This paper challenges Tony Lawson's account of the relationship between mainstream economics and ideology along two key axes. First off, we argue that Newtonian physics has been the primary version of pro-science ideology within mainstream economics, rather than mathematics per se. Secondly, we argue that the particular uses of mathematics within mainstream economics have always been ideological in the pro-capitalist sense of the term. In order to defend these claims we develop a line of argument that Lawson has thus far (...) strategically avoided. Namely, we view mainstream economic theory as an integrated theoretical paradigm with intrinsic links to the capitalist economy. Viewed in this way, it becomes clear that Lawson's (trans) historical account of ideology is too general to capture the complexity of the relationship between natural science, mathematics and mainstream methods. Having briefly outlined Lawson's central argument, we highlight the non-mathematical methods underpinning Classical Political Economy. Thereafter, we assess the nature of the mathematics associated with the Marginal Revolution of the 1870s and the Formalist Revolution of the 1950s. (shrink)

This paper undertakes an historical re-evaluation of Louis Althusser's philosophical legacy for modern Marxism. While Althusser self-consciously sought to defend the scientific character of Marxism, many of his closest followers eventually exited the Marxian paradigm for a post-structural post-Marxism. We argue that this development was predominately rooted in a series of philosophical errors that proved fatal in a period of retreat for European socialism. There has always been, however, a second post-Althusserian legacy associated with the critical realist conception of Marxism (...) initiated by Roy Bhaskar. Bhaskar found part of his inspiration in Althusser's successful posing of the question of Marx's science and this paper sets out to excavate the proper links between Althusser and Bhaskar in order to deepen the relationship between critical realism and scientific Marxism. (shrink)

_History of Psychology: A Cultural Perspective_ easily distinguishes itself from other texts in a number of ways. First, it examines the field within the rich intellectual and cultural context of everyday life, cross-cultural influences, and contributions from literature, art, and other disciplines. Second, it is a history of ideas, concepts, and questions, instead of dates, events, or great minds. Third, the book explores the history of applied, developmental, clinical, and cognitive psychology as well as experimental psychology. Conveyed in a lively (...) writing style, this text tells a gripping story that continues to the present day. Its current perspective allows students to connect the history of the field to the work being published in current journals. O’Boyle writes in the “historical present”, giving readers a sense of immediacy and aliveness as they journey through history. Her account uses imaginative new features, including “The Times”, which gives readers a feel for what everyday life was like during the age discussed in the chapter. Descriptions of ordinary life, as well as information about important issues influencing their lives such as wars, social movements, famines, and plagues, pique students' interest. "Stop and Think" questions, scattered throughout, enhance retention and encourage critical thinking. An ideal text for a history of psychology or history and systems of psychology course, this creative new book will also appeal to those with a general interest in the field. The Instructor’s Resource CD, written by the text author, includes class activities and demonstrations, suggestions for small group and class discussions, a list of films and videos related to the material in each chapter, and a test bank with objective and essay questions. (shrink)

Our comments focus on the ACMCode of Ethics and situate the Code within ageneral ethical decision-making process tospecify the five steps which logically precedehuman action in ethical matters and determinethat action, and the individual differencetraits in these five steps which bear upon theresolution of an ethical problem and lead tomorally responsible action. Our main purpose isto present a cognitive moral processing modelwhich computing professionals can use to betterunderstand their professional rights andduties. It is clear that the Code providessubstantial guidance in (...) the areas ofintellectual property rights, unauthorizedentry into computing systems, and privacy. Inother areas, such as obscenity onbulletin-board systems, the Code is silent. Aninteractive software program which allows theuser to see the ways in which the Code isintegrated and instructive in the six-stepmoral decision-making process is accessible viathe internet. Our secondary purpose is toreformulate the Code as a set of questionswhich allow the computing professional to seepractices which diminish the human person asunethical and those which enhance the humanperson as ethical. (shrink)

This article is concerned with four questions. How are decisions made in economic affairs? What role does freedom play in a market economy? How important is freedom in a market economy? How best to preserve freedom of economic initiative? Based on responses to those questions, we argue that a personalist economy with its reliance on intermediary groups and preservation of economic freedom represents an alternative to the individualism of capitalism and the collectivism of socialism. The evidence presented breaks the stereotype (...) of private group decision-making as collusive and demonstrates that a personalist economy is a functioning reality in the United States. (shrink)

This article addresses the two main obstacles — ignorance and conflict — that block the pathway to ethically proper conduct, both generally in business and specifically in marketing. It begins with a brief examination of theories of the moral good which emphasizes the Greco-Roman humanistic tradition and the Judeo-Christian religious tradition. A professional code of ethics, such as the code of the American Marketing Association, is meaningful only if human beings are regarded as making moral judgments that, objectively speaking, are (...) morally wrong, that is only when the code is considered a set of moral absolutes.Following that, the question of ignorance is dealt with utilizing the American Marketing Association code of ethics. The specific items in that code are related to the three central principles of economic justice: equivalence, contributive justice, and distributive justice. In the second section, the question of conflict is encountered in the context of four other ethical principles — double effect, culpability, good end and bad means, self-determination — that are likely to be helpful in dealing with two cases that are especially instructive because they are limiting cases: the dilemma and the hard case. The role of the hero or champion in conflicts is underscored. (shrink)

Personalist Economics: Moral Convictions, Economic Realities, and Social Action examines the nature of the worker and consumer from a personalist perspective, comparing that body of knowledge to what is received from conventional economics. A running theme throughout this book is that personalist economics is attentive to both aspects of human material need - physical need and the need for work as such - in a way that does not disregard human wants. Accordingly, this book is more concerned about the philosophical (...) base and description of the economy's significant characteristics than social economic policy. Personalist Economics explores four dimensions of particularly acute human physical need: unemployment, poverty, homelessness, and death. In addressing these four aspects of need, the book delves into the second and third domains of social economics: description of the significant characteristics of the economy, and social economic policy. In the same way, Personalist Economics explores two types of economic cooperation - supra-firm alliances and inter-firm partnerships - as means for addressing certain aspects of human material need. This book concludes with a lengthy discussion of the challenges facing personalist economics in the years ahead. (shrink)

Max Anderson and Peter Escher’s The MBA Oath addresses the need for a set of ethical standards to provide guidance to MBA graduates as they go about their everyday professional business. Their oath is relevant to the concerns of others in business but clearly was inspired by the special problems they encountered in the classroom as members of the Harvard MBA class of 2009. The oath and the book itself evolved from the financial meltdown of 2008 for which MBAs often (...) felt that they were being held accountable. Our review begins with the oath itself. Then we turn to the rest of the book in which we have organized our comments around its strengths and weaknesses. (shrink)

Based on our experience in teaching ethics, we have developed, tested, and presented in this article a program of instruction that rests on four pillars: popular feature films, a six-stage ethical decision-making process, the principles necessary to address ethical situations, and the classroom instructor. Taken separately, there is nothing new or unique in these pillars. Taken together, however, and to our knowledge, these four pillars, including the requirement that each student is expected to prepare a written abstract of the film (...) prior to the classroom discussion of that film in which the student is expected to demonstrate a practical application of ethical principles to actual and concrete moral situations, constitute a new, unique, and tested way to teach ethics to undergraduate students of management and economics. (shrink)

Ethics position theory (EPT) maintains that individuals’ personal moral philosophies influence their judgments, actions, and emotions in ethically intense situations. The theory, when describing these moral viewpoints, stresses two dimensions: idealism (concern for benign outcomes) and relativism (skepticism with regards to inviolate moral principles). Variations in idealism and relativism across countries were examined via a meta-analysis of studies that assessed these two aspects of moral thought using the ethics position questionnaire (EPQ; Forsyth, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology39, 175–184, 1980). (...) This review identified 139 samples drawn from 29 different countries, for a total sample of 30,230 respondents, and concluded that (a) levels of idealism and relativism vary across regions of the world in predictable ways; (b) an exceptionist ethic is more common in Western countries, subjectivism and situationism in Eastern countries, and absolutism and situationism in Middle Eastern countries; and (c) a nation’s ethics position predicted that country’s location on previously documented cultural dimensions, such as individualism and avoidance of uncertainty (Hofstede, Culture’s Consequences: International Differences in Work-Related Values, 1980). Limitations in these methods and concerns about the validity of these cross-cultural conclusions are noted, as are suggestions for further research using the EPQ. (shrink)

This book brings together essays on themes of human rights and legal history, reflecting the long and distinguished career as academic writer and human rights activist of Brian Simpson. Written by colleagues and friends in the United States and Britain, the essays are intended to reflect Simpson's own legal interests. The collection opens with biography of Simpson's academic life which notes his major contribution to legal thought, and closes with an account of his career in the United States and (...) a bibliography of his writings. As a tribute to Simpson's varied interests in the law, the collection is grouped around themes in human rights, legal philosophy, and legal history. The human rights papers are concerned with the history of the right of individual petition to the European Court of Human Rights, and recent successes in which Brian Simpson played a part; the evolution of a transnational common law of human rights; the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child and the interpretation of the provisions on identity in France and England; the suspension of human rights which would have occurred, had the emergency War Zone Courts scheme been brought into effect during wartime; historical resistance to colonial laws in Papua New Guinea; and the ratio decidendi of the story of the Prodigal Son. Historical themes are found in essays concerned with three nineteenth-century Lord Chancellors; in two essays relating to the fate of the civil jury on either side of the Atlantic which provide a fascinating comparison; in the 'battle of the books' which led to changes in eighteenth-century copyright law; and judicial rivalry between King's Bench and Common Pleas in the early modern period. (shrink)

Research on skateboarding has sought to define it, place it in a spatial-temporal schema, and analyse its social and cultural dimensions. We expand upon skateboarding’s relationship with time using the Marxist theorist Henri Lefebvre’s temporal science of Rhythmanalysis. With the disruption of urban social production of capital by the Covid-19 pandemic, we find skateboarding renewed in urban disjuncture from Capitalism and argue that this separation is central to its performance and culture. We propose that skateboarding is arrhythmic: discordant, out of (...) step, and disruptive of the more predictable rhythms of everyday production of capital. Drawing on Lefebvre’s concept of ‘arrhythmia’, we attempt re-conceive a beat and tempo of skateboarding: offbeat, juxtaposed, tilted, and contradictory. We emphasise that this discordance is not a malady but part of a broader beat ontology in skateboarding. This very discordance also raises questions about the continued incorporation of skateboarding into competitive sports, wellbeing, and prosocial paradigms and reminds theorists that skateboarding continues to be unkempt, subversive and tacitly political. (shrink)

We report two experiments in which participants had to judge the time of occurrence of a stimulus relative to a clock. The experiments were based on the control condition used by Libet, Gleason, Wright, and Pearl [Libet, B., Gleason, C. A., Wright, E. W., & Pearl, D. K. . Time of conscious intention to act in relation to onset of cerebral activities : The unconscious initiation of a freely voluntary act. Brain 106, 623–642] to correct for any bias in the (...) estimation of the time at which an endogenous event, the conscious intention to perform a movement, occurred. Participants’ responses were affected systematically by the sensory modality of the stimulus and by the speed of the clock. Such findings demonstrate the variability in judging the time at which an exogenous event occurs and, by extension, suggest that such variability may also apply to the judging the time of occurrence of endogenous events. The reliability of participants’ estimations of when they formed the conscious intention to perform a movement in Libet et al.’s study is therefore questionable. (shrink)

Brian O'Shaughnessy puts forward a bold and original theory of consciousness, one of the most fascinating but puzzling aspects of human existence. He analyses consciousness into purely psychological constituents, according pre-eminence to its epistemological power; the result is an integrated picture of the conscious mind in its natural physical setting. Consciousness and the World is a rich and exciting book, a major contribution to our understanding of the mind.

The phenomenon of action in which the mind moves the body has puzzled philosophers over the centuries. In this new edition of a classic work of analytical philosophy, Brian O'Shaughnessy investigates bodily action and attempts to resolve some of the main problems. His expanded and updated discussion examines the scope of the will and the conditions in which it makes contact with the body, and investigates the epistemology of the body. He sheds light upon the strangely intimate relation of (...) awareness in which we stand to our own bodies, doing so partly through appeal to the concept of the body-image. The result is a new and strengthened emphasis on the vitally important function of the bodily will as a transparently intelligible bridge between mind and body, and the proposal of a dual aspect theory of the will. (shrink)

For millennia, idleness and laziness have been regarded as vices. We're all expected to work to survive and get ahead, and devoting energy to anything but labor and self-improvement can seem like a luxury or a moral failure. Far from questioning this conventional wisdom, modern philosophers have worked hard to develop new reasons to denigrate idleness. In Idleness, the first book to challenge modern philosophy's portrayal of inactivity, Brian O'Connor argues that the case against an indifference to work and (...) effort is flawed--and that idle aimlessness may instead allow for the highest form of freedom. -/- Idleness explores how some of the most influential modern philosophers drew a direct connection between making the most of our humanity and avoiding laziness. Idleness was dismissed as contrary to the need people have to become autonomous and make whole, integrated beings of themselves (Kant); to be useful (Kant and Hegel); to accept communal norms (Hegel); to contribute to the social good by working (Marx); and to avoid boredom (Schopenhauer and de Beauvoir). -/- O'Connor throws doubt on all these arguments, presenting a sympathetic vision of the inactive and unserious that draws on more productive ideas about idleness, from ancient Greece through Robert Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy, Schiller and Marcuse's thoughts about the importance of play, and recent critiques of the cult of work. A thought-provoking reconsideration of productivity for the twenty-first century, Idleness shows that, from now on, no theory of what it means to have a free mind can exclude idleness from the conversation. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Ideas 63.1 (2002) 41-62 [Access article in PDF] Pure of Heart: From Ancient Rites to Renaissance Plato Marjorie O'Rourke Boyle The philosopher who published Plato for Western thought praised him strangely. Marsilio Ficino commended his translation of the Phaedrus to his soul mate Iohannes Bessarion because in that dialogue Plato sought from God spiritual beauty. "When this gold was given to Plato by (...) God, it shone in him most brilliantly, because he was so pure in heart." The epithet "pure in heart" is not literally Ficino's diction: he wrote "in his Platonic bosom perfectly clean" (Platonico in sinu utpote mundissimo). 1 Although this philological variant insinuates his full meaning, the modern translation conveys his essential import. Ficino and Bessarion were both scholars and priests, convinced of the compatibility of Platonism with Christianity. The recipient of the letter, Bessarion, had defended the Phaedrusvigorously against protestations that, for promoting the criminal activity of pederasty, it was an obscene work of unchaste philosophy. "Love," he declared, "leads many to beatitude." 2 Ficino emphasized that "no one can attain beatitude, which consists in divine contemplation, unless he loves God ardently." 3 To that end he translated the complete works of Plato into Latin with commentaries. He also composed a speculative Theologia platonica. The pair would have approved of the application to Plato of the gospel promise "Blessed are the pure of heart [hoi katharoi t¯e kardia], for they shall see God" (Matt. 5:8). Was this promise not already fulfilled in Plato, even before Jesus' pronouncement? Did not Socrates in the Phaedrus soar to the vision of God in his myth of the charioteer, where among privileged souls he peered over the rim of intelligible being to behold the divine processional and true being? The [End Page 41] myth figured the recollection of the soul's primordial state of innocence, "when we were pure ourselves," and, beholding "the beatific vision," were initiated into its "most blessed" mystery. 4 Bessarion cited the passage defensively, declaring Socrates' speech "most holy." 5The beatitudes, from which "pure of heart" derived, emphatically comprised the opening discourse of Jesus' Sermon on the Mount. Jesus blessed the poor in spirit, the mourners, the meek, those hungry and thirsty for righteousness, the merciful, the pure of heart, the peacemakers, and those persecuted for righteousness. He pronounced a corresponding good for each type (Matt. 5:1-10). The first four beatitudes promised reversals for the unfortunate; the second four, eschatological rewards for the virtuous. 6 Ficino personalized the beatitudes. He applied them in a letter to an archbishop to his own contrasting status as a priest "of humble fortune." Indicating his slight financial means, he affirmed obedience to his lot, even contentment with his meager possessions. He then wielded the divine reversal of human judgment, so startling in the beatitudes, against his enemies. "I am certainly content with few possessions, even though I am often held in contempt by many; for these many ought to be deemed of little worth. Blessed are the poor in spirit. Blessed are the peacemakers." 7Ficino also philosophized the beatitudes. He argued in Theologia platonica that, although the celestial realm was usually considered fiery, it could be earthy, as poets imagined the Elysian Fields. Jesus' beatitude promising the possession of the earth to the meek was proof. Ficino expounded the nine grades of celestial beatitude as a belief shared by Platonists and Christians. He assigned these grades to varying degrees and combinations of three ends: the fear of divine power, the search for wisdom, and the love of good, which ultimately transformed the soul. This elaborate division Ficino compared to Jesus' beatitudes. "I think that this mystery is signified in the gospel, where the divine oracle nine times calls his disciples blessed, because through nine grades of merit, with God leading, the nine heavens are sought blessedly through nine degrees of contemplation." Despite his philosophical imposition on the biblical text, Ficino qualified his syncretism. The gospel admonished the dismissal of philosophical meanderings to pursue... (shrink)

An analysis of how Adorno's "pure" philosophy can be seen to provide a justification of the rationality required by critical theory.

Brian O'Shaughnessy; V—Material Objects and Perceptual Standpoint, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Volume 65, Issue 1, 1 June 1965, Pages 77–98, https.

The study of perception and the role of the senses have recently risen to prominence in philosophy and are now a major area of study and research. However, the philosophical history of the senses remains a relatively neglected subject. Moving beyond the current philosophical canon, this outstanding collection offers a wide-ranging and diverse philosophical exploration of the senses, from the classical period to the present day. Written by a team of international contributors, it is divided into six parts: -/- Perception (...) from Non-Western Perspectives Perception in the Ancient Period Perception in the Medieval Latin/Arabic Period Perception in the Early Modern Period Perception in the Post-Kantian Period Perception in the Contemporary Period. The volume challenges conventional philosophical study of perception by covering a wide range of significant, as well as hitherto overlooked, topics, such as perceptual judgment, temporal and motion illusions, mirror and picture perception, animal senses and cross-modal integration. By investigating the history of the senses in thinkers such as Plotinus, Auriol, Berkeley and Cavendish; and considering the history of the senses in diverse philosophical traditions, including Chinese, Indian, Byzantine, Greek and Latin it brings a fresh approach to studying the history of philosophy itself. -/- Including a thorough introduction as well as introductions to each section by the editors, The Senses and the History of Philosophy is essential reading for students and researchers in the history of philosophy, perception, philosophy of mind, philosophical psychology, aesthetics and eastern and non-western philosophy. It will also be extremely useful for those in related disciplines such as psychology, religion, sociology, intellectual history and cognitive sciences. (shrink)

The aim is to discover a principle governing the formation of the dream. Now dreaming has an analogy with consciousness in that it is a seeming-consciousness. Meanwhile consciousness exhibits a tripartite structure consisting of understanding oneself to be situated in a world endowed with given properties, the mental processes responsible for the state, and the concrete perceptual encounter of awareness with the world. The dream analogues of these three elements are investigated in the hope of discovering the source of the (...) kinship between dream and consciousness. The dream world proves to be a logically impossible world, limited by nothing more than sheer narratability. The internal world of the dreamer is notable for the limitlessness of the scope allotted to the imagination, together with the presence of two important phenomena encountered in waking consciousness: a measure of interiority, and the positing of a world. Finally, the dream further replicates consciousness in so far as we seem in dreaming concretely to experience our physical surrounds in the form of perceptual imagining. These properties play their part in enabling the dream to be a seeming-consciousness. At the same time they are such as to necessitate its not being consciousness. It is proposed that in the light of these properties, and those composing the state of consciousness, the dream simply is the imagining of consciousness. (shrink)

While top-down descriptors have received much attention in explaining corruption, we develop a grassroots model to describe structural factors that may influence the emergence and spread of an individual’s (un)ethical behavior within organizations. We begin with a discussion of the economics justification of the benefits of competition, a rationale used by firms to adopt structural aides such as the ‹stacking’ practice that was implemented at Enron. We discuss and develop an individual-level theory of planned behavior, then extend it to the (...) dyadic level in an internally competitive organization, and finally extend the dyadic model to the social network. We apply social network theory to predict favorable and unfavorable conditions for the emergence and diffusion of an intraorganizational instance of unethical behavior and find that network conditions favoring the suppression of the emergence of unethical behavior also promote its diffusion. For illustrative purposes, we utilize examples from Enron’s internally competitive structure to embed our arguments in a real world context and bring reality to our theorizing. Implications for both researchers and managers are discussed. (shrink)

Explores significant interpretations of the human spirit in Western culture, with sources ranging from the Hebrew Bible and the apostle Paul to the theologians Augustine, Aquinas, and Calvin and the natural philosopher and physician William Harvey"--Provided by publisher.

Brian O'Shaughnessy; XII*—Processes, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Volume 72, Issue 1, 1 June 1972, Pages 215–240, https://doi.org/10.1093/aristoteli.