Tokenistic short-term economic success is not good indicia of long-term success. Sustainable business success requires sustained existence in a corporation's political, economic, social, technological, legal and environmental contexts. Far beyond the traditional economic focus, consumers, governments and public interest groups alike increasingly expect the business sector to take on more social and environmental responsibilities. Corporate social responsibility (CSR) is the model in which economic, social and environmental responsibilities are fulfilled simultaneously. However, there is insufficient empirical evidence that demonstrates genuine widespread (...) adoption of CSR in practice, and its underlying reasons. Though research in CSR has been rapidly growing, its commercial reality and implications need to be further improved if it is to inspire corporations to voluntarily adopt CSR. In the literature, Carroll's four-dimensional (economic, legal, ethical and discretionary) CSR framework offers a theoretical basis for developing an empirically based model to explain why and how profit-motivated managers take up CSR voluntarily. Our study has developed a structural equation model to identify the key factors and their interactions that influence economically motivated managers to take on voluntary CSR, and validate Carroll's four-dimensional construct. The results support Carroll's four-dimensional CSR framework, with the exception of the link pertaining to the relationship between economic and discretionary/voluntary responsibility. This characterises the economic reality that financial market-driven economic responsibility does not automatically translate into social responsibility. Nevertheless, the empirical results demonstrate that corporations can be led to engage in more voluntary CSR activities to achieve social good when appropriate legal and ethical controls are in place. (shrink)

The 'Bibliography on Propositions and Truth-Bearers' is intended to be a virtually comprehensive list of the works on propositions and truth-bearers which have appeared since the time of Frege and are relevant to the problem of propositions and truth-bearers found in the Anglo-American philosophical tradition. The bibliography lists relevant books, chapters and smaller sections of books, journal articles, and encyclopedia and dictionary entries. It includes works which are either historical or philosophical treatments of the problem o f propositions and truth-bearers. (...) In addition, it lists some important works which bear on that problem in a rather indirect but nonetheless significant manner, such as the works on intentionality and the general problem of meaning. Although a large number of the entries are concerned primarily with the ontological status of propositions and truth-bearers, many of the works are concerned also with the related semantic and epistemological issues. Thus the bibliography should be an aid to anyone working on either the ontological or the epistemological issues related to the problem of propositions and truth-bearers. (shrink)

Paul Moser's book defends what has been an unfashionable view in recent epistemology: the foundationalist account of knowledge and justification. Since the time of Plato philosophers have wondered what exactly knowledge is. This book develops a new account of perceptual knowledge which specifies the exact sense in which knowledge has foundations. The author argues that experiential foundations are indeed essential to perceptual knowledge, and he explains what knowledge requires beyond justified true beliefs. In challenging prominent sceptical claims that we (...) have no justified beliefs about the external world, the book outlines a theory of rational belief. (shrink)

Paul Moser's book defends what has been an unfashionable view in recent epistemology: the foundationalist account of knowledge and justification. Since the time of Plato philosophers have wondered what exactly knowledge is. This book develops a new account of perceptual knowledge which specifies the exact sense in which knowledge has foundations. The author argues that experiential foundations are indeed essential to perceptual knowledge, and he explains what knowledge requires beyond justified true beliefs. In challenging prominent sceptical claims that we (...) have no justified beliefs about the external world, the book outlines a theory of rational belief. (shrink)

The book provides a practical guide to the application of Critical Realism (CR), an increasingly popular philosophy of social science, in empirical research projects. Each purpose-written chapter reviews major social science research methods and contains extended illustration of how to conduct inquiry using CR.

Three questions motivate this book's account of evidence for the existence of God. First, if God's existence is hidden, why suppose He exists at all? Second, if God exists, why is He hidden, particularly if God seeks to communicate with people? Third, what are the implications of divine hiddenness for philosophy, theology, and religion's supposed knowledge of God? This book answers these questions on the basis of a new account of evidence and knowledge of divine reality that challenges skepticism about (...) God's existence. The central thesis is that we should expect evidence of divine reality to be purposively available to humans, that is, available only in a manner suitable to divine purposes in self-revelation. This lesson generates a seismic shift in our understanding of evidence and knowledge of divine reality. The result is a needed reorienting of religious epistemology to accommodate the character and purposes of an authoritative, perfectly loving God. (shrink)

The Socratic, or dialog, form is central to the history of philosophy and has been the discipline's canonical genre ever since. Paul Feyerabend's Three Dialogues on Knowledge resurrects the form to provide an astonishingly flexible and invigorating analysis of epistemological, ethical and metaphysical problems. He uses literary strategies - of irony, voice and distance - to make profoundly philosophical points about the epistemic, existential and political aspects of common sense and scientific knowledge. He writes about ancient and modern relativism; (...) the authority of science; the ignorance of scientists; the nature of being; and true and false enlightenment. Throughout Three Dialogues on Knowledge is provocative, controversial and inspiring. It is, unlike most current philosophical writing, written for readers with a keen sense of what matters and why. (shrink)

If God exists, where can we find adequate evidence for God's existence? In this book, Paul Moser offers a new perspective on the evidence for God that centers on a morally robust version of theism that is cognitively resilient. The resulting evidence for God is not speculative, abstract, or casual. Rather, it is morally and existentially challenging to humans, as they themselves responsively and willingly become evidence of God's reality in receiving and reflecting God's moral character for others. Moser (...) calls this 'personifying evidence of God,' because it requires the evidence to be personified in an intentional agent - such as a human - and thereby to be inherent evidence of an intentional agent. Contrasting this approach with skepticism, scientific naturalism, fideism, and natural theology, Moser also grapples with the potential problems of divine hiddenness, religious diversity, and vast evil. (shrink)

The Oxford Handbook of Epistemology contains 19 previously unpublished chapters by today's leading figures in the field. These chapters function not only as a survey of key areas, but as original scholarship on a range of vital topics. Written accessibly for advanced undergraduates, graduate students, and professional philosophers, the Handbook explains the main ideas and problems of contemporary epistemology while avoiding overly technical detail.

This book explores the role of divine severity in the character and wisdom of God, and the flux and difficulties of human life in relation to divine salvation. Much has been written on problems of evil, but the matter of divine severity has received relatively little attention. Paul K. Moser discusses the function of philosophy, evidence and miracles in approaching God. He argues that if God's aim is to extend without coercion His lasting life to humans, then commitment to (...) that goal could manifest itself in making human life severe, for the sake of encouraging humans to enter into that cooperative good life. In this scenario, divine agapē is conferred as free gift, but the human reception of it includes stress and struggle in the face of conflicting powers and priorities. Moser's work will be of great interest to students of the philosophy of religion, and theology. (shrink)

Contains nineteen newly commissioned articles by top philosophers on various aspects of the theory of knowledge. The articles survey the field as well as make original contributions to contemporary debates.

Since the beginning of philosophy, philosophers have sought objective knowledge: knowledge of things whose existence does not depend on one's conceiving of them. This book uses lessons from debates over objective knowledge to characterize the kinds of reasons pertinent to philosophical and other theoretical views. It argues that we cannot meet skeptics' typical demands for nonquestion-begging support for claims to objective truth, and that therefore we should not regard our supporting reasons as resistant to skeptical challenges. One key lesson is (...) that a constructive, explanatory approach to philosophy must change the subject from skeptic-resistant reasons to perspectival reasons arising from variable semantic commitments and instrumental, purpose-relative considerations. The book lays foundations for such a reorientation of philosophy, treating fundamental methodological issues in ontology, epistemology, the theory of meaning, the philosophy of mind, and the theory of practical rationality. It explains how certain perennial debates in philosophy rest not on genuine disagreement, but on conceptual diversity: talk about different matters. The book shows how acknowledgment of conceptual diversity can resolve a range of traditional disputes in philosophy. It also explains why philosophers need not anchor their discipline in the physicalism of the natural sciences. (shrink)

Many philosophers are again examining the traditional topic of a priori knowledge, or knowledge that does not depend on sensory experience. This volume collects the most important recent essays on the subject by well-known thinkers such as A.J. Ayer, W.V. Quine, Barry Stroud, C.I. Lewis, Hilary Putnam, Roderick M. Chisholm, Saul A. Kripke, Albert Casullo, R.G. Swinburne, and Philip Kitcher. Including an introduction by the editor and an extensive bibliography, this book provides philosophers and students with an in-depth look at (...) contemporary investigations into the nature of a priori knowledge. (shrink)

In this book, Paul K. Moser proposes a new approach to inquiry about God, including a new discipline of the ethics for inquiry about God. It is an ethics for human attitudes and relationships as well as actions in inquiry, and it includes human responsibility for seeking evidence that involves a moral priority for humans. Such ethics includes an ongoing test, a trial, for human receptivity to goodness, including morally good relationships, as a priority in human inquiry and life. (...) Moser also defends an approach to the evidence for God that makes sense of the elusiveness and occasional absence of God in human experience. His book will be of interest to those interested in inquiry about God, with special relevance to scholars and advanced students in religious studies, philosophy, theology, and biblical studies. (shrink)

This article considers the differential absorption and integration of refugee physicists into various countries during the 1930s, and the social and intellectual factors responsible for this, focusing particularly on the social functions of the British and American university at that period, as well as continuing ideological struggles in the Soviet Union. More generally, the issue of the relative absorption of refugee physicists is used to examine the nature of the physics communities and other institutions of the host societies.

Contemporary Materialism brings together the best recent work on materialism from many of our leading contemporary philosophers. This is the first comprehensive reader on the subject. The majority of philosophers and scientists today hold the view that all phenomena are physical, as a result materialism or 'physicalism' is now the dominant ontology in a wide range of fields. Surprisingly no single book, until now, has collected the key investigations into materialism, to reflect the impact it has had on current thinking (...) in metaphysics, philosophy of mind and the theory of value. The classic papers in this collection chart contemporary problems, positions and themes in materialism. At the invitation of the editors, many of the papers have been specially up-dated for this collection: follow-on pieces written by the contributors enable them to appraise the original paper and assess developments since the work was first published. The book's selections are largely non-technical and accessible to advanced undergraduates. The editors have provided a useful general introduction, outlining and contextualising this central system of thought, as well as a topical bibliography. Contemporary Materialism will be vital reading for anyone concerned to discover the ideas underlying contemporary philosophy. David Armstrong, University of Sydney; Jerry Fodor, Rutgers University, New Jersey; Tim Crane, University College, London; D. H. Mellor, Univeristy of Cambridge; J.J.C. (shrink)

Mind, Matter, and Method was first published in 1966. Minnesota Archive Editions uses digital technology to make long-unavailable books once again accessible, and are published unaltered from the original University of Minnesota Press editions. This volume of twenty-six essays by as many contributors is published in honor of Herbert Feigl, professor of philosophy at the University of Minnesota and director of the Minnesota Center for the Philosophy of Science. Though the majority of the contributors are philosophers, there are also -- (...) as benefits Mr. Feigl's varied intellectual interests -- representatives of psychology, psychoanalysis, and physics. The first group of ten essays deals with the philosophy of mind, particularly with the mind-body problem, to which Mr. Feigl has devoted much attention. The eleven essays in the second part are concerned with problems of philosophical method, especially with induction and confirmation. The third part is comprised of five essays on the philosophy of the physical sciences. A biographical sketch of Mr. Feigl and a bibliography of his writings are also provided. (shrink)

Inquiring minds want to know, not merely to believe or even to believe truly. They want knowledge of “the facts,” at least the facts in a relevant domain. Epistemology thus investigates and elucidates what inquiring minds want. So, epistemology is valuable to inquiring minds, whatever their domains of interest. A person might settle for true belief and remain lazily indifferent to knowledge, but this would be odd indeed. Inquiring minds seek something better grounded than true belief based just on lucky (...) guesswork, for example. They want true beliefs grounded in adequate evidence, if only to avoid the vicissitudes of ungrounded belief. (shrink)

This is a comprehensive and up-to-date survey of contemporary work on moral relativism. The selections are divided topically under the following headings: General Issues Concerning Moral Relativism; Relativism and Moral Diversity; the Coherence of Moral Relativism; Defense and Criticism of Moral Relativism; and Relativism, Realism and Rationality. The volume includes a comprehensive topical bibliography and a large introduction with explanatory summaries of all the entries.

This anthology is intended for advanced undergraduates and graduate students in such disciplines as philosophy, psychology, economics, and political science. It includes twenty-one selections falling under three main categories: individual decision theory; game theory and group decision-making; reasons, desires and intentionality. All the pieces have been published before in journals and have proven long term importance to theoretical work in rational action. The volume includes a general introduction on decision theory and a topical bibliography.

This article identifies intellectualism as the view that if we simply think hard enough about our evidence, we get an adequate answer to the question of whether God exists. The article argues against intellectualism, and offers a better alternative involving a kind of volitional evidentialism. If God is redemptive in virtue of seeking divine -human reconciliation, we should expect the evidence for God to be likewise redemptive. In that case, according to the article, the evidence for God would aim to (...) draw the human will toward cooperation with God’s will. Accordingly, the available evidence for God would be volitionally sensitive in that one’s coming to possess it would depend on one’s volitional stance toward its source. The article identifies some implications for divine hiddenness, traditional natural theology, and the view that the evidence for God’s existence is akin to evidence for a scientific hypothesis. (shrink)

Evidential atheism, as espoused by various philosophical atheists, recommends belief that God does not exist on the basis of not just the evidence of which we are aware, but also our overall available evidence. This article identifies a widely neglected problem from potential surprise evidence that undermines an attempt to give a cogent justification of such evidential atheism. In addition, it contends that evidential agnosticism fares better than evidential atheism relative to this neglected problem, and that traditional monotheism has evidential (...) resources, unavailable to evidential atheism, which promise to save it from the fate of evidential atheism. (shrink)

The topic of “reason and faith in God” has challenged philosophers and theologians since the beginning of their disciplines, and it has left many inquirers confused. The key notions of faith and reason are often left unclear, and this complicates inquiry about faith in God. Many inquirers end up puzzled about the significance of the distinction between reason and faith. This paper outlines an approach to reason and faith in God that explains how faith in God can be well-grounded in (...) reason as evidence, even if reason as an argument does not apply in a case. It identifies distinctive roles for experience and defense in an account of faith in God. (shrink)

Epistemological probability is the kind of probability relative to a body of evidence. Many philosophers, including Henry Kyburg and Roderick Chisholm, hold that all epistemological probabilities reflect a relation between an evidential body of propositions and other propositions. But this article argues that some epistemological probabilities for empirical propositions must be relative to non-propositional evidence, specifically the contents of non-propositional perceptual states. In doing so, the article distinguishes between internalism and externalism regarding epistemological probability, and argues for a version of (...) awareness internalism. The article draws three main concluding lessons. First, epistemological probability is not to be identified with the sort of objective, experience-independent probability that is familiar from statistical and propensity interpretations of probability. Second, it is doubtful that epistemological probability is measurable, in any useful way, by real numbers, even if it admits of comparative assessments. Third, contrary to the familiar claim of C. I. Lewis, epistemological probability should not be viewed as requiring a basis of certainty. (shrink)

Diversity and disagreement in the religious beliefs among many religious people seem here to stay, however much they bother some inquirers. Even so, the latter inquirers appear not to be similarly bothered by diversity and disagreement in the scientific beliefs among many scientists. They sometimes propose that we should take religious beliefs to be noncognitive and perhaps even nonontological and noncausal regarding their apparent referents, but they do not propose the same for scientific beliefs. Perhaps they would account for this (...) difference in terms of more extensive diversity and disagreement among religious beliefs than scientific beliefs. We shall attend to the alleged significance of diversity and disagreement among religious beliefs, with an eye toward its bearing on epistemic and ontological matters in religion. In particular, we shall ask whether the significance recommends a retreat from first-order to “second-order” religion, as suggested by Branden Thornhill-Miller and Peter Millican. (shrink)

Philosophers have traditionally sought objective knowledge: knowledge of things whose existence does not depend on one's conceiving of them. Philosophy After Objectivity uses lessons from debates over objective knowledge to characterize the kinds of reasons pertinent to philosophical and other theoretical views. It argues that we cannot meet skeptics' typical demands for non-question begging support for claims to objective truth, and that, therefore, we should not regard our supporting reasons as resistant to skeptical challenges.

Our expectations for human experience of God can obscure the reality and the presence of such experience for us. They can lead us to look in the wrong places for God’s presence, and they can lead us not to look at all. This article counters the threat of misleading expectations regarding God, while acknowledging a role for diving hiding from humans on occasion. It contends that, given God’s perfect moral character, we should expect typical human experience of God to have (...) moral dissonance, that is, experiential conflict in morally relevant ways. We shall see the evidential or cognitive importance of how humans respond to such dissonance. Our failing to respond cooperatively with God can result either in our obscuring evidence of divine reality or in God’s hiding divine self-manifestation for redemptive purposes aimed at our benefit. (shrink)

This anthology is intended for advanced undergraduates and graduate students in such disciplines as philosophy, psychology, economics, and political science. It includes twenty-one selections falling under three main categories: individual decision theory; game theory and group decision-making; reasons, desires and intentionality. All the pieces have been published before in journals and have proven long term importance to theoretical work in rational action. The volume includes a general introduction on decision theory and a topical bibliography.

Discussions of the interpretation of quantum theory are at present obstructed by (1) the increasing axiomania in physics and philosophy which replaces fundamental problems by problems of formulation within a certain preconceived calculus, and (2) the decreasing (since 1927) philosophical interest and sophistication both of professional physicists and of professional philosophers which results in the replacement of subtle positions by crude ones and of dialectical arguments by dogmatic ones. More especially, such discussions are obstructed by the ignorance of both opponents, (...) and also defenders of the Copenhagen point of view, as regards the arguments which once were used in its defence. The publication of Bunge's Quantum Theory and Reality and especially of Popper's contribution to it are taken as an occasion for the restatement of Bohr's position and for the refutation of some quite popular, but surprisingly naive and uninformed objections against it. Bohr's position is distinguished both from the position of Heisenberg and from the vulgarized versions which have become part of the so-called "Copenhagen Interpretation" and whose inarticulateness has been a boon for all those critics who prefer easy victories to a rational debate. Einstein's main counterargument is discussed, and Bohr's refutation restated. The philosophical background and earlier forms of Bohr's views are stated also. Considering that these views are more detailed, better adapted to the facts of the microdomain than any existing alternative it follows that fundamental discussion must first return to them. Their uniqueness is not asserted, however. Here the author still maintains that a hundred shabby flowers are preferable to a single blossom, however exquisite. But a hundred shabby flowers plus an exquisite blossom are more desirable still. (shrink)

In this book, Paul K. Moser offers a new approach to religious experience and the kind of evidence it provides. Here, he explains the nature of theistic and non-theistic experience in relation to the meaning of human life and its underlying evidence, with special attention given to the perspectives of Tolstoy, Buddha, Confucius, Krishna, Moses, the apostle Paul, and Muhammad. Among the many topics explored in this timely volume are: religious experience characterized in a unifying conception; religious experience (...) naturalized relative to science; religious experience psychologized in merely psychological phenomena; and religious experience cognized relative to potential defeaters from evil, divine hiddenness, and religious diversity. Understanding Religious Experience will benefit those interested in the nature of religion and can be used in relevant courses in religious studies, philosophy, theology, Biblical studies, and the history of religion. (shrink)