Open peer commentary on the article “Interactivity and Enaction in Human Cognition” by Matthew Isaac Harvey, Rasmus Gahrn-Andersen & Sune Vork Steffensen. Upshot: To sort out their differences with enactive theory, interactivity theorists would do better to focus on operational closure only insofar as it constitutes a condition of intrinsic normativity or self-regulated coupling.

Material and nonmaterial cultural values are the forms that the social division of labor takes in its results, which embody qualitatively different forms corresponding to various human needs. Therefore, the question of the emergence of the comprehensively developed human being in communist society is also a question of the social division of labor. The conditions of labor of a developed socialist society are the results of the world historical development of social praxis, in which the subject is not the individual (...) standing alone but "the creativity of the masses," social labor in combination. In this connection the social division of labor in the process of development toward communism must be seen not merely as the condition for production of things differing in the way they are consumed but also primarily as the production of individuals themselves: of their capacities and talents for creative, socially useful labor. (shrink)

The relationship between ethics and trust is ambiguous as ethics can promote trust, whilst trust can simultaneously be abused resulting in unethical behaviour. In this contribution to the debate on trust and ethics the focus is specifically on the role that ethics can play in facilitating trustworthiness. The article starts with a definition of the concept trustworthiness. It then reports on an empirical longitudinal study on trustworthiness that was conducted in a South African company in the insurance industry. The facilitators (...) of trustworthiness that were identified in this study and their relative contributions to trustworthiness are then discussed. Finally the implications of these findings for the ethical conduct of managers are discussed. It is demonstrated how ethical managerial conduct can enhance the trustworthiness of managers. (shrink)

A symposium by twelve English thinkers of various Christian backgrounds. The papers investigate the possibility of incorporating traditional metaphysics and the insights of contemporary continental philosophers into the empirical and analytic tradition. The concept of intuition or immediate apprehension is explored in several of the papers as a possible key to the problem. Though the writers often fail to face up to hard problems, the book offers an important, if cautious, effort at integration.--F. W. N.

Two kindred glossaries, Affatim and the Second Amplonian, have been shown to derive their materials mainly from the Abstrusa and Abolita glossaries, but partly also from Virgil marginalia. This Virgil thread is most clearly seen in the I-section of Affatim. The Affatim compiler tells us that the exemplar had lost four leaves at this point: ‘Here the exemplar lacks four leaves in the H–I portion’ . We find the following unmistakable Virgil batches:Affatim 525, 41 sqq. Infandum: inenarrandum, nee loquendum ; (...) Inpar: inaequalis uiribus ; Iamdudum: iam pridem, iam olim ; In arce: in excelso ; Infabricata: inperfecta ; Iam uertitur: iam transit ; : iam ualidum minus, minus fortem ; Imago: uultus ; In iaculis: in armis, in telis. (shrink)

Propositions as to the nature of consciousness, based on disorders of perception that result from brain damage, and taking insufficient account of the numerous ways in which normal subjects may deviate from that “usual” sequence of events (input → subjective awareness → output) risk increasing rather than diminishing any existing confusion about the function of consciousness.

Turning to the history of philosophical thought, I am surprised by the question what is knowledge? I am surprised because usually we do not reflect on our own knowledge; it appears to us as something obvious. And yet this question has disturbed people since the beginning philosophical thinlung. Moreover, at the time knowledge appeared as a subject full of aporiasintellectual difficulties and obvious contradictions of judgment. This led to the humiliating doubt that man could know anything about the world in (...) which he lived and, thus, exposed, so to speak, the painful nerve of the cognitive aspirations of human reason. (shrink)

My young friends advise me to write my memoirs. For me this is comforting. The future is unpredictable. The present is dark—it is "without repentance or hope" and only the past is remembered. The reawakening of interest in events long ago is a sign that a new view of things is forming: history—the knowledge of the past—forms us, for it lives in our actions. People of the past are our contemporaries: the results of their labors are part of our everyday (...) life. Their insights and mistakes live with us and in us. Contemporary life is only the surface layer of human existence. Faith in the intellectual intuition of the young generation gives hope that the pallid lines of the past I remember might clarify a little the problems of the present time. (shrink)