This text expounds and relates the ethical and religious views of a philosopher that are usually discussed in terms of language. (Philosophy).

The Ibadis, a religious minority that survived in North Africa and Oman, claim to be the democrats of Islam. The present study highlights their key role in promoting a political alternative to the Caliphate through a collegial model of government. I.

Women are commonly stereotyped as more risk averse than men in financial decision making. In this paper we examine whether this stereotype reflects gender differences in actual risk-taking behavior by means of a laboratory experiment with monetary incentives. Gender differences in risk taking may be due to differences in valuations of outcomes or in probability weights. The results of our experiment indicate that value functions do not differ significantly between men and women. Men and women differ in their probability weighting (...) schemes, however. In general, women tend to be less sensitive to probability changes. They also tend to underestimate large probabilities of gains more strongly than do men. This effect is particularly pronounced when the decisions are framed in investment terms. As a result, women appear to be more risk averse than men in specific circumstances. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Fabuler la fin du monde: La puissance critique des fictions d’apocalypse by Jean-Paul EngélibertCyril CamusJean-Paul Engélibert. Fabuler la fin du monde: La puissance critique des fictions d’apocalypse [Fabulating the end of the world: The critical power of apocalypse fiction]. Paris: Éditions La Découverte, 2019. 239 pp. Print. 20€. ISBN 978-2-348-03719-1.Jean-Paul Engélibert is a well-established expert on apocalyptic and postapocalyptic fiction. His exploration of the genre thus far includes (...) the monograph Apocalypses sans royaume: Politique des fictions de la fin du monde, XX–XXIe siècles (2013), numerous articles, as well as the essay collection L’Apocalypse: Une imagination politique, XIXe–XXIe siècles (2018), which he co-edited. In his latest book, Fabuler la fin du monde, he returns to several texts and aspects of the genre previously covered, delving deeper into what he calls “fictions of the end of the world.” In the ten chapters, gathered in five parts, he approaches his subject as a seasoned scholar in the field of comparative literature, and his analysis draws from comparisons between modern fiction’s representation of apocalypse and biblical literature’s visions of apocalypse and messianism. The book also offers ecocritical insights into the specter of Anthropocenic manifestations in fiction, with reflections on the interrelated genres of utopia and dystopia, theories of cinema, and philosophical writings on the catastrophic history of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.The range of fictional works discussed is wide, including Jean-Baptiste Cousin de Grainville’s Le dernier homme (1805); Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (1818); Émile Souvestre’s Le monde tel qu’il sera (1846); Didier de Chousy’s Ignis (1883); Robert Merle’s Malevil (1972); José Saramago’s Blindness (1995); Antoine Volodine’s Minor Angels (1999); Don DeLillo’s Cosmopolis (2003); Cormac McCarthy’s The Road (2006); Céline Minard’s Le dernier monde (2007); Davide [End Page 163] Longo’s The Last Man Standing (2010); and Margaret Atwood’s MaddAddam trilogy (Oryx and Crake [2003], The Year of the Flood [2009], and MaddAddam [2013]). Engélibert also touches on feature-length movies such as Stanley Kramer’s On the Beach (1959), Lars von Trier’s Melancholia (2011), Abel Ferrara’s 4:44 Last Day on Earth (2012), and Mamoru Oshii’s Ghost in the Shell (1995), as well as on other literary and audiovisual fictions, such as E. M. Forster’s short story “The Machine Stops” (1909), Edward Bond’s dramatic trilogy The War Plays (1985), and the first season (2014) of Damon Lindelof and Tom Perrotta’s TV series The Leftovers (2014–17).Engélibert’s exegeses of the genre build around two aspects of the evolving relationship of apocalyptic narratives to the context of their production. Apocalypse (in the sense of “the end of the world” rather than the etymological sense of “revelation”) is no longer primarily a religious myth: the creation and use of the atomic bomb during the Second World War, the theorization of the Anthropocene, and the mainstreaming of concerns over climate change have made the term “apocalypse” a very real, tangible prospect for the future. Engélibert relies on Günther Anders’s Die atomare Drohung (1981) to highlight the importance of the A-bomb in bringing home the reality of potential annihilation to people’s collective consciousness. Yet his second contextual/historical point is that the Anthropocene (albeit unnamed at the time) actually started with the Industrial Revolution, and that thinkers and polemicists such as Charles Fourier or Eugène Huzar, as well as contemporary fiction writers, were already acknowledging the environmental impact of humans and their economic/industrial/technological activity as threats to human and nonhuman life, and to the health of the planetary system itself.1Citing the work of Jean-Baptiste Fressoz and Christophe Bonneuil on the history of climate science, Engélibert analyzes in detail several nineteenth-century novels (namely Le Dernier homme, Frankenstein, Le monde tel qu’il sera, and Ignis) and one early-twentieth-century story (Forster’s “The Machine Stops”) that denounce the harm that the idol of the time, Progress, was already wreaking on nature and human life... (shrink)

Women are commonly stereotyped as more risk averse than men in financial decision making. In this paper we examine whether this stereotype reflects gender differences in actual risk-taking behavior by means of a laboratory experiment with monetary incentives. Gender differences in risk taking may be due to differences in valuations of outcomes or in probability weights. The results of our experiment indicate that value functions do not differ significantly between men and women. Men and women differ in their probability weighting (...) schemes, however. In general, women tend to be less sensitive to probability changes. They also tend to underestimate large probabilities of gains more strongly than do men. This effect is particularly pronounced when the decisions are framed in investment terms. As a result, women appear to be more risk averse than men in specific circumstances. (shrink)

Chez Eisenstein on découvre comment dans le cinéma de prise de vues réelles, il est déjà possible de détourner un élément du représenté pour en faire le moyen d’une représentation qui le dépasse au point de lui être étranger, dans la mesure où il sert un propos tout autre que celui de son contexte d’origine. Dans le stop motion la mise en mouvement fondée sur un type de « montage » image par image permet non seulement de réanimer le monde, (...) mais aussi de transfigurer les objets et leur matérialité même. L’adhésion au contenu profilmique ne concerne donc plus uniquement les contenus généraux et narratifs de la représentation (comme le lieu ou la temporalité), mais aussi la matérialité même des objets. (shrink)

The essays contained in Beyond the Juxtaposition of Nature and Culture represent an attempt by scholars from Canada, Germany, and Mexico to come to grips with the innovative work of the American philosopher and anthropologist Lawrence Krader who has proposed nothing less than a new theory of nature, according to which there are at least three different orders--the material-biotic, the quantum, and the human--which differ from one another according to their different configurations of space-time, and which cannot be reduced the (...) one to the others. Each author takes up Krader's theory in relation to its impact on their own discipline: sociology, anthropology, the study of myth, the theory of labor and value, economics, linguistics, and aesthetics. The question of how nature and culture can be integrated within a theoretical framework which links them in difference and nexus and allows each their non-reductive space leads each of the contributors to move in their thinking beyond the old dualisms of materialism and idealism, fact and value, nature and culture. (shrink)

In 1938 Wittgenstein delivered a short course of lectures on aesthetics to a small group of students at Cambridge. The present volume has been compiled from notes taken down at the time by three of the students: Rush Rhees, Yorick Smythies, and James Taylor. They have been supplemented by notes of conversations on Freud between Wittgenstein and Rush Rhees, and by notes of some lectures on religious belief. As very little is known of Wittgenstein's views on these subjects from his (...) published works, these notes should be of considerable interest to students of contemporary philosophy. Further, their fresh and informal style should recommend Wittgenstein to those who find his _Tractatus_ and _Philosophical Investigations_ a little formidable. (shrink)

The aim of this article is to argue that Marcel’s idea of freedom as participation in being is what constitutes authentic freedom and existence. A “pessimistic” existentialist, Sartre conceives of authentic freedom and existence or life as making free choices and committing oneself to one’s chosen mode of life and taking responsibility for it. However, this stand of absolute freedom of choice, irrespective of the morality and nature of one’ actions with regard to human essence and ontological status as finite (...) and potential being in need of plenitude, could lead to the loss of sense of being and the proliferation of evil in a society. This is because one might freely choose to indulge in an act that negates the essence of humanity and engenders self-destruction as well as the destruction of others, since, for the “pessimistic” existentialist, one only has to be committed to it and accept its accompanying responsibility to qualify as authentic freedom and existence. I will argue that Marcel’s conception of freedom as participation in being leads to an individual’s awareness of their ontological status as a finite being and that their finitude imposes a limitation on their hold on being and generates some self-trepidation that they might lose their sense of being, and consequently propels them to engage in those acts that are consistent and compatible with their essence and are geared towards self-realisation. I will conclude that genuine freedom and authentic life lie in participation in being. (shrink)

Using panel data of 4,244 company years, we examine whether and how corporate social performance (CSP) affects a firm’s capacity to achieve profitable sales in foreign markets. Based on our extension of instrumental stakeholder theory into the international arena, we hypothesized a U-shaped relationship between CSP and multinationality. Results supported our contention that multinational enterprises (MNEs) need to be substantially committed to social performance objectives if they are to recoup the cost of their CSP investments, and improve their capacity to (...) compete in foreign markets. MNEs engaged in intermediate levels of CSP achieve lower levels of multinationality than firms operating at either anchor of the social performance continuum. In addition, this study demonstrates that CSP moderates a well-established relationship in international business literature – the relationship between R&D investment and a firm’s multinationality. Implications for research and practice are discussed. (shrink)

Using panel data of 4,244 company years, we examine whether and how corporate social performance affects a firm's capacity to achieve profitable sales in foreign markets. Based on our extension of instrumental stakeholder theory into the international arena, we hypothesized a U-shaped relationship between CSP and multinationality. Results supported our contention that multinational enterprises need to be substantially committed to social performance objectives if they are to recoup the cost of their CSP investments, and improve their capacity to compete in (...) foreign markets. MNEs engaged in intermediate levels of CSP achieve lower levels of multinationality than firms operating at either anchor of the social performance continuum. In addition, this study demonstrates that CSP moderates a well-established relationship in international business literature - the relationship between R&D investment and a firm's multinationality. Implications for research and practice are discussed. (shrink)

:Most game-theoretic accounts of institutions reduce institutions to behavioural patterns the players are incentivized to implement. An alternative account linking institutions to rule-following behaviour in a game-theoretic framework is developed on the basis of David Lewis’s and Ludwig Wittgenstein's respective accounts of conventions and language games. Institutions are formalized as epistemic games where the players share some forms of practical reasoning. An institution is a rule-governed game satisfying three conditions: common understanding, minimal awareness and minimal practical rationality. Common understanding has (...) a strong similarity with Ludwig Wittgenstein's concept of lebensform while minimal awareness and minimal practical rationality capture the idea that rule-following is community-based. (shrink)

ABSTRACTDeliberative and decisional groups play crucial roles in most aspects of social life. But it is not obvious how to organize these groups and various socio-cognitive mechanisms can spoil debates and decisions. In this paper we focus on one such important mechanism: the misrepresentation of views, i.e. when agents express views that are aligned with those already expressed, and which differ from their private opinions. We introduce a model to analyze the extent to which this behavioral pattern can warp deliberations (...) and distort the decisions that are finally taken. We identify types of situations in which misrepresentation can have major effects and investigate how to reduce these effects by adopting appropriate deliberative procedures. We discuss the beneficial effects of holding a sufficient number of rounds of expression of views; choosing an appropriate order of speech, typically a random one; rendering the deliberation dissenter-friendly; having agents express fined-grained views. These applicable procedures help improve deliberations because they dampen conformist behavior, give epistemic minorities more opportunities to be heard, and reduce the number of cases in which an inadequate consensus or majority develops. (shrink)

This paper evaluates how Amartya Sen’s critique of revealed preference theory stands against the latter’s contemporary, ‘neo-Samuelsonian’ version. Neo- Samuelsonians have argued that Sen’s arguments against RPT are innocuous, in particular once it is acknowledged that RPT does not assume away the existence of motivations or other latent psychological or cognitive processes. Sen’s claims that preferences and choices need to be distinguished and that external factors need to be taken into account to analyze the act of choice then appear to (...) be irrelevant. However, while it is true that contemporary revealed preference theory partially evades Sen’s critique, I show that the latter is still relevant outside the restricted areas of consumer choice and market dynamics. In particular, Sen’s views regarding the importance of incomplete preferences and the multiplicity of levels of agency can hardly be integrated into the framework of CRPT. This is a significant limit, given the imperialistic claims of some of the proponents of the latter. (shrink)

This article presents a community-based account of salience as an alternative and a complement to the ‘natural salience’ approach which is endorsed by almost all game theorists who use this concept. While in the naturalistic approach, salience is understood as an objective and natural property of some entities, the community-based account claims that salience is a function of community membership. Building on David Lewis’s theory of common knowledge and on some of its recent refined accounts, I suggest that salience acts (...) as a correlating device in a correlated equilibrium. What is constitutive of salience is common understanding, the fact that agents have common knowledge that they share the same modes of reasoning with respect to a well-identified set of events. I argue that the basis for common understanding is community membership. The relevance of this account stems from the fact that it answers the objection that salience is either unnecessary or unable to account for coordination between rational agents. (shrink)

The Oxford Classical Texts, or Scriptorum Classicorum Bibliotheca Oxoniensis, are renowned for their reliability and presentation. The series consists of a text without commentary but with a brief apparatus criticus at the front of each page. There are now over 100 volumes, representing the greater part of classical Greek and Latin literature. The aim of the series remains that of including the works of all the principal classical authors. Although this has been largely accomplished, new volumes are still being published (...) to fill the remaining gaps, and old editions are being revised in the light of recent research or replaced. (shrink)

Résumé Prenant pour exemple la figure littéraire de l’employé de bureau, notre étude se propose de saisir les particularités synchroniques et le cheminement diachronique d’une esthétique de l’impotence qui aurait émergé avec la tentation flaubertienne du « livre sur rien », pour se développer ensuite dans une large part du roman français de la première moitié du xx e siècle et trouver, enfin, son aboutissement dans l’œuvre de Samuel Beckett.

Dennis Ahern and David Soles raise substantial problems for the conventional interpretation of Mo Tzu as a utilitarian. Although they defend different interpretations, both scholars agree that Mo Tzu is committed to a divine command theory in some form, citing the same key passages where, supposedly, Mo Tzu explicitly endorses the divine command theory. In this paper, I defend the orthodox interpretation, insisting that Mo Tzu is a utilitarian. I show that the passages cited by Ahern and Soles do not (...) explicitly endorse the divine command theory and are compatible with the utilitarian interpretation; in fact, I argue that many of these passages must be understood in light of a utilitarian interpretation if they are to be rendered intelligible at all. After showing that motivation for the divine command interpretation is lacking, I argue that the only satisfactory alternative is to understand Mo Tzu as a consistent utilitarian. (shrink)