Conceptions of quality as family resemblances

Purpose To consider how quality should be conceptualized to improve understanding for researchers and practitioners, some researchers have discussed quality in terms of an essence or necessary condition. Others have regarded quality as individual and experiential, based on differences in actors’ conceptions of quality. This paper aims to resolve the tension caused by these competing views and propose an appropriate method for future research in the area of quality. Design/methodology/approach In many studies, researchers have attempted to understand quality in terms of necessary conditions or through a dualistic ontology. At the same time, an increasing number of researchers have emphasized its experiential nature while discussing quality in conjunction with meeting customers’ expectations. This study investigates how quality can be understood using a conceptual framework based on family resemblances. Findings There is no necessary condition or essence by which quality may be conceptualized or defined. This finding resolves the tension that has arisen from the simultaneous search for a common feature and the assertion that quality is experientially created by individuals. The research also highlights that the nature of quality may differ between people, time and place, or some aspects of it may be the same. Regarding quality in terms of family resemblances accommodates actors’ different conceptions of quality. Phenomenography is proposed as an appropriate research approach with its focus on the qualitatively different ways in which actors make sense of phenomena in their lifeworld. Research limitations/implications Understanding quality as a family of attributes, and using phenomenography as method, provides methodological clarity to long-standing research issues. Using the approaches outlined in this study will enable empirical studies of quality, in any context, to be conducted soundly and relatively quickly. It will also provide a more inclusive and holistic set of meanings based on the experiences of individuals. Practical implications The research provides important insights for researchers and practitioners through clearer conceptions of quality. These include the ability to plan and deliver business outcomes that are more closely aligned with customers’ expectations. Understanding the conceptions of quality, as experienced and determined through family resemblances, has clear implications for researchers and practitioners. Originality/value Understanding actors’ conceptions of quality through the lens of family resemblances resolves long-standing research issues. Using phenomenography as method is innovative, as it is an emerging research approach in the business domain.

El Antropoceno/Capitaloceno y sus implicancias ontológico-políticas: escenario de la pandemia actual

RESUMENEl presente artículo vincula el actual escenario de la pandemia con las implicancias ontológico-políticas advertidas en los debates sobre el Antropoceno/Capitaloceno. En este sentido, los recientes análisis ontológicos en relación a la inauguración de una nueva época geológica dan cuenta de la necesidad de responder a la coyuntura de nuestros días desde propuestas epistémico-políticas en la que prime el abandono de la ontología moderna dualista. Se argumenta que pensar el mundo post-pandemia implica analizar críticamente la ontología dominante y contribuir a un desplazamiento ontológico, que posibilite responder a la urgencia de los tiempos mortíferos del Antropoceno/Capitaloceno.Palabras claves: Antropoceno. Capitaloceno. Ontología Dualista. Giro Ontológico. Pandemia. The Anthropocene/Capitalocene and its ontological-political implications: scenario of the current pandemicABSTRACTThis article links the scenario of the pandemic with the ontological-political implications analyzed in the debates on the Anthropocene/Capitalocene. In this sense, the recent ontological analyses about the inauguration of a new geological epoch show the need to respond to the current situation from epistemic-political proposals in which the abandonment of modern dualistic ontology prevails. It is argued that thinking about the post-pandemic world involves critically analyzing the dominant ontology and contributing to an ontological shift, which makes it possible to respond to the urgency of the deadly times of the Anthropocene/Capitalocene.Keywords: Anthropocene. Capitalocene. Dualistic Ontology. Ontological turn. Pandemic.

Capital in the history of economic thought: charting the ontological underworld

We undertake a comprehensive descriptive and comparative ontology of capital in the history of economic thought post-1870. Beginning with the pioneering contributions of Menger, Böhm-Bawerk, Clark and Knight, we reassess the familiar dualistic ontology of capital that contrasts ‘materialist’ and ‘fundist’ approaches. Advancing beyond this dualism, we find that the ontology of capital is an evolving mosaic presenting many nuances and overlapping with other ontologies concerning notions of time and atomism. There is no substitute for examining the diverse theories, causal explanations and conceptual systems in which capital is embedded. In episodic capital controversies, economists have employed distinctive metaphors of capital revealing hidden presuppositions that imply specific functional and dispositional properties of capital. Ontological comparison can uncover implicit ideas about capital, as evidenced in the metaphors used by Böhm-Bawerk, Hayek and Robinson. The benefits of a descriptive and comparative approach are further illustrated in our critical appraisal of the modern monetary ontology of capital associated with Piketty, business finance and growth accounting. Differentiated by their specific ontologies, each explanation of capital in market economies should be regarded as at best a very partial account, though our assessment shows that some explanations are relatively more fragmentary and impoverished than others.

Being and planning, world formation and authenticity in Heideggerian analysis

The theory of being helps us understand the condition of planning in an evanescent, shape-shifting world and how to be a strategic planner in such a world. Martin Heidegger’s investigation of being reveals important and sometimes disconcerting insights into humans and the worlds they inhabit and generate. In this article, we use Heidegger’s framework of thought to reveal what being means for planners and planning. In our investigation, we focus on one theme that seems fundamental to the practice of planning, the transformative impulse, and we reflect on how Heidegger’s thought provides insights into that element. We show how Heidegger, the philosopher of the everyday, overturned the Cartesian dualistic ontology of subject–object, replacing it with the holistic being-in-the-world. We explore how this holistic ontology helps reinterpret transformative practice. We argue that effective transformation of society involves a transformation of being.

‘It’s All Done With Mirrors’: V.S. Ramachandran and the Material Culture of Phantom Limb Research

This article examines the material culture of neuroscientist Vilayanur S. Ramachandran’s research into phantom limbs. In the 1990s Ramachandran used a ‘mirror box’ to ‘resurrect’ phantom limbs and thus to treat the pain that often accompanied them. The experimental success of his mirror therapy led Ramachandran to see mirrors as a useful model of brain function, a tendency that explains his attraction to work on ‘mirror neurons’. I argue that Ramachandran’s fascination with and repeated appeal to the mirror can be explained by the way it allowed him to confront a perennial problem in the mind and brain sciences, that of the relationship between a supposedly immaterial mind and a material brain. By producing what Ramachandran called a ‘virtual reality’, relating in varied and complex ways to the material world, the mirror reproduced a form of psycho-physical parallelism and dualistic ontology, while conforming to the materialist norms of neuroscience today.

The Concept of Adhyas in Sankar and Post Sankar Vedanta

In any consistence metaphysical system, the three basic ingredients, Methodology, epistemology and ontology must exists harmoniously. The system Sankar Vedanta is closely connected with her non dualistic ontology and its epistemological position clearly implies a strict monism. Moreover, the epistemological issues in Sankar Vedanta have a certain definite contemporary significance. It is also use full to compare the point with the philosophical position of Kant. The central question which we want to discuss with reference to these three epistemologies is does the act of observation make a difference in the thing or system which is under the observation of an observer? And if this type of epistemology is accepted, can it be saved from a solipstic ontic position? The observer is not merely a passive receiver of the knowledge of the object before him or her. It is remarkable thing that Sankar theory of Adhyasa is one of the most consistent theories in harmony with the rest of Sankar Vedanta.