Analysing how news media portray A.I. reveals what interpretative frameworks around the technology circulate in public discourses. This allows for critical reflections on the making of meaning in prevalent narratives about A.I. and its impact. While research on the public perception of datafication and automation is growing, only a few studies investigate news framing practices. The present study connects to this nascent research area by charting A.I. news frames in four internationally renowned media outlets: The New York Times, The (...) Guardian, Wired, and Gizmodo. The main goals are to identify dominant emphasis frames in AI news reporting over the past decade, to explore whether certain A.I. frames are associated with specific data risks, and what journalists and experts contribute to the media discourse. An automated content analysis serves for inductive frame detection, identification of risk references, and network analysis of news writers. The results show how A.I.’s ubiquity emerged rapidly in the mid-2010s, and that the news discourse became more critical over time. It is further argued that A.I. news reporting is an important factor in building critical data literacy among lay audiences. (shrink)

The European refugee crisis is an important topic on media, political, and public agendas. Due to its scope and impact, its continuing prevalence on the media-agenda and the divisiveness of public debate, new research is needed to understand the media’s framing of the issue. This study inductively analyzes framing of the refugee crisis of 2015–2016 by two Dutch newspapers. Portrayal of the refugee crisis consists of ten different frames and counter frames. The frames are communicated on the level (...) of the refugee, on the level of the crisis as an event, and on a societal level. Results show that recent reporting on the refugee crisis is relatively nuanced and portrays the crisis from a variety of perspectives. Framing changes following certain transitory events, but only slight differences were found between popular and quality papers. (shrink)

This article examines how food poverty and insecurity have been framed in German newspaper discourse from 2018 to 2024, and how these representations construct notions of social inclusion and exclusion within public discourse. Using a mixed-methods approach that integrates deductive and inductive qualitative analysis, Foucauldian discourse theory, and hierarchical cluster analysis, the study identifies three dominant media frames: Structural Injustice and Market Failure, which emphasizes systemic inequality; Political Failure and Social Neglect, which foregrounds state inaction while sometimes (...) perpetuating stigmatization; and Humanitarian Crisis and Ethical Responsibility, which mobilizes moral concern but often depoliticizes the issue. The analysis reveals that individuals affected by food poverty are largely absent from or passively portrayed within these narratives, including during periods of heightened media attention such as the COVID-19 pandemic. The findings suggest that prevailing media framings constrain the discursive space for recognizing structural causes of poverty and inhibit inclusive policymaking. The article argues for a shift toward participatory, rights-based communication strategies that foreground lived experiences and challenge exclusionary rhetorical norms, contributing to broader discussions on media responsibility and social justice in public discourse. (shrink)

For twenty-five centuries the theory of inference has asked how warrant moves from evidence to conclusion, and its principal instruments, deduction, induction, abduction, Hegelian dialectic, consilience, and Bayesian credence, were each built to answer that question. What none of them answers is whether the evidence structure on which any such move runs is itself sound. Every mode in the tradition presupposes, and cannot certify, the independence and non-degeneracy of its evidence lines: a Bayesian posterior strengthens under a latent common cause (...) that should dissolve the convergence, consilience celebrates an independence it possesses no operational test for, and falsification cannot recognize a falsifier without a verification frame it does not supply. This paper presents Trisduction, a verification architecture operating at the certification layer beneath inference. Complete factual claims decompose, under a reproducible deletion test, into exactly three independent warrant lines, formal, empirical, and registrational; the three lines close geometrically on a fourth point into twelve directed verification conditions; and the verdict takes closed mathematical form, det(R) = (Re(q̂_F q̂_E q̂_ER))², a three-state output, sealed, broken, under-determined, whose admissible functional class is provably closed. The architecture's primary discriminator is provable and testable: on collinear evidence a Bayesian posterior strictly increases while the verdict determinant vanishes identically, and no weighted aggregation of positive inputs can vanish on collinear data, with the 2014 BICEP2 announcement and its Planck dust resolution supplying the worked historical case and an eight-check executable battery reproducing the verdict identities at machine precision on any floating-point substrate. If the analysis stands, the long search for epistemic certainty terminates the way genuine searches terminate, in a classification: indefeasibility is provably unattainable for finite verifiers, maximal warrant is attainable and its instrument is closed, and each historical mode survives, completed, at the one layer it actually occupies. (shrink)

Since the establishment of the first food bank in 1995, charitable food aid has become entrenched in Finland as a seemingly irreplaceable solution to food poverty. Further, it has recently been suggested that the focus of food aid activities is shifting from food poverty and temporary hunger alleviation towards environmental sustainability through addressing food waste via organized re-distribution of expiring food from retail to charitable organizations. This potentially creates a mechanism that solidifies food poverty and fortifies the paradoxical situation where (...) charitable organizations delivering food aid are dependent on food waste rather than trying to reduce it. To understand the process that has led to this shift, a longitudinal media data analysis on the evolution of the discussion and the interpretations on CFA is presented. By conducting an inductive frame analysis, the paper answers three key questions: How was CFA framed by and through the media in Finland between 1995 and 2016? Has any single frame dominated the discussion at any given point? Finally, what are the characteristics of the frame that focuses on food surplus redistribution? The results suggest that when the practices are framed as potential receivers and redistributors of surplus, perception of CFA is mainly favourable and the root causes for food insecurity are not addressed. Thus, by focusing on environmental sustainability, food aid practices—hitherto depoliticized as a poverty problem—have gained policy relevance in the discursive space of the circular economy; perhaps at the cost of poverty policy and with unintended consequences. (shrink)

The argument from inductive risk (AIR) states that scientists should consider the consequences of hypotheses and methodological choices in the course of ongoing research. It has played a central role in the widespread retreat from the ideal of value-free science. The argument is motivated, to a significant extent, by the laudable concern to use science to better society. I argue that this concern, when taken seriously, tells against the idea that individual working scientists should consider social consequences. First, I (...) show that the AIR assigns scientists a striking task: to frame social decisions and assess their full spectrum of consequences. Then, I argue that scientists should not be assigned such a task. For one thing, if both scientists and policy makers take social consequences into account, we are liable to end up with skewed and biased decisions. For another, scientists are not well-placed to carry out social decision making. I then discuss and diffuse some objections and potential misapprehensions. The paper concludes by noting contexts in which the inductive risk line has more force, and by highlighting the importance, in discussing values in science, of attending to units and levels of analysis. (shrink)

Chief executive officers (CEOs) engage in activism when they take public stances on sensitive socio-political issues. In this study, we address the less-explored activities that constitute CEO activism beyond single stances as the activism is maintained over time. The data cover 6 years of campaign and media materials from a case company with several CEO-initiated activist campaigns. Our findings from an inductive analysis contribute to CEO activism theorizing in three ways. First, we extend CEO activism conceptually by identifying (...) five underlying activities that support a public stance: anchoring motivations, modeling action, taking agency, enduring criticism, and normalizing activism. Second, we bridge individual- and organization-level analyses by depicting how a CEO involves a company in activism through activities that justify interrelated topic frame and role frame. Third, we develop a processual model that includes the pre-stance, stance-taking, and post-stance phases and explains how the underlying activities are interrelated and follow a pattern that serves to maintain CEO activism. Accordingly, CEO activism includes activities, through the pre-stance, stance-taking, and post-stance phases, whereby a CEO deliberately engages personally and through a company in public debate about sensitive socio-political issues and the role of businesses in addressing them. (shrink)

Background There are intense discussions about the ethical and societal implications of biomedical engineering, but little data to suggest how scientists think about the ethics of their work. The aim of this study is to describe how scientists frame the ethics of their research, with a focus on the field of molecular systems engineering.Methods Semi-structured qualitative interviews were conducted during 2021–2022, as part of a larger study. This analysis includes a broad question about how participants view ethics as related (...) to their work, with follow up probes about the topics they consider most important. Interviews were transcribed, inductively coded by two researchers to consensus, and analyzed thematically.Results Twenty-four scientists participated in the study. Interviewees hold positions as professors, principal investigators, and senior staff researchers in universities or research institutes in the United States and Europe. Among those scientists who reported reflecting on ethical considerations in their work, many equated ethics with research ethics topics (e.g., safety, replicability), or with regulation and guidelines. Participants expressed the view that ethical issues are primarily relevant for clinical trials of bioengineered products, or for those working with animal or human subjects. Scientists described their research as “too early” or “not examining anything living” with regard to ethical reflection. Finally, many felt that ethics is seen as territory for experts and therefore beyond scientists’ competencies.Conclusions Molecular systems engineering scientists currently focus on regulatory aspects as the framework for their ethical analyses. They describe using a framework to define when life arises, as a means to determine when further ethical engagement is warranted. Further research is needed to investigate how scientists relate to the ethics of their scientific work, and build consensus around concepts of life, autonomous behavior, and physiological relevance of bioengineered systems. (shrink)

This article addresses intraorganizational pressures for organizational transformation toward more responsible business practices by exploring the role of internal activists. Building on the interactive framing perspective, I ask how internal activists develop a framing of their company’s responsibilities as they attempt to transform its business practices from the inside out. I explore this question in the context of a Danish pharmaceutical company’s responsibilities regarding the rising diabetes problem. Grounded in an inductive, interpretive analysis, I show how (...) internal activists developed a framing of the company’s responsibility over time and eventually instigated new ways of thinking about and doing business in their organization. I theorize the constitutive processes that strengthened frame alignment and allowed the internal activists to shape business practices. My study contributes to the literature on corporate social responsibility (CSR) communication by explaining how intraorganizational processes of meaning making may constitute more responsible business practices and by explicating the distinct role of internal activists as agents of organizational transformation. (shrink)

We examine the processes involved in the escalation of a plant closure from a local concern to a perceived organizational moral failure that commands national attention. Our empirical case covers the controversy over the decision of telecommunications giant Nokia to close a plant in Germany, despite having received significant state subsidies, and the relocation of production to Hungary and Romania. We conducted an inductive study that utilizes a semiotic analysis to identify how various actors framed the controversial plant (...) closure and sought to cast it as moral failure. Our analysis uncovered two distinctive moral framings of the plant closure and revealed how key actors used evocative labels to frame these events in moral terms. These moral framings drew in additional stakeholders, generated more widespread media coverage, and turned the case into an organizational moral failure in the eyes of the national public. We contribute to the literature on organizational moral failure by theorizing its escalating process and elaborating why and how local events may become moral issues of interest to broader stakeholder groups. (shrink)

Heideggerian philosophy is frequently chosen as a philosophical framing, and/or a hermeneutic analytical structure in qualitative nursing research. As Heideggerian philosophy is dense, there is merit in the development of scholarly resources that help to explain discrete Heideggerian concepts and to uncover their relevance to contemporary human experience. This paper uses a meta-synthesis methodology to pool and synthesise findings from 29 phenomenological research reports on Being-with in the nurse–patient relationship. We firstly considered and secured the most relevant Heideggerian elements (...) to nurse–patient Being-with. Under these deductive codes, we then inductively developed sub-themes that seemed to explain the multifaceted nature of Being-with, through a secondary analysis and synthesis of published data from 417 patient, carer and nurse participants. Dasein-with was enhanced when nurses had first-hand experience with a phenomenon. Nurses moved between the inauthentic they-mode, and the authentic self-mode. Through circumspection, technology and people were encountered environmentally feeding into nursing attention, assessment and communication. Nursing as a social arrangement was expressed through either leaping-in care or leaping-ahead care. There was a place for both inauthentic and authentic discourse that nurses wove through the ontic everydayness of nursing tasks. (shrink)

Background and objectives Professional codes consolidate normative self-understandings, duties, and role expectations. For German emergency medical services (EMS), a context-specific, systematically derived foundation is still lacking. The aim was to map and comparatively describe core ethical categories in existing codes of comparable professions as a basis for a subsequent Delphi study. Methods Document-based, structuring content analysis to reconstruct inductive categories. Codes were identified via iterative web searches and professional bodies’ websites. We included freely accessible full texts in German (...) or English with at least national scope. This constitutes convenience sampling with purposive breadth. Results Eight professional codes from paramedicine, nursing, and medicine were included. Twelve categories were reconstructed: human dignity, empathy, nonmaleficence, care, justice, confidentiality, professional identity/role conception, competence development, interdisciplinarity, ethics as a learning goal, patient autonomy, and transparency. “Professional identity/role conception” was the most pronounced. Conclusions The system of categories spans from identity-shaping self-positioning to patient- and system-related principles of protection and provides a structured frame of reference for a subsequent Delphi study. (shrink)

This study examines researchers’ ethical concerns toward the deployment of GenAI in research and their emotional responses. To acquire an in-depth understanding, we used narrative frames and follow-up interviews to collect data from 22 researchers who reported extensive experience with GenAI. An inductive thematic analysis revealed three themes capturing ethical concerns that invoked three types of emotional reactions. From an ethical perspective, our participants were concerned with “human ethical agency in AI research practices,” “cognitive impacts of overreliance on (...) GenAI in research,” and “ethical issues of access, accuracy, and privacy.” From an emotional perspective, they showed “mixed emotions,” “positive emotions,” and “negative emotions” when dealing with GenAI tools. There were close connections between the ethical implications of GenAI and the emotional reactions to them. In this light, we conclude that emotional reactions to GenAI, which are determinants of future use, should be taken more seriously in further research. (shrink)

In this article we explore the role of data custodians in establishing and maintaining social licence for the use of personal information in health research. Personal information from population‐level data collections can be used to make significant contributions to health and medical research, but this use is dependent on community acceptance or a social licence. We conducted semi‐structured interviews with data custodians across Australia to better understand data custodians’ views on their roles and responsibilities. This inductive, thematic analysis (...) of the interview data focuses on three factors that contribute to social licence – reciprocity, non‐exploitation and the public good. While the data custodians interviewed did not explicitly frame their role in the context of social licence, their descriptions of their roles and responsibilities clearly indicated that they did have some role to play in building and maintaining social licence. (shrink)

Social governance models of global value chains (GVCs) are criticized as being dominated by advanced economy multinational corporations (MNCs) and primarily focusing on civil society organizations (CSOs) from developed countries, marginalizing the local agency, knowledge, and needs of rightsholders at the producing end of the GVC. These traditional governance frameworks often reinforce corporate power by framing compliance as a linear, top-down mandate. We address these shortcomings in the literature by proposing a locally grounded governance framework that accounts for vulnerable (...) rightsholders who are often sidelined or underrepresented. The study is based on an inductive qualitative analysis of 54 interviews with CSOs operating in rightsholders’ home countries, MNCs’ home countries, and globally. Our study contributes in two major ways. First, we develop a theoretical model that conceptualizes a shift from a static, meeting-minimum-legal-standards, compliance-driven model to an adaptive, locally grounded GVC governance framework that is genuinely collaborative and can evolve with local insights. Second, we theorize a shift from a linear top-down framework that reinforces corporate power to an iterative process in which the dynamics of conflict and collaboration interact and shape the outcomes of the governance model. (shrink)

This thesis addresses fundamental issues in sustainability thinking, especially in relation to its epistemological and methodological bases. The sustainability crisis has invoked multiple schools of thought cross-cutting wide range of human activities/ scholarships. The resultant diversity of perspectives has imparted a high degree of ambiguity, and an intellectual ‘looseness’, potentially obfuscating many sustainability issues, which in consequence deepened social confusion and political inaction. Despite this, sustainability has taken on a certain moral tone as a normative goal of society, which is (...) based upon implicit assumptions about the constituent forms of knowledge and the methods by which this knowledge is legitimated. It is out of these normative bases of sustainability that ‘sustainability science’ has emerged as an overt attempt aiming to champion pluralistic and integrated forms of knowledge and research in addressing the sustainability crisis. Chapter 1 analyzes the intellectual standing of sustainability. This reveals the necessity for an intellectual perspective to replace the normative essence associated with the notion, and a necessary pluralistic orientation and avenue of knowledge. This intellectual perspective—formed in Chapter 2—stipulates that sustainability scholarship needs to operate both across and within disciplines, albeit cognizant of a more integrated reality. The reductionist mode of enquiry is unable to do this. Thus, the sustainability crisis requires a new mode of enquiry, which can enable the production of ‘bricks of knowledge while looking at the whole building’, in contrary to the production of ‘specialized bricks of knowledge at the expense of not seeing the whole building’ as characteristic of the reductionist mode. This new mode of enquiry necessitates a fundamental intellectual process, capable of enabling the pluralistic orientation and avenue of knowledge. Accordingly, based on fundamental research the thesis aims to analyze the sustainability science discourse and, through both deductive and inductive methods, develop a fundamental intellectual process to inform on the dimensions and structure of a pluralistic knowledge avenue, leading to the laying of an intellectual foundation for the scholarship of sustainability. This is corresponded to three key research questions : KRQ-1: How can an intellectual process fundamentally be framed in order to study the pluralistic knowledge and research structures regarding sustainability? KRQ-2: What are the basic structures of the discourse of sustainability science and how are they structured? KRQ-3: How might a pluralistic knowledge avenue and the layout of an intellectual foundation for the scholarship of sustainability be elicited based on the rationale, framing and application of the fundamental intellectual process? The thesis takes the first decade’s ‘body of work’ of sustainability science as a dataset for analysis in answering these questions through heuristic fundamental research. Chapters 1-3 reflect fundamental research, while Chapters 4-6 and Chapter 7 present the results of heuristic deductive analysis and inductive analysis, respectively. The rationale for the KRQs is formed in Chapters 1-2, besides forming the intellectual perspective of sustainability. KRQ-1 is addressed in Chapter 3 in empirically framing a fundamental intellectual process. The analysis of the first decade’s ‘body of work’ of sustainability science is presented in Chapters 4-6, elucidating the discursive, integrative and contextual structures of its discourse, thus, addressing KRQ-2. These together form a continuous thread of inquiry on the intellectual treatment of sustainability, leading to addressing KRQ-3 in Chapter 7. In framing the fundamental intellectual process the Chapter 3 produces a fundamental literature organization process resulting in a structure of five cross-connected layers of organizations within the literature archive, while a discourse analysis mechanism produces an analytical process based on a system of five stages of discourse analysis. These together construct a fundamental scheme for analyzing the basic structures of pluralistic knowledge/ research. There are four key findings arising from Chapters 4-6. KF-1 reveals an overall lack of precision in characterizing the concept of ‘human-environment system’ in sustainability science along with an extremely open-ended representation. KF-2, revealing the overall contribution of sustainability science as consistent across its three different basic structures demonstrates mere structural contributions while lacking in intellectual capacities to provide the functional aspects to the intellectual treatment of sustainability. Based on conceptualization and extensive exemplification of a theoretical framework on the language of conversation in sustainability research KF-3 produces a new intellectual lens for approaching effective trans-disciplinary sustainability research through facilitating knowledge co-production. KF-4 reveals a strong correlation between the dominant ‘original nature’ and the characters of ‘literature survey’ and ‘literature archive analysis’ of sustainability science research, together with a dominance of these characters across the other empirical classes. This reveals the significance of fundamental literature organization and analysis process in brokering common language and understanding for the enabling of sustainability scholarship, besides breaking the impasse of the conventional incompatibility between original research and literature analysis processes. In Chapter 7, the KF 1-4 are analyzed in terms of different dimensions of the pluralistic knowledge avenue. The chapter also produces the structure of this avenue through inductively projecting on the characteristics of an integration expertise in light of the new mode of enquiry. Besides, Chapter 7 also extracts nine latent elements/ characters of an intellectual foundation of the scholarship of sustainability from the rationale, framing and application of the fundamental intellectual process as well as the inductive framing of the pluralistic knowledge avenue. These together produce the basis for an integrated theory on the intellectual foundation of sustainability. In summary, new knowledge components are pertinent to KF 1-4 and the inductive framing of the pluralistic knowledge avenue. Through fundamentally analyzing the prevailing scholastic reality of sustainability that is based on normative assumption-based works, the thesis produces a structure of sustainability scholarship based on fundamental intellectual justification. Its implications for sustainability science include: the possibility of overcoming reductionist methods—constraining the contribution of the practice—through active intellectual orientation of the new mode of enquiry, prospects for innovation in the practice stem from the integrative structure of its discourse and in developing functional-intellectual capabilities, and a fundamental intellectual process is a means to overcome its normative impulse. (shrink)

This study proposes an operational approach to a metaphorical framing analysis using large-scale data. We conducted a case analysis of how war metaphors are framed to address various societal issues in a corpus of public speeches by Hong Kong government officials. By investigating patterns of lexical choices under the source domain of WAR and the underlying reasons for the source-target domain mappings (i.e. Mapping Principles), we found that the target domain of social issues in Hong Kong is (...) primarily conceptualized in terms of a combat frame, and governmental issues are primarily talked about in terms of a protection frame, both of which are positively evaluated. Additionally, economic issues are primarily addressed in terms of a strategy frame, which is both positively and negatively evaluated. We show that analyzing the Mapping Principles of these conceptual metaphors captures the “selection” process of framing at the dimensions of frame frequency and frame sentiment, allowing for a principled way to propose a metaphorical framing analysis in corpora-based studies. The proposed approach enriches Critical Discourse Analysis studies of metaphorical framing and bridges the link between metaphor analysis at a conceptual level and framing analysis at a communication level. (shrink)

With calls for (business) leaders to contribute to greater global fairness and social justice (BAWB 2006; Maak and Pless Journal of Business Ethics, 88, 537–550, 2009), this paper considers gender equality on University home web page images as one means of communicating equal access to leadership roles for both men and women. Although there are many paths for leadership development, one important purpose of Universities is to create people who will potentially become leaders in our society (Shapiro 2005). We analyzed (...) the home web pages at 24 leading universities to identify implicit messages about gender roles, building on implicit leadership theory and leadership prototypes. Using an adapted version of Goffman’s frame analysis (1979), our results suggest depiction of gender equality in university home web pages, in contrast to studies of print advertisements (cf., Kang Sex Roles, 37(11/12), 979–996, 1997; Lindner Sex Roles, 51(7/8), 409–421, 2004). Our results also identify specific opportunities to depict greater equity and to continue to expand the potential for both women and men to be seen as being capable and belonging on this leadership path. (shrink)

We generalize and extend the class of Sahlqvist formulae in arbitrary polyadic modal languages, to the class of so called inductive formulae. To introduce them we use a representation of modal polyadic languages in a combinatorial style and thus, in particular, develop what we believe to be a better syntactic approach to elementary canonical formulae altogether. By generalizing the method of minimal valuations à la Sahlqvist–van Benthem and the topological approach of Sambin and Vaccaro we prove that all (...) class='Hi'>inductive formulae are elementary canonical and thus extend Sahlqvist’s theorem over them. In particular, we give a simple example of an inductive formula which is not frame-equivalent to any Sahlqvist formula. Then, after a deeper analysis of the inductive formulae as set-theoretic operators in descriptive and Kripke frames, we establish a somewhat stronger model-theoretic characterization of these formulae in terms of a suitable equivalence to syntactically simpler formulae in the extension of the language with reversive modalities. Lastly, we study and characterize the elementary canonical formulae in reversive languages with nominals, where the relevant notion of persistence is with respect to discrete frames. (shrink)

Students are expected to develop the intellectual capacity needed to accurately portray other world societies. Few research studies in social studies education, however, draw on a systematic textbook analysis to investigate global perspectives on non-Western societies such as those found in African nations. Situated in framing theory, this study employs a qualitative content analysis approach to examine textual and visual curricular representations of non-Western societies framed in the content of four U.S. world history/cultures and geography textbooks by (...) considering specifically how Nigeria, a very large, relatively wealthy and complex African nation, is represented. The results provide insights into curricular perspectives in U.S. classrooms about non-Western societies, particularly regarding national narratives. Deficit perspectives are the dominant frame so students are primed to construct social reality from the partial textual and visual information to which they are exposed in their classrooms. The findings indicate a lack of research by both textbook authors and publishers into the contents of the texts, which has the potential to negatively affect students’ construction of narratives and civic competence. This study contextualizes its results in visual literacy, cross-cultural behaviors, global perspectives, and attributes of global citizenship. (shrink)

Schemata are formal tools for describing inductive reasoning. They opened a new area in the analysis of inductive proofs. The book introduces schemata for first-order terms, first-order formulas and first-order inference systems. Based on general first-order schemata, the cut-elimination-by-resolution (CERES) method—developed around the year 2000—is extended to schematic proofs. This extension requires the development of schematic methods for resolution and unification which are defined in this book. The added value of proof schemata compared to other inductive (...) approaches consists in the extension of Herbrand’s theorem to inductive proofs (in the form of Herbrand systems, which can be constructed effectively). An application to an analysis of mathematical proof is given. The work also contains and extends the newest results on schematic unification and corresponding algorithms. Core topics covered: first-order schemata cut-elimination by resolution point transition systems schematic resolution Herbrand systems inductive proof analysis This volume is the first comprehensive work on first-order schemata and their applications. As such, it will be eminently suitable for researchers and PhD students in logic and computer science either working or with an interest in proof theory, inductive reasoning and automated deduction. Prerequisites are a firm knowledge of first-order logic, basic knowledge of automated deduction and a background in theoretical computer science. Alexander Leitsch and Anela Lolic are affiliated with the Institute of Logic and Computation of the Technische Universität Wien, David M. Cerna with the Czech Academy of Sciences, Institute of Computer Science (Ústav informatiky AV ČR, v.v.i.). (shrink)

A book aimed at advanced undergraduates and graduates in cognitive science and artificial intelligence, linguistics, applied mathematics and data analysis.

Calls for public engagement on emerging agricultural technologies, including genetic engineering of farm animals, have resulted in the development of information that people can interact and engage with online, including “Frequently Asked Questions” (FAQs) developed by organizations seeking to inform or influence the debate. We conducted a frame analysis of FAQs webpages about genetic engineering of farm animals developed by different organizations to describe how questions and answers are presented. We categorized FAQs as having a regulatory frame (emphasizing or (...) challenging the adequacy of regulations), an efficiency frame (emphasizing precision and benefits), a risks and uncertainty frame (emphasizing unknown outcomes), an animal welfare frame (emphasizing benefits for animals) or an animal dignity frame (considering the inherent value of animals). Animals were often featured as the object of regulations in FAQs, and questions about animals were linked to animal welfare regulations. The public were represented using a variety of terms (public, consumer) and pronouns (I, we). Some FAQs described differences between technology terms (gene editing, genetic modification) and categorized technologies as either well-established or novel. This framing of the technology may not respond to actual public concerns on the topic. Organizations seeking to use FAQs as a public engagement tool might consider including multiple viewpoints and actual questions people have about genetic engineering. (shrink)

This article examines the verse: “And they give food, despite their love for it, to the needy, the orphan, and the captive” (Surah Al-Insan 76:8) within the contextual integrity of Surah Al-Insan. Being a Medinan surah, it deals with the formation process of the faithful believer’s personality. The aforementioned verse represents the social manifestation of spiritual discipline within the surah’s main theme and reflects the ethical stance of believers woven with sincerity, benevolence, and altruism. Within this framework, the meaning of (...) the verse is analyzed through the lens of the Quranic contextual structure (siyāq) and the interrelated context (sibāq). It is emphasized that the act of feeding is not merely a social aid, but the product of a high-level faith training. This action is performed solely for the sake of Allah and is closely related to the fear of Allah and hope for His reward. Exegetes, especially Al-Qurtubi and Al-Razi, interpret the phrase “for the sake of Allah” (li-wajhillāh) as representing the pinnacle of sincerity, and the plural verb form “We feed you” (nut'imukum) as underscoring the concept of collective action in building the Islamic moral society. The verse’s linguistic and rhetorical aspects are examined in detail. The use of “ʿalā ḥubbihi” (“despite their love for it”) with the preposition ʿalā instead of maʿa (“with”) or fī (“in”) is a rhetorical choice indicating resistance and overcoming, signifying that the giving is done despite a strong love for the food, not merely along with or in it. This demonstrates the supreme degree of altruism where one prioritizes others above his own desires. Throughout the study, fundamental sources of Quranic exegesis such as those by Al-Tabari, Al-Qurtubi, Al-Razi, and Ibn Ashur have been consulted. Furthermore, insights from the sciences of language and rhetoric have been utilized. The analysis is also framed by the higher objectives of Islamic law (maqāṣid al-sharī‘a), including human dignity, fostering a sense of responsibility, establishing the ethics of sincerity and altruism. The verse, therefore, concretizes the Quranic typology of the exemplary believer and points to the fundamental principles shaping the ethical backbone of the Islamic community. Surah Al-Insan begins by reminding humans of their origin from nothingness and the purpose of their creation—trial and testing. It categorizes humanity into those who are grateful and those who are ungrateful, then presents the righteous as a model whose faith is manifested in practical behavior, with feeding others leading this behavior. The verse appears as a pivotal point in the surah’s thematic progression, starting with the scene of creation and testing, moving to the behavior of benevolence and altruism, and concluding with the promise of eternal divine reward as expressed in: “So Allah protected them from the evil of that Day and gave them radiance and happiness.” This structure emphasizes the intrinsic link between sincere deeds and the noble reward in the hereafter. Thus, the verse does not describe a mere incidental act but rather sketches the characteristics of the “perfect human” who transcends self-interest and devotes what he loves for the sake of Allah, thereby deserving eternal delight and bliss. The methodology employed in this study combines analytical and inductive approaches, involving contextual and rhetorical reading of the Quranic text, supported by reputable exegeses, linguistic and rhetorical sciences, and the objectives of Islamic law, to reveal the deep significance of feeding others and its psychological and social effects. (shrink)

The no-miracles argument and the pessimistic induction are arguably the main considerations for and against scientific realism. Recently these arguments have been accused of embodying a familiar, seductive fallacy. In each case, we are tricked by a base rate fallacy, one much-discussed in the psychological literature. In this paper we consider this accusation and use it as an explanation for why the two most prominent `wholesale' arguments in the literature seem irresolvable. Framed probabilistically, we can see very clearly why realists (...) and anti-realists have been talking past one another. We then formulate a dilemma for advocates of either argument, answer potential objections to our criticism, discuss what remains (if anything) of these two major arguments, and then speculate about a future philosophy of science freed from these two arguments. In so doing, we connect the point about base rates to the wholesale/retail distinction; we believe it hints at an answer of how to distinguish profitable from unprofitable realism debates. In short, we offer a probabilistic analysis of the feeling of ennui afflicting contemporary philosophy of science. (shrink)

This article proposes that Goffman's "Frame Analysis" can be interpreted as a step toward unpacking the idea of context. His analysis implies a recursive model involving frames within frames. The key problem is that neither Goffman nor anyone else has clearly defined what is meant by a frame. I propose that it can be represented by a word, phrase, or proposition. A subjective context can be represented as an assembly of these items, joined together by operators such as (...) and, since, if, not, and then. Furthermore, this model can be combined with the recursive levels of mutual awareness in earlier approaches to consensus. The combination would represent the inter subjective context: it can be used to find the minimum amount of background that would allow consensual interpretations of discourse. It could also construct a chain that links discourse to the institutional level, the micro-macro pathway from word and gesture to social structure. Goffman hinted that mathematical notation might be used to represent a frame assembly. By adding levels of awareness to such notation, it could represent social facts. Because the use of vernacular words rather than concepts is a problem in social science, Goffman's approach has a general as well as a particular significance. (shrink)

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

The ‘new normality’ of food crises requires nuanced understandings of emergent responses. Through an exploratory analysis of public-facing reports from major food governance actors, this study empirically outlines mainstream solution frames for addressing the contemporary food crisis and the ways in which these differ from the 2008 food crisis. Using food regime theory as the theoretical underpinning, four con­sistently used solution frames are identified that provide insight into the organizing principles of the third food regime: promoting trade liberalization, emphasizing (...) agricultural productivism, mobilizing private finance, and leveraging data. The latter two involve recent shifts in governance responses that shape global food governance and impact global food insecurity in novel ways. (shrink)

If one replaces the standard (Gödel) mathematics with Hilbert arithmetic/ mathematics thus able to merge ontomathematically reality and mathematics (in the former case, being prevented by the Gödel objection), "creatio ex nihilo " can be rigorously inferred only from the unlimited function successor, furthermore under the axiom of induction providing universal finiteness. It is caused in the final analysis by the closeness of the universe following from its definition to "be all" and thus single one, in particular excluding: the (...) Big Bang; other universes ("worlds", e.g. after Everett-Wheeler's interpretation); multiverse; etc. That deduction is called the "fundamental theorem of the universe". It is rather a new paradigm implying a class of theories belonging to "ontomathematical Postmodernity", rather than a new theory, belonging together with the Big Bang one (as causing the universe externally) to Modernity, thus needing energy conservation to be kept at any cost, and adding ad hoc external causes such as the Big Bing itself. On the contrary, the alternative paradigm, only in the framework of which the fundamental theorem of the universe can be proved, excludes any causes external to the universe by allowing violations of energy conservation, in turn equivalent to external causes in the former paradigm. Anyway, those violations obey a more general conservation of quantum information. Under the newly introduced "quantum invariance", a further conservative generalization of Einstein's principle of the physical law invariance to smooth transformations between noninertial reference frames in order to include discrete ones, all external causes are equivalent to internal ones. The metaphor of two "ship models", the one of which is built "within in a bottle" (as a figurative illustration of Modernity's restrictions) since both models are quite similar, but that within a bottle needs virtuous skills to be constructed: so both paradigms are formally equivalent, but the ontomathematical one generates much simpler explanations and implies the huge extension of human cognition in the future. (shrink)

Clinical ethics are becoming increasingly important in the twenty-first century. Value-laden cases and moral dilemmas in healthcare have led to the creation of clinical ethics support structures. The last decades have shown their implementation in hospitals around the globe. Recent literature investigates their value, function, and integration. Many conclude that they do valuable work yet remain inadequately integrated, lack institutionalization, and struggle with resource shortages. To gain an understanding of this development and pave the way for future implementation and research, (...) a scoping review was chosen to determine which macro-level factors currently influence the heterogeneous approaches. This review used the scientific research databases Medline and CINAHL in April 2025. It included studies, opinion papers, and book chapters in English and German offering explanations, analysis, discussion, and examples of macro-level clinical ethics support structures’ adoption and implementation influences. An inductive qualitative content analysis was conducted to extract the desired information. The resulting categories were formatted into an overview frame. The literature search yielded 400 publications, full-text analysis and snowball search resulted in 47 eligible for analysis. Eight main factors with respective subcategories were identified. These vary in their degree of binding authority, ranging from clearly defined regulations, such as national laws, to more ambiguous influences, such as public opinion and advocacy. Further insights reveal that the effectiveness of these factors cannot yet be determined, and their influence may vary based on the values and political context of the country where a support structure is implemented. (shrink)

Responding to climate change and avoiding irreversible climate tipping points requires radical and drastic action by 2030. This urgency raises serious questions for energy companies, one of the world’s largest emitters of greenhouse gases (GHGs), in terms of how they frame, and reframe, their response to climate change. Despite the majority of energy companies releasing ambitious statements declaring net zero carbon ambitions, this ‘talk’ has not been matched with sufficient urgency or substantive climate action. To unpack the disconnect between talk (...) and action, this paper draws on the literature on framing, organisational hypocrisy, and collective moral responsibility. We conduct a longitudinal qualitative content analysis of the framing of climate change used by the ten largest European investor-owned energy companies and the actions they have taken to shift their business practices. Our findings reveal three main categories of energy companies: (i) deflecting, (ii) stagnating, and (iii) evolving. We show key differences in the relationship between framing and action over time for each category, revealing how deflecting companies have larger and persistent gaps between green talk and concrete action and how stagnating companies are delaying action despite increased green talk, while evolving companies exhibit a closer link between talk and action that tends to be realised over time. Our analysis reveals how competing approaches to framing collective moral responsibility help understand the trajectories of talk and action across the different categories of energy companies. This research makes several contributions to the literature on organisational hypocrisy and collective moral responsibility in the context of climate change. Our analysis highlights the complex relationship between collective moral responsibility, organisational hypocrisy and climate action, revealing how different collective framings—diffuse, teleological, or agential—can both enable and offset substantive climate action. The study also enriches our understanding of the performative nature of collective moral responsibility by examining its temporal dimensions and showing how an agential, backward-looking focus is associated with more meaningful climate action. (shrink)

Responding to climate change and avoiding irreversible climate tipping points requires radical and drastic action by 2030. This urgency raises serious questions for energy companies, one of the world’s largest emitters of greenhouse gases (GHGs), in terms of how they frame, and reframe, their response to climate change. Despite the majority of energy companies releasing ambitious statements declaring net zero carbon ambitions, this ‘talk’ has not been matched with sufficient urgency or substantive climate action. To unpack the disconnect between talk (...) and action, this paper draws on the literature on framing, organisational hypocrisy, and collective moral responsibility. We conduct a longitudinal qualitative content analysis of the framing of climate change used by the ten largest European investor-owned energy companies and the actions they have taken to shift their business practices. Our findings reveal three main categories of energy companies: (i) deflecting, (ii) stagnating, and (iii) evolving. We show key differences in the relationship between framing and action over time for each category, revealing how deflecting companies have larger and persistent gaps between green talk and concrete action and how stagnating companies are delaying action despite increased green talk, while evolving companies exhibit a closer link between talk and action that tends to be realised over time. Our analysis reveals how competing approaches to framing collective moral responsibility help understand the trajectories of talk and action across the different categories of energy companies. This research makes several contributions to the literature on organisational hypocrisy and collective moral responsibility in the context of climate change. Our analysis highlights the complex relationship between collective moral responsibility, organisational hypocrisy and climate action, revealing how different collective framings—diffuse, teleological, or agential—can both enable and offset substantive climate action. The study also enriches our understanding of the performative nature of collective moral responsibility by examining its temporal dimensions and showing how an agential, backward-looking focus is associated with more meaningful climate action. (shrink)

The question of rationality and of its role in human agency has been at the core of pragmatist concerns since the beginning of this movement. While Peirce framed the horizon of a new understanding of human reason through the idea of inquiry as aiming at belief-fixation and James stressed the individualistic drives that move individuals to action, it is in Dewey’s writing that we find the deepest understanding of the naturalistic and normative traits of rationality considered as the qualifying attribute (...) of human agency. Recent developments in moral and political philosophy as well as in general pragmatist scholarship have shown a renewal of interest in the role of human reason in agency, both with respect to control of conduct (decisions about how to act) and with respect to normative attitudes (considerations of what is good and right). In this article I will examine some features of Dewey’s epistemology which are particularly promising for the elaboration of a theory of practical rationality based on pragmatist sources. In particular, I will focus on Dewey’s notion of “judgment of practice” in order to frame a distinctively Deweyan approach to practical rationality. In order to point out the specificity of Dewey’s epistemological framework, I will refer to it as an “epistemology of practice”i. The aim of this article is to clarify the epistemological meaning of the concepts of articulation and transformation, that Dewey places at the heart of his theory of inquiry. Part of my argument consists in showing that through these notions Dewey aimed at broadening the conception of rationality, bringing it beyond the reach of the standard notions of analysis and synthesis and of induction, deduction, and abduction. Once the specificity of Dewey’s conception of rationality will have been demonstrated, I will proceed to show some of its implications in the explanation of the rationality of human agency with reference to practical reasoning and value assessment. I will then conclude the article by drawing some implications of Dewey’s theory of judgment for a broader epistemology based upon the acknowledgment of the primacy of practice. (shrink)

Causal induction in the real world often has to be quick and efficient as well as accurate. We propose that people use two different frames to achieve these goals. The A-frame consists of heuristic processes that presuppose rarity and can detect causally relevant factors quickly. The B-frame consists of analytic processes that can be highly accurate in detecting actual causes. Our dual frame theory implies that several factors affect whether people use the A-frame or the B-frame in causal induction: among (...) these are symmetrical negation, intervention and commitment. This theory is tested and sustained in two experiments. The results also provide broad support for dual process accounts of human thinking in general. (shrink)

Relying on more expansive criteria for defining “mass shootings” than much existing research, we examine a subset of a unique dataset incorporating 7,048 news documents covering 2,170 shootings in the United States between 2013 and 2019. We analyze the descriptive language used to describe incidents and perpetrators and discover significant racial disparities in representation. This research enables a critical examination of the explanatory frames utilized by news media to tell the public who mass shooters are and journalistic attempts to explain (...) why they occur. Data were analyzed utilizing a mixed methods approach, relying on content analysis to inductively code emergent categories of descriptions of shooters and binary logistic regressions to analyze the preponderance of descriptive categories when comparing news articles reporting on shootings committed by differently racialized shooters. Our results confirm some recent research showing that mass shooters racialized as white are more likely to be described with kind and compassionate language. With our larger sample, however, we also find that mass shooters racialized as white are additionally more likely to be described with negative language as “bad” or “evil” in comparison to shooters of color. We discuss how these data demonstrate that media reports present a more complex picture of white mass shooters for the public than shooters of color. (shrink)

This paper aims at an analytical explanation of the distinctive nature of music, as it has been formulated in perhaps one of the world's very first works on the subject, namely the ‘Sangeet Ratnakar’ of Pandit Sarangadeva, a 13th century musicologist of India. He, in the first chapter of the work defines music ('sangeet' in Sanskrit and Hindi) as a composite of singing or 'Gita', instrumental music or 'vadan' and dancing or ‘nrittam’. In addition, he also holds singing to be (...) the most important component of music. These two ideas are not only unquestionably acceptable, as the analysis in the paper will show, but give to Indian music, in its difference from western music, its distinctively spiritual character, making it a path to liberation or Moksha (Muktidayakam na tu ranjakam). Sarangadeva's reason, here, is not rational but empirico-inductive. It is that mainly by virtue of its 'gitam’ (singing component), which, like the Yoga system of exercise, needing only one's body as its instrument, music too needing only one’s voice is as self-sufficient and autonomous as the ultimate Reality itself (Swayamev Rajate). In the hierarchy (a distinctively ancient Indian insistence) of arts, singing is the highest and unique because in spite of being heard by the auditory sense, it affects our 'reflective sensibility' and transports us to the virtual world of melodic and rhythmic forms. Forms, as against their particular illustrations, are abstract universals. Ultimate Reality is also a Form-all comprehensive and internally harmonious. However, pure Form, whether melodic or religious or even rational like that of triangularity, is almost impossible to concentrate on. Realizing this practical difficulty, Indian scriptures and the world's first Grammarian-linguist, Acharya Panini, framed a composite sound as the manifestation of the ultimate musical Form. This purely formal-because devoid of all meaning, sound is that of 'om', spelt, in Sanskrit as a conjunction (sandhi) of 'a'+'u'+'m'. For Indian musicologists and musicians, ‘om’ is the perfect manifestation of the Sound-God or ‘Nada-Brahman’ because, 1. Its composite nature resembles God, as a harmony of 'sat', 'chit', and 'ananda'; and 2. The composite sound is self-existent as its all three components-two vowels, i.e. ‘a’, ‘u’, and one consonant i.e. ‘m’, can be and are pronounced just as they originally are, -un-elongated and un-vitiated and therefore pure. This is the reason why every recital of Indian classical vocal music is begun with an elaborate rendering of 'om' as an invocation to Sound-God or ‘Nada-Brahman’. Scholarly and authentic, this ancient Indian approach to music, is undoubtedly the earliest and original. My observation is that its main contentions like Sharang Dev’s insistence that of the three components of music, ‘gitam’ or singing is the highest, have only been translated and never argued for. In this presentation my good intention is to provide much needed rational support for making these key statements in this unparalleled Indian text, indubitable and unquestionable. (shrink)