ObjectivesWorking-age cancer patients face barriers to resuming work after treatment completion. Those resuming work contend with reduced productivity arising from persisting residual symptoms. Existing studies of return to work after cancer diagnosis were done predominantly in Western countries. Given that employment and RTW in cancer survivors likely vary regionally due to healthcare provision and social security differences, we documented rates and correlates of RTW, work productivity, and activity impairment among Chinese cancer survivors in Hong Kong at one-year post-treatment.MethodsOf 1,106 cancer (...) patients assessed at six-months post-cancer treatment, 593 previously worked; detailed work status, psychological distress, physical symptom distress, supportive care needs, health-related quality of life, and illness perception were assessed. Six months later, work productivity and activity impairment were assessed. Descriptive analyses examined RTW rate. Fully adjusted regressions determined RTW, work productivity, and activity impairment predictors.ResultsAt baseline, 39% were working, 26% on sick leave, and 35% were unemployed. Compared to patients returning to work, unemployed participants were older, likely manual/service-oriented workers, and had lower family income, chemotherapy, fewer unmet health system and information needs, poorer physical functioning, and negative illness perceptions. Sick leave participants were likely service-oriented workers, who had head and neck cancer, chemotherapy, and poor physical functioning. At FU, baseline depressive symptoms, physical symptom distress, and negative illness perceptions predicted presenteeism and work productivity loss; gynecological cancer, fewer unmet health system and information needs, and greater unmet sexuality needs predicted absenteeism; physical symptom distress, negative illness perception, and poor physical functioning predicted activity impairment.ConclusionCancer survivors who had more physically demanding jobs and poorer physical functioning delayed RTW. Unmanaged physical symptom and psychological distress hindered work productivity. (shrink)

Researchers have recognized that interpersonal trust consists of different dimensions. These dimensions suggest that trust can be rational, cognitive, or affective. Affect, which includes moods and emotions, is likely to have a direct impact on the affective dimension. On the other hand, there are also studies showing that affect indirectly influence cognitive judgments. Nonetheless, in this chapter we argue that the impact of affect on judgment will not be the same on all individuals. In effect, the impact varies, depending on (...) the individual's attention to affect, motivation to use or guard against affect, or regulation of affect. All this may suggest that an individual's abilities or tendencies to manage affect will have implication on his or her trust relationships with others. (shrink)

This paper attempts to delineate the interaction between trust, emotion, and ethical decision making. The authors first propose that trust can either incite an individual toward ethical decisions or drag him or her away from ethical decisions, depending on different situations. The authors then postulate that the feeling of guilt is central in understanding how trust affects the ethical decision making process. Several propositions based on these assumptions are introduced and implications for practice discussed.

By adopting social exchange theory and the affect-infusion-model, the hypothesis is made that emotional intelligence (EI) will have an impact on three perceptions of trustworthiness – ability, integrity and benevolence – at the beginning of a relationship. It was also hypothesized that additional information would gradually displace EI in forming the above perceptions. The results reveal that EI initially does not contribute to any of the perceptions of trustworthiness. As more information is revealed EI has an impact on the perception (...) of benevolence, but not on the perceptions of ability and integrity. This impact was observed to be negative when the nature of the information was negative. On the other hand, information alone was shown to have a significant impact on the perceptions of ability and integrity, but not on the perception of benevolence. Theoretical and practical implications of the findings are addressed. (shrink)

This article investigates the impact of different emotions on trust decisions taking into account the experience of betrayal. Thus, an experiment was created that included one betrayal group and one control group. Participants in the betrayal group experienced more intense feelings governed by negative emotions than participants in the control group did. Moreover, participants in the betrayal group significantly lowered their trust of another stranger. On the other hand, we found some evidence that neuroticism exaggerated the relationship between experienced betrayal (...) and subsequent trust. (shrink)

Trust has traditionally been regarded as conducive to ethical decision making. However, empirical studies on the relationship between trust and ethical decision making are rare, especially those concerning the negative effects of trust. Therefore, our study aimed to provide empirical evidence in this area. An experiment was designed to investigate whether trusted parties are more likely than non-trusted parties to enter into a collusion that will have unfair consequences for a third party. The results showed that trusted parties are significantly (...) more likely to collude than are non-trusted parties. Furthermore, an ancillary analysis revealed the mechanism of trust. First, participants with a stronger need to collude were the most likely to collude in the trust group. Second, experimental and hypothetical settings generated different results, and we suspect that real harm plays a vital role. Overall, we conclude that the absence of trust serves as an impediment to collusion. (shrink)

Whether due to simplicity or hypocrisy, the question of access to patient data for biomedical research is widely seen in the public discourse only from the angle of patient privacy. At the same time, the desire to live and to live without disability is of much higher value to the patients. This goal can only be achieved by extracting research insight from patient data in addition to working on model organisms, something that is well understood by many patients. Yet, most (...) biomedical researchers working outside of clinics and hospitals are denied access to patient records when, at the same time, clinicians who guard the patient data are not optimally prepared for the data’s analysis. Medical data collection is a time- and cost-intensive process that is most of all tedious, with few elements of intellectual and emotional satisfaction on its own. In this process, clinicians and bioinformaticians, each group with their own interests, have to join forces with the goal to generate medical data sets both from clinical trials and from routinely collected electronic health records that are, as much as possible, free from errors and obvious inconsistencies. The data cleansing effort as we have learned during curation of Singaporean clinical trial data is not a trivial task. The introduction of omics and sophisticated imaging modalities into clinical practice that are only partially interpreted in terms of diagnosis and therapy with today’s level of knowledge warrant the creation of clinical databases with full patient history. This opens up opportunities for re-analyses and cross-trial studies at future time points with more sophisticated analyses of the same data, the collection of which is very expensive. (shrink)

This essay introduces four articles that form a special issue of Politics & Society titled “Right-Wing Activism in Asia: Cold War Legacies, Geopolitics, and Democratic Erosion.” The articles focus on Japan, South Korea, and Thailand. These three Asian countries present important cases to generate critical comparative insights about the patterns of Far Right mobilization, for their geopolitical histories provide common ground while institutional variations set distinctive conditions. Most importantly, all of them were shaped by the particularly sharp conflicts of (...) the Cold War in the region, and the articles in this issue demonstrate how this legacy has generated illiberal conditions in these countries today. (shrink)

Scientific method in philosophy has been so greatly developed and widely accepted in our day that it seems almost ready to lay claim to the self-evidence which an older rationalism professed. It is my belief that it leaves out something essential to philosophy. I shall not attempt to define scientific method in philosophy, since it is a movement with several wings, rather than a definite set of propositions accepted by all its advocates; but its intent is clear. The theme of (...) current criticisms of metaphysics and speculation has been that philosophy has no private access to the truth, no monopoly of such knowledge as human beings possess; it stands on an equal footing with the sciences. The observation is sound and timely; but from it has been drawn, at least by implication, the conclusion that there is no such thing as philosophy at all. For unless it has a peculiar method, or a distinct subject matter, or some other distinguishing trait, philosophy is only a convenient name for a certain group of men and the books they wrote. The criticism was made because philosophy had come to be identified with a set of dogmas. I wish to suggest instead that it is a peculiar kind of inquiry into a distinct subject matter. Philosophy is the attempt to formulate principles or categories which the philosopher already possesses, in common with everyone else, but in an unformulated state. Philosophy is always developing theories and systems, but they are tentative, not final and dogmatic; the categories are certain, but their statement is provisional; therefore, the process of inquiry is unending. (shrink)

Religion inspires honesty. The love of money incites dishonesty. Religious and monetary values apply to all religions. We develop a formative theoretical model of monetary wisdom, treat religiosity (God) and the love of money (mammon), as two yoked antecedents—competing moral issues (Time 1), and frame the latent construct in good barrels (performance or humane contexts, Time 2), which leads to (dis)honesty (Time 3). We explore the direct and indirect paths and the model across genders. Our three-wave panel data (411 participants) (...) show that religious and monetary values are negatively correlated. Directly, religiosity consistently curbs dishonesty; surprisingly, the love of money has no impact on dishonesty. In the performance context, the two mediation effects reduce dishonesty. Across genders, this mediation effect is nonsignificant for males but significantly excites females' honesty. In the humane context, the two mediation effects are nonsignificant. Across genders, for the love of money, males passively curb dishonesty by omission, and females actively engage in honesty by commission. Decision-makers must challenge people's moral issues, frame them in good barrels, and help people become good apples, choice architects, and moral and ethical decision-makers, promoting the Matthew effect in religion. We offer practical implications to individuals and organizations. (shrink)

Bringing Pierre Bourdieu to Science and Technology Studies Content Type Journal Article Pages 263-273 DOI 10.1007/s11024-011-9174-2 Authors Mathieu Albert, Wilson Centre and Department of Psychiatry, Faculty of Medicine, University of Toronto, 200 Elizabeth Street , Eaton-South 1-581, Toronto, ON M5G 2C4, Canada Daniel Lee Kleinman, Department of Community and Environmental Sociology, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 348 Agricultural Hall 1450 Linden Drive, Madison, WI 53706, USA Journal Minerva Online ISSN 1573-1871 Print ISSN 0026-4695 Journal Volume Volume 49 Journal Issue Volume 49, Number (...) 3. (shrink)

Using a cross-modal semantic priming paradigm, both experiments of the present study investigated the link between the mental representations of iconic gestures and words. Two groups of the participants performed a primed lexical decision task where they had to discriminate between visually presented words and nonwords (e.g., flirp). Word targets (e.g., bird) were preceded by video clips depicting either semantically related (e.g., pair of hands flapping) or semantically unrelated (e.g., drawing a square with both hands) gestures. The duration of gestures (...) was on average 3,500 ms in Experiment 1 but only 1,000 ms in Experiment 2. Significant priming effects were observed in both experiments, with faster response latencies for related gesture–word pairs than unrelated pairs. These results are consistent with the idea of interactions between the gestural and lexical representational systems, such that mere exposure to iconic gestures facilitates the recognition of semantically related words. (shrink)

Leibniz was a divine concurrentist. That is to say, when it came to the question of how God’s causal power relates to the natural causal activity of creatures, Leibniz held that both God and the creature are directly involved in the occurrence of these effects.

ABSTRACTPrevious studies have identified two powerful ways to regulate emotional responses to a stressor: experiencing incidental positive emotions and using cognitive reappraisal to reframe the stressor. Several cognitive and motivational theories of positive emotion support the formulation that incidental positive emotions may facilitate cognitive reappraisal. To test the separate and interacting effects of positive emotions and cognitive reappraisal, we first adapted an established picture-based reappraisal paradigm by interspersing blocks of positive emotion inducing and neutral pictures. Across two pre-registered studies, reappraisal (...) effectively decreased self-reported negative emotions and increased self-reported positive emotions; however, experiencing incidental positive emotions did not facilitate reappraisal success. In another preregistered study, we employed a more powerful positive emotion induction via virtual reality, used a social stress anticipation task, and... (shrink)

The slandering of a firm’s products by competing firms poses significant threats to the victim firm, with the resulting damage often being as harmful as that from product-harm crises. In contrast to a true product-harm crisis, however, this disparagement is based on a false claim or fake news; thus, we call it a pseudo-product-harm crisis. Using a pseudo-product-harm crisis event that involved two competing firms, this research examines how consumer sentiments about the two firms evolved in response to the crisis. (...) Our analyses show that while both firms suffered, the damage to the offending firm was more detrimental, in terms of advertising effectiveness and negative news publicity, than that to the victim firm. Our study indicates that, even apart from ethical concerns, the false claim about the victim firm was not an effective business strategy to increase the offending firm’s performance. (shrink)

Leibniz was a divine concurrentist. That is to say, when it came to the question of how God’s causal power relates to the natural causal activity of creatures, Leibniz held that both God and the creature are directly involved in the occurrence of these effects.

With meticulous scholarship and an accurate, highly readable translation, this volume sheds light not only on Spinoza's debt to Descartes but also on the development of Spinoza's own thought. Appearing for the first time in English translation, Lodewijk Meyer's inaugural dissertation on matter --relevant for its comments on Descartes, Spinoza, and other thinkers of the time--is appended with notes and a short commentary. Cross-references to Descartes's _Principles of Philosophy_ are provided in an index, and there is an extensive bibliography.

The visual system is known to extract summary representations of visually similar objects which bias the perception of individual objects toward the ensemble average. Although vision plays a large role in guiding action, less is known about whether ensemble representation is informative for action. Motor behavior is tuned to the veridical dimensions of objects and generally considered resistant to perceptual biases. However, when the relevant grasp dimension is not available or is unconstrained, ensemble perception may be informative to behavior by (...) providing gist information about surrounding objects. In the present study, we examined if summary representations of a surrounding ensemble display influenced grip aperture and orientation when participants reached-to-grasp a central circular target which had an explicit size but importantly no explicit orientation that the visuomotor system could selectively attend to. Maximum grip aperture and grip orientation were not biased by ensemble statistics during grasping, although participants were able to perceive and provide manual estimations of the average size and orientation of the ensemble display. Support vector machine classification of ensemble statistics achieved above-chance classification accuracy when trained on kinematic and electromyography data of the perceptual but not grasping conditions, supporting our univariate findings. These results suggest that even along unconstrained grasping dimensions, visually-guided behaviors toward real-world objects are not biased by ensemble processing. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Toward Mindful Music Education:A Response To Bennett ReimerSandra L. StaufferIn her book Composing a Life, Mary Catherine Bateson reminds us to acknowledge our antecedents—those who have gone before in whatever way or whatever path.1 I believe we should also acknowledge our co-conspirators—those who have listened to us and wrestled with our ideas. Following Bateson, I wish to recognize the contributions of my teachers and my colleagues, particularly the members (...) of the doctoral seminar at Arizona State University. I am grateful for your contributions to the life of my mind and the words of this morning. For the record, I also want to say that Bennett Reimer is both antecedent and co-conspirator for everyone in this room, and we are indebted to him."The first task of philosophy involves learning to ask a good question," says Walter Feinberg in his essay on the philosophical scholar.2 Reimer asks us, "Who is philosophy of music education for?"—a provocative question indeed. He also gives us an answer: K-12 students.I agree, but not really. How can that be? Imagine this. A music teacher I know, Stephanie, was engaged with some first-grade children in singing songs and moving and reading rhythms. She turned to write on the white board. When she turned back to the children, one boy, Alex, was standing, perfectly still, on his head. What happened next? I will tell you in few minutes. Reimer says, "Philosophical issues are not disconnected to or incidental to musical experience. [End Page 135] They are foundational for musical experience, because one's values, beliefs, desires, preferences, and so forth, directly affect how one engages with music and what one gets from doing it." Abridging those two sentences at my own peril, Reimer appears to be saying that philosophical issues are foundational to musical experience.That idea works for me only if I am standing, figuratively and metaphorically, not literally, on my head. It seems to me that experience is the foundation of philosophy or, put another way, that one's philosophy derives from one's experiences; the richer the experiences, the richer the philosophy. A philosophy based on limited or weak experience is a limited or weak philosophy. This, however, is only surface-level logic for a deeper epistemological question—where does one's philosophy come from? If I take the Deweyan perspective that philosophy derives from experience, then surely I am obligated, in this forum, to define my terms—particularly "experience." It would be easy to say that experience means making music and listening to music, and surely it does. By experience, however, I mean not only these actions—the doing of music—but also thinking, or what Ellen Langer calls mindfulness.3 Langer describes mindful learning as having three characteristics: "the continuous creation of new categories; openness to new information; and an implicit awareness of more than one perspective."4 I like how Robert Duke articulates the same idea: "Teach things that are intellectually interesting and functionally valuable."5 Engage students not just in doing, but also in thinking—in mindful learning. Rich experience makes for rich philosophy. If we are talking about music education at all levels that is not only participatory, but also mindful, then I am all for it.Reimer asks a second question: how are we to accomplish the teaching of philosophy to K-12 students? I want to know what we are trying to accomplish. Are we trying to teach the content of philosophy or are we trying to help students develop their own abilities to think about their experiences as musicians, whether as listeners or as music makers, in whatever contexts they find themselves? The former seems to be a reification of philosophy in which I am not eager to engage most K-12 students. I hope we are aiming for the latter. If so, then our task is to provide rich and mindful experiences in every music setting. Our task is to model the disposition of a philosopher—one who asks questions, is curious, and is engaged in the life of the mind.This seems so obvious. Why aren't we doing it already? There... (shrink)

This thesis presents an interpretation of David Hume’s essay ‘Of the Standard of Taste’. The most distinguishing feature of this interpretation is the emphasis placed on the significance of Hume’s general philosophical position in a faithful reading of this philosophical classic. The success of this interpretation will show that Hume’s essay should be read as an integral part of his system of philosophy. There are three parts in this thesis. The first part is an overview of some key aspects of (...) Hume’s philosophy which are relevant to my interpretation. Unlike many contemporary philosophers in the analytic tradition, Hume is a systematic thinker. A faithful reading of his works should take his general philosophical framework seriously. Therefore, this overview of his system serves as the general background of the next two parts. The second part is a discussion of Hume’s aesthetic thought. More specifically, it provides an exposition of his view on beauty and judgements of beauty. This part completes the stage-setting for the development of my interpretation, by helping the reader form a more specific conceptual framework for understanding Hume’s essay. The third part develops an interpretation of ‘Of the Standard of Taste’ according to what has been provided in the previous two parts. It starts with an outline of the essay, which indicates Hume’s aim in writing it. After that, a few sections are devoted to some central elements of the essay. The last section of this part discusses four controversies concerning Hume’s essay. These discussions establish the strength of this interpretation, or at least, the fruitful prospect of an interpretative project that integrates Hume’s essay into his whole system. (shrink)

In the fifth year of the reign of Shaoxi [in the Song dynasty]—in other words, in the year 1194 A.D.—Zhu Xi was returning to his home province after he had been relieved of his position at court as daizhi shijiang when, in the eleventh month of that year he came to Yushan county in Jiangxi Province. The governor of the district invited Master Zhu to give a number of lectures at the local county school, and Master Zhu complied, discoursing on (...) essential teachings in response to the questions that were raised by the students as well as in response to the lectures given by other scholars. At one point, the record says, the scholar Cheng Gong1 rose to ask the question: "Philosophers prior to the Three Ages only spoke about zhong and ji ; how come, then, that when it came to the time of the dialogues of those in the school of Confucius, everything seemed to revolve around the word ren ?" Master Zhu replied: "The discussions of zhong and of ji have often tended to make people misunderstand the meaning of what they were actually saying; alas, we do not ourselves have the leisure here to discuss all of that in detail.". (shrink)

Since the 1950s, Lee Joseph of Zhu Xi of the Road, learn to criticism that many aspects of Taoism is similar to Whitehead's qualification process philosophy, which Zhu large amount of philosophical comprehensive work is the right assessment, triggering In order to controversy . This paper argues that there are many real reason is that Zhu and Whitehead都qualification processes philosopher. According to Whitehead's thought, emphasizing the role or function of qualifications process description is the qualification process may philosopher. Zhu Xi (...) said in his clear emphasis on learning裡qualification process, change, transformation and innovation of other concepts. Description of this method less controversial, but the problem is in the end "qualification process" concept in terms of how important Zhu? He has "qualification process" concept is obvious? Over the past eight hundred years have an ongoing controversy, Zhu Xi Road School for the qualification process as the subject is so obvious? Zhu Xi describes the nature of the universe is life and life does not interest, is well known. However, many scholars have argued Zhu Xi's description of the main school - "Management", or the original management, channel management, pattern, or order, in fact, is a static concept. If "management" is static or just the original order or pattern in the form of management, it is difficult to establish qualification process is a description of the key themes of philosophy. Like a dead Yuzhe how it is possible to control a horse living ? This is a serious topic, in fact, followed by South Korean scholars to discuss the subject, which launched the great "forty-seven Debate." This article will certainly "reasonable" can indeed be interpreted as a life principle of management by a manager or management Concept. Really the case, said Zhu Xi's learning can rightly be regarded as a strongly significant qualification process philosophy, such as Whitehead and Lee Snow and other scholars advocated. Zhu Xi to provide In order many of the "reasonable" interpretation, possible these things in the world or the events of the original treatment or reason, interpreted with the qualification process in nature, even creative, with its complex of Taoist system role. This will be Chen Chun highly influential book of the "North Creek word meaning" to prove the wisdom of philosophy of Zhu Xi's disciples will be the most "reasonable" as a "way of qualifications." Therefore, based on an important school of Zhu Xi's interpretation of Taoism, we can agree and support the Joseph Lee, Zhu Xi Neo-Confucianism as the philosophy of the Core see qualification process. Ever since Joseph Needham in the 1950s made the comment that in many ways the daoxue of Zhu Xi resembled the process philosophy of Alfred North Whitehead there has been a debate on whether or not this is an accurate assessment of the Master Zhu's massive philosophical synthesis. This paper argues that there are substantive grounds to suggest that both Master Zhu and Whitehead are process philosophers. Based on Whitehead's observation that some philosophers emphasize the role or function or process as a key element of their philosophical vision and hence can be deemed 'process' philosophers, it is clear that Zhu certainly affirmed a central place for notions of process, change, transformation and creativity within his daoxue or Teaching of the Way. In many ways there is little argument about the general nature of this comment: the problem is, just how central to Zhu's daoxue is the notion of process? Is process more apparent than real? There has been a constant debate for the last eight hundred years as to whether or not Zhu Xi's commitment to process as a central theme or motif of daoxue is as strong as it appears at first glance. Zhu was famous for saying that the nature of the cosmos is, for instance, constant generation or shengsheng buxi life and life does not interest rates. Nonetheless, many competent scholars have argued that Zhu's crucial notion of li management or principle, rationale, pattern, or order might actually be a static concept: hardly the kind of key theme to build a process philosophy around if indeed it is the case that principle is a static or merely a formal principle of order or pattern . One of the best ways of putting the question was, how can a dead rider ride a live horse ? This is a serious question, and in fact later Korean scholars debated the issue with great subtlety in the great Four-Seven Debate. This paper will defend the notion that li can indeed be interpreted as a living principle or rationale. If this is the case, then Zhu's daoxue can be rightly deemed a process philosophy in the strongest sense of the term as defined by scholars such as Whitehead and Nicholas Rescher. Although Zhu Xi offered a number of different interpretations of li, it is entirely plausible that principle or the rationale for the things and events of the world can be construed as processive, even creative in terms of its role in the complex daoxue architectonic. For instance, the influential Beixi ziyi [or Neo-Confucian Terms Explained as translated by Wing-tsit Chan] of Chen Chun proves that one of Master Zhu's most philosophically astute disciples understood li to be proccessive. Therefore, based on one important stream of exegesis of Zhu's daoxue, we can agree with and support Joseph Needham's insight that daoxue is a form of process philosophy. (shrink)

Spinoza semble adopter une position pleinement norninaliste lorsqu’il discue des notions universelles dans l’Ethique, mais on y trouve aussi plusieurs arguments où, semble-t-il, des universaux sont présupposés. La solution avancé par plusieurs commentateurs, y compris Haserot, est que Ie système spinoziste est d’inspiration platoniste, et qu’il faut réinterpréter les passages d’apparence nominaliste pour les accorder avec Ie platonisme ou l’essentialisme. J’argurnente qu’un tel procédé n’est justifié ni par Ie texte ni par la structure du système de Spinoza. L’interprétation du spinozisme (...) que je propose Ie place dans Ie cadre logique du nominalisme contemporain, à I’instar du système de Nelson Goodman, par exemple. (shrink)

The notions of ‘growth’ and ‘inquiry’ are central in the Philosophy for Children movement. Phil Cam’s writings on these concepts clearly map their close connection and, in the process, raise further questions for teachers of philosophy on curriculum content and the management of inquiry itself. With reference to the senior secondary context, I show how Cam’s exposition points to the teacher’s significant role, not only in the management of inquiry, but also in his or her participation as a learner in (...) the process. Furthermore, this learning goes beyond academic and pedagogical dimensions to ones involving personal development and character. In conclusion, I suggest that recognition of this deeper dimension of teacher quality is particularly needful today. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:The Christian Moral Life: Faithful Discipleship for a Global Society by Patricia Lamoureux, Paul J. WadellVictor Lee AustinThe Christian Moral Life: Faithful Discipleship for a Global Society Patricia Lamoureux and Paul J. Wadell Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2010. 306pp. $27.00In ten chapters, the authors provide what is in effect an introductory college textbook in Roman Catholic moral theology. They aim to ground their exposition in scripture and to (...) reach a broad audience by drawing on ecumenical and interfaith perspectives. Their organization is clear: they summarize each chapter in advance and then conclude it with a list of main points and questions for reflection. The index is extensive, the bibliography is large, and the table of contents is quite detailed. In short, the book aims to be accessible to undergraduates and helpful to more advanced students. (There is, unfortunately, no index of scriptural citations.) [End Page 201]The arc of their approach to moral theology is as follows. One should begin with discipleship and more specifically with its dynamic of call and response. Discipleship is a process in which one learns to see, particularly to see the reign of God. Sin and repentance are continually involved in discipleship. The development of the virtues is central because through them we learn to be good at being human. In the moral life, conscience is the central gift by which we learn to live by love in a Eucharistic life. Such life is informed by the resurrection as understood both “analogically and dialectically” (206), it is guided by the Spirit, and it is anchored in the shared resources and discernment of Christian community. Finally, the moral life is not private. Thus, the authors conclude with a chapter that draws out the implications for public discipleship.I venture three critiques that arise in part from my place as an Anglican moral theologian. The first deals with scripture. The authors are aware of the characteristic biases of preconciliar Roman Catholic moral theology. I am less certain that they are self-conscious of some of their own presuppositions. Commendably, they provide a verse of scripture at the head of each chapter, and they conceive of what they are doing as working from scripture throughout. Yet it is not clear to me that they present us with a moral theology that comes out of a prayerful wrestling with scripture. For example, their statement, “Jesus praises the [good] Samaritan” (46) is not strictly true. Rather, in telling that parable, Jesus holds back from stating a conclusion. Moreover, the authors are correct to say that parables are useful in transforming our vision. They make that point over eight pages (39–47), in which there are seventeen citations of secondary literature from six different authors. Yet, I would have preferred to see how the authors themselves digested, synthesized, and struggled with the parables, rather than simply discussing the conclusions of others.My second critique deals with conscience. When students start to think about how the moral life is grounded in scripture, they will at some point ask: What if my conscience tells me that something is right that scripture says is wrong (or vice versa)? This question, however, does not appear in this book. In their chapter on the centrality of conscience, it becomes clear that the authors see the primary challenge to the primacy of the conscience as coming from “church leaders.” This is, I think, a regrettable continuation of the tired struggle of Roman moral theologians with their church’s magisterium. At least to this outsider—who lives within an ecclesial context marked by extreme weakness of teaching—there seems to be a highly important and positive use of obedience, which is different from the “mystique of obedience” that these authors criticize (170–71). To be precise, “church leaders” can help us learn something about the relationship of conscience and scripture. This book does not show the place of obedience in the Christian moral life.My last point is a comment on textbooks. Although this book is quite long (I estimate it at 150,000 words), it has that textbook quality of passing lightly [End Page 202] from one thing to the next... (shrink)

RésuméDans un récent article, D. H. Finkelstein propose une nouvelle distinction entre croyance consciente et inconsciente. Suivant cette proposition, la croyance de quelqu'un est consciente s'il a la capacité de l'exprimer tout simplement en se l'attribuant; sa croyance est inconsciente s'il n'en a pas la capacité. Dans cet article, je fais valoir que cette proposition est inadéquate, et je propose ensuite une nouvelle distinction. Suivant cette distinction, la croyance de quelqu'un est consciente s'il s'attribue cette croyance sans s'appuyer sur aucun (...) ilement depreuve au sujet de son comportement; sa croyance est inconsciente si elle n'est pas consciente. (shrink)

The modern way of life is highly dependent upon the production of goods by industrial organizations that are in turn dependent upon their workers for their ongoing operations. Even though more than a century has passed since the dawn of the industrial revolution, many dangerous aspects of work, both physical and mental, remain in the workplace today. Using Buddhist philosophical principles, this paper suggests that although many sources of the problem reside within the larger society, the industrial engineer is still (...) a key factor in bettering work and providing a workplace suitable for their fellow workers. Drawing on these insights, we present a number of work design guidelines that industrial engineers who abide by Buddhist principles could practice to help overcome some of the many sufferings produced by modern work. (shrink)

« On ne naît pas femme: on le devient.»: “One is not born but becomes (a) woman,” thus spake Simone de Beauvoir in Le deuxième sexe (1949), The Second Sex (1953, 2009). Which one? And how, in what language(s), would one read that line today in the age of gender variance and trans revolution? Why The Second Sex again? This article spotlights the translingual simplexity of the Beauvoirean lifeline, its conceptual genius that appears second to none, whether in French or (...) English or Korean or Chinese …. (shrink)

In uttering negative existential sentences, we do not mention but use an empty singular term. A pretense account explains the use in terms of pretense. I argue that our understanding of negative existential statements can be successfully explained by Crimmins’ theory of shallow pretense if it is supplemented and reconstructed properly. First, I explain the notion of shallow pretense and supplement Crimmin’s theory with an Evansian account that we immediately grasp the phenomenology of what is pretended without a conscious effort (...) to imagine the condition under which what is pretended can be true. Thus, shallow pretense does not consist in the counterintuitive meta-representation of the fact of pretense. Second, against the objection to Crimmins’ distinction between utterance truth-condition and modal content that it is ad hoc, I argue that there is good reason to hold the distinction for the semantics of belief reports. Finally, I argue that the distinction has a merit of explaining our intuition about the epistemic possibility associated with our use of an empty singular term. (shrink)

(2002). A Meditation on Knell, Funeral Melancholia and the Question of Self-Reflexivity: 'To Whom Would the Reflexive be Returned?' Angelaki: Vol. 7, No. 2, pp. 93-105.

In this review I argue that while Berger makes out a good argument that the language of civic engagement covers too much (and hence too little) and that education plays a vital role in developing civic-minded sensibilities, I am less sanguine that the strategies for the reform of our “attention deficit democracy” will achieve the desired effect in a political society dominated by the corrupting influence of corporations who actively seek to undermine just such sensibilities as anathema to their objectives. (...) As corporate objectives become more and more wedded to the state, so too reform becomes less and less likely to be successful. An excellent example of this is the power wielded by the current incarnation of the fossil fuel empire and it’s influence over law-making concerning hydraulic fracturing in Pennsylvania. While I applaud Berger’s objectives, I am no longer convinced that pragmatism and not a more revolutionary approach can fulfill Berger’s—and my own—democratic ideals. (shrink)

For both Spinoza and Zhuang-zi, the goal of life is attaining freedom, namely, human freedom. What do they mean by “human freedom”? What are the necessary conditions for humans to attain freedom? Seeking for answers to these questions, I’ve noted that Spinoza and Zhuang-zi suggest remarkably similar answers to these questions. First, both Spinoza and Zhuang-zi understand human freedom as a form of complete independence from externals: self-determination in Spinoza and union with the Dao in Zhuang-zi. Second, both Spinoza and (...) Zhuang-zi assert that human freedom is attainable when one sees things truly or adequately: in Spinoza, when one sees things from the viewpoint of eternity, and in Zhuang-zi, when one sees things from the viewpoint of the Dao. (shrink)

The structure and the energies are mutually relevant, in that each makes the other determinate. Without the social energies, the political forms of democracy are abstract and indeterminate; they lose their reference to the individual society, and there is left a structure which might be exemplified in any number of states, in any number of different ways. But in relation to the energies, the determinable structures become individualized, determinate forms. Conversely, apart from structure, the energies are indeterminate. Thus we say (...) of a man that his originality or ambition took a certain form. His creative powers found an outlet in science or in art; his ambition was channelled in a political career, or he became a business executive. Because of the mutual determination of structure and energies, the existent is an individual, and acts as a unit. (shrink)