Adequate Account (adequate + account)

Distribution by Scientific Domains


Selected Abstracts


On What Powers Cannot Do

DIALECTICA, Issue 3 2005
Joel Katzav
Dispositionalism is the view that the world is, ultimately, just a world of objects and their irreducible dispositions, and that such dispositions are, ultimately, the sole explanatory ground for the occurrence of events. This view is motivated, partly, by arguing that it affords, while non-necessitarian views of laws of nature do not afford, an adequate account of our intuitions about which regularities are non-accidental. I, however, argue that dispositionalism cannot adequately account for our intuitions about which regularities are non-accidental. Further, I argue that, intuitions aside, if we suppose that our world contains objects along with their irreducible dispositions, we must suppose, on pain of logical incoherence, that it contains laws of nature that are incompatible with a dispositionalist ontology. Indeed, if we suppose a world of objects and irreducible dispositions, we will have to suppose that the most prominent views of laws of nature currently on offer are all inadequate. [source]


Variegated neoliberalization: geographies, modalities, pathways

GLOBAL NETWORKS, Issue 2 2010
NEIL BRENNER
Abstract Across the broad field of heterodox political economy, ,neoliberalism' appears to have become a rascal concept , promiscuously pervasive, yet inconsistently defined, empirically imprecise and frequently contested. Controversies regarding its precise meaning are more than merely semantic. They generally flow from underlying disagreements regarding the sources, expressions and implications of contemporary regulatory transformations. In this article, we consider the handling of ,neoliberalism' within three influential strands of heterodox political economy , the varieties of capitalism approach; historical materialist international political economy; and governmentality approaches. While each of these research traditions sheds light on contemporary processes of market-oriented regulatory restructuring, we argue that each also underplays and/or misreads the systemically uneven, or ,variegated', character of these processes. Enabled by a critical interrogation of how each approach interprets the geographies, modalities and pathways of neoliberalization processes, we argue that the problematic of variegation must be central to any adequate account of marketized forms of regulatory restructuring and their alternatives under post-1970s capitalism. Our approach emphasizes the cumulative impacts of successive ,waves' of neoliberalization upon uneven institutional landscapes, in particular: (a) their establishment of interconnected, mutually recursive policy relays within an increasingly transnational field of market-oriented regulatory transfer; and (b) their infiltration and reworking of the geoinstitutional frameworks, or ,rule regimes', within which regulatory experimentation unfolds. This mode of analysis has significant implications for interpreting the current global economic crisis. [source]


Personality and Close Relationships: Embedding People in Important Social Contexts

JOURNAL OF PERSONALITY, Issue 6 2002
M. Lynne Cooper
ABSTRACT This special issue of the Journal of Personality is predicated on the assumption that close relationships provide the central stage for the drama of human experience. This all-important context both shapes and conditions the expression of personality, and thus must play an integral role in any truly adequate account of human behavior. The importance of this agenda is perhaps overshadowed only by its difficulty. Contributions to the present issue, therefore, take stock of past research, highlight current state-of-the-art research, and offer a vision of the next generation of research on personality and close relationships. The conceptual and methodological approaches highlighted in this issue remain faithful to the dynamic, interdependent, and multilayered nature of the processes linking personality and close relationships. [source]


IX,The Conceptual Problem of Other Bodies

PROCEEDINGS OF THE ARISTOTELIAN SOCIETY (HARDBACK), Issue 2pt2 2010
Joel Smith
The, so called, ,conceptual problem of other minds' has been articulated in a number of different ways. I discuss two, drawing out some constraints on an adequate account of the grasp of concepts of mental states. Distinguishing between behaviour-based and identity-based approaches to the problem, I argue that the former, exemplified by Brewer and Pickard, are incomplete as they presuppose, but do not provide an answer to, what I shall call the conceptual problem of other bodies. I end with some remarks on identity-based approaches, pointing out related problems for versions of this approach held by Cassam and Peacocke. [source]


Toward a Pluralist Account of Parenthood

BIOETHICS, Issue 3 2003
Tim Bayne
What is it that makes someone a parent? Many writers , call them ,monists', claim that parenthood is grounded solely in one essential feature that is both necessary and sufficient for someone's being a parent. We reject not only monism but also ,necessity' views, in which some specific feature is necessary but not also sufficient for parenthood. Our argument supports what we call ,pluralism', the view that any one of several kinds of relationship is sufficient for parenthood. We begin by challenging monistic versions of gestationalism, the view that gestation uniquely grounds parenthood. Monistic and necessity gestationalism are implausible. First, we raise the ,paternity problem', necessity gestationalists lack an adequate account of how men become fathers. Second, the positive arguments that necessity gestationalists give are not compelling. However, although gestation may not be a necessary condition for parenthood, there is good reason to think that it is sufficient. After further rebutting an ,intentionalist' account of parenthood, in which having and acting on intentions to procreate and rear is necessary for parenthood, we end by sketching a pluralist picture of the nature of parenthood, rooted in causation, on which gestation, direct genetic derivation, extended custody, and even, sometimes, intentions, may be individually sufficient for parenthood. [source]


THE RELEVANCE OF EVOLUTIONARY PSYCHOLOGY FOR PSYCHOTHERAPY

BRITISH JOURNAL OF PSYCHOTHERAPY, Issue 3 2005
Anthony Ryle
ABSTRACT The claims made for the contribution of Evolutionary Psychology to psychotherapy are questioned. The relevance of human evolutionary history is not disputed, but it is argued that insufficient account is taken of the unique features of human beings, that the polemical attacks made on the social and human sciences are irrational, that the hypothetical reconstructions of human evolution are frequently arbitrary and biased, and that the extent to which evolved innate,mentalities'are said to determine social roles ignores the evidence for the plasticity of human brains and for social influences in individual development. In its consistent bias in favour of innate rather than learned and culturally formed processes and in its language and assumptions EP underestimates the inherited and acquired capacities of human societies and individuals to change. It fails to take adequate account of the key evolutionary development whereby humans became symbol-making and symbol-using social animals whose individual psychological development involves processes, the understanding of which requires a new theoretical perspective. These features, combined with the absence of a clear model of practice, seriously limit the contribution of EP to psychotherapy. [source]