Emanuele Bardone

Definitions and Conceptual Dimensions of Responsible Research and Innovation: A Literature Review

The aim of this study is to provide a discussion on the definitions and conceptual dimensions of Responsible Research and Innovation based on findings from the literature. In the study, the outcomes of a literature review of 235 RRI-related articles were presented. The articles were selected from the EBSCO and Google Scholar databases regarding the definitions and dimensions of RRI. The results of the study indicated that while administrative definitions were widely quoted in the reviewed literature, they were not substantially further elaborated. Academic definitions were mostly derived from the institutional definitions; however, more empirical studies should be conducted in order to give a broader empirical basis to the development of the concept. In the current study, four distinct conceptual dimensions of RRI that appeared in the reviewed literature were brought out: inclusion, anticipation, responsiveness and reflexivity. Two emerging conceptual dimensions were also added: sustainability and care.

Sharing Representations and Creating Chances through Cognitive Niche Construction. The Role of Affordances and Abduction

As a matter of fact, humans continuously delegate and distribute cognitive functions to the environment to lessen their limits. They build models, representations, and other various mediating structures, that are considered to aid thought. In doing these, humans are engaged in a process of cognitive niche construction. In this sense, we argue that a cognitive niche emerges from a network of continuous interplays between individuals and the environment, in which people alter and modify the environment by mimetically externalizing fleeting thoughts, private ideas, etc., into external supports. For cognitive niche construction may also contribute to make available a great portion of knowledge that otherwise would remain simply unexpressed or unreachable. This can turn to be useful especially for all those situations that require to transmit and share knowledge, information, and, more generally, cognitive resources. In dealing with the exploitation of cognitive resources embedded in the environment, the notion of affordance, originally proposed by Gibson [1] to illustrate the hybrid character of visual perception, together with the proximal/distal distinction described by Brunswik [2], are extremely relevant. In order to solve various controversies on the concept of affordance and on the status of the proximal/distal dichotomy, we will take advantage of some useful insights that come from the study on abduction. Abduction may also fruitfully describe all those human and animal hypothetical inferences that are operated through actions which consist in smart manipulations to both detect new affordances and to create manufactured external objects that offer new affordances/cues.

Super-docility in organizations: an evolutionary model

Herbert Simon introduced the term “docility” to define the tendency of human beings to get information from social channels. In this paper, we enrich this first definition with distributed cognition based arguments, and suggest that docile individuals modify the information they get, before passing it on to others. We present a simulation model of docile and non-docile individuals in organizations, where different docility attitudes (behaviors) are considered. In standard conditions, findings suggest that the above-average docile individuals remain below 20% of the number of workers in a given organization. This way, we outline potentials and limits of this intriguing concept.

Perverting Activism: Cyberactivism and Its Potential Failures In Enhancing Democratic Institutions

This paper analyzes the impact of new technologies on a range of practices related to activism. The first section shows how the functioning of democratic institutions can be impaired by scarce political accountability connected with the emergence of moral hazard; the second section displays how cyberactivism can improve the transparency of political dynamics; in the last section the authors turn specifically to cyberactivism and isolate its flaws and some of the most pernicious and self-defeating effects.

Socially distributed cognition and intra-organizational bandwagon: Theoretical framework, model, and simulation

Bandwagon refers to the adoption of popular ideas, thoughts, or practices. Although the inter-organizational (macro) dynamics of the phenomenon have been widely studied, its intra-organizational (micro) aspects have received limited attention. The paper presents a theoretical framework and a model that address intra-organizational aspects of bandwagon drawing on distributed cognition, social relationships, and other elements of the organizational structure such as culture and defensive routines. The analysis of simulated data from the model suggests that the phenomenon is likely to decrease with highly informal culture, promotion of advice taking and giving, low levels of distrust, strong social ties, and minimal defensive routines.

Chances, affordances, and cognitive niche construction: the plasticity of environmental situatedness

As a matter of fact, humans continuously delegate and distribute cognitive functions to the environment to lessen their limits. They build models, representations, and other various mediating structures, that are considered to aid thought. In doing these, humans are engaged in a process of cognitive niche construction. In this sense, we argue that a cognitive niche emerges from a network of continuous interplays between individuals and the environment, in which people alter and modify the environment by mimetically externalising fleeting thoughts, private ideas, etc., into external supports. Through mimetic activities humans create external semiotic anchors that become cognitive chances.

SHARING REPRESENTATIONS THROUGH COGNITIVE NICHE CONSTRUCTION

As a matter of fact, humans continuously delegate and distribute cognitive functions to the environment to lessen their limits. They build models, representations, and other various mediating structures that are thought to be good constructions. In doing this, humans are engaged in a process of cognitive niche construction. More precisely, we argue that a cognitive niche emerges from a network of continuous interplay between individuals and environment, in which people alter and modify the environment by mimetically externalizing fleeting thoughts, private ideas, etc., into external supports. This can turn out to be useful, especially for all those situations that require information transmission, shared knowledge, and more generally, cognitive resources.

Intervening via Chance-Seeking

The main aim of this paper is to offer an epistemological discussion concerning a set of terms that can be useful for researchers when it comes to debating the predicaments related to the notion of intervention. Intervention is everything that a scientist or researcher does. More specifically, it is about what a researcher does with either an explicit or implicit intention to generate new hypotheses and views around a certain issue as well as to try to reach a better understanding of it. The set of terms that I am going to discuss in the paper will revolve around the notion of chance-seeking, which will help illustrate and stress the forward-looking dimension characterizing the notion of intervention.

Affordances as Abductive Anchors

In this paper we aim to explain how the notion of abduction may be relevant in describing some crucial aspects related to the notion of affordance, which was originally introduced by the ecological psychologist James J. Gibson. The thesis we develop in this paper is that an affordance can be considered an abductive anchor. Hopefully, the notion of abduction will clear up some ambiguities and misconceptions still present in current debate. Going beyond a merely sentential conception, we will argue that the role played by abduction is two fold. First of all, it is decisive in leading us to a better definition of affordance. Secondly, abduction turns out to be a valuable candidate in clarifying the various issues related to affordance detection.

Camouflaging Truth: A Biological, Argumentative and Epistemological Outlook from Biological to Linguistic Camouflage

AbstractCamouflage commonly refers to the ability to make something appear as different from what it actually is, or not to make it appear at all. This concept originates from biological studies to describe a range of strategies used by organisms to dissimulate their presence in the environment, but it is frequently borrowed by other semantic fields as it is possible to camouflage one’s position, intentions, opinion etc.: an interesting conceptual continuum between the multiple denotations of camouflage seems to emerge from the multiple homologies. Following this outlook, the first part of this paper aims at sketching out the main forms of camouflage as understood within their biological framework, insisting on the inferential dynamics underdetermined and allowing camouflage, making use of the concept of abduction as received from the Peircean heritage. The second part explores some of the most relevant occurrences of camouflage in dialectical and rhetorical perspectives. The third section aims at drawing the sums of the comparison between linguistic and biological camouflage, showing how strategies aimed at debunking verbal camouflage correspond to their respective countermeasures in biologically-intended camouflage.