ABSTRACT This paper is an account of a response to a well‐intentioned and genuinely naive question concerning the nature of ‘applied philosophy’. It indicates differing points of view concerning the nature of philosophy and what one might or might not expect from it. It tries to synthesise these points of view into a position that sees philosophy as continuous with that attitude of mind that was epitomised by Socrates, an attitude of mind which is directed to every aspect or dimension (...) of human life. The notion of the enquiring activist is borrowed to encapsulate this attitude as a valuable goal of ‘applied philosophy’. (shrink)

The article examines some of the main theses about self-awareness developed in recent analytic philosophy of mind (especially the work of Bermúdez), and points to a number of striking overlaps between these accounts and the ones to be found in phenomenology. Given the real risk of unintended repetitions, it is argued that it would be counterproductive for philosophy of mind to ignore already existing resources, and that both analytical philosophy and phenomenology would profit from a more open exchange.

Various scholars defend the idea that leadership is something accomplished between the leader and the led, rather than something that coincides with the role of an individual manager. Even so, we argue that shared leadership implies a relational ontology grasping leadership as an ever-changing series of events that is thoroughly processual in nature. Supplementing existing analyses and expanding the possibilities for relational leadership research, we propose a view from the perspective ofprocess philosophy, in which relations determine individual leaders and followers, (...) and not the reverse. The process perspective invites us to see and to feel leadership subjectively within ourselves, instead of simply looking at it objectively from the outside. Understanding leadership in this way, as an internally related complex occasion of experience, has implications for expanding the possibilities for what is known in management as relational leadership research. (shrink)

In this paper I reflect upon my personal experience of chronic progressive multiple sclerosis in order to provide a phenomenological account of the human experience of disability. In particular, I argue that the phenomenological notion of lived body provides important insights into the profound disruptions of space and time that are an integral element of changed physical capacities such as loss of mobility. In addition, phenomenology discloses the emotional dimension of physical disorder. The lived body disruption engendered by loss of (...) mobility includes a change in the character of surrounding space, an alteration in one's taken-for-granted awareness of objects, the disruption of corporeal identity, a disturbance in one's relations with others, and a change in the character of temporal experience. The loss of upright posture is of particular significance since it not only concretely diminishes autonomy but affects the way one is treated by others. Such a change in posture is, therefore, particularly disruptive in the social world of everyday life. An understanding of the lived body disruption engendered by disability has important applications for the clinical context in devising effective therapies, as well as for the social arena in determining how best to resolve the various challenges posed by chronic disabling disorders. (shrink)

This article examines the metaphysics and phenomenology of the self or subject of experience. It suggests that the phenomenological description of the minimal subject requires no reference to body, environment, or social relations and argues for a thin conception of subjectivity which equates the subject with the experience itself. Under this principle of minimal conception, the subject does not exist if the person is asleep. It contends that the profound metaphysical question about experience and experiential selves is whether experience is (...) limited to certain types of physical processes, or is characteristic of all physical processes, which would entail panpsychism. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Selfhood and community Value The normative‐empirical split Environmental ethics.

When philosophers undertake to say what it is that makes life worth living, they generally display a procrustean habit of thought which the practice of philosophy itself does much to encourage. As a result, they arrive at an image of the human good that is far more controversial than they suspect. The canonical view among philosophers ancient and modern has been, in essence, that the life lived well is the life lived in accord with a rational plan. To me this (...) conception of the human good seems manifestly wrong. The idea that life should be the object of a plan is false to the human condition. It misses the important truth which Proust, by contrast, discerned and made into one of the organizing themes of his great meditation on disappointment and revelation, A la recherche du temps perdu : The happiness that life affords is less often the good we have reason to pursue than the good that befalls us unexpectedly. (shrink)

The concept of progress figures centrally in pragmatism in two apparently distinct ways. In the writings of Dewey, concepts of ethical and social progress play a major role: the task of philosophy is to promote progress across many domains of human inquiry and practice. Philosophers should foster progressive shifts with respect to the urgent problems of the age. Democracy is unfinished, and both Democracy and Education and The Public and its Problems are concerned with ways in which the progress of (...) democracy could be promoted. Social progress would be made if art were no longer divorced from human life but integrated with it. Religious progress would be achieved by focusing on the... (shrink)

Response to commentaries on keynote article.

Emerson's famous declaration of independence for American literature.