In today’s competitive economy, the war for talent has intensified. Organizations are increasingly investing in student engagement initiatives to build a robust talent pipeline. Among these initiatives, the offering of internship placements is a popular choice as it not only helps identify suitable talent, students can also benefit with valuable opportunities to develop work-related skills and gain experience. However, ensuring mutually beneficial outcomes for all stakeholders involved remains a challenge due to diverging expectations among stakeholder groups. This study aims to (...) enhance our understanding of high-quality internship design by applying stakeholder theory (ST) and the expectancy theory of motivation (ET) as theoretical frameworks. Qualitative research methods were employed, including semi-structured interviews with key stakeholders from higher education institutions, human resources managers, and front-line supervisors as well as a focus group with graduating business students. Thematic analysis of the data revealed several key themes related to stakeholder priorities and interests. The findings of this paper contribute to the fields of ST and ET by addressing an under-researched area: the motivations of supervisors as crucial stakeholders in delivering the internship experience. Scholars and practitioners have largely overlooked this aspect. From a managerial perspective, the findings highlight opportunities for fostering more synergistic partnerships between stakeholders, not only at the institutional level but also among internal stakeholder groups, including top management, human resources functions, and front-line supervisors. (shrink)

The article provides a conceptualization of self(-illness) ambiguity and investigates to what extent self(-illness) ambiguity is ‘special’. First, we draw on empirical findings to argue that self-ambiguity is a ubiquitous phenomenon. We suggest that these findings are best explained by a multidimensional account, according to which selves consist of various dimensions that mutually affect each other. On such an account, any change to any particular self-aspect may change other self-aspects and thereby alter the overall structural pattern of self-aspects, potentially leading (...) to self-ambiguity. Second, we propose that self-ambiguity comes in degrees and should be understood as a spectrum (as opposed to there being qualitative differences among instances of self-ambiguity). Third, we argue that complexity is the most useful dimension to organize cases of self-ambiguity, with mundane instances of self-ambiguity on the one end and self-illness ambiguity on the other end of the spectrum. Fourth, we address the promises and perils of narrativity with regard to self-ambiguity. Finally, we link our deflationary account of self(-illness) ambiguity to pattern theories of self. (shrink)

In this radical book, Roy Bhaskar expands his philosophy of critical realism with an audacious re-synthesis of many aspects of Western and Eastern thought. Arguing that the existence of God provides the fundamental structure of the world, he renders plausible ideas of reincarnation, karma and moksha or liberation. Originally published in the year of the millennium, From East to West continues to be a groundbreaking and fundamental work within the critical realist tradition. Stimulating debate in ontology, epistemology, ethics, political philosophy (...) and the philosophy of religion, this book has been influential as a major new development in critical realism. This second edition contains a new introduction from Mervyn Hartwig, who is the founding editor of the _Journal of Critical Realism_ and editor and principal author of the _Dictionary of Critical Realism_. (shrink)

Some actions are freer than others, and the difference is palpably important in terms of inner process, subjective perception, and social consequences. Psychology can study the difference between freer and less free actions without making dubious metaphysical commitments. Human evolution seems to have created a relatively new, more complex form of action control that corresponds to popular notions of free will. It is marked by self-control and rational choice, both of which are highly adaptive, especially for functioning within culture. The (...) processes that create these forms of free will may be biologically costly and therefore are only used occasionally, so that people are likely to remain only incompletely self-disciplined, virtuous, and rational. (shrink)

Episodic memories can no longer be seen as the re-activation of stored experiences but are the product of an intense construction process based on a memory trace. Episodic recall is a result of a process of scenario construction. If one accepts this generative framework of episodic memory, there is still a be big gap in understanding the role of the narrative self in shaping scenario construction. Some philosophers are in principle sceptic by claiming that a narrative self cannot be more (...) than a causally inefficacious attributed entity anyway. Thus, we first characterize a narrative self in detail and second we clarify its influential causal role in shaping our episodic memories by influencing the process of scenario construction. This happens at three stages, namely at the level of the input, the output and the process of scenario construction. (shrink)

I WHAT IS PROBABILITY? Style manuals advise us that the proper way to begin a piece of expository writing is to introduce and identify clearly the subject ...

This article argues for engaging with the smart city as a sociotechnical imaginary. By conducting a close reading of primary source material produced by the companies IBM and Cisco over a decade of work on smart urbanism, we argue that the smart city imaginary is premised in a particular narrative about urban crises and technological salvation. This narrative serves three main purposes: it fits different ideas and initiatives into a coherent view of smart urbanism, it sells and disseminates this version (...) of smartness, and it crowds out alternative visions and corresponding arrangements of smart urbanism. Furthermore, we argue that IBM and Cisco construct smart urbanism as both a reactionary and visionary force, plotting a model of the near future, but one that largely reflects and reinforces existing sociopolitical systems. We conclude by suggesting that breaking IBM’s and Cisco’s discursive dominance over the smart city imaginary requires us to reimagine what smart urbanism means and create counter-narratives that open up space for alternative values, designs, and models. (shrink)

This chapter summarizes research on free will. Progress has been made by discarding outmoded philosophical notions in favor of exploring how ordinary people understand and use the notion of free will. The concept of responsible autonomy captures many aspects of layperson concepts of free will, including acting on one's own (i.e., not driven by external forces), choosing, using reasons and personal values, conscious reflection, and knowing and accepting consequences and moral implications. Free will can thus be understood as form of (...) volition (action control) that evolved to enable people to live in cultural societies. Much work has shown that belief in free will (as opposed to disbelief) is associated with actions that are conducive to functioning well in culture, including helpfulness, restraint of aggression, learning via counterfactual analysis, thinking for oneself, effective job performance, and appropriate gratitude. Belief in free will increases in response to misdeeds by others, thus emphasizing the link to personal responsibility. Research on volition indicates that self-regulation, intelligent reasoning, decision making, and initiative all deplete a (common) limited energy source, akin to the folk notion of willpower and linked to the body's glucose supplies. Free will is thus not an absolute or constant property of persons but a variable, fluctuating capability—one that is nonetheless highly adaptive for individuals and society. -/- The notion that people have free will has been invoked in multiple contexts. Legally and morally, it explains why people can be held responsible for their actions. Theologically, it was used to explain why a supposedly kind and omniscient god would send most of the people he created to hell (Walker, 1964). Yet, for such an important concept, there remains wide-ranging disagreement and confusion over its existence and its nature. For example, philosophers still debate whether humans truly have free will and, if so, under what conditions human volition deserves to be considered free (Kane, 2011). In psychology, most theorists believe that humans engage in self-control, rational choice, planning, initiative, and related acts of volition. The debate is not whether these things occur but merely whether these should be called free will. -/- This chapter will provide an overview of recent psychology experiments concerned with free will. There are three main and quite distinct sets of problems, each with associated lines of research. The first is concerned with how people understand the idea of free will. The second concerns the causes and consequences of believing in free will. The third focuses on the actual volitional processes that guide human action. (shrink)

As in other areas of medical practice, relatives accompany patients to genetic consultations. However, unlike in other areas, the consultations may be relevant to the relatives’ health because they may be at risk of developing the same genetic condition as the patient. The presence of relatives in genetic consultation may affect the decision‐making process and it raises questions about the perception of patient autonomy and the way it is practiced in genetics. However, these issues have not been examined in previous (...) empirical studies. This article aims to fill this gap by reporting findings from a qualitative study with clinicians working in the area of inherited breast cancer. The findings indicate that family presence has an impact on the patient's decisions to undergo genetic testing and preventative operations when she is diagnosed as a carrier. The findings further indicate that, unlike in other areas of medical practice, blood relatives who are present in consultations are perceived by clinicians as patients or potential patients, and this in turn increases their involvement in discussions in the consultation room. Finally, the findings indicate that in genetics, a relational approach to autonomy is applied. Decisions are made in a social context, where the relatives’ views are heard and taken into account. The findings suggest that the conventional bioethical approach to autonomy, which perceives the decision‐making unit as comprising a clinician and an individual patient, is challenged in genetics. The findings thus suggest that bioethicists, lawyers and policy‐makers should consider whether this individualistic approach is still valid and applicable. (shrink)

In “Properties and the Interpretation of Second-Order Logic” Bob Hale develops and defends a deflationary conception of properties where a property with particular satisfaction conditions actually exists if and only if it is possible that a predicate with those same satisfaction conditions exists. He argues further that, since our languages are finitary, there are at most countably infinitely many properties and, as a result, the account fails to underwrite the standard semantics for second-order logic. Here a more lenient version of (...) the view is explored, which allows for the possibility of countably infinite predicates understood as the product of linguistic supertasks. This enriched deflationist account of properties—the Infinitary Deflationary Conception of Existence—supports the standard semantics for models with countable first-order domains, and allows one to prove the categoricity of the second-order Peano axioms. (shrink)

Some people believe more than others in free will, and researchers have both measured and manipulated those beliefs. Disbelief in free will has been shown to cause dishonest, selfish, aggressive, and conforming behavior, and to reduce helpfulness, learning from one’s misdeeds, thinking for oneself, recycling, expectations for occupational success, and actual quality of performance on the job. Belief in free will has been shown to have only modest or negligible correlations with other variables, indicating that it is a distinct trait. (...) Belief in free will has correlated positively with life satisfaction and finding life meaningful, with self‐efficacy and self‐control, with low levels of stress, and (though not entirely consistently) with internal locus of control. High belief in free will has been linked to a punitive attitude toward wrongdoers and lower forgiveness toward them. The belief seems to involve a sense of agency and expecting others to behave in morally responsible fashion. (shrink)

Can the early Yogācāra be said to present a systematic theory of meaning? The paper argues that Sthiramati’s bhāṣya on Vasubandhu’s Triṃśikā, in which he argues that all language-use is metaphorical, indeed amounts to such a theory, both because of the text’s engagement with the wider Indian philosophical conversation about reference and meaning and by virtue of the questions it addresses and its motivations. Through a translation and analysis of key sections of Sthiramati’s commentary I present the main features of (...) this theory of meaning and discuss the ways in which it is distinct from Vasubandhu’s ideas. I demonstrate how this theory of meaning enabled Sthiramati to present a unique understanding of discourse that distinguishes between varying levels of truth within the conventional realm. This understanding sat well with the Yogācāra soteriological and theoretical needs, and most importantly, enabled him to establish the meaningfulness of the school’s own metaphysical discourse. Securing this meaningfulness was especially important to Sthiramati in meeting the challenge posed by the radical conventionalism of the Madhyamaka, and his response as I interpret it suggests that one of the main disputes between the early Yogācāra with the Mādhyamika, at least as reflected in the Triṃśikā-bhāṣya, in fact turns on linguistic rather than ontological issues. (shrink)

Written for undergraduates, the educated layperson, and scholars in fields other than philosophy, _The Myth of Religious Neutrality _offers a radical reinterpretation of the general relations between religion, science, and philosophy. This new edition has been completely revised and updated by the author.

By considering the new notion of theinversesof syllogisms such asBarbaraandCelarent, we show how the rule ofIndirect Proof, in the form (no multiple or vacuous discharges) used by Aristotle, may be dispensed with, in a system comprising four basic rules of subalternation or conversion and six basic syllogisms.

The argument proceeds by exploiting the gradually decreasing vagueness of a certain sequence of predicates. the vagueness of 'vague' is then used to show that the thesis that all vague predicates are incoherent is self-defeating. a second casualty is the view that the probems of vagueness can be avoided by restricting the scope of logic to nonvague predicates.

Four recent turns in social thought are discussed and related to the four dimensional schema of dialectical realism the author has recently outlined. It is shown how ontology matters, and indeed is not only necessary but inevitable, The nature of the reality of ideas is demonstrated and the most prevalent mistakes in the metatheory of ideas and ideation analysed. The significance of categorical realism and the character of those specific types if ideas known as ‘ideologies’ are then discussed. Finally some (...) good and bad dialectical connections of ideas and related phenomena are sketched. (shrink)

A Brief History of the Paradox is the first narrative history of paradoxes. Sorenson draws us deep inside the tangles of riddles, paradoxes and conundrums by answering the questions which are seemingly unanswerable. Can God create a stone too heavy for him to lift? Can time have a beginning? Which came first, the chicken or the egg? Filled with illuminating anecdotes, A Brief History of the Paradox is vividly written and will appeal to anyone who finds trying to answer unanswerable (...) questions a paradoxically pleasant endeavour. (shrink)

This paper considers two models of embodied mathematical cognition, and analyses the image of mathematics that they support.

Do we need light to see? I argue that the black experience of a man in a perfectly dark cave is a representation of an absence of light, not an absence of representation. There is certainly a difference between his perceptual knowledge and that of his blind companion. Only the sighted man can tell whether the cave is dark just by looking. But perhaps he is merely inferring darkness from his failure to see. To get an unambiguous answer, I switch (...) the focus from perceptual knowledge to non-epistemic seeing. My conclusion is that we see even in the limiting case of absolute darkness - regardless of whether we believe we are seeing. We see little of pratical interest. But in terms of basic information, we see about as much as we do when the lights are on. Depending on what has gone before and after, we may even see ordinary objects. (shrink)

Dooyeweerd’s account of abstraction is examined and found to be faulty. He holds that abstract thinking isolates aspects which must then be synthesized, whereas I argue that we cannot isolate any aspect from the others however so hard we try. But our very inability to isolate aspects is then turned into an alternative version of a transcendental critique of theory making. Instead of asking for a basis for synthesizing aspects we have isolated, the new version asks: what is the nature (...) of the aspectual connectedness which is so strong that it cannot be interrupted even by abstraction? I argue that it is impossible for anyone to understand the meaning of a concept fully without taking a position on this issue, whether that is done implicitly or explicitly. Moreover, every answer to this question presupposes a divinity belief. Hence, this recasting of the critique yields a demonstration of the religious regulation of all concepts and every theory. In this way the goal of Dooyeweerd’s critique is achieved, even if not in the way he envisioned. (shrink)

This article discusses the concept of mathematical metaphor as a tool for analyzing the formation of mathematical knowledge. It reflects on the work of Lakoff and Núñez as a reference point against which to rearticulate a richer notion of mathematical metaphor that can account for actual mathematical evolution. To reach its goal this article analyzes historical case studies, draws on cognitive research, and applies lessons from the history of metaphors in philosophy as analyzed by Derrida and de Man.

This essay begins a conversation between Bernard Williams and Confucius (of the Analects ) in response to the general question of whether individuals are internally motivated in adopting role-specific reasons for action. It is argued that certain social roles such as Father, Son, Husband, Wife, Minister or Ruler, and Citizen or Subject are thick ethical concepts operative in Confucian ethical communities, such that the application of these thick ethical concepts results in role-specific internal reasons for action. If so, the Confucian (...) emphasis on li 禮 constitutes ethical knowledge regarding the applicability of these thick ethical concepts, the practice of which actively offers individuals reasons to apply their social roles. This expands Williams' ethical theorizing to account for the ethical significance of social roles and relationships within Confucian ethical communities, as the collective practice of li within a Confucian ethical community serves as a background to the sort of ethical theorizing favored by Williams. (shrink)

The emerging discipline of complexity science, applied to the social sciences, seeks to study the rise of human civilization as a part of a natural, evolving biological system that exploits energy resources to fuel its growth into a complex social system. In order to understand the whole system, the reductionist approach, typical to Western science, must be supplanted. The atomistic study of various scientific fields as separate mechanical parts of the system must be broadened, creating a more holistic view of (...) human culture as an integral part of larger universal process of evolution and creation. In this article I wish to integrate the various scientific fields, including physics, chronobiology, biology, evolutionary psychology, and the social sciences, to achieve a unified understanding of our cultural evolution. (shrink)

History is the science which investigates the successive changes that have taken place in the material and intellectual conditions of man; it inquires into the causes of those changes, and the influence which they have exerted in modifying the life and mind of mankind.

The current spread of coronavirus has caught our modern world by surprise, which leads to widespread panic, fear and confusion. However, if we view the unfolding of these events from a scientific historical perspective of past human evolution, we may discover the reoccurring patterns of the environmental conditions that give rise to such epidemics. Hence, we can figure out better methods to prepare and react to the infectious agents that spread diseases that have shaped the course of human history before. (...) Here, I propose a holistic view of human evolution, with an interdisciplinary approach that studies how cyclic variation in solar UV energy affects the evolution of viruses and shapes the symbiotic dynamics of human life on earth. (shrink)

Kripshe treats ‘god’ as an empty natural kind term such as ‘unicorn’. She applies Saul Kripke's fresh views about empty natural kinds to ‘god’. Metaphysically, says Kripshe, there are no possible worlds in which there are gods. Gods could not have existed, given that they do not actually exist and never did. Epistemologically, godlessness is an a posteriori discovery. Kripshe dismisses the gods in the same breath that she dismisses mermaids. Semantically, the perspective Kripshe finds most perspicacious, no counterfactual situation (...) is properly describable as one in which there are gods. Perhaps it is not quite a necessary truth that there are no gods. According to Saul Kripke, failed natural kind terms are ill-defined. Incorporating ill-defined terms into declarative sentences yields only mock propositions. Just as the meteorologist has no professional interest in mock thunder, the logician has no professional interest in mock propositions. Kripshe disagrees with agnostics who assign a low probability to ‘There is at least one god’. The bearers of probabilities must be propositions. Despite this deference to science, Kripshe agrees with the a priori atheist that, necessarily, no future experience could constitute an encounter with a god. Divine revelation is impossible. Kripshe's a posteriori necessary atheism compares favorably to familiar forms of atheism and to non-cognitivists. It reveals interesting challenges to a coherent formulation of atheism. (shrink)