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Showing papers on "Agency (philosophy) published in 1992"


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: A theory of structure that restores human agency to social actors, builds the possibility of change into the concept of structure, and overcomes the divide between semiotic and materialist visions of structure is proposed in this article.
Abstract: "Structure" is one of the most important, elusive, and undertheorized concepts in the social sciences. Setting out from a critique and reformulation of Anthony Giddens's notion of the duality of structure and Pierre Bourdieu's notion of habitus, this article attempts to develop a theory of structure that restores human agency to social actors, builds the possibility of change into the concept of structure, and overcomes the divide between semiotic and materialist visions of structure. "Structure" is one of the most important and most elusive terms in the vocabulary of current social science. The concept is central not only in such eponymous schools as structural functionalism, structuralism, and poststructuralism, but in virtually all tendencies of social scientific thought. But if social scientists find it impossible to do without the term "structure," we also find it nearly impossible to define it adequately. Many of us have surely had the experience of being asked by a "naive" student what we mean by structure, and then finding it embarrassingly difficult to define the term without using the word "structure" or one of its variants in its own definition. Sometimes we find what seems to be an acceptable synonym-for example, "pattern"-but all such synonyms lack the original's rhetorical force. When it comes to indicating

3,971 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
John Law1
01 Aug 1992
TL;DR: The actor-network theory as discussed by the authors is a body of theoretical and empirical writing which treats social relations, including power and organization, as network effects and argues that society and organization would not exist if they were simply social.
Abstract: This paper describes the theory of the actor-network, a body of theoretical and empirical writing which treats social relations, including power and organization, as network effects. The theory is distinctive because it insists that networks are materially heterogeneous and argues that society and organization would not exist if they were simply social. Agents, texts, devices, architectures are all generated in, form part of, and are essential to, the networks of the social. And in the first instance, all should be analyzed in the same terms. Accordingly, in this view, the task of sociology is to characterize the ways in which materials join together to generate themselves and reproduce institutional and organizational patterns in the networks of the social.

2,439 citations


Book
01 Jan 1992
TL;DR: In this paper, a comparison of electronic mail and face-to-face communication in a programming team face to-face is presented to make network research relevant to practice, and the case of the 128 Venture Group complementary communication media is discussed.
Abstract: Part 1 Linking structure and action: problems of explanation in economic sociology the social structure of competition agency as control in formal networks Nadel's paradox revisited - relational and cultural aspects of organizational structure doing your job and helping your friends - universalistic norms about obligations to particular others in networks structural alignments, individual strategies and managerial action - elements towards a network theory of getting things done. Part 2 Different network ties and their implications: centrality and power in organizations the strength of strong ties - the importance of philos in organizations information and search in the creation of new business ventures - the case of the 128 Venture Group complementary communication media - a comparison of electronic mail and face-to-face communication in a programming team face-to-face - making network organizations work. Part 3 Organizational environmental relations as inter-organizational networks: strategic alliances in commercial biotechnology the make-or-cooperate decision in the context of an industry network competitive co-operation in biotechnology - learning through networks? Part 4 Network forms of organizations: the network organization in theory and practice fragments of a cognitive theory of technological change and organizational structure small-firm networks on the limits of a firm-based theory to explain business networks - the Western bias of neoclassical economics the organization of business networks in the United States and Japan. Conclusion: making network research relevant to practice.

1,988 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
01 Mar 1992-Noûs
TL;DR: The authors argue that practical reason should not be conceived as a faculty for pursuing value and argue that the attitudes motivating intentional actions involve judgments of value, and that their conception of these attitudes is incorrect.
Abstract: The agent portrayed in much philosophy of action is, let's face it, a square. He does nothing intentionally unless he regards it or its consequences as desirable. The reason is that he acts intentionally only when he acts out of a desire for some anticipated outcome; and in desiring that outcome, he must regard it as having some value.2 All of his intentional actions are therefore directed at outcomes regarded sub specie boni: under the guise of the good.3 This agent is conceived as being capable of intentional action-and hence as being an agent-only by virtue of being a pursuer of value. I want to question whether this conception of agency can be correct. Surely, so general a capacity as agency cannot entail so narrow a cast of mind. Our moral psychology has characterized, not the generic agent, but a particular species of agent, and a particularly bland species of agent, at that. It has characterized the earnest agent while ignoring those agents who are disaffected, refractory, silly, satanic, or punk. I hope for a moral psychology that has room for the whole motley crew. I shall begin by examining why some philosophers have thought that the attitudes motivating intentional actions involve judgments of value. I shall then argue that their conception of these attitudes is incorrect. Finally, I shall argue that practical reason should not be conceived as a faculty for pursuing value.

233 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The role of agency in evolutionary theory has been examined in this paper, where the authors provide a context to definition of agency as effective, intentional, unconstrained and reflexive action by individual or collective actors.
Abstract: Agency has long been an important topic in sociological theory. Recently, sociologists have devoted attention to new models of cultural evolution drawn from a variety of disciplines. This paper examines the role of agency in evolutionary theory. We begin by distinguishing evolutionary theory from developmental theories that are usually identified with evolution in discussions of social theory. We then offer an approach to agency and to power grounded in social rule systems theory. These discussions provide a context to definition of agency as effective, intentional, unconstrained and reflexive action by individual or collective actors. Using contemporary evolutionary theory, we consider the circumstances under which individual and collective action can meet these requirements and thus be considered agentic.

121 citations


Book
01 Jan 1992
TL;DR: Unsettling Relations: The University as a Site of Feminist Struggles as discussed by the authors is a collection of challenging and readable essays by five women, each of whom is involved in feminist politics and academic teaching/research.
Abstract: UnsettlingRelations: The University as a Site of Feminist Struggles is a collection of challenging and readable essays by five women, each of whom is involved in feminist politics and academic teaching/research. As its title suggests, the book is concerned with the university as a set of social relations which are involved in the production of power and privilege, together with feminist struggles to resist and change them. Framed in this general way, the book is located intellectually within the now quite long history of feminist critique of the academy as a maledominated, liberal and middle-class preserve. Not surprisingly, therefore, some important parts of its conceptual framework are drawn from previously well-known feminist workparticularly that ofthe feminist sociologist Dorothy Smith. Two features are worth noting here: one is the notion that academic knowledge production is always inscribed within social and cultural relations of ruling. The second is the conviction that authentic (rather than simply 'academic') knowledge is intimately connected with although not a direct reflection ofour bodily, sensuous and practical experiences in daily life. Where the book is quite distinctive is in the sustained, detailed and critical attention it pays to the powers and privileges which are to be found, and which must be challenged, in the social relations of feminist pedagogy and research. Here, the authors' starting point is in more recent critiques of the way that many women have been socially positioned as 'other' and as 'different' by a white, middle-class, heterosexual and able-bodied hegemony in feminist knowledge. As one of the contributors to the volume has written previously, such practices have produced 'silences or absences, creating gaps and fissures through which non-white women, for example, disappear from the social surface' (Bannerji, 1987:11). A further aim of Unsettling Relations, therefore, is to write the experiences of many previously neglected women into analyses of feminist academic relations. In order to achieve this, the introduction describes how each contributor to the volume has been enjoined to centre 'race' and class as well as gender, and to reflexively include a history of her own personal experiences of social positioning, within her chapter. Following a brief 'introduction' to the background and aims of the book, a number of the main themes are developed in the first chapter by Linda Carty. Her own experiences of racism in education are used to illustrate the history of black people's marginalization in academic knowledge including feminist theory, given the construction of whiteness as a 'neutral' reference point. Kari Delhi explores how her whiteness has positioned her in relations of power over other women, and argues that white middle-class women must resist the comforts and seductions of university as 'home'. The third chapter by Himani Bannerji poses the question of why feminist research and pedagogy has been unable to validate non-white women's experiences, subjectivities and direct agency. She then answers this question by providing a critical account of feminist epistemologies (essentialist, politics of difference and Marxist/ socialist), and by arguing for a 'reflexive and relational social analysis which incorporates in it a theory of agency and direct representation based on our experience' (p. 94). One important benefit of this approach is that it works out a political position

98 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The Causal Theory of Action (CTA) as discussed by the authors is a theory of action that is based on the agent-causationist approach to the problem of natural agency.
Abstract: Acknowledgments Introduction Notes Part I. The Problems of Natural Agency: 1. A theory in search of its problem 2. Commitments of the ethical perspective 3. Commitments of the natural perspective 4. The core of the problem of action - and a plausible solution Part II. The Value of a Causal Theory of Action: 1. A traditional approach to the problem of natural agency 2. Is action possible under determination 3. Is action possible under indeterminism? 4. A comparison with Dennett's elbow room 5. The conditional analysis argument Part III. Developing a Causal Theory of Action: 1. Causal analyses of action 2. The challenge of Akrasia Part IV. The Challenge of Causal Deviance: Part V. Coping with Basic Deviance: 1. The promise of the sensitivity strategy 2. Alternative versions of the sensitivity strategy 3. Assessing the sensitivity strategy 4. Sensitive and sustained causation Part VI. Limits for the Causal Theory of Action: 1. Dealing with the Agent-Causationist syndrome 2. The place of the causal theory of action in the wider project of reconciliatory naturalism Bibliography Index.

86 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The most comprehensive work on this subject is the recent book The Ethics of International Business by Thomas Donaldson as discussed by the authors, which sets out a realist defense of the claim that in the absence of an international enforcement agency, multinational corporations operating in a competitive international environment cannot be said to have a moral obligation to contribute to the international common good, provided that interactions are nonrepetitive and pro-vided effective signals of agent reliability are not possible.
Abstract: The author sets out a realist defense of the claim that in the absence of an international enforcement agency, multinational corpo? rations operating in a competitive international environment cannot be said to have a moral obligation to contribute to the international common good, provided that interactions are nonrepetitive and pro? vided effective signals of agent reliability are not possible. Examples of international common goods that meet these conditions are sup? port of the global ozone layer and avoidance of the global greenhouse effect. Pointing out that the conclusion that multinationals have no moral obligations in these areas is deplorable, the author urges the establishment of an international enforcement agency. DURING the last few years an increasing number of voices have urged that we pay more attention to ethics in international business, on the grounds that not only are all large corporations now internationally struc- tured and thus engaging in international transactions, but that even the smallest domestic firm is increasingly buffeted by the pressures of interna? tional competition.1 This call for increased attention to international busi? ness ethics has been answered by a slowly growing collection of ethicists who have begun to address issues in this field. The most comprehensive work on this subject to date is the recent book The Ethics of International Business by Thomas Donaldson.2 I want in this article to discuss certain realist objections to bringing ethics to bear on international transactions, an issue that, I believe, has not yet been either sufficiently acknowledged nor adequately addressed but that must be resolved if the topic of international business ethics is to proceed on solid foundations. Even so careful a writer as Thomas Donaldson fails to address this issue in its proper complexity. Oddly enough, in the first chapter where one would expect him to argue that, in spite of realist objections, businesses have international moral obligations, Donaldson argues only for the less perti- nent claim that, in spite of realist objections, states have international moral obligations.3 But international business organizations, I will argue, have special features that render realist objections quite compelling. The question I want to address, here, then, is a particular aspect of the question Donaldson and others have ignored: Can we say that businesses operating in a competitive interna? tional environment have any moral obligations to contribute to the interna- ?1992. Business Ethics Quarterly, Volume 2, Issue 1. ISSN 1052-150X. 0027-0040.

76 citations


Book
01 Jan 1992
TL;DR: In this article, the authors discuss the relationship between the public sphere and the pedagogy and citizenship of the people in the material world, and the ties that bind new discursive spaces.
Abstract: Introduction: Radical Epistemologies Culture and Pedagogy: Theories of Oppositional Practice Living in the Material World: Institutions and Economies Is There a Class in This Text?: Writers, Readers, and the Contest of Meaning Community and Agency: The Ties That Bind New Discursive Spaces: Reinventing the Public Sphere Changing the Subject: Pedagogy and Citizenship Selected Bibliography Index

70 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: Internalism of this variety of judgment internalism is referred to as existence internalism as mentioned in this paper, which is defined as "the view that an ethical judgment is true only if its grounds are themselves reasons to act, both justificationally and (at least potentially) motivationally".
Abstract: As interest has refocused in recent years on fundamental questions of metaethics, a group of loosely-related ideas collectively referred to as internalism have come in for increasing attention and controversy. A good example would be recent debates about moral realism where question of the relation between ethics (or ethical judgment) and the will has come to loom large.1 Unfortunately, however, the range of positions labelled internalist in ethical writing is bewilderingly large, and only infrequently are important distinctions kept clear.2 Sometimes writers have in mind the view that sincere assent to a moral (or, more generally, an ethical) judgment concerning what one should do is necessarily connected to motivation (actual or dispositional).3 This necessity may be conceptual, or perhaps metaphysical, the thought being that it is not merely a contingent matter that people have motives to do what they think or sincerely say they should. I call internalism of this variety judgment internalism and distinguish it from another set of theses that concern, not what it is to accept an ethical judgment, but what it is for such a judgment to be true.4 According to existence internalism, someone morally (or ethically) ought to do something only if, necessarily, she (the agent) has (actually or dispositionally) motives to do so. Again, this necessity might be conceptual or metaphysical, the thought being that it is not merely a contingent matter that agents have motives to act as they ought. Already, several comments are necessary. It may be wondered, for example, what the point is of adding 'ethical' to 'moral' in these two formulations. Falk is generally read as having originally introduced 'internalism' to refer to a view about the moral 'ought', viz., that, necessarily, an agent morally ought to do something, say A, only if she has a motive to A.5 Falk did not distinguish between this claim and the thesis that, necessarily, an agent morally ought to A only if there exists reason or justification for her to do so. Indeed, the view he had in mind was that a moral 'ought' claim is true only if its grounds are themselves reasons to act, both justificationally and (at least potentially) motivationally.6 These claims came to the same thing

53 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, a critique is presented of the powerful discourse of the autonomous subject based on humanistic psychology which, it is argued, has shaped adult education in a misleading, inappropriate and unhelpful way.
Abstract: The concepts of experience and experiential learning are of critical significance in both the study and practice of adult education. Adults are seen as uniquely characterised by their experience, experiential learning an alternative to didactic and knowledge-based modes of education. In this paper a critique is presented of the powerful discourse of the autonomous subject based on humanistic psychology which, it is argued, has shaped adult education in a misleading, inappropriate and unhelpful way. A postmodern perspective drawing on Continental philosophy is utilised. The ‘situated’ subject provides a conception of subjectivity and experience which preserves a needed dimension of agency whilst avoiding psychologism and individualism.

Journal ArticleDOI
01 Jan 1992
TL;DR: Language acquires life and historically evolves precisely here, in concrete verbal communication, and not in the abstract linguistic system of language forms, nor in the individual psyche of speakers as mentioned in this paper.
Abstract: Language acquires life and historically evolves precisely here, in concrete verbal communication, and not in the abstract linguistic system of language forms, nor in the individual psyche of speakers.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors consider the interplay between processes of domination and resistance within Indian civil society and consider how movement character and agency are mediated by place, and explore this theme within the context of contemporary Indian society which has seen the recent emergence of place-specific, autonomous social movements.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The emergence of gender as a category of historical analysis and the growing importance of language in the theory and practice of social history have undermined the stability of the historical and analytical vocabulary of social and labor history, especially of the concepts of experience, agency, and class.
Abstract: CLASS FORMATION IS ONE OF THE MOST IMPORTANT MARKERS of the economic and social transformation of nineteenth-century Europe, of the dissolution of feudal estate society and the rise of a modern, industrial urban society. "Class" is also a keyword in the vocabulary of social and labor history, one that occupies a central place in a process of rethinking and recasting the conceptual framework of social history that is currently under way in the United States, Britain, and France.' The emergence of gender as a category of historical analysis and the growing importance of language in the theory and practice of social history have undermined the stability of the historical and analytical vocabulary of social and labor history, especially of the concepts of experience, agency, and class. The "linguistic turn" combined with the theoretical innovations of feminist history have resulted in a "disorienting" epistemological crisis in social history, during which the concepts of class and class formation have been challenged and redefined.2

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, a classificatory scheme of four "sources of obligation" is proposed for the analysis of the basis of agreements, which can help to avoid one-sided attention to, for example, formal, legally enforceable agreements.
Abstract: Recently, economists have directed attention to the phenomenon of organization. An important difference between the newly developed economic theories of organization, such as for example agency theory, and sociological theories of organization is the fact that economists explicitly employ an individual utility maximization assumption. In this paper, it is reasoned that this assumption, if used as in agency theory, entails logical inconsistencies if we try to explain the existence of the kind of agreements that purportedly form the basis of organiza tions. However, if the condition of uncertainty — to which agency theorists merely pay lip—service — is taken seriously, the observed inconsistencies can be reconciled. A classificatory scheme of four 'sources of obligation' is proposed for the analysis of the basis of agreements. Taking all four sources into consideration in the analysis of organizational agreements can help to avoid one-sided attention to, for example, formal, legally enforceable agreements. ...

Posted Content
TL;DR: In this article, a classificatory scheme of four "sources of obligation" is proposed for the analysis of the basis of agreements, which can help to avoid one-sided attention to, for example, formal, legally enforceable agreements.
Abstract: Recently, economists have directed attention to the phenomenon of organization. An important difference between the newly developed economic theories of organization, such as for example agency theory, and sociological theories of organization is the fact that economists explicitly employ an individual utility maximization assumption. In this paper, it is reasoned that this assumption, if used as in agency theory, entails logical inconsistencies if we try to explain the existence of the kind of agreements that purportedly form the basis of organiza tions. However, if the condition of uncertainty — to which agency theorists merely pay lip—service — is taken seriously, the observed inconsistencies can be reconciled. A classificatory scheme of four 'sources of obligation' is proposed for the analysis of the basis of agreements. Taking all four sources into consideration in the analysis of organizational agreements can help to avoid one-sided attention to, for example, formal, legally enforceable agreements. ...

Journal Article
TL;DR: This paper is critical of observers who suggest that the way ahead is to embrace post-modern research strategies, and argues that these problems result from a partial and contradictory appropriation of the discourse of new social movements.
Abstract: This paper discusses theoretical, methodological and political problems in the field of health promotion research. It argues that these problems result from a partial and contradictory appropriation of the discourse of new social movements. Politically, the health promotion movement is largely confined within the state, rather than the expression of a social movement against the state. The direction of health promotion research and policy is, therefore, caught in the bureaucratic logic of "trapped administrators", and results in contradictory emphases on problems like the development of "health promotion indicators", which show little result in informing a broader but coherent conceptualization of health, let alone in effecting change in health policy and outcomes. Such political problems reflect parallel confusions about theory and methodology. Theoretically, the field relies heavily on a critique of bio-medical science, but fails to move beyond a rhetorical outline of an alternative to systematic arguments about what promotes health. In this regard, the literature on health promotion remains unaware of important conceptual developments in the social sciences, relies on imprecise specifications of major constructs like community empowerment, and has no conception of the state. Methodologically, the literature is influenced by contradictory epistemological tendencies which reflect a positivist inspiration (as in the search for indicators) and an anti-positivist emphasis on agency and social change through the collective action and the discursive reconstitution of social identity, value and meaning. In regard to these questions, this paper is critical of observers who suggest that the way ahead is to embrace post-modern research strategies.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)

Journal ArticleDOI
22 Jan 1992-October
TL;DR: The cold war, which dominated nearly all U.S. public life for most of the latter half of this century, interrupted a debate about the crisis in modernity that had erupted at the turn of the century and occupied much of philosophical and social thought until World War II as mentioned in this paper.
Abstract: The cold war, which dominated nearly all U.S. public life for most of the latter half of this century, interrupted a debate about the crisis in modernity that had erupted at the turn of the century and occupied much of philosophical and social thought until World War II. Most anti-Stalinist intellectuals were fiercely committed to modernity's putative achievements-individualism, democracy, and social (if not always cultural) pluralism-which had their basis in ideas as old as the era of revolution that accompanied the rise of the middle class in the seventeenth century and reached their apogee with the liberal revolutions during the following two centuries. For both socialist intellectuals and the modern liberals who presupposed them, these values were typically framed in terms ineluctably connected to universalism and its cardinal principle, faith in progress. According to this doctrine, the history of humankind was, in Croce's felicitous phrase, "the story of liberty."' Featured in this narrative were the beneficent effects of industrialism driven by scientific and technological knowledge and the division of labor, which stood alongside liberal democracy and individual rights as goals whose achievement was as inevitable as the eventual eradication of poverty and hunger. At the center of progressivism-the political expression of modernity-was the striving individual. Yet one of the perplexing questions for Anglo-American philosophy was how to establish the ground for individuality in an increasingly complex social world dominated by the growth of large economic enterprises protected by a centralized state. The proposition that the individual is identical with itself is one about which Locke had no doubt. For even if identity cannot be established by the positing of unique substance, the agency of reflexive consciousness, of which memory is the crucial faculty, unites past and present.2 Locke's doctrine of conscious-

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, the authors suggest that the notion of "socialism as an ideology and a structure of institutional practices derived from it" should be disentangled for the sake of accurate analysis.
Abstract: A familiar concept of socialism suggests defining it as 'an ideology, and a structure of institutional practices derived from it, which treats the State as the key agency of direct economic planning and management, and which therefore attempts to allocate resources according to priorities established by the State, rather than through the alternative mechanisms provided by the market' .l I suggest, for the sake of accurate analysis, that the 'ideology' and the 'structure' should be disentangled, because socialism as an ideology never contemplated the state as the producer. Moralist socialism emphasised equity; Marxist socialism emphasised the 'withering away of the state', as harmony between forces and relations of production was to be restored. It would follow from the above-mentioned definition of socialism that people are attracted first to the ideology, then 'a structure of institutional practices derived from it' is subsequently adopted which places the state at the central point. It should follow, by contrast, that if the ideology is accepted subsequent to the exercise of practices that place the state at the centre, any talk about socialism must be rather inaccurate (that is, because the 'structure of institutional practices' is supposed to be derived from the 'ideology', not the other way round). Furthermore, to identify socialism as a system that 'treats the State as the key agency of direct economic planning and management' would lead us astray in the Middle East. Although I do not intend to dwell on this point at any great length, careful empirical study indicates that the economic role of the state has grown remarkably since the 1950s in all Arab states (and in Iran), with the only exception of Lebanon (where the state might well have withered away altogether!). More specifically the direct role of the state in economic planning and management is not confined to the so-called radical (or socialist) regimes: countries like 'conservative' Saudi Arabia and 'Islamic' Iran possess planning mechanisms and public sectors that are easily comparable in size and role with those of the 'socialist' states.2 I now present some facts to illustrate these two points.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, the authors focus on the role of the audience in the performance of dance, arguing that "the audience is intrinsically unstable, both in terms of its own presence and in its ability to occasion and then disrupt the very anxiety of performance".
Abstract: The distance between representation and object has engaged the intellectual energies of those writing on dance as a kind of bricolage where the dance event appears to occasion writerly structure. These energies have been occupied in writing on other objects by a theory that simulates the complexity of the object in the writing itself. The traces of participation, the work an audience does to create a sense of the object as it is presented to them, are nowhere to be found in the standard means of representation and documentation and, as such, are absent from the ways in which history is conventionally conceived. Reception of dance, especially of the kinds of Western concert dance that will provide the focus for this essay, is realized only in the particular performance event. The dancers constitute themselves in anticipation of performance. This anticipation bears the anxiety of uncertainty, of something that can be completed only through its communication. The performance is the execution of an idea by dancers whose work proceeds in expectation of an audience that is itself only constituted through performance. The audience has no identity as audience prior to and apart from the performative agency which has occasioned it. As such, the audience is intrinsically "unstable," both in terms of its own presence and in its ability to occasion and then disrupt the very anxiety of performance. At the same time, it is the work that the audience does, the participation that it lends to performance to make the latter possible that is irrecuperable to representation. It is, like the dance activity itself, an untranslatable object. But unlike dancing, forms of representation rarely make an effort to recognize audience participation, which springs from this disruptive potential, itself an indeterminacy of representation internal to the performance. So if writing and documentation cannot recuperate the traces of participation found in performance, minimally they can recognize the disruptive effects of the work of participation lost to representation. The shift in perspective to participation rather than representation as suggested by the conceptual challenges posed by dance, here understood as the particularization of the performer-audience relation, has an import beyond dance writing. This perspective simulates a relation of performer and audience where the activity of performers (the artistic object of performance) puts into operation the notion of "agency," and where the audience suggests a mobilized critical presence such as that implicit in radical notions of "history."'

Book
01 Jan 1992
TL;DR: The Dictionary of Chemical Names and Synonyms as discussed by the authors provides critical information on the identity of chemicals and allows cross-referencing between the diverse nomenclatures used by various scientific disciplines that deal with chemicals.
Abstract: Dictionary of Chemical Names and Synonyms is an important book containing essential information about more than 20,000 chemicals. The book covers chemicals on the U.S. Government's List of Lists and chemicals regulated by the Environmental Protection Agency, Food and Drug Administration, Department of Agriculture, Department of Transportation, International Trade Commission, and Occupational Safety and Health Administration. Other chemicals listed include those found in the Hazardous Substances Data Bank, the Toxic Substances Control Act Test Submissions (TSCATS) database, and the Environmental Fate Databases. Significant commercial chemicals are covered, as well. Dictionary of Chemical Names and Synonyms provides critical information on the identity of chemicals and allows cross-referencing between the diverse nomenclatures used by the various scientific disciplines that deal with chemicals. In addition, over half the discrete chemicals in this book have SMILES structural notations to further assist in identifying the compound. The book is indexed in the following manner: CAS Registry Numbers Chemical names and synonyms Chemical formulas This book is critical for chemical manufacturers; industrial health and safety officers; persons responsible for disposal of chemicals; persons responsible and interested in Community Right to Know and Workers Right to Know programs; individuals responsible for ordering and receiving chemicals; persons maintaining public and academic libraries; and all persons working around chemicals or concerned with chemicals in the environment, including environmental engineers, toxicologists, industrial hygienists, and chemists. List Information Several lists have been used in this compilation to insure that all significant chemicals would be included: * U.S. EPA Toxic Substances Control Act Test Submissions * U.S. EPA Environmental Fate Data Base * National Library of Medicine's ChemID SUPERLIST * NLM Hazardous Substances Data Bank * FATE/EXPOS file * National Toxicology Program's tested and considered chemicals

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, the authors conceptualized the problem in game-theoretic terms and proposed a solution together with an old dilemma that turns up in this context, which is the fact that the protective agency has to be endowed with sufficiently powerful coercive means to prevent anyone breaking the social contract, but this concentration of power itself may induce a violation by making the protective agent usurp its power.
Abstract: In the last decades' revival of contractarianism a constitutional contract is interpreted as a device to overcome the hypothetical state of anarchy. It is not entirely clear, however, how, in a pre-constitutional setting that lacks any institutional forms, an unanimous agreement on the rules and the agency enforcing the rules can be imagined to emerge. This paper conceptualizes the problem in game-theoretic terms. A solution is discussed together with an old dilemma that turns up in this context. The dilemma results from the fact that the protective agency has to be endowed with sufficiently powerful coercive means to prevent anyone breaking the social contract. However, this concentration of power itself may induce a violation by making the protective agency usurp its power. The logical basis of the dilemma is explored together with the conditions under which it may challenge the contractarian approach.


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The debate in this paper between Anne Rawls (1987, 1988) and Stephan Fuchs (1988, 1989), on the nature of the interaction order and on Goffman's contribution to its theorization, raises issues that are at the core of the micro-macro controversy in sociology.
Abstract: The debate in this journal between Anne Rawls (1987, 1988) and Stephan Fuchs (1988, 1989), on the nature of the interaction order and on Goffman's contribution to its theorization, raises issues that are at the core of the micro-macro controversy in sociology.1 According to Rawls, Goffman's work points to an interaction order sui generis: an order that can be derived neither from macro social structures or the "institutional order," nor by focusing on individual agency. His interaction order is based on constraints and moral ground rules that emanate from the interaction situation itself, particularly from the "presentational" needs of the social self. Fuchs, on the other hand, argues that Rawls does not manage to demonstrate convincingly the difference between ground rules specific to the interaction order and other types of rule; because of this she fails to define precisely what constitutes the interaction order. According to Fuchs, Luhmann's (1982) distinction between interaction, organizational, and societal systems provides a better basis for finding out what makes the interaction order unique. From this perspective,

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The authors argue for a new conception of human agency based on culturopoeia and an application of an ecofeminist dialogic method for analysing human-nature relationships, with the idea of volitional interdependence replacing ideas of free will and determinism.
Abstract: Beginning with a critique of the Enlightenment human/nature dualism, this essay argues for a new conception of human agency based on culturopoeia and an application of an ecofeminist dialogic method for analysing human-nature relationships, with the idea of volitional interdependence replacing ideas of free will and determinism. Further, it posits that we need to replace the alienational model of otherness based on a psychoanalytic model with a relational model of anotherness based on an ecological model, and concludes by encouraging attention to developing bioregional natured cultures in place of nation states and multinational corporations.

01 Jan 1992
TL;DR: In the context of institutional discovery the kibbutz is a fascinating topic, especially because it is founded on the basic values of liberal thought : freedom of entry and exit, and respect for human dignity as mentioned in this paper.
Abstract: In the last two decades economists and lawyers have developed formidable new tools for the analysis of institutions. There is a broad variety of theories ranging from the original property rights approaches to the sophisticated variants of long-term contract and agency explanations. To this richness in theory, however, there still corresponds a relative poverty on the empirical side. In the area of long-term contracting and corporate cooperation (which is my field of research) there are many interesting unexplored arrangements for which the library computer hardly shows a single entry. In contrast, the entry kibbutz may be called a student's dream. Here, the computer printer panicks like a gambling machine at the jackpot. No doubt, the kibbutz is an academic success, but this is not to say that we know enough about it. It is new terrain for the New Institutional Economics, and, I am sure, Dr. Helman's [1992] paper will stimulate further discussion. The paper deals with a number of questions which go to the foundations of institutional economics and - 1 may add - sometimes beyond. Though I share the admiration for the vitality of the kibbutz movement, I nevertheless hesitate to draw conclusions of the general kind which Dr. Helman suggests. One of the important messages of the New Institutional Economics seems to be that simple models with grand labels may have less explanatory value than people were wont to assume. Communism, Capitalism, and the Third Way are such grand labels. In the past they have certainly influenced peoples' conception of social organization but, on the whole, they seem to have produced more questions than answers. The New Institutional Economics, as I understand it, is not concerned with the context of justifying general models of organization or a specific path of social choice. Rather, it deals with the context of discovering institutional variety and its internal logic, with the aim of facilitating rational choice by human actors. In this context of institutional discovery the kibbutz is a fascinating topic, especially because it is founded on the basic values of liberal thought : freedom of entry and exit, and respect for human dignity.


Book
01 Jan 1992
TL;DR: O'Hara as discussed by the authors argues that doing theory, specifically after Foucault, does have social and ethical consequences, and "radical parody" demonstrates why this is so, and also incorporates into this social context the later work of Kristeva on identification and identity formation.
Abstract: A persistent criticism of theory in general and of Foucault in particular is that no positive social or ethical consequences result from the practice of theory. Critics from all points on the political spectrum seem to agree on this point. Daniel O'Hara here demonstrates the social uses of interpretation by analyzing the later writings of Foucault and the careers of critics in relation to Foucault's work, including Derrida, Kristeva, Said, Rorty, Harold Bloom, and others. O'Hara's position is that "doing theory", specifically after Foucault, does have social and ethical consequences, and "radical parody" demonstrates why this is so. It also incorporates into this social context the later work of Kristeva on identification and identity formation. O'Hara shows that "culture is a collective archive of canonical and non-canonical practices of self, a treasure hoard of masks or personnae". For O'Hara, radical parody thus "defines the postmodern experience of the sublime play of discourses in the formation of critical identity". Throughout, O'Hara is interested in what it means to be an "oppositional intellectual", and in what interpretation is and can mean in a culture dominated by a "widespread commodification of intellectual life". The book concludes with a critical profile of Frank Lentricchia, a critic whose career as an oppositional American intellectual O'Hara finds exemplary.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: Lesbian Ethics as discussed by the authors is a work that emerges from and acknowledges a context of oppression, and it patterns a moral agency that presupposes not privileged agency but rather agency under oppression-agency emerging in contexts in which one is coerced, in which a person might use one's strategies of survival against one's own kind, and one might even be demoralized by those who oppress.
Abstract: Lesbian Ethics (Hoagland 1988) is a work that emerges from and acknowledges a context of oppression. It patterns a moral agency that presupposes not privileged agency but rather agency under oppression-agency emerging in contexts in which one is coerced, in which one has developed modes of acquiescence and resistance, in which one might use one's strategies of survival against one's own kind, in which one might even be demoralized by those who oppress. Thus, in embarking on Lesbian Ethics I did not begin with traditional Anglo-European ethics, because I felt that if I started there, I would never get out of its conceptual framework. Instead, I focused on what was actually going on in lesbian communities. As my work proceeded, it became clear why a concept from Anglo-European ethics, such as duty, was inadequate-indeed, undermined rather than promoted community. I also began to realize that distinct, and in some cases unique, concepts were emerging through lesbian interacting.1 In claiming a lesbian focus, I began to notice things I had not noticed when my focus was on men or on women. And I found that at this point in time, at least, lesbian existence creates certain conceptual possibilities that can effect conceptual shifts and transform con