In this paper, I propose to resolve the controversy over the derivation of the categories of quantity by spelling out three claims: (1) the three quantitative functions/forms of judgment (universal-particular-singular), qua synthetic categories of quantity (unity-plurality-totality), lawfully direct the determination of sensible manifolds as singular totalities, which (2) brings to light a specifically categorial type of judgmental activity, distinguishable from but presupposed by empirical judgments. This calls for (3) pairing the category of totality with the singular judgment and the category (...) of unity with the universal judgment (‘Order B’), rather than pairing the singular judgment with unity and the universal judgment with totality (‘Order A’). At stake in this controversy is our understanding of the categories’ normativity, their scope, and the division of labor between intuitions and categories in individuating objects. (shrink)

By reappraising the biological theory of vitalism, Canguilhem attempted to give pride of place to the idea that acquiring knowledge about living beings is an activity of living beings. He is indeed credited with the view that knowledge in particular and rationality in general are “tied to a conception of life” whereby “life predominantly manifests itself in organic individuals that act and react within specific environments which, in turn, are defined by the needs and desires of these individuals” (Schmidgen H. (...) Hist Philos Life Sci, 36(2): 4, 2014. doi:10.1007/s40656-014-0030-1). These needs and desires, we are told, constitute “un système de référence irréductible et par là absolu” (Canguilhem G. Le vivant et son milieu. In: La connaissance de la vie (Deuxième édition revue et augmenté). Librairie philosophique J. Vrin, 129–154, 1992c). Canguilhem’s legacy is exactly this: rationality is rooted in life, and not the other way around. And yet, in “Le concept et la vie” (from 1966) and “De la science et de la contre-science” (from 1971), Canguilhem seems to tell another story about the complex intertwinement of life and rationality. Not only are we condemned to enter the realm of rationality (i.e., to take part in logical activities such as forming concepts and judgments about the world and about our own condition) because we have needs and desires as living beings, but we also have needs and desires as living beings that depend on the fact we are always already caught-up in the dynamics of rationality, i.e., always already logically active. At this point, Canguilhem’s thinking comes closer than ever to a Kantian, transcendental point of view on rationality. Paradoxically, the inscription of human rationality in organic life brings with it the idea of a subject, divided between two inverse but correlated realms in which it cannot but participate: the singular realm of sensibility and the general realm of logic. (shrink)

I defend an interpretation of the first Critique’s category of totality based on Kant’s analysis of totality in the third Critique’s Analytic of the mathematical sublime. I show, firstly, that in the latter Kant delineates the category of totality — however general it may be — in relation to the essentially singular standpoint of the subject. Despite the fact that sublime and categorial totality have a significantly different scope and function, they do share such a singular baseline. Secondly, I argue (...) that Kant’s note (in the first Critique’s metaphysical deduction) that deriving the category of totality requires a special act of the understanding can be seen as a ‘mark’ of that singular baseline. This way, my aesthetical ‘detour’ has the potential of revealing how the subjective aspects of object-constitution might be accounted for in the very system of the categories (of quantity) itself. (shrink)

Henry Sidgwick has gone down in the history of philosophy as both the great, classical utilitarian moral theorist who authoredThe Methods of Ethics, and an outstanding exemplar of intellectual honesty and integrity, one whose personal virtues were inseparable from his philosophical strengths and method. Yet this construction of Sidgwick the philosopher has been based on a too limited understanding of Sidgwick's casuistry and leading practical ethical concerns. As his friendship with John Addington Symonds reveals, Sidgwick was deeply entangled in an (...) effort to negotiate the proper spheres of the public and private, not only in philosophical and religious matters, but also with respect to explosive questions of sexuality – particularly same sex actions and identities, as celebrated by Symonds and other champions of Oxford Hellenism and Whitmania. His willingness to mislead the public about such issues suggests that Sidgwick's utilitarian casuistry was rather more complex and esoteric than has been recognized. (shrink)

One of the most pervasive criticisms of nudges has been the claim that they violate, undermine or decrease people’s autonomy. This claim, however, is seldom backed up by an explicit and detailed conception of autonomy. In this paper, we aim to do three things. First, we want to clear up some conceptual confusion by distinguishing the different conceptions used by Cass Sunstein and his critics in order to get clear on how they conceive of autonomy. Second, we want to add (...) to the existing discussion by distinguishing between ‘autonomy’ as the ability to set your own ends and ‘autocracy’ as the ability to actually realize those ends. This will allow for a more careful ethical evaluation of specific nudge interventions. Third, we will introduce the idea of ‘perimeters of autonomy’ in an attempt to provide a realistic account of personal autonomy and we will argue that it can alleviate most of the worries about nudging being autonomy-undermining. (shrink)

The secret ballot is considered a central feature of free and fair elections all over the world. While the reasons to uphold it seem to be overwhelming, we argue that the secret ballot is only second-best at best and that a modified version of open voting might prove to be more democratic. Instead of denying the various problems and difficulties that an open system might encounter, we want to offer a genuine proposal that can avoid these numerous pitfalls. After rehearsing (...) the various arguments pro and contra open voting, we draw attention to the role of shame, which has been neglected by both sides in the debate. While shame plays a pivotal role in the democratic argument pro open voting, it also brings out new problems that tell against opening up the vote. This means that, if we want to draw on the democratic potential of open voting, we will have to find a system that minimizes the undesirable effects of shame. In the third and final section, we will formulate a concrete proposal of open voting that we believe is more democratic than the current secret ballot and is able to avoid potential worries. Even if this proves to be highly speculative, it serves as an invitation for further empirical research. (shrink)

What is property, and why does our species happen to have it? In The Property Species, the economist Bart Wilson explores how we acquire, perceive, and know the custom of property, and why this might be relevant to social scientists, philosophers, and legal scholars for understanding how property works in the twenty-first century.

In this volume, Geurts takes discourse representation theory (DRT), and turns it into a unified account of anaphora and presupposition, which he applies not only to the standard problem cases but also to the interpretation of modal expressions, attitude reports, and proper names. The resulting theory, for all its simplicity, is without doubt the most comprehensive of its kind to date. The central idea underlying Geurts' 'binding theory' of presupposition is that anaphora is just a special case of presupposition projection. (...) But this is only one of the ways in which the concept of presupposition is taken beyond its traditional limits. Geurts shows, furthermore, that presupposition projection is crucially involved in several phenomena that are not usually viewed in presuppositional terms, such as modal subordination, de re readings of attitude reports, and rigid designation. While making his case for DRT and the binding theory, Geurts also presents an incisive analysis of what is probably still the most influential account of presupposition, viz. the satisfaction theory, demonstrating that there are fundamental problems not only with this theory but with the very framework in which it is couched. (shrink)

Unbelievable Errors defends an error theory about all normative judgements: not just moral judgements, but also judgements about reasons for action, judgements about reasons for belief, and instrumental normative judgements. This theory states that normative judgements are beliefs that ascribe normative properties, but that normative properties do not exist. It therefore entails that all normative judgements are false. -/- Bart Streumer also argues, however, that we cannot believe this error theory. This may seem to be a problem for the (...) theory. But he argues that it makes this error theory more likely to be true, since it undermines objections to the theory and it makes it harder to reject the arguments for the theory. -/- He then sketches how certain other philosophical theories can be defended in a similar way. He concludes that to make philosophical progress, we need to make a sharp distinction between a theory's truth and our ability to believe it. (shrink)

The dominant moral philosophy of nineteenth-century Britain was utilitarianism, beginning with Bentham and ending with Sidgwick. Though once overshadowed by his immediate predecessors in that tradition, Sidgwick is now regarded as a figure of great importance in the history of moral philosophy. Indeed his masterpiece, The Methods of Ethics, has been described by John Rawls as the 'most philosophically profound' of the classical utilitarian works. In this volume a distinguished group of philosophers reassesses the full range of Sidgwick's work, not (...) simply his ethical theory, but also his contributions as a historian of philosophy, a political theorist, and a reformer. (shrink)

The legal basis for processing personal data and some other types of Big Data is often the informed consent of the data subject involved. Many data controllers, such as social network sites, offer terms and conditions, privacy policies or similar documents to which a user can consent when registering as a user. There are many issues with such informed consent: people get too many consent requests to read everything, policy documents are often very long and difficult to understand and users (...) feel they do not have a real choice anyway. Furthermore, in the context of Big Data refusing consent may not prevent predicting missing data. Finally, consent is usually asked for when registering, but rarely is consent renewed. As a result, consenting once often implies consent forever. At the same time, given the rapid changes in Big Data and data analysis, consent may easily get outdated. This paper suggests expiry dates for consent, not to settle questions, but to put them on the table as a start for further discussion on this topic. Although such expiry dates may not solve all the issues of informed consent, they may be a useful tool in some situations. (shrink)

Gricean pragmatics. Saying vs. implicating ; Discourse and cooperation ; Conversational implicatures ; Generalised vs. particularised ; Cancellability ; Gricean reasoning and the pragmatics of what is said -- The standard recipe for Q-implicatures. The standard recipe ; Inference to the best explanation ; Weak implicatures and competence ; Relevance ; Conclusion -- Scalar implicatures. Horn scales and the generative view ; Implicatures and downward entailing environments ; Disjunction : exclusivity and ignorance ; Conclusion -- Psychological plausibility. Charges of psychological (...) inadequacy ; Logical complexity ; Abduction ; Incremental processing ; The intentional stance ; Alternatives ; Conclusion -- Nonce inference or defaults?. True defaults ; Strong defaultism ; Weak defaultism ; Contextualism ; Conclusion -- Intentions, alternatives, and free choice. Free choice ; Problems with the standard recipe ; Intentions first ; Free choice explained ; Comparing alternatives ; Two flavours of Q-implicature ; Conclusion -- Embedded implicatures : the problems. The problems ; Varieties of conventionalism ; Against conventionalism ; Conclusion -- Embedded implicatures : a Gricean approach. Disjunction ; Belief reports ; Factives and other presupposition inducers ; Indefinites ; Contrastive construals and lexical pragmatics ; Conclusion. (shrink)

Many philosophers argue that the error theory should be rejected because it is incompatible with standard deontic logic and semantics. We argue that such formal objections to the theory fail. Our discussion has two upshots. First, it increases the dialectical weight that must be borne by objections to the error theory that target its content rather than its form. Second, it shows that standard deontic logic and semantics should be revised.

The reform movement in science is seemingly constructing a new moral economy of science around process and bureaucracy, in which a new scientific etiquette is emerging that prescribes the performance of reformed science as civilised, efficient and objective. Bureaucratic innovations were borne out of the reform movement that seek to prescribe specific research processes, including but not limited to preregistration and registered reports. This moral economy emerges in the form of a bureaucracy and its epistemic uniformity actively suppresses scientific plurality. (...) This paper argues that Eliasian drivers such as distinction, shame and disgust, act to pressure scientists into adopting this new etiquette. Even though the etiquette's appearance is quite new, it can be traced back to existing moral economies of science and their pursuit of efficiency and objectivity. (shrink)

In current philosophical research, there is a rather one-sided focus on the foundations of proof. A full picture of mathematical practice should however additionally involve considerations about various methodological aspects. A number of these is identified, from large-scale to small-scale ones. After that, naturalism, a philosophical school concerned with scientific practice, is looked at, as far as the translations of its epistemic principles to mathematics is concerned. Finally, we call for intensifying the interaction between both dimensions of practice and epistemology.

This article presents the findings from an exploratory empirical research investigation that assessed the content of selected Board Charters for 118 publicly traded companies listed on the TSX/S&P Composite Index. The Board Charter is considered to be the starting point in a Board's quest for creating a state of good governance within its organisation. However, the specific content of what a Board Charter actually contains has largely remained a mystery. The current study, therefore, was designed to identify what a typical (...) Board Charter looks like as well as determine the frequency with which various Board Charter elements are contained in them. Interestingly, this is the first study of its kind to shed light on the nature and content of this often confidential document which has only recently come into greater use. (shrink)

Conventions are regularities in social behaviour of the past that enable us to coordinate our actions. Some conventions are lawlike: they are expected to be observed always or nearly always. However, in order to coordinate our actions, it may suffice that a precedent has occurred often enough, and sometimes even a single precedent will do. So, in general, conventions merely enable us to solve our coordination problems; lawlike conventions are a special case. Grammatical conventions are often lawlike; sense conventions are (...) typically enabling. In order to resolve the indeterminacies that sense conventions give rise to, interlocutors must rely on the common ground. In this and other ways, common ground is a prerequisite for convention‐based communication. (shrink)

This is an attempt at reviving Kneale's version of the description theory of names, which says that a proper name is synonymous with a definite description of the form ‘the individual named so-and-so’. To begin with, I adduce a wide range of observations to show that names and overt definites are alike in all relevant respects. I then turn to Kripke's main objection against Kneale's proposal, and endeavour to refute it. In the remainder of the paper I elaborate on Kneale's (...) analysis, adopting a theory of presupposition proposed by van der Sandt. (shrink)

Henry Sidgwick was one of the great intellectual figures of nineteenth-century Britain. He was first and foremost a great moral philosopher, whose masterwork The Methods of Ethics is still widely studied today. He also wrote on economics, politics, education and literature. He was deeply involved in the founding of the first college for women at the University of Cambridge. He was also much concerned with the sexual politics of his close friend John Addington Symonds, a pioneer of gay studies. Through (...) his famous student, G. E. Moore, a direct line can be traced from Sidgwick and his circle to the Bloomsbury group. Bart Schultz has written a magisterial overview of this great Victorian sage. This biography will be eagerly sought out by readers interested in philosophy, Victorian literary studies, the history of ideas, the history of psychology and gender and gay studies. (shrink)

The renowned paradox of voting arises when one tries to explain the decision to go out and vote in an exclusively instrumental framework. Instead of postulating that voters always derive utility from the act of voting, I want to search for the reasons that underlie the absence or presence of a preference for voting. In my noninstrumental account of expressive rationality, citizens want to express who they are and what they care about. Whether or not one votes therefore depends on (...) the force of one’s commitments to principles, norms, ideologies or particular persons. This has been confirmed by empirical research showing that citizens vote because they feel they have to, not because they like doing so. Complementing instrumental rationality, this concept of expressive rationality gives a fuller, deeper and more adequate view of the way citizens make political decisions, thereby solving the paradox of voting. (shrink)

This book provides a theory of the juridification of business ethics. Ethical codes pop up everywhere in the business world and increasingly resemble the code of law. A focus on compliance rather than reflection becomes the norm. Legal perspectives replace ethical perspectives, turning ethicists into lawyers without a law degree. This juridification of business ethics conceals a diminishing trust in ethics, as legal reasoning substitutes philosophical thinking. By appealing to the critical study of law, Bart Jansen advocates for a (...) renewed focus on the ethical side of business. This book shows the importance of a good balance between law and ethics in business and is of great interest to both academics and professionals. (shrink)

People talk not only to others but also to themselves. The self talk we engage in may be overt or covert, and is associated with a variety of higher mental functions, including reasoning, problem solving, planning and plan execution, attention, and motivation. When talking to herself, a speaker takes devices from her mother tongue, originally designed for interpersonal communication, and employs them to communicate with herself. But what could it even mean to communicate with oneself? To answer that question, we (...) need a theory of communication that explains how the same linguistic devices may be used to communicate with others and oneself. On the received view, which defines communication as information exchange, self talk appears to be an anomaly, for it is hard to see the point of exchanging information with oneself. However, if communication is analysed as a way of negotiating commitments between speaker and hearer, then communication may be useful even when speaker and hearer coincide. Thus a commitment-based approach allows us to make sense of self talk as well as social talk. (shrink)

Although both Heidegger and Derrida criticize Hegel as the archetype and historical culmination of the metaphysics of presence, Hegel’s dialectics also serves as a model for their critical destruct...

Many philosophers claim that it cannot be the case that a person ought to perform an action if this person cannot perform this action. However, most of these philosophers do not give arguments for the truth of this claim. In this paper, I argue that it is plausible to interpret this claim in such a way that it is entailed by the claim that there cannot be a reason for a person to perform an action if it is impossible that (...) this person will perform this action. I then give three arguments for the truth of the latter claim, which are also arguments for the truth of the former claim as I interpret it. (shrink)

In this paper I present experimental data showing that the interpretation of donkey sentences is influenced by certain aspects of world knowledge that seem to elude introspective observation, which I try to explain by reference to a scale ranging from prototypical individuals (like children) to quite marginal ones (such as railway lines). This ontological cline interacts with the semantics of donkey sentences: as suggested already by the anecdotal data on which much of the literature is based, the effect of world (...) knowledge is by and large restricted to donkey sentences with non-intersective determiners. I outline a psychological model which incorporates both ontological and logical factors, and suggest that there may be something wrong with the standard assumption that a statement's receiving a truth value requires that it have a definite reading. (shrink)

This article focuses on the explanations of human cooperation that dominate the fields of psychology, philosophy, economics and other social sciences. It argues that these accounts all frame cooperation in egoistic terms and thus cannot solve the evolutionary puzzle of strong reciprocity, defined as a propensity to cooperate with others similarly disposed and to punish others who violate norms, even at a personal cost and without any prospect of present or future rewards. This article shows that strong reciprocity accounts for (...) the uniquely high levels of human cooperation and is best explained by referring to the important role of culture in natural selection. In the end, it aims to analyze the implications of these insights for the interdisciplinary aim of understanding the sources of cooperation. (shrink)

Despite renewed interest in the positive role exemplars can play in moral education, exemplar-based education has been criticized as illiberal and indoctrinating. In this chapter, we investigate these worries and show how a specific, twofold approach to exemplar narratives can help avoid them. According to opponents, exemplar education can involve indoctrination and impose specific moral values, since pupils are expected to act in ways that resemble exemplars. Even if pupils are encouraged to pick their own exemplars, this arguably still promotes (...) moral deference instead of independent moral reasoning and critical thinking. We argue that a nuanced distinction between ‘imitation’ and ‘emulation’ helps avoid such worries. Rather than seeking to simply imitate their exemplars, pupils should be encouraged to take a more nuanced approach to emulation in which they engage with their exemplars, think about how they can promote the values, and embody the ideals and virtues that they identify and admire in them. This approach is supported by recent insights about which exemplars are more motivating and which risk backfiring due to ‘do-gooder derogation’. It also leads to practical pointers for those who want to work with exemplars in character education without being charged of indoctrination. (shrink)

A colorful history of utilitarianism told through the lives and ideas of Jeremy Bentham, John Stuart Mill, and its other founders In The Happiness Philosophers, Bart Schultz tells the colorful story of the lives and legacies of the founders of utilitarianism—one of the most influential yet misunderstood and maligned philosophies of the past two centuries. Best known for arguing that "it is the greatest happiness of the greatest number that is the measure of right and wrong," utilitarianism was developed (...) by the radical philosophers, critics, and social reformers William Godwin, Jeremy Bentham, John Stuart and Harriet Taylor Mill, and Henry Sidgwick. Together, they had a profound influence on nineteenth-century reforms, in areas ranging from law, politics, and economics to morals, education, and women's rights. Their work transformed life in ways we take for granted today. Bentham even advocated the decriminalization of same-sex acts, decades before the cause was taken up by other activists. As Bertrand Russell wrote about Bentham in the late 1920s, "There can be no doubt that nine-tenths of the people living in England in the latter part of last century were happier than they would have been if he had never lived." Yet in part because of its misleading name and the caricatures popularized by figures as varied as Dickens, Marx, and Foucault, utilitarianism is sometimes still dismissed as cold, calculating, inhuman, and simplistic. By revealing the fascinating human sides of the remarkable pioneers of utilitarianism, The Happiness Philosophers provides a richer understanding and appreciation of their philosophical and political perspectives—one that also helps explain why utilitarianism is experiencing a renaissance today and is again being used to tackle some of the world's most serious problems. (shrink)

I argue that Jackson, Stratton-Lake, and Schroeder’s objections to my arguments for the error theory in Unbelievable Errors fail. I also argue that our inability to believe the error theory should affect our assessments of these arguments.

During the postwar period, the Flemish press-scene changed fundamentally. Alongside further commercialization and concentration, a process of structural depoliticization or depillarization took place: links betweenparties and trade unions on the one hand and newspapers on the other disappeared. This article examines the impact ofthese structural transformations on the newspapers' content. We emphasize marks of pillarization in Flemish newspapers during cabinet formations. In 1958, the press took undeniably sides in the battle between the pillars: information about the formation of the new (...) cabinet formed the background for these fights. In 1981 most attention went to the cabinet formation itself. The pillarization ofthe content was however on a more latent level not neglectable. Compared to 1958 and 1981 the old alliances between press and ideological institutions were far less visible in the content of 1995's newspapers. Apparently the depillarization ofthe Flemish press-content is an ongoing, longlasting process. (shrink)

The present research investigates the relation between the religiosity dimensions which Wulff described and both moral attitudes and moral competence. The Post-Critical Belief scale was used as a measure of Wulff's religiosity dimensions, and the Moral Judgment Test was used to measure both moral attitudes and moral competence. Results from an adolescent sample , a student sample and a sample of adults affiliated to the Roman Catholic Church suggest, that, whereas the Literal vs. Symbolic dimension shows substantial relations with moral (...) attitudes and moral competence, the Exclusion vs. Inclusion of Transcendence dimension is unrelated to both of them. This suggests that there is no intrinsic relationship between religiosity and morality. However, results also suggest that religiously affiliated persons, in general, exhibit low moral competence. The content of the moral dilemmas that were presented cannot account for this. (shrink)

New Perspective scholars challenge Protestant interpretations of Paul. It used to be the case, they state, that Protestants assumed that Paul was to Judaism as Luther was to Medieval Catholicism. Both men supposedly reacted against legalistic religions and championed grace-based faiths. However, in 1977, E.P. Sanders wrote Paul and Palestinian Judaism, arguing that Judaism is not a legalistic but a grace-based faith. Assuming that Sanders is correct, New Perspectivists claim that Paul’s and Luther’s theologies and experiences were thus not parallel. (...) Hence, Luther misunderstood Paul. Additionally, New Perspectivists challenge Protestant understandings of ‘justification’. In New Perspective thought, Paul uses the term ‘justification’ primarily to describe how people, particularly Gentiles, join the church Christians without following Jewish ritual laws. ‘Justification’, then, does not describe how people ‘stay in’ the covenant and receive salvation, as Protestants think. However, this article maintains that while New Perspectivists have some knowledge of Paul and Judaism, they are much less knowledgeable regarding Luther, Medieval Catholicism and Luther’s reaction to it. Greater scrutiny of these latter areas reveals large difficulties with New Perspective arguments. In addition, a review of relevant passages from Paul’s letters demonstrates that Protestants have not misunderstood Paul’s use of the term ‘justification’. Many Pauline passages show that when Paul discusses justification he is also thinking about ‘staying in’, not just ‘getting in’ the covenant. (shrink)

In view of the pessimism on the two EU presidencies before 1994 and ofa number ofpolitica[ breakthroughs that has been reached during that year, one can say that the last year of the Tweve has been relatively succesful. It was a year in which the economic recession came to an end, in which the enlargement negotiations have been concluded, and in which the Europe Agreements entered into force. At the same time, however, 1994 showed the first signs of future problems (...) with which the enlarged EU wilt have to cope. The expected eastern and southern enlargements wilt necessitate institutional adaptations and wilt intensify the already bitter discussions on the EU's budget. At the same time, the EU wilt have to find ways to cape with rising unemployment. This will have to happen in a period during which the member states are having difficulties to fullfil the budgetary conditions of Maastricht. In other words, the difficult years are not yet over for the process of European integration. (shrink)

Not all classically trained philosophers are enchanted by the success of ‘applied ethics’. Many among them are somewhat suspicious that the tendency toward further specialization will divert attention away from more fundamental ethical problems. This suspicion is reinforced by the fact that the world of medicine, technology, politics and economics demands ready made ethical answers, not to mention the fact that the sponsoring, subsidies and grants for research in areas which respond to this demand are significantly larger than for research (...) in classical moral philosophy. Such external influences on the ethical agenda are seen by many ethicists and philosophers as an encroachment on a more objective determination of academically relevant concerns. (shrink)

The traditional concern universities have had with public, universal knowledge seems to be waning, with an ever-greater stress upon privatised knowledge. Nevertheless, this is an old quarrel. Since Plato saw knowledge as in service of society, he scorned the Sophists for commercialising knowledge. For the mediaeval university, which continued and developed certain strands of Plato’s thinking, the privatisation of knowledge was also unthinkable, since all knowledge ultimately belonged to God.The success of the mediaeval university lay in its autonomy, and its (...) freedom from commercial pressure. As such, the university’s mission was the cultivation of a global, philosophical worldview in function of a broader social mission, and not in function of surplus economic value. The shift to modernity meant that scientific knowledge could lead to commercial products and techniques.With the cooling of the Enlightenment and its optimism in the scientific project, knowledge increasingly became a neutral resource used and applied in any way possible. Today, the close connection between entrepreneurs and scientists seems to reflect an official policy that the commercialisation of university knowledge is in the best interest of society.However, the university offers more than commercial knowledge – its orienting function also helps ensure that knowledge is won honestly and used responsibly, a double loyalty stretching back to Plato. It would not be wise to attempt to rail against the commercialisation of knowledge, but it would be just as foolish to think that knowledge is only something to be commercialised. The question is to forge an understanding between financial partners and academics that respects and works according to this double loyalty. The credibility of research – and the academy – depends on this. (shrink)