Arthur E. Lean’s irreverent and con­troversial essays represent the distillation of many ideas about education—ideas developed during most of a lifetime spent in and about schools. In the second edition of this popular work, to which he has added eight new essays, he presents his latest observations on current ele­ments and programs in education—such as the grading system, academic rank, the teaching process, assessment of edu­cational progress—concluding that many of them are not only unnecessary but actually harmful to the (...) very process which they are supposed to serve. Covering a broad spectrum of current issues in its criticism of American edu­cation at all levels, _And Merely Teach _is a book to be read by veteran educator, beginning teacher, and lay citizen alike. Though critical of the teaching profes­sion, Arthur Lean also offers constructive suggestions in the form of practical solu­tions that are urgently needed to save our ailing educational system. (shrink)

According to philosophical naturalism, the main anti-naturalism in philosophy derives from Kant and depends on transcendental arguments, which are invalid or polemically toothless. Many of naturalism's characteristic features follow from this repudiation of Kantian method. Anti-naturalists should be aware that the rationale for naturalism depends on this attack on their own position. There remains for philosophy a distinctively philosophical role that depends on the indexical element in our thought, the role of elaborating a scientific worldview.

Le positivisme, de Comte à Carnap, a marqué une étape dans le développement d’une science spéciale en dehors des sujets traités jusque là par la philosophie. Cette communication montre que la « syntaxe logique » de Carnap comme la « synthèse subjective » de Comte est un hybride, — une tranche de la philosophie en train de devenir science, et essayant, à l’étape intermédiaire de son processus, d’être à la fois science et philosophie.

In this paper, we use the risk apportionment technique of Eeckhoudt, Rey and Schlesinger (2007) to study higher order risk preferences for others’ health as well as ex-ante and ex-post inequality preferences for social risky distributions, and their interaction. In an experiment on a sample of university students acting as impartial spectators, we observe risk aversion towards social health losses and a dislike of ex-ante inequality. In addition, evidence for ex-post inequality seeking is much weaker than evidence for ex-ante inequality (...) aversion. Because ex-ante inequality aversion is unrelated to risk aversion, we conclude that simple forms of utilitarianism are not relevant for individual judgment of social risk over health. Last, our investigation of precautionary distribution, which would occur when one particular group in the society suffers from background health risk, shows substantial polarization of preferences. (shrink)

The failure of the critics of corporate governance to agree on what should be done to improve the governance process can, in most cases, be traced to a different understanding of the role of corporate directors in that process. This article analyzes and contrasts the obligations of directors under two legal theories, the fictional person theory and the organic theory, of the corporation. A comparison of the director's obligations under each theory indicates that the organic theory provides a better basis (...) for assessing the performance of directors and initiating reform.Among the boards of directors of Fortune 500 companies, I estimate that 95% are not fully doing what they are legally, morally, and ethically supposed to do. And they couldn't, even if they wanted to. (shrink)