Referenda have traditionally been anathema to Liberal theorists. On the basis of previously unpublished material it is suggested that the English constitutional theorist Albert Venn Dicey succeeded in developing an argument for a limited use of the referendum within the Liberal tradition. It is argued that Dicey's theory of the referendum can be seen as a part of a comprehensive theory of democracy which included considerations on political education. Dicey's theory is not only one of the few examples of a (...) political theory of the referendum, it also shows that Dicey was a prominent democratic theorist. (shrink)

ABSTRACT Walter Fisher's narrative paradigm has sparked intense debate about the role of narratives in rhetorical scholarship. The theory has subsequently been followed up by numerous criticisms and revisions. This article argues that especially the latter can benefit from a complementary phenomenological perspective that Fisher himself placed within the original paradigm. Through the Heideggerian concepts of building and dwelling, rhetoric within the narrative paradigm may be seen as a primary means for engaging with both individual and communal goals and exigencies, (...) providing a more nuanced account for how people care for and act on the narratives in their lives. (shrink)

This exciting new text presents the first overview of Jean Jacques Rousseau's work from a political science perspective. Was Rousseau--the great theorist of the French Revolution--really a conservative? This original study argues that the he was a constitutionalist much closer to Madison, Montesquieu, and Locke than to revolutionaries. Outlining his profound opposition to Godless materialism and revolutionary change, this book finds parallels between Rousseau and Burke, as well as showing how Rousseau developed the first modern theory of nationalism. The book (...) presents an integrated political analysis of Rousseau's educational, ethical, religious and political writings, and will be essential reading for students of politics, philosophy and the history of ideas. (shrink)

We have politics on our mind-or, rather, we have politics in different parts of our brains. In this path-breaking study, Matt Qvortrup takes the reader on a whistle stop tour through the fascinating, and sometimes frightening, world of neuropolitics; the discipline that combines neuroscience and politics, and is even being used to win elections. Putting the 'science' back into political science, The Political Brain shows how fMRI-scans can identify differences between Liberals and Conservatives, can predict our behaviour with sometimes (...) greater accuracy than surveys, and can explain the biology of uprisings, revolutions, and wars. Not merely a study of empirical evidence, the book shows how the philosophical theories of, among others, Plato, Aristotle, and Spinoza can be supported by brain scans. Along the way, it also provides an overview of the state-of-the-art knowledge of the organ that shapes our politics. The book shows that if we rely on evolutionary primitive parts of the midbrain-those engaged when we succumb to polarised politics-we stand in danger of squandering the gains we made through the last eight million years. (shrink)

Currently there is a clear trend towards questioning the traditional sovereign human self which for two hundred years has had an undisputed central status within European culture and philosophy. This challenges the tradition of anthropocentrism which in a Scandinavian computer science context has had two theoretical foundations: the workoriented design theory represented by the Scandinavian participatory design philosophy, and the idea of the computer to a rather passive medium for human communication. The process, reducing the computer to a rather passive (...) medium for human communication. The paper firstly examines these two theoretical anthropocentric positions. Secondly it outlines the trend towards challenging the status of the human self within different research contexts. This trend represents a challenge for Human-centred systems design. Finally, it discusses the new demands for conceptualising basic IT research phenomena created by this development, with particular focus on the issue of human-centredness as a systems design strategy. (shrink)

Theories of new materialism have gained increasing traction in the social and human sciences in recent decades, as thinkers like Donna Haraway, Bruno Latour and Jane Bennett have reinvigorated the philosophical interest in topics such as the agency of nonhuman matter, the relational nature of existence and the limitations of anthropocentric forms of inquiry. However, these theories have faced criticism from post-Marxist critical theorists, who argue that theories of new materialism blunt social and capitalist critique and promote obscurity by flattening (...) the world to a single ontological plane. In this article, I argue that these critiques rely on mischaracterizations of new materialist scholarship and that theories of new materialism can in fact help us re-examine – not reject, as their critics suggest – the role of critique, responsibility and human politics in the context of the Anthropocene and its unfolding ecological crises. (shrink)

According to Niklas Luhmann, causality is both an impossibility and a necessity in education. On the one hand, the task of the teacher is an impossible one, because teaching as communication is a closed system that cannot determine the learning of pupils' psychical system in any causal sense. On the other hand, one cannot practice as a teacher without a belief in causality, i.e., in a causal connection between teaching and learning. In his article “The Child as the Medium of (...) Education,” Luhmann focuses on the enablement of education, despite its impossibility. His answer is that one thing that makes education possible is the emergence of the symbolically generalized medium “the child.” In this article, Lars Qvortrup focuses on Luhmann's understanding of causality. According to Luhmann, causality is not a simple, ontological fact, but the result of the attribution of certain causes to certain effects. The conclusion is that causality as an attribution category — and not causality as an ontological fact — is another thing that makes education possible. Qvortrup also concludes, however, that Luhmann is not alone in criticizing the traditional, mechanical concept of causality. Other contemporary philosophers and sociologists have pointed out that in order to analyze causality in complex social systems, one has to select some causal factors and ignore others. While others do this based on seemingly pure scientific and statistical criteria, Luhmann focuses on attribution as a social construction of causality. (shrink)

This book places the European Referendum of 2016 into a historical context that began in the late nineteenth century through to the present day. It provides a constitutional and international perspective, and ask how far the original ideas lying behind the referendum were fulfilled in practice.

Covering definitions of key terms, important debates about literature and the world and the many forms of literature today, this is a comprehensive introduction to key topics in the study of literature, criticism and theory.

This article examines the supposedly incomprehensibility of schizophrenic delusions. According to the contemporary classificatory systems (DSM-IV-TR and ICD-10), some delusions typically found in schizophrenia are considered bizarre and incomprehensible. The aim of this article is to discuss the notion of understanding that deems these delusions incomprehensible and to see if it is possible to comprehend these delusions if we apply another notion of understanding. First, I discuss the contemporary schizophrenia definitions and their inherent problems, and I argue that the notion (...) of incomprehensibility in these definitions rests heavily on Jaspers’ notions of understanding and empathy. Secondly, I discuss two Wittgensteinian attempts to comprehend bizarre delusions: (a) Campbell’s proposal to conceive delusions as framework propositions and (b) Sass’s suggestion to interpret delusions in the light of solipsism. Finally, I discuss the phenomenological conception of schizophrenia, which conceives delusion formation as resulting from alterations of the structure of experiencing and from underlying self-disorders. I argue that although a psychological understanding that seeks to grasp meaning in terms of motivations, desires, and other more straightforward psychological connections between mental states is impossible in schizophrenia, we can in fact have a philosophical understanding of the schizophrenic world and of the emergence of delusions typically found in schizophrenia. (shrink)

Context: A central motivation behind various embodied, extended, and enactive (4E) approaches to cognition is to ground our understanding of minds and cognition within the biological structures that give rise to life. Because of this, their advocates often claim a natural kinship with dynamical and developmental systems theories. However, these accounts also explicitly or implicitly privilege individual organisms in ways that contrast with many of the insights of systems and developmental systems approaches to biology. Problem: The prioritization of individual organisms (...) within 4E approaches to cognition contrasts with the default entangled structure of biological systems associated with cognitive agency. We provide means for 4E cognitive science to move beyond an individual-centred view of cognitive agency. Method: We first identify and problematize individual-centredness within various predominant 4E approaches by comparison with biological research and developmental systems theory. Subsequently, we offer conceptual resources from the field of ecological research for understanding cognitive agency beyond the predominant focus on individual organisms. Results: Cognitive agency may be understood without privileging individual organisms by reading nonequilibrium maintenance in terms of a dynamic differentiation instead of individual organismic autonomy. This form of organizational structure corresponds to the notion of sympoiesis from ecological research. Implications: Approaching cognitive agency without privileging individual organisms should be invaluable to advocates of 4E cognition seeking to ground notions of cognition and mind within contemporary biological research. Constructivist content: We seek to expand upon existing constructivist perspectives on the organizing principles of cognitive agency, such as sensorimotor embodiment and autopoiesis, arguing that meta-organismic cognitive agents (including humans) embody distributed relations beyond the privileging of individual organisms. Key words: 4E cognition, autopoiesis, cognitive agency, developmental systems theory, enactivism, extended mind thesis, holobionts, sympoeisis. (shrink)

Auditory verbal hallucinations form an essential criterial feature in the schizophrenia definition in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders -IV and International Classification of Diseases -10. In both classificatory systems, the presence of a hallucinatory voice that continuously comments the patient’s behavior or thoughts, or the presence of several voices that discuss the patient with each other, is a sufficient criterion to diagnose schizophrenia. The DSM-IV defines a hallucination as “a sensory perception that has the..

Research in psychopathology is booming in an unprecedented way, at least, in terms of increasing number of publications. Yet, a few questions arise: Does quantity also give us quality? Are the collected data generally of sound quality? How are data typically collected in psychopathology? Are the applied methods of data collection appropriate for this particular field of study? This article explores three different methods of data collection in psychopathology, namely self-rating scales, structured interviews, and semi-structured, phenomenological interviews. To identify the (...) most adequate methodological approach, we first establish the nature of the object of psychopathology and then we critically assess each method’s appropriateness to this field of study. We emphasize fundamental issues that make self-rating scales and structured interviews unfit for the task of adequately examining psychopathology. By contrast, we propose that a semi-structured, phenomenological interview presents a more appropriate method. Finally, we describe two types of semi-structured, phenomenological interviews that can be applied to assess and explore psychopathology, respectively. (shrink)

Bruineberg and colleagues argue that a realist interpretation of Markov blankets inadvertently relies upon unfounded assumptions. However, insofar as their diagnosis is accurate, their prescribed instrumentalism may ultimately prove insufficient as a complete remedy. Drawing upon a process-based perspective on living systems, we suggest a potential way to avoid some of the assumptions behind problems described by Bruineberg and colleagues.

Enactive approaches to psychiatry have recently argued for an understanding of psychiatric conditions based within relational interactions between individuals and their environments. A central motivation for these enactive approaches is the goal of social integration: the integration of a naturalistic approach to psychiatric conditions with their broader sociocultural dimensions. One possible issue, however, is whether appeals to the autonomy and authenticity of relationally constituted enactive individuals can provide a means of adjudicating between harmful and beneficial social constraints upon individual behaviour. (...) This paper seeks to provide enactive approaches to psychiatry with a possible means of evaluating normative influences of social contexts beyond direct interactions with relationally constituted individuals. Some of the most significant influences of the sociocultural dimension of psychiatric conditions consist not in direct interaction with individuals, but in setting the terms for interactions and interactants alike. Insofar as some social influences precede and predefine dyadic relations between individuals and their social context, these cannot be accounted for as features of interactions, but must be assessed as independent structures of the sociocultural dimension. I will provide one potential means for enactive models to assess social norms using Canguilhem’s distinction between health and pathology. I will argue that Canguilhem’s conceptualization of health in terms of adaptive normative structure provides a potential tool for social integration which strongly complements enactive approaches to psychiatry. (shrink)

In "The Aesthetics of Imagination in Design," Mads Folkmann investigates design in both material and immaterial terms.

Islamic philosophy; Muslim philosophers; biography.

In this article, we describe the history and impact of the Center for Subjectivity Research since its inception in 2002 and until 2020. From its very beginning, cfs was structured to facilitate and carry out interdisciplinary research on human subjectivity, taking phenomenology as an important source of inspiration. We cover some of the most important research areas in which cfs has had a national and international impact. These include developing the field of existential hermeneutics, opening a dialogue between phenomenology and (...) analytic philosophy, creating a multi-dimensional account of the self, exploring the interrelations between I, you and we, and conceptualizing and assessing self-disorders in schizophrenia spectrum disorders. Over the years, research at cfs has demonstrated the vitality of the phenomenological tradition, and shown how phenomenology can contribute to contemporary theoretical and scientific debates. (shrink)

Constitutions; constitutional law; philosophical aspects; comparative study.

The article explores whether sociotechnical imaginaries of digitalization as inevitable accelerating development can be traced in Denmark’s official policy papers concerning digitalization 2015–2020. It identifies imperatives of speed, acceleration and agility equal to what has been described as a corporate data imaginary as well as tropes of an imaginary of the fourth industrial revolution and inevitable exponential technological development and disruption. The empirical analysis discovers a shift in the studied period mid-2018, before which inevitabilism is prominent and after which the (...) focus on non-economic values increases and the aim of influencing the development, instead of adapting to it, emerges. The article then addresses how imperatives of acceleration and narratives of inevitabilism may be considered problematic from a democratic point of view employing Hartmut Rosa’s critical diagnosis of the acceleration society and the notion of discursive closure. Finally, it discusses the empirical findings in light of technological determinism and constructivism inherent in the notion of sociotechnical imaginaries and introduces a sociotechnical selectionist theory allowing both for human agency in technological development while also providing a mechanism for explaining the emergence of law-like technological trends, as Moore’s Law, at macro level. (shrink)

Many degree programs in science and engineering aim at enabling their students to perform interdisciplinary problem solving. In this paper we present three types of expertise that are involved in different ways in interdisciplinary problem solving. In doing so we shall first characterise two important epistemological challenges commonly faced in interdisciplinary problem solving, namely the communication challenge that arises from the use of different concepts within different scientific domains, and the integration challenge that arises from the differences between domain-specific epistemological (...) standards. Next, drawing on recent work on expertise developed within science studies, we characterize the interactional expertise that is a precondition for scientists to communicate across scientific domains, and the integrational expertise that is a precondition for scientists to be able to integrate cognitive resources originating in different domains. Finally, we shall analyse how different types of interdisciplinary problem solving sets different requirements for interactional and integrational expertise and discuss the implications for science and engineering programs in higher education. (shrink)

Open peer commentary on the article “A Moving Boundary, a Plastic Core: A Contribution to the Third Wave of Extended-Mind Research” by Timotej Prosen. Abstract: We explore both some novel claims made by Prosen’s account of plastic cores and some overlaps between his and other accounts of third-wave extended mind. In the first instance we discuss whether the Markov blanket formalism should be regarded as incompatible with a third-wave extended view. Secondly, we discuss whether Prosen’s proposal of a plastic core (...) quite meets the radical departure of the third wave from organism-centeredness - or whether Prosen’s contribution might be more aptly considered as a compromise between second- and third-wave extended mind. (shrink)

We delineate the distinctness of sympoiesis from adaptive notions of autopoiesis and explain why we see it as helpful to the exploration and explanation of agentive and adaptive cognitive systems.

SUMMARYThis article discusses the works of the first two lecturers on natural law in Copenhagen, Henrik Weghorst and Christian Reitzer. Contrary to the existing scholarship which characterises their works as derivative of either Grotius or Pufendorf, the article argues that the character and significance of these works can only be grasped when understood in light of the local intellectual traditions which they built upon. Seen against this background, it becomes clear that Weghorst and Reitzer developed significantly different theories of natural (...) law, disagreeing on such fundamental issues as the definition of law, the moral good, and the role of sociality in natural law. Following a tradition of Christian natural law in Kiel, Weghorst developed a theory of natural law fundamentally critical of the secularising theories of Grotius and Pufendorf, while Reitzer followed Pufendorf and his disciple Christian Thomasius in Halle. The article concludes by indicating how Weghorst’s and Reitzer’s works established the framework for discussions of natural law in the first decades of the eighteenth century, suggesting the need for further research into the significance of natural law for the early enlightenment in Denmark–Norway. (shrink)

In two experimental studies we explore to what extent the general effects of positive and negative framing also apply to positive and negative persuasion. Our results reveal that negative persuasion induces substantially higher levels of skepticism and awareness of being subjected to a persuasion attempt. Furthermore, we demonstrate that in positive persuasion, more claims lead to stronger persuasion, while in negative persuasion, the numerosity of claims carries no significant effect. We interpret this finding along the lines of a satiety-model of (...) persuasion. Finally, using diluted, or low strength claims in a persuasion attempt, we reveal a significant interaction between dispositional reactance and dilution of claims on persuasion knowledge. The interaction states that diluted claims increase the awareness of being subjected to a persuasion attempt, but only for those with a high dispositional level of reactance. (shrink)