The Omnidoxy, solely authored by the philosopher Cometan, is the primary founding treatise of Astronism. Partitioned into twelve disquisitions, each of which are further divided into hundreds of discourses, which are themselves titled by those which are known as rubrals, The Omnidoxy has been codified according to a unique writing structure known as insentence. The Omnidoxy not only forms the foundations of Astronism, but it remains the primary contributor to the wider Astronic philosophical tradition which encompasses the philosophy of Astronism.

This Dictionary of Freedom of Religion or Belief is published by the Astronist Institution through its imprint press Astral Publishing and will stand as the third entry in the Institutional Reference Works series. This Dictionary of Freedom of Religion or Belief provides a vast selection of terms covering all areas of religious liberty advocacy, the history of freedom of religion, human rights violations effecting religious freedom, current affairs and the mechanisms that the United Nations and other key organisations (...) have put in place to ensure religious and belief freedoms are protected for every human being around the world. Compiled by Cometan, this dictionary follows on from the Concise Dictionary of Astronism (First Edition; 2020) and The Institutional Dictionary of Astronism (First Edition; 2021). (shrink)

The Institutional Dictionary of Astronism is the cumulation of receptions between Cometan and the astronomical world during the Founding era (2013-2021). The publication of this very first full-length Institutional Dictionary of Astronism represents eight years of the development of Astronism from its inception to how it stands today in 2021. The publication of this dictionary also encapsulates Astronism exactly as it exists now and how Cometan conceives it by the end of the Founding era. This dictionary and its contents capture (...) what Astronism is now for posterity to look back on how this astronomical belief system will change as time progresses. Many of the words and definitions of this dictionary will alter as we enter the Establishment era and Astronism continues its progression in becoming world religion. However, what will not ever change is Cometan’s absolute devotion to the stars of the night sky and his discovery of their secrets through his receptions, personal inspirations, and his overall relationship with The Great Cosmos. -/- Covering all the major Astronist beliefs, practices, cultural elements, theories, branches of study, and historical events, A Dictionary of Astronism, also known as the Institutional Dictionary of Astronism, is published by the Astronist Institution through its subsidiary, Astral Publishing, to commemorate the end of the era of The Founding of Astronism. -/- The Founding of Astronism began exactly eight years on 1st July 2013 which sparked Cometan's ideations and indrucies and which afforded him the insight, knowledge, and vision to found a new religious movement, philosophy, spirituality and political ideology. As The Founding of Astronism, also simply known as the Founding era, comes to an end, the Astronist Institution wants to acknowledge the fundamental importance of this year period of the history of Astronism and to the wider history of religion, philosophy and spirituality as a whole. -/- The Dictionary of Astronism immortalises that commemorative spirit by providing thousands of definition entries of Astronist terms that have been authorised by Astronist Institution scholars for dissemination worldwide. This dictionary captures the most up-to-date understanding of what Astronism is and how it as a whole and its component parts should be defined. Enjoy this dictionary that emblematises Astronism and how this new religion has so far developed. (shrink)

The Convention of the Rights of the Person in Outer Space, more informally known as the Space Rights Convention, is a human rights and animal rights document that outlines basic principles, rights and freedoms bestowed to different categories of species in outer space which including on extraterrestrial bodies (both planetary and sub-planetary), synthetic bodies (e.g. space stations), as well as on spacecraft (both commissioned and uncommissioned) travelling through space itself (which is often referred to in the Convention as the interspace (...) (i.e. the space between terrestrial bodies). The Convention mirrors much of the rights outlined in the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights but its purpose is to tailor those fundamental human rights to the context of spacefaring activity and to civilisations beyond planet Earth's atmosphere. The Convention was composed by Cometan and is published by the Astronist Institution alone on 23rd May 2022 and is scheduled to be republished as one of the preppendices of the Astrodoxy as its final major draft, after which only amendments may be made to its contents. (shrink)

The Astronist Statement on the Situation of the Human Species, often simply referred to as The Astronist Statement, is a non-technical manifesto of the Astronist philosophy and religion, altogether referenced as the Astronist belief system. It provides a summary of the Astronist perspective on the human condition as this pertains to and is influenced by the ultimate goals of Astronism and the purposes it prescribes to human life through its doctrines on transcension, cosmocentrism, suronality and (...) astrosis. The Astronist Statement is made equivalent to other kinds of theological or ideological manifestos in that it outlines the fundamental problems that Astronism sees effecting the human species and presents solutions to these problems identified. The underlying principle of The Astronist Statement and thereby, all Astronism, is that due to the pervading cosmic limitation, human beings both individually and collectively are limited in our capacities to do and be. This means that the human species is inherently though not hopelessly limited which is pinpointed as the underlying reason for all the suffering, evil and wrongdoing in the world. It is the goal of the Astronist religion to extinguish human limitation because in humanity, Astronism sees the potential for transcension meaning that humanity may one day, via our expansion into the astronomical world, transverse the boundaries of cosmic limitation to become unlimited beings possessing total freedom and thereby having also extinguished our woes of suffering and evil. The Astronist Statement conveys this message of humanity's capacity to transverse limitation via the salvific process of transcension, an endeavour that has indeed become the central dogma of the Astronist religion and thereby the central goal and life purpose of all Astronists. (shrink)

Cometan began writing the Omnidoxy, the founding text of Astronism, at the age of seventeen in 2015 and this first great treatise of the Astronist religion was published in 2019. Since then, the world has been introduced to Astronism and its central doctrine of transcension and its worldview of cosmocentrism but the time has come to reflect on the Omnidoxy. The Astronist System explores the major themes of the Omnidoxy including cosmic organicism, astrogenism, returnism and transcension and provides (...) rigorous detail on various aspects of Astronist philosophy, theology, spirituality, eschatology and soteriology. In this reflective work, Cometan also takes the time to analyse what the founding text of Astronism achieved and the legacy it has left behind for the worldwide Astronist community. Cometan's reflections on the Omnidoxy text from his current vantage point allow him to close the chapter on the Omnidoxy so that he can move forward with his writing and eventual publication of the next great Astronist treatise titled the Astrodoxy which Cometan has already titled the central text of Astronism. (shrink)

Institutions can be strong or weak. But what does this mean? Equilibrium theories equate institutions with behavioural regularities. In contrast, rule theories explicate them in terms of a standard that people are supposed to meet. I propose that, when an institution is weak, a discrepancy exists between the regularity and the standard or rule. To capture this discrepancy, I present a hybrid theory, the Rules-and-Equilibria Theory. According to this theory, institutions are rule-governed behavioural regularities. The Rules-and-Equilibria Theory provides the (...) basis for two measures of institutional strength. First, institutions that pertain to coordination games solve problems of information. Their strength is primarily a matter of the expected degree of compliance. Second, institutions that concern mixed-motive games solve problems of motivation. Their strength can be measured in terms of the weight people attribute to its rule. (shrink)

In times of climate change and public debt, a concern for intergenerational justice should lead us to have a closer look at theories of intergenerational justice. It should also press us to provide institutional design proposals to change the decision-making world that surrounds us. This book provides an exhaustive overview of the most important institutional proposals as well as a systematic and theoretical discussion of their respective features and advantages. It focuses on institutional proposals aimed at taking the interests of (...) future generations more seriously, and does so from the perspective of applied political philosophy, being explicit about the underlying normative choices and the latest developments in the social sciences. It provides citizens, activists, firms, charities, public authorities, policy-analysts, students, and academics with the body of knowledge necessary to understand what our institutional options are and what they entail if we are concerned about today's excessive short-termism. (shrink)

The purpose of this paper was to examine institutional variables and the supervision of security in secondary schools in Cross River State. The study specifically sought to determine whether there was a significant influence of school population, school type and school location, on the supervision of security in public secondary schools in Cross River State. Three null hypotheses were formulated accordingly to guide the study. 360 students and 120 teachers resulting in a total of 480 respondents, constituted the sample for (...) the study. The instrument used for data collection was a questionnaire while Independent t-test was used to analyze data and test the hypotheses at .05 level of significance using Microsoft Excel version 2013. The results of the findings revealed that school population, school type and school location, all have an influence in the supervision of security in public secondary schools of Cross River State. It was also revealed that lowly populated, mixed-gender, and urban public secondary schools were more efficient in the supervision of security than their counterparts such as highly populated, single-gender and rural secondary schools. Based on the findings of this study, conclusions were drawn and recommendations were made. (shrink)

It is conventional wisdom among political philosophers that ideal principles of justice must guide our attempts to design institutions to avert actual injustice. Call this the ideal guidance approach. I argue that this view is misguided— ideal principles of justice are not appropriate "guiding principles" that actual institutions must aim to realize, even if only approximately. Fortunately, the conventional wisdom is also avoidable. In this paper, I develop an alternative approach to institutional design, which I call institutional failure analysis. The (...) basic intuition of this approach is that our moral assessment of institutional proposals is most effective when we proceed from a detailed understanding of the causal processes generating problematic social outcomes. Failure analysis takes the institutional primary design task to be obviating or averting institutional failures. Consequently, failure analysis enables theorists to prescribe more effective solutions to actual injustice because its focuses on understanding the injustice, rather than specifying an ideal of justice. (shrink)

The article provides an overview of the basic concepts and principles of the theory of institutions as well as of the mechanisms of emergence and evolution of social institutions. It introduces a distinction between formal and informal institutions based on the the criterion of the enforcement agency of institutions. Finally it discusses the problem of path dependence.

We attribute knowledge to institutions on a daily basis, saying things like "the government knew about the threat" or "the university did not act upon the knowledge it had about the harassment". Institutions can also attribute knowledge to themselves, like when Maybank Global Banking claims that it offers its customers "deep expertise and vast knowledge" of the Southeast Asia region, or when the United States Geological Survey states that it understands complex natural science phenomena like the probability of earthquakes occurring (...) along a given fault line. This article aims to discover when we can correctly attribute knowledge to an institution. I find this an interesting question, especially because when something does go wrong, all too often the official line of response from institutions is that they were unaware of the situation: in other words, they did not have enough information at their disposal. I will argue that institutions have fewer excuses for being ignorant than individuals do, and that many admissions of institutional knowledge are too modest. I begin by discussing a real-life example of the latter, before turning my attention to the usually fragmented nature of institutional knowledge. I also discuss the robustness of this knowledge, offering a distinction between two types of institutional knowledge. I then discuss knowledge parameters and why institutions have fewer excuses for not knowing about something than individuals do. I round off the chapter by examining institutional knowledge on climate change. (shrink)

This article explores how institutions play a pivotal role in shaping collective knowledge and ignorance concerning the human–animal relationship. It contends that institutions, by obstructing or facilitating the production and dissemination of knowledge, significantly influence societal perceptions of animals, and in turn, our treatment of them. Such epistemic processes lead to speciesist beliefs and behaviour, which I assume to be morally problematic. The discussion centres on the obstruction of collective moral knowledge related to the human–animal relationship. Specifically, my article identifies (...) various ‘corrupting conditions’ within institutions which obstruct agents’ epistemic functioning, and thereby, contribute to collective moral ignorance and consequent speciesist moral wrongdoings, including: (1) Lack of anti-speciesist alternatives or behaviours; (2) derogation of anti-speciesist processes or behaviours; (3) valorization of speciesist processes or behaviour; (4) re-branding of undesirable epistemic processes as commendable; (5) conditions increasing the costs of anti-speciesist inquiry; (6) conditions fostering indifference about animal issues; (7) policies mandating speciesist commitments. The article discusses how these conditions influence epistemic processes in detail. Furthermore, using the production of animal products as a case study, the article illustrates how political institutions, legal institutions, search engines and media, perpetuate moral ignorance regarding animals. It argues that these institutional corrupting conditions normalize speciesism, encouraging the widespread adoption of speciesist beliefs. I conclude that it is necessary to improve institutional epistemic environments to facilitate successful animal advocacy efforts, including widespread moral knowledge about animals and voting support for animal protection policies. The article lays the groundwork for discussing the epistemic responsibilities institutions bear in shaping perceptions of the human–animal relationship. (shrink)

This paper argues that the concept and role of ‘institutional racism’ in contemporary discussions of race should be reconsidered. It starts by distinguishing between ‘intrinsic institutional racism’, which holds that institutions are racist in virtue of their constitutive features, and ‘extrinsic institutional racism’, which holds that institutions are racist in virtue of their negative effects. It accepts intrinsic institutional racism, but argues that a ‘disparate impact’ conception of extrinsic conception faces a number of objections, the most serious being that it (...) has no plausible account of what it is that makes extrinsically racist institutions racist. It also argues that claims about the explanatory indispensability of institutional racism are overstated (individual racism is at least as important), critiques structural approaches to racial inequality, and suggests that there is reason to doubt whether institutional reform can provide us with all that morality may require in the racial domain. (shrink)

When organizations solve collective action problems or realize values, they do so by means of institutions. These are commonly regarded as self-stabilizing. Yet, they can also be subject to endogenous processes of decay, or so we argue. We explain this in terms of psychological and cultural processes, which can change even if the formal structures remain unchanged. One key implication is that the extent to which norms, values, and ideals motivate individuals to comply with institutions is limited.

In this paper, I criticize the thesis that value-laden approaches in American philosophy of science were marginalized in the 1960s through the editorial policy at Philosophy of Science and funding practices at the National Science Foundation. I argue that there is no available evidence of any normative restriction on philosophy of science as a domain of inquiry which excluded research on the relation between science and society. Instead, I claim that the absence of any exemplary, professional philosopher who discussed the (...) relation between science and society sufficed to narrow the focus of philosophers of science, given the institutional stabilization of the domain within professional philosophy from 1959 onwards. (shrink)

On September 26th, 2023, the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities (NIMHD) officially designated disabled people as a health disparity population, marking the most significant event for disabled people's health as it relates to the NIH. In this paper, I discuss the larger socio-political context as well as the clinical import of this historic decision.

Elsewhere we have responded to the so-called demandingness objection to consequentialism – that consequentialism is excessively demanding and is therefore unacceptable as a moral theory – by introducing the theoretical position we call institutional consequentialism. This is a consequentialist view that, however, requires institutional systems, and not individuals, to follow the consequentialist principle. In this paper, we first introduce and explain the theory of institutional consequentialism and the main reasons that support it. In the remainder of the paper, we turn (...) to the global dimension where the first and foremost challenge is to explain how institutional consequentialism can deal with unsolved global problems such as poverty, war and climate change. In response, following the general idea of institutional consequentialism, we draw up three alternative routes: relying on existing national, transnational and supranational institutions; promoting gradual institutional reform; and advocating radical changes to the status quo. We evaluate these routes by describing normatively relevant properties of the existing global institutional system, as well as by showing what institutional consequentialism can say about alternatives to it: a world government; and multi-layered sovereignty/neo-medieval system. (shrink)

In this article, I consider the role of institutions in Jacques Derrida’s political engagement. In spite of Derrida’s significant involvement with political causes throughout his life, his engagements have received little sustained attention, and this is particularly true of his work with institutions. I turn to two such cases, the Collège international de philosophie and the Parlement international des écrivains and argue that these represent an alternative mode of institutionalisation. These institutions seek to destabilise other institutions as well as themselves.Looking (...) closely at the institutions that Derrida founded, we see three common characteristics emerge. These institutions are anti-hegemonic,self-reflexive and international. I then connect these to Derrida’s thought, offering a reading of the undecidable, which brings forth the importance of conventions in the decision. Finally, I demonstrate that the three shared characteristics of Derrida’s institutions form part of an effort to open up space for the possibility of alterity. Through this, and beyond a distinction between theory/practice, we come to see Derrida’s institutional engagements as an active form of critique, both of other institutions and themselves. (shrink)

Scientific progress has many facets and can be conceptualized in different ways, for example in terms of problem-solving, of truthlikeness or of growth of knowledge. The main claim of the paper is that the most important prerequisite of scientific progress is the institutionalization of competition and criticism. An institutional framework appropriately channeling competition and criticism is the crucial factor determining the direction and rate of scientific progress, independently on how one might wish to conceptualize scientific progress itself. The main intention (...) is to narrow the divide between traditional philosophy of science and the sociological, economic and political outlook at science that emphasizes the private interests motivating scientists and the subsequent contingent nature of the enterprise. The aim is to show that although science is a social enterprise taking place in historical time and thus is of a contingent nature, it can and in fact does lead to genuine scientific progress - contrary to the claims of certain sociologists of science and other relativists who standardly stress its social nature, but deny its progressive character. I will first deal with the factual issue by way of introducing the main concepts and mechanisms of modern institutional theory and by applying them to the analysis of the cultural phenomenon that we call modern science. I will then turn to the normative issue: what is the appropriate content of the institutional framework, for scientific progress to emerge and be sustained at which level should it be set and by whom? Addressing this problematic is equivalent to conducting a constitutional debate leading to a Constitution of Science. (shrink)

With increasing complexity of the networks of social interaction new and more abstract forms of trust are in need. A conceptual analysis of different forms of trust, namely interpersonal trust, trust in groups and institutional trust is given. It is argued that institutional trust cannot totally replace interpersonal trust. Institutional trust rather builds on more personal forms of trust in that it is primarily formed in personal encounters with salient representatives of the institution and presupposes trust in others trusting (...) in the institution. Any form of trust is grounded in some normative foundation. A trusting person can make herself vulnerable to the action of other individuals because she perceives those others as acting from shared aims or values. Thus, some sort of virtue is a prerequisite of any form of genuine trust. While institutional trust may in some respect be more easily acquired than interpersonal trust in general it may bear a fundamental problem: institutional trust may be extraordinary robust with regard to a wide range of behavioral experiences; thus, it may be enduringly maintained although in fact unjustified. In a concluding section the general analysis is illustrated by some reflections on the problem of trust in government. (shrink)

Dans cet article, nous offrons un large aperçu des interactions entre cognition, systèmes de croyances et institutions, et comment elles affectent la performance économique. Nous estimons qu'une meilleure compréhension de l’émergence des institutions, de leurs propriétés de fonctionnement et de leurs effets sur les résultats politiques et économiques doit commencer par une analyse des processus cognitifs. Nous explorons la nature de l'apprentissage individuel et collectif, en soulignant que la question n'est pas de savoir si les agents ont une rationalité parfaite (...) ou limitée, mais plutôt de savoir comment les êtres humains raisonnent ou choisissent réellement, individuellement et collectivement. Nous avons ensuite lié les processus d'apprentissage à l'analyse institutionnelle, fournissant des arguments en faveur de ce qui peut être qualifiée d’« institutionnalisme cognitif ». En outre, nous montrons qu’un traitement complet du phénomène de sentier de dépendance devrait commencer au niveau cognitif, se poursuivre au niveau institutionnel, et aboutir au niveau économique. (shrink)

The goal of our article is to review the widespread anthropological figure, according to which we can achieve a better understanding of humans by contrasting them with animals. This originally Herderian approach was elaborated by Arnold Gehlen, who characterized humans as “deficient beings” who become complete through culture. According to Gehlen, humans, who are insufficiently equipped by instincts, indirectly stabilize their existence by creating institutions, i.e., complexes of habitual actions. On the other hand, Maurice Merleau-Ponty shows that corporeal relationship to (...) the world is already indirect because it is based on preestablished and readjusted “standards” or “norms” of interaction with the environment. Merleau-Ponty then calls these norms “institutions” and views culture as readjustment of institutions which operate already on the level of corporeal existence. The anthropological figure of confronting humans and animals thus cannot produce, as in Gehlen, a contrast between an allegedly “direct” relationship to the world in animals and a supposedly “indirect” relationship to the world in humans. The Herderian approach can be meaningfully retained only if interpreted as an invitation to confront the norms of indirect interaction with the world in animals and in people, that is, if viewed as a comparison of their respective institutions. (shrink)

The paper aims to explain different cases of disobedient institutional behavior using the attitude-based model. The issue of how to analyze and capture the faces of disobedience in a simple model is approached in three steps: first, misbehavior is defined as a certain lack in normative attitudes; second, these attitudes are distinguished in terms of normative acceptance and normative guidance; and third, combinations of these attitudes represent basic types of disobedience: opposing, transgressing and conforming. These three categories constitute an analytical (...) typology of disobedient agents compatible with the theory of social institutions. (shrink)

In all probability, future generations will outnumber us by thousands or millions to one. In the aggregate, their interests therefore matter enormously, and anything we can do to steer the future of civilization onto a better trajectory is of tremendous moral importance. This is the guiding thought that defines the philosophy of longtermism. Political science tells us that the practices of most governments are at stark odds with longtermism. But the problems of political short-termism are neither necessary nor inevitable. In (...) principle, the state could serve as a powerful tool for positively shaping the long-term future. In this chapter, we make some suggestions about how to align government incentives with the interests of future generations. First, in Section II, we explain the root causes of political short-termism. Then, in Section III, we propose and defend four institutional reforms that we think would be promising ways to increase the time horizons of governments: 1) government research institutions and archivists; 2) posterity impact assessments; 3) futures assemblies; and 4) legislative houses for future generations. Section IV concludes with five additional reforms that are promising but require further research: to fully resolve the problem of political short-termism we must develop a comprehensive research program on effective longtermist political institutions. (shrink)

Political legitimacy is best understood as one type of a broader notion, which I call institutional legitimacy. An institution is legitimate in my sense when it has the right to function. The right to function correlates to a duty of non-interference. Understanding legitimacy in this way favorably contrasts with legitimacy understood in the traditional way, as the right to rule correlating to a duty of obedience. It helps unify our discourses of legitimacy across a wider range of practices, especially (...) including the many evaluations we increasingly make of international institutions of various sorts, but also including domestic institutions. (shrink)

The author criticizes the characterization of institutional objects (proposed independently by John Searle and Ota Weinberger) according to which institutional objects are necessarily objects cum fundamento in re, that is, objects that presuppose a material substrate on which they are based.

We argue that the notion of "mental institutions"-discussed in recent debates about extended cognition-can help better understand the origin and character of social impairments in autism, and also help illuminate the extent to which some mechanisms of autistic dysfunction extend across both internal and external factors (i.e., they do not just reside within an individual's head). After providing some conceptual background, we discuss the connection between mental institutions and embodied habits of mind. We then discuss the significance of our view (...) for understanding autistic habits of mind and consider why these embodied habits are sometimes a poor fit with neurotypical mental institutions. We conclude by considering how these insights highlight the two-way, extended nature of social impairments in autism, and how this extended picture might assist in constructing more inclusive mental institutions and intervention strategies. (shrink)

Within the last decade, epistemic injustice has been a valuable framework for those working on exposing oppressive practices within the healthcare system. As this work has evolved, new terminology has been added to the epistemic injustice literature to bring to light previously obscured epistemic harms in healthcare practices. This paper aims to explore an important concept that has not received the attention it deserves: epistemic isolation. By developing Ian Kidd and Havi Carel’s concept of epistemic isolation, a new range of (...) epistemic harms are brought to the fore, as some of the most marginalised in our society are forced to operate from positions of ignorance. In the words of Kidd and Carel, epistemic isolation occurs in ‘situations where a person or group lacks the knowledge of, or means of access to, particular information; for instance, if they live within a politically repressive society which forbids access to the necessary sources of information in order to protect the government’s hegemony’ (183–184). This paper will demonstrate that such epistemic isolation is uniquely devastating for those with psychiatric illness, exacerbating their already challenging circumstances. (shrink)

Scholars are divided on the relationship between cynicism and political life. In this chapter, I describe and endorse what I call 'institutional cynicism' and suggest it can feature within kinds of virtuous civic stances in democratic societies. I accept that some forms of cynicism can be as destructive and as anti-democratic as critics insist. Institutional cynicism, of the sort I describe, can actually make us better citizens. It turns our attention towards sub-optimal aspects of the political institutions of democratic societies, (...) teaching us things about those institutions we need to know, without necessarily leading us into fatalism or despair. (shrink)

Allen Buchanan proposes a methodological framework with which theorists may evaluate different theories of secession, including the National Self-Determination theory. An important claim he makes is, because the right to secede is inherently institutional, any adequate theory of secession must include, as an integral part, an analysis of institutional morality. Because the National Self-Determination theory blatantly lacks such an analysis, Buchanan concludes that this theory is inherently flawed. In this paper, I consider Buchanan’s framework and the responses from supporters of (...) national self-determination theory. I try to clarify the confusion shared by both parties. I conclude that, although Buchanan’s theory of institutional morality is sound, his critiques of the national self-determination theory fails. (shrink)

Students with visual impairments (VI) are among the groups of students needing specialized resources and supports for their school success. Using a scoping review, the institutional support services needed by visually impaired students were examined in this paper. It looked at different strategies for putting these students' institutional support into practice and collated such strategies into levels that can inform inclusive practices in higher institutions of learning. The study followed a PRISMA protocol to present a descriptive analysis of peer-reviewed publications (...) gathered from PubMed, Scopus, Google Scholars, and PsychInfo. Eight peer reviewed papers with a sample of 316 (303 post-secondary school students with VI and 13 teachers) were drawn for the study after eligibility assessment. It was found that post-secondary school students with VI still requires a number of institutional support modalities for their smooth career transition. Institutional support needs were described under the career challenges experienced by students with visual impairments and the needs for institutional support for building on smooth transition from school to career. It was deduced that student with VI still experiences barriers such as inadequately trained teachers, ill-equipped schools to address their needs, financial challenges, public stigma, accessibility, peer-to-peer acceptance and difficulties in learning at the university. The support needed from the institution were found to be those associated with academic support, integration into the social environment, need for institutional structural support services, and career transition intervention support. Practical implications demonstrates that educational institutions play a big part in helping visually impaired students in career transition. These implications can be built into a framework of action for institutional support for students with VI in schools as proposed in this paper. (shrink)

Can people efficiently navigate the modern communication environment, and if yes, how? We hypothesize that in addition to psychological capacities of epistemic vigilance, which evaluate the epistemic value of communicated information, some social institutions have evolved for the same function. Certain newspapers for instance, implement processes, distributed among several experts and tools, whose function is to curate information. We analyze how information curation is done at the institutional level and what challenges it meets. We also investigate what factors favor the (...) cultural evolution of institutions of epistemic vigilance: these include people’s preference for accurate and reliable information and their ability to assess communicated information in view of the source’s epistemic authority; but also contingent historical factors that make it worth—or not—to contribute to the maintenance of institutions of epistemic vigilance. We conclude the paper by considering the challenges and vulnerabilities of these institutions in the Digital Age. (shrink)

In this Chapter, we address the challenge of explaining institutional change, asking whether the much-criticized rational choice perspective can contribute to the understanding of institutional change in political science. We discuss the methodological reasons why rational choice institutionalism (RCI) often assumes that institutional change is exogenous and discontinuous. We then identify and explore the possible pathways along which RCI can be extended to be more useful in understanding institutional change in political science. Finally, we reflect on what RCI theorizing would (...) look like if it started to take endogenous change seriously: by giving up some of its simplifying assumptions, RCI can be a useful tool for analyzing institutional change, but choosing this path has consequences for the generality of the models in RCI as well as for the style of its theorizing. (shrink)

In this article, we provide a broad overview of the interplay among cognition, belief systems, and institutions, and how they affect economic performance. We argue that a deeper understanding of institutions’ emergence, their working properties, and their effect on economic and political outcomes should begin from an analysis of cognitive processes. We explore the nature of individual and collective learning, stressing that the issue is not whether agents are perfectly or boundedly rational, but rather how human beings actually reason and (...) choose, individually and in collective settings. We then tie the processes of learning to institutional analysis, providing arguments in favor of what can be characterized as “cognitive institutionalism.” Besides, we show that a full treatment of the phenomenon of path dependence should start at the cognitive level, proceed at the institutional level, and culminate at the economic level. (shrink)

The purpose of this article is to provide an alternative antitrust model to the mainstream model that is used in competition policy. I call it the InstitutionalEvolutionary Antitrust Model. In order to construct an antitrust model one needs both empirical knowledge and considerations of how to adequately deal with norms. The analysis of competition as an evolutionary process that unfolds within legal rules provides the empirical foundation for the model. The development of the normative dimension involves the elaboration of a (...) comparative approach. Building on those foundations the main features of the Institutional-Evolutionary Model are sketched out and it is shown that its use leads to systematically different outcomes and conclusions than the dominant antitrust ideals. (shrink)

Institutions undertake a huge variety of constitutive purposes. One of the roles of legitimacy is to protect and promote an institution’s pursuit of its purpose; state legitimacy is generally understood as the right to rule, for example. When considering legitimacy beyond the state, we have to take account of how differences in purposes change legitimacy. I focus in particular on how differences in purpose matter for the stringency of the standards that an institution must meet in order to (...) be legitimate. An important characteristic of an institution’s purpose is its deontic status, i.e. whether it is morally impermissible, merely permissible, or mandatory. Although this matters, it does so in some non-obvious ways; the mere fact of a morally impermissible purpose is not necessarily delegitimating, for example. I also consider the problem of conflicting, multiple, and contested institutional purposes, and the different theoretical roles for institutional purpose. Understanding how differences in purpose matter for an institution’s legitimacy is one part of the broader project of theorizing institutional legitimacy in the many contexts beyond the traditional context of the state. (shrink)

Universal social institutions, such as marriage, commons management and property, have emerged independently in radically different cultures. This requires explanation. As Boyer and Petersen point out ‘in a purely localist framework would have to constitute massively improbable coincidences’ . According to Boyer and Petersen, those institutions emerged naturally out of genetically wired behavioural dispositions, such as marriage out of mating strategies and borders out of territorial behaviour. While I agree with Boyer and Petersen that ‘unnatural’ institutions cannot thrive, this one-sided (...) explanation of universal social institutions in terms of genetic human nature is unsatisfactory. Drawing on the literature on multi-level selection and gene-culture coevolution, I argue that universal social institutions are first and foremost the products of cultural selection. They occupy fitness peaks in the landscape of cultural possibilities, much in the same way that biological adaptations occupy fitness peaks in the landscape of biological possibilities. To show this, I use game-theory. By modelling the domains of social interaction in which marriage, commons management, and property emerged as Prisoner’s dilemma situations, it becomes clear how an institutional framework allows the group to move to an interactive equilibrium with a larger payoff. Institutions do so by incentivising all parties to adopt a cooperative strategy. They are culturally selected ways of optimising genetically constrained domains of human social interaction. (shrink)

This paper articulates and defends three interconnected claims: first, that the debate on the role of values for science misses a crucial dimension, the institutional one; second, that institutions occupy the intermediate level between scientific activities and values and that they are to be systematically integrated into the analysis; third, that the appraisal of the institutions of science with respect to values should be undertaken within the premises of a comparative approach rather than an ideal approach. Hence, I defend the (...) view that the issue be framed in reference to the following question: "What kind of institutional rules should be in place in order for the scientific process to unfold in such a way that the values that we deem more important come to the fore?" Addressing this concern is equivalent to conducting a debate on institutions and their role for science. (shrink)

Institutions play an indispensable role in our political and epistemic lives. This Chapter explores sympathetically the claim that political institutions can be bearers of epistemic vices. I start by describing one form of collectivism - the claim that the vices of institutions do not reduce to the vices of their members. I then describe the phenomenon of epistemic corruption and the various processes that can corrupt the epistemic ethoi of political institutions. The discussion focuses on some recent work by Miranda (...) Fricker and select examples from recent British political experience. The Chapter ends with suggestions for further work on the corruption and repair of the epistemic ethoi of political institutions. (shrink)

This essay develops a thesis regarding the manner through which social institutions such as property come to be, and a second thesis regarding how such institutions ought to be legitimated. The two theses, outlined below, are in need of explication largely because of the entrenched cultural influence of an erroneous reading of social contract theory concerning the historical origins of the state. In part A, I introduce that error. I proceed in parts B and C to present two central theses (...) about institutions: Thesis 1: The construction of social institutions can be understood clearly only if that topic is distinguished from the topic of their normative status, or legitimacy. Thesis 2: The normative status of such institutions can be understood properly only if their legitimacy is distinguished from the legitimacy of government. With the distinction of Thesis 1 in place, an informative socio-technical account of the construction of institutions can be formulated with little ado. This allows for clarity concerning how institutions might be legitimated (Thesis 2), and consequently, legitimation can proceed. Some fundamentals of legitimation from a Kantian perspective are outlined in Part C. (shrink)

The study aimed to identify the role of administrative procedures and systems in enhancing the performance of the educational institutions in the Islamic University in Gaza. To achieve the research objectives, the researchers used the analytical descriptive approach to collect information. The researchers used the questionnaire distributed to three categories of employees at the Islamic University (senior management, faculty members, their assistants and members of the administrative board). A random sample of 314 employees was selected and 276 questionnaires were retrieved (...) with a recovery rate of 88.1%. The Statistical Analysis Program (SPSS) was used to enter process and analyze data. The results of the research showed a positive role for the administrative procedures and systems in enhancing the performance of the Islamic University from the point of view of the members (senior management, teaching staff and their assistants and the administrative body), where the relative weight of all the paragraphs (73.728%). The analysis of the results revealed that the administrative procedures at the Islamic University in Gaza are used to an acceptable degree. The relative weight of all the paragraphs is 70%. This indicates a relationship between administrative procedures and regulations and the performance of the Islamic University in the Gaza Strip. The study found that there was a good degree of approval from the sample regarding the administrative procedures and their relationship to the job performance. There exist a sufficient degree of powers to the deans and department managers to carry out their tasks, with the use of plans as control tools. And that there are rules and procedures provided for decision-making in the University Council. It also has full powers to manage the university to improve the teaching and learning environment. The researchers also recommended a number of recommendations, including the need to follow up on the procedures and systems of management and update them continuously in the light of changes that may occur and to ensure the existence of a strong system of electronic information systems within the university. There is a need to provide mechanisms for obtaining information about the surrounding external environment, and effective mechanisms to provide managers with the necessary information in a timely manner. The importance of providing channels of communication that enables staff to communicate information about any violations and breaches. The study also recommended the follow-up, review, procedures and administrative systems, and work to modify them in line with the mission of the university and the objectives that the university seeks to reach. (shrink)

It is widely acknowledged that categories play significant roles in the appreciation of artworks. This paper argues that the correct categories of artworks are institutionally established through social processes. Section 1 examines the candidates for determining correct categories and proposes that this question should shift the focus from category membership to appreciative behaviour associated with categories. Section 2 draws on Francesco Guala’s theory of institutions to show that categories of artworks are established as rules-in-equilibrium. Section 3 reviews the explanatory benefits (...) of this institutional theory of the correct category. [Winner of the 2022 Debates in Aesthetics Essay Prize]. (shrink)

[This paper is written in Czech language.] The aim of the article is to re-evaluate the still-surviving anthropological trope which, in reaction to an inquiry into the essence of man, compares humans with animals and points to culture as the means by which humans complete their “deficient” nature. This motif contrasting humans with animals has been extended by A. Gehlen who characterises humans as “beings of deficiencies”. In his view, the morphological-instinctive insufficiency of the human being must be stabilised by (...) cultural institutions, i.e. complexes of habitual actions. Merleau-Ponty, however, demonstrates that bodily beings always relate to their environment in an indirect way, on the basis of certain “standards” and “norms” of interaction, which exist by way of institution. The anthropological trope confronting humans and animals thus cannot produce, as in Gehlen, a contrast between an allegedly “direct” relationship to the world in animals, and a supposedly “indirect” relationship to the world in humans. It can be meaningfully retained only if it is interpreted in a Merleau-Pontyan way, that is, as an invitation to understand the transformation of the norms of indirect interaction with the world found in animals into those found in people, that is, if viewed as a comparison of their respective institutions. (shrink)

In this paper, I describe a category of political values that I call “institutional values.” An institutional value is distinct from an ordinary political value like justice by having both descriptive and evaluative components. I defend a method of sorting out correct from incorrect conceptions of an institutional value that relies on two ideas: coherence and verisimilitude.

This paper explores and defends an institutional metaphysics for the Trinity as providing us with an inherently interpersonal reality, and provides general and specific methodological arguments in that direction in the first section. The actual argumentation is then first of all directed against Augustine’s rejection of the family as a suitable analogy for the Trinity. It is instead argued that the family does in fact offer an interesting and suitable analogy. Next, several more general and historic precursors to such an (...) institutional analogy are explored and fleshed out, relying on the legal and economic meaning of the term ‘substance’ as an estate, such as the shared inheritance between a father and a son. The main section further develops the outlines and main features of such an institutional metaphysics, relying on both analogies to result in three persons in one numerically identical substance. The final section returns to the methodological issue but now in an explicitly Marian key, culminating in the Holy Family as a key exemplar for the family analogy. (shrink)

Calls to recognize a right of return are a recurring feature of refugee crises. Particularly when such crises become long-term, advocates of displaced people insist that they be allowed to return to their country of origin. I argue that this right is best understood as the right of refugees to return, not to a prior territory, but to a prior political status. This status is one that sees not just any state, but a refugee's state of origin, take responsibility for (...) safeguarding their welfare. This entitlement I characterize as an institutional right: a right that presupposes, and is a necessary feature of, a particular institution. The institution of which the right of return is an indispensable part is the international political system that sees authority exercised by sovereign states. The institutional argument for a right of refugee return presupposes two basic factual claims about states: they play a central role in safeguarding rights and they pursue exclusionary policies of border control. Importantly, the institutional view presupposes only that states do perform both functions, not that they are justified in doing so. On a purely normative level, the institutional account assumes little more than the moral equality of human beings. (shrink)

Accountability of the elected leaders is one of the key factors in a representative democracy. Bangladesh restored a democratic ruling system in 1991 but has struggled to create an effective institutional mechanism to hold the political leaders before the citizens. Information has often been called the oxygen of democracy because of its power to bring accountability through transparency and public disclosure. With the boom of news media organisations and the emergence of the movement for the right to and freedom of (...) information in the early 2000s, many argued that information institutions could build the mechanism for political accountability. On that background, Bangladesh enacted the Right to Information Act in 2009 and established a few key public information institutions including the Information Commission (IC) and Access to Information Programme hoping that the freedom of information would not only challenge the culture of secrecy and veil but also encourage the elected leaders to be answerable to the citizens. But did it really happen? Why? I looked for the answers in this study though the conceptual and analytical lens of freedom of information, proactive disclosure and accountability. For this study, I mainly used the data and cases gathered from secondary sources namely policy papers, reports, newspapers, journals, books and online spaces. I also utilised my own experience of working with a few state organisations. I analysed the current status of accountability mechanisms in Bangladesh focusing mainly on the political accountability (often called the vertical accountability). I also examined a few recent cases in order to understand the role of the information institutions in bringing the political accountability in the current fragile democracy in Bangladesh. Considering the poor democratic practices in the recent years, findings of this study suggest that the accountability of the political leaders has increased to a certain considerable extent. I argue that this is partly because of the increased transparency and proactive disclosure in the formal and informal institutional mechanisms, and mostly because of the leading active role of the mass media organisations. I conclude with the argument that despite having this increased transparency and freedom of information, this improved accountability is not sustainable without an effective democratic institutional mechanism. (shrink)

This study was conducted to investigate the degree to which institutional variables such as: institutional location, ownership and leadership influence the job performance of academic staff across three dimensions: teaching, research productivity and community service. This ex-post facto study by design, tested three hypotheses. A total of 449 academic, randomly drawn from three (one private and two public) universities in Cross River State, Nigeria, participated in the study. Three sets of questionnaires were used for data collection after due validity and (...) reliability tests. They included the “Institutional Variables Questionnaire (IVQ)”, the “Research Productivity and Community Service Questionnaire (RPCSQ)”, and the “Staff Instructional Delivery Questionnaire (SIDQ).” Collected data were analysed using the independent sample t-test, one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) and simple linear analysis. Findings indicated that institutional location significantly impacts university academic staff across multiple dimensions—teaching, research, and community service— with urban institutions consistently demonstrating higher scores than their rural counterparts. There was a significant influence of institutional ownership on research productivity unlike teaching and community service. Federal institutions exhibited higher research productivity than both state and private universities. Institutional leadership significantly influenced research productivity and community service engagement, but not in the dimension of teaching among the academic staff. This study underscores the need for a holistic approach to enhancing academic staff performance. It emphasizes the importance of strategic resource allocation, collaborative endeavours, and strong leadership to create an environment where teaching, research, and community service thrive. (shrink)

Thomas Pogge’s (2006) framework of global justice can be adapted for individual agents or collective unilateral donations in the same way Peter Singer’s framework has been. I do so by amending Pogge’s institutional principles for international human rights NGOs and by adding two further principles to address challenges that arise when his framework is applied. This adapted framework enjoins donors to make principled philanthropic decisions that prioritize existing and near-term suffering, while also rectifying their part in causing this suffering. It (...) makes Pogge’s negative duty account easier to implement than his previous proposal, and provides well-off individuals with an alternative to Effective Altruism. (shrink)