Allan Hazlett challenges the philosophical assumption of the value of true belief. He critiques the view that true belief is better for us than false belief, and the view that truth is "the aim of belief". An alternative picture is provided, on which the fact that some people love truth is all there is to "the value of true belief".

This volume draws together Allan Gotthelf's pioneering work on Aristotle's biology. He examines Aristotle's natural teleology, the axiomatic structure of biological explanation, and the reliance on scientifically organized data in the three great works with which Aristotle laid the foundations of biological science.

Through earnings announcements, conference calls, and other press releases, corporate executives have an opportunity to frame the narrative of financial disclosures. Numerous studies have shown that textual tone significantly influences stock returns, suggesting that through word choice, upper management may impact market reaction. In this study, we examine the influence of CEO personality traits on corporate disclosures by analyzing the tone of earnings announcements for a sample of Fortune 500 CEOs over nearly two decades. Our hypotheses are twofold: that qualitative (...) disclosures in firms with narcissistic leaders will be biased upward and the bias will moderate as CEOs becomes older. Our empirical results support these hypotheses and suggest that more narcissistic CEOs tend to reinforce their grandiose self-image by issuing more positive earnings announcements but this desire wanes with CEO age. We also find that the stock market response to the tone of the earnings announcement is less pronounced for more narcissistic CEOs, suggesting the market takes into account the bias in narcissistic CEO announcements. (shrink)

This paper approaches dreaming consciousness through an examination of the self-organizing properties of the sleeping brain. This view offers a step toward reconciliation between brain-based and content-based attempts to understand the nature of dreaming. Here it is argued that the brain can be understood as a complex self-organizing system that in dreaming responds to subtle influences such as residual feelings and memories. The hyper-responsiveness of the brain during dreaming is viewed in terms of the tendency of complex chaotic-like systems to (...) respond to small variations in initial conditions and to the amplification of subtle emotional and cognitive signals through the mechanism of stochastic resonance, all in combination with psychophysiological changes in the brain during both slow wave sleep and REM sleep dreaming. Such changes include the active inhibition of extroceptive stimulation and, especially in REM sleep, alterations in the brain's dominant neuromodulatory systems, bombardment of the visual cortex with bursts of PGO activity, increases in limbic system activity, and a reduction of activity in the prefrontal regions. (shrink)

This contribution grapples with the question: Is there a relationship between Steve Biko’s ‘quest for a true humanity’ or, differently put, his search for South Africa’s ‘human face’ and Vuyani Vellem’s quest for an African spirituality? Our proposition is that there is such a relationship. This discussion is framed overall by two other questions: What is the relevance of this ‘quest’ within the present South African context, what is its contribution to the global situation and, fundamentally, what is the contribution (...) black liberation theology can make to these discourses? In the course of this exploration, we engage the concepts of Africanisation and Afrocentricity, colonisation, coloniality and decoloniality, and we ask whether a true Afro-pluralism is possible without a true African indigeneity. These concepts, we shall argue, are tools of struggle, not only in confronting colonisation and coloniality but also in battling imperialism, in the form I discuss here: the politics of vulgarity. I contend that an African spirituality, Biko’s ‘gift’ from Africa to the world, is the most appropriate vessel for that very gift.Contribution: This article serves as commemoration of the contribution the late Professor Vuyani Vellem made to the qualitative substantiation of black theology liberation in South Africa. It demonstrates the powerful way in which Afro-pluralism enhances the contra-narrative of imperialism and colonialism. (shrink)

Some psychologists working in the psychology and law field feel that the profession does not provide them with adequate ethical guidance even though the field is arguably one of the oldest and best established applied fields of psychology. The uncertainty psychologists experience most likely stems from working with colleagues whose professional ethics differs from their own while providing services to demanding people and the many moral questions associated with the administration of law. I believe psychology’s ethics does, however, provide adequate (...) moral guidance. It has a sound historical basis, has face validity and emphasizes those social moral principles that allow psychologists to best serve individuals and society. Psychologists may nevertheless be confronted with conflicting demands because there are other norm systems that also regulate their behavior as researchers and practitioners, and they, like all people, are influenced by their conscience. Ultimately, psychologists working in the psycholegal field will be best served if they have good knowledge of, and have internalized, the ethical principles of psychology. (shrink)

This essay shows that truth cannot be divorced from human experience and an individual’s world view, his or her weltanschauung. There exist different weltanschauungen that favour alternative truths. Thus, loosely speaking, truth is determined by context. It may be socially acceptable to prefer one among the alternative truths as truly true, but this goal necessarily involves taking an ideological perspective on what is perceived and accepted as the sole truth. In other words, it is prejudiced. The truth value assigned to (...) the proposition God exists starkly illustrates this claim, but in the course of this essay I demonstrate that alternative truths are widespread and that conflicting truths can co-exist within a community even when they create dissension. A hegemonic group will assert a preference for one truth over its alternatives, but that does not eliminate the existence of alternative truths. Alternative weltanschauungen need to be managed somehow, and the recognition that alternative truths exist is one step in their management. (shrink)

In this article we examine the nature of intimacy and knowing in the nurse-patient relationship in the context of advanced nursing roles in fertility care. We suggest that psychoanalytical approaches to emotions may contribute to an increased understanding of how emotions are managed in advanced nursing roles. These roles include nurses undertaking tasks that were formerly performed by doctors. Rather than limiting the potential for intimacy between nurses and fertility patients, we argue that such roles allow nurses to provide increased (...) continuity of care. This facilitates the management of emotions where a feeling of closeness is created while at the same time maintaining a distance or safe boundary with which both nurses and patients are comfortable. We argue that this distanced or ‘bounded’ relationship can be understood as a defence against the anxiety of emotions raised in the nurse-fertility patient relationship. (shrink)

A ‘good enough’ nurse: supporting patients in a fertility unitIn this paper, I discuss the findings of an ethnographic study of a fertility unit. I suggest that caring as ‘emotional awareness’ and ‘non‐caring’ as ‘emotional distance’ may be forms of nursing akin to Fabricius’s (1991) arguments around the ‘good enough’ nurse. This paper critiques caring theories and contributes to the debates over the nature of caring in nursing. I discuss the implications raised for nurses if patients want a practical approach (...) to caring and do not expect an emotionally intimate relationship from nurses. (shrink)

The Province of Jurisprudence Democratized explores the implications of taking a vigorously democratic approach to issues of traditional legal theory. Allan C. Hutchinson introduces the democratic vision and examines the complementary philosophy of a Dewey-inspired pragmatism. This is followed by an examination from a pragmatic perspective of the dominant theories of analytical jurisprudence in both their positivist and naturalist forms. He emphasizes the contested concepts of 'truth', 'facts' and 'law/morality relation' and explores what a more uncompromising democratic/pragmatic agenda for (...) law and legal theory would entail. The Author's intent is to contribute to the shift away from a technical and elite philosophical approach to jurisprudence to a more democratic engagement. It advances and follows through on the critical claim that there is no position of theoretical or political innocence. Like the law it seeks to illuminate, legal theory must recognize its own political and social setting as well as its own responsibilities. Moreover, whatever else democracy might entail or imply, it opposes elite rule whether by autocrats, functionaries or theorists, however enlightened or principled their proposals or interventions may be: authority must come from below, not above. (shrink)

Incarcerated persons have suffered a disproportionate burden of SARS-CoV-2 infection compared to the general population, with heightened risk for adverse...

Scholars of classical philosophy have long disputed whether Aristotle was a dialectical thinker. Most agree that Aristotle contrasts dialectical reasoning with demonstrative reasoning, where the former reasons from generally accepted opinions and the latter reasons from the true and primary. Starting with a grasp on truth, demonstration never relinquishes it. Starting with opinion, how could dialectical reasoning ever reach truth, much less the truth about first principles? Is dialectic then an exercise that reiterates the prejudices of one's times and at (...) best allows one to persuade others by appealing to these prejudices, or is it the royal road to first principles and philosophical wisdom? In From Puzzles to Principles? May Sim gathers experts to argue both these positions and offer a variety of interpretive possibilities. The contributors' thoughtful reflections on the nature and limits of dialectic should play a crucial role in Aristotelian scholarship. (shrink)

This paper explores the experiences of infertile women who occupy a liminal space in society, and argues that the fertility clinic served as a space to tolerate women's experiences of liminality. It provided not only rituals aimed at transition to pregnancy, but also a space where women's liminal experiences, which are caused by the existential chaos of infertility, could be tolerated. The British experience seemed to differ from the American one identified in the literature, where self‐management and peer group support (...) are described as strategies used by infertile women to manage infertility. The British women in this study did not appear to draw so much on self‐management or peer group support to deal with their experiences of infertility. They appeared to be isolated in their experience. The clinic thus provided a space in which recognition was given to their intensely private experiences of difference from those in the outside fertile world and allowed them to manage these socially unacceptable, culturally taboo and invisible experiences. However, because of its very limited success rate in enabling women to become pregnant, rather than facilitating the transition of status from infertile to fertile woman, the clinic also served to reinforce the liminal experiences of those women who remained infertile. Inadvertently, the clinic offered a way of being in limbo while at the same time reinforcing the liminal experiences of women. (shrink)

Section 35(1)(c) of the Health Practitioner Regulation National Law Act (2009) requires the newly formed Psychology Board of Australia (PsyBA) ?to develop or approve standards, codes and guidelines.? In 2010 the PsyBA decided to initially adopt the Australian Psychological Society's (APS) Code of Ethics (2007) and develop a new code in the future with the involvement of key stakeholders without deciding what the nature of this code will be. The PsyBA now has to decide exactly how it will proceed in (...) future. My aim in this article is to examine the options available to the PsyBA by exploring the definition and function of codes; presenting a history of the APS Code; and considering approaches that had been followed in Europe, Israel, New Zealand, and South Africa. (shrink)

In his Parts of Animals, Aristotle distinguishes three modes of the necessary.However, it is not clear just what these three modes are.Nor is it clear how this passage fits with other texts where A...

In this article, I bring together Hannah Arendt’s and Simone de Beauvoir’s respective theories of political judgment to evaluate the problems that arise from their accounts of judgment in praxis. To do so, I compare Arendt’s Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil on Adolf Eichmann’s trial in Israel and Beauvoir’s “An Eye for an Eye” on Robert Brasillach’s trial in France. In approaching the dilemmas of judgment in theory, both share a commitment to preserving freedom by (...) virtue of our human plurality. In practice, however, both respectively demand the death penalty for Eichmann and Brasillach. I identify three distinct failures of political judgment in praxis: from the accused, the courts, and Arendt and Beauvoir, respectively. I contend that Arendt and Beauvoir fail to appropriately judge Eichmann and Brasillach by arguing for their execution, because it constitutes a form of political violence that undermines their theoretical accounts of judgment. (shrink)

Ferré proposes three criteria for judging whether or not a metaphysical theory is “well made.” Two of the criteria are “adequacy” and “coherence.” For a metaphysical theory to be well made, it must be inclusive, leaving nothing out of its purview. And it must be integrated, bringing together all it includes into a unified whole. Adequacy and coherence apply to metaphysical theories the criteria for any non-trivial logical system: that it be both complete and consistent.

In many discussions of tragedy, the names Loxias and Phoebus are generally ignored because it is assumed that metrical demands are influencing name choice. In this article, we begin by taking the semantics of each name seriously and examine the context in which each is used in four tragedies dealing with the Oedipus story: Aeschylus’ Seven, Sophocles’ Oedipus Tyrannus and Oedipus Coloneus, and Euripides’ Phoenissae. The results of this analysis suggest that these two appellations were part of a naming convention (...) with dramatic significance for the audience and its understanding of the characters and their actions at various moments in the plays. (shrink)

Examines Malraux's theory of art and argues that it is neither aesthetics (philosophy of art) in the traditional sense, or history of art.

本书是美国著名汉学家艾兰女士研究中国早期哲学思想中的本喻的新著,其切入点非常独特、方法新颖、具有创造性,对国内中国哲学思想史的研究会有积极的推动作用。.

How does art – literature, visual art, or music – endure over time? What special power does it possess that enables it to “transcend” time – to overcome temporal distance and speak to us not just as evidence of times gone by, but as a living presence? The Renaissance, which discovered this transcendent power of art in the classical sculpture and literature it admired so strongly, concluded that great art is impervious to time – “timeless”, “immortal”, “eternal” – a belief (...) that left a profound impression on Renaissance culture and often found expression in its poetry. Subsequently the same belief exerted a powerful influence on Enlightenment aesthetics and, in various forms, it still lingers on today. The nineteenth century, however, saw a major challenge to this thinking. Hegel, Marx and Taine stressed the historical embeddedness of art and for these three thinkers, as for a series of more recent theorists such as Sartre, Benjamin, and Adorno, art belongs within the world of historical change. To locate its essential qualities in a “timeless” realm removed from the flow of history would be an idealist illusion. The conflict between these two positions has resulted in an impasse, and today we appear to lack any viable account of one of art’s key features – its capacity to transcend time. André Malraux proposes an entirely new account of this unique power of art. For Malraux, as this article explains, art is neither exempt from history (timeless) nor wholly inseparable from it. Art overcomes temporal distance – transcends time – through metamorphosis, a process of continual transformation in significance in which history plays an essential, but not exclusive, part. “La métamorphose,” Malraux writes, “est la vie même de l’œuvre d’art dans le temps, l’un de ses caractères spécifiques.” This proposition, to which contemporary aesthetics has so far paid very little attention, is a revolutionary step in our thinking about art. -/- . (shrink)