Work is fundamental to human society and modern organizations, and consequently has been central to the thinking of major social theorists and social science disciplines. This book offers a 'one-stop-shop' guide to classical and contemporary perspectvies of work written by leading international experts. Schools covered include: Weberian, Marxian, Durkheimian, feminist, neo-classical economics, institutional economics, ethics, Foucauldian, postmodernist, organizational sociology and economic sociology. Each chapter traces the origins of the theoretical school, reviews seminal contributions,and considers major criticisms of the approach. In (...) addition, the book features a section on key aspects of work - professions, technology, identity and globalisation - to which these theories have been applied. The book makes a major contribution in a number of ways: · Provides systematic coverage of major social and economic theories and the way they aid our understanding of work;· Includes a section of chapters that consider, in an applied way, how social theories have helped the analysis of key substantive areas of work;· Includes contributions from leading academics from both Europe and the USA; · Each chapter can be read as free-standing summary of a particular school of theoretical approach;· In addition, the introductory and concluding chapters examine themes cross-cutting the other chapters in the book.It is an essential text for academics and advanced students concerned with the sociology of work, management, and organization studies. (shrink)

Can we see the expressiveness of other people's gestures, hear the intentions in their voice, see the emotions in their posture? Traditional theories of social cognition still say we cannot because intentions and emotions for them are hidden away inside and we do not have direct access to them. Enactive theories still have no idea because they have so far mainly focused on perception of our physical world. We surmise, however, that the latter hold promise since, in trying to understand (...) cognition, enactive theory focuses on the embodied engagements of a cognizer with his world. In this paper, we attempt an answer for the question What is social perception in an enactive account? In enaction, perception is conceived as a skill, crucially involving action, an ability to work successfully within the set of regularities, or contingencies that characterize a given domain. If this is the case, then social perception should be a social skill. Having thus transformed the question of what social perception is into that of what social skill is, we examine the concept of social contingencies and the manner in which social skills structure—both constrain and empower— social interaction. Some of the implications of our account for how social and physical perception differ, the role of embodiment in social interaction and the distinction between our approach and other social contingency theories are also addressed. (shrink)

Enactive and ecological approaches to cognitive science both claim a “mutuality” between agents and their environments – that they have a complementary nature and should be addressed as a single whole system. Despite this apparent agreement, each offers criticisms of the other on precisely this point – enactivists claiming that ecological psychologists over-emphasise the environment, while the complementary criticism, of agent-centred constructivism, is levelled by ecological psychologists at enactivists. In this paper I suggest that underlying the confusion between the two (...) approaches is the complexity of agency, which comes in different forms, at different scales or levels of analysis. Cognitive science has not theorised the relationship between these different forms in a sufficiently disciplined manner, and a task therefore remains of finding a way to map the complex territory of agency. (shrink)

Descriptions of bodies within the literature of the enactive approach to cognitive science exhibit an interesting dialectical tension. On the one hand, a body is considered to be a unity which instantiates an identity, forming an intrinsic basis for value. On the other, a living body is in a reciprocally defining relationship with the environment, and is therefore immersed and entangled with, rather than distinct from, its environment. In this paper I examine this tension, and its implications for the enactive (...) approach, particularly the enactive conceptions of life and bodies. Following the lead of others, I argue that enactive cognitive science can benefit from a deeper reading and integration with extant work on the complexity and multiplicity of the living body within feminist philosophy and feminist science studies. (shrink)

Perceptual modalities have been traditionally considered the product of dedicated biological systems producing information for higher cognitive processing. Psychological and neuropsychological evidence is offered which undermines this point of view and an alternative account of modality from the enactive approach to understanding cognition is suggested. Under this view, a perceptual modality is a stable form of perception which is structured not just by the biological sensitivities of the agent, but by their goals and the set of skills or expertise which (...) they are deploying at a given time. Such a view suggests that there is no such thing as an experience that is purely visual, auditory, or otherwise modal and that our attempts to understand consciousness and the mind must be conducted within a framework that provides an account of embodied, goal-directed adaptive coping with the world. (shrink)

The origin and early evolution of animals marks an important event in life's history. This event is historically associated with an important variable in Earth history – oxygen. One view has it that an increase in oceanic oxygen levels at the end of the Neoproterozoic Era (roughly 600 million years ago) allowed animals to become large and leave fossils. How important was oxygen for the process of early animal evolution? New data show that some modern sponges can survive for several (...) weeks at low oxygen levels. Many groups of animals have mechanisms to cope with low oxygen or anoxia, and very often, mitochondria – organelles usually associated with oxygen – are involved in anaerobic energy metabolism in animals. It is a good time to refresh our memory about the anaerobic capacities of mitochondria in modern animals and how that might relate to the ecology of early metazoans. (shrink)

The world of Jedi is very different from our own, that their awareness of the universe is more encompassing, richer. The Jedi call that mystical aspect of reality they perceive the Force. Jedi younglings and padawans must put their body to new uses, perform new tasks, and learn new skills in physical activities that have profound effects on the way they see the world around them. What the Jedi say more than anything else about the Force is that it flows. (...) Jedi who are able to coordinate their actions with that flow can work with the full potency of the universal relationship between all things. Jedi do not need a special Force‐organ to perceive the Force. The Force is not something Jedi just see, or hear, or taste, or touch, but rather it is something they experience on its own terms, probably using their whole body to do it. (shrink)

In the last two decades, major cities in Malaysia have witnessed a spate of urban redevelopment including commercial and retail complexes, and residential estates. The current urban transformations taking place in Malaysian cities are mainly market-driven and characterized by fast-track development with a strong priority on the road infrastructure. This is a typical example of an intensive property-led development that is becoming a central driver of the national economy. This article provides a deeper understanding of the complexity of urban development (...) in Malaysia. Here, the major aim is to understand the Malaysian cities' transitions in the trajectory of their colonial past, national identity, multi-cultural community, culture, and religion. Focusing on South East Asian urbanism, this article determines how internal and external forces and global trends such as neoliberalism and property-led development affect the transformation of urban landscapes and expansions in Malaysia. The outcomes of this paper will indicate how much property-led development and globalisation have affected the traditional and tropical climate-responsive urban environment in Malaysia. It will also identify sustainable design and planning measures that should be implemented in the cities of Malaysia to combat the ill-effects of globalisation. (shrink)

The enactive approach to cognitive science involves frequent references to “action” without making clear what is intended by the term. In particular, though autopoiesis is seen as a foundation for teleology in the enactive literature, no definition or account is offered of goals which can encompass not just descriptions of biological maintenance, but the range of social and cultural activities in which human beings continually engage. The present paper draws primarily on the work of Juarrero (Dynamics in action. Cambridge, MA: (...) MIT Press, 1999) and Donald (Origins of the modern mind. London: Wiedenfeld & Nicolson, 1991) in an attempt to offer the broad outlines of an account of goals and goal-directedness which is consistent with the enactive approach and which explicates several forms of goal-directedness exhibited by human beings. Four stages of cognitive evolution described by Donald are examined for characteristic mechanisms of adaptivity and goal-directedness. Implications for an enactive theory of meaning are discussed. (shrink)

The contributions gathered here demonstrate how categorical ontology can provide a basis for linking three important basic sciences: mathematics, physics, and philosophy. Category theory is a new formal ontology that shifts the main focus from objects to processes. The book approaches formal ontology in the original sense put forward by the philosopher Edmund Husserl, namely as a science that deals with entities that can be exemplified in all spheres and domains of reality. It is a dynamic, processual, and non-substantial ontology (...) in which all entities can be treated as transformations, and in which objects are merely the sources and aims of these transformations. Thus, in a rather surprising way, when employed as a formal ontology, category theory can unite seemingly disparate disciplines in contemporary science and the humanities, such as physics, mathematics and philosophy, but also computer and complex systems science. (shrink)

The aim of this article is to reconstruct Bocheński’s method of philosophical analysis as well as to clarify the purpose of that method and its basic elements. In the second part of the paper I will compare Bocheński’s method with the methods of modern applied ontology.

Artykuł podejmuje zagadnienie relacji między językoznawstwem a logiką. Punktem wyjścia są dyskusje między logikami a językoznawcami, które miały miejsce w ostatnich kilkunastu latach. W artykule poddano analizie wzmiankowane dyskusje i wskazano, że faktycznie wkradają się w nie nieporozumienia; spróbowano również dokładniej określić domenę logiki i ukazać, że różni się ona zasadniczo od domenyjęzykoznawstwa.

The author proves that rejecting the existence of permissive norms and limitation of norms to prohibitions and commands alone is possible only with reducing the idea of a function. The essence of the function is then the ability of the expression to generate independently the universal norm formation. Such manipulation is easy on the level of logical analysis, but proves risky from other points of view. If we want the deontic logic, which we construct, to consider the fact that permission (...) is pragmatically necessary for the law-maker to convey his normative preferences, we must solve the consequences of the adopted structure of the function of norms, which originate on the socio-linguistic level. It appears, however, that due to a lack of a pragmatic theory useful for lawyers, there is no proof that the pragmatically strong permission can be expressed by means of a lot of prohibitions and commands (dos and don’ts). Besides, reducing permissions only to the language of legal rules is an obligation to accept the structure of an act of communication, which can find its full motivation in the Husserl’s structure of the direct cognition. (shrink)

Ponieważ każda księga heglowskiej "Logiki" przedstawia tylko jej właściwy sposób przejawiania się bytu, więc zakłada ona także - określoną przez ten sposób przejawiania się bytu - charakterystyczną wykładnię prawdy. Niedowolna kolejność poszczególnych ksiąg określa wtedy także porządek, w jaki układają się założone w nich wykładnie prawdy. Skorelowanie klasycznej i innych wykładni prawdy z odpowiednimi księgami "Logiki" pozwala więc wykorzystać porządek "Logiki” do odtworzenia struktury całości prawdy, tzn. także do objaśnienia miejsca, jakie klasyczna wykładnia zajmuje zarówno w obrębie całości prawdy, jak (...) i wśród wykładni pozostałych. (shrink)

Logic, language and information integration is one of areas broadly explored nowadays and at the same time promising. Authors use that approach in their 8 years long research into Structured Semantic Knowledge Base System. The aim of this paper is to present authors idea of system capable of generating synergy effect while storing various type of information. The key assumption, which has been adopted, is the thesis that the attempt to find universal way of the reality description is very inefficient (...) solution. Combination of several solutions into one system must be based on the principle of supporting rather than on redundancy, ambiguity or mutual antagonism areas of logic, language and information. Natural language processing in the context of logics or information processing is ineffective, not to say pointless in the means of certainty. It is simply caused by the fact that natural languages have been formed long time ago as the main communication channel, rather than for automatic information processing. It was one of the reasons that logic has been founded as the universal language of mathematics and formalized communication in more extensive sense. Information processing however brought more sophisticated problems that mathematics could not smoothly solve, what made computer science appear. Studies over artificial intelligence revealed even more complex issues to solve. The unity of those three areas: logics, language and information is a necessity to acquire complementarity and synergy. (shrink)

The article reviews the book Osoba—fikcja czy rzeczywistość? Tożsamość i jedność ja w świetle badań neurologicznych [Persons: Fiction or Reality? The Identity and Unity of the “Self” in the Light of Neurological Research] 2nd ed., by Józef Bremer.

The article reviews the book Osoba—fikcja czy rzeczywistość? Tożsamość i jedność ja w świetle badań neurologicznych [Persons: Fiction or Reality? The Identity and Unity of the “Self” in the Light of Neurological Research] 2nd ed., by Józef Bremer.

The article reviews the book Osoba—fikcja czy rzeczywistość? Tożsamość i jedność ja w świetle badań neurologicznych [Persons: Fiction or Reality? The Identity and Unity of the “Self” in the Light of Neurological Research] 2nd ed., by Józef Bremer.

The article reviews the book of Jason Stanley, Know How. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011.

The article reviews the book of Jason Stanley, Know How. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011.

An article is an introductory analysis of concept of religious belief in the language of logic. In its first part, there is a comparison of the concept of religious belief with the concept of scientific belief, next part is a presentation and analysis of Bocheński’s conception of rationality of religious beliefs, and the third part of article is an attempt of analysis of Aquinas conception of faith in the light of contemporary logic.

Celem artykułu jest ukazanie złożonego i w dotychczasowych dyskusjach rzadko analizowanego charakteru niewiary religijnej. Artykuł dotyczy pojęć wiary i niewiary religijnej w ujęciu Stanisława Judyckiego i św. Tomasza z Akwinu. Ukazano, że między ich poglądami zachodzi spora zbieżność, mimo odmiennych punktów wyjścia ich filozofowania. Omówiono cztery składniki wiary religijnej wyróżnione przez Judyckiego (przekonania o istnieniu Boga, postawę moralną polegającą na pragnieniu dobra, zaufanie do Boga i świadomość obecności Boga), a następnie pokazano złożony charakter niewiary religijnej, którą może determinować brak przynajmniej (...) jednego ze składników wiary. (shrink)

Artykuł podejmuje polemikę z obiegowym rozumieniem tolerancji. Autor podkreśla znaczenie podziału na tolerancję jako postawę i na dyskursy o tolerancji. Następnie, w nawiązaniu i częściowo w dyskusji z koncepcją tolerancji zaproponowaną przez Iję Lazari Pawłowską, przedstawione jest rozróżnienie trzech odmian tolerancji, a także rozróżnienie odpowiednich trzech odmian nietolerancji. Rozważane są również niektóre paradoksy związane z tolerancją oraz ze zwalczaniem nietolerancji.

This paper commemorates thepresentation of the honorary doctorate, in May2001 by the University of ód, toProfessor Andrzej Walicki. On this occasion,the Honorary Graduate delivered a lecturedevoted to his first philosophy teacher –Sergej Iosifovich Hessen, a prominent RussianNeo-Kantian philosopher and a liberal inmatters social and political. I try to analyzethe main features of Hessen''s philosophicalneo-Kantianism, in particular the inevitabilityof a choice between the absolute and therelative both in epistemology and in ethics inthe context of contemporary philosophy.

The article reviews the book Value and Virtue in a Godless Universe, by Erik J. Wielenberg.

Kuala Lumpur is a diverse city representing many different religions and nationalities. Recent government policy has actively promoted unity and cohesion throughout the city; and the country of Malaysia, with the implementation of a programme called 1Malaysia. In this book, the authors investigate the aims of this programme – predominantly to unify the Malaysian society – and how these objectives resonate in the daily spatial practices of the city’s residents. -/- This book argues that elements of urban infrastructure could work (...) as an essential mediator ‘beyond community’, allowing inclusive social structures to be built, despite cultural and religious tensions existing within the city. It builds on the premise of an empirical study which explores the ways in which different communities use the same spaces, supported through the implementation of a theoretical framework which looks at both Western and Islamic conceptualisations of the notion of community. Through the analysis of Kuala Lumpur, this book contributes towards the creation of more inclusive places in multi-ethnic, multi-cultural and multi-religious communities across the world. (shrink)

This book develops a new approach to naturalizing phenomenology. The author proposes to integrate phenomenology with the mechanistic framework that offers new methodological perspectives for studying complex mental phenomena such as consciousness. While mechanistic explanatory models are widely applied in cognitive science, their approach to describing subjective phenomena is limited. The author argues that phenomenology can fill this gap. He proposes two novel ways of integrating phenomenology and mechanism. First, he presents a new reading of phenomenological analyses as functional analyses. (...) Such functional phenomenology delivers a functional sketch of a target system and provides constraints on the space of possible mechanisms. Second, he develops the neurophenomenological approach in the direction of dynamic modeling of experience. He shows that neurophenomenology can deliver dynamical constraints on mechanistic models and thus inform the search for an underlying mechanism. (shrink)

We investigate under what conditions contrary-to-duty (CTD) structures lacking temporal and action elements can be given a coherent reading. We argue, contrary to some recent proposals, that CTD is not an instance of defeasible reasoning, and that methods of nonmonotonic logics are inadequate since they are unable to distinguish between defeasibility and violation of primary obligations. We propose a semantic framework based on the idea that primary and CTD obligations are obligations of different kinds: a CTD obligation pertains to, or (...) pre-supposes, a certain context in which a primary obligation is already violated. This framework is presented initially as an extension of Standard Deontic Logic (SDL), a normal modal logic of type KD, and is illustrated by application to a series of examples. The concluding section is concerned with some resemblances between CTD and defeasible reasoning. We show first that the SDL-based framework contains a flaw and must be adjusted. A discussion of possible adjustments, including an alternative treatment in terms of a preference-based semantics, reveals difficulties that are reminiscent of problems in defeasible reasoning and intensional accounts of defeasible conditionals. (shrink)

In the article I discuss functionalist interpretations of Husserlian phenomenology. The first one was coined in the discussion between Hubert Dreyfus and Ronald McIntyre. They argue that Husserl’s phenomenology shares similarities with computational functionalism, and the key similarity is between the concept of noema and the concept of mental representation. I show the weaknesses of that reading and argue that there is another available functionalist reading of Husserlian phenomenology. I propose to shift perspective and approach the relation between phenomenology and (...) functionalism from a methodological perspective, specifically taking into account the functionalist explanatory strategy called functional analysis. I discuss the notion of function in Husserl’s works and Husserl’s idea of functional phenomenology. The key argument I develop is that in functional phenomenology we can find an explanatory strategy which is analogous to the strategy of functional decomposition used in functional analysis. I conclude that the proposed functionalist reading of phenomenology opens a new approach to the integration of phenomenology with cognitive sciences. (shrink)

According to recent discussion, cross-explanatory integration in cognitive science might proceed by constraints on mechanistic and dynamic-mechanistic models provided by different research fields. However, not much attention has been given to constraints that could be provided by the study of first-person experience, which in the case of multifaceted mental phenomena are of key importance. In this paper, we fill this gap and consider the question whether information about first-person experience can constrain dynamic-mechanistic models and what the character of this relation (...) is. We discuss two cases of such explanatory models in neuroscience, namely that of migraine and of epilepsy. We argue that, in these cases, first-person insights about the target phenomena significantly contributed to explanatory models by shaping explanatory hypotheses and by indicating the dynamical properties that the explanatory models of these phenomena should account for, and thus directly constraining the space of possible explanations. (shrink)

The document titled “14 points of Wilson” was announced by the President of the United States Woodrow Wilson in his speech addressed to the United States Congress on 8th January 1918. The speech is one of the most well known documents of the First World War as it touched upon several world issues. The text has been interpreted ever since in respect to the importance and real meaning of points formulated by Wilson. One of the points referred to Poland. The (...) aim of the paper is to focus on the exponents of deontic modality used in that text of historical value and to find the answer to the question concerning the deontic value of each point. The analysis will encompass the principles of deontic logic as well as the meaning of deontic modals in legal discourse at the time of speech delivery as those 14 points should be classified as a text belonging to legal genres. The aim of the paper is to present the historical background and the linguistic analysis in order to find out whether historical facts, interpretations and language used correspond with one another. (shrink)