In politics, we often observe stasis when, at first sight, no reason exists for such policy blockades. In contrast., we sometimes see policy change when one would expect blockades resulting from veto points or countervailing majorities. How can we explain these contradictory results concerning policy stability? In order to solve this theoretical puzzle, we develop an agent-based model (ABM). We combine established models of veto player theory (Tsebelis 2002: Ganghof-Bräuninger 2006) with the findings of political sociology and party competition. By (...) aggregating previous party-level findings, we show that dynamic representation (Stimson et. al. 1995) provides an additional mechanism that can explain these macro-level outcomes. Parties behaving responsively to their electorate do not automatically guarantee perfect responsivity on the party system level. Further, if opposition parties also fear punishment by the electorate for government inaction, the opposition behaves more accommodatingly than previous approaches have predicted. (shrink)

While many studies from analytical sociology apply agent-based modeling to analyze the transformational mechanisms linking the micro to the macro level, we hold the view that both situational and action formation mechanisms can rather be unveiled by means of more advanced quantitative methods. By focusing on selective exposure to quality newspapers, our study has both an analytical and a substantive aim. First., our analytical aim is to amend the psychological mechanism of avoiding cognitive dissonance by social mechanisms allowing postulates on (...) how the selective exposure effect might vary by particular social groups. Second, our substantive aim is to set the ground for a longitudinal analysis of selective exposure to quality papers by placing these social mechanisms in the context of social and cultural change. By referring to hypothetical data, we illustrate which kind of (multilevel) moderator effects would have to hold if our hypotheses were true. (shrink)

In this paper, we put forward an interdisciplinary framework describing different levels of self-representations, namely non-conceptual, conceptual and propositional self-representations. We argue that these different levels of self-representation are differently affected by cultural upbringing: while propositional self-representations rely on “theoretical” concepts and are thus strongly influenced by cultural upbringing, non-conceptual self-representations are uniform across cultures and thus universal. This differentiation offers a theoretical specification of the distinction between an independent and interdependent self-construal put forward in cross-cultural psychology. Hence, this does (...) not only allow for a deeper understanding of different self-conceptions, but also for a formulation of new hypotheses regarding the cultural influence on self-representations. As one example, we will highlight the role of the proposed levels of self-representation for emotional experience and formulate some major implications of our interdisciplinary framework for future empirical research. (shrink)

Cet article constitue la présentation des recherches effectuées par une équipe franco-grecque sur le tell de Kirrha en Phocide entre 2008 et 2015, et représente la publication préliminaire des structures archéologiques mises au jour. Deux secteurs distants l’un de l’autre ont été fouillés, révélant une dense occupation de l’Helladique Moyen, ainsi que des niveaux s’étageant jusqu’à l’Helladique Récent III. Notamment, une nécropole de la période transitionnelle (Helladique Moyen III – Helladique Récent I/II) a été fouillée dans la partie occidentale du (...) site, tandis que des niveaux mycéniens ont été reconnus à proximité du sommet. (shrink)

El presente artículo aborda las connotaciones y los fundamentos de la paráfrasis cum canere vellem en Serv. Ecl. 6. 3. El análisis del sentido del verbo volo en este contexto y la confrontación del pasaje con Serv. Ecl. 6. 5 revelan que Servio interpreta la frase cum canerem reges et proelia como referencia a un temprano empeño de Virgilio en componer poesía épica, del que pronto desistió. Esta interpretación está condicionada por la idea de que la secuencia cronológica Églogas - (...) Geórgicas - Eneida tiene un correlato jerárquico, idea que se funda en noticias biográficas y en la teoría de la tripertita varietas. This paper focuses on the connotations and grounds of the paraphrase cum canere vellem in Serv. Ecl. 6. 3. The analysis of the sense of verb volo within this context, as well as the confrontation between that passage and Serv. Ecl. 6. 5, show that Servius interprets the clause cum canerem reges et proelia as a reference to Virgil's early endeavor to compose an epic poem, from which he shortly desisted. This interpretation is conditioned by the idea that the chronological sequence Eclogues - Georgics - Aeneid has a hierarchical correlate, an idea which is founded on biographical information and the theory of tripertita varietas. (shrink)

A new edition of the classic introduction to mathematics, first published in 1930 and revised in the 1950s, explains the history and tenets of mathematics, ...

One version of moral error theory maintains that the central problem with morality is an ontological commitment to irreducible normativity. This paper argues that this version of error theory ultimately depends on an appeal to Ockham’s Razor, and that Ockham’s Razor should not be applied to irreducible normativity. This is because the appeal to Ockham’s Razor always contains an intractable element of epistemic circularity; and if this circularity is not vicious, we can construct a sound argument for the existence of (...) irreducibly normative truths that contains a similar kind of epistemic circularity. This argument is a version of Pascal’s Wager which I call “Parfit’s Wager,” because it is based on a passage from Derek Parfit’s On What Matters. It states that, if we believe that there are some irreducibly normative truths, we are more likely to be believing what we ought to believe compared to not believing that there are such truths, and that this indicates that we ought rationally to believe that there are such truths, justifying the ontological commitment to irreducible normativity in the process. (shrink)

The potential for biases being built into algorithms has been known for some time, yet literature has only recently demonstrated the ways algorithmic profiling can result in social sorting and harm marginalised groups. We contend that with increased algorithmic complexity, biases will become more sophisticated and difficult to identify, control for, or contest. Our argument has four steps: first, we show how harnessing algorithms means that data gathered at a particular place and time relating to specific persons, can be used (...) to build group models applied in different contexts to different persons. Thus, privacy and data protection rights, with their focus on individuals, do not protect from the discriminatory potential of algorithmic profiling. Second, we explore the idea that anti-discrimination regulation may be more promising, but acknowledge limitations. Third, we argue that in order to harness anti-discrimination regulation, it needs to confront emergent forms of discrimination or risk creating new invisibilities, including invisibility from existing safeguards. Finally, we outline suggestions to address emergent forms of discrimination and exclusionary invisibilities via intersectional and post-colonial analysis. (shrink)

I show that frequentism, as an explanation of probability in classical statistical mechanics, can be extended in a natural way to a decoherent quantum history space, the analogue of a classical phase space. The result is a form of finite frequentism, in which Gibbs’ concept of an infinite ensemble of gases is replaced by the quantum state expressed as a superposition of a finite number of decohering microstates. It is a form of finite and actual frequentism (as opposed to hypothetical (...) frequentism) insofar as all the microstates exist, in keeping with the decoherence-based Everett interpretation, and some versions of pilot-wave theory. (shrink)

The article introduces and defends the Nomological Account of ground, a reductive account of the notion of metaphysical explanation in terms of the laws of metaphysics. The paper presents three desiderata that a theory of ground should meet: it should explain the modal force of ground, the generality of ground, and the interplay between ground and certain mereological notions. The bulk of the paper develops the Nomological Account and argues that it meets the three desiderata. The Nomological Account relies on (...) two central notions: the notion of a ‘law of metaphysics’ and the notion of ‘determination via the laws’. The paper offers the constructional conception of the laws of metaphysics, on which the metaphysical laws are general principles that characterize construction–operations such as composition, constitution, or set-formation. The role of determination in the account is explained and some reductive approaches to the notion are sketched. The case for the Nomological Account presented in this article is also a case for the laws of metaphysics. Since the Nomological Account offers a promising approach to metaphysical explanation we should take the laws of metaphysics seriously. (shrink)

From ‘connecting the dots’ and finding ‘the needle in the haystack’ to predictive policing and data mining for counterinsurgency, security professionals have increasingly adopted the language and methods of computing for the purposes of prediction. Digital devices and big data appear to offer answers to a wide array of problems of (in)security by promising insights into unknown futures. This article investigates the transformation of prediction today by placing it within governmental apparatuses of discipline, biopower and big data. Unlike disciplinary and (...) biopolitical governmentality, we argue that prediction with big data is underpinned by the production of a different time/space of ‘between-ness’. The digital mode of prediction with big data reconfigures how we are governed today, which we illustrate through an analysis of how predictive policing actualizes between-ness as hotspots and near-real-time decisions. (shrink)

The paper explores a deductive-nomological account of metaphysical explanation: some truths metaphysically explain, or ground, another truth just in case the laws of metaphysics determine the latter truth on the basis of the former. I develop and motivate a specific conception of metaphysical laws, on which they are general rules that regulate the existence and features of derivative entities. I propose an analysis of the notion of ‘determination via the laws’, based on a restricted form of logical entailment. I argue (...) that the DN-account of ground can be defended against the well-known objections to the DN-approach to scientific explanation. The goal of the paper is to show that the DN-account of metaphysical explanation is a well-motivated and defensible theory. (shrink)

Obtaining informed consent from patients is a moral and legal duty and, thus, a key legitimation for medical treatment. The pivotal prerequisite for valid informed consent is decision-making capacity of the patient. Related to the question of whether and when consent should be morally and legally valid, there has been a long-lasting philosophical debate about freedom of will and the connection of freedom and responsibility. The scholarly discussion on decision-making capacity and its clinical evaluation does not sufficiently take into account (...) this fundamental debate. It is contended that the notion of free will must be reflected when evaluating decision-making capacity. Namely, it should be included as a part of the appreciation-criterion for decision-making capacity. The argumentation is mainly drawn on the compatibilism of Harry Frankfurt. A solution is proposed which at the same time takes the notion of free will seriously and enriches the traditional understanding of decision-making capacity, strengthening its justificatory force while remaining clinically applicable. (shrink)

The Handbook of Value combines the forces of the many disciplines involved in value research, by integrating the perspectives of distinguished scholars from the different disciplines. Contributions cover conceptual issues such as definitions of value, psychological and neurological mechanisms underlying value computation and representation, types and taxonomies of value, interindividual and intercultural value differences, the role of value in emotion, moral judgment, decision-making and behavior, as well as case studies of individual varieties of value. The volume contributes to an interdisciplinary (...) dialogue and integration by providing a common reference point that may serve as a resource for disciplinary excellence and interdisciplinary cross-fertilization. (shrink)

This paper builds off the Our Data Ourselves research project, which examined ways of understanding and reclaiming the data that young people produce on smartphone devices. Here we explore the growing usage and centrality of mobiles in the lives of young people, questioning what data-making possibilities exist if users can either uncover and/or capture what data controllers such as Facebook monetize and share about themselves with third-parties. We outline the MobileMiner, an app we created to consider how gaining access to (...) one’s own data not only augments the agency of the individual but of the collective user. Finally, we discuss the data making that transpired during our hackathon. Such interventions in the enclosed processes of datafication are meant as a preliminary investigation into the possibilities that arise when young people are given back the data which they are normally structurally precluded from accessing. (shrink)

Are acts of violence performed in virtual environments ever morally wrong, even when no other persons are affected? While some such acts surely reflect deficient moral character, I focus on the moral rightness or wrongness of acts. Typically it’s thought that, on Kant’s moral theory, an act of virtual violence is morally wrong (i.e., violate the Categorical Imperative) only if the act mistreats another person. But I argue that, on Kant’s moral theory, some acts of virtual violence can be morally (...) wrong, even when no other persons or their avatars are affected. First, I explain why many have thought that, in general on Kant’s moral theory, virtual acts affecting no other persons or their avatars can’t violate the Categorical Imperative. For there are real world acts that clearly do, but it seems that when we consider the same sorts of acts done alone in a virtual environment, they don’t violate the Categorical Imperative, because no others persons were involved. But then, how could any virtual acts like these, that affect no other persons or their avatars, violate the Categorical Imperative? I then argue that there indeed can be such cases of morally wrong virtual acts—some due to an actor’s having erroneous beliefs about morally relevant facts, and others due not to error, but to the actor’s intention leaving out morally relevant facts while immersed in a virtual environment. I conclude by considering some implications of my arguments for both our present technological context as well as the future. (shrink)

Developmental, epidemiological, and neurobiological studies indicate that the adaptive and maladaptive functions, as well as immediate and long-term consequences of drug use, may vary by age. Early initiation seems to be associated with a reduced ability to use drugs purposely in a temporally stable, non-addictive manner. Prevention strategies should consider social environmental factors and aim to delay age at initiation.

We introduce several new variants of the dice experiment by Fischbacher and Föllmi-Heusi :525–547, 2013) to investigate measures to reduce lying. Hypotheses on the relative performance of these treatments are derived from a straightforward theoretical model. In line with previous research, we find that groups of two subjects lied at least to the same extent as individuals—even in a novel treatment where we assigned to one subject the role of being the other’s monitor. However, we find that our participants hardly (...) lied if they do not benefit and only others do, even if they were in a reciprocal relationship. Thus, we conclude that collaboration on lying mostly happens for personal gain. To mitigate selfish lying, an honesty oath which aims to increase moral awareness turned out to be effective. (shrink)

In the Transcendental Aesthetic of the Critique of Pure Reason, Immanuel Kant famously claims that we have an a priori intuition of space as an ‘infinite given magnitude’. Later on, in the Transcendental Analytic, he seems to add that the intuition of space presupposes a synthetic activity of the transcendental imagination. Several authors have recently pointed out that these two claims taken together give rise to two problems. First, it is unclear how the transcendental imagination of a finite mind could (...) ever result in the intuition of an entity that is infinitely large. Second, Kant claims that our intuition of space has a ‘whole-prior-to-its-parts’ structure, such that its parts are given only as limitations of the whole, while synthesis is compositional and has a ‘parts-prior-to-their-whole’ structure, because it consists in first running through and then taking together the parts of a sensible manifold. I will solve these two problems by showing that Kant thought that synthesis does not always have a compositional structure but that there is also a form of ‘decomposing’ synthesis, which has a whole-prior-to-its-parts structure. Building on similarities between Kant, Edmund Husserl and G. W. F. Hegel, I will argue that infinite space is given to us in intuition by precisely such an activity of decomposition, one that allows us to differentiate between finite spatial objects and the unlimited phenomenal horizon in which they appear. (shrink)

Appraisal theories have described elaborate mechanisms underlying the elicitation of emotion at the psychological-cognitive level, but typically do not integrate neuroscientific concepts and findings. At the same time, theoretical developments in appraisal theory have been pretty much ignored by researchers studying the neuroscience of emotion. We feel that a stronger integration of these two literatures would be highly profitable for both sides. Here we outline a blueprint of the “appraising brain.” To this end, we review neuroimaging research investigating the processing (...) of major appraisal variables, and sketch a neuro-cognitive process model of appraisal with a special emphasis on the chronometry and the recursive aspect of emotional evaluation. We hope that this contribution will stimulate more hypothesis-driven research on the neuroscience of appraisal. (shrink)

The Snowden revelations and the emergence of ‘Big Data’ have rekindled questions about how security practices are deployed in a digital age and with what political effects. While critical scholars have drawn attention to the social, political and legal challenges to these practices, the debates in computer and information science have received less analytical attention. This paper proposes to take seriously the critical knowledge developed in information and computer science and reinterpret their debates to develop a critical intervention into the (...) public controversies concerning data-driven security and digital surveillance. The paper offers a two-pronged contribution: on the one hand, we challenge the credibility of security professionals’ discourses in light of the knowledge that they supposedly mobilize; on the other, we argue for a series of conceptual moves around data, human–computer relations, and algorithms to address some of the limitations of existing engagements with the Big Data-security assemblage. (shrink)

Realists about laws of nature and their Humean opponents disagree on whether laws ‘govern’. An independent commitment to the ‘governing conception’ of laws pushes many towards the realist camp. Despite its significance, however, no satisfactory account of governance has been offered. The goal of this article is to develop such an account. I base my account on two claims. First, we should distinguish two notions of governance, ‘guidance’ and ‘production’, and secondly, explanatory phenomena other than laws are also candidates for (...) governance. My goal is to develop a unified account which captures both guidance and production as well as the governance of phenomena, such as essence and logical consequence. The account of governance I develop belongs to the family of modal accounts, which was popularized by David Armstrong, but it also employs essentialist resources. If successful, this modal-essentialist account not only reveals the costs that proponents of governance incur, but it also puts that important notion on a solid theoretical foundation. (shrink)

This article will explore the relation of search engines to the freedom they invoke in human subjects. Away from questions about the social impact of search engines and their ethical use, it shall investigate the influence of search engines on ethical subjectifications. The article will criticise the common critique that search engines should only deliver neutral and objective results to their users, where ‘neutral’ and ‘objective’ are defined as anti-subjective. On the contrary, it will argue that search engines are designed (...) to deliver subjective results. A possible ethical critique starts therefore where they fail to do so. Due to reasons immanent to the technology, search engines are never subjective enough in their relevance decisions. Their results collide at the same time with what their users expect them to deliver. The article will show that, far from being a disadvantage, this disagreement between the users’ expectations and the search engines results is what triggers an ethical subjectification. (shrink)

Joining voluntary thematic initiatives can be a means for firms to legitimate their business activities. However, a lack of review mechanisms could create incentives for free-riding. This might lead to a lower commitment to the initiative’s principles, and endanger its credibility and its members’ legitimacy benefits. Whether members of voluntary initiatives take advantage of the opportunity to free-ride has not been analyzed empirically so far. To fill this research gap, we investigate from an institutional theory perspective the actual implementation behavior (...) of publicly listed signatories of the United Nations Principles for Responsible Investment (UN PRI) in a difference-in-differences and an event study setting. Our empirical results show that, after signing, UN PRI signatories integrate environmental, social, and governance (ESG) criteria in their business activities significantly more than matched non-signatories from the financial sector, indicating the commitment of the signatories to the UN PRI in general. However, while the initial members show a high commitment to the initiative’s principles by increasing their ESG integration performance substantially, new members signing at a later stage of the initiative perform considerably less, and thus undermine the UN PRI’s credibility. We derive implications for voluntary thematic initiatives to avoid such a development. (shrink)

In everyday life, we usually go by theone-body-one-person rule: one person has one body. This social belief builds on two assumptions: bodies are individual units and they are the same in different situations. This is also the conceptual resource for social theories that build on the notion of individuals. In this article, we turn it into a sociological topic. We develop a vocabulary for reconstructing bodily one-ness and bodily sameness as practically achieved social order, asbody boundary work: what belongs to (...) a body is a matter of local practices that define its situational contours, limits and margins. Practices of identification and personification draw on social memories and enact bodies as trans-situational entities. Persons and bodies, we argue, evolve in co-individuation. Personal corporality, then, can be conceptualized as abody of workthat encompasses these practical efforts of boundary-making. (shrink)

It is often claimed that the social sciences cannot be reduced to a lower-level individualistic science. The standard argument for this position is the Fodorian multiple realizability argument. Its defenders endorse token–token identities between “higher-level” social objects and pluralities/sums of “lower-level” individuals, but they maintain that the properties expressed by social science predicates are often multiply realizable, entailing that type–type identities between social and individualistic properties are ruled out. In this paper I argue that the multiple realizability argument for explanatory (...) holism is unsound. The social sciences are indeed irreducible, but the principled reason for this is that the required token–token identifications cannot in general be carried through. In consequence, paradigmatic social science predicates cannot be taken to apply to the objects quantified over in the lower-level sciences. The result is that typical social science predicates cannot even be held to be co-extensive with individualistic predicates, which means type–type identifications are ruled out too. Multiple realizability has nothing to do with this failure of co-extensiveness, because the relevant social science predicates are not multiply realized in the sense intended by the explanatory holists, a sense which presupposes reductive token–token identifications. (shrink)

In this review essay, I examine the central tenets of sociologist Dave Elder-Vass’s recent contribution to social ontology, as put forth in his book The Causal Power of Social Structures: Emergence, Structure and Agency. Elder-Vass takes issue with ontological individualists and maintains that social structures exist and have causal powers in their own right. I argue that he fails to establish his main theses: he shows neither that social structures have causal powers “in their own right” (in any sense of (...) this expression) nor that they exist. (shrink)