Organizational storytelling has been taught for many years in many different places as part of organizational development, organizational change, organizational learning, and business ethics. There has not been any comprehensive framework that addresses sustainability in organizations and so this book develops a new ethics of sustainability for management and organizations. A terrestrial ethics of storymaking is proposed, which responds to Latour's claim that the Terrestrial has become a new decisive political actor in politics. The Terrestrial is born from Gaia, a (...) metaphor for a new look on life on Earth. Gaia situates life in the thin layer of matter that is the surface of the Earth. It entails the view that nature is a process that humans are part of. Storymaking is constructed from Arendt's political philosophy, which is rooted ontologically in the principle of natality: rebirth of life. The term 'storymaking' is developed from Arendt's understanding of storytelling as political action to emphasize not only that stories are spatial, embodied and material practices that are tied to a specific time and space but also that technology is an important dimension in making stories. Stories are thus human practices that apart from meaning making and politics involve the use and manipulation of material and objects, and which are crucial for how a human world is shaped. This human world is furthermore shaped by the rhythms of life embedded in the complex landscapes that humans move through. Storymaking is developed through rethinking the links between the central categories of labor, work, action, and thinking in Arendt's writings. Implications for business ethics are drawn out and a comprehensive ethics framework is constructed that connects the biological and physical with the social, economic, and political regarding how organizations work. Finally, a storymaking philosophy of management is constructed, making this book especially relevant to researchers, academics, managers, and students in the fields of business ethics, management studies, leadership, organizational studies, and international business. (shrink)

Despite the considerable attention that the systematicity argument has enjoyed, it is worthwhile examining the argument within the context of similar explanatory arguments from the history of science. This kind of analysis helps show that Connectionism, qua Connectionism, really does not have an explanation of systematicity. Second, and more surprisingly, one finds that the systematicity argument sets such a high explanatory standard that not even Classicism can explain the systematicity of thought.

Kant was the first great anti-Cartesian in epistemology and philosophy of mind. He criticised five central tenets of Cartesianism and developed sophisticated alternatives to them. His transcendental analysis of the necessary a priori conditions for the very possibility of self-conscious human experience invokes externalism about justification and proves externalism about mental content. Semantic concern with the unity of the proposition—required for propositionally structured awareness and self-awareness—is central to Kant’s account of the unity of any cognitive judgment. The perceptual ‘binding problem’ (...) is central to Kant’s account of the unity of the object in perception. This paper outlines Kant’s development and justification of his a rationalist account of our active intellect and its roles in perceptual consciousness and in rational judgment, including our consciousness of our rational freedom, all through a radically innovative transcendental inquiry into the necessary a priori conditions for us to be conscious at all. Kant’s anti-Cartesianism is a major philosophical breakthrough far surpassing contemporary anti-Cartesian efforts. It behoves us to give Kant his due and avail ourselves of his profound insights into the nature of human mindedness. (shrink)

A 5,000-word conspectus of Hegel’s moral philosophy which considers the theoretical context of his moral philosophy (§1), his accounts of legal, personal, moral and social freedom (§2), the structure of Hegel’s analysis in his Philosophy of Justice (or »Rechtsphilosophie«) (§3), his account of role obligations as a central component of social freedom (§4), and his integrated account of individual autonomy and social reconciliation (§5).

It seems intuitive that human development and environmental protection should go hand in hand. But some have worried there is no framework within environmental ethics that suitably conjoins them. I...

It is sometimes suggested that the history of computation in cognitive science is one in which the formal apparatus of Turing-equivalent computation, or effective computability, was exported from mathematical logic to ever wider areas of cognitive science and its environs. This paper, however, indicates some respects in which this suggestion is inaccurate. Computability theory has not been focused exclusively on Turing-equivalent computation. Many essential features of Turing-equivalent computation are not captured in definitions of computation as symbol manipulation. Turing-equivalent computation did (...) not play the role in McCulloch and Pitts’s early cybernetic work that is sometimes attributed to it. Finally, various segments of the neuroscientific community invoke a notion of computation that differs from the Turing-equivalent notion.Keywords: Circular causality; Computation; Cortical maps; Neural networks; Symbol manipulation; Turing-equivalent computation. (shrink)

The contributions to this symposium raise several issues that extend beyond an examination of Tocqueville’s Democracy in America. For example, is the conventional distinction between ancient and modern in political philosophy too simplistic? Is religion necessary to preserve democracy, and if so, what kind of religion must it be? Theological and sociological sources both suggest that the fate of democracy in the modern world is inextricably, not merely accidentally, connected with the fate of Christianity.

This paper (in English) highlights a hitherto neglected feature of Hegel’s 1807 Phenomenology of Spirit: its critique of the content of our basic categorial concepts. It focusses on Hegel’s semantics of cognitive reference in ‘Sense Certainty’ and his use of this semantics also in ‘Perception’ and ‘Force and Understanding’. Explicating these points enables us to understand how Hegel criticizes Pyrrhonian Scepticism on internal grounds.

_Mirroring and Attunement_ offers a new approach to psychoanalysis, artistic creation and religion. Viewing these activities from a broadly relational perspective, Wright proposes that each provides a medium for creative dialogue: the artist discovers himself within his self-created forms, the religious person through an internal dialogue with ‘God’, and the analysand through the inter-subjective medium of the analysis. Building on the work of Winnicott, Stern and Langer, the author argues that each activity is rooted in the infant’s preverbal relationship with (...) the mother who ‘holds’ the emerging self in an ambience of mirroring forms, thereby providing a ‘place’ for the self to ‘be’. He suggests that the need for subjective reflection persists throughout the life cycle and that psychoanalysis, artistic creation and religion can be seen as cultural attempts to provide the self with resonant containment. They thus provide renewed opportunities for holding and emotional growth. _Mirroring and Attunement_ will provide essential reading for psychoanalysts, psychotherapists, and art therapists and be of interest to anyone working at the interface between psychoanalysis, art and religion. _ _. (shrink)

Though philosophical antipodes, Hegel and Russell were profound philosophical revolutionaries. They both subjected contemporaneous philosophy to searching critique, and they addressed many important issues about the character of philosophy itself. Examining their disagreements is enormously fruitful. Here I focus on one central issue raised in Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit: the tenability of the foundationalist model of rational justification. I consider both the general question of the tenability of the foundationalist model itself, and the specific question of the tenability of Russell’s (...) preferred foundations of empirical knowledge, namely sense data. The stage is set by briefly considering Russell’s philosophical revolt (§2). I examine Russell’s neglect of the Pyrrhonian Dilemma of the Criterion (§3), and then consider Russell’s appeal to “knowledge by acquaintance”—the very view Hegel criticized under the banner of “Sense Certainty” (§4). I argue that Hegel’s internal critique of “Sense Certainty” refutes Russell’s “knowledge by acquaintance” and undermines Russell’s ahistorical approach to philosophy. (This article supercedes ‘“Sense Certainty”, or Why Russell had no “Knowledge by Acquaintance”’. The Bulletin of the Hegel Society of Great Britain 45/46 (2002):110–23.). (shrink)

This article focuses on the conclusion in which the analyses of the previous papers converge, namely, the emergence of a new and radically different public order that is emerging in contemporary America. While Catholics could never feel completely comfortable in the older order that preceded it, the culture that informed this order had many features that were consistent with the Catholic vision of man, society, and the human good; and it secured for the Church a broad freedom to exercise her (...) ministry and for Catholics the freedom they needed to practice the faith. In sharp contrast, the new order installs at the heart of public life an ethic of human autonomy incompatible with the Catholic understanding, and jeopardizes the freedom of the Church and of Catholics to practice the faith. The emergence of this new order will require Catholics to rethink their relationship to American culture and the American state. (shrink)

It seems that the above account of explanation-strategy in the area of temperature adaptation underscores many of the points made earlier. First, it discloses the fruitful interaction of classical, evolutionary, and molecular approaches. Secondly, it indicates that biological characterizations are not rival accounts to chemical ones. Thirdly, it stresses the importance of the DNA sequence order in chemical explanations of biological organisms.One feature which this area does not seem to reveal, which genetics does, is the development of a biological (that (...) is, non-chemical) theory which would explain temperature adaptation in nonchemical terms. What this shows is that one should not always expect systematization at the biological level, in the sense of being able to refer many phenomena to a small number of basic principles. The future development of laws and theories in biological terms in this area is, of course, not precluded by the fact that none have yet been discovered. The case does indicate that physical and chemical language and theories are extremely useful in biological investigations, and the physicochemical approach may well be the best approach in this area. In any event, ultimate reduction of the biological to the chemical seems to be a foregone non-controversial conclusion here as elsewhere. (shrink)

This paper provides an existential analysis of humour as a social virtue in invasion games at the elite sport level. The main argument is that humour in this particular context can be valuable both in the competitive social training environment and in game performance. This is investigated through philosophical and psychological conceptualisations of humour that are used to reveal and analyse the appearance and possible value of a humorous approach in various social situations experienced during invasion games and the associated (...) training situations. It is concluded that humour can help balance and structure the social training environment as well as facilitate creative game performance. On this basis it is suggested that the existential perspectives on humour presented could make a fruitful contribution to talent development in the domain of invasion games. (shrink)

A number of recent developments in our understanding of the biology of heritability question commonly held views on the immutability of genetic factors. These have numerous potential implications for improving understanding and practice in pre- and postconceptional care and for infant and child mental health, and they carry a cautionary message against overgeneralization.

A review of Manfred Spitzer's The mind within the net: Models of learning, thinking, and acting.

Though a small and relatively obscure country, Scotland enjoyed a certain prominence in the modern Western missionary movement. Explanation of this may be attempted by an examination of some principal characteristics of Scottish engagement in worldwide mission during the 19th and 20th centuries. These include social vision, ecclesial commitment, intellectual quality, extensive engagement, an inclination to the long view, and a balance struck between national identity and global outlook. As new movements of mission find their shape and direction, the Scottish (...) experience worldwide across two centuries may have some value as a point of reference. (shrink)