning originates in the causal interaction of humans with the world, and in the social interaction of people with people. Linguistic meaning consists in the correlation of language to the world established by (...) collective intentions of a language community. Linguistic meaning is based on the conventions produced by a language community in their long process of communication. Semantic knowledge is empirical and encyclopedic knowledge distilled and condensed, and the uses of language accepted by a linguistic community. Language and meaning change rapidly or slowly as the communicative practice of a linguistic community does. The crucial point of SCLM is to focus on the triadic relation among language, humans and the world, rather than the dyadic relation between language and the world. (shrink)

Kritik af tidens fremherskende funktionalistiske, historieløse kultur, der fratager os evnen til at koncentrere og fordybe os, og efterlader et samfund uden rødder og retning.

A group of Sogdian documents from the area of Khotan was recently acquired by Renmin University of China, Beijing. Four economic documents were edited in JAOS 130/4 ; the present article, comprising the edition of one complete letter and several fragments of letters, completes the publication of this collection, which adds to a growing body of evidence for the presence of Sogdian-speakers on the trade routes to the south of the Taklamakan desert.

This paper divides the sophisms and paradoxes put forth by Chinese thinkers of the pre-Qin period of China into six groups: paradoxes of motion and infinity, paradoxes of class membership, semantic paradoxes, epistemic paradoxes, paradoxes of relativization, other logical contradictions. It focuses on the comparison between the Chinese items and the counterparts of ancient Greek and even of contemporary Western philosophy, and concludes that there turn out to be many similar elements of philosophy and logic at the beginnings of Chinese (...) and Greek civilizations. (shrink)

Historians not only operate in the famous "ivory tower" of science, but present their research and take part in social debates. Their interventions relate to developments in the culture of remembrance or historical-political decisions, but also to current issues that go beyond this. They can take on an analytical, an enlightening, a warning, an accusatory or a defensive role and act as public historians. The volume brings together contributions from the Leibniz Center for Contemporary History Potsdam (ZZF). They address individual (...) actors, discussions and scientific self-understandings as well as the relationship between history and the public. (shrink)

Das Netz der Kultur bildet eine kommunikative Medialität, in der sich Freiheitsspielräume des menschlichen Lebens eröffnen.

Cultural safety is a relatively new concept that has emerged in the New Zealand nursing context and is being taken up in various ways in Canadian health care discourses. Our research team has been exploring the relevance of cultural safety in the Canadian context, most recently in relation to a knowledge-translation study conducted with nurses practising in a large tertiary hospital. We were drawn to using cultural safety because we conceptualized it as being compatible with critical theoretical perspectives that foster (...) a focus on power imbalances and inequitable social relationships in health care; the interrelated problems of culturalism and racialization; and a commitment to social justice as central to the social mandate of nursing. Engaging in this knowledge-translation study has provided new perspectives on the complexities, ambiguities and tensions that need to be considered when using the concept of cultural safety to draw attention to racialization, culturalism, and health and health care inequities. The philosophic analysis discussed in this paper represents an epistemological grounding for the concept of cultural safety that links directly to particular moral ends with social justice implications. Although cultural safety is a concept that we have firmly positioned within the paradigm of critical inquiry, ambiguities associated with the notions of 'culture', 'safety', and 'cultural safety' need to be anticipated and addressed if they are to be effectively used to draw attention to critical social justice issues in practice settings. Using cultural safety in practice settings to draw attention to and prompt critical reflection on politicized knowledge, therefore, brings an added layer of complexity. To address these complexities, we propose that what may be required to effectively use cultural safety in the knowledge-translation process is a 'social justice curriculum for practice' that would foster a philosophical stance of critical inquiry at both the individual and institutional levels. (shrink)

The topics of serious leisure and subjective well-being have been discussed extensively in previous research. It is generally acknowledged that people prefer to experience deeper satisfaction and happiness through serious participation in leisure-time physical activities. However, it is essential to examine the relationship between serious leisure and subjective well-being in an urban setting as well as the mediating effect of leisure satisfaction. Data were collected from 447 recreational runners at the 2018 Wuxi International Marathon event in China. The study results (...) showed that serious leisure was positively associated with leisure satisfaction and subjective well-being, that leisure satisfaction was positively associated with subjective well-being, and that leisure satisfaction completely mediated the relationship between serious leisure and subjective well-being. Running group membership significantly affected the path from serious leisure to leisure satisfaction, while other demographic variables (e.g., gender and education) did not moderate any paths. These results help explain the intricate relationship between serious leisure and subjective well-being and offer theoretical and managerial implications for serious leisure. (shrink)

Conducting research with vulnerable populations involves careful attention to the interests of individuals. Although it is generally understood that informed consent is a necessary prerequisite to research participation, it is less clear how to proceed when potential research participants lack the capacity to provide this informed consent. The rationale for assessing the assent or dissent of vulnerable individuals and obtaining informed consent by authorized representatives is discussed. Practical guidelines for recruitment of and data collection from people in the middle or (...) late stage of dementia are proposed. These guidelines were used by research assistants in a minimal risk study. (shrink)

In this paper we continue an ongoing dialogue that has as its goal the critical appraisal of theoretical perspectives on culture and health, in an effort to move forward scholarship on culture and health. We draw upon a programme of scholarship to explicate theoretical tensions and challenges that are manifest in the discourses on culture and health and to explore the possibilities Bourdieu's theoretical perspective offers for reconciling them. That is, we hope to demonstrate the need to move beyond descriptions (...) ‘of’ culture to an understanding of cultures as dynamic, and to show ways cultural practices create contexts that have the potential to foster or impede health.In our early research, largely undertaken in Canada's multicultural context, we sought to make visible the ways in which culture shaped conceptions of health and influenced health practices of immigrant groups. In recent years this focus has expanded to include populations that reflect the cultural and social diversity of our region. From the outset we attempted to move towards a conception of culture as negotiated, unifying, transformative and dynamic. While this position continues to hold appeal we are continually reminded that, despite our leanings towards constructivism, there is salience to the notion of culture as having enduring elements. It is this tension between the view of culture as embodied and enduring and culture as constructed and dynamic that we seek to examine.We explore whether Bourdieu's theoretical perspective offers promise for reconciling these apparently competing views. Using exemplars from our research we share insights that Bourdieu's work has offered to our analyses, thereby enabling us to move towards a view of culture that holds in tension these apparently contradictory positions of culture as both essence (albeit unstable, negotiated) and constructed. (shrink)

How are Chinese philosophy and analytic philosophy-two very distinct traditions-alike? In this volume, fifteen distinguished scholars compare and contrast the methodologies, finding areas in which each tradition can learn from, contribute to, and complement the other.

This article introduces comparative process tracing as a two-step methodological approach that combines theory, chronology, and comparison. For each studied case, the processes leading “from A to B” are reconstructed and analyzed in terms of ideal-type social mechanisms and then compared by making use of the identified mechanisms and ideal-type periodization. Central elements of CPT are path dependence, critical junctures and focal points, social mechanisms, context, periodization, and counterfactual analysis. The CPT approach is described, discussed, and compared with more formal (...) and deterministic forms of process tracing, which are found to be less fruitful for systematic comparison. (shrink)

Several theories, both ancient and recent, suggest that having the time to contemplate a decision should increase moral awareness and the likelihood of ethical choices. Our findings indicated just the opposite: greater time for deliberation led to less ethical decisions. Post-hoc analyses and a followup experiment suggested that decision makers act as if their previous choices have created or lost moral credentials: after an ethical first choice, people acted significantly less ethically in their subsequent choice but after an unethical first (...) choice, people acted significantly more ethically in their subsequent choice. These findings provide the basis for a model of compensatory ethics. (shrink)

Gettier's reminder that knowledge cannot be identified with justified true belief started a heated debate about what knowledge really is.

The promotion of tourists’ environmentally responsible behavior plays a central role in destination management for sustainability. Based on the stimulus–organism–response framework, this study proposes an integrated model for behavior management by examining the relationship between stimuli and response factors through the organism. Survey data from 458 tourists visiting Mount Heng in Hunan Province, Southern China, were used to empirically evaluate the proposed framework. The findings demonstrate that the perception of a destination’s natural environment positively impacts tourists’ sense of awe and (...) satisfaction; the perception of availability of infrastructure positively and significantly influences awe, satisfaction, and TERB; and awe positively impacts satisfaction and TERB. Moreover, the emotion of awe plays a significant mediating role in this proposed model. The theoretical significance of this study and the implications for tourism destinations are discussed. (shrink)

Kant's "posthumous" contains Kant's metaphysics of reason from the natural sciences to experience the philosophy of unfinished transition plan, "Kant's Complete Works," and some non-critical version of the Central Plains there are many gaps, so the new layout using the genetic structure analysis, through the study of Kant's work, but to reproduce Kant's messy manuscript by dense text written in chronological order and the resulting logic, thus maximizing the reduction of Kant This whole thought process issue.

In the traditional system of Chinese families, individuals are embedded in the institution of the family with defined obligations to enhance family development. As a consequence of the male-biased sex ratio at birth in China since the 1980s, an increasing number of surplus rural males have been affected by a marriage squeeze becoming involuntary bachelors. Under China’s universal heterosexual marriage tradition, family development of rural involuntary bachelors has largely been ignored, but in China’s gender-imbalanced society, it is necessary to adopt (...) a family-based approach to identify and study the plight of rural involuntary bachelors. Studies on gender imbalance indicate that these men face multiple risks from the perspectives of their life course, the family life cycle, and the family ethic. To a certain extent, these risks are caused by a conflict between the individual’s family life and family ethics and are mainly reflected in problems concerning marriage, health, and old-age support. Not only do these vulnerabilities affect the individual and family development across the whole life cycle but also pose major risks to social development in the face of strong gender imbalance. In order to deal with risks faced by rural involuntary bachelors, core ethical principles, including autonomy, beneficence, and justice, need to be adopted. Through adjustments to informal support provided by the family and formal support provided by policy-makers, risk of uncertainty in family development faced by rural involuntary bachelors could be reduced. (shrink)