Zusammenfassung Die vorliegende Studie basiert auf einer quantitativ-qualitativen Erhebung der Arbeitsbedingungen und -zufriedenheit des religionswissenschaftlichen Nachwuchses (d. h. ohne unbefristete Anstellung als Professor*in). Die Erhebung wurde von Mai bis Juli 2022 vom Arbeitskreis Mittelbau und Nachwuchs (AKMN) der Deutschen Vereinigung für Religionswissenschaft (DVRW) durchgeführt. Sie ist eine erweiterte Variante einer Erhebung von 2015. Auf der Grundlage der Umfrageergebnisse werden die Arbeitsbedingungen und ihre Auswirkungen auf berufliche Perspektiven und persönliche Lebensumstände der Betroffenen beschrieben und mit denen von 2015 verglichen. Zudem werden (...) die speziellen Herausforderungen während der Corona-Pandemie dargestellt. Die Studie ist nicht nur eine aussagekräftige Untersuchung der Entwicklung der Arbeitsbedingungen des religionswissenschaftlichen Nachwuchses, sondern auch ein Beitrag zur derzeit intensiv geführten Debatte um Beschäftigungsverhältnisse an deutschen Universitäten. (shrink)

Assertions are the centre of gravity in social epistemology. They are the vehicles we use to exchange information within scientific groups and society as a whole. It is therefore essential to determine under which conditions we are permitted to make an assertion. In this paper we argue and provide empirical evidence for the view that the norm of assertion is justified belief: truth or even knowledge are not required. Our results challenge the knowledge account advocated by, e.g. Williamson (1996), in (...) general, and more specifically, put into question several studies conducted by Turri (2013, 2016) that support a knowledge norm of assertion. Instead, the justified belief account championed by, e.g. Douven (2006), seems to prevail. (shrink)

"-Barbara Ehrenreich, Mother Jones "This book represents the expression of a particular feminist perspective made all the more compelling by Keller's evident commitment to and understanding of science.

The essays included here represent Fox Keller's attempts to integrate the insights of feminist theory with those of her contemporaries in the history and philosophy of science.

This paper presents the results of two corpus studies investigating the discourse surrounding conspiracy theories and genuine theories. The results of these studies show that conspiracy theories lack the epistemic and scientific standing characteristic of theories more generally. Instead, our findings indicate that conspiracy theories are spread in a manner that resembles the dissemination of rumors and falsehoods. Based on these empirical results, we argue that it is time for both re-engineering conspiracy theory and for relabeling "conspiracy theory". We propose (...) relabelling conspiracy theories as either "conspiracy stories" or "conspiracy narratives" to more accurately convey their true nature. (shrink)

The standard interpretation of quantum mechanics and a standard interpretation of the awareness of pain have a common feature: Both postulate the existence of an irresolvable duality. Whereas many physicists claim that all particles exhibit particle and wave properties, many philosophers working on pain argue that our awareness of pain is paradoxical, exhibiting both perceptual and introspective characteristics. In this chapter, we offer a pessimistic take on the putative paradox of pain. Specifically, we attempt to resolve the supposed paradox by (...) undermining the reasons offered for accepting the introspective side of the dualism. (shrink)

Generic statements (‘Tigers have stripes’) are pervasive and early-emerging modes of generalization with a distinctive linguistic profile. Previous experimental work found that generics display a unique asymmetry between their acceptance conditions and the implications that are typically drawn from them. This paper presents evidence against the hypothesis that only generics display an asymmetry. Correcting for limitations of previous designs, we found a generalized asymmetry effect across generics, various kinds of explicitly quantified statements (‘most’, ‘some’, ‘typically’, ‘usually’), and variations in types (...) of predicated properties (striking vs. neutral). We discuss implications of these results for our understanding of the source of asymmetry effects and whether and in which ways these effects might introduce biased beliefs into social networks. (shrink)

This paper details the content and structure of the folk concept of life, and discusses its relevance for scientific research on life. In four empirical studies, we investigate which features of life are considered salient, universal, central, and necessary. Functionings, such as nutrition and reproduction, but not material composition, turn out to be salient features commonly associated with living beings (Study 1). By contrast, being made of cells is considered a universal feature of living species (Study 2), a central aspect (...) of life (Study 3), and our best candidate for being necessary for life (Study 4). These results are best explained by the hypothesis that people take life to be a natural kind subject to scientific scrutiny. (shrink)

The aim of the article is to intervene in debates about the digital and, in particular, framings that imagine the digital in terms of epochal shifts or as redefining life. Instead, drawing on recent developments in digital methods, we explore the lively, productive and performative qualities of the digital by attending to the specificities of digital devices and how they interact, and sometimes compete, with older devices and their capacity to mobilize and materialize social and other relations. In doing so, (...) our aim is to explore the implications of digital devices and data for reassembling social science methods or what we call the social science apparatuses that assemble digital devices and data to ‘know’ the social and other relations. Building on recent work at CRESC on the social life of methods, we recommend a genealogical approach that is alive to the ways in which digital devices are simultaneously shaped by social worlds, and can in turn become agents that shape those worlds. This calls for attending to the specificities of digital devices themselves, how they are varied and composed of diverse socio-technical arrangements, and are enrolled in the creation of new knowledge spaces, institutions and actors. Rather than exploring what large-scale changes can be revealed and understood through the digital, we argue for explorations of how digital devices themselves are materially implicated in the production and performance of contemporary sociality. To that end we offer the following nine propositions about the implications of digital data and devices and argue that these demand rethinking the theoretical assumptions of social science methods: transactional actors; heterogeneity; visualization; continuous time; whole populations; granularity; expertise; mobile and mobilizing; and non-coherence. (shrink)

English summary: In its core, this book represents a defense of the thesis that we are essentially biological creatures of the species Homo sapiens - and not essentially persons. This thesis has consequences for the problem of personal identity. An important aspect of its defense - and the book's second central line of argumentation - is, therefore, to substantiate that ours are the diachronic identity conditions of biological beings. Attempting to reach both argumentation goals, one has to overcome some obstacles, (...) from motivating an appropriate ontological framework via explaining the concept of the animate being to demonstrating that essentialism is still a viable option today. In this way, a picture gradually emerges which places us humans, as living beings among other living beings, in a biological world, without, however, playing down that we are, at least typically, also persons with a rich spiritual life. German description: Das Buch ist im Kern eine Verteidigung der These, dass wir wesentlich biologische Lebewesen der Spezies Homo sapiens sind - und nicht etwa wesentlich Personen. Diese These hat Konsequenzen fur das Problem der personalen Identitat. Ein wichtiger Aspekt ihrer Verteidigung - und der zweite zentrale Argumentationsstrang des Buchs - liegt demnach darin, zu begrunden, dass wir die diachronen Identitatsbedingungen biologischer Lebewesen haben. Der Versuch, beide Argumentstationsziele zu erreichen, muss einige Hurden nehmen: angefangen von einer Motivierung eines passenden ontologischen Rahmens uber eine Erlauterung des Begriffs des Lebewesens bis hin zu dem Nachweis, dass ein Essentialismus heutzutage noch eine gangbare Option ist. Auf diese Weise entsteht nach und nach ein Bild, das uns Menschen, als Lebewesen unter anderen Lebewesen, in eine biologische Welt einordnet, ohne dabei aber kleinzureden, dass wir, zumindest typischerweise, auch Personen mit einem reichhaltigen geistigen Leben sind. (shrink)

The Statements on Responsibilities in Tax Practice (SRTPs) provide guidance to the CPA when making decisions in tax practice. Many of these decisions are ethical in nature and have implications for tax compliance. In this study, a survey methodology is used to test whether the SRTPs affect decisions that CPAs make. The findings suggest that a clear majority of CPAs follow the SRTPs when making ethical decisions relating to tax return preparation and that CPAs follow the SRTPs more often than (...) unlicensed preparers on half the issues tested. However, a statistically significant number of CPAs do not follow the SRTPs and, CPAs do not follow the SRTPs any more often than unlicensed tax preparers on three issues. (shrink)

Cet article rend compte des singularités du travail nocturne et de ses temporalités via le suivi d’un projet de « micro-sieste » au sein d’un service hospitalier, dans une visée d’amélioration des conditions de récupération des professionnels de jour comme de nuit. Il s’appuie sur une étude de cas dans un service de soins fonctionnant en 12 heures, mêlant observations (de nuit et de jour) et entretiens formels et informels. Si les professionnels de jour sont peu nombreux à pratiquer la (...) « micro-sieste » telle qu’elle est proposée, c’est notamment en raison de la difficulté à prendre un temps de pause du fait des exigences et de la densité du travail, _a fortiori_ en s’absentant du service. De nuit, c’est bien plutôt le risque qu’elle empiète sur les temps disponibles pour le collectif (entraide et socialisation) qui la freine. L’article montre comment les temporalités du nocturne, les pratiques de repos, les apprentissages et les valeurs qui y sont associés, engagent et entretiennent l... (shrink)

Resumo: A inclusão no Ensino Superior é uma premissa de âmbito social, educacional e político. Muitos passos têm sido trilhados para que os discursos sobre equidade e igualdade possam ser proferidos e perspectivados, reconhecendo que o ajustamento dos estudantes com Necessidades Educativas Especiais (NEE) precede-se de inúmeros fatores, entre eles, das políticas educativas. Para possibilitar algumas reflexões, o presente estudo, de natureza qualitativa, objetivou conhecer as percepções de colaboradores (n=85) de Instituições de Ensino Superior portuguesas sobre o papel das políticas (...) educativas em prol da inclusão. Os dados, provenientes de um questionário online, foram tratados sob a técnica de análise de conteúdo, com apoio do software webQDA. Os resultados evidenciaram 60 referências na categoria de potencialidades, refletidas na garantia da efetivação do percurso acadêmico de estudantes com NEE no Ensino Superior e concretização dos seus direitos. Verificou-se que 91,7% dos participantes compreendem que as políticas educativas são importantes para o seu país, pelo que 88,2% dos colaboradores acreditam que estas políticas potenciam a inclusão e a permanência de estudantes com NEE no Ensino Superior, na qual 40,7% verificaram ações de apoio e incentivo, ao nível político, em prol da inclusão em Portugal. Palavras-chave: Políticas Educativas; Inclusão; Ensino Superior; Portugal; Necessidades Educativas Especiais. Educational policies and inclusion in Higher Education: perceptions about the Portuguese context Abstract: Inclusion in Higher Education is a social, educational and political premise. Many steps have been taken so that the discourses on equity and equality can be delivered and envisaged, recognizing that the adjustment of students with Special Educational Needs (SEN) is preceded by numerous factors, among them, educational policies. To enable some reflections, the present study, of a qualitative nature, aimed to know the perceptions of employees (n = 85) of Portuguese Higher Education Institutions about the role of educational policies on behalf of inclusion. The data, from an online survey, were treated using the content analysis technique, with the support of the webQDA software. The results revealed 60 references in the potentialities category, reflected in the guarantee of the effectiveness of the academic path of students with SEN in Higher Education and the realization of their rights. It was found that 91.7% of participants understand that educational policies are important for their country, so 88.2% of employees believe that these policies enhance the inclusion and permanence of students with SEN in Higher Education, in which 40.7% verified support and incentive actions, at the political level, in favor of inclusion in Portugal. Keywords: Educational Policies; Inclusion; Higher Education; Portugal; Special Educational Needs. Políticas educativas e inclusión en la educación superior: percepciones sobre el contexto portugués Resumen: La inclusión en la Educación Superior es una premisa en el marco social, educativo y político. Se han dado muchos pasos para que los discursos sobre equidad e igualdad puedan ser pronunciados y verificados, reconociendo que la adaptación de los estudiantes con Necesidades Educativas Especiales (NEE) está precedida por numerosos factores, entre ellos, las políticas educativas. Para posibilitar algunas reflexiones, el presente estudio, de carácter cualitativo, tuvo como objetivo conocer las percepciones de los colaboradores (n = 85) de las Instituciones de Educación Superior portuguesas sobre la función de las políticas educativas a favor de la inclusión. Los datos, provenientes de una encuesta online, fueron tratados mediante la técnica de análisis de contenido, con el apoyo del software webQDA. Los resultados evidenciaron 60 referencias en la categoría de potencialidades, reflejadas en la garantía de la efectividad de la trayectoria académica de los estudiantes con NEE en la Educación Superior y la realización de sus derechos. Se constató que el 91,7% de los participantes entiende que las políticas educativas son importantes para su país, por lo que el 88,2% de los empleados cree que estas políticas potencian la inclusión y permanencia de los estudiantes con NEE en la Educación Superior, en la que el 40,7% verificó acciones de apoyo e incentivo, a nivel político, a favor de la inclusión en Portugal. Palabras clave: Políticas Educativas; Inclusión; Educación superior; Portugal; Necesidades Educativas Especiales. Data de registro: 16/04/2021 Data de aceite: 01/12/2021. (shrink)

The most common approach to understanding the semantics of the concept of pain is third-person thought experiments. By contrast, the most frequent and most relevant uses of the folk concept of pain are from a first-person perspective in conversational settings. In this paper, we use a set of linguistic tools to systematically explore the semantics of what people communicate when reporting pain from a first-person perspective. Our results suggest that only a pluralistic view can do justice to the way we (...) talk about pain from a first-person perspective: The semantic content of the folk concept of pain consists of information about both an unpleasant feeling and a disruptive bodily state. Pain linguistics thus provides new insights into ordinary pain language and poses an interesting challenge to the dominant unitary views of pain. (shrink)

That Cicero as a young didactic poet embraced the traditions of Hellenistic hexameter poetry is well recognized. Those traditions encompass various forms of wordplay, one of which is the acrostic. Cicero's engagement with this tradition, in the form of an unusual Greek-Latin acrostic at Aratea 317–20, prompts inquiry regarding both the use of the acrostic technique as textual commentary and Cicero's lifelong concerns regarding translation.

In business and government, databases contain large quantities of digital transactional data (purchases made, services used, finances transferred, benefits received, licences acquired, borders crossed, tickets purchased). The data can be understood as ongoing and dynamic measurements of the activities and doings of people. In government, numerous database devices have been developed to connect such data across services to discover patterns and identify and evaluate the performance of individuals and populations. Under the UK’s New Labour government, the development of such devices (...) was part of a broader policy known as ‘joined-up thinking and government’. Analyses of this policy have typically understood joining up as an operation of adding together distributed data about subjects, which can then be used in the service of government surveillance, the database state or informational capitalism. But rather than such technical or managerialist analytics, I argue that topological analytics capture what these database devices enact and do: they materialize the ‘individuality’ of subjects in intensified, distributed and fluctuating ways and materialize and intensify a logic of what Deleuze describes as modulating controls. Through examples of UK New Labour social policy initiatives over the past decade, I argue that topological analytics can account for these as immanent rather than exceptional properties of database devices and, as such, part and parcel of a governmental logic and ontology of subjects. (shrink)

Much has been written about data politics in the last decade, which has generated myriad concepts such as ‘surveillance capitalism’, ‘gig economy’, ‘quantified self’, ‘algorithmic governmentality’, ‘data colonialism’, ‘data subjects’ and ‘digital citizens’. Yet, it has been difficult to plot these concepts into an historical series to discern specific continuities and discontinuities since the origins of modern power in its three major forms: sovereign, disciplinary and regulatory. This article argues that the coronavirus pandemic in 2020 brought these three forms of (...) power into sharp relief but made particularly visible a fourth form of power that we name ‘sensory power’, which has been emerging since the 1980s. The article draws on early studies of power by Michel Foucault, subsequent studies on biopower and biopolitics that expanded on them, and studies in the past decade that focused on data produced from apps, devices and platforms. Yet, despite its ambition, the article is inevitably an outline of a much larger project. (shrink)

‘‘COGNITIVE ECOLOGY’’ is a fruitful model for Shakespearian studies, early modern literary and cultural history, and theatrical history more widely. Cognitive ecologies are the multidimensional contexts in which we remember, feel, think, sense, communicate, imagine, and act, often collaboratively, on the fly, and in rich ongoing interaction with our environments. Along with the anthropologist Edwin Hutchins,1 we use the term ‘‘cognitive ecology’’ to integrate a number of recent approaches to cultural cognition: we believe these approaches offer productive lines of engagement (...) with early modern literary and historical studies.2 The framework arises out of our work in extended mind and distributed cognition.3 The extended mind hypothesis arose from a post-connectionist philosophy of cognitive science. This approach was articulated in Andy Clark’s Being There: Putting Brain, Body, and World Together Again, and further developed by Susan Hurley and Mark Rowlands, among others.4 The distributed cognition approach arose independently, from work in cognitive anthropology, HCI (Human-Computer Interaction), the sociology of education and work, and science studies. The principles of distributed cognition were articulated in Hutchins’s ethnography of navigation, Cogni- tion in the Wild,5 and developed by theorists such as David Kirsh and Lucy Suchman.6 These models share an anti-individualist approach to cognition. In all these views, mental activities spread or smear across the boundaries of skull and skin to include parts of the social and material world. In remembering, decision making, and acting, whether individually or in small groups, our complex and structured activities involve many distinctive dimensions: neural, affective, kines-. (shrink)

The literature suggests that in sensory imagination we focus on the imagined objects, not on the imaginative states themselves, and that therefore imagination is not introspective. It is claimed that the introspection of imaginative states is an additional cognitive ability. However, there seem to be counterexamples to this claim. In many cases in which we sensorily imagine a certain object in front of us, we are aware that this object is not really where we imagine it to be. So it (...) looks as if in these cases of imagination, we are aware of the mere appearance of the imagined object, and hence introspection is a constitutive part of imagination. In this article, I address this contradictory state of affairs and argue that we should classify at least some forms of sensory imagination as introspective. For this purpose I use the appearance-reality distinction as a central notion for introspection. I also defend the thesis of introspective imagination against the objection that young children imagine without yet understanding the concept of experience. (shrink)

Conceptual engineering is the practice of revising concepts to improve how people talk and think. Its ability to improve talk and thought ultimately hinges on the successful dissemination of desired conceptual changes. Unfortunately, the field has been slow to develop methods to directly test what barriers stand in the way of propagation and what methods will most effectively propagate desired conceptual change. In order to test such questions, this paper introduces the masked time-lagged method. The masked time-lagged method tests people's (...) conceptual understanding at two different points in time without their knowledge of being tested, allowing us to measure conceptual revision in action. Using a masked time-lagged design on a content internalist framework, we attempted to revise PLANET and DINOSAUR in online participants to match experts' concepts. We successfully revised PLANET but not DINOSAUR, demonstrating some of the difficulties conceptual engineers face. Nonetheless, this paper provides conceptual engineers, regardless of framework, with the tools to tackle questions related to implementation empirically and head-on. (shrink)

Thick terms and concepts, such as honesty and cruelty, are at the heart of a variety of debates in philosophy of language and metaethics. Central to these debates is the question of how the descriptive and evaluative components of thick concepts are related and whether they can be separated from each other. So far, no empirical data on how thick terms are used in ordinary language has been collected to inform these debates. In this paper, we present the first empirical (...) study, designed to investigate whether the evaluative component of thick concepts is communicated as part of the semantic meaning or by means of conversational implicatures. While neither the semantic nor the pragmatic view can fully account for the use of thick terms in ordinary language, our results do favour the semanticist interpretation: the evaluation of a thick concept is only slightly easier to cancel than semantically entailed content. We further discovered a polarity effect, demonstrating that how easily an evaluation can be cancelled depends on whether the thick term is of positive or negative polarity. (shrink)

What do biologists want? If, unlike their counterparts in physics, biologists are generally wary of a grand, overarching theory, at what kinds of explanation do biologists aim? A history of the diverse and changing nature of biological explanation in a particularly charged field, "Making Sense of Life" draws our attention to the temporal, disciplinary, and cultural components of what biologists mean, and what they understand, when they propose to explain life.

Hannah Arendt beschäftigt sich in ihren Schriften mit konkreten Erfahrungen in der Welt. Ihr Verständnis von Politik definiert sich durch Phänomenalität und entsteht als Handeln zwischen den Menschen. Die Verfasserin zeigt, dass Arendts Denken auch für aktuelle politikdidaktische Fragestellungen wegweisend ist.

Assistive technology has great potential to contribute to health, functioning, and quality of life. To date, as exemplified in the Canadian context, variations and inequities in access to assistive technology are evident; the development of legislation, policies, and programs has not kept up with the increasing use of assistive technology. In this article, we apply ;Daniels’s (2008) theory of just health to argue that equitable access to assistive technology funding and services is necessary for justice. In doing so, we offer (...) theoretical guidance for the development of legislation, policies, and programs to guide such access in health and social services. (shrink)

Distinguishing intentional behavior from accidental behavior is a crucial component of social cognition and a major developmental achievement. It has often been assumed that developmental changes in intentional reasoning result from a gradual sophistication in the ability to discern intentions in action. We take issue with this notion, demonstrating that data from cognitive, developmental, and social psychology are more consistent with the hypothesis that it is instead a gradual sophistication in the ability to understand accidents that drives developmental change.

Complex environmental problems require well-researched policies that integrate knowledge from both the natural and social sciences. Epistemic differences can impede interdisciplinary collaboration, as shown by debates between conservation biologists and anthropologists who are working to preserve biological diversity and support economic development in central Africa. Disciplinary differences with regard to 1) facts, 2) rigor, 3) causal explanation, and 4) research goals reinforce each other, such that early decisions about how to define concepts or which methods to adopt may tilt research (...) design and data interpretation toward one discipline’s epistemological framework. If one of the contributing fields imposes a solution to an epistemic problem, this sets the stage for what I call disciplinary capture. Avoiding disciplinary capture requires clear communication between collaborators, but beyond this it also requires that collaborators craft research questions and innovate research designs which are different from the inherited epistemological frameworks of contributing disciplines. (shrink)

The concepts expressed by social role terms such as artist and scientist are unique in that they seem to allow two independent criteria for categorization, one of which is inherently normative. This study presents and tests an account of the content and structure of the normative dimension of these “dual character concepts.” Experiment 1 suggests that the normative dimension of a social role concept represents the commitment to fulfill the idealized basic function associated with the role. Background information can affect (...) which basic function is associated with each social role. However, Experiment 2 indicates that the normative dimension always represents the relevant commitment as an end in itself. We argue that social role concepts represent the commitments to basic functions because that information is crucial to predict the future social roles and role-dependent behavior of others. (shrink)

In _Beyond Prejudice_, Evelyn B. Pluhar defends the view that any sentient conative being—one capable of caring about what happens to him or herself—is morally significant, a view that supports the moral status and rights of many nonhuman animals. Confronting traditional and contemporary philosophical arguments, she offers in clear and accessible fashion a thorough examination of theories of moral significance while decisively demonstrating the flaws in the arguments of those who would avoid attributing moral rights to nonhumans. Exposing the (...) traditional view—which restricts the moral realm to autonomous, fully fledged "persons"—as having horrific implications for the treatment of many humans, Pluhar goes on to argue positively that sentient individuals of any species are no less morally significant than the most automomous human. Her position provides the ultimate justification that is missing from previous defenses of the moral status of nonhuman animals. In the process of advancing her position, Pluhar discusses the implications of determining moral significance for children and "abnormal" humans as well as its relevance to population policies, the raising of animals for food or product testing, decisions on hunting and euthanasia, and the treatment of companion animals. In addition, the author scrutinizes recent assertions by environmental ethicists that all living things or that natural objects and ecosystems be considered highly morally significant. This powerful book of moral theory challenges all defenders of the moral status quo—which decrees that animals decidedly do not count—to reevaluate their convictions. (shrink)

It is generally assumed that emotion concepts are purely descriptive. However, recent investigations suggest that the concept of happiness includes information about the morality of the agent's life. In this study, we argue that normative influences on emotion concepts are not restricted to happiness and are not about moral norms. In a series of studies, we show that emotion attribution is influenced by whether the agent's psychological and bodily states fit the situation in which they are experienced. People consider that (...) emotions are not just about feeling in certain ways, but also about feeling the right way. (shrink)

We develop the concept of ‘aesthetic practices’ to capture the work needed for population data to be disseminated via government data portals. Specifically, we look at the Census Hub of the European Statistical System and the Danish Ministry of Education’s Data Warehouse. These portals form part of open government data initiatives, which we understand as governing technologies. We argue that to function as such, aesthetic practices are required so that data produced at dispersed sites can be brought into relation and (...) projected as populations in forms such as bar charts, heat maps and tables. Two examples of aesthetic practices are analysed based on ethnographic studies we have conducted on the production of data for the Hub and Warehouse: metadata and data cleaning. Metadata enables data to come into relation by containing and accounting for the differences between data. Data cleaning deals with the indeterminacies and absences of data and involves algorithms to determine what values data can obtain so they can be brought into relation. We attend to how both aesthetic practices involve normative decisions that make absent what exceeds them: embodied knowledge that cannot or has not been documented as well as data that cannot meet the forms required of data portals. While these aesthetic practices are necessary to sustain data portals as ‘sites of projection,’ we also bring critical attention to their performative effects for knowing, enacting and governing populations. (shrink)

Philosophers increasingly engage in practical work with other disciplines and the world at large. This volume draws together the lessons learned from this work--including philosophers' contributions to scientific research projects, consultations on matters of policy, and expertise provided to government agencies and non-profits--on how to effectively practice philosophy. Its 22 case studies are organized into five sections: I Collaboration and Communication II Policymaking and the Public Sphere III Fieldwork in the Academy IV Fieldwork in the Professions V Changing Philosophical Practice (...) Together, these essays provide a practical, how-to guide for doing philosophy in the field--how to find problems that can benefit from philosophical contributions, effectively collaborate with other professionals and community members, make fieldwork a positive part of a philosophical career, and anticipate and negotiate the sorts of unanticipated problems that crop up in direct public engagement. Key features: Gives specific advice on how to integrate philosophy with outside groups. Offers examples from working with the public and private sectors, community organizations, and academic groups. Provides lessons learned, often summarized at the end of chapters, for how to practice philosophy in the field. (shrink)

In recent years, a number of prominent scientists have argued that free will is an illusion, appealing to evidence demonstrating that information about brain activity can be used to predict behavior before people are aware of having made a decision. These scientists claim that the possibility of perfect prediction based on neural information challenges the ordinary understanding of free will. In this paper we provide evidence suggesting that most people do not view the possibility of neuro-prediction as a threat to (...) free will unless it also raises concerns about manipulation of the agent’s behavior. In Experiment 1 two scenarios described future brain imaging technology that allows perfect prediction of decisions and actions based on earlier neural activity, and this possibility did not undermine most people’s attributions of free will or responsibility, except in the scenario that also allowed manipulation. In Experiment 2 the scenarios increased the salience of the physicalist implications of neuro-prediction, while in Experiment 3 the scenarios suggested dualism, with perfect prediction by mindreaders. The patterns of results for these two experiments were similar to the results in Experiment 1, suggesting that participants do not understand free will to require specific metaphysical conditions regarding the mind–body relation. Most people seem to understand free will in a way that is not threatened by perfect prediction based on neural information, suggesting that they believe that just because “my brain made me do it,” that does not mean that I didn’t do it of my own free will. (shrink)

Researchers have considered individual and organizational factors of ethical decision making. However, they have little interest in situational factors :101–125, 2013) which is surprising given the many situations sales persons face. We address this issue using two pilot qualitative studies successively and a 2 by 2 within-subject experiment with sales scenarios. Qualitative and quantitative data are obtained from front-line employees of the main French retail banks that serve low-income customers. We show that the recognition of an ethical issue differs depending (...) on the role behavior salespersons are engaged in and the nature of the conflict of interest they face. Moreover, the combined effect of these two situational characteristics is mediated by moral intensity. This study not only adds evidence on situational factors affecting ethical decision but also extends empirical research on sales ethics by revealing sales situations that are not considered in the empirical literature. The research implications of the findings are discussed along with the study’s limitations and suggestions for future research. (shrink)

In this paper I argue that noun complement modality cannot be treated as dependent on the meanings of lexical embedding predicates or of abstract performatives. Using two types of complement modalities, I show that their meanings and restrictions remain distinct and invariable regardless of the meanings of their embedding predicates. Then, using embedding predicates that can take both types of modalities, I show that the embedding predicates retain their meanings, regardless of the different modalities of their complements, and they can (...) undergo deletions requiring their identity. (shrink)

We argue that the wild release of genetically modified organisms can be justified as a way of preserving species and ecosystems. We look at the case of a genetically modified American chestnut that is currently undergoing regulatory review. Because American chestnuts are functionally extinct, a genetically modified replacement has significant conservation value. In addition, many of the arguments used against GMOs, especially GMO crops, do not hold for American chestnut trees. Finally, we show how GMOs such as the American chestnut (...) support a reorientation of conservation values away from restoration as it has historically been interpreted, and toward an alternative framework known as rewilding. (shrink)