If efforts to deal comprehensively with the supply and demand factors fueling the trade in small arms and light weapons are sustained and expanded over the next decade, rampant small arms proliferation can be contained.

This essay treats Private Management and Public Policy not only as one of the key building blocks of theory in the business and society field, but as a work of theoretical social science in the structural-functional tradition. As a work in the "s-f" tradition, it shares the weaknesses inherent in that mode of theorizing and introduces some of its own in the attempt to translate structural-functionalism into terms relevant for management. These problems are discussed in the context of detailed analysis (...) of the work's theoretical structure. (shrink)

In the fall of 1869, the first of eight students set off from the tiny Sadowara Domain in southeastern Kyushu to pursue study in America and Europe. Overshadowed by more famous peers from other domains, the Sadowara students have been all but forgotten, and their lives abroad remain an untold story. Yet they played an important role in the early development of Japanese studies in the United States. Enrolling at diverse institutions mostly in the Northeast, six of the students came (...) to form a close relationship with Yale’s university librarian, a philologist named Addison Van Name. Inspired by his new friends to study the Japanese language, within a year Van Name was offering America’s first college course in Japanese, and he quickly began to produce scholarship on Japan and its language, literature, and history. By the mid-1870s, the Sadowara students had returned to their home country, where their subsequent careers constituted a microcosm of the paradox and transformation of the early Meiji period. Van Name maintained contact with his Japanese friends, and through this long-distance relationship succeeded in building America’s first significant Japanese library collection: a 3,000-volume collection of Edo and early Meiji titles that still survives today. (shrink)

The Appeal to Tradition, often considered to be unsound, frequently reflects sophisticated adaptations to the environment. Once developed, these adaptations are often transmitted culturally rather than as reasoned argument, so that people mayor may not be aware of why their traditions are wise. Tradition is more likely to be valid in a stable environment in which a wide range of variations have been available for past testing; however, traditions tend to become obsolete in a rapidly changing environment.

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work. This work is in the public domain (...) in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:What Do You Mean, Rhetoric Is Epistemic?William D. HarpineIn 1967, Robert L. Scott (1967) advocated that "rhetoric is epistemic." This concept has enriched the work of rhetorical theorists and critics. Scott's essay is founded in a concept of argumentative justification in rhetoric, viewed as an alternative to analytic logic. Other writers, including Brummett (1976), Railsback (1983), and Cherwitz and Hikins (1986), have offered variations on Scott's theme. The (...) thesis that rhetoric is epistemic has been controversial, however, and from the tone of the debate one may draw two conclusions: many rhetorical theorists feel that Scott was on to something important, and the thesis as it has been developed is flawed. Much of the dispute centers on what the thesis means. These discussions have not yet adequately clarified that issue.The philosopher's most fundamental obligation is to define terms with care. It is in precisely this respect that the rhetoric-is-epistemic theorists have fallen short. Some of the key terms in this literature include rhetoric, knowledge, certainty, and truth. In too many cases, the writers on rhetorical epistemology have not defined their key terms at all. In other cases, their definitions are inadequate or inconsistent. This essay undertakes to sort out the most important definitional problems, which center on the rhetoric-is-epistemic theorists' habit of equivocating about the meanings of "rhetoric" and "certainty." The result makes it possible to endorse the validity of Scott's essentially ethical conclusions, while dismissing a number of unnecessary complexities in the arguments made by rhetoric-as-epistemic theorists. Finally, a few alternatives that might lead to more robust foundations for the rhetoric-as-epistemic thesis are suggested.In 1978, after reviewing four distinct interpretations of the claim that rhetoric is epistemic, Leff concluded that clarification of what that claim means "deserves more disciplined treatment than it has received in the recent literature" (1978, 77). The same could still be said. After some [End Page 335] thirty years of active research and speculation on the topic, one now sees fewer publications specifically advocating that rhetoric is epistemic. The distinguished rhetorical theorist Barry Brummett (1990) has declared the thesis deceased (69-72).All the same, textbook authors treat the thesis as a given, despite their tendency to interpret it in wildly different ways. Foss, for example, puts forward a view that "in the field of communication, the idea that rhetoric creates reality is known as the notion that rhetoric is epistemic, which simply means that rhetoric creates knowledge; epistemology is the study of the origin and nature of knowledge" (1989, 122; emphasis in the original). This version of the thesis, claiming that rhetoric actually "creates reality," might be more ontological than it is epistemic.1 Herrick takes a dialectical view that "through rhetorical interaction, people come to accept some ideas as true and to reject others as false. Thus, rhetoric's epistemic function in society can be seen in some ways to be a result of its benefit of testing ideas." Herrick continues that "once an idea has been tested thoroughly by a group, community, and society, it becomes part of what these groups take to be knowledge." Herrick contrasts this with the rejected view that "knowledge is all objective in nature and comes to us by way of direct experience or education" (1997, 22). Both Herrick and Foss offer interesting theses, and both attribute their views to Scott, but their views are obviously very different. There can be no surer evidence of the failure to use terms precisely.Brummett (1990) attributes the demise of rhetoric-is-epistemic research to the failure of critics to employ the idea in rhetorical criticism. Brummett might be right to the extent that much of the rhetoric-is-epistemic literature is indeed exceptionally abstract. Specific discussions might clarify some issues. Nonetheless, some notable rhetorical critics have indeed employed a concept that rhetoric is epistemic (e.g., Scott and Klumpp 1984; Sullivan 1992). The issues remain unclear. Furthermore, rhetorical criticism per se cannot clarify the meanings of theoretical terms. More likely, one sees less and less published research about the thesis that rhetoric is epistemic precisely because the thesis has not been laid out clearly... (shrink)

Sunstein is right that poorly informed heuristics can influence moral judgment. His case could be strengthened by tightening neurobiologically plausible working definitions regarding what a heuristic is, considering a background moral theory that has more strength in wide reflective equilibrium than “weak consequentialism,” and systematically examining what naturalized virtue theory has to say about the role of heuristics in moral reasoning.

This book provides a distinctive account of Edward Said's critique of modern culture by highlighting the religion-secularism distinction on which it is predicated. This distinction is both literal and figurative. It refers, on the one hand, to religious traditions and to secular traditions and, on the other hand, to tropes that extend the meaning and reference of religion and secularism in indeterminate ways. The author takes these tropes as the best way of organizing Said's heterogeneous corpus - from Joseph Conrad (...) and the Fiction of Autobiography, his first book, to Orientalism, his most influential book, to his recent writings on the Palestinian question. The religion-secularism distinction, as an act of imagination and narrative continuity, lies behind Said's cultural criticism, his notion of intellectual responsibility, and his public controversy with Michael Walzer about the meaning and the uses of the Exodus story and about the question of Palestine. (shrink)

There are a wide range of positions regarding the ontological nature of computer hardware and software. Moor [The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 29 (1978), 213–222] argues that there...

The practice of inserting bits of lyric verse within Old French narrative romances appears to have begun with Jean Renart, the supposed author of the Roman de la rose ou de Guillaume de Dole, which most scholars date around 1228. It was soon imitated by Gerbert de Montreuil in his Roman de la violette and became widespread during the balance of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, appearing in upwards of fifty works. This technique of lyric insertions in romance continues the (...) earlier use of variable refrains within lyric songs and anticipates, perhaps, the insertion of snatches from Latin poetry in the Essais of Montaigne. Little studied until recently, the phenomenon was the focus of a colloquium at the Newberry Library in Chicago, in October 1991, with the title “Music and Narrative in Medieval Romance: The Poetics of Lyric Insertions.” The present study was read at that colloquium. (shrink)

This study is an unusual contribution to the philosophy of mind in that it argues for the sometimes unfashionable view of dualism: that mind and matter are distinct and separate entities as Descartes believed. The author takes as his point of departure the imaginative hypothesis of disembodiment, which establishes the possibility of the mind's being a quite non-material thing. There are clear casual correlations between what is physical and what is mental, and the most serious issue confronting dualism since Descartes (...) has been how such an interaction is possible. Dr Hart sets out to answer this question by showing that the issue is as much about the nature of causation as it is about the natures of mind and matter. (shrink)

Ikujiro Nonaka, whose formative experience is Japanese, is an established scholar who has written about large business organizations. He sees knowledge at the heart of the organization and its products and aims to develop Michael Polanyi’s conception of tacit knowledge in a practical direction to enhance organizational “knowledge creation.” For Nonaka, what matters is the practice, the doing, the embodiment of knowledge. An organization can amplify and crystallize individuals’ tacit knowledge in a process that allows them to experience deeper understanding. (...) Nonaka holds that it is iimportant to explore the potential that knowledge holds. His spiral process describes disciplined practices that make tacit knowledge independent and available to restructure the organizational knowledge context. (shrink)

In a previous article, we challenged the “incentivization view” held by J. P. Smit, Filip Buekens, and Stan du Plessis as failing to cover social phenomena involving strict joint actions. The authors’ response to our criticism seriously misstates our main point. We have therefore, as briefly and sharply as we can, restated the problem in this note.

Contemporary U.S. policy makers often characterize the U.S. counterinsurgency experience in El Salvador as a successful model to be followed in other contexts. This article argues that these characterizations significantly overstate the positive lessons of El Salvador, and ignore important cautionary implications. During the first part of the conflict, neither the Armed Forces of El Salvador nor the U.S. followed the tenets of counterinsurgency doctrine. The FAES killed tens of thousands of non-combatants in 1979 and 1980, before the civil war (...) even began. This repression may have preempted an incipient popular insurrection, but it also locked in a determined social base that enabled the armed left to build a highly effective and sustained insurgency. In 1984, the U.S. had to save the FAES from likely defeat through a major increase in military aid, especially airpower. When the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front switched to a classical guerrilla strategy, the FAES, despite considerable U.S. aid, seldom followed best practices in counterinsurgency. Democratization and redistributional reforms were partial and flawed in implementation. The war settled into a stalemate that would likely have continued indefinitely had it not been for the collapse of the socialist bloc and significant changes in the interests of Salvadoran elites that were largely incidental to U.S. policies.The most important cautionary lesson is that indiscriminate violence against civilians early in a conflict can create dynamics that are very difficult to overcome in subsequent stages. (shrink)

The target article by Corballis presents an interesting and novel theoretical perspective on the evolution of language, speech, and handedness. There are two specific aspects of the article that will be addressed in this commentary: (a) the link between Broca's area and gestural communication in chimpanzees, and (b) the issue of population-level handedness in great apes, notably chimpanzees.

Annotation Presents historical methodology to augment the critical capacity of research on black history.

A central theme to be found in Dewey’s writings is his criticism of theories of knowledge proposed throughout the history of Western philosophy. None of the once familiar “isms,” whether it be a variant of empiricism, rationalism, or idealism, escaped Dewey’s scrutiny. And each in its turn proved to be unacceptable to Dewey, because it was found that each rested upon what Dewey referred to as “the philosophical fallacy,” namely “the conversion of eventual functions into antecedent existence,” or the fallacy (...) of selective emphasis. Basically, this fallacy amounted for Dewey to the emphasis of one aspect of scientific inquiry to the exclusion of the rest, and taking the features characteristic of that aspect as paradigmatic for the purpose of accounting for knowledge. Thus, for example, advocates of what Dewey called sensationalism, for whom knowledge was to be explicated in terms of an immediate acquaintance with a perceptual given, emphasized an aspect of scientific inquiry, viz., that inquiry is engaged in only when some given situation is problematic, without regard to the fact that even those features of a problematic situation, which are taken to be given and stable features for purposes of resolving the problem, are so taken only provisionally, depending upon whether the ensuing inquiry is successful in resolving the problem at hand. (shrink)

The normative relationship between text and sermon is one of mutuality in which the preacher creates an interplay between the agenda of the text and the agenda of the congregation.

Although Hegel is generally understood as a thinker of modernity, this volume argues that his modernity can only be understood in essential relation to classical antiquity. It explores his readings of the ancient Graeco-Roman world in each of the major areas of his historical thinking in turn, from politics and art to history itself.

The logical connection argument holds that factors which appear causally connected can be shown not to be so, At least when described in certain ways, If these factors are logically connected when so described. I argue that normal formulations of the logical connection argument confuse propositions and events. Moreover, When it is clarified in terms of "de re" necessity, It requires strong ontological assumptions for which no support is given and about the intelligibility of which there is reasonable question. I (...) conclude that the logical connection argument fails to give any reason for excluding any causal hypothesis. (shrink)

David Hume’s ‘History of England’ is an ambitious work that helps demonstrate how the modern historian can interpret the crucial events that define human communities as continuous in time. This paper is directly concerned with the significance of Hume's historical method, his view of human agency and the role of the English Constitution in appraising the meaning of secularity in his historical work. The more fundamental purpose of the paper will be to show that the study of history was not (...) incidental to his task as a philosopher but, on the contrary, relates to his deeper view of how we experience the world in terms of fundamental categories of time and meaning. (shrink)

Blaise Pascal is highly regarded as a religious moralist, but he has rarely been given his due as an ethical theorist. The goal of this article is to assemble Pascal's scattered thoughts on moral judgment and moral wrongdoing into an explicit, coherent account that can serve as the basis for further scholarly reflection on his ethics. On my reading, Pascal affirms an axiological, social-intuitionist account of moral judgment and moral wrongdoing. He argues that a moral judgment is an immediate, intuitive (...) perception of moral value that we willfully disregard in favor of the attractive, though self-deceptive, deliverances of our socially constructed imaginations. We can deceive ourselves so easily because our capacity to evaluate goods is broken, a dark legacy of the fall. In the article's concluding section, I briefly compare Pascal to contemporary ethicists and suggest directions for future research. (shrink)

Some scholars have speculated whether the conservative New Testament Calvinistic scholar, Machen and the New Testament critical scholar, Bultmann attended Marburg University at the same time. We now know that they did. They even attended two courses together which were taught respectively by Weiss and Jülicher. Although these men were strong opposites with respect to the environment in which they were raised as well as their theological presuppositions and conclusions, they both enjoyed the engaging environment of Marburg as students. Mainly (...) using personal letters, we learn that a comparison of these two young students goes further than their theological and biblical interests. Both had encyclopedic academic interests which carried over into a fascinating interdisciplinary way of life. (shrink)