The Song and Ming dynasty Confucians make frequent use of what would today be identified as a slippery slope argument. The Book of Changes and its early commentaries provide both the language and the rationale for this argument, inasmuch as the Confucians regard these texts as a method for identifying tiny problems that will one day threaten the state. While today the slippery slope argument is often criticized for promoting an unreasoned resistance to change, a close look at its use (...) by Confucians reveals that they largely avoid this criticism, using the argument in a reasoned way to target not change, but excess. (shrink)

The requirement of the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business to include business ethics in the curriculum has prompted business programs to teach ethics either integrated across the curriculum or in standalone classes. The question addressed here is how to engage students in thinking deeply and empathetically about ethical issues impacting corporate social responsibility. This research focused on using a thought experiment developed by John Rawls in which students examined CSR issues from the perspective of six stakeholder groups. A (...) pre-test/post-test design measured the effectiveness of an instruction module on CSR coupled with an active exercise using Rawls’ veil of ignorance and original position. Results indicate that students placed greater responsibility on the stockholders and board of directors after taking this module. The implication of the Rawlsian technique to use stakeholder empathy is discussed as a tool for engaging business ethics students. (shrink)

François Jullien is a master of repetition. Over his more than thirty books, he introduces a carefully defined set of concepts--such as “blandness” and “efficacy”--and then pairs them, opposes them, and sets them in different contexts, returning to them repeatedly without ever saying quite the same thing. One can imagine an introduction to Jullien’s work that traces each of his concepts through its development from book to book, noting explicit and implicit connections to the traditional Chinese thought that gave rise (...) to it. In François Jullien’s Unexceptional Thought, Arne De Boever takes a different tack. As he puts it in his introduction: “I focus on certain books and topics that stood out to me within Jullien’s... (shrink)

This essay is an attempt to show that American capitalism is not viable in the long run, in the twenty-first century. Three points are elucidated in this discussion: (1) capitalism is a system of private socialization; as such, it tends to conflict with the private mode of allocation and to create crisis. It is, moreover, out of date, for it cannot, for example, cope with new phenomenon of inflation and unemployment. (2) Private executives do not empirically make the wisest decisions. (...) (3) In fact, most businessmen do not want the government out of the economy; on the contrary, they want the government in the economy, on their side. (shrink)

The confirmatory nature of the empirical evidence used to establish UG effects in L2 development is considered. Specific issues are also raised concerning the internal validity of Epstein et al.'s findings. It is concluded that the role of UG in adult L2 development will only be established when researchers better understand the interaction between the development of UG-constrained structural knowledge and the development of overall L2 proficiency.

The classical Western concept of place points in two directions: toward isolating things from one another and toward articulating their connections. Aristotle’s famous definition of a thing’s place as the limit of its surrounding body, which serves to isolate the thing from all but its immediate surroundings, sits side-by-side in the Physics with his theory of natural places, according to which things have places only in relation to each other.1 A thing’s natural place may be at the center—as the earth (...) is at the center of the cosmos in the classical theory—but the center exists only with respect to the periphery, and vice versa. Likewise, a thing can be below only in relation to something above it. The relationship... (shrink)

Argues that the concept of God is vanishing, causing a widespread erosion of moral and social values, and calls for a union between faith and anti-faith to create a society in which people can discover new values.

Erwin Panofsky developed the postulate of clarification to explain the mental habit common to Gothic architecture and Western medieval scholasticism, but the postulate is equally applicable to the commentary tradition of Song-dynasty China. The commentary on the Book of Changes authored by Cheng Yi (1033–1107) provides a good example of how the Confucians of the Song dynasty took their concern for clarity to a recognizably medieval extreme. By looking at how Cheng Yi understands and foregrounds the clarity of the Book (...) of Changes, we can begin to see both what was medieval about Song-dynasty China and why the medieval method continues to be viable for interpreters of the Book of Changes. (shrink)

Monograph analysing the economic theory of Marxism as it applies to the transition of capitalism to collective economy - examines the political aspects, economic implications and historical process of decline in affluent society and the welfare State. Bibliography pp. 421 to 431 and references.