This paper contributes to the (re-)conceptualisation of responsible innovation by proposing an evolutionary economic approach that focuses on the role of consumers in the innovation process. After a discussion of the philosophical foundations and ethical implications of this approach, which bears an explanatory potential that has not been adequately considered in previous discussions of responsible innovation, we present a first step towards capturing the important but often neglected role of consumers in innovation processes (including responsible innovation): We propose an agent-based (...) model that incorporates a multidimensional space of characteristics in which new products or services are represented by more than the mere aspect of price and quality. Instead, innovations are denoted by a large set of characteristics, including also negative or harmful ones. The model is used to illustrate that consumers’ heterogeneity and bounded rationality – even if considered in a simple manner – indeed play a crucial role in the creation and diffusion of responsible innovation which can and should be used for further work in this field and for possible extensions of the model. (shrink)

ArgumentIn 1877, a young mathematician named Joseph Boussinesq presented amémoireto theAcadémiedes sciences which demonstrated that some differential equations may have more than one solution. Boussinesq linked this fact to indeterminism and to a possible solution to the free will versus determinism debate. Boussinesq's main interest was to reconcile his philosophical and religious views with science by showing that matter and motion do not suffice to explain all there is in the world. His argument received mixed criticism that addressed both his (...) philosophical views and the scientific content of his work, pointing to the physical “realisticness” of multiple solutions. While Boussinesq proved to be able to face the philosophical criticism, the scientific objections became a serious problem, thus slowly moving the focus of the debate from the philosophical plane to the scientific one. This change of perspective implied a wide discussion on topics such as instability, the sensitivity to initial conditions, and the conservation of energy. The Boussinesq debate is an example of a philosophically motivated debate that transforms into a scientific one, an example of the influence of philosophy on the development of science. (shrink)

Successful transitions to a sustainable bioeconomy require novel technologies, processes, and practices as well as a general agreement about the overarching normative direction of innovation. Both requirements necessarily involve collective action by those individuals who purchase, use, and co-produce novelties: the consumers. Based on theoretical considerations borrowed from evolutionary innovation economics and consumer social responsibility, we explore to what extent consumers’ scope of action is addressed in the scientific bioeconomy literature. We do so by systematically reviewing bioeconomy-related publications according to (...) the extent to which consumers are regarded as passive vs. active, and different domains of consumer responsibility. We find all aspects of active consumption considered to varying degrees but observe little interconnection between domains. In sum, our paper contributes to the bioeconomy literature by developing a novel coding scheme that allows us to pinpoint different aspects of consumer activity, which have been considered in a rather isolated and undifferentiated manner. Combined with our theoretical considerations, the results of our review reveal a central research gap which should be taken up in future empirical and conceptual bioeconomy research. The system-spanning nature of a sustainable bioeconomy demands an equally holistic exploration of the consumers’ prospective and shared responsibility for contributing to its coming of age, ranging from the procurement of information on bio-based products and services to their disposal. (shrink)

Infants can see someone pointing to one of two buckets and infer that the toy they are seeking is hidden inside. Great apes do not succeed in this task, but, surprisingly, domestic dogs do. However, whether children and dogs understand these communicative acts in the same way is not yet known. To test this possibility, an experimenter did not point, look, or extend any part of her body towards either bucket, but instead lifted and shook one via a centrally pulled (...) rope. She did this either intentionally or accidentally, and did or did not address her act to the subject using ostensive cues. Young 2-year-old children but not dogs understood the experimenter’s act in intentional conditions. While ostensive pulling of the rope made no difference to children’s success, it actually hindered dogs’ performance. We conclude that while human children may be capable of inferring communicative intent from a wide variety actions, so long as these actions are performed intentionally, dogs are likely to be less flexible in this respect. Their understanding of communicative intention may be more dependent upon bodily markers of communicative intent, including gaze, orientation, extended limbs, and vocalisations. This may be because humans have come under selective pressure to develop skills for communicating with absent interlocutors – where bodily co-presence is not possible. (shrink)

Objective: Atypical patterns of language lateralization due to early reorganizational processes constitute a challenge in the pre-surgical evaluation of patients with pharmaco-resistant epilepsy. There is no consensus on an optimal analysis method used for the identification of language dominance in MEG. This study examines the concordance between MEG source localization of beta power desynchronization and fMRI with regard to lateralization and localization of expressive and receptive language areas using a visual verb generation task.Methods: Twenty-five patients with pharmaco-resistant epilepsy, including six (...) patients with atypical language lateralization, and ten right-handed controls obtained MEG and fMRI language assessment. Fourteen patients additionally underwent the Wada test. We analyzed MEG beta power desynchronization in sensor (controls) and source space (patients and controls). Beta power decrease between 13 and 35 Hz was localized applying Dynamic Imaging of Coherent Sources Beamformer technique. Statistical inferences were grounded on cluster-based permutation testing for single subjects.Results: Event-related desynchronization of beta power in MEG was seen within the language-dominant frontal and temporal lobe and within the premotor cortex. Our analysis pipeline consistently yielded left language dominance with high laterality indices in controls. Language lateralization in MEG and Wada test agreed in all 14 patients for inferior frontal, temporal and pari... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Modern Socratic Dialogue and Resilient Democracy: Creating the Clearing for an American Bildung1Laura J. Mueller (bio)Michael Hogue’s American Immanence draws from some of the fundamental features of American philosophy: philosophy is not alienated from life, but rather, part and parcel of the structure of our experiences, a way of living. His notion of “resilient democracy” is particularly representative of this tradition of thought. Resilient democracy is, first of all, (...) an ethos, grounded in “the collective experience of uncertainty and animated by the living desire to bring about a more beautiful world.”2 This ethos is an associational, relational one, and it is democratic because, for Hogue, it must be “empathetic, emancipatory, and equitable,” assuming that each member of the association can be enriched by other members” (AI, 172–73). Vital to this democratic ethos is its anti-foundational politics; we start not with an immutable reality, but rather with the vulnerable reality of our actual, political, experiences (AI, 176). We start with where we are, not where some abstract ideal demands we should be. Democracy, for Hogue, is not just a certain political ideal for which to aim, but rather a way of being, a way of life. Dewey writes:A democracy is more than an associated form of government; it is primarily a mode of associated living, of conjoint communicated experience.... These more numerous and more varied points of contact denote a greater diversity of stimuli to which an individual has to respond... They secure a liberation of his powers which remain suppressed as long as the incitations to action are partial, as they must be in a group which in its exclusiveness shuts out many interests.3Throughout this paper, I use “democracy” in this sense; as a way of life, as a relational ethos, not as any particular political system. [End Page 40]As a way of life, democracy is both the process—the struggle—and that which we aim for. This feature of democracy is similar to the structure of Bildung, in which self-cultivation is both the process and the product.4 For example, for Wilhelm von Humboldt, an individual is in “continuing activity,” whose powers are never stagnant; humankind is always progressing, an infinite object.5 This is an end-in-view, not a fixed end.6 Humboldt “did not formulate a catalogue which prescribed what a person should know, what a person should read, what a person should have heard, what a person should have concerned himself with, so that one can say: this person has Bildung.”7 For Humboldt, Bildung is “the development of the capacities of the individual into a harmonious whole.”8 This paper, in part, looks at Hogue’s resilient democracy as a cultivation of both the individual and the group, as Bildung of both self and culture. In particular, the individual and culture that are being cultivated are relational, grounded in an emancipatory, equitable, and empathetic ethos, with a democratic way of life.Similar to the traditional Bildungstradition, education plays a vital role in this kind of democratic cultivation. If our end-in-view is a democratic society, then the method to reach that end must also be democratically ordered. Myles [End Page 41] Horton put it best: “When you believe in a democratic society, you provide a setting for education that is democratic.”9Modern Socratic Dialogue (MSD) is a particular method of philosophical dialogue that engages in and cultivates the ethos of resilient democracy. It cultivates empathy (in listening), pluralism (difference is accommodated and incorporated) and equity (insofar as no special knowledge is required), and anti-foundationalism (participants approach the conversation with epistemic humility, not trying to grasp a Truth as the ground of knowledge, but rather work together to form a common truth that comes out of their situatedness). These are all traits of Hogue’s resilient democracy, and all traits of an American Bildung, our self-correcting vulnerability, a way of being that replaces an unattainable ideal without sacrificing amelioration.Much like the tradition it addresses, this paper is layered; it is polyphonically pluralistic in method and structure. The many voices of this paper are first stratified and folded in... (shrink)

For over 150 years liberal optimism has dominated theories of war and violence. It has been repeatedly argued that war and violence either are declining or will shortly decline. There have been exceptions, especially in Germany and more generally in the first half of the twentieth century, but there has been a recent revival of such optimism, especially in the work of Azar Gat, John Mueller, Joshua Goldstein, and Steven Pinker who all perceive a long-term decline in war and violence (...) through history, speeding up in the post-1945 period. Critiquing Pinker’s statistics on war fatalities, I show that the overall pattern is not a decline in war, but substantial variation between periods and places. War has not declined and current trends are slightly in the opposite direction. The conventional view is that civil wars in the global South have largely replaced inter-state wars in the North, but this is misleading since there is major involvement in most civil wars by outside powers, including those of the North. There is more support for their view that homicide has declined in the long-term, at least in the North of the world (with the United States lagging somewhat). This is reinforced by technological improvements in long-distance weaponry and the two transformations have shifted war, especially in the North, from being “ferocious” to “callous” in character. This renders war less visible and less central to Northern culture, which has the deceptive appearance of being rather pacific. Viewed from the South the view has been bleaker both in the colonial period and today. Globally war and violence are not declining, but they are being transformed. (shrink)

This article puts forth Modern Socratic Dialogue as a pedagogical tool for cultivating an American Bildung. Beginning with Michael Hogue’s work on “resilient democracy,” an associational ethos that is vulnerable and based on our lived uncertainty. To further establish this American Bildung, I investigate what it means to be American. Drawing from the works of Michael Walzer and Gloria Anzaldúa, I establish that “American” means unfinished, pluralistic, and embraces ambiguity. The question of how to cultivate this pluralistic, ambiguous, and vulnerable (...) Bildung is framed by the freedom and social bonds of Wilhelm von Humboldt’s theory of Bildung. For an American Bildung to flourish, freedom and social bonds can be presented and practiced in the form of Modern Socratic Dialogue – “truths” are created by the community of interlocutors, and problems and solutions are based on the experiences of the participants. (shrink)

For John M. Anderson philosophy, as the love of wisdom, is a concern for what is ultimate. The essays in this volume take to heart this understanding of philosophy, and are therefore responses to the ultimate. The first four essays by Kaelin, Schrag, Baillif and Johnstone, deal with Anderson's own account of ultimacy as it is presented in his reflections on the aesthetic occasion, the experience of the sublime, on freedom and on insight. The concern for what is ultimate is (...) formulated differently by each of the other eight essays. Desmond articulates ways of our encounter with the ultimate by means of what he calls essential perplexity. Gendlin reflects on Aristotle's characterization of thinking as an activity that is ultimate. Biemel and Lingis present death as an aspect of the ultimate. Hersch sees our loss of meaning and value as the result of our refusal of finitude and thus of our denial of the ultimate which reveals itself in this finitude. Ginsberg initiates us into the ultimacy of the human encounter that is dialogue. Verene speaks of the ultimate through his account of the fool. For Kockelmans philosophy, unlike science, deals with what-is as it manifests itself in our encounter with our lived world which is a source of meaning, and in that sense an ultimate. Finally, John M. Anderson writes of the awareness of our becoming more than we are, and does so by bespeaking the origin of the dialogue we are. (shrink)

Utilizing the 1894 edition of Simplicius's commentary by J. L. Heiberg in the Commentaria in Aristotelem Graeca, and P. Moraux's 1965 edition of Aristotle's De Caelo, this translation continues a valuable project under the general editorship of R. Sorabji that offers English readers access to works by ancient commentators on Aristotle. By comparing pertinent printed editions and manuscripts, Mueller has maintained the highest standards in weighing variant readings. This is evidenced in the 500 notes, which include not only clarifications of (...) and justifications for particular readings of troublesome passages, but also Simplicius's likely sources along with corrections to misinterpretations of the author by later scholars. (shrink)

This book starts with the proposition that digital media invite play and indeed need to be played by their everyday users. Play is probably one of the most visible and powerful ways to appropriate the digital world. The diverse, emerging practices of digital media appear to be essentially playful: Users are involved and active, produce form and content, spread, exchange and consume it, take risks, are conscious of their own goals and the possibilities of achieving them, are skilled and know (...) how to acquire more skills. They share a perspective of can-do, a curiosity of what happens next? Play can be observed in social, economic, political, artistic, educational and criminal contexts and endeavours. It is employed as a strategy, for tacit or open resistance, as a method and productive practice, and something people do for fun. The book aims to define a particular contemporary attitude, a playful approach to media. It identifies some common ground and key principles in this novel terrain. Instead of looking at play and how it branches into different disciplines like business and education, the phenomenon of play in digital media is approached unconstrained by disciplinary boundaries. The contributions in this book provide a glimpse of a playful technological revolution that is a joyful celebration of possibilities that new media afford. This book is not a practical guide on how to hack a system or to pirate music, but provides critical insights into the unintended, artistic, fun, subversive, and sometimes dodgy applications of digital media. Contributions from Chris Crawford, Mathias Fuchs, Rilla Khaled, Sybille Lammes, Eva and Franco Mattes, Florian 'Floyd' Mueller, Michael Nitsche, Julian Oliver, and others cover and address topics such as reflective game design, identity and people's engagement in online media, conflicts and challenging opportunities for play, playing with cartographical interfaces, player-emergent production practices, the re-purposing of data, game creation as an educational approach, the ludification of society, the creation of meaning within and without play, the internalisation and subversion of roles through play, and the boundaries of play. (shrink)

The rapid development in healthcare technologies in recent years has resulted in the need for health services, whether publicly funded or insurance based, to identify means to maximise the benefits and provide equitable distribution of limited resources. This has resulted in the need for rationing decisions, and there has been considerable debate regarding the substantive and procedural ethical principles that promote distributive justice when making such decisions. In this paper, I argue that while the scientifically rigorous approaches of evidence-based healthcare (...) are claimed as aspects of procedural justice that legitimise such guidance, there are biases and distortions in all aspects of the process that may lead to epistemic injustices. Regardless of adherence to principles of distributive justice in the decision-making process, evidential failings may undermine the fairness and legitimacy of such decisions. In particular, I identify epistemic exclusion that denies certain patient and professional groups the opportunity to contribute to the epistemic endeavour. This occurs at all stages of the process, from the generation, analysis and reporting of the underlying evidence, through the interpretation of such evidence, to the decision-making that determines access to healthcare resources. I further argue that this is compounded by processes which confer unwarranted epistemic privilege on experts in relation to explicit or implicit value judgements, which are not within their remit. I suggest a number of areas in which changes to the processes for developing, regulating, reporting and evaluating evidence may improve the legitimacy of such processes. (shrink)

Many healthcare agencies are producing evidence-based guidance and policy that may determine the availability of particular healthcare products and procedures, effectively rationing aspects of healthcare. They claim legitimacy for their decisions through reference to evidence-based scientific method and the implementation of just decision-making procedures, often citing the criteria of ‘accountability for reasonableness’; publicity, relevance, challenge and revision, and regulation. Central to most decision methods are estimates of gains in quality-adjusted life-years, a measure that combines the length and quality of survival. (...) However, all agree that the QALY alone is not a sufficient measure of all relevant aspects of potential healthcare benefits, and a number of value assessment frameworks have been suggested. I argue that the practical implementation of these procedures has the potential to lead to a distorted assessment of value. Undue weight may be ascribed to certain attributes, particularly those that favour commercial or political interests, while other attributes that are highly valued by society, particularly those related to care processes, may be omitted or undervalued. This may be compounded by a lack of transparency to relevant stakeholders, resulting in an inability for them to participate in, or challenge, the decisions. The makes it likely that costly new technologies, for which inflated prices can be justified by the current value frameworks, are displacing aspects of healthcare that are highly valued by society. (shrink)

Bringing together historical and cultural perspectives on the senses, and their association with body, emotion, cultural memory and tradition, this book examines the significance of senses in the understanding of the world and the self. Further, in comparing Indian and western theories of senses, it highlights the anthropological, philosophical and religious underpinnings of our engagement with a changing world, globalization, and new media.

What is the cash value of Richard Rorty’s philosophy and politics of religion? This paper analyzes the political promise of Rorty’s shift from atheism to anticlericalism in the last decade of his life. It seeks to deliver primarily a concise summary of this shift, and of its transformative motivation. Then a critique of this shift is followed by the suggestion of a friendly amendment: its extension towards a pragmatic pluralism. The outlined Rortyan conception of a serene, and, at the same (...) time robust, politics of religion is proposed as a promising answer to the question of how secular liberal citizens should react to the “return of the gods.”. (shrink)

Studies in Hindu Law and Dharmaśāstra. By Ludo Rocher. Edited with an introduction by Donald R. Davis, Jr. Anthem South Asian Normative Traditions Studies. London: Anthem Press, 2012. Pp. 759. £80, $130.