The Greater Philadelphia Philosophy Consortium was launched in the early eighties. It began during a particularly lean period in the American economy.

In this volume, renowned scholars come together to reflect on Michael Krausz’s examinations of the relation between interpretation and ontology, the varieties of relativism, and the interpretive dimension of identity.

The goal of this paper is to provide a general discussion about the legitimacy of corporate social responsibility. Given that social responsibility projects entail costs, it is not always obvious under what precise conditions managers will have a responsibility to engage in activities primarily designed to promote societal goals.In this paper we discuss four distinct criteria for evaluating the legitimacy of corporate projects for institutionalizing social responsibility.

Seventeen philosophical thinkers ask: What is creativity? What are the criteria of creativity? Should we assign logical priority to creative persons, processes, or products? How do various forms of creativity relate to different domains of human activity?

Introduction Vv hich interpretation of Beethoven's First Symphony is the single right one: one that strictly adheres to the score or one that does not? ...

Recent years have seen a vigorous revival of interest in relativism - both in support and in opposition. This collection of 21 essays, 16 of which appear in print here for the first time, advances the discussion found in an earlier volume, Relativism: Cognitive and Moral. These present selections focus on philosophical and methodological issues of relativism by exhibiting its varieties and by rehearsing its virtues and vices. The contributions concern relativism in a wide range of practices in the human (...) studies. (shrink)

Two views about the objects of history have traditionally been opposed: the realist, which holds that history is about past actuality: and the constructionist, which holds that history cannot be about a past actuality but rather it is about what survives the materials and procedures of historical research. I shall suggest that both of these views may well agree that, as regards the practice of historical inquiry, an historian is constrained by what survives the materials and procedures of historical research. (...) And this agreement provides the basis for raising questions about the very distinction between the epistemology and the ontology of history. (shrink)

Various issues are characteristically associated with discussions about relativism. The first concerns defining relativism—which is not an easy matter, since there seems to be no clear and well established usage to which one might appeal. Some stipulation is required, though this need not be arbitrary. One may proceed by distinguishing relativism from its putative contrast: absolutism, although defining this latter notion is as difficult as defining the former. Absolutism, however, at least, holds that the truth or the truth value of (...) a proposition is not tied to the contingent conditions of the assertion of truth or truth value. Relativism denies this, holding that some truths or truth values are tied to such contingent conditions. What the nature of this “tie” is, and for what sorts of cases it might obtain, depends upon more precise formulations. Still, relativism is a theory of logic rather than epistemology, though in particular discussions a clear-cut distinction is not easily drawn. Nelson Goodman, for example, claims to be a “radical relativist with restraints,” and his arguments derive from an unwillingness to carry the dispensable burden of a non-nominalist epistemology. Since no “world” independent of our symbol systems is accessible, it cannot function in our cognitive judgements. So, “truth,” for Goodman, turns out to be a feature of the internal relations within symbol systems, a feature explicable after the epistemic limits have been drawn. But one could argue that the burden of carrying a “heavier” epistemology might be worth the effort—not by insisting that an inquiry-independent world is, after all, accessible, but rather along different lines that concern regulative or pretensial considerations. For example, in answer to the general question, “What does the sort of inquiry I am engaged in pretend to do?”, a scientific realist might say, “I, as a scientist, pretend to explain the ‘external’ world.” Questions of pretense arise for all cultural practices, such as art, religion, science, history, philosophy, and so on, as well as for any accounting of them. So, in discussions of relativism we need to be mindful of these distinguishable areas of concern: the logical, the epistemological, and the pretensial. The main thrust of the present treatment concerns the first two, and it asks, What is the status of the logical thesis of relativism and its negate, and how does that relate to the epistemological thesis of foundationalism and its negate? (shrink)

I am honored to have this special issue devoted to themes in my philosophical work. This testimony is especially meaningful to me since I have benefitted so much from numerous meetings of the Society for Philosophy in the Contemporary World. I extend thanks to Joe Jones who proposed the idea to the editorial board, and to Jim Sauer who, as editor, saw it through to its publication. Grateful thanks go to Michael McKenna who, as guest editor, brought the collection together. (...) As well, over the years, McKenna has been for me the best kind of critical yet supportive interlocutor. At an earlier stage Andreea Ritivoi's initiative and encouragement was invaluable. Of course, I extend special thanks to the ten contributors from the United States, England, Germany, and India. To them I offer my replies in the spirit of an on-going discussion about the philosophy of interpretation. (shrink)

This paper suggests certain differences between the interpretation of Indian classical music and the interpretation of Western classical music. In Indian music the work is constituted in the moment of a recital. The performer is the maker of the music. Accordingly, the performer simultaneously produces a work and interprets it. Further, in the Indian tradition. music is a path of “bhakti yoga,” or a path of devotion.

It is generally assumed that common stock investors are exclusively interested in earning the highest level of future cash-flow for a given amount of risk. This view suggests that investors select a well-diversified portfolio of securities to achieve this goal. Accordingly, it is often assumed that investors are unwilling to pay a premium for corporate behavior which can be described as socially-responsible.Recently, this view has been under increasing attack. According to the Social Investment Forum, at least 538 institutional investors now (...) allocate funds using social screens or criteria. In addition, Alice Tepper Marlin, president of the New York-based Council on Economic Priorities has recently estimated that about $600 billion of invested funds are socially-screened (1992). (shrink)

This collection addresses a post-WWII shift in the hierarchy of scientific explanations, where the highest goal moves from reductionism towards some ...

In much of the current academic and public discussion, conspiracy theories are portrayed as a negative phenomenon, linked to misinformation, mistrust in experts and institutions, and political propaganda. Rather surprisingly, however, philosophers working on this topic have been reluctant to incorporate a negatively evaluative aspect when either analyzing or engineering the concept conspiracy theory. In this paper, we present empirical data on the nature of the concept conspiracy theory from five studies designed to test the existence, prevalence and exact form (...) of an evaluative dimension to the ordinary concept conspiracy theory. These results reveal that, while there is a descriptive concept of conspiracy theory, the predominant use of conspiracy theory is deeply evaluative, encoding information about epistemic deficiency and often also derogatory and disparaging information. On the basis of these results, we present a new strategy for engineering conspiracy theory to promote theoretical investigations and institutional discussions of this phenomenon. We argue for engineering conspiracy theory to encode an epistemic evaluation, and to introduce a descriptive expression—such as ‘conspiratorial explanation’—to refer to the purely descriptive concept conspiracy theory. (shrink)

The thirty-three essays in <I>Relativism: A Contemporary Anthology</I> grapple with one of the most intriguing, enduring, and far-reaching philosophical problems of our age. Relativism comes in many varieties. It is often defined as the belief that truth, goodness, or beauty is relative to some context or reference frame, and that no absolute standards can adjudicate between competing reference frames. Michael Krausz's anthology captures the significance and range of relativistic doctrines, rehearsing their virtues and vices and reflecting on a spectrum (...) of attitudes. Invoking diverse philosophical orientations, these doctrines concern conceptions of relativism in relation to facts and conceptual schemes, realism and objectivity, universalism and foundationalism, solidarity and rationality, pluralism and moral relativism, and feminism and poststructuralism. Featuring nine original essays, the volume also includes many classic articles, making it a standard resource for students, scholars, and researchers. <B>Table of Contents:</B> Foreword by Alan Ryan Preface Introduction Michael Krausz <B>Part I. Orienting Relativism</B> 1. Mapping Relativisms Michael Krausz 2. A Brief History of Relativism Maria Baghramian <B>Part II. Relativism, Truth, and Knowledge</B> 3. Subjective, Objective, and Conceptual Relativisms Maurice Mandelbaum 4. “Just the Facts, Ma’am!” Nelson Goodman 5. Relativism in Philosophy of Science Nancy Cartwright 6. The Truth About Relativism Joseph Margolis 7. Making Sense of Relative Truth John MacFarlane 8. On the Very Idea of a Conceptual Scheme Donald Davidson 9. Truth and Convention: On Davidson’s Refutation of Conceptual Relativism Hilary Putnam 10. Conceptual Schemes Simon Blackburn 11. Relativizing the Facts Paul A. Boghossian 12. Targets of Anti-Relativist Arguments Harvey Siegel 13. Realism and Relativism Akeel Bilgrami <B>Part III. Moral Relativism, Objectivity, and Reasons</B> 14. Moral Relativism Defended Gilbert Harman 15. The Truth in Relativism Bernard Williams 16. Pluralism and Ambivalence David B. Wong 17. The Relativity of Fact and the Objectivity of Value Catherine Z. Elgin 18. Senses of Moral Relativity David Wiggins 19. Ethical Relativism and the Problem of Incoherence David Lyons 20. Understanding Alien Morals Gopal Sreenivasan 21. Value: Realism and Objectivity Thomas Nagel 22. Intuitionism, Realism, Relativism, and Rhubarb Crispin Wright 23. Moral Relativism and Moral Realism Russ Schafer-Landau <B>Part IV. Relativism, Culture, and Understanding</B> 24. Anti Anti-Relativism Clifford Geertz 25. Solidarity or Objectivity? Richard Rorty 26. Relativism, Power, and Philosophy Alasdair MacIntyre 27. Internal Criticism and Indian Rationalist Traditions Martha C. Nussbaum and Amartya Sen 28. Phenomenological Rationality and the Overcoming of Relativism Jitendra N. Mohanty 29. Understanding and Ethnocentricity Charles Taylor 30. Relativism and Cross-Cultural Understanding Kwame Anthony Appiah 31. Relativism, Persons, and Practices Amélie Oksenberg Rorty 32. One What? Relativism and Poststructuralism David Couzens Hoy 33. Must a Feminist Be a Relativist After All? Lorraine Code List of Contributors Index. (shrink)

Contingency is the presence of non-actualized possibility in the world. Fatalism is a view of reality on which there is no contingency. Since it is contingency that permits agency, there has traditionally been much interest in contingency. This interest has long been embarrassed by the contention that simple and plausible assumptions about the world lead to fatalism. I begin with an Aristotelian argument as presented by Richard Taylor. Appreciation of this argument has been stultified by a question pertaining to the (...) source of necessity and possibility and a closely related one regarding the nature of metaphysics itself. Answering these questions reveals the crucial issue here, to wit, necessity and possibility in a temporal world. This issue is investigated through an important later criticism of Taylor by David Foster Wallace. Wallace’s critique is significant because it brings to the fore the pivotal notion for understanding contingency in a temporal world, that of synchronic possibility, the idea that incompatible states of affairs are possible at a single moment. This notion provides the basis of distinguishing two systematic accounts of truth, modality and time: two metaphysics of contingency. On one account, Taylor’s Aristotelian argument is straightforwardly valid and compelling; on the other, it is fallacious. In closing, I present reasons why the former account, supporting the Aristotelian views of time and truth, is correct and make some comments to ameliorate this conclusion. (shrink)

Is there a single right interpretation for such cultural phenomena as works of literature, visual artworks, works of music, the self, and legal and sacred texts? In these essays, almost all written especially for this volume, twenty leading philosophers pursue different answers to this question by examining the nature of interpretation and its objects and ideals. The fundamental conflict between positions that universally require the ideal of a single admissible interpretation and those that allow a multiplicity of some admissible interpretations (...) leads to a host of engrossing questions explored in these essays: Does multiplism invite interpretive anarchy? Can opposing interpretations be jointly defended? Should competition between contending interpretations be understood in terms of truth or reasonableness, appropriateness, aptness, or the like? Is interpretation itself an essentially contested concept? Does interpretive activity seek truth or aim at something else as well? Should one focus on interpretive acts rather than interpretations? Should admissible interpretations be fixed by locating intentions of a historical or hypothetical creator, or neither? What bearing does the fact of the historical situatedness of cultural entities have on their identities? The contributors are Annette Barnes, Noël Carroll, Stephen Davies, Susan Feagin, Alan Goldman, Charles Guignon, Chhanda Gupta, Garry Hagberg, Michael Krausz, Peter Lamarque, Jerrold Levinson, Joseph Margolis, Rex Martin, Jitendra Mohanty, David Novitz, Philip Percival, Torsten Pettersson, Robert Stecker, Laurent Stern, and Paul Thom. (shrink)

The X-ray and bulk densities of PdIn alloys have been determined at ambient temperature on samples annealed at 1273 and 1373 K and quenched in water-ice mixtures. From these measurements the vacancy concentrations in this intermetallic phase have been obtained as a function of In concentration at these two temperatures. In addition, a generalized thermodynamic model is presented which considers the existence of antisite and vacancy defects on both sublattices without any dilute solution approximations. This model uses three energy parameters, (...) whose values have been obtained for PdIn using the measured vacancy concentrations and the chemical potentials of In. This model is able to describe all the available vacancy data and is suitable for calculating these values at compositions and temperatures when such data are not available. In addition, the model permits the calculation of the concentrations of the minority point defects. It is shown that dilute-solution approximations, which have invariably been used in this kind of modelling, are unsatisfactory. The present results and their analysis confirm that PdIn is a near-triple-defect type of intermetallic and not a near-Schottky type, as has been claimed recently. (shrink)

For the theorists of crisis, the revolutionary state comes into existence through violence, and due to its inability to provide an authoritative katechon (restrainer) against internal and external violence, it perpetuates violence until it self-destructs. Writing during extreme economic depression and growing social and political violence, the crisis theorists––Joseph de Maistre, Juan Donoso Cortés, and Carl Schmitt––each sought to blame the chaos of their time upon the Janus-faced postrevolutionary ideals of liberalism and socialism by urging a return to pre-revolutionary moral (...) and religious values. They are united by three counterrevolutionary principles, all of which are purported to remedy revolutionary violence: traditional constitutional fidelity, the philosophy of the decision, and opposition to bourgeois liberalism. This essay is followed by the first complete English translation and publication of Donoso’s letter of October 24, 1851, which contains Donoso’s only reference to the “discussing class,” a political entity later popularized by Schmitt in his 1922 work Political Theology. (shrink)

Reprint of paper first published in Philosophy and Phenomenological Research in 1984.

This volume looks at the symbiotic relationship between the philosophical inquiry into the presuppositions of musical interpretation and the interpretation of particular musical works by musicians. Characteristically, interpreters of music entertain philosophical views about musical interpretation. For example, an interpreter's decision whether to play one or another version of a piece, whether to use one instrument or another, whether to emphasize certain elements, depends in part upon certain convictions of a philosophical nature. An interpreter's resolution of such questions will involve (...) views about what a musical work is--for example, whether it is fully embodied in a score, how strictly all markings should be respected, what pertinence historical research has for interpretations, and how decisive the known or reconstructed intentions of a composer may be. These nineteen previously unpublished essays address a cluster of interrelated questions about the definition, grounds, and nature of musical interpretation. The contributors investigate the aesthetic, cultural, and historical aspects of interpretation as well as fundamental distinctions such as those between a work and its interpretation, musical and non-musical phenomena, and musical meaning and linguistic meaning. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Abstract Definition General Contrasts between Relativism and Absolutism Reference Frames Domains Levels Values Absolutist Strands a Relativist Might Negate On the Putative Self ‐ Contradiction of Relativism Reach of Reasons Conclusion Bibliography.