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Wegner, Giuliano, and Hertel (1985) defined the notion of a transactive memory system (TMS) as a group level memory system that “involves the operation of the memory systems of the individuals and the processes of communication that occur within the group (p. 191). Those processes are the collaborative procedures (“transactions”) by which groups encode, store, and retrieve information that is distributed among their members. Over the past 25+ years, the conception of a TMS has progressively garnered an increased interest among (...) social and organizational psychologists, communication scholars, and management theorists (Ren & Argote 2011). But there remains considerable disagreement about how exactly Wegner’s appeal to group memory should be understood. My goal in this paper is contribute to this debate, by articulating more clearly the value of conceptualizing groups as TMSs. This value, I argue, consists in providing us with a blueprint for how to explain group memory in terms of collective information-processing mechanisms. Collective information-processing mechanisms are dependent on, and interact with, the brain-bound information-processing of individuals, but cannot be reduced to the latter. In my analysis, I lean on extant accounts of mechanistic explanation in the philosophy of science (Bechtel & Richardson 1993; Machamer, Darden, & Craver 2000; Wimsatt 2007) that have been used to analyze the explanatory practices of psychology and cognitive neuroscience (Bechtel 2008, 2009). Based on my reconstruction of Wegner’s conceptualization of a TMS, I argue that the reality of emergent group cognition is compatible with its mechanistic explanation. More generally, my analysis shows that group cognition cannot be reduced to individual cognition, while avoiding the false dilemma between “wholism” and “nothing but-ism” which has hampered traditional construals of the “group mind” thesis (Allport 1968). (shrink)

Research on linguistic interaction suggests that two or more individuals can sometimes form adaptive and cohesive systems. We describe an “alignment system” as a loosely interconnected set of cognitive processes that facilitate social interactions. As a dynamic, multi-component system, it is responsive to higher-level cognitive states such as shared beliefs and intentions (those involving collective intentionality) but can also give rise to such shared cognitive states via bottom-up processes. As an example of putative group cognition we turn to transactive memory (...) and suggest how further research on alignment in these cases might reveal how such systems can be genuinely described as cognitive. Finally, we address a prominent critique of collective cognitive systems, arguing that there is much empirical and explanatory benefit to be gained from considering the possibility of group cognitive systems, especially in the context of small-group human interaction. (shrink)

Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics deals with these problems is reviewed. A new interpretation of the formalism of quantum mechanics, the transactional interpretation, is presented. The basic element of this interpretation is the transaction describing a quantum event as an exchange of advanced and retarded waves, as implied by the work of Wheeler and Feynman, Dirac, and others. The transactional interpretation is explicitly nonlocal and thereby consistent with recent tests of the Bell inequality, yet is relativistically invariant and fully (...) causal. A detailed comparison of the transactional and Copenhagen interpretations is made in the context of well-known quantum-mechanical Gedankenexperimenre and "paradoxes." The transactional interpretation permits quantum-mechanical wave functions to be interpreted as real waves physically present in space rather than as "mathematical representations of knowledge" as in the Copenhagen interpretation. The transactional interpretation is shown to provide insight into the complex character of the quantum-mechanical state vector and the mechanism associated with its "collapse." It also leads in a natural way to justification of the Heisenberg uncertainty principle and the Born probability law (P = ii iij*), basic elements of the Copenhagen interpretation. (shrink)

This study examines how the corporate philanthropy decisions of group-affiliated firms in Korea are made. Based on the attention-based view, we argue that when corporate decision makers at group-affiliated firms focus their attention more on internal markets than external stakeholders because of the firm’s high reliance on intragroup transactions, the firm will decrease its level of corporate philanthropy. We further argue that the relationship will be stronger when governance mechanisms focus on the instrumental value of corporate philanthropy. Using a panel (...) sample of group-affiliated firms in Korea from 2011 to 2015, we find that as intragroup sales increase, the level of corporate philanthropy decreases, and such a negative relationship is stronger when outside director representation and foreign investor ownership are high. Our study suggests that internal dependence and corporate governance mechanisms jointly affect the level of corporate philanthropy at firms in a business group. Thus, this study contributes to the literature on corporate philanthropy, business group, and corporate governance. (shrink)

Transactions cost analysis is a methodology that attempts to account for or explain free enterprise systems by understanding these phenomena as efficient responses to the objective and subjective conditions for exploitation. Theorists proceed on the supposition—informed by Alchian's general evolutionary hypothesis—that the common or widespread organizational forms, policies, and procedures found in free enterprise systems are efficient responses to asset specificities, informational asymmetries, and opportunism found in the economic environment. Applying this methodology to the classical capitalist firm—those owned solely by (...) one capitalist—this chapter comes to the conclusion that the compact economic structure of the organization results in transaction cost efficiencies. Applied to the open corporation the methodology yields several transaction cost advantages such as large capital requirements, equity ownership, and its separation from managerial control. This chapter ends by referring back to the issue of exploitation on whether it occurs in private firms by studying the relationship of labor and management in the free enterprise system. (shrink)

‘Aristocratic’ transactional relationships are widespread in Nigerian universities. Nigerian cultures positively sanction repressive sexual activities among single unmarried adolescents until the wedding night. Modernity has confronted this cultural prescription, as youths, particularly girls, engage in transactional exchange in different contexts. However, the literature on transactional sex in the ivory towers is not rich enough on client recruitment and management among female undergraduates in Nigeria. This study utilised in-depth interviews to collect data from 30 purposively selected female undergraduates. Findings show that (...) the prostitution label is substituted for ‘runs-girls’, as a distinct social category. Clients are recruited on and off campus through mastery of routine activities of ‘aristocrats’ on campus, connection and referrals. The ‘aristos’ include wealthy postgraduate students, politicians, business men, and military personnel, among others. The sex work is undertaken on and off campus, in hotels or in the private residences of ‘runs-girls’. ‘Aristocratic’ transactional sex is sustained by erotic capital, including dexterous bed skills, such as sucking and romance. Luxury possessions, such as cars, BlackBerry phones and social security (job placement) after school life are the perceived derivable benefits of the erotic association. Provision of part-time jobs for vulnerable students could positively reduce transactional sex in ivory towers. (shrink)

In this paper, I argue that recent research on episodic memory supports a limited defense of the phenomena that Daniel Wegner has termed transactive memory. Building on psychological and neurological research, targeting both individual and shared memory, I argue that individuals can collaboratively work to construct shared episodic memories. In some cases, this yields memories that are distributed across multiple individuals instead of being housed in individual brains.

Transaction costs and inefficient market channels lead to a diminished share for farmers, rendering merchants more profitable with a higher percentage than that received by farmers. The purpose of this study is to determine the Salt farming transaction costs, market channel and farmer's share. This qualitative research acquires data through in-depth interviews, observations, and questionnaires to precisely characterize the socio-economic behavior of salt farmers, then conducts a precise and objective data analysis. The data is then identified for exact, (...) accurate, and objective analysis. According to the research findings, there are two (two) market pathways connecting manufacturers and industries with salt farmers. Channel 1 is longer than market channel 2; nonetheless, both market channels 1 and 2 offer identical prices to salt farmers in Jepara Regency, Central Java. The farmer's share in salt production in Jepara Regency is 40% for low-quality salt, 42% for medium-quality salt, and 43% for high-quality salt. The transaction cost per hectare for each salt season cycle is Rp. 9,510,000, comprising information cost 29.97%, negotiation cost 4.05%, coordination cost 0.53%, transportation cost 18.93%, implementation cost 39.70%, and monitoring cost 6.83%. (shrink)

Why do public philosophy in prisons? When we think about the value and aims of public philosophy there is a well-entrenched tendency to think in transactional terms. The academy has something of value that it aims to pass on or transmit to its clients. Usually, this transaction takes place within the confines of the university, in the form of transmission of valuable skills or knowledge passed from faculty to students. Public philosophy, construed within this transactional mindset, then consists in (...) passing on something valuable from inside the academy to the outside. In this paper, we reflect on our experiences of taking philosophy into prisons and argue that making the case for public philosophy in general, and philosophy in prisons in particular in these transactional terms risks obscuring what we take to be a distinctive and valuable outcome of public philosophy. Importantly, it risks obscuring what those who participate in a particular kind of public philosophy – including the professional philosophers – experience as valuable about the activity: its transformational potential. (shrink)

Corporate sustainability can be defined as organizations’ commitment to profitability, environment, and social well-being. This study uses a transactional culture analysis of CS reporting practices to explain why some Indian organizations conform to voluntary CS reporting guidelines and others do not. The literature contains two different perspectives on culture, defined broadly as a set of values that guide people’s behavior at a given time. Most past studies typically use national culture to explain differences in CS practices across nations. This concept (...) embeds corporate cultures within the larger national culture, neglecting intranation diversity. Conversely, according to the transactional culture approach used in this study, cultures are plural and independent of geoethnic boundaries, and emerge through social transactions. TCA encourages multilevel explorations of complex social phenomena. Since CS reporting preferences are the outcome of ongoing transactions among organizational stakeholders across different levels, TCA is more appropriate for this study. Since this application requires an understanding of social accountability, the authors use Mary Douglas’s Cultural Framework, a transactional framework of social accountability. A qualitative exploration of six Indian organizations using DCF reveals different dominant forms of social accountability in these organizations: either alone or as paired hybrids. Consequently, each organization prioritizes different stakeholders and reacts differently to voluntary CS reporting guidelines. Identifying the dominant form or forms of social accountability in their organizations and understanding their underlying reasons for resisting voluntary CS guidelines enables managers to secure better collaboration for their CS initiatives. (shrink)

A recent ontological variant of Cramer’s Transactional Interpretation, called “Possibilist Transactional Interpretation” or PTI, is extended to the relativistic domain. The present interpretation clarifies the concept of ‘absorption,’ which plays a crucial role in TI (and in PTI). In particular, in the relativistic domain, coupling amplitudes between fields are interpreted as amplitudes for the generation of confirmation waves (CW) by a potential absorber in response to offer waves (OW), whereas in the nonrelativistic context CW are taken as generated with certainty. (...) It is pointed out that solving the measurement problem requires venturing into the relativistic domain in which emissions and absorptions take place; nonrelativistic quantum mechanics only applies to quanta considered as ‘already in existence’ (i.e., ‘free quanta’), and therefore cannot fully account for the phenomenon of measurement, in which quanta are tied to sources and sinks. (shrink)

A recurrent theme in research on socially distributed cognition is to establish the claim that the cognitive phenomenon of transactive memory is grounded in a specific mode of organization: mechanistic compositional organization. My topic is the confluence of transactive remembering or transactive memory systems (TMSs) and mechanistic compositional organization. In relation to this confluence, the paper scrutinizes the claim that the kind of organization grounding TMSs and/or tokens of transactive remembering takes the specific form of mechanistic compositional organization – at (...) least as the latter is usually construed. It is argued (i) that the usual account of mechanistic compositional organization is based on a synchronic composition function, and (ii) that the organization of TMSs and/or transactive remembering is not well understood by way of synchronic composition. The positive account pursued is that TMSs and/or transactive remembering are better understood as grounded in a diachronic composition function. (shrink)

The relationship between students and higher education is seen to have become increasingly transactional. We approach the study of the student–HE relationship in a novel way, by focusing on students’ behaviour post-university, rather than on student narratives. Conceptually, the article builds on multidimensional views of student engagement and the differentiation between psychological transactional contracts – where students who achieve better academic results are more likely to donate – and relational contracts – where students donate more following engagement in social experiences. (...) Making use of longitudinal data on donation behaviour from over 50,000 alumni from an English university over two decades, we find that while students who get better degree outcomes are more likely to donate, the association between participation in social experiences and donations is much stronger. This questions prevalent transactional models of HE and underlines the limitations of purely consumerist views of the relation between students and higher education institutions, even in the marketized UK context. (shrink)

The transactional interpretation of quantum mechanics, following the time-symmetric formulation of electrodynamics, uses retarded and advanced solutions of the Schrödinger equation and its complex conjugate to understand quantum phenomena by means of transactions. A transaction occurs between an emitter and a specific absorber when the emitter has received advanced waves from all possible absorbers. Advanced causation always raises the specter of paradoxes, and it must be addressed carefully. In particular, different devices involving contingent absorbers or various types of interaction-free (...) measurements have been proposed as threatening the original version of the transactional interpretation. These proposals will be analyzed by examining in each case the configuration of absorbers and, in the special case of the so-called quantum liar experiment, by carefully following the development of retarded and advanced waves through the Mach-Zehnder interferometer. We will show that there is no need to resort to the hierarchy of transactions that some have proposed, and will argue that the transactional interpretation is consistent with the block-universe picture of time. (shrink)

Property transaction reports are a hybrid genre that combines the characteristics of news reports and advertisements. However, they are different from the traditional hybridity of advertorials, which carry a full-blown label of ‘advertisement’ or ‘promotional material’ and may repeat the name of a product or service many times. Property transaction reports, as an emerging genre in Hong Kong property magazines, combine the voices of property agencies and journalists in a very subtle and sophisticated manner, which is partly made (...) possible by the ambiguous local citing framework. Although the genre is a more successful mix of voices than advertorials, this is not the result of a conscious attempt to mix two genres. Indeed, it is the result of how two ‘communities of practice’ accommodate their practices to accomplish their tasks. This highlights the importance of ‘practice’ in understanding the complex issue of intertextuality. (shrink)

The Transactional Interpretation of quantum mechanics is a promising way of fulfilling Einstein’s vision of a completed quantum mechanics. However, it has received forceful criticism from Maudlin. Indeed, I shall argue that the force of Maudlin’s criticisms has been underestimated, and that none of the extant responses are adequate. An adequate response, I contend, requires reconceptualizing the kinds of explanations the Transactional Interpretation gives. I sketch such a reinterpretation and argue that it does not fall prey to Maudlin’s objections. However, (...) there remain significant obstacles in the way of formulating a fully adequate version of the Transactional Interpretation. (shrink)

Transactions and Encounters examines a diverse range of emerging technologies in the Victorian era. Such topics are explored as the popular craze for microscopes the uncanny possibilities of the telephone the jostling for authority between literature and science, with scenes by and including Dickens and Lewes, Huxley and Gosse the weird imaginary around androgynous barnacles and the competing versions of a mind-reading act. These essays combine to produce an invigorating and involving attempt to re-cast understandings of 19th century encounters between (...) the cultural and scientific spheres. (shrink)

This qualitative study looks at the complex relationship of transaction costs, norms, and social networks through a comparison of industrial buyer-seller relationships in the United States and Mexico. Despite arguments by transactioncost theorists that the nature of cooperation in business is largely a function of the nature of investments in transaction assets, this article illustrates several cases where the economic logic is attenuated and a mutual orientation develops as the social structure promotes greater trust either because of shared (...) norms or network ties. It also suggests that asset specificity may at times be a product of the social structure in which the transaction is embedded. The article develops theoretical propositions and suggests directions for future research. (shrink)

This essay provides a historical, philosophical, and critical overview of the development of the transactional interpretation of quantum mechanics. It is separated into two parts. Part I presents the history and development of TI from 1986 up to 2016. Part II lays out current areas of divergence among researchers in TI.

In responding to five symposium articles that discuss my book Thinking through the Body and my theories of somaesthetics and pragmatism, this essay elaborates two central methodological orientations that guide my philosophical research. The first is transactional experiential inquiry in which inquiry can develop new directions, aims, methods, and standards through the dynamic experiences acquired in the course of the inquiry’s pursuit and in which its transactional experiences involve research that transcends familiar disciplinary limits and conventions. The second principle involves (...) mitigating problematic dualisms by a strategy of inclusive disjunction. I deploy these principles in replying to the five commentaries. Besides clarifying issues in somaesthetics, my reply focuses on such topics as everyday aesthetics, eroticism, architecture, dance, Chinese philosophy, meliorism, and pragmatism. (shrink)

The topic of naturalism has been at the heart of philosophical pragmatism since the beginning of the 20th century. The interest in philosophical naturalism in recent decades has led to reformulations of earlier pragmatic insights from this origin, such as Hilary Putnam's position of 'liberal naturalism' . Richard J. Bernstein's final work, 'The Vicissitudes of Nature : from Spinoza to Freud' provides a historical survey of naturalism in major philosophical figures including the topic of this paper, Karl Marx. The relationship (...) between pragmatism and Marxism is fraught, marked with misunderstandings on both sides. In this article, I argue that Bernstein's engagement with Marx over his career clarifies the close relationship of pragmatism and Marx's naturalism especially at the level of philosophical anthropology. In important ways, Bernstein demonstrates the common social and political emphases of both Dewey and Marx with respect to humans-in-nature. His articulation of Marx's naturalism as involving a "dialectical historical transaction" between humans and non-human nature is in important ways the fruition of a dialogue between Marx and Dewey begun five decades ago in his Praxis & Action. (shrink)

ABSTRACT Citizenship and Citizenship Education are at the centre of curriculum reform in Kenya. Weak implementation processes have previously watered down similar novel curricular reforms due to a need for an elaborate curriculum implementation model. This article reviews existing Citizenship Education models to develop an effective curriculum implementation model. As a result, the paper formulates the ‘Transmission, Transactional and Reflection’ Citizenship Education curriculum instructional model. Unlike existing models that view the three phases as distinctive independent categories, the current model conceptualises (...) it as a continuous process. The model further specifies the resultant transformation and change to include Disciplined, Participatory and Critical Citizenship. The model is similar to the vision of the basic education curriculum framework, which aims to enable every Kenyan to become an Empowered, Engaged and Ethical citizen. If adopted, this model will improve the implementation of Citizenship Education, instilling requisite citizenship values for effective citizenry. (shrink)

In this paper I argue that problems connected to good scientific practice and scientific misconduct can be fruitfully analyzed via the means of transaction costs economics. Thus, transaction costs economics is a valuable tool for the descriptive as well as normative analysis of science. I further argue that current institutional matrices impose high transaction costs on (potential) funding agencies of scientific research. This underlies many cases of bad practice in scientific research. Lowering these transaction costs would (...) have positive effects both on the adherence of researchers to the rules of good practice as well as for the amount of funding that is spend on research. In the end, I propose an institutional reform that promises to lower these transaction costs based upon an idea of Michael Rosenblatt. (shrink)

In the previous three chapters, I have argued for a notion of caring that is inclusive, practical and authentic. At the centre of such explications of caring is the idea that people are in relationality, and the care on offer has some practical, social and political purpose in mind. Therefore, pedagogical encounters underscored by such notions of caring can be highly engaging, relational and politically driven, in much the same way as Carol Gilligan (1982), Nel Noddings (1984), and Paulo Freire (...) (2001), respectively, have envisaged. Anecdotally speaking, I view my appointment in my current department two decades ago as one in which I also expected to be treated authentically with care, and that my transactional experiences with colleagues would manifest in relationships of care. Perhaps, I was somewhat naïve at the time to think that care would naturally unfold when humans in our department encountered one another academically and professionally. Little did I know at the time, that higher education can be a highly exclusivist activity where colleagues would not hesitate to make you feel somewhat unwelcome. I do not mention my initial induction into the department to show that not all academics had an inclination to care. However, I mention an incident below to show that transactional caring is a human experience that requires mutuality and engagement. One of my colleagues deemed it necessary to consider my appointment contentious. Understandably at the time, with not many people of colour having been appointed in the faculty, someone considered my appointment as other on the grounds of not belonging to the dominant culture at the time. When such conditions prevail, it seems very unlikely for collegiality to unfold and the possibility of mutual, transactional care might be curtailed. However, the senior professors in my department showed care, and my appointment never really became a public spat. My initiation into the department was supported by the recognition on the part of my senior colleagues that I could bring something else to the department. In a different way, the majority of my colleagues cared enough to recognise that democratic education would take on an extended form with my presence in the department. It is a notion of transactional care that interests me in the light of my own exposure to what I think happened with my appointment in the department where I still work. But first, I need to focus my attention specifically on what has emerged thus far as a non-individualistic notion of caring, in reference to the seminal thoughts of care ethicist, Maurice Hamington (2006), who specifically expounds on the care work of Jane Addams, in particular her work for the Hull-House caring settlement in Chicago, which lasted roughly from the late 1800s to World War I. What interests me about Hamington’s work is his distinct focus on transactional caring as an instance of an ethic of care in relation to his exposition of socialising care (Hamington, 2006: 107). (shrink)

This paper combines the use of gift theory and the metatheory of the Morphogenetic Approach as a framework for the proposal that the relationship between unpaid interns and ‘employers’ may be conceptualized as a form of transactional, but asymmetrical, gift-exchange. The article begins by applying insights from gift theory to the findings of a range of studies into unpaid internships. It is argued that, while interns are the initial gift-givers in delivering unpaid labour, ‘employers’ often demonstrate weak reciprocation in terms (...) of offering paid work. Following that, the article combines gift analysis with the Morphogenetic Approach. This framework offers ontological depth to the substantive propositions of gift theory, and provides conceptual tools to study the interplay between structure/culture and agency that form the intern-‘employer’ relationship. The contribution of this article lies in the combined use of two key theoretical perspectives to a problematic not previously examined through such concepts. (shrink)

Stakeholder scholars have long explored how stakeholder relationships differ from economic transactions. We contribute to this ongoing inquiry by developing a conceptual framework of relationality in stakeholder theory that encompasses a stakeholder-theoretic extension of Williamson's contracting schema and a new typology of stakeholder relationships. Premised on understanding relationality as the need for informal human relationships beyond formal governance, our framework locates the key difference between transaction cost economics and stakeholder theory in their treatment of informal relationships. While transaction (...) cost economics perceives informal relationships to be shaped by formal governance structures and enforced by contractual safeguards, stakeholder theory is open to the possibility that some informal relationships between stakeholders may be genuinely moral and thus irreducible to formal governance and contractual safeguards. These stakeholder relationships may lead to unique economic effects described by instrumental stakeholder theory. The difference that we identified between the two literatures shows how stakeholder theory's embrace of relationality surpasses that of transaction cost economics. (shrink)

The fifth chapter reinforces the conclusions reached by the fourth. I will argue that moral evaluations are similar to empirical hypotheses, which are factually controllable. Without sacrificing the due distinctions, science and morality are different aspects of the same inquiry, since they use the same empirical process and the objective of both is the truth. The transactional conception of knowledge and reality will further confirm the presence of a moral dimension in scientific research. The inclusion of moral values in scientific (...) research will lead to examining the responsibilities of science. Through historical examples and general arguments, we will see why the scientist does not just have a responsibility only towards truth. The last section will examine the problem of autonomy in science. The fall of the myth of value-free science does not pose any dangers to the autonomy of science. On the contrary, it is a necessary step to reaffirm it and defend it. (shrink)

According to the fair transaction view, consent is morally powerful when it occurs in the context of a larger consent transaction that is fair, rather than when one’s consent is valid. This fair transaction view represents a novel approach to the ethics of consent and puts pressure on the standard focus on valid consent. If correct, the fair transaction model promises to alter our understanding of when consent in medicine matters morally. In this paper, I examine (...) the prospects for the fair transaction view. I raise both good and bad news for the theory. On the one hand, I show this new approach to consent captures something important when it says that we ought to weigh a number of competing demands fairly. Yet on the other, I argue that this insight is better explained by the larger moral system of ethical pluralism. (shrink)

The subjectivism of the Austrian school of economics is a special case of Dewey's transactional philosophy, also known as pragmatism or pragmatic epistemology. The Austrian economists Carl Friedrich Menger (1840-1921) and Ludwig von Mises (1881-1973) adopted an Aristotelian deductive approach to economic issues such as social behavior and exchange. Like Menger and Mises, Friedrich A. Hayek (1899-1992) viewed scientific knowledge, even in the social sciences, as asserting and aiming for objective certainty. Hayek was particularly critical of attempts to apply the (...) empiricism of the natural sciences in the social sciences. Though Hayek was not a positivist in the sense ascribed to Milton Friedman (1912-), because he accepted the possibility of final, objective certainty, Hayek's view of scientific knowledge was closer to that of the logical positivists of the Vienna circle than to Dewey's pragmatism. Mises' a priorism, asserting and aiming for apodictic certainty, represented a more extreme form of objectivism even than Hayek's. Mises was similar in this regard to non-Austrian axiomatists such as Gerard Debreau (1921-2005), though he joined Hayek in eschewing mathematical formalism. In Dewey's contrasting view, the scientist commends new, alternative ways of knowing to the scientific community, offering more profound insight or more efficacious practical applications. Alternative ways of knowing which do not offer practical or intellectual benefits are to be rejected. Both the radical subjectivism of the Austrian school and Dewey's transactional strategy justify rejection of the mirage of social justice. Dewey's knowledge as ways of knowing suggests a broader and more fundamental critique of the socialist position in the calculation debate. The arguments presented by the Austrian school can be reformulated in terms of Dewey's pragmatic philosophy. (shrink)

Comment penser la politique sans repenser l'essence de l'opinion? Mais comment être encore 'philosophe' si l'on accorde que la doxa manifeste quelque chose de la vérité du monde? Statuer sur ce dilemme demande que soit interrogée la tradition de la philosophie dans sa relation à la politique. D'abord en réhabilitant l'idée d'un sens commun à tous, dont le partage passe par la confrontation des opinions énoncées dans des jugements discordants. Existence partagée supportant hors d'elle de l'impartagé, la démocratie vit sous (...) la condition que libre voix soit inconditionnellement accordée à l'expression des opinions. Ensuite, en donnant à cette existence démocratique, irréductible à un régime, son concept, la transaction. La transaction désigne à la fois une action de reliaison entre des pôles opposés inconciliables et les objets transactionnels dans lesquels se cristallise cette action de façon aléatoire et provisoire. La démocratie n'est rien d'autre que le mouvement qui va de l'action à l'objet qui la fixe puis de l'objet à l'action qui le défait."--Page 4 of cover. (shrink)

This article presents an artistic and political experiment as an effort to advance democratic transactions in the life sciences. Artists built a ‘gender democratic labyrinth’ in Maastricht, in which scientists, women’s groups, people in general, artists, philosophers, politicians, journalists, clinical geneticists and many others interacted and negotiated on the creation of human embryos for medical-scientific research. By taking a gender perspective on the process of democratizing science, we aimed to create a space in which alterity and difference are constitutive elements (...) in the public exchanges on science and technology. The idea to build a labyrinth was theoretically based on the notion of agonistic democracy - in which pluralism is the result of contestations and divisions - and on a notion of science and technology as being contextualized and socialized. (shrink)

Toward the end of his life, the Russian psychologist L.S. Vygotsky turned away from his earlier work that he has become famous for only to sow the seeds for a new theory. In this theory, affect was to play a central role, there was to be a primacy of social relations, and anything mental (mind, thought, self, other, knowledge) was an event rather than a thing. This is essentially a transactional perspective. In this book, the author articulates a transactional psychology (...) of education drawing on the works of G.H. Mead, J. Dewey, G. Bateson, F. Mikhailov, and E. Il'enkov. All theoretical positions are developed out of videotaped exchanges, thereby giving concrete character to every psychological concept articulated. (shrink)

We study the effect of transaction costs (e.g., a trading fee or a transaction tax, like the Tobin tax) on the aggregation of private information in financial markets. We analyze a financial market à la Glosten and Milgrom, in which informed and uninformed traders trade in sequence with a market maker. Traders have to pay a cost in order to trade. We show that, eventually, all informed traders decide not to trade, independently of their private information, i.e., an (...) informational cascade occurs. We replicated our financial market in the laboratory. We found that, in the experiment, informational cascades occur when the theory suggests they should. Nevertheless, the ability of the price to aggregate private information is not significantly affected. (JEL C92, D8, G14). (shrink)

This chapter examines the fair transaction model of informed consent as an alternative to autonomous authorization by research participants. Prevailing ethical thinking about informed consent to clinical research is characterized by theoretical confidence and practical disquiet. On one hand, bioethicists are confident that informed consent is a fundamental norm. On the other hand, they are uneasy about the quality of consent in practice. One major source of this disquiet is substantial evidence of the “therapeutic misconception”—the tendency of patient-subjects in (...) clinical trials to think that participation in research means receiving personalized medical care. This tension between theory and practice relating to informed consent has given rise to a lack of clarity about, and incoherence in, application of theory to practice. This chapter argues that this prevailing pattern of theoretical and practical thinking about informed consent in bioethics is fundamentally flawed. It attributes the problem to the idea that consent is valid only if it constitutes autonomous authorization. It then describes the fair transaction model and highlights its advantages over autonomous authorization. (shrink)

Memory perfttrmattce of 118 individuals who had been iu close dating relationships for at least 3 months was studied. For a memory task ostensibly to be performed by pairs, some Ss were paired..

The concept of “transaction,” introduced by Cramer in his realistic nonlocal interpretation of quantum mechanics (QM), is herein reformulated in the language of the Feynman graphs' technique.

New network technologies are framed as eliminating ‘transaction costs’, a notion first developed in economic theory that now drives the design of market systems. However, the actual promise of the elimination of transaction costs seems unfeasible, because of a cyclical pattern in which network technologies that make that promise create processes of institutionalization that create new forms transaction costs. Nonetheless, the promises legitimize the exemption of innovations of network technologies from critical scrutiny.

Socio-cognitive theory conceptualizes individual contributors as both enactors of cognitive processes and targets of a social context's determinative influences. The present research investigates how contributors’ metacognition or self-beliefs, combine with others’ views of themselves to inform collective team states related to learning about other agents (i.e., transactive memory systems) and forming social attachments with other agents (i.e., collective team identification), both important teamwork states that have implications for team collective intelligence. We test the predictions in a longitudinal study with 78 (...) teams. Additionally, we provide interview data from industry experts in human–artificial intelligence teams. Our findings contribute to an emerging socio-cognitive architecture for COllective HUman-MAchine INtelligence (i.e., COHUMAIN) by articulating its underpinnings in individual and collective cognition and metacognition. Our resulting model has implications for the critical inputs necessary to design and enable a higher level of integration of human and machine teammates. (shrink)

Fields, Chris_The Transactional Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics, by Ruth Kastner.

This chapter will examine the application of international private law-related instruments to the space sector, with a focus on international commercial law and secured transactions law. The chapter will pay special attention to the Space Protocol of the Cape Town Convention, which is an international secured transactions law treaty for the space sector, adopted at a Diplomatic Conference in 2012 under the auspices of the International Institute for the Unification of Private Law (UNIDROIT). As private investment in the space sector (...) grows, alongside the development of innovative technologies such as on-orbit servicing, in-space manufacturing, and software-deployed satellites, the importance of security rights in space assets increases and more deals are concluded with traditional creditor-debtor-type arrangements. This chapter will highlight how these types of arrangements would operate in outer space and the remedies available to creditors in cases of insolvency of a debtor. In examining the Space Protocol, the chapter will also highlight its potential benefits for NewSpace, as well as the safeguards included in the Treaty, keeping in mind the nature of the space industry. The chapter will conclude with an assessment of where the space financing industry presently stands in terms of the financing models being used, the areas it is likely to expand into, and how secured transactions law could become an important part of this. (shrink)

Blended social impact investment transactions, in which multiple types of capital are combined to support attainment of social impact, are a pervasive, yet not closely examined, feature of the SII market. This paper seeks to describe and understand blended SII transactions through the lens of institutional theory. Specifically, we use the institutional logics theoretical frame to shed light on the implications of combining several institutional logics in SII transactions. Consistent with other SII research, we find that parties to blended SII (...) transactions combine financial/commercial and social welfare logics. However, in blended SII transactions, different combinations of these logics are enacted by different stakeholders in a multi-hybrid-logic structure. As such, we propose that blended SII transactions are hybrids-of-hybrids. We argue that it is this hybrids-of-hybrid characteristic that differentiates blended SII transactions from other forms of SII and increases the potential for significant logical misalignment and resultant conflict and contestation. From a business ethics perspective, blended SII transactions cast light on the critical and often unrecognized role that grants and concessionary capital frequently play in enabling SII in not-for-profit, charitable ventures. We speculate that this can distort understanding of SII with adverse implications at the transaction and field levels. (shrink)

The transactional interpretation of quantum mechanics is summarized and various points concerning the transactional interpretation and its relation to the Copenhagen interpretation are considered. Questions concerning mapping the transactional interpretation onto the Copenhagen interpretation, of advanced waves as solutions to proper wave equations, of collapse and the quantum formalism, and of the relation of quantum mechanical interpretations to experimental tests and results are discussed.

In today’s complex selling environment, it is challenging for sales leaders to enhance the effectiveness of their sales teams. The aim of this study is to observe the impact of authentic leadership on salespersons’ internal and external behaviors under B2B selling context [i.e., transactive memory system, innovative work behavior, and customer-directed OCB] and their consequences in team selling performance. Respondents of our survey included salespersons and managers working in the sales departments of pharmaceutical companies. By using structural equation modeling, the (...) dyad responses from 348 matched salespeople–managers were analyzed. The findings disclose that authentic leadership behavior has a stronger relationship with the TMS, innovative work behavior, and customer-directed OCB. Our results also indicate that innovative work behavior and customer-directed OCB are potentially mediated between authentic leadership and team selling performance relationship. The theoretical implication of these results for managerial practice is also discussed. (shrink)

Held at Philadelphia for promoting useful knowledge.

In the history of external information systems, the World Wide Web presents a significant change in terms of the accessibility and amount of available information. Constant access to various kinds of online information has consequences for the way we think, act and remember. Philosophers and cognitive scientists have recently started to examine the interactions between the human mind and the Web, mainly focussing on the way online information influences our biological memory systems. In this article, we use concepts from the (...) extended cognition and distributed cognition frameworks and from transactive memory theory to analyse the cognitive relations between humans and the Web. We first argue that while neither of these approaches neatly capture the nature of human-Web interactions, both offer useful concepts to describe aspects of such interactions. We then conceptualize relations between the Web and its users in terms of cognitive integration, arguing that most current Web applications are not deeply integrated and are better seen as a scaffold for memory and cognition. Some highly personalised applications accessed on wearable computing devices, however, may already have the capacity for deep integration. Finally, we draw out some of the epistemic implications of our cognitive analysis. (shrink)