Ontological Choices Research Articles

How to ‘catch’ floating populations? Research and the fixing of migration in space and time

The recent ‘mobilities turn’ in the social sciences suggests that research always fixes mobility somehow in time and space, in order to understand it. Migration, being a form of mobility, has to be fixed on certain times and spaces in order to make it possible to define and research it. Being a geographer, I build on this insight in the first part of the article to re-read the critiques on post-war methodological nationalism. Reflecting on my own past research practice, I argue in the second part that leaving behind the methodological nationalism paradigm does not mean leaving behind the necessity to fix migration in time and space, on either the ontological or the practical methodological level. New ways of fixing are chosen and, out of recurring ontological and methodological choices, new migration stereotypes are developing such as what might be called ‘methodological ruralism’ in the case of Romanian migration.

A questão do método e da metodologia: uma análise da produção acadêmica sobre professores(as) da região Centro-Oeste/Brasil

O objetivo deste artigo é discutir a questão do método e da metodologia desenvolvidos na produção acadêmica sobre os professores(as) dos Programas de Pós-Graduação em Educação da Região Centro-Oeste, período 1995 a 2009. As atividades já realizadas abrangem levantamento da produção, leitura integral dos trabalhos, fichamento e análise. Elegeu-se as seguintes categorias de análise: tema, referencial teórico, método, metodologia, tipo de pesquisa, concepções de educação e de professor. Os resultados demonstram as dificuldades na busca do posicionamento conceitual e aprimoramento metódico e metodológico da produção. Apontam para a necessidade de maior rigor teórico-metodológico, o que implica na clareza da intencionalidade metódica, das escolhas ontológicas e gnosiológicas dos pesquisadores.

The Status of Ideas in Controversies on Public Policy. Analyzing Beliefs as Dependent Variables: A Case study on Harm Reduction Policies in Switzerland

1 Introduction The question raised in this article is about how to theoretically and methodologically apprehend public policy controversies (1). More precisely, the role of ideas during public policy controversies between different policy coalitions is put into perspective. The starting point is the will to analytically construct ideas as dependent variables. Public policy scholars have underlined the confusion that lies at the heart of public policy analysis, where the status of ideas as causes or as variables is often blurred (Hassenteufel/Smith 2002: 60). When ideas are considered as independent variables, the analysis is likely to be more descriptive than explicative. In order to construct ideas as dependent variables, the focus has to be on the progressive formation of belief through the coalitions' adversarial activities. Hence, what will be questioned here is the process by which individuals do engage--or not-in public policy debate regarding harm reduction. We will not consider actors' engagement in a cause as unilaterally deriving from their beliefs. This line of questioning is closely linked to the ontological and epistemological choices. We assume that a processualist ontological stance is well-fitted to avoid the tautology induced by considering ideas as deja-la. By viewing militant commitment as a social and dynamic activity, a processualist focus highlights how ideas occur in the course of action (Fillieule 2001: 199-200). From this point of view, mobilized groups are by no means seen as preexisting entities driven by fixed ideas (Offerle 1994). This is particularly salient in the case of highly emotional controversies, where actors' ideas are often considered as if they had always existed. Furthermore, actors engaged in the same struggle do not necessarily share homogenous beliefs. Analyzing the heterogeneity of investments enables to understand the dynamics of the collective action (Mathieu 2004: 19). Similarly, the focus on the process of idea formation during policy controversies provides an opportunity to attain a deep understanding of the dynamics of the controversy. Analyzing ideas as dependent variables has important methodological repercussions. It shifts the location to where the explicative factors -and hence the data- are searched. The present reflection on public policy controversies is based on a case study research on harm reduction policies in matters of drug addiction in two Swiss cantons, Vaud and Geneva. The theoretical starting point of this study is the Advocacy Coalition Framework (ACF). Daniel Kubler (2000) has convincingly illustrated that this particular subject is well captured with the help of ACF's theoretical framework. The formulation of harm reduction policies are regularly the scene of sharp confrontations between policy coalitions, and ACF's concepts are particularly well-suited to the analysis of the Swiss multilevel politico-administrative system. Meanwhile, the benefits of using concepts from the social movement theory (Kubler 2001: 623) or the political sociology (Hassenteufel/Smith 2002: 63) in the public policy analysis has been asserted. The paper is structured as follows: In the first section, we review the contributions of the ACF to public policy analysis, and point out two theoretical points that appeared to be worth specification in the light of our case studies. These two points, already identified in the literature, concern the study of the long-term coalitions' birth and structuring process (Kubler 2001: 623; Schlager 1995), and the analysis of the specific arenas where the controversy takes place (Hassenteufel/Smith 2002:70-71; Muller 2006: 52). The second section is a theoretical discussion where we detail the concepts drawn from political sociology we used in our study. In the third section, we discuss the methodological operationalization of these concepts. We finally turn to the case studies on harm reduction policies. 2 Advocacy Coalition Framework By founding the Advocacy Coalition Framework at the end of the 1980s, Paul A. …

Basis for a general theory of organizations

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to identify the conceptual basis shared by different theories, regardless of the unit of analysis they specifically adopt. The different ontological choice (or different segment of reality studied by each theory) does not hinder conceptual common ground for a good number of organisational theories.Design/methodology/approach – The paper highlights the importance of hierarchical, social and institutional relations and of the technological, cognitive, social and institutional contents. It looks at the common conceptual contents of the two main theories examined, and those of a wide set of other theories addressed here. Both of the theories examined are interpreted in terms of relations and contents, taking a closer look at the passageways and walls that exist between them.Findings – Ontological and conceptual bases for the analysis of organisational theories are established.Research limitations/implications – The proposal of a common background from which one can exami...

Out of joint: Memento as Contemporary Hamlet

Out of joint:Memento as Contemporary Hamlet Eric S. Mallin (bio) Isn't storytelling always a search for origins, an account of one's entanglements with the Law, an entry into the dialectic of tenderness and hate? —Roland Barthes1 I. The story This essay is a study in aesthetic resemblance, and, in a way, influence. Unlike traditional explorations of influence, however, my reading does not admit of cause and effect, and the ideas of mimicry or conventional adaptation do not belong here. Specifically, I am interested in the ways Shakespeare's Hamlet and Christopher Nolan's Memento (Sony Pictures/ Newmarket Video, 2001) converse with, sanction, and revise one another. This reciprocity works in thematic terms, but it also has potent formal and narrative consequences. The film conducts its intimate relationship with Hamlet through its deformation of the revenge genre, but also through subtler discourses of memory and temporality that structure both works. Nolan's film contains some features that readers of Shakespeare will recognize as part of Hamlet's signature concerns. The hero must commit revenge to correct an intolerable present. He experiences uncertainties of thought and recollection at a time when self-confrontation or doubt could be fatal. He is unsure about the proper course of action, but his uncertainty fails to prevent him from performing acts of awful, unlamented violence. [End Page 297] In the case of the film, some of these concerns arise from its acknowledged source text—"Memento Mori," a short story by Jonathan Nolan, the director's brother. The brief tale features a man with amnesia, trapped in a mental institution after criminals raped and murdered his wife. He cannot recall the crime in full (or much of anything), but he vows that somehow, to give his life purpose, he will find the killers. Here is Nolan's half-mad protagonist in second-person, interior monologue: . . . Your life is over. You're a dead man. The only thing the doctors are hoping to do is teach you to be less of a burden to the orderlies. And they'll probably never let you go home, wherever that would be. So the question is not "to be or not to be," because you aren't. The question is whether you want to do something about it. Whether revenge matters to you. It does to most people. For a few weeks, they plot, they scheme, they take measures to get even. But the passage of time is all it takes to erode that initial impulse. Time is theft, isn't that what they say? And time eventually convinces most of us that forgiveness is a virtue. Conveniently, cowardice and forgiveness look identical at a certain distance. Time steals your nerve. (Desmond and Hawkes, 2005: 140).2 From such thin threads are major works spun. We see a nice set of variations on Hamlet here, which Christopher Nolan will take up. Trapped as he is by the "orderlies," the hero explicitly rejects a Hamlet parallel by imagining himself as bereft of ontological choice, even in some respects his own ghost, a living nonentity: "the question is not 'to be or not to be,' because you aren't." He is post-Hamlet, or already not-being, with revenge his only option for self-creation. Then, in an admirable play on Hamlet's own conclusion to the famous soliloquy, "thus conscience does make cowards of us all" (3.1. 82), the speaker realizes that time itself performs the cowardizing, acclimates the person to his fear and instills the need for forgiveness.3 So if he is to exact his revenge, he needs a way to escape the temporal, which first involves physically escaping the orderlies, keepers of repressive order. There is no real escape in "Memento Mori," which juggles ambiguous [End Page 298] endings that may signify the hero's successful act of revenge or his incarceration after a murder. But the story contains much that points to Hamlet, even beyond the citation and rejection of "to be or not to be." The tale follows a protagonist whose actions put him in jeopardy; whose desire for vengeance is a factor of time and memory; and most important, whose commitment...

PERCEPTUAL KNOWLEDGE AND THE METAPHYSICS OF EXPERIENCE

There is a long-standing tradition in philosophy that certain metaphysical theories of perceptual experience, if true, would lead to scepticism about the external world, whereas other theories, if true, would develop a non-sceptical epistemology. I investigate these claims in the context of current metaphysical theories of sense-perception and argue that choice of perceptual ontology is of very limited help in developing a non-sceptical epistemology. Theorists who hold that perception is an intentional state have some advantage in explaining how perceptual experiences serve as justifying reasons for empirical beliefs. Alston and others have argued that a successful defence of a contemporary version of naive realism would secure further epistemological advantages. I argue that this is not the case. A complete explanation of experience's reason-giving power involves factors beyond the metaphysical nature of experience.

Levels and Agents, States and People: Micro-Historical Sociological Analysis and International Relations

The historical sociology of international relations is becoming an increasingly prominent field of enquiry. While advocates of an international historical sociology (IHS) have delivered a range of outstanding contributions, they have tended to revolve around the macro-scale, dealing with sweeping grand themes such as the nature of civilizations, the creation of world order, the advent of modernity, and the purpose and formation of the state. This article makes the case for incorporating micro-historical sociological analysis into IHS as a means of complementing already existing analyses, and providing a more rounded field of enquiry. The article argues that the micro–macro issue is an analytic strategy rather than an ontological choice, illustrating this point through a historical institutionalist variant of foreign policy analysis.

Jorge Luis Borges's "Funes the Memorious": A Philosophical Narrative

Jorge Luis Borges's "Funes the Memorious":A Philosophical Narrative Edmond Wright In his initial remarks on language in the Essay concerning Human Understanding, John Locke has this to say about the problem of choosing from the chaos of sensation what to give a name to, for it is obvious that, if we were quite arbitrary about it, we could give a name not just to any-thing but to every instantaneous choice from our sensory experience: The multiplication of words would have perplexed their use, had every particular thing need of a distinct name to be signified by. (III, I, 3) This is a fantasy of an absolute nominalism, in which the Real is taken to be categorizable as an all-embracing infinity of particulars matching an infinity of words. It reminds us of one of Bertrand Russell's comments, that finally, to banish all sameness from the "common" referent, one would have to have a word for every infinitesimal instant of every object, hapax legomena, a language of "once-only-names" (Russell 1923: 85). For example, if I now pick out the present momentary co-existence of this part of this wood-grain in the table in front of me with my finger under the precise conditions of light from the window at this instant of time, and call this chance concatenation "Jabberwocky" or "Wakdjunkaga," it is plain that I shall have to multiply my ontological choice at the very next instant, for that object has already ceased to be, since my finger has moved, the light has changed, and no doubt some of the dust that lay on the table has already been blown away by my breath. As an inevitable result of this profligacy with entities, there will be no end to their number. There will be "an explosion of entities" in the universe, as the philosopher Ernest Sosa would say (1987: 155–87). What immediately strikes any sensible person is the utter uselessness of such a language. Not only would it be drowned in its own meticulousness, but it would have no link with human purposes, social or personal. This is the predicament into which Borges places his Ireneo Funes. One can reach a similar conclusion another way. You have heard of the monkey typing forever on a typewriter with the result that it would finally type out all of Shakespeare. One can add to that, for if it went on typing to eternity, it would inevitably type out all that could ever be said [End Page 33] in all those languages that use the Roman alphabet, including not only all of Shakespeare and all books that have ever been written or could be, but all those books with one letter displaced, with two letters displaced, and all the nonsense that could ever be made up, and, of course, the process would be repeated chaotically ad infinitum. This, as one can equally readily see, is equally useless to us mortal human beings caught within the valuable limitations of space and time. These two fantasies concerning language and that which it tries to apply itself to, the Real, provide the starting-points for two of the stories, if we may call them so, of the Argentinean writer Jorge Luis Borges – "Funes the Memorious" and "The Library of Babel." That library, like the sheets produced by the unending typing of the monkeys, contains books of "four hundred and ten pages" each, "each page, of forty lines, each line of some eighty letters which are black in colour" (79–80) and they are made up of twenty-five letters arranged in all the combinations possible. The result is that every book that could possibly be written is included in the library, together with all its possible misprints and rearrangements, including all the nonsensal combinations of the letters. In Borges's fantasy the Library is inhabited by scholars in pursuit of the "catalogue of catalogues" that would provide the guide through the labyrinth. The word "Babel" brings home the uselessness of both these odd impossibilities – first, the remembering, conceptualizing, and wording of the infinitesimal detail of our sensory experience, and, second, arriving at a language so complete in...

Eventism and pointism

The domain of contemporary physics consists of two different classes of objects: a) physical objects — point events (shortly — events), elementary particles (and their aggregates), and fields; b) spatio-temporal objects — space-time points (shortly — points), moments, space points, and their corresponding sets: space-time, time and physical space. If objects of some kind (physical or spatio-temporal) are treated as individuals, i.e. nonsets, then it is possible to define the remaining kinds of objects from both above-mentioned classes. In this way one can construct two alternative monistic ontologies of physics: eventism founded on events, and pointism founded on points. It is also possible to establish a dualistic ontology of physics, based both on events and points treated as individuals. In this paper these three ontologies are presented with particular emphasis on some extreme versions of monistic ontologies. I shall compare them considering both their respective advantages and difficulties and trying to justify my own choice of eventistic ontology.

Ontology Matters: The Relational Materiality of Nature and Agro‐Food Studies

This paper examines the question of ontological choice in agro‐food studies, and emphasizes that such choices are consequential, determining analytical points of entry, arenas of theory and praxis, and normative positioning. These questions are explored by examining the privileged place of the labour process in the development of agro‐food studies and, as a more specific illustration, in analyses of agro‐biotechnology. It is suggested that the modernist ontological priorities embedded in the unreconstructed conceptualization of the labour process not only have been ignored but also have found an unexamined place in post‐structuralist agrarian political economy. The discussion closes by reviewing the strengths and weaknesses of actor‐network theory as an alternative avenue of critical engagement with the ‘new’ bio‐politics of agro‐food networks.

22. The growing role of sensory evaluation as a marketing tool

Marketing as a discipline in general, and industrial marketing in particular, has drawn upon a number of different theoretical perspectives from domains as diverse as organisational theory, systems analysis, economics, psychology, sociology and anthropology to further our understanding. However, to build this understanding and increase the relevance of marketing research, we need to be aware of the ontological assumptions and stances that such theoretical perspectives use. The purpose of this special issue is therefore to offer a platform for the exploration, comparison, application, and consideration of ontological choice and its implications in industrial marketing research. To achieve this we review early industrial marketing scholarship in this first section. In the second section, we identify the larger ebbs and flows that mark the development and advancement of industrial marketing research. In the final section, we provide an overview of the papers in this special issue in the form of a thematic exploration of theoretical developments in industrial marketing management research.

Qualitative reasoning about physical systems with multiple perspectives

To study commonsense reasoning and to write programs that reason effectively about the physical world, we must understand the nature of perspective-taking in qualitative reasoning--which perspectives to take, how to represent them, and when to shift from one perspective to another. This dissertation defines a task-driven approach to perspective-taking for automated qualitative reasoning. Central to our approach is the notion that model formulation and selection is an integral part of reasoning about complex physical systems. Given a task, models can be created that reflect different configurations of the system topology, at various structural granularities, and in distinct language forms. This dissertation describes a computational framework that integrates three perspective-taking dimensions in reasoning about electronic circuits: topological configuration, structural aggregation, and ontological choice. The research shows that by using a task-driven, perspective-taking approach, we can extend the range of automated qualitative causal reasoning about complex physical systems.

Rural High School Students' Perceptions of the Basic Values and Educational Philosophies of Significant Secondary School Role Models

This research investigated rural high school students' perceptions of two major secondary school role models' (teachers and popular peers) solutions to five ontological and axiological problem spheres. The Values Orientation Questionnaire (VOQ), an operationalization of F. Kluckhohn's theory of intra‐cultural value variation, was completed each of three times during three months: initially for the self and then according to the way the respondent felt the models would respond. Achievement, an index of successful school encounters, was entered as the between‐persons factor in a multivariate‐model repeated‐measures ANCOVA. Generally, the students believe that teachers and popular peers endorse that set of values that forms the foundation of progressive counseling and educational philosophies and practices and is, to a large extent, our middle‐class system. Students perceive teachers as overendorsing (relative to self) those ontological choices that form the valuational basis of authoritarian counseling and educational theories. These seemingly contradictory teachers' attributions are discussed in terms of the teachers' roles and of institutional demands that often force teachers to model behaviors that neither they nor society deems desirable.

El análisis de Platón de las relaciones y de los hechos relacionales en el Fedón

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