In one of his many metaphorical turns of phrase – a leitmotif in The Philosophical Discourse of Modernity — Jürgen Habermas speaks of the path not taken by modern philosophers, a path that might have led them towards his own intersubjective notion of communicative reason. Habermas is especially critical of his predecessors, Theodor W. Adorno and Max Horkheimer, because, he believes, they repudiated the rational potential in the culture of modernity. Whenever Adorno and Horkheimer heard the word ‘culture’, they apparently (...) reached for their revolvers. By the 1940s, their confidence in modern culture had allegedly succumbed to bitter disillusionment. Indeed, on Habermas's view, the confidence of these early critical theorists had been shaken so badly by the emergence of Nazism and Stalinism that their scepticism finally embraced reason itself, ‘whose standards ideology critique had found already given in bourgeois ideals’. Consequently, Adorno and Horkheimer were forced to call into question their own immanent critique of modernity: ideology critique itself came ‘under suspicion of not producing truths’. These philosophers supposedly had little choice but to render their now suspect critique ‘independent even in relation to its own foundations’. (shrink)

This article explores the implications of the prevalence of suicide attacks or 'martyrdom operations' in contemporary Islam. Historical and legal precedents from Islam and Christianity are adduced for the analysis and placed within the context of radical Islam.

Belief polarization is said to occur when two people respond to the same evidence by updating their beliefs in opposite directions. This response is considered to be “irrational” because it involves contrary updating, a form of belief updating that appears to violate normatively optimal responding, as for example dictated by Bayes' theorem. In light of much evidence that people are capable of normatively optimal behavior, belief polarization presents a puzzling exception. We show that Bayesian networks, or Bayes nets, can simulate (...) rational belief updating. When fit to experimental data, Bayes nets can help identify the factors that contribute to polarization. We present a study into belief updating concerning the reality of climate change in response to information about the scientific consensus on anthropogenic global warming. The study used representative samples of Australian and U.S. participants. Among Australians, consensus information partially neutralized the influence of worldview, with free-market supporters showing a greater increase in acceptance of human-caused global warming relative to free-market opponents. In contrast, while consensus information overall had a positive effect on perceived consensus among U.S. participants, there was a reduction in perceived consensus and acceptance of human-caused global warming for strong supporters of unregulated free markets. Fitting a Bayes net model to the data indicated that under a Bayesian framework, free-market support is a significant driver of beliefs about climate change and trust in climate scientists. Further, active distrust of climate scientists among a small number of U.S. conservatives drives contrary updating in response to consensus information among this particular group. (shrink)

A number of authors have argued that Peano Arithmetic supplemented with a logical validity predicate is inconsistent in much the same manner as is PA supplemented with an unrestricted truth predicate. In this paper I show that, on the contrary, there is no genuine paradox of logical validity—a completely general logical validity predicate can be coherently added to PA, and the resulting system is consistent. In addition, this observation lead to a number of novel, and important, insights into the nature (...) of logical validity itself. (shrink)

Campaigning activities of non-governmental organisations (NGOs) have increased public awareness and concern regarding the alleged unethical and environmentally damaging practices of many major multinational companies. Companies have responded by developing corporate social responsibility strategies to demonstrate their commitment to both the societies within which they function and to the protection of the natural environment. This has often involved a move towards greater transparency in company practice and a desire to engage with stakeholders, often including many of the campaign organisations that (...) have been at the forefront of the criticisms of their activity. This article examines the ways in which stakeholder dialogue has impacted upon the relationships between NGOs and businesses. In doing so, it contributes to the call for more ‘stakeholder-focused’ research in this field (Frooman in Acad Manag Rev 24(2): 191–205, 1999; Steurer in Bus Strategy Environ 15: 15–69 2006). By adopting a stakeholder lens, and focusing more heavily upon the impact on one particular stakeholder community (NGOs) and looking in depth at one form of engagement (stakeholder dialogue), this article examines how experiences of dialogue are strategically transforming interactions between businesses and NGOs. It shows how experiences of stakeholder dialogue have led to transformations in the drivers for engagement, transformations in the processes of engagement and transformations in the terms of engagement. Examining these areas of transformation, the article argues, reveals the interactions at play in framing and shaping the evolving relationships between business and its stakeholders. (shrink)

Explores the moral dimensions of the current global role of the U.S. military.

This article presents a critical examination of the process of stakeholder dialogue in the Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) field. It utilises data from a three-year research project into stakeholder dialogue processes to discuss three central themes: first, what is meant by the term ‘dialogue’, both from a theoretical perspective and from its practical application within CSR; second, the challenges of creating effective dialogue; and third, measuring and assessing the potential outcomes of dialogue. In providing a critical overview of these themes, (...) the article examines the nature of organisational learning through stakeholder engagement and dialogue. It questions the motives behind engagement in dialogue and highlights some of the potential challenges for organisational learning posed by opting for a stakeholder dialogue approach. It argues that organisations engaging in stakeholder dialogue must have a clear understanding of the implications of undertaking a dialogue process and have a long-term perspective regarding the outcomes and learning likely to emerge from it. While stakeholder dialogue may produce significant results, it is argued, many of these may be difficult to quantify on a short-term basis. (shrink)

A difficulty for alethic pluralism has been the idea that semantic evaluation of conjunctions whose conjuncts come from discourses with distinct truth properties requires a third notion of truth which applies to both of the original discourses. But this line of reasoning does not entail that there exists a single generic truth property that applies to all statements and all discourses, unless it is supplemented with additional, controversial, premises. So the problem of mixed conjunctions, while highlighting other aspects of alethic (...) pluralism worth investigating further, does not constitute an effective objection to it. (shrink)

No detailed description available for "Language in the Philosophy of Hegel".

Early in the COVID-19 pandemic there was widespread concern that healthcare systems would be overwhelmed, and specifically, that there would be insufficient critical care capacity in terms of beds, ventilators or staff to care for patients. In the UK, this was avoided by a threefold approach involving widespread, rapid expansion of critical care capacity, reduction of healthcare demand from non-COVID-19 sources by temporarily pausing much of normal healthcare delivery, and by governmental and societal responses that reduced demand through national lockdown. (...) Despite high-level documents designed to help manage limited critical care capacity, none provided sufficient operational direction to enable use at the bedside in situations requiring triage. We present and describe the development of a structured process for fair allocation of critical care resources in the setting of insufficient capacity. The document combines a wide variety of factors known to impact on outcome from critical illness, integrated with broad-based clinical judgement to enable structured, explicit, transparent decision-making founded on robust ethical principles. It aims to improve communication and allocate resources fairly, while avoiding triage decisions based on a single disease, comorbidity, patient age or degree of frailty. It is designed to support and document decision-making. The document has not been needed to date, nor adopted as hospital policy. However, as the pandemic evolves, the resumption of necessary non-COVID-19 healthcare and economic activity mean capacity issues and the potential need for triage may yet return. The document is presented as a starting point for stakeholder feedback and discussion. (shrink)

There is a long history of women being underrepresented in biomedical and health research. Specific women’s health needs have been, and in some cases still are, comparatively neglected areas of study. Concerns about the health and social impacts of such bias and exclusion have resulted in inclusion policies from governments, research funders, and the scientific establishment since the 1990s. Contemporary understandings of foregrounding sex and gender issues within biomedical research range from women’s rights to inclusion, to links between human rights, (...) women’s health and sustainable development, and the increasing scientific and funding expectation for studies to consider the sex and gender implications of research design, results and impact. However, there are also exploitation issues to consider when foregrounding the inclusion of women as research participants, especially for research ethics committees and institutional review boards. A hidden risk is that exploitative research designs and practices may be missed, particularly by reviewers who may not have a nuanced understanding of gender-based harm. Utilizing contemporary case studies of ethics dumping, this paper highlights some of the concerns, and makes recommendations for IRBs/research ethics reviewers to help ensure that essential research is undertaken to the highest ethical standards. (shrink)

Using a qualitative, grounded theory approach, this study examined the public policy interactions of small firms. The small firms' cognitive understanding and sensemaking approaches to government are revealed through an examination of successful and failed influence attempts. Embedded in these attempts, a set of factors (Issue Characteristics and Influence Process) were discovered, which affect the outcome of an influence effort. Issue Characteristics reflected attributes chief executive officers (CEOs) looked for when examining an issue and include Issue Impact, Issue Clarity, and (...) Issue Image. Influence Process factors focus on how influence is acquired and exercised, and include Issue Champion, Persistence, and Coalition Development. (shrink)

Despite widespread interest in the topic of moral repair in the business ethics literature and in the workplace, little is currently known about moral repair with regard to the self—i.e., how and why individuals repair themselves in the aftermath of harming others within workplace contexts and what factors may influence the success of self-repair. We conducted a qualitative study in the context of health care organizations to develop an inductive model of self-repair in the workplace. Our findings reveal a set (...) of factors, including reactions to the harm incident, motivating factors, and methods of self-repair that involve intrapersonal (e.g., self-compassion) and interpersonal (e.g., seeking feedback and support from co-workers and managers) actions. We discovered that self-repair, or what we characterize as “moral self-repair” is a complex process characterized by important ethical, emotional, and social dimensions and that the effectiveness of self-repair actions is moderated by the actions of those within the organization (e.g., co-workers, managers) and outside the organization (e.g., families, friends, counselors). These social actors can promote self-repair by offering encouragement and support, or undermine self-repair by communicating a lack of trust and respect that reinforces self-blame. This model of self-repair is intended to guide future ethics research on the topic of moral self-repair and offers insight to practicing managers. (shrink)

Let H be a proof system for quantified propositional calculus (QPC). We define the Σqj-witnessing problem for H to be: given a prenex Σqj-formula A, an H-proof of A, and a truth assignment to the free variables in A, find a witness for the outermost existential quantifiers in A. We point out that the Σq1-witnessing problems for the systems G*1and G1 are complete for polynomial time and PLS (polynomial local search), respectively. We introduce and study the systems G*0 and G0, (...) in which cuts are restricted to quantifier-free formulas, and prove that the Σqj-witnessing problem for each is complete for NC1. Our proof involves proving a polynomial time version of Gentzen’s midsequent theorem for G*0 and proving that G0-proofs are TC0-recognizable. We also introduce QPC systems for TC0 and prove witnessing theorems for them. We introduce a finitely axiomatizable second-order system VNC1 of bounded arithmetic which we prove isomorphic to Arai’s first order theory AID + Σb0-CA for uniform NC1. We describe simple translations of VNC1 proofs of all bounded theorems to polynomial size families of G*0 proofs. From this and the above theorem we get alternative proofs of the NC1 witnessing theorems for VNC1 and AID. (shrink)

Adorno continues to have an impact on disciplines as diverse as philosophy, sociology, psychology, cultural studies, musicology and literary theory. An uncompromising critic, even as Adorno contests many of the premises of the philosophical tradition, he also reinvigorates that tradition in his concerted attempt to stem or to reverse potentially catastrophic tendencies in the West. This book serves as a guide through the intricate labyrinth of Adorno's work. Expert contributors make Adorno accessible to a new generation of readers without simplifying (...) his thought. They provide readers with the key concepts needed to decipher Adorno's often daunting books and essays. (shrink)

_ Source: _Volume 10, Issue 2, pp 193 - 207 Julian, in a Syriac fragment of his _Contra Galilaeos_, attacked the resurrection narratives in Matthew and Mark, because they were inconsistent with each other concerning the time of the arrival of the women to the tomb, the nature of the being they met in the tomb, and the women’s subsequent actions. Other texts in Syriac and Latin indicate the probability that Julian took over the substance of his argument from Porphyry.

The political unaccountability of ordinary citizens in classical Athens was originally raised as a challenge by ancient critics of democracy. In tension with that criticism, the authors argue that attention to the above challenge is consistent with a defence of Athenian democratic politics. In fact, ordinary citizens' function in the Assembly and courts implicitly included the burden of justifying their own political decisions to an imagined authority, as if they could be brought to account. Byeans of practices that encouraged this (...) self-scrutiny, Athenians marked the challenge of citizens' political unaccountability as an unavoidable but manageable aspect of their democracy. (shrink)

I have argued that there is a philosophical problem posed by a need to determine the reference of expressions which seem to refer to kinds of stuff or matter and to make identity claims about it (e.g., ‘the gold’, ‘the same clay’). Ordinary sortal expressions such as ‘lump’, and ‘piece’ have been shown to be inadequate to the task of providing reference for the expressions in question. What is necessary is an expression which does not have an ordinary sortal use (...) and which meets certain other conditions which I have enumerated. There does not seem to be an expression in ordinary language which fits these conditions. The technical term, ‘quantity’, as defined by Helen Cartwright, meet the conditions. ‘Parcel’, suggested V. C. Chappell, fails to meet the conditions. Another technical term, ‘m-elements’, coined by Laycock, comes close to meeting the conditions, but has a number of difficulties. Mose of these difficulties stem from the fact that counting (rather than measuring, as with quantities) is behind the application of ‘m-elements’, and stuff is as a matter of fact measured, rather than counted, in most situations. I have also considered a possible difficulty with ‘quantity’ (that in most cases in which someone talks of ‘same stuff’ strictly speaking we don't have the same quantity of stuff) and shown it not to be a genuine difficulty. (shrink)

We propose and defend a distinction between two types of self-censorship: public and private. In public self-censorship, individuals restrain their expressive attitudes in response to public censors. In private self-censorship, individuals do so in the absence of public censorship. We argue for this distinction by introducing a general model which allows us to identify, describe, and compare a wide range of censorship regimes. The model explicates the interaction between censors and censees and yields the distinction between two types of self-censorship. (...) In public self-censorship, the censee aligns her expression of attitudes according to the public censor. In private self-censorship, the roles of censor and censee are fullled by the same agent. The distinction has repercussions for normative analysis: principles of free speech can only be invoked in cases of public self-censorship. (shrink)

This article aims to focus on how signatories versus nonsignatories in the U.S. pharmaceutical sector compare with respect to the internal and external stakeholders and principles of the United Nations Global Compact (UNGC). We seek to answer the question: Do signatories to the UNGC walk the talk better than nonsignatories as determined by a variety of published rankings and data? This research presents an innovative approach to the evaluation of UNGC signatories. It uses several objective and independent data sources to (...) assess a matched group of signatories versus nonsignatories in the U.S. pharmaceutical sector. Signatory organizations in the same sector as determined by SIC codes were matched with nonsignatories on variables such as size and number of employees in U.S. pharmaceutical companies. Then both types of organizations were compared on the following data sources: Coalition for Environmentally Responsible Economies ratings, ratings by external stakeholders, ratings by employees, unionization data, financial measures, and annual reports to shareholders. Using nonparametric testing the research found there are differences between signatories and nonsignatories in the U.S. pharmaceutical sector for some of the external stakeholder measures and no differences were found for the internal stakeholder measures. (shrink)

If A then B: How the World Discovered Logic is a historically oriented introduction to the basic notions of logic. In particular, and in the words of the authors, it is focused on the idea that ‘lo...

Bertrand Russell says of Leibniz that "the best parts of his philosophy are the most abstract and the worst those which most nearly concern human life". Many have agreed with Russell's comments and the treatment of Leibniz by most Anglo-American philosophers in particular during this century is a testimony to his sentiments. Even sympathetic commentators have been dismissive or apologetic of those aspects of Leibniz's thought that "concern human life". My purpose here is not to dear Leibniz of any and (...) all animadversions - personal or philosophical - but to attempt to understand the dissimulation and equivocality that even his admirers ascribe to his non-logical writings. It is my position that such qualities were intrinsic to his thought, and not simply personal quirks or flaws that have to be tolerated or dismissed in any sustained examination of his philosophy. (shrink)

Early in the Second Meditation Descartes has found grounds to doubt his previous opinions, and following his resolve to reject as false anything not entirely indubitable, he rejects these opinions. He then asks whether there might remain something impervious to doubt that he has not yet considered. One item as yet unconsidered is his own existence:I myself, am I not at least something? But I have already denied that I had senses and body. Yet I hesitate, for what follows from (...) that? Am I so dependent on body and senses that I cannot exist without these? But I was persuaded that there was nothing in all the world, that there was no heaven, no earth, that there were no minds, nor any bodies: was I not then likewise persuaded that I did not exist? (shrink)

Volume 19, Issue 1, April-May 2020, Page 76-76.

In recent years there has been a tendency in some quarters to see an affinity between the views of Kierkegaard and Wittgenstein on the subject of religious belief. It seems to me that this is a mistake, that Kierkegaard's views were fundamentally at odds with Wittgenstein's. That this fact is not generally recognized is, I suspect, owing to the obscurity of Kierkegaard's most fundamental assumptions. My aim here is to make those assumptions explicit and to show how they differ from (...) Wittgenstein's. (shrink)

Während viel über Leibniz und China geschrieben wurde, fand seine Beschäftigung mit dem anderen "Orient" — dem Nahen Osten — wenig Beachtung. Mein Beitrag widmet sich daher Leibniz' Haltung gegenüber dem Islam und dessen Anhängern. Abgesehen von der osmanischen Bedrohung für Zentral-Europa, die zur Zeit seiner mittleren Schaffensperiode im Abnehmen begriffen war, wird der Islam von Leibniz in erster Linie als theologisches System behandelt. Leibniz äußerte sich zu den ihm zur Verfügung stehenden islamischen und arabischen Quellen und zeigte ein wachsendes (...) Interesse an ihnen. In dem Leibniz' Haltung gegenüber dem islamischen/arabischen Orient untersucht wird, vertieft sich auch unser Verständnis gegenüber seiner lebenslangen Suche nach einem Dialog zwischen Christentum und anderen Glaubensrichtungen, wie auch die Rolle der islamischen Theologie innerhalb des europäischen religiösen Denkens beleuchtet wird. Schließlich zeigt sich Leibniz' Haltung gegenüber dem Islam als repräsentativ für viele Denker im Europa der frühen Aufklärung. (shrink)

In the Localist Manifesto, Page enumerated several computational advantages that localist representations have over distributed representations, but the most important difference between such networks concerns their theoretical clarity. Distributed representations are normally closed to theoretical interpretation and, for that reason, contribute little to psychology, whereas the meaning of the information processing in networks using localist representations can be transparent.