The Rising Sun Battlefield Journal published by the East-Is-Red Commune of the Beijing Institute of Light Industry devoted as many as six pages to an all-out attack of "On Family Background" in a long and despicable article titled "The Big Poisonous Weed ‘On Family Background’ Must Be Torn Up by the Roots." In their own words, the appearance of this article was inevitable at a time when the Cultural Revolution reached the stage of great alliance [of mass rebel organizations] and (...) the great power seizure [from capitalist-roaders within the Party]. (shrink)

Recognition that the Principle of Respect for Autonomy fails to work in family-centric societies such as Singapore has recently led to the promotion of relational autonomy as a suitable framework within which to place healthcare decision making. However, empirical data, relating to patient and family opinions and the practices of healthcare professionals in Confucian-inspired Singapore, demonstrate clear limitations on the ability of a relational autonomy framework to provide the anticipated compromise between prevailing family decision-making norms and adopted Western led atomistic (...) concepts of autonomy. Evidence suggests that despite a growing infusion of Western influence, there is still little to indicate any major shift to individual decision making, particularly in light of the way society and healthcare are structured. Similarly, the lack of employing a shared decision-making model and data that discredit the notion that the complex psychosocial and cultural factors that affect the decision making may be considered “content neutral” not only prevents the application of relational autonomy but questions the viability of the values behind the Principle of Respect for Autonomy. Taking into account local data and drawing upon a wider concept of personhood that extends beyond prevailing family-centric ideals along with the complex interests that are focused upon the preservation of the unique nature of personhood that arises from the Ring Theory of Personhood, we propose and “operationalize” the employing of an authoritative welfare-based approach, within the confines of best interest decision making, to better meet the current care needs within Singapore. (shrink)

Editor's Note: Over a long period of time, the evil bourgeois reactionary line has created antagonism between two groups of students in schools—antagonism on the basis of one's family background. This antagonism became very obvious during the initial stage of the Cultural Revolution, and has lasted to this day. It has prevented further criticism of the bourgeois reactionary line and hindered further development of the Cultural Revolution.

In Mengzi 6A4, Gaozi states that “yì 義 (propriety, rightness) is external, not internal.” In 6A5, Meng Jizi says of yì that “...it is on the external, not from the internal.” Their defenses are met with Mengzi’s resistance. What does he perceive and resist in these statements? Focusing on several key passages, I compare six promising interpretations. 6A4 and a relevant part of 2A2 can be rendered comparably sensible under each of the six. However, what Gaozi says in 6A1 clearly (...) is evidence to Mengzi that, of the six views, Gaozi holds three although he does not convey them in his statement. As for Meng Jiz’s defense of his statement, Meng Jizi cites a special occasion where one is required to act one way even though one would feel a different way. Mengzi’s response has been traditionally interpreted as boiling down to a dissenting opinion about empirical psychology, that the agent on that special occasion would in fact feel the same way as they ought to act. But on a more charitable reading, the point Mengzi makes is conceptual: Though the satisfaction of yì may not require that the feeling and the act align perfectly in this case, cases where the alignment obtains are conceptually prior. This not only refutes Meng Jizi’s statement but also enables a more elegant explanation of why the Mengzi rightly has no record of Mengzi affirming that yì is internal. I conclude that 6A5 itself uniquely favors one interpretation, as far as Meng Jizi’s position is concerned: How one feels is irrelevant to whether one satisfies yì. (shrink)

In December of last year, a few clowns appeared on the grand and spectacular stage of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution. These clowns were the reincarnated ghosts from the Capital Red Guard West City, East City, and Haidian Districts Pickets. They viciously attacked Chairman Mao's revolutionary line, engaged in slander on the Central Cultural Revolution Group, called dear Comrade Jiang Qing names, and sabotaged the organizations under the proletarian dictatorship. They provoked violence, created chaos, searched and confiscated the possessions of (...) revolutionary organizations, and spread reactionary declarations. The crimes they committed are simply too numerous to mention. These clowns were none other than the "Capital Red Guards United Action Committee.". (shrink)

This volume brings together flux essays by an eminent scholar on the origins, development, and import of Kant's philosophy, chiefly in its metaphysical aspects. Four of these were separately published between 1924 and 1926, but until now have been difficult to obtain, despite great demand. Their appearance here will be welcomed. The thesis emerging from these studies is that the critical philosophy originates in metaphysical probings concerning the nature and presuppositions of being, and issues in doctrines which, despite psychological, epistemological, (...) and ethical presentation, are intended to have definite ontological import. --L. K. B. (shrink)

A comparative methodological examination of neo-positivism and analytic philosophy, phenomenology, and existentialism. These are interpreted as springing from the cultural and existential crisis of our time, each responding to a genuine element of this crisis, and thus tending toward integration into a unified method by which modern thought can extricate itself from the crisis--a recognition of the logical analysis of language, tempered by phenomenology and an historical orientation, as the methodological basis of modern philosophy. Speculative metaphysics and cosmology are much (...) too lightly dismissed.--L. K. B. (shrink)

Is the virtue of the good citizen the same as the virtue of the good man? Aristotle addresses this in Politics 3.4. His answer is twofold. On the one hand, (the account for Difference) they are not the same both because what the citizen’s virtue is depends on the constitution, on what preserves it, and on the role the citizen plays in it, and because the good citizens in the best constitution cannot all be good men, whereas the good man’s (...) virtue is uniform. On the other hand, (the account for Identity) the two virtues are identical in the good men in the best constitution, in which all are good citizens, each possessing the ability for ruling and for being ruled. This nuanced answer can be seen as Aristotle’s synthesis of a Periclean view (contribution to state blots out personal wrongs) and a Socratic view (no good citizen is without justice). Its nuances reflect the extent to which Aristotle’s conceptions of good citizenship and the best constitution accommodate deviations of what is probable from the human ideal set out in his ethical writings. In the present chapter, I will first address three puzzles regarding the nuances of Aristotle’s answer. Second, I will consider one question about its implication: Does Aristotle’s account for Difference turn out to entail something ultra-Periclean: that no one can simultaneously be a good man and a good citizen in any constitution other than the best? I shall argue the negative. (shrink)

An attempt to clarify and establish systematically foundations for a "formal" science of axiology, relating it to the social sciences and humanities as mathematics is related to the natural sciences.--L. K. B.

The report of a special commission engaged by the National Book Committee, Inc. to make an inquiry into the theory of censorship and the freedom to read. It presents 1. a philosophical, sociological, and legal analysis of the grounds and implications of censorship, 2. recommendations concerning the needed systematic empirical investigation into the effects of books, the formation of reading taste, etc., and 3. suggestions as to immediate action.--L. K. B.

A reprint of Freud's lectures of 1910. In his philosophically critical preface, Allers briefly but effectively points up logical and scientific weaknesses in Freud's theories, attributes their peculiar success to the appealing ambiguity of approach as between the scientific and the historical, then finds their chief merit in furthering the recognition of man's "historicity."--L. K. B.

Not a philosophical analysis or explication, this compact, lyrical study remains deliberately within the "organic" categories of biblical speech--which it is part of its purpose to exemplify--and with considerable success communicates the Christian conception of ethical life as man's response to God's self-revealing activity in history, to be understood only in terms of "the living continuity between man-in-God and man-in-man."--L. K. B.

A thoughtful inventor-businessman's statement of the simple truth about the world: All is energy, with causal order everywhere, and with such forces dominating as to justify optimistic trust in the necessary course of events.--L. K. B.

(No abstract is available for this citation).

A rewritten version, following the same plan and theme, of the author's earlier work of the same title. New chapters are added on Unamuno's ideas of fiction and of reality. The bibliographical appendix, with brief comments, is brought up-to-date. The unifying stress is on the "incessant fluctuation" between opposites, such as reason and the irrational, as the source of Unamuno's originality. Sympathetically expository rather than critical, this brief sketch deliberately sacrifices precision and analysis for the sake of "interiorizacion"--probably the most (...) profitable introductory approach to such a thinker.--L. K. B. (shrink)

A collection of essays on various aspects of philosophy of science, written around the turn of the century by a perceptive historian of science and methodologist who, under the influence of Peirce, Mach and Peano, anticipated many basic doctrines of the later semantically oriented analytic philosophy. The short introduction discusses Vailati's viewpoint in connection with his chief contemporaries; a brief biography and bibliography are provided. --L. K. B.

In a critical study of the factor-analytical theory of knowledge of the psychologist C. E. Spearman, the author tries to show that many so-called discoveries of modern psychology are mere elementary and unconscious repetitions of the older but much clearer Thomistic concepts.--L. K. B.

This presentation of scientific methodology tries to avoid metaphysical issues without being unphilosophical. Drawing from a wide range of material, the book describes clearly but rather generally what empirical scientists are concerned with, how they proceed, what they accomplish. The five parts deal with the roles in science of definitions, physical laws and theories, induction, and the interplay of reason and immediate experience. Despite the slant indicated by the many quotations from St. Thomas and Aristotle--peculiarly but pleasantly combined with passages (...) from Einstein, Schrödinger, de Broglie, Eddington, etc.--a rather objective presentation is achieved.--L. K. B. (shrink)

On the basis of a re-examination of the status of laws, evidence, confirmation, prediction and explanation in sciences, social as well as physical, in which the reasoning processes are not fully formalized-this informative, pioneering monograph sketches a new epistemological orientation. It emphasizes the development of specifically predictive instrumentalities, regarding which new possibilities are explored and further areas of research suggested.--L. K. B.

A disciple's exposition of the semi-mystical system of Msgr. Mario Sturzo, drawing solely on the latter's La Filosofia dell' Avvenire. Supposedly a critical re-thinking of the system, the author proposes with an air of daring to alter some of Sturzo's verbal formulas. --L. K. B.

A brief study, through certain dialogues of Alfonso de Valdes, of the form taken by Erasmianism in the peculiar cultural milieu of 16th-century Spain.--L. K. B.

An ebullient mixture of metaphors into a vision of a here-and-now realization of the potencies of the Spirit as it stretches out "celestial antennae" to contact the Dynamic Power of Life.--L. K. B.

After introducing and illustrating the idea of a calculus, this work develops a philosophically interesting but technical theory of the foundation of logic, in connection with propositional calculi and in relation to recent metamathematical research; then quantification theory is introduced, including material on completeness and undecidability and the theory of equality. Not just another logic text, this information-packed little treatise will probably find a place among the classical introductions to the field.--L. K. B.

In clear, concise language, balancing analysis with evaluation, the author explores briefly the nature and function of ritual, our attitudes toward it, and its proper place in modern life.--L. K. B.

This textbook, oriented toward non-majors in philosophy, aims to provide an understanding not merely of forms of valid and invalid inference but also of the cognitive situation, of the methods of successful "problem-solving thought" and of the role of language therein. Great emphasis is thus placed on semiotics, which is integrated with the material from methodology and logic by considerations from general theory of knowledge. The whole presentation is marked by innovations, both pedagogical and theoretical. Most of the material of (...) the usual course in elementary formal logic is crowded into the last part. The author has attempted, with some success, to develop a reformed "traditional" approach to logic in the light of the recent technical advances in semiotic and symbolic logic, without reducing it to a narrow and fragmentary formal exposition of these sciences. --L. K. B. (shrink)

The study examines the relationship between the strength of an organizationÕs ethical climate and ethical problems involving human resource management. Data were collected through a survey of 1078 human resource managers. The results indicate a statistically significant negative relationship between the strength of an organization'ss ethical climate and the seriousness of ethical violations and a statistically significant positive relationship between an organization'ss ethical climate and success in responding to ethical issues. Thus, interventions that strengthen an organization'ss ethical climate may help (...) manage ethical behavior within organizations. (shrink)