Diana G. Tumminia
- Published in print:
- 2005
- Published Online:
- July 2005
- ISBN:
- 9780195176759
- eISBN:
- 9780199835720
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0195176758.001.0001
- Subject:
- Religion, Religion and Society
This ethnography details the UFO religion, Unarius Academy of Science, and their belief system, which includes visions, channeling, dreams, myths, healing, past-life therapy, and recovered memories. ...
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This ethnography details the UFO religion, Unarius Academy of Science, and their belief system, which includes visions, channeling, dreams, myths, healing, past-life therapy, and recovered memories. From the theoretical perspective of the social construction of reality, it analyzes the way members create their own social world of contact with extraterrestrials. Based on lengthy field research, the everyday life and history of one of America’s oldest contactee groups is described. The text explicates the lives of the founders, Ernest and Ruth Norman, who claimed to be Space Brothers from higher realms of knowledge that offer a celestial science to Earth. Max Weber’s theory of charisma is used to analyze Ruth Norman, who led the group as Uriel the Archangel, Goddess of Love. Since Unarius had a failed millennial prophecy of spaceships landing in 2001, the author compares them to the group Leon Festinger studied in the 1950s. In looking at the interpretive methods Unarius used to explain success rather than failure, the text discusses the reasons why prophecies rarely fail in the eyes of believers.Less
This ethnography details the UFO religion, Unarius Academy of Science, and their belief system, which includes visions, channeling, dreams, myths, healing, past-life therapy, and recovered memories. From the theoretical perspective of the social construction of reality, it analyzes the way members create their own social world of contact with extraterrestrials. Based on lengthy field research, the everyday life and history of one of America’s oldest contactee groups is described. The text explicates the lives of the founders, Ernest and Ruth Norman, who claimed to be Space Brothers from higher realms of knowledge that offer a celestial science to Earth. Max Weber’s theory of charisma is used to analyze Ruth Norman, who led the group as Uriel the Archangel, Goddess of Love. Since Unarius had a failed millennial prophecy of spaceships landing in 2001, the author compares them to the group Leon Festinger studied in the 1950s. In looking at the interpretive methods Unarius used to explain success rather than failure, the text discusses the reasons why prophecies rarely fail in the eyes of believers.
Frank Fischer
- Published in print:
- 2003
- Published Online:
- November 2003
- ISBN:
- 9780199242641
- eISBN:
- 9780191599255
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/019924264X.003.0003
- Subject:
- Political Science, Political Theory
This chapter aims to clarify the socially constructed nature of reality and the symbolic sides of public policy, as well as the discursive politics to which it gives rise. It concentrates on the ...
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This chapter aims to clarify the socially constructed nature of reality and the symbolic sides of public policy, as well as the discursive politics to which it gives rise. It concentrates on the concept of social understanding. There are seven main sections: The Phenomenology of Social Action; The Social Construction of Reality; Politics in a World of Multiple Realities; The Political Spectacle as Hyperreality; The Social Meanings of Public Policies; Meaning Construction and the Policy Process: The Typologies of Public Policy; Policy Design: Constructing Target Populations.Less
This chapter aims to clarify the socially constructed nature of reality and the symbolic sides of public policy, as well as the discursive politics to which it gives rise. It concentrates on the concept of social understanding. There are seven main sections: The Phenomenology of Social Action; The Social Construction of Reality; Politics in a World of Multiple Realities; The Political Spectacle as Hyperreality; The Social Meanings of Public Policies; Meaning Construction and the Policy Process: The Typologies of Public Policy; Policy Design: Constructing Target Populations.
Robert Chia
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- January 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780199594566
- eISBN:
- 9780191595721
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199594566.003.0007
- Subject:
- Business and Management, Organization Studies
Process is an ambivalent term. Its use in organizational research and theorizing is widespread. Yet, there are important subtle differences in how the term is understood. Process may be construed ...
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Process is an ambivalent term. Its use in organizational research and theorizing is widespread. Yet, there are important subtle differences in how the term is understood. Process may be construed either as an epiphenomenon of substantial organizational entities or as a primary condition of reality from which the phenomenon of organization spontaneously emerges. Each perspective gives rise to a different theoretical focus and agenda for the field of organization studies. In this chapter, I explore new avenues for understanding process and organization. I show that the idea of ultimate reality as formless, undifferentiated, and ceaselessly changing has been a basic intuition of the ancient Oriental world since time immemorial; one that remains widespread and influential in shaping contemporary Eastern mentalities and dispositions. I further show how this Oriental metaphysical attitude towards process, flux, and self‐transformation enables us to better appreciate the phenomenon of social organization as essentially the cumulative effect of a stabilizing, simple‐locating, and identity‐creating human impulse. From a process organization perspective then, organization studies ought to be more concerned with analyzing the dominant organizational mentalities involved in structuring social reality than with the analysis of “organizations.”Less
Process is an ambivalent term. Its use in organizational research and theorizing is widespread. Yet, there are important subtle differences in how the term is understood. Process may be construed either as an epiphenomenon of substantial organizational entities or as a primary condition of reality from which the phenomenon of organization spontaneously emerges. Each perspective gives rise to a different theoretical focus and agenda for the field of organization studies. In this chapter, I explore new avenues for understanding process and organization. I show that the idea of ultimate reality as formless, undifferentiated, and ceaselessly changing has been a basic intuition of the ancient Oriental world since time immemorial; one that remains widespread and influential in shaping contemporary Eastern mentalities and dispositions. I further show how this Oriental metaphysical attitude towards process, flux, and self‐transformation enables us to better appreciate the phenomenon of social organization as essentially the cumulative effect of a stabilizing, simple‐locating, and identity‐creating human impulse. From a process organization perspective then, organization studies ought to be more concerned with analyzing the dominant organizational mentalities involved in structuring social reality than with the analysis of “organizations.”
Frank Fischer
- Published in print:
- 2003
- Published Online:
- November 2003
- ISBN:
- 9780199242641
- eISBN:
- 9780191599255
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/019924264X.001.0001
- Subject:
- Political Science, Political Theory
In recent years a set of new ‘postempiricist’ approaches to public policy, drawing on discursive analysis and participatory deliberative practices, have come to challenge the dominant technocratic, ...
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In recent years a set of new ‘postempiricist’ approaches to public policy, drawing on discursive analysis and participatory deliberative practices, have come to challenge the dominant technocratic, empiricist models in policy analysis. In this book, Frank Fischer brings together this work for the first time and critically examines its implications for the field of public policy studies. He describes the theoretical, methodological and political dimensions of this emerging approach to policy research. The book includes a discussion of the social construction of policy problems, the role of interpretation and narrative analysis in policy inquiry, the dialectics of policy argumentation, and the uses of participatory policy analysis. After an introductory chapter, ten further chapters are arranged in four parts: Part I, Public Policy and the Discursive Construction of Reality (two chapters), introduces the re-emergence of interest in ideas and discourse. It then turns to the postempiricist or constructionist view of social reality, presenting public policy as a discursive construct that turns on multiple interpretations. Part II, Public Policy as Discursive Politics (two chapters), examines more specifically the nature of discursive politics and discourse theory and illustrates through a particular disciplinary debate the theoretical, methodological, and political implications of such a conceptual reframing of policy inquiry. Part III, Discursive Policy Inquiry: Resituating Empirical Analysis (four chapters), offers a postempiricist methodology for policy inquiry based on the logic of practical discourse, and explores specific methodological perspectives pertinent to such an orientation, in particular the role of interpretation in policy analysis, narrative policy analysis, and the dialectics of policy argumentation. Part IV, Deliberative Governance (two chapters), discusses the participatory implications of such a method and the role of the policy analyst as facilitator of citizen deliberation .Less
In recent years a set of new ‘postempiricist’ approaches to public policy, drawing on discursive analysis and participatory deliberative practices, have come to challenge the dominant technocratic, empiricist models in policy analysis. In this book, Frank Fischer brings together this work for the first time and critically examines its implications for the field of public policy studies. He describes the theoretical, methodological and political dimensions of this emerging approach to policy research. The book includes a discussion of the social construction of policy problems, the role of interpretation and narrative analysis in policy inquiry, the dialectics of policy argumentation, and the uses of participatory policy analysis. After an introductory chapter, ten further chapters are arranged in four parts: Part I, Public Policy and the Discursive Construction of Reality (two chapters), introduces the re-emergence of interest in ideas and discourse. It then turns to the postempiricist or constructionist view of social reality, presenting public policy as a discursive construct that turns on multiple interpretations. Part II, Public Policy as Discursive Politics (two chapters), examines more specifically the nature of discursive politics and discourse theory and illustrates through a particular disciplinary debate the theoretical, methodological, and political implications of such a conceptual reframing of policy inquiry. Part III, Discursive Policy Inquiry: Resituating Empirical Analysis (four chapters), offers a postempiricist methodology for policy inquiry based on the logic of practical discourse, and explores specific methodological perspectives pertinent to such an orientation, in particular the role of interpretation in policy analysis, narrative policy analysis, and the dialectics of policy argumentation. Part IV, Deliberative Governance (two chapters), discusses the participatory implications of such a method and the role of the policy analyst as facilitator of citizen deliberation .
Pieter A. M. Seuren
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- May 2009
- ISBN:
- 9780199559473
- eISBN:
- 9780191721137
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199559473.003.0002
- Subject:
- Linguistics, Semantics and Pragmatics, Psycholinguistics / Neurolinguistics / Cognitive Linguistics
Since speakers refer to and quantify over virtual objects as naturally as they do over actual objects, natural ontology is basically intensional, requiring acceptance of virtual realities. Each ...
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Since speakers refer to and quantify over virtual objects as naturally as they do over actual objects, natural ontology is basically intensional, requiring acceptance of virtual realities. Each language has socially shared cognitive reality. Current Russellian‐Quinean extensional ontology is criticized in favour of a more Meinongian approach, based on the Kantian epistemological dilemma.Less
Since speakers refer to and quantify over virtual objects as naturally as they do over actual objects, natural ontology is basically intensional, requiring acceptance of virtual realities. Each language has socially shared cognitive reality. Current Russellian‐Quinean extensional ontology is criticized in favour of a more Meinongian approach, based on the Kantian epistemological dilemma.
E. Tory Higgins
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- January 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780199765829
- eISBN:
- 9780199918966
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199765829.003.0016
- Subject:
- Psychology, Cognitive Psychology, Cognitive Neuroscience
How do people strive for truth and establish what's real? What makes something real? What establishes reality? This chapter reviews answers to these questions, focusing on the different motivational ...
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How do people strive for truth and establish what's real? What makes something real? What establishes reality? This chapter reviews answers to these questions, focusing on the different motivational factors that underlie establishing reality rather than on the cognitive mechanisms. It begins with the questions of “what happened” and “why did it happen” because as two major sources of establishing what's real they have been central to the issue of truth and reality over the past half-century. Following this, the chapter discusses how reality is established from cognitive consistency. Next, it considers how different truth-seeking strategies are used to establish reality by different individuals and in different situations. Finally, the roles of social reality and shared reality in establishing what's real are described.Less
How do people strive for truth and establish what's real? What makes something real? What establishes reality? This chapter reviews answers to these questions, focusing on the different motivational factors that underlie establishing reality rather than on the cognitive mechanisms. It begins with the questions of “what happened” and “why did it happen” because as two major sources of establishing what's real they have been central to the issue of truth and reality over the past half-century. Following this, the chapter discusses how reality is established from cognitive consistency. Next, it considers how different truth-seeking strategies are used to establish reality by different individuals and in different situations. Finally, the roles of social reality and shared reality in establishing what's real are described.
Pieter A. M. Seuren
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- May 2009
- ISBN:
- 9780199559473
- eISBN:
- 9780191721137
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199559473.003.0004
- Subject:
- Linguistics, Semantics and Pragmatics, Psycholinguistics / Neurolinguistics / Cognitive Linguistics
The late emergence of speech‐act theory is sketched. The primary function of language is claimed to be the establishment of socially binding commitments with regard to a proposition. The concept of ...
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The late emergence of speech‐act theory is sketched. The primary function of language is claimed to be the establishment of socially binding commitments with regard to a proposition. The concept of liability condition, next to truth condition, is introduced. All forms of sign‐giving stand under a socially binding force operator. Arguments are provided to show the linguistic reality of speech‐act operators.Less
The late emergence of speech‐act theory is sketched. The primary function of language is claimed to be the establishment of socially binding commitments with regard to a proposition. The concept of liability condition, next to truth condition, is introduced. All forms of sign‐giving stand under a socially binding force operator. Arguments are provided to show the linguistic reality of speech‐act operators.
Diana G. Tumminia
- Published in print:
- 2005
- Published Online:
- July 2005
- ISBN:
- 9780195176759
- eISBN:
- 9780199835720
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0195176758.003.0001
- Subject:
- Religion, Religion and Society
A short background on the phenomenon of extraterrestrial contactees helps explain the beliefs of Unarius. A section on Leon Festinger’s study of a group of flying saucer believers introduces his ...
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A short background on the phenomenon of extraterrestrial contactees helps explain the beliefs of Unarius. A section on Leon Festinger’s study of a group of flying saucer believers introduces his theory of failed prophecy. As an alternate explanation, the theoretical perspective of the social construction of reality is addressed in terms of phenomenological ethnomethodology. Melvin Pollner’s work on mundane reason and fact-finding is cited along with references to the Azande to illustrate the significance of interpretation in defining what is real. Several theoretical perspectives (e.g., those of Alfred Schutz, Harold Garfinkel, Thomas Theorem, and E. E. Evans-Pritchard) and methods (surveys, interviews, and participant observation) are discussed.Less
A short background on the phenomenon of extraterrestrial contactees helps explain the beliefs of Unarius. A section on Leon Festinger’s study of a group of flying saucer believers introduces his theory of failed prophecy. As an alternate explanation, the theoretical perspective of the social construction of reality is addressed in terms of phenomenological ethnomethodology. Melvin Pollner’s work on mundane reason and fact-finding is cited along with references to the Azande to illustrate the significance of interpretation in defining what is real. Several theoretical perspectives (e.g., those of Alfred Schutz, Harold Garfinkel, Thomas Theorem, and E. E. Evans-Pritchard) and methods (surveys, interviews, and participant observation) are discussed.
Harvey Cox
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- October 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780691158853
- eISBN:
- 9781400848850
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691158853.003.0008
- Subject:
- Religion, Religion and Society
This chapter looks at the contemporary extension of exorcism in the ministry of the church in the secular city. Men must be called away from their fascination with other worlds—astrological, ...
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This chapter looks at the contemporary extension of exorcism in the ministry of the church in the secular city. Men must be called away from their fascination with other worlds—astrological, metaphysical, or religious—through which they wrongly perceive the social reality around them, and from habitual forms of action or inaction stemming from these illusions. This is the work of social exorcism. The ministry of exorcism in the secular city requires a community of persons who, individually and collectively, are not burdened by the constriction of an archaic heritage. It requires a community which, if not fully liberated, is in the process of liberation from compulsive patterns of behavior based on mistaken images of the world. In performing its function, the church should be ready to expose the fallaciousness of the social myths by which the injustice of a society is perpetuated and to suggest ways of action which demonstrate the wrongness of such fantasies.Less
This chapter looks at the contemporary extension of exorcism in the ministry of the church in the secular city. Men must be called away from their fascination with other worlds—astrological, metaphysical, or religious—through which they wrongly perceive the social reality around them, and from habitual forms of action or inaction stemming from these illusions. This is the work of social exorcism. The ministry of exorcism in the secular city requires a community of persons who, individually and collectively, are not burdened by the constriction of an archaic heritage. It requires a community which, if not fully liberated, is in the process of liberation from compulsive patterns of behavior based on mistaken images of the world. In performing its function, the church should be ready to expose the fallaciousness of the social myths by which the injustice of a society is perpetuated and to suggest ways of action which demonstrate the wrongness of such fantasies.
Barbara Czarniawska
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- January 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780199594566
- eISBN:
- 9780191595721
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199594566.003.0008
- Subject:
- Business and Management, Organization Studies
The received view of organizations is that they are tools used to achieve collective goals. This chapter presents the possibility that, like all tools that become cumbersome, obsolete, or simply ...
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The received view of organizations is that they are tools used to achieve collective goals. This chapter presents the possibility that, like all tools that become cumbersome, obsolete, or simply inadequate, organizations can hinder organizing. Like tools, they do have a solid existence that cannot be ignored. And just like tools, they can be put to unexpected uses: they can become an obstacle to the achievement of collective goals. A return to the generic meaning of the term “organization” as a synonym of constructed order may reveal intricacies of organizing that have been obscured by the presently ruling conceptualization.Less
The received view of organizations is that they are tools used to achieve collective goals. This chapter presents the possibility that, like all tools that become cumbersome, obsolete, or simply inadequate, organizations can hinder organizing. Like tools, they do have a solid existence that cannot be ignored. And just like tools, they can be put to unexpected uses: they can become an obstacle to the achievement of collective goals. A return to the generic meaning of the term “organization” as a synonym of constructed order may reveal intricacies of organizing that have been obscured by the presently ruling conceptualization.
Yoel H. Kahn
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- January 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780195373295
- eISBN:
- 9780199893294
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195373295.003.0008
- Subject:
- Religion, Judaism
Rabbinic commentators repeatedly debated not only the correct formulation of the blessings but also when and how to say them. Moses Maimonides and Moses Cordovero exemplify the opposing perspectives ...
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Rabbinic commentators repeatedly debated not only the correct formulation of the blessings but also when and how to say them. Moses Maimonides and Moses Cordovero exemplify the opposing perspectives of rationalists and Kabbalists. Abraham ben Maimon, Maimonides son, took the extreme position that one could not recite the three blessings without seeing a representative of the other. In the Kabbalah, the boundaries between the self and the three dimensions of the other are threatened nightly as the soul ascends and returns. Solomon ben Samson of Worms, writing for the pietistic Hasidei Ashkenaz, insisted on proper recitation but for entirely different reasons than the rationalists. The normative recital of the Menahot blessings in the synagogue was part of the daily “social construction of reality” by and for the individual. Not only was his own daily existence and identity renewed, but the social setting where this identity was privileged was renewed as well.Less
Rabbinic commentators repeatedly debated not only the correct formulation of the blessings but also when and how to say them. Moses Maimonides and Moses Cordovero exemplify the opposing perspectives of rationalists and Kabbalists. Abraham ben Maimon, Maimonides son, took the extreme position that one could not recite the three blessings without seeing a representative of the other. In the Kabbalah, the boundaries between the self and the three dimensions of the other are threatened nightly as the soul ascends and returns. Solomon ben Samson of Worms, writing for the pietistic Hasidei Ashkenaz, insisted on proper recitation but for entirely different reasons than the rationalists. The normative recital of the Menahot blessings in the synagogue was part of the daily “social construction of reality” by and for the individual. Not only was his own daily existence and identity renewed, but the social setting where this identity was privileged was renewed as well.
HELEN BARR
- Published in print:
- 2001
- Published Online:
- January 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780198112426
- eISBN:
- 9780191707865
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198112426.003.0002
- Subject:
- Literature, Early and Medieval Literature
This chapter explores how a variety of texts deploy the language of social description in ways which either acknowledge changes in social demography, or conveniently ignore them for polemically ...
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This chapter explores how a variety of texts deploy the language of social description in ways which either acknowledge changes in social demography, or conveniently ignore them for polemically political purposes. It shows how the social poetics of the alliterative poem Wynnere and Wastoure articulates contemporary demographic shifts in the categorization of people, occupation, and rank. It evaluates literary texts which explicitly concern themselves with social issues, resulting in the production of critical histories attentive to their social significance, even if the formal literary features of those texts have not always been studied as an integral part of their social resonances. By examining their literary works, this chapter also describes Hoccleve and Chaucer as writers.Less
This chapter explores how a variety of texts deploy the language of social description in ways which either acknowledge changes in social demography, or conveniently ignore them for polemically political purposes. It shows how the social poetics of the alliterative poem Wynnere and Wastoure articulates contemporary demographic shifts in the categorization of people, occupation, and rank. It evaluates literary texts which explicitly concern themselves with social issues, resulting in the production of critical histories attentive to their social significance, even if the formal literary features of those texts have not always been studied as an integral part of their social resonances. By examining their literary works, this chapter also describes Hoccleve and Chaucer as writers.
Herbert Gintis
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- October 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780691160849
- eISBN:
- 9781400851348
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691160849.003.0006
- Subject:
- Sociology, Economic Sociology
The critique of common knowledge of rationality (CKR) developed in the preceding chapters should convince researchers interested in explaining social reality to simply avoid the concept. The actual ...
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The critique of common knowledge of rationality (CKR) developed in the preceding chapters should convince researchers interested in explaining social reality to simply avoid the concept. The actual cost of abandoning CKR in terms of explaining social behavior is minimal because the Nash equilibrium concept itself is problematic when the recursive nature of interagent beliefs is important and the correlated equilibrium is by far the more cogent equilibrium concept. Nevertheless, it may seem curious that we must reject CKR even in situations where all players are in fact rational. What, after all, is the problem with assuming agents know something that is in fact true? This chapter discusses the pitfalls of naïve epistemic logic, the common knowledge of logicality paradox, the Surprise Examination problem, the modal logic of knowledge, and a solution to the Surprise Examination conundrum.Less
The critique of common knowledge of rationality (CKR) developed in the preceding chapters should convince researchers interested in explaining social reality to simply avoid the concept. The actual cost of abandoning CKR in terms of explaining social behavior is minimal because the Nash equilibrium concept itself is problematic when the recursive nature of interagent beliefs is important and the correlated equilibrium is by far the more cogent equilibrium concept. Nevertheless, it may seem curious that we must reject CKR even in situations where all players are in fact rational. What, after all, is the problem with assuming agents know something that is in fact true? This chapter discusses the pitfalls of naïve epistemic logic, the common knowledge of logicality paradox, the Surprise Examination problem, the modal logic of knowledge, and a solution to the Surprise Examination conundrum.
Nehal Bhuta
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- September 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780199658244
- eISBN:
- 9780199949915
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199658244.003.0006
- Subject:
- Law, Public International Law
This chapter studies the state fragility index of the US Agency for International Development (USAID). This index serves as an example of the uses, creation, and supposed measurement through ...
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This chapter studies the state fragility index of the US Agency for International Development (USAID). This index serves as an example of the uses, creation, and supposed measurement through indicators of the concepts of fragile, failing, or failed states. It describes this term as a ‘trading language’, which is used to refer to complicated social realities that are very heterogenous and have very little empirical and theoretical agreement.Less
This chapter studies the state fragility index of the US Agency for International Development (USAID). This index serves as an example of the uses, creation, and supposed measurement through indicators of the concepts of fragile, failing, or failed states. It describes this term as a ‘trading language’, which is used to refer to complicated social realities that are very heterogenous and have very little empirical and theoretical agreement.
Bernt P. Stigum
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- September 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780262028585
- eISBN:
- 9780262323109
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- The MIT Press
- DOI:
- 10.7551/mitpress/9780262028585.001.0001
- Subject:
- Economics and Finance, Econometrics
Econometrics is a study of good and bad ways to measure economic relations. This book discusses the role economic theory ought to play in such measurements. The role theory should play, depends on ...
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Econometrics is a study of good and bad ways to measure economic relations. This book discusses the role economic theory ought to play in such measurements. The role theory should play, depends on the researcher’s ideas about the essence of an economic theory. A researcher who believes that his theory is about the actual workings of an economy, can identify his theory’s variables with objects in social reality and solve his measurement problems with the means that present-day econometrics provides. A researcher who believes that his theory is about imaginary matters that have uncertain relations to objects in social reality, faces measurement problems that he can solve with the means that formal econometrics provides. The book presents case studies thatcontrast the empirical analysis of present-day applied econometrics in the tradition of Trygve Haavelmo with the empirical analysis of formal econometrics in the tradition of Ragnar Frisch. The case studies are a varied lot in which the theory is static or dynamic and faces cross-section data or time-series data. In focus are the behaviour of data variables and the inferences about social reality which the empirical analyses yield. The case studies demonstrate that both the statistical analyses and the inferences of present-day and formal econometrics differ in striking ways. In doing that they provide a good basis for discussing the use of theory in measuring economic relations. The book is the last of three books in which the author develops and demonstrates the usefulness of a formal science of economics.Less
Econometrics is a study of good and bad ways to measure economic relations. This book discusses the role economic theory ought to play in such measurements. The role theory should play, depends on the researcher’s ideas about the essence of an economic theory. A researcher who believes that his theory is about the actual workings of an economy, can identify his theory’s variables with objects in social reality and solve his measurement problems with the means that present-day econometrics provides. A researcher who believes that his theory is about imaginary matters that have uncertain relations to objects in social reality, faces measurement problems that he can solve with the means that formal econometrics provides. The book presents case studies thatcontrast the empirical analysis of present-day applied econometrics in the tradition of Trygve Haavelmo with the empirical analysis of formal econometrics in the tradition of Ragnar Frisch. The case studies are a varied lot in which the theory is static or dynamic and faces cross-section data or time-series data. In focus are the behaviour of data variables and the inferences about social reality which the empirical analyses yield. The case studies demonstrate that both the statistical analyses and the inferences of present-day and formal econometrics differ in striking ways. In doing that they provide a good basis for discussing the use of theory in measuring economic relations. The book is the last of three books in which the author develops and demonstrates the usefulness of a formal science of economics.
Peter K. Manning
- Published in print:
- 2003
- Published Online:
- February 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780226503516
- eISBN:
- 9780226503523
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226503523.003.0001
- Subject:
- Sociology, Law, Crime and Deviance
Dramaturgy sees life as a kind of minitheater; it is a perspective that employs this theatrical metaphor, to explore the performances—the communication of messages and symbolic representations to an ...
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Dramaturgy sees life as a kind of minitheater; it is a perspective that employs this theatrical metaphor, to explore the performances—the communication of messages and symbolic representations to an audience—that convey impressions that shape subsequent interactions. It concerns symbolic action that refers to what is represented as well as other matters and is predicated on trust. An encounter with a police officer initially is based on trust, but the interaction also echoes and relies upon what is known about “police” and “policing.” Because action itself can convey a rich texture of ambiguous messages, some method is needed to pin down meaning or see how it is framed and encoded. This chapter uses semiotics, or the science of signs, and frame analysis to explicate the structure of meaning that connects actions and structures. The concept of key, which indicates what is going on, or how the social reality presented is to be understood, is used to explain the realities that policing conveys and with which it lives.Less
Dramaturgy sees life as a kind of minitheater; it is a perspective that employs this theatrical metaphor, to explore the performances—the communication of messages and symbolic representations to an audience—that convey impressions that shape subsequent interactions. It concerns symbolic action that refers to what is represented as well as other matters and is predicated on trust. An encounter with a police officer initially is based on trust, but the interaction also echoes and relies upon what is known about “police” and “policing.” Because action itself can convey a rich texture of ambiguous messages, some method is needed to pin down meaning or see how it is framed and encoded. This chapter uses semiotics, or the science of signs, and frame analysis to explicate the structure of meaning that connects actions and structures. The concept of key, which indicates what is going on, or how the social reality presented is to be understood, is used to explain the realities that policing conveys and with which it lives.
Marilyn Butler
- Published in print:
- 1988
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198129684
- eISBN:
- 9780191671838
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198129684.003.0004
- Subject:
- Literature, 19th-century and Victorian Literature
As revolutionary novelists, William Godwin and Robert Bage are virtually as unlike as they can be. A highly theoretical student of liberty, Godwin creates a fictional world in which social reality is ...
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As revolutionary novelists, William Godwin and Robert Bage are virtually as unlike as they can be. A highly theoretical student of liberty, Godwin creates a fictional world in which social reality is reflected symbolically through personal relationships, rather than re-created in detail. The businessman Bage prefers to deal in actuality: Hermsprong is a lively caricature of the world as it is. Godwin's mood is sombre, even tragic, Bage's sparkling and ultimately optimistic. Godwin's opinions influenced all the remaining jacobin novelists, and his pessimism, an understandable mood for an English radical of the period, extended itself in due course to his friends. Bage, the product of an older generation, was eventually to meet Godwin, but in his work he never acknowledges his influence. Both Godwin and Bage make the central assertion of the progressive when they assert the truth of the inner life over the mindless tyranny of the group.Less
As revolutionary novelists, William Godwin and Robert Bage are virtually as unlike as they can be. A highly theoretical student of liberty, Godwin creates a fictional world in which social reality is reflected symbolically through personal relationships, rather than re-created in detail. The businessman Bage prefers to deal in actuality: Hermsprong is a lively caricature of the world as it is. Godwin's mood is sombre, even tragic, Bage's sparkling and ultimately optimistic. Godwin's opinions influenced all the remaining jacobin novelists, and his pessimism, an understandable mood for an English radical of the period, extended itself in due course to his friends. Bage, the product of an older generation, was eventually to meet Godwin, but in his work he never acknowledges his influence. Both Godwin and Bage make the central assertion of the progressive when they assert the truth of the inner life over the mindless tyranny of the group.
W.J. Mc Cormack
- Published in print:
- 1985
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198128069
- eISBN:
- 9780191671630
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198128069.003.0009
- Subject:
- Literature, 20th-century Literature and Modernism
This chapter aims to provide comparison of Joseph Conrad's moral irony and James Joyce's stylistic disorientation. Particular attention is devoted to James Joyce and the role of his writings as ...
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This chapter aims to provide comparison of Joseph Conrad's moral irony and James Joyce's stylistic disorientation. Particular attention is devoted to James Joyce and the role of his writings as mirrors of and a lamp on social reality. In this chapter, the relation of Joyce's petit bourgeois inheritance to the suppression of middle class Irish Protestantism is carefully analyzed. The historical continuity of Joyce's fiction from Dubliners to Finnegans Wake is carefully studied.Less
This chapter aims to provide comparison of Joseph Conrad's moral irony and James Joyce's stylistic disorientation. Particular attention is devoted to James Joyce and the role of his writings as mirrors of and a lamp on social reality. In this chapter, the relation of Joyce's petit bourgeois inheritance to the suppression of middle class Irish Protestantism is carefully analyzed. The historical continuity of Joyce's fiction from Dubliners to Finnegans Wake is carefully studied.
NANDI BHATIA
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- September 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780198075981
- eISBN:
- 9780199081523
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198075981.003.0013
- Subject:
- Literature, Film, Media, and Cultural Studies
The wide choice of exhibition practices ranging from the multiplex to B- and C-grade stand-alone theatres has facilitated the production and exhibition of a new kind of small budget film with ...
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The wide choice of exhibition practices ranging from the multiplex to B- and C-grade stand-alone theatres has facilitated the production and exhibition of a new kind of small budget film with realistic representation targeted at a small, niche middle-class audience. This chapter argues that the films indicate Hindi cinema's return to the local through the representation of theatrical forms that exist on the cultural margins. It examines some of these films' appropriation of local theatrical traditions such as nautanki to represent contemporary social realities.Less
The wide choice of exhibition practices ranging from the multiplex to B- and C-grade stand-alone theatres has facilitated the production and exhibition of a new kind of small budget film with realistic representation targeted at a small, niche middle-class audience. This chapter argues that the films indicate Hindi cinema's return to the local through the representation of theatrical forms that exist on the cultural margins. It examines some of these films' appropriation of local theatrical traditions such as nautanki to represent contemporary social realities.
Nicholas Martin
- Published in print:
- 1996
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198159131
- eISBN:
- 9780191673511
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198159131.003.0006
- Subject:
- Literature, European Literature
This chapter argues that despite their talk of restoring the whole man, there is little evidence that either Nietzsche or Schiller has clearly envisaged the social and political framework in which ...
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This chapter argues that despite their talk of restoring the whole man, there is little evidence that either Nietzsche or Schiller has clearly envisaged the social and political framework in which the creative activity necessary to restore and sustain man's wholeness could flourish. Their reluctance in this regard is linked to the point made in Chapter 5 concerning their anti-didactic views of art. They argue that it is not the artist's business to indulge in social engineering. Nevertheless, aesthetic theories, especially those on the grand scale like Nietzsche's and Schiller's, neglect social and political realities at their peril.Less
This chapter argues that despite their talk of restoring the whole man, there is little evidence that either Nietzsche or Schiller has clearly envisaged the social and political framework in which the creative activity necessary to restore and sustain man's wholeness could flourish. Their reluctance in this regard is linked to the point made in Chapter 5 concerning their anti-didactic views of art. They argue that it is not the artist's business to indulge in social engineering. Nevertheless, aesthetic theories, especially those on the grand scale like Nietzsche's and Schiller's, neglect social and political realities at their peril.
