Centering Theory (CT) as articulated by Grosz et al. (1995) is a theory intended to model some of the factors that influence local coherence in a discourse. The idea is that at any one time there are a number of entities that are at the center of attention. Each utterance n that makes up a discourse potentially has two sorts of discourse ‘centers’, an ordered set of forward-looking centers, Cf(uttn), that provide potential links to upcoming utterances, and (...) a single backward-looking center, Cb(uttn), that links back to the previous utterance, in the sense that it is identical to one of the members of the set of forward-looking centers of the previous utterance. Roughly, one can think of Cb(uttn) as the current topic of the conversation. The members of the set Cf(uttn) on the other hand are the entities mentioned in the utterance and which are candidates to become the next topic of conversation. The members of Cf(uttn) are ranked in order of their salience. The most highly ranked member of Cf(uttn) is the preferred center, Cp(uttn), and ideally it will become the backward-looking center of the next utterance, Cb(uttn+1). When Cb(uttn) is the most highly ranked member of Cf(uttn), this indicates that it will continue to be the topic of conversation in the next utterance. If this does indeed happen, we have what is known in CT as a CONTINUE transition. When some entity other than Cb(uttn) is the most highly ranked member of Cf(uttn), an upcoming topic shift is signaled. This situation is known in CT as a RETAIN. A topic shift following a RETAIN will be a SMOOTH SHIFT. If the topic shifts to an entity that is neither the preferred center of the current nor of the previous utterance, then the shift will be a ROUGH.. (shrink)

D1.2 (UCω syntax) For any type a ∈ Θ, the set of a-terms, Trma, is defined as follows: b. A ∈ Trma a. BA ∈ Trmb..

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Anthony Close CENTERING THE DE-CENTERERS: FOUCAULT AND LAS MENINAS Over the last two decades, French avant-garde critical theory has shaken the pillars of the traditionalist temple with this thought: the interpreter of a literary text should not primarily be concerned with its author's intentional design, but rather with the surreptitious forces which shape it, warp it, and ultimately turn it into a problematic will-ofthe -wisp. The "decoding" (...) of those forces takes many forms (Freudian, anthropological, and so on), of which deconstruction is the most celebrated ; "de-centering"—the banishment of the intentional subject from the focus of interpretation — is common to all. In the first part of this article I wish to set out my philosophical objections to that exclusion, and in the second part, to examine an interesting failure to make it effective in practice: Foucault's analysis of Velazquez's painting Las Meninas, which constitutes the first chapter of Les mots et ks choses. One of my reasons for choosing Foucault's text as an example is that its premises are in some ways comparable to the philosophy of the archdeconstructor, Derrida. My skepticism about them and the analytic method based on them is not meant to suggest that I regard Foucault's historical studies as valueless. On the contrary, I recognize that he, together with some other decoders (particularly Barthes), has important things to say. My attack is a form of defense. I wish to uphold the value of traditional forms of interpretation by showing that though Foucault, like other decoders, casts radical doubts upon them in theory, he tends to negate those doubts by the implications of his practice. 21 22Philosophy and Literature M. H. Abrams has defined the traditionalist historian of culture as one who assumes that (a) authors of the past exploited the norms and possibilities of their language to say something determinate, (b) the properly equipped historian can approximate to their meaning, (c) his interpretation can aspire to a reasonable degree of objectivity. ' Let that serve as a working definition of my traditionalist standpoint. This has a philosophical rationale, basically Wittgensteinian and Austinian, which needs to be explained and set over against some of decoding's typical presuppositions. I choose Derrida's as an example. From my perspective, two objections can be leveled against his thought: its tendency to hypostatize the intentional subject as a metaphysical essence which must be reached through and beyond language, and to see language itself as an unrealistically slippery medium. Both objections were raised against him by Searle in their famous polemic with each other.2 Derrida's thought is inscribed within, even while it reacts against, a traditional conception of language as a name-like substitute for essence. According to this conception, influentially represented in this century by Husserl's phenomenology, bits of language somewhat resemble sterling currency bills which bear on their face the legend: "I promise to pay the bearer on demand the sum of? pound(s)" That is, they are potentially capable ofbeing cashed for lumps of being, which can thus be possessed by mind. Derrida counters that the currency is fraudulent: it continually defers presence and possession, rendering problematic its relation to being and self, and their very existence. In order to foster the illusion that he is master of his words, hence of what they designate, Western Man has historically given status of originality to voice rather than to writing, to a form of expression which is seemingly intimate to consciousness rather than external. The paradoxical thesis ofDe lagrammatologie is that writing came first. One of the routes by which Derrida arrives at this conclusion is Saussure's conception of the discontinuous, articulated nature of language and the negative and differential character of linguistic signifiers, not stably linked to universal referents.3 On this basis he builds his idea of différance (a pun on difference and deferral ), the elusive negative margin which makes language possible, and at the same time, makes impossible consciousness's full presence to itself and to being.4 Hence Derrida's notion of language's anarchic and willful power to detach itself from die intentions or usage of its users and to float... (shrink)

I propose an account of probability in the Everett interpretation of quantum mechanics. According to the account, probabilities are objective chances of centered propositions. As I show, the account solves a number of problems concerning the role of probability in the Everett interpretation. It also challenges an implicit assumption, concerning the aim and scope of fundamental physical theories, that is made throughout the philosophy of physics literature.

Centering Epistemic Injustice asks what it means for accounts of epistemic injustice to take seriously the lives and perspectives of socially marginalized knowers and the strategies that marginalized knowers use to circumvent persistent testimonial injustice.

Natural languages exhibit a great variety of grammatical paradigms. For instance, in English verbs are grammatically marked for tense, whereas in the tenseless Eskimo-Aleut language Kalaallisut they are marked for illocutionary mood. Although time is a universal dimension of the human experience and speaking is part of that experience, some languages encode reference to time without any grammatical tense morphology, or reference to speech acts without any illocutionary mood morphology. Nevertheless, different grammatical systems are semantically parallel in certain respects. Specifically, (...) I propose that English tenses form a temporal centering system, which monitors and updates topic times, whereas Kalaallisut moods form a modal centering system, which monitors and updates modal discourse referents. To formalize these centering parallels I define a dynamic logic that represents not only changing information but also changing focus of attention in discourse (Update with Centering, formalizing Grosz et al 1995). Different languages can be translated into this typed logic by directly compositional universal rules of Combinatory Categorial Grammar (CCG) The resulting centering theory of tense and illocutionary mood draws semantic parallels across different grammatical systems. The centering generalizations span the extremes of the typological spectrum, so they are likely to be universal. In addition, the theory accounts for the translation equivalence of tense and illocutionary mood in a given utterance context. Following Stalnaker (1978) I assume that the very act of speaking up has a ‘commonplace effect’ on the context. It focuses attention on the speech act and thereby introduces default modal and temporal topics. These universal defaults complement language-specific grammars, e.g. English tenses and Kalaallisut moods. In a given utterance context the universal discourse-initial defaults plus language-specific grammatical marking may add up to the same truth conditions.. (shrink)

Conflict is inevitable in the workplace and manifests in different ways. It is a common dysfunction when working in teams. A diversity of thoughts, ideologies, and beliefs always creates a risk of disagreement and misalignment. When examining identity and positionality in the workplace, conflict is usually resolved in favor of those who have identities within the dominant White culture. In light of this common reality, an opportunity is created to examine and determine how conflict can be resolved from an inclusive (...) and equitable approach. This case study is designed to outline the tools and resources the Center for Equity and Inclusion uses with its clients when guiding organizations to resolve conflict, advance equity, and center Black, Indigenous, People of Color (BIPOC) in the workplace. (shrink)

This study examines the similarities and differences in pre- and post-Sarbanes-Oxley corporate ethics codes and codes of conduct using the framework of structuration theory. Following the passage of the Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX) legislation in 2002 in the United States, publicly traded companies there undertook development and revision of their codes of ethics in response to new regulatory requirements as well as incentives under the U.S. Corporate Sentencing Guidelines, which were also revised as part of the SOX mandates. Questions that remain (...) are whether these new or revised codes are effective means of communicating changed ethical foci and attitudes in organizations. Centering resonance analysis (CRA) is used to identify differences and similarities across time and industries by analyzing word networks of 46 pre- and post-SOX corporate codes of ethics. Analyses focus on content and structure of generated word networks as well as resulting factors that emerged from the texts. Results are interpreted from the structuration perspective that content and structure of codes are constrained and enabled by system structures while they function to produce and reproduce those structures. Results indicate that corporate codes of ethics are formal discourses of ethics, laws, and control. Code structure has changed across time, with an increased emphasis on compliance in post-SOX codes. Implications for research and practice are discussed in light of findings. (shrink)

Abstract According to an influential theory, English tenses are anaphoric to an aforementioned reference point. This point is sometimes construed as a time (e.g. Reichenbach 1947, Partee 1973, Stone 1997) and sometimes as an event (e.g. Kamp 1979, 1981, Webber 1988). Moreover, some researchers draw semantic parallels between tenses and pronouns (e.g. Partee 1973, 1984, Stone 1997), whereas others draw parallels between tenses and anaphorically anchored (in)definite descriptions (e.g. Webber 1988). This paper proposes a unified approach.

By this point, we have developed some articulated analyses of top-level temporal anaphora, including temporal quantification, in languages with grammatical tense and/or aspect systems, represented by English, Polish, and Mandarin. But it is still not clear how this approach might extend to temporal anaphora in a language such as Kalaallisut, which has neither grammatical tense nor grammatical aspect, but instead marks only grammatical mood and person. Most theories of mood and modal reference either ignore temporal reference or analyze modal and (...) temporal reference as unrelated phenomena. Such theories provide no inkling how temporal reference in a tenseless mood-based language can be as precise as in English. (shrink)

By applying the MIC theory to their analyses of English, German, French, Polish, Russian, Greek, Latin, and Japanese, the authors provide comprehensive explanations of the most puzzling aspects of the pragmatic use of basic universal linguistic categories.

Feminist Theory: A Philosophical Anthology addresses seven philosophically significant questions regarding feminism, its central concepts of sex and gender, and the project of centering women’s experience. Topics include the nature of sexist oppression, the sex/gender distinction, how gender-based norms influence conceptions of rationality, knowledge, and scientific objectivity, feminist ethics, feminst perspectives on self and autonomy, whether there exist distinct feminine moral perspectives, and what would comprise true liberation. Features an introductory overview illustrating the development of feminism as a (...) philosophical movement Contains both classic and contemporary sources of feminist thought, including selections by Mary Wollstonecraft, John Stuart Mill, Simone de Beauvior, Kate Millett, bell hooks, Marilyn Frye, Martha Nussbaum, Louise Antony, Sally Haslanger, Helen Longino, Marilyn Friedman, Catharine MacKinnon, and Drucilla Cornell. (shrink)

This innovative book is the first to couch the debate about animals in the language of justice, and the first to develop both ideal and nonideal theories of justice for animals. It rejects the abolitionist animal rights position in favor of a revised version of animal rights centering on sentience.

Ulrich Beck's best selling Risk Society established risk on the sociological agenda. It brought together a wide range of issues centering on environmental, health and personal risk, provided a rallying ground for researchers and activists in a variety of social movements and acted as a reference point for state and local policies in risk management. The Risk Society and Beyond charts the progress of Beck's ideas and traces their evolution. It demonstrates why the issues raised by Beck reverberate widely (...) throughout social theory and covers the new risks that Beck did not foresee, associated with the emergence of new technologies, genetic and cybernetic. The book is unique because it offers both an introduction to the main arguments in Risk Society and develops a range of critical discussions of aspects of this and other works of Beck. (shrink)

The standard way to represent anaphoric dependencies is to co-index the anaphor with its antecedent in the syntactic input to semantic rules, which then interpret such indices as variables. Dynamic theories (e.g. Kamp’s DRT, Heim’s File Change Semantics, Muskens’s Compositional DRT, etc) combine syntactic co-indexation with semantic left-to-right asymmetry. This captures the fact that the anaphor gets its referent from the antecedent and not vice versa. Formally, a text updates the input state of information to the output state. In particular, (...) an indexed antecedent updates the entity assigned to its index, and the output entity is then picked up as the referent by any subsequent co-indexed anaphor. (shrink)

Social scientists have expended substantial effort to identify group patterns of deviant behavior. Yet beyond the ill-conceived treatment of sexual minorities as inherently deviant, they have rarely considered how gendered sexual identities shape participation in deviance. We argue for the utility of centering theories of gender and sexuality in intersectional deviance research. We demonstrate how this intentional focus on gender and sexuality provides important empirical insights while avoiding past pitfalls of stigmatizing sexual minorities. Drawing on theories of hegemonic masculinity, (...) emphasized femininity, and minority stress together with criminological general strain theory, we demonstrate how societal expectations and constraints generate strains among GSI groups that may lead to distinctly patterned deviance, using the case of prescription drug misuse during sex. We employ thematic analysis of 120 in-depth interviews with people who misuse prescription drugs, stratified by GSI. We identify six themes highlighting distinct pathways from strain to misuse during sex for different GSI groups: intimacy management, achieving sexual freedom, regulating sexual mood, performance confidence, increased sense of control, and managing sexual identity conflict. In this article, we demonstrate the empirical and theoretical importance of centering gender and sexuality in deviance research and provide a roadmap for theoretical integration. (shrink)

How can we invent new certain knowledge in a methodical manner? This question stands at the heart of Salomon Maimon's theory of invention. Chikurel argues that Maimon's contribution to the ars inveniendi tradition lies in the methods of invention which he prescribes for mathematics. Influenced by Proclus' commentary on Elements, these methods are applied on examples taken from Euclid's Elements and Data. Centering around methodical invention and scientific genius, Maimon's philosophy is unique in an era glorifying the artistic (...) genius, known as Geniezeit. Invention, primarily defined as constructing syllogisms, has implications on the notion of being given in intuition as well as in symbolic cognition. Chikurel introduces Maimon's notion of analysis in the broader sense, grounded not only on the principle of contradiction but on intuition as well. In philosophy, ampliative analysis is based on Maimon's logical term of analysis of the object, a term that has yet to be discussed in Maimonian scholarship. Following its introduction, a new version of the question quid juris? arises. In mathematics, Chikurel demonstrates how this conception of analysis originates from practices of Greek geometrical analysis. (shrink)

Continental philosophy over the past two decades has increasingly turned its attention to social and political matters. Two key figures involved in this move, Jean-Luc Nancy and Giorgio Agamben, have advanced a position centering on the idea of singular community . This article sets out the basic features of this idea and contrasts it with Habermas' theory of communicative or dialogical community . Habermas is open to the criticism that his theory of community is constructed according to (...) an unduly narrow construal of legitimate argumentation and democratic participation. The idea of community advanced by Nancy and Agamben, in contrast, appears to lack any credible criteria of community inclusion or identity. In conclusion, it is suggested that both theories of community fall short by neglecting the task of constructing and preserving actual sites of collective democratic action and resistance. (shrink)

From Hobbes to Weber, discussions of power increasingly made a modern concept of "will" their pivotal category. Although sometimes tinged with other concerns, this tendency continues today. Focusing through the lens of the "will" displays an image of power that reasserts untenable conceptions of the person and obscures the fact that power is a relation and not a property, a faculty, or a thing-in-itself. The dissertation tackles this fundamental problem. ;To begin, "dependence" is given the centering position. "Dependence," unlike (...) "will," is a necessarily relational concept. A distinction is introduced between dependence-from-things and dependence-from-persons. The interrelation between these is considered in terms of non-formal anthropological conceptions of reciprocity. This complex reciprocity is contrasted to reciprocity understood as "equality." ;Paradoxically, the theoretical move to contextually determined reciprocity forces reconsideration of the "will," for the background normative institutional patterns of reciprocity in liberal societies are delineated in terms of the "will." This is a virtuous, not a vicious, circle. Once the "will" has been forced from its central position in the theory of power, a critical perspective is gained by viewing "will" through "dependence." ;An analysis of the ways people rationalize or appropriate to their own advantage the unintended consequences of action illuminates the link between "will" and "dependence." The emergence of dependence itself provides a general example of an "unintended consequence of action." People seeking to gain advantage assert their independence from the unintended, even while appropriating the "unintended consequences of action." Cultural patterns for denying dependence play an important part in asserting advantage. ;Disruptions of practical relations of reciprocity cannot be determined a priori; rather, they follow from speech and action. These disruptions lead to contention. Two notoriously vague notions, public and private, have long been terms for playing out such contentions. Theorists often assume that public/private indicates two distinct "spheres" . By contrast, the present theory provides an approach to the analysis of the transformation of private into public. This is a necessary condition for the emergence and control of power. (shrink)

Bioethics urges us to question and debate fundamental moral issues that arise in health-related sciences. However, as a result of Western dominance and globalization, bioethical thinking and practice has inevitably been shaped and defined by Western theories. With recent discussions centering on the relationship between culture and bioethics, it is important to consider how and to what extent can bioethics reflect and accommodate non-Western values and beliefs? Debatably, many scholars working in the field of ‘African bioethics’ seek to construct (...) a bioethical practice that is grounded in indigenous African values. Yet, how relevant are ancient African cultural norms to the lives and realities of the 21st century Sub-Saharan-Africans? This edited volume explores bioethics in Africa from pluralistic and inter-cultural perspectives. The selected papers offer diverse theoretical and practical perspectives on the bioethical challenges that are common and specific to the lives of Sub-Sahara Africans. The contributors define bioethics broadly (beyond ethical issues relating to biomedical and biotechnological science) to include applied ethics that concern all aspects of life. Multidisciplinary in approach, the contributions to this book consider bioethics in relation to philosophy, social work, psychiatry, African studies, religious studies, psychology, and medicine. The broad scope of this volume means it will be of interest to those studying and working in bioethics as well as the fields mentioned above. (shrink)

One of the leading theories of social learning today is Wenger's theory of Communities of Practice'. CoP-theory reiterates basic tenets of social learning theory yet it us set apart from other theories of social learning and education not only by centering on identity-formation but by positing four key dualities as inherent structural features of the educational process. While concurring with Wenger's 'dilemmatic' understanding of education and his open-ended, practice-based conception of identity-formation, we argue that Wenger's (...) class='Hi'>theory overlooks central elements that are needed in order to fully articulate the ends of the educational process, as he conceives them. We claim that further supplementation is needed to support the kind of educational processes that Wenger advocates. Referring to the work of Jack Mezirow and Charles Taylor, this supplementation concerns both critical reflection and 'ethical imagination'. Rather than threatening the coherency of the theory, we claim that these supplementations are internally derived from the ends of CoP-theory and are necessary for its very possibility. To remain in line with Wenger's dilemmatic structure of education, these supplementations are presented in the form of a duality: the tension between artistic and ethical imagination. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Hegel’s Theory of Self-Conscious Life by Guido SeddoneWill DesmondSEDDONE, Guido. Hegel’s Theory of Self-Conscious Life. Leiden: Brill, 2023. 155 pp. Cloth, $138.00Guido Seddone’s monograph explores an ensemble of issues centering on what he terms Hegelian “naturalism.” He argues that “Hegel’s philosophy represents a novel version of naturalism since it stresses the mutual dependence between nature and spirit, rather than just conceiving of spirit as a (...) substance emerging and separating from bodily natural requisites.” Seddone avoids scholarly exegeses to address instead “theoretical and systematic aspects of the Hegelian philosophy.” He focusses on “life” and “self-consciousness” as the conceptual keys to those parts of Hegel that remain compelling for relevant contemporary debates. “This book is, therefore, based on the dialogue between Hegel [End Page 361] and contemporary thinkers and strives to enhance our understanding of theoretical and practical issues and to widen the grammar of the philosophical thought.” The book’s chapters proceed from the more abstract to the more concrete—essentially from issues of logic, epistemology, and psychology to morality, society, and history.Chapter 1 (“Science of Logic: The Logical Premises of Hegel’s Naturalism”) argues that the categories of “Teleology” and “Life” in Hegel’s Science of Logic mark the critical transition in his naturalism from the sciences of physics (“Mechanism”) and chemistry (“Chemism”) to biology, as well as from external nature to inner self-consciousness and cognition. Seddone helpfully points to Hegel’s revisions of Kant’s subordination of teleological language (merely heuristic) to mechanical explanation. Most promising is the comparison of the “self-referring negativity” of Hegelian “life” to discussions by Evan Thompson and Francisco Varela of the cell—whose permeable membrane enables it to be more than its merely chemical environment.Chapter 2 (“Self-Consciousness”) takes a rather bird’s-eye approach to the Phenomenology of Spirit, offering a basic reading of Hegelian self-consciousness and Geist in relation to the Cartesian cogito and Kantian unity of apperception. Scattered remarks about animal desire and the master–slave relation could be clarified to better explore a naturalistic basis of the Hegelian conception of mind. One is struck by the dearth of specific texts from the section “Self-Consciousness”: Seddone seems content with some well-known quotations (for example, Geist as an “I that is We and We that is I”) punctuating large generalizations.Chapter 3 does not quite live up to its title (“The Hegelian Theory about the (Human) Biological Organism”) in that it focuses primarily on Hegel’s “treatise about habits” in the Encyclopaedia of the Philosophical Sciences. Here habit is construed as a second nature, and hence a further step toward self-conscious, relational mind: Habits are “universal ways of the soul, i.e. ways in which individual soul [sic] incorporates feelings by evolving general rules and practices.”The last section of chapter 4 (“Extended and Embodied Mind”) reverts to habits as moments of the feeling soul but dissociates Hegel’s notion of Verleiblichung from contemporary discussions of embodied mind. By contrast, Seddone argues for retranslating Hegelian Geist as “common mind” and juxtaposes this with the related concept of mind (in, for example, Philip Pettit) as “extended” through social entities, with the result that Hegel’s approach is praised as “the state-of-the-art of this topic.”Chapter 5 (“Natural and Self-conscious Agency”) is perhaps the clearest chapter as it presents the dialectic of the abstractly universal will in the initial sections of Philosophy of Right, links this and the Hegelian conception of free agency to his logical category of “actuality,” and proceeds to an illuminating contrast of the Hobbesian and Hegelian visions of society and state. [End Page 362]In tackling attempts to reconcile “Normativity and Freedom,” chapter 6 spends over six pages rehearsing the basics of Kantian autonomy before turning to Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit, specifically the master–slave dialectic (again) as the critical moment in the evolution of social norms. “My thesis is that self-conscious life needs recognition in order to achieve the higher form of independence created by social acknowledgement and justification, what [sic] fosters the condition for an authoritative reason that can be socially... (shrink)

This This paper examines the acceptance and criticism of Zhuzi(朱子)’s Zhonghe(中和) theory in the Choseon Jingxue(經學) of the 16th and 17th Centuries. In order to discuss the Zhuzi(朱子)’s Zhonghe(中和) theory, I first thought that the conceptual analysis of Doctrine of the Mean(中庸) is necessary for the ‘喜怒哀樂之未發謂之中, 發而皆中節謂之和’. As a result of this analysis, it was confirmed that the concept of Zhonghe(中和) of Doctrine of the Mean(中庸) was basically a matter of feeling. This indicates that the Zhonghe(中和) idea (...) of Doctrine of the Mean(中庸) takes the issue of feeling more important than reason. This point can be understood as a dimension of the same context in that Western thought emphasizes reason and Eastern thought emphasizes emotion. It is judged that the Zhonghe(中和) idea of Doctrine of the Mean(中庸) centering on this feeling of appreciation has led to the time of the Lijizhushu(禮記注疏). This Zhonghe(中和) thought based on emotion of Doctrine of the Mean(中庸) is newly interpreted by the Cheng-Zhu School(程朱學). Especially, the recognition of ‘Zhong(中)’ in the Weifa(未發) as Li(理) can be called a great change in the mind-nature theory(心性論) of Doctrine of the Mean(中庸). This interpretation of Zhonghe(中和) was largely accepted in the 16th and 17th century Choseon Dynasty, and the representative character is Cho Ik(趙翼). On the other hand, there was also a person who did not accept this interpretation of Zhonghe(中和) as it was. The representative figure is Park Sedang. Park Sedang was unable to accept Zhu Xi’s philosophical interpretation of Weifa(未發) in his perception of Zhonghe(中和) theory. He recognized that in human mind there could hardly be a state of Weifa(未發) in which a glimmer of thought does not arise. This is why he did not accept Zhu xi’s philosophical interpretation of considering the state of 'Weifa(未發) as ‘Jiran-Budong(寂然不動)’. I think that Park Sedang's view on Zhonghe(中和) is closer to the previous Zhonghe theory(中和舊說) of Zhu Xi. (shrink)

In his "Let the drugs lead the way! On the unfolding of a research program in psychiatry," Shai Mulinari nicely lays out the evolution of theories of depression since the late 1950s; that is, understanding depression as ultimately a brain disorder centering on the functioning of monoamine neurotransmitters. Moreover, the emergence of various psychotropic drug treatments have provided researchers with a "pharmacological bridge" to gain a more precise understanding of depression by observing the effects of these drugs on patients' (...) monoamines and mood. This evolution, Mulinari argues, fits Imre Lakatos's concept of a research program. Mulinari's narrative is clear, compelling, and informative and it generates some... (shrink)

This volume contains selected contributions to the interdisciplinary symposium on 'Models of Meaning' held in Varna, September 25-28, 1988, under the auspices of the Institute of the Bulgarian Language of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences. The aim of the meeting was to broaden the horizons of meaning research and the modeling of linguistic semantics, with contributions centering on the appropriate modeling of lexical, syntactic, and textual-semantic representations. The papers challenge some basic notions of semantics and reveal two main avenues (...) of development in contemporary investigations. One is toward broadening the scope of investigativeness, the second is toward a greater domain-specificity as expressed in a greater sensitivity to pragmatics and meta-pragmatic concerns. (shrink)

Abstract:In the past twenty years, the Anthropocene debate in the humanities and social sciences has focused on two basic approaches concerning the rise and challenge of anthropogenic climate change. The former critically addresses the socio-political underbelly of the re-centering of the human species as a geological force as proposed by the natural sciences through the guiding question: Who is the Anthropos? The latter examines the ethical challenges we face in the wake of deep timespans and fragmented agencies. This article (...) presents the upshots of this ongoing debate and suggests an ontological framework of distributed identities between different conceptual horizons of humanoid formations between the 'Anthropos' (plurality as a single whole) and what I call 'anthropo(i)s' (singulars within plural wholes) to address the tension between individual responsibility (not everyone is equally guilty) and agential response-ability (humans, not tortoises, caused climate change). (shrink)

: This essay addresses the difficulties that sociology as a discipline continues to experience in grasping the relations between technology, science and the social. I argue that these difficulties stem from a resolute centering of sociology on the social, which follows a generically Durkheimian blueprint. I elaborate a response to these difficulties which derives from recent lines of work in science and technology studies, and which entails a decentering of the social relative to the material and the conceptual, in (...) terms of both objects of analysis and explanatory formats. In order to display the direct sociological relevance of this approach, I move to the macro level, developing the conceptual apparatus of a decentered social theory via the discussion of a historical example of major sociological significance—the systematic gearing together of scientific research, technological innovation and industrial production that originated in the synthetic dye industry in the second half of the nineteenth century. Besides the interest of the topic itself, the aim is thus to exemplify in some detail what a decentered sociology might look like, both empirically and conceptually. (shrink)

Background In June 2016, the Parliament of Canada passed federal legislation allowing eligible adults to request Medical Assistance in Dying (MAID). Since its implementation, there likely exists a degree of hesitancy among some healthcare providers due to the law being inconsistent with personal beliefs and values. It is imperative to explore how nurses in Quebec experience the shift from accompanying palliative clients through “a natural death” to participating in “a premeditated death.” Research question/aim/objectives This study aims to explore how Quebec (...) nurses personally and professionally face the new practice of MAID and their role evolution. Research design A grounded theory design was used. Participants and research context We recruited 37 nurses who participated in or coordinated at least one MAID. Semi-structured interviews and focus groups were conducted and audiotaped. Data collection and analysis followed Strauss and Corbin steps. Ethical considerations Ethics approval was received from the investigator’s affiliated University. Participants were informed regarding the research goal, signed a written consent, and were assigned pseudonyms. Findings/results Results show that nurses experienced the wide range of paradoxe during MAID centering around the following eight elements: 1) confrontation abouth death, 2) choice, 3) time of death, 4) emotional load, 5) new Bill, 6) relationship with the person, 7) communication skills, and 8) healthcare setting. The shifting of views and values in this new role is presented by the contradiction of opposites. Conclusions A better understanding of the paradox experienced by nurses involved with MAID paves the way for the development of interventions. (shrink)

Instrumental Stakeholder Theory has begun to suffer from what might be termed “mission drift.” Despite its initial success in creating a foothold for ethics in managerial decision-making, the efficiency arguments which now dominate this research stream have become counterproductive to the original goal of connecting ethics and capitalism. We argue in this paper that the way forward is by re-centering contingency, conversation, and inefficiency in stakeholder theory. To start this process, there needs to be a reckoning of (...) some unintended impacts of the success of the instrumental stream of stakeholder research. For a contrasting approach, we draw on Richard Rorty’s pragmatism and its foundation of ethical “irony,” a state of continuous doubts about the utility of one’s moral vocabulary. We offer a Rortian approach to stakeholder theory, unearthing the possibility for new corporate target functions in the goals of harm reduction, solidarity, and social mobility, the foundational building blocks of an ironist ethical perspective. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Figures of Entanglement: Diffractive Readings of Barad, New Materialism, and Rhetorical Theory and Criticism ed. by Christopher N. Gamble and Joshua S. HananSavannah Greer DowningFigures of Entanglement: Diffractive Readings of Barad, New Materialism, and Rhetorical Theory and Criticism. Edited by Christopher N. Gamble and Joshua S. Hanan. Routledge, 2021. xvi + 122 pp. $168 (hardcover), $47.16 (electronic book). ISBN: 9780367903794.Rhetorical scholars have turned to various new (...) materialist frameworks to shift the discipline's historically anthropocentric focus and fully engage matter's rhetoricity. While all such frameworks attempt to challenge "the anthropocentric assumption that nonhuman matter is intrinsically passive or non-agential and thus external to or separable from (human) meaning," Figures of Entanglement enters this burgeoning conversation by centering the unique contributions of Karen Barad (xi, x). Readers may recognize this collection from a 2016 special issue of Review of Communication. Yet, with a new foreword by editors Christopher N. Gamble and Joshua S. Hanan and an afterword by Laurie Gries, this collection makes Barad's distinct approach to matter's rhetoricity even more apparent, underscoring its fruitful potential for new materialist rhetorics invested in ethical, political transformation.In the book's foreword Gamble and Hanan differentiate Barad's per-formative new materialism from "vital" as well as what they refer to as "negative" new materialisms to show the generative potential of Barad's framework and the notion of entanglement (x). Other new materialisms tend to be "inclusionary"—add matter and stir—and fail to complicate "the human" itself and its differences (xiv, xi). First, vital and negative new materialisms maintain a distinction between being and knowing, allowing humans to emerge with a unique capacity to "objectively observe and know the existence of something essential, determinate, and unchanging about [End Page 395] reality that precedes and remains unaffected by both its own activities and our observations of it" (xi). On the contrary, Barad's performative approach suggests that "no aspect of reality—including human thought, meaning, and observation—is in any sense external to matter or ever remains entirely unchanged by matter's ongoing performances" (x). Here, humans are not "outside" of observation, but all observation "human or otherwise" co-constitutes what is observed (xi). Second, failing to interrogate "the human" in an attempt to observe matter's vitality is an ethical flaw that makes other approaches less capable of grappling with difference: they have been charged with "erasing associations between race, gender, and matter" and (re)producing a homogenizing, "Western-colonialist notion of humanness" (xiv). In contrast, Barad's is a "thoroughly relational," performative new materialism (1).Barad's concept of "entanglement" draws attention to the indeterminacy of matter and meaning, but it is accompanied by an ethical imperative to examine how difference, human or otherwise, is produced and the implications of power imbalances that arise through these enactments. For Barad, the notion of entanglement does not dissolve difference; difference is what matters. Indeed, they give us a way of thinking about how performative intra-actions produce difference through material-discursive practices, or apparatuses—differences that may be expected but are not inevitable. Rhetorical scholars are therefore invited to interrogate the production of boundaries that cause harm and reconfigure them, rather than assume the discreteness of boundaries from the start. Gamble and Hanan thus make a convincing case for how Barad's work may contribute to important scholarship in decolonial and critical rhetorics for which vital and negative new materialisms are less equipped.Gamble and Hanan utilize the introduction to show how Barad's per-formative new materialism both "supports and affirms" rhetorical materialism, or rhetoric's materiality, and enriches it (5). Ushered in by Michael Calvin McGee, "standard" rhetorical materialism worked to challenge the centuries-old debate about rhetoric's secondary, supplementary status vis-à-vis philosophy by recognizing rhetoric as part of a "shifting and dynamic material history" (6). Building upon this view, Ronald Walter Greene utilizes Foucault's notion of the apparatus to demonstrate how even the "material history" McGee called our attention to is itself "produced by apparatuses"—history is not "outside" of meaning (6). Instead, rhetoric's materiality is a "publicity effect" produced through technologies of rhetoric and intersecting power... (shrink)

The concept of “tacit knowledge” as the means by which individuals interpret the “rules” of social interaction occupies a central role in all the major contemporary theories of action and social structure. The major reference point for social theorists is Wittgenstein's celebrated discussion of rule-following in the Philosophical Investigations. Focusing on Giddens' incorporation of tacit knowledge and rules into his “theory of structuration”, I argue that Wittgenstein's later work is steadfastly set against the “latent cognitivism” inherent in the idea (...) of tacit knowledge and tacit rules. I also argue that the idea of tacit knowledge and tacit rules is either incoherent or explanatorily vacuous. (shrink)

In this paper I explore a version of standard (expected utility) decision theory in which the probability parameter is interpreted as an objective chance believed by agents to obtain and values of this parameter are fixed by indicative conditionals linking possible actions with possible outcomes. After reviewing some recent developments centering on the common-cause counterexamples to the standard approach, I introduce and briefly discuss the key notions in my own approach. (This approach has essentially the same results as (...) the causal approach in common-cause cases.) I then discuss the Rule of Dominance and find, in the context of the present proposal, that it cannot serve as an independent source of action justification. Turning next to Newcomb''s Problem, I argue that the much discussed issue of back-tracking counterfactuals is something of a red herring for decision theory. Once the twin distractions of back-tracking counterfactuals and Dominance Reasoning are set aside the 1-box solution emerges as a natural consequence of the present proposal. It is of interest that this proposal agrees with the causal approach in the standard common-cause examples and the expected-utility approach in the Newcomb case: one can be smart and rich and keep on smoking. (shrink)

Against the medical and social models of disability are two newer proposals. Elizabeth Barnes’ Minority Body proposes that it is the bodies which are advocated for and included in the disability rights movement which are rightfully called “disabled.” Savulescu and Kahane’s Welfarist approach proposes that disability is intrinsically tied to the effects of bodily states on welfare. They put the need for a consistent and relatively simple normative theory above accounting for standard case judgements about who is and is (...) not disabled or looking at all to membership of the disabled community. I argue that Barnes’ theory offers the best response to issues with the dominant models of disability. Further, I argue that the Welfarist theory operates in a space removed from the wishes and lived experiences of disabled people – separating ‘disability’ from activism entirely – to its detriment. Doing so compromises its explanatory power, over-generalizes the concept and prevents the insertion of meaningful boundaries. Barnes’ ‘solidarity thesis’ soundly conceptualizes disability whilst making room for activist voices. The centering of activist projects makes it stronger. (shrink)

It is important for educators to recognise that the various calls to decentre the subject—or self—should not be interpreted as necessarily requiring the removal of the subject altogether. Through the individualism of the Enlightenment the self was centred. This highly individualistic notion of the sovereign self has now been decentred especially through post‐structuralist literature. It is contended here however, that this tendency to decentre the subject has been taken to an extreme at times, especially by some designers of school frameworks (...) and curricula, who have eliminated the subject altogether. Such elimination is argued to contribute to the numbers of youth who are dropping out of school. By adopting an existential perspective and by drawing mainly upon Kierkegaard's subjective truth and Dewey's notion of centeredness, the case is made that for education the subject should not only be included but should actually be centred—at least momentarily. (shrink)

It is important for educators to recognise that the various calls to decentre the subject—or self—should not be interpreted as necessarily requiring the removal of the subject altogether. Through the individualism of the Enlightenment the self was centred. This highly individualistic notion of the sovereign self has now been decentred especially through post‐structuralist literature. It is contended here however, that this tendency to decentre the subject has been taken to an extreme at times, especially by some designers of school frameworks (...) and curricula, who have eliminated the subject altogether. Such elimination is argued to contribute to the numbers of youth who are dropping out of school. By adopting an existential perspective and by drawing mainly upon Kierkegaard's subjective truth and Dewey's notion of centeredness, the case is made that for education the subject should not only be included but should actually be centred—at least momentarily. (shrink)