In the management academic research, academic advancement, job security, and the securing of research funds at one’s university are judged mainly by one’s output of publications in high impact journals. With bogus resumes filled with published journal articles, universities and other allied institutions are keen to recruit or sustain the appointment of such academics. This often places undue pressure on aspiring academics and on those already recruited to engage in research misconduct which often leads to research integrity. This structured (...) review focuses on the ethics and integrity of management research through an analysis of retracted articles published from 2005 to 2016. The study employs a structured literature review methodology whereby retracted articles published between 2005 and 2016 in the field of management science were found using Crossref and Google Scholar. The searched articles were then streamlined by selecting articles based on their relevance and content in accordance with the inclusion criteria. Based on the analysed retracted articles, the study shows evidence of ethical misconduct among researchers of management science. Such misconduct includes data falsification, the duplication of submitted articles, plagiarism, data irregularity and incomplete citation practices. Interestingly, the analysed results indicate that the field of knowledge management includes the highest number of retracted articles, with plagiarism constituting the most significant ethical issue. Furthermore, the findings of this study show that ethical misconduct is not restricted to a particular geographic location; it occurs in numerous countries. In turn, avenues of further study on research misconduct in management research are proposed. (shrink)

"More than any thing else technology creates our world. It creates our wealth, our economy, our very way of being," says W. Brian Arthur. Yet, until now the major questions of technology have gone unanswered. Where do new technologies come from -- how exactly does invention work? What constitutes innovation, and how is it achieved? Why are certain regions -- Cambridge, England, in the 1920s and Silicon Valley today -- hotbeds of innovation, while others languish? Does technology, like biological life, (...) evolve? How do new industries, and the economy itself, emerge from technologies? In this groundbreaking work, pioneering technology thinker and economist W. Brian Arthur sets forth a boldly original way of thinking about technology that gives answers to these questions. The Nature of Technology is an elegant and powerful theory of technology's origins and evolution. It achieves for the progress of technology what Thomas Kuhn's The Structure of Scientific Revolutions did for scientific progress. Arthur explains how transformative new technologies arise and how innovation really works. Conventional thinking ascribes the invention of technologies to "thinking outside the box," or vaguely to genius or creativity, but Arthur shows that such explanations are inadequate. Rather, technologies are put together from pieces -- themselves technologies -- that already exist. Technologies therefore share common ancestries and combine, morph, and combine again to create further technologies. Technology evolves much as a coral reef builds itself from activities of small organisms -- it creates itself from itself; all technologies are descended from earlier technologies. Drawing on a wealth of examples, from historical inventions to the high-tech wonders of today, and writing in wonder fully engaging and clear prose, Arthur takes us on a mind-opening journey that will change the way we think about technology and how it structures our lives. (shrink)

In this highly original work, Teed Rockwell rejects both dualism and the mind-brain identity theory. He proposes instead that mental phenomena emerge not merely from brain activity but from an interacting nexus of brain, body, and world. The mind can be seen not as an organ within the body, but as a "behavioral field" that fluctuates within this brain-body-world nexus. If we reject the dominant form of the mind-brain identity theory -- which Rockwell calls "Cartesian materialism" -- and accept this (...) new alternative, then many philosophical and scientific problems can be solved. Other philosophers have flirted with these ideas, including Dewey, Heidegger, Putnam, Millikan, and Dennett. But Rockwell goes further than these tentative speculations and offers a detailed alternative to the dominant philosophical view, applying pragmatist insights to contemporary scientific and philosophical problems. Rockwell shows that neuroscience no longer supports the mind-brain identity theory because the brain cannot be isolated from the rest of the nervous system; moreover, there is evidence that the mind is hormonal as well as neural. These data, and Rockwell's reanalysis of the concept of causality, show why the borders of mental embodiment cannot be neatly drawn at the skull, or even at the skin. Rockwell then demonstrates how his proposed view of the mind can resolve paradoxes engendered by the mind-brain identity theory in such fields as neuroscience, artificial intelligence, epistemology, and philosophy of language. Finally, he argues that understanding the mind as a "behavioral field" supports the new cognitive science paradigm of dynamic systems theory. (shrink)

In this highly original work, Teed Rockwell rejects both dualism and the mind-brain identity theory. He proposes instead that mental phenomena emerge not merely from brain activity but from an interacting nexus of brain, body, and world. The mind can be seen not as an organ within the body, but as a "behavioral field" that fluctuates within this brain-body-world nexus. If we reject the dominant form of the mind-brain identity theory -- which Rockwell calls "Cartesian materialism" -- and accept this (...) new alternative, then many philosophical and scientific problems can be solved. Other philosophers have flirted with these ideas, including Dewey, Heidegger, Putnam, Millikan, and Dennett. But Rockwell goes further than these tentative speculations and offers a detailed alternative to the dominant philosophical view, applying pragmatist insights to contemporary scientific and philosophical problems. Rockwell shows that neuroscience no longer supports the mind-brain identity theory because the brain cannot be isolated from the rest of the nervous system; moreover, there is evidence that the mind is hormonal as well as neural. These data, and Rockwell's reanalysis of the concept of causality, show why the borders of mental embodiment cannot be neatly drawn at the skull, or even at the skin. Rockwell then demonstrates how his proposed view of the mind can resolve paradoxes engendered by the mind-brain identity theory in such fields as neuroscience, artificial intelligence, epistemology, and philosophy of language. Finally, he argues that understanding the mind as a "behavioral field" supports the new cognitive science paradigm of dynamic systems theory. (shrink)

I suggest that most discussions of intentional systems have overlooked an important aspect of living organisms: the intrinsic goal-directedness inherent in the behaviour of living eukaryotic cells. This goal directedness is nicely displayed by a normal cell’s ability to rearrange its own local material structure in response to damage, nutrient distribution or other aspects of its individual experience. While at a vastly simpler level than intentionality at the human cognitive level, I propose that this basic capacity of living things provides (...) a necessary building block for cognition and high-order intentionality, because the neurons that make up vertebrate brains, like most cells in our body, embody such capacities. I provisionally dub the capacities in question “nano-intentionality”: a microscopic form of “aboutness”. The form of intrinsic intentionality I propose is thoroughly materialistic, fully compatible with known biological facts, and derived non-mysteriously through evolution. Crucially, these capacities are not shared by any existing computers or computer components, and thus provide a clear, empirically-based distinction between brains and currently existing artificial information processing systems. I suggest that an appreciation of this aspect of living matter provides a potential route out of what may otherwise appear to be a hopeless philosophical quagmire confronting information-processing models of the mind. (shrink)

The principles of equality and equity, respectively in the Bill of Rights and the white paper on health, provide the moral and legal foundations for future health care for children in South Africa. However, given extreme health care need and scarce resources, the government faces formidable obstacles if it hopes to achieve a just allocation of public health care resources, especially among children in need of highly specialised health care. In this regard, there is a dearth of moral analysis which (...) is practically useful in the South African situation. We offer a set of moral considerations to guide the macro-allocation of highly specialised public health care services among South Africa's children. We also mention moral considerations which should inform micro-allocation. (shrink)

The third volume of Professor Guthrie's great history of Greek thought, entitled The Fifth-Century Enlightenment, deals in two parts with the Sophists and Socrates, the key figures in the dramatic and fundamental shift of philosophical interest from the physical universe to man. Each of the two parts is available as a paperback with the text, bibliography and indexes amended where necessary so that each part is self-contained. Socrates dominated the controversies of this period, as he has dominated the subsequent history (...) of western philosophy. He was the first to identify and grapple with some of the most intractable and persistent logical and philosophical problems; but he was also and has remained a highly controversial figure because of his extraordinary personal qualities and his remarkable career. Professor Guthrie offers a balanced and comprehensive picture of the man, his life, and his thought. (shrink)

There has been a recent explosion of undergraduate philosophy conferences across the United States. In this paper, we explore undergraduate conferences along three lines. First, we argue that, as a well-designed learning activity, undergraduate conferences can serve to increase gender parity in philosophical spaces—a widely accepted and important goal for our discipline. Second, we argue that this increase in parity is due, at least in part, to the proper design of undergraduate conferences as High-Impact Practices. Our empirical work on (...) our own undergraduate conference demonstrates that properly designing the conference as a High-Impact learning activity does, as expected, benefit underserved student populations, including women. Additionally, the study also revealed unexpected opportunities to intervene on student learning. Third, we argue, also in line with our data, that undergraduate conferences occupy a previously taxonomically unrecognized grouping among recognized High-Impact Practices. (shrink)

Interspecific comparisons reveal remarkable diversity in patterns of gene expression, even among closely related species. Combinatorial regulatory mechanisms could facilitate the evolution of this diversity. However, the high degree of interdependence characteristic of combinatorial networks would represent a major constraint on evolution and might generate many features that have no direct adaptive value.

F. H. Bradley did not write extensively or systematically on the philosophy of religion, and much of what he did write has the character of either tentative speculation or the pre-emptive rebuttal of potential misinterpretations that might threaten his general philosophical position. ‘I admit that on this subject I never had much to say’ he warns. But such a remark should not discourage us from considering his views on this topic, since the disclaimer is typically Bradleian, and more reflective of (...) his high standards for what is required in order to claim to have something to say about some matter than of any genuine lack of opinion. On closer inspection we find that he has, scattered throughout his work, a great many important things to say about this subject. (shrink)

This article explains Nietzsche’s high regard for cruelty. After offering a conceptual analysis of cruel acts, it argues that they are an apt means of expressing one’s power, drawing from work on Nietzsche’s psychological views and doctrine of the will to power to do so. In addition to the benefit that perpetrators of cruelty can enjoy in virtue of expressing their power, victims, by enduring cruelty, can cultivate qualities essential to overcoming the terrible truths of existence. Finally, central to (...) most of Nietzsche’s remarks on the matter, self-directed cruelty has deep connections with the process of sublimation, which makes possible greater and more varied modes of life. In light of this picture, the liberal equation of suffering with harm becomes questionable, as does the insistence that cruelty deprives an individual of her agency. Self-cruelty, in particular, comes to look like one of the best expressions of agency. (shrink)

Understanding is a central aim of science and highly important in present-day society. But what precisely is scientific understanding and how can it be achieved? This book answers these questions, through philosophical analysis and historical case studies, and presents a philosophical theory of scientific understanding that highlights its contextual nature.

A text is truly interpreted when both text and interpretation are understood in an analogical relationship to a larger reality.

Although the notion of spatiality has always lurked in the background of discussions of literary form, the self-conscious use of the term as a critical concept is generally traced to Joseph Frank's seminal essay of 1945, "Spatial Form in Modern Literature."1 Frank's basic argument is that modernist literary works are "spatial" insofar as they replace history and narrative sequence with a sense of mythic simultaneity and disrupt the normal continuities of English prose with disjunctive syntactic arrangements. This argument has been (...) attacked on several fronts. An almost universal objection is that spatial form is a "mere metaphor" which has been given misplaced concreteness and that it denies the essentially temporal nature of literature. Some critics will concede that the metaphor contains a half-truth, but one which is likely to distract attention from more important features of the reading experience. The most polemical attacks have come from those who regard spatial form as an actual, but highly regrettable, characteristic of modern literature and who have linked it with antihistorical and even fascist ideologies.2 Advocates of Frank's position, on the other hand, have generally been content to extrapolate his premises rather than criticize them, and have compiled an ever-mounting list of modernist texts which can be seen, in some sense, as "antitemporal." The whole debate can best be advanced, in my view, not by some patchwork compromise among the conflicting claims but by a radical, even outrageous statement of the basic hypothesis in its most general form. I propose, therefore, that far from being a unique phenomenon of some modern literature, and far from being restricted to the features which Frank identifies in those works , spatial form is a crucial aspect of the experience and interpretation of literature in all ages and cultures. The burden of proof, in other words, is not on Frank to show that some works have spatial form but on his critics to provide an example of any work that does not. · 1. Frank's essay first appeared in Sewanee Review 53 and was revised in his The Widening Gyre . Frank's basic argument has not changed essentially even in his most avante-garde statements; he still regards spatial form "as a particular phenomenon of modern avante-garde writing." See "Spatial Form: An Answer to Critics," Critical Inquiry 4 : 231-52. A useful bibliography, "Space and Spatial Form in Narrative," is being complied by Jeffrey Smitten .· 2. This charge generally links the notion of spatial form with Wyndham Lewis and Ezra Pound, the imagist movement, the "irrationality" and pessimistic antihistoricism of modernism, and the conservative Romantic tradition. Frank discusses the complex motives behind these associations in the work of Robert Weimann and Frank Kermode in his "Answer to Critics," pp. 238-48. W. J. T. Mitchell, editor of Critical Inquiry, is the author of Blake's Composite Art, and The Last Dinosaur Book: The Life and Times of a Cultural Icon. The present essay is part of Iconology: The Image in Literature and the Visual Arts. "Diagrammatology" appeared in the Spring 1981 issue of Critical Inquiry. Leon Surette responds to the current essay in "‘Rational Form in Literature’". (shrink)

Several decades of behavioral research have established that variations in socioeconomic status are related to differences in cognitive performance. Neuroimaging and psychophysiological techniques have recently emerged as a method of choice to better understand the neurobiological processes underlying this phenomenon. Here we present a systematic review of a particular sub-domain of this field. Specifically, we used the PICOS approach to review studies investigating potential relationships between SES and scalp event-related brain potentials. This review found evidence that SES is related to (...) amplitude variations in a diverse range of ERPs: P1, N1, N2, Error-Related Negativities, N400, auditory evoked potentials, negative difference waves, P3 and slow waves. These ERPs include early, mid-latency and late potentials that reflect a broad range of cognitive processes. In this review, all SES effects on ERPs appeared to reflect an impairment or a less efficient form of task-related neural activity for low-SES compared to high-SES individuals. Overall, these results confirm that a wide variety of distinct neural processes with different functional meanings are sensitive to SES differences. The findings of this review also suggest that the relationship between SES and some ERP components may depend on the developmental stage of study participants. Results are further discussed in terms of the current limitations of this field and future avenues of research. (shrink)

Two recent papers by Michael Burke bearing upon the persistence of people and commonplace things illustrate the fact that the quest for synchronic ontological economy is likely to encourage a disturbing diachronic proliferation of entities. This discussion argues that Burke’s promise of ontological economy is seriously compromised by the fact that his proposed metaphysic does violence to standard intuitions concerning the persistence of people and commonplace things. In effect, Burke would have us achieve synchronic economy (rejection of coincident entities) by (...) postulating strongly counterintuitive transtemporal claims of numerical diversity. The argument is made that the price of Burkean economy is too high. (shrink)

Two recent papers by Michael Burke bearing upon the persistence of people and commonplace things illustrate the fact that the quest for synchronic ontological economy is likely to encourage a disturbing diachronic proliferation of entities. This discussion argues that Burke's promise of ontological economy is seriously compromised by the fact that his proposed metaphysic does violence to standard intuitions concerning the persistence of people and commonplace things. In effect, Burke would have us achieve synchronic economy (rejection of coincident entities) by (...) postulating strongly counterintuitive transtemporal claims of numerical diversity. The argument is made that the price of Burkean economy is too high. (shrink)

This study investigates all available literature related to critical thinking in business education in a survey of publications in the field produced from 1990-2019. It conducts a thematic analysis of 787 articles found in Web of Science and Google Scholar, including a specific focus on 55 highly-cited articles. The aim is to investigate the importance of critical thinking in business education, how it is conceptualised in business education research, the business contexts in which critical thinking is situated, and the key (...) and more marginal themes related to critical thinking outlined in the business and business education literature. The paper outlines six key areas and topics associated with those areas. It suggests future directions for further scholarly work in the area of critical thinking in business education. (shrink)

This paper describes how some aspects of Martin Heidegger’s philosophy resonate strongly with an engineering outlook. He argued that practice was more “primordial” than theory, though preserving an important role for theoretical understanding as well, thus speaking to the gap between engineering education (highly theoretical) and engineering practice (mostly empirical). He also underlined the reality of “average” practices into which we are socialized, though affirming the potential for original work and action too, thus providing the grounds for self-actualization whether within (...) the routine or in transcending it. His notion of “thrownness” emphasizes the importance of context, with which engineers are constantly engaged. While all this relates to the idea of our “being”, Heidegger also dealt with the influence of time on our practices. Future death could be seen as spurring innovation, cultural history as a source for critiquing current practice and the present “situation” as the immediate context for corrective action. His major book is appropriately called “Being and Time”.1. (shrink)

The concept of supermatrix for social scientists was first introduced by Paul Horst. The main purpose of his book was to introduce this concept to social scientists, students, teachers and research workers who lacked mathematical training. This book introduces the concept of fuzzy super matrices and operations on them. The author has provided only those operations on fuzzy supermatrices that are essential for developing super fuzzy multi expert models. This book will be highly useful to social scientists who wish to (...) work with multi expert models. (shrink)

Sussman and colleagues provide no evidence supporting their claim that the human vocal production system is specialized to produce locus equations with high correlations and linearity. We propose the alternative null hypothesis that these features result from physical and physiological factors common to all mammalian vocal tracts and we recommend caution in assuming that human speech production mechanisms are unique.

Results of surveys in which pharmacy students and pharmacists responded to ethical dilemmas are discussed. Respondents indicated a high level of concern about patient welfare and patient rights in dilemmas involving conflicts with socio-economic issues, and with peers and physicians. Conflicts that might arise as the roles of pharmacists change and the health-care systems evolve are also discussed.

Arthur Fine's use of prism models to provide local and deterministic accounts of quantum correlation experiments is presented and analyzed in some detail. Fine's claim that "there is... no question of the consistency of prism models... with the quantum theory" (forthcoming, p. 16) is disputed. Our criticisms are threefold: (1) consideration of the possibility of additional analyzer positions shows that prism models entail unacceptably high rejection rates in the relevant experiments; (2) similar considerations show that the models are at (...) best only superficially local and deterministic; and (3) in any case, Fine extracts the quantum correlation statistics from prism models only by resurrecting conceptual problems similar to those that his models were to designed to solve. (shrink)

As individuals we often face complex issues about which we must weigh evidence and come to conclusions. Corporations also have to make decisions on the basis of strong and compelling arguments. Legal practitioners, compelled by arguments for or against a proposition and underpinned by the weight of evidence, are often required to make judgments that affect the lives of others. Medical doctors face similar decisions. Governments make purchasing decisions—for example, for expensive military equipment—or decisions in the areas of public or (...) foreign policy. These issues involve many arguments on all sides of difficult debates. These issues involve understanding the arguments of others and being able to make objections and provide rebuttals to objections. Students in universities deal with arguments all the time. A major purpose of a university education—regardless of subject matter—is to teach students how to read, understand, and respond to complex arguments. The ability to do this makes for highly employable, adaptable, and reflectively critical individuals. We often call the skill of marshaling arguments and assessing them “critical thinking.” All universities claim to instill the skill of critical thinking in their graduates and routinely note this in their advertising and promotional documents. This short paper outlines one way this skill can be taught. (shrink)

This paper calculates, in a precise way, the complexity of the index sets for three classes of computable structures: the class $K_{\omega _{1}^{\mathit{CK}}}$ of structures of Scott rank $\omega _{1}^{\mathit{CK}}$ , the class $K_{\omega _{1}^{\mathit{CK}}+1}$ of structures of Scott rank $\omega _{1}^{\mathit{CK}}+1$ , and the class K of all structures of non-computable Scott rank. We show that I(K) is m-complete $\Sigma _{1}^{1},\,I(K_{\omega _{1}^{\mathit{CK}}})$ is m-complete $\Pi _{2}^{0}$ relative to Kleen's O, and $I(K_{\omega _{1}^{\mathit{CK}}+1})$ is m-complete $\Sigma _{2}^{0}$ relative to O.

Two recent papers by Michael Burke bearing upon the persistence of people and commonplace things illustrate the fact that the quest for synchronic ontological economy is likely to encourage a disturbing diachronic proliferation of entities. This discussion argues that Burke’s promise of ontological economy is seriously compromised by the fact that his proposed metaphysic does violence to standard intuitions concerning the persistence of people and commonplace things. In effect, Burke would have us achieve synchronic economy (rejection of coincident entities) by (...) postulating strongly counterintuitive transtemporal claims of numerical diversity. The argument is made that the price of Burkean economy is too high. (shrink)

In Act 1 scene iv of Macbeth, Duncan reflects that: 'There's no art to find the mind's construction in the face'. In contrast, the claim that Andy Young sets out in this book is that we are now developing a science of face perception which can indeed shed light on certain aspects of mental life. Face and Mind consists of a series of seminal research and review papers on face perception published by the author and his colleagues over the last (...) 12 years. A comprehensive introductory chapter, written especially for this volume, serves to draw together the various themes explored in the different contributions. The book examines the question of how faces are special, in terms of their social, biological, and theoretical roles. In particular, Face and Mind seeks to determine what our understanding of the face can tell us about the human brain. It discusses the evidence for an evolved neural substrate for face perception, and the question of whether we are innately predisposed to recognise faces, to find them attractive, and to decode the many social signals they give us. The ability of the human brain to process and remember the many different faces that we see and subsequently recall is analysed. Young includes detailed studies of the types of impairment to face perception which can follow brain injury or psychiatric illness, and uses them to address these questions, as well as other issues of high intrinsic and interdisciplinary interest. These include the extent to which our mental lives result from the operation of discrete components devoted to different purposes, the differences between conscious and non-conscious processes, and how we use evidence to support our beliefs about the world. Because of the huge variety of social signals read from the face, it can offer unique theoretical and philosophical insights into these questions. This fascinating book will be of interest not only to psychologists and neuropsychologists working in the field of visual perception, but to cognitive scientists generally. It provides an excellent summary of the most important theorietical and empirical work done on face perception in recent years, and as such will be of interest to advanced undergraduate and post-graduate students in psychology, philosophy, and cognitive science. (shrink)

This expository essay relies on the views of scholars writing about Atlas Shrugged to make a case that it is a highly integrated work of imaginative literature. The article focuses on the ways in which integration is manifested in Atlas Shrugged. Part 1 examines the philosophical structure of the novel. Part 2 addresses literary structure. This is followed by a discussion of Rand's techniques of characterization. An analysis of the speeches and the theme of mind-body integration concludes the discussion.

In a simple economic decision problem with multi-tasking the dimensionality of the problem is neither a necessary nor a sufficient measure of complexity. Rather, dimension is good measure of complexity when there is an aggregate resource constraint that creates an interaction between the different activities, resulting in a problem with high algorithmic complexity.

Being and Time is a methodologically complex work, combining hermeneutic, transcendental, phenomenological, and ontological strategies in a provocative and not-obviously-stable concoction. In this article, I focus on one strand of the methodological puzzles raised by Heidegger’s undertaking: the problem of warranting the modal claims that occur frequently in the course of Heidegger’s project. In a number of crucial passages, we are told that one or another trait of Dasein is necessary, or that some ontic feature of Dasein would not be (...) possible were it not for some deeper ontological feature. I undertake to determine the logical form of these doctrines, and to consider what kind of evidence might suffice to establish them. I draw on Heidegger’s complex debt to Dilthey in proposing an interpretation of the notion of an existeniale, and I critically assess Taylor Carman’s treatment of Heidegger’s project as an extension of Kantian transcendental strategies. In the end, I argue, much comes to turn on one’s account of the semantics of Heidegger’s central term of art: “Dasein.” I identify shortcomings in two possible approaches to this problem: one takes the extension of the term to be antecedently fixed; the other fixes the meaning of the term by specifying its intension. I then explore an alternative semantics for “Dasein” under which the modalized doctrines of Being and Time can be considered de re necessities. All three of the semantic models that I consider here remain highly schematic – cartoons rather than fully elaborated portraits – and I do not mean to suggest that any of the three would suffice to capture the enormously complex semantic structure of Heidegger’s undertaking. Nonetheless, I argue that the third semantic model enjoys certain demonstrable advantages over the other two, both for mounting a defense of Heidegger’s modal propositions and as a schema for mapping the text of Being and Time. It also allows us to frame a challenge that any fully adequate semantic interpretation of Heidegger’s text would have to meet. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content: Unmasking the Maxim: An Ancient Genre And Why It Matters Now W. ROBERT CONNOR We live surrounded by maxims, often without even noticing them. They are easily dismissed as platitudes, banalities or harmless clichés, but even in an age of big data and number crunching we put them to work almost every day. A Silicon Valley whiz kid says, Move Fast and Break Things. Investors try to Buy (...) Low and Sell High. Investigative reporters Follow the Money. Others Follow their Bliss. The lavish host thinks, The More the Merrier, while the Modernist architect is sure that Less is More. Captains of Industry whisper to themselves, Me First; captains of sinking ships shout, Women and Children First. Be Prepared was the Boy Scouts’ marching song, while the Proud Boys Stand Down and Stand By, awaiting their marching orders. Maxims are perhaps the smallest members in a large family of speech acts, which among the Greeks included proverbs, oracles, riddles, blessings, curses and lamentations. Not all of these continue in use, but maxims have found companions—mottos, mantras, advertising tag lines and jingles, slogans, political rallying cries, hashtags, three- or four-letter acronyms and 280 character tweets from the goddess Twitter. Familiarity, however, can breed contempt, or at least inattentiveness to the full range of their influence. Sometimes what sounds at first like empty verbiage turns into action. Bruce Lee adapted an old Taoist saying when he said, Be Water, and thereby provided what was for a while a surprisingly effective strategy for protesters in Hong Kong. arion 28.3 winter 2021 6 unmasking the maxim Maxims empower, for good or ill. In the hands of bigots or ideologues, they can turn deadly. Sic Semper Tyrannis shouted John Wilkes Booth after shooting Abraham Lincoln. A manufacturer of assault rifles urged potential customers to Earn Your Man Card. How better to earn it than to obey 8chan, a web site favored by white nationalists, with its own maxim, Embrace Infamy. A devotee of the site did just that, perpetrating a mass shooting in El Paso, Texas. Maxims, then, should not be lightly dismissed. Since the ancient Greeks so relished maxims, they should surely be interrogated to help us better understand the power of these often underestimated speech acts. Before turning to the Greeks, however, the English word maxim needs a closer look. english “maxim” english borrowed maxim from a Latin phrase and boiled it down for everyday use. In Latin writings about logic, the expression maxima propositio, biggest proposition, denoted a statement that did not need to be proved, but could provide the basis for proof of other, lesser propositions. This phraseology goes back at least to Boethius in the sixth century of our era. It’s the equivalent of the generalizations that serve as the major premises in syllogistic logic. If this makes maxims sound like the axioms of geometry, that is historically right. The starting points of plane geometry are propositions that deserve to be accepted; even without proof that they are worthy of belief. That’s the meaning of the term axiōma. No one needs to prove that things equal to the same thing are equal to each other. Think about it; after a while it seems self-evident. It is worthy of assent. We might equally well call such an axiom a maxim; indeed, the earliest (1426) attested use of maxim in English is described in the Oxford English Dictionary as “an axiom; a self-evident proposition assumed as a premise in mathematical, or dialectical reasoning.” W. Robert Connor 7 This usage is now obsolete, but Thomas Jefferson understood the idea behind it, since he believed that there were such truths, waiting to be put to work in building a society where all people were equal and possess certain inalienable rights. He did not feel he had to prove these propositions; they were in his view self-evident. In using these ideas in his draft of the Declaration of Independence, he was, in effect, transferring to politics what Euclid had done in geometry. It was a swift, strategic stroke on his part, for, since self-evident truths require no argument or explanation, they focus discussion not on... (shrink)