This paper analyzes the coordination challenge a partial cartel faces when payoff asymmetries between potential cartel insiders and potential cartel outsiders are large. We introduce two experimental treatments: a standard treatment where a complete cartel can be supported in a Nash equilibrium and a modified treatment where a complete cartel and a partial cartel can both be supported in a Nash equilibrium. To assess the role of communication both treatments are additionally run with a (...) “chat option,” yielding four treatments in total. Our results show that subjects frequently reject the formation of partial cartels in the modified treatments. In all treatments with communication subjects are more likely to form complete cartels than partial cartels. The implications of these results are important for antitrust: payoff asymmetries between cartel members and outsiders may jeopardize the formation of partial cartels. Yet complete cartels may be formed instead, if institutional mechanisms with frequent communication are used to form cartels. (shrink)

Although, according to the Austrian school, economic competition, since it pushes entrepreneurs to innovations that benefit not only themselves but consumers as well, is supposed to lead to the public good, it is essential to consider also the possibility of cartel formation. In this case a mechanism is set up whereby the prices of goods and services are kept artificially high. The article shows that it is the same entrepreneurial spirit celebrated by the Austrian school that makes that (...) in certain situations, whose logic can be analyzed according to the model of the prisoner’s dilemma, companies agree to keep prices high. The conclusion is that the public good can only be realized through institutional interventions with both legal and ethical dimensions. (shrink)

We study the possibility of cartel formation among primary exporters who face an inelastic world demand for their exports. The phenomenon of immiserizing export growth appears as a non-cooperative equilibrium in a two-country export game. With infinite repetitions of the one shot game, we show that `different country size' will be detrimental to the sustenance of the collusive behavior needed for eliminating the possibility of immiserization.

Who/what can be had at an ontological discount? By grasping the “anitrelationality” and “dismediation” of social relations by capital’s system of accounts, we discern not only the epistemicide and the expropriation of the cognitive-linguistic by capital, we shed new light on racial abstraction and gender abstraction. We grasp in “the coloniality of race and gender” the logistics of abstraction that at once code the social factory and give rise to what I have called the derivative condition—a condition in which the (...) multiple forms of being, when dissolved in and as executable information, are functionalized as contingent claims on the value-form by means of “the world computer.” When we say that semiotic processes are metapragmatically put under economic and informatic pressure, we are also saying that the datafication expresses more than a simple analogy to the commodity form by assigning numbers to qualities. Rather, datafication appears as the preeminent mechanism for the commodification of sociality, and thus also encodes access to social currency. Femicide and the ritual violence of parastate cartels of “gore capitalism” can be seen as alternative means of issuing derivative (soft) currencies by imposing extrajudicial if equally violent systems of account. (shrink)

We study a first-price auction preceded by a negotiation stage with complete information, during which bidders may form a bidding ring. We prove that in the absence of externalities, the grand cartel forms in equilibrium, allowing ring members to gain the auctioned object for a minimal price. However, identity-dependent externalities may lead to the formation of small rings, as often observed in practice. Potential ring members may condition their participation on high transfer payments as a compensation for their (...) expected externalities if the ring forms. The cartel may therefore profitably exclude these bidders, although risking tougher competition in the auction. We also analyze ring efficiency in the presence of externalities, showing that a ring may prefer sending an inefficient member to the auction, if the efficient member exerts threatening externalities on bidders outside the ring, which in turn leads to a higher winning price. (shrink)

ABSTRACTThe modern view of economic conspiracies stands in stark contrast to the view in the eighteenth century. Such classical economists as Adam Smith took conspiracy to be the natural result of our tendency to associate with one another. It manifested itself in collusion among both laborers and manufacturers to raise their income. By the mid-twentieth century, however, economists had come around to an entirely different view, according to which voluntary collaboration, especially in large groups, was unnatural and irrational, such that (...) the only way to sustain cartels and trade unions was via compulsory, tyrannical measures. The notion of rationality that underlies such a view—as seen in the parallel notion that it is irrational to vote—threatens the understanding of agency that is essential to democracy. (shrink)

There is considerable debate at present, particularly in the Member States of the European Union, concerning the necessity and appropriateness of imposing custodial sentences upon individuals who have engaged in cartel activity. The vast majority of those contributing to this debate have focused on the punishment theory of (economic) deterrence. Little room is devoted to the punishment theory of retribution or to consideration of the ‘moral wrongfulness’ of cartel activity. This article posits that the issue of ‘moral wrongfulness’ (...) is a central issue in the debate on cartel criminalization, irrespective of whether it is deterrence theory or retribution theory that informs the debate. By employing a norms-based approach, this article then examines the extent to which cartel activity can indeed be interpreted as conduct that is ‘morally wrong’ due to its violation of the moral norms against stealing, deception and/or cheating. By doing so, this article not only challenges traditional views of the nature of cartel activity but also provides scholars, legislatures and policymakers with specific analyses which are crucial to a decision whether to justify (or indeed to oppose) the introduction and maintenance of criminal cartel sanctions. (shrink)

Many contributors to debates about professional conscience assume a basic, pre-professional right of conscientious refusal and proceed to address how to ‘balance’ this right against other goods. Here I argue that opponents of a right of conscientious refusal concede too much in assuming such a right, overlooking that the professions in which conscientious refusal is invoked nearly always operate as public cartels, enjoying various economic benefits, including protection from competition, made possible by governments exercising powers of coercion, regulation, and taxation. (...) To acknowledge a right of conscientious refusal is to license professionals to disrespect the profession’s clients, in opposition to liberal ideals of neutrality, and to engage in moral paternalism toward them; to permit them to violate duties of reciprocity they incur by virtue of being members of public cartels; and to compel those clients to provide material support for conceptions of the good they themselves reject. However, so long... (shrink)

During the last decade, any questionable or illegal behaviour on the part of businesses has received considerable attention in the media. Using a critical discursive perspective, we here investigate how the media constructs one type of questionable business as illegitimate. Our data draw upon articles dealing with cartels and cartel agreements in Finnish business media covering the five year period 2002-2007. Our contributions are following: We add to the current literature on CSR and national businesses, suggesting that regardless of (...) globalization sociocultural history plays an important role in constructing the illegitimacy of business practices. We therefore emphasize the importance of media as an arena where social actors construct the social contract between business and society. We further contribute to studies on questionable business by reconstructing a discursive framework used to construct cartels and cartel agreements. (shrink)

Cognitive representations are typically analysed in terms of content, vehicle and format. While current work on formats appeals to intuitions about external representations, such as words and maps, in this paper we develop a computational view of formats that does not rely on intuitions. In our view, formats are individuated by the computational profiles of vehicles, i.e., the set of constraints that fix the computational transformations vehicles can undergo. The resulting picture is strongly pluralistic, it makes space for a variety (...) of different formats, and is intimately tied to the computational approach to cognition in cognitive science and artificial intelligence. (shrink)

Marx admirait grandement Aristote. En aurait-il pour autant accepté l'étrange réactualisation de l'ontologie, cette proto-science de "l'être en tant qu'être"? Toute son oeuvre atteste au contraire qu'elle relevait à ses yeux de "l'ancienne philosophie", conçue à une époque où se confondaient encore toutes les branches du savoir et dont il fallait "sortir d'un bond". L'élaboration par lui et ses continuateurs de cette logique supérieure qu'est la dialectique matérialiste offrait désormais la clé d'une connaissance positive d'un monde s'expliquant par lui-même, sans (...) adjonction d'aucune sorte. On peut s'étonner qu'au soir de sa vie, Georges Lukacs (1885-1971), une des figures les plus marquantes du marxisme contemporain, se soit lancé dans l'impossible tentative de réanimer cette antiquité philosophique. Riche en développements sur le travail et l'aliénation, sa monumentale Ontologie de l'être social n'en révèle pas moins un significatif écartèlement entre le penseur marxiste et l'homme de la Mitteleuropa qu'il ne dépouilla sans doute jamais complètement en lui. (shrink)

During the past decade, any questionable and illegal behavior of businesses has received significant attention in the media. Thus, taking a critical discursive approach, we investigate how the media constructs any questionable business as illegitimate. Our data draws upon articles dealing with cartels and cartel agreements in Finnish business media covering a five year period 2002-2007. Based on our findings, we suggest that regardless of the globalized business world, socio-cultural history plays an important role in constructing the illegitimacy of (...) business practices. (shrink)

This essay is my review of Bob Bowden’s excellent documentary The Cartel. It is a powerful indictment of public schools and public school teachers’ unions. In a crucial part of the film, we see minority parents at a charter school lottery. Charter schools, like voucher private schools, give parents school choice—although charter schools are public schools technically, but run fairly independently. They are so popular, and the school districts allow so few of them, that parents must apply by lottery (...) for the few slots. The looks of grief on the faces of the parents who lose the lottery—and hence must keep their children in failing public schools—is telling. It is ironic that the nation most admired by American progressives—Sweden—completely voucharized its entire K-12 school system thirty years ago. (shrink)

Francisco Fernández-Zarza Pérez conocido como Jano, fue un artista polifacético dentro del mundo publicitario y cinematográfico. Destacó por su versatilidad a la hora de retratar a las estrellas cinematográficas pertenecientes al “star-system” nacional e internacional durante la época de la posguerra y la transición española.Partiendo de la importancia del cartel como medio de transmisión del mensaje, pretendemos descubrir si sus carteles, entre los años 1940 y 1970, además de actuar como reclamo para dar a conocer las películas también actuaron (...) como reflejo de los estereotipos sociales mediante la representación de los roles femeninos. (shrink)

This commentary uses Paul Gilroy’s controversial claim that new technoscientific processes are instituting an ‘end to race’ as a provocation to discuss the epistemological transformation of race in algorithmic culture. We situate Gilroy’s provocation within the context of an abolitionist agenda against racial-thinking, underscoring the relationship between his post-race polemic and a post-visual discourse. We then discuss the challenges of studying race within regimes of computation, which rely on structures that are, for the most part, opaque; in particular, modes of (...) classification that operate through proxies and abstractions and that figure racialized bodies not as single, coherent subjects, but as shifting clusters of data. We argue that in this new regime, race emerges as an epiphenomenon of processes of classifying and sorting – what we call ‘racial formations as data formations’. This discussion is significant because it raises new theoretical, methodological and political questions for scholars of media and critical algorithmic studies. It asks: how are we supposed to think, to identify and to confront race and racialisation when they vanish into algorithmic systems that are beyond our perception? What becomes of racial formations in post-visual regimes? (shrink)

This series of interviews, conducted in the form of exchanges between Roy Bhaskar and Mervyn Hartwig, tells a riveting story of the formation and development of critical realism. Three intersecting and interweaving narratives unfold in the course of this unfinished story: the personal narrative of Roy Bhaskar, born of an Indian father and English mother, a child of post-war Britain and Indian partition and independence; the intellectual narrative of the emergence and growth of critical realism; and a world-historical story, (...) itself theorized by critical realism in its discussion of the development of modernity. This book gives an invaluable account of the development of critical realism, and its consolidation as a leading philosophy of our times. It takes us through the major moments of its formation, the principal objections to and controversies within critical realism, the establishment of its institutions, and considers its limits and future development. Special features of the book include discussion of the genesis of critical realism, and the origins and nature of the so-called dialectical and spiritual turns. The informal dialogical style of The Formation of Critical Realism makes it compelling reading and an invaluable source for students of critical realism as well as all those interested in the intellectual story of our times. (shrink)

In _The Formation of Reason_, philosophy professor David Bakhurst utilizes ideas from philosopher John McDowell to develop and defend a socio-historical account of the human mind. Provides the first detailed examination of the relevance of John McDowell's work to the Philosophy of Education Draws on a wide-range of philosophical sources, including the work of 'analytic' philosophers Donald Davidson, Ian Hacking, Peter Strawson, David Wiggins, and Ludwig Wittgenstein Considers non-traditional ideas from Russian philosophy and psychology, represented by Ilyenkov and Vygotsky (...) Discusses foundational philosophical ideas in a way that reveals their relevance to educational theory and practice. (shrink)

Explanations of how identity is constructed are fundamental to contemporary debates in feminism and social theory. In this important addition to the literature, Beverley Skeggs demonstrates that class needs to be featured more prominently in theoretical accounts of gender, identity, and power. Class has been marginalized in feminist and cultural theory and it has become increasingly difficult to teach, research, or speak about class. Formations of Class and Gender identifies the neglect of class issues in favor of gender issues, and (...) shows how class and gender must be fused together to produce an accurate representation of power relations in modern society. In a sustained examination of the production of knowledge, detailed ethnographic research is used to explain how ôrealö women modify and reformulate our understanding of class, subjectivity, and sexuality. A critical examination of cultural representationùinformed by recent feminist theory and the work of Pierre BourdieuùFormations of Class and Gender is an articulate demonstration of how to translate theory into practice. Engaged with theoretical and methodological issues, this will be the standard referenced ethnography on class and gender. It will be required reading for students and researchers in womenÆs studies and sociology. (shrink)

In tracing the formation of Husserl's concept of constitution, we hope to further the understanding of what he considers a philosophical explanation. ...

This volume provides Dilthey's most mature and best formulation of his Critique of Historical Reason. It begins with three "Studies Toward the Foundation of the Human Sciences," in which Dilthey refashions Husserlian concepts to describe the basic structures of consciousness relevant to historical understanding. The volume next presents the major 1910 work The Formation of the Historical World in the Human Sciences. Here Dilthey considers the degree to which carriers of history--individuals, cultures, institutions, and communities--can be articulated as productive (...) systems capable of generating value and meaning and of realizing purposes. Hegel's idea of objective spirit is reconceived in a more empirical form to designate the medium of commonality in which historical beings are immersed. Any universal claims about history need to be framed within the specific productive systems analyzed by the various human sciences. Dilthey's drafts for the Continuation of the Formation contain extensive discussions of the categories most important for our knowledge of historical life: meaning, value, purpose, time, and development. He also examines the contributions of autobiography to historical understanding and of biography to scientific history. The finest summary of Dilthey's views on hermeneutics can be found in "The Understanding of Other Persons and Their Manifestations of Life." Here, Dilthey differentiates understanding relative to three kinds of manifestations of life. After giving his analysis of elementary understanding, he examines the role of induction in higher understanding and interpretation, and the relevance of transposition and re-experiencing for grasping individuality. (shrink)

Autophagy, an essential cellular process for maintaining cellular homeostasis and eliminating harmful cytoplasmic objects, involves the de novo formation of double‐membraned autophagosomes that engulf and degrade cellular debris, protein aggregates, damaged organelles, and pathogens. Central to this process is the phagophore, which forms from donor membranes rich in lipids synthesized at various cellular sites, including the endoplasmic reticulum (ER), which has emerged as a primary source. The ER‐associated omegasomes, characterized by their distinctive omega‐shaped structure and accumulation of phosphatidylinositol 3‐phosphate (...) (PI3P), play a pivotal role in autophagosome formation. Omegasomes are thought to serve as platforms for phagophore assembly by recruiting essential proteins such as DFCP1/ZFYVE1 and facilitating lipid transfer to expand the phagophore. Despite the critical importance of phagophore biogenesis, many aspects remain poorly understood, particularly the complete range of proteins involved in omegasome dynamics, and the detailed mechanisms of lipid transfer and membrane contact site formation. (shrink)

여성혐오를 넘어서기 위해서는 여성이라는 존재론적 차원의 물질성과 현실성을 기각시키거나 저항의 단위소를 무화시키는 것이 아닌, 성별 불평등 구조에서 지배계급성을 구성하고 있는 남성성의 작동 메커니즘에 대한 치밀한 분석과 해체로 나아가야 한다. 이를 위해 필자는 첫 번째로 남근질서라는 아버지의 법질서에서 팔루스와 페니스 간의 유착성-팔루스가 초월적이며 절대적 심급이 아닌 스스로 축소되고 사라져버리는 페니스의 유약성에 참조점을 두고 있는 내재적 결핍성의 지점임을 이론적으로 추적해나감으로써 남근질서의 해체 가능성을 모색해보고자 한다.BR 두 번째로 남성지배의 축 중 하나인 페니스 나르시시즘이라는 개인적 정체성화의 작동방식을 분석해보고자 한다. 여기서 페니스는 해부학적 기관에 그치는 (...) 것이 아니라 자기애의 온전성을 담지받는 장소이자 아버지의 법질서의 사회문화적 권위와 권력의 계승점을 나타내는 것이다. 즉 남성은 자신의 페니스를 중심으로 페니스 나르시시즘이라는 개인으로서의 남성의 정체성화 양식을 구성해나 가고 있으며, 사회문화적으로는 방기하는 몸이라는 권력적 몸, 특권적 몸을 양산하는 것이다.BR 세 번째로 남성지배의 또 다른 축인 페니스 카르텔이라는 집단적 정체성화의 메커니즘은 남성들의 본래적 우월성의 상호확인에서만이 아니라, 남성들의 자기 완결성의 결여, 무능력함과 형편없음, 비리 축적을 상호 묵인함으로써 더욱 더 강력하게 작동하는 것이다. 왜냐하면 남성특권구조란 특정한 남성 개개인에게 독점되는 양태가 아니라, 남성이라는 성별 계급으로 범주화된 이들이 의식적, 무의식적으로 나눠가지는 지배적 집합성에서 기인하는 것이기 때문이다.BR 이러한 페니스 나르시시즘과 페니스 카르텔을 해체하기 위해서 페니스가 자기 완결적이며 불침투적인 닫힌 몸이 아님을 드러내어야 한다. 즉 페니스는 사정기관과 배설 기관이라는 다공성의 일체화 구조를 통해 구멍 지어진 몸이자 숭고와 비천, 깨끗함과 더러움 등의 분열적 지점이라 할 수 있다. 또한 우뚝 솟은 불변의 공격성과 능동성, 힘과 권위의 기관이 아닌, 시시각각 형태가 변하는 유동적 살로서의 페니스와 팔루스-기관의 유약성을 연동시켜 사유해봄으로써 페니스 카르텔의 남근다발이 한데 묶일 수조차 없는 결핍성의 지대임을 논증하고자 한다. 남근 이데올로기론이 갖는 임계점을 이론적으로 살펴봄으로써, 폭압적 남성성의 재생산 고리를 끊어내어 여성혐오를 극복해보고자 한다. (shrink)

This is a comprehensive study of the far-reaching changes that led to a re-shaping of the philosophical discourse in Islam during the sixth/twelfth century. Whereas earlier Western scholars thought that Islam's engagement with the tradition of Greek philosophy ended during that century, more recent analyses suggest its integration into the genre of rationalist Muslim theology (kalam). This book proposes a third view about the fate of philosophy in Islam. It argues that in addition to this integration, Muslim theologians picked up (...) the discourse of philosophy in Islam (falsafa) and began to produce books on philosophy. Written by the same authors, books in these two genres, kalām and philosophy, argue for opposing teachings on the nature of God, the world's creation, and on the afterlife. This study explains the emergence of a new genre of philosophical books called "hikma" that stand opposed to Islamic theology and at the same wishes to complement it. Offering a detailed history of philosophy in Iraq, Iran, and Central Asia during the sixth/twelfth century together with an analysis of the circumstances of practicing philosophy during this time, this study can show how reports of falsafa, written by major Muslim theologians such as al-Ghazali (d. 505/1111), developed step-by-step into critical assessments of philosophy that try to improve philosophical teachings, and eventually become fully fledged philosophical summas in the work of Fakhr al-Din al-Razi (d. 606/1210). The book ends in a discussion of the different methods of kalam and hikma and the coherence and ambiguity of a Muslim post-classical philosopher's œuvre. (shrink)

Ministerial formation is a multifaceted activity involving critical thinking, the acquisition of knowledge, skills development, religious identity formation and the development of ministerial and spiritual maturity expected of church ministers. Education is not merely the accumulation of a prescribed set of academic credits but includes the holistic formation of all aspects of the individual. However, theological educators are concerned about the capacity to foster such values and skills in the distance and electronic environment. Some see distance education (...) as ‘distancing’ the students in more significant ways than simply geographic distance. These issues are of fundamental importance for they reflect the deeper convictions of theologians that distance education may not be a suitable medium for ministerial formation. This article creates a conceptual map of the theological and pedagogical challenges for ministerial formation and highlights how the possibility of formation is being carried out in the distance-learning environment. (shrink)

In 1972, we proposed a theory of biological pattern formation in which concentration maxima of pattern forming substances are generated through local self- enhancement in conjunction with long range inhibition. Since then, much evidence in various developmental systems has confirmed the importance of autocatalytic feedback loops combined with inhibitory interaction. Examples are found in the formation of embryonal organizing regions, in segmentation, in the polarization of individual cells, and in gene activation. By computer simulations, we have shown that (...) the theory accounts for much of the regulatory phenomena observed, including signalling to regenerate removed parts. These self- regulatory features contribute to making development robust and error-tolerant. Furthermore, the resulting pattern is, to a large extent, independent of the details provided by initial conditions and inducing signals. (shrink)

Inspired by recent theorization by Dreier and Lave concerning situated perspectives on learning, I illuminate learning of international graduate students in a science lab in Japan as trajectories of participation in multi-layered activities and various mutually constituted occasions, and as crossing of multiple communities of practice. By doing so, I describe trajectories of participation as unique and multiple ways characteristic of individual participants instead of as a linear process from newcomer to old-timer or from peripheral to full participation in a (...) community of practice. Identity formation is also reformulated as discovering and constituting one’s unique self through crossing multiple communities of practice rather than merely as becoming a member in a community of practice. Further, I show that identity formation may be regarded not merely as adjusting the relationship among multiple communities within individuals, but as the practice of organizing new linkages among communities and of reconstituting communities of practice. (shrink)

Utilisant les concepts psychanalytiques, l'auteur montre comment, dans la science, le language constitue le véhicule privilégié de l'anthropomorphisme et comment les projections affectives constituent autant d'obstacles épistémiologiques à son développement.

Sabina Lovibond invites her readers to see how the "practical reason view of ethics" can survive challenges from within philosophy and from the antirationalist postmodern critique of reason. She elaborates and defends a modern practical-reason view of ethics by focusing on virtue or ideal states of character that involve sensitivity to the objective reasons circumstances bring into play. At the heart of her argument is the Aristotelian idea of the formation of character through upbringing; these ancient ideas can be (...) made contemporary if one understands them in a naturalized way. She then explores the implications that arise from the naturalization of the classical view, weaving into her theory ideas of Jacques Derrida and J. L. Austin. The book also discusses two modes of resistance to an existing ethical culture--one committed to the critical employment of shared norms of rationality, the other aspiring to a more radical attitude, grounded in hostility to the "universal." Lovibond tries to determine what may be correct in this second, admittedly paradoxical, tendency. This is a timely and valuable effort to connect the most advanced forms of thinking in the analytic tradition and in the Continental tradition, and to extend our understanding of the intimacies and resistances between these two prominent strands of contemporary philosophy. (shrink)

This article reviews arguments that, in the process of action formation and ascription, the relative status of the participants with respect to a projected action can adjust or trump the action stance conveyed by the linguistic form of the utterance. In general, congruency between status and stance is preferred, and linguistic form is a fairly reliable guide to action ascription. However incongruities between stance and status result in action ascriptions that are at variance with the action stance that is (...) otherwise conveyed in the turn. This argument is presented, first, in relation to epistemic status and stance where the process is argued to be both fundamental and universal across all declarative and interrogative utterances. Some consequences of this way of viewing action are discussed. The argument is then briefly extended to deontics and benefactives. (shrink)

Resumen El presente artículo realiza un análisis de los apoyos otorgados por los cárteles de narcotráfico en México, desde la lectura del aparato crítico de Slavoj Žižek, quien sienta las bases para la interpretación de la ayuda humanitaria como un acto violento. Por lo que, el siguiente texto abarca desde la filosofía Žižekianay el psicoanálisis lacaniano, el fenómeno de la violencia ejercida por la figura del comunista liberal, en un comparativo con el crimen organizado mexicano, intentando desentrañar la estructura básica (...) de la dinámica social que impera en la ayuda humanitaria. Así mismo se define la violencia en general y algunas de sus manifestaciones en la sociedad; estableciendo los elementos esenciales de una ideología, distinguiéndola como una herramienta adecuada para el análisis social, esperado así, resolver cómo se constituye en realidad. Palabras clave: Violencia, sistémica, ayuda humanitaria, goce, realidad.This article presents the analysis of the aid provided by drug trafficking cartels in Mexico. It arises from a critical reading of Slavoj Žižek’s work regarding violence and ideology which lays the foundation for the interpretation of humanitarian aid as a violent act. Hence, the coverage of the article from Žižekian philosophy and Lacanian psychoanalysis, the phenomenon of violence exerted by the figure of the liberal communist, in comparison to Mexican organized crime, trying to unravel the basic structure of social dynamics which prevail in humanitarian aid. Likewise, violence in general and some of its manifestations in society are defined; establishing the essential elements of an ideology, distinguishing it as a suitable tool for social analysis, thus expected, solving how it is actually constituted. Key words: Violence, systemic, humanitarian aid, enjoyment, reality. (shrink)

Gaston Bachelard is one of the indespensable figures in the history of 20th-century ideas. The broad scope of his work has had a lasting impact in several fields - notable philosophy, architecture and literature.

The author recounts her experiences in the Ecole de la Cause Freudienne's (ECF) cartel of the pass. She describes the two crises of 1990 and 1996 with respect to the discourse of the pass that involved analysts' interpretation of Lacan's views on transference.

The preferential attachment mechanism that forms scale-free network cannot display assortativity, i.e., the degree of one node is positively correlated with that of their neighbors in the network. Given the attributes of network nodes, a cultural trait-matching mechanism is further introduced in this paper. Both theoretical analysis and simulation results indicate that the higher selection probability of such mechanism, the more obvious the assortativity is shown in networks. Further, the degree of nodes presents a positive logarithm correlation with that of (...) adjacent ones. Finally, this study discusses the theoretical and practical significances of the introduction of such a cultural trait-matching mechanism. (shrink)

According to the sensitivity account of knowledge, S knows that p only if S’s belief in p is sensitive in the sense that S would not believe that p if p were false. The sensitivity condition is usually relativized to belief-formation methods to avoid putative counterexamples. A remaining issue for the account is where methods should be mentioned in the sensitivity subjunctives. In this paper, I argue that if methods are mentioned in the antecedent, then the account is too (...) strong to accommodate inductive knowledge; if methods are mentioned in the consequent, then the account is too weak to eliminate some luckily true beliefs from the realm of knowledge. Therefore, the strategy to relativize the sensitivity condition is undermined by inductive knowledge and some luckily true beliefs. (shrink)

Developing tools is a crucial aspect of experimental practice, yet most discussions of scientific change traditionally emphasize theoretical over technological change. To elaborate on the role of tools in scientific change, I offer an account that shows how scientists use tools in exploratory experiments to form novel concepts. I apply this account to two cases in neuroscience and show how tool development and concept formation are often intertwined in episodes of tool-driven change. I support this view by proposing common (...) normative principles that specify when exploratory concept formation and tool development succeed to initiate scientific change. (shrink)