Research agendas and academic evaluation are inevitably linked. By means of economic incentives, promotion, research funding, and reputation academic evaluation is a powerful influence on the production of knowledge; moreover, it is often conceived as a universal instrument without consideration of the context in which it is applied. Evaluation systems are social constructions in dispute, being the current focus of international debates regarding criteria, indicators, and their associated methods. A universalist type of productivity indicators is gaining centrality in academic evaluation (...) with profound effects on the content of research that is conducted everywhere. Specifically, evaluation systems based on this type of indicators are sending negative signals to scientists willing to conduct research on contextualized agendas, particularly those negotiated with non scientists. On the basis of theoretical and empirical studies documented on the specialized literature and extensive personal engagement with university research policy in Uruguay, we argue that the consolidation of evaluation practices of alleged universal validity deteriorates and discourages a type of research which is undeniably important in developing contexts. (shrink)

Interview of Amina Kkhelufi, Kseniia Myroshnyk, Nataliia Reva with Natalia Viatkina.

Globalization has now become an integral part of our lives. One of the basic components of globalization is the integration process that involves all areas of human life including language evolution. We consequently look at this problem in terms of language and natural language processes influenced by a complex variety of factors—both interlinguistic and extralinguistic-focusing mainly on the linguistic contacts with emphasis on areal aspects.

There are two traditions of thinking about idealization offering almost opposite views on their functioning and epistemic status. While one tradition views idealizations as epistemic deficiencies, the other one highlights the epistemic benefits of idealization. Both of these, however, identify idealization with misrepresentation. In this article, we instead approach idealization from the artifactual perspective, comparing it to the distortion-to-reality accounts of idealization, and exemplifying it through the case of the Hodgkin and Huxley model of nerve impulse. From the artifactual perspective, (...) the epistemic benefits and deficiencies introduced by idealization frequently come in a package due to the way idealization draws together different resources in model construction. Accordingly, idealization tends to be holistic in that it is not often easily attributable to just some specific parts of the model. Instead, the idealizing process tightly embeds theoretical concepts and formal tools into the construction of a model. (shrink)

A study of the philosophical programmes, problems and perspectives of socio-biology, examining the question of evolutionary ethics. Socio-biology works from the premiss that the biological categories of Darwinist evolutionary theory are a necessary prerequisite and perhaps adequate to explain "social" behaviour (primarily in animals, but then with reference to humans).

Gegenstand der Erörterung ist die Offenlegung des faktischen und potentiellen Ethikbezugs von Technik. Grundlegend für jede Ethik ist ein je bestimmtes Verständnis des Menschen und seiner Wirklichkeit. Diese prinzipielle Positionalität ist gegenüber diskurs- und verfahrensethischen Ansätzen ebenso festzuhalten wie gegenüber utilitaristischen Nivellierungen grundlagentheoretischer Fragen. Die vorliegende Untersuchung aus evangelischer Perspektive zeigt anhand der Analyse zweier technikphilosophischer Konzeptionen der Gegenwart (G. Ropohl, W. Ch. Zimmerli) die Relevanz von Technikethik nicht nur für Techniker, sondern bezüglich menschlichen Handelns im allgemeinen.

The sociology of knowledge is faced with a problem of historical temporality that it has carefully avoided up until now. The subject has been avoided or ignored because a discussion of it in depth would run the risk of questioning all modern scientific thought. The problem is that of the concept of absolute time as it is used in evolutionist theory. In this category of theory I include not only social evolutionism, abused for a long time and recently reanimated by (...) the “socio-biologists,” but also biological, paleontological, geological and other types of evolutionism, that is, those qualified as “scientific.”. (shrink)

In this paper we aim to think systematically about, formulate, and begin addressing some of the challenges to applying theories of moral responsibility to behaviors shaped by a particular subset of unsettling psychological complexities: namely, implicit biases.

Natalia Carrillo and Tarja Knuuttila claim that there are two traditions of thinking about idealization offering almost opposite views on their functioning and epistemic status. While one tradition views idealizations as epistemic deficiencies, the other one highlights the epistemic benefits of idealization. Both of them treat idealizations as deliberate misrepresentations, however. They then argue for an artifactual account of idealization, comparing it to the traditional accounts of idealization, and exemplifying it through the Hodgkin and Huxley model of the nerve (...) impulse. From the artifactual perspective, the epistemic benefits and deficiencies introduced by idealization frequently come in a package due to the way idealization draws together different resources in model construction. Accordingly, idealization tends to be holistic in that it is not often easily attributable to some specific parts of the model. They conclude that the artifactual approach offers a unifying view into idealization in that it is able to recover several basic philosophical insights motivating both the deficiency and epistemic benefit accounts, while being simultaneously detached from the idea of distortion by misrepresentation. (shrink)

Nursing is at the same time a vocation, a profession and a job. By nature, nursing is a moral endeavor, and being a ‘good nurse’ is an issue and an aspiration for professionals. The aim of our qualitative research project carried out with 18 nurse teachers at a university nursing school in Brazil was to identify the ethical image of nursing. In semistructured interviews the participants were asked to choose one of several pictures, to justify their choice and explain what (...) they meant by an ethical nurse. Five different perspectives were revealed: good nurses fulfill their duties correctly; they are proactive patient advocates; they are prepared and available to welcome others as persons; they are talented, competent, and carry out professional duties excellently; and they combine authority with power sharing in patient care. The results point to a transition phase from a historical introjection of religious values of obedience and service to a new sense of a secular, proactive, scientific and professional identity. (shrink)

In philosophy of science, abstraction tends to be subsumed under representation, often being described as the omission of a target’s features when it is represented. This approach to abstraction sidesteps cognitive aspects of abstraction processes. However, cognitive aspects of abstraction are important in understanding the role of historically grounded epistemic criteria supporting modeling in science. Drawing on recent work on the relation between metaphor and abstraction, we introduce the concept of paths of abstraction, and use historical and contemporary examples to (...) point to their role in guiding the development of relevance criteria which support modeling strategies in science. (shrink)

New mechanical philosophy posits that explanations in the life sciences involve the decomposition of a system into its entities and their respective activities and organization that are responsible for the explanandum phenomenon. This mechanistic account of explanation has proven problematic in its application to mathematical models, leading the mechanists to suggest different ways of aligning abstract models with the mechanist program. Initially, the discussion centered on whether the Hodgkin-Huxley model is explanatory. Network models provided another complication, as they apply to (...) a wide number of materially diverse systems. In this article, we examine the various attempts to integrate abstract models within the mechanist program, also presenting a further challenge: the Heimburg-Jackson model, which was introduced as an alternative to the Hodgkin-Huxley model. We argue that although the notion of abstraction as the omission of irrelevant mechanistic details appears to give a mechanistic solution for accommodating abstract models, this notion does not suit models whose epistemic strategy is not decompositional. As a result, the mechanist has to choose whether to dilute the mechanistic approach nearly beyond recognition or to claim that many, if not most, abstract theoretical models do not deliver mechanistic explanations, or qualify as explanatory at all. (shrink)

Sympathy is a powerful principle in human nature, which can change our passions, sentiments and ways of thinking. For the 18th century Scottish philosopher David Hume, sympathy is a working mechanism accountable for a wide range of communication: the ways of interacting with the others’ affections, emotions, sentiments, inclinations, ways of thinking and even opinions. The present paper intends to find a systematic reading of Hume’s Treatise of Human Nature from the point of view of what the mechanism of sympathetic (...) communication implies in terms of strengthening our action of understanding, of being sensitive to, and vicariously experiencing the feelings, thoughts, and experience of others. Hume’s description of the sympathetic mechanism appears to suggest that sympathetic passions come upon us purely by natural means in a passive manner, without the active use of any of our faculties. Consequently, scholarly attention is drawn to the mechanistic character of the sympathetic process; its automatic nature is emphasized to such an extent that some experts even find it to be completely void of any reflective process. The current study investigates to what extent the sympathetic process can actively be modified and in what manner sympathetic feelings can be generated as described in Hume’s system of emotions. The paper identifies at which points the otherwise mechanically and passively operating process of sympathetic feelings is open to be modified by actively altering or strengthening certain skeletal points of the mechanism. I argue that the alterations can be initiated by the person who receives the sympathetic feelings and also by the person whose passions are transmitted, moreover even by a third party. In a seemingly mechanic model, there is room for altering or at least amplifying one’s sympathetic feelings. (shrink)

Wie kann Versohnung geschaffen werden, wenn sich Menschen, Familien, Gruppen, Parteien, Nationen oder Religionsgemeinschaften getrennt oder verfeindet haben? Wahrend das Gegeneinander, der Streit, die Entzweiung oder der Krieg Folgen von Sprachlosigkeit sind, ist Versohnung nur mit Sprache und durch Sprache moglich. Solange Menschen miteinander sprechen, sind sie auf einem Weg der gegenseitigen Verstandigung. Stephan Gratzel zeigt, wie es mit einem dialogischen Verstandnis von Sprache gelingt, Gemeinsamkeiten zu stiften und Konflikte zu losen. Der dialogische Weg ermoglicht jedoch nicht nur die Versohnung (...) zwischen Menschen, sondern fuhrt auch zur Versohnung des Menschen mit sich selbst. (shrink)

In this paper, we present a new questionnaire for the assessment of self-control as an individual trait. We describe the process of construction of this assessment tool. We also report the results of relevant validation studies. The questionnaire has two independent versions, one based on self-reports and another one based on other-reports. The first version consists of five subscales, called Initiative and Persistence, Proactive Control, Switching and Flexibility, Inhibition and Adjournment, and Goal Maintenance. Seven samples of participants took part in (...) the validation study. The second version has not been split into subscales. Both versions obtained satisfactory indices of internal consistency, assessed with Cronbach’s alpha. The NAS-50 and NAS-40 scores were highly correlated with other measures of self-control, including Tangney, Baumeister, and Boone’s self-control scale. They also proved to be entirely independent of general intelligence. In conclusion, both versions can be regarded reliable and valid enough, and therefore suitable for the assessment of trait self-control for research purposes. (shrink)

The subject of the study is Bernardo Bertolucci's film "The Last Emperor", in particular, the coloristic of the film and the psychology of the image of the main character, which is largely revealed through the color palette and individual artistic details. The object of research is the language of cinematography, cinematographic artistic techniques. Despite the sometimes shocking images and plots, Bertolucci's films were highly appreciated by the international community and domestic film critics due to their artistic solution and topical issues (...) affecting the problems of class struggle and anti-fascist themes. The author of the article examines the image of the main character of the film, Aisingero Pu Yi, the last emperor of China and Manchukuo. The film is based on real historical events taking place in the first half of the 20th century, so the dramatic collisions of the character are not perceived by the viewer as some kind of abstract problem. Against the backdrop of the complex historical changes that China has faced, many questions of the formation and self-determination of the individual are being raised. The image of Emperor Pu Yi is revealed gradually through a comparison of two storylines and the color scheme of the film, since it is the color palette that helps to subtly and meaningfully convey the psychological content of the character. The main research methods are analytical and comparative-historical. The composition of the film and the dynamics of the change in the color palette of individual episodes are analyzed, which makes it possible to trace the evolution of the image. The author comes to the conclusion that it was the coloristic solution of the film that allowed the creators to convey the national color and historical atmosphere of China of a certain historical period and show a vivid image of the protagonist on the screen. (shrink)

“Heidegger and Ethics” remains a controversial topic among Heidegger scholars. What appears particularly troublesome is the conjunction itself, [which hints on a link between] Heidegger and ethics. Heidegger proposes to consider ethics in its original source, distinguishing it from morality and from “ethics” as a “philosophical discipline,” which often concerns with social or political issues. Heidegger distinguishes ἔuο6 from ἦ?uο6, preferring to discuss “ethos” instead of “ethics.” Heidegger's main “hero” here is Aristotle. When referring to Aristotelian texts, Heidegger attempts nothing (...) less but to rethink the “first” part of first philosophy. The leading question in interpretation of Aristotle is the question of the objectness of Being, in which both Being of human and Being of life are interpreted. Heidegger asks himself what the phenomenological foundation for explicating the [meaning] of man is, and what categories evolve from this foundation. This article focuses on the same question. It begins wi... (shrink)

El uso de sistemas de machine learning en los procesos de selección laboral ha sido de gran utilidad para agilizarlos y volverlos más eficientes, pero al mismo tiempo ha generado problemas en términos de equidad, confiabilidad y transparencia. En este artículo comenzamos explicando los diferentes usos de la Inteligencia Artificial en los procesos de selección laboral en Estados Unidos. Presentamos los sesgos sexuales y raciales que han sido detectados en algunos de ellos y explicamos los obstáculos jurídicos y prácticos para (...) su detección y análisis. Un posible remedio jurídico a la discriminación algorítmica es el régimen de impacto diferencial sistémico utilizado en Estados Unidos. Usamos algunas características de este régimen para señalar los vacíos jurídicos frente a la discriminación en el acceso al empleo en el ámbito del derecho laboral colombiano, y ofrecemos algunas características generales que podría tener un régimen de esa naturaleza. (shrink)

Different proprietary databases have been used extensively in research to assess the environmental performance and environmental risk of companies. This study explores the convergent validity of the environmental ratings of MSCI ESG STATS, Thomson Reuters ASSET4 and Global Engagement Services. The study shows that the ratings have common dimensions, but on aggregate, they do not converge. On the environmental opportunity side, KLD environmental strengths, and ASSET4 and GES environmental performance metrics correlate highly and provide convergent scores for US companies from (...) 2003–2011. On the environmental risk side, KLD environmental concerns converge with the GES environmental industry risk and company emissions from the ASSET4 database. Further analysis confirms that industry-related risks are drivers of company-specific environmental performance. (shrink)

The article is dedicated to the memory of Kostiantyn Dmytrovych Ushynskyi (1823-1871), an outstanding Ukrainian teacher-philosopher, founder and developer of the theoretical foundations of education based on the cooperation of pedagogy and psychology (the middle of the 19th century). In general, the purpose of the article is to update the scientific achievements of prominent compatriot. The article’s goal is detailed in such tasks: the assertion of Ukrainianness as the source or origin of K. Ushynskyi’s personality and creativity; the substantiation of (...) the features of his life philosophy, mentality (the priority of the value of the human soul, heartcentred meaning of human being in the comprehension of life; high personal emotionality, but subject to will; love for the native foundations), which total combination nourished the thinker’s ideas about pedagogical anthropology; substantiation of the peculiar intertextuality of the K. Ushynskyi’s book “Man as an object of education. An attempt at pedagogical anthropology” (1868–1869); an attempt to characterize the worldview and philosophical meanings of K. Ushynskyi’s construction of the psychological and pedagogical foundations of the educational process (cultural conformity, nature conformity, activity as the basis of education), which remains not only the historical heritage of Ukrainian humanitarian thought, but also a variant of an anthropologically sharpened worldview landmark for modern educators. It has been established that in the documentary substantiation of K. Ushynskyi’s belonging to Ukrainian culture, the contribution of the modern local historian and teacher V. Terletskyi became the most important. It is shown that the appeals made by K. Ushynskyi to the thoughts, ideas, opinions of numerous European scientists, writers, historical figures, polemics and dialogues with them on the pages of the book ensured the transition to the creation of a text as a stereophonic intersection with other texts. The author of the article tries to substantiate this feature of the book as a kind of intertextuality of the analyzed scientific work. (shrink)

"Vivimos en un mundo en el cual la ciencia tiene un lugar protagónico tanto en nuestra vida cotidiana como en aspectos alejados de ella para nuestra percepción pero que, aun así, impactan en la realidad que vivimos. La propuesta de estas páginas es recorrer algunos interrogantes sobre aquello que llamamos ciencia, partiendo desde esa misma problematización, y sobre las vías posibles para entenderla.Si bien los objetos que aborda este libro no están exentos de complejidad se procura mantener un lenguaje llano (...) y ameno que permita el mayor alcance posible de su propuesta." --Descripción del editor. (shrink)

Is it possible to explicate tolerant principles in the philosophy-political discourse of Kant? It seems the answer to this question is positive. And it is the philosophical project of Kant “Perpetual Peace”, which is the most representative in this respect, for it is based on the principles of tolerance. This project is included in ethic-legal (liberal) system and is connected with such notions as civil society, legal state, duty, moral law. Tolerance exists, on the one hand, as a result of (...) moral effort and choice, and on the other, as legal obligation. In Kantian conception tolerance appears as a multi-aspect phenomenon: firstly, as a natural deposit of the human race, developing as a result of the influence of antagonistic nature of the human society; secondly, as a demand of the moral law; thirdly, as a means of peace attaining; fourthly, as a principle of peaceful state, a universal civic alliance and eternal peace. The dynamic development of the world society, the acceleration of processes of globalization and intercultural communication dictate new strategies of the world development, make the problem of political responsibility the topic of today. According to Kant’s logic, it is necessary to be tolerant in the modern world. (shrink)

El artículo ilumina los modos rivales de articular el modernismo estético y socialismo propuestos hacia fines del siglo XIX por Rubén Darío, Leopoldo Lugones y Manuel Ugarte. Tomando como hilo conductor las disímiles acepciones del término “burgués” por las que parecen haber optado estos escritores, reconstruimos el deslindamiento que intenta Darío entre las dos tendencias modernizadoras, luego analizamos la conexión entre modernismo y socialismo revolucionario que realiza Lugones en el periódico La Montaña (1897), para finalmente explorar los cuestionamientos del joven (...) Ugarte al “esteticismo descomprometido” de Darío y al “socialismo aristocratizante” de Lugones, así como su alianza con el “socialismo pedagógico” de Juan B. Justo. The article focuses on the rival ways of linking aesthetic modernism and socialism that were proposed by Rubén Darío, Leopoldo Lugones and Manuel Ugarte at the end of the 19th century. Taking as a thread the dissimilar meanings of the term “bourgeois”, we rebuild the intent of Darío to mark the boundaries of the two modernizing tendencies; then we analyze the connection between modernism and revolutionary socialism that Lugones proposes in the newspaper La Montaña (1897); finally we explore Ugarte’s arguments with Darío’s “uncompromising aestheticism” and Lugones’ “aristocratizing socialism”, as well as the alliance of Ugarte with the “pedagogical socialism” of Juan B. Justo. (shrink)

We examine whether and when socially oriented shareholder activists use firms’ corporate social performance (CSP) to identify them as attractive targets for their activism. We build on the research in social movements theory and stakeholder theory to theorize how firms’ engagement with primary and secondary stakeholders reflected in their technical and institutional CSP respectively allows socially oriented shareholder activists to identify targets. We develop a theoretical model by identifying corporate targets’ degree of (1) receptivity to and (2) need to comply (...) with activist demands as two key dimensions of their corporate opportunity structure that explains the variance in firms’ attractiveness as targets for activist demands. We show that a firm’s technical and institutional CSP independently affect the likelihood of activists targeting the firm. We also show that our model has greater explanatory power at firms with high resource slack and from activists not identifying as socially responsible investment funds. Analysis of CSP and shareholder proposals data of 992 U.S. public firms over an 8-year window of observation largely supports our theory. (shrink)

Background: Strengthening the sense of meaning in life and psychological well-being brings benefits for mental health. The group particularly vulnerable to mental problems are young adults, therefore the aim of our research was to explore how a gratitude intervention will affect the sense of meaning in life, psychological well-being, general health and perceived stress among them. The research also took into account the issue of expressing gratitude.Method: The study involved 80 young adults who were randomly assigned to the experimental group (...) that filled out the specially prepared diaries for a week or the control group. Participants completed the Meaning in Life Questionnaire, the General Health Questionnaire – 28, the Perceived Stress Scale, and the Ryff Scales of Psychological Well-Being twice.Results: In the experimental group significant increases were observed in three areas of psychological well-being: environmental mastery, relationships with others and purpose in life. The significant decrease was also noted in anxiety/insomnia and depression symptoms as well as in perceived stress. There were no differences in the level of meaning in life. There was a positive relationship between expressing gratitude and meaning in life and psychological well-being.Conclusion: Proposed gratitude intervention has the potential to enhance psychological well-being among young adults, however, it may not be effective in enhancing meaning in life. (shrink)

Stroke continues to be a leading cause of disability. Basic neurorehabilitation research is necessary to inform the neuropathophysiology of impaired motor control, and to develop targeted interventions with potential to remediate disability post-stroke. Despite knowledge gained from basic research studies, the effectiveness of research-based interventions for reducing motor impairment has been no greater than standard of practice interventions. In this perspective, we offer suggestions for overcoming translational barriers integral to experimental design, to augment traditional protocols, and re-route the rehabilitation trajectory (...) toward recovery and away from compensation. First, we suggest that researchers consider modifying task practice schedules to focus on key aspects of movement quality, while minimizing the appearance of compensatory behaviors. Second, we suggest that researchers supplement primary outcome measures with secondary measures that capture emerging maladaptive compensations at other segments or joints. Third, we offer suggestions about how to maximize participant engagement, self-direction, and motivation, by embedding the task into a meaningful context, a strategy more likely to enable goal-action coupling, associated with improved neuro-motor control and learning. Finally, we remind the reader that motor impairment post-stroke is a multidimensional problem that involves central and peripheral sensorimotor systems, likely influenced by chronicity of stroke. Thus, stroke chronicity should be given special consideration for both participant recruitment and subsequent data analyses. We hope that future research endeavors will consider these suggestions in the design of the next generation of intervention studies in neurorehabilitation, to improve translation of research advances to improved participation and quality of life for stroke survivors. (shrink)

The subject of the study is the color meaning in the film of the famous Chinese director Zhang Yimou "Hero", the conceptual understanding of color as the main semantic element of the artistic solution. The object of research is the techniques of visual solutions in cinema. The perception of color in the culture of different peoples differs in certain nuances and depends on many factors, including national traditions and historically established stereotypes. Films by Chinese, Korean, and Japanese filmmakers are interesting (...) from the point of view of color solutions, as they differ in artistic originality and often offer the Russian audience an extraordinary semantic solution of the idea not only at the level of comprehension of the content, but also at the level of a specific color palette. The author similarly examines the color symbolism of Zhang Yimou's film "Hero". The conceptual content of the visual-figurative series, the originality of the coloristic solution of the film is comprehended. The scientific novelty of the article lies in the study of the color symbolism of Zhang Yimou's film "Hero" in the aspect of the correlation between the perception of the coloristic solution of the visual series and the conceptual content of the film. The author comes to the conclusion that despite the ambivalence of perception of a particular color in visual art, the coloristic solution is predetermined by the conceptual content of each episode, so color becomes the leading semantic concept of Zhang Yimou's film "Hero". (shrink)

Within the framework of broader processes in Latin America Argentina has seen a progressive policing of the governance of security. Criminal policies in recent decades have focused on police militarization, increased incarceration, spatial segregation and judicial expansion that especially affect the sectors that are economically most impoverished. I am interested in showing, from ethnographic cases, how the dynamics of delinquency mainly affect young men from popular sectors, both residents and police. Each one of the deaths and disappearances with which I (...) have been working in my investigations reflects these complex daily frames of the economy defined as “illegal.” In these contexts we usually see young people’s mothers who are responsible for generating complaints and patrimonializing death, thus confronting the hegemonic meanings that stigmatize them, making it possible to narrate them “from below” and endowing them with their own emotions, versions and experiences that the relatives mobilize around them. (shrink)