The cut and thrust of this paper is the re-examination of an age long belief and practice among the Ika people of Delta State and the Obolo of Rivers State which is aimed at discouraging the practice of witchcraft and sorcery. The study critically evaluates the phenomenon which includes necromancy, divination and poison ordeal and concludes that caution is needed as the act which involves human life is not without imperfection. The discourse is comparative as it examines the methods of (...) ascertaining death among the Ika and Obolo. It employs moral, social and philosophical springboards for the analysis. Some of the findings includes: belief in witchcraft is very strong among the people and age long practices to eradicate same will endure, if nothing is done to discourage it. A major constraint is that matters relating to witchcraft and sorcery are metaphysical and so difficult to verify.Keywords: Death, Ascertain, Cosmology, Necromancy, Divination and Ordeal by poison. (shrink)

Powers of Horror is an excellent introduction to an aspect of contemporary French literature which has been allowed to become somewhat neglected in the current emphasis on para-philosophical modes of discourse.".

The pejorative connotation often associated with the ordinary language meaning of “conspiracy theory” does not only stem from a conspiracy theory’s being about a conspiracy, but also from a conspiracy theory’s being regarded as a particular kind of theory. I propose to understand conspiracy theory-induced polarization in terms of disagreement about the correct epistemic evaluation of ‘theory’ in ‘conspiracy theory’. By framing the positions typical in conspiracy theory-induced polarization in this way, I aim to show that pejorative conceptions of ‘conspiracy (...) theory’ are problematic for research open to the possibility of finding depolarization strategies. That is, because they preclude constructive engagement with the epistemic norms governing (the rationales foundational of) belief in conspiracy theories. (shrink)

In this book I look at the tradition of eudaimonistic ethics which stems from Aristotle's treatment of ethics, and which takes distinct, though related forms in Epicurus, the Stoics and the Sceptics. I look at this tradition from different points of view: how is it related to human nature, how does it account for other-related virtue and action, and how much does it require in terms of revising previously held priorities. I discuss the methodology of discussing ancient texts in ways (...) that relate them to contemporary concerns, particularly the importance of respecting the texts and avoiding anachronism. (shrink)

This paper discusses the inefficacy problem that arises in contexts of “collective harm.‘ These are contexts in which by acting in a certain sort of way, people collectively cause harm, or fail to prevent it, but no individual act of the relevant sort seems to itself make a difference. The inefficacy problem is that if acting in the relevant way won’t make a difference, it’s unclear why it would be wrong. Each individual can argue, “things will be just as bad (...) whether or not I act in this way, so there’s no point in doing otherwise.‘ The goal of this paper is to give an overview of some of the main responses available to the problem and to highlight central issues that arise for each type of response. In the final section, I explain what I take to be the most promising strategy and discuss the form that this strategy should take. (shrink)

Napolitano (2021) argues that the Minimalist Account of conspiracy theories—i.e., which defines conspiracy theories as explanations, or theories, about conspiracies—should be rejected. Instead, she proposes to define conspiracy theories as a certain kind of belief—i.e., an evidentially self-insulated belief in a conspiracy. Napolitano argues that her account should be favored over the Minimalist Account based on two considerations: ordinary language intuitions and theoretical fruitfulness. I show how Napolitano’s account fails its own purposes with respect to these two considerations and so (...) should not be favored over the Minimalist Account. Furthermore, I propose that the Minimalist Account is the best conception of ‘conspiracy theory’ if we share Napolitano’s goal of advancing the understanding of conspiracy theories. (shrink)

This book is concerned with the notion of the "stranger" -the foreigner, outsider, or alien in a country and society not their own- as well as the notion of strangeness within the self -a person's deep sense of being, as distinct from outside appearance and their conscious idea of self. Kristeva begins with the personal and moves outward by examining world literature and philosophy. She discusses the foreigner in Greek tragedy, in the Bible, and in the literature of the Middle (...) Ages, Renaissance, Enlightenment, and the twentieth century. She discusses the legal status of foreigners throughout history, gaining perspective on our own civilization. Her insights into the problems of nationality, particularly in France are more timely and relevant in an increasingly integrated and fractious world. (shrink)

In this paper I am concerned with the question of whether degrees of belief can figure in reasoning processes that are executed by humans. It is generally accepted that outright beliefs and intentions can be part of reasoning processes, but the role of degrees of belief remains unclear. The literature on subjective Bayesianism, which seems to be the natural place to look for discussions of the role of degrees of belief in reasoning, does not address the question of whether degrees (...) of belief play a role in real agents’ reasoning processes. On the other hand, the philosophical literature on reasoning, which relies much less heavily on idealizing assumptions about reasoners than Bayesianism, is almost exclusively concerned with outright belief. One possible explanation for why no philosopher has yet developed an account of reasoning with degrees of belief is that reasoning with degrees of belief is not possible for humans. In this paper, I will consider three arguments for this claim. I will show why these arguments are flawed, and conclude that, at least as far as these arguments are concerned, it seems like there is no good reason why the topic of reasoning with degrees of belief has received so little attention. (shrink)

Abstract The article argues that a consideration of the idea, common in ancient ethical theory, that virtue is a skill or craft, reveals that some common construals of it are mistaken. The analogy between virtue and skill is not meant to suggest that virtue is an unreflective habit of practised action. Rather what interests ancient ethical theorists is the intellectual structure of a skill, one demanding grasp of the principles defining the field and an ability to reflect on the justification (...) of particular actions. This is brought out with reference particularly to the discussion of virtue as analogous with skill in Plato's early Socratic dialogues. The demands made of the virtuous agent by philosophers who regard virtue as analogous to skill are akin to the demands made by more recent theories of morality which demand that the moral agent be able to reflect on her practices, extract the principles that these depend on, and produce justification when needed. This point about ancient ethical theories enables us to appreciate their distance from modern versions of ?virtue ethics? ? which stress the importance of the traditions and contexts within which the content of the virtues is learned, and place less importance on the need for intellectual justification. The type of virtue ethics defended by Alasdair Maclntyre provides an instructive example of this contrasting kind of theory. (shrink)

Writing philosophy well is an essential skill in our discipline. Philosophical writing must aim for clarity, precision, and rigor, but in doing so, it can often wind up dry, long-winded and boring. It can take many drafts to produce a paper that is suitable for publication in a journal, and many aspiring (and accomplished!) academic philosophers find the process of writing arduous and frustrating. Still, some people make it look easy – if you’ve read anything by Alan Hájek, you’ve probably (...) noticed his breezy style that effortlessly communicates complex ideas in simple terms. His concise and witty prose makes even formal epistemology, a notoriously complicated, math-heavy subject, accessible and engaging to readers. However, while it might look effortless, Hájek’s spirited style is in fact born out of deep and thoughtful engagement with the craft of writing. His motto is: “Work hard for your readers, so that they don’t have to.” Hájek’s approach is decidedly anti-genius: he believes that having good ideas and communicating them well can be taught, and he has devoted considerable energy to helping his graduate students improve their writing. He has written multiple articles about philosophical creativity, as well as an unpublished lengthy manuscript on the mechanics of writing. I have benefited myself from his advice – at least I believe I have, readers may judge for themselves. My aim in this article is to share a few of his insights that I have found most helpful for myself and for my students. I won’t try to summarize all of Hájek’s advice, and I also don’t claim that all of this is totally new. Rather, I will offer a small collection of greatest hits. I will cover eight aspects of philosophical writing, and for each one, I will explain the basic idea, and then discuss some ways of implementing it for oneself and one’s students. (shrink)

What is it like to be a good person? I examine and reject suggestions that this will involve having thoughts which have virtue or being a good person as part of their content, as well as suggestions that it might be the presence of feelings distinct from the virtuous person’s thoughts. Is there, then, anything after all to the phenomenology of virtue? I suggest that an answer is to be found in looking to Aristotle’s suggestion that virtuous activity is pleasant (...) to the virtuous person. I try to do this, using the work of the contemporary social psychologist Mihalyi Csikszentmihalyi and his work on the ‘flow experience’. Crucial here is the point that I consider accounts of virtue which take it to have the structure of a practical expertise or skill. It is when we are most engaged in skilful complex activity that the activity is experienced as ‘unimpeded’, in Aristotle’s terms, or as ‘flow’. This experience does not, as might at first appear, preclude thoughtful involvement and reflection. Although we can say what in general the phenomenology of virtue is like, each of us only has some more or less dim idea of it from the extent to which we are virtuous—that is, for most of us, not very much. (shrink)

Assuming that there is moral progress, and assuming that the abolition of slavery is an example of it, how does moral progress occur? Is it mainly driven by specific individuals who have gained new moral insights, or by changes in the socio‐economic and epistemic conditions in which agents morally judge the norms and practices of their society, and act upon these judgements? In this paper, I argue that moral progress is a complex process in which changes at the level of (...) belief and changes at the level of institutions and social practices are deeply intertwined, and that changes in the socio‐economic and epistemic conditions of moral agency constitute the main motor of moral progress. I develop my view of moral progress by way of grappling with Michelle Moody‐Adams’ prominent philosophical account of it. My view is less intellectualistic and individualistic than hers, does not presuppose meta‐ethical moral realism, and blurs her distinction between moral progress in beliefs and moral progress in social practices. I point out the limits of humans to progress morally, which are partly grounded in our evolutionary history, and argue that moral progress is always of a ‘local’ nature. (shrink)

Tanney challenges not only the cognitivist approach that has dominated philosophy and the special sciences for fifty years, but metaphysical-empirical approaches to the mind in general. Rules, Reason, and Self-Knowledge advocates a return to the world-involving, circumstance-dependent, normative practices where the rational mind has its home.

There are many sorts of day-to-day choices that are such that, if enough people were to choose one way rather than another, serious harm could be avoided or reduced, and yet it does not seem that any one such choice will itself make a difference. Consider, for example, how our collective consumer choices have various serious environmental and social consequences, and yet for many products, it is doubtful that one purchase more or less will itself make a difference to these (...) outcomes. How are we to understand what each of us ought to do in these sorts of contexts? This paper further advances and illuminates a thesis that I have argued for elsewhere: that a purely ‘non-instrumental’ approach to this question is not satisfactory. A necessary and central part of understanding how to think about an individual choice in these contexts is showing that it does matter for instrumental reasons - for reasons having to do with its ability to have an influence on the outcome. Once a core instrumental solution is found, other moral considerations can build on top. I argue for this by way of an examination of a new non-instrumental approach advanced by Wieland and van Oeveren: a participation-based approach. I also identify what I think is the main source of resistance to my thesis: a mistaken conflation of two different problems. (shrink)

The emerging field of synthetic biology aims to engineer novel biological entities. The envisioned future bio-based economy builds largely on “cell factories”: organisms that have been metabolically engineered to sustainably produce substances for human ends. In this paper, we argue that synthetic biology’s goal of creating efficient production vessels for industrial applications implies a set of ontological assumptions according to which living organisms are machines. Traditionally, a machine is understood as a technological, isolated and controllable production unit consisting of parts. (...) But modified organisms, or hybrids, require us to think beyond the machine paradigm and its associated dichotomies between artificial and natural, organisms and artefacts. We ask: How may we conceptualise hybrids beyond limiting ontological categories? Our main claim is that the hybrids created by synthetic biology should be considered not as machines but as metabolic systems. We shall show how the philosophical account of metabolism can inform an ontology of hybrids that moves beyond what we call the “machine ontology”, considering that metabolism enables thinking beyond the dominant dichotomies and allows us to understand and design lifeforms in a bio-based economy. Thus, the aim of this paper is twofold: first, to develop the philosophical ontology of hybrids, and second, to move synthetic biology beyond the problematically limiting view of hybrids. (shrink)

I argue that in order to account for normative uncertainty, an expressivist theory of normative language and thought must accomplish two things: Firstly, it needs to find room in its framework for a gradable conative attitude, degrees of which can be interpreted as representing normative uncertainty. Secondly, it needs to defend appropriate rationality constraints pertaining to those graded attitudes. The first task – finding an appropriate graded attitude that can represent uncertainty – is not particularly problematic. I tackle the second (...) task by exploring whether we can devise expressivist versions of the standard arguments used to support rationality constraints on degrees of uncertainty, Dutch book arguments and accuracy-dominance arguments. I show that we can do so, but that the resulting arguments don’t support the same rationality constraints as the original versions of the arguments. (shrink)

Bayesian epistemology provides a popular and powerful framework for modeling rational norms on credences, including how rational agents should respond to evidence. The framework is built on the assumption that ideally rational agents have credences, or degrees of belief, that are representable by numbers that obey the axioms of probability. From there, further constraints are proposed regarding which credence assignments are rationally permissible, and how rational agents’ credences should change upon learning new evidence. While the details are hotly disputed, all (...) flavors of Bayesianism purport to give us norms of ideal rationality. This raises the question of how exactly these norms apply to you and me, since perfect compliance with those ideal norms is out of reach for human thinkers. A common response is that Bayesian norms are ideals that human reasoners are supposed to approximate – the closer they come to being ideally rational, the better. To make this claim plausible, we need to make it more precise. In what sense is it better to be closer to ideally rational, and what is an appropriate measure of such closeness? This article sketches some possible answers to these questions. (shrink)

Metaphysics of Science is the philosophical study of key concepts that figure prominently in science and that, prima facie, stand in need of clarification. It is also concerned with the phenomena that correspond to these concepts. Exemplary topics within Metaphysics of Science include laws of nature, causation, dispositions, natural kinds, possibility and necessity, explanation, reduction, emergence, grounding, and space and time. Metaphysics of Science is a subfield of both metaphysics and the philosophy of science—that is, it can be allocated to (...) either, but it exhausts neither. Unlike metaphysics simpliciter, Metaphysics of Science is not primarily concerned with metaphysical questions that may already arise from everyday phenomena such as what makes a thing (a chair, a desk) the very thing it is, what its identity criteria are, out of which parts is it composed, whether it remains the same if we exchange a couple of its parts, and so forth. Nor is it concerned with the concrete entities (superstrings, molecules, genes, and so forth) postulated by specific sciences; these issues are the subject matter of the special philosophies of science (for example, of physics, of chemistry, of biology). Metaphysics of Science is concerned with more abstract and general concepts that inform all of these sciences. Many of these concepts are interwoven with each other. For example, metaphysicians of science inquire whether dispositionality, lawhood, and causation can be accounted for in nonmodal terms; whether laws of nature presuppose the existence of natural kinds; and whether the properties of macrolevel objects supervene on dispositional or nondispositional properties. This article surveys the scope (section 1), historical origin (section 2), exemplary subject matters (section 4), and methodology (section 5) of Metaphysics of Science, as well as the motivation that drives it (section 3). (shrink)

Active reasoning is the kind of reasoning that we do deliberately and consciously. In characterizing the nature of active reasoning and the norms it should obey, the question arises which attitudes we can reason with. Many authors take outright beliefs to be the attitudes we reason with. Others assume that we can reason with both outright beliefs and degrees of belief. Some think that we reason only with degrees of belief. In this paper I approach the question of what kinds (...) of beliefs can participate in reasoning by using the following method: I take the default position to be maximally permissive – that both graded and outright beliefs can participate in reasoning. I then identify some features of active reasoning that appear at first glance to favor a more restrictive position about which types of belief we can reason with. I argue that the arguments based on these features ultimately fail. (shrink)

Many philosophers hold that the probability axioms constitute norms of rationality governing degrees of belief. This view, known as subjective Bayesianism, has been widely criticized for being too idealized. It is claimed that the norms on degrees of belief postulated by subjective Bayesianism cannot be followed by human agents, and hence have no normative force for beings like us. This problem is especially pressing since the standard framework of subjective Bayesianism only allows us to distinguish between two kinds of credence (...) functions—coherent ones that obey the probability axioms perfectly, and incoherent ones that don’t. An attractive response to this problem is to extend the framework of subjective Bayesianism in such a way that we can measure differences between incoherent credence functions. This lets us explain how the Bayesian ideals can be approximated by humans. I argue that we should look for a measure that captures what I call the ‘overall degree of incoherence’ of a credence function. I then examine various incoherence measures that have been proposed in the literature, and evaluate whether they are suitable for measuring overall incoherence. The competitors are a qualitative measure that relies on finding coherent subsets of incoherent credence functions, a class of quantitative measures that measure incoherence in terms of normalized Dutch book loss, and a class of distance measures that determine the distance to the closest coherent credence function. I argue that one particular Dutch book measure and a corresponding distance measure are particularly well suited for capturing the overall degree of incoherence of a credence function. (shrink)

Some expressions, such as ‘generous’ and ‘stingy’, are used not only to describe the world around us. They are also used to evaluate the things to which they are applied. In this paper, I suggest a novel account of how this evaluation is conveyed—the conventional triggering view. It partly agrees and partly disagrees with both the standard semantic view and its popular pragmatic contender. Like the former and unlike the latter, my view has it that the evaluation is conveyed due (...) to the conventional meaning of the sentences in question. Unlike the former and much like the latter, my view suggests that the evaluation is a secondary rather than a primary content. (shrink)

Recently, society and the accounting profession have become increasingly concerned with ethics. Accounting researchers have responded by attempting to investigate and analyze the ethical behavior of accountants. While the current state of ethical behavior among practitioners is important, the ability of accountants to detect ethical problems that may not be obvious should also be studied and understood. This study addresses three questions: (1) are auditors alert to ethical issues; (2) if so, how important do they perceive them to be; and (...) (3) what factors affect their sensitivity threshold and their perceptions of the importance of the issues?Most of the prior research in accounting ethics presents subjects with scenarios that contain an obvious ethical issue, and subjects realize that they are participating in an ethics study. In the present study, the ethical problems are integrated into general accounting situations in order to discover the sensitivity of accounting professionals to them. This study defines ethical sensitivity as the ability to interpret a given situation and to realize that a moral problem exists. (shrink)

Leibniz portrays the most fundamental entities in his mature ontology in at least three different ways. In some places, he describes them as mind-like, immaterial substances that perceive and strive. Elsewhere, he presents them as hylomorphic compounds. In yet other passages, he characterizes them in terms of primitive and derivative forces. Interpreters often assume that the first description is the most accurate. In contrast, I will argue that the third characterization is more accurate than the other two. If that is (...) correct, Leibniz’s monadological metaphysics is even more radical than it initially seems: his ontology is best understood not as a substance-mode ontology but as a force ontology. At the metaphysical ground floor, we do not find substances that possess force; instead, we just find forces. Interpreting Leibniz as a force ontologist has far-reaching consequences. For instance, it requires us to reconsider the status of time in Leibniz’s system and to revise our understanding of appetitions and perceptions. (shrink)

This book features new essays by philosophers, psychologists, and a theologian on the important topic of virtue development. The essays engage with work from multiple disciplines and thereby seek to bridge disciplinary divides. The volume is a significant contribution to the emerging interdisciplinary field of virtue development studies.

In 2009, Greenpeace launched an aggressive campaign against Nestlé, accusing the organization of driving rainforest deforestation through its palm oil suppliers. The objective was to damage the brand image of Nestlé and, thereby, force the organization to make its supply chain more sustainable. Prominent cases such as these have led to the prevailing view that sustainable supply chain management is primarily reactive and propelled by external pressures. This research, in contrast, assumes that SSCM can contribute positively to the reputation of (...) an organization as a “good citizen” and, thereby, counter the impression that external stakeholder pressure is the only driver of SSCM. The study draws on Resource Dependence Theory in analyzing the three competing models of the potential stakeholder, SSCM and the corporate sustainability performance relationship. A dataset of 1,621 organizations allows the statistical comparison of these three models. Findings suggest that stakeholder pressure and SSCM both contribute to an organization’s sustainability performance. Thus, supply chain managers will perceive benefits from SSCM other than merely the reduction of risk from reputational damage through stakeholder activism. (shrink)

While the current philosophical debate surrounding Hegel’s aesthetics focuses heavily on the philosopher’s controversial ‘end of art’ thesis, its participants rarely give attention to Hegel’s ideas on the nature of beauty and its relation to art. This study seeks to remedy this oversight by placing Hegel’s views on beauty front and center. Peters asks us to rethink the common assumption that Hegelian beauty is exclusive to art and argues that for Hegel beauty, like art, is subject to historical development. Her (...) careful analysis of Hegel’s notion of beauty not only has crucial implications for our understanding of the ‘end of art’ and Hegel’s aesthetics in general, but also sheds light on other fields of Hegel’s philosophy, in particular his anthropology and aspects of his ethical thought. (shrink)

Managers tasked with organizational change often face irreconcilable demands on how to enact justice—situations we call _justice conundrums_. Drawing on interviews held with managers before and after a planned large-scale change, we identify specific conundrums and illustrate how managers grapple with these through three prototypical paths. Among our participants, the paths increasingly diverged over time, culminating in distinct career decisions. Based on our findings, we develop an integrative process model that illustrates how managers grapple with justice conundrums. Our contributions are (...) threefold. First, we elucidate three types of justice conundrums that managers may encounter when enacting justice in the context of planned organizational change (the justice intention-action gap, competing justice expectations, and the justice of care vs. managerial-strategic justice) and show how managers handle them differently. Second, drawing on the motivated cognition and moral disengagement literature, we illustrate how cognitive mechanisms coalesce to allow managers to soothe their moral (self-) concerns when grappling with these conundrums. Third, we show how motivated justice intentions ensuing from specific justice motives, moral emotions, and circles of moral regard predict the types of justice conundrums managers face and the paths they take to grapple with them. (shrink)

In this article I address the idea that in Husserl’s eidetic ontology all possibilities are fixed ‘in advance’ so that actual objects and events—despite their contingency—can only ever unfold possibilities that are ‘permitted’ to them by their essences. I show how this view distorts Husserl’s ontology and argue that this distortion stems from a misconstrual of the relations between essences and facts, and between ideal and real possibilities. These ‘local’ misconstruals reflect, I contend, a ‘global’ misunderstanding that mistakes descriptive distinctions (...) for ‘real’ separations, and that remains indebted to a non-Husserlian understanding of the a priori–a posteriori-distinction. In support of this argument, I first lay out the relevant objection to Husserl’s eidetics as I understand it. Then, I clarify the relation between ideal and real possibilities in the context of Husserl’s eidetics as I see it. Finally, I make a general point about the status of Husserl’s ontological differentiations ‘in the midst of life,’ namely in how what they differentiate is effective and (tacitly) manifest ever only as one moment (amongst many) of the complex whole that is a concrete life of consciousness. I end with some remarks on what this might mean for future phenomenological research on the imagination. (shrink)

Recently, macroscopic accounts of chemical kind individuation have been proposed as alternatives to the microstructural essentialist account advocated by Kripke, Putnam, and others. These accounts argue that individuation of chemical kinds is based on macroscopic criteria such as reactivity or thermodynamics, and they challenge the essentialism that grounds the Kripke-Putnam view. Using a variety of chemical examples, I argue that microstructure grounds these macroscopic accounts, but that this grounding need not imply essentialism. Instead, kinds are individuated on the basis of (...) similarity of reactivity between substances, and microstructure explains similarity of reactivity. (shrink)

In this article, I discuss three distinct but related puzzles involving lotteries: Kyburg’s lottery paradox, the statistical evidence problem, and the Harman-Vogel paradox. Kyburg’s lottery paradox is the following well-known problem: if we identify rational outright belief with a rational credence above a threshold, we seem to be forced to admit either that one can have inconsistent rational beliefs, or that one cannot rationally believe anything one is not certain of. The statistical evidence problem arises from the observation that people (...) seem to resist forming outright beliefs whenever the available evidence for the claim under consideration is purely statistical. We need explanations of whether it is in fact irrational to form such beliefs, and of whether a clear distinction can be drawn between statistical and non-statistical evidence. The Harman-Vogel paradox is usually presented as a paradox about knowledge: we tend to assume that we can know so-called ordinary propositions, such as the claim that I will be in Barcelona next spring. Yet, we hesitate to make knowledge claims regarding so-called lottery propositions, such as the claim that I won’t die in a car crash in the next few months, even if these lottery propositions are obviously entailed by the ordinary propositions we claim to know. Depending on one’s view about the relationship between rational belief and knowledge, the Harman-Vogel paradox has ramifications for a theory of rational outright belief. Formal theories of the relationship between rational credence and rational belief, such as Leitgeb’s stability theory, tend to focus mostly on handling Kyburg’s lottery paradox, but not the other two puzzles I mention. My aim in this article is to draw out relationships and differences between the puzzles, and to examine to what extent existing formal solutions to Kyburg’s lottery paradox help with answering the statistical evidence problem and the Harman-Vogel paradox. (shrink)

Although Gilbert Ryle published on a wide range of topics in philosophy (notably in the history of philosophy and in philosophy of language), including a series of lectures centred on philosophical dilemmas, a series of articles on the concept of thinking, and a book on Plato, The Concept of Mind remains his best known and most important work. Through this work, Ryle is thought to have accomplished two major tasks. First, he was seen to have put the final nail in (...) the coffin of Cartesian dualism. Second, as he himself anticipated, he is thought to have argued on behalf of, and suggested as dualism's replacement, the doctrine known as philosophical (and sometimes analytical) behaviourism. Sometimes known as an “ordinary language”, sometimes as an “analytic” philosopher, Ryle—even when mentioned in the same breath as Wittgenstein and his followers—is considered to be on a different, somewhat idiosyncratic (and difficult to characterise), philosophical track. (shrink)

In this paper we analyze relations between _ontology_ in anthropology and philosophy beyond simple homonymy or synonymy and show how this diagnosis allows for new interdisciplinary links and insights, while minimizing the risk of cross-disciplinary equivocation. We introduce the ontological turn in anthropology as an intellectual project rooted in the critique of dualism of culture and nature and propose a classification of the literature we reviewed into first-order claims about the world and second-order claims about ontological frameworks. Next, rather than (...) provide a strict definition of _ontology_ in anthropological literature, we argue that the term is used as a heuristic addressing a web of sub-concepts relating to interpretation, knowledge, and self-determination which correspond to methodological, epistemic, and political considerations central to the development of the ontological turn. We present a case study of rivers as persons to demonstrate what the ontological paradigm in anthropology amounts to in practice. Finally, in an analysis facilitated by a parallel between the first- and second-order claims in anthropology, and _ontology_ and meta-_ontology_ in philosophy (respectively), we showcase the potential for contribution of ontological anthropology to contemporary philosophical debates, such as ontological gerrymandering, relativism and social _ontology_, and vice versa. (shrink)

Businesses increasingly assume political roles, despite issues of legitimacy. The presented two case studies illustrate how businesses harness their political influence in Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) practices through collaboration and dialog with stakeholders and civil society actors. These cases are set around issues arising in global supply chains in sourcing activities where the core problem is associated with businesses managing extended responsibilities under conflicting institutional conditions. The article seeks to provide empirical examples of Political CSR and illustrates the role of (...) deliberative democracy in contemporary business behavior. It adopts a Western business perspective, more specifically from an end-producer and retailer’s standpoint. Findings suggest that civil society is influential in driving these businesses to act responsibly. Joint collaboration is understood as key to strive toward holistic solutions. Political CSR theory remains an ideal, but offers fruitful grounds for speculating on what the political role of business is or could be and how this translates into pragmatic implications for businesses. (shrink)

This lively and accessible book focuses on the philosophy and argument of Plato's writings, drawing the reader into Plato's way of doing philosophy and the general themes of his thinking. It discusses Plato's style of writing: his use of the dialogue form, his use of what we today call fiction, and his philosophical transformation of myths. It also looks at his discussions of love and philosophy, his attitude towards women, and towards homosexual love. It explores Plato's claim that virtue is (...) sufficient for happiness and touches on his arguments for the immorality of the soul and his ideas about the nature of the universe. (shrink)

This paper considers Davidson's (1963) arguments for construing reasons as causes and attempts to show that he has failed to provide positive reasons for introducing causation into his analysis of rationalizing explanation. I consider various ways of spelling out his intuition that something is missing from explanation if we consider only the justificatory relation between reasons and action, and I argue that to the extent that there is anything missing, it should not be provided by construing reasons as causes. What (...) is ostensibly missing, and what I think Davidson is after, is some kind of determinate relation between explanans and explanandum. I argue that this is too strong a requirement to place on rationalizing explanation. (shrink)

A case has been made by various authors that the normative and processual notion of personhood found in African philosophy is discriminatory: it has been labelled as sexist, ableist and anti-queer. Within the anti-queer critique, one area that has not been specifically addressed in the literature is whether this notion of personhood is biased against people who identify as non-binary with respect to gender. This includes people who are gender fluid and gender neutral, among others. In this article, we argue (...) that the binary conception of gender is deeply connected to a colonial agenda, and does not accurately fit extra-colonial gender conceptions. Through an analysis of extra-colonial language and logic, read together with the flexibility inherent in the processual notion of personhood (on our reading), we argue that binaries do not sit comfortably with extra-colonial African thinking, and as such, processual and normative personhood can be understood in a way that embraces non-binary individuals. Further, the standards for achieving personhood are set by and achieved within the community, so a community which recognises and celebrates non-binary individuals can set up a framework for them to achieve personhood. Accordingly, normative personhood in African thought is found not to exclude those of non-binary gender. This reading saves the normative approach from some of the critiques levelled against it, as well as: i) enhancing consistency in an African world view; ii) strengthening the decolonial agenda; and iii) showing normative personhood to be fairer and more inclusive. (shrink)

Children’s ability to understand irony is believed to be acquired late compared to other pragmatic skills. To explore this assertion, this article presents a review of four decades of research, to determine the age at which children actually do become capable of understanding ironic utterances, and what the crucial influencing factors are. As this systematic examination of the state of research shows, children do indeed seem to gain an understanding of irony later than other forms of non-literal language. In seeking (...) an explanation for this finding, this article discusses the methodological orientation of previous research. It might be that the predominant use of offline methods, especially metalinguistic judgment tasks, paints a somewhat distorted picture of children’s irony comprehension. The article therefore argues for the use of eye-tracking, and a re-examination of the thesis of late acquisition of irony comprehension in children in the near future. (shrink)