This study explores positive migrant storytelling in non-governmental organizations’ advocacy campaigns. We focus on the practices and implications of leveraging storytelling towards charity organizations’ institutional goals. Drawing upon critical discourse studies and narrative studies, we propose a critical storytelling approach that pays attention to the specific nature of storytelling as a discourse practice in itself. We focus on a UNHCR human-interest story of refugee displacement and subsequent integration into the UK. We employ the heuristic concept of positioning that calls for (...) analysis at different, though interrelated levels of narrative activity, to explore how affect is mobilized and the specific identity categories and affect types that are created for migrants and their hosts. We then situate these identity positions in wider dominant discourses of migrant integration. We show that the story foregrounds emblematic refugees, worthy of hosts’ support as well as relationships of dependence between migrants and the host society as requisites to successful integration. We argue that the ways in which an individual refugee story gets mobilized as an exemplary story reveals canonized forms of positive migrant storytelling emerging in the UK context that end up invoking dominant power asymmetries in relation to migration and British integration. (shrink)

Place is central to many research projects in the social sciences, but it is often taken by researchers as a given. Recently, discourse analysts have devoted more attention to the construction of place in interaction. We focus on one aspect of this construction, the process of drawing inferences from place categories and place names, in transcripts of oral history interviews. We apply membership categorization analysis to descriptions of house types and houses, showing how some categories are presented as being shared (...) and recognizable, and how inferences are projected. Then we apply a similar approach to the ways inferences are drawn from place names, focusing especially on proximity. Participants’ categories can be investigated by examining the ways they are used in question–answer pairs, and in the construction of turns using elaborations, contrasting pairs, negatives and qualifications. This analysis shows the work these place references do for the participants, for instance, in categorizing themselves and others and giving accounts for behaviour. (shrink)

We investigate the impact of perceived greenwashing on customer satisfaction. Unlike prior research that largely examines customer perceptions associated with irresponsible behavior, we focus on cases where firms overcommit and/or do not deliver on promised socially responsible actions. We theorize that this type of greenwashing is associated with lower customer satisfaction because customers perceive greenwashing through the lens of corporate hypocrisy. Using data from the American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI) for U.S. companies during the period 2008–2016, we document a negative (...) link between perceived greenwashing related to green product innovation (GPI) and the ACSI index. We demonstrate that this effect is primarily triggered by corporate policies exceeding the corresponding implementation actions and not by lower levels of implementation. We also show that a firm’s capability reputation mitigates the negative effect of greenwashing on customer satisfaction. Moreover, we conduct an experiment and provide evidence confirming that GPI greenwashing is in fact perceived by customers as corporate hypocrisy. (shrink)

There is wide research about the Philosophy for/with Children program. However, there is not any known attempt to investigate how a philosophical discussion can be implemented through a museum workshop. The present research aims to discuss aesthetic and epistemological issues with primary school children through a temporary art exhibition in a museum in Cyprus. Certainly, paintings have been used successfully to connect philosophical topics with the experiences of the children. We suggest, though, that this is not as innovative as the (...) conduction of a dialogue in a museum. Results were mostly positive. Pupils participated in the discussion and they gave intensive definitions of beautiful paintings and counterexamples for given definitions. The structure of inductive arguments and the difference between belief and knowledge were discussed. Progress in the analysis of inductive arguments was slightly noticeable, but it is likely that this was due to limited time spent on analysing those arguments. Furthermore, more sessions are needed to make generalisations for the effectiveness of the Philosophy for Children program in a museum instead of a traditional classroom. Even though there is discussion about the different stimuli of the discussion, it might be worth considering the effectiveness of different contexts where the discussion can take place. (shrink)

Το πολιτικό περιοδικό Βαβυλωνία ανακήρυξε το 2017 "Έτος Καστοριάδη", με μια σειρά εκδηλώσεων για τα 20 χρόνια από τον θάνατο του σπουδαίου φιλοσόφου. Στην παρούσα έκδοση περιλαμβάνονται 7 από τις ομιλίες που εκφωνήθηκαν σε αυτές τις εκδηλώσεις. Στο επίμετρο δημοσιεύεται η συνέντευξη του Καστοριάδη στην εφημερίδα Εκτός Νόμου το 1990. -/- Συγγράφουν: Γρηγόρης Τσιλιμαντός, Νίκος Ιωάννου, Γιάννης Κτενάς, Αλέξανδρος Σχισμένος, Yavor Tarinski, Γιώργος Ν. Οικονόμου, Κορνήλιος Καστοριάδης. -/- Ο Καστοριάδης διαμόρφωσε μια καινούργια, ανοιχτή πρόταση για τον ριζικό μετασχηματισμό της κοινωνίας (...) - όχι με κάποιο μανιφέστο, αλλά μαθαίνοντάς μας να απελευθερωνόμαστε εμείς οι ίδιοι, κάθε φορά που εγκλωβιζόμαστε στον εαυτό μας. (shrink)

To what degree can the philosophy of Cornelius Castoriadis help analyze and evaluate our current social reality in relation to the project of autonomy? How meaningful is his political proposition for direct democracy in the 21st century? What significance do the concepts of social time and social space have in the determination of political freedom? -/- Castoriadis and Autonomy in the 21st Century presents basic concepts of Castoriadian philosophy, including the social-historical plane, ontological creativity, and social and individual time that (...) provide the theoretical tools to evaluate the historical phenomena of our era. Drawing from Greece's own turbulent past and the current global crisis to reveal new significances of social freedom, global solidarity and movements of direct democracy, this book explores social autonomy and human freedom today through critical dialogue with Castoriadis' ideas. (shrink)

A compositional nihilist believes that the only objects that exist are simples. However, a non-nihilist believes in the existence of composite objects and challenges the nihilist to explain why there are true sentences about chairs, tables, etc., if composite objects do not exist. Different nihilist views have been suggested to explain this (the paraphrase strategy and the truthmaker theory), but I believe that they are unsuccessful (either they do not successfully paraphrase every sentence apparently about composite objects, or they are (...) not precise about the truthmakers of those sentences). I will suggest that a new truthmaker theory, which uses resources from Cameron’s truthmaker theory and van Inwagen’s paraphrase strategy, can give such an explanation and does not face the problems of other theories. Therefore, we have a good reason to accept this truthmaker theory as the best nihilist way to accommodate sentences apparently about composite objects. (shrink)

According to conceptual reductive accounts, if properties of one domain can be conceptually reduced to properties of another domain, then the former properties are ontologically reduced to the latter properties. I will argue that conceptual reductive accounts face problems: either they do not recognise that many higher-level properties are correlated with multiple physical properties, or they do not clarify how we can discover new truthmakers of sentences about a higher-level property. Still, there is another way to motivate ontological reduction, the (...) truthmaker reductive explanations (TRE). TRE can be given by using resources from John Heil’s truthmaker theory and the a priori entailment view or the a posteriori entailment view. I will argue that we can give these truthmaker reductive explanations if there are various less-than-perfectly similar physical properties that can be the truthmakers of sentences about higher-level properties and the physical similarity between them can explain why an irreducible higher-level property is not needed. (shrink)

Love for a country has come to be linked with two terms: patriotism and nationalism. The conceptual distinction between these two ideas has been a matter of controversy. In this chapter we propose that one way of thinking about and distinguishing between patriotism and nationalism is via the very concept of love. We make the claim that what distinguishes patriotism and nationalism is not the quality of love but the type of love invoked. We argue that love in patriotism is (...) similar to familial love whereas love in nationalism resembles intense passionate romantic love. We furthermore argue that love involved in our conception of patriotism can be harmless, while the kind of love associated with the relevant conception of nationalism can be dangerous and easily involves “bad faith,” a deceptive faith in the superior goodness of one’s country. To substantiate our claim, we draw from literature across different disciplines: philosophy, political psychology, and biology. (shrink)

This paper inquires into the inability ofsubjects in English to topicalise. Treatingtopicalisation as a specific case of d-linking,it asks: why don’t subjects topicalise inEnglish? And why cannot they be d-linkedthrough further movement? It concludes thatthe property of [aboutness] of subjects is anunderspecified instance of a more compositederivative effect realised as [topic]. Giventhe ability of objects in English to be readilyd-linked through extraction in CP, theanalysis takes a detailed look at the structuraldifferences between subjects and objects. Itconcludes that d-linking of an (...) argument iscontingent upon the derivational memory ofits prior inclusion within vP that has yielded itsdenotational set-membership. Treating EPPas an A’-operation that embeds one instance ofthe subject-chain into discourse, the inabilityof subjects to topicalise is explained as an “online”denotational dependency on discourse,which lacks the systemic memory of thesubject’s embedding. In turn, their immobilityis treated as a modular dependency betweenthe two subject copies, mediated through Texcluding the one instance of the chain. (shrink)

The main idea of this thesis is multi-descriptional physicalism. According to it, only physical entities are elements of our ontology, and there are different ways to describe them. Higher-level vocabularies (e.g., mental, neurological, biological) truly describe reality. Sentences about higher-level entities are made true by physical entities. Every chapter will develop multi-descriptional physicalism or defend it from objections. In chapter 1, I will propose a new conceptual reductive account that conceptually reduces higher-level entities to physical entities. This conceptual reductive account (...) combines resources from Heil’s truthmaker theory and either a priori physicalism or a posteriori physicalism. In chapter 2, I apply this conceptual reductive account to various debates. Physicalism, the multiple-realisability argument, the prototype theory of concepts, and truthmaker explanations will be discussed. In chapter 3, I will argue that a major aim of metaphysics should be to discover which entities are fundamental and explain why they suffice for the existence of derivative entities. In chapter 4, I will propose a new way to explain why sentences apparently about composite objects are true even though there are no composite objects. It combines resources from Cameron’s truthmaker theory and van Inwagen’s paraphrase strategy. In chapter 5, I will argue that the intuition that the mind and the body are very different does not show that the mind is distinct from the body. This intuition can be explained away by mentioning our dispositions to give non-physical explanations when we are ignorant of physical facts. In chapter 6, I will examine two arguments for the existence of a metaphysically independent level, and I will argue that only a modified version of one of them succeeds. I will argue that methodological principles support the view that there is a metaphysically independent level. (shrink)

Resumen Este artículo ofrece una lectura de la pintura renacentista según los principios establecidos por Leon Battista Alberti, uno de los primeros teóricos de la perspectiva en cuyo Tratado de pintura se refiere al cuadro como “una ventana abierta a la historia”. El concepto de historia empleado por Alberti, que se presta a numerosas interpretaciones, es abordado a partir de las reflexiones de Erwin Panofsky en torno a la perspectiva como “forma simbólica”, avanzando hacia una hipótesis en torno al carácter (...) simbólico de la configuración y representación del tiempo en el cuadro-ventana albertiano.This paper offers a reading of the renaissance painting according to the principles established by Leon Battista Alberti, one of the first theorists of perspective in painting which Trattato della pittura define the frame of the painting as “an open window into history”. The concept of history employed by Alberti, which lends itself to many interpretations, is approached from the reflections of Erwin Panofsky about the prospect as “symbolic form”, moving towards a hypothesis about the symbolic nature of the configuration and representation of time in the alberti’s window. (shrink)

ΤΙ ΣΗΜΑΙΝΕΙ «ΜΕΤΑ ΤΟΝ ΚΑΣΤΟΡΙΑΔΗ»; Μα ακριβώς αυτό που καταλαβαίνουμε εξαρχής. Τα χρόνια που ακολούθησαν τον θάνατο του μεγάλου φιλοσόφου ανέδειξαν τη σημασία της φιλοσοφικής και πολιτικής του σκέψης, έφεραν τα ερωτήματα που ο ίδιος είχε διατυπώσει στο επίκεντρο των κοινωνικών αγώνων, επιβεβαίωσαν την κριτική του στην καπιταλιστική (αν)ορθολογικότητα, έθεσαν το ζήτημα της Άμεσης Δημοκρατίας στην καρδιά της κοινωνίας. Ταυτόχρονα, νέες μορφές επικοινωνίας και συνταύτισης αναδύθηκαν, δριμύτατες κοινωνικές συγκρούσεις γκρέμισαν το κάτοπτρο της ασημαντότητας και καινούργιες πολιτικές αγωνίες προσπαθούν να βρουν (...) λέξεις για να αρθρωθούν. Ο λόγος του Καστοριάδη μοιάζει πιο επίκαιρος από ποτέ, ενώ η γλαύκα της Ακαδημίας αρχίζει να λοξοκοιτά μυωπικά το έργο του με στόχο να το απολιθώσει. Όμως το έργο του Καστοριάδη δεν προσφέρεται για απολίθωση. Δεν είναι μία κλειστή θεωρία, είναι μια πρόσκληση σε πράξη, μια προτροπή σε αναστοχασμό, μία αξίωση αυτονομίας. (shrink)

Οι θέσεις του Καστοριάδη αναφορικά με το ζήτημα της αυτονομίας, μέσα από τη πραγμάτευση των εννοιών της ψυχής και του ατόμου, αναδεικνύουν την άρρηκτη σύνδεση της οντολογίας και της φιλοσοφικής ανθρωπολογίας της δημιουργίας με το πολιτικό πρόταγμα της κοινωνικής απελευθέρωσης. Το μάγμα της ανθρώπινης ψυχής, όπου τα ορθολογικά στοιχεία διατηρούνται μόνο "σαν επιπλέοντα συντρίμμια ναυαγίου σε τρικυμιώδη θάλασσα", επιλέγεται ως αφετηρία, καθώς η ατομικότητα αποτελεί το πραγματικό πολιτικό διακύβευμα της εποχής του θρυμματισμού των ταυτοτήτων και του άγριου ατομικισμού. Ο Καστοριάδης (...) υπενθυμίζει διαρκώς πως το πρόταγμα μιας αυτόνομης κοινωνίας προϋποθέτει αυτόνομα άτομα, κι αυτά με τη σειρά τους ένα νόημα της αυτονομίας, όπου η ελευθερία μπορεί να βρει την κοινωνική της πραγμάτωση, πέραν της μεταφυσικής και της θεολογίας. (shrink)