In Habits of the Heart and The Good Society, Bellah et al. diagnose our loss of public life in areas such as education and relate this loss both to flaws in moral ecology and to our institutions. Their opposition to the Lockean metaphysic of self and community and to objectivist epistemology as a way of understanding schools is helpful in that it naturally suggests the kind of piecemeal, contextualized change that we locate within Dewey's viewpoint. But, I argue, Bellah et (...) al.'s penchant for “first philosophy” ultimately taints their work. While I applaud their turn to Dewey, I find their choice of a “metaphysical”, rather than a Rortyan reading of Dewey misguided. The proper alternative to a Lockean metaphysics is not a communitarian/Aristotelian one; the proper corrective to objectivist epistemology is not “Deweyan epistemology” or “critical theory”. We need to see, as in Rorty, that democracy exists prior to normative philosophy just as it has priority over substantive religion. To think otherwise would lead to a loss of contact with the ordinary, specific, ever-changing realms where our lives, and our democratic institutions — including the university — must either thrive or flounder. Finally, there is no epistemology or metaphysics that will adequately “ground” the university's workings. Instead, there is only, as Dewey put it, growth or failure to grow, guided by hints and resonances that arise in evolving circumstances. (shrink)

As a contribution to thinking about the possibility of spiritual education, I examine Pierre Hadot's important distinction between ‘philosophy as theory’, a detached investigation into ‘the natures of things’, and ‘philosophy as a way of life’, practical exercises which Socrates introduced as a means of ‘learning to die’. While most philosophy today amounts to ‘philosophy as theory’, ‘philosophy as a way of life’ remains a respectable and viable tradition and a most exacting education of the spirit. I illustrate it here (...) through an examination of some of its practitioners such as St Bernard of Clairvaux, Ludwig Wittgenstein and Etty Hillesum. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: I II.

"The overall aim of this book is to understand the character of moral progress, so that making moral progress may become more systematic and secure, less chancy and less bloody. Drawing on three historical examples - the abolition of chattel slavery, the expansion of opportunities for women, and the increasing acceptance of same-sex love - it asks how those changes were brought about, and seeks a methodology for streamlining the kinds of developments that occurred. Moral progress is conceived as pragmatic (...) progress, progress from rather than progress to, achieved by overcoming the problems and limits of the current situation. Two kinds of problems are distinguished: problems of exclusion, found when the complaints of some people are ignored; and problems of false consciousness, present when the oppressed adopt judgments from the ambient society and do not protest their condition. The proposed methodology advocates procedures for listening to voiced complaints and for systematically reviewing the way in which particular self-conceptions, ideals and identities are taken to be appropriate for various groups of people. Through outlining a picture of moral practice, at both the individual and the societal levels, the book seeks to orient moral philosophy away from metaethical questions of realism and towards moral methodology"--. (shrink)

Ender’s Game, Orson Scott Card’s award-winning 1985 novel, has been discovered and rediscovered by generations of science fiction fans, even being adopted as reading by the U.S. Marine Corps. Ender's Game and its sequels explore rich themes — the violence and cruelty of children, the role of empathy in war, and the balance of individual dignity and the social good — with compelling elements of a coming-of-age story. Ender’s Game and Philosophy brings together over 30 philosophers to engage in wide-ranging (...) discussion on issues such as: the justifiability of pre-emptive strikes; how Ender’s disconnected and dispassionate violence is mirrored in today’s drone warfare; whether the end of saving the species can justify the most brutal means; the justifiability of lies and deception in wartime, and how military schools produce training in virtue. The authors of Ender’s Game and Philosophy challenge readers to confront the challenges that Ender’s Game presents, bringing new insights to the idea of a just war, the virtues of the soldier, the nature of childhood, and the serious work of playing games. (shrink)

The purpose of the study was to develop an understanding of how nursing students gained perspective on nursing care of diverse populations through watching documentaries in a cultural diversity course. The basis of this paper is our analyses of students’ written responses and reactions to documentaries viewed in class. The guiding theoretical frameworks for the course content and the study included postcolonial feminism, Foucauldian thought, and cultural safety. Krathwohl's Taxonomy of the Affective Domain was used to identify themes and determine (...) how undergraduate nursing students were progressing in achieving learning outcomes. Our findings suggest that while the use of documentaries serves as a tool for deepening students’ understanding of the realities of various populations, this activity, in the absence of critical reflection, may inadvertently promote stereotypes and further marginalize different people groups. Even though nursing students reflected on the importance of cultural safety in nursing, our findings indicate that their actions may not reflect this, especially since these students are in the early stages of the nursing program. Students need to be provided with a space where they can explore implicit biases evoked by exposure to new information about different people groups as a way of enhancing culturally safe care. (shrink)

The Unity of Reason is the first major study of Kant's account of reason. It argues that Kant's wide-ranging interests and goals can only be understood by redirecting attention from epistemological questions of his work to those concerning the nature of reason. Rather than accepting a notion of reason given by his predecessors, a fundamental aim of Kant's philosophy is to reconceive the nature of reason. This enables us to understand Kant's insistence on the unity of theoretical and practical reason (...) as well as his claim that his metaphysics was driven by practical and political ends. Neiman begins by discussing the historical roots of Kant's conception of reason, and by showing Kant's solution to problems which earlier conceptions left unresolved. Kant's notion of reason itself is examined through a discussion of all the activities Kant attributes to reason. In separate chapters discussing the role of reason in science, morality, religion, and philosophy, Neiman explores Kant's distinctions between reason and knowledge, and his difficult account of the regulative principles of reason. Through examination of these principles in Kant's major and minor writings, The Unity of Reason provides a fundamentally new perspective on Kant's entire work. (shrink)

The book is written with grace and wit; again and again, Neiman writes the kind of sentences we dream of uttering in the perfect conversation: where every mot is bon. This is exemplary philosophy.

This paper describes the process of reception of Catholic Modernism in Poland as well as the Polish contribution to this movement. It shows the Polish antimodernist perspective on modernistic thought. The neglect of Polish modernism was caused by the nationalistic character of the Polish theology and has resulted in absence of historical studies of Polish Catholic Modernism. Based on the results of archival and literature research the paper presents a variety of Polish Catholic Modernists and non-Catholic supporters of the modernist (...) thought. A unique place among Polish modernists belongs to Marian Zdziechowski (1861–1938) who was the only Polish participant of the international intellectual debate on the “modernisation” of Roman Catholicism. The paper analyses the development of Zdziechowski’s thought and shows that his main demand throughout the modernist debates was to create a new, more efficient apologetics, which would be grounded in the religious experience of the individual. (shrink)

The seven volumes will comprise the definitive scholarly edition of the works of Micha/l Kalecki, one of the most distinguished of twentieth-century economists and one of the trio who arrived at the conclusions promulgated by Keynes around the same time as - and in Kalecki's case, arguably earlier than - Keynes himself. Nearly half the material to appear in the seven volumes has never been previously published in English and includes revisions and additions made in the light of recent research, (...) including information about the relationship of Kalecki's ideas to the ideas of contemporary economic theory. This volume deals with the capitalist economy and contains Kalecki's studies on the theory of income distribution in oligopolistic capitalism and on its economic dynamics. Each part of the book consists of essays devoted to a similar topic and individual papers in each part are arranged in chronological order. The editorial comments and annexes at the end of the volume, besides giving valuable information on the background to the main texts, include illuminating exchanges of correspondence between Kalecki and Keynes, Joan Robinson, and others. (shrink)

The issue of infinity appeared in cosmology in the form of a question on spatial and time finiteness or infinity of the universe. Recently, more and more talking is going on about “other universes” (different ones from “our”), the number of which may be infinite. Speculations on this topic emerged in effect of the discussions on the issue of the anthropic principle, and the so-called inflation scenario. In truth, this kind of speculations are hardly recognized as scientific theories, however, they (...) may be included in a sort of “scientific fringe” fulfilling a beneficial heuristic function.All of the speculations regarding numerous universes boil down to the juggling of probabilities, i.e. to the applying of the theory of probability to the universes’ set. However, without probabilistic measure being introduced onto this “set” (as it is not known whether it is a set in a technical sense of this term)—and there is no knowledge at all as to how to do this—such considerations may not go beyond a vague intuition.The producing of other universes usually results from an assumption that the disturbing of original circumstances, of values of physical constants, or of other parameters characterizing the universe is possible. On the other hand, the idea of the final theory seems to assume that the mathematical structure of this theory should be rigid, i.e. that the disturbing of its parameters leads on to the very same structure. This would have eliminated the possibility of the existence of other universes.The idea of infinite number of universes sometimes has an anti-theological undertone: there is no need for assuming purposeful acting of the Creator, since all possibilities are fulfilled. The reaction of a theologian may be as follows: Just the same, God may create just a single universe, as much as an infinite number of universes. What’s more, one may risk saying that God is not interested in nothing that may be short of infinity. (shrink)

This volume contains Kalecki's writings on the theory of growth of a socialist economy and the theory of economic efficiency of investment. These are supplemented by essays on some economic and social problems of People's Poland. Though quite theoretical in nature, both the Introduction to the Theory of Growth in a Socialist Economy and Kalecki's many studies in the theory of economic efficiency of investment projects are deeply rooted in his practical experience as an economic planner. It is only in (...) this light that the significance of his contributions to the theory of economic efficiency of investments can be assessed, and his ideas on socialist reproduction can be seen as a whole. Its central point is economic planning, which for Kalecki was the fundamental feature of a socialist economy. (shrink)

The sixth volume of the Collected Works of Micha/l Kalecki, one of the twentieth-century's pre-eminent economists, contains his empirical studies of the capitalist economy, published primarily in pre-war Poland. The first part of the book collects together reviews of business conditions in commodity markets, studies of the structure and operations of large companies and cartels, and articles on international economic relations. These studies, written between 1928 and 1935, demonstrate Kalecki's keen insight into the international consequences of the Great Crisis of (...) 1929-33, and into the developments in Nazi Germany. The second part contains Kalecki's papers on the methodological problems of examining business fluctuations and on constructing indicators of economic trends. Part 3 comprises, Kalecki's estimates of the national income in Poland and of its structure. These studies, conducted between 1931 and 1935, were unique at the time in taking into account the distribution of aggregate income between the main social classes. The editorial notes and annexes at the end of the volume not only provide invaluable background information and explanatory glosses on the main text, but also give invaluable insights into the development of Kalecki's thought. (shrink)

Healthcare is increasingly impacted by chronic short staffing of nurses, which causes and is caused by increased nurse burnout and decreased retention. Nurses’ unions seek to address these problems by proposing safer nurse-to-patient ratios, retention bonuses for working through the COVID-19 pandemic, Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) stockpiles, sabbatical leaves, measures aimed at reducing workplace violence, and maintaining or increasing wages and benefits to keep nurses at the bedside. Chronic short staffing and burnout directly affect the quality and availability of patient (...) care—as the International Council of Nurses has pointed out, there is no healthcare without healthcare workers. This article draws on Neiman’s argument that the US healthcare system is best understood as a system of competing interests aimed at fulfilling the community’s obligation to provide access to quality healthcare. Nurses’ unions use contract negotiations, legislative advocacy, and strikes to pressure other members of the healthcare community to address chronic short staffing, burnout, and retention. Nurses’ unions in the US thus play a unique role in the system of competing interest as an organized group whose primary interest aligns with the community’s obligation to provide access to quality healthcare. This article argues that nurses’ professional duty to care for patients includes a duty to support nurses’ unions as an important way to address the factors outside of nurses’ direct practice that impacts the quality and accessibility of the care that nurses provide to patients. This duty to support unions applies to unionized and non-unionized nurses in the US, and includes duties to participate in union activities, to not cross picket lines, and to avoid work for strikebreaking nurse agencies. (shrink)

The seventh volume of the Collected Works of Michal Kalecki, one of the twentieth century's preeminent economists, contains his empirical studies of the wartime and post-war economy in Britain and the USA, together with papers on the work of other economists and miscellanea.The first part of the book collects together his articles on the economic conditions of Britain during the Second World War, focusing on the rationing of consumption and war finance, and its post-war reconstructions. These articles are among Kalecki's (...) best known, and contributed significantly to his world renown as an economist. Part two contains studies of post-war America, comparing the economy with the situation before the War. Part three contains a group of articles under the title `Political economy and economists', and includes book reviews and essays on the study of economics. Part four collects essays on a variety of topics, including Polish economic planning, construction engineering, and the theory of numbers. As in previous volumes, editorial notes and annexes by Professor Osiaty'nski provide invaluable background information and explanatory glosses on the main text. Among other things, they reveal details of Kalecki's work for the United Nations.Since this is the final volume of the Collected Works, it concludes with a chronology of biographical information and a complete bibliography of Kalecki's writings from 1927 to 1987. (shrink)

Consider Maria, a 32-year-old Spanish-speaking expectant mother who immigrated to the United States five years ago. Despite taking English classes and working in a predominantly English-speaking en...

For years, moral language has been the province of the Right, as the Left has consoled itself with rudderless pragmatism. In this profound and powerful book, Susan Neiman reclaims the vocabulary of morality--good and evil, heroism and nobility--as a lingua franca for the twenty-first century. In constructing a framework for taking responsible action on today's urgent questions, Neiman reaches back to the eighteenth century, retrieving a series of values--happiness, reason, reverence, and hope--held high by Enlightenment thinkers. In this (...) thoroughly updated edition, Neiman reflects on how the moral language of the 2008 presidential campaign has opened up new political and cultural possibilities in America and beyond. (shrink)

The paper is a discussion of the book by Witold Wachowski entitled Poznanie rozproszone: Od heurystyk do mechanizmów (Distributed Cognition: From Heuristics to Mechanisms). At the beginning, I introduce the theoretical context of the reviewed publication. Then, I discuss the content of the publication and the research thesis. In the further part, I draw attention to certain difficulties related to the application of ecological heuristics and the possibility of its connection with the research tradition developed on the basis of the (...) so-called free energy principle. In the last part, I indicate the importance of the discussed publication for the contemporary debateconducted on the basis of the philosophy of cognitive science. (shrink)

Philosophical Investigations, EarlyView.

This paper is a report of the 700th anniversary of the death of Bl. Jan Duns Scotus. International Jubilee Symposium in Lublin.

Containing nearly all the material which has survived on Kalecki's activity - both theoretical and practical - from 1955 to 1964.

One of the most common and frustrating experiences for philosophy instructors is teaching students who have not read the assigned text prior to coming to class. This chapter proposes three specific strategies, supported by the literature on student learning, that encourages and enables students to read and understand assigned texts. Each strategy activates students’ prior knowledge, sets a purpose to read and uses novelty to engage students’ attention. Evidence from experience with these strategies is provided to further support their effectiveness. (...) The chapter concludes with examples of how strategies can be presented to students and templates that instructors can use to create their own strategies for use in any class or assigned text. (shrink)

This article explores intergenerational justice and its connection to historic justice and reparations. It includes both the post-war period, and the abolition of the transatlantic slave trade, as case studies.

This article examines the reasons why Plato endorses obedience to absolute, unchangeable laws, despite the fact that Plato refers to it as only the second best method of rule. Plato's use of the myth, his definition of statesmanship, and the dramatic elements of the dialogue, including its relationship to the Apology, are used to discern why Plato affirms a method of rule so different from that of the Republic. It is argued that Plato's primary concern in the Statesman is practical. (...) Rather than looking for the best constitution, Plato is looking for the best constitution that can actually be put into practice. (shrink)

This article begins with a detailed analysis of how the choice situation of a social contract for international business ethics can be constructed and justified. A choice situation is developed by analyzing conceptions of the multinational firm and the domain of international business. The result is a hypothetical negotiation between two fictional characters, J. Duncan Grey and Elizabeth Redd, who respectively represent the interests of businesses and communities seeking to engage in international trade. The negotiators agree on ethical principles governing (...) wages, the environment, and compliance social and cultural norms. These principles are then shown to rest in wide reflective equilibrium with considered moral judgments on international business ethics, which are drawn from international agreements, such as the UN Declaration on Human Rights, and voluntary business initiatives, such as the Global Sullivan Principles and the UN Global Compact. (shrink)

This paper discusses how John Dewey’s notion of intelligent habit could contribute to technology ethics. For Dewey, intelligent (i.e., desirable) habits are reflective – arising from inquiry into the appropriate courses of action in each situation – and flexible – easily adaptable to the changing circumstances. We should strive to develop intelligent habits as they are the best tools for the achievement of our goals and are necessary for individual and societal flourishing. I argue that Dewey’s notion of intelligent habit (...) makes it possible to identify the impact of technology on users’ identity and self-determination, advocate for the extension of user choice and malleability of technologies, and analyse the connections between the epistemic dimension of technology and users’ ability to flourish. (shrink)