Although previous ethical analyses of management buyouts have presented useful insights, they have been flawed in three major ways. First, they define the transaction too narrowly, emphasizing the going private aspect and ignoring the leveraged aspect. Leveraging alters the nature of the transaction substantially and warrants additional ethical analysis. Second, these previous analyses ignore the impact of buyouts on non-stockholder constituents of the firm, an omission which renders their implicit utilitarian approach incomplete. Third, these analyses do not include Rawlsian, libertarian, (...) or Kantian perspectives on ethics. This paper addresses these shortcomings and finds the ethical status of leveraged management buyouts to be highly suspect. (shrink)

Arthur Danto is the Johnsonian Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at Columbia University and the most influential philosopher of art in the last half century. As an art critic for The Nation for 25 years and frequent contributor to other widely read outlets such as the New York Review of Books, Danto also has become one of the most respected public intellectuals of his generation. He is the author of some two dozen important books, along with hundreds of articles and reviews (...) which have been the center of both controversy and discussion. In this volume Danto offers his intellectual autobiography and responds to essays by 27 of the keenest critics of his thought from the worlds of philosophy and the arts. The book includes 16 pages of color art reproductions. Danto is the author dozens of books on art, philosophy, the philosophy of art, and art criticism. He is a rare philosopher who is also a public intellectual. (shrink)

Epistemic circularity occurs when a subject forms the belief that a faculty F is reliable through the use of F. Although this is often thought to be vicious, externalist theories generally don't rule it out. For some philosophers, this is a reason to reject externalism. However, Michael Bergmann defends externalism by drawing on the tradition of common sense in two ways. First, he concedes that epistemically circular beliefs cannot answer a subject's doubts about her cognitive faculties. But, he argues, subjects (...) don't have such doubts, so epistemically circular beliefs are rarely called upon to play this role. Second, following Thomas Reid, Bergmann argues that we have noninferential, though epistemically circular, knowledge that our faculties are reliable. I argue, however, that Bergmann's view is undermined by doubts a subject should have and that there is no plausible explanation for how we can have noninferential knowledge that our faculties are reliable. (shrink)

Epistemic circularity occurs when a subject forms the belief that a faculty F is reliable through the use of F. Although this is often thought to be vicious, externalist theories generally don't rule it out. For some philosophers, this is a reason to reject externalism. However, Michael Bergmann defends externalism by drawing on the tradition of common sense in two ways. First, he concedes that epistemically circular beliefs cannot answer a subject's doubts about her cognitive faculties. But, he argues, subjects (...) don't have such doubts, so epistemically circular beliefs are rarely called upon to play this role. Second, following Thomas Reid, Bergmann argues that we have noninferential, though epistemically circular, knowledge that our faculties are reliable. I argue, however, that Bergmann's view is undermined by doubts a subject should have and that there is no plausible explanation for how we can have noninferential knowledge that our faculties are reliable. (shrink)

T.J. Reed's study has long established itself as the standard work in English on Thomas mann, and offers as comprehensive a view of Mann's fiction and thought as is available in any language. It is based on a coherent close reading of Mann's oeuvre, literary and political, and also on manuscripts and sources, and was part of the first phase of literary scholarship that opened up the resources of the Zurich Thomas Mann Archive. Further documents that have appeared (...) since then - Mann's diaries, notebooks, and other correspondences - have not fundamentally altered the individual interpretations or the overall picture the study offers, and in some respects have emphatically confirmed them. A further chapter added to this edition covers the new documentation, gives a vigorous account of the main curents in Mann scholarship and criticism over the last two decades suggesting how we should now see the writer, the man, and the political figure, and above all the complex relationship between the three. (shrink)

The hallmark of implicit learning is that complex knowledge can be acquired unconsciously. The second order conditionals of Reed and Johnson were developed to be complex, and they are popular materials for implicit learning research. Recently, it was demonstrated that in a sequence made noisy , shared features of the SOCs may be learned explicitly . What are these shared features? We hypothesized that low reversal frequency may play a significant role. We have varied reversal frequency, and discovered that reversal (...) frequency affected response times, inclusion exclusion behavior, and recognition ratings. Not only does it appear to be important to distinguish implicit and explicit knowledge, but also to distinguish what the knowledge is of. (shrink)

In conventional identity politics subjective differences are understood negatively, as gaps to be overcome, as lacks of sameness, as evidence of failed or incomplete unity. In _Alterity Politics _Jeffrey T. Nealon argues instead for a concrete and ethical understanding of community, one that requires response, action, and performance instead of passive resentment and unproductive mourning for a whole that cannot be attained. While discussing the work of others who have refused to thematize difference in terms of the possibility or impossibility (...) of sameness—Levinas, Butler, Derrida, Foucault, Deleuze, Guattari, Zizek, Jameson, Heidegger, Bakhtin—Nealon argues that ethics is constituted as inexorable affirmative response to different identities, not through an inability to understand or totalize the other. _Alterity Politics_ combines this theoretical itinerary with crucial discussions of specific and diverse sites of literary and cultural production—the work of William S. Burroughs, Amiri Baraka, Andy Warhol, Ishmael Reed, Rush Limbaugh, and Vincent Van Gogh—along with analyses of the social formation of subjects as found in identity politics, and in multicultural and whiteness studies. In the process, Nealon takes on a wide variety of issues including white male anger, the ethical questions raised by drug addiction, the nature of literary meaning, and the concept of “becoming-black.” In seeking to build an ethical structure around poststructuralist discourse and to revitalize the applied use of theoretical concepts to notions of performative identity, _Alterity Politics_ marks a decisive intervention in literary theory, cultural studies, twentieth-century philosophy, and performance studies. (shrink)

How should we think about synthetic biology—about the potential benefits and risks of these applications as well as the very idea of designed, extensively genetically modi­fied organisms? The lead article in this report sets out our thinking, but the article is rounded out with nine commentaries that sometimes expand on and sometimes argue with our perspective. Jonathan Wolff, a philosopher at the University College of London and a member of the Nuffield Council on Bioethics, and Mark Bedau, a philosopher at (...) Reed College and a participant in several projects aimed at de­veloping artificial cells, discuss the potential consequences of synthetic biology and suggest some reasons for a precau­tionary approach to deliberating about the consequences. Jane Calvert, reader in science, technology, and innovation studies at the University of Edinburgh and a member of the Nuffield Council on Bioethics working party on emerging biotechnologies, recommends, however, that deliberation about the governance of emerging technologies focus less on consequences than on aims and purposes.Gigi Gronvall, senior associate at the Center for Health Security in the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, and David Relman, a microbiologist and immunologist at the Stanford School of Medicine, offer contrasting per­spectives about a question we raise concerning “the eth­ics of knowledge”—the values at stake in generating and disseminating potentially dangerous information. Gaymon Bennett offers some ruminations on the questions we raise about how synthetic biology might change the human re­lationship to nature in morally significant ways. He argues, too, that we can think about the ethics of synthetic biology more effectively by getting “upstream” in another way—by sitting next to the bioengineers doing the work and study­ing their “everyday practice” rather than by paying attention only to what is thought and said about their work. Colleen Grogan, professor at the University of Chicago's School of Social Administration and an expert on democratic partici­patory processes in governance, builds on our comments about the challenge of creating a meaningful public dialog about synthetic biology. Jim Thomas, a researcher with the ETC Group, challenges our view of how the public debate about synthetic biology is trending. And Sarah Carter, a policy analyst with the J. Craig Venter Institute, puts our discussion about synthetic biology in the context of debates about other new products and technologies. (shrink)

When one depends on a belief source in sustaining a belief that that very belief source is trustworthy, then that belief is an epistemically circular belief. A number of philosophers have objected to externalism in epistemology on the grounds that it commits one to thinking EC-beliefs can be justified, something they view as an unhappy consequence for externalism. In my 2004, I defend externalism against this sort of charge by explaining why this consequence needn’t be an unhappy one. In the (...) course of doing so, I appeal to what Thomas Reid calls ‘common sense’—a faculty or belief source by which we know noninferentially such things as that our faculties are trustworthy. In his 2006, Baron Reed raises what he takes to be serious objections to what I say about both epistemic circularity and common sense. In what follows, I’ll respond to his objections, explaining why I side with Reid against Reed. (shrink)

According to recent commentators like Paul Guyer, Kant agrees with Hume's Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion that physico-theology can never provide knowledge of God and that the concept of God, nevertheless, provides a useful heuristic principle for scientific enquiry. This paper argues that Kant, far from agreeing with Hume, criticizes Hume's Dialogues for failing to prove that physico-theology can never yield knowledge of God and that Kant correctly views Hume's Dialogues as a threat to, rather than an anticipation of, his own (...) view that the concept of God provides a useful heuristic principle for science. The paper concludes that Kant's critique of physico-theology reflects Kant's deep dissatisfaction with Hume's manner of argumentation and suggests that Kant's attempt to provide a more successful critique of physico-theology merits continued philosophical attention. (shrink)

This book provides a systematic analysis of many common argumentation schemes and a compendium of 96 schemes. The study of these schemes, or forms of argument that capture stereotypical patterns of human reasoning, is at the core of argumentation research. Surveying all aspects of argumentation schemes from the ground up, the book takes the reader from the elementary exposition in the first chapter to the latest state of the art in the research efforts to formalize and classify the schemes, outlined (...) in the last chapter. It provides a systematic and comprehensive account, with notation suitable for computational applications that increasingly make use of argumentation schemes. (shrink)

v. 1. Editorial introduction -- v. 2. The English and Latin texts (i) -- v. 3. The English and Latin texts (ii).

Abstractabstract:Kant's treatment of infinity seems to be plagued by two contradictions. First, the Transcendental Aesthetic claims that space is an infinite given magnitude, whereas the First Antinomy argues that the spatial world cannot be infinite. Second, the Transcendental Aesthetic claims that the representation of infinite space belongs to sensibility, but the third Critique seems to argue, instead, that infinity is an Idea of reason. This paper resolves these apparent contradictions by noting that Kant groups his various conceptions of space into (...) three kinds: (1) merely subjectively given space, (2) objectively given space, and (3) objective space as a mere Idea. Attending to these three conceptions of space illustrates that the Transcendental Aesthetic, First Antinomy, and third Critique refer to different conceptions of infinite space and thus do not contradict one another, illuminating the importance of Kant's various conceptions of space for his critical project. (shrink)

In this paper, we present a survey of the development of the technique of argument diagramming covering not only the fields in which it originated - informal logic, argumentation theory, evidence law and legal reasoning – but also more recent work in applying and developing it in computer science and artificial intelligence. Beginning with a simple example of an everyday argument, we present an analysis of it visualised as an argument diagram constructed using a software tool. In the context of (...) a brief history of the development of diagramming, it is then shown how argument diagrams have been used to analyze and work with argumentation in law, philosophy and artificial intelligence. (shrink)

The newly updated Right and Wrong 2nd Edition is an accessible introduction to the major traditions in western philosophical ethics, written in a lively and engaging style. It is designed for entry-level ethics courses and includes real-life ethical scenarios chosen to appeal directly to students. Greatly expanded and improved, this successful text introduces students to the major ethical traditions, and provides a simple methodology for resolving ethical dilemmas Treats teleological and deontological approaches to ethics as the two most important traditions, (...) but now includes chapters on virtue ethics and the ethics of care The very accessible writing style speaks directly to students’ own experience Draws examples from three types of real-life ethical scenarios submitted by students: academic dishonesty, partying, and personal relationships Provides a concise treatment of this notoriously complex subject, perfect for entry-level ethics and applied ethics courses. (shrink)

When making decisions, humans can observe many kinds of information about others' activities, but their effects on performance are not well understood. We investigated social learning strategies using a simple problem-solving task in which participants search a complex space, and each can view and imitate others' solutions. Results showed that participants combined multiple sources of information to guide learning, including payoffs of peers' solutions, popularity of solution elements among peers, similarity of peers' solutions to their own, and relative payoffs from (...) individual exploration. Furthermore, performance was positively associated with imitation rates at both the individual and group levels. When peers' payoffs were hidden, popularity and similarity biases reversed, participants searched more broadly and randomly, and both quality and equity of exploration suffered. We conclude that when peers' solutions can be effectively compared, imitation does not simply permit scrounging, but it can also facilitate propagation of good solutions for further cumulative exploration. (shrink)

Martin Heidegger’s existential account of care in _Being and Time_ (2010) provides us with an opportunity to reimagine what the proper theoretical grounding of an ethic of care might be. Heidegger’s account of care serves to deconstruct the two primary foundations that an ethic of care is often based upon. Namely, that we are inevitably interdependent upon one another and/or possess an innate disposition to care for fellow humans in need. Heidegger’s account reveals that both positions are founded upon an (...) ontic (meaning factual existence), as opposed to an ontological (which refers to the nature of being), understanding of care. The distinctions between an ontic and ontological understanding of care are significant. Yet, I maintain that they are not completely incompatible. Both Heidegger and care ethicists contend that our existence with others is understood through a relational ontology. Furthermore, there are certain ontological structures from Heidegger which resonate with an ethic of care. Two key existential structures are leaping-ahead and being-guilty. These existential structures are latent in care ethics, and by explicitly revealing them I reinforce the connection between Heidegger’s account and care theory. Lastly, I develop the theoretical foundations of care ethics by proposing an existential ethic of care. (shrink)

A familiar post-Kantian criticism contends that Kant enslaves sensibility under the yoke of practical reason. Friedrich Schiller advanced a version of this criticism to which Kant publicly responded. Recent commentators have emphasized the role that Kant’s reply assigns to the pleasure that accompanies successful moral action. In contrast, I argue that Kant’s reply relies primarily on the sublime feeling that arises when we merely contemplate the moral law. In fact, the pleasures emphasized by other recent commentators depend on this sublime (...) feeling. These facts illuminate Kant’s views regarding the relationship between morality, freedom, and the development of moral feelings. (shrink)

The fundamental question in reverse mathematics is to determine which set existence axioms are required to prove particular theorems of mathematics. In addition to being interesting in their own right, answers to this question have consequences in both effective mathematics and the foundations of mathematics. Before discussing these consequences, we need to be more specific about the motivating question.Reverse mathematics is useful for studying theorems of either countable or essentially countable mathematics. Essentially countable mathematics is a vague term that is (...) best explained by an example. Complete separable metric spaces are essentially countable because, although the spaces may be uncountable, they can be understood in terms of a countable basis. Simpson gives the following list of areas which can be analyzed by reverse mathematics: number theory, geometry, calculus, differential equations, real and complex analysis, combinatorics, countable algebra, separable Banach spaces, computability theory, and the topology of complete separable metric spaces. Reverse mathematics is less suited to theorems of abstract functional analysis, abstract set theory, universal algebra, or general topology.Section 2 introduces the major subsystems of second order arithmetic used in reverse mathematics: RCA0, WKL0, ACA0, ATR0 and – CA0. Sections 3 through 7 consider various theorems of ordered group theory from the perspective of reverse mathematics. Among the results considered are theorems on ordered quotient groups, groups and semigroup conditions which imply orderability, the orderability of free groups, Hölder's Theorem, Mal'tsev's classification of the order types of countable ordered groups. (shrink)

People are unable to report how they decide whether to move backwards or forwards to catch a ball. When asked to imagine how their angle of elevation of gaze would change when they caught a ball, most people are unable to describe what happens although their interception strategy is based on controlling changes in this angle. Just after catching a ball, many people are unable to recognise a description of how their angle of gaze changed during the catch. Some people (...) confidently choose incorrect descriptions that would guarantee failure of interception demonstrating unconscious knowledge co-existing with systematically different conscious beliefs. Where simple solutions to important evolutionary problems exist, unconscious perception needs to be impervious to conscious beliefs. (shrink)