In managers' dynamic, real-world environments, they often feel it is necessary to exercise some creative discretion over employee ratings. Most managers do not describe their ratings of subordinates in performance appraisals as completely honest or accurate. The inaccuracy is often in the form of inflated ratings. They justify the inaccuracy by sighting, among other things, the need to avoid confrontation with subordinates, damaging working relationships, and creating permanent written documents which may later harm a subordinate's career. Many of these motives (...) are not only well intentioned, but are designed to enhance individual, unit, and organizational performance (some of the ultimate objectives of performance appraisal systems.) This paper examines the ethics of this sort of deliberate manipulation of performance appraisal systems. It suggests that at the organizational level, performance appraisal is usually seen as an end in itself, and a formalist ethical critique is applied. At the managerial level, performance appraisal is usually seen as a means to an end, and a utilitarian critique is applied. Since both perspectives are essential, we conclude that a Janus-Headed analysis is needed. We suggest some duties and obligations for both the organization and the manager engaged in performance appraisal. (shrink)

Scientific realism is the position that success of a scientific theory licenses an inference to its approximate truth. The argument from pessimistic meta-induction maintains that this inference is undermined due to the existence of theories from the history of science that were successful, but false. I aim to counter pessimistic meta-induction and defend scientific realism. To do this, I adopt a notion of success that admits of degrees, and show that our current best theories enjoy far higher degrees of success (...) than any of the successful, but refuted theories of the past. (shrink)

Sometimes the thesis has been put forth that the languages of 3- Dimensionalism and 4-Dimensionalism are completey translatable into each other without any loss of meaning. Prominently, this thesis has recently been defended by Jonathan Lowe and Storrs McCall. A global inter-translatability would show that there is no deeper systematic or even ontological difference between these philosophical positions despite that both are using a different vocabulary to describe the same features of reality. In this paper, I want to argue that (...) the thesis of 3D-4D-Equivalence covers some interesting aspects of the discussion between 3-Dimensionalists and 4-Dimensionalists, but is not able to grasp fully the ontological intuitions of both positions. At the end of the day, it seems necessary to refute the thesis that 3-Dimensionalism and 4-Dimensionalism are eqivalent in the sense that both are completely translatable into each other. (shrink)

We have previously proposed that mothers and infants co-regulate one another’s autonomic state through an autonomic conditioning mechanism, which starts during gestation and results in the formation of autonomic socioemotional reflexes following birth. Theoretically, autonomic physiology associated with the ASR should correlate concomitantly with behaviors of mother and infant, although the neuronal pathway by which this phenomenon occurs has not been elucidated. In this paper, we consider the neuronal pathway by which sensory stimuli between a mother and her baby/child affect (...) the physiology and emotional behavior of each. We divide our paper into two parts. In the first part, to gain perspective on current theories on the subject, we conduct a 500-year narrative history of scientific investigations into the human nervous system and theories that describe the neuronal pathway between sensory stimulus and emotional behavior. We then review inconsistencies between several currently accepted theories and recent data. In the second part, we lay out a new theory of emotions that describes how sensory stimuli between mother and baby unconsciously control the behavior and physiology of both. We present a theory of mother/infant emotion based on a set of assumptions fundamentally different from current theories. Briefly, we propose that mother/infant sensory stimuli trigger conditional autonomic socioemotional reflexes, which drive cardiac function and behavior without the benefit of the thalamus, amygdala or cortex. We hold that the ASR is shaped by an evolutionarily conserved autonomic learning mechanism that forms between mother and fetus during gestation and continues following birth. We highlight our own and others research findings over the past 15 years that support our contention that mother/infant socioemotional behavior is driven by mutual autonomic state plasticity, as opposed to cortical trait plasticity. We review a novel assessment tool designed to measure the behaviors associated with the ASR phenomenon. Finally, we discuss the significance of our theory for the treatment of mothers and infants with socioemotional disorders. (shrink)

The relation between virtue and nature, including human nature, depends on the different meanings and uses of the concept of “nature” as well as its change in the history of thought. Under the influence of modern sciences, nature as an object of “value-free” causal explanations increasingly loses its normative significance for ethics and virtues. In contemporary philosophy, there are basically three principal conceptions of their relation: ethical naturalism based on natural science, anti-natural ethics of reason, and virtue-ethics based on evaluative (...) concepts of nature. Only in some versions of the third option have virtues more than just an instrumental value. As such, they provide criteria for the direction of technological transformation of human and non-human nature. (shrink)

The Routledge Handbook of Collective Intentionality is the first of its kind, synthesizing research from several disciplines for all students and professionals interested in better understanding the nature and structure of social reality. The contents of the volume are divided into eight sections, each of which begins with a short introduction: Collective Action and Intention Shared and Joint Attitudes Epistemology and Rationality in the Social Context Social Ontology Collectives and Responsibility Collective Intentionality and Social Institutions The Extent, Origins, and Development (...) of Collective Intentionality Semantics of Collectivity The eight sections contain a total of 40 accessible chapters, all written exclusively for this volume by a team of internationally recognized experts. Each chapter ends with a References and a Further Reading section as well as cross-references to other germane chapters in the volume. A longer General Introduction provides an initial overview of the history as well as the current issues and problems in collective intentionality, the range of topics and their interconnections, and the organization of the _Handbook_. Systematic in its approach and thorough and detailed in its coverage_, The Routledge Handbook of Collective Intentionality_ provides readers with a valuable reference to this rapidly growing, cross-disciplinary research area and a trailhead to its most promising future directions. (shrink)

This paper shows how one can respond within truth-theoretic semantics, without appeal to parataxis, to Donald Davidson's objection to the intelligibility of Paul Horwich's statement of the minimalist position on truth.

Although Hilary Putnam has played a significant role in shaping contemporary philosophy of mind, he has more recently criticised its metaphysical foundations as fun-damentally flawed. According to Putnam, the standard positions in the philosophy of mind rest on dubious ontological assumptions which are challenged by his “pragmatic pluralism” and the idea that we can always describe reality in different but equally fun-damental ways. Putnam considers this pluralism about conceptual resources as an alterna-tive to both physicalism and dualism. Contrary to physicalism, (...) Putnam’s pluralism rejects the ontological priority of physical concepts. Contrary to dualism, pragmatic pluralism denies that equally fundamental conceptual systems refer to ontologically distinct realms of reality. The aim of this paper is to discuss and clarify the implications of Putnam’s pragmatic pluralism for the philosophy of mind. The first section introduces Putnam’s concept of conceptual relativity and his rejection of an absolute ontology. In the second section, I argue that conceptual relativity leads to a pragmatic pluralism which under-mines the common ontological framework of physicalism and dualism. The third section explains how pragmatic pluralists can reject identity claims without being committed to dualism. The last section discusses the implications of Putnam’s pragmatic pluralism for the mind-body problem by focussing on phenomenal consciousness and mental causation. (shrink)

Long awaited by the scholarly community, Wittgenstein's so-called Big Typescript is presented here in an en face English-German scholar's edition. Presents scholar's edition of important material from 1933, Wittgenstein's first efforts to set out his new thoughts after the publication of the Tractatus Logico Philosophicus Includes indications to help the reader identify Wittgenstein's numerous corrections, additions, deletions, alternative words and phrasings, suggestions for moves within the text, and marginal comments.

Assertoric sentences are sentences which admit of truth or falsity. Non-assertoric sentences, imperatives and interrogatives, have long been a source of difficulty for the view that a theory of truth for a natural language can serve as the core of a theory of meaning. The trouble for truth-theoretic semantics posed by non-assertoric sentences is that, prima facie, it does not make sense to say that imperatives, such as 'Cut your hair', or interrogatives such as 'What time is it?', are truth (...) or false. Thus, the vehicle for giving the meaning of a sentence by using an interpretive truth theory, the T-sentence, is apparently unavailable for non-assertoric sentences. This paper shows how to incorporate non-assertoric sentences into a theory of meaning that gives central place to an interpretive truth theory for the language, without, however, reducing the non-assertorics to assertorics, or treating their utterances as semantically equivalent to one or more utterances of assertoric sentences. Four proposals for how to incorporate non-assertoric sentences into a broadly truth-theoretic semantics are reviewed. The proposals fall into two classes, those that attempt to explain the meaning of non-assertoric sentences solely by appeal to truth conditions, and those that attempt to explain the meaning of non-assertroic sentences by appeal to compliance conditions, which can be treated as one variety of fulfillment conditions for sentences of which truth conditions are another variety. The paper argues that none of the extant approaches is successful, but develops a version of the generalized fulfillment approach which avoids the difficulties of previous approaches and still exhibits a truth theory as the central component of a compositional meaning theory for all sentences of natural language. (shrink)

Brute facts are facts that have no explanation. If we come to know that a fact is brute, we obviously don’t get an explanation of that fact. Nevertheless, we do make some sort of epistemic gain. In this essay, I give an account of that epistemic gain, and suggest that the idea of brute facts allows us to distinguish between the notion of explanation and the notion of understanding. I also discuss Eric Barnes’ (1994) attack on Friedman’s (1974) version of (...) the uni-fication theory of explanation. The nification theory asserts that scientific understanding results from minimizing the number of brute facts that we have to accept in our view of he world. Barnes claims that the unification theory cannot do justice to he notion of being a brute fact, because it implies that brute facts are gaps in our understanding of the world. I defend Friedman’s theory against Barnes’ critique. (shrink)

Bazzocchi disposes the text of the Tractatus in a user-friendly manner, exactly as Wittgenstein's decimals advise. This discloses the logical form of the book by distinct reading units, linked into a fashioned hierarchical tree. The text becomes much clearer and every reader can enjoy, finally, its formal and literary qualities.

Wittgenstein wrote the Philosophical Grammar during the years 1931 to 1934 - the period just before he began to dictate the Blue Book. Although it is close to the Investigations in some points, and to the Phiosophische Bemerkungen at others, the Philosophical Grammar is an independent work which covers new ground. It is Wittgenstein's fullest treatment of logic and mathematics in their connection with his later understanding of 'proposition', 'sign', and 'system'. He also discusses inference and generality - critisizing views (...) of Frege and Russell as well as earlier views of his own - and the treatment of mathematical proof in this book, especially of inductive or recursive proofs, is deeper and more extensive than previously. (shrink)

This first volume of Wittgenstein's Last Writings on the Philosophy of Psychology was written between October 1948 and March 1949, when the philosopher had moved to Dublin and was having one of his most fruitful working periods. He then finished work which he had begun in 1946 and which in its entirety constitutes the source material for Part II of the "Philosophical Investigations". When, later in 1949, Wittgenstein composed the manuscript for Part II he selected more than half the remarks (...) for it from the Dublin manuscript. Although this material is a direct continuation of the writings which make up the two volumes of the Remarks on the Philosophy of Psychology it deserves more than they to be regarded as a "preliminary study" for the second part of Wittgenstein's "chef-d'oeuvre". (shrink)

Excerpt from Vorlesungen Über das Wesen der Religion: Nebst Zusätzen und Anmerkungen Sch reihe fie meinen fammtliehen qberfen 016 ben achten sbanb an, weil ber 6chlu6 mit bem i'befen be6 @heiftenthume ein finniofer, bem b[an' bee 3bee, biz meiner (R)efammtaugahe 511 @mnbe liegt, burchauo miberfpmhenbee Ware. S>iefer gnfolge habe ich ba qbefen be6 (shtiftenthumo an meiner erften, b. H. Fruhften thrift gemacht, unb bahn abfiehttich bte @efammtauagabe mit ben (erlauterungen unb @rgangungen gum qbefen be6 @hriftenthumo begonnen. Sda nun aber bafl'elbe (...) buch auch in hie (c)efammtauogabe mit aufgenommen merben mute, fo eefcheint e6 feet bem (R)ruef nach 16 mein Iehte6 bert, mein Ieter qbifle unb (c)ebanfe. S)tefer trugerifche 6chein mu bahn auf; gehoben, ba6 (shetflenthum auf ben *blah guruefgebrangt werben, ber ihm in %ahrhcit gebuhrt. $dte6 gefehieht aber bureh btefeoflefungen. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works. (shrink)

This text is a dynamic new translation of Wittgenstein' s most famous work -- one of the most influential philosophy works of the Twentieth Century. Kolak' s translation is the first to read like an original work written in English and is the first to restore the poetical and lyrical qualities of the original Tractatus as intended by the author.

Even his peers called Locke's political philosophy “The ABC of Politics“: not only does he clarify why one should exit the state of nature (government guarantees protection of life, freedom, and wealth) but also what a good government has to provide. A government should protect individuals from assaults of fellow citizens, other countries, and itself. Locke also shows how to put limits to the power of political institutions: by division of powers, by law, by neutral judges, and by making people (...) trust their government -- and having the right to revolt when their trust is betrayed. This book provides a cooperative commentary to all important topics of Locke's "Two Treatises". With entries by Wolfgang von Leyden, Bernd Ludwig, Peter Niesen, Francis Oakley, Birger P. Priddat, Michaela Rehm, Michael Schefczyk, Ludwig Siep, A. John Simmons, und Simone Zurbuchen. (shrink)

The central concept in Kant's _Doctrine of Law_ is the concept of a _person_. This very concept is intimately connected with Kant's theory of transcendental freedom and thus with his Transcendental Idealism. Hence the conceptual framework of the _Doctrine of Law_ and with it the 'Universal Principle of Right' are inseparably connected to Kant's _critical_ moral philosophy and require especially the moral law as their foundation. But nevertheless this does not entail that legal coercion requires the personality of those who (...) are subject to it: A Kantian state would be possible even for a people of devils. (shrink)

The ArgumentIn this paper it will be shown that Newton'sPrincipiagives an explication of and an argument for the first Law of Motion, that seems to be outside the scope of today's philosophy of science but was familiar to seventeenth-century commentators: The foundation of classical mechanics is possible only by recurrence to results of a successful technical practice. Laws of classical mechanics gain their meaning as well as their claims to validity only when considered as statements about artifacts whose production belongs (...) to the shared know-how of a scientific community. (shrink)

Die Willensfreiheit und ihr Verhaltniss zur gottlichen Prascienz - und Providenz bei den judischen Philosophen des Mittelalters ist ein unveranderter, hochwertiger Nachdruck der Originalausgabe aus dem Jahr 1881. Hansebooks ist Herausgeber von Literatur zu unterschiedlichen Themengebieten wie Forschung und Wissenschaft, Reisen und Expeditionen, Kochen und Ernahrung, Medizin und weiteren Genres.Der Schwerpunkt des Verlages liegt auf dem Erhalt historischer Literatur.Viele Werke historischer Schriftsteller und Wissenschaftler sind heute nur noch als Antiquitaten erhaltlich. Hansebooks verlegt diese Bucher neu und tragt damit zum Erhalt (...) selten gewordener Literatur und historischem Wissen auch fur die Zukunft bei.". (shrink)