The most defensible justifications of war in the European intellectual tradition hold that war is instrumentally necessary for the maintenance of peace and order. An investigation of Ancient Chinese philosophical attitudes towards war calls this assumption into question. The closest parallel to an instrumental concept of war is found in the Legalist school, but historical experience in China has rejected this. The Confucian school, especially Mencius and Xunxi, insists that war is not instrumental in creating social order, but derives from (...) the prior establishing of cultural and political authority, and thus must be punitive in nature. Even the use of “punitive expeditions” is not instrumental, but rather demonstrative or performative in nature, for if coercive methods are necessary, the authority to use them is arguably absent. War for the Chinese, then, is not justified by the necessity for creating public order, but is in itself a sign of the failure to achieve such an order. This contrasts sharply with the views of the dominant Western thinkers on war, such as Michael Walzer, whose positions insist upon the instrumental necessity of armed force, even to the point of absurdity. The ancient Chinese position suggests that this necessity may be ungrounded. (shrink)

In this book the author explores the shifting philosophical boundaries of modern medical knowledge and practice occasioned by the crisis of quality-of-care, especially in terms of the various humanistic adjustments to the biomedical model.

This article considers the application of sexual selection theory to the study of religion by discussing the basic concepts and theories in sexual selection and then outlines possibilities of its application to the study of the evolution of religion. The first section outlines basic principles in the sexual selection account, including the evolution of human mating strategies based on dimorphism, gender differences in human mating strategies, and the role of different cultural activities in mating dynamics. Such an overview may be (...) useful for the readers who are less familiar with the basic assumptions of the sexual selection theory. The remaining sections demonstrate how religion may function as a signal for mating qualities associated with a long-term mating strategy and how different facets of religiosity may help to support long-term mating strategies. The key idea of the article is that there are good reasons to try to explain the evolution of at least some of the components of religion in terms of sexual selection. (shrink)

A recent study has established that thinkers reliably engage in epistemic appraisals of concepts of natural categories. Here, five studies are reported which investigated the effects of different manipulations of category learning context on appraisal of the concepts learnt. It was predicted that dimensions of concept appraisal could be affected by manipulating either procedural factors or declarative factors. While known effects of these manipulations on metacognitive judgements such as category learning judgements and confidence at test were replicated, procedural factors had (...) no reliable effects on the dimensions of concept appraisal. Effects of declarative manipulations on some forms of concept appraisal were observed. (shrink)

Today, modern Western medicine is facing a quality-of-care crisis that is undermining the patient–physician relationship. In this paper, a notion of the epistemically virtuous clinician is proposed in terms of both the reliabilist and responsibilist versions of virtue epistemology, in order to help address this crisis. To that end, a clinical case study from the literature is first reconstructed. The reliabilist intellectual virtues, including the perceptual and conceptual virtues, are then discussed and applied to the case study. Next, a similar (...) method is employed to examine the responsibilist intellectual virtues, including curiosity, courage, honesty, and humility, and to apply them to the case study. To round out the discussion, the love of knowledge and both theoretical and practical wisdom are explored and applied to the case study. The paper concludes with a brief discussion of how the notion of an epistemically virtuous clinician addresses the quality-of-care crisis, in terms of the connection between ethical and intellectual virtues, and of the notion’s implications for medical education. (shrink)

The Covid-19 pandemic has challenged both medicine and governments as they have strived to confront the pandemic and its consequences. One major challenge is that evidence-based medicine has struggled to provide timely and necessary evidence to guide medical practice and public policy formulation. We propose an extension of evidence-based corona medicine to an organismic systems corona medicine as a multilevel conceptual framework to develop a robust concept-oriented medical system. The proposed organismic systems corona medicine could help to prevent or mitigate (...) future pandemics by transitioning to a bifocal medicine that extends an empirical evidence-based medicine to a theory-oriented organismic systems medicine. (shrink)

The predominant model of the body in modern western medicine is the machine. Practitioners of the biomechanical model reduce the patient to separate, individual body parts in order to diagnose and treat disease. Utilization of this model has led, in part, to a quality of care crisis in medicine, in which patients perceive physicians as not sufficiently compassionate or empathic towards their suffering. Alternative models of the body, such as the phenomenological model, have been proposed to address this crisis. According (...) to the phenomenological model, the patient is viewed as an embodied person within a lived context and through this view the physician comes to understand the disruption illness causes in the patient’s everyday world of meaning. In this paper, I explore the impact these two models of the patient’s body have had on modern medical practice. To that end I first examine briefly the historical origins of the biomechanical and phenomenological models, providing a historical context for the discussion of each model’s main features in terms of machine-world and life-world. Next, I discuss the impact each model has had on the patient–physician relationship, and then I examine briefly the future development of each model. The meaning of illness vis-à-vis each model of the patient’s body is finally examined, especially in terms of how these two models affect the patient’s interpretation of illness. The paper concludes with a discussion of the biomechanical and phenomenological models, in terms of the quality of care crisis in modern western medicine. (shrink)

A notion of experimental series is developed, in which experiments or experimental sets are connected through experimental suggestions arising from previous experimental outcomes. To that end, the justification of Howard Temin’s DNA provirus hypothesis is examined. The hypothesis originated with evidence from two exploratory experimental sets on an oncogenic virus and was substantiated by including evidence from three additional experimental sets. Collectively these sets comprise an experimental series and the accumulative evidence from the series was adequate to justify the hypothesis (...) by persuading the virology community of its veracity. The notion of crucial experiment is also discussed in terms of experimental series. (shrink)

Metaphysical presuppositions are important for guiding scientific practices and research. The success of twentieth-century biology, for instance, is largely attributable to presupposing that complex biological processes are reducible to elementary components. However, some biologists have challenged the sufficiency of reductionism for investigating complex biological phenomena and have proposed alternative presuppositions like organicism. In this article, contemporary cancer research is used as a case study to explore the importance of metaphysical presuppositions for guiding research. The predominant paradigm directing cancer research is (...) the somatic mutation theory, in which mutated genes are presumed to be ultimately responsible for explaining carcinogenesis. This reductionistic approach to cancer has been criticised recently, and an organistic approach has been proposed. The article concludes with a discussion of the reciprocal interaction of metaphysical presuppositions and scientific practices for investigating cancer's complex nature. (shrink)

A notion of experimental series is developed, in which experiments or experimental sets are connected through experimental suggestions arising from previous experimental outcomes. To that end, the justification of Howard Temin's DNA provirus hypothesis is examined. The hypothesis originated with evidence from two exploratory experimental sets on an oncogenic virus and was substantiated by including evidence from three additional experimental sets. Collectively these sets comprise an experimental series and the accumulative evidence from the series was adequate to justify the hypothesis (...) by persuading the virology community of its veracity. The notion of crucial experiment is also discussed in terms of experimental series. (shrink)

It is now—at least loosely—acknowledged that most health and clinical outcomes are influenced by different interacting causes. Surprisingly, medical research studies are nearly universally designed to study—usually in a binary way—the effect of a single cause. Recent experiences during the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic brought to the forefront that most of our challenges in medicine and healthcare deal with systemic, that is, interdependent and interconnected problems. Understanding these problems defy simplistic dichotomous research methodologies. These insights demand a shift in our (...) thinking from ‘cause and effect’ to ‘causes and effects’ since this transcends the classical way of Cartesian reductionist thinking. We require a shift to a ‘causes and effects’ frame so we can choose the research methodology that reflects the relationships between variables of interest—one-to-one, one-to-many, many-to-one or many-to-many. One-to-one (or cause and effect) relationships are amenable to the traditional randomized control trial design, while all others require systemic designs to understand ‘causes and effects’. Researchers urgently need to re-evaluate their science models and embrace research designs that allow an exploration of the clinically obvious multiple ‘causes and effects’ on health and disease. Clinical examples highlight the application of various systemic research methodologies and demonstrate how ‘causes and effects’ explain the heterogeneity of clinical outcomes. This shift in scientific thinking will allow us to find the necessary personalized or precise clinical interventions that address the underlying reasons for the variability of clinical outcomes and will contribute to greater health equity. (shrink)

The primary aim of this article is to develop and defend a conceptual analysis of safety. The article begins by considering two previous analyses of safety in terms of risk acceptability. It is argued that these analyses fail because the notion of risk acceptability is more subjective than safety, as risk acceptability takes into account potential benefits in a way that safety does not. A distinction is then made between two different kinds of safety—safety qua cause and safety qua recipient—and (...) both are defined in terms of the probability of a loss of value, though the relationship between safety and the probability of loss varies in each case. It is then shown that although this analysis is less subjective than the previously considered analyses, subjectivity can still enter into judgments of safety via the notions of probability and value. In the final section of this article, it is argued that the difference between safety and risk acceptability is important because it corresponds in significant ways to the difference between consequentialist and deontological moral viewpoints. (shrink)

What is medical progress? The answer to this question is often associated with advances in diagnostic technology, with greater understanding of disease or pathological mechanisms particularly at the molecular level, or with the discovery of drugs and the developmental of surgical procedures to treat diseases. However, this facile answer can be problematic. In a New York Times Magazine article, for example, Lisa Sanders (2003) recounts a lecture delivered to her first-year class, at a "white-coat" ceremony, by the medical school dean. (...) Half of what we—the faculty—teach you—the students—is nonsense, she was told, but we don't know which half. She illustrates what the dean said, with the following change in advice for .. (shrink)

In the seventeenth century, Newton published his famous experimentum crucis, in which he claimed that light is heterogeneous and is composed of rays with different refrangibilities. Experiments, especially the crucial experiment, were important for justifying Newton’s theory of light, and eventually his theory of color. A century later, Goethe conducted a series of experiments on the nature of color, especially in contradistinction to Newton, and he defended his research with a methodological principle formulated in “Der Versuch als Vermittler.” Goethe’s principle (...) included two elements: a series of experiments and resultant higher empirical evidence, which functioned as mediator between the objective and the subjective . Although the notion of experimentum crucis became popular among scientists for reconstructing experimental research and for justifying theories, especially for rhetorical purposes, Newton’s justification of his theory of light and color is best reconstructed in terms of Goethe’s methodological principle. Finally, Goethe’s principle has important consequences for the contemporary philosophical underdetermination thesis. (shrink)

Is knowledge in the natural sciences discovered or constructed? For objectivists, scientific knowledge is discovered through investigations into a mind-independent, natural world. For constructivists, such knowledge is produced through negotiations among members of a professional guild. I examine the clash between the two positions and propose that scientific knowledge is the concurrent outcome from investigations into a natural world and from consensus reached through negotiations of a professional guild. Specifically, I introduce the general methodological notion, instituting science, which incorporates both (...) the discovery and the construction processes in the generation of scientific knowledge. To that end, I use a case study from the biomedical sciences to illustrate the notion. I conclude with a discussion of how this methodological notion helps to address the debate between objectivists and constructivists over the generation of scientific knowledge, and of how it compares with others who have also attempted to address the debate. (shrink)

Robust clinical decision-making depends on valid reasoning and sound judgment and is essential for delivering quality healthcare. It is often susceptible, however, to a clinician’s biases such as towards a patient’s age, gender, race, or socioeconomic status. Gender bias in particular has a deleterious impact, which frequently results in cognitive myopia so that a clinician is unable to make an accurate diagnosis because of a patient’s gender—especially for female patients. Virtue epistemology provides a means for confronting gender bias in clinical (...) decision-making and for correcting or even preventing its impact. The medical literature on cardiovascular and coronary heart disease is used to illustrate the role intellectual virtues can play in redressing the deleterious impact of gender bias on clinical decision-making and practice. Finally, questions are considered surrounding the pedagogy of intellectual virtues for medical students and practicing clinicians in order to provide quality care for patients, regardless of gender. (shrink)

Intentionalism is the view that statutes should be interpreted in accordance with the intentions of the legislatures that produce them. As a theory of legislative interpretation, intentionalism has been very influential, but it has also been subject to much critical attention. It is claimed that legislatures will seldom have any relevant intentions, and that even if they did, we could not come to know them. I propose a modification of intentionalism that significantly mitigates the severity of these problems. I begin (...) by noting that legislation is seldom (if ever) written by an entire legislature. Instead, it is commonly written by individuals or subgroups acting as proxies on behalf of the legislature. I then argue that the reasons why legislation should be interpreted in accordance with the intentions of legislatures are equally applicable to the intentions of proxies. This is significant because proxies are much more likely to have ascertainable intentions. (shrink)

During the twentieth century, a controversy raged over the role of electrical forces and chemical substances in synaptic transmission. Although the story of the ‘main’ participants is well documented, the story of ‘lesser’ known participants is seldom told. For example, Alexander Forbes, who was a prominent member of the axonologists, played an active role in the controversy and yet is seldom mentioned in standard accounts of the controversy. During the 1930s, Forbes incorporated chemical substances into his theory of synaptic transmission, (...) advocating a complementarity model for the role of electrical forces and chemical substances. By focusing on Forbes and the axonologists, the controversy is simply more than a debate over ‘soup’ vs. ‘sparks’ but also involves the relative roles of electrical forces and chemical substances in synaptic transmission. The implications of this case study for the nature of scientific controversies are also discussed. (shrink)

Biology as a scientific discipline has relied heavily upon advances in chemistry and physics. An inherent danger in this relationship is the reduction of living phenomena to physico-chemical terms. Whitehead's Philosophy of Organism is utilized to examine current methodologies within biology and to evaluate their appropriateness for future research. Hemostatic regulation is employed to illustrate the applications of organistic concepts to biological research. It is concluded that understanding of living entities and their properties as well as possibly life itself will (...) require synthesis of the many analytical elements as informational structures. (shrink)

It is thought that a valid inference to a logically necessary conclusion must proceed from entirely necessary premises. Counter-examples show this is false. Perhaps while the truth of a necessary proposition may follow from non-necessary premises, its necessity cannot so follow. Counter-examples show this to be mistaken. Must anyone who comes to know the non-necessary premises employed in the various counter-examples have prior knowledge of the necessity of the conclusions of the counter-examples? I argue against this. It is true that, (...) for any necessary proposition, there must be necessary premises from which it may validly be inferred; but no one need use these, or know these, or know how to use them, in order to know the necessity of any proposition. (shrink)

Approaches to the analysis of theory choice in science studies often focus either on objective criteria or subjective values for evaluating theories or on critical experiments for testing theories. In the present article a historical case study in the biomedical sciences is reconstructed, in which experimentation was performed to choose between two competing theories of blood coagulation. Analysis of this case study reveals that experimentation exhibits a particular structure, composed of design, execution, and results, and specific characteristics, consisting of controllability, (...) reproducibility, plasticity, and fecundity. Although this structure and these characteristics are not used to replace objective criteria or subjective values of theory evaluation or to define critical experiments, they are instrumental for analyzing and understanding theory choice. (shrink)

In this article, I introduce the notion of horizon for scientific practice (HSP), representing limits or boundaries within which scientists ply their trade, to facilitate analysis of scientific discovery and progress. The notion includes not only constraints that delimit scientific practice, e.g. of bringing experimentation to a temporary conclusion, but also possibilities that open up scientific practice to additional scientific discovery and to further scientific progress. Importantly, it represents scientific practice as a dynamic and developmental integration of activities to investigate (...) and analyze the natural world. I use the discovery of the clotting factor, thrombin, and the experiments conducted by the Johns Hopkins physiologist, William Howell, on the enzymatic nature of thrombin to illustrate the notion of HSP. In a concluding section, I compare the notion of HSP to other notions for scientific practice proposed in the history and philosophy of science literature. (shrink)

Both religion and science provide powerful images of human origins and human nature. Often these images are seen as incompatible or irreconcilable, with the religious image generally marginalized vis-à-vis the scientific image. Recent genetic studies into human origins, especially in terms of common cellular features like the mitochondrion from females and the Y-chromosome from males, provide evidence for common ancestors called mitochondrial Eve and Y-chromosomal Adam. The aim of this paper is to expound upon the Judeo-Christian and western scientific images (...) of humanity with respect to human origins and human nature, especially in terms of possible reconciliation of the two images. (shrink)

In The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, Kuhn claimed that theory choice is a conversion experience and depends upon the personality or psychology of the individual scientist making the choice. Critics charged Kuhn with an irrational and a relativistic position concerning theory choice, arguing he advocated a subjective instead of an objective approach to how scientists choose one theory over another and thereby undercut epistemic accounts for the generation of scientific knowledge. In response to critics Kuhn insisted that his approach, although (...) subjective, was still rational in that the criteria—composed of epistemic values—determining theory choice operate both objectively and subjectively. Recent work in cognitive neuropsychology, particularly in the dual-process theory of cognition, supports Kuhn’s notion of theory choice. In this paper, I initially discuss Kuhn’s approach to theory choice, along with criticism of it and his response to the criticism, followed by an examination of the dual-process theory of cognition. I then explore the application of dual-process theory to Kuhn’s notion of theory choice, especially in terms of a historical case study from the biomedical sciences. I finally discuss briefly the implications of the dual-process theory for contemporary philosophy of science. (shrink)

This essay examines the metaphysical foundations of the natural sciences and Christian theology in order to complement the epistemic claims from both disciplines. These foundations include Robin Collingwood's notion of presuppositions and Ernan McMullin's epistemic and non-epistemic values. Specifically, the essay investigates the presuppositions and values of science and theology used for guiding and constraining the formation and evaluation of scientific theories and theological doctrines. Practitioners in both disciplines need to keep these presuppositions and values in mind when complementing epistemic (...) claims to form a comprehensive world picture. Complementing scientific and theological claims requires wisdom and restraint in analyzing the presuppositions and values that make such claims possible. For, theology without the input of science, and science without the input of theology, may lead to an impoverished world picture. (shrink)

Medicine is facing several significant challenges as the twenty-first century unfolds, which represent barriers or limitations that threaten to cripple the advancement of medicine and its practice. One of the responses to these challenges is the emergence of systems medicine. And one of the more pertinent challenges is identifying and clarifying systems medicine's conceptual and theoretical foundations. The present book represents a sustained effort to examine this challenge and to map the terrain by which to engage it and to pursue (...) possible solutions. This conceptual and theoretical challenge in particular needs to be addressed to ensure the future success of systems medicine. To that end the book explores the conceptual and theoretical foundations of systems medicine, including the major concepts of organicism, emergence, and robustness, and contrasts these concepts to those for biomedicine, including mechanism, resultant, and homeostasis. Moreover, this challenge is critical because its resolution provides the intellectual scaffolding necessary for structuring the concepts and theories required to understand and explain more adequately or completely biological, physiological, and pathological mechanisms and processes. Importantly, with a robust conceptual and theoretical scaffolding, systems medicine must be implemented interdisciplinary not only within the medical community but also within the social and political communities, which the COVID-19 pandemic made so painfully obvious. (shrink)

This book is about the human Soul and Ghost from an Engineer's point of view. It was written for the layperson, yet still contains the 'Souler Engineering' delta-equations, in the Chapter Attachments, for the advanced reader. Chapter - 1 begins at the beginning with the Supreme Being and the "Big Bang". Chapter - 2 contains the unique words, terms and definitions that will be used in this new Science of the Soul. Chapter - 3 describes and defines the Spiritual Energy (...) of all life. Chapter - 4 introduces the reader to radio and electronic signals in preparation for the 'electric analog'. Chapter - 5 describes the 'Soul' and 'Ghost' of human beings and presents the 'electric analog'. Chapters 6 through 9 further explain the human Soul in terms of the 'electric analog' for Life, Sex, Reproduction and Death. Chapter - 10 is about physical disease and health and the human Soul. Chapter - 11 is about the Human Mind. Chapter - 12 is about the power of the Human Mind. Chapters 13 through 20 are about The Pearls, Spiritual Medicine, Spiritual Health, the Spiritual Life and Spiritual Salvation, including the "Immortal Spiritual Fetus". (shrink)

Truth-talk exhibits certain features that render it philosophically suspect and motivate a deflationary account. I offer a new formulation of deflationism that explains truth-talk in terms of semantic pretense. This amounts to a fictionalist account of truth-talk but avoids an error-theoretic interpretation and its resulting incoherence. The pretense analysis fits especially well with deflationism’s central commitment, and it handles truth-talk’s unusual features effectively. In particular, this approach suggests an interesting strategy for dealing with the Liar paradox. This version of deflationism (...) has advantages over the formulations currently available in the literature, mainly because it offers a more satisfying account of the generalizing role deflationary views take as truth-talk’s central function. Explaining the notion of truth in terms of pretense generates some special concerns, but none we cannot address through careful consideration of how pretense operates in truth-talk and of the attitudes instances of pretending involve. (shrink)

Because recent contributions on world government in the international relations (IR) literature have focused on relatively nebulous issues, they are of limited usefulness for illuminating whether or not an actual world government would advance the human prospect. This question cannot be sensibly addressed unless in the light of a specific institutional proposal. Along the authority-effectiveness continuum separating the relatively ineffectual existent United Nations on the one hand, and the traditional world federalist ideal of the omnipotent world state on the other, (...) there are intermediate possibilities not subject to the respective disadvantages of the extreme endpoints of this continuum. (shrink)

Based on the results of open ended interviews with managers in a variety of organizational positions, moral questions encountered in everyday managerial life are described. These involve transactions with employees, peers and superiors, customers, suppliers and other stakeholders. It is suggested that managers identify transactions as involving personal moral concern when they believe that a moral standard has a bearing on the situation and when they experience themselves as having the power to affect the transaction. This is the first in (...) a research series of three papers. (shrink)

The lack of concrete guidance provided by managerial moral standards and the ambiguity of the expectations they create are discussed in terms of the moral stress experienced by many managers. It is argued that requisite clarity and feelings of obligation with respect to moral standards derive ultimately from public discussion of moral issues within organizations and from shared public agreement about appropriate behavior. Suggestions are made about ways in which the moral dimension of an organization's culture can be more effectively (...) managed. This is the third in a research series of three papers. (shrink)

Remhof contends that Nietzsche is a metaphysician. According to his Meta-Metaphysical Argument, Nietzsche’s texts satisfy the criteria for an adequate conception of metaphysics. According to his Constructivist Argument, Nietzsche adopts a metaphysical position on which concepts’ application conditions constitute the identity conditions of their objects. This article critically appraises these arguments. I maintain that the criteria advanced in the Meta-Metaphysical Argument are collectively insufficient for delineating metaphysics as a distinct field of inquiry and that the Constructivist Argument attributes a position (...) to Nietzsche that remains vulnerable to his evaluative and psychological indictments of two-world metaphysics. I conclude by discussing how these objections might help non-metaphysical readers of Nietzsche resist Remhof’s interpretation. (shrink)

In Vagueness and Contradiction (2001), Roy Sorensen defends and extends his epistemic account of vagueness. In the process, he appeals to connections between vagueness and semantic paradox. These appeals come mainly in Chapter 11, where Sorensen offers a solution to what he calls the no-no paradox—a “neglected cousin” of the more famous liar—and attempts to use this solution as a precedent for an epistemic account of the sorites paradox. This strategy is problematic for Sorensen’s project, however, since, as we establish, (...) he fails to resolve the semantic pathology of the no-no paradox. (shrink)

As organizations place greater emphasis on environmental objectives, business educators must produce the next set of leaders who can champion corporate environmental sustainability initiatives. However, environmental sustainability represents a polarizing topic with some students dismissing its importance and legitimacy. Limited research exists to understand student behavioral influences on sustainability education, especially as it translates to environmental sustainability behavior in the workplace. This gap challenges our ability as educators to understand how to best teach environmental sustainability in order to reach diverse (...) student mindsets. We apply the theory of planned behavior (TPB) to address this gap, investigating the influence of student attitudes, subjective norm, and perceived behavioral control on environmental sustainability intention and behavior. A structural model tested with student survey data finds that student attitude represents the strongest influence on environmental sustainability intention. The model also validates that subjective norm affects sustainability intention with students considering professors along with business leaders and politicians as valid references for sustainability knowledge. To tie the results to effective educational interventions, we use the TPB to organize an extensive review of the sustainability pedagogy literature and identify specific teaching recommendations for increasing the effectiveness of environmental sustainability education. (shrink)

In this paper, we set out what we see as a novel, and very promising, approach to resolving a number of the familiar linguistic puzzles that provide philosophy of language with much of its subject matter. The approach we promote postulates semantic pretense at work where these puzzles arise. We begin by briefly cataloging the relevant dilemmas. Then, after introducing the pretense approach, we indicate how it promises to handle these putatively intractable problems. We then consider a number of objections (...) to pretense views, taking this as an opportunity to provide more detailed explanation of what a pretense account amounts to, what the pretense approach commits us to, and why it is a promising approach in philosophy of language. (shrink)

Based on analysis of interviews with managers about the ethical questions they face in their work, a typology of morally questionable managerial acts is developed. The typology distinguishes acts committed against-the-firm (non-role and role-failure acts) from those committed on-behalf-of-the-firm (role-distortion and role-as-sertion acts) and draws attention to the different nature of the four types of acts. The argument is made that senior management attention is typically focused on the types of acts which are least problematical for most managers, and that (...) the most troublesome types are relatively ignored. (shrink)

In 1975 the Clarendon Press at Oxford published Peter Nidditch's edition of John Locke's An Essay concerning Human Understanding. In his Introduction Nidditch says that his edition “offers a text that is directly derived, without modernization, from the early published versions; it notes the provenance of all its adopted readings ; and it aims at recording all relevant differences between these versions”. As Nidditch goes on to acknowledge, the “relevant differences” were many, “requiring several thousand registrations both in the case (...) of material variants and in the case of formal variants ”. The textual history of Locke's Essay is extremely complicated. While there is no manuscript of the first edition of the book, there were four editions in Locke's lifetime, each new one containing extensive and significant revisions, as well as a posthumous edition published shortly after the author's death. There was a translation into French made with Locke's cooperation and published in 1700, and a Latin translation came out a year later. Nevertheless, Nidditch managed to record all the material variants in footnotes to the text, in a way that makes it fairly easy to track the changes that Locke made to successive editions of the book, and to locate points at which judgements had to be made as a critical text was established on the basis of the chosen copy text. Sometimes a critical edition succeeds in completely changing the way that a text is read. Peter Laslett's 1960 edition of Locke's Two Treatises of Government is a good example. Nidditch's edition of the Essay did not have that kind of very dramatic effect on Locke scholarship. Rather, it made it possible for those without direct access to all the early editions to engage in careful, historically sensitive studies of Locke's account of human understanding. The result was a slow revolution in Locke studies that continues to shed new light on even the most familiar aspects of the Lockean philosophy. (shrink)

Although the recent collapse and dissolution of the Soviet Union has significantly reduced the near-term probability of nuclear disaster, it constitutes wishful thinking to imagine that meaningful and effective global governance is possible in today's world. The term "global governance" suggests and implies a degree of order and control in the international community far beyond that which presently exists, and that in fact could only be achieved by means of a global government. The global governance myth has emerged to help (...) people cope with the uncongenial and presumably unavoidable reality that we are living in a world in which global government is impossible, and in which therefore the international condition is most accurately described as "international anarchy." A dysfunctional myth is a belief that not only is false, but that discourages and deters thought and action toward overcoming uncongenial realities which are not, in fact, unavoidable. Global governance, in all likelihood, falls into the category of dysfunctional myth. (shrink)