If within the borders of human life the truth is, as Vico has said, what is made, then the task of a student of human life can be and should be to find out from what human beings have made what manner of makers they are and what sorts of production their circumstance allows.

THE MARKET AS AN ECONOMIC PROCESS by Ludwig M. Lachmann New York: Basil Blackwell, 1986. 173 pp., $29?95.

An animal enters the world with a set of highly specialized and firmly directed instincts which are correlated with pre-typified situations in the environment. Consequently it lives in a surrounding world, structured by its instinctual inheritance, which is specific to its own particular species and admitting only a limited range of variations within which life for it is possible. Man at birth is, compared to the non-human animal, an unfinished being, and his surrounding world partakes of his unfinished character. It (...) is a world that must be fashioned then by man's own activity; he must make a human world for himself. (shrink)

Underlying the analytical framework of Keynes's General Theory is a comparison of capitalism and socialism in terms of risks and consequent rates of interest, rates of investment and capital accumulation, and levels of employment and output. Keynes's social philosophy and corresponding vision of macroeconomic reality biases his comparison in favor of socialism, or, more precisely, in favor of ?a comprehensive socialisation of investment.? Recognizing the significant influence of Keynes's early social philosophy on his subsequent macroeconomics? which is firmly established by (...) Allan Meltzer's ?different? interpretation of Keynes?refocuses criticism of Keynes's analytics, provides a basis for assessing other interpretations of the General Theory, and helps account for the absence of reconciliation among the modern recastings of Keynesian macroeconomics. (shrink)

The exemplary value of individual moral and political acts provides a unique vantage point for inquiring into the role of the creative imagination in social life. Drawing on Kant’s concept of productive imagination, I argue that an act’s exemplification of a fitting response to a moral or political problem or crisis is comparable to the way that a work of art expresses the ‘thought’ or ‘idea’ to which it gives voice. The exercise of practical reason, or phronesis, is akin to (...) the way that a work augments the practical field of our experiences in this respect. For, like a work of art, the act produces the rule to be followed by means of the example that it sets. Accordingly, I explain how the injunction issuing from the act can be credited to the way that the singular case summons its rule. The singular character of the injunction issuing from the act thus brings to the fore the relation between reflective judgment and this injunction’s normative value. The conjunction of reason, action, and the creative power of imagination offers a critical point of access for interrogating the normative force of claims rooted in individual acts. By setting reason, action, and imagination in the same conceptual framework, I therefore highlight the creative imagination’s subversive role in countering hegemonic systems and habits of thought through promoting the causes of social and political struggles. (shrink)

Paul Ricoeur and the Lived Body’s explorations into the ethical, social, cultural, and affective dimensions of our corporeal existence draw on Paul Ricoeur’s reflection on the lived body. Starting with the fact that one’s own body is irreducible to an object, these essays critically contribute to discourses on the body.

Traditional scientific views of the conscious self and world we live in are challenged by an unprecedented outburst of emerging new paradigms, theories of consciousness, perceptions of reality, new sciences, new philosophies, epistemologies, and a host of other transformative approaches. This still expanding outburst can be traced, on both logical and chronologic grounds, not to chaos theory, ecology, the new physics, or dozens of other currently ascribed sources, but rather to the cognitive (consciousness) revolution that immediately preceded. These new approaches (...) all share one key feature in common, namely, they all depend, directly or indirectly, upon a refutation and successful overthrow of the long dominant materialist paradigm. This is what was required to shift consciousness from an acausal or "eliminable" status to a functionally indispensable role. Traditional "bottom‐up" micro‐determinism had to be supplemented by a reciprocal, "top‐down" control exerted by mental emergents over lower‐level components. This does not dispose of behaviorism or reductionism, as methodology, but simply incorporates these within a more comprehensive explanatory framework. With the long reign of materialist constraints finally broken, other antireductive views have proliferated but with little regard for what the new paradigm allows. (shrink)

This article considers Aquinas' doctrine of predestination as an eternal reality in God in light of its temporal realization in time by the incarnation of the eternal Son. In particular, Aquinas' repeated recourse to the ratio of the divine goodness as the motive of predestination is documented in conjunction with his teaching on the fittingness of the incarnation. In this light, the relation of the natural sonship of Christ to the grace of adoption is developed by Aquinas as the temporal (...) realization of the eternal reality of predestination in God. (shrink)

Context Professionalism remains a challenging part of the medical curriculum to define, teach and evaluate. We suggest that one way to meet these challenges is to clarify the definition of professionalism and distinguish this from medical ethics. Methods Our analysis is two staged. First, we reviewed influential definitions of professionalism and separated elements relating to (a) ethico-legal competencies, (b) clinical competence and (c) professionalism. In reference to professionalism, we then distinguished between aspirational virtues/values and specific behaviours. From these, we develop (...) a working definition of medical professional behaviour consisting of six domains of behaviour: responsibility; relationships with and respect for patients; probity and honesty; self awareness and capacity for reflection; collaboration and team work; and care of colleagues. Second, we tested this working definition against empirical data concerning disciplinary action against practising doctors using (a) sources in the literature and (b) an original analysis of complaints received by the Medical Board of South Australia. Conclusion Our empirical analysis supports the relevance of four of the six potential domains: responsibility; relationships with and respect for patients; probity and honesty; self awareness and capacity for reflection. There are additional reasons for retaining ‘collaboration and team work’ in the medical professional behaviour curriculum but ‘care of colleagues’ may be better addressed in the ethico-legal curriculum. Our definition of professional behaviour is consistent with the theoretical literature, captures behaviours that predict future complaints against practitioners and is consistent with current complaints about professionalism in South Australian practitioners. This definition can further the teaching and assessing of professional behaviour in medical schools. (shrink)

This volume brings together eleven essays that address a range of issues extending from broader questions of social justice to the sexual intimacy that bears the mark of our fleshly existence. Collectively, these essays extend the reach of Paul Ricoeur’s early to late works by taking up some of the major social, political and religious challenges facing us in a postmodern, ultrapluralistic world.

Israel Kirzner is to be credited for clarifying and developing the theory of capital and interest set out by Ludwig von Mises and for articulating and defending the pure time preference theory of interest. A revisiting of Mises and his critics suggests that the pure time preference theory is best formulated in terms of economic actions and then applied to the anticipated consequences of those actions. Differences between the Misesian and Knightian reckonings of time preference are to be understood in (...) terms of the contrasting conceptions of a zero time preference. Parallels between the time preference theory of interest and a leisure preference theory of wages are explored. Austrian economics is deemed healthy despite lingering puzzles about its theories of interest and wages.On doit au Professeur Kirzner la clarification et le développement de la théorie du capital et de l’intérêt dans la lignée de Ludwig von Mises et l’articulation et la défense de la théorie de l’intérêt comme étant la préférence pure pour le temps. Une relecture des travaux de Mises et de ses critiques suggère qu la théorie de la préférence pure pour le temps est mieux formulée en termes d’actions économiques et ensuite appliquée aux conséquences anticipées de ces mêmes actions. Les différences entre les acceptions Misessiennes et Knigtienne de la préférence pour le temps doivent être comprises en termes de conceptions différentes d’une préférence nulle pour le temps. Les rapprochements entre la théorie de l’intérêt comme préférence pour le temps et la théorie des salaires comme préférence pour les loisirs sont explorés. L’économie autrichienne est jugée saine en dépit des énigmes persistantes qui entourent ses théories de l’intérêt et des salaires. (shrink)

Normal 0 false false false EN-US JA X-NONE Normal 0 false false false EN-US JA X-NONE The spotlight that Martha Nussbaum turns on the plight of women in developing nations brings the disproportion between human capabilities and the opportunities to exercise them sharply into focus. Social prejudices, economic discrimination, and deep-seated traditions and attitudes all harbor the seeds of systemic injustices within governing policies and institutions. The refusal on the part of a dominant class to recognize the rights and claims (...) of subaltern individuals and groups has both symbolic and material consequences. The power that one group exercises over another brings the refusal to recognize the rights and claims of others to the fore. Thanks to the moral priority that Paul Ricoeur accords to the victim against such refusals, I tie the fragility of identity to the idea of justice’s federating force. This federating force, I therefore argue, accompanies the struggle for recognition among capable human beings. (shrink)