Across a variety of religious and philosophical traditions, it is common to think that it is possible that God defies all description. This presents a problem, however, as the claim that God defies all description itself appears to describe God. Drawing on multiple religious and philosophical traditions, this paper proposes an addition to the pragmatic stock of approaches to this problem. The proposal is that apophatic utterances are best interpreted—at least in the first instance—as invitations to engage the world aesthetically (...) and creatively, as an act of faith. Their goal is principally to motivate us to act in ways that will allow us to appreciate the extraordinary or divine, rather than to, say, believe that some proposition regarding the extraordinary or divine is true. (shrink)

Might traditional Chinese thought regarding creativity not just influence, but also enrich, contemporary European thought about the same? Moreover, is it possible that traditional Chinese thought regarding creativity might enrich contemporary thought both in a more broad, holistic sense, and more specifically regarding the nature and role of creativity as it pertains to scientific inquiry? In this paper, I elucidate why the answer to these questions is: yes. I explain in detail a classical Chinese conception of creativity rooted in Zhuangist (...) philosophy and which centrally involves spontaneity engendered by embracing yóu遊, or “wandering”, rather than novelty or originality. I then illustrate how this conception of creativity can be used to enrich contemporary thought regarding the nature and role of creativity both in general and as it pertains to scientific inquiry in particular, as well as how to engender creativity, by arguing that it might allow us to: i) more easily remove what is frequently an obstacle to creativity, and; ii) better understand creative agents as being more intimately connected with, and as processes within and products of, their environments. Finally, I conclude by briefly remarking on how exploring various cultural perspectives on creativity promises to help us to better comprehend and promote creativity, by encouraging us to become more creative about creativity itself. (shrink)

Drawing from cross-cultural work on creativity undertaken within philosophical psychology, as well as contemporary commentaries on the philosophy of the Zhuangzi, this article motivates a conception of creativity that emphasizes spontaneity and adaptivity—rather than novelty or originality—engendered by embracing you 遊 (“wandering”). It argues that this approach to creativity can enable us to understand certain forms of religious experiences, especially those related to grief and bereavement, as creative in a sense that is compatible with both: i) views that emphasize the (...) capacity of religious experiences to connect us with something supernatural, immaterial, or non-physical and, ii) views that emphasize the capacity of religious experiences to connect us with something natural, material, or physical. Additionally, it elaborates how these reflections might pave the way for further cross-cultural inquiries—empirical and otherwise—into the nature and value of religious experience. (shrink)

Doubt is often considered to be an enemy of creativity. But, might it be its friend, too? We see, in the Zhuangzi, a number of explorations that point toward an interesting affirmative answer to this question. To explain how the text can be interpreted as suggesting such an answer, this paper proceeds in two parts. First, in section one, I clarify what is meant by “doubt” for the purposes of this paper, as well as several ways in which it can (...) be directed toward its relevant target: entire perspectives. Following that, in section two, I outline a conception of creativity suggested by aspects of the Zhuangzi, and explain how doubt can engender creativity, as well as a few reasons that this matters. I then close by briefly discussing two caveats. (shrink)

This paper explores the possibility that Zhuangzi can be fruitfully interpreted as a fictionalist. It proceeds in four parts. Part one discusses two distinct and very general types of fictionalism—force and content—that might prove useful for an interpreter of the Zhuangzi. The former type of view would have it that the expressions in question—that is, the expressions that Zhuangzi is held to advocate using and interpreting non-literally—are not best seen as used in a way that aims at, e.g., truth, whereas (...) the latter type of view would have it that the expressions in question are best seen as used in a way that aims at truth, if in a non-literal fashion. Part two surveys evidence in favor of the claim that Zhuangzi can be interpreted in terms of one or the other of these two types of fictionalism and argues that he is better characterized as endorsing a version of the former. Part three explains how interpreting Zhuangzi as a fictionalist can help to resolve notable tensions in the text and briefly explores a few additional merits of this reading of the Zhuangzi: namely, that it can give us a clearer idea of what Zhuangzi’s positive project is, unify seemingly disparate scholarly interpretations of it, and reconcile objectivist and non-objectivist strands in his work. Finally, part four concludes by gesturing toward how the interpretation proposed here might bring the Zhuangzi into productive dialogue with two longstanding philosophical questions: specifically, the question of how we should respond to skeptical arguments, and the question of how aesthetic features of works of art—and in particular, literature—might be related to their cognitive or epistemic value. (shrink)

Talking about knowing is very useful to us. But, is any of this talk true? Numerous skeptical arguments proposed throughout the history of philosophy suggest that it might not be. Moreover, in recent years, it has also proved difficult to account for numerous kinds of variability in the ways we use knowledge-attributing sentences, including kinds of variability suggested by cases such as DeRose’s “bank cases,” Cohen’s “airport cases,” lottery problems, and more—all of which can be interpreted as pushing us in (...) at least one skeptical direction or another. If we are to take seriously (as many theorists about metaphysics, morality, and mind have regarding discourse in those domains), the possibility that knowledge-talk is not (typically) literally true, we might wonder whether epistemologists have similar options, as well as what such options could look like for them. This paper aims to explore (given space constraints) just three forms of epistemic fictionalism. In Section 1, it briefly surveys and critically examines three approaches that an epistemic fictionalist, or perhaps more accurately, non-literalist, might pursue: exaggeration, approximation, and metaphor. It then discusses and dispatches three species of objections to these approaches in Section 2. (shrink)

L’un des défis posés par l’inclusion des soi-disant philosophies «non-occidentales» dans le discours de la philosophie «occidentale» a trait au fait que plusieurs textes philosophiques non-occidentaux diffèrent de façon significative, en termes de style et d’approche, des textes occidentaux, principalement ceux issus de la philosophie analytique contemporaine. Comment établir un dialogue constructif entre des textes écrits de façon littéraire, qui n’ont pas l’allure d’un exposé et qui n’avancent pas clairement des positions ou des arguments philosophiques et des textes qui, au (...) contraire, prennent la forme d’un exposé avançant des positions ou des arguments? Pourquoi, de prime abord, voudrait-on ouvrir un tel dialogue? Cet article pose ces questions par le biais de l’étude du cas du classique taoïste, leZhuāngzǐ. (shrink)

The Vulnerability of Integrity in Early Confucian Thought, by IngMichael D. K.. New York: Oxford University Press, 2017. Pp. x + 293.

This article explores how aspects of traditional Chinese thought regarding creativity can influence and enrich contemporary thought about related topics: specifically, how creativity can be construed as an epistemic or intellectual virtue, and the benefits of considering it as such. It proceeds in three parts. First, I review a conception of creativity suggested by aspects of the Zhuangzi that centrally involves forms of spontaneity and adaptivity engendered by embracing you 遊, or “wandering”, contrasting it with more conventional conceptions of creativity (...) that emphasize novelty or originality. Second, I explain how this conception of creativity illuminates how creativity can be an epistemic virtue of a surprising sort: one that concerns a disposition to—borrowing an expression from Chris Fraser—“ride along with things”. This “riding along” is ironically engendered by letting go of what David Wong has characterized as “the obsession with being right”, about which the Zhuangzi expresses concern. I argue that, while this conception of creativity eschews fixed goals, including epistemically-oriented goals like apprehending truth or developing knowledge, there are nevertheless good reasons to count creativity (so understood) as an epistemic virtue. Third, I connect these explorations with current conversations (begun by Matthew Kieran and C. Thi Nguyen) that already treat creativity or, relatedly, play as an epistemic or intellectual virtue, and explore how engaging the Zhuangzi in the manner outlined promises to help extend them. (shrink)

Skill and Mastery: Philosophical Stories from the Zhuangzi is part of Rowman & Littlefield International’s CEACOP (Center for East Asian and Comparative Philosophy) East Asian Comparative Ethics, P...

This paper addresses Foucauldian theory and its usefulness to nursing research. It is written in the form of a discussion between the authors on the merits and liabilities of Foucauldian theory as applied to analyses of nursing. As such, it focuses upon some of the more pertinent critiques of both Foucauldian and postmodern theory. By addressing Foucault from two different positions, the discussion seeks to demonstrate the complexity of Foucauldian theory and warns against oversimplification in its application to nursing research. (...) The authors also argue for an awareness of the strengths and weaknesses of any given theoretical stance. (shrink)

Nursing and nursing practice both construct and are in turn constructed by the context in which they operate. Texts play a central part in that construction. As such, nursing and nursing practice can be considered to represent a reality that is textually mediated. This paper explores the notion of nursing as a textually mediated reality and offers the reader the possibility of engaging in reflection on what implications this has for nursing and their own nursing practice. The analyses provided draw (...) on aspects of die work of both Foucault and Derrida. Foucault's notion of discourse provides a vehicle for die exploration of nursing as textually mediated, as does Derrida's concept of binary oppositions. The paper thus illustrates some of die possibilities afforded nursing by poststructural analyses. In particular it does this by exploring one of the central textual constructions, impacting on die way that nursing and nursing practice are conceptualized, the mind/body binary opposition. (shrink)

How do economists persuade their readers that one policy is superior to another? A glance at the literature on welfare economics quickly provides the answer to this question: Economists enter policy debates armed with mathematical models, evaluating options on the basis of their consequences. Economists typically classify a policy change as a welfare improvement with respect to the status quo if the gain realized by the winners exceeds the harm sustained by the losers. The best policy becomes the one that (...) generates the highest net benefit. (shrink)

Textual portrayals of nursing can be ‘read’ from a number of possible viewing positions, which play a very real part in the way that our reality is constructed and understood. The image depends on which viewing position is chosen by or constructed for the viewer, and how the viewer interacts with that position. Thus without the viewer the image is incomplete. This paper is a beginning exploration of the nature of texts diat portray nursing, and what Kaplan has termed the (...) ‘delicate negotiation’ between the reader and the text in producing, in this case, understandings of nursing. Consequently die discussion focuses on how texts represent nursing, not in terms of what they portray, but how understandings of that portrayal are arrived at. This is to move exploration of portrayals of nursing from the descriptive to the discursive realm. In so doing the aim is to begin to explore and uncover the way in which we are positioned, and position ourselves, as readers of portrayals of nursing in text. (shrink)

Consequentialist reasoning and neoclassical assumptions about perfectly competitive markets encourage business school faculty and students to overlook the role of ethics in a market system. In a perfectly competitive economy, self-interest suffices to bring about a desirable outcome. However, discrepancies between an economist''s assumptions and the realities of a market economy establish a need for business ethics. This essay, written as a lecture for MBA students, first reviews Pareto optimality as an argument in favor of market allocations. It then uses (...) the discrepancies between actual and hypothetical markets to derive a Rawlsian duty of civility. This neoclassical case for business ethics requires individuals to avoid exploiting the defects that are inevitable in any social structure. (shrink)

Practice Theory and Education challenges how we think about practice, examining what it means across different fields and sites. It is organised into four themes: discursive practices; practice, change and organisations; practising subjectivity; and professional practice, public policy and education. Contributors to the collection engage and extend practice theory by drawing on the legacies of diverse social and cultural theorists, including Bourdieu, de Certeau, Deleuze and Guattari, Dewey, Latour, Marx, and Vygotsky, and by building on the theoretical trajectories of contemporary (...) authors such as Karen Barad, Yrjo Engestrom, Andreas Reckwitz, Theodore Schatzki, Dorothy Smith, and Charles Taylor. The proximity of ideas from different fields and theoretical traditions in the book highlight key matters of concern in contemporary practice thinking, including the historicity of practice; the nature of change in professional practices; the place of discursive material in practice; the efficacy of refiguring conventional understandings of subjectivity and agency; and the capacity for theories of practice to disrupt conventional understandings of asymmetries of power and resources. Their juxtaposition also points to areas of contestation and raises important questions for future research. Practice Theory and Education will appeal to postgraduate students, academics and researchers in professional practice and education, and scholars working with social theory. It will be of particular interest to those who wish to move beyond the limiting configurations of practice found in contemporary neoliberal, new managerialist and narrow representationalist discourses. ". (shrink)

Two lecture styles were examined to determine which was more effective for enhancing content learning in college students. The same experienced guest lecturer presented information about bipolar disorder (a combination of depression and mania) to college students in human service-related fields. Students in classes assigned to the control group received a standard, didactic lecture. In classes assigned to the experimental group, the presenter began the lecture by informing the students that she had bipolar disorder and enhanced the standard didactic lecture (...) by interspersing descriptions of her personal experiences living with bipolar disorder. Content-specific pre-tests and post-tests developed by the researchers were used to compare acquisition of knowledge about the disorder across groups of students. Results showed that students who received the personal/experiential lecture acquired significantly more knowledge about bipolar disorder than did students who received the standard, didactic lecture. Theories and procedures that may enhance student learning and thinking in related areas are discussed. (shrink)

Background: Many people with aphasia and people without brain injury talk to themselves in their heads, i.e., have “inner speech.” Inner speech may be more preserved compared with spoken speech for some people with aphasia and may serve a variety of functions (e.g., emotion regulation), which motivates us to provide a high-fidelity characterization of it. Researchers have used multiple methods to measure this internal phenomenon in the past, which we combine here for the first time in a single study. -/- (...) Aims: We compare performance between individuals with and without aphasia on inner speech tasks that assess inner speech “inthe- moment” to general subjective impressions of inner speech to tease apart the relationship of aphasia severity to inner speech. Methods and Procedures: Twenty people with mild-moderate aphasia and twenty neurotypical controls completed several inner speech tasks, including objective silent rhyme judgements (picture, written, and auditory), subjective reports of inner speech during naming, and subjective rating scales about inner speech experience more generally. -/- Outcomes and Results: In-the-moment inner speech during silent rhyming tasks was associated with aphasia severity only for picture and written rhyming but not auditory rhyming. In-the-moment inner speech reports during silent naming were not associated with aphasia severity, nor were the subjective ratings about general inner speech experience. Individuals with and without aphasia demonstrated a variety of subjective general inner speech experiences, demonstrating heterogeneity of this phenomenon more broadly. -/- Conclusions: Methods of measuring inner speech complement each other and speak to different facets of the inner speech phenomenon, and clinicians and researchers must carefully choose the method(s) that will provide the information about inner speech that they desire. (shrink)

In English, a non-wh-question may have a disjunctive phrase explicitly providing the choices that the question ranges over. For example, in (1), the disjunction or not indicates that the the choice is between the positive and the negative polarity for the relevant proposition, as spelled out in the yes/no (yn)-question reading (2) and in the answers (2a,b). Another example is (3). The disjunction in (3) can be understood as providing the choices that the question ranges over, hence giving rise to (...) the alternative (alt-)reading in (4) and eliciting the answers in (4a,b). (Cf. Karttunen (1977) and Higginbotham (1993) for the semantics of yn/alt-questions). (shrink)

A large number of studies have investigated achievement goals and their related antecedents and consequences above elementary school level. However, few studies have implemented achievement goal assessment to investigate achievement goals and their relevance for preschoolers. In particular, no valid measurement has been developed for preschoolers’ self-reporting of their achievement goals. The main purposes of this study were twofold: To develop an innovative achievement goal measurement for preschoolers, and to investigate the best theoretical model for understanding preschoolers’ achievement goal across (...) gender. To examine the effectiveness and efficiency of the pictorial and pure text measurement format and approaches. A total of 364 preschoolers aged 5 years participated in self-report activity, and 32 preschool teachers obtained consent to rate 193 out of 364 preschoolers. Results showed: the developed achievement goal measurement was a valid tool for understanding preschoolers’ achievement goals and was equally suitable for boys and girls. The 6-factor achievement goal model was the best theoretical perspective for understanding preschoolers’ achievement goals for both boys and girls. The pictorial measurement format for preschoolers’ self-reporting of achievement goals was a more effective but less efficient way to investigate preschoolers’ achievement goals, while the opposite was the case for the pure text measurement format for teachers’ ratings. Implications for achievement goal literature and future research are discussed. (shrink)

We review the jealousy literature and present our Dynamic Functional Model of Jealousy, which argues that jealousy evolved and has its own unique motivational state aimed at preventing others from usurping important relationships. It has a core form that exists in infants and nonhuman animals and an elaborated form in humans that emerges as cognitive sophistication develops. The DFMJ proposes that jealousy is an unfolding process with early and late phases that can be differentially impacted by relationship and personality factors. (...) It also notes the importance of looking at multiple concomitants of jealousy, including action tendencies. We discuss how jealousy fits with current emotion theories and suggest that theories of specific emotions need to be broadened. (shrink)

Ever since the publication of Harry Frankfurt’s “Equality as a Moral Ideal” :21–43, 1987), the doctrine of sufficiency has attracted great attention among both ethical theorists and political philosophers. The doctrine of sufficiency consists of two main theses: the positive thesis states that it is morally important for people to have enough; and the negative thesis states that once everybody has enough, relative inequality has absolutely no moral importance. Many political philosophers have presented different versions of sufficientarianism that retain the (...) general spirit of what Frankfurt had proposed in his seminal work. However, all of these different versions of sufficientarianism suffer from two critical problems: they fail to give right answers to lifeboat situations, and they fail to provide continuous ethical judgments. In this paper, I show a version of utilitarianism that solves these problems while retaining the major attractions of sufficientarianism. I call it “prospect utilitarianism.” In addition, I show that prospect utilitarianism can avoid standard objections to utilitarianism and has aspects that can appeal to both prioritarians and egalitarians as well. (shrink)

The purpose of this paper is to explore the concepts of issue legitimacy and organizational legitimacy, providing a new measure of each construct. The scales were developed and tested using data collected through a statewide survey of Alabama residents. Assessments of issue legitimacy were based on perceptions of direct-to-consumer advertising, whereas assessments of organizational legitimacy were based on perceptions of the pharmaceutical industry as a whole. The findings provide evidence that organizational legitimacy can be reliably measured using a five-item scale (...) and issue legitimacy can be reliably measured using a six-item scale. The implications of the results and potential uses of the scales are discussed. (shrink)

Background The Constitutional Court of South Korea declared that an abortion ban was unconstitutional on April 11, 2019. The National Health Care System will provide abortion care across the country as a formal medical service. Conscientious objection is an issue raised during the construction of legal reforms. Methods One hundred sixty-seven perioperative nurses responded to the survey questionnaire. Nurses’ perception about conscientious objection, support of legislation regarding conscientious objection, and intention to object were measured. Logistic regression was used to explore (...) the factors associated with support of the legislation and the intention to conscientiously object. Results Only 28.8% of the responding nurses were aware of health care professionals’ conscientious objection. The majority felt that patients’ rights should be prioritized over health care professionals’ conscientious objection. On the other hand, 45.8% supported the legislation on conscientious objection to abortion, and 42.5% indicated a willingness to refuse to participate in an abortion case if conscientious objection was permitted. Religion, awareness of conscientious objection, and prioritizing of nurses’ right to conscientious objection were significantly associated with supporting the legislation. Moreover, religion and prioritizing nurses' rights were significantly associated with the intention to conscientiously object. Conclusions This study provides information necessary for further discussion of nurses’ conscientious objection. Nursing leaders, researchers, and educators should appeal to nurses and involve them in making policies that balance a women's right to non-discrimination and to receiving appropriate care with nurses' rights to maintain their moral integrity without compromising their professional obligation. (shrink)

Research on collective emotion spans social sciences, psychology and philosophy. There are detailed case studies and diverse theories of collective emotion. However, experimental evidence regarding the universal characteristics, antecedents and consequences of collective emotion remains sparse. Moreover, current research mainly relies on emotion self-reports, accounting for the subjective experience of collective emotion and ignoring their cognitive and physiological bases. In response to these challenges, we argue for experimental research on collective emotion. We start with an overview of theoretical frameworks to (...) identify a set of three characteristics of collective emotion. Based on research in cognitive and affective sciences, we then examine the corresponding candidate mechanisms. Finally, we highlight outstanding questions, review experimental evidence, and suggest ideas for future experimental research. (shrink)

Friendly persuasion, in contrast to deterrent measures like tax audits and penalties on underreported taxes, is a positive and possibly a cost effective method of increasing taxpayer compliance. However, prior studies have failed to show that friendly persuasion has a significant impact on compliance (Blumenthal et al., 2001; McGraw and Scholz, 1991). In our study, in contrast to prior studies, we examine the impact of generating and reading reasons supporting compliance as friendly persuasion on individuals' income reporting behavior as well (...) as control for gender effects. Specifically, we predict an interaction effect between friendly persuasion and gender on compliance behavior. We carried out a 2 (friendly persuasion and control) × 2 (men and women) full factorial experiment, where participants earned $30 by completing two questionnaires. Participants in the friendly persuasion group were required first to generate and second to read a list of reasons why they should comply fully. Afterwards, participants in both groups were asked to report the income they earned and pay tax on the reported income. The results show a significant main effect for gender as well as a significant interaction effect between gender and friendly persuasion on income reported. Women in the friendly persuasion group reported significantly higher income compared to men in that group. Other comparisons were not significant. Policy implications for increasing taxpayers' ethics and compliance are highlighted. (shrink)

The relationship between gender and ethics has been extensively researched. However, previous studies have assumed that the gender–ethics association is constant; hence, scholars have seldom investigated factors potentially affecting the gender–ethics association. Thus, using managers as the research target, this study examined the relationship between gender and ethics and analyzed the moderating effect of cultural values on the gender–ethics association. The results showed that, compared with female managers, their male counterparts are more willing to justify business-related unethical behaviors such as (...) bribery and tax evasion, and that the gender difference in ethics becomes more pronounced under the cultural dimensions of collectivism, humane orientation, performance orientation, and gender egalitarianism. This study used data obtained through surveying 2,754 managers in 27 nations. (shrink)