In this paper, I will argue that ageing can be construed as disease. First, the concept of disease is discussed, where the distinction is made between two lines of thought, an objectivist and a subjectivist one. After determining the disease conception to be used throughout the argument, it is proposed that senescence could be seen as disease. Three common counterarguments are discussed, none of which appears strong enough to effectively counter the advocated view. In the third section, two potential implications (...) of the view advocated here will be briefly touched upon. These are the quest for a cure or treatment for ageing and the general attitude towards the elderly. It is concluded that, utilizing an objective disease concept, ageing could be seen as a disease. None of the considered counterarguments packs enough of a punch to discard this. The implications are complex and intertwined, but need not be negative. (shrink)

We live in a world in which scientific expertise and its epistemic authority become more important. On the other hand, the financial interests in research, which could potentially corrupt science, are increasing. Due to these two tendencies, a concern for the integrity of scientific research becomes increasingly vital. This concern is, however, hollow if we do not have a clear account of research integrity. Therefore, it is important that we explicate this concept. Following Rudolf Carnap’s characterization of the task of (...) explication, this means that we should develop a concept that is (1) similar to our common sense notion of research integrity, (2) exact, (3) fruitful, and (4) as simple as possible. Since existing concepts do not meet these four requirements, we develop a new concept in this article. We describe a concept of epistemic integrity that is based on the property of deceptiveness, and argue that this concept does meet Carnap’s four requirements of explication. To illustrate and support our claims we use several examples from scientific practice, mainly from biomedical research. (shrink)

A well-known problem in the health sciences is the distorted research agenda: the agenda features too little research that is tailored to the health problems of the poor, and it features too little research that supports the development of other solutions to health problems than medicines (e.g., change of lifestyle). This article analyzes these two sub-problems in more detail, and assesses several strategies to deal with them, resulting in some specific recommendations that indicate what governments should do to make the (...) research agenda in the health sciences less distorted. (shrink)

This book aims to distinguish acceptable from unacceptable interest influences in science. Jan De Winter criticizes existing views on the integrity of science and the roles of financial, political, and other interests in science, and develops an alternative view to shed new light on cases from medical science, aerospace science, climate science, and biology.

The Belgian political system is of ten qualified as a particracy, this is a variation of the classical parliamentary democracy, in which political parties dominate the political decision-making process more than the other subsystems, such as parliament, the government, the public administration, the judiciary power, the broadcasting institutions, the written press etc. This preponderancy is achieved by the partypolitisation of the positions in and the functio ning of these subsystems.Partyleaders exert nowadays a major influence on the constellation of a new (...) government and the designation of its ministers. Through the governmental program and special extraparliamentary pacts they map out more and more government's future policies. The ministerial cabinets execute the control over the public administration on behalf of the parties of the majority and aften take over some of its peculiar functions. The recruitment of public servants and their promotion depend highly upon the institutionalized patronage of the governmental parties.The power to select the candidates for the general elections has shifted away from the rank-and-file member to the local and national partyleaders.Partydiscipline is one of the major causes of the shift of the government making function, the legislative and controlling functions of parliament to the party headquaters.The recruitment and the promotions of magistrates was already before World War II largely politicized.Although the structural integration between the newspapers and parties has decreased since 1945, the political parties have strengthened their control over the designation of the diree:tors and administrators of the Belgian broadcasting institutions. (shrink)

At the general elections, the Belgian voter can either vote for an entire party or vote for a candidate on that list. The general, elections of november 8th, 1981 featured a notable fall of the percentage of preferential votes by 4,46 %, although this proportion was steadily rising since 1958, by an average of 3,67 % each election year.Although the use of preferential votes is varying from one constituency to another, and from one party to another, the order of constituencies (...) and parties, ranked by their proportion of preferential votes, did not change profoundly.The remarkable drop of the overall proportion of preferential votes is probably due to the shift from preferential votes to list-votes by the bulk of voters who fled from the christian-democratic parties to the liberals, the flemish-nationalists and the ecologists. (shrink)

BackgroundDeciding whether to resuscitate extremely preterm infants (EPIs) is clinically and ethically problematic. The aim of the study was to understand neonatologists’ clinical–ethical decision-making for resuscitation of EPIs.MethodsWe conducted a qualitative study in Belgium, following a constructivist account of the Grounded Theory. We conducted 20 in-depth, face-to-face, semi-structured interviews with neonatologists. Data analysis followed the qualitative analysis guide of Leuven.ResultsThe main principles guiding participants’ decision-making were EPIs’ best interest and respect for parents’ autonomy. Participants agreed that justice as resource allocation (...) should not be considered in resuscitation decision-making. The main ethical challenge for participants was dealing with the conflict between EPIs’ best interest and respect for parents’ autonomy. This conflict was most prominent when parents and clinicians disagreed about births within the gray zone (24–25 weeks). Participants’ coping strategies included setting limits on extent of EPI care provided and rigidly following established guidelines. However, these strategies were not always feasible or successful. Although rare, these situations often led to long-lasting moral distress.ConclusionsParticipants’ clinical–ethical reasoning for resuscitation of EPIs can be mainly characterized as an attempt to balance EPIs’ best interest and respect for parents’ autonomy. This approach could explain why neonatologists considered conflicts between these principles as their main ethical challenge and why lack of resolution increases the risk of moral distress. Therefore, more research is needed to better understand moral distress in EPI resuscitation decisions.Clinical Trial Registration: The study received ethical approval from the ethics committee of UZ/ku Leuven (S62867). Confidentiality of personal information and anonymity was guaranteed in accordance with the General Data Protection Regulation of 25 May 2018. (shrink)

This article reveals that explanatory practice in software engineering is in accordance with pragmatic explanatory pluralism, which states that explanations should at least partially be evaluated by their practical use. More specifically, I offer a defense of the idea that several explanation-types are legitimate in software engineering, and that the appropriateness of an explanation-type depends on (a) the engineer’s interests, and (b) the format of the explanation-seeking question he asks, with this format depending on his interests. This idea is defended (...) by considering examples that are representative for explanatory practice in software engineering. Different kinds of technological explanation are spelled out, and the dependence of their appropriateness on interests and question-formats is extensively illustrated. (shrink)

The grip of political parties of central government actors in Belgium was most striking in the 1970s and 1980s. In this period Belgium, like Italy, constitutes a very strong case of partitocracy. Yet, white the Italian partitocrazia collapsed brusquely in the early 1990s, the Belgian particratie underwent a number of gradual modifications, which prevented the complete collapse of the partitocratic system and to some degree restored the governability of the country.This article presents for each sector of central government first the (...) main features as they were under full partitocratic rule during the 1970s and 1980s. Second, it indicates which corrections were introduced, that reduced the the grip of political parties on central government actors, structures and processes. Finally, it discusses the problem of the public debt and policy inertia. (shrink)

The lists of candidates, proposed by the parties for the Belgian general elections, is quite determinative. Due to electoral code arrangements, and, notwithstanding the growing proportion of preference votes, only thosecandidates who are placed within the «necessary sequence» of the lists get actually elected. Consequently, the Belgian voter does not appointthe mandataries, hut only the number of mandates due to the several parties.The statutes of the three major Belgian parties, provide large participative opportunities for their members, through the so-called general (...) member polls. In this kind ofprimary system, all party members are franchised to elect the candidates for their party-lists.The elections of the past twenty years show a growing tendency to deviate from these statutary guaranteed participation. In 1958, 89 % of all representatives were placed on their party-lists by general member polls; in 1978, only 10 %. Thus, the conclusive phase of the composition of the partylists has become, since 1958, increasingly a matter where only the national or federal party executives and councils decide upon. (shrink)

In the official statistics, the total number of nonvoters in the post-war parliamentary elections in Belgium, is considerably over-estimated. This is caused by the method of updating the lists of voters, so that many people who appear as nonvoters, are regular voters who died after the moment of updating, but were not droppedfrom the lists. In this article, we endeavoured to calculate the number of deceased voters, who still appear on the lists, using the monthly death-rates of the total Belgian (...) population, abstracting the deceased persons under age and the deceased foreigners. The more realistic rates of nonvoting, calculated this way, are quite lower than the official rates.Yet, because of the introduction of a new method of updating, the problem discussed above, hardly exists any langer since the general election of 1977. (shrink)

A well-known problem in the health sciences is the distorted research agenda: the agenda features too little research that is tailored to the health problems of the poor, and it features too little research that supports the development of other solutions to health problems than medicines . This article analyzes these two sub-problems in more detail, and assesses several strategies to deal with them, resulting in some specific recommendations that indicate what governments should do to make the research agenda in (...) the health sciences less distorted. (shrink)

This paper describes the common techniques used in the constitution of candidates-lists for parliamentary elections. A common feature of these techniques is the consultation of party members. But the way in which this is done differs among the parties. AGALEV, the ecologist party, offers every member the possibility to have his say about every candidate. The socialist party uses this system in two constituencies ; in the other constituencies a special congress decides. The christiandemocrats, the liberals and the Flemish nationalists (...) constitute their lists by indirect vote : the leadership performs a first selection and the members then either approve or disapprove of this choice.Our research indicates that there are no essential differences between these two techniques from the point of view of membership participation.In both the ecologist and the socialist party the majority of members does not participate in the candidates-elections. Therefore, as with the indirect vote, candidates-lists are constituted by an active, militant and elitist group of members. Whatever the technique used the infl,uence of the rank-and-file-member is small. (shrink)

Summary Colour and space are pervasive topics in both perception and art. This article investigates the role of colour and pattern in relation to space and time in the art works by two artists: Frank Stella, a well-known Post-War American abstract painter, and Pieter Vermeersch, an emerging Belgian abstract painter, representing a contemporary trend to break the barriers between artistic disciplines. While Stella adheres to the Modernist logic of non-illusionistic, non-spatial, non-referential art as object, perceived instantaneously, Vermeersch explores ways to (...) enhance the viewers’ spatial and temporal experiences through complex art installations with multiple objects and architectural elements interacting with each other and with the spaces in which they are embedded. We discuss these major themes in some representative art works, and in the way they are perceived and appreciated by contemporary viewers, investigated in four empirical studies: two laboratory experiments using well-controlled stimuli derived from at works, and two museum studies employing a variety of methods, including mobile eye-tracking and questionnaires. (shrink)

In this article, we integrated the data of four inquiries, concerning various activities and features, computing the relations between all these quantitative variables by partialcorrelation and multiple regression techniques.Remarkably, the most determing factor of the amount of preference votes of a candidate seems to be his various activities in parliament.His clientelist activities and his personal electoral campaign influence also, but in a lesser way, the cast of these votes. Parliamentary seniority correlates positively with the number of cumulated offices, which in (...) turncorrelates with the extent of his electoral campaign. The attendance of a representative during the committee meetings and during the plenary voting sessions seems not at all to be influenced by this cumulations of various offices, and only slightly by bis clientelist occupations. This general pattern of parliamentary behavior differs considerably between parties. Finally, the effect of each particular branch ofextraparliamentary offices on the other activities of each member was examined. (shrink)

The beanbag genetics controversy can be traced from the dispute between Fisher and Wright, through Mayr''s influential promotion of the issue, to the contemporary units of selection debate. It centers on the claim that genic models of natural selection break down in the face of epistatic interactions among genes during phenotypic development. This claim is explored from both a conceptual and a quantitative point of view, and is shown to be defective on both counts.Firstly, an analysis of the controversy''s theoretical (...) origins demonstrates that this claim derives from a misinterpretation of the conceptual foundations of Fisher''s genetical theory of natural selection, and confounds his fundamentally different concepts of the average excess and average effect of a gene. Secondly, an extension of the genic approach is proposed which models the dynamics of selection among epistatically interacting complexes of many genes. Paradoxically, this preliminary, but fundamentally genic model provides quantitative support for some controversial qualitative claims regarding the evolutionary consequences of strong gene interactions made by opponents of genic selectionism, including Mayr''s theory of peripartric speciation. These findings foster hope that the proposed approach may eventually nudge the beanbag controversy out of its conceptual trenches into a more empirically oriented dialogue. (shrink)

The «law of weak parliaments» states that parliaments with small competences only attract weak candidates, which in turn weakens the parliament even more.Research concerning the Belgian delegates to the European Parliament from 1952 to 1979, confirmed this law, but also qualified it by showing that the downward trend can be crosscut when the parliament gains importance as an institutional platform for a social movement, in this case for the European integration.

In spite op compulsory voting, the number of non-voters increased at the last general elections in Belgium to 7.3 per cent. This evolution can largely be explained by demographic factors. The number of blank or invalid voters reaches nearly the same level. Concerning this form of political non-participation, we noticed considerable differences occur between the types of elections due to factors such as the importance and the proximity of the proper institution, the social distance between candidate and citizen and the (...) main issue of the elections.The analysis of both phenomena over time at the level of the individual voters based on surveys shows that electoral absenteeism is rather accidental, white blanc and invalid voting is more permanent. From the analysis of absenteeism and blanc and invalid voting emerge on the one hand socio-economic factors which jeopardize electoral participation in a direct or indirect way, and on the other hand, attitudes and behaviour reflecting political indifference, alienation and hostility. (shrink)

These days, the radicalization of young people is above all viewed as a security risk. Almost all research into this phenomenon has been carried out from a legal, criminological or socio-psychological perspective with a focus on detecting and containing the risks posed by radicalization. In the light of the political developments since September 11, 2001, this is entirely understandable but perhaps not altogether wise. Research and theory development from a pedagogical perspective can also make a significant contribution towards a better (...) understanding of radicalization processes and possibly offer new points of departure for intervention strategies. On the basis of five typical cases, the authors examine the role of educators, social workers and teachers, and the problems they face when dealing with young people with extreme ideals. This article attempts to provide insight into the pedagogical conditions for the development of extreme ideals and suggests starting points for developing effective countermeasures. (shrink)

BackgroundThe aim of this study is to explore the association of family socioeconomic status and internal and external schoolwork support with adolescents’ school satisfaction and whether schoolwork support modifies these associations.MethodsData come from the cross-sectional Health Behavior in School-aged Children study collected in 2018 from Slovak 15-year-olds. SES was measured by Family Affluence Scale. School satisfaction was measured via school engagement and attitudes toward education. Schoolwork support was measured regarding two groups of sources inside and outside the family, separately. Logistic (...) regression models were used to explore the associations of SES and schoolwork support with school satisfaction as well as the moderating effect of schoolwork support.ResultsAdolescents with low SES were more likely to feel indifferent toward school and education, and similarly, adolescents who did not have schoolwork support inside or outside the family. Schoolwork support moderated the associations of SES with school satisfaction. Adolescents with low and middle SES without support inside or outside the family were more likely to feel indifferent than satisfied.ConclusionAdolescents from low and middle SES without schoolwork support inside or outside the family are more likely to feel indifferent toward school and education. (shrink)

This study investigated Belgian and Dutch parental opinions on confidentiality and consent regarding medical decisions about adolescents. Through an online survey, we presented six cases (three on confidentiality, and three on consent) to 1,382 Belgian and Dutch parents. We studied patterns in parental confidentiality and consent preferences across and between cases through binomial logistic regressions and latent class analysis. Participants often grant the right to consent for a treatment to the adolescent, but the majority diverges from the adolescent’s preferences regarding (...) confidentiality. More educated participants would rather not be informed about cases regarding a sexually transmitted disease or depression than lower educated participants. Further analysis shows that participants’ preferences correspond to authoritative (47%), permissive (30%) and authoritarian (17%) parenting styles. Belgian and Dutch parents are willing to grant some degree of autonomy, but they want to be informed about specific health issues. Parental views on confidentiality and granting consent appear to mirror existing parenting styles. (shrink)

Die sozial- und kulturwissenschaftliche Erforschung auditiver Phänomene ist stets mit spezifischen Wissensformen konfrontiert. Die Rolle, die Musik und andere Klänge in verschiedenen sozialen und kulturellen Kontexten spielen, hängt mit dem Wissen zusammen, welches in bestimmter Weise (re)produziert und vermittelt wird. Wir können etwas über Klänge wissen, oder etwas durch Klänge wissen. Wir können Wissen über die spezifische Erzeugung von Klängen erwerben und weitergeben, oder aber Nachrichten – etwa eine Warnung – klanglich übermitteln. Diese vielfältigen Formen von Klangwissen können auf sehr (...) unterschiedliche Weisen zum Gegenstand wissenschaftlicher Untersuchungen gemacht werden. Der vorliegende Band zu auditiven Wissenskulturen ist ein Versuch, jene üblicherweise in verschiedenen Disziplinen wie Soziologie und Anthropologie, in Geschichte, Psychologie, Ethnologie und Philosophie der Musik oder in Medienwissenschaften verorteten Zugänge zu auditivem Wissen in ein produktives interdisziplinäres Gespräch zu bringen. (shrink)

ObjectiveTo present (1) the ethical concepts related to the debate on resuscitation of extremely premature infants (EPIs) as they are described in the ethical literature; and (2) the ethical arguments based on these concepts.DesignWe conducted a systematic review of the ethical literature. We selected articles based on the following predefined inclusion/exclusion criteria: (1) English language articles (2) presenting fully elaborated ethical arguments (3) on resuscitation (4) of EPIs, that is, infants born before 28 weeks of gestation.AnalysisAfter repeated reading of articles, (...) we developed individual summaries, conceptual schemes and an overall conceptual scheme. Ethical arguments and concepts were identified and analysed.ResultsForty articles were included out of 4709 screened. Personhood, best interest, autonomy and justice were concepts grounding the various arguments. Regarding these concepts, included authors agreed that the best interest principle should guide resuscitation decisions, whereas justice seemed the least important concept. The arguments addressed two questions: Should we resuscitate EPIs? Who should decide? Included authors agreed that not all EPIs should be resuscitated but disagreed on what criteria should ground this decision. Overall, included authors agreed that both parents and physicians should contribute to the decision.ConclusionsThe included publications suggest that while the best interest is the main concept guiding resuscitation decisions, justice is the least important. The included authors also agree that both parents and physicians should be actively involved in resuscitation decisions for EPIs. However, our results suggest that parents’ decision should be over-ridden when in contrast with the EPI’s best interest. (shrink)

Den Marxismus zu beerben heißt, ihn als tot und als relevant zu begreifen. Beides ist in Marxens Doppelthese enthalten, die Philosophie könne sich nicht verwirklichen ohne die Aufhebung des Proletariats, und das Proletariat könne sich nicht aufheben ohne die Verwirklichung der Philosophie. Die ungebrochene Relevanz dieser These besteht darin, die Unvernunft des Wirklichen zum inneren Problem der Philosophie werden zu lassen. Indem sie die Frage nach ihrer Verwirklichung aufrechterhält, entmächtigt sie das selbstzufriedene Denken.

The ordinary space is continuously cluttered with bodies and constantly, when we move, we must maneuver, push and shove, walk around, make space. The awareness of having to operate in a limited space, where the places are always already occupied, is sustained by a special mode of appearing of ordinary space: the occupancy field. A phenomenological analysis of the occupancy field demonstrates that: the format in which space presents itself in ordinary perception is marked by our awareness of occupying space (...) with our body and having to squeeze it somewhere each time we move; bodies and space are co-dependent on an intentional level: ordinary space has, by a sense of vacuum, a mode of appearing which is indissociable from the phenomenological structure of bodies; the presentation of space is dependent on an anticipation of possibilities: it is because the situation is considered from the opportunities and constraints on the possible set up by our body that a space presents itself to us. We could not experience space if our perceptual apparatus took a mere snapshot of the current states of aff airs, if through it we had only access to the state in which the environment is at time t. To experience space means fundamentally to be ahead of one’s time, consider the present not from the future, but from the possible. (shrink)

Qu’est-ce que l’espace? Pourquoi y a-t-il de l’espace plutôt que rien? La physique prétend aujourd’hui répondre à ces questions en se passant de toute référence à l’espace phénoménal du sujet, et donc en totale rupture avec son sens phénoménologique. Nous tiendrons que cette élusion, pour tradi­tionnelle qu’elle soit dans les sciences de la Nature, condamne par avance toute tentative d’explication de l’espace. Et nous montrerons que l’espace que nous construisons comme à notre insu dans la perception est de part en (...) part struc­turé par un rapport au possible, la spatialisation consistant dans son principe à se rendre intelligible les étants en représentant dans la structuration même du monde les possibilités dont nous disposons. (shrink)

Qu’est-ce que l’espace? Pourquoi y a-t-il de l’espace plutôt que rien? La physique prétend aujourd’hui répondre à ces questions en se passant de toute référence à l’espace phénoménal du sujet, et donc en totale rupture avec son sens phénoménologique. Nous tiendrons que cette élusion, pour tradi­tionnelle qu’elle soit dans les sciences de la Nature, condamne par avance toute tentative d’explication de l’espace. Et nous montrerons que l’espace que nous construisons comme à notre insu dans la perception est de part en (...) part struc­turé par un rapport au possible, la spatialisation consistant dans son principe à se rendre intelligible les étants en représentant dans la structuration même du monde les possibilités dont nous disposons. (shrink)

Alva Noë’s strategy to solve the puzzle of perceptual presence entirely relies on the principle of presence as access. Unaccessed or unattended parts or details of objects are perceptually present insofar as they are accessible, and they are accessible insofar as one possesses sensorimotor skills that can secure their access. In this paper, I consider several arguments that can be opposed to this claim and that are chiefly related to the modal status of action, i.e. the fact that the action (...) that would secure access to the absent aspects is a possibility, something that can be done. The main difficulty Noë’s account must face is –as several situations demonstrate– that the action that should be performed for the absent aspects to be actually accessed does not have to be itself available for these aspects to be perceptually present. What matters for the absent aspects to be present is not their de facto accessibility, but their de jure accessibility. To overcome those difficulties, I propose to rely on a ternary model of the role of action possibilities in perceptual awareness. This model builds on Husserl’s analysis of the role of perceptual circumstances in perception and connection between sense registering and horizontal intentionality. (shrink)

Resumen: El siguiente artículo presenta la formulación del concepto identidad cultural regional, a partir de una selección del aspecto mental de la cultura, lo que dio como resultado una definición discursiva narrativa de identidad cultural regional. Para esto se presentan fundamentos metafísicos, lingüísticos e históricos, y una contextualización compuesta de definiciones de identidad cultural, identidad cultural latinoamericana e identidad cultural regional. Respecto de esta última, se presentan aplicaciones al estudio de la Identidad Cultural de la Región de los Ríos, debido (...) a las características de este territorio como nueva región. El concepto resultante describe el fenómeno como un sentido del ser regional presente en la semiosfera cultural, formando parte de la memoria y del imaginario colectivo, manifestado en el modo de la unidad temática de una narración histórica coherente y ordenada, progresivamente más compleja y heterogénea, que combina la progresión lineal de los subtemas y el tema constante de la identidad cultural regional. (shrink)

Our food and farming system is not socially, economically or ecologically sustainable. Many of the ills are a result of market competition driving specialization and linear production models, externalizing costs for environmental, social and cultural degradation. Some propose that market mechanisms should be used to correct this; improved consumer choice, internalization of costs and compensation to farmers for public goods. What we eat is determined by the path taken by our ancestors, by commercialization and fierce competition, fossil fuels and demographic (...) development. Based on those, governments and the food industry are the choice architects who determine what we eat; consumer choice plays a marginal role. Using market mechanisms to internalize cost and compensate farmers for public goods has been proposed for decades but little progress has been made. There are also many practical, ethical and theoretical objections to such a system. The market is not a good master for a sustainable food system. Instead we need to find new ways of managing the food system based on food as a right and farming as a management system of the planet Earth. The solutions should be based on relocalization of food production and de-commodification of food and our symbionts, the plants and animals we eat. (shrink)

The Persian sack of Antioch on the Orontes in 540 was a severe blow to the military prestige of the Roman Empire. While the dramatic circumstances of the city’s capture are fully depicted by Procopius, the exact location of the fatal Persian attack remains controversial. The paper traces Procopius’ highly debated account of the city’s conquest in the light of recent topographical and archaeological fieldwork.

This paper examines two senses of the term “transgender:” transgender as across the gender binary and transgender as beyond the gender binary. Explored are the difficulties this ambiguity poses to transpeople. In short, using the theories of Ferdinand de Saussure and Richard Rorty, this paper argues that the meaning of “transgender” must simultaneously embrace both senses of the term, rather than one or the other.

Evaluation of other cultures is a strong force in a culture’s definition of itself. Cultures are formed in encounters that include domination, conflict, and dismissal as much as appreciation and smooth exchange. In this paper, the construction of cultural identity is discussed, with reference to a Scandinavian Theme Park proposal made in cooperation between American design consultants and a local Swedish team of planners and visionaries. The image production in this design proposal, which never came to be realised in architectural (...) production, shows that “Scandinavia” appears as a two-some dialogic construction that adopts stereotyped cultural identities, and that it was not brought to any wider public dialogue. In a semiotic account of this architectural decision-making, models of culture (Lotman. 1990.Universe of the mind: A semiotic theory of culture. London: Tauris.) are discussed in terms of the tripartition of culture into Ego-culture, Alter-culture and Alius-culture (Sonesson. 2000. Ego meets alter: The meaning of otherness in cultural semiotics.Semiotica128(3/4). 537–559.; Cabak Rédei, Anna. 2007.An inquiry into cultural semiotics: Germaine de Staël’s autobiographical travel accounts. Lund: Lund University Press.), considered as a basic abstracted backdrop of what is meant by cultural difference. In this paper it is suggested that this tripartite view on culture, can be further discussed in reflection of post-colonial studies, notably through terms such as “mimicry” (Bhabha. 1984. Of mimicry and man: The ambivalence of colonial discourse.October28. 125–133.) and “subalterity” (Spivak. 1988. Can the subaltern speak?. In Cary Nelson & Lawrence Grossberg (eds.),Marxism and the interpretation of culture, 271–313. Urbana & Chicago: University of Illinois Press.). The model of culture can furthermore be discussed through Peirce’s distinction between different stages and carriers of representation, adding to the cultural model an understanding of what it means, over time, for a culture to relate to an admired as well as to a neglected other cultural actor. (shrink)