Ethics research in Accounting has not proceeded beyond the descriptive level while, at the same time, ethics is a vital part of accounting decisions to the point where professional codes of etherics are necessary. A theoretical model is offered using cognitive and contingency (field) theories to gain insight into how ethical considerations enter into accounting decisions. Propositions are generated so that the use of ethics in accounting decisions can be predicted.

I present and consider critically O'Regan and Noë's sensorimotor contingency theory, proposed as an alternative to solve the explanatory gap problem. I start with the criticism that these authors address the current conception of representation, according to which conscious experiences are representations of the external world produced by the brain. Afterward, I summarize the way the sensorimotor contingency theory addresses the problem of the explanatory gap, explaining the existence, form, and content of visual consciousness in terms of an (...) "exploratory activity" mediated by sensorimotor contingency laws. Finally, in agreement with criticisms addressed to O'Regan and Noë's solution, I propose a way to face the problem of the explanatory gap, which, recognizing the relevance of the body and the external environment to the existence, form and content of visual consciousness, but privileging the role of the brain as an organ of visual consciousness, and as an agent who uses visual consciousness as a guide to initiate and maintain embodied and situated adaptive actions in the world. (shrink)

We review studies that indicate a dissociation between the perceptual estimate and the resulting cognitive representation of given properties of a seen object, on the one hand, and the motor action exerted on the same object. We propose that there exist multiple levels of organization of sensorimotor loops and that internal models may be made accessible to one level of organization while remaining inaccessible to another level.

This paper addresses representations of Burns and Stalker’s theory that arose soon after its publication in The Management of Innovation in 1961. Different conceptions of Burns and Stalker’s contingency theory as portrayed in organisation and management texts are discussed. It will be argued that what has been represented as their theory stems in the main from ideas based on different positions within the spectrum of the positivistic, functionalist ‘paradigm’.

In _Action in Perception _Alva No develops and presents a sensorimotor account of vision and of visual consciousness. According to such an account seeing (and indeed perceiving more generally) is analysed as a kind of skilful bodily activity. Such a view is consistent with the emerging emphasis, in both philosophy and cognitive science, on the critical role of embodiment in the construction of intelligent agency. I shall argue, however, that the full sensorimotor model faces three important challenges. The first is (...) to negotiate a path between two prima facie unsatisfactory readings of the central claim that conscious perceptual experience is constituted by knowledge of patterns of sensorimotor dependence. The second is to convince us that the sensorimotor contribution, in such cases, is actually constitutive of perceptual experience rather than merely causally implicated in the origination of such experience.² And the third is to respond to the important challenge raised by what I will dub 'sensorimotor summarizing' models of the relation between conscious experience and richly detailed sensorimotor routines. According to such models³ conscious perceptual experience only rather indirectly reflects the rich detail of our actual sensorimotor engagements, which are instead lightly sampled as a coarse guide, optimized for planning and reasoning, and geared and filtered according to current needs and purposes. (shrink)

In this, the first major philosophical study of contingent pacifism, Larry May offers a new account of pacifism from within the Just War tradition. Written in a non-technical style, the book features real-life examples from contemporary wars and applies a variety of approaches ranging from traditional pacifism and human rights to international law and conscientious objection. May considers a variety of thinkers and theories, including Hugo Grotius, Kant, Socrates, Seneca on restraint, Tertullian on moral purity, Erasmus's arguments against just (...) war, and Hobbes's conception of public conscience. The guiding idea is that the possibility of a just war is conceded, but not at the current time or in the foreseeable future due to the nature of contemporary armed conflict and geopolitics - wars in the past are also unlikely to have been just wars. This volume will interest scholars and upper-level students of political philosophy, philosophy of law, and war studies. (shrink)

I argue that historical contingency, in the sense of the order in which events take place, can be an essential factor in determining which of two equally adequate and fruitful, but observationally indistinguishable, scientific theories is accepted by the scientific community. This type of actual underdetermination poses questions for scientific realism and for rational reconstruction in theory evaluation. To illustrate this, I discuss the complete observational equivalence of two radically different, conceptually incompatible interpretations of quantum mechanics and argue (...) that an entirely plausible reordering of historical factors could reasonably have resulted in the causal program having been chosen over the "Copenhagen" one. (shrink)

In this paper I argue that Kierkegaard's theory of change is motivated by a robust notion of contingency. His view of contingency is sharply juxtaposed with a strong notion of absolute necessity. I show that how he understands these notions explains certain of his claims about causation. I end by suggesting a compatibilist interpretation of Kierkegaard's philosophy.

This paper investigates the degree to which information theory, and the derived uses that make it work as a metaphor of our age, can be helpful in thinking about God’s immanence and transcendance. We ask when it is possible to say that a consciousness has to be behind the information we encounter. If God is to be thought about as a communicator of information, we need to ask whether a communication system has to pre-exist to the divine and impose itself (...) to God. If we want God to be Creator, and not someone who would work like a human being, ‘creating’ will mean sustaining in being as much the channel, the material system, as the message. Is information control? It seems that God’s actions are not going to be informational control of everything. To clarify the issue, we attempt to distinguish two kinds of ‘genialities’ in nature, as a way to evaluate the likelihood of God from nature. We investigate concepts and images of God, in terms of the history of ideas but also in terms of philosophical theology, metaphysics, and religious ontology. (shrink)

What motivates behavior? What are the qualities of experience which make life worth living? Taking a new interdisciplinary approach, Morillo advances the theory that pleasure—interpreted as a distinct, separable, noncognitive quality of experience—is essential for all positive motivation and is the only intrinsic, nonmoral good in the lives of human beings and many other sentient creatures. Morillo supports her arguments with recent neuropsychological evidence concerning the role of reward centers in the brain and philosophical arguments for a naturalistic theory of (...) value and the good life. "Contingent Creatures" will interest philosophers, psychologists, and neurobiologists. (shrink)

A slight modification to the translation scheme for David Lewis's counterpart theory I put forward in 'An Alternative Translation Scheme for Counterpart Theory' (Analysis 49.3 (1989)) is proposed. The motivation for this change is that it makes for a more plausible account of contingent identity. In particular, contingent identity is accommodated without admitting the contingency of self-identity.

This book explores the significance of rhetoric from the perspective of its complex relationship with philosophy. It demonstrates how this relationship gives expression to a basic tension at the core of politics: that between the contingency of its happening and the transcendence toward which it strives. The first part of the study proposes a reassessment of the ancient quarrel between philosophy and rhetoric, as it was discussed by Plato, Aristotle, and above all Cicero and Quintilian, who ambitiously attempted to (...) bring them together creating an ideal that is at the roots of the humanist tradition. It then moves to twentieth-century political theory and shows how the questions that emerge from that quarrel still strongly resonate in the works of key thinkers such as H. Arendt, L. Strauss, and R. Rorty. The volume thus offers an original contribution that locates itself at the intersection of politics, rhetoric, and philosophy. (shrink)

Many interpreters have supposed that the root of contingency in Leibniz's thought is that it is contingent rather than necessary that God chooses to create the best possible world. It is far from clear, however, that Leibniz believed this. This chapter argues that Leibniz did believe two theories of contingency: one based on the notion of a thing's being possible in itself whether or not a perfectly wise and good God could choose it, and one based on (...) an identification of necessity with provability, where an infinite analysis does not count as a proof. It emerges that Leibniz's conception of possible worlds is not exactly the same as that now used in possible worlds semantics. (shrink)

Debating the interpretation of the Burgess Shale fossil records, Stephen Jay Gould and Simon Conway Morris have formulated two conflicting theses regarding the nature of evolutionary processes. While Gould argued that evolution is essentially a contingent process whose outcomes are unpredictable, Conway Morris claimed that the omnipresence of convergence testifies that it is in fact deterministic, leading to predictable and inevitable outcomes. Their theses have been extensively researched from various perspectives. However, a systematic parallel analysis of the core arguments each (...) of them offered in support of their thesis has been lacking. I argue Conway Morris has successfully exposed the core weaknesses of Gould's thesis and offered a comprehensive account in favor of the major role of convergence in evolutionary history. On the other hand, I will point out some of the weak points in the latter's arguments supporting the deterministic view of life's evolution. Although Conway Morris has been more successful in arguing for the deterministic nature of the evolutionary processes, both theses could be improved if their shortcomings are taken into consideration. (shrink)

My discussion has four parts. In section 1, I reconstruct Leibniz’s early position on freedom and show how various problems motivated significant changes in Leibniz’s views over a short period of time. In section two, I outline a series of notes by Leibniz entitled “De Libertate a Necessitate in Eligendo,” where Leibniz develops a rudimentary theory of contingency that resembles the infinite analysis theory developed around 1686. In section three, I consider some reasons for why Leibniz dropped the “Eligendo” (...) view. In section four, I look at the link that Leibniz develops between an infinite series of reasons and indemonstrability and suggest how the rudimentary theory of “Eligendo” eventually became the infinite analysis theory of contingency. (shrink)

In this article I investigate the Confucian sense of responsibility from the framework of “moral economy,” understood as a causal relationship between one’s virtue and non-moral goods including political position/success, and “contingency,” the failure of moral economy, and argue that early Confucians’ astute understanding of the contingent nature of the political world enabled them to subscribe to the non-causal sense of responsibility. Contrary to the common argument that Heaven was invoked by the Confucians in order to shield themselves from (...) responsibility for their political failures, I argue that they imposed a more expanded sense of responsibility both on them and on the rulers, largely preoccupied with realpolitik. In their effort to restore moral economy between the ruler’s virtue and his political position in particular, I show Confucians engaged in what I call reverse moral economy, at the heart of which was to constrain the ruler’s arbitrary use of political power. (shrink)

Contingentism is the view that it is possible for there to be contingent existents. Timothy Williamson has argued that contingentists cannot provide a satisfactory interpretation of the possible-world semantics for modal logic. This paper aims to provide such an interpretation on behalf of contingentists.

The sensorimotor theory promises a fresh explanation of phenomenal consciousness, for instance of the feeling of experiencing redness. But can it also be extended to explaining aspects of phenomenal consciousness which are only possible thanks to culture, thanks to our embeddedness in social practices? In this paper, I argue that the sensorimotor theory is in need of such an extension, and I make a proposal for how this might be accomplished. I concentrate on one example of culturally shaped experiences, namely (...) on feeling socially shaped emotions, and in particular moral emotions, such as resentment, guilt, forgiving someone, etc.. My main suggestion is this: in our case of enculturated humans, our implicit knowledge of sensorimotor contingencies is informed by, and transformed by, sociocultural practices. There are, I suggest, 'sociocultural contingencies', the mastery of which can contribute to one's phenomenal consciousness. For example, in order to have the experience of feeling resentment or guilt, one has to engage in an actual fight and make use of one's sociocultural skills of blaming someone or of justifying oneself. (shrink)

Pragmatists embrace the concept of textuality but do not concede that textuality changes anything about how we interpret literature in specific social contexts.

It is argued that accepting that there are human rights, or that there are categorically binding requirements of any kind on action, logically requires accepting the PGC (Principle of Generic Consistency) as the supreme criterion of practical reasonableness.Consequently, all legal systems that recognise human rights (hence, the English legal system), all who view law as a matter of obligation, and all who consider that there are categorically binding requirements on action, must take the PGC to be a necessary criterion of (...) legal validity. Conventions on human rights must, as conventions on human rights, be interpreted to conform with the PGC. (shrink)

This essay argues that, with his much-maligned “infinite analysis” theory of contingency, Leibniz is onto something deep and important – a tangle of issues that wouldn’t be sorted out properly for centuries to come, and then only by some of the greatest minds of the twentieth century. The first two sections place Leibniz’s theory in its proper historical context and draw a distinction between Leibniz’s logical and meta-logical discoveries. The third section argues that Leibniz’s logical insights initially make his (...) “infinite analysis” theory of contingency more rather than less perplexing. The last two sections argue that Leibniz’s meta-logical insights, however, point the way towards a better appreciation of (what we should regard as) his formal theory of contingency, and its correlative, his formal theory of necessity. (shrink)

This essay develops our meta-logical interpretation of Leibniz’s formal theory of contingency by taking up two additional issues not fully addressed in our earlier efforts. The first issue concerns the relationship between Leibniz’s formal theory of contingency and his views on species and essentialism. The second issue concerns the relationship between Leibniz’s formal theory of contingency and the modal status of the actual world.

ABSTRACTIki is the key word of Shūzō Kuki’s The Structure of Iki, and it became one of the most widely recognized Japanese aesthetic categories mainly due to this work. However, in The Problems of Contingency, which is Kuki’s most important philosophical work, there is no discussion of iki again, and consequently, most commentators of Kuki fail to see the correlation between his theories of iki and contingency. This article, by contrast, intends to provide a new interpretation of (...) iki in the light of Kuki’s theory of contingency. The specific thesis of this paper is that aesthetic phenomena categorized as subject to the principles of iki are positively evaluated in Japanese culture just because the consciousness of iki is just one form of the consciousness of contingency, in which the awareness of alternatives to the actual situation could produce considerable spiritual entertainment for aesthetic subjects. (shrink)

Locke’s endorsement of prerogative, the power of the executive to exceed positive laws in emergencies, seems to contradict his political and theoretical aims in writing the Two Treatises of Government, particularly his vindication of the rule of law in a constitutional government. However, this article argues that prerogative and the rule of law are consistent in the ultimate ends that they serve, in spite of their significant differences as means. Prerogative is essential to the realization of the most fundamental duties (...) of government, including the preservation of society, because unforeseeable contingencies make it difficult and even counter-productive to rely exclusively on juridical means of fulfilling these duties. Prerogative compensates for the shortcomings of the law without abandoning the principles of legality altogether by allowing the executive to exercise extra-ordinary powers in accordance with the highest law of all: the good of the people as defined by the laws of nature. (shrink)

In this 1989 book Rorty argues that thinkers such as Nietzsche, Freud, and Wittgenstein have enabled societies to see themselves as historical contingencies, rather than as expressions of underlying, ahistorical human nature or as realizations of suprahistorical goals. This ironic perspective on the human condition is valuable on a private level, although it cannot advance the social or political goals of liberalism. In fact Rorty believes that it is literature not philosophy that can do this, by promoting a genuine sense (...) of human solidarity. A truly liberal culture, acutely aware of its own historical contingency, would fuse the private, individual freedom of the ironic, philosophical perspective with the public project of human solidarity as it is engendered through the insights and sensibilities of great writers. The book has a characteristically wide range of reference from philosophy through social theory to literary criticism. It confirms Rorty's status as a uniquely subtle theorist, whose writing will prove absorbing to academic and nonacademic readers alike. (shrink)

Some things happen or exist only contingently: although they do happen or exist, they do not have to. Some other things do not happen or come to exist, although they could. They are contingent possibilities. Philosophers have tried to understand contingent possibilities in two different ways. According to one, possibilities should be understood with reference to worlds. A nonactual event is possible because there is a world in which it does happen. According to another, possibilities should be understood with reference (...) to modal properties. An event or an object is possible because it would occur or come to exist if a modal property of some substance, another object or set of objects were exercised. -/- This book argues that the latter approach provides a better account of possibilities than the former. It develops a theory of contingent possibilities according to which possibilities within a world must be distinguished from the possibility of worlds. It is the distribution of modal properties within a world which metaphysically determines what could happen in that world. The most important of these modal properties are abilities and dispositions. Dispositions explain nomic and behavioural regularities, while abilities ground more or less abstract possibilities. By way of connecting the ascription of more or less specific modal properties to different counterfactual conditionals, we can identify various possibilities that we are concerned with when we try to understand what can happen in our world. (shrink)

Standpoint theory is an explicitly political as well as social epistemology. It’s distinctive features are commitment to understand the social locations that shape the epistemic capacities and resources of individuals in structural terms, and a recognition that those who are marginalized within hierarchically structured systems of social differentiation are often epistemically advantaged. In some crucial domains they know more and know better as a contingent function of their situated experience and knowledge. This “inversion thesis” counters the alignment of social with (...) epistemic privilege. (shrink)

This article argues that Oakeshott's theory of freedom possesses a greater degree of coherence than is often perceived. Freedom in Oakeshott's philosophy may be defined as `recognized contingency', combining the notions of a genuine choice of action and of an agent's awareness of having such a choice. Oakeshott employs his notion of freedom in two different contexts. One is the context in which freedom is understood as a concept distinguishing what is conceived as `human' from what is conceived as (...) `non-human'. The other context is that of membership in societies, which under certain circumstances can be characterized either by the presence or the lack of freedom. The article argues that, while at first glance Oakeshott's ideas look counter-intuitive, at a deeper level this understanding of freedom is akin to that prevalent in the consciousness of modern liberal societies. (shrink)

This book defends a radical new theory of contingency as a physical phenomenon. Drawing on the many-worlds approach to quantum theory and cutting-edge metaphysics and philosophy of science, it argues that quantum theories are best understood as telling us about the space of genuine possibilities, rather than as telling us solely about actuality. When quantum physics is taken seriously in the way first proposed by Hugh Everett III, it provides the resources for a new systematic metaphysical framework encompassing (...) possibility, necessity, actuality, chance, counterfactuals, and a host of related modal notions. -/- Rationalist metaphysicians argue that the metaphysics of modality is strictly prior to any scientific investigation; metaphysics establishes which worlds are possible, and physics merely checks which of these worlds is actual. Naturalistic metaphysicians respond that science may discover new possibilities and new impossibilities. This book's quantum theory of contingency takes naturalistic metaphysics one step further, allowing that science may discover what it is to be possible. As electromagnetism revealed the nature of light, as acoustics revealed the nature of sound, as statistical mechanics revealed the nature of heat, so quantum physics reveals the nature of contingency. (shrink)

Since its inception, roughly sixteen years ago, the theory of the contingent identity of mental-states and brain-states has been argued on many fronts. I want here to examine and to try to meet one in particular of the objections raised in connection with this theory. The objection has been stated with especial force by Peter Herbst.Let us then investigate a proposition that there is a particular mental entity which is contingently identical with a particular brain state. In order to be (...) able to test it, we must know which mental entity is supposed to be identical with what brain state. Therefore we need at least two clear and independent identifying references to serve as the basis of our proposition of identity. They must each be sufficient to individuate an entity, or else we cannot say what is identical with what, and they must be independent of each other, or else the identity proposition expressed in terms of them becomes tautologous. (shrink)

This article discusses the problem of understanding in Adorno’s critical theory. It is argued that another rationale for the contingency of understanding is provided by Adorno, one that justifies understanding critical theory as disclosing critique. For Adorno, what is responsible for the contingency of understanding is not the local limitation of our knowledge and vocabulary, but the presupposition of understanding itself. In this article, two readings of this contingency of understanding are distinguished: an epistemo-critical one and an (...) ideology-critical one. Finally, the case is made for adopting the epistemo-critical view of the contingency of understanding in preference to the ideology-critical view - not least because it contains a normative impulse which goes beyond contextualism. (shrink)

There is widespread disagreement as to what the facts are concerning just when a collection of objects composes some further object; but there is widespread agreement that, whatever those facts are, they are necessary. I am unhappy to simply assume this, and in this paper I ask whether there is reason to think that the facts concerning composition hold necessarily. I consider various reasons to think so, but find fault with each of them. I examine the theory of composition as (...) identity, but argue that the version of this doctrine that entails universalism is implausible. I consider the claim that the a priority of such facts leads to their necessity, but give a defence of substantial contingent a priori truths. I ask whether the contingency of such facts would lead to unwelcome possibilities, but argue that the worrying looking possibilities can be blocked if it is desired. Next, I argue against the thought that the Lewis-Sider argument against restricted composition might give us reason to accept the necessity of universalism. Lastly, I respond to two objections from the 2006 BSPC. I conclude in favour of the contingency of the facts concerning when some things compose some thing. (shrink)

Can we see the expressiveness of other people's gestures, hear the intentions in their voice, see the emotions in their posture? Traditional theories of social cognition still say we cannot because intentions and emotions for them are hidden away inside and we do not have direct access to them. Enactive theories still have no idea because they have so far mainly focused on perception of our physical world. We surmise, however, that the latter hold promise since, in trying (...) to understand cognition, enactive theory focuses on the embodied engagements of a cognizer with his world. In this paper, we attempt an answer for the question What is social perception in an enactive account? In enaction, perception is conceived as a skill, crucially involving action, an ability to work successfully within the set of regularities, or contingencies that characterize a given domain. If this is the case, then social perception should be a social skill. Having thus transformed the question of what social perception is into that of what social skill is, we examine the concept of social contingencies and the manner in which social skills structure—both constrain and empower— social interaction. Some of the implications of our account for how social and physical perception differ, the role of embodiment in social interaction and the distinction between our approach and other social contingency theories are also addressed. (shrink)

Contingent conditionals, at the comparative logical works, has yielded different, and often inconsistent, analyses. At contemporaries’ works, there are two approaches to the contingent conditionals: modal and truth-table methods. At the former, there has been used modal connectives of necessity and possibility to analyze the contingent conditionals; but at the latter, some truth-tables has been proposed. At the paper, besides presenting and criticizing the extant theories, we gain new analyses and formulations of the disputed subject matters.