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With Russia's full-spectrum war in Ukraine, NATO is rethinking its force posture and responding in ways that are consistent with its norms and identity as an alliance. While the war has been framed by some as a vindication of structural realism, we instead revisit constructivist arguments about security communities. This literature, which foregrounds learning and socialization processes, advanced scholarly and policy debates from NATO enlargement to defence sector reform. By contrast, how security communities engage with adversaries has received less attention. Noting the obvious balancing dynamics on display, we emphasize how threats take on particular meanings, which shape the types of military options considered. We also provide an explanation for NATO's resilience in the face of this external shock. Alliance disunity notwithstanding, we argue that collective defence is being redefined in real time, through dynamics that are not exclusively bound by a narrow focus on the military threat posed by Russia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Context • Some scholars have put forward constructivist world models in which the purported external world is constructed from experience (i.e., there is a constructive relation between them). However, scholars disagree about whether experience is generated by the brain and results from the perception of the purported external world (i.e., whether there are generative relations and perceptual relations). > Problem • Do we need to maintain perceptual relations or generative relations in a constructivist world model? > Method • I propose a world model where our world is composed of a large number of screen creatures, and this is compared with the world model in the irrealist virtual world theory. There is a constructive relation in both world models, but only the second world model contains generative and perceptual relations. I provide reasons to doubt that the world model in the irrealist virtual world theory can provide sufficient reasons for involving generative or perceptual relations. > Results • We should accept the world model composed of screen creatures as the model of our world; we do not need to retain perceptual or generative relations in a constructivist world model. > Implications • This article points out that perceptual relations stem from a misunderstanding of certain correlations between experiences. This will generate some new ideas when considering the mind-matter problem. > Constructivist content • This article discusses how to deal with generative and perceptual relations using constructivist world models. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Security is an important concept in -International Relations. In fact, it can be argued that the whole discipline revolves around the security of states, national interests, or of indiuiduals. With the passage of time, the dynamics of security and the traditional notion of security has undergone multiple changes that have helped the concept to evolve. Multiple theories and schools of thought in International Relations have defined and treated security in a different manner. Where some theories preferred state security over the security of individuals, others maintained their focus primarily on individuals. 7he change in the expansion of the concept of security can be attributed to the third great debate in IR which relates to positivism and interpretiuism. This paper aims to elaborate different theoretical paradigms in the light of this debate, using secondary sources of data including books, journal articles, magazine articles, reports, and websites. The paper acts as a one - stop shop for the scholars of IR who seek to understand the notion of security from different paradigms. In doing so, the paper highlights the notion of security represented by the realist school of thought, structural realism, liberalism, the Copenhagen School of security studies, constructiuism, and the Aberystwyth School. While highlighting these concepts, the notions of traditional security and nontraditional security are also explained in the study, further demonstrating the evolution in the concept of security. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Iran's enmity with Israel is ideological in the first place and strategic in the second. Iran intends through anti‐Israel actions and messaging to internally mobilize its populace and, externally, to claim the leadership of the Muslim world and strike a balance against a regional nuclear power. This article uses a critique based on constructivism and realism to reveal how Iran's confrontation with Israel has evolved historically from "identity‐ideological" to "politico‐strategic." I argue that Iran's adoption of this approach without taking its internal and external capacities into consideration has ironically bolstered the Israeli far right, increased global sympathies for Israel, escalated Iranophobia, aligned conservative Arab states with Israel, and marginalized the issue of Palestine. To preserve its national interests and regional security, Iran needs to overcome this politico‐historical stage and replace conflict with competition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

I distinguish Local Constructivism (humans play a constitutive role in constructing some of the objects we have epistemic access to) from Global Constructivism (humans play a constitutive role in constructing all of the objects we have epistemic access to). I explicate and clarify Local Constructivism and show how the metaphysical concerns which motivate endorsing Local Constructivism about some objects (e.g. social objects, modal objects) differ from the epistemic and semantic concerns which motive endorsing Global Constructivism. I, then, examine the criticisms Realists typically present against Constructivism. I argue that, although these criticisms undermine Global Constructivism, Local Constructivism is immune to them. If one has anti-Realist inclinations, but wishes to avoid the morass anti-Realism usually falls into (aka: anti-Realist Boogeyman), one should endorse Local, rather than Global, Constructivism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Neo-realism and neo-liberalism, which had been regarded as mainstream theories up until profound changes took place in the 1990s in international structure, considered the international area a domain in which states mainly pursue their strategic interests. In this period, NATO adopted policies that emphasized cooperation, and NATO countries developed collaborative and collective responses to tackle international problems. This approach demonstrated that pure interest-based mainstream theories could not provide enough theoretical framework for the new policies. In the same period constructivism, which is considered among critical theories and emphasizes the interaction of states, offered a different framework than classical theories. In this context, the study tries to understand transformation policies from a constructivist approach perspective. In the study, it has been found out that cooperative security, enlargement, and collective security policies could be understood by the constructivist approach's following claim; material force is given meaning according to the shared knowledge, norm and values and these could be spread by social interaction; though the success of this understanding depends on the suitable strategic environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes Maurizio Ferraris's "minimal realism" with the aim of showing that his criticisms of correlationism and constructivism are not convincing. Ferraris preserves both a substantivist vision of the objects of knowledge and a substantial difference between sensible things and concepts. These two issues prevent his Manifesto of New Realism from being considered the founding moment of the "new realism." The paper concludes with a reflection on those aspects that should be considered and avoided when proposing a philosophical realism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The United Nations Security Council (UNSC) can respond to a civil conflict only if that conflict first enters the Council's agenda. Some conflicts reach the Council's agenda within days after they start, others after years (or even decades), and some never make it. So far, only a few studies have looked at the crucial UNSC agenda-setting stage, and none have examined agenda-setting speed. To fill this important gap, we develop and test a novel theoretical framework that combines insights from realist and constructivist theory with lessons from institutionalist theory and bargaining theory. Applying survival analysis to an original dataset, we show that the parochial interests of the permanent members (P-5) matter, but they do not determine the Council's agenda-setting speed. Rather, P-5 interests are constrained by normative considerations and concerns for the Council's organizational mission arising from the severity of a conflict (in terms of spillover effects and civilian casualties); by the interests of the widely ignored elected members (E-10); and by the degree of preference heterogeneity among both the P-5 and the E-10. Our findings contribute to a better understanding of how the United Nations (UN) works, and they have implications for the UN's legitimacy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Social theory and photographic aesthetics both engage with issues of representation, realism and validity, having crossed paths in theoretical and methodological controversies. This discussion begins with reflections on the realism debate in photography, arguing that beyond the polar positions of realism and constructivism the photographic image is essentially ambivalent, reflecting the ways in which it is situated within cultural modernity. The discussion draws critically on Simmel's sociology of the visual to elucidate these issues and compares his concept of social forms and their development with the emergence of the photograph. Several dimensions of ambivalence are elaborated with reference to the politics and aesthetics socially engaged photography in the first half of the 20th century. It presents a case for the autonomy of the photographic as a social form that nonetheless has the potential to point beyond reality to immanent possibilities. The discussion exemplifies the processes of aesthetic formation with reference to the 'New Vision' artwork of László Moholy-Nagy and the social realism of Edith Tudor Hart. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Context • Mitterer's non-dualism is considered to be a major conceptual alternative to (naïve as well as hypothetical as well as internal) realism and to (moderate as well as radical) constructivism and idealism - with more sympathies towards (radical) constructivism. For von Glasersfeld non-dualism is the "third conceptual revision" in philosophy, while for others it is the "most radical position," even more radical than radical constructivism. While outside of philosophy non-dualism is sometimes applied emphatically, in mainstream philosophy it is ignored. > Problem • My two questions are: (a) Is Mitterer's critique on dualistic philosophy consistent (in Mitterer's view, all variants of realism and constructivism are dualistic philosophy)? (b) Is Mitterer's non-dualism consistent? > M ethod • I critically reflect on central theses of non-dualism with the help of established concepts of contemporary philosophy such as the distinctions between object language and metalanguage, and between benign and vicious infinite regresses. > Results • The non-dualistic critique of dualism seems to be misleading. Central arguments of the non-dualistic alternative to dualism are self-contradictory. Even worse, non-dualism could lead to solipsism. > I mplications • Non-dualism has so far been discussed in various disciplines such as communication science, geography, and even informatics. It is important for all these disciplines to reflect the arguments developed in this article to prevent non-dualism from being applied uncritically. > C onstructivist content • At the moment, non-dualism does not seem to be a viable alternative to either realism or (radical) constructivism due to the inconsistencies unveiled in this article. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present contribution first describes the aggravated Middle Eastern power competition in the 21st century, thereby emphasizing two aspects: the concentration of participants in the regional power game to Saudi Arabia, Israel, and Iran, including shifts in regional power distribution; and the recent trend of entanglement of the Israeli–Iranian conflict with that between Saudi Arabia and Iran. Second, it contributes to an explanation of these developments by discussing the explanatory power of approaches based on three paradigms: primordialism, rationalism, and social constructivism. It is shown that a rationalist school of thought – structural realism – does not perform perfectly but nonetheless does rather well in explaining the aggravated power competition in the Middle East and the entanglement of the rivalries of each of the two American allies with Iran. At the same time, it is shown that the best way of bridging some of the explanatory gaps of structural realism in the case of Middle Eastern power politics is to epistemologically embed insights from rationalist schools of thought in a setting of a positivist version of social constructivism. On this fundament, the article explores a Copenhagen School‐inspired approach of securitization to better comprehend recent developments of aggravated Middle Eastern power conflicts. The military engagement of all protagonists of the regional power game in Syria is most problematic. If actors, particularly Israel and Hezbollah, fail to keep their current struggles inside Syria, if, in other words, another Israeli–Lebanese war broke out, in the current situation of high regional tensions, such a war could spill over the whole of the Levant and even beyond. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Understanding Moral Obligation (2012), Robert Stern sets out to provide a fresh interpretation of the role of autonomy in Kant's moral philosophy and attempts to rectify J. B. Schneewind's standard account in The Invention of Autonomy (1998). While Stern agrees that Kant's resort to autonomy is at the basis of a constructivist account of moral obligation, he claims that autonomy plays no role in Kant's theory of value, such that, in this respect, Kant remains a realist. Accordingly, Stern characterizes Kant's moral philosophy as a "hybrid" view because he sees it as involving a compromise between realism with regard to value and constructivism with regard to obligation. Stern's interpretation relies on a sharp distinction between value and obligation. The purpose of the present article is to question Stern's reliance on that rigid distinction, which involves intermixing theoretical and practical reason and assumes a distorted view of human agency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

According to many, evolutionary accounts of ethics undermine the prospects of its objective foundation. By contrast, this paper argues that such evolutionary accounts discredit only the absolutist construal of moral truths as timeless but supports other conceptions of objectivity as tested by time. Insofar as Kantian constructivism addresses the problem of ethical objectivity from the standpoint of temporal rational agents, it is not vulnerable to debunking arguments based on evolutionary explanations. In fact, recent work on evolutionary accounts of reasoning and inferences not only coheres with but it also reinforces the constructivist conception of practical reason as a problem‐solving cooperative device apt to temporal and interdependent rational agents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We agree with Kwan and Tsang (2001) that critical realism represents an important point of epistemological departure from mainstream realism, and that it has the potential to inform strategy research. To that end, Kwan and Tsang's argument for a critical realist perspective is valid. There however exist substantial nontrivial differences between constructivism and critical realism. While critical realism contests some of the default assumptions of empiricism and realism which treat social systems as closed systems, it is still predicated upon an inherent order of things that is graspable by research. Constructivism instead focuses on the manner in which researchers constitute theories in the act of describing them. This important distinction makes constructivism far more of a departure from empiricism than critical realism, and therefore it has a different set of implications for strategy research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mir and Watson (2000) advocate that constructivism has the potential to inform strategy research. In their discussions, they compare constructivism with realism, and highlight certain alleged strengths of the former over the latter. Although their paper provides some insights, their version of constructivism is problematic and their understanding of realism is inaccurate. In this note we clarify some key issues concerning constructivism and realism. Moreover, we argue that Mir and Watson's insights can be accommodated within a critical realist framework. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article offers information on British philosopher Michael Dummett's constructivist alternative. Topics include, relation of truth to the recognition of truth is the fundamental problem of the theory of meaning or of metaphysics; exploration of the constructivist alternative to realist theories of meaning and truth; and Dummett's philosophical motivation seems to lie in the fallowing.

Queer theories emerge from postmodern nominalist constructivism under the assumption that all things are discursive fictions, all ontology, a substantialist and dualistic narrative, and there is nothing real outside of socio-linguistic constructions and deconstructions. In the case of sexual difference, queer theories assimilate it to the hetero-normative signifiers of the old bio-political regime, and consequently abolished it by means of an ideological operative that brings us today to a post-feminism without women, where the speaking subjects arbitrarily techno-produce their bodies and sexualities. Assuming some philosophical assumptions of new material realisms, the present article aims at making visible the hidden essentialism of postmodern constructivism, its barely disguised femino-phobia and the effective violence--symbolic and non-symbolic-- that it implies for actual women, and feminist agenda. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, I argue that Colin McGinn provides an unacceptable account of consciousness due to the inconsistencies between (1) the conjunction of the metaphysical assumptions of his nativism and the epistemic assumptions of his mysterianism and (2) his conception of identity. I also maintain that, although John Searle's social constructivism may provide the most feasible counter-argument to these charges of inconsistency, Searle's position cannot save McGinn's account of consciousness due to the inadequacies of Searle's version of external realism. As I see it, the only means to address the problems in McGinn's and Searle's views is by revising their version of external realism. I demonstrate that this is only possible if they adopt an external realist position that dispenses with direct realism and adopts physicalism. I maintain that this is the only means by which we can prove the existence of consciousness while at the same time accommodating its a priori and a posteriori character. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Metaethics is often dominated by both realist views according to which moral claims are made true by either non-natural or natural properties and by non-cognitivist views according to which these claims express desire-like attitudes. It is sometimes suggested that constructivism is a fourth alternative, but it has remained opaque just how it differs from the other views. To solve this problem, this article first describes a clear constructivist theory based on Crispin Wright’s anti-realism. It then outlines an argumentative strategy that can be used to argue against constructivist views about practical reasons. The rest of the article explains how the outlined constructivist metaethical framework, reasons, and contractualism in normative ethics can still be used to create a new viable metaethical constructivist position about right and wrong. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research paper looks at the constructivist theoretical framework and the systemic level of analysis in International Relations (IR). The paper examines the levels of analysis issue and the evolution of this issue in the light of the great debates in IR. The research provides a description of basic tenants of constructivism, a description of the varieties of constructivist theorizing and a brief account of how the different varieties compare to each other. The research paper then focuses on Alexander Wendt and examines Wendt's constructivist theoretical framework and particularly how he sees analysis at the systemic level. The issue of structure and agency figures in the debate on levels of analysis and the paper examines this facet of systemic theorizing. The research paper compares how Wendt's systemic analysis is a departure from the structural realism of Kenneth Waltz. Waltz's theory was and remains an influential theory of IR and by comparing these two important theories a better understanding is obtained not only of systemic theorizing in the constructivist theoretical framework but also aspects of the systemic level of analysis in IR in general. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Context · Realism has difficulty using the language of mind-independent dynamics to explicate autonomous cognition. Constructivism has difficulty locating the purposive originator of adaptive cognitive reconstruction. Enactivism derives purpose from self-maintaining dynamics, but has difficulty describing how the autopoietic subject emerges. Problem · We seek to resolve these difficulties by asking: What kind of dynamically embodied system could ever be autonomous in the sense of being the causally accountable originator of its own purposeful, yet spontaneous, cognitive constructions· Method · We identify causal accountability as the key obstacle to naturalizing autonomy, and employ a multi-level selection argument from evolutionary theory to overcome it. We demonstrate the feasibility of our solution in a computer simulation model. Results · Our argument leads us to postulate the Stabilization Thesis: Autonomy, learning, evolution and life are expected properties of dynamical systems whose structure upwardly conditions their dynamical flow, and whose flow downwardly selects their structural variation. Such systems exhibit stabilization - the spontaneous, purposeful construction of hierarchical modularity. This generates three claims: no pre-programmed behavior, architecture or learning rules can implement autonomy; autonomy entails non-local flows that establish identity by downwardly stabilizing its structure against exogenous irritations; constructivism's postulate of a cognizing subject entails a view of concepts as fundamentally dynamical skills (as opposed to categories). I mplications · Flows establish a causally accountable identity that defines the originator of meaning-construction, and their self-stabilization enables the enactive emergence of autopoietic, and hence autonomous, systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ontic Structural Realism (OSR) states that a realistic reading of scientific theories (especially of modern physics) requires to take structures as ontologically fundamental. Regardless of how this commitment is articulated, OSR proponents agree that the appropriate framework for developing such a position is the semantic approach to theories. I argue that, at least in aspects relevant to the formulation of OSR, the semantic approach is not superior to the syntactic one. I also show that the Received View has the necessary conceptual resources to adequately express the metaphysical commitments of OSR. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

From Charles Taylor to Marcel Gauchet, theorists of the social imaginary have given us new ways to talk about the shared structures of meanings and practices of the West. Theorists of this group have argued against the narrow horizons of meaning that are deployed by deliberative political theories in developing their basic normative concepts and principles, providing an alternative to the oscillation between the constructivism and the realism. Theorists of the imaginary have enabled us to think about normatively charged collective imaginaries as logically prior to the construction of normative principles. What theorists of the imaginary have not done is make specific connections between the ontological background of social imaginaries and the normative utterance. This lacuna has left them vulnerable to the charges of ‘normative deficit’ and vagueness that Habermas and others famously make against philosophies of ‘world disclosure’. This article develops a conception of the normative utterance that enables us to reason through social imaginaries. In such reasoning, claims are not expressed in the propositional form of the Rawlsian or Habermasian justification, but through a complex engagement with the worldhood that informs normative judgements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The traditional sciences often bracket away ambiguity through the imposition of 'enabling constraints'-making a set of assumptions and then declaring ceteris paribus. These enabling constraints take the form of uncritically examined presuppositions or 'uceps.' Second order science reveals hidden issues, problems and assumptions which all too often escape the attention of the practicing scientist. These hidden values-precisely because they are hidden and not made explicit-can get in the way of the public's acceptance of a scientific claim. A conflict in understood meaning-between the scientist's restricted claims and the public's broader understanding of those same claims can result in cognitive dissonance or the equivalent of the Mori Uncanny Valley. Scientists often react to these differences by claiming 'incommensurability' between their restricted claim and the public's understanding. Second order science, by explicating the effects of variations in values assumed for these uceps and associated impacts on related scientific claims, can often moot these assertions of incommensurability and thereby promote greater scientific understanding. This article explores how second order science can address issues of public doubt regarding the scientific enterprise using examples from medicine, diet and climate science. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the signal argument between realists and constructivists about expertise. Topics covered include the two distinct social dimensions to the concept of expertise, social dimension of institutional attributions of expertise not present in descriptive attributions, and the interest of sociology in the notion of expertise.

Kurt Sylvan’s generous discussion of my book, The Domain of Reasons, argues that its account of reason relations would be strengthened if I accepted some version of ‘Kantian constructivism’, and that that would, moreover, bring me closer to Kant. I argue against both these claims. I do not agree that ‘Kantian constructivism’, understood in its contemporary sense, would strengthen my account of normativity. Nor do I agree that adopting it would make me more Kantian. On the contrary, I believe that my cognitivist but irrealist account is closer to Kant than is anything that could be called ‘constructivism’ about reason. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Realist and Marxist critiques of humanitarian intervention are distinctively materialistic in scope. The IR literature has already described this scepticism as a ‘hermeneutics of suspicion’, a term associated with the work of Paul Ricoeur, which aims to unearth the intervenors’ material and geopolitical interests hypocritically hidden behind the pretext of humanitarianism. The article first notes the decontextualised misappropriations of the term as an iconic and omnipotent instrument of doubt, as well as the limitations of the social constructivist response on the matter. By contextualising Ricoeur’s hermeneutics of suspicion as developed in his life work, the article then calls for an extension of critique from a hermeneutics of suspicion to a hermeneutics of naïveté. Applied in the critique of the ideology of humanitarian intervention, the article thus calls for a shift of focus from the examination of the distorting (Marxism, realism) and legitimising (social constructivism) functions of this ideology to its integrating function that has allowed the evocation of humanitarian principles as international norms, and uncritically vindicates this arrangement. The article proposes that this hermeneutical detour could allow critique to proceed to a greater analytical depth, opening up a set of critical questions. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

According to the standard objection, Kantian constructivism implicitly commits to value realism or fails to warrant objective validity of normative propositions. This paper argues that this objection gains some force from the special case of moral obligations. The case largely rests on the assumption that the moral domain is an eminent domain of special objects. But for constructivism there is no moral domain of objects prior to and independently of reasoning. The argument attempts to make some progress in the debate by defending a robust conception of construction, which names a distinctive view of practical reasoning as transformative. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Are our actions morally good because we approve of them or are they good independently of our approval? Are we projecting moral values onto the world or do we detect values that are already there? For many these questions don't state a real alternative but a secular variant of the Euthyphro dilemma: If our actions are good because we approve of them moral goodness appears to be arbitrary. If they are good independently of our approval, it is unclear how we come to know their moral quality and how moral knowledge can be motivating. None of these options seems attractive; the source of moral goodness unclear. Despite the growing literature on Kant's moral epistemology and moral epistemology the question remains open what Kant's answer to this apparent dilemma is. The Kantian view I attempt to lay out in this paper is supposed to dissolve the secular version of the Euthyphro dilemma. In responding to this dilemma we need to get clear about the source or the origin of our moral knowledge: Voluntary approval or mind-independent moral facts? Projectivism or detectivism? Construction or given? I believe that all these ways of articulating the problem turn out, on closer inspection, to be false alternatives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the influence of evolutionary theory on moral beliefs. Topics discussed include the evolutionary argument against naturalism (EAAN) by philospher Alvin Plantinga, the concept of constructivism and realism in metaethics, and the evolutionary debunking arguments (EDA), and the book "The Evolution of Morality," by Richard Joyce.

In this paper I analyze the main arguments and counterarguments proposed by realists and anti-realists stances for and against the scientific ability to produce objective and true scientific knowledge about the social and natural world. I argue that the theoretical and observational language which social and natural scientists use to refer to several scientific observable and unobservable entities, phenomena, properties and processes are determined, in practice, by their theoretical research traditions. This shows that scientific methodology depends so heavily on scientific theories that is, at most, a constructive procedure and not a discovery procedure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Context ? Direct realism is a non-reductive, anti-representationalist theory of perception lying at the heart of mainstream analytic philosophy, where it is currently generating a lot of interest. For all that, it is widely held to be both controversial and anti-scientific. On the other hand, the sensorimotor theory of perception (which is a specific development of Gibsonian approaches to perception) initially generated a lot of interest within enactive philosophy of cognitive science, but has arguably not yet delivered on its initial promise. > Problem ? I aim to show that the sensorimotor theory and direct realism complement each other, and that the result is a philosophically radical, but fully scientifically realised, theory of perception. > Method ? The article uses (non-reductive) philosophical analysis and discussion. It also draws on empirical evidence from the relevant cognitive sciences. > Results ? Direct realism can be augmented by sensorimotor theory to become a scientifically tractable alternative to the mainstream, representationalist research programme within cognitive science. > Implications ? The article aims to further clarify the philosophical importance of the sensorimotor approach to perception. It also aims to show that the apparently radical claim that we perceive objects themselves is amenable to normal scientific study. > Constructivist content ? Objects are analysed as a kind of collaboration between the world and the perceiver. On this account, we can never perceive outside the categories of our own understanding, but we do perceive genuinely outside our own heads. Thus, the approach here is not exactly constructivism, though it shares many goals and results with constructivism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The relationship between EU foreign policy and national foreign policies of the member states is changing due to various factors: the entry into force of the Lisbon Treaty in 2009 and subsequent creation of the European External Action Service (EEAS); the economic crisis in Europe; and shifts in the global balance of power. The article explores these new dynamics in light of two cases, Estonia and Finland. It examines why the two countries support further integration in the area of foreign policy and what determines the limits of their support, applying rationalist and constructivist approaches. From a rationalist perspective, Finland and Estonia view the EU and the EEAS as a means to pursue national interests and make diplomacy more cost-effective; these aspects have become more important due to the economic crisis and changes in the international context. At the same time both countries value the EU as a security community and a source of solidarity, which points to the importance of socialization, as conceptualized by constructivists. However, the predominance of national foreign policy identity and an instrumental approach to the EU leaves limited space for deeper socialization, in spite of the new mechanisms of socialization introduced by the EEAS. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Constructivist philosophy and Hasok Chang’s active scientific realism are used to argue that the idea of “truth” in cluster analysis depends on the context and the clustering aims. Different characteristics of clusterings are required in different situations. Researchers should be explicit about on what requirements and what idea of “true clusters” their research is based, because clustering becomes scientific not through uniqueness but through transparent and open communication. The idea of “natural kinds” is a human construct, but it highlights the human experience that the reality outside the observer’s control seems to make certain distinctions between categories inevitable. Various desirable characteristics of clusterings and various approaches to define a context-dependent truth are listed, and I discuss what impact these ideas can have on the comparison of clustering methods, and the choice of a clustering methods and related decisions in practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Deference to experts is normal in many areas of inquiry, but suspicious in morality. This is puzzling if one thinks that morality is relevantly like those other areas of inquiry. We argue that this suspiciousness can be explained in terms of the suspiciousness of deferring to an epistemic peer. We then argue that this explanation is preferable to others in the literature, and explore some metaethical implications of this result. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Metaethical constructivism is one of the main movements within contemporary metaethics - especially among those with Kantian inclinations. But both the philosophical coherence and the Kantian pedigree of constructivism are hotly contested. In the first half of this article, I first explore the sense in which Kant's own views might be described as constructivist and then use the resulting understanding as a guide to how we might think about Kantian constructivism today. Along the way, I hope to suggest that a fairly diverse range of views within contemporary metaethics - including some without any explicit allegiance to Kant - may be thought of as pursuing a version of the resulting strategy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the second half of this essay, I discuss the robust conception of rationality that lies at the heart of the Kantian version of Rationalist Constructivism - offering some reasons to prefer this conception to the more minimal accounts of rationality associated with Humean views. I then go on to discuss some of the potential metaethical advantages of the resulting form of constructivism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The ASEAN Intergovernmental Commission on Human Rights set up in 2009 signaled a path breaking achievement for human rights. It was the first of its kind, in the last region of the world to adopt a mechanism for human rights protection. However, with the ASEAN Human Rights Declaration of 2012 hopes of a robust and effective regional mechanism for the promotion and protection of human rights in Southeast Asia were essentially dashed. The perplexing question to which an increasing number of academics and scholars are asking is why establish a mechanism that only promotes and offers little or no human rights protection? This paper seeks to provide a theoretical framework for future research and analytical conceptualization of regional human rights and its attendant mechanisms in ASEAN. Beginning with a critique of mainstream theories realism and constructivism, this paper will move on to offer a blended version of regime analysis for studying AICHR. Hopefully this will provide clarity and a theoretical pathway for future substantive research on the absence of human rights protection in the newly established regional human rights mechanism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper the connections between the nonconceptual content of perceptual states and realism are considered. In particular, I investigate the argument for realism that uses the notion of nonconceptual content, specifically the version proposed by Raftopoulos in Cognition and Perception. To evaluate the argument two forms of realism are identified: (1) correlation realism (CR), according to which distinctions in perceptual content correlate with distinctions in the environment, and (2) ontological realism (OR), according to which perceptual content and perceived reality are both organized according to the same set of ontological categories. First, it is argued that the distinction between nonconceptual and conceptual content is irrelevant for the justification of CR. In particular, the notion of nonconceptual content is neither sufficient nor is it necessary for such justification. Second, it is stated that the version of the causal theory of perception that is used in the argument considered already assumes ontological realism. What is more, the weaker version of the causal theory, that does not presuppose OR, is too weak to justify ontological realism in combination with assumptions about nonconceptual content and the successfulness of perception. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]