The objective of this paper is to explore how the various stages of consciousness development of top managers can influence, in practical terms, their abilities in and commitment to environmental leadership in different types of SMEs. A case study based on 63 interviews carried out in 15 industrial SMEs showed that the organizations that displayed the most environmental management practices were mostly run by managers at a post-conventional stage of consciousness development. Conversely, the SMEs that displayed less sustainable environmental management (...) practices were all run by managers at conventional stages of development. Drawing upon diverse examples of environmental leadership, this paper analyzes the reasons why the stages of post-conventional consciousness development of top managers seem to foster corporate greening in SMEs. The study also sheds light on the key values and abilities associated with both environmental leadership and the upper-stages of consciousness development, which include a broader and systemic perspective, long-range focus, integration of conflicting goals, collaboration with stakeholders, complexity management, collaborative learning, among others. (shrink)

While Wilfrid Sellars’ philosophy is often depicted in an ahistorical fashion, this book explores the consequences of placing his work in its historical context. In order to show how Sellars’ early publications depend on contextual factors, Peter Olen reconstructs the conceptions of language, psychological, and social explanation that dominated American philosophy in the early 20th century. Because of Sellars’ differing explanations of language and behaviour, Olen argues that many of Sellars’ early commitments are incompatible with his later works. (...) In the course of doing so, Olen highlights problematic tensions between Sellars’ early and later conceptions of language, meta-philosophy, and normativity. Supplementing the main text is a collection of previously unpublished archival material from Wilfrid Sellars, Gustav Bergmann, Everett Hall, and other early 20th century philosophers. This text will be a useful resource to those with an interest in the history of American philosophy, the history of analytic philosophy, Wilfrid Sellars’ philosophy, and the myriad issues surrounding normativity and language. (shrink)

Although commonly cited as one of the philosophers responsible for the resurgence of interest in pragmatism, Wilfrid Sellars was also the son of Roy Wood Sellars, one of the most dedicated critical realists of the early 20th century. Given his father’s realism and his own ‘scientific realism,’ one might assume that the history of realism – and, despite contemporary interest, not pragmatism – would best serve as the historical background for Wilfrid Sellars’ philosophy. I argue that Wilfrid Sellars, far from (...) being the adherent to classical pragmatism assumed by some, holds more in common with critical realism - specifically, a realism that was framed in opposition to pragmatism – than one finds amongst the writings of Charles Sanders Peirce, William James, or John Dewey. I support this claim by examining Wilfrid Sellars’ adoption of his father’s criticisms of C.I. Lewis, and offer various arguments and historical considerations against thematic accounts that insist on a strong connection between Wilfrid Sellars and pragmatism. (shrink)

My response to Joel Katzav’s original article looks at potentially competing claims about perspectivism, psychology, and our understanding of concrete experience. De Laguna offers an early example of pluralism when conceiving of psychology, biology, physiology, and other sciences as essentially different perspectives abstracted from our experience of the world. Each science serves as a single perspective on experience, one that may shed light on our experience and behaviour from a particular standpoint, but does not represent ‘the real’ over and above (...) all perspectives. While remaining generally consistent throughout her career, I argue de Laguna’s exploration and endorsement of behaviourism—especially as it concerns emotion and affect—pushes her a bit closer to reductionism than originally intended. I explore this issue not by simply pointing out the potential inconsistency in her work, but by focusing on whether perspectivism makes sense in light of redundancies and complications between theoretical perspectives. (shrink)

Wilfrid Sellars read and annotated Celestine Bouglé’s Evolution of Values, translated by his mother with an introduction by his father. The book expounded Émile Durkheim's account of morality and elaborated his account of origins of value in collective social life. Sellars replaced elements of this account in constructing his own conception of the relationship between the normative and community, but preserved a central one: the idea that conflicting collective and individual intentions could be found in the same person. These notoriously (...) opaque arguments, which seek to save an element of rationalism from social explanation while granting the claims of behavioural science, are illuminated by comparing them to their original Durkheimian form. (shrink)

Wilfrid Sellars described the moral syllogism that supports the inference “I ought to do x” from “Everyone ought to do x” as a “syntactical disguise” which embodies a “mistake.” He nevertheless regarded this form of reasoning as constitutive of the moral point of view. Durkheim was the source of much of this reasoning, and this context illuminates Sellars’ unusual philosophical reconstruction of the moral point of view in terms of the collective intentions of an ideal community of rational members for (...) which the syllogism is empirically valid. The reconstruction also sheds light on the question of the status of common sense and normativity in Sellars’ naturalistic metaphysics. (shrink)

All contributions included in the present issue were originally prepared for an “Author Meets Critics” session organized by Carl Sachs for the Eastern Division Meeting of the American Philosophical Association in Savannah, Georgia, on 5th January, 2018.

I explore a strand of reception history that follows Rudolf Carnap’s shift from a purely syntactical analysis of constructed languages to his conception of pure semantics. My exploration focuses on Gustav Bergmann’s and Everett Hall’s interpretation of pure semantics, their understanding of what constitutes a ’formal’ investigation of language, and their arguments concerning the relationship between expressions and their extra-linguistic referents. I argue that Bergmann and Hall strongly misread Carnap’s semantic project and, subsequently, their misunderstanding is passed down through colleagues (...) and students. (shrink)

I explore conceptual tensions that emerge between Wilfrid Sellars’ and Grace de Laguna’s adoption of behaviorism. Despite agreeing on various points, I argue that Sellars’ and de Laguna’s positions represent a split between normativist and descriptivist approaches to explanation that are generally incompatible, and I explore how both positions claim conceptual priority.

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When discussing Wilfrid Sellars’s philosophy, very little work has been done to offer a developmental account of his systematic views. More often than not, Sellars’s complex views are presented in a systematic and holistic fashion that ignores any periodization of his work. I argue that there is a metaphilosophical shift in Sellars’s early philosophy that results in substantive changes to his conception of language, linguistic rules, and normativity. Specifically, I claim that Sellars’s shift from a formalist metaphilosophy to one more (...) closely aligned with psychology allows for the construction of a normative conception of language. My central claim is that without his abandonment of earlier metaphilosophical commitments, Sellars could not hold what I call an external conception of normativity. It is this move away from a formalist notion of philosophy that allows Sellars to construct a normative picture of language. I conclude that because this substantive shift in philosophical commitments results from changes in Sellars’s metaphilosophical views, there is insight to be found in a meticulous periodization of his work. (shrink)

This collection is an attempt by a diverse range of authors to reignite interest in C.I. Lewis’s work within the pragmatist and analytic traditions. Although pragmatism has enjoyed a renewed popularity in the past thirty years, some influential pragmatists have been overlooked. C. I. Lewis is arguably the most important of overlooked pragmatists and was highly influential within his own time period. The volume assembles a wide range of perspectives on the strengths and weaknesses of Lewis’s contributions to metaphysics, epistemology, (...) semantics, philosophy of science, and ethics. (shrink)

Moral Freedom reconciles three apparently inconsistent truisms about morality: first, moral rules are society's rules; second, morality is a matter of individual choice: and third, some things are wrong regardless of what any society or individual has to say. In developing a moral theory that accommodates all three truisms, Jeffrey Olen offers a view of morality that allows individuals a generous degree of moral freedom.The author explores various answers to the question, "Does anybody or anything have any moral authority (...) over how I live my life?" His answer is "No." In a lively, conversational style, Olen leads the reader through the arguments, examples, and exceptions that contribute to this conclusion. Along the way, he contends that what most philosophers call the moral point of view, but what he refers to as the impersonal moral point of view, is but one of two moral points of view. The other is the personal moral point of view, which Olen defends against the allegedly overriding demands of impersonal morality.Moral Freedom considers the work of philosophers as diverse as Kant, Nietzsche, Kurt Baier, Bernard Williams, and Daniel Dennett. Admitting that this is a personal discussion of the nature of morality, Olen claims the "freedom" to engage these intellectual issues in a personal style to illustrate the personal moral point of view that he champions. Author note: Jeffrey Olen is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Wisconsin, Stevens Point. (shrink)

In this essay, I interpret the wildly successful book series Freakonomics as a discourse of perversion. Drawing upon Lacanian psychoanalytic theory and Žižekian cultural criticism, I first explore how the books function as neoclassical economic theory in practice, then I explain how the series enjoins us to adopt reading strategies that turn us into perverts. Perversion, rather than a moral judgment, is best considered a structural inversion of the position of enjoyment, schematized as a ◊$. Freakonomics seeks to explain all (...) human behavior as the result of a “hidden force” that organizes social reality—this force is, in every case, an ontological market structure that we all unconsciously obey. The result is that we end up identifying with the mechanisms of the capitalist free market rather than our own idiosyncratic, idiotic desires, and see our desires retroactively narrated as the result of these market mechanisms. If perversion is, following Lacan, about propping up the law, I argue that Freakonomics not only props up, but instantiates, the big Other of the market by disavowing a noneconomic space and registering all of social reality under a single market structure. Freakonomics gives readers, as Lacan puts it, the “ père-version ” of events. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:American Philosophy: The Basics by Nancy StanlickPeter [email protected] Stanlick. American Philosophy: The Basics. London: Routledge, 2013. 174 pp with index.In 174 pages American Philosophy: The Basics covers the American philosophical tradition from its European roots to some of its contemporary leanings. The stated goal of the book is to give an overview of American philosophy and “explain what makes American philosophy a national or cultural philosophical tradition.” This (...) is a particularly tall order for such a short book, and it might be understandable if Stan-lick necessarily omits numerous thinkers from the canon. Overall, the book succeeds at giving a quick overview of the history of American philosophy.The text covers a fairly diverse selection of philosophers. Starting from Jonathan Edwards’ Calvinist theology, the book moves through early American social and political thought, and the European enlightenment ideals that underwrite them, as found in revolutionary era thinkers such as Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Paine, and Benjamin [End Page 578] Franklin. The rest of the chapters quickly address New England transcendentalism and classical pragmatism. The book ends with two quick summaries of “recent” developments in American philosophy split between metaphysics, epistemology, and the philosophy of science; and a second section on social, political, and ethical writings. The latter section includes summaries of recent writings on feminist ethics and African American social thought. Although these themes are particularly welcome, the book would have benefited by addressing feminist and African American contributions not just to ethics or social thought, but also to debates in epistemology or the philosophy of science.The author’s intended audience is undergraduates taking an American philosophy course or those wholly uninformed about the American philosophical tradition. Although the book serves as a helpful summary of various views in the American intellectual tradition, it would need to be supplemented by a substantial amount of primary texts to provide enough course material for a semester. The text does not contain enough critical commentary to function as a secondary resource by itself, but could function alongside additional secondary material.This last point is particularly telling about the book’s goals. Stanlick manages to introduce and explain numerous classic philosophical problems throughout the text (e.g., the mind-body problem, the problem of freewill, arguments for God’s existence, etc…) and provides a glossary at the end of the book, but does not do much to explore any of the issues in-depth. In part this is because of the overview nature of the text, but additional explanations, as well as a longer list of secondary sources, would have gone a long way in strengthening the author’s overall approach. This is an interesting, and I think helpful, approach for a lower-level philosophy text: it provides clear exposition of philosophical terminology while never straying from the overall goal of exploring the American philosophical tradition.One initial problem is the author’s narrative commitment to what makes American philosophy uniquely American. Stanlick argues that what is indicative of American philosophy is more of an emphasis on “what we can do with theories, principles, and arguments” than with theoretical or abstract problems. While we may be able to see this emphasis in some of the classical pragmatists and early American intellectuals, I think it’s difficult to claim that such an emphasis is indicative of all American philosophy.Additionally, seemingly major American philosophers are simply absent. Though discussions of Charles Sanders Peirce, William James, John Dewey, and Richard Rorty compose the pragmatism chapter, no mention is made of C.I. Lewis or Sidney Hook. Recent pragmatists, outside of W.V.O Quine and Rorty, are missing from both the pragmatism chapter and later chapters on contemporary developments in American philosophy. It seems reasonable to expect some mention of [End Page 579] Robert Brandom’s analytic pragmatism, the contemporary revival of Peirce’s philosophy, Cheryl Misak’s extensive work on American pragmatism (although one of her edited volumes is mentioned in a “further readings” sections), Susan Haack’s epistemology, or Richard Shusterman’s work on embodiment and pragmatism. Although not American in genesis, 19th Hegelianism (as especially seen in the St. Louis and Ohio Hegelians) does not appear... (shrink)

I provide some brief critiques concerning Nancy Stanlick’s recent work, American Philosophy: The Basics. While it should be considered an exceptional and inclusive study of American philosophy, I argue that Stanlick’s work suffers from too strong of an emphasis on the idea that American philosophy, and thus American philosophers, are wholly characterized by an emphasis on the practical.

Erratum to: Synthese DOI 10.1007/s11229-015-0678-4The last two block quotes of this article should be cited as “Sellars 1947c”, not “Sellars 1947”. “Sellars 1947c” references the bibliography entry for a piece of correspondence housed in the special collections archive at the University of Iowa. It is not, as the bibliography lists, a published work.

Discussion of the sufficiency of the traditional account of knowledge as justified true belief has focused on cases in which justified true belief does not constitute knowledge because one's justification depends essentially on a false belief or is defeated by a false statement. I propose three cases designed to show that the traditional account is insufficient for other reasons and that, Consequently, Even undefeated justified true belief does not constitute knowledge.

Religious tensions in America, as well as abroad, are nothing new. Yet, in this current epoch various cultures around the world are involved in internal clashes between religious and secular groups that pull at the attention of the public more often than not. Though a myriad of issues confront anyone interested in investigating these tensions, one must first wonder what, exactly, blasphemy means to both sides of the debate. In the course of doing so, one interesting question arises: What does (...) it mean to consider speech against a secular group’s belief in a given object, text, or even another belief as blasphemous? The point of this paper is to inquire into the semantic status of blasphemy. First, I will outline various possible definitions of blasphemy and take into consideration what such definitions mean to those on the opposite side of the fence . Second, I will explore how extending such a definition to both parties would change the semantic landscape of the current cultural debates. Last, I will propose a modest solution to how one should view issues surrounding blasphemous speech and the freedom of expression. (shrink)

Joseph Margolis, a relativist with respect to aesthetic qualities, has argued that nonrelativists must produce a theory of perception capable of providing a basis for the distinction between an object’s actually possessing a specified aesthetic quality and an object’s only seeming to possess it. Although I think Margolis is probably right on the point, my concern is not with the need for the non relativist to produce such a theory; rather, it is with the need for the relativist to give (...) an account of the perception of aesthetic qualities. (shrink)

International Journal of Philosophical Studies, Volume 20, Issue 2, Page 303-307, May 2012.

It is argued that the application of such predicates as 'is lovely' and 'is somber' to works of art must be construed relativistically. it is first argued that interpretations of works of art bear important similarities to scientific theories, such that the application of aesthetic predicates cannot proceed independently of these interpretations. it is then argued that there are important differences between scientific theories and works of art, such that relativism is precluded with respect to the former but demanded with (...) respect to the latter. hence, relativism is demanded also with respect to aesthetic predicates. (shrink)

It is not uncommon, when reading and writing about philosophical traditions, to be highly selective. Especially so when the tradition under review has been contested among its friends and foes alike since its very beginning. This has surely been, and still is, the case with pragmatism, where depending on the narrative spun we would have very different figures foregrounded or rather eclipsed. One might well speak of pragmatisms in the plural, as the Peirceans, the Jamesians, the Deweyeans, and...

In many ways, the figure of Wilfrid Sellars personifies the second half of xxth century American philosophy. He lied at the crossroad of three powerful traditions: German rationalistic phenomenology, as Marvin Farber’s scholar; logical empiricism, as a philosopher grown up in the golden age of neo-positivism; and classical pragmatism, as an intellectual deeply inspired by the need of keeping a synoptic vision and finding practical and behavioral solutions for conceptual oppositions. In his la...

Commentary on Peter Olen's book "Wilfrid Sellars and the Foundations of Normativity", originally prepared for an 'Author Meets Critics' session organized by Carl Sachs for the Eastern Division Meeting of the APA in Savannah, Georgia, on 5th January, 2018.

All contributions included in the present issue were originally prepared for an “Author Meets Critics” session organized by Carl Sachs for the Eastern Division Meeting of the American Philosophical Association in Savannah, Georgia, on 5th January, 2018.

In this review, I talk about the essays dealing with C.I. Lewis's place in the history of analytic philosophy and the history of philosophy of science.

Olen laatinut tämän kirjoituksen vastineeksi J.P. Roosin poleemiseen kirjoitukseen, jonka hän on lehtien hylättyä sen julkaissut omalla kotisivullaan.

I respond to the commentaries on 'Grace de Laguna's Analytic and Speculative Philosophy' offered by Peter Olen [2023], Trevor Pearce, Anthony Fisher, Marguerite La Caze and Frederique Janssen-Lauret. In doing so, I bring out some of the value of de Laguna’s perspectivism and of her treatment of modality. I also further clarify how she departs from pragmatism and from analytic philosophy, and how she relates to continental philosophy.

Tässä artikkelissa käsittelen Descartesin ikuisten totuuksien välttämättömyyteen liittyvää ongelmaa. Teoksessa Mietiskelyjä ensimmäisestä filosofiasta (1641–1642) Descartes nostaa esiin käsitteen ikuisista totuuksista, käyttäen esimerkkinään kolmiota. Kolmion muuttumattomaan ja ikuiseen luontoon kuuluu esimerkiksi, että sen kolme kulmaa ovat yhteenlaskettuna 180°. Se on totta kolmiosta, vaikka yhtään yksittäistä kolmiota ei olisi koskaan ollutkaan olemassa. Eräät ajattelemieni asioiden piirteet ovat siis Descartesin mukaan ajattelustani riippumattomia. Ikuisia totuuksia ovat ainakin matemaattiset ja geometriset tosiseikat sekä ristiriidan laki. Samoin Descartesin kuuluisa lause “ajattelen, siis olen” lukeutuu ikuisten (...) totuuksien joukkoon. Descartesin ikuiset totuudet olisivatkin siis loogisesti välttämättömiä. Niillä on kyseinen olemus riippumatta ulkoisten kohteiden olemassaolosta tai siitä, ajattelenko niitä lainkaan. Kuitenkin kirjeenvaihdossaan Descartes pitää itsepintaisesti kiinni käsityksestään, että ikuiset totuudet ovat Jumalan vapaasti luomia ja Jumala olisi voinut luoda ne erilailla. Näin ollen luodut ikuiset totuudet eivät tarkkaan ottaen olisikaan välttämättömiä vaan kontingentteja. Ne voisivat olla myös toisella tavalla. Artikkelin alkuun esittelen Descartesin modaalista metafysiikkaa sekä luotujen ikuisten totuuksien kontingenttiudesta seuraavia tulkinnallisia vaikeuksia. Tämän jälkeen pureudun kolmeen erilaiseen ratkaisuyritykseen kommentaarikirjallisuudessa (Frankfurt 1977; Curley 1984 & Bennett 1994) ja osoitan, miksi ne eivät riitä vastaamaan ongelmaan. Lopussa vedän johtopäätöksiä ja luonnostelen mahdollisen ratkaisun. (shrink)

Bu çalışmanın temel amacı 24 Şubat 2022’de başlayan Rusya–Ukrayna çatışmasında Avrupa merkezli medya organlarının ürettiği işgal söylemine eleştirel bir perspektifle yaklaşmaktır. Çalışmada Rusya’nın Ukrayna’yı işgal ettiğini öne süren ülkelerin Rus sanatçılara, sporculara ve yönetmenlere uyguladığı sert yaptırımlara yer verilmiş ve hemen sonrasında sosyal medyaya yansıyan bazı ifadeler eleştirel söylem analizi yöntemiyle incelenmiştir. 29 Nisan 2022 tarihinde Pentagon sözcüsü John Kirby’nin katıldığı bir basın toplantısında çatışmayı işgal söylemiyle sunarken aksi bir yaklaşımın etik ve ahlaka ters düşeceğini ima eden ifadesi etiğin de (...) eleştirel biçimde ele alınmasına zemin hazırlamıştır. Çalışmada Kant ve Hegel’in görüşleri üzerinden etik ve ahlak kavramlarının ayrıştırılması amaçlanırken bu filozofların bazı teorilerini Avrupa merkezci ve zaman zaman ırkçı bir bakış açısıyla kurguladığını savunan görüşlere de yer verilmiştir. Amaçsal örneklem yöntemiyle seçilen Eski Amerika başkanı George Bush’un katıldığı bir programda Ukrayna yerine Irak’ın işgal edildiğini belirten gafı ve eski Ukrayna başsavcı yardımcısı David Sakvarelidze’nin çatışma esnasında ölen Ukraynalılara sırf mavi gözlü ve sarı saçlı Avrupalılar oldukları için üzüldüğünü çağrıştıran açıklamaları üzerinden Avrupa merkezci ve ırkçı yaklaşımların günümüzdeki konumu sorgulanmıştır. Çalışmada başta ABD ve İngiltere olmak üzere bazı Avrupa ülkelerinin Rusya’nın Ukrayna’yı işgal ettiği söylemini, insan yaşamını önemseyen etik bir tavırdan ziyade politik bir refleksle ürettiği sonucuna ulaşılmıştır. (shrink)