Drawing primarily on ethnographic research performed in a city in Romania, this paper provides a thick description of police practices and information systems in that municipality. It shows various ways in which technologies mediate policing practitioners’ perceptions, decisions and actions. Bringing some additional material from a case in the Dutch police in which they build risk profiles predicated on real-time data from a sensor network, the paper highlights new phenomena with ethical implications emerging at the intersection of information infrastructures and (...) policing practices. In particular, it shows a solidifying effect of technologically mediated suspicion, a sedimentation process in technological infrastructures and the formation of pockets of prejudice in the layers of software code. To adequately account for these phenomena and others, the paper provides a set of arguments and conditions for a sedimentology of infrastructures. At the same time, it offers the first steps in a larger research project that would adapt and test the limits of a geological vocabulary and approach to understand smart urban environments. (shrink)

Prospective memory (PM) is the accurate execution of an intention in the future. PM may be negatively impacted by negative affect, but the underlying mechanisms remain unclear. Rumination may increase the frequency of task-irrelevant thoughts, which deplete attentional capacity and reduce performance. To date, no studies have examined state and trait rumination on an online measure of PM. The present study examined the effects of state and trait rumination on an event-based, focal PM task embedded within a one-back task over (...) multiple sessions. 95 non-depressed adults (18–53 years) completed measures of state/trait rumination, mood, and PM on at least two occasions. Using multi-level modelling, we found that a derived measure of trait rumination, but not an established trait rumination survey, nor negative mood, predicted poorer PM accuracy. These novel findings demonstrate that trait rumination may partially underlie the association between negative affect & PM in a non-clinical sample, and highlight the potential of online methods to study PM. (shrink)

Depuis Kant, les philosophes ont appris à parler, avec prudence, du surnaturel et de sa relation avec la nature. En général le surnaturel n’est même pas reconnu comme faisant partie de la philosophie. La situation n’aurait pu être plus différente aux XVIIe-XVIIIe siècles, lorsque les philosophes comprenaient la relation entre Dieu et le monde comme l’un des problèmes les plus importants que la philosophie fût censé résoudre. Les solutions étaient bien sûr extrêmement diverses : Spinoza niera même que l’on puisse (...) faire la distinction entre principe créateur et création, tandis que d’autres, tel Robert Boyle, s’imagineront un maître horloger créant une machine absolument parfaite, qui depuis sa création ne requiert aucun acte supplémentaire de la part de son créateur. Jusque dans la pensée du jeune Kant, cette idée se rencontrera sous des formes diverses. Tous convenaient, tout de même, qu’il fallait rejeter l’ancien modèle aristotélicien d’une nature désirante, reconstruisant la nature comme un système reposant sur quelques lois fondamentales et repensant à nouveaux frais le rôle que Dieu peut, ou doit, jouer dans un tel système. Les contributions du présent volume traitent d’aspects historiques et systématiques des théories modernes de la nature et du surnaturel, tout en essayant de comprendre, dans ce contexte, l’importance des théories de la relation entre Dieu et le monde. (shrink)

Depuis Kant, les philosophes ont appris à parler, avec prudence, du surnaturel et de sa relation avec la nature. En général le surnaturel n’est meme pas reconnu comme faisant partie de la philosophie. La situation n’aurait pu être plus différente aux XVIIe-XVIIIe siècles, lorsque les philosophes comprenaient la relation entre Dieu et le monde comme l’un des problèmes les plus importants que la philosophie fût censée résoudre. Les solutions étaient bien sûr extrêmement diverses : Spinoza niera même que l’on puisse (...) faire la distinction entre principe créateur et création, tandis que d’autres, tel Robert Boyle, s’imagineront un maître horloger créant une machine absolument parfaite, qui depuis sa création ne requiert aucun acte supplémentaire de la part de son créateur. Jusque dans la pensée du jeune Kant, cette idée se rencontrera sous des formes diverses. Tous convenaient, tout de même, qu’il fallait rejeter l’ancien modèle aristotélicien d’une nature désirante, reconstruisant la nature comme un système reposant sur quelques lois fondamentales et repensant à nouveaux frais le rôle que Dieu peut, ou doit, jouer dans un tel système. Les contributions du présent volume traitent d’aspects historiques et systématiques des théories modernes de la nature et du surnaturel, tout en essayant de comprendre, dans ce contexte, l’importance des théories de la relation entre Dieu et le monde. (shrink)

Reshaping the neo-Aristotelian doctrines about the human soul was Descartes’s most spectacular enterprise, which gave birth to some of the sharpest debates in the Republic of Letters. Neverthe- less, it was certainly Descartes’s intention, as already expressed in the Discours de la méthode, to show that his new metaphysics could be supplemented with experimental research in the field of medicine and the conservation of life. It is no surprise then that several natural philosophers and doctors, such as Henricus Regius from (...) Utrecht, who had studied in Padua with William Harvey, rallied in support, in order to gain a more substantial theoretical basis for their research. Taking as his ground some general metaphysical assumptions, such as the existence of God, the immortality of the soul, and perhaps the separability of the pure understanding, Regius intended to secure a new philosophy of man, which was able to reflect his medical interests and complement his account of human nature. This is the story that is now gaining currency, and it is surely accurate, at least in part. Desmond Clarke has recently defended the same view1, based on the remarkable studies of the Utrecht scholars Theo Verbeek and Erik-Jan Bos. Here I would like to challenge some aspects of this view and ask how Regius, who was perceived as the philosopher most closely associated with Descartes, became a betrayer of his mentor. (shrink)

The authors of this article contend that traditional corruption, which was largely blamed for the current situation in the Icelandic economy, was perhaps not the most fundamental reason for the ensuing crisis. The weak business culture and a symbiosis of business and politics have actually allowed for the bulk of self-erving and unethical decisions made by the Icelandic business and political elite. In order to illustrate this point, 10 expert interviews have been conducted within the period of 6 months in (...) 2009 to support in-depth research carried out by the authors. The article also discloses questionable business practices that have recently come to the attention of the public both in Iceland and abroad and that ultimately facilitated the downfall of the Icelandic economy. While traditional corruption has probably played its role in this downfall, the measures currently employed to determine its level did not account for various peculiarities of Icelandic society. The article thus argues that there was a high level of corruption in Iceland, but it was outside of the traditional definition. This other corruption has ultimately prevented the government from acting appropriately upon the questionable business practices mentioned above. The article also offers some general recommendations which should be useful to both policy makers and business leaders wishing to engage in business activities in a transparent, ethical manner and learn from the tragic Icelandic experience. Among these recommendations are the necessity to recognize the limitations of current definitions of corruption, as well as a word of caution to commercial enterprises to pay a close attention not only to commonly accepted indices and mainstream reports but also to a country's history, culture, and political environment, prior to making any sort of investment decisions in that country. (shrink)

This article explores notions of death and subjectivity, through the zombie, in the first four seasons of the AMC show, The Walking Dead. The body of the zombie elicits intriguing speculations. In its death, zombie lingers in the overlapping wedge between the grotesque and the sublime. Stemming from this idea, and through a re-analysis of the zombie as a concept, we propose an update to the Lacan/Zizek psychoanalytical models for death and subjectivity, as well as offer an explanation, through the (...) Holocaust, for this ubiquitous post-apocalyptic fantasy. (shrink)

The idea of gender equality has been and still is an exogenous concept in Romanian culture. Initially introduced and institutionalized by communist ideology after World War II along with other utopian egalitarian principles, gender equality remains to this day a somewhat alien concept in practice for the majority of the Romanian population. Nevertheless, in the early twenty-first century, with renewed economic growth and more liberal governance in Romania, the gender equality debate has intensified, and multiple advocacies now compete on the (...) political and social arenas. The most notable actors shaping current attitudes toward women in Romania are the Orthodox Church, political parties, feminist organizations, and the media. (shrink)

The beginning of the current decade witnessed the collapse of many ambitious and costly initiatives in distance learning, but that does not mean that this was just a short-lived fad, and that the march of change was halted. There appeared on stage forces and processes that work more slowly than decisions of university administrators, but that are also much more difficult to ignore or reverse. This article describes these change factors and the how they influence American higher education.

The beginning of the current decade witnessed the collapse of many ambitious and costly initiatives in distance learning, but that does not mean that this was just a short-lived fad, and that the march of change was halted. There appeared on stage forces and processes that work more slowly than decisions of university administrators, but that are also much more difficult to ignore or reverse. This article describes these change factors and the how they influence American higher education.

Within Descartes' philosophy, the problem of the Eucharist provides scholars the occasion to investigate a nexus of questions belonging to different domains of his thought. In taking up this problem, about which there has been much written in the past few decades , I hope first of all to discern some order in the texts themselves, as well also as in their various interpretations, and then, from there, to propose a new perspective.

In this article, I discuss an interpretation of Hegel's concept of the “Inverted World”, which is present in the final part of the chapter on Force and Understanding in the Phenomenology of Spirit. Other than my own reading of the chapter, I also summarize the three most important interpretations of the verkehrte Welt from the last century: those of Jean Hyppolite, Hans-Georg Gadamer and Joseph Flay. I have chosen these three due to the typology of interpretation within them: the first (...) one adopts a Christian reading of Hegel, the second a Hellenistic phenomenological interpretation, and the last one, which is closest to the interpretation I also propose, a reading consistent with the thought of Immanuel Kant. The article ends with a possible interpretation of Hegel's verkehrte Welt through Kant's “Schematism of the Pure Concepts of Understanding” from his Critique of Pure Reason, where I argue that Kant's fundamental faculty of imagination and its object, schemata, play the same role in Kant's system that Hegel's verkehrte Welt does in the development of natural consciousness. (shrink)

In the context of the current heated debate surrounding the pervasive influence of the English language and Anglo-American culture on other languages, as well as the widespread purist attitude towards some contact-induced language change phenomena, both abroad and in Romania, our article discusses the situation of English lexical borrowings in present-day Romanian, focusing on the perception and processing of the so-calledluxury Anglicisms(Sections 2and3) by young Romanian native speakers, in an attempt to see whether such an analysis can help clarify their (...) acceptability and diffusion across our target population. We propose an alternative cognitive, psycholinguistic approach to the study of contact-induced lexical borrowings, aiming to show that there is no difference in the young Romanian native speakers’ processing of sentences containing luxury Anglicisms and their established Romanian counterparts. Such findings may support our claim that the acceptability and diffusion of such Anglicisms are pervasive across our target population, even if the official position generally condemns such uses, considering them gratuitous and a burden in communication, even making it unintelligible sometimes.Our analysis starts from the observation that most (but not all) Romanian academics, whether linguists or not, tend to embrace a purist attitude, while on the other hand young Romanians accept such Anglicisms and tend to use them extensively. In fact, such uses are not limited to young people, who have been the subjects of our research, but are the ‘norm’ in daily conversations and elsewhere across the general population (Stoichițoiu Ichim 2006). Thus, there seems to be a gap between the actual acceptability and diffusion of luxury Anglicisms among Romanians and the ‘official’ recommendations. Based on the results of a sensicality task, meant to show how 188 Romanians, aged 18–22, process and perceive sentences with or without luxury Anglicisms (seeSection 6), we will try to show that luxury Anglicisms are accepted and, by recurrent use, diffused among the Romanian community. For a more accurate picture of their diffusion, the findings will be further correlated with data fromCoRoLa, the only official corpus ofpresent-day Romanian (beginning 1989) made available under the auspices of the Romanian Academy, as well as a corpus currently in the making, and the Internet (seeSection 7).Besides showing that luxury Anglicisms cannot really be blamed for burdening or impairing processing, and thus communication, and explaining why such uses should not be censured or disapproved, we hope that our study of acceptability and diffusion will demonstrate that we are dealing with a complex, multi-layered phenomenon that can be better understood by going beyond a diachronic and synchronic analysis of particular words and a frequency count, and should incorporate more experimental data.Last but not least, we suggest that, on the practical side, such experimental studies as the one described here could be used as an additional criterion for the lexicographic inclusion of lexical borrowings. (shrink)

This article addresses the issue of units of analysis and atomistic models in psychology taking creativity research as a case study. A classic typology in this area, initially proposed by Rhodes, distinguishes between the four P's of creativity: person, process, product, and press. Continuing an effort to rewrite this basic language of the discipline from a cultural psychological perspective in the form of five A's, the discussion here focuses on bringing relationships to the fore within this framework and problematising strict (...) distinctions between each of the five elements. A closer look at the five A's of creativity, drawing on theoretical considerations and illustrated by interviews with creators working in different domains, reveals the permeable borders surrounding these units and challenges clear divisions between actors and audiences, action and artefacts, actors and artefacts. In the end, it is argued that creative phenomena cannot be properly understood and studied outside of their integrated and dynamic totality defined as a creativity complex. Implications of adopting this “molecular” perspective for theory and methodology are discussed. (shrink)

The current pandemic and the measures taken to address it, on a global scale, are unprecedented. Times of crisis call for creative solutions, and these are not reduced to the work of scientists or politicians. In everyday life, both in online and offline spaces, people use their creativity to make sense of the current situation, to cope with it, and to learn its lessons. Social media is a privileged space for mundane and participative creativity through the production and sharing of (...) coronavirus Internet memes. In this article, we examine the creativity of such memes from a dedicated Reddit community. We ask, in particular, what makes a coronavirus meme creative and what this creativity tells us about the pandemic and popular understandings of it. To answer these questions, we use a triangulation of quantitative and qualitative methods by having 480 memes coded by three social media users for surprise, meaningfulness, elaboration, humor, and creativity and qualitatively analyzing those memes that score highly on each dimension. An interesting finding concerns the importance of elaboration and humor for the evaluation of creativity in the case of memes, above the more traditional criteria of surprise and meaningfulness, perhaps a feature unique for Internet spaces. The article ends with reflections on what these findings tell us about creativity on social media more generally and the creative processes involved in the generation and reception of coronavirus memes in particular. (shrink)

Creativity is of rising interest to scholars and laypeople alike. Creativity in the arts, however, is very different from creativity in science, business, sports, cooking, or teaching. This book brings together top experts in the field from around the world to discuss creativity across many different domains. Each chapter includes clear definitions, intriguing research, potential measures, and suggestions for development or future directions. After a broad discussion of creativity across different domains, subsequent chapters look deeper into those individual domains to (...) explore how creativity varies when expressed in different ways. Ultimately, the book offers a future-looking perspective integrating the different variations of creativity across domains. (shrink)

Creativity — A New Vocabulary proposes a novel approach to the way in which we talk and think about creativity. It covers a variety of topics not commonly associated with creativity that offer us valuable insights and open up new and exciting possibilities for creative action. This collection of essays challenges the 'traditional' vocabulary of creativity and its preference for individuals, brains, cognition, personality, divergent thinking, insight, and problem solving. Instead, the book proposes a more dynamic and relational perspective that (...) considers creativity as an embodied, social, material, and cultural process. This book will be useful for a wide range of specialists within the humanities and social sciences, as well as practitioners from applied fields who are looking for novel ways of thinking about and doing creative work. (shrink)

Le ms. 608 de la Bibliothèque Brukenthal de Sibiu contient la première partie de la Summa theologiae (ff. 1-167) et, de manière incomplète, la Summa contra Gentiles (ff. 168-317) de St. Thomas d’Aquin. L’auteur analyse le manuscrit sous l’angle paléographique et relève les principales caractéristiques de son écriture, une littera Parisiensis currens du XIIIe siècle. L’écriture et la décoration suggèrent en effet une datation du manuscrit à la fin du XIIIe siècle. D’autres éléments, tel le système des peciae, semblent confirmer (...) l’origine parisienne du livre. L’intérêt de ce manuscrit thomiste peu connu aux chercheurs réside dans son histoire médiévale. À la différence des livres médiévaux des autres bibliothèques roumaines, qui ont pour la plupart été acquis par des bibliophiles modernes, lesmanuscrits de Sibiu proviennent des anciennes bibliothèques de la ville, attestées dès le XIVe siècle. Bien qu’il ne se retrouve pas tel quel dans les inventaires de livres rédigés à Sibiu aux XIVe-XVe siècles, et notamment dans la liste transmise par la Matricula plebaniae cibiniensis (1442), le ms. 608 pourrait être un des livres du couvent dominicain de Sibiu. (shrink)

Le ms. 608 de la Bibliothèque Brukenthal de Sibiu contient la première partie de la Summa theologiae (ff. 1-167) et, de manière incomplète, la Summa contra Gentiles (ff. 168-317) de St. Thomas d’Aquin. L’auteur analyse le manuscrit sous l’angle paléographique et relève les principales caractéristiques de son écriture, une littera Parisiensis currens du XIIIe siècle. L’écriture et la décoration suggèrent en effet une datation du manuscrit à la fin du XIIIe siècle. D’autres éléments, tel le système des peciae, semblent confirmer (...) l’origine parisienne du livre. L’intérêt de ce manuscrit thomiste peu connu aux chercheurs réside dans son histoire médiévale. À la différence des livres médiévaux des autres bibliothèques roumaines, qui ont pour la plupart été acquis par des bibliophiles modernes, lesmanuscrits de Sibiu proviennent des anciennes bibliothèques de la ville, attestées dès le XIVe siècle. Bien qu’il ne se retrouve pas tel quel dans les inventaires de livres rédigés à Sibiu aux XIVe-XVe siècles, et notamment dans la liste transmise par la Matricula plebaniae cibiniensis (1442), le ms. 608 pourrait être un des livres du couvent dominicain de Sibiu. (shrink)

Die Identifizierung eines fragmentarisch erhaltenen Textes aus dem Speculum Historiale, das von Vincent de Beauvais um die Mitte des 13. Jahrhunderts zusammengestellt wurde – eine im Mittelalter überall sehr geschätzte historiographische Arbeit – könnte eine Diskussion über den Wert der Geschichtsschreibung innerhalb der Lesepraxis im vormodernen Siebenbürgen anregen. In vorliegendem Aufsatz wird versucht, auf verschiedene Aspekte einzugehen, in erster Linie auf Fragen der Datierung und der Lokalisierung dieses Fragments. Es wird dann weiter argumentiert, dass die beiden noch vorhandenen Blätter ursprünglich (...) Teil einer Handschrift waren, bislang die östlichste Rezeption des Textes in dieser Form darstellt ; die Handschrift war bereits um 1500 im Besitz eines Siebenbürgers. (shrink)

L’article pose pour la première fois la question de la réception d’un texte essentiel pour l’histoire de la pensée européenne, le Liber de causis, en Transylvanie, aux confins de l’aire culturelle latine. Cette première tentative d’exploration se penche plus précisément sur un commentaire bien connu, appartenant à Thomas d’Aquin. Le commentaire, transmis sous une forme imprimée datant du 24 mai 1493, fait partie d’un volume composite qui se trouvait, aux alentours de 1500, dans la bibliothèque des frères dominicains de Sibiu/Hermannstadt (...) (en Roumanie), volume qui comprenait en outre un traité aristotélicien de Walter Burley, également imprimé (daté 8 juillet 1488), et un exemplaire manuscrit de la Métaphysique. Les auteurs s’intéressent au contexte de la transmission du commentaire au Liber de causis et à la signification à donner à la note marginale manuscrite placée en début du commentaire de Thomas d’Aquin : «hic liber est incorrectissime impressus». Ce détail témoignerait d’une connaissance et d’une réception actives de ce texte par les dominicains transylvains de la fin du Moyen Âge. (shrink)

L’article pose pour la première fois la question de la réception d’un texte essentiel pour l’histoire de la pensée européenne, le Liber de causis, en Transylvanie, aux confins de l’aire culturelle latine. Cette première tentative d’exploration se penche plus précisément sur un commentaire bien connu, appartenant à Thomas d’Aquin. Le commentaire, transmis sous une forme imprimée datant du 24 mai 1493, fait partie d’un volume composite qui se trouvait, aux alentours de 1500, dans la bibliothèque des frères dominicains de Sibiu/Hermannstadt (...) (en Roumanie), volume qui comprenait en outre un traité aristotélicien de Walter Burley, également imprimé (daté 8 juillet 1488), et un exemplaire manuscrit de la Métaphysique. Les auteurs s’intéressent au contexte de la transmission du commentaire au Liber de causis et à la signification à donner à la note marginale manuscrite placée en début du commentaire de Thomas d’Aquin : «hic liber est incorrectissime impressus». Ce détail témoignerait d’une connaissance et d’une réception actives de ce texte par les dominicains transylvains de la fin du Moyen Âge. (shrink)

Le ms. 608 de la Bibliothèque Brukenthal de Sibiu contient la première partie de la Summa theologiae et, de manière incomplète, la Summa contra Gentiles de St. Thomas d’Aquin. L’auteur analyse le manuscrit sous l’angle paléographique et relève les principales caractéristiques de son écriture, une littera Parisiensis currens du XIIIe siècle. L’écriture et la décoration suggèrent en effet une datation du manuscrit à la fin du XIIIe siècle. D’autres éléments, tel le système des peciae, semblent confirmer l’origine parisienne du livre. (...) L’intérêt de ce manuscrit thomiste peu connu aux chercheurs réside dans son histoire médiévale. À la différence des livres médiévaux des autres bibliothèques roumaines, qui ont pour la plupart été acquis par des bibliophiles modernes, lesmanuscrits de Sibiu proviennent des anciennes bibliothèques de la ville, attestées dès le XIVe siècle. Bien qu’il ne se retrouve pas tel quel dans les inventaires de livres rédigés à Sibiu aux XIVe-XVe siècles, et notamment dans la liste transmise par la Matricula plebaniae cibiniensis , le ms. 608 pourrait être un des livres du couvent dominicain de Sibiu. (shrink)

In the article, I consider seven metaphysical postulates that lie in the foundations of modern physics. These are postulates: about the nature of space-time, about the existence, about the direction of time, about the causality, about the elementary event, about the nature of information and about the immutability of laws. The directions of critical analysis and possible radical revision of these postulates are briefly presented. It is supposed that this revision can indirectly contribute to the development of a theory that (...) will be able to generalize quantum phenomena, gravity and the evolution of the universe. (shrink)

В статье рассмотрено как результаты квантовых экспериментов могут изменить метафизические представления о реальности. Экспериментальная проверка неравенств Белла, Леггета, Леггета—Гарга, а также эксперименты с отложенным выбором и квантовым «ластиком» подтверждают, что для квантовых объектов следует отказаться от представлений классического реализма. Однако конкуренция между квантовым анти-реализмом и квантовым реализмом продолжается.

_ Source: _Volume 11, Issue 1, pp 46 - 70 In this article, I analyze the idea of “stepping into the void”, which can be traced in the thinking of both Proclus and Damascius, but which sets their perspectives apart. Thus, I show how Proclus warns us that to speak about the absolute principle, taking it as an object of thought, is a negative “stepping into the void” that should be avoided. On the contrary, I show that Damascius starts from (...) this warning and tries to prove that the only adequate manner in which we can trace the absolute principle and approach it is precisely through “stepping into the void,” yet, this time, in a positive sense, as a constant attempt to understand that the principle is an absolute void which reverses our discourse. (shrink)

Mutually supporting methodologies are necessary for building a convincing case establishing a particular effect. Strengths and weaknesses of four empirical methods are discussed. Econometric methods quantify the relative importance of different factors and may assess the time frame over which constitutions matter, but have difficulties in dealing with nonlinear interactions among constitutional and cultural details. Cluster analysis can be a pre-requisite to other methods, and an analytic method in itself, useful for identifying the details that really matter and discovering surprising (...) patterns in the data. I discuss the application of cluster analysis on the Comparative Constitutions Project database. Qualitative comparative analysis can reveal the hidden structure of interactions among different variables, but robustness checks are difficult to perform. Case studies are useful for distinguishing between rules-in-use and rules-in-form and for discovering important informal aspects. They can deal with com.. (shrink)

This essay explains how to use the calculus of consent framework to think more rigorously about self-governance, and applies this framework to the issue of evaluating federal regulatory agencies. Robust political economy is the idea that institutions should be designed to work well even under weak assumptions about decision-makers’ knowledge and benevolence. I show how the calculus of consent can be used to analyze both incentives and knowledge problems. The calculus is simultaneously a theory of self-governance and a tool for (...) robust political economy analysis. Applying this framework to the case of public administration leads to the conclusion that private goods (such as medicine) tend to be over-regulated, public goods tend to be under-regulated (such as enabling too much pollution), and regulatory agencies tend to be over-centralized (and should in most cases either be replaced with certification markets or moved to state level). (shrink)