This article presents narratives from 13 Indigenous early career academics (ECAs) at one university in Auckland, New Zealand. These experiences are likely to represent those of Indigenous Māori and Pasifika ECAs nationally, given the small, centralised nature of the national academy of Aotearoa New Zealand. The narratives contain testimony, fictionalised vignettes of experience, and poetic expressions. Meeting the demands of an academic role in one’s first years of working at a university is a big deal for anyone; the extra pressures (...) and challenges for Indigenous Māori and Pacific staff are immense, yet little understood by White ‘others.’ A writing workshop was the initial catalyst of this collective writing project. Through these insider narratives, this article presents a collective description of, and response to, the experience of Māori and Pasifika early career academics. (shrink)

In Kate Bush’s 1993 album, The Red Shoes, and her film, The Line, the Cross and the Curve, she engages with the symbolism of The Red Shoes fairytale as first depicted in Hans Christian Andersen’s 1845 fairy tale and later developed by the Powell and Pressburger film of the same name. In Bush’s versions of the tale she attempts to find a space of agency for the main female protagonist in a plot structure over-determined by patriarchal narrative and symbolic logic. (...) I will argue that it is through her own use of mystical symbolism — the Line, the Cross and the Curve — mediated through the deployment of ritual magick and kabbalistic ritual — that she breaks the ‘spell’ of the red shoes story where the main female character can escape the gender specific ‘curse’ of the red shoes. (shrink)

“Nature, Red in Tooth and Claw” explores Adorno’s ideas about our mediated relationship with nature. The first section of the paper examines the epistemological significance of his thesis about the preponderance of the object while describing the Kantian features in his notion of mediation. Adorno’s conception of nature will also be examined in the context of a review of J. M. Bernstein’s and Fredric Jameson’s attempts to characterize it. The second section of the paper deals with Adorno’s Freudian account of (...) internal nature. While arguing against Joel Whitebook’s view that Adorno needs a concept of sublimation, I contend that Adorno’s genetic account of the relationship between nature and mind enables him to respond to the Freudian injunction to displace the id with the ego with a view to fostering autonomy. In the final section of the paper, problems with Adorno’s ideas about external and internal nature are briefly discussed. (shrink)

The philosophical writings of Lady Mary Shepherd (1777–1847) reveal an astute and lively intellect. In An Essay upon the Relation of Cause and Effect (1824) and Essays on the Perception of an External Universe, and Other Subjects Connected with the Doctrine of Causation (1827), Shepherd engaged critically with the views of Hume, Berkeley, Reid, Stewart, de Condillac, and others, but she also presented an original and carefully argued philosophical system of her own. Highly regarded in her day, Shepherd's work (...) faded into obscurity after her death; this collection of selections from her writings is intended to bring her work back into focus for students and scholars. Selections include her writings about causation, knowledge of the external world, mathematical and physical induction, belief in miracles and God, and mind and body. This volume also includes an 1828 essay Shepherd published on vision and selections from her 1832 magazine article, "Lady Mary Shepherd's Metaphysics.". (shrink)

Experimental results on the Ellsberg paradox typically reveal behavior that is commonly interpreted as ambiguity aversion. The experiments reported in the current paper find the objective probabilities for drawing a red ball that make subjects indifferent between various risky and uncertain Ellsberg bets. They allow us to examine the predictive power of alternative principles of choice under uncertainty, including the objective maximin and Hurwicz criteria, the sure-thing principle, and the principle of insufficient reason. Contrary to our expectations, the principle of (...) insufficient reason performed substantially better than rival theories in our experiment, with ambiguity aversion appearing only as a secondary phenomenon. (shrink)

Deborah Boyle's book is a splendid addition to the literature on the philosophy of Margaret Cavendish. It provides an overview of Cavendish's philosophical work, from her panpsychist materialism, through her views about human motivation and general political philosophy, to views about gender, health, and humans' relation to the rest of the natural world. Boyle emphasizes themes of order and regularity, but does not argue that there is a strong systematic connection between Cavendish's views. Indeed, she makes a point of (...) noting the different ways in which the themes of order and regularity work in different areas of Cavendish's philosophy.The early chapters consider Cavendish's natural philosophy.... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content: Five Poems DEBORAH WARREN Bugonia hic vero subitum dictu mirabile monstrum aspiciunt, liquefacta boum per viscera toto stridere apes utero et ruptis effervere costis. —Vergil, Georgics IV The covert’s dark, but Aristaeus sees —beyond it, in the oleandered meadow, walking to her wedding with her maids— Eurydice, as sweet as early windfall apples to the gods of the bitter dead. She runs, from shifting shade to sun (...) to shade until, in a shock of sudden sun, she sways, blinded, blundering into an adder’s kiss, and while the bridegroom waits by the bridal bed, she waits to be undressed by worms instead. But Aristaeus pays for the assault. The mead-gods visit on his apiaries wax-moth, mites, foulbrood and chalk-disease until an oracle orders a hekatomb: after nine days the myrtle-nymphs perform a miracle, and out of the carcases crawl fat new sun-furred drones to work the comb, a gift of the mead-gods who, with the poet, praise the teams of bright collaborating bees as little Romans—parvos Quirites. arion 27.1 spring/summer 2019 And what about Eurydice? The swarm goes humming on, a small Rome in a hive. The story’s not about Eurydice’s second chance, or whether she’ll survive. Eurydice’s a minor character; she’s only one girl, sui generis. Besides, no cattle-trick exists for her. The gods can let the apiaries thrive and armies—even empires—endure; one girl’s more complicated to replace. 44 five poems The Tithonus Club We can begin our visit with the Day Room where, in wheelchairs, some with canes or walkers, members sit: a fraternity so ancient that the confrères mostly ignore each other (club tradition). The dues are paid in decades; no one has an outstanding balance—Sir? Whoa, steady, there! Sit down... yes. Here’s your blanket. The badge of membership—the club regalia? Laminated ceremonial bracelets bear the motto Do Not Resuscitate (legend which, in practice, is seldom honored). Eleven-thirty, gentlemen; lunch is served, and now a little toast while the television mesmerizes the aides: Messieurs, your health! Deborah Warren 45 Aphrodite at the Old-Age Home —for Aphrodite Kalogeris “Honey,” the night nurse said to Aphrodite, “let me fix your bib. Look, Aphrodite! Here’s your juice and crackers, Aphrodite! “She doesn’t speak a blessed word of English,” the night nurse told us, “but she understands as good as if we spoke to her in Greek.” Aphrodite’s ears were as grotesque as the pore-coarse nose that bloomed across her face, but she heard her name: When Aphrodite rose and, beatific, dreamed across the room, traversing a happiness none of us could hear, she spoke a language older than herself but still her own—a dialect of beauty able to translate the fetid air. 46 five poems Climbing Etna We’d see the lava, nights, from the town square, as if the sun—an egg of fire—broke at dusk, threading its incandescent yolk down a mountain hanging in black air. Every night we’d scan the dark horizon looking for those streaks, and every night they took a while to find, however bright: Etna, it seemed, had spent the evening rising off the earth, to hover even higher, as if the mountain meant not to be found. And then, today, we ran the flows to ground, climbing up to the rolling burns of fire— closer, into the shimmering air and hiss that glanced up from the thick and red-flecked river —until our soles were smoking. But the lava sang, inside the mountain: Come, discover the fire’s origin and genesis; more—the heart of the world, in its enceinte of blind white heat. Seeing the lava course wasn’t enough, or watching the rock decant the sun; what brought us up here was the force— the hot loins—of a lightning god as dark as thunder; and, like Eve, like Semele, we wanted to approach. But there’s a spark, a jewel older than geology: stop shy of it—of finding the fire’s source, of closing in on what you shouldn’t see. Deborah Warren 47 Human Sucking strength... (shrink)

After a brief account of the problem of higher-order vagueness, and its seeming intractability, I explore what comes of the issue on a linguistic, contextualist account of vagueness. On the view in question, predicates like 'borderline red' and 'determinately red' are, or at least can be, vague, but they are different in kind from 'red'. In particular, 'borderline red' and 'determinately red' are not colours. These predicates have linguistic components, and invoke notions like 'competent user of the language'. On my (...) view, so-called 'higher-order vagueness' is actually ordinary, first-order vagueness in different predicates. I explore the possibility that, nevertheless, a pernicious regress ensues. (shrink)

After a brief account of the problem of higher-order vagueness, and its seeming intractability, I explore what comes of the issue on a linguistic, contextualist account of vagueness. On the view in question, predicates like ‘borderline red’ and ‘determinately red’ are, or at least can be, vague, but they are different in kind from ‘red’. In particular, ‘borderline red’ and ‘determinately red’ are not colours. These predicates have linguistic components, and invoke notions like ‘competent user of the language’. On my (...) view, so-called ‘higher-order vagueness’ is actually ordinary, first-order vagueness in different predicates. I explore the possibility that, nevertheless, a pernicious regress ensues. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Scottish Philosophy after the Enlightenment by Gordon GrahamDeborah BoyleGRAHAM, Gordon. Scottish Philosophy after the Enlightenment. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2022. xvii + 254 pp. Cloth, $110.00Histories of Scottish philosophy typically focus on the school of "common sense" from the eighteenth century, beginning with Francis Hutcheson and ending with Dugald Stewart. As Gordon Graham notes in the preface to this volume, nineteenth-century Scottish philosophy is "an area of (...) the history of philosophy that has generally gone almost entirely unexplored." His collection of eleven standalone essays (only one of which has been previously published) argues that something recognizable as "Scottish philosophy" continued into the nineteenth century—although Graham thinks it ended, then, too—and suggests conceptions of Scottish philosophy that go beyond the old trope of "common sense."Unusually for a work in the history of philosophy, the first chapter is autobiographical. Graham recalls that as an undergraduate studying moral philosophy at St. Andrews in 1968, the only Scottish philosopher he was assigned to read was Hume, whose work was taught in the ahistorical manner that dominated philosophy at that time, and that upon his appointment to the Regius Chair of Moral Philosophy at Aberdeen in 1995 he found little appreciation for the university's most famous former professor, Thomas Reid. Thus began Graham's establishment of the Reid Project at the University of Aberdeen (later the Centre for the Study of Scottish Philosophy and now the Institute for the Study of Scottish Philosophy), the founding of the Journal of Scottish Philosophy, and his editorship of several book series on Scottish philosophy. The story of Graham's scholarship over the years is really the story of the recovery of the history of Scottish philosophy after its near-total neglect in the twentieth century.Graham seems wary of the contextualist turn that historians of philosophy have embraced since around the 1980s, which he likens to "antiquarianism," but at the same time he notes that our current philosophical interests are "not an infallible or even an especially reliable guide to what is intellectually significant" from the past. His solution is to look for intellectual "trajectories" in the history of philosophy—although not with the Whiggish view that these culminate in the present—and to locate particular figures within those trajectories. Thus he is especially interested in identifying the various themes—not just "common sense"— [End Page 551] that can unite the work of different philosophers born and working in Scotland in order to provide a more expansive account of Scottish philosophy.Scottish Philosophy after the Enlightenment provides a close look at the lives and work of major figures of this period, with a chapter devoted to each: William Hamilton (chapter 2), James Frederick Ferrier (chapter 3), Alexander Bain (chapter 4), Thomas Carlyle (chapter 5), Alexander Campbell Fraser (chapter 9), and Andrew Seth Pringle-Pattison (chapter 10). Although Graham argues that Pringle-Pattison's work marks the culmination and end of distinctively Scottish philosophy, he devotes the final chapter to the work of twentieth-century philosopher John McMurray on the grounds that McMurray's conception of human agency is rooted in Scottish debates from the previous two centuries over realism and idealism (chapter 11). Along the way, the book helpfully introduces other thinkers currently much less well known, such as Edward Caird, Henry Calderwood, Henry Jones, James Hutchison Stirling, John Tulloch, and John Veitch.Instead of thinking of Scottish philosophy as simply equivalent to common sense philosophy, Graham offers various alternative conceptions of Scottish philosophy, characterized as various "trajectories" that can be seen as originating in the eighteenth century and developing through the nineteenth: as a concern with realism and idealism that developed in the nineteenth century into responses (whether critical or favorable) to Hegelianism (chapter 6); as a prolonged conversation about the relationship between science and philosophy and the possibility of progress in the scientific study of the mind (chapter 7); and as the continuation of eighteenth-century post-Humean Scottish philosophers' aim of defending theism, even in the face of Darwin's findings (chapters 8 and 9). Presenting Scottish philosophy through these different lenses is highly illuminating and makes a persuasive case for the need for further... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Case of the Disappearing EnigmaDeborah Knight and George McKnightAsked to give examples of detection narratives, one might first mention paradigms of the detective genre from either the classical or hard-boiled traditions. But the study of detection need not be restricted to the generic as familiarly construed. 1 Our interest in detection is transgeneric, which is why we speak in terms of “detection narratives” rather than the detective genre. (...) We are as interested in detection narratives that exploit the generic tendencies of suspense or comedy as we are in nongeneric narratives that feature an investigation of some mystery or crime. While what we have to say about detection, interpretation, and narrative explanation is generally applicable to both literary and non-literary detection narratives, our five main examples are all unapologetically taken from cinema. We have selected these five just because they are unlikely to strike anyone as an intuitively obvious group of films. They are The Thin Man (W. S. Van Dyke, 1934), a mystery/comedy; The Maltese Falcon (John Huston, 1941), standardly cited as the earliest film noir and a paradigm of the cinematic hard-boiled detective genre; All The President’s Men (Alan J. Pakula, 1976), a political thriller based on Bernstein and Woodward’s nonfictional investigation of the Watergate break-in; Nicholas Roeg’s 1980 Bad Timing, a nongeneric film about sensual obsession; and Woody Allen’s 1993 comedy of manners, Manhattan Murder Mystery.Whether focusing on the investigation of a crime, the unraveling of a puzzle, or the solution of a mystery, detection narratives exhibit what Frank Kermode calls “a specialized ‘hermeneutic’ organization.” 2 As such, they call for a particular sort of investigation: namely, a hermeneutical one. Often we think about hermeneutical investigations as [End Page 123] interpretations and assume that the proper object of such interpretations is a text. Thinking primarily about literary texts, David Novitz argues that the function of such explanations is to “solve certain puzzles, answer certain questions, dispel confusions, or eliminate doubts about... the theme of a work or its plot, [or] about the actions, motives, or machinations of fictional characters....” 3Of course, interpretation is not restricted to literary texts, nor to answering specific questions about such matters as theme or plot or character motivation, nor does Novitz suggest it is. But when the object of interpretation is a text—literary, cinematic, legal, or other—it is arguable that interpretation is not restricted to those localized aspects of the text which we take to be puzzling. Novitz’s position is that interpretation only occurs when one confronts a specific puzzle or problem. What we understand directly is not, on this account, interpreted; interpretation is required only where we do not understand. The consideration of detection narratives suggests that understanding and interpretation are more closely related than Novitz seems to allow.In our attempts to make sense of the course of action of any detection narrative, there is always the question whether we have understood a given situation, event, action or statement correctly. It is always a question whether we have correctly distinguished between clues and red herrings. Detection narratives operate on the basis of a continual questioning—both for the detective and for the reader or viewer—as to whether we do, in fact, understand what is happening.This questioning attitude is keyed to the uncertainty as to whether we have correctly recognized what information is salient, which characters’ testimony is trustworthy. At various moments in any detection narrative, the detective (or reader/viewer) will have reason to question the reliability of their own assessment of what is going on. There is the risk of being mistaken, but also the risk of being deceived. So the appropriate attitude to detection narratives is an interpretive one, an attitude that asks questions about what is presented.Of course, particular questions cannot even be sensibly asked in the absence of a larger interpretive framework which gives the particular question its point. Not only the detective, but the reader or viewer, is well advised to contextualize any particular event or action as a (potential) part of what we call, adapting a notion of David Carr’s, an action of large... (shrink)

This rich and interesting book tells the story of the development and ultimate disappearance over the course of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries of a central theme in Scottish philosophy: common sense realism. Taking Thomas Reid's version of common sense realism as the paradigmatic form, McDermid shows how Reid's views had their roots in Lord Kames's account of perceptual realism, how Dugald Stewart and Sir William Hamilton defended and modified Reid's view, and how James Ferrier systematically repudiated both Reid's (...) appeal to common sense and his realism. McDermid succeeds in providing a clear overview of the trajectory, while not losing sight of the details of the individual philosophers' views. (shrink)

In the social sciences and in everyday speech we often talk about groups as if they behaved in the same way as individuals, thinking and acting as a singular being. We say for example that "Google intends to develop an automated car", "the U.S. Government believes that Syria has used chemical weapons on its people", or that "the NRA wants to protect the rights of gun owners". We also often ascribe legal and moral responsibility to groups. But could groups literally (...) intend things? Is there such a thing as a collective mind? If so, should groups be held morally responsible? Such questions are of vital importance to our understanding of the social world. In this lively, engaging introduction Deborah Tollefsen offers a careful survey of contemporary philosophers? answers to these questions, and argues for the unorthodox view that certain groups should, indeed, be treated as agents and deserve to be held morally accountable. Tollefsen explores the nature of belief, action and intention, and shows the reader how a belief in group agency can be reconciled with our understanding of individual agency and accountability. _Groups as Agents_ will be a vital resource for scholars as well as for students of philosophy and the social sciences encountering the topic for the first time. (shrink)

The seventeenth century was a period of extraordinary invention, discovery and revolutions in scientific, social and political orders. It was a time of expansive automation, biological discovery, rapid advances in medical knowledge, of animal trials and a questioning of the boundaries between species, human and non-human, between social classes, and of the assumed naturalness of political inequality. This book gives a tour through those objects, ordinary and extraordinary, which captivated the philosophical imagination of the single most important French philosopher of (...) this period, Rene Descartes. Deborah J. Brown and Calvin G. Normore document Descartes' attempt to make sense of the complex, composite objects of human and divine invention, consistent with the fundamental tenets of his metaphysical system. Their central argument is that, far from reducing all the categories of ordinary experience to the two basic categories of substance, mind and body, Descartes' philosophy recognises irreducible composites that resist reduction, and require their own distinctive modes of explanation. (shrink)

Guthrie contends that religion can best be understood as systematic anthropomorphism - the attribution of human characteristics to nonhuman things and events. Religion, he says, consists of seeing the world as human like. He offers a fascinating array of examples to show how this strategy pervades secular life and how it characterizes religious experience.

It describes and explains the patient-centered model examining and evaluating qualitative and quantitative research. It comprehensively covers the evolution and the six interactive components of the patient-centered clinical method, taking the reader through the relationships between the patient and doctor and the patient and clinician. All the editors are professors in the Department of Family Medicine at the University of Western Ontario, London, Canada.

Decades before the environmental movement emerged in the 1960s, Adorno condemned our destructive and self-destructive relationship to the natural world, warning of the catastrophe that may result if we continue to treat nature as an object that exists exclusively for our own benefit. "Adorno on Nature" presents the first detailed examination of the pivotal role of the idea of natural history in Adorno's work. A comparison of Adorno's concerns with those of key ecological theorists - social ecologist Murray Bookchin, ecofeminist (...) Carolyn Merchant, and deep ecologist Arne Naess - reveals how Adorno speaks directly to many of today's most pressing environmental issues. Ending with a discussion of the philosophical conundrum of unity in diversity, "Adorno on Nature" also explores how social solidarity can be promoted as a necessary means of confronting environmental problems. (shrink)

Argues that the central cognitive component of ethical virtue for Aristotle is awareness of the value of particulars.

Economists and other social scientists in this century have often supported economic arguments by referring to positions taken by philosophers of science. This important new book looks at the reliability of this practice and, in the process, provides economists, social scientists, and historians with the necessary background to discuss methodological matters with authority. Redman first presents an accurate, critical, yet neutral survey of the modern philosophy of science from the Vienna Circle to the present, focusing particularly on logical positivism, sociological (...) explanations of science (Polanyi, Fleck, Kuhn), the Popper family, and the history of science. She then deals with economic methodology in the twentieth century, looking at a wide range of methodological positions, especially those supported by positions from the philosophy of science. She considers the myth of the feasibility of falsification in economics and, within the context of its significance for economics, discusses the interpretation of Kuhn's philosophy of science as consensus and the danger such a view represents to science. Appendices review the history of the is-ought dispute and list economists whose first works deal with methodological topics. Comprehensive, readable, and accessible to those with little background knowledge, Redman's book will appeal to a wide range of social scientists and philosophers of science. (shrink)

Research on linguistic interaction suggests that two or more individuals can sometimes form adaptive and cohesive systems. We describe an “alignment system” as a loosely interconnected set of cognitive processes that facilitate social interactions. As a dynamic, multi-component system, it is responsive to higher-level cognitive states such as shared beliefs and intentions (those involving collective intentionality) but can also give rise to such shared cognitive states via bottom-up processes. As an example of putative group cognition we turn to transactive memory (...) and suggest how further research on alignment in these cases might reveal how such systems can be genuinely described as cognitive. Finally, we address a prominent critique of collective cognitive systems, arguing that there is much empirical and explanatory benefit to be gained from considering the possibility of group cognitive systems, especially in the context of small-group human interaction. (shrink)

Despite the widespread use of key concepts of the Neyman–Pearson (N–P) statistical paradigm—type I and II errors, significance levels, power, confidence levels—they have been the subject of philosophical controversy and debate for over 60 years. Both current and long-standing problems of N–P tests stem from unclarity and confusion, even among N–P adherents, as to how a test's (pre-data) error probabilities are to be used for (post-data) inductive inference as opposed to inductive behavior. We argue that the relevance of error probabilities (...) is to ensure that only statistical hypotheses that have passed severe or probative tests are inferred from the data. The severity criterion supplies a meta-statistical principle for evaluating proposed statistical inferences, avoiding classic fallacies from tests that are overly sensitive, as well as those not sensitive enough to particular errors and discrepancies. Introduction and overview 1.1 Behavioristic and inferential rationales for Neyman–Pearson (N–P) tests 1.2 Severity rationale: induction as severe testing 1.3 Severity as a meta-statistical concept: three required restrictions on the N–P paradigm Error statistical tests from the severity perspective 2.1 N–P test T(): type I, II error probabilities and power 2.2 Specifying test T() using p-values Neyman's post-data use of power 3.1 Neyman: does failure to reject H warrant confirming H? Severe testing as a basic concept for an adequate post-data inference 4.1 The severity interpretation of acceptance (SIA) for test T() 4.2 The fallacy of acceptance (i.e., an insignificant difference): Ms Rosy 4.3 Severity and power Fallacy of rejection: statistical vs. substantive significance 5.1 Taking a rejection of H0 as evidence for a substantive claim or theory 5.2 A statistically significant difference from H0 may fail to indicate a substantively important magnitude 5.3 Principle for the severity interpretation of a rejection (SIR) 5.4 Comparing significant results with different sample sizes in T(): large n problem 5.5 General testing rules for T(), using the severe testing concept The severe testing concept and confidence intervals 6.1 Dualities between one and two-sided intervals and tests 6.2 Avoiding shortcomings of confidence intervals Beyond the N–P paradigm: pure significance, and misspecification tests Concluding comments: have we shown severity to be a basic concept in a N–P philosophy of induction? (shrink)

In the early twentieth century an apparently obscure philosophical debate took place between F. H. Bradley and Bertrand Russell. The historical outcome was momentous: the demise of the movement known as British Idealism, and its eventual replacement by the various forms of analytic philosophy. Since then, a conception of this debate and its rights and wrongs has become entrenched in English-language philosophy. Stewart Candlish examines afresh the events of this formative period in twentieth-century thought and comes to some surprising (...) conclusions. (shrink)

Autism is one of the most compelling, controversial, and heartbreaking cognitive disorders. It presents unique philosophical challenges as well, raising intriguing questions in philosophy of mind, cognitive science, and philosophy of language that need to be explored if the autistic population is to be responsibly served. Starting from the "theory of mind" thesis that a fundamental deficit in autism is the inability to recognize that other persons have minds, Deborah R. Barnbaum considers its implications for the nature of consciousness, (...) our understanding of the consciousness of others, meaning theories in philosophy of language, and the modality of mind. This discussion lays the groundwork for consideration of the value of an autistic life, as well as the moral theories available to persons with autism. The book also explores questions about genetic decision making, research into the nature of autism, and the controversial quest for a cure. This is a timely and wide-ranging book on a disorder that commends itself to serious ethical examination. (shrink)

This paper examines how unethical behavior in the workplace occurs when management places inordinately strong emphasis on goalattainment without a corresponding emphasis on following legitimate procedures. Robert Merton's theory of sodal structure and anomie provides a foundation to discuss this argument. Key factors affecting ethical climates in work organizations are also addressed. Based on this analysis, the paper proposes strategies for developing and changing aspects of organizational culture to reduce anomie, thereby creating work climates which discourage unethical practices and provide (...) employees with mechanisms to resolve ethical conflicts in a constructive way. (shrink)

Descartes is often accused of having fragmented the human being into two independent substances, mind and body, with no clear strategy for explaining the apparent unity of human experience. Deborah Brown argues that, contrary to this view, Descartes did in fact have a conception of a single, integrated human being, and that in his view this conception is crucial to the success of human beings as rational and moral agents and as practitioners of science. The passions are pivotal in (...) this, and in a rich and wide-ranging discussion she examines Descartes' place in the tradition of thought about the passions, the metaphysics of actions and passions, sensory representation, and Descartes' account of self-mastery and virtue. Her study is an important and original reading not only of Descartes' account of mind-body unity but also of his theory of mind. (shrink)

This paper examines how unethical behavior in the workplace occurs when management places inordinately strong emphasis on goalattainment without a corresponding emphasis on following legitimate procedures. Robert Merton's theory of sodal structure and anomie provides a foundation to discuss this argument. Key factors affecting ethical climates in work organizations are also addressed. Based on this analysis, the paper proposes strategies for developing and changing aspects of organizational culture to reduce anomie, thereby creating work climates which discourage unethical practices and provide (...) employees with mechanisms to resolve ethical conflicts in a constructive way. (shrink)

Many countries have regulations that require firms to engage in minimum levels of corporate social activities in areas such as the environment and social welfare. In this paper, we argue that changes in a firm’s compliance with CS regulations are reflected in its reputation for corporate social responsibility, which affects the firm’s performance. The performance impacts depend on whether the firm’s CSR reputation in the current and prior periods is positive, neutral, or negative. Our theoretical framework draws on the reputation (...) literature and on the concepts of recency bias, which weights the present more heavily than the past, and negativity bias, which weights negative assessments more heavily than neutral or positive assessments. We test our hypotheses on a sample of 7317 banks over 1992–2007 where we compare a bank’s return on assets with its current and prior compliance ratings under the U.S. Community Reinvestment Act. We find that changes in CSR reputation have predictable, asymmetric, and sizeable impacts on firm performance. For example, for an average bank with $1 billion in assets, gaining a positive CSR reputation translates into a rise in profits of 4.04%; gaining a negative CSR reputation results in a drop in profits of − 7.8%. (shrink)

Essays cover historical, sociological, psychological and anthropological approaches, ethics and politics, and the policy implications of the real and perceived differences between the sexes.

Are human beings purely material creatures, or is there something else to them, an immaterial part that does some (or all) of the thinking, and might even be able to outlive the death of the body? This book is about how a series of seventeenth-century philosophers tried to answer that question. It begins by looking at the views of Thomas Hobbes, who developed a thoroughly materialist account of the human mind, and later of God as well.

Theodor W. Adorno and Jürgen Habermas both champion the goal of a rational society. However, they differ significantly about what this society should look like and how best to achieve it. Exploring the premises shared by both critical theorists, along with their profound disagreements about social conditions today, this book defends Adorno against Habermas' influential criticisms of his account of Western society and prospects for achieving reasonable conditions of human life. The book begins with an overview of these critical theories (...) of Western society. Both Adorno and Habermas follow Georg Lukács when they argue that domination consists in the reifying extension of a calculating, rationalizing form of thought to all areas of human life. Their views about reification are discussed in the second chapter. In chapter three the author explores their conflicting accounts of the historical emergence and development of the type of rationality now prevalent in the West. Since Adorno and Habermas claim to have a critical purchase on reified social life, the critical leverage of their theories is assessed in chapter four. The final chapter deals with their opposing views about what a rational society would look like, as well as their claims about the prospects for establishing such a society. Adorno, Habermas and the Search for a Rational Society will be essential reading for students and researchers of critical theory, political theory and the work of Adorno and Habermas. (shrink)

In 1241/4 the theology masters at the university at Paris with their chancellor, Odo of Chateauroux, mandated by their bishop, William of Auvergne, met to condemn ten propositions against theological truth. This book represents the first comprehensive examination of what hitherto has been a largely ignored instrument in a crucial period of the university's early maturation. However, the book's ambition goes wider than this. The condemnation provides a window through which to view the wider doctrinal, intellectual, institutional and historical developments (...) within the emerging university. These include the advent of the Dominicans and Franciscans at the university; and the developing focus of Paris theologians on using their learning for preaching at a time of a rapid and sometimes divergent development of doctrine and concerns over the newly-translated Aristotelian and associated Arab and Jewish works, heresy, the Greek Church and the Jews. The book compares the condemnation's ten articles with the major statement of Catholic principles in the first canon of the Fourth Lateran Council, 1215, and assesses what conclusions can be drawn from their apparent correlation. (shrink)

Numerous philosophical theories of joint agency and its intentional structure have been developed in the past few decades. These theories have offered accounts of joint agency that appeal to higher-level states that are?shared? in some way. These accounts have enhanced our understanding of joint agency, yet there are a number of lower-level cognitive phenomena involved in joint action that philosophers rarely acknowledge. In particular, empirical research in cognitive science has revealed that when individuals engage in a joint activity such as (...) conversation or joint problem solving, they become aligned at multiple levels. We argue that this phenomenon of alignment is crucial to understanding joint actions and should be integrated with philosophical approaches. In this paper, we sketch a possible integration, and draw out its implications for understanding of joint agency and collective intentionality. The result is a process-based, dynamic account of joint action that integrates both low-level and high-level states, and seeks to capture the separate processes of how a joint action is initiated and sustained. (shrink)