Critics Claim Research Articles

Effects of age on memory for pragmatic implications in advertising

People employ automatic inferential processing when confronting pragmatically implied claims in advertising. However, whether comprehension and memorization of pragmatic implications differ between young and older adults is unclear. In the present study, we used eye-tracking technology to investigate online cognitive processes during reading of misleading advertisements. We found an interaction between age and advertising content, manifested as our older participants generated higher misleading rates in health-related than in health-irrelevant products, whereas this content-bias did not appear in their younger counterparts. Eye movement data further showed that the older adults spent more time processing critical claims for the health-related products than for the health-irrelevant products. Moreover, the correlations between fixation duration on pragmatic implications and misleading rates showed opposite trends in the two groups. The eye-tracking evidence novelly suggests that young and older adults may adopt different information processing strategies to comprehend pragmatic implications in advertising: More reading possibly enhances young adults’ gist memory whereas it facilitates older adults’ verbatim memory instead.

Why Proust Isn’t an “Essayist,” and Why It Matters

Abstract Proust’s most famous critic claims that he didn’t have “even a vague or confused idea” of how his novel was going to hang together. Others tell us that every statement in the novel is a “transient hypothesis,” that Proust has “made up his mind about nothing,” or even that Proust thinks he himself is “mad” for believing that art has the power to transfigure reality. This paper will explain why none of that is true. As is clear from his essays, his letters, and even his actions, Proust was not an “essayist,” in the Musil sense: not someone, that is, whose assessments were always tentative and provisional, ready to be relinquished at any moment. At least when it comes to the relationship between selfhood, style, and art, Proust had a set of pretty robust beliefs; and those same letters, along with elements of the novel itself, also show that he wasn’t flying without instruments. So why have some critics thought otherwise? Perhaps, in part, it’s because they have assumed the narrator always speaks for Proust. If so, their foundational assumption isn’t just mistaken; it’s also likely to prevent the novel from doing some of its most important work on us, a work not of deconstruction, and not simply of didacticism, but of self-understanding, formal modeling, and habit cultivation, all in the service of a better life.

Crítica de la crítica a la sociología crítica a partir de Luc Boltanski

espanolEl articulo se inscribe en una discusion acerca del modo en que la sociologia problematiza a la cultura, especificamente, se interroga por el modus operandi para un abordaje critico de la misma. Para ello, se enfoca en la propuesta elaborada por Luc Boltanski, en tanto el hace del cuestionamiento a la “sociologia critica” una instancia central de su estudio de la cultura, sin por ello abandonar la pretension critica. Con vistas a analizar estas cuestiones, se dedica la primera seccion a la caracterizacion de la sociologia pragmatica de la critica de Boltanski. La segunda seccion sostiene que el propone un potente modus operandi para la descripcion sociologica de la normatividad de los actores, pero que no resuelve los problemas que posibilitarian el abordaje critico de dicha normatividad. Punto que se profundiza a partir de la discusion de su investigacion sobre el “espiritu del capitalismo”. Finalmente, las conclusiones plantean un sendero por el cual avanzar hacia esa sociologia critica, con eje en la reproblematizacion de las nociones de ideologia y utopia. EnglishThe article is inserted in a discussion about the way in which sociology problematizes culture, specifically, the paper analyses the modus operandi for a critical approach to the culture. For this, it focuses on the Luc Boltanski’s proposal, because he makes the discussion on the “critical sociology” a central instance of his cultural study without abandoning the critical claim. With the goal of analysing these questions, the first section is dedicated to characterizing Boltanski's pragmatic sociology of critique. The second section argues that he proposes a powerful modus operandi for the sociological description of the actors’ normativity, but that it does not solve the problems that would allow the critical research of that normativity. Topic that is developed through the discussion of his research on the “spirit of capitalism”. Finally, the conclusions propose a path through which to advance towards this critical sociology, centred on the notions of ideology and utopia

Nostalgia in Print and Performance, 1510–1613: Merry Worlds. Harriet Phillips. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019. Pp. vii+239.

<i>Nostalgia in Print and Performance, 1510–1613: Merry Worlds</i>. Harriet Phillips. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019. Pp. vii+239.

The dynamical renaissance in neuroscience

Although there is a substantial philosophical literature on dynamical systems theory in the cognitive sciences, the same is not the case for neuroscience. This paper attempts to motivate increased discussion via a set of overlapping issues. The first aim is primarily historical and is to demonstrate that dynamical systems theory is currently experiencing a renaissance in neuroscience. Although dynamical concepts and methods are becoming increasingly popular in contemporary neuroscience, the general approach should not be viewed as something entirely new to neuroscience. Instead, it is more appropriate to view the current developments as making central again approaches that facilitated some of neuroscience’s most significant early achievements, namely, the Hodgkin–Huxley and FitzHugh–Nagumo models. The second aim is primarily critical and defends a version of the “dynamical hypothesis” in neuroscience. Whereas the original version centered on defending a noncomputational and nonrepresentational account of cognition, the version I have in mind is broader and includes both cognition and the neural systems that realize it as well. In view of that, I discuss research on motor control as a paradigmatic example demonstrating that the concepts and methods of dynamical systems theory are increasingly and successfully being applied to neural systems in contemporary neuroscience. More significantly, such applications are motivating a stronger metaphysical claim, that is, understanding neural systems as being dynamical systems, which includes not requiring appeal to representations to explain or understand those phenomena. Taken together, the historical claim and the critical claim demonstrate that the dynamical hypothesis is undergoing a renaissance in contemporary neuroscience.

International studies in an unpredictable world: still avoiding the difficult problems?

We revisit and empirically evaluate crucial yet under-examined arguments articulated in “God Gave Physics the Easy Problems” (2000), the authors of which emphasized that, in International Relations (IR) predictions, predominant nomothetic approaches should be supplemented with concrete scenario thinking. We test whether the IR predictive toolkit is in fact dominated by nomothetic generalizations and, more broadly, map the methodological profile of this subfield. We build on the TRIP database, supplementing it with extensive original coding to operationalize the nuances of predictive research. In particular, we differentiate between nomoscopic predictions (predictive generalizations) and idioscopic predictions (predictions for concrete situations), showing that this distinction is not reducible to other methodological cleavages. We find that even though in contemporary IR an increasing number of articles seek to provide predictions, they consistently avoid predictions about concrete situations. The proportion of idioscopic predictions is stably small, with an even smaller proportion of predictions that develop concrete narratives or specify any determinate time period. Furthermore, those idioscopic studies are mostly limited to a niche with specialized themes and aims. Thus, our research shows that the critical claims from 20 years ago are still relevant for contemporary IR, as the “difficult problem” of developing predictive scenarios is still consistently overlooked in favor of other objectives. Ultimately, the types of predictions that IR scholars develop depend on their specific aims and constraints, but the discipline-wide result is a situation in which international studies’ ambition to provide predictions grows, but they tend to reproduce the same limitations as they did in 2000.

“Inexpressible horror”: The Devil and Baptist Life Writing in Cromwellian Ireland

AbstractThe Baptist movement in Cromwellian Ireland displayed a number of distinctive features. Adherents of the movement regularly claimed to have heightened spiritual experiences, which in a number of cases included firsthand encounters with the devil. This article observes the political contexts in which these claims were made while analyzing attempts by Baptist leaders to promote a more critical spirituality and counter illegitimate claims to supernatural experience. It argues that these unusual experiences, reflective more of their geographical than their denominational context, were rhetorically enabled, and Baptist leaders would struggle to both sustain and contain claims to spiritual experience.

How to Use Global Positioning Systems (GPS) Data to Monitor Training Load in the "Real World" of Elite Soccer.

How to Use Global Positioning Systems (GPS) Data to Monitor Training Load in the "Real World" of Elite Soccer.

The Revolution in Antitrust: An Assessment

In this essay, we evaluate the impact of the revolution that has occurred in antitrust and in particular the growing role played by economic analysis. Section II describes exactly what we think that revolution was. There were actually two revolutions. The first was the use by economists and other academics of existing economic insights together with the development of new economic insights to improve the understanding of the consequences of certain forms of market structure and firm behaviors. It also included the application of advanced empirical techniques to large data sets. The second was a revolution in legal jurisprudence, as both the federal competition agencies and the courts increasingly accepted and relied on the insights and evidence emanating from this economic research. Section III explains the impact of the revolution on economists, consulting firms, and research in the field of industrial organization. One question it addresses is why, if economics is being so widely employed and is so useful, one finds skilled economists so often in disagreement. Section IV asks whether the revolution has been successful or whether, as some critics claim, it has gone too far. Our view is that it has generally been beneficial though, as with most any policy, it can be improved. Section V discusses some of the hot issues in antitrust today and, in particular, what some of its critics say about the state of the revolution. The final section concludes with the hope that those wishing to turn back the clock to the antitrust and regulatory policies of fifty years ago more closely study that experience, otherwise they risk having its demonstrated deficiencies be repeated by throwing out the revolution’s baby with the bathwater.

Trump talk: Rethinking elections, rhetoric, and American foreign policy

This special issue on elections, rhetoric, and American Foreign policy brings to light how and why ‘talk’ matters particularly in foreign policy. While not all of the articles examine President Trump directly, the special issue situates itself in what can be seen as a new era, brought on by Trump, that is, rewriting the rules of rhetoric and elections, and challenging our assumptions about how they impact American foreign policy. By way of conclusion, I summarize what I see as the key contributions of the special issue and offer a critical claim that the authors do not go far enough in just how dramatically President Trump’s rhetoric is reshaping American domestic and international politics.

The Revolution in Antitrust: An Assessment

In this essay we evaluate the impact of the revolution that has occurred in antitrust and in particular the growing role played by economic analysis. Section II describes exactly what we think that revolution was. There were actually two revolutions. The first was the use by economists and other academics of existing economic insights together with the development of new economic insights to improve the understanding of the consequences of certain forms of market structure and firm behaviors, as well as the application of advanced empirical techniques to large data sets. The second was a revolution in legal jurisprudence, as both the federal competition agencies and the courts increasingly accepted and relied on the insights and evidence emanating from this economic research. Section III explains the impact of the revolution on economists, consulting firms, and research in the field of industrial organization. One question it addresses is why, if economics is being so widely employed and is so useful, one finds skilled economists so often in disagreement. Section IV asks whether the revolution has been successful or whether, as some critics claim, it has gone too far. Our view is that it has generally been beneficial though, as with most any policy, it can be improved. Section V discusses some of the hot issues in antitrust today and, in particular, what some of its critics say about the state of the revolution. The final section concludes with the hope that those wishing to turn back the clock to the antitrust and regulatory policies of 50 years ago more closely study that experience, otherwise they risk having its demonstrated deficiencies be repeated by throwing out the revolution’s baby with the bathwater.

Some are more equal than others: Palestinian citizens in the settler colonial Jewish State

ABSTRACT This article aims to examine whether the passing of the Basic Law: Israel – the Nation State of the Jewish People represents a transformative moment in the history of the State of Israel, as some critics claim, that undermines the State’s unique democratic features precisely the principle of equality. In this respect, this paper aims to revisit the principle of equality as it is enshrined in the Declaration of the Establishment of the State of Israel and as it applies in practice, law and court rulings. Specifically, the article will explore how the principle of equality come to manifest itself in the relationship between the State and the Palestinian citizens in three key moments; first, a pre-State stage, in the making of the Declaration; second, a post establishment stage, in the granting of suffrage and citizenship rights; and third, in the aftermath of the 1992 ‘constitutional revolution’ with the passage of the Basic Law: Human Dignity and Liberty. The article argues that the Nationality Bill does not represent a transformative moment, it rather reflects a continuous process that stems from the Zionist colonial ideology in historic Palestine. Therefore, rather than transforming Israel into an undemocratic apartheid State as some critics argue, the Nationality Bill rather makes sure that the State of Israel cannot be easily transformed into the State of all its citizens.

Does the Cost of Foreign Workers Affect the Wages of Local Agricultural Workers? Evidence from Israel

Modern agriculture often relies on foreign workers. Critics claim that it hinders investments in labor-saving techniques, and leads to unemployment of unskilled native workers. Proponents highlight the contribution of foreign workers to growth, especially in rural areas. This paper investigates whether the inflow foreign workers really affect the demand for local workers in agriculture. We exploit an 8% tax that was assessed on the wages of foreign workers in 2003. If foreign workers are substitutes to local unskilled workers, the demand for local unskilled workers should increase as a result of the tax, and their wages should increase, unless their supply is perfectly elastic. On the other hand, if unskilled workers, foreign or local, are complements to skilled agricultural workers, the demand of the latter should decline, and their wages should decline as well. We found, using a difference-in-difference regression approach, that the wages of local unskilled agricultural workers in Israel increased about 9% following the taxation of foreign worker wages, but the effect is not statistically significant, perhaps because of the small sample size. No changes in wages were found for skilled workers. To conclude, this research provides some support to the hypothesis that there is substitution between foreign workers and local unskilled Israeli workers in agriculture, but this conclusion is not strong enough statistically.

Negative Organicism: Adorno, Emerson, and the Idea of a Disclosing Critique of Society

ABSTRACT This article articulates the idea of a disclosing critique of society. It starts from the assumption that the curiously organicistic undertones of Adorno’s negative social ontology is part and parcel of a disclosing gesture in his social criticism. It then traces Adorno’s debate with social organicists to the point where the critical theorist’s own concept of society emerges with a claim to be critical in itself. It is argued that this critical claim is enforced by a disclosing gesture. To articulate what is at stake in this gesture of critical disclosure a parallel is drawn, and contrast made, to Emerson’s conception of disclosure as “drawing a circle around a circle”. The relationship between Adorno’s and Emerson’s conceptions of critical disclosure is complex. However, their juxtaposition allows for a distinction between two directions of critical disclosure. It will be argued that disclosing critique of society can be understood as an exemplary dissociation from alienated society by means of a creative association of empirical knowledge, poetic description and philosophical speculation by a critic standing, as it were, with one foot inside and the other outside our form of life.

CERH-TA‘DÎLDE RIVAYETLERIN MUÂRAZASI: HAMMÂD B. SELEME’NIN KAYS B. SA‘D RIVAYETI ÖZELINDE

Bu çalışmada Hammâd b. Seleme’nin Kays b. Sa‘d’dan naklettiği rivayetler incelenmiştir. Hammâd b. Seleme Hadis münekkitleri tarafından sika kabul edilmiş; ancak onun Kays b. Sa‘d’dan rivayet ettiği hadisler tartışılmış ve bundan olsa gerektir ki, bazı âlimler ondan rivayet etmekten imtina etmiştir. Hadis âlimleri, Hammâd’ın hatasının nedeninin Kays’ın kitabını kaybetmesi ve ezberinden rivayet etmesi olduğunu söylemişlerdir. Bu söyleme binaen de “Hammâd, Kays’tan rivayet ettiği hadislerde hata yapmıştır” gibi genel bir yaklaşım benimsenmiş ve bu ifade birçok cerh-ta‘dîl ve ilel eserinde yer almıştır. Biz de bu iddiadan yola çıkarak Hammâd b. Seleme’nin Kays b. Sa‘d’dan rivayet ettiği hadisleri muâraza yöntemiyle ele aldık. Zira bu yöntemle herhangi bir râvinin rivayetini başka râvilerin hadislerine arz ederek söz konusu râvinin zabtı, sika râvilere muhalefeti ve hadiste teferrüdü gibi râvinin cerhine sebep olabilecek durumların tespiti yapılabilmektedir. Hammâd b. Seleme ile ilgili yaptığımız arz neticesinde aslında Hammâd’ın, Kays’tan rivayet ettiği birçok hadiste sika râvilere muhalefet etmediğini, bilakis onun rivayet ettiği hadislerin başka sika râviler tarafından da nakledildiğini tespit ettik. Aynı şeklide Hammâd’ın teferrüd ettiği hadislerin de çok az olduğunu gördük. Bu bağlamda Hammâd b. Seleme’nin Kays’tan rivayet ettiği hadislerde hata yaptığını düşünmenin ve hadis ilminde otorite olan bazı âlimlerin ondan rivayette bulunmamasının Hammâd ile ilgili ağır bir tenkit olduğu düşünülebilir. Bazı âlimler de Hammâd’ın ömrünün son döneminde hafıza kaybına maruz kaldığını ve bundan dolayı hata yaptığını ifade etmişlerdir. Bu iddia doğru kabul edilse bile yine Hammâd’ın Kays’tan rivayet ettiği hadislerin terkini gerekli kılmaz. Zira Hammâd ile ilgili olan olumsuz düşünceyi zayıf kılan en önemli delil, Hammâd’ın Kays’tan rivayet ettiği hadislerin sika kabul edilen râvilerin rivayetlerine uygunluk arz etmesidir. Bu gerçeklerden hareketle Hammâd ile ilgili yapılan tenkitlerin pratiğe yani Hammâd’ın rivayetlerine pek de uymadığı söylenebilir. Dolayısıyla Hammâd, Kays’tan rivayet ettiği hadislerde hata yapmıştır gibi genel yaklaşımda bulunmak yerine Hammâd’ın Kays’tan rivayet ettiği hadislerin tek tek incelenmesi gerektiğini düşünüyoruz. Biz de çalışmamızda bunu yapmaya çalıştık.

From metaphor to political spin: Understanding criticisms of the social licence

Disagreements about the nature and utility of the social licence concept can be traced to different assumptions about the political influence of those who grant and receive it. In business, some see the social licence as a risk management framework. Critics claim that in practice it is public relations spin covering up social irresponsibility by extractive companies. Still others see it as spin used by eco-leftists to justify appropriating a veto for themselves. I review the literature on social licence grantors and grantees and propose that members of the private, public and civic sectors are mutual grantors and withholders of each others’ social licences. I invoke the concept of inter-sectoral rivalry for control the discourses that grant or withdraw social licences. When one sector dominates the others, its preferred discourse about the social licence gets enacted. The non-dominant sectors defend themselves by criticizing that justification narrative. To the extent that one sector can dominate, there will be political criticism of the social licence from the rival sectors. Empirically determining who dominates the discourse can advance both scholarly study of the social licence and the practical application of it by any type of organization.

A Genre-Based Analysis of the Introductions in L1 and L2 Research Articles

This paper compares the rhetorical structure of L1 and L2 research article introductions in the field of Applied Linguistics through both quantitative and qualitative approaches. The findings indicate that L2 writers showed a strong tendency to avoid taking a critical stance with the problems or limitations arising from the previous research, while a majority of L1 counterparts present critical evaluations and claims towards previous studies. Accordingly, L2 introductions tend to show a strong preference for discussing educational situations or problems in establishing a niche. Moreover, L1 displayed a higher degree of explicitness than L2 in occupying the research niche. Adding to the L2 writers’ lack of genre-specific awareness, culture-related conventions might also affect L2 writers’ preference for affective rhetorical strategies across the three moves. Such knowledge could provide the basis for explicit strategies that Korean L2 writers might use to comprehend and produce effective English academic writing.

‘You wonder ever if you’re a bad man?’: Toxic masculinity, paratexts and think pieces circulating around season one of HBO’sTrue Detective

When it premiered in 2014, the first season of HBO’s True Detective received rave critical reviews. Featuring two A-list Hollywood actors, and a writer/director team who were rising stars in the industry, the show had all of the key ingredients to earn the label ‘prestige TV’. However, alongside the critical claim were concomitant critiques of the show for its apparent misogyny. The season features depictions of violent crimes against women and girls and is told almost entirely from the perspective of two middle-aged men. The salient question was whether the show was misogynist or whether it was a show about misogyny. Many of these debates transpired in think pieces of online magazines and blogs such as Salon, Vulture, Jezebel, The New Yorker and The A.V. Club. In this article, I examine the ways in which these discourses of misogyny and masculinity circulate in these paratexts. Ultimately, I suggest that the question of whether the show is misogynist is less important than the fact that nuanced discussions about gender and power found a platform and an audience with a broad circulation.

Teaching feminism: Problems of critical claims and student certainty

Learning about feminism can be a revelation for many students. However, for others, it can be a confounding, troubling experience. These difficulties return as problems for the teacher: how to help sceptical, resistant students understand the theory. Moreover, understanding what can be so troubling about learning feminism helps us to better understand the situation of feminist modules in the contexts of broader humanities curricula. Obviously, these are complex issues, and I wish to focus on just two specific points: how feminist theories make critical claims and the challenges that emerge for students as a result; how feminist theory claims find challenges in student certainty. Firstly, feminist theory claims, which describe sociocultural states of affairs while at the same time destabilising them, are operating with critical norms. These critical norms are at odds with norms of descriptive theory claims that students find elsewhere in their curriculum. As such, I want to explore the effects of this clash in student learning experience, and the difficulties that teachers face a result. In the second part of the article, I use Wittgenstein’s analysis of certainty to explore how feminist theory claims often challenge the very foundations of students’ understanding of themselves, and the world around them. As such, learning in the feminist classroom is not merely an issue of learning about and then adjudicating between theories. Feminist theories implicate the way in which we live, and the conditions of intelligibility for theories as such. In light of my discussions, I do not think there are onesize solutions to these issues. However, I think that recognising these problems in theory can help us to articulate them in the classroom, and this might go some way to alleviating the structural challenges faced by teachers of feminism.

Initial financial impact of office-based laboratories on Medicare payments for percutaneous interventions for peripheral artery disease

ObjectivePercutaneous interventions for peripheral artery disease (PAD) are transitioning away from hospital-based settings to office-based laboratories (OBLs). Those in favor of OBL use reference lower hospitalization rates and high efficiency; however, critics claim financial incentives may lead to multiple procedures and higher atherectomy use. We sought to determine how Medicare payments are affected by OBL use. MethodsWe identified physicians performing percutaneous interventions for PAD from 2006 to 2013 in a 20% Medicare sample. Physicians performing a majority of interventions at OBLs were classified as high OBL users; control physicians performed interventions at hospital-based settings. The primary outcomes were total Medicare payments at 30 days and 1 year. Generalized log-gamma regression models were used to evaluate factors influencing payments reported as a percentage change and 95% confidence interval (95% CI). A secondary analysis was performed of physicians who transitioned from hospital-based settings to OBLs, “switch physicians.” A multivariate model with difference-in-differences regression was used to evaluate the effects of transitioning to OBLs. ResultsA total of 89 high OBL users performed percutaneous interventions on 887 patients, and 3715 control physicians treated 54,213 patients during the time period. Payments for patients treated by high OBL users were significantly higher compared with control physicians at 30 days ($4465), 90 days ($8925), and 1 year ($27,436). Major factors increasing payments at 1 year were treatment by a high OBL user (49%; 95% CI, 42%-56%), hospital admissions (127%; 95% CI, 123%-131%), repeated lower extremity procedures (41%; 95% CI, 39%-43%), and lower extremity wound (20%; 95% CI,18%-22%). Factors decreasing payments at 1 year were living in a rural setting (8%; 95% CI, 7%-9%) and dementia (5%; 95% CI, 3%-7%). Analysis of 292 switch physicians identified 3888 patients treated before OBLs (pre-switch) and 3246 after OBLs (post-switch). Transitioning to OBLs was associated with higher payments at 30 days and 90 days, and this increase was higher compared with control physicians. ConclusionsThese findings highlight that OBL use for PAD interventions significantly influences Medicare payments, and its widespread adaptation should be made with caution. The main factors driving payments were hospitalization admissions, repeated lower extremity procedures, and wound status. Further work is needed to evaluate the appropriate use of OBLs to optimize patient outcomes and resource allocations.