An opinion diffusion model with deliberation

In this article, we propose an agent-based model of opinion diffusion and voting where agents influence each other through deliberation. The model is inspired from social modeling as it describes a process of collective decision-making that iterates on a series of dyadic inter-individual influence steps and collective deliberation procedures. We study the evolution of opinions and the correctness of decisions taken within a group. We also aim at founding a comprehensive model to describe collective decision-making as a combination of two different paradigms: argumentation theory and agent-based influence models, which are not obvious to link since a formal translation and interpretation of their relationship is required. From a sequence of controlled simulations, we find that deliberation, modeled as an exchange of arguments, reduces the variance of opinions and the number of extremists, as long as not too much deliberation takes place during the decision-making process. Insofar as we define “correct” decisions as those whose supporting arguments survive deliberation, promoting deliberative discussion favors convergence towards correct decisions

Mixing Dyadic and Deliberative Opinion Dynamics in an Agent-Based Model of Group Decision-Making

International audienceIn this article, we propose an agent-based model of opinion diffusion and voting where influence among individuals and deliberation in a group are mixed. The model is inspired from social modeling, as it describes an iterative process of collective decision-making that repeats a series of interindividual influences and collective deliberation steps, and studies the evolution of opinions and decisions in a group. It also aims at founding a comprehensive model to describe collective decision-making as a combination of two different paradigms: argumentation theory and ABM-influence models, which are not obvious to combine as a formal link between them is required. In our model, we find that deliberation, through the exchange of arguments, reduces the variance of opinions and the proportion of extremists in a population as long as not too much deliberation takes place in the decision processes. Additionally, if we define the correct collective decisions in the system in terms of the arguments that should be accepted, allowing for more deliberation favors convergence towards the correct decisions

Evolutionary Mechanism of Frangibility in Social Consensus System Based on Negative Emotions Spread

To study the social consensus system under the spread of negative emotions, the nonlinear emergence model of frangibility of social consensus system is established based on Multiagent method, and effects of emotions spread frequency, opinion leaders, and shielding behavior of government on the frangibility of social consensus system are revealed. The simulation results show that the low-frequency negative emotions spread is better than the high-frequency one for reducing the frangibility of social consensus system. Low-frequency negative emotions spread will lead to the group polarization, while high frequency will lead to the collapse of system. The joining of opinion leaders who are with negative emotions can promote the frangibility of social consensus system, and collapse speed of social consensus system tends to increase with the influence of opinion leaders. Shielding behavior of government cannot effectively block the spread of negative emotions. On the contrary, it will enhance the frangibility of social consensus system

CEO PRACTICE: TOWARDS A FRAMEWORK OF PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE

This qualitative inquiry makes a credible contribution to knowledge by considering the past, the present and the future a small cadre of CEOs as they dwell, transition and manoeuvre within emerging sociomaterial practices. The researcher, who has taken a similar path and is largely an invisible participant, gives this inquiry a particular, if biased, piquancy. Essentially, the work examines, why and how CEOs engaged and learn to play the business game and lead. It unveils, in its visceral animus, something of what really goes on and what-it-is-like-to-be-there withiin the dynamics of strategic conduct. Ontologically, the inquiry takes a process stance on being and becoming and, in epistemology, a practice-based, temporal framework. It is not overly concerned with theory development, but rather with embodied, sociomaterial practices, where it emphasises CEO dwelling and continuing doings in the temporal, lived -‘felt’- world. The findings suggest the essential impact of contingent interruptions and their affordance in business. The CEO must sense, make sense of, clarify, give meaning to and manage these opportunities as they unfold. This draws attention to how the past and future are brought into the present, where suffused in identities, sensibilities and emotions this temporality culminates in ‘know how’. Put otherwise, a practical intelligibility and understandings that combine in unaware routines and deliberate intentions, creating teleoeffective performance. Here, and in the functionalities of their job, despite their idiosyncratic backgrounds, CEOs share more than divides them. The CEOs are revealed as competitive, combative, somewhat self-centred, yet caring works in progress. They are often besieged by capricious and captious doings, when entangled within anticipated but unknowable outcomes. What is certain is that there is no such thing as a subjective or emotionally free space in strategic conduct

Anywhere but Here: The Competing (and Complementary) Postmodern Nostalgias of J. G. Ballard and Douglas Coupland.

This thesis addresses postmodern nostalgia in the fictions of J. G. Ballard and Douglas Coupland. By reading them alongside the work of Svetlana Boym, Fredric Jameson, Walter Benjamin and Linda Hutcheon among others, it firstly builds upon and questions Boym's categories of restorative and reflective nostalgia. By taking two authors whose work chronologically straddles the postmodern moment to date, the thesis also demonstrates that nostalgia is one issue over which any consideration of postmodernism as a monadic cultural paradigm can be problematised. It proceeds from the supposition that early postmodern fiction is decidedly anti-nostalgic in tone, whereas recent examples are characterised by a less militant perspective. By placing the authors' texts in dialogue with each other, the piece emphasises nostalgia's ineradicability and its hidden role in anti-nostalgic agendas. To support these claims, the thesis argues that nostalgia is not an indivisible phenomenon. Alighting on and defined by objects which can be set against each other, nostalgia is often pitted against itself in other forms, presupposing a multitude of mutually hostile nostalgias. The nostalgic objects on which the thesis focuses are: colonialism, the North American frontier, the Suburbs, nostalgic consumer objects and Apocalypse. These have been selected over other foci because they are the most pervasive themes in the work of both authors. Colonialism and the North American frontier are exceptions as they are rarely directly pitted against each another in the authors' work. However, they both serve to ground the nostalgic perspectives of both writers, and as such are addressed separately in chapters devoted to a single author. The concluding chapter focuses on the role postmodern irony plays in Ballard and Coupland's work. Explicitly combating nostalgia, irony is exposed as an integral component of any contemporary nostalgic narrative, potentially refining it in the service of a more circumspect contemporary nostalgic

Non-reductive Physicalism, Irreducibility of the Mental and the Problem of Mental Causation : A study of Donald Davidson's and Georg Henrik von Wright's positions in the philosophy of mind

In this study I consider what kind of perspective on the mind body problem is taken and can be taken by a philosophical position called non-reductive physicalism. Many positions fall under this label. The form of non-reductive physicalism which I discuss is in essential respects the position taken by Donald Davidson (1917-2003) and Georg Henrik von Wright (1916-2003). I defend their positions and discuss the unrecognized similarities between their views. Non-reductive physicalism combines two theses: (a) Everything that exists is physical; (b) Mental phenomena cannot be reduced to the states of the brain. This means that according to non-reductive physicalism the mental aspect of humans (be it a soul, mind, or spirit) is an irreducible part of the human condition. Also Davidson and von Wright claim that, in some important sense, the mental aspect of a human being does not reduce to the physical aspect, that there is a gap between these aspects that cannot be closed. I claim that their arguments for this conclusion are convincing. I also argue that whereas von Wright and Davidson give interesting arguments for the irreducibility of the mental, their physicalism is unwarranted. These philosophers do not give good reasons for believing that reality is thoroughly physical. Notwithstanding the materialistic consensus in the contemporary philosophy of mind the ontology of mind is still an uncharted territory where real breakthroughs are not to be expected until a radically new ontological position is developed. The third main claim of this work is that the problem of mental causation cannot be solved from the Davidsonian - von Wrightian perspective. The problem of mental causation is the problem of how mental phenomena like beliefs can cause physical movements of the body. As I see it, the essential point of non-reductive physicalism - the irreducibility of the mental - and the problem of mental causation are closely related. If mental phenomena do not reduce to causally effective states of the brain, then what justifies the belief that mental phenomena have causal powers? If mental causes do not reduce to physical causes, then how to tell when - or whether - the mental causes in terms of which human actions are explained are actually effective? I argue that this - how to decide when mental causes really are effective - is the real problem of mental causation. The motivation to explore and defend a non-reductive position stems from the belief that reductive physicalism leads to serious ethical problems. My claim is that Davidson's and von Wright's ultimate reason to defend a non-reductive view comes back to their belief that a reductive understanding of human nature would be a narrow and possibly harmful perspective. The final conclusion of my thesis is that von Wright's and Davidson's positions provide a starting point from which the current scientistic philosophy of mind can be critically further explored in the future.Tutkimuksessani tarkastelen mieli-ruumis ongelmaa Donald Davidsonin (1916-2003) ja Georg Henrik von Wrightin (1916-2003) ei-reduktiivisen fysikalismin näkökulmasta. Osoitan, että Davidsonin ja von Wrightin näkemyksien välillä on useita yhtäläisyyksiä, jotka ovat aiemmassa keskustelussa jääneet vaille huomiota. Davidsonin ja von Wrightin näkemyksiä soveltaen puolustan ei-reduktiivista lähestymistapaa mielen filosofisiin ongelmiin tuoden esiin reduktiivisen näkemyksen haasteita ja ongelmia. Ei-reduktiivinen fysikalismi pyrkii yhdistämään kaksi näkemystä. Toisaalta ajatuksen siitä, että todellisuus on läpikotaisin fysikaalinen ja toisaalta näkemyksen, jonka mukaan mentaalisia ilmiöitä ei voida palauttaa aivojen tiloihin. Tällainen fysikalismi sitoutuu siis käsitykseen, että mieli on jotain mitä ei voida kuvata pelkästään fysikaalisten käsitteiden avulla. Sekä von Wright että Davidson väittävät, että mielen ja aivojen välillä on pysyvä käsitteellinen kuilu, jota on mahdotonta kuroa umpeen. Tutkimuksessani esitän, että heidän perustelunsa tälle väitteelle ovat uskottavia. Toinen keskeinen johtopäätökseni on, että Davidsonin ja von Wrightin argumentit fysikalismin puolesta eivät ole vakuuttavia. Väitteeni on, että vaikka fysikalistinen ontologia näyttää olevan modernissa mielenfilosofiassa laajasti hyväksytty näkökanta, filosofiset argumentit sen puolesta ovat epätyydyttäviä. Mielen olemassaolon tapa on edelleen mysteeri. Työni kolmas väite on, että Davidsonin ja von Wrightin teorioiden näkökulmasta katsottuna mentaalisen kausaation ongelma jää ratkaisemattomaksi. Mentaalisen kausaation ongelma palautuu kysymykseksi siitä, miten uskomusten ja toiveiden kaltaiset mentaaliset ilmiöt voivat aiheuttaa kehon liikkeitä. Mikäli ei-reduktiivista fysikalismia seuraten uskomme, että mentaaliset ilmiöt eivät palaudu aivojen kausaalisesti vaikuttaviin tiloihin, herää kysymys mikä oikeuttaa uskomme mentaalisten tilojen kausaaliseen voimaan? Miten ratkaista ovatko mentaaliset tilat todella kausaalisesti vaikuttavia? Väitteeni on, että mentaalisen kausaation ongelma tulisi muotoilla uudelleen kysymykseksi siitä, miten voimme ratkaista ovatko mentaalisiin tiloihin viittaavat selityksemme tosia. Tutkimuksessani esitän lyhyesti uuden mallin tähän mentaalisen kausaation uuteen ongelmaan ja tarkoitukseni on kehittää tätä mallia edelleen tulevaisuudessa. Motivaatio puolustaa ei-reduktiivista näkemystä perustuu näkemykselle siitä, että reduktiivinen käsitys ihmisestä johtaa vakaviin eettisiin ongelmiin. Väitteeni on, että Davidsonin ja von Wrightin mielenfilosofian taustalla vaikuttaa huoli siitä, että reduktiivinen lähestymistapa on kapea-alainen ja mahdollisesti vahingollinen näkemys. Tutkimukseni viimeinen johtopäätös onkin, että von Wrightin ja Davidsonin näkemyksistä käsin voidaan tarkastella kriittisesti skientististä mielenfilosofiaa ja arvioida mielenfilosofian tulevia eettisiä haasteita

The Figure of the Gothic Author in Nineteenth-Century America

This study comprises an investigation into the figure of the Gothic author in nineteenth-century America. Overall, it demonstrates that the persistent critical attribution of Gothic identities to practitioners of the Gothic genre — what I term the Gothicisation of the Gothic author — exerted a profound impact upon the perception and practice of Gothic authorship. Tracing this trend back to the biographical approach to literary criticism which dominated nineteenth-century literary discussion, I argue that a method of textual exegesis which read the content of an author's work as an index of their character posed a particular threat to the public reputations of practitioners of the Gothic. Conflated with their troubled protagonists, diagnosed with dysfunctional psychological traits and aligned, both metaphorically and literally, with Gothic character types, this discourse created a cultural climate in which Gothic authorship had to be strategically negotiated. As I illustrate, this was primarily achieved through the adoption of evasive writing strategies that were designed to distance the author from their chosen mode of writing. Whilst this thesis places the gothicised discourse surrounding Gothic authorship in a transatlantic context, it is especially concerned with the unique ramifications that it held for notions of American national identity during the nineteenth century. Following the American Revolution, when the process of nation-building became tightly bound up with the creation of a successful and authentically American national literary canon, the figure of the American author assumed a nationally representative status. This was instantly problematised, I argue, by the Gothic's prominence within America's emerging literary tradition. As well as examining the ways in which authors navigated the negative personal connotations attached to Gothic authorship, therefore, this study also interrogates the rhetorical strategies that American critics used to de-gothicise the Gothic works of authors whose writing was deemed to be of significant national value