Even though integrity is widely considered to be an essential aspect of research, there is an ongoing debate on what actually constitutes research integrity. The understanding of integrity ranges from the minimal, only considering falsification, fabrication and plagiarism, to the maximum, blending into science ethics. Underneath these obvious contrasts, there are more subtle differences that are not as immediately evident. The debate about integrity is usually presented as a single, universal discussion, with shared concerns for researchers, policymakers and ‘the public’. (...) In this article, we show that it is not. There are substantial differences between the language of research integrity in the scientific arena and in the public domain. Notably, scientists and policymakers adopt different approaches to research integrity. Scientists tend to present integrity as a virtue that must be kindled, while policy documents and newspapers stress norm enforcement. Rather than performing a conceptual analysis through philosophical reasoning and discussion, we aimed to clarify the discourse of ‘scientific integrity’ by studying its usage in written documents. To this end, large numbers of scientific publications, policy documents and newspaper articles were analysed by means of scientometric and content analysis techniques. The texts were analysed on their usage of the term ‘integrity’ and of frequently co-occurring terms and concepts. A comparison was made between the usage in the various media, as well as between different periods in which they were published through co-word analysis, mapping co-occurrence networks of significant terms and themes. (shrink)

While attention to research integrity has been growing over the past decades, the processes of signalling and denouncing cases of research misconduct remain largely unstudied. In this article, we develop a theoretically and empirically informed understanding of the causes and consequences of reporting research misconduct in terms of power relations. We study the reporting process based on a multinational survey at eight European universities. Using qualitative data that witnesses of research misconduct or of questionable research practices provided, we aim to (...) examine actors’ rationales for reporting and not reporting misconduct, how they report it and the perceived consequences of reporting. In particular we study how research seniority, the temporality of work appointments, and gender could impact the likelihood of cases being reported and of reporting leading to constructive organisational changes. Our findings suggest that these aspects of power relations play a role in the reporting of research misconduct. Our analysis contributes to a better understanding of research misconduct in an academic context. Specifically, we elucidate the processes that affect researchers’ ability and willingness to report research misconduct, and the likelihood of universities taking action. Based on our findings, we outline specific propositions that future research can test as well as provide recommendations for policy improvement. (shrink)

Miracle and miracle narrative against the background of myth and demythologizing.Religio-scientific perspectives on communication, language, reality conception, myth and the world of the sacred, as well as a different angle on demythologizing, are utilised in formulating a broad theological view of miracles, miracle experiences and miracle narratives.

Peer review of journal submissions has become one of the most important pillars of quality management in academic publishing. Because of growing concerns with the quality and effectiveness of the system, a host of enthusiastic innovators has proposed and experimented with new procedures and technologies. However, little is known about whether these innovations manage to convince other journal editors. This paper will address open questions regarding the implementation of new review procedures, the occurrence rate of various peer review procedures and (...) their distribution over scientific disciplines or academic publishers, as well as the motivations for editors or publishers to engage in novel review procedures. It shows that in spite of enthusiastic innovation, the adoption of new peer review procedures is in fact very slow, with the exception of text similarity scanners. For now, peer review innovations appear to be restricted to specific niches in academic publishing. Analysing these niches, the article concludes with a reflection on the circumstances in which innovations might be more widely implemented. (shrink)

Du sommaire: Ambiguite et comprehension du langage (Paul Bogaards, Johan Rooryck). - Why pluralities don't mean a thing (Crit Cremers). - Aspects of interlingual ambiguity: polyglot punning (Dirk Delabastita). - Les feux de Saint-Antoine (Sjef Houppermans). - The semantics of Dutch moeten 'must, should, have to' from a typological and a relevance-theoretical perspective (Theo Janssen). - L'ambiguite en langue et en discours (Catherine Kerbrat-Orecchioni).".

Religion and the external world -- Projection, religion, and the external world -- The senses, reason and the imagination -- Realism, meaning and justification : the external world and religious belief -- Modality, projection and realism -- 'Our profound ignorance' : causal realism, and the failure to detect necessity -- Spreading the mind : projection, necessity and realism -- Into the labyrinth : persons, modality, and Hume's undoing -- Value, projection, and realism -- Gilding : projection, value and secondary qualities (...) -- The gold : good, evil, belief and desire -- The golden : relational values, realism and a moral sense. (shrink)

Between 1787, and the end of his life in 1832, Bentham turned his attention to the development and application of economic ideas and principles within the general structure of his legislative project. For seventeen years this interest was manifested through a number of books and pamphlets, most of which remained in manuscript form, that develop a distinctive approach to economic questions. Although Bentham was influenced by Adam Smith's An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, he (...) neither adopted a Smithian vocabulary for addressing questions of economic principle and policy, nor did he accept many of the distinctive features of Smith's economic theory. One consequence of this was that Bentham played almost no part in the development of the emerging science of political economy in the early nineteenth century. The standard histories of economics all emphasize how little he contributed to the mainstream of late eighteenth and early nineteenth-century debate by concentrating attention on his utilitarianism and the psychology of hedonism on which it is premised. Others have argued that the calculating nature of his theory of practical reason reduced the whole legislative project to a crude attempt to apply economics to all aspects of social and political life. Put at its simplest this argument amounts to the erroneous claim that Bentham's science of legislation is reducible to the science of political economy. A different but equally dangerous error would be to argue that because Bentham's conception of the science of legislation comprehends all the basic forms of social relationships, there can be no science of political economy as there is no autonomous sphere of activity governed by the principles of economics. This approach is no doubt attractive from an historical point of view given that the major premise of this argument is true, and that many of Bentham's ‘economic’ arguments are couched in terms of his theory of legislation. Yet it fails to account for the undoubted importance of political economy within Bentham's writings, not just on finance, economic policy, colonies and preventive police, but also in other aspects of his utilitarian public policy such as prison reform, pauper management, and even constitutional reform. All of these works reflect a conception of political economy in its broadest terms. However, this conception of political economy differs in many respects from that of Bentham's contemporaries, and for this reason Bentham's distinctive approach to problems of economics and political economy has largely been misunderstood. (shrink)

Hume's 'Natural History of Religion' offers a naturalized account of the causes of religious thought, an investigation into its 'origins' rather than its 'foundation in reason'. Hume thinks that if we consider only the causes of religious belief, we are provided with a reason to suspend the belief. I seek to explain why this is so, and what role the argument plays in Hume's wider campaign against the rational acceptability of religious belief. In particular, I argue that the work threatens (...) a form of fideism which maintains that it is rationally permissible to maintain religious belief in the absence of evidence or of arguments in its favour. I also discuss the 'argument from common consent', and the relative superiority of Hume's account of the origins of religious belief. (shrink)

This chapter contains section titled: Introduction Meaning and the Copy Principle External Objects Causal Power The Self and Necessary Connection Acknowledgments References.

It is the impression of neurologists who deal with cancer patients that the incidence of neurologic complications of cancer is increasing (Posner 1995). ...

This paper discusses the metaphor of projection in relation to Hume’s treatment of causal necessity. I argue that the best understanding of projection shows it to be compatible with taking Hume to be a ‘sceptical realist’ about causal necessity, albeit an agnostic one.

Theism, according to David O'Connor, has in recent centuries been on trial for its life, the charge being that the existence of so much evil in the world is incompatible with belief in a benevolent creator. But this trial, he claims is incapable of producing a reasoned verdict.

What lies at the heart of physical inquiry? What are the foundational ideas and working assumptions that inform the enterprise of natural science? What principles guide research? How do scientists decide whether they are building theories in the right direction? Is there a right direction? Do physical theories actually approximate an objective reality, or are they simply useful summaries, mnemonics for experimental results? This book is Nobel Prize winner Jim Peebles's contribution to such big, classic debates in the philosophy of (...) science, drawing on a lifetime of experience as a leading physicist and taking the development of physical cosmology as a "worked example." He begins with a consideration of the history of thought about the nature of the physical sciences since Einstein, culminating in a succinct statement of what he sees as the fundamental working assumptions of physics. Then, through a careful examination of the development of the general theory of relativity, Einstein's cosmological principle, the big bang theory, and our current model of the universe, he makes the argument that physical theories ultimately are useful approximations to an objective reality whose nature science is discovering. An essential reflection on and interrogation of the nature and practice of science by a giant in the field, The Whole Truth will be illuminating reading for cosmologists, physicists, and historians, philosophers, and sociologists of science alike. (shrink)

In his paper ‘Has the Ontological Argument Been Refuted?’, 97–110) William F. Vallicella argues that my attempt to show that the Ontological Argument begs the question is unsuccessful. 1 I believe he is wrong about this, but before endeavouring to vindicate my position I must first make clear what precisely is the point at issue between us. The Ontological Argument is not a single argument, but a family of arguments. Newly devised formulations of the argument are frequently put forward by (...) philosophers in an effort to avoid difficulties that have been pointed out in previous versions. As a consequence there is no possibility of a conclusive proof that every form of the argument embodies the same fallacy. Nevertheless, one can, I believe, prove that all the standard versions of the argument embody a certain fallacy and that, given the nature of the argument, it is therefore unlikely that the argument can be formulated in such a way as to avoid this difficulty. What I tried to show in my paper is that the six best-known versions of the argument all beg the question and that they do so at the same point in the argument, namely when it is asserted that it is possible that an absolutely perfect being exists. It is difficult to see how an ontological argument could be formulated without including this claim as one of its premises, since the distinguishing badge of the argument is the inference from the possibility of an absolutely perfect being to its actuality. It must be unlikely then, if my criticism of these six versions is correct, that there is any way of formulating the argument that avoids this fallacy. (shrink)

There have been two recent attempts to disentangle the evidence for the procedures in fourth-century Athens for the enactment and revision of nomoi, by D. M. MacDowell and by M. H. Hansen. I have learned from both, but think that further progress can be made. MacDowell distinguishes five separate measures: The Old Legislation Law, requiring action at a specified time, advance publicity for the new proposal, concurrent repeal of any existing law with which the new proposal conflicts, and a decision (...) by nomothetae who are omomokotes, men who have sworn the dicastic oath : this is described as a παλαις νόμος, and as the law καθ' ν σαν ο πρότεροι νομοθέαι. Replacing that c. 370, the New Legislation Law, no longer requiring action at a specified time, advance publicity, concurrent repeal, or that the nomothetae should be omomokotes: as a result of the change conflicting laws have been enacted, and for some time continuing to the mid 350s commissioners have had to be elected to sort out the conflicts. Still valid in the 350s, the Review Law, requiring an annual epicheirotonia of the laws in four subject divisions in the assembly on 11 Hecatombaeon , advance publicity for new proposals, and at the third assembly after 11 Hecatombaeon the appointment of nomothetae who are omomokotes to decide between the existing laws and the new proposals. (shrink)

The full-text of this article is not currently available in ORA, but you may be able to access the article via the publisher copy link on this record page. Citation: Kail, P. J. E.. 'Naturalism, method and genealogy in Beyond Selflessness', European Journal of Philosophy, 17, 113-120. Copyright © 2009 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

This paper discusses some key connections between Berkeley's reflections on language in the introduction to his Treatise on the Principles of Human Knowledge and the doctrines espoused in the body of that work, in particular his views on vulgar causal discourse and his response to the objection that his metaphysics imputes massive error to ordinary thought. I argue also that there is some mileage in the view that Berkeley's thought might be an early form of non-cognitivism.

David Hume's most brilliant and ambitious work is entitled A Treatise of Human Nature, and it, together with his other writings, has left an indelible mark on philosophical conceptions of human nature. So it is not merely the title of Hume's work that makes discussion of it an appropriate inclusion to this volume, but the fact of its sheer influence. However, its pattern of influence – including, of course, the formulations of ideas consciously antithetical Hume's own – is an immensely (...) complex one, subtle and incredibly difficult to decode. In all probability ‘Hume's’ presence in contemporary thinking of human nature is to likened to the end product of a historiographical game of Chinese whispers, whereby ‘Hume's’ view on x and y is now inflected with interpretations his work – or, more accurately, selected parts of it – that are in turn filtered by thinkers and traditions with different focuses and interest from Hume's own. I am not equipped even to begin to trace this line of influence, a lack compounded by my relative ignorance of the present state of the debate on human nature. Nevetheless various ‘humean’ doctrines still orient debate and I guess these claims include the idea that causation is a matter of instantiating a universal regularity, that normativity can understood causally, that motivation is a matter of belief plus some independently intelligibly ‘attitude’, that a self is best conceived as a collection of independent states that combine to yield a self and so on. (shrink)

In a world in which it was easy to contrast slavery as being ruled by others with freedom as the power to rule others, it might have been said that subjection to a tyrant was bad but being a tyrant was good if one could get away with it. But in the fourth century Plato and Aristotle created a contrast between kings as good rulers and tyrants as bad rulers, which has been standard ever since. However, recent studies have tried (...) to move away from the polarisation of good kings and bad tyrants, and look more generally at the nature of monarchic rule in Greece. This article explores the topic of tyrants and the use of the notion of tyranny in classical Greece, at the end of the sixth century and in the fifth and fourth. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:,178 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY in accord with Thomas on certain important points, but his own theology is more in the spirit of Plato and Augustine. Professor Kristeller's vast learning is at the service of admirably balanced conclusions. Not everyone will agree with all his interpretations; Ficino perhaps did not imagine himself to be "constructing a system of philosophy" (p. 96) since the very title of his work, Theologia platonica, (...) suggests that he continues, with new materials, the labor of mediaeval theolo#ans. And Ficino's doctrine of the continuity of the supernatural life of the soul in this world and the next (p. 120) seems to be completely in accord with Thomas. But the author's very careful scholarly method and sound general conclusions are beyond criticism. Two hitherto unpublished Latin texts are printed in critical edition at the end of the French lecture, the Opus aureum in Thomistas by Baptists Mantuanus, which is anti-Thomas, and the Opusculum ad Laurentium Medicem on beatitude, by Vincentius Bandellus, which is pro-Thomas. Like Professor Kristeller's fine lecture, these new texts are a permanent contribution to scholarship. PAUL J. W. MILLER University of Colorado The Anatomy of Leviathan. By F. S. McNeilly. (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1968. Pp. 264. $8.50) The one thing about which Hobbes's commentators have agreed is the absence of any significant process of development in the several statements of his philosophic views. This has been most evident in their willingness to use the various texts as a common repository from which evidence for their interpretations could be drawn with little regard for its specific textual origin. Notoriously, no consensus has emerged from such endeavors and McNeilly believes this method of interpreting Hobbes far too indiscriminate. He contends that careful examination of the differing expressions and contexts of apparently recurrent arguments will show, in many cases, not the same argument repeated several times, but several different arguments. And these, properly discriminated, reveal a definite pattern of development culminating, in Leviathan, with a political theory substantially different from that of the earlier works. While the political theory of the Elements of Law and De Cive consists of a series of predictions founded on the known psychological tendencies of men, the theory of Leviathan, MeNeilly contends, is independent of any particular concept of human nature. Rather it is a "formal system of necessarily true propositions" (p. 213) constituting "a systematic analysis of value systems generally" (p. 245). Excepting two introductory chapters, the whole of McNeilly's argument is given over to substantiating this radical thesis, his point of departure being Hobbes's allegedly shifting views on method which are taken to vary somewhat inconsistently in the earlier works among self evidence, conventionalist and hypothetico-deductive theories and combinations of these. By contrast, in Leviathan, McNeilly argues, Hobbes expounds a conventionalist view with "clarity and persistence" (pp. 84-85). When this BOOK REVIEWS 479 conventionalism is combined with the adoption of mathematics as the paradigm of sound science, it leads Hobbes to the view that pohtical theory can be constructed as a formal system of necessary propositions because he believes that mathematics is about the world and extends this mistake to formal systems generally. These methodological commitments then, render any concept of human nature irrelevant to political theory. McNeilly's task in the second main section of the book is to show that in contrast to the earlier works, and contrary to all appearances, the Leviathan's account of human nature is completely neutral with regard to any possible set of motives and hence, wholly formal. Specifically he argues that materialism and mechanism play no active role in Hobbes's account of the passions and that the psychological egoism characteristic of the Elements and the fourth part of De Corpore is abandoned. (Throughout it is assumed that De Corpore was substantially complete before Leviathan was composed; this may not be true of the fourth part, as McNeilly recognizes, but he is undeterred.) The formal account of the passions in Leviathan then is formally compatible with either egoistic or nonegoistic interpretations of human motivation. Similarly, it is argued that Hobbes gives up his pessimism about men as... (shrink)

This paper first considers why it is important to give children genetic information about hereditary conditions in the family, which will go on to affect their lives in a salient way. If it is important to inform children that they are at risk for an adult-onset disease that exists in the family, why should they not also grow up knowing whether they actually carry the genetic mutation? Central to this discussion is the importance of the process of disclosure and the (...) environment in which genetic information is divulged. It is concluded that the reasons given for defending disclosure of genetic conditions in the family to children are also important reasons to cautiously defend predictive genetic testing of children for adult-onset diseases. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Dharma Bums: The Beat Generation and the Making of Countercultural PilgrimageP. J. JohnstonI believe in the sweetness of Jesus And Buddha— I believe, In St. Francis, Avaloki Tesvara, the Saints Of First Century India A D And Scholars Santidevan And Otherwise Santayanan Everywhere.(Kerouac 1959: 15)Preliminary Polemics“PILGRIM, n. A traveler that is taken seriously.”—Ambrose Bierce, The Devil’s Dictionary 2007: 133As Beat commentator Stephen Prothero describes in his article “On the (...) Holy Road: The Beat Movement as Spiritual Protest” (1991), the Beats and their pilgrimages have most emphatically not been taken seriously. Both critics and scholars have been unkind to members of the Beat generation, and this unkindness has manifested itself in relative neglect of the Beats in all possible aspects of scholarly investigation. But nowhere does this appear more pronounced than in the area of Beat religion. Though some recent scholarship has been picking up from this earlier neglect and it is now [End Page 165] possible to find serious biographies of most of the major Beat writers and some belated attention to the movement as a literary phenomenon, the only book-length treatment of Beat Buddhism I was able to locate (Tonkinson 1995) hardly qualifies as a scholarly work and was published not by an academic press but as a special feature of the Buddhist magazine Tricycle. Prothero hypothesizes that this is because of the movement’s reputation as rebellious and antinomian—in its heyday the movement was characterized in identical unsavory terms by publications representing interests as diverse as Life and Playboy, with the latter describing the Beats as “nihilists” and the former claiming that the Beats were at war with “Mom, Dad, Politics, Marriage, the Savings Bank, Organized Religion, Literary Elegance, Law, the Ivy League Suit and Higher Education, to say nothing of the Automatic Dishwasher, the Cellophane-wrapped Soda Cracker, the Split-Level House and the clean, or peace-provoking H-bomb” (Prothero 1991: 206). Norman Podhoretz of Partisan Review went further still, claiming that the Beats were “hostile to civilization” and that the movement as a whole amounted to “a revolt of the spiritually underprivileged and crippled of soul” and “an affirmation of death” (ibid., 206). One couldn’t ask for a more passionate disavowal of the Beats or a more thorough polemic that the movement was profoundly antireligious.This could not contrast more with the Beats’ representation of their movement and its aims, with Jack Kerouac going so far as to reinterpret the crucial term “Beat” (a term for someone down and out originally borrowed from criminal street jive) as a noun derived from the adjective “beatific,” a specifically religious term familiar from such phrases as “the beatific vision” (ibid., 206–207). Several of the representative Beat writers were practicing Buddhists, influencing the entire movement to such an extent that Buddhist ideas and imagery suffused Beat literature as a whole. Ginsberg and Kerouac especially emphasized the positive and constructive elements of their spiritual vision, arguing that literature such as On the Road and Howl should be understood as religious affirmations of what is good and holy rather than as purely critical undertakings: “For the crucifix I speak out, for the Star of Israel I speak out, for the divinest man who ever lived who was German (Bach) I speak out, for sweet Mohammed I speak out, for Buddha I speak out, for Lao-tse and Chuang-tse I speak out” (ibid., 206–207). Or, as Allen Ginsberg put it less lyrically (and rather more bluntly): “Howl is an ‘Affirmation’ by individual experience of God, sex, drugs, and absurdity... the poems are religious and I meant them to be” (ibid., 207).But for the most part, Beat asseverations in no way diminished scholarly wariness about the Beat movement and its spirituality—as Prothero concludes, “the tendency among literary scholars is to see these [religious] concerns as tangential rather than constitutive” while “historians of American religion who have explored beat spirituality have tended to focus almost exclusively on the beats’ engagement with Zen and then to dismiss that engagement as haphazard” (ibid., 207).It is my contention that the mainstream scholarly neglect of Beat spirituality is in some part... (shrink)

George Berkeley's Principles of Human Knowledge is a crucial text in the history of empiricism and in the history of philosophy more generally. Its central and seemingly astonishing claim is that the physical world cannot exist independently of the perceiving mind. The meaning of this claim, the powerful arguments in its favour, and the system in which it is embedded, are explained in a highly lucid and readable fashion and placed in their historical context. Berkeley's philosophy is, in part, a (...) response to the deep tensions and problems in the new philosophy of the early modern period and the reader is offered an account of this intellectual milieu. The book then follows the order and substance of the Principles whilst drawing on materials from Berkeley's other writings. This volume is the ideal introduction to Berkeley's Principles and will be of great interest to historians of philosophy in general. (shrink)

In response to criticisms of the use of the Ideological Surround Model to analyze Tolerance of Ambiguity, emphasis is placed on how the methodologies of this model operate from Christian pacifist assumptions. This model seeks to promote social scientific methodologies that will allow competing perspectives to obtain increasing clarity on points of conflict.