This paper is concerned with the ambiguities and confusions that arise when studies of the ‘surveillance state’ are contrasted with studies of the ‘service state’. Surveillance studies take a largely negative view of the information capture and handling of personal data by Government agencies. Studies that examine Government service providing take a largely positive view of such data capture as Government is seen to be attempting to enhance service provision to individual citizens. This paper examines these opposing perspectives through a (...) series of case studies and concludes that a new understanding and methodology should be brought forward so as to create a reconciliation of these two points of departure for research. The call is for an holistic appreciation of data capture activities by Government so that researchers and public policy makers alike can appreciate and reconcile these competing perspectives. (shrink)

Creative Intelligence: Essays in the Pragmatic Attitude represents an attempt at intellectual cooperation. No effort has been made, however, to attain unanimity of belief nor to proffer a platform of "planks" on which there is agreement. The consensus represented lies primarily in outlook, in conviction of what is most likely to be fruitful in method of approach. As the title page suggests, the volume presents a unity in attitude rather than a uniformity in results. Consequently each writer is definitively responsible (...) only for his own essay. The reader will note that the Essays endeavor to embody the common attitude in application to specific fields of inquiry which have been historically associated with philosophy rather than as a thing by itself. Beginning with philosophy itself, subsequent contributions discuss its application to logic, to mathematics, to physical science, to psychology, to ethics, to economics, and then again to philosophy itself in conjunction with esthetics and religion. The reader will probably find that the significant points of agreement have to do with the ideas of the genuineness of the future, of intelligence as the organ for determining the quality of that future so far as it can come within human control, and of a courageously inventive individual as the bearer of a creatively employed mind. (shrink)

In 1947 America’s premier philosopher, educator, and public intellectual John Dewey purportedly lost his last manuscript on modern philosophy in the back of a taxicab. Now, sixty-five years later, Dewey’s fresh and unpretentious take on the history and theory of knowledge is finally available. Editor Phillip Deen has taken on the task of editing Dewey’s unfinished work, carefully compiling the fragments and multiple drafts of each chapter that he discovered in the folders of the Dewey Papers at the Special (...) Collections Research Center at Southern Illinois University Carbondale. He has used Dewey’s last known outline for the manuscript, aiming to create a finished product that faithfully represents Dewey’s original intent. An introduction and editor’s notes by Deen and a foreword by Larry A. Hickman, director of the Center for Dewey Studies, frame this previously lost work. In Unmodern Philosophy and Modern Philosophy, Dewey argues that modern philosophy is anything but; instead, it retains the baggage of outdated and misguided philosophical traditions and dualisms carried forward from Greek and medieval traditions. Drawing on cultural anthropology, Dewey moves past the philosophical themes of the past, instead proposing a functional model of humanity as emotional, inquiring, purposive organisms embedded in a natural and cultural environment. Dewey begins by tracing the problematic history of philosophy, demonstrating how, from the time of the Greeks to the Empiricists and Rationalists, the subject has been mired in the search for immutable absolutes outside human experience and has relied on dualisms between mind and body, theory and practice, and the material and the ideal, ultimately dividing humanity from nature. The result, he posits, is the epistemological problem of how it is possible to have knowledge at all. In the second half of the volume, Dewey roots philosophy in the conflicting beliefs and cultural tensions of the human condition, maintaining that these issues are much more pertinent to philosophy and knowledge than the sharp dichotomies of the past and abstract questions of the body and mind. Ultimately, Dewey argues that the mind is not separate from the world, criticizes the denigration of practice in the name of theory, addresses the dualism between matter and ideals, and questions why the human and the natural were ever separated in philosophy. The result is a deeper understanding of the relationship among the scientific, the moral, and the aesthetic. More than just historically significant in its rediscovery, Unmodern Philosophy and Modern Philosophy provides an intriguing critique of the history of modern thought and a positive account of John Dewey’s naturalized theory of knowing. This volume marks a significant contribution to the history of American thought and finally resolves one of the mysteries of pragmatic philosophy. (shrink)

Here is a comprehensive and practical guide to using the Five Element model in your daily life in ways that can improve your physical health, foster mental ease and clarity, create more emotional balance, and bring you closer to spirit. Having introduced the philosophical and practical principles of the Five Elements, the author invites you to 'live the book', immersing yourself in the many aspects of each Element during its corresponding season. He offers a range of methods of doing this, (...) including activities such as movement, cooking, gardening, journaling, visualisation, meditation, dialogue and self-acupressure. In working with each Element, he explores the three levels or expressions of human life - the physical (structures, organs, tissues and systems), the psycho-emotional (thoughts, beliefs, self-images, emotions and reactions), and the spirit. Detailed information is provided on each Element's specific attributes, associations, resonances and gifts, and anatomical illustrations are included for further guidance. An invaluable reference book for practitioners and students of Chinese Medicine who hope to become better practitioners to others, the book also provides the means to become a practitioner to yourself. (shrink)

This book explores the emergence of the modern higher education sector in the independent Irish state. The author traces its origins from the traditional universities, technical schools and teacher training colleges at the start of the twentieth century, cataloguing its development into the complex, multi-layered and diverse system of the early twenty-first century. Focusing on the socio-political and cultural contexts which shaped the evolution of higher education, the author analyses the interplay between the state, academic institutions and other key institutional (...) actors - notably churches, cultural organizations, employers, trade unions and supranational bodies. This study explores policy, structural and institutional change in Irish higher education, suggesting that the emergence of the modern higher education system in Ireland was influenced by ideologies and trends which owed much to a wider European and international context. The book considers how the exercise of power at local, national and international level impinged on the mission, purpose and values of higher education and on the creation and expansion of a distinctive higher education system. The author also explores a transformation in public and political understandings of the role of higher education, charting the gradual evolution from traditionalist conceptions of the academy as a repository for cultural and religious value formation, to the re-positioning of higher education as a vital factor in the knowledge based economy. This comprehensive volume will appeal to students and scholars of the Irish education system, educators and practitioners in the field, and those interested in higher education in Ireland more generally. (shrink)

The role of intensity in Aristotelian philosophy is obscure. The problem has historically been approached through his logic and categorical sense of motion. Scholars have largely failed to consider the role of intensity in psychology and ethics, the consideration of which greatly clarifies the situation. To this end, I identify three types of intensity present in the corpus Aristotelicum: comparative, modal, inceptive. I show that the intensity of physical contraries is primary in nature but is different from those found in (...) organic processes. I then show that the intensifications found in life, produced by the soul, are of paramount importance to Aristotle’s philosophy. Inceptive intensity is the backbone of psychical activities: concoction, sensation, pleasure, perception, effort, attention, and self-awareness. I outline two essential characteristics of these intensifications: (1) they imply an intransitive causality that is intrinsic to the entity’s nature or form; (2) that they involve an interaction of many parts which mutually amplify each other so that the whole is beyond (irreducible to) the totality of the parts. I end by comparing Aristotle’s views on intensity to contemporary ideas of emergence: feedback, holism, intentionality, and supervenience. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Introduction The World as Becoming How Time Arises for Organisms Human Time Eternal Return Conclusion on Realism and Idealism.

There is a belief that exercise has a major role to play in the current health and wellbeing agendas. Consequently, health interventions are implemented based upon the recommendations of the ACSM and similar exercise research organizations. However this development has been challenged through both social and political perspectives. Specifically accusations of medicalization have been raised against the increasing relationship between the exercise and medical domains. The purpose of this article is to present a similar critique of the growing emergence of (...) a medical paradigm within the exercise domain. In this instance the focus will examine the relationship between exercise professional, exercise science and the proposed medical paradigm. Through the use of philosophical essay and systematic review of literature, it is argued that a continuing shift by exercise science to mirror the medical paradigm will cause a number of issues and potential hazards in the working practices of its professionals. (shrink)

This collection of essays explores the metaphysical thesis that the living world is not made up of substantial particles or things, as has often been assumed, but is rather constituted by processes. The biological domain is organised as an interdependent hierarchy of processes, which are stabilised and actively maintained at different timescales. Even entities that intuitively appear to be paradigms of things, such as organisms, are actually better understood as processes. Unlike previous attempts to articulate processual views of biology, which (...) have tended to use Alfred North Whitehead’s panpsychist metaphysics as a foundation, this book takes a naturalistic approach to metaphysics. It submits that the main motivations for replacing an ontology of substances with one of processes are to be found in the empirical findings of science. Biology provides compelling reasons for thinking that the living realm is fundamentally dynamic, and that the existence of things is always conditional on the existence of processes. The phenomenon of life cries out for theories that prioritise processes over things, and it suggests that the central explanandum of biology is not change but rather stability, or more precisely, stability attained through constant change. This edited volume brings together philosophers of science and metaphysicians interested in exploring the consequences of a processual philosophy of biology. The contributors draw on an extremely wide range of biological case studies, and employ a process perspective to cast new light on a number of traditional philosophical problems, such as identity, persistence, and individuality. (shrink)

In Romances with Schools, John Goodlad steps out from behind the public persona of distinguished scholar and advocate for public schooling to offer a moving personal account of a life devoted to educating the young. He deftly interweaves fascinating personal details with reflections on many of the larger issues in education that he has explored throughout his career.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Concept of Experience in Locke and Hume JOHN W. YOLTON THE EMPIRICISTPROGRAM has been designed to show that all conscious experience "comes from" unconscious encounters with the environment, and that all intellectual contents (concepts, ideas) derive from some conscious experiential component. Some empiricists, but not all, have also argued that experience reports about the world. A strict empiricism would have to reject this latter claim, as Hume (...) did, although even to consider the possibility of knowledge being related to an external world is to operate on a reflective level, to seek to make sense of experience. The distinction between an account of the nature of experience--its structure, relations, and contents-and explanations of experience--its causal antecedents, its reference--is an important one. The phrase "the concept of experience" refers to the use made of some account of experience. The concept of experience need not be restricted to the experiential contents. Thus, Locke sought to show how experience is of the world, Hume tried to show how experience restricts our valid conceptual contents to certain sorts of ideas, eliminating others. Any account of experience will already be a conceptualization of experience: it must be made from the reflective level. But the account need be no more than a careful record of how the organism comes to the conscious level. Of course, such an account cannot be a straightforward description, since we cannot directly observe all of the processes operating in the production of awareness. The psychology of awareness is forced to extrapolate and conjecture. Nevertheless, we can still distinguish the psychological or descriptive account of experience from the metaphysical use made of that account. It is my purpose here to explore the accounts given and the uses made of experience by two representative empiricists, that is, by philosophers whom we look upon as advancing the empiricist metaphysic of experience. Locke's Derivation o[ Ideas From Experience Locke claimed that all mental contents come from two sources, sensory experience of the world and introspective awareness of our mental processes. The program of Book II of his Essay was to exemplify, by reference to a [53] 54 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY number of different ideas and concepts, this derivation of our mental contents. The counter claim for Locke was innatism, the view held by many of his contemporaries and refuted in the first book of his Essay. In order to appreciate what Locke's alternative to innatism was, we must try to discover what the program of derivation of ideas amounts to in his epistemology and what precisely he understood by the term "experience." We must first note that he offers the program of derivation in conjunction with a complex theory of mental operations. H. H. Price has remarked that it is "historically false that the empiricist thought the human mind passive. It would be more just to criticize them for making it more active than it can possibly be.''1 Mental processes play a most active and decisive role in the genesis of all ideas in Locke's account. In the case of simple ideas of sense even, the mind must be attentive to what the senses report, else that report will go unrecorded, or be recorded only at the neural level (II, I, #6, #8, and II, IX, #3). Locke frequently draws the distinction between mental contents or processes and physical processes. In the "Epistle to the Reader," where he defines "idea," he is careful to distinguish idea from the sound we "use as a sign of it." In I, I, #2 he draws a distinction between the "physical consideration of the mind" and the non-physical consideration, although he does not have a name for the latter. He also speaks there of "sensations by our organs" and "ideas in our understanding." Locke disclaimed any intention of going into the physical account of sensation. He simply accepted the current corpuscular theory. But although he is not always as precise as we would be about the physical and physiological levels of encounter, in distinction from the mental levels, he does hold to this division. II, I, #3, for instance, speaks of the senses conveying "into the mind" several "distinct perceptions... (shrink)

Analytic metaphysics has recently discovered biology as a means of grounding metaphysical theories. This has resulted in long-standing metaphysical puzzles, such as the problems of personal identity and material constitution, being increasingly addressed by appeal to a biological understanding of identity. This development within metaphysics is in significant tension with the growing tendency amongst philosophers of biology to regard biological identity as a deep puzzle in its own right, especially following recent advances in our understanding of symbiosis, the evolution of (...) multi-cellular organisms and the inherently dynamical character of living systems. Moreover, and building on these biological insights, the broadly substance ontological framework of metaphysical theories of biological identity appears problematic to a growing number of philosophers of biology who invoke process ontology instead. This volume addresses this tension, exploring to what extent it can be dissolved. For this purpose, the volume presents the first selection of essays exclusively focused on biological identity and written by experts in metaphysics, the philosophy of biology and biology. The resulting cross-disciplinary dialogue paves the way for a convincing account of biological identity that is both metaphysically constructive and scientifically informed, and will be of interest to metaphysicians, philosophers of biology and theoretical biologists. (shrink)

Preface.--Introductory.--Standards of welfare.--Ethics in the evolution of economic science.--The ethics of economic life.--Organic reforms of the economic system.--Appendix: Bibliography, questions, and subjects for study (p. [457]-475)--Indes.

Being both ethical and successful is challenging. The rewards of unethical behavior are often greater than the price paid for misbehavior. This book explains why leaders, seeking to run ethical and successful organizations, cannot depend only on the law and their organizations to make moral business decisions. The authors explore why making ethical business decisions is harder than is generally understood, and explores the difficulties leaders face as a result of differences in context, circumstances, and other challenges to ethical behavior, (...) such as misleading rhetoric, inappropriate role models, cognitive dissonance and motivated forgetting. They argue that individuals need to establish ethical baselines that they will not cross when making decisions and explain how to do this systematically. The Challenge of Leading an Ethical and Successful Organization offers ways of handling ethical dilemmas successfully. It explores the need to determine in advance the potential areas of ethical conflict, and the potential costs of such conflicts and provides leaders with a practical ethical framework to reconcile ethics with business success. This book is essential reading for professionals, consultants, and academics interested in the ethics of leadership and management. (shrink)

Drawing on arguments in Doris (2002, 2022) [Lack of Character: Personality and Moral Behavior. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press; Character Trouble: Undisciplined Essays on Moral Agency and Personality. Oxford: Oxford University Press], this essay argues that good character is typically an insufficient “bulwark” against misconduct in military organizations, for two reasons: (1) the situational sensitivity of behavior and (2) the relatively small effect sizes associated with personality variables. Additionally, what is known about moral development and education gives limited reason to think (...) organizations are likely to have much success in inculcating reliably good character in their members. Instead, military organizations concerned to reduce misconduct should focus on developing organizational cultures structured by carefully crafted and assiduously enforced moral rules. (shrink)

Drawing on arguments in Doris (2002, 2022) [Lack of Character: Personality and Moral Behavior. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press; Character Trouble: Undisciplined Essays on Moral Agency and Personality. Oxford: Oxford University Press], this essay argues that good character is typically an insufficient “bulwark” against misconduct in military organizations, for two reasons: (1) the situational sensitivity of behavior and (2) the relatively small effect sizes associated with personality variables. Additionally, what is known about moral development and education gives limited reason to think (...) organizations are likely to have much success in inculcating reliably good character in their members. Instead, military organizations concerned to reduce misconduct should focus on developing organizational cultures structured by carefully crafted and assiduously enforced moral rules. (shrink)

As Louisiana and Cuba emerged from slavery in the late nineteenth century, each faced the question of what rights former slaves could claim. Degrees of Freedom compares and contrasts these two societies in which slavery was destroyed by war, and citizenship was redefined through social and political upheaval. Both Louisiana and Cuba were rich in sugar plantations that depended on an enslaved labor force. After abolition, on both sides of the Gulf of Mexico, ordinary people-cane cutters and cigar workers, laundresses (...) and labor organizers-forged alliances to protect and expand the freedoms they had won. But by the beginning of the twentieth century, Louisiana and Cuba diverged sharply in the meanings attributed to race and color in public life, and in the boundaries placed on citizenship. Louisiana had taken the path of disenfranchisement and state-mandated racial segregation; Cuba had enacted universal manhood suffrage and had seen the emergence of a transracial conception of the nation. What might explain these differences? Moving through the cane fields, small farms, and cities of Louisiana and Cuba, Rebecca Scott skillfully observes the people, places, legislation, and leadership that shaped how these societies adjusted to the abolition of slavery. The two distinctive worlds also come together, as Cuban exiles take refuge in New Orleans in the 1880s, and black soldiers from Louisiana garrison small towns in eastern Cuba during the 1899 U.S. military occupation. Crafting her narrative from the words and deeds of the actors themselves, Scott brings to life the historical drama of race and citizenship in postemancipation societies. (shrink)

Philanthropy and American Higher Education follows the issues that have persisted in giving and receiving philanthropy to American colleges and universities from the seventeenth century to present day. Through historical, philosophical, economic and legal perspectives, along with data analysis, Thelin and Trollinger outline their belief that support of higher education through philanthropy is central to the historic and future character of colleges and universities. This timely work is essential to the present and future financial planning and academic direction of institutions, (...) and the future of philanthropy for colleges and universities across the country. (shrink)

The purpose of this paper is to explore some of the moral problems that arise out of the interrelationships between individuals and formal organizations in our society. In particular, I shall be concerned with the moral implications of the so-called ideal of rationality of formal organizations with regard to, on the one hand, the obligations of individuals both inside and outside an organization to that organization and, on the other hand, the moral responsibilities of organizations to individuals and to the (...) public at large. I shall argue that certain facets of the organizational ideal are incompatible with the ordinary principles of morality and that the dilemma created by this incompatibility is one source of alienation in our contemporary, industrial society. The very conception of a formal organization or bureaucracy presents us with an ideological challenge that desperately needs to be met in some way or other. (shrink)

Synthetic organisms are at the same time organisms and artifacts. In this paper we aim to determine whether such entities have a good of their own, and so are candidates for being directly morally considerable. We argue that the good of non-sentient organisms is grounded in an etiological account of teleology, on which non-sentient organisms can come to be teleologically organized on the basis of their natural selection etiology. After defending this account of teleology, we argue that there are no (...) grounds for excluding synthetic organisms from having a good also grounded in their teleological organization. However, this comes at a cost; traditional artifacts will also be seen as having a good of their own. We defend this as the best solution to the puzzle about what to say about the good of synthetic organisms. (shrink)

Introduction -- A concept of bodies politic -- Above, below, and alongside the subject -- Bodies politic -- Bodies politic as organisms -- The organism in Aristotle and Kant -- The anorganic body in Deleuze and Guattari -- Love, rage, and fear -- Terri Schiavo : the somatic body politic -- The Columbine High School massacre : the transverse body politic -- Hurricane Katrina : the governmental body politic -- Conclusion.

Exploring the relevance of biological discovery to philosophical topics such as perception, freedom, determinism, and ethical values, J.Z. Young's provocative book illuminates the significant links between these philosophical concepts and recent developments in biology and the neurosciences. In clear-cut language, Young describes the brain and its functions, examining questions concerning physical makeup versus "real" self, the awareness of our moral sense, and how human consciousness differs from that of other animals. He approaches perception not as a passive process but as (...) an active search for information, suggesting that human knowledge develops from a special process--essential to all organisms--of gathering information for survival. (shrink)

Analytic metaphysics has recently discovered biology as a means of grounding metaphysical theories. This has resulted in long-standing metaphysical puzzles, such as the problems of personal identity and material constitution, being increasingly addressed by appeal to a biological understanding of identity. This development within metaphysics is in significant tension with the growing tendency amongst philosophers of biology to regard biological identity as a deep puzzle in its own right, especially following recent advances in our understanding of symbiosis, the evolution of (...) multi-cellular organisms and the inherently dynamical character of living systems. Moreover, and building on these biological insights, the broadly substance ontological framework of metaphysical theories of biological identity appears problematic to a growing number of philosophers of biology who invoke process ontology instead. This volume addresses this tension, exploring to what extent it can be dissolved. For this purpose, the volume presents the first selection of essays exclusively focused on biological identity and written by experts in metaphysics, the philosophy of biology and biology. The resulting cross-disciplinary dialogue paves the way for a convincing account of biological identity that is both metaphysically constructive and scientifically informed, and will be of interest to metaphysicians, philosophers of biology and theoretical biologists. (shrink)

The central dogma of biology holds that genetic information normally flows from DNA to RNA to protein. As a consequence it has been generally assumed that genes generally code for proteins, and that proteins fulfil not only most structural and catalytic but also most regulatory functions, in all cells, from microbes to mammals. However, the latter may not be the case in complex organisms. A number of startling observations about the extent of non-protein-coding RNA (ncRNA) transcription in the higher eukaryotes (...) and the range of genetic and epigenetic phenomena that are RNA-directed suggests that the traditional view of the structure of genetic regulatory systems in animals and plants may be incorrect. ncRNA dominates the genomic output of the higher organisms and has been shown to control chromosome architecture, mRNA turnover and the developmental timing of protein expression, and may also regulate transcription and alternative splicing. This paper re-examines the available evidence and suggests a new framework for considering and understanding the genomic programming of biological complexity, autopoletic development and phenotypic variation. BioEssays 25:930-939,2003. (C) 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. (shrink)

Ziege’s book focuses primarily on the two main empirical studies carried out by Max Horkheimer’s Institute of Social Research during its exile in the United States in the 1940s: a relatively unknown and never-published study of anti-Semitism among American workers and the much better known, five-volume Studies in Prejudice. Ziege poses and successfully answers the question of why the Institute began to focus more on empirical studies and anti-Semitism in the 1940s. Her thorough archival research illuminates as never before the (...) Institute’s relations to the main organizations that funded its ambitious empirical projects during this time: the American Jewish Committee and the Jewish Labor Committee. She also provides the richest existing account of how the experience of American exile affected the Institute’s theoretical premises and empirical work. By distinguishing between the Institute’s ‘esoteric’ theoretical assumptions, which maintained a large degree of continuity with its earlier work, and a willingness to work at the ‘exoteric’ level with many scholars who didn’t share these assumptions, Ziege explains how the Institute made certain concessions to mainstream American academic culture without ever abandoning the radical intentions of Critical Theory. (shrink)

In their target article, Nielsen Busch and Mjaaland seek to shift focus away from controversy over whether donors in protocols of controlled donation after circulatory death (cDCD) are dead. Citing...

Humans are a kind of animal, and it is a natural and sensible idea that the way to understand what it is for a human person to persist over time is to reflect on what it is for an animal to persist. This paper accepts this strategy. However, especially in the light of a range of recent biological findings, the persistence of animals turns out to be much more problematic than is generally supposed. The main philosophical premise of the paper (...) is that living systems generally are best treated as processes rather than things. These processes prove to be so complexly intertwined and interdependent, that there is no unique, objective way of distinguishing the individuals from which they are composed. For this reason the animalist perspective, it is argued, problematizes as much as it resolves the problem of personal identity. Traditional concerns with responsibility and reactive attitudes provide an intelligible and defensible motivation for distinguishing the individuals we standardly assume as the explanandum in these discussions. But, from a biological point of view, the underlying individualism is a contingent perspective, as much justified by these concerns as providing an objective grounding for them. (shrink)

This book redraws the intellectual map and sets the agenda in philosophy for the next fifty or so years. By making the theory of signs the dominant theme in Four Ages of Understanding, John Deely has produced a history of philosophy that is innovative, original, and complete. The first full-scale demonstration of the centrality of the theory of signs to the history of philosophy, Four Ages of Understanding provides a new vantage point from which to review and reinterpret the (...) development of intellectual culture at the threshold of "globalization". Deely examines the whole movement of past developments in the history of philosophy in relation to the emergence of contemporary semiotics as the defining moment of Postmodernism. Beginning traditionally with the Pre-Socratic thinkers of early Greece, Deely gives an account of the development of the notion of signs and of the general philosophical problems and themes which give that notion a context through four ages: Ancient philosophy, covering initial Greek thought; the Latin age, philosophy in European civilization from Augustine in the 4th century to Poinsot in the 17th; the Modern period, beginning with Descartes and Locke; and the Postmodern period, beginning with Charles Sanders Peirce and continuing to the present. Reading the complete history of philosophy in light of the theory of the sign allows Deely to address the work of thinkers never before included in a general history, and in particular to overcome the gap between Ockham and Descartes which has characterized the standard treatments heretofore. One of the essential features of the book is the way in which it shows how the theme of signs opens a perspective for seeing the Latin Age from its beginning with Augustine to the work of Poinsot as an indigenous development and organic unity under which all the standard themes of ontology and epistemology find a new resolution and place. A magisterial general history of philosophy, Deely's book provides both a strong background to semiotics and a theoretical unity between philosophy's history and its immediate future. With Four Ages of Understanding Deely sets a new agenda for philosophy as a discipline entering the 21st century. (shrink)

Contending discourses underlie many of the worlds most intractable conflicts, producing misery and violence. This is especially true in the post-9/11 world. However, contending discourses can also open the way to greater dialogue in global civil society and across states and international organizations. This possibility holds even for the most murderous sorts of conflicts in deeply divided societies. In this timely and original book, John Dryzek examines major contemporary conflicts in terms of clashing discourses. Topics covered include the alleged (...) clash of civilizations; societies divided by ethnicity, nationality, or religion; economic globalization versus resistance; plus an in-depth discussion of the 'war on terror'. Dryzek concludes by highlighting the limitations of current neoconservative and cosmopolitan approaches, arguing that only deliberative global politics offers unprecedented new possibilities for democratic engagement in the international system. This book will be of interest to students and scholars of international relations, politics, philosophy, and sociology. (shrink)

Organisms engage in various activities that are directed at objects, whether real or imagined. Such activities may be termed “intentional relations.” We present a four-level framework of social understanding that organizes the ways in which social organisms represent the intentional relations of themselves and other agents. We presuppose that the information available to an organism about its own intentional relations (or first person information) is qualitatively different from the information available to that organism about other agents’ intentional relations (or third (...) person information). However, through the integration of these two sources of information, it is possible to generate representations of intentional relations that are uniformly applicable to the activities of both self and other. The four levels of the framework differ in the extent to which such integration occurs and in the degree to which imagination is involved in generating these representations. Most animals exist at the lowest level, at which integration of first and third person sources of information does not occur. Of nonhuman species, only great apes exhibit social understanding at intermediate levels, at which integration of these sources of information provides uniform representations of intentional relations. Only humans attain the highest level, at which it is possible to represent intentional relations with mental objects. We propose that with the development of the imagination, children progress through three stages, equivalent to the later three levels of the framework. The abnormalities in social understanding of autistic individuals are hypothesized to result from a failure to develop integrated representations of intentional relations. (shrink)

Thomas Kuhn described the progress of science as comprising occasional paradigm shifts separated by interludes of ‘normal science’. The paradigm that has held sway since the inception of molecular biology is that genes (mainly) encode proteins. In parallel, theoreticians posited that mutation is random, inferred that most of the genome in complex organisms is non‐functional, and asserted that somatic information is not communicated to the germline. However, many anomalies appeared, particularly in plants and animals: the strange genetic phenomena of paramutation (...) and transvection; introns; repetitive sequences; a complex epigenome; lack of scaling of (protein‐coding) genes and increase in ‘noncoding’ sequences with developmental complexity; genetic loci termed ‘enhancers’ that control spatiotemporal gene expression patterns during development; and a plethora of ‘intergenic’, overlapping, antisense and intronic transcripts. These observations suggest that the original conception of genetic information was deficient and that most genes in complex organisms specify regulatory RNAs, some of which convey intergenerational information. Also see the video abstract here: https://youtu.be/qxeGwahBANw. (shrink)

The debate over whether brain death is death has focused on whether individuals who have sustained total brain failure have satisfied the biological definition of death as “the irreversible loss of the integration of the organism as a whole.” In this paper, I argue that what it means for an organism to be integrated “as a whole” is undefined and vague in the views of those who attempt to define death as the irreversible loss of the integration of the organism (...) as a whole. I show how what it means for a living thing to be integrated as a whole depends on the sortal concept by which it is identified. Since interests, values, and ontological considerations besides strictly biological ones affect the concepts by which we individuate and identify living things, those non-biological considerations have a bearing on what it means for a particular kind of living thing to exist as a whole and thus what it means for one of us to die. Even if our bodies may remain organically integrated in some sense despite total brain failure, this fact should not lead us to reject brain death as death. Artificially sustained brain-dead human bodies are not human beings, but the remains of them. While such bodies may be alive in some sense, they are not human beings or human persons. They are not one of us. (shrink)

Managers have the primary role responsibility to protect and promote the economic viability of their organizations. Utilizing a formula that demonstrates the inherently unstable nature of economic systems, I argue that managers are sometimes morally required to make adjustments that result in harming people who work for them in order to reestablish the equilibrium necessary to remain viable. The question of who is going to be harmed and how this harm is morally justified is the focal point of this paper. (...) I argue that utilizingtraditional methods associated with our common morality cannot solve the issue of who is going to be harmed, and that the traditionalmethods for reestablishing equilibrium promote a distribution of harm that cannot be justified from a rationally defensible moral pointof view. Utilizing the constraint of impartiality and the concept of the health of the organization, I argue that an equal distribution of harmamong everyone affected by the decision is the only one that is rationally defensible. (shrink)

In this book John Richardson argues for centering the concept of values in the study of Nietzsche's philosophical thinking. He identifies twelve of Nietzsche's key concepts, and organizes them into three sections: the first two outline how values influence human behavior and self-conception, while the third presents new values Nietzsche himself defines in response to his previous critiques. The study builds on recent scholarship in philosophy and provides one of the most up-to-date comprehensive assessments of Nietzsche.

Hierarchical expansions of the theory of natural selection exist in two distinct bodies of thought in evolutionary biology, the group selection and the species selection traditions. Both traditions share the point of view that the principles of natural selection apply at levels of biological organization above the level of the individual organism. This leads them both to considermultilevel selection situations, where selection is occurring simultaneously at more than one level. Impeding unification of the theoretical approaches of the multilevel selection traditions (...) are the different goals of investigators in the different subdisciplines and the different types of data potentially available for analysis. We identify two alternative approaches to multilevel situations, which we termmultilevel selection [1] andmultilevel selection [2]. Of interest in the former case are the effects of group membership onindividual fitnesses, and in the latter the tendencies for the groups themselves to go extinct or to found new groups (i.e., group fitnesses). We argue that: neither represents the entire multilevel selection process; both are aspects of any multilevel selection situation; and both are legitimate approaches, suitable for answering different questions. Using this formalism, we show that: multilevel selection [2] does not require emergent group properties in order to provide an explanatory mechanism of evolutionary change; multilevel selection [1] is usually more appropriate for neontological group selection studies; and species selection is most fruitfully considered from the point of view of multilevel selection [2]. Finally we argue that the effect hypothesis of macroevolution, requiring, in selection among species, both the absence of group effects on organismic fitness (multilevel selection [1]), and the direct determination of species fitnesses by those of organisms, is untestable with paleontological data. Furthermore, the conditions for the effect hypothesis to hold are extremely restrictive and unlikely to apply to the vast majority of situations encountered in nature. (shrink)

John Dupré explores the ways in which we categorize animals, including humans, and comes to refreshingly radical conclusions. He opposes the idea that there is only one legitimate way of classifying things in the natural world, the 'scientific' way. The lesson we should learn from Darwin is to reject the idea that each organism has an essence that determines its necessary place in the unique hierarchy of things. Nature is not like that: it is not organized in a single (...) system. For instance, there is no universal principle by which organisms can be sorted into species. We are obliged to accept that different classificatory schemes are equally valid, and to take a pluralistic view of biology and the human sciences. These provocative and readable essays move on to discuss a set of contentious topics relating to human nature. To start with, Dupré argues that the concept of a universal human nature should be rejected. He questions the relevance of evolution to explanation of human behaviour, and casts doubt on the concept of normality in human behaviour. He shows that misunderstanding of biology and evolution has lead to widespread misconceptions about human sex and gender-in particular, about sexual behaviour and gender roles. The books concludes with a pair of essays about the differences between humans and animals, which may not be quite so clear-cut as we think. (shrink)

Although organizational commitment continues to interest researchers because of its positive effects on organizations, we know relatively little about the effects of the ethical context on organizational commitment. As such, we contribute to the organizational commitment field by assessing the effects of ethical climates (Victor and Cullen, 1987, 1988) on organizational commitment. We hypothesized that an ethical climate of benevolence has a positive relationship with organizational commitment while egoistic climate is negatively related to commitment. Results supported our propositions for both (...) a benevolent climate and an egoistic climate. We also hypothesized that a principled climate is positively related to organizational commitment for professional workers but has no relationships for nonprofessional workers. Results supported this hypothesis. (shrink)

Proclaiming Louis Pasteur as the “Founder of Stereochemistry”, the distinguished Scottish chemist, Crum Brown, addressing a late nineteenth-century audience of Edinburgh savants, drew attention—as Pasteur had incessantly done—to the intimate relationship between living organisms and the optical activity of compounds sustaining them. It seemed to Crum Brown “that we must go very much further down in the scale of animate existence than Buridan's ass, before we come to a being incapable of giving practical expression to a distinct preference for one (...) of two objects differing only in being one to the right and the other to the left”. Crum Brown's lecture must have been entertaining, but it was also motivated by a serious desire to do justice to a particular assertion of Pasteur—an assertion which had, moreover, been misunderstood and dismissed by no less a chemical genius than Wilhelm Ostwald. Writing at a time when the majority of his colleagues were stressing the resemblances between inorganic and organic compounds, Pasteur had insisted that he “could not point out the existence of any more profound distinction between the products formed under the influence of life and all others” than that “artificial products have … no molecular asymmetry”. Pasteur was obliged to concede that the chemist might produce enantiomorphic pairs of isomers, but without resorting to a manual separation of crystals he was powerless to imitate Nature's performance, powerless to fabricate by chemical means a separate optical isomer, divorced from its partner. Now it was not only Crum Brown who felt that chemists had brushed aside this proposition of Pasteur. In his 1898 Presidential Address to the chemical section of the British Association, Professor F. R. Japp also complained that the possible vitalistic implications of Pasteur's distinction between natural and artificial products had been misapprehended or tacitly ignored. (shrink)

Since the birth of the first test-tube baby, Louise Brown, in 1977, we have seen truly remarkable advances in biotechnology. We can now screen the fetus for Down Syndrome, Spina Bifida, and a wide range of genetic disorders. We can rearrange genes in DNA chains and redirect the evolution of species. We can record an individual's genetic fingerprint. And we can potentially insert genes into human DNA that will produce physical warning signs of cancer, allowing early detection. In fact, biotechnology (...) has progressed to such a point that virtually any kind of genetic manipulation, if not already possible, is just around the corner. But these breakthroughs also raise serious ethical and moral dilemmas that we are only now beginning to confront. In Wonderwoman and Superman, noted medical ethicist John Harris offers the first thorough analysis of the moral dilemmas created by the revolution in molecular biology. Covering a wide array of recent innovations, Harris discusses, for example, the moral decisions involved and the consequences of creating egg and embryo banks. Who should be allowed to use such resources? Should recipients be screened? Should such banks be open for public or private use? And does it cheapen life to make embryos available for sale? In another chapter, Harris examines the question of conceiving children chiefly for organ donation, focusing on the recent case of a woman who wanted to have a second child to provide a bone marrow donor for her first child sick with leukemia (she intended to abort the fetus if its bone marrow did not genetically match that of her living child). In this case, the medical staff had to decide whether they should perform in-vitro fertilization, knowing that the mother did not satisfy the clinic's criteria (there was no father), and also knowing the potential for abortion. Discussing the ethics of the mother's choice and the clinic's choice, Harris asks whether it is morally correct to create a child as an organ donor, whether the future child would suffer, whether it is worth any suffering to be born, and who has the right to weigh the various factors (both moral and physiological) involved in making these decisions. Delving into a multitude of issues such as when life begins, when suffering is needless, and whether we should play God, Wonderwoman and Superman provides not only a thought-provoking inquiry into the potential and actual ethical dilemmas created by the many advances in biotechnology, but challenges us to learn to choose responsibly and to face the moral implications of the choices that confront us. (shrink)

This is the first in-depth critical appraisal in English of the political, legal, and cultural writings of Carl Schmitt, perhaps this century's most brilliant critic of liberalism. It offers an assessment of this most sophisticated of fascist theorists without attempting either to apologise for or demonise him. Schmitt's Weimar writings confront the role of technology as it finds expression through the principles and practices of liberalism. Contemporary political conditions such as disaffection with liberalism and the rise of extremist political organizations (...) have rendered Schmitt's work both relevant and insightful. John McCormick examines why technology becomes a rallying cry for both right- and left-wing intellectuals at times when liberalism appears anachronistic, and shows the continuities between Weimar's ideological debates and those of our own age. (shrink)

The Nature and Origins of Mass Opinion synthesizes leading studies of public opinion from the late 1980s in a top-down model of opinion formation and change. The core feature of this synthesis, the Receive-Accept-Sample (RAS) model, remains sound, but the book overstates the importance of the form of public opinion that it explains—elite-induced survey statements of issue positions—and understates the force of opinions that elites cannot easily shape and that citizens may not be able to articulate in response to survey (...) prompts. Moreover, there are major problems in the book's Parable of Purple Land. What, then, becomes of the top-down view of elite-mass interaction outlined in Nature and Origins? To answer this question, I begin by characterizing the kinds of opinions Nature and Origins leaves out: Converse's “group interest” voters, “nature of the times” voters, and issue publics. I then add a model of political parties as policy-motivated organizers of Converse's voter types. The upshot is an account of elite/mass interactions that is still largely top-down and that has roles for both the elite-led attitudes that the RAS model explains and the less conventional and harder-to-shape attitudes that it overlooks. (shrink)

John Dewey’s pragmatism and naturalism are grounded on metaphysical tenets describing how mind’s intelligence is thoroughly natural in its activity and productivity. His worldview is best classified as Organic Realism, since it descended from the German organicism and Naturphilosophie of Herder, Schelling, and Hegel which shaped the major influences on his early thought. Never departing from its tenets, his later philosophy starting with Experience and Nature elaborated a philosophical organon about science, culture, and ethics to fulfill his particular version (...) of Organic Realism. (shrink)

Critics of organ donation after circulatory death (DCD) argue that, even if donors are past the point of autoresuscitation, they have not satisfied the “irreversibility” requirement in the circulatory and respiratory criteria for determining death, since their circulation and respiration could be artificially restored. Thus, removing their vital organs violates the “dead-donor” rule. I defend DCD donation against this criticism. I argue that practical medical-ethical considerations, including respect for do-not-resuscitate orders, support interpreting “irreversibility” to mean permanent cessation of circulation (...) and respiration. Assuming a consciousness-related formulation of human death, I then argue that the loss of circulation and respiration is significant, because it leads to the permanent loss of consciousness and thus to the death of the human person. The DNR request by an organ donor should thus be interpreted to mean “do not restore to consciousness.” Finally, I respond to an objection that if “irreversibility” has a medical-ethical meaning, it would entail the absurd possibility that one of two individuals in the same physical state could be alive and the other dead—an implication that some think is inconsistent with understanding death as an objective biological state of the organism. I argue that advances in medical technology have created phenomena that challenge the assumption that human death can be understood in strictly biological terms. I argue that ethical and ontological considerations about our nature bear on the definition and determination of death and thus on the permissibility of DCD. (shrink)

This paper discusses how alternative concepts of personhood affect the definition of death. I argue that parties in the debate over the definition of death have employed different concepts of personhood, and thus have been talking past each other by proposing definitions of death for different kinds of things. In particular, I show how critics of the consciousness-related, neurological formation of death have relied on concepts of personhood that would be rejected by proponents of that formulation. These critics rest on (...) treating persons as qualitative specifications of human organisms or as identical to human organisms. Since advocates of the consciousness-related, neurological formulation of death are not committed to either of these views of personhood, these critics commit the fallacy of attacking a straw man. I then clarify the substantive concept of personhood that may be invoked in the consciousness-related, neurological formulation of death, and argue that, on this view and contra Bernat, Culver, and Gert, persons have always been the kind of thing that can literally die. I conclude by suggesting that the discussion of defining death needs to focus on which approach to personhood makes the most sense metaphysically and morally. (shrink)

This paper addresses the foundations of Teleological Individualism, the view that organisms, even non-sentient organisms, are goal-oriented systems while biological collectives, such as ecosystems or conspecific groups, are mere assemblages of organisms. Typical defenses of Teleological Individualism ground the teleological organization of organisms in the workings of natural selection. This paper shows that grounding teleological organization in natural selection is antithetical to Teleological Individualism because such views assume a view about the units of selection on which it is only individual (...) organisms that are units of selection. However, none of the Conventionalist, Reductionist, or Multi-Level Realist theories serve to justify such an assumption. Thus, Teleological Individualism cannot be grounded in natural selection. (shrink)

The central conceptual idea of the contemporary theory of general relativity--or geometrodynamics--is the identification of matter with the structure of space-time. No entities foreign to space-time, like masses, charges, or independent fields are needed, and physics thus becomes identical with the geometry of space-time. This idea implies a philosophical description of the universe that is monistic and organic, characterized by an all-encompassing interdependence of events. Moreover, it is an idea with deep roots in the history of philosophy. For these reasons, (...) the author of this important study strives to clarify these philosophical and historical issues before proceeding to the details of the physical theory of geometrodynamics. (shrink)