We posit a key goal of firms’ corporate social responsibility efforts is to influence reputation through carefully crafted communicative practices. This trend has accelerated with the rise of social media such as Twitter and Facebook, which are essentially public message networks that organizations are leveraging to engage with concerned audiences. Given the large number of messages sent on these sites, only some will be effective and achieve broad public resonance. Building on signaling theory, this paper asks whether and how messages (...) conveying CSR-related topics resonate with the public and, if so, which CSR topics and signal qualities are most effective. We test our hypotheses using data on public reactions to Fortune 500 companies’ CSR-focused Twitter feeds, using the retweeting of firms’ messages as a proxy for public resonance. We find resonance is positively associated with messages that convey CSR topics such as the environment or education, those that make the topic explicit through use of hashtags, and those that tap into existing social movement discussions. (shrink)

The use of contingent valuation methods for estimating the economic value of environmental improvements and damages has increased significantly. However, doubts exist regarding the validity of the usual willingness to pay CV methods. In this article, we examine the CV approach in light of recent findings from behavioral decision research regarding the constructive nature of human preferences. We argue that a principal source of problems with conventional CV methods is that they impose unrealistic cognitive demands upon respondents. We propose a (...) new CV approach, based on the value-structuring capabilities of multiattribute utility theory and decision analysis, and discuss its advantages and disadvantages. (shrink)

The nineteenth century was seemingly a period of great progress. Huge advancements and achievements were made in science, technology and industry that transformed life and work alike. But a growing pride in modernity and innovation was tainted by a sense of the loss of the past and the multiple threats which novelty posed. The Cambridge Companion to Nineteenth-Century Thought provides an impressive survey of the period's major ideas and trends. Leading scholars explore some of the most influential concepts and debates (...) within philosophy, history, political thought, economics, religion and the social sciences, as well as feminism and imperialism. Some of these debates continued into the following century and many still remain relevant in the present day. This Companion is an excellent tool for readers seeking to understand the genesis of modern discourse across a range of humanities and social science subjects. (shrink)

Ben Jonson, writing before 1641 in Discoveries, observed that nature intends us no courtesies. The rivers carry our boats, the winds favour our sails, and the sunlight warms our bodies, by necessary motions that contain no kindliness. This represented, or expressed, though perhaps unwittingly and certainly without scientific precision, the mechanical version of physical nature that steadily prevailed during the seventeenth century.

James K. A. Smith’s Awaiting the King is the most effective popularization of Augustine’s political thought currently available, but its reliance on the work of Oliver O’Donovan obscures uncomfortable elements of Augustine’s thought, and it does not adequately address how the racial and socioeconomic composition of Christian communities is itself formative.

This book presents an original and creative enactment of a confrontation between Heidegger and Plato. Gregory Fried outlines a new approach to ethics and politics combining skeptical idealism and what he calls polemical ethics, and goes on to apply polemical ethics to the crucial questions around fascism and racism.

Vocal affect is a subcomponent of emotion programs that coordinate a variety of physiological and psychological systems. Emotional vocalizations comprise a suite of vocal behaviors shaped by evolution to solve adaptive social communication problems. The acoustic forms of vocal emotions are often explicable with reference to the communicative functions they serve. An adaptationist approach to vocal emotions requires that we distinguish between evolved signals and byproduct cues, and understand vocal affect as a collection of multiple strategic communicative systems subject to (...) the evolutionary dynamics described by signaling theory. We should expect variability across disparate societies in vocal emotion according to culturally evolved pragmatic rules, and universals in vocal production and perception to the extent that form–function relationships are present. (shrink)

Examination of naturally occurring cases in which a person reports that a word is on the tip of his or her tongue has led several theorists to propose that an important role is played by blocking words whose intrusions hinder access to the correct targets. As yet, however, the blocking mechanism appears to have received little direct investigation experimentally. It was studied here by adapting the classic method of Brown and McNeill in which a person is presented with a definition (...) of a rare word and uses it to attempt to generate that target word. The adaptation that was made was to append a potential blocking word to the presentation of each definition. The potential blocking words were either phonologically related to the target or not, either semantically related to the target or not, and either rare or not. Only the first of these factors exerted a significant effect—more cases of tip of the tongue were experienced when the potential blocking word was phonologically related to the target than when it was not. This result suggests that the recall of a word on the basis of its meaning may proceed via an intermediate stage characterised by partial retrieval of its phonology. (shrink)

The mental model theory of naive causal understanding and reasoning (Goldvarg & Johnson‐Laird, 2001, Cognitive Science, 25, 565–610) claims that people distinguish between causes and enabling conditions on the basis of sets of models that represent possible causal situations. In the tasks used to test this hypothesis, however, the proposed set of models was confounded with linguistic cues that frame which event to assume as given (the enabling condition) and which to consider as responsible for the effect under this assumption (...) (the cause). By disentangling these two factors, we were able to show that when identifying causes and enabling conditions in these tasks, people rely strongly on the linguistic cues but not on the proposed set of models and that this set of models does not even reflect people's typical interpretation of the tasks. We propose an alternative explanation that integrates syntactic and causal considerations. (shrink)

This paper considers the relationship between evidence and self-fulfilling beliefs—beliefs whose propositional contents will be true just in case—and because—an agent believes them. Following Grice, many philosophers hold that believing such propositions would involve an impermissible form of bootstrapping. This paper argues that such objections get their force from a popular but problematic function-model of theoretical deliberation, and that attending to the case of self-fulfilling belief can help us see why such a model is mistaken. The paper shows that on (...) a revised model of theoretical deliberation our evidence will problematically underdetermine any appropriate doxastic attitude: when belief in a proposition is self-fulfilling, our evidence is insufficient to support belief, disbelief, or even suspended judgment toward that proposition. (shrink)

Blair proposes that fluid intelligence, working memory, and executive function form a unitary construct: fluid cognition. Recently, our group has utilized a combined correlational–experimental cognitive neuroscience approach, which we argue is beneficial for investigating relationships among these individual differences in terms of neural mechanisms underlying them. Our data do not completely support Blair's strong position. (Published Online April 5 2006).

INTRODUCTION THE AGE OF PAINE I know not whether any Man in the World has had more influence on its inhabitants or affairs for the last thirty years than ...

Many supporters of ‘moral bioenhancement’ (MBE), the use of biomedical interventions for moral improvement, have been criticised for having unrealistic proposals. The interventions they suggest have often been called infeasible and their implementation plans vague or unethical. I dispute these criticisms by showing that various interventions to implement MBE are practically and ethically feasible enough to warrant serious consideration. Such interventions include transcranial direct current stimulation over the medial and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, as well as supplementation with lithium and omega-3. (...) Considering their efficacy and feasibility, it is strange that these interventions have rarely been proposed or discussed as MBE. I review evidence that each of those interventions can reduce antisocial behaviour, reduce racial bias, increase executive function or increase prosocial traits like fairness and altruism. I then specify and defend realistic, ethically permissible ways to implement these interventions, especially for violent offenders and public servants—the former as rehabilitation and the latter to meet the high standards of their occupations. These interventions could be given to violent offenders in exchange for a reduced sentence or compulsorily in some cases. Potential intervention methods for non-prisoners include increasing the USDA-recommended dose of omega-3, encouraging food companies to supplement their products with omega-3 or trace lithium, requiring MBE for employment as a police officer or political leader, and insurance companies providing discounts for undergoing MBE. In some reasonably limited form, using these interventions may be a good first step to implement the project of MBE. (shrink)

Three questions are generated by the issue of the continuity and consistency of Husserl's presentations of the reduction from his early to his last works: did Husserl himself consider these presentations to be continuous and consistent? Do the texts show these presentations to be continuous and consistent? and, Should these presentations, on philosophical grounds, have been continuous and consistent? My thesis is that all three questions can be answered affirmatively. ;I argue, first, that there is some textual evidence that Husserl (...) himself considered his presentations of the reduction to be continuous and consistent; second, that a reconstruction of the arguments for the reduction in the Ideas, Formal and Transcendental Logic, Cartesian Meditations, and Crisis shows that central elements of both the Cartesian and ontological ways are present in each of these texts; and, finally, that a full and clarified meaning for the reduction requires both Cartesian and ontological components, because each way on its own raises problems only approachable via the other way. ;In critically examining the contrary interpretations of Iso Kern, Ludwig Landgrebe, and David Carr, I respond to arguments that phenomenology is internally inconsistent in its treatment of intersubjectivity, temporality, kinaesthesia, and life-world, by showing that this conclusion rests in each case on the tacit and undefended premise that phenomenology does and must posit a founding domain that is opaque to reflection. I argue that, consistent with the transcendental concept of intentionality, these topics must be approached in terms of phenomena functioning in the experience of the reflecting philosopher. ;I conclude that phenomenology has not been demonstrated to be in principle incapable of addressing these topics, and I propose a meaning for the reduction , involving an interplay of Cartesian and ontological elements, that preserves the transcendental character of Husserl's philosophy. (shrink)

The purpose of this article is to explore the close link between technology and death in the philosophical writings of Lewis Mumford. Mumford famously argued that throughout the history of western civilization we find intertwined two competing forms of technics; the democratic biotechnic form and the authoritarian monotechnic form. The former technics were said to be strongly compatible with an organic form of life while the latter were said to be allied to a mechanical power complex. What is perhaps less (...) well known is the extent to which Mumford characterizes the authoritarian technical form as being a technics of death. This article will argue that the connection between death and technics is a key theme in Mumford’s philosophy of technology. In addition to elaborating this theme and detailing how it informs Mumford’s other positions on the nature of technology, this article will also argue that Mumford’s theory of a technics of death bears witness, both implicitly and explicitly, to the influence of Sigmund Freud’s theory of the death instinct. Freud’s account of the death instinct will be outlined briefly and its influence on Mumford’s writings will be explained. Death, in Mumford’s technological writings, has a generally negative function and serves to warn humanity of the perilous course that its technological civilization is set upon. However it also has a positive function in that it encourages man to transcend its biological existence in acts of creativity and purpose. Death, in this positive sense, serves the purpose of life whereas, in the negative sense, it hinders it. The role of death, in both aspects, will be explored and related to Mumford’s overall perspective on technics and life. It is argued that Mumford’s philosophy of technology cannot be fully understood without an awareness of his views on death and its role in the life of technological society. (shrink)

The language of quantification theory does not seem to adequately reflect the logic of mass terms in ordinary english. Mass terms are treated as though they are true of objects which can be counted. In this paper, It is argued that by placing certain restrictions upon formulas which contain the identity sign it is possible to arrive at a formalization of mass term sentences which avoids this difficulty. The proposed restrictions are defended against charges that certain mass term sentences seem (...) to be rendered inexpressible. (shrink)

Leave it to the boob tube to explain the meaning of existence. Let Gilligan's Island teach you about situational ethics. Learn about epistemology from The Brady Bunch. Explore Aristotle's Poetics by watching 24. Television has grappled with a wide range of philosophical conundrums. According to the networks, it's the ultimate source of all knowledge in the universe. So why not look at the small screen for answers to all of humanity's dilemmas? There's not a single issue discussed by the great (...) thinkers of the past that hasn't been hashed out between commercials in shows like Mad Men and Leave It To Beaver..."--P. [4] of cover. (shrink)

We use the path integral form of quantum electrodynamics to show that a causal classical limit to QED can be derived by functionally integrating over the photon coordinates, starting from an initial photon vacuum and ending in a final coherent radiation state driven by the anticipated classical charged particle trajectories. The resulting charged particle transition amplitude depends only on particle coordinates. When the \ limit is taken, only those particle paths that are not constrained by the final radiation state are (...) varied. These results demonstrate that the collapse from an infinity of charged particle paths, a path integral description, to causally interacting classical trajectories, a stationary-action description, is critically dependent on including final coherent state radiation and maintaining the distinction between particle paths that are free to vary and those trajectories that can be monitored by the final state radiation. (shrink)

Near the climax of the ascent passage of the Symposium, Plato describes how the lover turns to gaze at the great sea of the beautiful and. While the phrase has been variously interpreted by commentators and translators, none has regarded it as particularly significant. In what follows we examine the contribution that the immediate context makes to the meaning of the phrase and take note of the link between the adjective φθονος and two subsequent uses of φθονω, both with reference (...) to Alcibiades. We conclude that in the two final scenes of the dialogue the repetition of φθονος and φθονω has the same effect as the repetition of the well-studied adverb ξαφνης. By virtue of these contextual associations, we suggest, the prepositional phrase acquires a new significance. Furthermore, on the interpretation developed here the dialogue's two final scenes encapsulate the view of the incompatibility of jealousy and philosophy that Plato sets forth more explicitly and at greater length in the Phaedrus and Republic. (shrink)

To find out more information about Rowman & Littlefield titles please visit us at www.rowmanlittlefield.com.

Gregory Vlastos was one of the twentieth century's most influential scholars of ancient philosophy. Over a span of more than fifty years, he published essays and book reviews that established his place as a leading authority on early Greek philosophy. The two volumes that comprise Studies in Greek Philosophy include nearly forty contributions by this acknowledged master of the philosophical essay. Many of these pieces are now considered to be classics in the field. Perhaps more than any other modern (...) scholar, Gregory Vlastos was responsible for raising standards of research, analysis, and exposition in classical philosophy to new levels of excellence. His essays have served as paradigms of scholarship for several generations. Available for the first time in a comprehensive collection, these contributions reveal the author's ability to combine the skills of a philosopher, philologist, and historian of ideas in addressing some of the most difficult problems of ancient philosophy. Volume I collects Vlastos's essays on Presocratic philosophy. Wide-ranging concept studies link Greek science, religion, and politics with philosophy. Individual studies illuminate the thought of major philosophers such as Heraclitus, Parmenides, Anaxagoras, and Democritus. A magisterial series of studies on Zeno of Elea reveals the author's power in source criticism and logical analysis. Volume II contains essays on the thought of Socrates, Plato, and later thinkers and essays dealing with ethical, social, and political issues as well as metaphysics, science, and the foundations of mathematics. (shrink)