How do we know when one person or society is 'freer' than another? Can freedom be measured? Is more freedom better than less? This book provides the first full-length treatment of these fundamental yet neglected issues, throwing new light both on the notion of freedom and on contemporary liberalism.

Oswald Spengler (1880?1936) is a neglected figure in the history of European philosophical thought. This article examines the philosophical anthropology developed in his later work, particularly his Man and Technics: A Contribution to a Philosophy of Life (1931). My purpose is twofold: the first is to argue that Spengler's later thought is a response to criticisms of the ?pessimism? of his earlier work, The Decline of the West (1919). Man and Technics overcomes this charge by providing a novel philosophical anthropology (...) which identifies technology as the highest expression of human cognitive and creative capacities. The second is to suggest that in his later period Spengler presents an affirmatory account of modern technology as the final stage of human cultural evolution. I conclude that by providing a philosophical anthropology that reconciles technology with human nature, Man and Technics represents an important development of Spengler's theory of human culture. (shrink)

This is an excellent textbook on classical social theory, concentrating on the founding thinkers of sociology - Marx, Weber, Durkheim, and Simmel - and written in an accessible and engaging style. It will become a key text allowing students to assess the enduring significance of these writers in our epoch of major social change, and will be essential reading on classical social theory, sociological theory, and introduction to sociology courses.

This article provides an historical account of Kant's political, legal, and religious thought in the context of the Prussian Enlightenment.

This article is a response to Fredric Jameson's criticisms of the author's 'The History of Theory'. For Jameson's article, 'How Not to Historicise Theory', see Critical Inquiry, 34, Spring 2008. The author situates Jameson's arguments in the context of the historicisation of theory, treating them as an example of the theoretical program to think the historical determinations of thought. It is argued that this program is an instrument for the formation of the privileged intellectual persona of the theorist.

We show that the variety of weakly representable relation algebras is neither canonical nor closed under Monk completions.

Peer review of manuscripts has recently become a subject of academic research and ethical debate. Critics of the review process argue that it is a means by which powerful members of the scientific community maintain their power, and achieve their personal and communal aspirations, often at others' expense. This qualitative study aimed to generate a rich, empirically‐grounded understanding of the process of manuscript review, with a view to informing strategies to improve the review process. Open‐ended interviews were carried out with (...) 35 journal editors and peer reviewers in the United Kingdom, the USA and Australia. It is clear from this research that relations of power and epistemic authority in manuscript review are complex and dynamic, and may have positive and negative features, and that even where power is experienced as controlling, restrictive and illegitimate, it can also be resisted. In conclusion, the manuscript review process is best thought of not in terms of simple dominance of reviewers and editors over authors, but rather as a shifting “net” of power relations. These complex power relations need to be understood if reviewers are to be encouraged to participate in the process and to do so in the the most ethical and effective manner. (shrink)

Within the limited, but growing, literature on small business ethics almost no attention has been paid to the issue of social responsibility within ethnic minority businesses. Using a social capital perspective, this paper reports on an exploratory and qualitative investigation into the attitudinal and behavioural manifestations of CSR within small and medium-sized Asian owned or managed firms in the U.K., with particular reference to the distinctive factors motivating organisational responses. It offers alternative explanations of entrepreneurial behaviour and suggests areas for (...) further research. (shrink)

Peter Mandler’s Return from the Natives examines Margaret Mead mid-career when she devoted much energy to promoting anthropology and anthropologists to government and industry and positioned herself as a prominent social commentator. By the time she returned to the field after an interlude of 14 years, something had happened to her professionally: she was treated as a bit of an embarrassment, no longer a scientific heavyweight, and much of this stems from the rather hare-brained “culture cracking” she engaged in during (...) the war. So while honors and kudos enhanced her official image, behind the scenes, she complained of being neglected and shunted aside. Her discipline became radicalized, and her balanced and accommodating approach was rejected. (shrink)

Scientism has none of the virtues of science or philosophy, so let's do away with it.

Despite US policy documents which recommend that in areas of environmental risk, interaction between scientific experts and the public move beyond the so-called “Decide, Announce, and Defend model,” many current public involvement policies still do not guarantee meaningful public participation. In response to this problem, various attempts have been made to define what counts as sufficient or meaningful participation and free informed consent from those affected. Though defining “meaningfulness” is a complex task, this paper explores one under-examined dimension that concerns (...) the relationship between consent and the idea that citizens should be sufficiently informed: epistemic capacity. This paper will look at some of the work on meaningful participation and consent, give a definition of epistemic capacity, and argue that only a community with sufficient epistemic capacity can have the understanding and competence to give informed enough consent and thus participate meaningfully. (shrink)

Performer Training is an examination of how actors are trained in different cultures.

Caruso Brown brings forward an argument that clinicians and ethicists have a duty to consider decision-makers marginalized by hierarchical structures. The author presents a pragmatic approac...

Deep brain stimulation interventions are novel devices being investigated for the management of severe treatment-resistant psychiatric illnesses. These interventions require the invasive implantation of high-frequency neurostimulatory probes intracranially aiming to provide symptom relief in treatment-resistant disorders including obsessive-compulsive disorder and anorexia nervosa. In the scientific literature, these neurostimulatory interventions are commonly described as reversible and to be used as a last resort option for psychiatric patients. However, the ‘last resort’ status of these interventions is rarely expanded upon. Contrastingly, usages of (...) DBS devices for neurological symptoms have paved the way for established safety and efficacy standards when used earlier in a disease’s timeline. As DBS treatments for these neurological diseases progress to have earlier indications, there is a parallel ethical concern that early implementation may one day become prescribed for psychiatric illnesses. The purpose of this article is to build off contemporary understandings of reversible neurostimulatory interventions to examine and provide clarifications on the ‘last resort’ status of DBS to better address its ethically charged use in psychiatric neurosurgery. To do this, evaluative differences between DBS treatments will be discussed to demonstrate how patient autonomy would be a paramount guiding principle when one day implementing these devices at various points along a psychiatric disease’s timeline. In presenting the clarification of ‘last resort’ status, the ethical tensions of early DBS interventions will be better understood to assist in providing psychiatric patients with more quality of life years in line with their values. (shrink)

This article seeks to address the question of humanity and animality through an elaboration of what will be called here the ‘nonhuman demand’. It aims to problematize the category of the ‘posthuman...

Linda Martín Alcoff i drugi naglasili su da filozofija kao disciplina pati od "demografskog problema". Upornost ovog problema djelomično je posljedica različitih oblika otpora nastojanjima da se riješi demografski problem. Takav otpor je složen i pojavljuje se u mnogim oblicima te se na njega može odgovoriti na različite načine. U ovom radu tvrdim da bi naši pokušaji objašnjenja i razumijevanja fenomena otpora trebali koristiti pluralističko objašnjenje koje, prema Quassimu Cassamu, nazivam višedimenzionalizam. Opisujem četiri opća oblika otpora i razmatram različita objašnjenja, (...) usredotočujući se na one koji su usmjereni na mane i društvene strukture. Tvrdim da su objašnjenja utemeljena na porocima i strukturalna objašnjenja međusobno usklađena i da se međusobno impliciraju. Ako je tome tako, nema potrebe birati između objašnjenja utemeljenih na porocima i strukturalnih objašnjenja ili bilo kojih drugih vrsta objašnjenja. Možemo i trebali bismo biti višedimenzionalisti: upotreba mnogih zajedno je bolja. (shrink)

This paper maintains that at the heart of the post-Reformation debates over the extra Calvinisticum lies the question of what it means to name God’s presence in the world – that is, to say where God is. Because the Lutheran position insists that there can be no proper identification of God’s presence in the world that does not take its bearings from talk about Jesus’ presence, it serves as a means of preventing Christian God-talk from becoming detached from the flesh-and-blood (...) realities of human existence. In this way, the denial of the extra Calvinisticum is a corollary of a theology of the cross – that is, the principle that talk about God is normed by the concrete reality of Jesus. At the same time, the Lutheran genus maiestaticum is rejected as making just the sort of move to which Luther himself objected in the doctrine of transubstantiation: a metaphysical explanation of Jesus’ presence in the world rather than a simple appeal to miracle. (shrink)

It appears that the attitudes of health professionals differ towards suicide and voluntary active euthanasia. An acceptance of, if not an agreement with, voluntary active eutha nasia exists, while there is a general consensus that suicide should be prevented. This paper searches for a working definition of suicide, to discover ethical reasons for the negative value that suicide assumes, and also to provide a term of reference when comparing suicide with euthanasia. On arriving at a working definition of suicide, it (...) is compared with voluntary active euthanasia. An analysis of utilitarian and deontological considerations is provided and proves to be inconclusive with respect to the ethical principles informing the attitudes of professionals. Therefore, a search for other influences is attempted; this indicates that psychological influences inform attitudes to a greater degree than ethical principles. (shrink)

Radio phone-ins, or `talk radio' shows, represent a popular environment in which members of the public at large may discuss the news of the day from their own perspective. This article explores some discursive devices that are used in legitimating, or authenticating, lay speakers' opinions about news in this environment. A number of examples of calls to a talk radio show are examined in order to show the oriented-to importance of `witnessing' in establishing the legitimacy of an opinion. A range (...) of factors are discussed, including: the variety of types of first-hand knowledge that may be invoked; the sequential and interactional contexts in which first-hand knowledge is invoked; and the way in which first-hand knowledge itself may be used not just to legitimate, but to undermine, the status of a caller's contribution to the show's debate. (shrink)

Proposes a new theory of communication called "comparative media theory.".

SummaryThe contrasting economic and technological histories of Japan, China, and India prior to 1914 are very often explained in socio-cultural terms. It is too easily assumed that culturally Japan was somehow more ‘prone’ to development along Western lines than were either of China and India. This paper addresses the socalled ‘failure’ of economic modernization in China and India in terms of socioeconomic processes and mechanisms. Knowledge and machinery were transferred to all three nations prior to 1914. But only in Japan (...) were conditions favourable to the subsequent adoption, diffusion, and adaptation of technologies. A major argument is that officialdom in China and India was not unwary or dissolute but merely hamstrung through a removal of effective sovereignty over decision making. The reduction of sovereignty was of greater importance than the supposed retardative impact of deeply held cultural traits. (shrink)

Modern scientific medicine is increasingly challenged by complementary and alternative therapies. Reviewing policy options for contemporary healthcare development, the World Health Organization's first global strategy on traditional and alternative medicine, released in May 2002, advocates integration. However, experience in East Asia, the only part of the world where state of the art modern scientific facilities are commonly found alongside thriving traditional practices, reveals that medical integration can take several forms. To clarify the available policy options, this article categorizes those forms, (...) identifying three types of integration (unification, equalization and subjugation), plus one type of non-integration (marginalization). It marks out a zone of balanced healthcare development that cuts across two of the integrationist types, and comprises non-discriminatory state treatment of separate but linked sectors of traditional and modern medicine. The article closes by exploring arguments for and against locating state policy in this zone, and holds that policy should be situated here for medical practices that can meet broadly acceptable professional standards, demonstrate an existing social demand, and generate an adequate supply of medical practitioners, possibly through some state subsidy. (shrink)