Baruch Brody contends that the fundamental assumption on which the tradition is based is erroneous and that once this assumption is shown to be in error, all philosophical problems in this area have to be rethought. Originally published in 1980. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback (...) and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905. (shrink)

The Oxford Philosophical Texts series consists of authoritative teaching editions of canonical texts in the history of philosophy from the ancient world down to modern times. Each volume provides a clear, well laid out text together with a comprehensive introduction by a leading specialist, giving the student detailed critical guidance on the intellectual context of the work and the structure and philosophical important of the main arguments and explain unfamiliar references and terminology, and a full bibliography and index are also (...) included. -/- The series aims to build up a definitive corpus of key texts in the Western philosophical tradition, which will from a reliable and enduring resource for students and teachers alike. -/- Spinoza's Ethics is one of the classical texts of philosophy but is also one of the most difficult to understand because of the author's use of rigorous logical deduction and the geometrical framework within which his ideas are set. In Ethics, he discusses the nature of human beings and the way in which a rational person might live; the nature of God; and offers an account of true freedom and how it can be attained. -/- This latest text in the Oxford Philosophical Texts series includes a new, lucid translation of the Ethics by G.H.R. Parkinson along with a comprehensive guide to the understanding of Spinoza's work. An extensive introduction includes: a short biography of Spinoza himself; the form of his writing including his own particular uses of definitions; an introductory guide through the philosophy of Ethics; and a summary of the contents of Ethics itself. Further aids include a glossary of terms, extensive notes to the text. (shrink)

This paper analyses the probability of a reading so far neglected by editors in Lactantius Placidus’ late antique commentary on Stat. Theb. 5.16. Next, the article argues that, regardless of the accepted reading, this part of the scholium is likely an interpolation.

It seems to me that those who place great value on the right to human freedom can be badly divided on the question of the use of force by states to defend the liberties of those who are not citizens of that particular state. Concerned about the liberties to be defended, they might be enthusiastic supporters of the use of such force by liberty-loving countries throughout the world. Concerned about the liberties that might be violated when the state marshals its (...) forces for use internationally, they might adopt a more isolationist approach to this issue. This paper is an attempt to help clarify this conflict by looking at some of the philosophical issues it raises. Because I wish to avoid factual debates about current conflicts, I will give no real-life examples. However, they are on my mind, and I hope the reader will keep them in mind as well. (shrink)

New pedagogical visions and technological developments have brought argumentation to the fore of educational practice. Whereas students previously 'learned to 'argue', they now 'argue to learn': collaborative argumentation-based learning has become a popular and valuable pedagogical technique, across a variety of tasks and disciplines. Researchers have explored the conditions under which arguing to learn is successful, have described some of its learning potentials and have developed Internet-based tools to support such learning. However, the further advancement of this field presently faces (...) several problems, which the present book addresses. Three dimensions of analysis - historical, theoretical and empirical - are integrated throughout the book. Given the nature of its object of study - dialogue, interaction, argumentation, learning and teaching - the book is resolutely multidisciplinary, drawing on research on learning in educational and psychological sciences, as well as on philosophical and linguistic theories of dialogue and argumentation. (shrink)

The second edition incorporates Samuel Shirley's pre-eminent translation with corrections of the typographical errors of its first edition, and a new general index. Seymour Feldman has contributed a new Bibliography and notes.

This new and complete translation of Spinoza's famous 17th-century work fills an important gap, not only for all scholars of Spinoza, but also for everyone interested in the relationship between Western philosophy and religion, and the history of biblical exegesis.

This study introduces the concept of deviant behavior in a moderated-mediation framework of incentives and organizational justice perception. The proposed relationships in the theoretical framework were tested with a sample of 311 academics, using simple random sampling, via causal models and structural equation modeling. The findings suggest that incentives might boost the apparent performance, but not necessarily the intended performance. The results confirm that employees’ affection for incentives has direct, indirect, and conditional indirect effects on their deviant behavior likelihood. The (...) relationship between employee deviant behavior likelihood and affection for incentives was moderated by organizational justice perception and partially mediated by reward expectancy, thus having significant contributions toward the extant literature of deviant behavior and incentives. The findings have important implications for managers, academicians, and policy makers for mitigating adverse behavior in professional employees through proper use of incentives. (shrink)

Medicine has undergone substantial changes in the way medical dilemmas are being dealt with. Here we explore the attitude of Israeli physicians to two debatable dilemmas: disclosing the full truth to patients...

Policy makers in education do not perceive the education system as a unique discipline, but rather judge it using terms appropriate for the world of economics. Methods of analysis and decision-making that exist in the world of economics are implemented in the field of education. This reality was the basis for the authors’ research on the integration of technological systems for the advancement of students which was conducted as part of their desire to understand processes of change in learning systems. (...) It became clear that in order to succeed in the process of integrating innovative technological systems in the schools, society should not “flood the schools” with technology, but should rather use the “islands of success method.”. (shrink)

'Small businesses do not have the depth to sustain mistakes and losses in the way that large businesses can. It is the view of the management of MacLine that an ethical approach to business is one of the key factors in ensuring the long term survival of the business.’Dr Yehuda Baruch is Visiting Research Fellow at the Centre for Organisational Research, London Business School, Sussex Place, Regent's Park, London NW1 4SA; and Mr Mark Lewis is Managing Director of MacLine. (...) Teachers interested in having a package of teaching notes and transparencies relevant to this case may contact Dr Baruch at the above address. (shrink)

The present study focuses on the observation of learning processes as they emerge in the context of conversations among two students in three successive tasks designed to foster conceptual change in proportional reasoning. The three tasks were set according to a pre-test treatment post-test paradigm. In the pre-test and the post-test tasks, the two students solved individually several items in the presence of an experimenter. In the treatment task, the two students worked as a dyad to solve similar items; they (...) used a balance to check their conclusions and subsequently continued solving the items when the weighing did not match their expectations. We adopt a micro-genetic approach and develop new analytical tools to observe what happened in the conversation (both socially and cognitively). Throughout the three successive tasks, we observed the interplay between tools, peers, experimenter, and task demands and how they are managed through the rules of conversation. We identified four processes that involved the emergence of new high-order strategies from coordinated actions distributed among peers, the guidance of the experimenter in coordinating actions, and ways the participation in solving a previous task was actualized in a successive one. (shrink)

Empirical research can aid ethical reflection in bioethics by identifying issues, by seeing how they are currently resolved, and by assessing the consequences of these current resolutions. This potential can be misused when the ethical issues in question are fundamentally non-consequentialist or when they are consequentialist but the empirical research fails to address the important consequences. An example of the former problem is some recent studies about bad consequences resulting from commercialized living kidney donor programs. These consequences could be avoided, (...) but the crucial non-consequentialist ethical issues about exploitation and commercialization would still remain. Examples of the latter problem are provided by recent studies of the allocation of ICU beds and of physician deception, where important consequences were not adequately studied. (shrink)

In recent years, bioethics has increasingly become an international area of inquiry with major contributions being made not only in North America but also in Europe and in the Pacific Rim countries. This general observation is particularly true for research ethics. Little attention has been paid, however, to this internationalization of bioethics in general and research ethics in particular, and there are few studies comparing what has emerged in the different countries.

Book reviewed in this article: Morality, Mortality: Death and Whom to Save from It. By Frances Kamm.

In their paper: “Learning of Predictive Relations Between Events Depends on Attention, Not on Awareness” Custers & Aarts demonstrate that when one is first exposed to a clear predictive relationship – a consequent predictive relationship will be represented as a unidirectional association in the percievers’ minds regardless of their awareness of that relationship. Furthermore, a conscious intention to learn the relationship leads to the formation of a bidirectional association. While these findings may prove to be a significant step in understanding (...) other forms of implicit learning such as implicit artificial grammar learning and implicit sequence learning and why they are affected by intentional learning; Custers & Aarts’ postulation that “top-down” regulation is at work here is debatable as their experimental manipulation can be understood as “bottom-up” activation of implicit learning processes. (shrink)

Counting casualties in conflict zones faces both practical and ethical concerns. Drawing on procedures from risk analysis, we propose a general approach. It represents each death by standard features, having either essential value, for capturing the social and cultural meaning of individual casualties, or instrumental value, for relating patterns of casualties to possible causes and effects. We illustrate the approach with the choices involved in attempts to record casualties in Iraq and the Israel-Palestine conflict, and with natural disasters, as exemplified (...) by Hurricane Katrina. We advocate institutionalizing the approach, so that recording casualties increases understanding, rather than suspicion. (shrink)

Digital materiality (digimat) proposes a set of basic principles for how we understand the world through digital processes. This short book sets out a methodical materialist understanding of digital technologies, where they come from, how they work, and what they do.

A social study of "An essay concerning human understanding." Includes bibliographical references and index.

We argue that it is possible to go beyond the “selfish goal” metaphor and make an even stronger case for the role of unconscious motivation in cognition and action. Through the relevance of a representation (ROAR) framework, we describe how not only value motivation, which relates to “selfish goals,” but also truth motivation and control motivation impact cognition and action.