PurposeThis study aims to determine the impact of social media usage on university student’s academic performance in Ghana.Design/methodology/approachA quantitative research method was used for the study. With the aid of a simple random sampling technique, quantitative data were obtained from 373 out of 400 respondents representing 93 per cent of volunteered participants. Data collected was analysed using structural equation modelling to establish the relationship among social media information, social media entertainment, social media innovation, social media knowledge generation and student performance.FindingsThe (...) findings of this study indicate that social media information, social media innovation and social media entertainment all had a significant positive influence on social media knowledge generation, which has wide learning and knowledge management implications. Also, the study indicated that information computer technology knowledge moderates the relationship between social media and student performance.Research limitations/implicationsThe sample taken was mainly cross-sectional in nature rendering the inference of causal relationships between the variables impossible. Future researchers should adopt a longitudinal research design to examine causality. Finally, the study was limited to only university students in Accra, Ghana. Future research can extend to a bigger student population and to other West African and African countries.Practical implicationsThis paper will serve as a profitable source of information for managers and researchers who may embark on future research on social media and academic performance. The findings that social media information, innovation and entertainment can likewise enhance social media knowledge generation can help managers and university teachers to use the vehicle of innovation and entertainment to communicate knowledge.Social implicationsThe findings of this study will help policymakers in education and other industries that engage the youth to realise the important factors that can make them get the best in the social media space.Originality/valueSocial media usage in academic performance is increasingly prevalent. However, little is known about how social media knowledge generation mediates between social media usage and academic performance and, furthermore, whether the information computer technology knowledge level of students moderates the relationship between social media knowledge generation and academic performance of university students in sub-Saharan Africa, particularly Ghana. Theoretically, the findings of this study provide clear research evidence to guide various investigations that can be done on the relationships of the variables under social media usage, knowledge generation and university student performance, which advances the diffusion of new knowledge. (shrink)

In this paper, the Executive Head of the Global Compact shares some of his own reflections on the evolution of the Global Compact initiative – United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan’s voluntary corporate citizenship initiative in the area of human rights, labor, the environment and anti-corruption. Two main themes are addressed. The first considers the Global Compact’s institutional context, examining how such an initiative is even possible in the historically hierarchical and traditionally business-unfriendly UN. The second concerns the voluntary nature (...) of the initiative and how it interacts with regulatory approaches. It explains what the Global Compact has to offer as a voluntary initiative, as well as how it can make a unique and complementary contribution to regulation-backed initiatives. The paper concludes with a brief consideration of what the future holds for the Global Compact. (shrink)

At the UN, important projects laying down transnational corporations' (TNCs) human rights responsibilities have been launched without ever clarifying the relevant theoretical foundations. One of the consequences is that the human rights principles in projects like the 2000 UN Global Compact and the 2003 Norms on the Responsibilities of Transnational Corporations and Other Business Enterprises with Regard to Human Rights can be understood in different ways, which should not cause surprise given that their authors come from diverse backgrounds, including economics (...) and public policy. An examination of these projects and the views of their authors reveals that, although they are superficially linked to international human rights law, they go well beyond it and attempt to deal with corporate social responsibility issues in ways that elude neat classification as fitting neatly in either legal or non-legal categories. Too little attention has been paid to how in the course of developing these projects the legal and ethical dimensions have become entwined and how lines have gotten blurred. Meanwhile, there has been recognition that these UN projects have emerged simply as ad hoc responses to practical concerns about the sustainability of globalization. The lack of any foundational theory or normative framework should be addressed; it is time to bring together specialists from different fields concerned with the human rights responsibilities of corporations to see if it is possible to define a coherent overarching theory for these UN projects. (shrink)

The realities and myths of long-term care and the challenges it poses for the ethics of autonomy are analyzed in this perceptive work. The book defends the concept of autonomy, but argues that the standard view of autonomy as non-interference and independence has only a limited applicability for long term care. The treatment of actual autonomy stresses the developmental and social nature of human persons and the priority of identification over autonomous choice. The work balances analysis of the ethical concepts (...) associated with autonomy with discussion of the implications of the ethical analysis for long term care. A central chapter involves a phenomenological analysis of four general features of everyday experience (space, time, communication, and affectivity) and explores their practical implications for long term care. This work concludes with a discussion of the advantages associated with a phenomenologically-inspired treatment of actual autonomy for the ethics of long-term care. (shrink)

Friedrich Nietzsche has emerged as one of the most important and influential modern philosophers. For several decades, the book series Monographien und Texte zur Nietzsche-Forschung (MTNF) has set the agenda in a rapidly growing and changing field of Nietzsche scholarship. The scope of the series is interdisciplinary and international in orientation reflects the entire spectrum of research on Nietzsche, from philosophy to literary studies and political theory. The series publishes monographs and edited volumes that undergo a strict peer-review process. The (...) book series is led by an international team of editors, whose work represents the full range of current Nietzsche scholarship. (shrink)

Many systems of logic diagrams have been offered both historically and more recently. Each of them has clear limitations. An original alternative system is offered here. It is simpler, more natural, and more expressively and inferentially powerful. It can be used to analyze not only syllogisms but arguments involving relational terms and unanalyzed statement terms.

This article discusses the approach of the Clinical Ethics Consultation Advisory Committee (CECA) in developing A Case-Based Study Guide for Addressing Patient-Centered Ethical Issues in Health Care. This article addresses the processes used by the CECA, its use of pivot questions intended to encourage critical reflection, and the target audience of this work. It first considers the salience of case studies in general education and their relevance for training ethics consultants. Second, it discusses the enfolding approach used in presenting the (...) case material designed to engage the trainee in the details of the case while stimulating critical reflection. And, third, this article briefly comments on the target audience with the caveat that even superbly developed cases are prone to misuse, although that prospect should not deter their development. (shrink)

După un sfert de veac -- Pelerinaj oriental: Ex oriente lux? ; Fascinația yogii -- Pelerinaj occidental: O yogă europeană ; Ucenicie întru ale cugetării -- Pelerinaj românesc: Popasuri la compatrioți -- Pelerinaj muzical și inițiatic: Călătoria în noi înșine ; Realitatea interioră ; Chemarea transcendenței ; Forța care dă viață ; Ideea de inițiere ; Profanatorii misterelor ; Marea ascensiune -- Pelerinaj lăuntric: Ce este spiritul?

On the same day, 23 September 2003, that President George W. Bush defended his Iraq policy to the General Assembly of the United Nations, Secretary-General Kofi Annan also spoke to the Assembly. Annan reiterated his opposition to the view that states may independently be justified in using military force “preemptively” to avoid the dangers posed by the spread of weapons of mass destruction among states and terrorists, including nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons.

As the pagan classical world was subsumed into Christianity sexually hyperactive gods and goddesses transmuted into saints, their former statues that glorified the perfection of their bodies smashed into pieces and reimagined as austere two-dimensional icons to be worshipped by the new faithful. That dualistic and polemic narrative, where the soul’s purpose was to annihilate the body, survives today in the distinction between software and hardware, algorithms and robots, the former as the “ghosts” that animate the empty vessels, the “machines”. (...) But how does this narrative impact our cultural and social fantasies in the twenty-first century as we accelerate toward coexisting, uniting, or merging with intelligent artifacts? How does “humanness” blur when it is claimed by no-biological human-like entities too, or when humans augment their perception, consciousness and physical power through genetic engineering, drugs, or software and mechanical prostheses? Suppose we are destined to remake ourselves in the image of our ancient gods. Will it be through the embodiment of technologies in the physical reality, or through the complete disembodiment of our minds inside virtual worlds? (shrink)

Philosophy and its descendents in the behavioral sciences have traditionally divided incentives into those that are sought and those that are avoided. Positive incentives are held to be both attractive and memorable because of the direct effects of pleasure. Negative incentives are held to be unattractive but still memorable (the problem of pain) because they force unpleasant emotions on an individual by an unmotivated process, either a hardwired response (unconditioned response) or one substituted by association (conditioned response). Negative incentives are (...) divided into those that are always avoided and those that are avoided only by higher mental processes—archetypically the passions, which are also thought of as hardwired or conditioned. Newer dichotomies within the negative have been proposed, hinging on whether a negative incentive is nevertheless sought (“wanted but not liked”) or on an incentive's being negative only because it is confining (the product of “rule worship”). The newer dichotomies have lacked motivational explanations, and there is reason to question conditioning in the motivational mechanism for the older ones.

Both experimental findings and the examination of common experience indicate that even the most aversive experiences, such as pain and panic, do not prevail in reflex fashion, but because of an urge to attend to them. The well-established hyperbolic curve in which prospective rewards are discounted implies a mechanism for such an urge, as well as for the “lower” incentives in the other dichotomies. The properties of these lower incentives are predicted by particular durations of temporary preferences on a continuum that stretches from fractions of a second to years. (shrink)

Some recent discussions of corporate loyalty have found it misguided, while others see it as crucial for financial success. Thereis also disagreement over the nature of loyalty. This article analyzes the concept of loyalty, arguing that it is neither a duty nor a virtue(although it has overlaps with those categories), but a passion related to various virtues (and vices). Contrary to standard accounts ofcapitalism, loyalty does not necessarily oppose self-interest. Furthermore, corporations can and should be communities, andinsofar as they are, (...) they are proper objects for loyalty. If corporations are not communities, then loyalty to them cannot exist. (shrink)

An approach to the treatment of inference in the presence of uncertain truth values is described, based on representing uncertainties by sets of ordinary (certain) truth values. Both the algebraic and the logical aspects are studied for a variety of lattices used as truth value spaces in the domain of many-valued logic.

This chapter focuses on Gadamer's debts to figures and themes in German idealism, focusing in particular on Kant and Hegel.

ON THE ORIGIN AND NATURE OF ETHICAL SENTIMENT. Of all the remaining productions of the ancient world, there is nothing which is more characteristic and ...

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:A Second Copy Thesis in Hume? George S. Pappas The copy thesis which applies to simple ideas andimpressionsin Hume is well known; every simple idea is supposed to be a copy of, that is, to exactly resemble, some simple impression. Or very nearly so, at any rate, for there is the famous missing shade ofblue to take into account. There seems to be another copy thesis in Hume, (...) however, and one on which Hume places a great deal ofweight. We find it expressed early on in the Treatise, incorporated into Hume's discussion of space and time. He says: Wherever ideas are adequate representations of objects, the relations, contradictions and agreements of the ideas are all applicable to the objects; and this we may in general observe to be the foundation of all human knowledge. But our ideas are adequate representations of the most minute parts of extension; and thro' whatever divisions and subdivisions we may suppose these parts to be arriv'd at, they can never become inferior to some ideas, which we form. The plain consequence is, that whatever appears impossible and contradictory upon the comparison of these ideas, must be really impossible and contradictory, without any farther FogeUn has recently described this as a "remarkable passage," one which is "a match for anything found in the writings of the rationalists."2 Perhaps it is such a match, perhaps not, but Fogelin is certainly right to regard this as a remarkable passage, at least for Hume. After all, Hume here seems to be endorsing some form of representationalism, a doctrine we typically do not associate with Hume's philosophy. Two important questions emerge from this passage:just what are these adequate ideas ofwhich Hume speaks; and, in what sense can it be true that they form the foundation ofall ofour knowledge? I believe that a correct answer to each of these questions has some strong imphcations for our understanding ofHume's philosophy. I. Humean Adequate Ideas So far as I can discover, the above-quoted passage is the Only place where Hume talks about adequate ideas. The only text which I have Volume XVII Number 1 51 GEORGE S. PAPPAS found which even suggests the same sentiments occurs in "Of the Passions" where Hume discusses ideas and truth (T 448-49), but no mention is made there of adequate ideas. So I think we have to concentrate on the passage from the Treatise in the attempt to understand what Hume is telling us. Hume seems to refer to adequacy as a feature ofindividual ideas, and also to groups or systems ofideas. The latter is suggested by his reference to relations, contradictions, and agreements between ideas, while the former is indicated by the first clause ofthe quoted passage, where Hume mentions adequacy but makes no reference to relations between ideas. Instead, adequacy in the relationsbetween ideas seems to be a consequence of adequacy of individual ideas. Moreover, that individual ideas are supposed to be adequate is made clear from the argument Hume immediately gives regarding the alleged infinite divisibility of space. He writes: I first take the least idea I can form ofa part ofextension, and beingcertainthatthereis nothingmoreminute than thisidea, I conclude, that whatever I discover by its means must be a real quality ofextension. (T 29) Hume's reasoning here can be interpreted in two different ways, but both rest on the adequacy of individual ideas. He might be read as saying that one starts with a least-sized idea, and infers that there are bits of extension which are the same size as the least-sized idea. The inference from the feature of the idea to the feature of the bit of extension rests on the claimed adequacy ofthe idea. The other reading of Hume's reasoning is that one starts with the least-sized idea and then infers that there is (a) a bit ofextended matter that small, and (b) that there is no smaller bit of extended matter. Ofthese two readings, I think the second is the right way to understand Hume here, for only it supports the argument's conclusion that space is not infinitely divisible.3 But notice that this second version ofHume... (shrink)

This chapter argues that the essential task of a university is not teaching students to be experts in some field of endeavor but educating them, so they might learn how to act in accord with the basic moral constraints governing any endeavor. With the help of ideas from Plato, Aristotle, and Michael Oakeshott, this argument is developed by distinguishing actions from practices and prudential from moral practices. Our moral practices, which comprise our character, cannot be taught, but they can be (...) learned—through conversations and similar educational contexts in which possible actions are imaginatively explored and critiqued in an open-ended manner, with the focus not on what we think or do but how. The difficulty for universities, amid so many practical pressures to do otherwise, to keep this essential educational task as their primary concern is acknowledged. Nevertheless it is the right thing for them to do. (shrink)

Translation and Edition of George Berkeley's "Notebooks".

The article offers an overview of the (dis)continuities between the major Abrahamic religions (especially Christianity) and transhumanism, as well as some possibilities envisioned by scholars for their ongoing dialogue. Important points that come up along the way include: ecology vs. space exploration; the neglect of injustices suffered by past generations; the importance of bodily and mental imperfections for the development of culture; and our all-too human expectations for what posthumans may desire.Also presented is a review of various possible criticisms against (...) wildly ambitious projects, such as Frank Tipler’s attempt to fuse transhumanism with Christian eschatology. It is argued that process theology and James Gardner’s “Biocosm hypothesis” offer a more intriguing view: a salvation which is not predestined but merely possible, and whose details are being negotiated through specific historic events and even through our day-to-day decisions and deliberations. Such a view overcomes Nietzsche’s notion of eternal recurrence by stressing the importance of rethinking, redaction, and creating variations of what already exists. (shrink)

In this short article, the conditions surrounding the recent discovery of Whitehead's first lecture at Harvard University are detailed. This article is meant as an introduction to Whitehead's lecture, which is published for the first time in the present issue of Process Studies. The previous two installments of the series titled "On the Trail ofWhitehead" can be found in Process Studies issues 45.1 and 46.1.

"Simone Weil's bibliography": pages [181]-194. Includes index. Introduction / George Abbott White -- The jagged edge / Michele Murray -- Simone Weil's mind / Robert Coles -- The life and death of Simone Weil / J.M. Cameron -- Simone Weil, last things / Michele Murray -- Simone Weil's Iliad / Michael K. Ferber -- Notes on Simone Weil's Iliad / Joseph H. Summers -- Patriotism and The need for roots / Conor Cruise O'Brien -- Marxism-Leninism and the language of (...) Politics magazine / Staughton Lynd -- Simone Weil's work experiences / George Abbott White. (shrink)

The essays that follow concern one of these contributions, Günter Figal’s Objectivity: The Hermeneutical and Philosophy (SUNY Press, 2010; English translation of Gegenständlichkeit: das Hermeneutische und die Philosophie, Mohr Siebeck 2006). These pieces are drawn from an “Author Meets Critics” session sponsored by the North American Society for Philosophical Hermeneutics (NASPH) in conjunction with the 2012 meeting of SPEP. As conceived by the NASPH organizers, the principal purpose of the “Author Meets Critics” session was to further discussion of the significance (...) of Figal’s Objectivity for current research. (shrink)

Social epistemology studies knowledge and justified belief acquisition through organized group cooperation. To do this, the way such group cooperation is structured has to be modeled. The obvious way of modeling a group structure is with a directed graph; unfortunately, most types of social cooperation directed at epistemological aims are variably implementable, including in their structural expression. Furthermore, the frequency with which a practice is implemented in a certain way can vary with topology. This entails that the topology of social (...) practices directed toward epistemological ends has to be modeled by a set of directed graphs, or their equivalent, together with a probability distribution over that set. In theory, this is eminently possible; however, there are considerable practical obstacles to the specification of a practice’s topology in this way. This paper examines these practical difficulties and concludes that todays sampling protocols are either far too slow to handle pratices with 10 or more participants, or else prone to produce misleading evaluations. (shrink)

John Caputo’s Demythologizing Heidegger represents an important, distinctive, and intriguing attempt to make sense of Heidegger’s notorious involvement with Nazism. Where others have tended to emphasize biographical and sociological factors in understanding Heidegger’s involvement with Nazism, Caputo traces that involvement to fateful turns in Heidegger’s development as a thinker. While I am sympathetic with such an undertaking, I find Caputo’s account highly questionable and even self-opposed, especially as regards hisapparent valorization of Kierkegaard and of biblical faith as influences that could (...) have saved Heidegger from Nazism had he not turned away from them in favor of Nietzsche and the presocratic Greeks. (shrink)