An Alternative to Individualism: Relational Concept of Human in Confucian Role Ethics

The article proposes to see Confucian role ethics as a philosophical project that puts forward metaethical and metaphilosophical arguments regarding the nature of ethics and the concept of human beings, instead of concentrating on its interpretational work in explicating the nature of early Confucian ethics. Thus, a more fitting context for evaluating the core claims of role ethics is suggested, one that is comprised of different positions, coming from a wide range of philosophical and cultural backgrounds, as well as different disciplines, all of which criticize individualism or formulate a non-individualistic concept of person. Role ethics concept of person, as a totality of one’s lived roles and relations, is discussed by concentrating on the specificity of two key notions in this position, that is, “relation” and “role”. The article ends with a suggestion that the deeper and fuller investigation and exposition of normativity, as stemming from the specific and concrete role-relationships, is the most needed and promising direction of further development of role ethics.

Accountability Relations in Minipublics and Organizers

This paper aims to understand accountability relations in minipublics. It shows that accountability might be weak for their participants, but not for their organizers. It discusses accountability in a descriptive fashion as a relational concept that can be weak or strong depending on the weight of sanctions. In addition, deliberative accountability has a separate section. While the deliberative accountability of deliberators is obvious, the deliberative accountability of organizers is not discussed much, yet it is an important expectation from organizers. This will be clearer when various accountability relations in the context of minipublics are fleshed out by asking who is accountable to whom and for what?. Final section will raise three points. Firstly, trust-based selection model of principal-agent accountability (Mansbridge 2009, 2014) will be discussed as it seems to offer us a different perspective on the weak accountability of participants and points at the importance of selection done by organizers. Secondly, it will be argued that the empowerment of minipublics is an important determinant of whether we want stronger accountability mechanisms in minipublics. Finally, it will be argued that organizers might be held accountable for the decisions made by an empowered minipublic.

Exploring Variability of Visual Accessibility Options in Operating Systems

Digital technologies are an opportunity to overcome disabilities, provided that accessibility is ensured. In this paper, we focus on visual accessibility and the way it is supported in Operating Systems (OS). The significant variability in this support has practical consequences, e.g., the difficulty to recommend or select an OS, or migrate from one OS to another. This suggests building a variability model for OS that would classify them and would serve as a reference. We propose a methodology to build such a variability model with the help of the Formal Concept Analysis (FCA) framework. In addition, as visual accessibility can be divided into several concerns (e.g., zoom, or contrast), we leverage an extension of FCA, namely Relational Concept Analysis. We also build an ontology to dispose of a standardized description of visual accessibility options. We apply our proposal to the analysis of the variability of a few representative operating systems.

Relational Communication Spaces: Infrastructures and Discursive Practices

Digital communication technologies, social web platforms, and mobile communication have fundamentally altered the way we communicate publicly. They have also changed our perception of space, thus making a re-calibration of a spatial perspective on public communication necessary. We argue that such a new perspective must consider the relational logic of public communication, which stands in stark contrast to the plain territorial notion of space common in communication research. Conceptualising the spatiality of public communication, we draw on Löw’s (2016) sociology of space. Her relational concept of space encourages us to pay more attention to (a) the infrastructural basis of communication, (b) the operations of synthesising the relational communication space through discursive practices, and (c) power relations that determine the accessibility of public communication. Thus, focusing on infrastructures and discursive practices means highlighting crucial socio-material preconditions of public communication and considering the effects of the power relations which are inherent in their spatialisation upon the inclusivity of public communication<em>.</em> This new approach serves a dual purpose: Firstly, it works as an analytical perspective to systematically account for the spatiality of public communication. Secondly, the differentiation between infrastructural spaces and spaces of discursive practices adds explanatory value to the perspective of relational communication spaces.

Impact of Displacement Phenomena on Landscape Identity: Application of Cultural Values Model

The research attempted to discover the impact of displacement phenomena on the identity of landscape, by using Janet Stephenson’s Cultural Values Model to study and analyze cultural landscapes. The model was chosen due to its universality, simplicity and embodiment of the relational concept of landscape perception and evaluation. The result of landscape evaluation depends on the characteristics of both landscape and observer, as well as on the relation of the object and subject. In order to understand the complexity and diversity of landscape and its identity, these were analyzed through a ternary system, consisting of forms, practices, and relationships, i.e. what is seen, what is happening and what it means to those who see and use it. The research represents a feasible and pragmatic approach to understand the complexity of landscape and its identity, by tracing back their retrospective changes due to the impact of displacement phenomena – a shift of objects, behaviours or relationships. Through this theoretical and methodological model, multiple universal correlational patterns were developing, in which the three components encountering the displacement behave and interact with each other, leading to an ambiguous impact on landscape identity and the socio-cultural quality of the human living environment. By studying and time-tracking different landscape cases that experienced major displacements from around the world to one of landscape’s systemic components, the research results show some regular patterns in landscape identity changes, and how its structural tangible and intangible system performs and effects in creating, or destroying landscape identity, defying the limits of spatial and historical context.

On the Formation of the Axiological Content of the Spatiotemporal Structure of Human Existence

The author considers the foundations of the origin and formation of the axiological content of the spatiotemporal structure of human existence. The object of the research is a human being and culture at the turn of the twentieth and twenty first centuries. The theoretical and methodological foundation combines a number of approaches characteristic of the social humanities: the scientific research program of cultural centrism aimed at understanding the complex subject of social and humanitarian problems and allowing to reveal and describe its unique, individually expressed properties; the relational concept of time and space, according to which the latter exist only in mutual connection with objects and, therefore, in inseparable unity with human being; dialectical model, within the framework of which the universe is an integral organic evolving process, all structural elements of which are dialectically interconnected; the theory of chronotope affirms the immanent unity of time and space. All that has been noted makes it possible, within the framework of the presented study, to interpret space and time as a complexly structured evolving multilevel chronotopological organization immanent to human being. Human existence appears as a temporal component of the chronotopological structure, and the spatial axis of the latter is the locus of human existence and the world around a person. The value content of human space and time arises and receives its development according to their relational essence, due to their inextricable dialectical relationship with human existence. The evolution of space and time is inseparable from the evolution of human being, is an integral component of his existence, which appears as personal, aesthetic and value development, experiencing the world around him, existentially and ethically determined communication with him. Forming and evolving together with a person, time and space not only act as accidents and modes of his being, but become his value-structured life-world, interconnected with the social and cultural spheres.