This paper challenges the first Gettier counterexample to the tripartite account of knowledge. Noting that 'the man who will get the job' is a description and invoking Donnellan's distinction between their 'referential' and 'attributive' uses, I argue that Smith does not actually believe that the man who will get the job has ten coins in his pocket. Smith's ignorance about who will get the job shows that the belief cannot be understood referentially, his ignorance of the coins in his pocket (...) shows that it cannot be understood attributively. An explanation for why Smith appeared to have justified true belief is given by distinguishing between 'belief' and 'belief in truth'. Smith believes the sentence 'the man who will get the job has ten coins in his pocket' to be true (he mistakenly believes that Jones will get the job, of whom he knows that he has ten coins in his pocket) (hence his 'belief'), the sentence is true (hence 'truth'), and he has sufficient reason to assent to it (hence his 'justification'). But he does not believe the proposition expressed. Hence he does not know it either. (shrink)

Extant studies on private regulation have not reached a sufficient understanding about the interplay between private and public regulations, due to underdeveloped theoretical framework and the lack of large-sample empirical investigations. Leveraging ISO 14001 adoption among Chinese firms as the research context, the current research draws on the institutional theory to examine how firm’s adoption of ISO 14001 standard, as a specific form of private regulation, affects the incidence of public environmental inspections. To test our arguments, we conduct two (...) empirical studies. Study 1 uses the first-hand data of a corporate social responsibility survey on Chinese manufacturing firms, whereas Study 2 deploys the second-hand longitudinal archival data of the government environmental inspections on Chinese listed firms. Both of the two studies reveal consistent findings that ISO 14001 adoption decreases the incidence of government environmental inspections, and that the effect of ISO 14001 adoption becomes stronger in state-owned enterprises and firms with top management team’s political ties. Our findings are suggestive of a complementary relationship between private and public regulations, in a sense that private regulations can compensate for the weaknesses of public regulations by offering faster, more flexible and cost-efficient means of enforcement, which allows the public authorities to economize on the deployment of public resources to monitor the rest non-compliant firms. (shrink)

In order to shed light on the issue of crony corruption in the context of economic transition, I focus on the puzzle of China's unique experience of economic transition characterized by the duality forms and effects of crony corruption underlying local corporatism in a dual-track (i.e., market and political tracks) transition. I argue that the duality of local corporatism derives from the duality of crony corruption. First, the early form of local corporatism as state-business public alliance is embedded in informal (...) crony corruption as positive for the purpose of wealth growth in the initial phase of economic transition with public and private interests aligned as compatible. Second, the later form of local corporatism as official-manager private collusion is embedded in quasi-formal crony corruption as negative for the purpose of wealth transfer in the later phase with public and private interests in conflict as incompatible. The duality of crony corruption in the two phases of economic transition is caused by the interplay between formal and informal factors and between economic and political factors. My contribution is twofold. First, I explain China's transition in terms of crony corruption underlying local corporatism. Second, I develop an integrated framework of crony corruption concerning its content, process, antecedent and consequence. (shrink)

By the late 1920s in Europe new art directions were regarded as already completed phenomena, a part of “avant-garde tradition.” Such views were expressed by Jean Arp and El Lissitzky’s in their book Kuntismen, and by Amédée Ozenfant’s in Art. Bilan des arts modernes en France. Similar opinions were also voiced by Jan Brzękowski, a Polish poet and critic, who regarded this time as a period of “establishing certain values” rather than new breakthroughs. In this article I discuss Brzękowski’s strategies (...) as a spokesman of modern art, an intermediary between the Parisian artworld and Polish avant-garde, an author connected with constructivism, and also with surrealist circles in Paris. My main focus is his magazine “Sztuka Współczesna – L’Art Contemporain” and his series of articles “Mileages,” in which he summarizes the developments of modern art. Conscious of the “wearing up” of avant-garde ideas and critical about seeking “novelty” for its own sake, Brzękowski tried to establish a progressive position based on the idea of formal discipline and creative construction. While rejecting a mimetic conception of art, he argued for abstract artistic form that would be “anchored to the bottom of life,” thus emphasizing the interplay of abstract and figurative elements and their dialectic. (shrink)

In this article, we provide a broad overview of the interplay among cognition, belief systems, and institutions, and how they affect economic performance. We argue that a deeper understanding of institutions’ emergence, their working properties, and their effect on economic and political outcomes should begin from an analysis of cognitive processes. We explore the nature of individual and collective learning, stressing that the issue is not whether agents are perfectly or boundedly rational, but rather how human beings actually reason (...) and choose, individually and in collective settings. We then tie the processes of learning to institutional analysis, providing arguments in favor of what can be characterized as “cognitive institutionalism.” Besides, we show that a full treatment of the phenomenon of path dependence should start at the cognitive level, proceed at the institutional level, and culminate at the economic level. (shrink)

The lack of importance traditionally ascribed to human-nonhuman animal relationships in the social sciences has meant that while commercial sex in the human realm has been well documented, very few socio-cultural studies of commercial sex involving nonhuman animals have been undertaken to date. However, the growing recognition that nonhuman, as well as human, animals are “actors” means that their role in the sex trade, becomes problematic and eminently worthy of academic attention. This article considers a very particular instance of commercial (...) animal sex—that practiced on stud farms in West Wales, where the breeding of autochthonous Welsh cobs is of immense political, social, economic, and cultural significance. This study found that in this context Welsh cobs are expected to embody specific gender ideals in what is an inherently inter-subjective relationship. Through their animals' performances, human caregivers are able to negotiate their own ideas about gender roles, and these in turn determine those individual animals used for breeding and those not. (shrink)

This is the first of three volumes containing a report from the International Panel on Social Progress. The IPSP is an independent association of top research scholars with the goal of assessing methods for improving the main institutions of modern societies. Written in accessible language by scholars across the social sciences and humanities, these volumes assess the achievements of world societies in past centuries, the current trends, the dangers that we are now facing, and the possible futures in the twenty-first (...) century. It covers the main socio-economic, political, and cultural dimensions of social progress, global as well as regional issues, and the diversity of challenges and their interplay around the world. This particular volume covers topics such as economic inequality and growth, finance and corporations, labor, capitalism, and social justice. (shrink)

With the struggle against apartheid achieved, South Africa faced the new struggle of overcoming the HIV/AIDS pandemic. This paper examines the response of government, the innovation system and civil society in rising to the challenge. The response included a fatal denialism concerning the etiology of AIDS, a fatalism that constitutes political market failure. This political market failure was counteracted through the emergence of social entrepreneurship in the form of the Treatment Action Campaign that mobilized civil society and like-minded health practitioners (...) and researchers within the innovation system. Dependency Theory coupled with a Quadruple Helix model of the innovation system offer possible explanations of this complex human tragedy and the way that government was compelled to embark on a massive program of providing anti-retroviral therapy that has now significantly improved life expectancy. The paper provides socio-economic context, appraisal of the innovation system, and a sketch of how the Quadruple Helix took form. Of special importance is the independence of South Africa’s ‘Republic of Science.’ Independent courts were critical in allowing TAC to obtain remedy against government, Big Pharma, and AIDS dissident scientists. It is argued that its Republic of Science met its obligation of objectivity by shifting emphasis to the cause of AIDS research in the face of official denialism. In effect, the system of innovation and social entrepreneurs are shown to have acted in concert in constituting a Quadruple Helix. (shrink)

Ian Little offers a new defence of utilitarianism as a basis for assessing the role of the State. Lucidly and elegantly he explains how the three disciplines of philosophy, economics, and politics can be integrated to provide guidance on issues of public policy. Anyone interested in public affairs will be enlightened by Little's crisp analysis and any student taking an interdisciplinary course in social science will find a clear framework for thinking about the subject.

This is the second of three volumes containing a report from the International Panel on Social Progress. The IPSP is an independent association of top research scholars with the goal of assessing methods for improving the main institutions of modern societies. Written in accessible language by scholars across the social sciences and humanities, these volumes assess the achievements of world societies in past centuries, the current trends, the dangers that we are now facing, and the possible futures in the twenty-first (...) century. It covers the main socio-economic, political, and cultural dimensions of social progress, global as well as regional issues, and the diversity of challenges and their interplay around the world. This particular volume covers topics such as democracy and the rule of law, violence and wars, international organizations and global governance, and media and communications. (shrink)

The Transatlantic slave trade radically impaired Africa's potential to develop economically and maintain its social and political stability. The arrival of Europeans on the West African Coast and their establishment of slave ports in various parts of the continent triggered a continuous process of exploitation of Africa's human resources, labor, and commodities. This exploitative commerce influenced the African political and religious aristocracies, the warrior classes and the biracial elite, who made small gains from the slave trade, to participate in the (...) oppression of their own people. The Europeans, on the other hand, greatly benefited from the Atlantic trade, since it allowed them to amass the raw materials that fed the Industrial Revolution to the detriment of African societies whose capacity to transform their modes of production into a viable entrepreneurial economy was severely halted. (shrink)

The author argues that simple constructive dilemma is a valuable argument form for reasoning under relative conditions of uncertainty. When applied to legal argument this value of simple constructive dilemma is shown in its political, strategic, rhetorical, and especially economic, uses by lawyers and judges. After considering some examples of the use of the form by trial lawyers, the author gives examples of the more interesting use of the form by appellate courts. Research into the use of simple constructive dilemma (...) by appellate courts helps us to understand how those courts distribute judicial resources. It also helps us to understand the political role of the appellate courts with respect to the doctrine of the separation of powers. Given some of the specific examples of legal reasoning used by the appellate courts presented in this article, and given the discussion of the doctrine of precedent, the article’s focus is on common law legal systems of the Anglo-American-type. (shrink)

Many countries around the world embrace freedom and democracy as part of their political culture. However, culture is at least in part a human response to the ecological challenges that a society faces; hence, it should not be surprising that the degree to which societies regulate the level of individual freedom is related to environmental circumstances. Previous research suggests that levels of societal freedom across countries are systematically related to three types of ecological threats: prevalence of pathogens, climate challenges, and (...) natural disaster threat. Though their incidence overlaps, the literature has not yet provided a competitive test. Drawing upon the ecocultural framework, we tested five rival hypotheses, alternately focused on the above ecological factors and their interactions with economic wealth in explaining country variations in socio-political freedom. Focusing on data from 150 countries, we performed a series of linear mixed-effects regressions predicting freedom in the domains of politics, media, and economy. We found that countries with higher pathogen prevalence were more likely to suppress democracy and media freedom. Economic wealth, however, moderated the effect of pathogen prevalence on economic freedom, with the main effect being only found among wealthy countries, but not among poor countries. In contrast, natural disaster threat predicted political freedom and press freedom only among poor countries, consistent with the idea that disaster threat accompanied by poor resources promote socio-political freedom as a means of increasing collective survival. Throughout our analyses, we found no support for hypotheses based on climatic challenges. In addition, our multilevel approach revealed that country scores for socio-political freedom were highly clustered within world regions, accounting for substantial portions of variance. Overall, the present research offers a nuanced view of the interplay between ecology and wealth in the emergence of socio-political freedom. We discuss new directions in future research considering methodological and theoretical contributions of the present findings. (shrink)

Niccolo Machiavelli is one of the very few authors to assign a positive role and political value to the theme of social conflict. Although not repudiating this principle, in the Discourses Machiavelli seems to distinguish between a form of conflict that is moderate and positive and another form that is violent and extreme, ultimately leading to the ruin of Rome. In his more mature work Florentine Histories, the tone changes and the distinction becomes less consistent. Moreover, analysis of the institutional (...) results of conflict is enriched by novel elements, revealing Machiavelli's attention to the economic causes and motives of social struggles. While in the first model crisis and power are counter-posed to one another, in the second they are inseparable and this couplet becomes the key to a theoretical understanding of Machiavelli's political thought. (shrink)

Niccolo Machiavelli is one of the very few authors to assign a positive role and political value to the theme of social conflict. Although not repudiating this principle, in the Discourses Machiavelli seems to distinguish between a form of conflict that is moderate and positive and another form that is violent and extreme, ultimately leading to the ruin of Rome. In his more mature work Florentine Histories, the tone changes and the distinction becomes less consistent. Moreover, analysis of the institutional (...) results of conflict is enriched by novel elements, revealing Machiavelli's attention to the economic causes and motives of social struggles. While in the first model crisis and power are counter-posed to one another, in the second they are inseparable and this couplet becomes the key to a theoretical understanding of Machiavelli's political thought. (shrink)

Attempts to reach an understanding of how to live a Christian life in the contemporary context have never been more necessary. This is the aim of the International Symposium: Beyond Secular Faith, an annual conference held in Granada, Spain. This volume represents the fruits of over seven years of scholarship. The title Beyond Secular Faith suggests we are interested in (re)discovering and reflectively elaborating ways to overcome the limits imposed by the dominant contemporary culture. We are convinced that only a (...) faith liberated from the conceptual restrictions and reductions (put forward by secular philosophy and theology) and centered radically on Christ can flourish in the dimension that is proper to faith; that is, in all spheres of human life. Featuring contributions from internationally recognized philosophers and theologians such as Tracey Rowland, Jarosław Jagiello, Rocco Buttiglione, Alison Milbank, Massimo Borghesi, John Milbank, and others, we will explore a diversity of questions from this common perspective: the light of revelation illuminates how Christians should live in the modern world, leading to a new beginning. (shrink)

The book investigates the relationship between the economic and political writings of four seminal authors: Adam Smith, Karl Marx, Joseph A. Schumpeter, and..

The article offers forecasts of the geopolitical and geo-economic development of the world in the forthcoming decades. One of the main accusations directed toward globalization is that it deepens the gap between the developed and developing countries dooming them to eternal backwardness. The article demonstrates that the actual situation is very different. It is shown that this is due to the globalization that the developing countries are generally growing much faster than the developed states, the World System core starts weakening (...) and its periphery begins to strengthen. At the same time there is a continuing divergence between the main bulk of developing countries and the group of the poorest developing states. The article also explains why the globalization was bound to lead to the explosive rise of many developing countries and the relative weakening of the developed economies. In the forthcoming decades this trend is likely to continue (though, of course, not without certain interruptions). It is also demonstrated that this convergence constitutes a necessary condition for the next technological breakthrough. (shrink)

Can education be reduced to training? Can education become equal to upbringing? What is meant by education? From Fichte to Schleiermacher, through Nietzsche and Jaspers, up to Habermas, these questions were discussed over and over again in the context of the relationship between education and universities. Reviving the history of this discussion is instructive in as much as it shows that contemporary discussions about the reform of education and higher education in very important aspects represent the revival of politically unresolved (...) problems. Especially those from the 1950’s, which – through deliberations which were worth the attention – warned against subordinating scientific politics to economic politics. (shrink)

Much work in economics, the social sciences, and elsewhere takes as it starting oint a somewhat unrealistic conception of rationality- a conception that ignores or downplays both the temporal and the situated aspects of human reason. Biological reason, I shall argue, is better concieved as an iterated process of adaptive response made under extreme time pressure and exquisitely keyed to a variety of external structures and circumstances.

The article offers forecasts of the geopolitical and geo-economic development of the world in the forthcoming decades. One of the main accusations directed toward globalization is that it deepens the gap between the developed and developing countries dooming them to eternal backwardness. The article demonstrates that the actual situation is very different. It is shown that this is due to the globalization that the developing countries are generally growing much faster than the developed states, the World System core starts weakening (...) and its periphery begins to strengthen. At the same time there is a continuing divergence between the main bulk of developing countries and the group of the poorest developing states. The article also explains why the globalization was bound to lead to the explosive rise of many developing countries and the relative weakening of the developed economies. In the forthcoming decades this trend is likely to continue. It is a.. (shrink)

Philosophy, Politics, and Economics offers a complete introduction to the fundamental tools and concepts of analysis that PPE students need to study social and political issues. This fully updated and expanded edition examines the core methodologies of rational choice, strategic analysis, norms, and collective choice that serve as the bedrocks of political philosophy and the social sciences. The textbook is ideal for advanced undergraduates, graduate students, and nonspecialists looking to familiarize themselves with PPE's approaches.

Explores the interplay between science, economics, politics, and ethics in relation to climate change and the international community.

Economics today cannot predict the likely outcome of specific events any better than it could in the time of Adam Smith. This is Alexander Rosenberg's controversial challenge to the scientific status of economics. Rosenberg explains that the defining characteristic of any science is predictive improvability--the capacity to create more precise forecasts by evaluating the success of earlier predictions--and he forcefully argues that because economics has not been able to increase its predictive power for over two centuries, it is not a (...) science. (shrink)

Business Ethics: A European Review, EarlyView.

In the last few years, conference programs and publications have begun to appear that reflect a growing interest, among North American archaeologists, in research initiatives that focus on women and gender as subjects of investigation. One of the central questions raised by these developments has to do with their "objectivity" and that of archaeology as a whole. To the extent that they are inspired by or aligned with explicitly political (feminist) commitments, the question arises of whether they do not themselves (...) represent an inherently partial and interest-specific standpoint, and whether their acceptance does not undermine the commitment to value neutrality and empirical rigor associated with scientific approaches to archaeology. I will argue that, in fact, a feminist perspective, among other critical, explicitly political perspectives, may well enhance the conceptual integrity and empirical adequacy of archaeological knowledge claims, where this is centrally a matter of deploying evidential constraints. (shrink)

The question of when or if a nation should intervene in another country’s affairs is one of the most important concerns in today’s volatile world. Taking John Stuart Mill’s famous 1859 essay “A Few Words on Non-Intervention” as his starting point, international relations scholar Michael W. Doyle addresses the thorny issue of when a state’s sovereignty should be respected and when it should be overridden or disregarded by other states in the name of humanitarian protection, national self-determination, or national security. (...) In this time of complex social and political interplay and increasingly sophisticated and deadly weaponry, Doyle reinvigorates Mill’s principles for a new era while assessing the new United Nations doctrine of responsibility to protect. In the twenty-first century, intervention can take many forms: military and economic, unilateral and multilateral. Doyle’s thought-provoking argument examines essential moral and legal questions underlying significant American foreign policy dilemmas of recent years, including Libya, Iraq, and Afghanistan. (shrink)

A startup ecosystem is a dynamic environment in which several actors, such as investors, venture capitalists, angels, and facilitators, are the protagonists of a complex interplay. Most of these interactions involve the flow of capital whose size and direction help to map the intricate system of relationships. This quantity is also considered a good proxy of economic success. Given the complexity of such systems, it would be more desirable to supplement this information with other informative features, and a natural (...) choice is to adopt mathematical measures. In this work, we will specifically consider network centrality measures, borrowed by network theory. In particular, using the largest publicly available dataset for startups, the Crunchbase dataset, we show how centrality measures highlight the importance of particular players, such as angels and accelerators, whose role could be underestimated by focusing on collected funds only. We also provide a quantitative criterion to establish which firms should be considered strategic and rank them. Finally, as funding is a widespread measure for success in economic settings, we investigate to which extent this measure is in agreement with network metrics; the model accurately forecasts which firms will receive the highest funding in future years. (shrink)