The essay challenges the de facto dichotomy between the discipline of logic and the activity of social criticism, i.e., it provides an illustrated reminder to philosophers that the gulf between these two areas of philosophy is not quite as wide as our curriculum andspecialization designations tend to suggest. Social criticism plays some necessary roles in certain branches of logic, and the second-order accounting of the contents of these branches leads back to social criticism. These points suggest an adjusted conception of (...) logic that would, among other things, render phrases such as “applying logic to social criticism” as misleading since certain branches of logic would not even coherently exist apart from social criticism. The lead illustrations are the identification of basic, pervasive, and thought-impeding logical errors that have been missed by numerous logic texts, and the assessment of contemporary academic logic as properly a quest for communal sanity that lies caught between communal insanity and communal mendacity. (shrink)

I explore a distinction that is philosophically significant but rarely a cynosure. The distinction is betvveen fallacies and logical errors, and I approach it by advancing overlooked albeit deleterious logical errors that are not fallacies but that fall squarely within the purview of Critical Thinking if not also Informal Logic. One key claim to emerge is that these logical errors -- just as basic and thought-impeding as the fallacies -- demand that we take a hard look at what is and (...) what should be guiding our activity in teaching such courses. Another is that although philosophers appeal to the notion of logical error in their explications of fallacies, the former notion is anything but clear and indeed usually explained in terms of the latter. Yet another is that the distinction illustrates why the oft encountered “false premise or bad inference” account of how thinking can go bad is oversimplified. (shrink)

Job crafting has been established as a bottom-up work design instrument for promoting health and well-being in the workplace. In recent years, the concepts of job crafting have been applied to the university student context, proving to be positively related to student well-being. Building on person-centered analyses from the employment context, we assessed approach study crafting strategy combinations and the relationships to students’ exhaustion, study engagement, and general well-being. Data from 2,882 German university students were examined, collected online during the (...) summer term in 2020. Using latent profile analysis, we found five distinct crafting groups, which showed discriminate validity with regard to emotional exhaustion, engagement, and well-being. The results underscore the positive role of study crafting for students’ health and well-being. They further indicate a less important role of increasing social resources for emotional exhaustion when combined with a moderate increase in structural resources and a moderate increase in challenging demands. Our findings imply that interventions to promote study crafting should be considered to promote student health and well-being. (shrink)

This essay is primarily an analysis of Heidegger's Was Heisst Denken? I aim to provide a thematic unity for this enigmatic text, thereby rendering Heidegger's thoughts on thinking more available to those investigating the nature of human rationality and thinking. The procedure is to gather together some of the sundry themes and puzzling features resolved by unpacking this sentence: 'Most thought-provoking in our thought-provoking time is that we are still not thinking.' The chief results of this study include the establishment (...) of a global logic to the text, the identification of 'beingthoughtful' as the proper phenomenon to be studied, and receptivity as the distinguishing mark of the thoughtful. (shrink)

The essay challenges the de facto dichotomy between the discipline of logic and the activity of social criticism, i.e., it provides an illustrated reminder to philosophers that the gulf between these two areas of philosophy is not quite as wide as our curriculum andspecialization designations tend to suggest. Social criticism plays some necessary roles in certain branches of logic, and the second-order accounting of the contents of these branches leads back to social criticism. These points suggest an adjusted conception of (...) logic that would, among other things, render phrases such as “applying logic to social criticism” as misleading since certain branches of logic would not even coherently exist apart from social criticism. The lead illustrations are the identification of basic, pervasive, and thought-impeding logical errors that have been missed by numerous logic texts, and the assessment of contemporary academic logic as properly a quest for communal sanity that lies caught between communal insanity and communal mendacity. (shrink)

I explore the connection between expertise and rationality. I first make explicit the philosophically dominant view on this connection, i.e., the ‘expert-consultation’ view. This view captures the rather obvious idea that a rational way of proceeding on a matter of importance when one lacks knowledge is to consult experts. Next, I enumerate the difficulties which beset this view, locating them to some extent in the current philosophical literature on expertise and rationality. I then propose that different lessons should be drawn (...) for rationality from the fact of expertise. One is that some empirical and phenomenological studies of the nature of expertise can be fruitfully applied by analogy to theories of the rational agent. (shrink)

I argue that the love of wisdom can be recovered by reawakening in humans the genuine sense of wonder, i.e., by recovering the transformed condition in which humans experience philosophical asking as a meaning-bestowing and existentially-transforming phenomenon. Wonder in this sense is primarily a metaphysical and not psychological state, and it is evoked by the transforming phenomenon of philosophical asking. Philosophical asking is not reducible to a something, e.g., a sentence in question-form, that provokes the setting up and critique of (...) theories but rather is essentially a way of existing, a dwelling, that is marked by the astonishment of watching the world, and ourselves, open up and transfigure by our very asking, i.e., by our existing as askers. (shrink)

I explore a distinction that is philosophically significant but rarely a cynosure. The distinction is betvveen fallacies and logical errors, and I approach it by advancing overlooked albeit deleterious logical errors that are not fallacies but that fall squarely within the purview of Critical Thinking if not also Informal Logic. One key claim to emerge is that these logical errors -- just as basic and thought-impeding as the fallacies -- demand that we take a hard look at what is and (...) what should be guiding our activity in teaching such courses. Another is that although philosophers appeal to the notion of logical error in their explications of fallacies, the former notion is anything but clear and indeed usually explained in terms of the latter. Yet another is that the distinction illustrates why the oft encountered “false premise or bad inference” account of how thinking can go bad is oversimplified. (shrink)

What is required for one thing to be a reason for another? Must the reason, more precisely, be or involve a principle? In this essay I target the idea that justification via reasons of one's beliefs (e.g., epistemic or moral) requires that the 'justifying reasons' be or involve (substantive and significant) principles. I identify and explore some potential sources of a principles requirement, and conclude that none of them (i.e., the normative function of reasons, the abstract structure of reasons, the (...) universalizability constraint on [moral] reasons, and even the pragmatic considerations that attenuate 'real-world' reason-giving) mandate that reasons be principles. I then explore implications of this conclusion, and note especially the resultant and paradoxical permissibility of justifying reasons that manage to be lawlike (a sine qua non for justifying reasons) even while consisting of highly-detailed and situation-specific proposition sets, e.g., novel-length narratives. (shrink)

In this paper I identify a fallacy. The fallacy is worth noting for practical and theoretical reasons. First, the rampant occurrences ofthis fallacy-especially at moments calling for careful thought-indicate that it is more pernicious to clear thinking than many of those found in standard logic texts. Second, the fallacy stands apart from most others in that it contains multiple kinds oflogical error (i.e., fallacious and non-fallacious logical errors) that are themselves committed in abnormal ways, and thus it presents a two-tiered (...) challenge to oversimplified accounts of how an argument can go bad. (shrink)

Much epistemological theorizing is the attempt to specify what makes for meritorious cognition, but epistemologists have not, despite meritorious effort, achieved unity when it comes to picking out the feature and principles that are distinctive of epistemic normativity. In this essay we explain why this is the inevitable outcome. We isolate important but overlooked variations in the link between epistemological theorizing and the idea of epistemic unification, and then argue that much epistemological theorizing is misguided because it aims toward complete (...) epistemic unification when only partial epistemic unification, at best, is possible. But our arguments — based on work in moral epistemology and philosophical psychology — stop short of epistemological eliminativism, and thus we stake out a middle ground between philosophers such as Descartes, the earlier Alston, Audi, and the earlier BonJour on one hand and Rorty, Fish, and Patricia Churchland on the other. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy and Rhetoric 34.4 (2001) 322-334 [Access article in PDF] From Mysticism to Skepticism: Stylistic Reform inSeventeenth-century British Philosophy and Rhetoric Ryan J. Stark The idea of stylistic plainness captured the imaginations of philosophers in the seventeenth century. Francis Bacon's early attacks on "sweet falling clauses" and Thomas Sprat's invectives against "swellings of style" are especially quotable, and have been cited often by scholars from R. F. Jones (...) to Ian Robinson as evidence that a new attitude toward style emerged in the seventeenth century in conjunction with the new science. Still, even Robinson, who acknowledges the scientific influence on prose, cannot reconcile the plain style ideology with the less-than-sparse styles of the plain style advocates themselves. "The paradox," Robinson notes, "is that Sprat's language is itself imaginative and rhetorical," adding that Sprat denounced "the imagination... in a quite strongly imaginative way" with his "anti-rhetorical rhetoric" (160). This problem leads Robinson to charge that Sprat, Joseph Glanville, Bishop John Wilkins, and the other plain style advocates contradicted themselves by using highly metaphorical styles to criticize metaphorical styles, or were hypocrites in a stronger phrasing, even "painted hypocrites," to borrow a metaphor from one of Wilkins's complaints against metaphorical language.I will address this persistent argument that members of the Royal Society contradicted themselves by using elaborate metaphors to denounce elaborate metaphors, calling into question the very premise of the plain style mandates. The fact that members of the Royal Society continued to use figurative language in their writings is irrelevant. The plain style advocates did not attempt to remove figurative language from all discourses, or even scientific discourses. 1 "Plainness," instead, denotes a lack of occult influence in language. This forgotten philosophical meaning of "plainness" shows clearly that the plain style advocates did not share an antipathy toward ornamental styles, as is often suggested; rather, they shared an antipathy toward entelechial conceptions of style. The Royal Society's [End Page 322] arguments against obscure styles are arguments against the assumptions of a magical worldview, that enchanted cosmos occupied by Faustus and Macbeth, not arguments against any specific type of sentence structure or kind of metaphor. Technical issues of grammar and syntax played a minor role in these stylistic debates. In an ontological sense, the plain style advocates from Bacon to Sprat reconceptualized the very nature of linguistic form. This reconceptualization is best described as a movement away from mystical understandings of style and toward skeptical understandings of style, and this shift from mysticism to skepticism marks the stylistic reformation in the seventeenth century. 1. Entelechies and ornaments Bacon complains famously against "tropes and figures," "sweet falling of clauses," and "watery writings" in an introductory section of The Advancement of Learning entitled "Discredits to Learning from the Follies of the Learned--Ciceronianism, Scholasticism, Alchemy, and Natural Magic" (24-26). 2 Bacon includes a section for distempers of learning that do not fit neatly into categories, called "Other Errors of Learned Men Which Hinder the Progress and Credit of Learning." The coupling of these styles with alchemy and natural magic is not incidental. Bacon and the subsequent plain style advocates of the Royal Society target Ciceronian and scholastic styles specifically because of their strange cosmic elements, not because of their grammatical structures. For the new scientists, these vital styles recall a mystical worldview full of celestial influences, magical emblems, oneiric visions, and attendant spirits. The introductory section of Bacon's Advancement of Learning codifies in the newly scientific community the negative association between mysterious styles (e.g., Ciceronian, Senecan, baroque, metaphysical) and various kinds of occult behavior. Perhaps more so than any other English text, Bacon's Advancement banishes those mystical high styles of the late Renaissance to the mists and shadows of the credulous past, as Cowley describes in his "Ode to the Royal Society," to the "Kingdom of Darkness and Night" in Pope's Dunciad, or to "the island of savage women and moonlight" in Tennyson's "Locksley Hall."In Sciri Tuum Nihil Est, Glanville defends the plain style programs... (shrink)

Background: Many people with aphasia and people without brain injury talk to themselves in their heads, i.e., have “inner speech.” Inner speech may be more preserved compared with spoken speech for some people with aphasia and may serve a variety of functions (e.g., emotion regulation), which motivates us to provide a high-fidelity characterization of it. Researchers have used multiple methods to measure this internal phenomenon in the past, which we combine here for the first time in a single study. -/- (...) Aims: We compare performance between individuals with and without aphasia on inner speech tasks that assess inner speech “inthe- moment” to general subjective impressions of inner speech to tease apart the relationship of aphasia severity to inner speech. Methods and Procedures: Twenty people with mild-moderate aphasia and twenty neurotypical controls completed several inner speech tasks, including objective silent rhyme judgements (picture, written, and auditory), subjective reports of inner speech during naming, and subjective rating scales about inner speech experience more generally. -/- Outcomes and Results: In-the-moment inner speech during silent rhyming tasks was associated with aphasia severity only for picture and written rhyming but not auditory rhyming. In-the-moment inner speech reports during silent naming were not associated with aphasia severity, nor were the subjective ratings about general inner speech experience. Individuals with and without aphasia demonstrated a variety of subjective general inner speech experiences, demonstrating heterogeneity of this phenomenon more broadly. -/- Conclusions: Methods of measuring inner speech complement each other and speak to different facets of the inner speech phenomenon, and clinicians and researchers must carefully choose the method(s) that will provide the information about inner speech that they desire. (shrink)

The locus classicus for Plutarch's own views on his methods is in the Alexander He has begun by asking for the indulgence of his readers if they do not find all the exploits of Alexander and Caesar recounted by the biographer or if they discover him not reporting some famous incident in detail (); and he goes on to compare his own search for evidence which will indicate the kind of soul, with the activity of the painter, who, in order (...) to create a likeness, concentrates on the eyes and pays little attention to the other parts. Commentators and critics have been right to take this as a key text for the purpose of understanding Plutarch's attitude towards his biographical work; nevertheless there are other passages in the Lives where we can at least glimpse his attitude to his subject, and we can only see the Alexander-remarks in correct perspective if we take these other passages into account. I propose therefore, starting with the Alexander, to see how far these critical remarks apply to Plutarch's theory and practice elsewhere in the Lives. (shrink)

According to the Ars Amatoria the notorious rape took place on the occasion of a primitive dramatic entertainment staged in a theatre, in which the seats and furnishings were also primitive. There is no time for a description of the arts of the performers—a tibicen and a ludius—before the Romans, impatient for action, receive their signal from Romulus. Nor is there any mention of a god in whose honour the entertainment had been provided.

Modern scholars have been concerned with the hostility shown to Alexander by the Hellenistic schools of philosophy. Two literary portraits have been distinguished, the Peripatetic and the Stoic, the former deriving from Theophrastus' book on Callisthenes, or starting with this work the Peripatetics worked out a theory of and applied it to Alexander, in order to belittle his achievements. It was a case of giving sophisticated expression to the kind of crude resentment expressed by Demades.

Thomas Hobbes’ theory of punishment plays a constitutive role in the Leviathan’s theory of state sovereignty. Despite this, Hobbes’ justification for punishment is widely found to be discrepant, weak, inconsistent, and contradictory. Two dominant tendencies in the scholarship attempt to stabilize the Leviathan’s justification for the state’s right to punish by either identifying it with the sovereign’s right to war or by elaborating a theory of authorization within the state. In contrast, by tracing the deployments of the metaphor that Hobbes (...) utilizes to evoke the state’s right to punish in the Leviathan (i.e. that of the nerves of the Leviathan) this paper finds that these two accounts can be made to be consistent with each other — thereby destabilizing the grounds upon which the theory of punishment can be founded. (shrink)

A quid pro quo is an exchange of value between a citizen or group—often a businessperson or organization—and an official; whatthe citizen or group offers can take either monetary or nonmonetary form and what the official supplies, in return, is some kind of public act. Despite the fact that instances of quid pro quo seem continually to compel public attention, very few rise to the level of bribery; i.e., the level in which they are resolved judicially. In part, quid pro (...) quo eludes judicial forums for factual reasons: It is difficult to prove. And in part, the reasons are normative: The distinction between objectionable quid pro quo and acceptable democratic norms—on which citizens and groups ought to be able to support officials who are in turn responsive to them—is difficult to draw. Hence, a great gray area of quid pro quo finds itself resolved (or at least debated) in political forums. In what follows I examine central strands of American public discourse over the factual and normative issues of quid pro quo. My purpose is to articulate those principles which most parsimoniously account for its structure, and to explore what presuppositions various discourse-participants either explicitly or implicitly bring to bear in determining whether a situation constitutes a troubling quid pro quo. (shrink)

A quid pro quo is an exchange of value between a citizen or group—often a businessperson or organization—and an official; whatthe citizen or group offers can take either monetary or nonmonetary form and what the official supplies, in return, is some kind of public act. Despite the fact that instances of quid pro quo seem continually to compel public attention, very few rise to the level of bribery; i.e., the level in which they are resolved judicially. In part, quid pro (...) quo eludes judicial forums for factual reasons: It is difficult to prove. And in part, the reasons are normative: The distinction between objectionable quid pro quo and acceptable democratic norms—on which citizens and groups ought to be able to support officials who are in turn responsive to them—is difficult to draw. Hence, a great gray area of quid pro quo finds itself resolved (or at least debated) in political forums. In what follows I examine central strands of American public discourse over the factual and normative issues of quid pro quo. My purpose is to articulate those principles which most parsimoniously account for its structure, and to explore what presuppositions various discourse-participants either explicitly or implicitly bring to bear in determining whether a situation constitutes a troubling quid pro quo. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Some Aspects of Christian Mystical Rhetoric, Philosophy, and PoetryRyan J. StarkThis is an article about poets and poetic philosophers who make spirited arguments. My purpose in particular is to clarify the nature of mystical rhetoric, which needs to be distinguished from secular rhetoric (i.e., “secular” as nonspiritual). As ways of existing in language, they are ontologically incommensurable, and we should treat them as such. Mystical rhetoric is that into (...) which Spirit enters, conveying to both writer and reader some aspect of providential kairos that cannot otherwise be attained. That is, God completes mystical inferences. God participates, illuminating the hearts of those who open themselves to grace through faith. Or, in other words, writers and readers who want to enter into numinous arguments must shelve the hermeneutics of suspicion. An overly critical stance actually diminishes the possibility of insight, even if it is well intended, much like nervous backseat driving, which—though aimed at producing safety—inevitably works against it. I am not suggesting, however, that skeptics are at a complete loss when approaching mystical rhetorical situations. Rather, they simply do not grasp the metaphysical, enchanted, or occult dimensions of the discourses at work, because they have closed themselves off to Spirit or—more commonly—have attempted to transmogrify Spirit into secular concepts, which distorts spirited language and leads to mischaracterizations of religious experience.1 In contrast, I provide a Christian approach to [End Page 260] mystical rhetoric, one that neither discounts nor sidesteps the real presence of the supernatural.Inspired Rhetoric and HermeneuticsFuror poeticus is a key element of mystical persuasion. The phrase literally means “poetical fury,” and the idea behind it in a Christian framework is that the Holy Spirit aids writers in creating imaginative texts (e.g., sonnets, sermons, essays, novels, blogs, etc.) or, in pernicious instances, demons aid writers.2 In either case, a mysterious force helps the author to compose. Moreover, furor touches readers or listeners, a point seldom emphasized but nonetheless central to this sublime practice of composition. Inspired writing requires inspired reading: furor poeticus needs furor lectoris.3 The Spirit aids readers in understanding mystical rhetoric, as long as those readers participate earnestly in the discourse. John Milton (1674, 7.31), for example, famously envisions such a “fit audience” in the third invocation to the Muse in Paradise Lost (i.e., the “great Argument”), where he calls on the reader for hermeneutical verve, a spirited reading to complement his enthusiastic writing. Søren Kierkegaard also writes to an audience capable of spiritually minded hermeneutics, allowing him to perform various edifying dissimulations through pseudonyms: the despairing aesthete, the unscrupulous seducer, the rigid moralist, and so forth. These inspired writers expect believing readers to contribute to their works, to complete their disputations, in fact, through spirited exegesis. Their methods of composition demand it, which is to say that writers touched by furor leave little room in their arguments for the sustainable disposition of the uninspired reader.Cicero explains spirited rhetoric and hermeneutics in De divinatione, where Quintus talks about how inspired readers experience the same type of furor as inspired writers, seers, and prophets: “Men capable of correctly interpreting all these signs of the future seem to approach very near the divine spirit of the gods whose will they interpret, just as scholars do when they interpret the poets” (1938, 226). Scholarship, in other words, is capable of tapping into mystical energy, making the scholars as prophetic as the vates on which they write. In the second book of On Christian Doctrine (1958, 75–78), Augustine also explains the importance of mystical exegesis as a form of prophecy, where sincere readers undergo the same type of inspiration as mystical writers. For Augustine, spirited reading begins with prayer and ends with revelation. In both accounts of furor, Cicero’s and Augustine’s, [End Page 261] the inspired audience and the inspired writer together experience rapture, a divine vision or illumination, which is precisely the type of communion that occurs during mystical discourses.4Still, the idea of seeking communion with God is potentially unsettling. The notion produces anxieties of psychosis, possession, and self-erasure. Plato famously expresses such concerns in Ion, for example... (shrink)

Requirements for business ethics education and organizational ethics trainings mark an important step in encouraging ethical behavior among business students and professionals. However, the lack of specificity in these guidelines as to how, what, and where business ethics should be taught has led to stark differences in approaches and content. The present effort uses meta-analytic procedures to examine the effectiveness of current approaches across organizational ethics trainings and business school courses. to provide practical suggestions for business ethics interventions and (...) research. Thus, the primary questions driving this research are as follows: what course characteristics moderate the effectiveness of ethics instruction?, and have ethics education and training efforts improved? Findings suggest that professional, focused, and workshop-based training programs are especially effective for improving business ethics. However, results also reveal considerable problems with many of the criteria used to evaluate the effectiveness of business ethics interventions. Practical suggestions for course design and evaluation in business ethics efforts are discussed along with future research needs. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Encounters with Ovid: Gavin Douglas’s The Palis of Honoure and Derek Walcott’s “The Hotel Normandie Pool” CAROLE E. NEWLANDS In sixteenth-century Rome, humanist scholars of ancient material and religious culture were exploring the ruins and inscriptions of ancient Rome with a copy of Ovid’s Fasti in hand.1 In London at the same time, Shakespeare was entertaining audiences and inspiring other poets with plots and characters drawn from Ovid’s Metamorphoses. (...) Reception studies of Ovid often focus on these great metropolitan centers. In this article, however, I will explore transformative encounters with Ovid by two poets living on the geographical margins: Gavin Douglas, the Scottish poet whose major work, the Eneados, completed in 1513, was the first translation of Virgil’s Aeneid in the British Isles, and Derek Walcott, the Caribbean Nobel-prize winning poet best known for his epic poem Omeros, published in 1990. As a poet of a small northern country that had fraught political and cultural relations with its much more populous neighbor, England, Douglas can be considered to some extent, like Walcott, within a postcolonial critical paradigm. For despite their stark differences in geographical locale and in period of time, these poets have significant commonalties. Both men were natives of places geographically distant from the major metropolitan center of London. Both were also classically learned poets. They thus shared anxieties relating to their temporal distance from Graeco-Roman culture as well as to their physical distance from the powerful English-language literary center of their day. And significantly, both Douglas and Walcott present transformative visions of Ovid in indiarion 26.3 winter 2019 vidual, early poems, The Palis of Honoure and “The Hotel Normandie Pool” respectively. These imagined but direct encounters with the Roman poet occur in poems before Douglas and Walcott composed the works for which they are chiefly known, in Douglas’s case the translation of the Aeneid, and in Walcott’s Omeros. Ovid appears in both the Palis of Honoure and “The Hotel Normandie Pool” initially, at least, as an outsider, a poet of exile, but not, however, as a self-pitying poet in decline or, as recent scholarship would have it, as a skilled manipulator of the tropes of poetic decline.2 Rather, in Douglas’s and Walcott’s poems Ovid is a figure who authorizes marginality as a vital source of poetic re-creation. As both insider and outsider Ovid can offer positive redirection to these authors whether within or beyond their geographical boundaries. Through their visions of Ovid, both Douglas and Walcott are offered the possibility of personal change and generic innovation. For each poet the encounter with Ovid is a form of poetic initiation that leads him to his more ambitious work in the heroic genre. gavin douglas’s THE PALIS OF HONOURE i will start with Gavin Douglas (c. 1474–1522). Douglas is generally classed as one of the “Makars,” a term used to refer to a cluster of brilliant, experimental Scottish poets of the late 15th and early 16th century. Among these were Robert Henryson, William Dunbar, and Gavin Douglas, three poets who thrived under the rule of King James IV of Scotland, an active patron of the arts who sought to make his court a center of cultural excellence that would rival the English court.3 Douglas’s Palis of Honoure is a youthful, ambitious poem, composed in 1502, twelve years before his major achievement, his translation of the Aeneid.4 Dedicated to King James, The Palis comprises 2169 decasyllabic lines with several demanding rhyme schemes.5 It is written in a manner that combines the “aureate” style, that is elegant and Latinate, with down-to-earth Scottish vernacular 74 encounters with ovid diction and forms of expression, and it is also suffused with Ovidian myth and concepts.6 Its format derives from the medieval dream vision, a form employed notably, for instance, by Douglas’s famous English predecessor Chaucer.7 Scholars tend to find The Palis of Honoure less polished than Douglas’s mature work, the Eneados. Conor Leahy, however, describes the youthful poem as bold and dynamic: “In the hundred years following the death of Chaucer, no other dream vision... (shrink)

This book provides an up-to-date revision of materialism’s central tenets, its main varieties, and the place of materialistic philosophy vis a vis scientific knowledge. Materialism has been the subject of extensive and rich controversies since Robert Boyle introduced the term for the first time in the 17th century. But what is materialism and what can it offer today? The term is usually defined as the worldview according to which everything real is material. Nevertheless, there is no philosophical consensus about whether (...) the meaning of matter can be enlarged beyond the physical. As a consequence, materialism is often defined in stark exclusive and reductionist terms: whatever exists is either physical or ontologically reducible to it. This conception, if consistent, mutilates reality, excluding the ontological significance of political, economic, sociocultural, anthropological and psychological realities. Starting from a new history of materialism, the present book focuses on the central ontological and epistemological debates aroused by today’s leading materialist approaches, including some little known to an anglophone readership. The key concepts of matter, system, emergence, space and time, life, mind, and software are checked over and updated. Controversial issues such as the nature of mathematics and the place of reductionism are also discussed from different materialist approaches. As a result, materialism emerges as a powerful, indispensable scientifically-supported worldview with a surprising wealth of nuances and possibilities. (shrink)

Beatrice. Jane Tennison. Elizabeth Bennett. Arya Stark. Katniss Everdeen. None of them is real. All of them appear not only to engage our interest but also to move us. Some of them might even be thought to affect us further—to inspire us to do things, or at least to regard things in a different light. The set of problems typically grouped under the designation “paradox of fiction” raises questions about an apparent contradiction, about our responding emotionally to entities and (...) events in the existence of which we do not believe. The kind of ontological incorrectness to which the paradox draws attention can be directly and indirectly related to a number of interesting explanations and corollary claims about our.. (shrink)

Bezugnehmend auf Kants Moralphilosophie entwickelt dieser Beitrag eine These dazu, was mit der Forderung gemeint sein soll, Personen unter Beachtung ihrer Würde bzw. als "Zweck an sich selbst" zu behandeln. Es wird vorgeschlagen, die Implikationen von Kants "Menschheitsformel" als ein Bündel von mit einander verwandten Vorschriften zu interpretieren, die das moralische Nachdenken darüber, wie die Prinzipien unserer tagtäglichen Entscheidungen spezifiziert und interpretiert werden sollten, leiten und begrenzen können. Der Beitrag bearbeitet sodann die folgenden drei Fragestellungen: Was folgt aus dem Vorangehenden (...) im Hinblick auf die Behandlung von Straftätern bei der Verbüßung ihrer Strafe? Was empfiehlt die "Menschheitsformel" - einmal abgesehen von Kants "offizieller" Straftheorie - im Hinblick darauf, wer, wie stark, in welcher Weise und warum bestraft werden sollte? Gibt es Konflikte zwischen diesen Empfehlungen und Kants "offizieller" Straftheorie, die eine Revision seiner Gründe für diese Theorie erforderlich machen? Drawing from Kant's moral theory, this essay develops an account of what is required to treat persons with dignity, or as "ends in themselves". It proposes to regard the implications of Kant's humanity formula as a cluster of related precepts that can guide and constrain moral deliberation about how to specify and interpret the principles that should guide day to day decisions. The essay then addresses three questions: What is implied regarding how offenders should be treated while undergoing punishment? Apart from Kant's official theory of punishment, what would the humanity formula recommend regarding who should be punished, how much, in what way, and why? Are there conflicts between these recommendations and Kant's official theory of punishment that invite reexamination of his grounds for his official theory? (shrink)

Modern scholars have been concerned with the hostility shown to Alexander by the Hellenistic schools of philosophy. Two literary portraits have been distinguished, the Peripatetic and the Stoic, the former deriving from Theophrastus' book on Callisthenes, or starting with this work the Peripatetics worked out a theory of and applied it to Alexander, in order to belittle his achievements. It was a case of giving sophisticated expression to the kind of crude resentment expressed by Demades.

"The writer discusses the concept of kitsch. Having reviewed a variety of approaches to kitsch, he posits an historical conception of it, connecting it to modernity and defining it as a coping-mechanism for modernity. He thus suggests that kitsch is best understood as a tool in the struggle against the particular stresses of the modern world and that it uses materials at hand, fashioning from them some sort of stability largely through projecting images of nature, stasis, and continuity. He discusses (...) the relation of kitsch to fine art, arguing that fine art also has as its primary function a counter-movement to modernity. He suggests that the main difference between fine art and kitsch is that fine art, as well as its emotional function, also involves a reception context that allows it to assume an intellectual task. Among the writer's conclusions, he finds that positing a stark or absolute contrast between kitsch and fine art is unjustifiable as both have the same roots and objectives." [WilsonWeb]. (shrink)

The locus classicus for Plutarch's own views on his methods is in the Alexander He has begun by asking for the indulgence of his readers if they do not find all the exploits of Alexander and Caesar recounted by the biographer or if they discover him not reporting some famous incident in detail (); and he goes on to compare his own search for evidence which will indicate the kind of soul, with the activity of the painter, who, in order (...) to create a likeness, concentrates on the eyes and pays little attention to the other parts. Commentators and critics have been right to take this as a key text for the purpose of understanding Plutarch's attitude towards his biographical work; nevertheless there are other passages in the Lives where we can at least glimpse his attitude to his subject, and we can only see the Alexander-remarks in correct perspective if we take these other passages into account. I propose therefore, starting with the Alexander, to see how far these critical remarks apply to Plutarch's theory and practice elsewhere in the Lives. (shrink)

According to the Ars Amatoria the notorious rape took place on the occasion of a primitive dramatic entertainment staged in a theatre, in which the seats and furnishings were also primitive. There is no time for a description of the arts of the performers—a tibicen and a ludius—before the Romans, impatient for action, receive their signal from Romulus. Nor is there any mention of a god in whose honour the entertainment had been provided.

John Law left a remarkable legacy of economic concepts from a time when economic conceptualization was very much at an embryonic stage. Yet he is best known--and generally dismissed--today as a rake, duellist, and gambler. This intellectual biography offers a new approach to Law, one that shows him to have been a significant economic theorist with a vision that he attempted to implement as policy in early-eighteenth-century Europe. Law's style, marked by a clarity and use of modern terminology, stands out (...) starkly against the turgid prose of many of his contemporaries. His vision of a monetary and financial system was certainly one of a later age, for Law believed in an economy of banknotes and credit where specie had no role to play. Ultimately Law failed as a policy-maker, in part because of the entrenchment of the financiers and their aristocratic backers and in part because of theoretical flaws in his vision. His struggle for power took place against the background of Europe's first major stock boom and collapse. The collapse of the Mississippi System, which he had conceived, and the South Sea Bubble led to a lasting impression of Law as a failure. It is this impression that Antoin Murphy seeks to dispel. (shrink)

‘Der Text der Tragodien des Seneca ist in zwei Rezensionen iiberliefert.Die bessere ist vertreten durch die Haupths. Laur. 37, 13 s. xi/xii.… Zu der schlechteren, stark verfalschten Rezension gehoren die iibrigen Hss., von denen keine iiber die Mitte des 14. Jahrhunderts zuriickgeht.’.

The reticence of scholars of ethics to enter into fundamental moral reasoning is well known. William Casebeer’s ambitious new book, Natural Ethical Facts: Evolution, Connectionism, and Moral Cognition, which is the publication of his 2001 University of California, San Diego, Ph.D. dissertation, stands in stark contrast. Casebeer, who teaches philosophy at the U.S. Air Force Academy, has undertaken the project of developing a comprehensive moral theory derived from what he terms “methodological naturalism.” Methodological naturalism, he explains, is a system (...) of moral reasoning derived exclusively from the empirically verifiable claims of science. His ethic starts with the materialist premise that all reality is reducible to matter and energy; since matter and energy are sufficiently explainable in terms of facts derived from the scientific method; morality too, as real—he is undeniably a moral realist—must be sufficiently explained in terms of such facts. With particular attention given to the cognitive sciences and evolutionary biology, Casebeer’s naturalism boldly asserts that ethics is reducible to science, moral norms to empirical facts, and practical judgments to theoretical propositions. This of course implicates the author in what critics refer to as the “naturalistic fallacy,” that is, the illicit inference from facts to norms. Aware of this, Casebeer attempts to show that such an inference is not only not illicit but itself the substance of fundamental moral reasoning. Unfortunately his refutation of the naturalistic fallacy is selective. He reduces the entire complex discussion to a distinction between analytic and synthetic statements, then successfully throws into doubt the existence of such a distinction and judges himself done with the whole question. Using David Hume and G. E. Moore as his principal foils, his refutation entirely ignores the most enduring and plausible argument against deriving “ought” from “is,” proposed by the great medieval philosopher Thomas Aquinas and his contemporary expositor, the Oxford philosopher John Finnis. (shrink)

The Institute of Medicine reporting on the quality of health care in America recommends six aims for achieving the health care system we could have. Together with the Institute for Healthcare Improvement Triple Aim initiative, a framework has emerged to challenge providers, educators, and policymakers to remake the health care system according to specific objectives: to provide care that is safe, effective, patient-centered, timely, efficient, and equitable to more people at a price we can afford. Complicating this mission of better (...) prevention and better care at a lower cost is a daunting demographic: January of 2011 marked the month and year that the first of the baby boomers turned 65. The U.S. Census Bureau in May 2010 projected the number of Americans of this age and over to reach 88 million by 2050, more than double the current figure of 40.2 million. Parekh and Barton forecast in stark detail what it will be like to address these burgeoning numbers of older Americans with comorbidities, including the fact that over 20% of the population currently experiences at least two chronic medical conditions. (shrink)

Abstract Islam displaces the ancient idea of time as an implacable enemy with the scriptural image of time as the stage of judgment, a narrow bridge of accountability stretched between creation and eternity. The stark contrast of temporal evanescence with all the immutability of eternity challenges Muslim theologians and philosophers of the classic age. The dialectical theologians of the kalam describe time and change atomisti?cally and even occasionalistically, seeking to preserve the absoluteness of the contrast and to avoid compromising (...) the purity of God's creative act and the sheer facticity of its temporal effect. The falasifa, philosophers in the Greek tradition, use Platonic, Aristotelian, and Neoplatonic arguments to reconcile temporality with eternity. Stripped of argument, their emanative and archetypal schemes join the core symbolisms of Islam, but only when accommodated to the Qur'anic ideas of judgment and creation. (shrink)

Requirements for business ethics education and organizational ethics trainings mark an important step in encouraging ethical behavior among business students and professionals. However, the lack of specificity in these guidelines as to how, what, and where business ethics should be taught has led to stark differences in approaches and content. The present effort uses meta-analytic procedures to examine the effectiveness of current approaches across organizational ethics trainings and business school courses. to provide practical suggestions for business ethics interventions and (...) research. Thus, the primary questions driving this research are as follows: what course characteristics moderate the effectiveness of ethics instruction?, and have ethics education and training efforts improved? Findings suggest that professional, focused, and workshop-based training programs are especially effective for improving business ethics. However, results also reveal considerable problems with many of the criteria used to evaluate the effectiveness of business ethics interventions. Practical suggestions for course design and evaluation in business ethics efforts are discussed along with future research needs. (shrink)

From a giant of health care policy, an engaging and enlightening account of why American health care is so expensive -- and why it doesn't have to be. Uwe Reinhardt was a towering figure and moral conscience of health care policy in the United States and beyond. Famously bipartisan, he advised presidents and Congress on health reform and originated central features of the Affordable Care Act. In Priced Out, Reinhardt offers an engaging and enlightening account of today's U.S. health care (...) system, explaining why it costs so much more and delivers so much less than the systems of every other advanced country, why this situation is morally indefensible, and how we might improve it. The problem, Reinhardt says, is not one of economics but of social ethics. There is no American political consensus on a fundamental question other countries settled long ago: to what extent should we be our brothers' and sisters' keepers when it comes to health care? Drawing on the best evidence, he guides readers through the chaotic, secretive, and inefficient way America finances health care, and he offers a penetrating ethical analysis of recent reform proposals. At this point, he argues, the United States appears to have three stark choices: the government can make the rich help pay for the health care of the poor, ration care by income, or control costs. Reinhardt proposes an alternative path: that by age 26 all Americans must choose either to join an insurance arrangement with community-rated premiums, or take a chance on being uninsured or relying on a health insurance market that charges premiums based on health status. An incisive look at the American health care system, Priced Out dispels the confusion, ignorance, myths, and misinformation that hinder effective reform. (shrink)