In China, twenty years of reform, which started precisely with the repudiation of egalitarianism and the encouragement to "get rich first," has led to a serious interrogation of the ethics of wealth creation and accumulation. The issue of equity has become a subject of intense intellectual contestation in China, particularly in the recent debates between the liberals and the New Left.1 For a society with a time-honored tradition of putting emphasis on collective values, there is every reason for all parties (...) in the dispute to claim concern for equity and selfless motivation in probing the question of social justice, although they are deeply divided in their assessment of the extent of inequalities in China today, especially in comparison to the Mao era; in their opinions about the origin of the current inequalities; and in their attitudes toward and remedies for them. This paper is an attempt to explore the complexity of contention between the Left and the liberals, as well as the prospects for a third way for China. (shrink)

The paper tries to demonstrate how a hermeneutic critique of scientism raises important issues not only about the dialogue between (post)analytical and Continental philosophers but also about a third way of philosophizing that gets rid of traditional dilemmas and stubborn dividing lines inherited from the “two cultures” paradigm. In outlining a conception of hermeneutic realism, the paper elaborates on a distinction between ontic and ontological forms of realism. An ontic form specifies a certain range of entities whose existence is (...) reified as something “given”, as presence-at-hand. An ontological form of realism is realism about the reality that is ready-to-hand within the “readable technologies” of interrelated practices. The paper argues that the ontological forms of realism provide opportunities for combating scientism philosophically, while advocating a cognitive autonomy of science based upon the interpretative openness of scientific research. (shrink)

This paper distinguishes norms for corporate responsibility in developed and developing countries. In the former, corporate responsibility should reflect “ Third Way” values of restoring individual responsibility and social relationship, and these can be achieved through stakeholder engagement. Since stakeholder engagement often presumes an adequate level of individual rights and rule-governed behaviour, it is incompatible with the current political and cultural characteristics of developing countries. This paper suggests that the end of CR initiatives in developing countries is to promote (...) stakeholder rights and good governance, while the means is through stakeholder empowerment. (shrink)

This article explores how the intellectual and spiritual sensibilities of the French Catholic literary critic, Charles Du Bos (1882-1939), provide an insight into the construction of a particular "third-way" Catholic intellectual form of engagement during the interwar period. It is argued that the intellectual disposition underpinning Du Bos's third way rests fundamentally upon an accommodation of the "tragic." The evolving concept of tragedy in Du Bos's life and thought, before his conversion to Catholicism and beyond, facilitates his embrace (...) of an "ethic of responsibility," which is deployed in his third-way politico-ethical position on the Munich crisis of 1938. (shrink)

More than half a century ago, a so-called Third Side appeared in China's political arena. The word "third" signified that its proponents intended to take a "middle way" amid the desperate, life-and-death battle between the Nationalist party and the Communist party. In a 1946 speech delivered at the Tianjin YMCA, entitled "A Political Line of an Intermediate Nature," Zhang Dongsun presented a clear and to-the-point formulation of this "middle way":In the political aspect, we should adopt more from the (...) British and American type of liberalism and democracy, while at the same time adopting, in the economic aspect, more from the Soviet Union's type of planned economy and socialism. From the negative aspect, we should adopt democracy but not capitalism. We should also adopt socialism but not the revolution of proletarian dictatorship. We want freedom but not an everything-goes attitude. We want cooperation but not struggle. Since we do not want an everything-goes attitude, we do not want monopolies by capitalists. Since we do not want struggle, we do not want class struggle. (shrink)

This paper takes as its starting point the special provision made for grant maintained schools through the 1998 School Standards and Framework Act and suggests that the compromise it represented may be considered as an example of New Labour's Third Way in politics. The latter is discussed in terms of general and educational policies with specific regard to the characteristics of self-governing schools.

The Third Way is the most interesting and insightful of Aquinas' five arguments for the existence of God, even though it is invalid and has some false premises. With the help of a somewhat weak modal logic, however, the Third Way can be transformed into a argument which is certainly valid and plausibly sound. Much of what Aquinas asserted in the Third Way is possibly true even if it is not actually true. Instead of assuming, for example, (...) that things which are contingent fail to exist at some time, we need only assume that contingent things possibly fail to exist at some time. Likewise, we can replace the assumption that if all things fail to exist at some time then there is a time when nothing exists, with the corresponding assumption that if all things possibly fail to exist at some time then possibly there is a time when nothing exists. These and other similar replacements suffice to produce a cogent cosmological argument. (shrink)

Clinton and Blair have extolled a Third Way policy which is supposed to go beyond the policies of the present world where the `First Way' (capitalism) rules and the Second (socialism) failed. Clinton's Third Way ennumerated positive changes in theory, such as universal health care, equity in the tax code, national education standards and preschool. But in practice, the third way has only resulted in `welfare reform' and a free-trade pact with Mexico and Canada. Blair's policies for (...) the UK mirrored those of the US, and other countries are now talking of the Third Way as a progressive advance. In fact the so-called Third Way, as presently conceived, serves the ends of multinational capital. I show this by reworking Marx's labour theory of value. This article explains the tension between the speed of production and the way that the reproduction of natural resources, including labour-power, cannot keep pace with that speed. Capital does not want to wait for natural resources and labour-power to regenerate, and therefore finds them by going further afield. Hence the endorsement of free trade pacts and globalization by the Third Way, and proposed multilateral agreements (such as the multilateral agreement on investment, or MAI). Under the Third Way, space for the expansion of corporations is doing well, while time for the generational reproduction of people is faring badly with legislation restricting welfare and other social provisions. I conclude that a real Third Way would have to be based on small business, and allow for the reproduction time of natural resources and labour-power. (shrink)

This book introduces the history of third way ideology, surveys its various contrasting forms and locates it within the context of a recurrent crisis of modern European ideologies.

The study of Plato's dialogues has traditionally oscillated between two paradigms: one that portrays the dialogues as treatises expounding doctrines and one that sees them as purely skeptical, rhetorical, or literary. This collection of new essays by twelve noted Plato scholars illustrates the fruitfulness of breaking away from those paradigms, which have divided Platonic scholarship and led it to a number of dead ends. While the essays are diverse in their approaches, each seeks to find a 'third way' to (...) understand Plato, reading him as neither a dogmatist nor a skeptic but as a philosopher capable of reconciling the content and form of his writings. (shrink)

This first part of Thomas Aquinas’ third way has provoked a variety of allegations on the theme of a quantifier shift fallacy. For even if it be granted that every thing at some time does not exist, that is.

This article argues that the ‘Third Way’ philosophy that has been adopted by centre-left parties throughout Europe and the United States provides the conceptual framework to analyse contemporary postfeminism and its contentious micro-politics that emerges out of personal and daily gender-based struggles. The notion of a postfeminist micro-politics complicates the critical perception of postfeminism as a depoliticized and anti-feminist backlash and offers a dynamic model of political action that takes into account the multiple agency positions of individuals today. Postfeminism (...) and the politics it endorses differ from emergent political movements such as third wave feminism in that they are not founded on second wave feminist theory and activism. Instead, postfeminist politics adopts a Third Way perspective to reconcile a number of conflicting concerns, from feminist calls for female equality and theoretical debates on anti-essentialism to the consumerist demands of capitalist society. These controversial new junctures are examined by paying particular attention to postfeminism’s female sexual agent who becomes the ‘entrepreneur’ of her own image, buying into standardized femininities while also seeking to resignify their meanings. In particular, the article discusses the paradoxical possibilities of ‘active consumption’ and ‘fashion feminism’ whereby women endeavour to achieve empowerment by exerting their consumer agency and using their bodies as political tools within the parameters of a capitalist economy. (shrink)

What does it take to count as competent with the meaning of a thin evaluative predicate like 'is the right thing to do'? According to minimalists like Allan Gibbard and Ralph Wedgwood, competent speakers must simply use the predicate to express their own motivational states. According to analytic descriptivists like Frank Jackson, Philip Pettit and Christopher Peacocke, competent speakers must grasp a particular criterion for identifying the property picked out by the term. Both approaches face serious difficulties. We suggest that (...) these difficulties derive from a shared background assumption that competence conditions must be explained in terms of a determinate conceptual role. We propose a new way of characterizing competence with evaluative terms: what's required for competence is participation in a shared epistemic practice with a term. Our approach, we argue, better explains the nature of evaluative inquiry and the extent of disagreement about evaluative questions. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:A Third Way: Social Disability and Person-Centered AssessmentChristopher Heginbotham (bio)Keywordsimpaired functioning, psychopathic, personality disorder, neurological damage, psychotherapyJohn Sadler’s Fascinating Paper identifies a significant problem with existing diagnostic classifications. But in doing so he raises further unresolved philosophical, nosological, and practical problems. Although he is undoubtedly right in showing that the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM)-IV (and International Classification of Diseases [ICD]-10) do not provide an (...) adequate categorization, he is I believe wrong to use the term “vice” to describe the cluster of wrongful acts.“Vice” conjures up images of Miami, drugbusting police, prostitution, and other activities that are characterized by one thing—by and large, these are actions undertaken knowingly, usually for financial gain. These are not the actions of people with impaired mental functioning as a result of mental disorder or neurological damage. It is of course true that human trafficking and enforced prostitution may mean women forced into prostitution against their will, but rarely are these women considered mentally disordered solely as a result of their prostitution. Yet it is capacitated, premeditated wrongdoing that is normally considered to be “vice.”By contrast, all the cases cited in the paper describe conditions that are almost certainly the result of some form of impaired functioning, either owing to early childhood experiences (Case A), familial culture and conditioning (Case B), or neurological damage (Case C). The common thread in these cases is impaired capacity—in Case A this could be described as due to psychopathic or personality disorder (I distinguish the two separately rather than describe the phenomenon as “psychopathic personality disorder”) as a result of multiple childhood traumas. Their presentation is not unexpected given the person’s history and, although the condition may have become refractory, it might be amenable to treatment with psychoanalytically oriented psychotherapy, given sufficient time and a nurturing environment (Bateman and Fonagy 2006, 2008; Cordess and Cox 1996; Levy 2008).The description of Case B leaves a lot of room for doubt and uncertainties. Did Ms A really try to smother her child? She confessed to one occasion, but was this under duress? Did she feel that if she agreed she would be treated more leniently? And if she was guilty, does it suggest “vice,” a premeditated act, or is there another explanation—attention [End Page 31] seeking because of low self-esteem or a personality disorder as a result of some abuse that had not been identified? Almost certainly from the description given this would not count, for me at any rate, as vice. Her actions may be odd, bizarre, or dangerous, but did they demonstrate a mens rea? Was Ms A making adequate evaluative judgments of her situation and that of her child? We know from clinical work with very damaged women in forensic mental health services that early physical, emotional, or sexual abuse leads in turn to women harming both themselves and their children (Bland et al. 1999; Cordess and Cox 1996; see also for example, Jeffcote and Watson 2004). Or perhaps, speculatively, her condition was Munchausen’s by proxy?Case C is horrendous but does not lend itself readily to the forms of psychiatric classification available. Indeed there is no easy way to describe such actions other than those of someone who is either incapable of understanding the nature and consequence of the actions that he has undertaken, or is simply “mad” in a folk sense. Prima facie this seems to be the result of permanent and little understood neurological damage. However, this case comes closest to the evil that is implied in the term “vice”; and might be diagnosed similarly to a celebrated English murderer, that of Peter Sutcliffe, the so-called Yorkshire Ripper. Sutcliffe was diagnosed as suffering from paranoid schizophrenia, although the jury at his trial found that he was fit to plead, and he was initially sent to prison, where he deteriorated. He is now, and has for some time, been in Broadmoor high secure hospital.The result of these comments is that I agree fully with John Sadler’s conclusions, but for rather different reasons. DSM-IV categories try and fail to offer a symptomatology for... (shrink)

This inquiry critically assesses previous research utilizing a game theory framework to understand Hume’s account of convention as the tangible expression of justice for the purpose of regulating possessions. In so doing, this research offers an alternative understanding of Humean convention that first clearly lays out the rules and main assumptions of the game, as presented in A Treatise of Human Nature, and then proceeds to analyze the implied optimal strategy and outcome. Rejecting commonly held views considering Humean convention in (...) terms of the Nash equilibrium and pure contractarianism, this research offers a novel middle approach—a “Third Way” between self-interest and sympathy, between cooperation versus non-cooperation, and ultimately between contractarianism versus utilitarianism. This “Third Way”conceives of Hume’s account of convention as a cooperative game with binding threats that necessarily always rests on the Pareto optimal strategy, and seeks a resulting Pareto optimal outcome. (shrink)

This article argues that the Third Way’, as the ideological rationale for the New Labour Government in the UK, attempts to resolve the tensions around women and social policy confronted by the present Government. The Third Way addresses ‘women’ without ‘feminism’, in particular those floating women voters for whom feminism holds little attraction. But affluent, middle England, corporate women, though central to the popular imagination of the Daily Mail, and thus to Tony Blair, are in practice a tiny (...) minority. New Labour in office thus finds itself committed to reconciling the irreconcilable. It wants to see women as a social group move more fully into employment, and on this many feminists would agree. At the same time it wants to see through further transformations of the welfare state, along the lines set in motion by Mrs Thatcher. Inevitably this involves further cuts in spending and privatization of social insurance. The former principle is made more difficult by the latter policy. Recent feminist analysis indicates the scale of the needs of women to allow full and equal participation in work and in society. (shrink)

Ang panunuring-aklat na ito ay interogasyon sa isang partikular na aspekto ng historiograpiya ni Resil Mojares. Sa pamamagitan ng pagbasa sa kanyang Interrogations in Philippine Cultural History bilang isang ehemplong tekstong historiograpikal, inilalatag ng panunuring-aklat na ito ang suhestiyon na mula sa punto-de-bista ng Pantayong Pananaw ay maituturing na malapit ang pagkakahawig ng historiograpiya ni Mojares sa balangkas pangkaisipan ng historiograpiyang Third Way. Binibigyang-tuon dito ang manaka-nakang puna ni Mojares sa tinatawag niyang “ethnonationalism”, na ang isa sa pinakamaunlad na (...) anyo sa kasalukuyan ay ang Pantayong Pananaw. Nagtangka rin na maghain sa panunuring-aklat na ito ng kritika ng Pantayong Pananaw sa historiograpiyang Third Way, sa pamamagitan ng pagtugon sa mga punto ni Mojares. (shrink)

DR JOSEPH BOBIK’S article The First Part of the Third Way is a notable contribution to the literature on the subject. Anybody who has wrestled with the text itself—a text as profound and disconcerting as anything St Thomas has written—will be grateful for the many fine elucidations the article provides, and will be grateful especially for the fact that he has kept to the text itself as given in Summa Theologiae I, q 2, a 3 and has not read (...) into it some argument of his own. This method is particularly helpful and fruitful when there is question of pointing to a flaw in the argument. Against Kant and against most critics of the argument no defence is possible, for no real effort has been made to understand the argument in its own terms, within its own ‘thought-world’—one can of course insist that the attack is misdirected, but this kind of non-discussion scarcely serves the common pursuit of truth and will never enlarge anybody’s horizons. Dr Bobik, on the other hand, is able to point to the exact proposition in the text which he finds faulty and he is in a position to situate this proposition in the general context of Thomist metaphysics. In such circumstances there is everything to be gained by a further examination of the proposition and its context. (shrink)

After pointing out a meaning difference between "that which is possible not to be at some time is not" and "that which is possible not to be exists for only a finite time", we consider the assumptions necessary in a Thomistic context to derive the conclusion that if everything is contingent then at one time nothing was in existence. The needed key is in limiting the amount of matter which has ever existed, or, since "matter" is not a count-noun, that (...) some 'basic' particulars are finite in number; i.e., particulars which must exist if any physical particulars are to exist. (Though it is not essential to the argument, it is convenient and probably not far off historically to regard "things which are possible not to be" as physical objects.) Given some other assumptions it is then shown the desired conclusion will follow in both a "Genesis" and a "Doomsday" version. We then try to match the argument developed with the Thomistic corpus. (shrink)

The goal of this paper is to sketch and defend a new interpretation or 'theory' of objective chance, one that lets us be sure such chances exist and shows how they can play the roles we traditionally grant them. The account is 'Humean' in claiming that objective chances supervene on the totality of actual events, but does not imply or presuppose a Humean approach to other metaphysical issues such as laws or causation. Like Lewis (1994) I take the Principal Principle (...) (PP) to be the key to understanding objective chance. After describing the main features of Humean objective chance (HOC), I deduce the validity of PP for Humean chances, and end by exploring the limitations of Humean chance. (shrink)

It is uncontroversial that there is a historical connection between Reid and American pragmatism. What is unclear is whether, as has recently been suggested, Reid’s own views—in particular, his epistemological views—contain an important pragmatist element. This chapter agues in the affirmative, but suggests that commentators have mischaracterized the pragmatist character of Reid’s position, including his response to the skeptic: “the primacy of practice” constitutes an essential feature of his epistemological views proper and his distinctive “third way” between dogmatism and (...) skepticism. (shrink)

Since the ENCODE project published its final results in a series of articles in 2012, there is no consensus on what its implications are. ENCODE’s central and most controversial claim was that there is essentially no junk DNA: most sections of the human genome believed to be «junk» are functional. This claim was met with many reservations. If researchers disagree about whether there is junk DNA, they have first to agree on a concept of function and how function, given a (...) particular definition, can be discovered. The ENCODE debate centered on a notion of function that assumes a strong dichotomy between evolutionary and non-evolutionary function and causes, prevalent in the Modern Evolutionary Synthesis. In contrast to how the debate is typically portrayed, both sides share a commitment to this distinction. This distinction is, however, much debated in alternative approaches to evolutionary theory, such as the EES. We show that because the ENCODE debate is grounded in a particular notion of function, it is unclear how it connects to broader debates about what is the correct evolutionary frame- work. Furthermore, we show how arguments brought forward in the controversy, particularly arguments from mathematical population genetics, are deeply embedded in their particular disciplinary contexts, and reflect substantive assumptions about the evolution of genomes. With this article, we aim to provide an anatomy of the ENCODE debate that offers a new perspective on the notions of function both sides employed, as well as to situate the ENCODE debate within wider debates regarding the forces operating in evolution. (shrink)

This article argues for the formal validity of and the truth of the premises and conclusion of a version of Aquinas' "Third Way" that says: If each of the parts of nature is contingent, the whole of nature is contingent. Each of the parts of nature is contingent. Therefore, the whole of nature is contingent--where "contingent" means having a cause and not existing self-sufficiently.

In this paper it is my intention to do the following: first, to make some general observations on the ‘Third Way’ of St Thomas Aquinas as set out in Summa Theologica , Pt. I Quaest. ii Art. 3; secondly, to offer interpretation of, comment on, and present an account of, the first premiss of the ‘Third Way’; and finally to offer a provisional account of what someone who advocates the ‘Third Way’ might be conceived of as doing (...) in the light of the account offered of the first premiss of that ‘Way’. I do not suggest thai the account I offer of the first premiss under consideration or the account of the argument as a whole which I shall offer, is one which St Thomas would have accepted. My claim is only that for reasons to be offered, it is a possible and plausible account I also want to make it clear from the outset that I shall not be discussing the validity of the ‘Third Way’; this is an independent question to my inquiry. (shrink)

The convergence-divergence debate on whether business cultures are growing alike or not has become an important part of studies of the influence of national cultures on the operation of firms. This article intends to formulate a third way, a third model, by creating synergy between the model of cultural hybridization and Social Integration Theory. We contend that cultural hybridization takes place in multicultural joint ventures but this process happens unevenly and in different parts of the venture. The new (...) model, itself a product of hybridization, is illustrated with examples from Chinese and Indian joint ventures. (shrink)

This article in its essence aims to challenge and unfold, each at a time, two different fields of methodology – cybernetics and phenomenology – that have direct effects on the product of being and the process of becoming in architectural discourse. Furthermore, this article suggests a third way philosophy for architecture that relates notions of post-phenomenology and technoscience, and considers both to be equally vital to development and speculation within current architectural discourse. First, the history of each of the (...) two fields – cybernetics and phenomenology – will be unveiled with a focus on exploring their impact upon architecture in particular and diverse fields such as other art disciplines, computer science and psychology. Second, a critique of the historic rivalry between pioneers in each of the two fields will be unpacked through their errors and limits. Third, the article will discuss attempts at converging the two fields in order to address the relationship of notions of humanism, machinism and technology. Finally, a declaration of the characteristics of such a convergence that will lead to a third way philosophy for architectural discourse will be asserted. (shrink)

Aquinas’s Five Ways are often presented as standard cosmological arguments for God’s existence. They tend to be anthologized and presented independently of the metaphysical thought that informs them. Thus, when Aquinas deploys technical metaphysical issues in his articulation of the ways, the contemporary reader may have trouble interpreting them correctly. This is particularly the case when Aquinas uses terminology familiar to a contemporary reader that nevertheless should be understood within the context of Aquinas’s own metaphysical thought. The Third Way (...) is particularly challenging in this respect since it trades on modal notions that are familiar within a post-Leibnizian philosophical context but do not carry the same philosophical connotations. With that in mind, I propose to present a reading of the Third Way that is rooted within Aquinas’s own metaphysical thought and is defensible as an argument for God’s existence. (shrink)

In this article, I will investigate Jean-Luc Marion’s influential critique of metaphysical and natural theological approaches to the divine which he regards as “idolatrous”, and his own proposal of an “iconic” account of God’s revelation which he calls the “third way”. Marion’s idol-icon distinction, I maintain, developed in his early work “God without Being”, is the guiding thread of Marion’s philosophical project, and the key for an adequate understanding of his own account. While Marion’s account is compelling and has (...) provided new perspectives and insights to the contemporary discussion in philosophy of religion, its uncompromising excessiveness and the outright rejection of all hermeneutics leaves it deeply problematic and makes it hard to see how to follow his “third way”. (shrink)

RIASSUNTO Antonio Rosmini e Alexis de Tocqueville hanno contribuito, nell'orizzonte del pensiero politico del XIX secolo, alla configurazione di un nuovo modello di filosofia politica che crediamo conservi ancora oggi spunti di grande attualità. Il presente articolo assume come scopo quello di descrivere il dialogo ideale tra i due autori in modo da lasciar emergere quella che possiamo definire una terza via sorta davanti ai problemi sociali della discussione politica dell'ottocento, ossia una terza via tra le precedenti soluzioni della restaurazione (...) cattolica da una parte e lo spirito rivoluzionario francese dall'altra. Il cammino ideale nasce dal rinvenimento di una comune antropologia dalla quale si giungerà a una definizione della società fondata a partire dal fine che maggiormente la contraddistingue, il bene del singolo. L'urgenza e attualità dei temi che permeano gli scritti di Rosmini e Tocqueville crediamo risieda nella messa in evidenza di pericoli e storture, che oggi dominano le nostre società, ma che i nostri autori sono stati in grado di individuare sul nascere, cosi come si stavano formando nella società occidentale del XIX secolo. ABSTRACT Antonio Rosmini and Alexis de Tocqueville contributed, on the horizon of nineteenth-century political thought, to the configuration of a new model of political philosophy that we believe still retains insights of great relevance today. This article takes as its purpose to describe the ideal dialogue between the two authors in such a way as to let emerge what we may call a third way that arose before the social problems of political discussion in the 1800s, that is, a third way between the earlier solutions of Catholic restoration on the one hand and the French revolutionary spirit on the other. The ideal path arose from the rediscovery of a common anthropology from which a definition of society founded from the end that most distinguishes it, the good of the individual, would be arrived at. The urgency and topicality of the themes that permeate the writings of Rosmini and Tocqueville we believe lie in the highlighting of dangers and distortions, which dominate our societies today, but which our authors were able to identify in the bud, as they were being formed in 19th century Western society. (shrink)