ABSTRACTIn this article, we explore the debate on corporate citizenship and the role of business in global governance. In the debate on political corporate social responsibility it is assumed that under globalization business is taking up a greater political role. Apart from economic responsibilities firms assume political responsibilities taking up traditional governmental tasks such as regulation of business and provision of public goods. We contrast this with a subsidiarity-based approach to governance, in which firms are seen as intermediate actors who (...) have political co-responsibilities in society endowed upon them by national governmental institutions. We argue that both approaches face conceptual and empirical problems, and do not make clear the content and scope of political corporate responsibility. Based on Iris Marion Young’s account of political responsibility we argue that corporate actors and governmental actors have a shared responsibility to tackle societal problems. Taking political corporate responsibility not only entails engaging in private action or engaging in public–private partnerships, but it also includes aiding governmental actors to remedy injustice or even create public institutions where they do not yet exist. By adding this perspective we contribute to the debate on responsibility in corporate citizenship and clarify the political role business can play in global governance. (shrink)

Introduction Moral concern for animals is commonly formulated in terms of concern for their welfare. Yet, besides the welfare issue, although highly ...

The present study explores the contribution of the Slovak philosophical school, which uniquely grasped the European and Czechoslovak heritage of phenomenology and existential philosophy. In the text, the authors present a congenial and undeniably up-to-date concept of syncriticism as developed by Jozef Piaček and analyse its contribution to Slovak philosophical discourse and more broadly, in the dialogue of phenomenology and existential philosophy in Slovakia. In the study, the authors also examine the cultural-philosophical starting points and specifics of Slovak modern philosophy (...) and postmodern thinking as phenomena of the Central European intellectual space in the context of thinking about the unique and inspiring project of perichronosophy as a thematic invariant developed at philosophical workplaces in Central Europe (Comenius University Bratislava, Trnava University Trnava, Charles University Prague, Masaryk University Brno). Jozef Piaček has been affiliated with the Faculty of Arts, Comenius University for many years, studied under Jan Patočka and is an expert on Husserl’s phenomenology. He has continuously developed a unique philosophical approach involving syncriticism and perichronosophy, which continues to resonate with his students at academic institutions in Slovakia and abroad. Piaček published several monographs and papers on the subject of syncriticism. The platform of living philosophy is his concept of a digital philosophical encyclopaedia, where he archives all publication outputs on the subject of the philosophy of syncriticism. This text will present Piaček’s concept of perichronosophy and concordance in Slovak philosophy, more broadly in phenomenology, as well as in the context of Patočka’s themes (philosophy as care for the soul in the village) with implications for the philosophy of education and philosophical therapy (dasein-analysis). (shrink)

Although neither Marx nor Engels attempted a systematic analysis of the development of merchant capitalism in 17th-century Holland, both did mention this "model capitalist nation" in their writings. Their analysis stressed that Dutch capitalism was based on the exploitation of non-capitalist forms of production, and that the decline of the Dutch Republic in the 18th century was the history of the subordination of commercial capital to industrial capital. Since the turn of the century Dutch Marxists have contributed substantially to this (...) classical analysis, paying much attention to the Dutch Revolt against Spain, which they considered as an early bourgeois revolution led by aristocrats. Nowadays Marxist historians seem to be divided as to the nature of the Dutch Republic: was it a "feudal business economy" or the first appearance of a full-fledged capitalism? A necessary conclusion seems to be that the realities of Dutch history call for a non-unilinear Marxist interpretation. (shrink)

In this essay I explore the role of dialectics for how social theory can take account of the problem of structure and agency, or, determination and freedom, in a critical and emancipatory way. I discuss the limits and possibilities of dialectical, and of anti-dialectical, criticisms of Hegelian dialectics. For this purpose, I look at Judith Butler’s discussion of dialectics and the concepts of ‘sex’ and ‘gender’ in her writings between 1987 ( Subjects of Desire ; republished 1999) and 1990 ( (...) Gender Trouble , republished 2000). Butler’s book Gender Trouble remains a key text of contemporary feminist theory. Butler formulates in this book a critique of Simone de Beauvoir’s The Second Sex based on her claim that Beauvoir makes a distinction between ‘sex’ and ‘gender’ that implies the notion of the sexed body as a pre-cultural entity. In her earlier writings, though, her evaluation of de Beauvoir had been much more positive. The change in Butler’s evaluation of de Beauvoir is part of her increasing rejection of dialectics: Butler rejected in Gender Trouble any form of Hegelian dialectics with reference to Luce Irigaray’s (1985) claim that it is ‘phallogocentric’. Although Butler subsequently returned to Hegelian themes, she seems never to have revoked this claim made in her most momentous work. I argue that this change in the theoretical structure of Butler’s argument weakens her critique of identity politics and I suggest reading Butler backwards, from Gender Trouble to the more open discussion of dialectics in her earlier texts. Drawing on Adorno’s Negative Dialectics and other formulations of critical theory, I argue that the valid aspects of the critique of Hegelian dialectics can better be formulated as a dialectical critique of dialectics (Adorno; Butler, 1987a) than as a rejection of dialectics (Derrida; Irigaray; Butler, 1990). Retracing the genealogy of Butler’s argument will be a necessary backdrop, too, for evaluating her more recent comments on the Hegelian and ‘Frankfurt School’ traditions such as her Adorno Lectures given in Frankfurt am Main, Germany, in November 2002. Key Words: Theodor W. Adorno • agency • Judith Butler • Simone de Beauvoir • dialectics • emancipation • G. W. F. Hegel • sex/gender distinction • structure • subjectivity. (shrink)

" Notre époque est celle de la prise de conscience de l'unité humaine. Dès lors, il est temps que la philosophie accomplisse sa vocation à l'universalité. Comme la nature est cela seul qui s'offre avec évidence à tous les hommes, une philosophie œcuménique ne peut être qu'une philosophie de la Nature. Or, si l'on lit le Tao-te king avec, en pensée, la philosophie naturaliste des Grecs d'avant Socrate, celle, en particulier, d'Héraclite, on se trouve en pays familier, et l'on vérifie (...) que les mêmes évidences essentielles s'imposent à tous les humains, à tous ceux du moins capables d'appréhender la Nature dans l'Ouvert. " M.C. (shrink)

L'expression « jeune fille » n'est pas très fréquente avant le XIXe siècle, tout au moins dans son sens actuel désignant spécifiquement une « fille nubile » ou une « femme jeune non mariée » (Robert). Mais ces définitions elles-mêmes restent approximatives : va-t-on prendre en compte la « nubilité » biologique liée à la menstruation, si variable selon les peuples, les climats, les personnes, et qui semble avoir été nettement plus tardive qu'aujourd'hui ? Ou une nubilité juridique, par..

Was der Mensch ist, wird seit Jahrtausenden lebhaft diskutiert. Sowohl religiöse als auch säkulare Begründungen stehen dabei als Erklärungsmodelle zur Verfügung, allerdings ohne bisher eine überzeugende Antwort geben zu können. Aus vier unterschiedlichen Perspektiven wird in diesem Band der Frage nachgegangen, was den Menschen auszeichnet. Die allgemeinverständlichen Beiträge von Dagmar Fenner, Annemarie Pieper, Wilhelm Schmid und Dieter Thomä widerstehen dabei der Verführung, endgültige Antworten geben zu wollen, sondern regen zur Selbstreflexion an.

Robots are used in various social interactions that require them to be perceived as credible agents. To be rated credible a robot’s mentalizing abilities have shown to be beneficial because they allow a robot to infer users’ inner states, thus serving as a prerequisite for understanding their beliefs and attitudes. However, social robots are often deployed by private and thus profit-oriented companies. In such cases where an organization’s implied manipulative intent is salient, the effect of robots’ mentalizing abilities might be (...) reversed. The reason for this is that mentalizing abilities could pose a persuasive threat to users rather than a feature for better understanding, thereby decreasing credibility attributions. These assumptions were tested in a three by two between-subjects, pre-registered, laboratory experiment during which participants interacted with a social robot that recommended experience vouchers as potential gifts for participants’ target persons. Contrary to our assumptions, inferential statistical results revealed no significant differences in explicit or indirect credibility attributions caused by the experimental manipulation. The external manipulative intent of an organization using the robot caused no differences in participants’ behavioral intentions or evaluations of it. Furthermore, only participants’ attribution of empathic understanding to the robot varied significantly between the three mentalizing conditions. Our results suggest that people focus more on the robot than on the organization using it, causing potential opportunities for such organizations to hide their economic interests from the users. (shrink)

Introduction to Giambattista Vico: The Anglo-American perspective Marcel Danesi. Giambattista Vico (-) In, the Neapolitan rhetorician and philosopher, ...

"Toute ma philosophie a sa source dans mon coeur" écrit Vauvenargues ; et Auguste Comte affirme "la prépondérance du coeur sur l'esprit" et entend instaurer le "règne du coeur". De là, ces Conversations avec Vauvenargues, Auguste Comte et d'autres auteurs, autour de la notion de coeur - comme ce qui dans l'homme est le plus sensible à autrui, à sa peine, à sa souffrance - et autour de tous les sentiments ou vertus qui ont leur racine dans le coeur, telles (...) que la fidélité, la gratitude, la ferveur, la pitié, la générosité, l'admiration, mais aussi et surtout l'amitié et l'amour. (shrink)

Propose une étude sur une période particulière de l'histoire du philosophe, celle de sa compromission avec le nazisme en 1933.

Après un livre plutôt austère sur Héraclite, l'auteur revient à la libre expression de soi ("C'est moy que je peins") où "expression de soi" ne signifie pas oubli des autres, qu'il s'agisse de ses proches, de ses amis (plusieurs fois présents par leurs lettres), de philosophes ("Rencontre de Pascal", "Hegel et le mal") ou d'hommes politiques ("Macron et la Crimée"). Reste que bien des chapitres ont un accent personnel, chapitres qu'une émotion inspire : nostalgie ("Au lycée d'Evreux"), fierté ("Mon sujet (...) de fierté"), humiliation ("Le vélo"), résignation ("Vieillir"), tout cela à l'ombre des préoccupations métaphysiques fondamentales ("La Nature comme Tout et source de vie", et "Vers la Nature infinie"). (shrink)

This study looks at the relation between mathematical discovery and semiosis, focusing on the famous Fibonacci sequence. The serendipitous discovery of this sequence as the answer to a puzzle designed by Italian mathematician Leonardo Fibonacci to illustrate the efficiency of the decimal number system is one of those episodes in human history which show how serendipity, semiosis, and discovery are intertwined. As such, the sequence has significant implications for the study of creative semiosis, since it suggests that symbols are hardly (...) arbitrary products of human reason, but rather unconscious probes of reality. (shrink)