Munich School of Philosophy

ABSTRACT Research has shown that street‐level workers may shape public policies, yet less is known about the processes through which they attempt to influence institutional arrangements. This gap is particularly evident in corporatist welfare states, where multiple organizations are involved in social policy implementation. This research provides a comprehensive account of how to study institutional work within different organizational settings – bureaucracies, civil society organizations, and religious organizations. Adopting an institutional logics perspective, I focus on how social workers use language to verbally maintain, create, or disrupt the institutional logics that structure their organizations. I report findings from interviews with social workers implementing morality policies, which illustrate how they navigate the institutional values of their organizations in relation to their own values and identities. The paper links street‐level research to institutionalism, showing how institutional work manifests on the ground.

Amsterdam University Press is a leading publisher of academic books, journals and textbooks in the Humanities and Social Sciences. Our aim is to make current research available to scholars, students, innovators, and the general public. AUP stands for scholarly excellence, global presence, and engagement with the international academic community.

Digitaler Humanismus Humanismus, digitalerverwehrt sich der Vorstellung, Lebensformen als Maschinen zu betrachten. Um die Argumentation zu verstehen, wird zunächst erläutert, was Humanismus ist und wie sich Künstliche Intelligenz zum Humanismus verhält. Hierzu wird anhand des Experiments vom Chinesischen Zimmer bewiesen, dass KI als Algorithmus nicht versteht, wie sie warum ihre Aufgaben erfüllt. Thesen von schwacher und starker KI werden in ihren Implikationen Thesen von schwacher und starker Anti-KI gegenübergestellt, um das Verhältnis von KI zu menschlichen Denk-, Wahrnehmungs- und Entscheidungsvorgängen zu durchdenken. Die innovations- und technologiefördernden Konsequenzen der starken Anti-KI-Position werden so logisch begründet.

Several strategies using neural network algorithms have been established to automate the process of evaluating parameters regarding the freeze–thaw resistance of hardened concrete from image data. However, the performance of such models is dependent on the quality of the datasets used for training. Hand-labeling concrete image data is challenging, where especially small micro air voids (<300 μ m) can be overlooked. This potentially leads to algorithms that are unable to accurately detect the micro air void content, despite being required by current standards (e.g. DIN EN 480-11). To account for this, a method was developed using confocal laser scanning microscopy and the “Segment Anything” model. Acquiring surface height-data through confocal laser scanning microscopy expendites the labeling process and creates more reliable training data due to the detectability of air voids through height differences. Furthermore, by combining the height-data with RGB-images it was possible to accurately distinguish between air voids, aggregates and cement paste with high repeatability between repeated labeling iterations. Keeping high magnification levels (120-480x) enabled the detection of air voids down to 5 μ m. The framework and dataset presented in this study are fundamental for further development of new neural network based algorithms, specialized for the characterization and evaluation of the freeze–thaw resistance of concrete.

Kultur steht in der Kritik und bewegt sich zwischen zahlreichen Extremen: Die einen sehen in ihr die Glanzleistungen der Menschheit versammelt, andere warnen vor einer populistischen Vereinnahmung des Kulturbegriffs. Die Kulturphilosophie kann entscheidend dazu beitragen, diese Spannungen zu reflektieren, um ihnen konstruktiv zu begegnen. Barbara Schellhammer bietet eine Einführung ins Feld, greift aktuelle Diskurse, Phänomene sowie gesellschaftspolitische Dynamiken auf und stellt zugleich zentrale kulturphilosophische Denker:innen vor. Ausgehend von einer kritischen Reflexion von Kultur zeigt sie, dass diese gerade in einer globalisierten Welt von grundlegender Bedeutung für den Menschen bleibt – und dass ein vertieftes Verständnis von Kultur positive Veränderungen unserer Wirklichkeit anstoßen kann. Verfügbar in drei Ausgabearten: Print, E-Book (PDF), Web-Book (Buch als Website).

Political rioting is a durable feature of societies across time, space, and political structure. It is also highly morally contentious. Among those who take rioting to be justifiable, the dominant approach has been to appeal to the ethics of war and its interpersonal counterpart, the framework of defensive ethics, in order to determine which harms rioting may permissibly inflict. I raise several novel problems for this approach and argue that in most cases it is unlikely to succeed. I then propose and develop an alternative analysis, according to which the expressive norms to which rioting as a form of protest is subject may license its characteristic harms directly.