The philosophical classic explores the value and significance of leisure, arguing that it is the foundation of any culture, necessary for the development of religion and the contemplation of the nature of God, and issues a warning about the loss of insight due to our substitution of hectic amusements for nonactivity, silence, and true leisure.

Abstract:This article addresses the issue of whether and to what extent moral values can be attributed to collective actors. The paper starts from the premise that business ethics as the ethics of an organization is to be distinguished from the virtues of its members. This point is elaborated in both economic- and organization-theoretic terms within the framework of the New Economics of Organization. The result is the development of a concept of governance ethics. The ethics of governance is about the (...) incorporation of moral conditions and requirements in the management, governance, and control structures of a firm. This is the contextual precondition for the long-lasting and beneficial effects of the virtues of individuals within the organizations. (shrink)

This article brings forward the argument that the practical implementation of a corporate governance code cannot be realized by a compliance program alone. Its relevance in everyday business is determined by the moral values of the company culture. In this context, governance is defined as a company’s resources and capabilities, including the moral resources, to take on responsibility for all its stakeholders. A critical discussion of the agency theory, transaction cost theory, and organization theory shows that such an approach is (...) possible only when a company is not perceived as a maximizing machine for shareholders’ interests but as an economic form of cooperation of internal and external resources and stakeholders. An empiric study on 22 European corporate governance codes shows that the predominant majority of European codes orientate themselves to stakeholders and the company. The discussion of the empirical data reveals six basic principles that determine all European corporate governance codes: shareholder rights, transparency, voting rights, regulation of remuneration, design of organizational structures, and corporate social responsibility. (shrink)

This paper argues first that, contrary to what one would expect, metaphorical interpretations of utterances pass two of Cappelan and Lepore's Minimalist tests for semantic context-sensitivity. I then propose how, in light of that result, one might analyze metaphors on the model of indexicals and demonstratives, expressions that (even) Minimalists agree are semantically context-dependent. This analysis builds on David Kaplan's semantics for demonstratives and refines an earlier proposal in (Stern, Metaphor in context, MIT Press, Cambridge, 2000). In the course of (...) this argument, I also discuss some new examples of linguistic phenomena that motivate a semantic structure underlying metaphorical interpretation, phenomena I argue that neither Minimalists nor Contextualists can explain. (shrink)

This paper examines the place of metaphorical interpretation in the current Contextualist-Literalist controversy over the role of context in the determination of truth-conditions in general. Although there has been considerable discussion of 'non-literal' language by both sides of this dispute, the language analyzed involves either so-called implicit indexicality, loose or loosened use, enriched interpretations, or semantic transfer, not metaphor itself. In the first half of the paper, I critically evaluate Recanati's (2004) recent Contextualist account and show that it cannot account (...) for the metaphorical-literal dependence characteristic of metaphor. I then turn to Carston's (2002), and Bezuidenhout's (2001) Contextualist accounts and show that they place no constraints on metaphorical interpretations. In the second half of the paper I sketch a Literalist theory of metaphor elaborated in Stern (2000) and respond to two kinds of Contextualist criticisms of that account by Camp (2005) and Stanley (2005). (shrink)

In most developmental studies the only error children could make on counterfactual tasks was to answer with the current state of affairs. It was concluded that children who did not show this error are able to reason counterfactually. However, children might have avoided this error by using basic conditional reasoning (Rafetseder, Cristi-Vargas, & Perner, 2010). Basic conditional reasoning takes background assumptions represented as conditionals about how the world works. If an antecedent of one of these conditionals is provided by the (...) task, then a likely conclusion can be inferred based only on background assumptions. A critical feature of counterfactual reasoning is that the selection of these additional assumptions is constrained by actual events to which the counterfactual is taken to be counterfactual. In contrast, in basic conditional reasoning one enriches the given antecedent with any plausible assumptions, unconstrained by actual events. In our tasks basic conditional reasoning leads to different answers from counterfactual reasoning. For instance, a doctor, sitting in the park with the intention of reading a paper, is called to an emergency at the swimming pool. The question, “If there had been no emergency, where would the doctor be?” should counterfactually be answered “in the park”. But by ignoring the doctor's intentions, and just reasoning from premises about the default location of a hospital doctor who has not been called out to an emergency, one might answer: “in the hospital”. Only by 6 years of age did children mostly give correct answers. (shrink)

Der Begriff „Globalisierung“ wird zunehmend nicht nur in den Disziplinen der Ökonomie und der Kommunikationswissenschaft diskutiert, sondern auch in den Gesellschafts- und Erziehungswissenschaften sowie insbesondere in der Interkulturellen Philosophie. Der Diskurs über Globalisierung verläuft dabei teilweise analog demjenigen über Inter- und Multikulturalität. Die Beiträge dieses Bandes geben ein breites Spektrum wieder. Sie reichen von der Konstatierung der Globalisierung als einer Rahmenbedingung, zu der man sich als Wissenschaftler reflexiv oder reaktiv zu verhalten habe, über die Analyse diverser Teilaspekte und über visionäre (...) Einforderungen utopischer Globalisierungsauslegungen bis zur Negierung ihrer erkenntnistheoretischen Bedeutung. Das Gemeinsame dieser Vielfältigkeit ist die Bestimmung des Globalen als eines Szenarios der Begegnung. (shrink)

"Pre-modern philosophy" means the line of reflection that started with Plato andvAristotle, passed through Augustine and Boethius, and reached its acme in Aquinas, Scotus, and Suarez. The whole line was harshly judged by Descartes, then mocked by the empiricsts of the 18th Century. Why, then, did Pope Leo XII make a determined effort to revive it? And, more importantly, why was the revival a stunning success by the middle of the 20th Century? The answers to both questions are found in (...) a famous German book, Philosophie der Vorzeit by Josef Kleutgen, now available for the first time in English. Pre-ModernPhilosophy Defended shaped and strengthened Pope Leo's resolve. It showed how inaccurate the harsh judgments had been and how sadly inferior the modern replacements from Descartes to Hegel had turned out to be in many respects. Not in all. Kleutgen was no knee-jerk reactionary. He made no bones about the obsolete status of pre-Newtonian physics and cosmology. Rather, he focused on the central boast of "modern" thought, namely, that it had turned at least to the "subject" and had provided a long-needed thing called a "critique of knowledge." This book is must reading for intellectual historians and for philosophers working today in epistemology. But most of all, it is essential reading for laity and clergy concerned about revivals of modernism in the church. What was modernism, after all, but an attempt to make the Church revise her theology in the "light" of Kant or Hegel? This is why every Modernist knew Kleutgen's name and hated this book. Here is the first English translation (from the German) of the master work of Josef Kleutgen, the nineteenth century social philosopher whose thought lies at, or near, the heart of Catholic Social Thought. Kleutgen is widely and rightly seen as the shadow author of the social encyclicals of Leo XII. Leo's Rerum Novarum remains the origin and constant reference point of all Catholic Social Teaching. And Popes since have dated their own social encyclicals from Rerum Novarum - hence, Quadragesimo anno and Centesimus annus. --Gerard V. Bradley, University of Notre Dame Pre-Modern Philosophy Defended is must reading for intellectual historians and for philosophers working today in epistemology. And it is essential reading for laity and clergy concerned about revivals of modernism in the church. What was modernism, after all, but an attempt to make the Church revise her theology in the 'light' of Kant or Hegel? This is why every Modernist knew Kleutgen's name and hated Philosophie der Vorzeit (Pre-Modern Philosophy Defended). (shrink)

Dini's theorem says that compactness of the domain, a metric space, ensures the uniform convergence of every simply convergent monotone sequence of real-valued continuous functions whose limit is continuous. By showing that Dini's theorem is equivalent to Brouwer's fan theorem for detachable bars, we provide Dini's theorem with a classification in the recently established constructive reverse mathematics propagated by Ishihara. As a complement, Dini's theorem is proved to be equivalent to the analogue of the fan theorem, weak König's lemma, in (...) the original classical setting of reverse mathematics started by Friedman and Simpson. (shrink)

Over the last years, “Creating Shared Value” has become a much discussed concept in business practice as well as in management theory and especially in the context of corporate social responsibility. This book offers a contribution to the current academic discussions on the well-received article of Michael Porter and Marc Kramer in Harvard Business Review in 2011. In the light of the increasing references to the shared value concept, it develops a critical discussion on its fundamentals and its implications for (...) the relationship between economy and society. By that, the book seeks to shed light on the understanding of the role and the nature of the firm in a globalized economy. The result is a collection of interdisciplinary academic reviews which offer interdisciplinary reflections on “Creating Shared Value” to illuminate theoretical, conceptual and practical challenges of the topic. Within the fields of Business Ethics, Theory of the Firm, Management and Philosophy, researcher, students and practitioners will be given a deeper insight on how to approach to the concept in a conceptional and philosophical way. (shrink)

The author examines the religious-political slogan »Option für die Armen« in patterns of oeconomic questions. In his view this slogan doesn't make any sense. Along with the autor offers reflections concerning practical competence of Christian ethics in modern societies.

This article examines Luther's conception of Economy and Economics. The analysis shows a paradoxially structured religious communication about economic problems. This form of communication serves to keep contingency available within the economic system. Together with reason, conscience and belief the awareness of contingency is a presupposition of reasonable economical decisions. The most important conclusion is that the relationship of these aspects of action- as discussed by Lutheris also a majorproblern in the contemporary discussion of business and economics effects.

We prove constructively that the weak König lemma and quantifier-free number-number choice imply that every pointwise continuous function from Cantor space into Baire space has a modulus of uniform continuity.

In his Time and Narrative, Ricœur introduces the term of “third time” to designate the middle ground between human and natural time. This time is synonymous with historical time, which is the main source of historical discourse. The third time consists of inscribing human time onto the time of nature. While historiography must strictly follow this structure, works of fiction have the freedom to explore and even create imaginative variations of time. Despite the constraints this seems to impose on historical (...) writing, this article shows that even within the tight structure of historical time, a palette of various colors and shades, akin to imaginative variations, can be observed. Historical time possesses depth and speed; it can contract and relax, motivate or prevent action, or gain various dynamics in relation to the ending it offers. (shrink)

Plato's famous dialogue, the Phaedrus, was variously subtitled in antiquity: "On Beauty", "On Love", "On the Psyche". It is also concerned with the art of rhetoric, of thought and communication. Pieper, noted for the grace and clarity of his style, gives an illuminating and stimulating interpretation of the dialogue. Leaving the more recondite scholarly preoccupations aside, he concentrates on the content, bringing the actual situation in the dialogue -- Athens and its intellectuals engaged in spirited debate -- alive. Equally alive (...) is the discussion of ideas, which are brought to bear on contemporary experience and made to prove the perennial validity of Socratic wisdom, and its power to excite the mind. The main thesis -- that in poetry and in love man is "beside himself", that is, divinely inspired -- is discussed with reference to modern poets, novelists, and modern psychology. (shrink)