Montgomery makes a retrospective journey with Walker Percy, as Percy comes to an accommodation with the modern world in company with other companionable journeymen. Percy himself enjoyed a large company of pilgrims who prove amenable to his vision of the human condition - in Percy's words, man is "in a predicament and on the move in a real world of real things, a world which is a sacrament and a mystery," words celebratively spoken of as "the holiness of the (...) ordinary," as opposed to what he called the "losangelization" of the popular spirit, a spirit which increasingly takes refuge in enclaves of "selves" in the relapse into tribalism celebrated as our "New Age." Percy's long journey from and then back to the South, his acceptance of what his Uncle Will exhibited as "Southern stoicism," had a reorientation that proved to be a "fortunate fall" very personal to him, occurring in a world far removed from the Southern Delta culture. He begins to read and read: Gabriel Marcel, Kierkegaard, St. Thomas Aquinas, Camus and Sartre and Eliot and others. And he begins distinguishing between valid science and scientism as knowing of reality, recognized as limited by the finiteness of the intellectual soul. Percy left the field of medicine to doctor to man in a different way. When Percy, recuperating with TB, understands the "holiness of the ordinary," he discovers that this world "is a sacrament," and so requires of him through his gifts a deportment to existence itself in celebration of that sacredness. Thus Percy speaks a manner, not presuming himself the agent of grace through presumption of autonomous intellect, amused and as well regretful that so many about him appear lost in the cosmos. He puts that point to a sympathetic audience, down in Louisiana not far from his comforting "place" in Covington: "Catholic or Protestant, the believing writer is usually unhappy. He feels like Lancelot in search of the Holy Grail who finds himself at the end of his quest at a Tupperware party." But not really unhappy - rather sympathetically regretful that his usual hosts at that party (his possible audience) have lost recognition of the holiness of things that requires the pilgrim intellectual soul a deportment to things in "a sacrament" of consent, before the "mystery" larger than the pretenses of scientism. The world, that is, is not a desert to be plundered to self-comfort as justified by a positivistic apotheosis of the "Self" as a sovereign autonomy desert-bound. The "making" of sacramental piety, whether as novelist or Delta planter, requires the stewardship of love to things in themselves. (shrink)

Light upon Light: Essays in Islamic Thought and History in Honor of Gerhard Bowering brings together studies that explore the richness of Islamic intellectual life in the pre-modern period. Leading scholars around the world present nineteen studies that explore diverse areas of Islamic Studies, in honor of a renowned scholar and teacher: Professor Dr. Gerhard Bowering (Yale University). The volume includes contributions in four main areas: (1) Quran and Early Islam; (2) Sufism, Shiism, and Esotericism; (3) Philosophy; (4) Literature and (...) Culture. These areas reflect the enormous breadth of Professor Bowering's contributions to the field over a lifetime of scholarship, teaching, and mentoring. Contributors: Hussein Ali Abdulsater, Mushegh Asatryan, Shahzad Bashir, Jonathan Brockopp, Yousef Casewit, Jamal Elias, Janis Esots, Li Guo, Matthew Ingalls, Tariq Jaffer, Mareike Koertner, Joseph Lumbard, Matthew Melvin-Koushki, Mahan Mirza, Bilal Orfali, Gabriel Reynolds, Nada Saab, Amina Steinfels & Alexander Treiger. (shrink)

“... für die Wißenschaft, der ich von ganzer Seele lebe.” Otto Böhtlingk : Ein Gelehrten- leben rekonstruiert und beschrieben anhand seiner Briefe. By Agnes Stache-Weiske. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz. 2017. Pp. xv + 583. €118. Otto Böhtlingk an Rudolf Roth: Briefe zum Petersburger Wörterbuch 1852–1885. Index. By Agnes Stache-Weiske, Gabriele Zeller, and Frank Köhler. Veröffentlichungen der Helmuth von Glasenapp-Stiftung, vol. 45.2. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz. 2015. Pp. 188. €59.

This paper interprets the relation between sovereignty and guilt in Nietzsche's Genealogy. I argue that, contrary to received opinion, Nietzsche was not opposed to the moral concept of guilt. I analyse Nietzsche's account of the emergence of the guilty conscience out of a pre-moral bad conscience. Drawing attention to Nietzsche's references to many different forms of conscience and analogizing to his account of punishment, I propose that we distinguish between the enduring and the fluid elements of a ‘conscience’, defining the (...) enduring element as the practice of forming self-conceptions. I show that for Nietzsche, the moralization of the bad conscience results from mixing it with the material concepts of guilt and duty, a process effected by prehistoric religious institutions by way of the concept of god. This moralization furnishes a new conception of oneself as a responsible agent and holds the promise of sovereignty by giving us a freedom unknown to other creatures, but at the price of our becoming subject to moral guilt. According to Nietzsche, however, the very forces that made it possible have spoiled this promise and, under the pressures of the ascetic ideal, a harmful notion of responsibility understood in terms of sin now dominates our lives. Thus, to fully realize our sovereignty, we must liberate ourselves from this sinful conscience. (shrink)

In the current paper, we propose a latent interdependence approach to modeling psychometric data in social networks. The idea of latent interdependence is adopted from social relations models, which formulate a mutual-rating process by both dyad members’ characteristics. Under the framework of the latent interdependence approach, we introduce two psychometric models: The first model includes the main effects of both rating-sender and rating-receiver, and the second model includes a latent distance effect to assess the influence from the dissimilarity between the (...) latent characteristics of both sides. The latent distance effect is quantified by the Euclidean distance between both sides’ trait scores. Both models use Bayesian estimation via Markov chain Monte Carlo. How accurately model parameters were estimated was evaluated in a simulation study. Parameter recovery results showed that all parameters were accurately recovered under most of the conditions investigated. As expected, the accuracy of model estimation was significantly improved as network size grew. Also, through analyzing empirical data, we showed how to use the estimates of model parameters to predict the latent weight of connections among group members and rebuild either a univariate or multivariate network at a latent trait level. Finally, we discuss issues regarding model comparison and offer suggestions for future studies. (shrink)

This research synthesizes social exchange, organizational culture, and social identity theories to explore the boundary conditions of the relationship between high-performance work systems and employee organizational citizenship behavior. In particular, it draws on the China-specific management context. In this country, in spite of the wide use of a long-term-oriented and loose-control-focused Western-styled strategic human resource management model, a short-term-focused and tight-control-oriented error aversion culture is still popular. The study uses multi-source individual-level survey data in a large state-owned enterprise to test (...) the hypotheses. It is found that employee-experienced, Western-styled high-performance work systems positively impact a China-specific employee’s organizational citizenship behavior, and the—joint—moderation effects of employee-perceived error aversion culture and organizational identification are significant. The research findings deepen the understanding of the HRM-OCB relationship by demonstrating that culture and identity can jointly adjust the effects of HRM on OCB. The findings also challenge an established argument in the HRM-OCB literature that compatibility between employees’ personalities and organizational values – organizational identification – can enhance OCB. (shrink)

Economic theory teaches that it is in every country’s interest to trade. Trade is a voluntary activity among consenting parties. On this view, considerations of justice have little bearing on trade, and political philosophers concerned with global justice should stay largely silent on trade. According to a very different view that has recently gained prominence, international trade can only occur before the background of an international market reliance practice shaped by states. Trade is a shared activity among states, and all (...) participating states have in principle equal claims to gains from trade. Trade then becomes a central topic for political philosophers. Both views are problematic. A third view about the role of trade in a theory of global justice is then presented, which gives pride of place to a notion of exploitation. The other two views should be abandoned. (shrink)

The emergence of any idea must have a deep-seated social background, and at the same time there must be an intellectual source that cannot be neglected. That is to say, every idea must have as its foundation some piece of intellectual material that has been handed down by people of the past. Lao Zi once said: "All Things Under Heaven [tianxia wanwu] are born of Existence [you]; Existence [you] is born of Nonexistence [wu]." This does not mean that existence is (...) born out of nothingness or nonexistence [xuwu]. In reality, what Lao Zi meant by "Nonexistence" [wu] is actually itself a kind of existence; but because its state of existence [cunzai zhuangtai] is different from that of Existence [you], it is called "Nonexistence" [wu] instead. This difference of the states of existence lies in [the following]: Existence has form, and therefore can be sensed; Non-existence has no form, and therefore cannot be sensed. In the chapter "Fei ming" of the book Mo Zi there is the passage that says: "Something can be heard, something can be seen; we call it Existence; something cannot be heard, cannot be seen; we call it Destruction [wang] [wu]." Even though the meanings of "Existence" and "Nonexistence" here are different from those in Lao Zi's idea, we may still trust that the general interpretation of "Existence" and "Nonexistence" here would still meet with Lao Zi's approval. In Lao Zi's view, even though Nonexistence cannot be comprehended through sensation, it can be grasped by metaphysical and mystical "vision." Lao Zi's expression that "Existence is born of Nonexistence" was not only an expression of his viewpoint on the question of the origin of "all things under heaven," but also a general rule for us to follow in examining the evolution of human thought. On the one hand, it demonstrates that every single idea must have its source, its intellectual origin; on the other hand, it points out that the idea that serves another as intellectual source may be hidden, not overt, at times. On the surface, some ideas may appear to have no "genealogical origin"—water without a fountainhead or well spring, and yet, perhaps, if we were to conduct further investigation and research, we would discover that they all have some ancient source, some long-forgotten well spring. That is precisely what this essay hopes to accomplish—to attempt to explore in a preliminary way the ancient source of Lao Zi's thought. (shrink)

Part I of Frege’s Grundgesetze is devoted to the “exposition [Darlegung]” of his formal system.

To achieve impact, academics need to create personal impact development plans, focused on what and on whom to have an impact and the necessary competencies to do so. Profession and university leaders play a critical role in the successful implementation of such plans.

Humans, animals, and the environment face a universal crisis: antimicrobial resistance. Addressing AR and its multi-disciplinary causes across many sectors including in human and veterinary medicine remains underdeveloped. One barrier to AR efforts is an inconsistent process to incorporate the plenitude of stakeholders about what AR is and how to stifle its development and spread—especially stakeholders from the animal agriculture sector, one of the largest purchasers of antimicrobial drugs. In 2019, The Wellcome Trust released Reframing Resistance: How to communicate about (...) antimicrobial resistance effectively, which proposed the need to establish a consistent and harmonized messaging effort that describes the AR crisis and its global implications for health and wellbeing across all stakeholders. Yet, Reframing Resistance does not specifically engage the animal agriculture community. This study investigates the gap between two principles recommended by Reframing Resistance and animal agriculture stakeholders. For this analysis, the research group conducted 31 semi-structured interviews with a diverse group of United States animal agriculture stakeholders. Participants reported attitudes, beliefs, and practices about a variety of issues, including how they defined AR and what entities the AR crisis impacts most. Exploration of Reframing Resistance’s Principle 2, “explain the fundamentals succinctly” and Principle 3, “emphasis that this is universal issue; it can affect anyone, including you” reveals disagreement in both the fundamentals of AR and consensus of “who” the AR crisis impacts. Principle 2 may do better to acknowledge that animal agriculture stakeholders espouse a complex array of perspectives that cannot be summed up in a single perspective or principle. As a primary tool to combat AR, behavior change must be accomplished first through outreach to stakeholder groups and understanding their perspectives. (shrink)

Thought: A Journal of Philosophy, EarlyView.

Time and narratice technique compared. Two novelists, Heliodorus, 3rd century author of the novel Aethiopica and Sigrid Combüchen, contemporary Swedish novelist using a dystopian Europe around 2050 as a scenic setting. In both stories girls and women are captured and killed by soldiers. Both narrators are external to the story being told, presented in the past tense. But Combüchen´s narrator adopts it as a confession, and a turning point in his career as a commanding general, characterized by"double-bind".

An argument is made that only through a detailed comparison of mutational mechanisms underlying the evolution of the genetic systems governing development, can the 'logic' of individual development be fully comprehended. To do this, it is essential to choose two or more genes (or their products) that interact in the establishment of a given function, and to compare the molecular basis of that interaction in closely related species. The rationale to this approach arises from observations of molecular co‐evolution between interacting (...) partners involved with given functions which have led to species specificity in the manner in which such functions are effected. Molecular coevolution reveals that divergence in sequence can be tolerated whilst biological functions are maintained, not because it is neutral and dispensable but because successful, compensatory changes can evolve in eukaryotic genomes that are in continuous states of flux. (shrink)

The ethical behaviour and social responsibility of private companies, and in particular large corporations, is an important area of enquiry in contemporary social, economic and political thinking. In the past, a company's behaviour would be considered responsible as long as it stayed within the law of the society in which it operated or existed. Although this may be necessary, it is no longer sufficient. In this paper, we examine an energy company's response to an ethical incident in New Zealand which (...) prompted different responses across the country about the role of business in society. Thus, we argue that when a corporation is accused of unethical behaviour, executives of the company are usually compelled to offer responses to defend their actions and corporate image. Further, we use communicative response model, social issue life cycle theory, and organisational learning, to analyse the incident and how the company responded. Using social issues life cycle theory and organisational learning theory, we demonstrate that sustained pressure can potentially trigger a change of strategy that may serve to improve the ethical posture of a corporation and thereby improve the corporate image long term. We conclude that, although corporations may understand the significance of social issues to the performance and success of their business, this same understanding does not always translate into meaningful social action. (shrink)

This study examines the ethical position and behaviour of multinational mining companies regarding hazardous employment and health and safety of employees in the South African mining industry. Mining companies have long had a reputation for being unethical on health and safety issues. Too often there are occurrences of fatal accidents, which bring the ethical behaviour of multinational mining companies into question. The litmus test for the mining companies is to devise benchmark standards that will reduce accidents tremendously at their place (...) of operations. This study addresses this issue by examining measures and regulations set up to check the occurrences of mining accidents in South Africa. It follows that the remedy needs to be fundamental and thoroughgoing. (shrink)

Based on an analysis of a landmark case Lim Mey Lee Susan v Singapore Medical Council in Singapore where a doctor was professionally disciplined for over-charging a wealthy patient, a judgement upheld by the Singapore High Court, this paper will discuss the notion of an ‘ethical price’ (EP) and its determination with respect to the provision of healthcare services. It will first examine the limitations of a legal approach for setting an ethical limit to pricing. From there, it will argue (...) that Confucian philosophy provides a useful ethical framework to explore EP, with focus on the context of Singapore. The following question is addressed: What is an ethical pricing standard for medical practice from a Confucian perspective? The strengths and limitations of a Confucian value base as regards the determination of an objective EP will be analysed through an examination of the shortcomings of the doctor’s behaviour in the Susan Lim case as well as other case scenarios. The paper will conclude with some practical suggestions on how Confucian-based ideas can be applied to decision-making on pricing and the importance of this for medical professionalism and ethics teaching. (shrink)

We present two studies investigating the impact of causal perceptions and the moral emotions of anger, shame, and guilt on the justification of deviant workplace behavior. Study 1 tests our conceptual framework using a sample of undergraduate business students; Study 2 examines a population of practicing physicians. Results varied significantly between the two samples, suggesting that individual and contextual factors play an important role in shaping the perceptual and emotional processes by which individuals form reactions to undesirable affective workplace events. (...) Implications of these findings for the study of ethics, emotions, and attributions, as well as for promoting ethical behavior, are discussed. (shrink)

Hermeneutik gilt heutzutage meistens als Bestandteil der Philosophie. Das ist aber eine verkürzte Sicht ihrer Gegenwart und erst recht ihrer Geschichte. Denn von Haus aus bezeichnet Hermeneutik alle Verfahren zur Auslegung von Texten. Sie begann in der Antike mit der Neu-Interpretation klassischer Dichter. Anschließend lernten die Christen die jüdische Bibel im Sinne ihres Evangeliums auszulegen. Sodann brauchte auch schriftliches Recht Interpretation, ebenso die philologisch-historische Quellenkritik der Geschichtswissenschaft. Jetzt erst führte die Philosophie die verschiedenen Varianten zu einer allgemeinen Hermeneutik zusammen. Daneben (...) hatten aber vier andere Wissenschaften eigene Auslegungstheorien und Methodenlehren entwickelt. Diese fünf Entwicklungspfade des gesamten Feldes werden hier zum ersten Mal von den Anfängen bis zur Gegenwart im Überblick dargestellt. (shrink)

Beschreibung des Lebens- und Denkweges des dänischen Philosophen und religiösen Schriftstellers Sören Kierkegaard (1813 - 1855) als den eines Weges auf der Suche nach sich selbst.

Evolutionary genetics is concerned with natural selection and neutral drift, to the virtual exclusion of almost everything else. In its current focus on DNA variation, it reduces phenotypes to symbols. Varying phenotypes, however, are the units of evolution, and, if we want a comprehensive theory of evolution, we need to consider both the internal and external evolutionary forces that shape the development of phenotypes. Genetic systems are redundant, modular and subject to a variety of genomic mechanisms of “turnover” (transposition, gene (...) conversion, unequal crossingover, slippage and so on). As such the construction and spread of novel combinations of modules by turnover, in particular within gene promoters, contributes significantly to the evolution of phenotypes. Furthermore, redundancy, turnover and modularity lead to ever more complex networks of genetic interactions and ever more functions for a given module. The significant interaction between genomic turnover and natural selection leads to a molecular coevolution between interacting modules and hence facilitates the establishment of biological novelties. BioEssays 22:1153–1159, 2000. © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. (shrink)

David Kaplan observed in Kaplan that the principle \\) cannot be verified at a world in a standard possible worlds model for a quantified bimodal propositional language. This raises a puzzle for certain interpretations of the operator Q: it seems that some proposition p is such that is not possible to query p, and p alone. On the other hand, Arthur Prior had observed in Prior that on pain of contradiction, ∀p is Q only if one true proposition is Q (...) and one false proposition is Q. The two observations are related: ∀p is elusive in that it is not possible for the proposition to be uniquely Q. Kaplan based his model-theoretic observation on Cantor’s theorem, but there is a less well-known link between this simple set-theoretic observation and Prior’s remark. We generalize the link to develop a heuristic designed to move from Cantor’s theorem to the observation that a variety of sentences of the bimodal language express propositions that cannot be Q uniquely. We highlight the analogy between some of these results and some set-theoretic antinomies and suggest that the phenomenon is richer than one may have anticipated. (shrink)

Diario metafisico (1928-1933)--Abbozzo di una fenomenologia dell'avere.--Rilievi sull'irreligione contemporanea.--Riflessioni sulla fede.--Lineamenti di una filosofia concreta.--Nota.--Nota bio-bibliografica (p. 199-200).

Este artigo estabelece algumas relações fundamentais entre evolução, a teoria do cérebro triuno e a relevância que esta pode ter para a fundamentação empírica de uma filosofia da mente e das emoções. Inicialmente, será especialmente considerada a posição do filósofo Ronald de Sousa no seu já clássico artigo “The Mind’s Bermuda Triangle: Philosophy of Emotions and Empirical Science”, parte do Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Emotions. A segunda seção discute a validade da teoria do “cérebro triuno” como abordagem neuroetológica evolutiva, (...) delineando sua divisão tripartite do cérebro e analisando críticas e elogios às suas ideias, além de considerações de neurocientistas importantes no campo do estudo das emoções como Ledoux e Panksepp sobre tal tema. Na terceira seção, trato de um trabalho de Pollen e Hofmann que nos serve de apresentação de novas abordagens contemporâneas para a compreensão da evolução do cérebro. Como conclusão delineio um marco de trabalho na forma de uma agenda de pesquisa para as relações entre biologia evolutiva, neurociência e o estudo filosófico das emoções. (shrink)

Despite the adoption of the term headline for both print news and broadcast news, their roles in the different media are not the same. Print headlines are mostly contiguous with the story to which they refer. Broadcast headlines, however, are often at some temporal distance from their associated news item. In the print medium every story carries a headline. In broadcast news only some items are headlined. And yet, whereas the linguistic properties of print headlines have been much studied, almost (...) no attention has been given to broadcast headlines. This article uses a corpus of headlines from BBC television news to explore their discursive form and function. It isolates a basic structure of {heading } for television news headlines and delineates a repertoire of patterns through which the structure is realised. In doing so, it suggests that the core function of television news headlines is to engage with the audience by projecting aspects of their news values forward through the programme. (shrink)

It is, we think, fair to say that scholarship on post-Kantian philosophy1 has traditionally tended to focus on theoretical philosophy rather than on practical philoso...

O pensamento do filósofo britânico Michael Oakeshott é frequentemente recrutado no debate entre conservadorismo e posições progressistas, no qual algumas de suas distinções e explicitações são postas a serviço da crítica a determinados aspectos dessa última. Um de seus principais movimentos argumentativos consiste em apontar que posições políticas fundamentalmente revolucionárias pressupõem certa concepção de racionalidade que, por sua vez, estaria em desacordo com uma visão clássica acerca da faculdade intelectiva humana ao mesmo tempo em que privilegia tal concepção em relação (...) a outras esferas da experiência humana. No entanto, embora usual, tal reconstrução não apenas não faz justiça aos objetivos e à argumentação de Oakeshott, como parece ignorar uma compreensão mais genuína do racionalismo nos séculos XVII e XVIII. Assim, o objetivo deste artigo é explorar a argumentação de Oakeshott tal qual exposta na seção III de seu Rationalism in Politics a fi m de, simultaneamente, precisar seus objetivos e colocá-los em perspectiva em relação à gênese histórico-temática do racionalismo. (shrink)

This paper tries to link Ethology to Biosemiotics by analysing the similarities between some triadic relationships like biosemiotics’ Object—Representamen—Interpretant and the one established in Ethology between Sign-stimuli— Innate Releasing Mechanism—Modal Action Pattern, or the one potentially established in communication networks comprising Sender—Receiver—Eavesdropper. I argue here that a collaborative relationship is supported by the fact that the observational method used by Ethology is based on the triadic relationship Sender—Receiver—Eavesdropper. This method, by introducing the human observer at the Interpreter/Eavesdropper place, is not (...) only applicable to the direct study of animal communication, but also to the interpretation of all other animal behaviour by assuming that behaviour is a sign/signal system on its own, for us to interpret and decode. (shrink)

I make three claims about the interactions between concept mastery and the knowledge argument. First, I argue that, contra Ball, the concept mastery response to the knowledge argument does not suffer from the heterogeneity of concept mastery. Second, I argue that, when doing metaphysics by relating propositions on the basis of whether a hypothetical agent who knew a base collection could infer a target proposition, it is legitimate to rely on propositions that are not contained in the base, as long (...) as those propositions are required for mastery of relevant concepts. One upshot is that, when checking whether the physical truths a priori entail the consciousness truths, it is fair game to rely on substantive truths about consciousness. Third, I argue that the only version of the knowledge argument that has any hope of succeeding against physicalism completely lacks the argument's driving intuition: that Mary learns something new when she emerges from the black and white room. (shrink)

We propose a definition of physical objects that aims to clarify some interpretational issues in quantum mechanics. We claim that the transformations generated by the objective properties of a physical system must be strictly interpreted as gauge transformations. We will argue that the uncertainty principle is a consequence of the mutual intertwining between objective properties and gauge-dependant properties. The proposed definition implies that in classical mechanics gauge-dependant properties are wrongly considered objective. We will conclude that, unlike classical mechanics, quantum mechanics (...) provides a complete objective description of physical systems. (shrink)

While the word “democracy” has proliferated in social and political discourse in recent decades, I suggest that the liberal democracy of the past, connected as it is (especially in the West) to the market economy, is insufficient for the challenges facing the contemporary Latin American context. I assess and criticize democratic ideas in order to suggest that the way forward is radical democracy based on socio-economic and political justice. These, however, have to be articulated at a variety of levels, from (...) that of local and indigenous peoples to that of national and international relations. (shrink)