(2011). The relationship between first‐year achievement and the pedagogical‐didactical fit between secondary school and university. Educational Studies: Vol. 37, No. 5, pp. 557-568.

This study shows that professional identity should not be viewed as a composed variable with a uniform structure. Based on the literature and previous research, we view teachers? job satisfaction, self?efficacy, occupational commitment and change in the level of motivation as indicators of teachers? professional identity. Using two?step cluster analysis, three distinct professional identity profiles have empirically been identified, based on data of 1214 teachers working in secondary education in the Netherlands. These profiles differed significantly regarding the indicators of teachers? (...) professional identity. Teachers belonging to the found profiles did not significantly differ in their amount of experience. (shrink)

In various publications over the past years, Floridi has developed a theory of semantic information as well-formed, meaningful, and truthful data. This theory is more or less orthogonal to the standard entropy-based notions of information known from physics, information theory, and computer science that all define the amount of information in a certain system as a scalar value without any direct semantic implication. In this context the question rises what the exact relation between these various conceptions of information is and (...) whether there is a real need to enrich these mathematically more or less rigid definitions with a less formal notion of semantic information. I investigate various philosophical aspects of the more formal definitions of information in the light of Floridi’s theory. The position I defend is that the formal treatment of the notion of information as a general theory of entropy is one of the fundamental achievements of modern science that in itself is a rich source for new philosophical reflection. This makes information theory a competitor of classical epistemology rather than a servant. In this light Floridi’s philosophy of information is more a reprise of classical epistemology that only pays lip service to information theory but fails to address the important central questions of philosophy of information. Specifically, I will defend the view that notions that are associated with truth, knowledge, and meaning all can adequately be reconstructed in the context of modern information theory and that consequently there is no need to introduce a concept of semantic information. (shrink)

n various publications over the past years, Floridi has developed a theory of semantic information as well-formed, meaningful, and truthful data. This theory is more or less orthogonal to the standard entropy-based notions of information known from physics, information theory, and computer science that all define the amount of information in a certain system as a scalar value without any direct semantic implication. In this context the question rises what the exact relation between these various conceptions of information is and (...) whether there is a real need to enrich these mathematically more or less rigid definitions with a less formal notion of semantic information. I investigate various philosophical aspects of the more formal definitions of information in the light of Floridi’s theory. The position I defend is that the formal treatment of the notion of information as a general theory of entropy is one of the fundamental achievements of modern science that in itself is a rich source for new philosophical reflection. This makes information theory a competitor of classical epistemology rather than a servant. In this light Floridi’s philosophy of information is more a reprise of classical epistemology that only pays lip service to information theory but fails to address the important central questions of philosophy of information. Specifically, I will defend the view that notions that are associated with truth, knowledge, and meaning all can adequately be reconstructed in the context of modern information theory and that consequently there is no need to introduce a concept of semantic information. (shrink)

This article introduces the concept of corporate social responsibility in the seemingly oxymoronic context of Chinese “authoritarian capitalism.” Following an introduction to the emergence of authoritarian capitalism, the article considers the emergence of CSR in China using Matten and Moon’s framework of explaining CSR development in terms both of a business system’s historic institutions and of the impacts of new institutionalism on corporations arising from societal pressures in their global and national environments. We find two forms of CSR in China, (...) reflecting the “multiplexity” of its business system: one in the mainly family-owned small and medium-sized enterprise sector reflecting concern with local reputation, and another in the corporate, mainly state-owned enterprise sector, reflecting global and national societal expectations. We investigate the dynamics of CSR in China through the interplay of the global and national societal pressures and mediating and even leading roles played by the State and the Party. We consider the conceptual integrity and practical prospects for “state-led society-driven” CSR and future research opportunities, including those opened up by the three contributing articles to this special issue. (shrink)

Information is a recognized fundamental notion across the sciences and humanities, which is crucial to understanding physical computation, communication, and human cognition. The Philosophy of Information brings together the most important perspectives on information. It includes major technical approaches, while also setting out the historical backgrounds of information as well as its contemporary role in many academic fields. Also, special unifying topics are high-lighted that play across many fields, while we also aim at identifying relevant themes for philosophical reflection. There (...) is no established area yet of Philosophy of Information, and this Handbook can help shape one, making sure it is well grounded in scientific expertise. As a side benefit, a book like this can facilitate contacts and collaboration among diverse academic milieus sharing a common interest in information. . First overview of the formal and technical issues involved in the philosophy of information . Integrated presentation of major mathematical approaches to information, form computer science, information theory, and logic . Interdisciplinary themes across the traditional boundaries of natural sciences, social sciences, and humanities. (shrink)

Modern medicine faces fundamental challenges that various approaches to the philosophy of medicine have tried to address. One of these approaches is based on the ancient concept of phronesis. This paper investigates whether this concept can be used as a moral basis for the challenges facing modern medicine and, in particular, analyses phronesis as it is applied in the works of Pellegrino and Thomasma. It scrutinises some difficulties with a phronesis-based theory, specifically, how it presupposes a moral community of professionals. (...) It is argued that Pellegrino and Thomasma's concept of phronesis corresponds to a Hippocratic concept of t�chn�, and that this latter concept seems to address many of the challenging issues Pellegrino and Thomasma also address. Thus, if modern medicine is to find its philosophical model in ancient concepts, it appears that the Hippocratic t�chn� is closer to the ancient concept of medicine than the Aristotelian phronesis, and that it might avoid many of the pitfalls of a phronesis-based approach. (shrink)

In the world of television-making, the media industry relies on measurements from a people-meter panel in order to find out how many people watch a certain program or commercial on television. A people-meter panel is a special-purpose panel in which the television-watching behavior of household members is measured using a special device attached to television sets. The measuring device can also register the television-watching behavior of guests to the panel homes. The reliability of estimates based on the people-meter panel primarily (...) depends on the sample size. Due to the complexity of the sample design, the effective sample size cannot be determined straightforwardly. This is even more the case when one incorporates the viewing behavior of guests. This paper describes a methodology that determines effective sample sizes by computing design effects and which extends the methodology in such a way that it incorporates ‘guest viewing’. (shrink)

This commentary questions the validity of the claim that new features can be constructed out of nothing during categorization. A minimal set of fixed features based on what human beings are able to detect is sufficient for categorization.

The history of the self is a flourishing field. Nevertheless, there are some problems that have proven difficult to overcome, mainly concerning teleology, the universality or particularity of the self and the gap between ideas and experiences of the self. In this article, I make two methodological suggestions to address these issues. First, I propose a ‘queering’ of the self, inspired by recent developments in the history of sexuality. By destabilizing the modern self and writing the histories of its different (...) and paradoxical aspects, we can better attend to continuities and discontinuities in the history of the self and break up the idea of a linear and unitary history. I distinguish 4 overlapping and intersecting axes along which discourses of the self present themselves: interiority and outer orientation; stability and flexibility; holism and fragmentation; and self-control and dispossession. Second, I propose studying 4 ‘practices of self’ through which the self is created, namely: techniques of self; self-talk; interpreting the self; and regulating practices. Analysing these practices allows one to go beyond debates about experience versus expression, and to recognize that expressions of self are never just expressions, but make up the self itself. (shrink)

Emmanuel Levinas (1906–1996) has exerted a profound influence on 20th-century continental philosophy. This anthology, including Levinas's key philosophical texts over a period of more than forty years, provides an ideal introduction to his thought and offers insights into his most innovative ideas. Five of the ten essays presented here appear in English for the first time. An introduction by Adriaan Peperzak outlines Levinas's philosophical development and the basic themes of his writings. Each essay is accompanied by a brief introduction (...) and notes. This collection is an ideal text for students of philosophy concerned with understanding and assessing the work of this major philosopher. (shrink)

In his tractA Rationale of Judicial Evidence, Jeremy Bentham repeatedly refers to the courtroom as the ‘theatre of justice’. Bentham's description has been borne out by recent scholarship on Athenian law. As a form of civic space, the Athenian lawcourts were similar to the Theatre of Dionysos in many respects: litigants faced each other in a competitiveagon, delivering lines written for them by logographers to a mass audience which would range, ordinarily, from 200 to 1500 jurors. Moreover, modern scholars have (...) drawn on the notion of ‘social drama’ introduced by the anthropologist Victor Turner to describe the Athenian lawcourts as an arena for socially constructive feuding behaviour, as a public stage for the social élite to compete for prestige, or as a forum for ongoing communication between élite litigants and mass jurors ‘in a context which made explicit the power of the masses to judge the actions and behavior of élite individuals’. (shrink)

The traditional view reflected in biblical Hebrew dictionaries and textbooks that heaven is construed as a mere cultural experience became problematic in at least two ways: firstly, the extension of the grammatical expression found in the biblical Hebrew exemplars becomes conventionalised in such a way that the original construal no longer constrains how the biblical Hebrew speakers think about the experience; and secondly, this released consequence influences recent publications on heaven. Consequently, most modern publications on heaven construed heaven as a (...) relative design. This study argues that such inhibited way of expressing heaven reduces the structural schematisation as construed in the Hebrew Bible. Methodologically, this study proposes an experientialist-embodied approach towards the conceptualisation of heaven. The result, in theory, is a more effective schematisation in which different semantic structures were employed to express the experience. This is then applied towards understanding the spatial image schema of up versus down in the Hebrew Bible and offers a vantage point from which to investigate the whole network of the biblical Hebrew spatial cognition.Contribution: This article contributes to the understanding of the ancient Israelite conceptual system for ‘heaven’ in the Hebrew Bible. (shrink)

This article argues that attention to the expressive function of law suggests that the Athenian laws prohibiting former prostitutes from active political participation may have had a much broader practical impact than previously thought. By changing the social meaning of homosexual pederasty, these laws influenced norms regarding purely private conduct and reached beyond the limited number of politically active citizens likely to be prosecuted under the law. Some appear to have become more careful about courting in public while others adopted (...) a conception of chaste pederasty that would not run afoul of the law. The prostitution laws may also have provoked resistance among a particular subset of elites, the apragmones, contributing to this group's deliberate disengagement from public affairs. (shrink)

The classical Athenian 'state' had almost no formal coercive apparatus to ensure order or compliance with law: there was no professional police force or public prosecutor, and nearly every step in the legal process depended on private initiative. And yet Athens was a remarkably peaceful and well-ordered society by both ancient and contemporary standards. Why? Law and Order in Ancient Athens draws on contemporary legal scholarship to explore how order was maintained in Athens. Lanni argues that law and formal legal (...) institutions played a greater role in maintaining order than is generally acknowledged. The legal system did encourage compliance with law, but not through the familiar deterrence mechanism of imposing sanctions for violating statutes. Lanni shows how formal institutions facilitated the operation of informal social control in a society that was too large and diverse to be characterized as a 'face-to-face community' or 'close-knit group'. (shrink)

En las últimas décadas la apropiación y construcción de archivos ha ido ganando terreno dentro de las prácticas artísticas, permitiendo visibilizar las políticas de archivo y los órdenes sociales a los que responden. Al mismo tiempo, han propuesto modos divergentes de activación de la memoria, problematizando creativamente las jerarquías y protocolos tradicionales, constituyéndose, así, en lo que podemos llamar estrategias anarchivísticas. Considerando que, en el seno de la cultura digital, la IA (Inteligencia Artificial) se ha vuelto clave en la gestión (...) de la información, el presente artículo se pregunta de qué manera la utilización artística de esta tecnología contribuye a ofrecer nuevos enfoques para pensar el archivo, el patrimonio y la memoria. Dentro de la madeja de prácticas existentes, jalaremos de dos hilos: 1) por un lado, las tácticas apropiacionistas que operan activando nuevas lecturas sobre archivos ya constituidos; 2) por otro, aquellas que proponen la construcción de archivos nuevos, generalmente abarcando elementos dispersos u otrora ignorados. Ahondaremos en estas tendencias centrándonos en dos casos que abordan específicamente el patrimonio fílmico –Jan Bot y Oráculo de Capturas de Pantalla– identificando sus estrategias y características. (shrink)

The COVID-19 pandemic has forced libraries to shift their service-delivery model online, infiltrating countless interactions–from storytime to reference questions to social groups–into digital mediation, typically by third-party platforms outside the library’s control, generating mineable, persistent digital traces. One community particularly vulnerable to the impacts of surveillance is the queer community, where an outing, at least in the United States, imposes a potential loss of housing and employment and may subject the outed person to violence. Libraries–particularly public and school libraries–have once (...) again become sites of conflict and resistance, with queer people and materials increasingly coming under attack both physically and legally. A primary shield by which libraries try to protect their patrons from such attacks is “privacy.” Librarians, as professionals, proclaim a commitment to privacy embedded in such documents as the American Library Association’s Library Bill of Rights and the International Federation of Library Associations and Institution’s Statement on Privacy in the Library Environment. However, these ideals exist in broader systems–including legal and cultural structures–which constrain and complicate abstract commitments to privacy. This article examines the challenges of queer digital privacy within libraries in the United States, focusing on the polysemous, boundary-crossing nature of queerness, the digital and the material, privacy, and libraries (as both concepts and institutions). In particular, this article demonstrates how binary-bound, individual-rights-oriented legal approaches to privacy have arisen, and been mediated, by cis-heteronormative patriarchal values and how the sociotechnical materialities in which they occurred (such as paper-based recordkeeping) are fundamentally incompatible with queer privacy needs. (shrink)

Although Emmanuel Levinas is widely respected as one of the classic thinkers of our century, the debate about his place within Continental philosophy continues. In _Beyond: The Philosophy of Emmanuel Levinas,_ Adriaan Theodoor Peperzak shows Levinas's thought to be a persistent attempt to point beyond the borders of an economy where orderly interests and ways of reasoning make us feel at home--beyond the world of needs, beyond the self, beyond politics and administration, beyond logic and ontology, even beyond freedom (...) and autonomy. Peperzak's examination begins with a general overview of Levinas's life and thought, and shows how issues of ethics, politics, and religion are intertwined in Levinas's philosophy. Peperzak also discusses the development of Levinas's relations with Husserl and Heidegger, demonstrating thematically the evolution of both Levinas's anti-Heideggerian view of technology and his critical attitude toward nature. (shrink)

I develop an account of private property that preserves public participation and access. A focus on the initial state of common ownership, labour, and the proviso reveals that standard Lockean defences of property ignore important common interests. In consequence, property rights over environmentally significant goods must be less strong than full liberal rights, and I show how these will be designed.

The first meeting of the Global Forum for Bioethics in Research was initiated by the Fogarty International Centre of the National Institutes of Health and sponsored by the World Health Organisation, the Pan American Health Organisation and the NIH. Held in Bethesda on November 7-10,1999, the intent was to bring together individuals involved in medical research in low- and middle-income nations to share views with each other and with organisations that support clinical research. Approximately 120 persons from 34 countries participated, (...) including individuals from developing countries, pharmaceutical organisations, and communities where medical research is under way.The participants addressed the partnerships required between research sponsors and investigators involved in clinical trials in developing countries and the long-term needs for international multicentred training programs. (shrink)

The first meeting of the Global Forum for Bioethics in Research was initiated by the Fogarty International Centre of the National Institutes of Health and sponsored by the World Health Organisation, the Pan American Health Organisation and the NIH. Held in Bethesda on November 7-10,1999, the intent was to bring together individuals involved in medical research in low- and middle-income nations to share views with each other and with organisations that support clinical research. Approximately 120 persons from 34 countries participated, (...) including individuals from developing countries, pharmaceutical organisations, and communities where medical research is under way.The participants addressed the partnerships required between research sponsors and investigators involved in clinical trials in developing countries and the long-term needs for international multicentred training programs. (shrink)