Metaphor and metonymy, on the mental level temporally rather than syntactically or semantically defined, show a close association to healthy and neurotic defense, respectively. When the mind functions optimally, reverberating issues of past and present domains inform each other bidirectionally like source and target of a metaphor. Neurotic defense, metonymically conflating past and present, is mental access barring (negative metonymy). Metaphor and positive metonymy, fundamental to how the mind works, are autopoietic devices organizing creative change. Trauma (lost metaphoricity) results in (...) negative metonymy. During psychoanalysis metonymic defenses and transferences get remetaphorized. Nested mentational configurations emerge sequentially as markers of increased awareness (clinical vignette): negative metonymy (target enigmatic); positive metonymy (accessing target); metaphor (domains seen in terms of each other). (shrink)

This issue of Business & Society contains the transcripts of 12 oral history interviews with founders of and early contributors to the business and society/social issues in management field. The publication of these interviews is the culmination of a very long-term project, with the first interview having been conducted in 1993 with Lee Preston and the most recent interview having been conducted in 2011 with Jim Post. This project has been very much of a team effort with Sandra Waddock, John (...) Steiner, Mary Mallott, Ariane Berthoin Antal, and, of course, our interviewees all playing important roles. (shrink)

The concept of corporate social responsibility is a relatively recent addition to the agenda in Germany, although the country has a long history of companies practicing social responsibilities. The expectations of society had remained stable for many years, encapsulated in laws, societal norms, and industrial relations agreements. But the past decade has seen significant changes in Germany, challenging established ways of treating the role of business in society. This contribution reviews and illustrates the development of diverse forms of social responsibility (...) in German corporations and analyzes how actors in business and society can build on traditional strengths to find new institutional arrangements for sharing tasks and responsibilities in the interests of achieving a better balance between societal, economic, and environmental needs. (shrink)

This article explores the dynamics of the discourse and practice of corporate social responsibility (CSR) in France to illustrate the interplay between endogenous and exogenous factors in the development of CSR in a country. It shows how the cultural, socioeconomic, and legal traditions influence the way ideas are raised, the kinds of questions considered relevant, and the sorts of solutions conceived as desirable and possible. Furthermore, the article traces how expectations and practices evolve as a result of various social and (...) economic factors within a country, and increasingly, as a result of global influences such as the international academic discourse, the international practices of multinational companies, nongovernmental organizations and trade unions, and initiatives of supranational organizations. The article closes with reflections about what can be learned from the French experience with CSR and how to stimulate such cross-border learning. (shrink)

The concept of corporate social responsibility (CSR) is a relatively recent addition to the agenda in Germany, although the country has a long history of companies practicing social responsibilities. The expectations of society had remained stable for many years, encapsulated in laws, societal norms, and industrial relations agreements. But the past decade has seen significant changes in Germany, challenging established ways of treating the role of business in society. This contribution reviews and illustrates the development of diverse forms of social (...) responsibility in German corporations and analyzes how actors in business and society can build on traditional strengths to find new institutional arrangements for sharing tasks and responsibilities in the interests of achieving a better balance between societal, economic, and environmental needs. (shrink)

In this paper I want to do the following things. First I want to show that in the part of the Theaetetus where the relationship between knowledge and perception is examined, the concept of knowledge that is in question is very clearly characterized. We are left in no doubt as to what is to count as knowing. Secondly I want to unravel in some detail the case that Socrates puts on Protagoras’ behalf where he draws on what Protagoras actually wrote (...) (151 E-152C); as opposed to what he may have taught secretly to his pupils (152C-160D). Thirdly I wish to argue that if we let the dialogue speak for itself, it is manifest that this case put up on Protagoras’ behalf at 151 E-152C is not overthrown; it is not even shaken. (shrink)

In this paper I want to do the following things. First I want to show that in the part of the Theaetetus where the relationship between knowledge and perception is examined, the concept of knowledge that is in question is very clearly characterized. We are left in no doubt as to what is to count as knowing. Secondly I want to unravel in some detail the case that Socrates puts on Protagoras’ behalf where he draws on what Protagoras actually wrote (...) ; as opposed to what he may have taught secretly to his pupils. Thirdly I wish to argue that if we let the dialogue speak for itself, it is manifest that this case put up on Protagoras’ behalf at 151 E-152C is not overthrown; it is not even shaken.In that part of the dialogue where the question is under examination whether or not knowledge and perception are the same, Socrates uses an idealized concept of knowledge. That is, he restricts the use of the word by setting down what he will consider to be the essential characteristics of knowledge, the sufficient and necessary conditions of its being instantiated. An excellent piece of philosophical procedure. (shrink)

A firm's ability to shape its policies to meet societal demands depends on how it perceives the opportunities and risks in its environment. The authors hypothesized that corporate culture plays a significant role in shaping organizational percep-tions. This article summarizes the findings of a study on how the organizational culture of a chemical firm headquartered in West Germany affected the evolution of its social and personnel policy from 1950 to 1989 given the changes in its sociopolitical environment during this period. (...) The study shows that the culture of a company, by shaping its perceptions, plays a central role in determining the areas in which the organization is likely to be able to learn easily and those in which it is likely to resist changing its policies. (shrink)

First published in 1989, Looking Back on the End of the World raises provocative questions about the possibilities of critical knowledge in social systems that seem to have "surpassed history." Unlike recent works that make history end with the consumer, or project the conflict between the capitalist and the oppressed into the future, the writers in these essays perform a much more basic task: they argue that we can now think through the "end of the world." The idea of a (...) "unified world," they claim, has given way to new sensibilities about history. The essays evaluate current negative obsessions such as apocalypse and the elimination of difference, and offer positive approaches to the "gamble of thinking" required in a society without traditional subjects and institutions. Capitalism, the book argues, has changed all the rules of the game, and any nostalgia for "starting" from the familiar in terms of intellectual critique is doomed. Collectively, the authors sketch the unfamiliarity of the new, those moments when our categories dissolve in the face of connections and relations that announce all sorts of "ends." And other things besides. (shrink)

There is a good chance that “each critic becomes a Pygmalion” (as Leo Curran put it) when they bring the work of art to life in their narcissistic (and almost amorous) attention, unfolding its meaning so that they should be able to write their own interpretation. The starting point of the present text is the perfection of sculptural forms, and the author discusses “traditional” aesthetic concepts: the beautiful and the sublime along with the difference and interplay of the two qualities, (...) bearing in mind their variations and relations. The framework is provided by the occurrence of these two in the discourses on the self and taste in the eighteenth-century while the focus is on subjective criticism concerning the beautiful versus the sublime in the artistic and sensual experience of statues. Within the given framework, the author is planning to force Edmund Burke, stiffened by the experience of the sublime, and Winckelmann, softened by the sight of the Greek statues, into a dialogue on individual taste. (shrink)

Given the significant transformations underway in academia, it is pertinent to ask whether the traditional notion of entering the profession in response to a calling is still relevant. This article draws together hitherto unconnected strands of German and Anglo-Saxon literature on callings, then analyzes biographical narratives of 40 social scientists in Germany and the United States. The comparative analysis of the timing, sources, and nature of the respondents’ decision to become academics finds that almost all exhibit a calling orientation. However, (...) their responses no longer correspond to the classical, passive notion; instead, callings in academia have become agentic. In the context of a wider societal trend to self-realization, academia has been transformed to an activity that people pursue because they want to rather than because destiny or an external force pushes them to make such a commitment. The recognition of the social nature of callings is underscored by the significance of professional mentors and family. The unexpected predominance of similarities in the cross-national comparison of calling orientation suggests that the internationalization of academic standards and procedures and the high level of competition for few positions in both contexts may outweigh the effects of culture and tradition. (shrink)

Derrida’s highly personal mourning texts are collected and published in a unique book under the title The Work of Mourning edited by Pascale-Anne Brault and Michael Naas, two outstanding translators of Derrida’s works. The English collection is published in 2001, while the French edition came out later in 2003 titled Chaque fois unique, la fin du monde. In his deconstructed eulogies, Derrida, being in accordance with ‘the mission impossible’ of deconstruction, namely, ‘to allow the coming of the entirely other’ in (...) its otherness, seems to find his own voice. In my paper, I will focus on this special segment of Derrida’s death-work ; namely, on his mourning texts written for his dead friends, paying special attention to the rhetoric ‘circling around’ fidelity, friendship, and the other in his textual mourning. (shrink)

Mary Shelley in her writings relies on the romanticised notions of nature: in addition to its beauties, the sublime quality is highlighted in its overwhelming greatness. In her ecological fiction, The Last Man (1826), the dystopian view of man results in the presentation of the declining civilization and the catastrophic destruction of infested mankind. In the novel, all of the characters are associated with forces of culture and history. On the one hand, Mary Shelley, focussing on different human bonds, warns (...) against the sickening discord and dissonance, the lack of harmony in the world, while, on the other hand, she calls for the respect of nature and natural order. The prophetic caring female characters ‘foresee’ the events but cannot help the beloved men to control their building and destroying powers. Mary Shelley expresses her unmanly view of nature and the author’s utopian hope seems to lie in ‘unhuman’ nature. While the epidemic, having been unleashed by the pests of patriarchal society and being accelerated by global warming, sweeps away humanity, Mother Nature flourishes and gains back her original ‘dwelling place’. (shrink)

Because anticipated and retrospective regret play important roles in practical deliberation and motivation, better understanding them can illuminate the contours of human agency. However, the possibility of self-ignorance and the fact that we change over time can make regret—especially anticipatory regret—not only a poor predictor of where the agent will be in the future but also an unreliable indicator of where the agent stands. Granting these, this paper examines the way in which prospective and, particularly, retrospective regret can nevertheless yield (...) important insight into the sorts of creatures we are, both generally and individually. The experience of retrospective regret can show a person she values something in a way she did not know or that she is (or was) a different person than she had thought, insights which can factor into forward-looking, or prospective, deliberation. Such instances of revelatory regret reveal something to the agent about herself as agent. I examine two cases of agential self-ignorance. In the first, the experience of regret reveals what the agent values, not only to others but even to the agent himself. In the second, the agent anticipates experiencing regret for an action but does not experience the regret, suggesting that the agent did not value the rejected alternative in the way she thought. Anticipatory regret is forward-looking and can play an important role in practical deliberation. But insofar as anticipatory regret flows from one’s imperfect judgment and prospection about oneself, retrospective regret can be an important corrective in helping the agent understand her own standpoint. (shrink)

It is not quite as easy to see that there is in fact no formula of this modal language having the same truth conditions (in terms of S5 Kripke semantics) as (1). This was rst conjectured by Allen Hazen2 and later proved by Harold Hodes3. We present a simple direct proof of this result and discuss some consequences for the logical analysis of ordinary modal discourse.