What is the crisis of Western sciences?

© 2016, Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht. This article is an attempt to formulate a clear definition of the concept of crisis of Western sciences introduced by Husserl in his last work. The attempt will be based on a reading of the Krisis, which will stress its underlying continuity with Husserl’s life-long concerns about the theoretical insufficiency of positive sciences, and downplay the novelty of the idea of crisis itself within Husserl’s work. After insisting on the fact that, according to Husserl, only an account of the shortcomings of the scientificity of Western sciences can justify the claim that they are undergoing a crisis, it will be argued that the common definition of the crisis of the sciences as the loss of their significance for life rests on a misunderstanding. The crisis of Western sciences will be characterized, instead, as the repercussion of the crisis of the scientificity of philosophy (and, specifically, of metaphysics) on the scientificity of positive sciences. The loss of significance of scientific knowledge for our existence will in turn appear as a further, inevitable consequence of the uprooting of the sciences from the soil of a universal philosophy culminating in metaphysics, and thus, as a phenomenon deeply intertwined with the crisis of Western sciences, but not identical to it

Motivating developer performance to improve project outcomes in a high maturity organization

In this paper we discuss the impact software developer performance has on project outcomes. Project performance remains unreliable in the software industry with many compromised software systems reported in the press. We investigate the impact that developer performance has on aspects of project success and explore how developer performance is motivated. We present interview, focus group and questionnaire data collected from a team of developers working in a software organization that has been assessed at CMM level 5. Our main findings are that developers value technical skills in their colleagues, but appreciate these especially when supplemented with good human skills. Software developers with a proactive, flexible, adaptable approach who are prepared to share knowledge and follow good practice are said to be the best developers. Motivators for these developers are pay and benefits, recognition and opportunities for achievement in their work. Overall, we found that technical competence, interpersonal skills and adherence to good practices are thought to have the biggest impact on software project success.Peer reviewe