The De concordia, published by Juan Luis Vives in 1529 and dedicated to the Holy Roman Emperor, Charles V, is a comprehensive analysis of the social and political problems which were then afflicting Europe. It is the only such analysis undertaken by any of the Renaissance humanists. The De concordia merits a much more important place in Vives' oeuvre than scholars have hitherto given it. It is structured around the Augustinian concept of concordia and its antithesis, discordia. As such, it (...) is an explicit attempt to understand current history in metaphysical terms. Vives' intention is not to give strategic or tactical advice to Charles V, but to examine the general disorder of Europe with a view to determining its fundamental nature and significance. This is the first critical edition of the De concordia and the first English translation. (shrink)

This well crafted volume provides unflinching assessments of the philosophical values that are beginning to unite - and that continue to divide - the cultures of America and Europe. Its contributors offer arguments that are once timely, provocative, and accessible. - Larry A. Hickman, The Center for Dewey Studies, Southern Illinois University Carbondale, Carbondale IL American and European Values is a far richer book than a misreading of its title might suggest: it is truly a both (American)-and (European), not an (...) either-or. The perspectives of its contributors range over time and place, from the anarchic California of Gold Rush days to modern Poland, Russia, and Turkey. Eclectic in the best sense of that word, it combines philosophy, literature, history, and even religion without ever straying far from its central theme. And, somewhat incidentally, it also demonstrates just how multifaceted and complex is the idea of pragmatism. - William McBride, Ph.D. is Arthur G. Hansen Distinguished Professor in the Department of Philosophy at Purdue University, Indiana. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Philosophy 39.4 (2001) 603-604 [Access article in PDF] Irving Singer. George Santayana, Literary Philosopher. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2000. Pp. xiii + 217. Cloth, $25.00. In a prefatory comment, Irving Singer affirms that George Santayana, Literary Philosopher is "an introduction to the part of Santayana's philosophy that has meant the most to me" (xii). The locus of this personal interest, he goes on (...) to say, is in the "humanistic relevance" of Santayana's work. Singer's fruitful reflections on Santayana's literary genius, as well as the great philosopher's depth of critical insight with regard to aesthetics, literature, and love, all testify to this humanistic interest.Singer's examinations of Santayana's critical and fictional works are as accessible as they are interesting, a characteristic which alone recommends the book for readers interested in gaining an introductory understanding. Equally important however is the fact that Singer's reflections lend themselves to a much larger academic audience as well. Santayana's work is revealed, correctly, to be not only relevant to the philosophical community, but to contain contributional elements that are of interest to criticism in both literature and art.This does not mean that Singer avoids criticizing Santayana's philosophy. To the contrary, he levels a key criticism that begs response. Singer believes Santayana is incapable of accounting for interpersonal love. According to Singer, Santayana's deficiency in this regard is due to his belief that "[other] individuals are merely the vehicle [End Page 603] to some cherished ideal" (124). More specifically, Singer holds that Santayana's account of the realization of interpersonal love is restricted by an unnecessary dualism: the gratification of material desires (like Freud), and the distanced contemplation of an ideal (like Plato).This familiar dualism might be referred to as the "desire-renunciation" formula Santayana employs throughout his work in an attempt to pay equal respect to the material ground, and the contrasting ideal groundlessness of all things. For Santayana, the oscillation between desire and renunciation is so obviously reflected in individual aspirations, and in the general course of every human life that, for the philosopher, the task is not to attempt to justify one or the other, but to reconcile them. For Singer however, Santayana ultimately fails in this attempt: "...[Santayana's] attempt to unify Platonism and naturalism fails as philosophy..." (x). He charges that the structure of Santayana's philosophy "fails to show us how people can overcome the split between matter and spirit." Thus, Singer's divergence from Santayana derives from an overall rejection of the philosophical soundness of his work (favoring its humanistic appeal), and from his feeling that Santayana's philosophy never achieves the reconciliation it sets out as its goal. But these charges are unjust, and they seem to arise from an insufficient account of Santayana's doctrine of essence as it relates to his understanding of love.For Singer, "persons" rather than essences (or ideals) are the irreducible themes of human interest: "...loving is not the same as desiring. We desire things or persons for what they can give us, for satisfactions we hope they will provide. In loving anyone, however, we take an interest in that person, as a person and not just as a vehicle to something else" (91). But the implicit charge of this claim, namely, that Santayana's preference for essences as the irreducible themes of human interest results in the view that humans are incapable of loving persons-qua-persons (but only qua-essences), is simply wrong; and, importantly, reflective of a misunderstanding of Santayana's doctrine of essence.Santayana is consistent in his affirmation that in youth, when the demand to act is acute, it is sane to cry and to beat one's fists against the world, while with time and experience, such heated displays become tragic and even unbecoming. The same is true for Santayana with respect to love. It is wisdom reflective of the love of all things to laugh (ironically) at what was in youth an irremediable demand for the love of particular... (shrink)

Under Any Sky: Contemporary Readings of George Santayana is a testament to the cross-cultural relevance of the work of one of the leading intellectuals of the twentieth century, George Santayana. A list of geographic origins of the twenty-two contributions contained in this volume indicates the transatlantic cultural diversity of scholarly representation: scholars variously hailing from Canada, Germany, Italy, Spain, Poland, Slovakia, and Switzerland, and from the United States, representing three of its major regions. The authors explore the major plots of (...) Santayana's thinking, including materialistic Platonism in ontology, skepticism in epistemology, rationality in social philosophy, naturalism in aesthetics, piety in materialism, and literary and poetic expression as a means to cosmic understanding. After a preface by Professor John Lachs, and an editorial introduction, the book is divided into three respective thematic parts: I. Ontology and Naturalism; II. Culture, Society, America; and III. Aesthetics, Poetry, and Spirit. Before each thematic section brief introductions of the section papers is provided to accommodate specific scholarly interests. The authors entrust the present volume to readers appreciative of the philosophic catholicity of the subject's work, invoking the book title which is taken from the preface of Santayana's mature system of philosophy, Scepticism and Animal Faith: "In the past or in the future, my language and my borrowed knowledge would have been different, but under whatever sky I had been born, since it is the same sky, I should have had the same philosophy". (shrink)

While we do not share Evans’s view that social science research is needed to shield bioethics from competitive threat, we incorporate and engage in social science research to inform our knowledge base, our clinical practice, and our contributions to the ongoing development of the field.

Conflicts of interest. None to report. Despite widespread acceptance in the United States of neurological criteria to determine death, clinicians encounter families who object, often on religious grounds, to the categorization of their loved ones as “brain dead.” The concept of “reasonable accommodation” of objections to brain death, promulgated in both state statutes and the bioethics literature, suggests the possibility of compromise between the family’s deeply held beliefs and the legal, professional and moral values otherwise directing clinicians to withdraw medical (...) interventions. Relying on narrative to convey the experience of a family and clinical caregivers embroiled in this complex dilemma, the case analyzed here explores the practical challenges and moral ambiguities presented by the concept of reasonable accommodation. Clarifying the term’s meaning and boundaries, and identifying guidelines for its clinical implementation, could help to reduce uncertainty for both health care professionals and families and, thereby, the incremental moral distress such uncertainty creates. (shrink)

Some research is too risky to be conducted on anyone whose life expectancy is more than a few hours. Yet sometimes, the research can still be carried out using subjects who are brain dead or are soon to undergo a terminal wean, and who have articulated values that inclusion in the study can honor. So argues a team of ethicists and researchers at M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, where such research was recently undertaken.

Some research is too risky to be conducted on anyone whose life expectancy is more than a few hours. Yet sometimes, the research can still be carried out using subjects who are brain dead or are soon to undergo a terminal wean, and who have articulated values that inclusion in the study can honor. So argues a team of ethicists and researchers at M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, where such research was recently undertaken.

The systems view on life and its emergence from complex chemistry has remarkably increased the scientific attention on metabolism in the last two decades. However, during this time there has not been much theoretical discussion on what constitutes a metabolism and what role it actually played in biogenesis. A critical and updated review on the topic is here offered, including some references to classical models from last century, but focusing more on current and future research. Metabolism is considered as intrinsically (...) related to the living but not necessarily equivalent to it. More precisely, the idea of “minimal metabolism”, in contrast to previous, top‐down conceptions, is formulated as a heuristic construct, halfway between chemistry and biology. Thus, rather than providing a complete or final characterization of metabolism, our aim is to encourage further investigations on it, particularly in the context of life's origin, for which some concrete methodological suggestions are provided. Also see the video abstract here:https://youtu.be/DP7VMKk2qpA. (shrink)

Flamm examines a dominant theme in Santayana’s philosophy: the spiritual life. He puts Santayana’s philosophy in dialogue with the novella Soul (Dzhan) by Andrey Platonov and examines the various ways Santayana associates crying with a materialist conception of the spiritual life.The association of crying and spiritual life is conspicuous enough in Santayana’s writings to merit exploration. In an astonishing variety of rhetorical modes Santayana writes of the various “cries” of spirit, of psyche, of soul, and of the human heart, emphasizing (...) the idea that it is through moral suffering that humans come to spiritual understanding (Some examples: “An impetuous spirit when betrayed by the world will cry …” (LR2, Chapter VIII, “Ideal Society,” p. 121); “the universal need and cry of human souls …” (LR3, Chapter XII, “Charity,” pp. 130–31); “spirit is physically the voice of the soul crying in the wilderness” (RB/RE, “The Nature of Spirit,” p. 568); “our very soul begins to cry for help” (RB/RE “On Cosmic Animism,” p. 576); “pain,” the “first form of distraction” in the psyche causes it to “awake with a sharp cry, a conscious protest” (RB/RE, “Distraction,” p. 679)). Santayana goes so far in one context to suggest that crying experiences testify to the existence of matter (“The more ecstatic or the more tragic experience is, the more unmistakably it is the voice of matter.” “Cross Lights,” SE, p. 25). In this chapter I link the various ways Santayana associates crying and spiritual life with the novella Soul (Dzhan) by Andrey Platonov (Andrey Platonov (1899–1951) was a Russian author whose works during the Stalinist era were heavily censored and banned and have only recently (relative to their importance, as of the late 1990s) begun appearing in approved English translations. I am a lover of Russian literature and no expert, but am prepared to agree with poet-translator Robert Chandler, who claimed (before he died in 2007) that Russians will come one day to recognize Platonov as their “greatest prose writer” (Chandler’s exquisite co-translation of Platonov’s Soul was chosen in 2004 as “best translation of the year from a Slavonic language” by the American Association of Teachers of Slavic and East European Languages)). Santayana in dialogue with Platonov offers a radiant picture of the materialist conception of spiritual life. (shrink)

This qualitative study explored how 54 U.S.-based public relations practitioners engaged in ethical listening. Findings of the study suggest that public relations professionals engage in ethical listening by drawing upon deontological concepts of dignity and respect, implementing care-centered concepts of empathy and inherent connection to others, modeling inclusivity and attentiveness to diverse perspectives, practicing accountability to ethical listening, and remaining humble. Models depicting organizational listening should consider inclusion of ethical values.

The humanist treatises presented here are only peripheral to the history of logic, but I think historians of logic may read them with interest, if perhaps with irritation. In the early sixteenth century the humanists set about to demolish medieval logic based on syllogistic and disputation, and to replace it in the university curriculum with a 'rhetorical' logic based on the use of topics and persuasion. To a very large extent they succeeded. Although Aris totelian logic retained a vigorous life (...) in the schools, it never again attained to the overwhelming primacy it had so long enjoyed in the northern universities. It has been the custom to take the arguments of the humanists at face value, and the word 'scholastic' has continued to have pejorative overtones. This is easy to understand, because until recently our knowledge of the high period of medieval logic has been slight, and the humanists' testimony as to its decadent state in the sixteenth century has, for the most part, been accepted uncritically. Within the past two decades important work on medieval logic has recovered the brilliant achievement of thirteenth and fourteenth century logicians, philosophers, and natural scientists. New studies are constantly appearing, and the logico-semantic system of the terminists has become fruitful territory not only for historians of logic but also for students of modern linguistics and semiotics. (shrink)

Moral repair is an important way for firms to heal moral relationships with stakeholders following a transgression. The concept is rooted in recognition theory, which is often used to develop normative perspectives and prescriptions, but the same theory has also propelled a view of moral repair as premised on negotiation between offender and victim(s), which involves the complex social construction of the transgression and the appropriate amends. The tension between normative principles and socioconstructivist implementation begs the question how offending firms (...) should approach moral repair. Addressing this question, we develop a two-level conceptualization of moral repair, distinguishing between procedural and substantive levels of practice, which accommodate normativity and socioconstructivism, respectively. In so doing, we enrich the literature by 1) promoting conceptual clarity, 2) refining understanding of the moral repair process, and 3) suggesting the use of a unified, configurational approach to studying (nonlinear) relations between amends and moral outcomes. (shrink)

El pensamiento vivo de Juan Luis Vives, por Joaquín Xirau.--Páginas escogidas de Juan Luis Vives: De concordia y discordia. Tratado del alma. Introducción a la sabiduría. Del socorro de los pobres. Tratado de la enseñanza.

In this dissertation I indicate a source of harmony between the respectively sociable, and solitary accounts of human individuality in the work of John Dewey and George Santayana. Each account, I argue, emphasizes one side of the same, aesthetic coin, emphases that correspond to certain conspicuous forms of life found in contemporary culture. Four such forms of life, two negative and two positive, correspond to these different emphases: passive versus active, sociable individuality, and passive versus active, solitary individuality. These distinguished (...) forms of life, I conclude, are helpful heuristic tools towards conceiving human individuality aesthetically. This examination ultimately provides the framework for a more focused and sustained analysis of the many fundamental social-cultural-political issues that beset individuals in contemporary life. (shrink)

To sustain its serene environment, YourTown, USA—which is a real town—enacted a policy designed to abate public nuisances occurring on residential properties. The nuisance ordinance authorizes the police chief, after two incidents within a twelve‐month period in which criminal activity nuisances have occurred on a property, to warn owners in writing that a third incident may result in an order to pay fees. The third finding authorizes YourTown to “abate the nuisance by responding to the activities using administrative and law (...) enforcement actions, and the costs of such abatement shall be assessed on the nuisance property.” On one of YourTown's tree‐lined streets lives a couple with a twenty‐six‐year old son, Jeremy—a real person—whose combination of behavioral disorders produces what his psychiatrist describes as devastatingly difficult symptoms. Jeremy's behavior frequently takes him outside, where he disturbs his neighbors with screams and moans. (shrink)

The point of view endorsed in John Lachs’s Stoic Pragmatism is easy to state, yet profound in its application. If pragmatists can be accused of sometimes under-appreciating the irremediable, and stoics of sometimes being fatalist in a manner that shuts out real possibilities, the two orientations may need each other. His perspective combines a pragmatic commitment to amelioratory achievement and a stoic recognition of unbridgeable limits. As the book conveys, the marriage of stoicism and prag...