Generalized Darwinism (GD) claims to be a conceptual and theoretical framework for researching evolutionary change processes in organizations. This paper examines the claims of GD. It finds that in contrast to Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection proper, the GD framework is not an explanatory deductive argument form. What it is that GD actually generalizes and intends to explain thereby becomes somewhat moot. It is proposed that the so-called ‘generalization’ that the GD framework supplies might be best understood schematically. (...) Two general schemata that purport to distil commonalities between processes of organizational evolution and biological evolution are thereby identified. But in considering the applicability of the two schemata to organizational evolution, criticism reveals one to be problematic, whereas the other one, to which the GD programme collapses if the problematical schema is dispensed with, has been long associated with another so-called ‘evolutionary approach’ to the understanding of social change: Sir Karl Popper’s ‘evolutionary epistemology’. The paper concludes that if the research problem is to account for the evolutionary character of social and organizational change, then theorists need not commit to the GD framework. They may elect to use Popper’s evolutionary epistemology instead. (shrink)

Uses Sir Karl Popper’s philosophy of critical rationalism to examine the discussion of the UK ‘credit crunch’ as presented by the public record of the UK House of Commons Treasury Select Committee’s investigation. Identifies various philosophical doctrines that acted to shape that investigation and the testimony presented before it. Presents those doctrines as prejudicial to the advancement of knowledge, learning and rationality. Concludes that the philosophy of critical rationalism is relevant to the problems of modern society.

This paper revisits some recent contributions on ‘Why Management Theory Needs Popper’ to the journal Philosophy of Management. It proposes that those discussions provided an appraisal of the relevance of Popper’s falsification schema to management theory, but that they did not thereby bring to the fore all of the issues pertinent to a balanced and well-rounded understanding of Popper’s philosophy of critical rationalism. It is argued that such an understanding requires a discussion of what Popper himself declared to be the (...) real lynchpin of his thought: fallibilism and a critical approach. It is noted that this represents a rejection of the historical problem situation of philosophy — that knowledge claims need to be positively justified as true. It is argued that this rejection implies an anti-authoritarian, non-justificational philosophy based on the use of critical reason. Its application to several different objects of criticism is demonstrated and its ethical dimensions are explored. The relevance of critical rationalism to management studies and practice is assessed and an inherent limitation on the prospects of its adoption in management practice is identified. … the appeal to authorities is the death of knowledge… the growth of knowledge depends entirely upon disagreement. (shrink)

Explains why the debate initiated by Stephen Lloyd Smith’s plea to jettison the so-called ‘Standard Account of Method’ ––the conventional wisdom of how research philosophy and methodology ought to be taught to management students––is of the utmost importance to the teaching of management studies in British universities. Identifies a fully-developed presentation of the SAM framework in a well-considered and widely-used textbook––‘Research Methods for Managers’ by John Gill and Phil Johnson––and demonstrates that the book’s argument is both logically and scholarly defective. (...) Identifies the SAM as a form of dogmatic rationalism; one that is oblivious to the possibility of applying deductive inference in the service of a critical rationalism. Outlines the logical role of deductive testing in empirical research and demonstrates that there need be no great divide between nomothetic and ideographic research problems once appropriate distinctions are drawn between different forms of explanation. Nonetheless, questions the relevance of these research problems to the concerns of practising managers by highlighting the contrast, as made by philosophers, between social science and social technology. Concludes that the continued presentation and defence of the SAM, as the conventional wisdom of how research philosophy and methodology ought to be taught to management students, is thoroughly lamentable. (shrink)

This paper notes that a dialogue is both a form of writing and a means by which thought and the process of thinking may be explored. It relates the latter notion to the Socratic method of inquiry and two of its philosophical legatees: Sir Karl Popper’s philosophy of critical rationalism and his idea of ‘Open Society’. It uses the former notion to present a dialogue that examines the so-called banking ‘credit crunch’ from a perspective that is informed by critical rationalism. (...) The dialogue explores the philosophical, methodological and practical difficulties in formulating and testing an explanation of an event of this kind. The paper notes that these difficulties are relevant to the investigation that is currently being conducted by the United Kingdom’s Parliamentary Commission on Banking Standards. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: 1 2 3 4 Acknowledgment Notes.

In this book, T. M. Scanlon offers new answers to these questions, as they apply to the central part of morality that concerns what we owe to each other.

This volume brings together for the first time a significant number of Reid's manuscript papers on natural history, physiology and materialist metaphysics. An important contribution not only to Reid studies but also to our understanding of eighteenth-century science and its context.

A step-by-step guide to develop your idea from the first spark to the finished product, with charming illustrations recalling the whimsy and imagination of childhood.

In Part 1 the reader is introduced to some standard systems of modal logic and encouraged through a series of exercises to become proficient in manipulating these logics. The emphasis is on possible world semantics for modal logics and the semantic emphasis is carried into the formal method, Jeffrey-style truth-trees. Standard truth-trees are extended in a simple and transparent way to take possible worlds into account. Part 2 systematically explores the applications of modal logic to philosophical issues such as truth, (...) time, processes, knowledge and belief, obligation and permission. Accessible, authoritative, and assured, Modal Logics and Philosophy requires no more background than the completion of a standard introductory logic course. It will be welcomed not only by students looking for a bridge between introductory logic texts and the high-level technical literature but as a guide to, and exploration of, work at the forefront of logic and philosophy. (shrink)

From the myths of the ancient world to the Middle Ages to Darwin and beyond, Preece captures the most telling and fascinating accounts of humankind's ...

The first edition, published by Acumen in 2000, became a prescribed textbook on modal logic courses. The second edition has been fully revised in response to readers' suggestions, including two new chapters on conditional logic, which was not covered in the first edition. "Modal Logics and Philosophy" is a fully comprehensive introduction to modal logics and their application suitable for course use. Unlike most modal logic textbooks, which are both forbidding mathematically and short on philosophical discussion, "Modal Logics and Philosophy" (...) places its emphasis firmly on showing how useful modal logic can be as a tool for formal philosophical analysis. In part 1 of the book, the reader is introduced to some standard systems of modal logic and encouraged through a series of exercises to become proficient in manipulating these logics. The emphasis is on possible world semantics for modal logics and the semantic emphasis is carried into the formal method, Jeffrey-style truth-trees. Standard truth-trees are extended in a simple and transparent way to take possible worlds into account. Part 2 systematically explores the applications of modal logic to philosophical issues such as truth, time, processes, knowledge and belief, obligation and permission. (shrink)

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

Despite the evidence showing the promise of HIV treatment as prevention (TasP) in reducing HIV incidence, a variety of ethical questions surrounding the implementation and “scaling up” of TasP have been articulated by a variety of stakeholders including scientists, community activists and government officials. Given the high profile and potential promise of TasP in combatting the global HIV epidemic, an explicit and transparent research priority-setting process is critical to inform ongoing ethical discussions pertaining to TasP.

Traces the development of recursive functions from their origins in the late nineteenth century to the mid-1930s, with particular emphasis on the work and influence of Kurt Gödel.

Philosophical arguments stemming from the public health ethics arena suggest that public health interventions ought to be subject to normative inquiry that considers relational values, including concepts such as solidarity, reciprocity and health equity. As yet, however, the extent to which ‘public’ values influence the ‘autonomous’ decisions of the public remains largely unexplored. Drawing on interviews with 50 men in Vancouver, Canada, this study employs a critical discourse analysis to examine participants’ decisions and motivations to voluntarily access HIV testing and/or (...) to accept a routine HIV test offer. Within a sub-set of interviews, a transactional discourse emerged in which the decision to test features an arrangement of ‘giving and receiving’. Discourses related to notions of solidarity emphasize considerations of justice and positions testing as a ‘public’ act. Lastly, ‘individualistic’ discourses focused on individual-level considerations, with less concern for the broader public ‘good’. These findings underscore how normative dimensions pertaining to men’s decisions to test are dialectically interrelated with the broader social and structural influences on individual and collective health-related behaviour, thereby suggesting a need to advance an explicit empirical-normative research agenda related to population and public health intervention research. (shrink)

Thomas Reid was a philosopher who founded the Scottish school of 'common sense'. Much of Reid's work is a critique of his contemporary, David Hume, whose empiricism he rejects. In this work, written after Reid's appointment to a professorship at the university of Glasgow, and published in 1785, he turns his attention to ideas about perception, memory, conception, abstraction, judgement, reasoning and taste. He examines the work of his predecessors and contemporaries, arguing that 'when we find philosophers maintaining that (...) there is no heat in the fire, nor colour in the rainbow … we may be apt to think the whole to be only a dream of fanciful men, who have entangled themselves in cobwebs spun out of their own brain'. Written by one of the Scottish Enlightenment's most important thinkers, this work brings to life the intellectual debates of the time. (shrink)

First Published in 2003. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

1. Bd. Von Kant bis Hegel.--2. Bd. Von Marx bis zur Gegenwart.

Thomas Aquinas produced a voluminous body of work on moral theory, and much of that work is on virtue, particularly the status and value of the virtues as principles of virtuous acts, and the way in which a moral life can be organized around them schematically. Thomas Osborne presents Aquinas's account of virtue in its historical, philosophical and theological contexts, to show the reader what Aquinas himself wished to teach about virtue. His discussion makes the complexities of Aquinas's (...) moral thought accessible to readers despite the differences between Thomas's texts themselves, and the distance between our background assumptions and his. The book will be valuable for scholars and students in ethics, medieval philosophy, and theology. (shrink)

Ever since Saul Kripke and others developed a semantic interpretation for modal logic, 'possible worlds' has been a much debated issue in contemporary metaphysics. To propose the idea of a possible world that differs in some way from our actual world - for example a world where the grass is red or where no people exist - can help us to analyse and understand a wide range of philosophical concepts, such as counterfactuals, properties, modality, and of course, the notions of (...) possibility and necessity. This book examines the ways in which possible worlds have been used as a framework for considering problems in logic and argument analysis. The book begins with a non-technical introduction to the basic ideas of modal logic in terms of Kripke's possible worlds and then moves on to a discussion of 'possible for' and 'possible that'. The central chapters examine questions of meaning, epistemic possibility, temporal logic, metaphysics, and impossibility. Girle also investigates how the idea of a possible world can be put to use in different areas of philosophy, the problems it may raise, and the benefits that can be gained. (shrink)

Ever since Saul Kripke and others developed a semantic interpretation for modal logic, 'possible worlds' has been a much debated issue in contemporary metaphysics. To propose the idea of a possible world that differs in some way from our actual world - for example a world where the grass is red or where no people exist - can help us to analyse and understand a wide range of philosophical concepts, such as counterfactuals, properties, modality, and of course, the notions of (...) possibility and necessity. This book examines the ways in which possible worlds have been used as a framework for considering problems in logic and argument analysis. The book begins with a non-technical introduction to the basic ideas of modal logic in terms of Kripke's possible worlds and then moves on to a discussion of 'possible for' and 'possible that'. The central chapters examine questions of meaning, epistemic possibility, temporal logic, metaphysics, and impossibility. Girle also investigates how the idea of a possible world can be put to use in different areas of philosophy, the problems it may raise, and the benefits that can be gained. (shrink)

We prove that there exists a noncomputable c.e. real which is low for weak 2-randomness, a definition of randomness due to Kurtz, and that all reals which are low for weak 2-randomness are low for Martin-Löf randomness.

Hysteresis means literally “that which comes later,” being derived from the Greek verb ύστερέω. Thus, hysteresis effects, generally defined, are those that persist after the initial causes giving rise to the effects are removed. During the course of the 1980s, it became increasingly fashionable to invoke hysteresis effects to explain economic phenomena. Two of the main areas of application were to unemployment and international trade. In the case of unemployment, distinctive features of labor markets, such as social norms that rule (...) out wage-cutting in the face of rising unemployment, imply that “increases in unemployment have a direct impact on the ‘natural’ rate of unemployment”. The implication for macroeconomic systems is that “temporary shocks can have a permanent effect on the level of employment”. In the case of international trade, hysteresis effects arise from the industrial economics of sunk costs: “the argument is that firms must incur sunk costs to enter new markets, and cannot recoup these costs if they exit.… thus foreign firms that entered the U.S. market when the dollar was high do not abandon their sunk cost investments when the dollar falls.” The implication for trade flows is “an effect which persists after the cause that brought it about has been removed”. (shrink)

We argue that the Soros account of reflexivity does not provide a clear-cut distinction between a social science such as economics and the physical sciences. It is pointed out that the participants who attempt to learn from refutations of conjectures in the Soros world are likely to be haunted by the Duhem–Quine problem of conjointness of hypotheses and unfocused refutation. On a more constructive note, we argue that models of inductive learning, in which participants form conjectures on the basis of (...) strictly limited information sets, can capture the basic thrust of the Soros position. The conjectures are in motion, as the participants attempt to avoid those that are systematically wrong, and there is something vague and uncertain about what can be learned from experience and refutations. The only notion of market efficiency in this world is one contingent on the strictly limited and varied information sets in play. Finally we present a mathematical model and numerical simulations that help justify the causal relationship between reflexivity and far-from-equilibrium dynamics postulated by Soros. (shrink)

A common contemporary view is that the Bible and subsequent Christian thought authorize humans to exploit animals purely as means to human ends. This paper argues that Biblical and Christian thought have given rise to a more complex ethic of animal use informed by its pastoralist origins, Biblical pronouncements that permit different interpretations, and competing ideas and doctrines that arose during its development, and influenced by the rich and often contradictory features of ancient Hebrew and Greco-Roman traditions. The result is (...) not a uniform ethic but a tradition of unresolved debate. Differing interpretations of the Great Chain of Being and the conflict over animal experimentation demonstrate the colliding values inherent in the complex history of Biblical and Christian thought on animals. (shrink)

Contrary to conventional wisdom, the earlier Western tradition did not customarily deny souls per se to nonhuman animals; when it denied immortal souls to animals, it sometimes deemed that denial a reason for giving greater consideration to animals in their earthly existence. Nor has the Western tradition uniformly deemed animals intended for human use. Further, there was considerable opposition to the Cartesian view of animals as insentient machines, and—even among those who were convinced—it was not unknown for them to deem (...) it inappropriate to rely on that conviction in the treatment of animals. Moreover, Darwin's theory of evolution had neither a novel nor a positive impact on the way in which animals were to be regarded and treated. The study of the history of animal ethics needs to be rethought in a far more nuanced manner. (shrink)

Secondary English is a comprehensive introduction to the theory and practice of teaching English in secondary schools for pre-service teachers. Written by highly accomplished English teachers, the book's practical approach to language, literacy and literature, fosters the skills of assessment, unit planning and teaching strategies.

We characterize the class of c.e. degrees that bound a critical triple as those degrees that compute a function that has no ω-c.e. approximation.

The new edition of this widely used and respected textbook includes three new chapters on conditional logic. Other chapters have been revised and updated, making the second edition a fully comprehensive introduction to modal logics and their application. Unlike most modal logic textbooks, which are both forbidding mathematically and short on philosophical discussion, Modal Logics and Philosophy focuses on showing how useful modal logic can be as a tool for formal philosophical analysis. In Part 1, the reader is introduced to (...) some standard systems of modal logic and provided with a series of exercises that encourage proficiency in manipulating these logics. Girle emphasizes possible world semantics for modal logics and its formal method, Jeffrey-style truth-trees, in which standard truth-trees are extended in a simple and transparent way to take possible worlds into account. Part 2 explores the applications of modal logic to philosophical issues such as truth, time, processes, knowledge and belief, and obligation and permission. (shrink)