Understanding the spread of national public policies to increase the percentage of women on boards is often presented using different types of institutional theory logic. However, the importance of the political games influencing these decisions has not received the same attention. In this article, we look beyond the institutional setting by focusing on the role of actors. We explore processes that include who the critical actors that drive and determine these policies are, and what motivates them to push for change. (...) We employ a processual design approach using a longitudinal country-comparative case study exploring the case of Norway, England, Germany and Italy. We map the political games, both inside and outside legislative areas, including the micro-politics among various actors and groups of actors in the selected countries. Data are collected through participation observations, interviews and text analyses. The study contributes by filling important gaps in the literature by embedding the discussion about women on boards in politicking and national public policies and by introducing dynamic perspectives. Finally, by using a processual design approach, we capture the reality of the women on board debates at different points of time and in different actor and motivational contexts. The study has consequences for how policy-makers and businesses may follow up and act, based on the debates. (shrink)

Is an individual agent constitutive of or constituted by its social interactions? This question is typically not asked in the cognitive sciences, so strong is the consensus that only individual agents have constitutive efficacy. In this article we challenge this methodological solipsism and argue that interindividual relations and social context do not simply arise from the behavior of individual agents, but themselves enable and shape the individual agents on which they depend. For this, we define the notion of autonomy as (...) both a characteristic of individual agents and of social interaction processes. We then propose a number of ways in which interactional autonomy can influence individuals. Then we discuss recent work in modeling on the one hand and psychological investigations on the other that support and illustrate this claim. Finally, we discuss some implications for research on social and individual agency. (shrink)

In this article I propose that a postphenomenological approach to science and technology can open new analytical understandings of how material artifacts, embodiment and social agency co-produce learned perceptions of objects. In particle physics, physicists work in huge groups of scientists from many cultural backgrounds. Communication to some extent depends on material hermeneutics of flowcharts, models and other visual presentations. As it appears in an examination of physicists’ scrutiny of visual renderings of different parts of a detector, perceptions vary in (...) relation to social and bodily experiences. Vision in physics has seemingly allowed an objective perception at a convenient distance of the body. This article challenges this view and proposes that the variations can be analysed as cultural at two echelons with the help of a postphenomenological approach combined with cultural psychological theory of artifacts. A third echelon presumably constitutes the phenomenological limit to culture in science. Even this last resort of subjectivity can be embraced by a postphenomenological approach. The process of culturalization in physics can be defined as a process of situating knowledge in a body whose continuous learning of micro-and macro perceptions makes scientific renderings unstable. Taken together postphenomenology, following the distinctions between body one and body two, and combined with cultural psychological learning theory, enables new insight into what constitutes culture in science. (shrink)

There is a small but growing community of researchers spanning a spectrum of disciplines which are united in rejecting the still dominant computationalist paradigm in favor of the enactive approach. The framework of this approach is centered on a core set of ideas, such as autonomy, sense-making, emergence, embodiment, and experience. These concepts are finding novel applications in a diverse range of areas. One hot topic has been the establishment of an enactive approach to social interaction. The main purpose of (...) this paper is to serve as an advanced entry point into these recent developments. It accomplishes this task in a twofold manner: it provides a succinct synthesis of the most important core ideas and arguments in the theoretical framework of the enactive approach, and it uses this synthesis to refine the current enactive approach to social interaction. A new operational definition of social interaction is proposed which not only emphasizes the cognitive agency of the individuals and the irreducibility of the interaction process itself, but also the need for jointly co-regulated action. It is suggested that this revised conception of ‘socio-cognitive interaction’ may provide the necessary middle ground from which to understand the confluence of biological and cultural values in personal action. (shrink)

There is a small but growing community of researchers spanning a spectrum of disciplines which are united in rejecting the still dominant computationalist paradigm in favor of theenactive approach. The framework of this approach is centered on a core set of ideas, such as autonomy, sense-making, emergence, embodiment, and experience. These concepts are finding novel applications in a diverse range of areas. One hot topic has been the establishment of an enactive approach to social interaction. The main purpose of this (...) paper is to serve as an advanced entry point into these recent developments. It accomplishes this task in a twofold manner: it provides a succinct synthesis of the most important core ideas and arguments in the theoretical framework of the enactive approach, and it uses this synthesis to refine the current enactive approach to social interaction. A new operational definition of social interaction is proposed which not only emphasizes the cognitive agency of the individuals and the irreducibility of the interaction process itself, but also the need for jointly co-regulated action. It is suggested that this revised conception of ‘socio-cognitive interaction’ may provide the necessary middle ground from which to understand the confluence of biological and cultural values in personal action. (shrink)

ABSTRACT This essay shows how certain limit-points of Lacan's psychoanalytic discourse in his 1955–56 seminar on The Psychoses tangentially brush up against Maurice Blanchot's writing on the neuter, as presented in The Space of Literature from 1955. The effort is to strike up a conversation between Lacan's “clinical discourse” and Blanchot's “critical writing” on the topics of language, writing, authority, and madness. In this regard, the essay approaches an infinite point of approximation between the procedure of psychosis and the procedure (...) of literary writing by questioning whether, at some point in these different ways of proceeding, they may share a certain experience of language. Namely, this is an experience of a language that, as stated by both Jacques Lacan and Maurice Blanchot, “speaks all by itself” and does so incessantly and with a certain furious neutrality. (shrink)

Business ethics education aims to enable students to become conscious of their own values and develop the capacity to voice such values and make value-consistent decisions. However, a student’s personal values and the capacity to act on them tend to change after graduation. In this study, we discuss how moral learning is different in real work life compared to a business school setting, and we explain why graduates may downplay or abandon their values after graduation. We launch the concept of (...) dynamic moral capacity (DMC), defined as the metacognitive routines for processing moral decision outcomes, motivated by humility goals. We suggest that future courses in business ethics develop DMC to avoid value drift and negative moral learning over time after graduation. Finally, we discuss how DMC can be included in the instructional framework of giving voice to values and thus increase its impact on moral learning after graduation. (shrink)

Drawing on a finance professional’s reflections on his ethical education as an economics undergraduate, Chartered Financial Analyst, and top-tier MBA graduate, this article considers the framing of, and need for philosophy in, ethical training for finance professionals. Role-playing is emphasized as helpful for developing a mature ethical approach, and theory is seen as desirable after the fact, to plan improved future action. The article problematizes an orientation in professional programs that primarily gears the teaching of ethics toward those students perceived (...) to be least ethical. This orientation seems to underlie both the education the financial professional received and current public interest in ‘more ethics’ in professional programming. As an alternative, the article reframes finance students and professionals as ethical actors whose primary dilemma concerns not how to avoid ethical transgressions, but how to better optimize the duty to self in... (shrink)

What is the relation between material hermeneutics, bodies, perception and materials? In this article, I shall argue cultural learning processes tie them together. Three aspects of learning can be identified in cultural learning processes. First, all learning is tied to cultural practices. Second, all learning in cultural practice entangle humans’ ability to recognize a material world conceptually, and finally the boundaries of objects, the object we perceive, are set by shifting material-conceptual entanglements. All these aspects are important for material hermeneutics (...) in a technoculture. Postphenomenology has expanded the connection between hermeneutics and phenomenology by focusing on studies of how perception, bodies, materials, the sensual realm and hermeneutics are entwined when we perceive the world through technologies. Following Don Ihde, hermeneutics expands beyond interpretation of texts in the humanities. We can interpret materials as for instance animal bones to make new sense of the Bible. New technologies have expanded material hermeneutics, when we can ‘look’ into bodies and ‘perceive’ below surfaces. Interpretation via such tools in a technoculture, both limit and extend our hermeneutic horizons in the humanities as well as in the natural sciences. Furthermore, from the perspective of cultural learning processes, material hermeneutics in the human and natural sciences depend on more than mediating instruments. Material hermeneutics also involve the material cultural environments of scientific apparatuses and the scientists’ processes of learning in cultural practice. This changes the focus from relations in postphenomenology to processes of relations. (shrink)

Following the philosophy of embodiment of Merleau-Ponty, Jonas and others, enactivism is a pivot point from which various areas of science can be brought into a fruitful dialogue about the nature of subjectivity. In this chapter we present the enactive conception of agency, which, in contrast to current mainstream theories of agency, is deeply and strongly embodied. In line with this thinking we argue that anything that ought to be considered a genuine agent is a biologically embodied (even if distributed) (...) agent, and that this embodiment must be affectively lived. However, we also consider that such an affective agent is not necessarily also an agent imbued with an explicit sense of subjectivity. To support this contention we outline the interoceptive foundation of basic agency and argue that there is a qualitative difference in the phenomenology of agency when it is instantiated in organisms which, due to their complexity and size, require a nervous system to underpin their physiological and sensorimotor processes. We argue that this interoceptively grounded agency not only entails affectivity but also forms the necessary basis for subjectivity. (shrink)

In this text Hasse presents a new, inclusive, posthuman learning theory, designed to keep up with the transformations of human learning resulting from new technological experiences, as well as considering the expanding role of cyborg devices and robots in learning. This ground-breaking book draws on research from across psychology, education, and anthropology to present a truly interdisciplinary examination of the relationship between technology, learning and humanity. Posthumanism questions the self-evident status of human beings by exploring how technology is changing what (...) can be categorised as "human". In this book, the author applies a posthumanist lens to traditional learning theory, challenging conventional understanding of what a human learner is, and considering how technological advances are changing how we think about this question. Throughout the book Hasse uses vignettes of her own research and that of other prominent academics to exemplify what technology can tell us about how we learn and how this can be observed in real-life settings. Posthumanist Learning is essential reading for students and researchers of posthumanism and learning theory from a variety of backgrounds, including psychology, education, anthropology, robotics and philosophy. (shrink)

The increasing need for innovative research driven by rapid global changes gives doctoral supervisors of early-stage researchers a significant role in facilitating the ethical conduct of qualitative research. In the context of European Commission funding, the demands of research ethics and integrity place a tremendous responsibility on the supervisors of early-stage researchers involved in cross-national projects. This document study seeks to illuminate the role of the supervisors in facilitating research ethics in these projects. Specifically, we describe and discuss the supervisor (...) role associated with five approaches to doctoral supervision of qualitative research, namely those described as ‘Functional’, ‘Enculturation’, ‘Critical thinking’, ‘Emancipation’ and ‘Developing a quality relationship’. The main challenges for supervisors of cross-national research projects are the cultural and linguistic mobilisation of ethical principles in qualitative research processes and the management of the future use of open data. The results from this study have implications for planning and conducting cross-national studies within research involving human participants. These results can guide supervisors in the codification and mobilisation of ethical qualitative research in practice. (shrink)

Will robots ever be able to learn like humans? To answer that question, one first needs to ask: what is learning? Hubert and Stuart Dreyfus had a point when they claimed that computers and robots would never be able to learn like humans because human learning, after an initial phase of rule-based learning, is uncertain, context sensitive and intuitive under contract F49620-C-0063 with the University of California) Berkeley, February 1980.. Washington, DC: Storming Media. https://www.stormingmedia.us/15/1554/A155480.html. Accessed 10 Oct 2017, 1980). I (...) would add that learning also builds on prior learning, and that from the outset, human learning is a socio-cultural materially grounded collective epistemology. This posthuman acknowledgement shifts the focus from the individual learner to learning within collective phenomena. Dreyfus and Dreyfus do not seem to emphasise the essentially social and cultural nature of the human condition. Learning theory, new materialism and postphenomenology have emphasised in different ways the materially based socio-cultural nature of human learning. They thereby point towards a ‘posthuman’ learning that is far from the machine-like or enhanced creature envisioned by singularists. Until robots are essentially social and ground their epistemologies in socio-cultural materiality, I suggest that human-like AI is not possible. (shrink)

Robots are simultaneously real machines and technical images that challenge our sense of self. I discuss the movie Ex Machina by director Alex Garland. The robot Ava, played by Alicia Vikander, is a rare portrait of what could be interpreted as a feminist robot. Though she apparently is created as the dream of the ‘perfect woman’, sexy and beautiful, she also develops and urges to free herself from the slavery of her creator, Nathan Bateman. She is a robot created along (...) the perfect dimensions as a Vitruvian robot but is also a creature which could be interpreted as a human being. However, the point I want to raise is not whether Ava’s reaction to robot slavery is justified or not but how her portrait raises questions about the blurred lines between reality and fiction when we discuss our robotic future. A real version of Ava would not last long in a human world because she is basically a solipsist, who does not really care about humans. She cannot co-create the line humans walk along. The robots created as ‘perfect women’ today are very far from the ideal image of Ava. They are sexist, primitively normative and clearly ‘wax-doll machines’. So though Ava’s dimensions are perfect she, like the Vitruvian Man, remains a fiction. In real life, however, we may have to deal with an increasing solipsism stemming from people engaging with machines like sex robots. In this case, it is human and not robotic solipsism we need to worry about. (shrink)

In this essay we critically evaluate the progress that has been made in solving the problem of meaning in artificial intelligence (AI) and robotics. We remain skeptical about solutions based on deep neural networks and cognitive robotics, which in our opinion do not fundamentally address the problem. We agree with the enactive approach to cognitive science that things appear as intrinsically meaningful for living beings because of their precarious existence as adaptive autopoietic individuals. But this approach inherits the problem of (...) failing to account for how meaning as such could make a difference for an agent’s behavior. In a nutshell, if life and mind are identified with physically deterministic phenomena, then there is no conceptual room for meaning to play a role in its own right. We argue that this impotence of meaning can be addressed by revising the concept of nature such that the macroscopic scale of the living can be characterized by physical indeterminacy. We consider the implications of this revision of the mind-body relationship for synthetic approaches. (shrink)

Habits are the topic of a venerable history of research that extends back to antiquity, yet they were originally disregarded by the cognitive sciences. They started to become the focus of interdisciplinary research in the 1990s, but since then there has been a stalemate between those who approach habits as a kind of bodily automatism or as a kind of mindful action. This implicit mind-body dualism is ready to be overcome with the rise of interest in embodied, embedded, extended, and (...) enactive (4E) cognition. We review the enactive approach and highlight how it moves beyond the traditional stalemate by integrating both autonomy and sense-making into its theory of agency. It defines a habit as an adaptive, precarious, and self-sustaining network of neural, bodily, and interactive processes that generate dynamical sensorimotor patterns. Habits constitute a central source of normativity for the agent. We identify a potential shortcoming of this enactive account with respect to bad habits, since self-maintenance of a habit would always be intrinsically good. Nevertheless, this is only a problem if, following the mainstream perspective on habits, we treat habits as isolated modules. The enactive approach replaces this atomism with a view of habits as constituting an interdependent whole on whose overall viability the individual habits depend. Accordingly, we propose to define a bad habit as one whose expression, while positive for itself, significantly impairs a person’s well-being by overruling the expression of other situationally relevant habits. We end by considering implications of this concept of bad habit for psychological and psychiatric research, in particular with respect to addiction research. (shrink)

For quite some time, cognitive science has offered philosophy an opportunity to address central problems with an arsenal of relevant theories and empirical data. However, even among those naturalistically inclined, it has been hard to find a universally accepted way to do so. In this article, we offer a case study of how cognitive-science input can elucidate an epistemological issue that has caused extensive debate. We explore Jason Stanley’s idea of the practical grasp of a propositional truth and present naturalistic (...) arguments against his reductive approach to knowledge. We argue that a plausible interpretation of cognitive-science input concerning knowledge—even if one accepts that knowledge how is partly propositional—must involve an element of knowing how to act correctly upon the proposition; and this element of knowing how to act correctly cannot itself be propositional. (shrink)

This paper considers questions about continuity and discontinuity between life and mind. It begins by examining such questions from the perspective of the free energy principle (FEP). The FEP is becoming increasingly influential in neuroscience and cognitive science. It says that organisms act to maintain themselves in their expected biological and cognitive states, and that they can do so only by minimizing their free energy given that the long-term average of free energy is entropy. The paper then argues that there (...) is no singular interpretation of the FEP for thinking about the relation between life and mind. Some FEP formulations express what we call an independence view of life and mind. One independence view is a cognitivist view of the FEP. It turns on information processing with semantic content, thus restricting the range of systems capable of exhibiting mentality. Other independence views exemplify what we call an overly generous non-cognitivist view of the FEP, and these appear to go in the opposite direction. That is, they imply that mentality is nearly everywhere. The paper proceeds to argue that non-cognitivist FEP, and its implications for thinking about the relation between life and mind, can be usefully constrained by key ideas in recent enactive approaches to cognitive science. We conclude that the most compelling account of the relationship between life and mind treats them as strongly continuous, and that this continuity is based on particular concepts of life (autopoiesis and adaptivity) and mind (basic and non-semantic). (shrink)

This paper contributes to an on-going exchange in political theory on the normative legitimacy of expert bodies. It focuses on epistemic worries about the expertisation of politics, and uses the Nordic system of advisory commissions as an empirical case. Epistemic concerns are often underplayed by those who defend an increasing role of experts in policy-making, while those who have epistemic worries often tend to overstate them and debunk expertise. We present ten epistemic worries, of which some are of an epistemological (...) nature, while others are related to failures and biases. These worries must not be overstated, but no doubt point to real problems which have to be handled through the design of expert bodies and institutions of science advice. We introduce three groups of mechanisms that are likely to contribute to remedying the problems of expertise and discuss what they imply for the design of a system of public advisory commissions. (shrink)

There is a small but growing community of researchers spanning a spectrum of disciplines which are united in rejecting the still dominant computationalist paradigm in favor of the enactive approach. The framework of this approach is centered on a core set of ideas, such as autonomy, sense-making, emergence, embodiment, and experience. These concepts are finding novel applications in a diverse range of areas. One hot topic has been the establishment of an enactive approach to social interaction. The main purpose of (...) this paper is to serve as an advanced entry point into these recent developments. It accomplishes this task in a twofold manner: it provides a succinct synthesis of the most important core ideas and arguments in the theoretical framework of the enactive approach, and it uses this synthesis to refine the current enactive approach to social interaction. A new operational definition of social interaction is proposed which not only emphasizes the cognitive agency of the individuals and the irreducibility of the interaction process itself, but also the need for jointly co-regulated action. It is suggested that this revised conception of `socio-cognitive interaction' may provide the necessary middle ground from which to understand the confluence of biological and cultural values in personal action. (shrink)

This paper discusses the conditions for legitimate expert arrangements within a democratic order and from a deliberative systems approach. It is argued that standard objections against the political role of experts are flawed or ill-conceived. The problem that confronts us instead is primarily one of truth-sensitive institutional design: Which mechanisms can contribute to ensuring that experts are really experts and that they use their competencies in the right way? The paper outlines a set of such mechanisms. However, the challenge exceeds (...) that of producing epistemically optimal expert deliberations because a deliberative political system must also fulfil the ethical and democratic requirements of respect and inclusion. Yet, epistemic concerns justify expertise arrangements in the first place, and measures taken to make the use of expertise compatible with these requirements have to balance the potential rewards from expertise against potential deliberative costs. In the final part of the paper, the regulatory framework of a best practice expert advice system is tentatively analysed to illustrate the applicability and critical potential of our approach. (shrink)

Epistemic democrats are rightly concerned with the quality of outcomes and judge democratic procedures in terms of their ability to ‘track the truth’. However, their impetus to assess ‘rule by experts’ and ‘rule by the people’ as mutually exclusive has led to a meagre treatment of the role of expert knowledge in democracy. Expertise is often presented as a threat to democracy but is also crucial for enlightened political processes. Contemporary political philosophy has so far paid little attention to our (...) reliance on experts and has not sufficiently addressed the question of how expertise can be used to improve the epistemic quality of democratic decision making. We believe this lack of interest is spurred by a too hasty acceptance of arguments dismissive of the political role of experts. The article examines a series of often-cited epistemic objections and concludes that several of them are overstated or misconceived, yet they all reflect real difficulties that need to be addressed. On this background, we tentatively outline a set of mechanisms that can contribute to alleviating the irreducible problem of epistemic asymmetries and ensuring that experts really are experts and use their expertise in the right way. (shrink)

From the twentieth century into the twenty-first, psychoanalysis and deconstruction have challenged, and continue to challenge, our conceptions of subjectivity and selfhood. This book argues that taking forward this heritage we must retrace the subject and the self as undergoing perpetual auto-deconstruction, through the lens of solitude.

Context: In the past two decades, the so-called 4E approaches to the mind and cognition have been rapidly gaining in recognition and have become an integral part of various disciplines. Problem: Recently, however, questions have been raised as to whether, and to what degree, these different approaches actually cohere with one another. Specifically, it seems that many of them endorse mutually incompatible, perhaps even contradictory, epistemological and metaphysical presuppositions. Method: By retracing the roots of an alternative conception of mind and (...) cognition, as propounded by Varela, Thompson & Rosch, we provide an outline of the original philosophical framework of enactivism and neurophenomenology. We focus on its three central tenets - reflexivity, subject-world co-determination, and the construal of cognition as situated, skillful and embodied action - and show how they collectively add up to a radical change in attitude towards the age-old philosophical dilemmas. Results: We show how contemporary enactivist and embodied approaches relate to the original Varelian conception, and argue that many of them, despite frequent claims to the contrary, adopt significantly less radical philosophical positions. Further, we provide some tentative suggestions as to why this dilution of the original impetus might have occurred, paying special attention to the deep-rooted disparities that span the field. Implications: It is argued that more attention should be paid to epistemological and metaphysical tenets of different proposals within the 4E movement in general and enactivism in particular. Additionally, in emphasizing the inescapable multilayeredness and contextuality of scientific knowledge, enactivism and neurophenomenology accord with pluralist accounts of science and might provide important contributions to contemporary debates in the field. Constructivist content: The epistemological odyssey, construed as a journey to find a middle way between realism and idealism, is a central tenet of anti-representationalist, non-dualist constructivist approaches aimed at avoiding age-old philosophical traps. (shrink)

There is an overlooked similarity between three classic accounts of the conditions of object experience from three distinct disciplines. Sociology: the “inversion” that accompanies discovery in the natural sciences, as local causes of effects are reattributed to an observed object. Psychology: the “externalization” that accompanies mastery of a visual–tactile sensory substitution interface, as tactile sensations of the proximal interface are transformed into vision-like experience of a distal object. Biology: the “projection” that brings forth an animal’s Umwelt, as impressions on its (...) body’s sensory surfaces are reconfigured into perception of an external object. This similarity between the effects of scientific practice and interface-use on the one hand, and of sensorimotor interaction on the other, becomes intelligible once we accept that skillful engagement with instruments and interfaces constitutes a socio-material augmentation of our basic perceptual capacity. This enactive interpretation stands in contrast to anti-realism about science associated with constructivist interpretations of these three phenomena, which are motivated by viewing them as the internal mental construction of the experienced object. Instead, it favors a participatory realism: the sensorimotor basis of perceptual experience loops not only through our body, but also through the external world. This allows us to conceive of object experience in relational terms, i.e., as one or more subjects directly engaging with the world. Consequently, we can appreciate scientific observation in its full complexity: it is a socio-materially augmented process of becoming acquainted with the observed object that—like tool-use and perceiving more generally—is irreducibly self, other-, and world-involving. (shrink)

In important ways, Clark's (HPM) approach parallels the research agenda we have been pursuing. Nevertheless, we remain unconvinced that the HPM offers the best clue yet to the shape of a unified science of mind and action. The apparent convergence of research interests is offset by a profound divergence of theoretical starting points and ideal goals.

In the Letter of Humanism, Heidegger reinterprets the Greek notion of ethos as designating the way in which human beings dwell in the world through a “unifying” language. Through various down strokes in the autobiographical and psychopathological literature on schizophrenia as well as in literary texts and literary criticism, this paper, experimental in its effort, argues that the language productions of schizophrenia and poetry, each in its own way, seem to fall outside this unification of a language in common. Furthermore, (...) it argues that this “falling outside” is related to radical experiences of “alienation” and “otherness,” which call for an alteration of conventional language. However, whereas poetry appears to open new linguistic possibilities, schizophrenia runs the risk of reducing language to the silence of incomprehensible “nonsense.” The paper ends with the suggestion that a poetic employment of language may hold a double potential with regard to the understanding and possible treatment of schizophrenia spectrum disorders. (shrink)

Journal of Social Philosophy, EarlyView.

Journal of Social Philosophy, Volume 52, Issue 4, Page 473-490, Winter 2021.

"Dieser Beitrag fasst den aktuellen Stand der rechtlichen Herausforderungen der Blockchain-Technologie kurz und prägnant zusammen. Blockchain stellt, ähnlich dem World Wide Web, eine Art Grundlagentechnologie dar, auf deren Basis neue Plattformen und Geschäftsmodelle geschaffen werden können. Es stellt sich jedoch die Frage, ob das deutsche Rechtssystem grundsätzlich in der Lage ist, die Herausforderungen, die eine solch dezentrale Technologie mit sich bringt, zu bewältigen. Insbesondere hinsichtlich strafbarer Handlungen oder der neuen Datenschutzgrundverordnung. Fraglich ist dabei, wie sich die derzeitigen Negativschlagzeilen (beispielsweise Silk (...) Road) langfristig auf Kryptowährungen und infolgedessen wo- möglich auch auf die Blockchain-Technologie, nicht nur im Hinblick auf die rechtswidrigen Inhalte wie Kinderpornographie, auswirken. This article summarizes the current status of the legal challenges of blockchain technology. Similar to the World Wide Web, Blockchain represents a kind of basic technology on the basis of which new platforms and business models can be created. However, the question arises as to whether the German legal system is fundamentally capable of mastering the challenges posed by such a decentralized technology. In particular with regard to criminal offences or the new Basic Data Protection Ordinance. The question is how the current negative headlines (e. g. Silk Road) will affect crypto currencies in the long term and, as a result, blockchain technology, not only with regard to illegal content such as child pornography. ". (shrink)

In this paper, I contend that the use of the notion of non-inevitability on the part of many social constructionists and non-social constructionists alike is either vague or relies too heavily on intuition. I propose two readings, namely the Dependence and Alterability Readings, to provide a principled criterion for determining whether and to what extent something may be argued to be non-inevitable. By utilizing the examples of gender and human emotion as case studies, my ultimate goals herein are not to (...) provide a wholly foolproof criterion to delimit the non-inevitable, but to proffer one attempt at fleshing out a structured analysis at what non-inevitability might amount to and, also, to highlight the importance of why the notion of non-inevitability must be précised in order for social constructionist or non-social constructionist programs to hold weight. (shrink)

The aim of this study was to obtain an increased understanding of the experiences of elderly people in geriatric care, with special reference to integrity. Data were collected through qualitative interviews with elderly people and, in order to obtain a description of caregivers’ integrity-promoting or non-promoting behaviours, participant observations and qualitative interviews with nursing students were undertaken. Earlier studies on the integrity of elderly people mainly concentrated on their personal and territorial space, so Kihlgren and Thorsén opened up the possibility (...) of considering the concept of integrity from a broader view by recognizing its relationship to the larger framework of the self-concept. Based on this, findings in the present study indicate that elderly people’s integrity relating to their corporal self were the least violated. On the other hand, their psycological, information and cultural selves were the most exposed. The study also identified a further dimension (i.e. one relating to social self), which should be included in the concept of integrity because respecting elderly people’s social self reduces their feelings of loneliness, isolation and seclusion. In summary, the results indicate that the concept of integrity is complex and has several dimensions. (shrink)