How is the tension between conflict and deliberation resolved in shareholder engagement? We address this question by studying shareholder engagement as a deliberative process with three stages: establishing dialogue, solution development, and solution implementation. We theorize that two interactionist mechanisms, deliberative interaction and the voicing of disagreement, play different roles at different stages of the process. We test our hypotheses with a proprietary database of 169 environmental, social, and governance engagements with US public companies over 2007–12. We find that while (...) deliberative interaction does not help advance the engagement process, it positively moderates the effect of disagreement in the solution development stage. By contrast, in the solution implementation stage, deliberative interaction amplifies the negative effect of disagreement, thus hindering progress in the engagement. Our article contributes to shareholder engagement, deliberation theory, and interactionist organization theory by establishing that engagement effectiveness is an interactional achievement shaped by both deliberation and disagreement. (shrink)

In contemporary discussions of abortion, both sides argue well-worn positions, particularly concerning the question, When does human life begin? Though often invoked by the Catholic Church for support, Thomas Aquinas in fact held that human life begins after conception, not at the moment of union. But his overall thinking on questions of how humans come into being, and cease to be, is more subtle than either side in this polarized debate imagines. Fabrizio Amerini--an internationally renowned scholar of medieval philosophy--does (...) justice to Aquinas's views on these controversial issues. Some pro-life proponents hold that Aquinas's position is simply due to faulty biological knowledge, and if he knew what we know today about embryology, he would agree that human life begins at conception. Others argue that nothing Aquinas could learn from modern biology would have changed his mind. Amerini follows the twists and turns of Aquinas's thinking to reach a nuanced and detailed solution in the final chapters that will unsettle familiar assumptions and arguments. Systematically examining all the pertinent texts and placing each in historical context, Amerini provides an accurate reconstruction of Aquinas's account of the beginning and end of human life and assesses its bioethical implications for today. This major contribution is available to an English-speaking audience through translation by Mark Henninger, himself a noted scholar of medieval philosophy. (shrink)

The purpose of this paper is to provide a basis for a systematic development of signaling theory on CSR initiatives. The paper proposes signaling theory as a framework supportive of a strategic CSR approach; maps extant research on signaling through CSR initiatives; offers a comprehensive assessment of the most diffused CSR initiatives and discusses their eligibility as signaling devices; and outlines a research agenda to further develop and test signaling theory in business ethics. Specifically, the study reconsiders some key assumptions, (...) identifies key gaps in empirical validation, and proposes directions to extend multiple signal, signaling pattern, and target cases. (shrink)

An argumentation profile is defined as a methodological instrument for analyzing argumentative discourse considering distinct and interrelated dimensions: the types of argument used, their quality, and the emotions triggered. Walton’s theoretical contributions are developed as a coherent analytical and multifaceted toolbox for capturing these aspects. Argumentation schemes are used to detect and quantify the types of argument. Fallacy analysis and the assessment of the implicit premises retrieved through the schemes allow evaluating arguments. Finally, the frequency of emotive words signals the (...) most common emotions aroused. This method is illustrated through a corpus of argumentative tweets of three politicians. (shrink)

Douglas Walton’s work is extremely vast, multifaceted, and interdisciplinary. He developed theoretical proposals that have been used in disciplines that are not traditionally related to philosophy, such as law, education, discourse analysis, artificial intelligence, or medical communication. Through his papers and books, Walton redefined the boundaries not only of argumentation theory, but also logic and philosophy. He was a philosopher in the sense that his interest was developing theoretical models that can help explain reality, and more importantly interact with it. (...) For this reason, he proposed methods that have been used for analyzing different types of dialogical interactions, and modeling procedures for regulating them. (shrink)

El concepto de dificultad contramayoritaria, aplicado al control de constitucionalidad, describe el problema de justificar que un tribunal declare inválida (inconstitucional) una ley, votada por los representantes de una mayoría de los ciudadanos. ¿Es esto legítimo? En el presente trabajo, analizamos un problema similar respecto a las burocracias públicas, relativamente menos discutido hasta ahora: ¿puede la burocracia pública tomar decisiones que considera justificadas, o tiene que limitarse a implementar las directivas del poder político en todos los casos? El debate se (...) ha planteado con intensidad en México, durante los últimos años, pero afecta a la configuración institucional de otros países en América Latina. (shrink)

Cet ouvrage met en valeur la contribution que la philosophie de Malebranche a donnée au développement des Lumières. En effet, la richesse de la réflexion de l'oratorien a alimenté des courants de pensée différents, voire opposés, tels le matérialisme et le spiritualisme, le déisme et l'athéisme, le scepticisme et l'empirisme. En outre, l'auteur de la Recherche de la vérité a joué un rôle crucial dans certains processus capitaux de l'époque moderne, dont la transformation de la métaphysique en théorie de la (...) connaissance. Le concept de réception comme phénomène complexe qui dirige ce travail rend enfin raison de l'attention portée aux croisements de la postérité de Malebranche et de celle d'autres auteurs."--Page 4 of cover. (shrink)

So far, legal translation studies have generally been concerned with multilingual legislation, which they have dissected using comparative law methods. The time seems to have come for a differentiated research that recognises various types of legal translation, including the category of translation by professionals for public authorities and business concerns. This latter category’s context is rapidly changing. Globalization is aggravating the crisis of national legislation. First and foremost, networks of authorities have sprung up alongside international organisations. The texts translated are (...) regulatory rather than prescriptive. Then, in the field of international commerce, a standardization of contracts is occurring. Globalized administrative and commercial varieties of English are no longer the English of the common law but, rather, a neutral or hybrid English that needs to be further sub-classified by reference to specific legal sectors. Furthermore, by reducing costs and deadlines, globalization and digitalization have forced translation to be economically efficient. Several legislative provisions now allow the translation of legal texts by way of extracts or summaries. In multilingual monitoring translators are being asked to assess and select the documents for translation themselves. The quality required is often that which is “sufficient” to achieve the sought-after goal. All these changes must be incorporated into the university education of translators. (shrink)

Raccolta di saggi sulla storia della filosofia rinascimentale e moderna.

Raccolta di saggi sulla storia della filosofia rinascimentale e moderna.

Subjekt, Objekt und Intersubjektivitat bilden drei der wohl zentralsten Elemente im menschlichen Erkenntnisprozess. Anhand einer kritischen Rekonstruktion der Erkenntnistheorien Hegels und Adornos beleuchtet die vorliegende Arbeit die Dialektik zwischen Subjekt und Objekt der Erkenntnis aus zwei verschiedenen Perspektiven. Durch den grundsatzlichen Paradigmenwechsel Habermas' von der Bewusstseinsphilosophie zu einem kommunikationstheoretischen Paradigma wird es moglich, <I>kommunikative Intersubjektivitat als unverzichtbares Element der Erkenntnis angemessen zu thematisieren.<BR> Der Gang von Hegel uber Adorno zu Habermas wird in der vorliegenden Monographie nicht als ein stetiger Fortschritt (...) verstanden, an dessen Zielpunkt die Habermas'sche Theorie als der Weisheit letzter Schluss stehen wurde. Vielmehr erweist sich der Dreischritt selbst als ein dialektischer, der am Ende, angereichert durch Erfahrungen, wieder in seinen Ausgangspunkt mundet. So endet die Untersuchung letztlich mit dem kommunikationstheoretisch angereicherten Desiderat einer modernen Subjekttheorie.". (shrink)

This book analyzes the uses of emotive language and redefinitions from pragmatic, dialectical, epistemic and rhetorical perspectives, investigating the relationship between emotions, persuasion and meaning, and focusing on the implicit dimension of the use of a word and its dialectical effects. It offers a method for evaluating the persuasive and manipulative uses of emotive language in ordinary and political discourse. Through the analysis of political speeches and legal arguments, the book offers a systematic study of emotive language in argumentation, rhetoric, (...) communication, political science and public speaking. (shrink)

Reason and law before New Sciences -- Dominion, liberty, tutelage : law, ethics and history in De uno -- The "constancy" of the divine and human things -- From Grotius to Vico : the "Natural right of the gentes.".

Argument from analogy is a common and formidable form of reasoning in law and in everyday conversation. Although there is substantial literature on the subject, according to a recent survey ( Juthe 2005) there is little fundamental agreement on what form the argument should take, or on how it should be evaluated. Th e lack of conformity, no doubt, stems from the complexity and multiplicity of forms taken by arguments that fall under the umbrella of analogical reasoning in argumentation, dialectical (...) studies, and law. Modeling arguments with argumentation schemes has proven useful in attempts to refine the analyst’s understanding of not only the logical structures that shape the backbone of the argument itself, but also the logical underpinning of strategies for evaluating it, strategies based on the semantic categories of genus and relevance. By clarifying the distinction between argument from example and argument from analogy, it is possible to advance a useful proposal for the treatment of argument from analogy in law. (shrink)

This study examines how evidence is used differently in argumentative discourse compared to individual arguments. Applying a 1×2 crossover study design, 37 secondary school students were asked either to discuss a social issue with their partner before individually writing an essay outlining their opinion or, vice versa, first to discuss and then to write. As background information, they were provided with pieces of evidence with different levels of quality. Dialogs and essays were analyzed regarding (a) the type of evidence and (...) (b) the way evidence was used. Results showed that in their essays students referred more often to the pieces of evidence provided to them (shared evidence). In contrast, they used evidence more often to address the opposing viewpoint in dialogs by incorporating it in a more elaborated (clearer) line of reasoning. Findings suggest that dialogues are a more effective tool than individual writing production, and the study provides first hints regarding how to design curricula that will encourage students to use evidence in a more sophisticated way in their argumentation. (shrink)

La "Grande Morale," progettata da J.-P. Sartre tra il 1947 e il 1949 come naturale completamento della filosofia esistenzialista esposta ne L'essere e il nulla e L'esistenzialismo e un umanismo, non e mai stata pubblicata: abbandonata e ripresa piu volte nei successivi vent'anni, ha finito per costituire un serbatoio di annotazioni e di riflessioni sempre dirottate altrove, una specie di fantasma letterario, onnipresente, ma pronto a dileguarsi ogni volta che sembrava avere raggiunto una forma consistente. Sappiamo oggi, grazie alla pubblicazione (...) dei molti inediti sartriani, che la riflessione sulla morale ha accompagnato tutti gli snodi fondamentali del pensiero di Sartre, dai cosiddetti scritti giovanili alle opere della maturita, dalla svolta "dialettica" sino all'ultima discussa intervista, rilasciata poco prima della scomparsa. Gli studi qui riuniti hanno nei Quaderni per una morale (1947-48) il loro centro di gravita e di maggiore interesse. Di questo tentativo abortito di scrivere una "Morale" essi provano a disegnare la parabola, dalle origini remote nei Taccuini della strana guerra (1939) sino al Santo Genet commediante e martire (1952), che ne sancisce l'abbandono. Senza disdegnare qualche incursione nell'estetica sartriana, poiche della "morale introvabile" non c'e in realta testo che non rechi qualche traccia.". (shrink)

The concept of corporate social responsibility has been the subject of several academic contributions, but in the health sector the development of an interest in this subject is very recent. Although many practices in healthcare are already socially responsible, progressing from a series of socially responsible behaviours to a socially responsible organization entails a more consolidated awareness of the health sector’s mission and the needs of its participants. In this paper, we will review the different studies published that address the (...) relationship between the healthcare sector’s corporate responsibility and society, with the aims of individuating the prevailing foci that are emerging and categorizing the proposed contributions according to these foci: social responsibility and organization; social responsibility and social impact; social responsibility and competitiveness. Finally, the paper finishes with a personal definition of CSR and its correlated ethical roots. (shrink)

Statements about the future are central in everyday conversation and reasoning. How should we understand their meaning? The received view among philosophers treats will as a tense: in ‘Cynthia will pass her exam’, will shifts the reference time forward. Linguists, however, have produced substantial evidence for the view that will is a modal, on a par with must and would. The different accounts are designed to satisfy different theoretical constraints, apparently pulling in opposite directions. We show that these constraints are (...) jointly satisfied by a novel modal account of will. On this account, will is a modal but doesn't work as a quantifier over worlds. Rather, the meaning of will involves a selection function similar to the one used by Stalnaker in his semantics for conditionals. The resulting theory yields a plausible semantics and logic for will and vindicates our intuitive views about the attitudes that rational agents should have towards future-directed contents. (shrink)

We reconstruct essential features of Lagrange’s theory of analytical functions by exhibiting its structure and basic assumptions, as well as its main shortcomings. We explain Lagrange’s notions of function and algebraic quantity, and we concentrate on power-series expansions, on the algorithm for derivative functions, and the remainder theorem—especially on the role this theorem has in solving geometric and mechanical problems. We thus aim to provide a better understanding of Enlightenment mathematics and to show that the foundations of mathematics did not, (...) for Lagrange, concern the solidity of its ultimate bases, but rather purity of method—the generality and internal organization of the discipline. (shrink)

The aim of the presentation is to focus on the differences between two scientific contexts: the genetic engineering context of the 1970s, with specific attention paid to the use of the recombinant DNA technique to generate genetically modified molecules, and the current genome editing context, with specific attention paid to the use of CRISPR-Cas9 technology to modify human germ line cells genetically. In both events, scientists have been involved in discussions that have gone beyond mere professional deontology touching on specific (...) policy issues such as freedom of research, responsibility for the consequences of research, the right of the public to participate in the evaluation of the goals of research methods, the relationship between cost and benefit and possible social consequences. The comparison between these two scientific contexts suggests the need of handling such issues by defining procedures that meet the criteria of democracy and responsibility towards society. The underlying objective should be to effectively launch actions and interventions based not on a hierarchical approach but rather a reticular conception of knowledge. (shrink)

“Acme” è arrivata al suo settantacinquesimo anno.