In this paper, we use online search engines and archive collections to examine the popularity of socially responsible investing (SRI) in newspapers and academic journals. A simple content analysis suggests that most of the papers on SRI focus on financial performance. This profusion of research is somewhat puzzling as most of the studies used roughly the same methodology and obtained very similar results. So, why are there so many studies on SRI financial performance? We argue that the academic literature on (...) SRI is mostly data driven: the famous ‘looking for the keys under the lamppost’ syndrome. The question of the financial performance of the SRI funds is certainly relevant but maybe too much attention has been paid to this issue, whereas more research is needed on a conceptual and theoretical ground, in particular the aspirations of SRI investors, the relationship between regulation and SRI as well as the assessment of extra‐financial performances. (shrink)

The human face conveys a myriad of social meanings within an overlapping array of features. Herein, we examine such features within the context of gender-emotion stereotypes. First we detail the pervasive set of gender-emotion expectations known to exist. We then review new research revealing that gender cues and emotion expression often share physical properties that represent a confound of overlapping features characteristic of low versus high facial maturity/dominance. As such, gender-related facial appearance and facial expression of emotions often share social (...) meaning and physical resemblance. Thus, stereotypic and phenotypic information conveyed by the face are intertwined—sometimes confounded, sometimes clashing. We discuss implications of this work for gender-emotion stereotypes, as well as for emotion and face processing more generally. (shrink)

The ArgumentThe overall portrayal of early modern experimentation as a new method of securing assent within a philosophical discourse sketched in many of the recent studies on the historical origin of experimentation is questioned by the analysis of the experimental practice of chemistry at the Paris Academy. Chemical experimentation at the Paris Academy in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth century originated in a different tradition than the philosophical. It continued and developed the material culture of the chemical work shops (...) of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and explored epistemic objects which had rather loose connections to philosophy. On the other hand, I argue against the classical dichotomy between the work of the mind that of the hand, and for an epistemology of experimentation that acknowledges that experimental manipulation goes hand in hand with reflexion. In particuler, I argue against the view that chemists at the Paris Academy were “pragmatists” who merely gathered experimental facts and classified substances and operations without perplexing themselves over general conceptions. I claim that the chemists at the Paris Academy constructed a general conception framework which shaped the significance of their experiments. This conception that I call conception of the chemical combination, compound and reaction was rather quickly reified into an experimental fact. Despite its generality it was a genuine chemical conception rather independent of philosophy. (shrink)

John Caiazza's essay raises important controversial issues regarding the contemporary debates between science and religion. His arguments are largely presented in a dichotomous and rather adversarial mode with which I strongly disagree. Unable to present a detailed counterargument in this brief reflection, I ask, What is being spoken about, and who is speaking? What is meant by science and religion here? Neither term can be taken as a unified, essentialist category; both comprise many historical layers, possess numerous internal complexities, and (...) invite a diversity of interpretations. I refer to the science of China, India, and the ancient Near East, all of which have fed into modern science, so that the sciences cannot be restricted to those of the modern West. Nor can religion be limited to the religious beliefs and practices of Western Christianity. I discuss the position/location/context of the author‐ Caiazza's as well as my own‐ after introducing Hans‐Georg Gadamer's idea of the “fusion of horizons,” which provides a rich vein for enhancing the debate between science and religion. To expand the respective horizons of their dialogue it will be important to move away from an adversarial, exclusionary spirit to a more collaborative and communicative framework that allows for the development of new ideals, new questions, new ways of knowing, and an ethical and socially responsible stance more centered on human needs and concerns. We may have to build an altogether new Athens and Jerusalem for this. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Kant-Studien Jahrgang: 107 Heft: 3 Seiten: 536-544.

Relying on the assumption that Spinoza makes a double use of the principle of sufficient reason, Michael Della Rocca has defended a reconstruction of Spinoza’s approach as a metaphysical outlook according to which all particulars vanish in the only and one divine substance. This implies nothing less than a radical attempt to suggest a new and completely revisionary form of metaphysics. After a short discussion of Strawson’s distinction between revisionary and descriptive metaphysics and an exposition of the basic principles of (...) Della Rocca’s interpretation, I critically assess his attack of the use of intuitions in analytic philosophy. After discussing the extent to which the first book of Spinoza’s Ethics is appropriately described as a revisionary project, I conclude with an argument for the necessity of both descriptive and revisionary elements in metaphysics. (shrink)

El presente trabajo constituye una aproximación a la tradición sofista desde la perspectiva nietzscheana. De modo más específico, analizamos hasta qué punto los planteamientos de los sofistas y la contienda que se desarrolla entre ellos le sirven al filósofo como una herramienta para enfrentarse a la tradición platónica. Para ello, describimos primero ciertas características propias de la competencia entre estos oradores, las cuales resultan compatibles con la valoración nietzscheana del devenir. En segundo lugar, relacionamos la interpretación de Nietzsche del homo (...) mensura con el perspectivismo y el escepticismo propios de su pensamiento. Por último, explicamos cómo la expresión «cultura del conocimiento desinteresado», referida a los sofistas, apunta a marcar un contraste frente a la seriedad de la tradición socrático-platónica contra la que Nietzsche combate. (shrink)

This chapter suggests a new interpretation of Spinoza’s concept of mind claiming that the goal of the equation of the human mind with the idea of the body is not to solve the mind-body problem, but rather to show how we can, within the framework of Spinoza’s rationalism, conceive of finite minds as irreducibly distinguishable individuals. To support this view, the chapter discusses the passage from E2p11 to E2p13 against the background of three preliminaries, i.e. the notion of a union (...) between mind and body as it appears in Thomas Aquinas’ refutation of Averroism, Spinoza’s views on knowledge of actually existing things in E2p8c, and the phenomenological character of E2a2-4. It argues that while this view on the human mind does not undermine radical rationalism, it does require its amendment by some irreducibly empirical concessions. (shrink)

This article addresses the question whether or not, in his Ethics, Spinoza is committed to a naturalized epistemology. In the first step, the cognitive psychological principles involved in the concept of imagination are discussed. It is shown that Spinoza does indeed suggest a causal account for the contents of human thought, yet, in contrast to many psychologist views he does not privilege physicalist explanations, but allows for historical as well as for linguistic accounts. In the second section, a similar differentiation (...) is made in regard to the theory of common notions. Whereas in claiming that human minds necessarily have adequate knowledge of certain properties of things, Spinoza does rely on certain psychological facts, his concept of common notions can better be explicated independently of psychological assumptions. A conclusive argument against a naturalist interpretation of Spinoza′s epistemology, however, is given in the third section via the analysis of the concepts of 'truth′ and 'true idea′. It shows that Spinoza not only embraces the idea of an epistemic normativity, but moreover admits the irrecucibilityof this normativity to natural properties. Since, in respect to moral normativity, Spinoza exhibits quite a different attitude, it can be assumed that he never wanted to provide naturalized epistemology. (shrink)

The article reconstructs some of the basic decisions underlying Hermann Cohen′s theoretical philosophy by drawing a line to some claims of Winfrid Sellars′ and to one aspect of Robert Brandom′s philosophy. The first part is concerned with a comparison of the main theses of Cohen′s book Kants Theorie der Erfahrung and Sellars′ early essay entitled “Some remarks on Kant′s Theory of Experience,” both authors reading the Critique of Pure Reason as the discovery of a new, holistic concept of experience. The (...) second part discusses some of the parallels between Cohen′s and Sellars′ respective critique of the myth of the given, and it is shown how Cohen′s later critique of Kant can be understood against this background. In the third part I suggest interpreting Cohen′s logic along the lines of Robert Brandoms inferentialism. It is the declared intention of both philosophers to explain the origin of the content of epistemic claims without making use of any claim about mental representations. The article ends with a comparison of Cohen′s and Sellars′ visions of the systematic character of philosophy. It is argued that while both assume the compatibility of scientific realism with an irreducibly normative ethics, Cohen′s approach is more ambitious, insofar as it requests ethics to develop its own ethical theory of man, the task of which is to overcome the mythical presuppositions of our common sense views on morals. (shrink)

My goal in this paper is to demonstrate that Milbank and Ẑiẑek's respective criticisms of Hegel's redescription of the Christian narrative are flawed because both identify Hegelian spirit as fully immanent. This misreading has enormous consequences, for it suggests that Hegel did not find a way to adequately support his project of reconciling the finite and the infinite. By contrast, I suggest that if Hegel's philosophy of religion is understood as both immanent and transcendent, or more precisely, as advancing a (...) theory of mutual immanence, the charges of nihilism and atheism cannot be upheld. (shrink)