SummaryIn the 1780s the anatomist Vincenzo Malacarne discussed the possibility of testing experimentally whether experience can induce significant changes in the brain. Malacarne imagined taking two littermate animals and giving intensive training to one while the other received none, then dissecting their brains to see whether the trained animal had more folds in the cerebellum than the untrained one. This experimental design somewhat anticipated one used 180 years later by Mark R. Rosenzweig at the University of California, Berkeley. This paper (...) explores some methodological aspects of the case study just outlined by pointing out that our grounds for being interested in it are neither merely neuroscientific (for, strictly speaking, Malacarne's proposal was false) nor narrowly historical (for there is no causal chain linking Malacarne's ideas to Rosenzweig's experiment). Rather, the really interesting point here is to what extent Malacarne's ideas are similar to Rosenzweig's, a point that we can better investigate by employing certain conceptual tools borrowed typically (but not exclusively) from (a certain kind of) philosophy. If we do not handle the analogy with care, we run the risk of ‘discovering’ nothing but void platitudes or anachronistically misleading common features. (shrink)

In the Freedom Essay, Schelling provides four different accounts of the copula, two of which are largely implicit. In this paper, I focus on the first of these accounts, which I call the "mediated account." I argue that this explanation of the copula articulates a fundamental ontological structure in Schelling's philosophy. In the first half of the paper, I analyze the structural features of the account, drawing on Schelling's more extensive treatment in the Ages of the World. In the second (...) half of the paper, I argue that Schelling's fundamental distinction between that-which-exists and the ground of existence exhibits the same structure as the mediated account of the copula. This has implications for understanding the enigmatic relationship of these two principles to the Ungrund. I conclude by briefly suggesting other applications of this fundamental structure in Schelling's philosophy. (shrink)

This article focuses on tracing and extending Michel Foucault’s contributions to the philosophy of technology. At first sight his work on power seems the most relevant. In his later work on subjectivation and ethics technology is absent. However, notably by recombining Foucault’s work on power with his work on subjectivation, does his work contribute to solving pertinent problems in current approaches to the ethics of technology. First, Foucault’s position is compared to critical theory and Heidegger, and associated with the approach (...) of “technical mediation” (Latour, Ihde, Verbeek). Next, a detailed study of Discipline and Punish , results in the identification of two distinct “figures of technical mediation”. Finally, Foucault’s later work on ethics and subjectivation is employed to elaborate an ethics of technology that focuses on care for the quality of the interactions and fusions with technology. Hybridization is central in the approach: it is not to be rejected, neither is it the greatest danger, but it does deserve the greatest care. (shrink)

This book is a critical introduction to code and software that develops an understanding of its social and philosophical implications in the digital age. Written specifically for people interested in the subject from a non-technical background, the book provides a lively and interesting analysis of these new media forms.

Many of our hermeneutic, literary critic, and poststructuralist ideas on mediation imply that the medium determines how a textual or narrative account must be taken. In contrast to these, Émmanuel Lévinas suggests that responsibility for the other person is not determined by the medium. Responsibility is already established in proximity to the other person; a relationship that we as moral subjects need to ethically understand. In relation to Primo Levi’s memoir of survival in Auschwitz, If this is a Man, (...) this article show in what ways Slavoj Žižek’s and Hayden White’s aesthetic ideas on mediation make us unprepared to take on the responsibility for the other person that Lévinas shows us. (shrink)

My intention in this paper is to answer two quite separate questions in a single interpretational narrative: a) about the philosophical content of Gernot Böhme’s expressis verbis—and, at times, “between the lines”—reference to the legacy of critical theory, and b) Böhme’s use of interesting mediatory devices to combine three different philosophical discourses: the philosophy of science, ethics and aesthetics. The three are in fact related—after all, Horkheimer ran comparisons between “traditional” and “critical” theory, Adorno is the father of the original (...) aesthetical theory, and Habermas laid the ground for what we call “discursive ethics”—but this is a matter for separate and broader treatment. In this perforce shorter paper I will only attempt some initial reflections on the subject. (shrink)

René Guénon, metaphysician -- Ananda Coomaraswamy and traditional art -- Rudolf Otto, the East, and religious inclusivism -- Mircea Eliade and C.G. Jung: 'priests without surplices'? -- Allen Ginsberg, a Buddhist beat -- Swami Abhishiktananda, Fr. Jules Monchanin, and the Christian-Hindu encounter -- Frithjof Schuon, a sage for the times.

시간적이고 자기부정적인 현존의 성격을 가진 언어는 정신의 운동과정을 매개하는 탁월한 위상을 점한다. 필자는 본고에서 이러한 성격을 가진 언어가 어떤 의미에서 정신의 ‘매체’로 기능하는지를 헤겔의 『인륜성의 체계』와 『정신현상학』을 중심으로 논하고자 한다. 필자는 우선 언어가 정신을 외화하는, 정신에 종속된 도구라는 통상적 견해에 맞서서, 우선 정신의 운동 자체가 외화와 내화라는 동등한 두 측면을 가지고 있음과 정신 스스로 자신을 매체화하는 운동을 펼침을 논의의 일반적인 토대로서 밝힌다 (2절). 이러한 논의를 토대로, 필자는 『인륜성의 체계』에서 발화된 언어로서의 말은 관념성과 실재성의 측면을 동시에 지니고 있는 것으로서 그 자체로 (...) 이성성을 지닌 매체이고, 언어를 사용하는 지성적 존재자들을 잇는 언어적 의사소통의 가능성 조건임을 밝힌다 (3절). 이러한 발화 언어의 성격은 역사철학적 견지에서 실체에서 주체에로 정신의 형태 변화를 서술하는 『정신현상학』의 ‘근대성’ 기획에서 주요한 위상을 차지하게 된다. 필자는 정신의 역사철학적 형태변화에서 매체로서의 언어가 갖는 이러한 역할이 특히 명시적으로 서술된 ‘예술종교’ 장에서 언어가 담당하는 기능을 해명한다 (4절). (shrink)

헤겔은 『법철학』에서 의회와 공론장을 “국가”의 핵심적인 제도로서 다룬다. 헤겔의 논의가 통상적인 자유주의적인 논의와 상당한 차이를 보이는 까닭에, 그 이론적인 근거를 규명하려는 노력이 다각도로 이루어져 왔다. 본 논문은 이 주제와 관련해 반성과 매개의 개념에 주목한다. 의회와 공론장을 사회와 국가 사이의 반성적인 매개기관으로서 규정하는 것은 일반적이나, 헤겔의 사유는 반성과 매개에 대한 그의 독특한 관점을 통해서 고유성을 드러낸다. 헤겔에서 이 개념들은 사회의 합리성 및 국가의 정당성 문제와의 관련성에서가 아니라, 국가가 사회의 국가로서 존립하고 기능할 수 있어야 한다는 문제와 관련해서 그 의미를 얻는다. 본 논문은 (...) 이러한 독해를 헤겔의 『법철학』을 참조하여 상론하되, 특히 악셀 호네트의 독해를 비판적으로 검토함으로써 그 논지를 뚜렷하게 할 것이다. (shrink)

Among the general features of modern Western discourse is a marked emphasis on the individual self. The nearly total displacement of the linguistic practice of referring to individuals as 'souls' when speaking philosophically, by the use of the terms 'selves' or 'subjects', is one sign of the modern proclivity for acknowledging the self-conscious and reflexive aspects of human experience. However, the conceptions of self and subject that have been inherited in the past few hundred years of Western philosophical thought have (...) been increasingly called into question. One source of this recent reevaluation of our modern conceptions of the self is associated with post-structuralist critiques, now several decades old, of .. (shrink)

This article focuses on the power of technological mediation from the point of view of autonomist Marxism. The first part of the article discusses the theories developed on technological mediation in postphenomenology and critical theory of technology with regard to their respective power perspectives and ways of coping with relations of power embedded in technical artifacts and systems. Rather than focusing on the clashes between the hermeneutic postphenomenological approach and the dialectics of critical theory, it is argued that (...) in both the category of resistance amidst power-relations is at least similar in one regard: resistance to the power of technology is conceptualized as a reactive force. The second part of the article reads technological mediation through the lens of the antagonistic power-perspective on class struggle developed in autonomist Marxism. The outline of a provisional autonomist philosophy of technology is developed using Foucauldian dispositifs of biopower in contrast to the hermeneutic and dialectical approach. It is thus argued that resistance should here be understood in terms of practice that subverts the technically mediated circuit of production itself. (shrink)

The mediation of the performative body raises the question of the re-evaluation of the lived body in relation to phenomena of re-creation or re-composition involving the sensible and somatic body when it is affected by technology and incorporates its effects. To understand this phenomenon, this essay examines the interrelation of the notions of corporality, corporeality, and embodiment through a transdisciplinary approach and as an anchoring to a dynamic of self-eco-organization. Merleau-Ponty’s philosophy underpins the very foundations of this research and (...) will allow us to reflect on the new status of the contemporary body in technological contexts. Two main notions will be used. “Corporeality”, as a form of the lived body and a transdisciplinary concept and embodiment as an act of integration by the body – here in a technological environment. In the evolution of the interrelation between the body and the changing environment, the two are in trans-relation, a trans-formation occurs. To conclude, we propose to analyze these new “realities” in a Merleau-Pontian and Nietzschean interconnected approach, that is, through a philosophy of becoming, a philosophy that flows through the body: being a body, doing, risking and creating – a philosophy that resonates with this trans-formation. (shrink)

In this paper, we theorize that the anticipation of guilt plays an important role in ethically questionable consumer situations. We propose an ethical decision-making framework incorporating anticipated guilt as partial mediator between consumers' ethical beliefs (anteceded by ethical ideology) and intentions. In the first study, we compared several models using structural equation modeling and found empirical support for our research model. A second experiment was set up to illustrate how these new insights may be applied to prevent consumers from taking (...) advantage of the seller. Results showed that enhancing the anticipation of guilt (by making the interpersonal consequences of the unethical act more salient) increased consumers' ethical intentions, controlling for ethical beliefs. Together these two studies might have important theoretical and managerial contributions. (shrink)

In this paper, we theorize that the anticipation of guilt plays an important role in ethically questionable consumer situations. We propose an ethical decision-making framework incorporating anticipated guilt as partial mediator between consumers’ ethical beliefs (anteceded by ethical ideology) and intentions. In the first study, we compared several models using structural equation modeling and found empirical support for our research model. A second experiment was set up to illustrate how these new insights may be applied to prevent consumers from taking (...) advantage of the seller. Results showed that enhancing the anticipation of guilt (by making the interpersonal consequences of the unethical act more salient) increased consumers’ ethical intentions, controlling for ethical beliefs. Together these two studies might have important theoretical and managerial contributions. (shrink)

The purpose of the present article is to contribute to the postphenomenological theory of technological mediation by introducing a new type of ‘human-technology’ relation named ‘transcending mediation’. Previously postphenomenology didn’t pay much attention to the role technology plays in mediating human relation to Transcendence. This was because of empirical turn and pragmatism that are anti-metaphysical in their nature. In the present paper, however, I will show that the empirical element of technology can be balanced by some metaphysical findings. (...) Keeping this in mind, I will rely on Karl Jaspers’s metaphysics of ciphers in order to demonstrate how technology mediates not only our relation to the world but also shapes human’s relation to Transcendence. As I am going to show in the present paper, this sort of mediation becomes possible because technologies are actively participating in so-called self-transcending practices. The latter, according to Karl Jaspers, are practices through which humans can elucidate one’s true self (e.g., become an Existenz). In this article, I will take a case of Smart education as a particular type of self-transcending practice and will show how contemporary AI educational systems enable and disable particular forms of becoming true self (Existenz). (shrink)

This paper addresses the capacity of François Laruelle's non-philosophy to evade the difficulties produced by the mediation of religion. Specifically, it looks at how religion is mediated through philosophy under the heading of ?philosophy of religion.; While such a heading indicates a gesture seeking to unify what is divided ; namely philosophy and religion ; it actually depends upon and thus maintains this division. The philosophical mediation of religion amounts to the division produced by the thought of religion. (...) Conjoining this claim to a brief genealogy of the concept of religion, I argue that the modern, secular gesture of philosophizing about religion continues a much longer tradition of religion's divisive mediation. What Laruelle's non-philosophy offers, I contend, is a means of escape from the conceptual architecture on which the mediation of religion depends. This is the case specifically insofar as he enables us to conceive a One that would be outside any divisive or mediatic relation to the many. Furthermore, the fact the Laruelle's thought makes use of (what gets named as) religious material enacts a refusal of the division between religion and philosophy. In this regard, however, I argue that his use of religious material still remains imbricated in the division between Christianity and Judaism. Hence, even as Laruelle escapes the conceptual divisions that enable the mediation of religion, his peculiar use of religious material leads him to redeploy divisions central to religion's genealogy. (shrink)

Research on the antecedents of consumers’ ethical beliefs has mainly examined cognitive variables and has neglected the relationships among affective variables and consumer ethics. However, research in moral psychology indicates that moral emotions have a significant role in ethical decision-making. Thus, the ability to experience, perceive and regulate emotions should influence consumers’ ethical decision-making. These abilities, which are components of emotional intelligence, are examined as antecedents to consumers’ ethical beliefs in this study. Five hundred Australian consumers participated in this study (...) by completing an online questionnaire that included measures of emotional intelligence, consumers’ ethical beliefs and personal moral philosophies. Results demonstrate that the ability to appraise and express emotions in oneself is directly negatively related to beliefs regarding actively benefiting from illegal actions as a consumer, passively benefiting at the expense of the seller and actively benefiting from questionable but legal actions as a consumer. The ability to appraise and express emotions in oneself is directly positively related to beliefs regarding ‘doing-good’ actions. The ability to appraise and recognise emotions in others is also directly positively related to beliefs regarding ‘doing-good’ actions as well as pro-environmental buying actions. The effects of the different components of emotional intelligence on consumers’ ethical beliefs are mediated by personal moral philosophies. This study demonstrates the relationship between emotional intelligence and consumer ethics and highlights the interplay of affect and cognition in consumers’ ethical decision-making. (shrink)

Women intimately interact with various medical technologies and prosthetic artifacts in the context of breast cancer. While extensive work has been done on the agency of technological artifacts and how they affect users’ perceptions and experiences, the agency of users is largely taken for granted hitherto. In this article, we explore the agency of four women who engage with breast cancer technologies and artifacts by analyzing their narrative accounts of such engagements. This empirical discussion is framed within the tradition of (...) science and technology studies, philosophy of technological mediation and phenomenology of embodied agency as ‘I can/not’. This approach leads to the conclusions that women’s technologically mediated agencies range from being restricted to extended, take place on different bodily levels, within complex temporal structures, and are determined by certain socio-cultural contexts. Furthermore, it reveals that such agency shaping does not imply a one-way conditioning relationship between technologies and users, but rather involves a reciprocal relationship in which both subject and object are co-constituted. We therefore suggest that the ‘material turn’ in philosophy of technology also needs to take into account technologically mediated, material human beings in order to gain a better understanding of human existence. (shrink)

Emmanuel Levinas and Theodor Adorno never spoke to one another. Both thinkers were of Jewish ancestry, though their lives would be impacted in distinct ways by the rise of Nazism. With these historical parallels in mind, this paper seeks to place these thinkers in a productive juxtaposition with regard to the status of ethics and politics in either’s work. In particular, I examine the ramifications of philosophical reflection on Auschwitz as a mediating event in post-war European philosophy, reading Levinas’s and (...) Adorno’s theoretical differences as alternate philosophical responses to this momentous event. I argue that Levinas’s thought is ailed by the problem of immediacy, exemplified by his positing ethics as first philosophy and his rejection of the category of totality which, as Adorno highlights, is an important critical tool for an analysis of the form of society which produces Nazism. (shrink)

Axel Honneth has had considerable success in grounding his normative social philosophy on recognitive structures, and the capacity of experiences of disrespect to stimulate “struggles for recognition.” These struggles for recognition are held to yield advances in social structure, and to expand the individual's capacity for self-realization. In this paper, I show that this account relies on a supressed dichotomy between the immediate pre-recognitive self, and the mediated self produced intersubjectively. I argue that this dichotomy persists beyond Honneth's explicit use (...) of Meadian terminology, and that Honneth relies on an unsophisticated account of mediation which, once critiqued, undermines his attempt to derive norms from recognition simpliciter. A promising alternative is found in Adorno's analysis of humanism and the category of the individual, which shows that true fidelity to the aims of humanism entails a rejection of humanism itself, as the individual is a proleptic category. (shrink)

The ArgumentThe societal context within which science is pursued generally acts as a productive force in the generation of knowledge. To analyze this action it is helpful to consider particular modes of mediation through which societal concerns are projected into the very local and esoteric concerns of a particular domain of research. One such mode of mediation occurs through material systems. Here I treat two such systems – the steam engine and the electric telegraph – in the natural (...) philosophy of William Thomson (Lord Kelvin).The steam engine illustratesconceptualmediation. It simultaneously instantiates “labor value” in political economy and “work” in engineering mechanics, thereby identifying the two concepts in the region of their common reference. The partial identification carries with it a structural analogy between a network of concepts from political economy and a similar network in natural philosophy, providing a potent heuristic for the reformulation and further development of dynamics.The electric telegraph illustratesmethodologicalmediation. It projects the interests of engineering and industry into the interests of electromagnetic theory and vice versa, thereby establishing, in Thomson's view, a Baconian unity of truth and utility. As the common reference of theory and practice, the telegraph locates the truth of theoretical knowledge in its utility and the utility of practical knowledge in its truth.These particular cases of conceptual and methodological mediation indicate how the local practices, concepts, and interests of a research specialty, or subculture, draw on and are adapted to those of the larger culture within which they develop. Thus the analysis of mediation leads to an ecological model of the social construction of scientific knowledge. (shrink)

Women intimately interact with various medical technologies and prosthetic artifacts in the context of breast cancer. While extensive work has been done on the agency of technological artifacts and how they affect users’ perceptions and experiences, the agency of users is largely taken for granted hitherto. In this article, we explore the agency of four women who engage with breast cancer technologies and artifacts by analyzing their narrative accounts of such engagements. This empirical discussion is framed within the tradition of (...) science and technology studies, philosophy of technological mediation and phenomenology of embodied agency as ‘I can/not’. This approach leads to the conclusions that women’s technologically mediated agencies range from being restricted to extended, take place on different bodily levels, within complex temporal structures, and are determined by certain socio-cultural contexts. Furthermore, it reveals that such agency shaping does not imply a one-way conditioning relationship between technologies and users, but rather involves a reciprocal relationship in which both subject and object are co-constituted. We therefore suggest that the ‘material turn’ in philosophy of technology also needs to take into account technologically mediated, material human beings in order to gain a better understanding of human existence. (shrink)

ABSTRACTFrom a specific point of view, mediation is the process whereby a third party helps to change their attitude from an adversarial one to a collaborative one which allows them to work together in finding and creating solutions to their conflict. Mediation deals with conflict from its own perspective and it has its own status as a dispute resolution process in the systems of justice, where it is recognized. The Philosophy of Mediation has been developing as a (...) discipline, which analyses the status of mediation as knowledge. It studies its nature, its constituent elements, its ontological foundations and its connection with other disciplines. This article argues that it is possible to include certain basic principles of the philosophy of María Zambrano in the Philosophy of Mediation framework. Those elements are essential for understanding the world of human conflict since they provide a new perspective from which to see dispute resolution methodologies. They can be summed up in the idea of including the hidden as the substrate of the visible, revealing the underlying forces of human existence. Within the context of the mediation, the understanding of these forces could help to resolve conflicts. (shrink)

Models as Mediators discusses the ways in which models function in modern science, particularly in the fields of physics and economics. Models play a variety of roles in the sciences: they are used in the development, exploration and application of theories and in measurement methods. They also provide instruments for using scientific concepts and principles to intervene in the world. The editors provide a framework which covers the construction and function of scientific models, and explore the ways in which they (...) enable us to learn about both theories and the world. The contributors to the volume offer their own individual theoretical perspectives to cover a wide range of examples of modelling, from physics, economics and chemistry. These papers provide ideal case-study material for understanding both the concepts and typical elements of modelling, using analytical approaches from the philosophy and history of science. (shrink)

Mediating the meaning of evidence through epistemological diversity Nursing's disciplinary recognition of ‘multiple ways of knowing’ reflects an epistemological diversity that supports nursing praxis. Nursing as praxis offers a conceptual way to explore what it is about the interface of practice, knowledge and evidence in nursing that distinguishes us as a discipline. I suggest that the relationship between evidence and knowledge is defined and mediated by the same epistemological diversity that supports nursing as praxis. Just as the meaning and truth‐value (...) of evidence is evaluated from within the body of existing disciplinary knowledge, new evidence may prompt an evaluation of the meaning and truth‐value of extant nursing knowledge. Nursing practice that relies on scientific evidence as a singular basis of practice knowledge is susceptible to exploitation by the diverse agendas operating within an ideology of evidence‐based practice and the healthcare system. Mediating the meaning of evidence for nursing practice through acknowledgement of the diverse epistemologies that underpin nursing knowledge will contribute to a disciplinary‐specific definition of what constitutes evidence for nursing, and will better direct how evidence is integrated into a disciplinary body of knowledge. (shrink)

Once upon a time, there were no academic disciplines. There were no definitions, either, at least as we understand them. Plato and Aristotle changed both of those situations in ways that continue to influence Western thought. If Plato's and Xenophon's accounts are to be trusted, Socrates and Prodicus also deserve credit for early efforts to define words, thereby helping to formulate the classic Socratic/Platonic question "What is X?" And here we are, twenty-four hundred years later, still occasionally wrestling with how (...) to describe rhetoric, philosophy, and the relationship between the two.Drawing on my thirty-five years of thinking and writing about the classical and contemporary mediation of philosophy and... (shrink)

Based on our prior work (Neuman and Nave, in press [a]) we proceed from the notion that the mind has the capacity to generate and use concepts through themediation of signs. This mediation constrains the vast potential for confusion, given the incalculable number of similarities between objects in the world and therefore has important adaptive value. Despite the ubiquity of sign-mediated concept formation (SMCF), a rigorous formalization of this phenomenon is rare. Following the work of Neuman and Nave (in (...) press [a]), here we present a formal description of sign-mediated concept formation and discuss the relevance of this theory to certain outstanding issues in biology, psychology and Artificial Intelligence (AI). (shrink)

Emmanuel Levinas and Theodor Adorno never spoke to one another. Both thinkers were of Jewish ancestry, though their lives would be impacted in distinct ways by the rise of Nazism. With these historical parallels in mind, this paper seeks to place these thinkers in a productive juxtaposition with regard to the status of ethics and politics in either’s work. In particular, I examine the ramifications of philosophical reflection on Auschwitz as a mediating event in post-war European philosophy, reading Levinas’s and (...) Adorno’s theoretical differences as alternate philosophical responses to this momentous event. I argue that Levinas’s thought is ailed by the problem of immediacy, exemplified by his positing ethics as first philosophy and his rejection of the category of totality which, as Adorno highlights, is an important critical tool for an analysis of the form of society which produces Nazism. (shrink)

In this paper we critically review recent developments in policies, practices and philosophies pertaining to the mediation between science and the public within the EU and the UK, focusing in particular on the current paradigm of Public Understanding of Science and Technology (PEST) which seeks to depart from the science information-transmission associated with previous paradigms, and enact a deliberative democracy model. We first outline the features of the current crisis in democracy and discuss deliberative democracy as a response to (...) this crisis. We then map out and critically review the broad outlines of recent policy developments in public-science mediation in the EU and UK contexts, focusing on the shift towards the deliberative-democratic model. We conclude with some critical thoughts on the complex interrelationships between democracy, equality, science and informal pedagogies in public-science mediations. We argue that science and democracy operate within distinct value-spheres that are not necessarily consonant with each other. We also problematize the now common dismissal of information-transmission of science as inimical to democratic engagement, and argue for a reassessment of the role and importance of informal science learning for the lay public, provided within the framework of a deliberative democracy that is not reducible to consensus building or the mere expression of opinions rooted in social and cultural givens. This, we argue, can be delivered by a model of PEST that is creative and experimental, with both educational and democratic functions. (shrink)

ABSTRACT This article aims to achieve two things: to identify the conditions for transitivity in probabilistic support in various settings, and to uncover the components and structure of the mediated probabilistic relation. It is shown that when the probabilistic relation between the two propositions, x and z, is mediated by multiple layers of partitions of propositions, the impact x has on z consists of the purely indirect impact, the purely bypass impact, and the mixed impact. It is also shown that (...) although mediated confirmation as a whole is not transitive, the indirect part of mediated confirmation is transitive. _1_ Introduction _2_ The Structure of the Mediated Probabilistic Relation _3_ Transitivity and Anti-transitivity _4_ Bypass Disconfirmation _5_ Horizontal Generalization _6_ Coarse Screens _7_ Vertical Generalization _8_ Conclusion Appendix. (shrink)

Technological mediation theorists (such as Don Ihde and Verbeek) believe that human beings’ moral actions can be transformed through technological artefacts to constitute a “good life”. This paper, however, critically analyses two understandings of technological mediation, (1) technological mediation is something between humans and the world (prominent in Don Ihde), and (2) technological mediation is a direct constitutive effect (prominent in Verbeek), which will inevitably lead to the problem of “moral suspension” that I define. In the (...) first understanding (following Zygmunt Bauman), the causal relations between moral actions and actual consequences are distanced from each other because of the “interval” effects of technological artefacts. In the second understanding (following Jean Baudrillard), designers are just “simulating” moralities in specific use and design contexts. Thus, moral realities are ultimately replaced by moral “simulacra”. Then, I argue that to overcome the problem of “moral suspension,” rather than distancing actions from their consequences or simulating moralities in specific scenarios, two possible approaches may be needed, the Way of Zhuangzi who declined to use any adroit technology to improve efficiency, thereby clarifying the relationship between moral actions and consequences; and the attitude of Bauman, who motivated our moral consciences and moral sensitivities, thereby reflecting the side effects of technological mediations and systems. In the end, I conclude that both of these two approaches are too difficult to universally apply, and the most viable approach is to use what Confucius called “the Doctrine of the Mean,” i.e., seeking a balance between the two approaches. That is, while we should acknowledge that technologies intervene our lifeworld and constitute our thinking and moralizing ways, we also need to break away from technological trivialities to think about and pursue long-term moral goals. (shrink)

In recent times, African states have experienced multiple challenges. The most disturbing one is the inability to evolve a sustainable culture of dialogue that is suitable for the mitigation of ethnic conflicts in contemporary Africa. It is this failure that has generated many other problems in other spheres. These problems, in concert, have made the socio-political space largely that of frustration, despair and disappointment. This accounts for the social design of unhealthy alliances and the basis for the affirmation of parochial (...) primordial frivolities at the detriment of a trans-national identity. But why have the affirmation of these primordial alliances and its attendant conflicts remain daunting, intricate and resilient, in spite of the several attempts by scholars to mitigate it? This paper argues that extant discourse of the above concern fails because it ignores the value of the conditions for the practical realisation of agreement in situations of conflict. The attempt here is to explore indigenous mediation strategies especially from the traditional Igbo speaking people in South-Eastern Nigeria in arriving at trans-national identity in Africa, which will be inclusive other than the divisive structure that has exclusive character in extant discourse. This paper, therefore, will employ the analytic-descriptive method to interrogate the above in a manner many scholars are wont to ignore. Hence, it is expected that this paper will initiate a perspective that will challenge extant interpretation of the conditions of dialogue and consequently human solidarity in African States. (shrink)

La direction générale des finances publiques a mis en place un dispositif interne de médiation pour aider les équipes de travail à résoudre des situations de conflits relationnels. Conçu comme un outil managérial, dans le respect de la déontologie de la médiation, il permet d'apaiser les tensions par une action plurielle et collective au sein de l'institution.

University of Pennsylvania, USA, el322{at}nyu.edu ' + u + '@' + d + ' '//--> One of the most consistent findings in experimental studies of social dilemmas is the positive influence of face-to-face communication on cooperation. The face-to-face `communication effect' has been recently explained in terms of a `focus theory of norms': successful communication focuses agents on pro-social norms, and induces preferences and expectations conducive to cooperation. 1 Many of the studies that point to a communication effect, however, do not (...) further explore whether and to what extent the communication medium affects cooperative behavior. In this article, we ask if pro-social behavior can emerge and survive in computer-mediated environments. We show that, like face-to-face communication, computer-mediated communication also positively affects cooperation in social dilemmas, but cooperation is more difficult to establish and maintain. We argue that the discrepancy between the computer-mediated and the face-to-face communication effects is a consequence of the distinct capabilities of different media to focus agents on pro-social norms and to allow them to develop mutual expectations about future behavior. Key Words: social dilemmas • laboratory experiments • communication • social norms • cooperation • computer-mediated communication. (shrink)