Three main issues are of cardinal interest in this paper. The first issue relates to the canons of discourse—the parameters that inform and guide any discussion—in African philosophy. These canons are accepted in one form or the other by the philosophers who have actually formulated some of them and those who have devoted their academical careers to the promotion of the positive study of African philosophy. Consequently this paper should be viewed in the same light as C.E.M. Joad's A Critique (...) of Logical Positivism in which the “Great Tradition” in philosophy is classically expounded and defended against the onslaught of the philosophical exuberance and extraordinary claims of the logical positivists in the sense that it is a rejoinder to the attack on African philosophy by those who actually may want to be known as African logical neo-positivists. (shrink)

In this book John Campbell shows that the general structural features of human thought can be seen as having their source in the distinctive ways in which we...

This chapter contains sections titled: The Intensifying Dangers of International Anarchy Global Governance Versus a World State Is a World Government Possible? Acknowledgments References.

This research empirically investigated the CSR practices of 84 Botswana and Malawi organizations. The findings revealed that the extent and type of CSR practices in these countries did not significantly differ from that proposed by a U. S. model of CSR, nor did they significantly differ between Botswana and Malawi. There were, however, differences between the sampled organizations that clustered into a stakeholder perspective and traditional capitalist model groups. In the latter group, the board of directors, owners, and shareholders were (...) important stakeholders that appeared to be restricting extended stakeholder CSR activities in the Malawi and Botswana organizations. The sampled managers recognized the economic benefits of CSR practices and were not at odds with social objectives. (shrink)

Has biopolitics actually become thanatopolitics, a field of study obsessed with death? Is there something about the nature of biopolitical thought today that makes it impossibile to deploy affirmatively? If this is true, what can life-minded thinkers put forward as the merits of biopolitical reflection? These questions drive Improper Life.Campbell argues that a "crypto-thanatopolitics" can be teased out of Heidegger's critique of technology and that some of the leading scholars of biopolitics---including Michel Foucault, Giorgio Agamben, and Peter Sloterdijk---have been (...) substansively influenced by Heidegger's thought, particularly his reading of proper and improper writing. In fact, Campbell shows how all of these philosophers have pointed toward a tragic, thanatopolitical destination as somehow an inevitable result of technology. But in Improper Life he articulates a corrective biopolitics that can begin with rereadings of Foucault, Freud, and Gilles Deleuze. Throughout Improper Life, Campbell insists that biopolitics can become more positive and productively asserts an affirmation techne not thought through thanatos but rather through bios. (shrink)

We take rights to be fundamental to everyday life. Rights are also controversial and hotly debated both in theory and practice. Where do rights come from? Are they invented or discovered? What sort of rights are there and who is entitled to them? In this comprehensive introduction, Tom Campbell introduces and critically examines the key philosophical debates about rights. The first part of the book covers historical and contemporary theories of rights, including the origin and variety of rights and (...) standard justifications of them. He considers challenges to rights from philosophers such as Bentham, Burke and Marx. He also examines different theories of rights, such as natural law, social contract, utilitarian and communitarian theories of rights and the philosophers and political theorists associated with them, such as John Stuart Mill, John Rawls, Robert Nozick and Michael Sandel. The second part of the book explores the role of rights-promoting institutions and critically assesses legal rights and international human rights, including the United Nations. The final part of the book examines how philosophies of rights can be applied to freedom of speech, issues of social welfare and the question of self-determination for certain groups or peoples. _Rights: A Critical Introduction_ is essential reading for anyone new to the subject of rights and any student of political philosophy, politics and law. (shrink)

Political theorists agree that justice is a fundamental political value but disagree profoundly about its proper analysis and philosophical justification. This substantially revised and updated second edition of Tom Campbell's highly acclaimed and widely used text provides a much-expanded overview of the nature and scope of justice, as well as presenting clear exposition and critiques of the principal contending theorists of most relevance to the contemporary world.

This paper is an essay based on many years of reviewing journal submissions and discussions with business ethics scholars on a range of themes regarding methods. To some extent, it contains condensed thoughts from two experienced scholars in the field, which we hope will be useful, especially to emerging scholars who, to some extent, may still be wrestling with some of the issues raised in the paper. The validity and reliability of research methods in business ethics research is discussed in (...) terms of legitimate methods to employ in the discipline, the epistemic challenges in the discipline, the debate between qualitative and quantitative methods, and some considered comments on ‘researching well’ in this discipline. Within each theme, we attempt to convey our distilled thoughts in the hope that methods employed in future studies will avoid some of the failures we have observed in the past. (shrink)

The reconstructive turn in memory theory challenges us to provide an account of successful remembering that is attentive to the ways in which we use memory, both individually and socially. I investigate conceptualizations of accuracy and integrity useful to memory theorists and argue that faithful recollection is often a complex epistemological/ethical achievement.

This is the third selection of major works on the Scottish Enlightenment and includes the same combination of hard-to-find and popular works as in the two previous collections. Contents: An Essay on the Natural Equality of Men [1793] William Lawrence Brown, New introduction by Dr. William Scott 308 pp An Enquiry into the Origin of Moral Virtue [1733] Archibald Campbell 586 pp The Philosophical Works [1765] William Dudgeon, New introduction by David Berman 300 pp Institutes of Moral Philosophy For (...) the use of Students in the College of Edinburgh [1769] Adam Ferguson 340 pp A Comparative view of the State and Faculties of Man with those of the Animal World [1774] John Gregory 426 pp An Apology for the Life and Writings of David Hume, Esq [1777] Samuel Jackson A Letter to Adam Smith, On the Life, Death and Philosophy of his friend David Hume Esq [1777] George Horne (Bishop of Norwich) 252 pp. (shrink)

Sustainable farming, and waysto achieve it, are important issues foragricultural policy. New Zealand provides aninteresting case for examining sustainableagriculture options because gene technologieshave not been commercially released and thereis a small but rapidly expanding organicsector. There is no strong governmentsubsidization of agriculture, so while policiesseem to favor both options to some degree,neither has been directly supported. Resultsfrom a survey of 656 farmers are used to revealthe intentions, environmental values, andfarming practices for organic, conventional,and GE intending farmers. The results show thatorganic (...) and conventional farmers are relativelysimilar but contrast to GE intending farmers,especially with respect to perceivedconsequences of each technology. While 75%of farmers have not yet made a commitmentto either technology, one fifth were GEintending and one quarter may become organic.Organic farmers have different attitudes tonature, matched in part by conventionalfarmers. In terms of policy for sustainableagriculture, the results suggest that organicand conventional farmers are incrementallymoving towards agroecological sustainabilitywhile GE intending farmers are committed tointensive production methods of which GEproducts are potentially important. GEintending farmers reject incrementalism infavor of a revolutionary technological fix forsustainability concerns in agriculture.Overall, the results show that there areclearly two different paradigms ofsustainability among farmers. Policies that areseeking to achieve sustainable agriculture needto address the tensions that span the differentparadigms. (shrink)

I propose a new form of epiphenomenalism, 'explanatory epiphenomenalism', the view that the identification of A's mental properties does not provide a causal explanation of A's behaviour. I arrive at this view by showing that although anomalous monism does not entail type epiphenomenalism (despite what many of Davidson's critics have suggested), it does (when coupled with some additional claims) lead to the conclusion that the identification of A's reasons does not causally explain A's behaviour. I then formalize this view and (...) show that it is an attractive position, because it captures the insights of existing forms of epiphenomenalism without their onerous metaphysical commitments. (shrink)

Deftly quilting themes of Latin American and feminist liberation theologies with those of philosophers such as Immanuel Kant and John Rawls, Alastair V. Campbell displays our rich interconnectedness and our moral responsibilities to one another. Suggesting that many American citizens are oppressed by our current health-care system, he contends that prior to questions of health-care allocation are questions of what we mean as a society by the term health--and how that term is inextricably linked to personal and social freedom (...) and liberation. In the forceful final chapter of the book, Campbell articulates ethical standards for just health-care delivery in the United States--standards that, above all, take account of deep religious faith and concern for one's neighbor. Health as Liberation is a critical analysis of justice and modern health care, and of a society's moral obligations to its citizens. (shrink)

Since Schleiermacher and Hegel it has been part of the tradition of German philosophy to view the history of philosophy as an essential aspect of philosophy itself. The topic of “Heidegger and the History of Philosophy” should be considered with this in mind, which means that our question is as follows: Within this general attitude towards the history of philosophy, which has dominated German philosophy since Hegel, what distinctive attitudes are to be found in Heidegger? The context assumed by the (...) question is clear: it is that created by the rise of historical consciousness. It was part of the heritage of German Romanticism that not only historical research as a whole but also the position of philosophical theories would henceforth be affected by the problem of the nature of history. Before the Romantic period there was no such thing as the history of philosophy in the sense we are concerned with here. There was only the sort of scholarship which compiles lists. Hegel’s concept of a history of philosophy was itself in the fullest sense “philosophy;” it was a special subdivision of the philosophy of history, which was itself an attempt to demonstrate the presence of reason in history. Indeed, Hegel termed the history of philosophy the very heart of world history. However, the substantive portion of the Hegelian history of philosophy—its attempt to exhibit the necessity underlying the sequence of forms of philosophical thought, and thus the “rational” character of the history of thought—did not survive the criticism of the “historical school.”. (shrink)

With the centenary of the publication of William James's Pragmatism (1907) fast approaching, this paper explores two questions. First: what role did James's volume play in the development of the Pragmatic movement?; second: how powerful a force was that movement within American academic philosophy? With regard to the first question, this paper suggests that Pragmatism was not the font of the movement, but in fact appeared near its end; with regard to the second question, this paper suggests that the Pragmatic (...) movement, while of great importance in American society, was itself only a minor moment within professionalizing American philosophy. (shrink)

In this survey of Roberto Esposito's thought, Bonito Oliva reflects upon the stakes of reading biopolitics in an immunitary key. After sketching the features of a "fundamental crisis in the sense of coexistence," the author, moving from ancient to modern philosophy, emphasizes the centrality of fear in Esposito's understanding of the origins of community. The importance of fear explains in part the intrinsic relation community has to immunity for Esposito, in which immunity is figured primarily as a negative form of (...) community. In the essay's closing pages, the author shows how deeply immunity informs Esposito's understanding of contemporary biopolitics. She goes on to note Esposito's indebtedness to Hegel, especially with regard to the negative, and echoes Esposito's and Deleuze's own calls for the construction of "an immanent norm of life.". (shrink)

Mossner's Life of David Hume remains the standard biography of this great thinker and writer. First published in 1954, and updated in 1980, it is now reissued in paperback in response to increased interest in Hume. E. C. Mossner was Emeritus Professor of English at the University of Texas at Austin. 'Mossner's work is a quite remarkable scholarly achievement; it will be an indispensable tool for Hume scholars and a treasure-trove of information for all students of the intellectual and literary (...) history of the eighteenth century' Richard H. Popkin in the Philological Quarterly. (shrink)

Advertisements for high-technology products and services visualize processes and phenomena which are unvisualizable, such as globalization, networks, and information. We turn our attention specifically to the case of nanotechnology advertisements, using an approach that combines visual and sonic culture. Just as phenomena such as complexity and networks have become established in everyday discourse, nanotechnology seizes the social imaginary by establishing its own aesthetic conventions. Elaborating Raymond Williams’ concept of structures of feeling, we show that in visualizing nanotechnology, its stakeholders employ (...) spaces, verbs, and objects of feeling. These favorable nanotechnology structures of feeling are woven into the social imaginary, recursively producing the reality they describe. (shrink)

The paper distinguishes between epistemic and ontic divisions of qualities into primary and secondary. It identifies two functions which ontic division has been called upon to fulfill - setting the limits on what a realist philosophy of science must achieve, And providing a means of judging between rival realist philosophies of science. It argues for an interaction pattern criterion of primacy, And concludes that while this enables the first function to be achieved, No primary/secondary distinction can fulfill the second.