According to the shared signal hypothesis the impact of facial expressions on emotion processing partially depends on whether the gaze is directed toward or away from the observer. In autism spectrum disorder several aspects of face processing have been found to be atypical, including attention to eye gaze and the identification of emotional expressions. However, there is little research on how gaze direction affects emotional expression processing in typically developing individuals and in those with ASD. This question is investigated here (...) in two multimodal experiments. Experiment 1 required processing eye gaze direction while faces differed in emotional expression. Forty-seven children participated. Their Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule scores ranged from 0 to 6 in the experiment. Event-related potentials were sensitive to gaze direction and emotion, but emotion processing did not depend on gaze direction. However, for angry faces the gaze direction effect on the N170 amplitude, as typically observed in TD individuals, diminished with increasing ADOS score. For neutral expressions this correlation was not significant. Experiment 2 required explicit emotion classifications in a facial emotion composite task while eye gaze was manipulated incidentally. A group of 22 children with ASD was compared to a propensity score-matched group of TD children. The same comparison was carried out for a subgroup of nine children with ASD who were less trained in social cognition, according to clinician’s report. The ASD group performed overall worse in emotion recognition than the TD group, independently of emotion or gaze direction. However, for disgust expressions, eye tracking data revealed that TD children fixated relatively longer on the eyes of the stimulus face with a direct gaze as compared with averted gaze. In children with ASD we observed no such modulation of fixation behavior as a function of gaze direction. Overall, the present findings from ERPs and eye tracking confirm the hypothesis of an impaired sensitivity to gaze direction in children with ASD or elevated autistic traits, at least for specific emotions. Therefore, we conclude that multimodal investigations of the interaction between emotional processing and stimulus gaze direction are promising to understand the characteristics of individuals differing along the autism trait dimension. (shrink)

Over recent years, the issue of corruption in the public construction sector has attracted increasing attention from both practitioners and researchers worldwide. However, limited efforts are available for investigating the underlying factors of corruption in this sector. Thus, this study attempted to bridge this knowledge gap by exploring the underlying factors of corruption in the public construction sector of China. To achieve this goal, a total of 14 structured interviews were first carried out, and a questionnaire survey was then administered (...) to 188 professionals in China. Two iterations of multivariate analysis approaches, namely, stepwise multiple regression analysis and partial least squares structural equation modeling were successively utilized to analyze the collected data. In addition, a case study was also conducted to triangulate the findings obtained from the statistical analysis. The results generated from these three research methods achieve the same conclusion: the most influential underlying factor leading to corruption was immorality, followed by opacity, unfairness, procedural violation, and contractual violation. This study has contributed to the body of knowledge by exploring the properties of corruption in the public construction sector. The findings from this study are also valuable to the construction authorities as they can assist in developing more effective anti-corruption strategies. (shrink)

Balancing Change and Tradition in Global Education Reform is an invaluable resource for policymakers, faculty, students, and anyone interested in how decisions made about the education system ultimately affect the quality of education, educational access, and social justice.

Over recent years, the issue of corruption in the public construction sector has attracted increasing attention from both practitioners and researchers worldwide. However, limited efforts are available for investigating the underlying factors of corruption in this sector. Thus, this study attempted to bridge this knowledge gap by exploring the underlying factors of corruption in the public construction sector of China. To achieve this goal, a total of 14 structured interviews were first carried out, and a questionnaire survey was then administered (...) to 188 professionals in China. Two iterations of multivariate analysis approaches, namely, stepwise multiple regression analysis and partial least squares structural equation modeling were successively utilized to analyze the collected data. In addition, a case study was also conducted to triangulate the findings obtained from the statistical analysis. The results generated from these three research methods achieve the same conclusion: the most influential underlying factor leading to corruption was immorality, followed by opacity, unfairness, procedural violation, and contractual violation. This study has contributed to the body of knowledge by exploring the properties of corruption in the public construction sector. The findings from this study are also valuable to the construction authorities as they can assist in developing more effective anti-corruption strategies. (shrink)

Is it ethical for the prosecutor at the International Criminal Court to consider political factors, such as peace processes, in selecting situations to investigate or cases to prosecute? During the early years of the court, a number of documents and statements from the Office of the Prosecutor suggested that there were occasions when it was. Two OTP policy papers issued in 2003 recommended that the prosecutor assess “all circumstances prevailing in the country or region concerned, including the nature and stage (...) of the conflict and any intervention by the international community,” and whether prosecution might “exacerbate or otherwise destabilize a conflict situation.” In the same spirit, the ICC's chief prosecutor, Luis Moreno-Ocampo, referred to his decision-making as a “dialogue between many actors” with a “strategic dimension... [that] involves all stakeholders.” This language suggested a process of consultation and coordination with local and international actors involved in conflict resolution to adapt international criminal justice to on-the-ground political realities. (shrink)

This chapter develops and defends an account of reason: to reason is to scrutinize one’s attitudes by consulting the perspectives of other persons. The principal attraction of this account is its ability to vindicate the unique of authority of reason. The chapter argues that this conception entails that reasoning is a robustly social endeavor—that it is, in the first instance, something we do with other people. It is further argued that such social endeavors presuppose mutual respect on the part of (...) those participating in them. The account therefore yields a form of Kantian constructivism: we have an unconditional duty of respect for persons because such a duty is implicit in the very nature of reasoning. -/- . (shrink)

My aesthetic judgements seem to make claims on you. While some popular accounts of aesthetic normativity say that the force of these claims is third-personal, I argue that it is actually second-personal. This point may sound like a bland technicality, but it points to a novel idea about what aesthetic judgements ultimately are and what they do. It suggests, in particular, that aesthetic judgements are motions in the collective legislation of the nature of aesthetic activity. This conception is recommended by (...) its ability to explain some important but otherwise recondite features of aesthetic practice and, more importantly, by allowing us to ground the normativity of aesthetic judgement in the familiar normativity of practice. It also offers a more systematic way of understanding the rivalry between the ideals of aesthetic universality and diversity. (shrink)

Many people find comparisons of the value of persons distasteful, even immoral. But what can be said in support of the claim that persons have incomparable worth? This chapter considers an argument purporting to show that the value of persons is incomparable because it is so great—because it is infinite. The argument rests on two claims: that the value of our capacity for valuing must equal or exceed the value of things valued and that our capacity for valuing is unbounded (...) in a very strong sense. After laying out this argument, I consider its implications for how we should regard each other. In particular, I suggest that it complicates efforts to understand morality as a system of principles. Instead, I propose that an aesthetic attitude, not unlike our experience of the sublime, is an apt response to humanity’s infinite value. -/- . (shrink)

George Berkeley is one of the greatest and most influential modern philosophers. In defending the immaterialism for which he is most famous, he redirected modern thinking about the nature of objectivity and the mind's capacity to come to terms with it. Along the way, he made striking and influential proposals concerning the psychology of the senses, the workings of language, the aims of science, and the scope of mathematics. In this Companion volume a team of distinguished authors not only examines (...) Berkeley's achievements but also his neglected contributions to moral and political philosophy, his writings on economics and development, and his defense of religious commitment and religious life. The volume places Berkeley's achievements in the context of the many social and intellectual traditions - philosophical, scientific, ethical, and religious - to which he fashioned a distinctive response. (shrink)

The young Hegel was entranced by the notion of intellectual intuition, and this notion continues to entrance many of Hegel’ commentators. I argue that Kant provided three distinct conceptions of an intuitive intellect, that none of these involve aconceptual intuitionism, and that they differ markedly from Fichte’s and Schelling’s conceptions of intellectual intuition. I further argue that by 1804 Hegel recognized that appealing to an aconceptual model, or to Schelling’s model, or to his own early model of intellectual intuition generates (...) inevitable and insoluble problems of question-begging. By incorporating several important points from Kant’s Transcendental Ideal into his reinterpretation of Kant’s Transcendental Deduction and Refutation of Idealism, Hegel’s mature discursive and conceptual account of ‘absolute knowing’ performs some of the functions Kant assigned to the intuitive intellect, though without invoking any such intuitive intellect. I discuss several of these functions. (shrink)

_Grounds of Pragmatic Realism_ shows Hegel is a major epistemologist, who disentangled Kant’s critique of judgment, across the Critical corpus, from transcendental idealism, and augmented its enormous evaluative and justificatory significance for commonsense knowledge, the natural sciences and freedom of action.

Après avoir erré quelques années, étudiant férocement studieux mais aussi très anarchiste, après avoir déambulé le long des docks du port de Glasgow, alors du dernier stade de la révolution industrielle, entouré d'une drôle de musique où les accents de Rimbaud («Je me crois en enfer») et de Hölderlin («Ce que tu veux, c'est un monde») se mêlaient aux phrasés grinçants de L'Opéra de quat'sous de Bertolt Brecht, je me posais la question : que faire? Que faire de fondamental? D'abord (...) pour donner un fondement et un mouvement à une existence individuelle, mais aussi pour tenter de changer le cours des choses, sur les plans culturel, civilisationnel et sociopolitique. Pendant le XIXe et le XXe siècle on a cru, malgré tout, que l'Histoire était synonyme de Progrès. Qu'elle menait quelque part : à un grand Etat, au communisme universel, à un Supermarché du bonheur. Personne n'a plus confiance dans l'Histoire. D'où un grand vide existentiel et culturel. Sans utopisme, sans réenchantement facile, Kenneth White entreprend une navigation hauturière dans un espace de vie et de pensée, qui a toujours existé au large de l'Histoire. Les escales de ce voyage sont au nombre de cinq : une analyse socio-politique de la fin de la modernité ; une investigation qui remonte aux origines de la culture ; l'examen de diverses tentatives de refondation sociale à travers le monde ; la question, posée encore trop timidement par l'écologie, de l'habitation de la Terre ; et enfin, une critique de la situation contemporaine de l'art. (shrink)

David Hume's Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion is a philosophical and literary classic of the highest order. It is also an extremely relevant work because of its engagement with issues as alive today as in Hume's time: the design argument for a deity, the problem of evil, the dangers of superstition and fanaticism, the psychological roots and social consequences of religion. In this outstanding and unorthodox collection, an international team of scholars engage with Hume's classic work. The chapters include state-of-the-art contributions (...) on the central interpretive questions posed by the Dialogues as well as major contributions relating it to contemporary issues in philosophy of religion, philosophy of science, moral psychology, and social philosophy. Additional contributions tackle the historical and philosophical background of the Dialogues, relating it to Hume's own systematic philosophy, to the work of other key seventeenth and eighteenth-century figures - Locke, Clarke, Bayle, Cudworth, Malebranche, Spinoza, Lord Bolingbroke, and Voltaire, among others - to early modern neo-Epicureanism in the life sciences, and, notably, to what Darwin missed by thinking too much like William Paley and not enough like Hume's Philo. Overall, this volume provides fresh and even groundbreaking perspectives on Hume's Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion. It is essential reading for students and scholars of Hume, the history of modern philosophy, philosophy of religion and the history and philosophy of science. (shrink)

Schiller says that “it is only through beauty that man makes his way to freedom.” Here I attempt to defend a claim in the same spirit as Schiller’s but by different means. My thesis is that a person’s autonomous agency depends on their adopting an aesthetic identity. To act, we need to don contingent features of agency, things that structure our practical thought and explain what we do in very general terms but are neither universal nor necessary features of agency (...) as such. Without these things, the question of what to do for any individual would be underdetermined. The problem is that adopting such a contingent form of agency amounts to a restriction on what we can do, and so it is a prima facie threat to our autonomy. I will argue that one way, and indeed the only way, of meeting this challenge lies in aesthetic experience. Granting our capacity for aesthetic pleasure the authority to determine the particularities of our agency is compatible with autonomy because doing so means identifying with one’s capacity for pleasure in free and creative activity. Doing this allows us to be both particular sorts of agents and creatures regulated by the universalizing demands of reason. (shrink)

The Systematicity Arguments is the only book-length treatment of the systematicity and productivity arguments.

本书沿着康有为所开启的研究儒学的政治哲学途径,放弃晚清儒家在接受近代西方政制文化观念和价值取向的前提下所采取的“托古改制”的政治性立场,建构先秦儒家政治哲学的意义逻辑,论述了先秦儒学的基本性格与思想主 题。.

Biologists seems to hold two fundamental beliefs: Organisms are organized into levels and the individuals at these levels differ in their properties. Together these suggest that there will be massive multiple realization, i.e. that many human psychological properties are multiply realized at many neurobiological levels. This paper provides some documentation in support of this suggestion.

Tu Wei-ming is the foremost exponent of Confucian thought in the United States today. Over the last two decades he has been developing a creative scholarly interpretation of Confucian humanism as a living tradition. The result is a work of interpretive brilliance that revitalizes Confucian thought, making it a legitimate concern of contemporary philosophical reflections.

Traditionally, questions about the role of the arts in moral thought have focused on the arts’ role in the acquisition of new moral knowledge, the refinement of moral concepts, and the capacity to apply our moral view to particular situations. Here I suggest that there is an importantly different and largely overlooked role for the arts in moral thought: an ability to reconfigure the structure of our moral thought and effect what we might call a revolution in that framework. In (...) this article I explain this distinction between two kinds of change in view, suggest the second type has not been addressed by the extant literature, provide examples of this role, and argue for its importance. (shrink)

本书是关于新意识形态批评的论文集,本书要论述的意图是:以理论与社会生活的密切关系而言,中国文论家可以创造出自己的“本位话语”,其具体问题集中为两个,即文化转型中的当代中国的精神建构和建立文学理论的本位 话语。.

This paper gives a definition of self-reference on the basis of the dependence relation given by Leitgeb (2005), and the dependence digraph by Beringer & Schindler (2015). Unlike the usual discussion about self-reference of paradoxes centering around Yablo's paradox and its variants, I focus on the paradoxes of finitary characteristic, which are given again by use of Leitgeb's dependence relation. They are called 'locally finite paradoxes', satisfying that any sentence in these paradoxes can depend on finitely many sentences. I prove (...) that all locally finite paradoxes are self-referential in the sense that there is a directed cycle in their dependence digraphs. This paper also studies the 'circularity dependence' of paradoxes, which was introduced by Hsiung (2014). I prove that the locally finite paradoxes have circularity dependence in the sense that they are paradoxical only in the digraph containing a proper cycle. The proofs of the two results are based directly on König's infinity lemma. In contrast, this paper also shows that Yablo's paradox and its nested variant are non-self-referential, and neither McGee's paradox nor the omega-cycle liar paradox has circularity dependence. (shrink)

According to the revision theory of truth, the paradoxical sentences have certain revision periods in their valuations with respect to the stages of revision sequences. We find that the revision periods play a key role in characterizing the degrees of paradoxicality for Boolean paradoxes. We prove that a Boolean paradox is paradoxical in a digraph, iff this digraph contains a closed walk whose height is not any revision period of this paradox. And for any finitely many numbers greater than 1, (...) if any of them is not divisible by any other, we can construct a Boolean paradox whose primary revision periods are just these numbers. Consequently, the degrees of Boolean paradoxes form an unbounded dense lattice. The area of Boolean paradoxes is proved to be rich in mathematical structures and properties. (shrink)

This paper gives a definition of self-reference on the basis of the dependence relation given by Leitgeb (J Philos Logic 34(2):155–192, 2005), and the dependence digraph by Beringer and Schindler (Reference graphs and semantic paradox, 2015. https://www.academia.edu/19234872/reference_graphs_and_semantic_paradox). Unlike the usual discussion about self-reference of paradoxes centering around Yablo’s paradox and its variants, I focus on the paradoxes of finitary characteristic, which are given again by use of Leitgeb’s dependence relation. They are called ‘locally finite paradoxes’, satisfying that any sentence in (...) these paradoxes can depend on finitely many sentences. I prove that all locally finite paradoxes are self-referential in the sense that there is a directed cycle in their dependence digraphs. This paper also studies the ‘circularity dependence’ of paradoxes, which was introduced by Hsiung (Logic J IGPL 22(1):24–38, 2014). I prove that the locally finite paradoxes have circularity dependence in the sense that they are paradoxical only in the digraph containing a proper cycle. The proofs of the two results are based directly on König’s infinity lemma. In contrast, this paper also shows that Yablo’s paradox and its ∀∃\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$$\forall \exists $$\end{document}-unwinding variant are non-self-referential, and neither McGee’s paradox nor the ω\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$$\omega $$\end{document}-cycle liar has circularity dependence. (shrink)

It is commonly argued that the fact that our universe is fine-tuned for life favors both a design hypothesis as well as a non-teleological multiverse hypothesis. The claim that the fine-tuning of this universe supports a non-teleological multiverse hypothesis has been forcefully challenged however by Ian Hacking and Roger White. In this paper we take this challenge even further by arguing that if it succeeds, then not only does the fine-tuning of this universe fail to support a multiverse hypothesis, but (...) it tends to favor a single-universe hypothesis instead. (shrink)

What is the nature of law and what is the best way to discover it? This book argues that law is best understood in terms of the social functions it performs wherever it is found in human society. In order to support this claim, law is explained as a kind of institution and as a kind of artefact. To say that it is an institution is to say that it is designed for creating and conferring special statuses to people so (...) as to alter their rights and responsibilities toward each other. To say that it is an artefact is to say that it is a tool of human creation that is designed to signal its usability to people who interact with it. This picture of law's nature is marshalled to critique theories of law that see it mainly as a product of reason or morality, understanding those theories via their conceptions of law's function. It is also used to argue against those legal positivists who see law's functions as relatively minor aspects of its nature. -/- This method of conceptualizing law's nature helps us to explain how the law, understood as social facts, can make normative demands upon us. It also recommends a methodology for understanding law that combines elements of conceptual analysis with empirical research for uncovering the purposes to which diverse peoples put their legal activities. (shrink)

Psychotherapy holds out the promise of help for people who are hurting and in need. It can save lives and change lives. In therapy, clients can find their strengths and sense of hope. They can change course toward a more meaningful and healthy life. They can confront loss, tragedy, hopelessness, and the end of life in ways that do not leave them numb or paralyzed. They can discover what brings them joy and what sustains them through hard times. They can (...) begin to trust, or to trust more wisely. They can learn new behaviors in therapy and how to teach themselves new behaviors after therapy ends. They can question what they always believed was a given. They can find out what matters most to them, and how to stop wasting time. They can become happier, or at least less miserable. They can become better able, as Freud noted, to love and to work. They can learn how to accept and love themselves just as they are and accept others who are different from them. Our ethics acknowledge and affirm our profession's responsibilities. This book was written to help strengthen, deepen, and inform ethical awareness and the sense of personal ethical responsibility. Its job is to help you hold onto the ideals-including ethical ideals-that called you into the profession to begin with, to help you develop and fulfill those ideals. There will be so much-trust us on this-that tends to dull ethical awareness, to make ethics drift out of focus, to create barriers between you and your ideals, to replace ethics with pseudo-ethics and ethics placebos. Fatigue, endless paperwork, unrealistic expectations, illness, family crises, not being able to make ends meet, burn out, threats of job loss, insurance coverage that doesn't come close to meeting the needs of our clients, biases that have not been addressed, and so many other forces can pressure us into cutting ethical corners. This book is intended to help you develop a strong and healthy resistance to such forces, to help you weather them without losing your ethical awareness and ideals. (shrink)

Ethics in business is the most urgent problem facing America today. Now two of the best-selling authors of our time, Kenneth Blanchard and Norman Vincent Peale, join forces to meet this crisis head-on in this vitally important new book. The Power of Ethical Management proves you don't have to cheat to win. It shows today's managers how to bring integrity back to the workplace. It gives hard-hitting, practical, ethical strategies that build profits, productivity, and long-term success. From a straightforward (...) three-step Ethics Check that helps you evaluate any action or decision, to the "Five P's" of ethical behavior that will clarify your purpose and your goals, The Power of Ethical Management gives you an immensely useful set of tools. These can be put to work right away to enhance the performance of your business and to enrich the quality of your life. The Power of Ethical Management is no theoretical treatise Peale and Blanchard speak from their own enormous and unique experience, They reveal the nuts and bolts, practical strategies for ethical decisions that will show you why integrity pays. "So Vince Lombardi was wrong. Winning is not the only thing as headlines and hearings from Wall Street to Washington confirm. Now comes a better game plan from the powerful one-two punch of Ken Blanchard and Norman Vincent Peale in a quickreading new book, The Power of Ethical Management. Peale and Blanchard may be the best thing that has happened to business ethics since Mike Wallace invented 60 Minutes. -- JOHN MACK CARTIER Editor-in-Chief Good Housekeeping. (shrink)

The high turnover of nurses has become a global problem. Several studies have proposed that nurses' perceptions of the ethical climate of their organization are related to higher job satisfaction and organizational commitment, and thus lead to lower turnover. However, there is limited empirical evidence supporting a relationship between different types of ethical climate within organizations and facets of job satisfaction. Furthermore, no published studies have investigated the impact of different types of ethical climate on the three components of organizational (...) commitment. This study attempts to explore the different types of ethical climate that exist in hospitals, and the degree of job satisfaction and organizational commitment of nurses in Taiwan. It uses path analysis to understand which types of ethical climate influence different facets of job satisfaction. The study also examines the impact of different types of ethical climate and facets of job satisfaction on the three components of organizational commitment. Questionnaires were distributed to 352 nurses. The relationships among variables were assessed by factor analysis, reliability, descriptive statistics, correlations, and regression. The important conclusion is that hospitals can increase job satisfaction and organizational commitment by influencing an organization's ethical climate. Hospital administrators can foster within organizations the climate types of caring, independent, and rules climate that increase satisfaction, while preventing organizations from developing the type of instrumental climate that decreases it. (shrink)