In arguing against the view that the ethical standards for business are separate from normal interpersonal standards, virtue theory has been applied to business ethics in a limited manner. Previous virtue theorists have argued that this separation need not occur because the virtues for succeeding in business are congruent with civic and personal virtues. However, they have neglected the fact that virtue theory stresses that virtues are formed to fulfil certain desires, ends, and purposes of the person. Since ends are (...) formed within a community, business and corporations should view themselves as members of the community which contributes to the ethical development of its individuals. Hence, I argue that business cannot have a separate standard of ethical behaviour than that of its community, because its goals are means which are subordinate to the ultimate goal of individual and community flourishing. (shrink)

In her recent article, “The One Necessary Condition for a Business Ethics Course: The Teacher Must be a Philosopher,” Ellen Klein argues that philosophers are best qualified to teach business ethics by virtue of their expertise in ethical theory. Klein likens her claim to that of Plato’s “philosopher-king,” who claimed that the philosopher is best suited to be “king,” because he possesses a theoretical understanding of justice. In response to Klein, I point to Aristotle’s objection to Plato, which shows that (...) theoretical knowledge of ethics is not sufficient for making a person ethical, because ethics requires both theoretical and practical knowledge. Ultimately, I argue that in order to have a successful business ethics class, one must address both the issues unique to ethical theory, and the particularstructures and contexts that are unique to making an ethical decision within the business environment. (shrink)

Dewey on The Emotions This paper explores John Dewey's theory of the emotions and his reasons for developing it. The author considers two competing accounts for why Dewey might have developed his theory: one based on his attempt to clarify rationality and one based on his attempt to make us morally responsive agents to nature. After a close examination of key texts, the author concludes that Dewey's theory is designed to make us morally responsive. Dewey's theory of the emotions (...) serves his purpose of arguing for our re-union with nature, in a manner similar, in fact, to Hegel, with the addition that Dewey makes it our express goal to be concerned for nature in our return to it. (shrink)

COVID-19 is unique in that it is the first global pandemic occurring amidst a crowded information environment that has facilitated the proliferation of misinformation on social media. Dangerous misleading narratives have the potential to disrupt ‘official’ information sharing at major government announcements. Using an interrupted time-series design, we test the impact of the announcement of the first UK lockdown on short-term trends of misinformation on Twitter. We utilise a novel dataset of all COVID-19-related social media posts on Twitter from the (...) UK 48 hours before and 48 hours after the announcement. We find that while the number of tweets increased immediately post announcement, there was no evidence of an increase in misinformation-related tweets. We found an increase in COVID-19-related bot activity post-announcement. Topic modelling of misinformation tweets revealed four distinct clusters: ‘government and policy’, ‘symptoms’, ‘pushing back against misinformation’ and ‘cures and treatments’. (shrink)

By closely examining the sources, movements, and persons of the Renaissance and the Reformation, Voegelin reveals the roots of today's political ideologies in this fourth volume of his _History of Political Ideas._ This insightful study lays the groundwork for Voegelin's critique of the modern period and is essential to an understanding of his later analysis. Voegelin identifies not one but two distinct beginnings of the movement toward modern political consciousness: the Renaissance and the Reformation. Historically, however, the powerful effects of (...) the second have overshadowed the first. In this book, Voegelin carefully examines both periods and their presence in modern thought. The Renaissance, represented by the works of Niccolò Machiavelli, Desiderius Erasmus, and Thomas More, is characterized by a struggle for balance. Machiavelli and Erasmus both looked to a virtuous prince to achieve order, one calling for brute force and the other for Christian spirituality to reach their goal. Also a participant in the first beginning of modernity, More was a complex thinker identified as a saint both of the church and of the communist movement. The issues he explored in _Utopia,_ as Voegelin demonstrates, indirectly gave rise to concepts that have profoundly affected Western history: colonization, imperialism, national socialism, and communism. Exploring the transition from the Renaissance to the Reformation is a brilliant chapter, "The People of God," which examines the sectarian movement. These pages contain the rich historical background that led to Voegelin's later conclusions about Gnosticism and its modern influences. Voegelin offers a controversial view of the Reformation as well as the political and religious situation directly preceding it. Yet he sheds light on the strengths and inadequacies of its key figures, Martin Luther and John Calvin. The driving force behind the Reformation stemmed solely from the powerful personality of Luther. What began as an abstract, purely technical discussion developed into a full-blown revolt. Later in the period, Calvin confronted the problems left behind by Luther and endeavored to create his own universal church to supplant the Catholic Church. His theory of a new elite would have a distinct impact on history. By examining the political ideas that first emerged during the Renaissance and Reformation, this fascinating volume provides a foundation for understanding the events of centuries to follow. (shrink)

Dewey's project -- Cultural and intellectual background -- Rehabilitating Dewey's psychology -- The nature of knowledge -- What we know -- Feeling, will, and self-realization -- Beyond modernist culture -- A new idealism.

This symposium provides five case studies of the ways that John Dewey's philosophy and practice were influenced by women or "weirdoes" (our choices include F. M. Alexander, Albert Barnes, Helen Bradford Thompson, Elsie Ripley Clapp, and Jane Addams) and presents some conclusions about the value of dialoging across difference for philosophers and other scholars.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Cause, Fault, NormJohn Z. Sadler (bio)Keywordscriminality, mental disorder, responsibilityThanks to the commentators for their fine work. In my brief comments I cannot address all that is raised, but can touch upon everyone’s discussion briefly.In her commentary, Gwen Adshead reflects on her experience as a forensic psychiatrist and therapist for violent offenders. Although Adshead discusses a number of important points, I found her insight into why some vices find their (...) way into psychiatric classification particularly compelling and thought provoking. I will here interpret these in my own terms. Dr. Adshead implies that a (perhaps) assumed folk psychology underlies our motivation to classify (as disorder) some, but not all vices. The contribution of this folk psychology does not depend on particular details, but rather, the folk psychology concerns the degree to which the vice–actor’s actions are amenable to explanation, or are transparently understandable or interpretable. We (think we) understand why prostitutes sell themselves and why tax evaders cheat; their folk psychologies are variously constituted by moralistic constructs like desperation, oppression, licentiousness, greed, opportunism, and indignation. In contrast, some offenses step outside our empathic realm: the pedophile, or the serial killer, or even the persistently acting-out child provoke onlookers to wonder, “There has to be something wrong with a person who does that!” “Loud” symptoms in themselves do not qualify; seemingly incomprehensible loud symptoms fit better into the “sick” category. Indeed, in a recent translation of Foucault’s lectures at the College de France, Foucault describes the “monster” as combining “the impossible and the forbidden.” (Foucault 1999, 56) When confronted with the impossible and forbidden, the lust for classification is irresistible.Adshead’s wonderment about the use of “really” to question the explanation of wrongful conduct (what’s “really” going on) leads naturally to Michael First’s discussion. The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM)-IV really tries to make a firm distinction between vice and mental disorder, and First describes the DSM approach.Drawing on his experience as the DSM-IV Text Editor, Dr. First provides a particularly lucid presentation of the distinction between what I call “vice” and mental disorder. He supplies vivid examples to illustrate his points. The DSM key for distinguishing disorder from vice is whether “the deviance or conflict is a symptom of a dysfunction in the individual.” As other commentators point out later, First notes that the “vice action” (a term coined by Morse in his own commentary following) may disguise a number of possible explanations: the car thief may simply be seeking thrills and profit, or may be motivated by a delusion—leading to alternative explanations for the behavior. Sometimes the explanation for vice actions are transparent—as in the red Mustang example, but other times they are not so clear. The DSM approach requires the clinician to [End Page 51] make an explanatory claim in order to distinguish the appearance of vice versus the appearance of disorder. I think everyone would agree that an explanation of the phenomenon is required in distinguishing vice from disorder, so that much can be accepted.In my view, the problems with the DSM account are three: (1) The requirement for an internal psychological dysfunction is an easy claim to make for virtually any vice condition. The prostitute’s vice may be attributable to childhood trauma, deviant social learning, pathological desire to sexually control others, and so on. The tax evader may in turn have a pathological resentment of authority combined with a desperate financial situation and a pathological denial and avoidance of paying taxes. Every misbehavior has its psychology, and if we proclaim this psychology is abnormal or deviant, then we have an “internal dysfunction.” Indeed, it is easy to proclaim a psychology as abnormal if it is less than an ideal response to circumstances, or even an adequate response to circumstances; after all, not everyone who is exposed to sexual trauma becomes a prostitute nor does every financially desperate individual cheat on taxes. The DSM’s overinclusiveness on this account defaults to an arbitrariness about what counts as a legitimate (or not) internal dysfunction. Here there will be great argument.(2) First (and later, Wells) admits there... (shrink)

Presumably, great men, including John Dewey, have great flaws. For decades, Dewey scholars assumed that the Hegelian cast of his early philosophy proved, prima facie, that it was merely derivative and hopelessly metaphysical in the worst possible sense of that term, as though nothing original or practically applicable to real life could possibly come from studying Hegel. I believe it is fair to say that, among Dewey scholars, the term “Hegelian” became an ossified pejorative that required little, if any, (...) explanation. “Hegelian,” and related terms such as “idealism” and “the dialectic,” were exempt from further inquiry. In recent years a growing number of scholars have taken closer looks at Dewey’s early writings.. (shrink)

Donald Morse’s Faith in Life. John Dewey’s Early Philosophy is an important and controversial book. As the author openly claims, his is the first attempt to offer a comprehensive account of Dewey’s early thought which does not simply consist in a teleological interpretation of his philosophical development. Traditionally, Dewey’s early writings have been considered interesting only because, and insofar as, they are believed to reveal something about Dewey’s particular version of empirical nat...

Stephen Morse seems to have adopted a controversial position regarding the mindbody relationship: John Searle’s non-reductivism, which claims that conscious mental states are causal yet not reducible to their underlying brain states. Searle’s position has been roundly criticized, with some arguing the theory taken as a whole is incoherent. In this paper I review these criticisms and add my own, concluding that Searle’s position is indeed contradictory, both internally and with regard to Morse's other views. Thus I (...) argue that Morse ought to abandon Searle’s non-reductive theory. Instead, I claim Morse ought to adopt a non-eliminative reductive account that can more easily support his realism about folk psychological states, and the existence of causally effective mental states in a purely physical world. (shrink)

Stephen Morse seems to have adopted a controversial position regarding the mindbody relationship: John Searle’s non-reductivism, which claims that conscious mental states are causal yet not reducible to their underlying brain states. Searle’s position has been roundly criticized, with some arguing the theory taken as a whole is incoherent. In this paper I review these criticisms and add my own, concluding that Searle’s position is indeed contradictory, both internally and with regard to Morse's other views. Thus I (...) argue that Morse ought to abandon Searle’s non-reductive theory. Instead, I claim Morse ought to adopt a non-eliminative reductive account that can more easily support his realism about folk psychological states, and the existence of causally effective mental states in a purely physical world. (shrink)

In this article a case is made for the importance of a previously overlooked phenomenon, physical empathy orcompathy,defined as the physical manifestation of caregiver distress that occurs in the presence of a patient in physical pain or distress. According to the similarity of a caregiver's response to the original symptoms, there can be four types of compathetic response: identical, initiated, transferred, and converted. Controlling for the compathetic response may involve narrowing one's focus and/or changing caregiver attitudes. Finally, we argue that (...) while the compathetic response may be beneficial to the caregiving relationship, enabling the provision of appropriate and adequate humane treatment and care, the caregiver must at times shield against the compathetic response in order to provide care. (shrink)

Back to the Concrete: A Pragmatist Response to Oppression Pragmatism is a vital tool for society today, both because it addresses our more pressing social problems and because it advances beyond other available solutions. As a good deal of recent European philosophy has shown, as in the cases of Adorno and Agamben, for example, our social life is mediated by abstractions that oppress us. With its focus on the immediacy of experience, pragmatism enables us to overcome these abstractions and return (...) to concrete life in a liberating way. I argue against Agamben, however, that the return to concrete life amounts to anarchism. I show that it leads to liberalism instead, along the lines laid out by Dewey in Liberalism and Social Action, in which freed individuality is compatible with the exercise of social intelligence and planning. (shrink)

This chapter addresses the potential contributions of neuroscience to legal policy in general and criminal justice in particular. The central question is whether neuroscience is relevant to legal policy. The chapter begins with speculation about the source of claims for the positive influence of neuroscience. It then turns to the scientific status of behavioral neuroscience. The next section considers the two radical challenges to current policies that neuroscience allegedly poses: determinism and the death of agency. The penultimate section addresses the (...) question of the specific relevance of neuroscience to legal doctrine, practice, and institutions. The final section points to some areas warranting modest optimism. The general conclusion, however, is that neuroscience is scarcely useful at present but may become more relevant as the science progresses. (shrink)

It is a mixed pleasure to see F. Matthias Alexander acknowledged in the fall 2007 issue of Education and Culture ("Dewey, women, and weirdoes: Or, the potential rewards for scholars who dialog across difference," 23[2], 27-62). As a professional descendant of Alexander who has been teaching the Alexander Technique (AT) for 30 years, I am glad to see Cunningham et al. including him in the list of positive influences in John Dewey's life. However, I believe Cunningham's contribution to this (...) article, "Shared explorations of body-mind: The reciprocal influences of Dewey and F. M. Alexander," falls short in its acknowledgement of Alexander and in one important aspect is incorrect. In this response, I hope to set the .. (shrink)

With precision and profundity born of 30 years of devoted study, John Boyle offers an essential introduction to St. Thomas Aquinas on Scripture, shedding helpful light on the goals, methods, and commitments that animate the Angelic Doctor's engagement with the sacred page. Because the genius of St. Thomas's approach to the Bible lies not so much in its novelty but rather in the fidelity and clarity with which he recapitulates the riches of the preceding interpretive Tradition, this initiation into (...) St. Thomas's vision of Scripture is itself an orientation to the Church's vision of Scripture, from the Fathers through and beyond the Middle Ages. St. Thomas's embeddedness within the Church's Tradition and his own historical context is integral to his approach to Scripture, yet it sets him at some distance from modern readers, for whom his interpretive vision may seem perplexing or even impenetrable. In this Primer, Boyle first provides an acclimation to this medieval context through a survey and explanation of pertinent technical terminology used by St. Thomas and characteristic of the scholastic theology of the time. With an eye to the medieval practice of considering Scripture according to the fourfold division of causes, Boyle builds on this initial foundation by exploring in turn St. Thomas's accounts of the end or use of Scripture (final cause), its divine and human authorship (efficient cause), its order and division (material cause), and its literary styles or genres (formal cause). Drawing on writings from across St. Thomas's corpus, but especially his work On the Commendation and Division of Sacred Scripture and the prologues to his biblical commentaries, Boyle masterfully elucidates both the hermeneutical principles and deep wisdom of the Angelic Doctor's approach to Scripture, imparting invaluable guidance not only for reading and understanding St. Thomas and other great masters of the Tradition, but also-and ultimately-for understanding Scripture in light of this Tradition and reading it with greater benefit and joy. (shrink)

The notion of proof is central to mathematics yet it is one of the most difficult aspects of the subject to teach and master. In particular, undergraduate mathematics students often experience difficulties in understanding and constructing proofs. Understanding Mathematical Proof describes the nature of mathematical proof, explores the various techniques that mathematicians adopt to prove their results, and offers advice and strategies for constructing proofs. It will improve students’ ability to understand proofs and construct correct proofs of their own. The (...) first chapter of the text introduces the kind of reasoning that mathematicians use when writing their proofs and gives some example proofs to set the scene. The book then describes basic logic to enable an understanding of the structure of both individual mathematical statements and whole mathematical proofs. It also explains the notions of sets and functions and dissects several proofs with a view to exposing some of the underlying features common to most mathematical proofs. The remainder of the book delves further into different types of proof, including direct proof, proof using contrapositive, proof by contradiction, and mathematical induction. The authors also discuss existence and uniqueness proofs and the role of counter examples. (shrink)

Despite recurring efforts, a gap exists across a variety of contexts between the protection of patients' safety in theory and in practice. This timely Research Handbook highlights these critical issues and suggests both legal and policy changes are necessary to better protect patients' safety. Multidisciplinary in nature, this Research Handbook features contributions from eminent academics, policy makers and medical practitioners from the Global North and South, discussing the essential facets concerning patient safety and the law. It highlights how the role (...) of legislation and case law has the potential to influence, both positively and negatively, medical practice and the quality of care. Chapters explore patient safety and the global health agenda; physiotherapy; 'non-therapeutic' clinical research with children; patient safety awareness in healthcare education; and the increasing use of robotics and artificial intelligence in healthcare. Outlining a wide range of international perspectives on patient safety and the law, this Research Handbook will appeal to academics and researchers specialising in health and medical law, human rights and healthcare regulation. It will also serve as a valuable resource for legal and medical practitioners alike, as well as clinicians and professionals working in healthcare governance. (shrink)

This chapter addresses the potential contributions of neuroscience to criminal justice decision-making and policy, with special emphasis on criminal responsibility. The central question is whether neuroscience is relevant to criminal justice. The general conclusion is that it is scarcely useful at present but may become more relevant as the science progresses. After explaining the meaning of criminal responsibility in use, the chapter speculates about the source of claims for the positive influence of neuroscience. The scientific status of behavioral neuroscience and (...) two radical challenges to responsibility neuroscience allegedly raises, determinism and the death of agency, are discussed next. Then, the specific relevance of neuroscience to criminal law and the use of neuroscience in criminal cases in the United States and abroad are addressed. The penultimate section points to some areas warranting modest optimism for the use of neuroscience in criminal justice. A brief conclusion follows. (shrink)

This paper develops a media theoretical extension of the communicative view on corporate social responsibility by elaborating on the characteristics of network societies, arguing that new media increase the speed and connectivity, and lead to higher plurality and the potential polarization of reality constructions. We discuss the implications for corporate social responsibility of becoming more polyphonic and sketch the contours of “communicative legitimacy.” Finally, we present this special issue and develop some questions for future research.

For this second edition, the editors have returned to Austin's original lecture notes, amending the printed text where it seemed necessary.

The paper introduces the communication view on Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), which regards CSR as communicatively constructed in dynamic interaction processes in today’s networked societies. Building on the idea that communication constitutes organizations we discuss the potentially indeterminate, disintegrative, and conflictual character of CSR. We hereby challenge established mainstream views on CSR such as the instrumental view, which regards CSR as an organizational instrument to reach organizational aims such as improved reputation and financial performance, and the political-normative view on CSR, (...) which highlights the societal conditions and role of corporations in creating norms. We argue that both the established views, by not sufficiently acknowledging communication dynamics in networked societies, remain biased in three ways: control-biased, consistency-biased, and consensus-biased. We discuss implications of these biases and propose a future research agenda for the communication view on CSR. (shrink)

_Explanation and Power _ was first published in 1988. Minnesota Archive Editions uses digital technology to make long-unavailable books once again accessible, and are published unaltered from the original University of Minnesota Press editions. The meaning of any utterance or any sign is the response to that utterance or sign: this is the fundamental proposition behind Morse Peckham's _Explanation and Power. Published_ in 1979 and now available in paperback for the first time, _Explanation and Power _grew out of Peckham's (...) efforts, as a scholar of Victorian literature, to understand the nature of Romanticism. His search ultimately led back to—and built upon—the tradition of signs developed by the American Pragmatists. Since, in Peckham's view, meaning is not inherent in word or sign, only in response, human behavior itself must depend upon interaction, which in turn relies upon the stability of verbal and nonverbal signs. In the end, meaning can be stabilized only by explanation, and when explanation fails, by force. Peckham's semiotic account of human behavior, radical in its time, contends with the same issues that animate today's debates in critical theory — how culture is produced, how meaning is arrived at, the relation of knowledge to power and of society to its institutions. Readers across a wide range of disciplines, in the humanities and social sciences, will welcome its reappearance. (shrink)

Within the burgeoning corporate social responsibility (CSR) communication literature, the question of the relationship between CSR practices and CSR communication (or between “walk” and “talk”) has been a central concern. Recently, we observe a growing interest in formative views on the relation between CSR communication and practices, that is, works which ascribe to communication a constitutive role in creating, maintaining, and transforming CSR practices. This article provides an overview of the heterogeneous landscape of formative views on CSR communication scholarship. More (...) specifically, we distinguish between three variants of such formative views: walking-to-talk, talking-to-walk, and t(w)alking. These three orientations differ primarily regarding the temporal dynamics that they ascribe to the relation between CSR communication and practices and regarding the object that is formed through communication. This new typology helps systematize the emerging field of research on CSR communication, and we use it as a compass to provide directions for future research in this area. (shrink)

Cross-sector partnerships are currently praised as capitalism’s key governance instrument to address development challenges. Although some concern has been raised about the effectiveness of such partnerships, little is known about their actual impact. Often it is assumed that partnership outputs transform straightforwardly into societal impact such as poverty alleviation. This article problematizes this assumption. Employing a critical micro-level study, which draws on a qualitative case study of a nongovernmental organization (NGO)–business partnership in Ghana, we examine how outputs provided by a (...) partnership are put to use and perceived as beneficial from the point of view of its beneficiaries. The findings show that the partnership results in what we term “competences without agency” since it provides new resources and knowledge to the beneficiaries but fails to generate the conditions for these to be transformed into significant changes in their lives. Drawing on the concept of empowerment, we propose a new framework, which conceptualizes “impact as empowerment” and highlights currently unrecognized dynamics, which contribute to shaping the ability of a partnership to serve as a development agent. (shrink)

Though the revised edition of A Theory of Justice, published in 1999, is the definitive statement of Rawls's view, so much of the extensive literature on Rawls's theory refers to the first edition. This reissue makes the first edition once again available for scholars and serious students of Rawls's work.

Theories of discourse bring to realism new ideas about how knowledge develops and how representations of reality are influenced. We gain an understanding of the conceptual aspect of social life and the processes by which meaning is produced. This collection reflects the growing interest realist critics have shown towards forms of discourse theory and deconstruction. The diverse range of contributions address such issues as the work of Derrida and deconstruction, discourse theory, Eurocentrism and poststructuralism. What unites all of the contributions (...) is a sense that it is essential to provide a realist alternative to the hitherto dominance of social constructionism, hermeneutics and postmodernism, over many of the issues discussed. By developing a realist perspective the different authors attempt to embed discourse within the structured nature of the reality of the world. Realism can situate language, discourse and ideology within context specific, or 'causally efficacious' circumstances. Realism can help to uncover issues of power, representation, and subjectivity and how discursive and other social practices produce real effects. This can help us understand the manner in which social structures are reproduced through various forms of ideology and discourse. And by knowing this, we can start to address questions concerning human emancipation and how the world is to be transformed. (shrink)

It is idle of [J. Hillis] Miller and [Wayne C.] Booth, and [M. H.] Abrams too, to talk about the methodology of interpreting complex literary texts before they have determined what interpretational behavior is in ordinary, mundane, routine, verbal interaction. The explanation for this statement lies in the logical and historical subsumption of literary written texts by all written texts. In the subsumption of written texts by spoken verbal behavior, in the subsumption of spoken verbal behavior by semiotic behavior, and (...) in the subsumption of semiotic behavior by whatever it is we are responding to when we use the word "meaning." If Professor Booth goes into his usual coffee shop to get his morning coffee, and says to the waiter, "I'd like a cup of coffee, please," and the waiter brings it to him, what has happened? What is the methodology of the waiter? It is not absurd to ask why the waiter does not bring the America Cup filled to the brim with unroasted coffee beans, nor why Professor Booth does not say, "I asked you for a cup of coffee, but you have brought me a cup of mostly hot water." Moreover, if Professor Booth searches the literature of linguistics and of psychology in order to locate those studies and experiments which will tell him about the methodology of the waiter, he will find very little. The original program of linguistics set forth a hierarchy of investigation, beginning with phonemics, and going on through morphemics, syntactics, semantics, to pragmatics. But as yet very little has been accomplished above syntactics. Psychologists, at least of the typical academic breed, seem to be unaware of the problem. Morse Peckham, Distinguished Professor of English and Comparative Literature at the University of South Carolina, is the author of Beyond the Tragic Vision, Man's Rage for Chaos, Victorian Revolutionaries, Art and Pornography, Explanation and Power: An Inquiry into the Control of Human Behavior, and two volumes of collected essays, The Triumph of Romanticism and Romanticism and Behavior. (shrink)

In the face of limited resources during the COVID-19 pandemic response, public health experts and ethicists have sought to apply guiding principles in determining how those resources, including vaccines, should be allocated.

This book continues and revises the ideas of justice as fairness that John Rawls presented in _A Theory of Justice_ but changes its philosophical interpretation in a fundamental way. That previous work assumed what Rawls calls a "well-ordered society," one that is stable and relatively homogenous in its basic moral beliefs and in which there is broad agreement about what constitutes the good life. Yet in modern democratic society a plurality of incompatible and irreconcilable doctrines--religious, philosophical, and moral--coexist within (...) the framework of democratic institutions. Recognizing this as a permanent condition of democracy, Rawls asks how a stable and just society of free and equal citizens can live in concord when divided by reasonable but incompatible doctrines? This edition includes the essay "The Idea of Public Reason Revisited," which outlines Rawls ' plans to revise _Political Liberalism,_ which were cut short by his death. "An extraordinary well-reasoned commentary on _A Theory of Justice_...a decisive turn towards political philosophy." --_Times Literary Supplement_. (shrink)

The renowned philosopher John Searle reveals the fundamental nature of social reality. What kinds of things are money, property, governments, nations, marriages, cocktail parties, and football games? Searle explains the key role played by language in the creation, constitution, and maintenance of social reality. We make statements about social facts that are completely objective, for example: Barack Obama is President of the United States, the piece of paper in my hand is a twenty-dollar bill, I got married in London, (...) etc. And yet these facts only exist because we think they exist. How is it possible that we can have factual objective knowledge of a reality that is created by subjective opinions? This is part of a much larger question: How can we give an account of ourselves, with our peculiar human traits DS mind, reason, freedom, society - in a world that we know independently consists of mindless, meaningless particles? How can we account for our social and mental existence in a realm of brute physical facts? In answering this question, Searle avoids postulating different realms of being, a mental and a physical, or worse yet, a mental, a physical, and a social. There is just one reality: Searle shows how the human reality fits into that one reality. Mind, language, and civilization are natural products of the basic facts of the physical world described by physics, chemistry and biology. Searle explains how language creates and maintains the elaborate structures of human social institutions. These institutions serve to create and distribute power relations that are pervasive and often invisible. These power relations motivate human actions in a way that provides the glue that holds human civilization together. Searle shows how this account illuminates human rationality, free will, political power, and human rights. Our social world is a world created and maintained by language. (shrink)

In The Construction of Social Reality, John Searle argues that there are two kinds of facts--some that are independent of human observers, and some that require..