In Experiencing and the Creation of Meaning, Eugene Gendlin examines the edge of awareness, where language emerges from nonlanguage.

Equally important, he offers much insight into why our own environmental policies have failed and what we can do to better manage our resources.

Offers a summary account of the history of philosophical thought through the 19th century, an unusually updated and balanced account of 20th century thought, and lengthy chapters on the history of Chinese and Indian thought. Selected by Choice as an Outstanding Academic Book of 1988-1989.

Empirical evidence shows that people have multiple time-biases. One is near-bias, another is future-bias, and a third is present-bias. Philosophers are concerned with the normative status of these time-biases. They have argued that, at least in part, the normative status of these biases depends on the extent to which they tend to promote, or frustrate, wellbeing, where “wellbeing” is taken to be of fundamental value. Since near-bias is thought to be associated with impulsivity, lack of self-control, and poor long-term health (...) and financial outcomes, it has often been supposed that it is associated with lower wellbeing. On those grounds, philosophers have argued that near-bias is rationally impermissible. By contrast, philosophical views about the normative status of future-bias have been mixed, with some arguing that future-bias is impermissible because, they think, it frustrates wellbeing, and others arguing that it is at least permissible (and perhaps obligatory) because it is the product of mechanisms whose functioning can be expected to promote wellbeing. However, to date there are no studies that have directly probed how time-biases correlate with wellbeing. Since it's not a settled matter which psychological mechanisms underlie time-biases, it is not uncontroversial which things serve as proxies for these preferences. We directly empirically investigate the connection between time-biases and measures of wellbeing, to see which of these biases is associated with promoting, or frustrating wellbeing. Contrary to expectation, we found no evidence that near-bias or present-bias are associated with frustrating wellbeing on any of the constructs we measured. On the other hand, and contrary to what some philosophers have supposed, we found that future-bias was associated with higher measures of wellbeing on several measures. We consider the implications of these findings for the evaluation of the normative status of these time biases. (shrink)

Der Philosoph Frane Petrić , widmet einen bedeutenden Teil seiner Studien über Ontologie und Kosmologie, insbesondere in seinen Hauptwerken Discussiones peripateticae und Nova de universis philosophia, einer höchst originellen Untersuchung des Lichtes und der Zeit, zwei Konzepten, die auch in Einsteins „Zur Elektrodynamik bewegter Körper“ eine wichtige Rolle spielen. Bei der Gegenüberstellung der Konzepte dieser zwei Philosophen kommt ihre Verwandtschaft in jedem der erwähnten Systeme zum Ausdruck. Sowohl für Patricius, als auch für Einstein besitzt das Licht eine einmalige, unveränderliche Funktion (...) im Universum. In seiner Analyse der Zeit und mit ihr verwandter Konzepte, beispielsweise der Dauer, entwickelte Patricius eine konzeptuelle Struktur, dynamisch genug, um ihre Konsistenz mit Einsteins Analyse von Zeit und Simultaneität erkennbar zu machen. (shrink)

The Ford Pinto’s fuel tank was prone to rupture in collisions above 20 mph, sometimes resulting in burn deaths. An infamous Ford memo estimated the cost of a shield correcting the problem at $11. Should Ford have installed the shield, holding public safety paramount, or, respecting consumer autonomy, have made the shield an option? Answering this question requires distinguishing between three kinds of autonomy: merechoice autonomy (deciding something for oneself, regardless of the content of the choice), proclamative autonomy (making a (...) choice that holds up a value or standard, commitment to which is partly definitive of who one is), and high-impact autonomy (making a choice that profoundly affects one’s ability to make proclamative choices). (This is not a formal distinction, that is, a distinction meant be to be clear, rigorous, and neutral). Autonomy is thus asymmetric: choosing to do x may be highly proclamative while choosing not to do x is not. In the Pinto case, not giving consumers the option of declining the shield undercuts only mere-choice autonomy. Several arguments are provided (including an argument based on the nature of moral agency) that proclamative autonomy (and, derivatively, high-impact autonomy), rather than mere-choice autonomy, has significant positive value. More precisely, it is argued that, as a rule, the more proclamative a choice is, other things being equal, the more weight autonomy claims about that choice possess. The paper concludes that common sense is correct about the Pinto case. In some instances, consumer choice may legitimately count more than the engineer’s commitment to public safety (particularly when proclamative choice is involved). However, losing the opportunity to save $11 is not too large a price to pay in order to counter market pressures against safety by inducing in engineers a professional commitment to put safety first. (shrink)

Buridan’s Ass faced a choice between two identical bales of hay; governed only by reason, the donkey starved, unable to choose. It seems clear that we face many such cases, and resolve them successfully. Our success seems to tell against any view on which action and intention require evaluative preference. I argue that these views can account for intention and intentional action in cases like that of Buridan’s Ass. A decision to act nonintentionally allows us to resolve these cases without (...) their being a damaging theoretical counterexample. (shrink)

EXISTENTIALIST PHILOSOPHERS of religion and theologians speaking out of a Kierkegaardian tradition have argued that Christian theism can be neither proven nor shown to be probable in any strict sense of the word, that God is not an object of thought, that there can be no religious Weltanschauung, and that one can know and speak of God only out of a relationship to Him. This view has the value of preserving the element of unconditional commitment considered by many to be (...) essential to Christian faith but has resulted in an inability to make a rational case for belief in God and in an inability to say anything significant about God. Existentialists have increasingly expressed dissatisfaction with the outcome of this approach and have insisted that religious faith is a way of being in the world, a matter of understanding as well as commitment and that religious faith must find expression in some ontology if it is to claim to speak significantly of God. (shrink)

This article draws on Principles of Stakeholder Managementrecently published by the Clarkson Centre for Business Ethics. The article discusses the most important principles and the reasoning behind them. First, though, it lays a foundation for the application of these principles by interpreting a massive empirical study that demonstrates strong parallels between stakeholder valuation of firms (measured as overall reputation) and shareholder valuation (stock market returns). This evidence is coupled with conceptual analysis that shows that the most famous pronouncements of Adam (...) Smith and Milton Friedman actually argue for, not against, the stakeholder approach. (shrink)

This study investigated students’ perceptions of ethical organizational climates, attitudes towards ethical issues, and the perceived relationship between ethical behavior and success in business organizations. Comparisons were made between the attitudes of these future managers with previously published studies of Russian managers’ attitudes. A survey of 100 business students in three Moscow universities showed that their attitudes toward ethical behavior were more negative than those of Russian managers. No significant differences were found in the perceptions or attitudes of students who (...) had attended an ethics course and those that did not. The implications for both managers and researchers were reported. (shrink)

Life and the living (on Aristotelian biohorror) -- Supernatural horror as the paradigm for life -- Aristotle's De anima and the problem of life -- The ontology of life -- The entelechy of the weird -- Superlative life -- Life with or without limits -- Life as time in Plotinus -- On the superlative -- Superlative life I: Pseudo-Dionysius -- Negative vs. affirmative theology -- Superlative negation -- Negation and preexistent life -- Excess, evil, and non-being -- Superlative life II: (...) Eriugena -- Negation in the periphyseon -- The quaestio de nihilo: on nothing -- The quaestio de nihilo: superlative nothing -- Dark intelligible abyss -- Apophasis -- The apophatic logic -- Negation in Frege and Ayer -- Negation vs. subtraction in Badiou -- Negation and contradiction in Priest -- The dialetheic vitalism of negative theology -- Ellipses: Suhraward and the luminous void -- Univocal creatures -- On spiritual creatures -- Life as form in Aristotle -- The concept of the creature -- Univocity I: Duns Scotus vs. Aquinas -- Univocity in Aquinas' Summa theologica -- Univocity in Duns Scotus' Opus oxoniense -- The common nature of the creature -- Univocity II: Duns Scotus vs. Henry of Ghent -- Univocity in Henry of Ghent -- Negative vs. privative indetermination -- Absolute indetermination -- Univocity III: Deleuze's scholasticism three variations -- Spinoza et le problème de l'expression -- Différence et répétition -- Cours de Vincennes -- Univocal creatures -- Ellipses: Dgen and uncreated univocity -- Dark pantheism -- Everything and nothing -- Life as spirit in Aquinas -- The concept of the divine nature -- Immanence I: Eriugena's periphyseon -- Natura and the unthought -- Universal life -- Four statements on pantheism -- Immanence II: Duns Scotus' reportatio Ia -- Univocal immanence -- Actual infinity -- The pathology of the triple primacy -- Immanence III: Nicholas of Cusa's De docta ignorantia -- The coincidence of opposites -- The folds of life -- Absolute vs. contracted pantheism -- Speculative pantheism (Deleuze's interlocutors) -- Pantheism and pure immanence -- The insubordination of immanence in Deleuze -- Scholia I: the isomorphism of univocity and immanence -- Scholia II: the vitalist logic of common notions -- Scholia III: the life of substance -- Dark pantheism -- Ellipses: Wang Yangming and idealist naturalism -- Logic and life (on Kantian teratology) -- The wandering line from Aristotle to Kant -- Critique of life -- Spectral life and speculative realism -- Ontotheology in Kant, atheology in Bataille -- The night land. (shrink)

The publication is dedicated to Diogenes of Apollonia, the "last Presocratic cosmologist". Building upon the great edition by André Laks it contains a Russian translation and commentaries on the few extant fragments of Diogenes’ writing and more extensive ancient testimonia about his life and teachings. The main body of the publication comprises the fragments, doxographical testimonia and doubtful testimonia. The texts are arranged according to the principles proposed by A. Laks and differ from what we find in Diels-Kranz both in (...) terms of their order and their content, with a few new pieces of evidence added and the context of the fragments and testimonia considerably expanded. The first section contains Fragments 1-12. Doxographical testimonia are subdivided in 1. Biographical evidence ; 2. The principle ; 3. Life and consciousness ; 4. Semen and embryo ; 5. The Universe, and Dubia. Variant doxographical testimonia are usually quoted in full and discussed at some length in the commentary. The paper contains Appendices and Index locorum. The publication will be useful for specialists in ancient cosmology, medicine, and other areas of early philosophy and science, as well as researchers with an interest in doxography. (shrink)

A Thousand Plateaus is the engaging and influential second part of Capitalism and Schizophrenia, the remarkable collaborative project written by the philosopher Gilles Deleuze and the psychoanalyst Félix Guattari. This hugely important text is a work of staggering complexity that made a major contribution to contemporary Continental philosophy, yet remains distinctly challenging for readers in a number of disciplines. Deleuze and Guattari's 'A Thousand Plateaus': A Reader's Guide offers a concise and accessible introduction to this extremely important and yet challenging (...) work. Written specifically to meet the needs of students coming to Deleuze and Guattari for the first time, the book offers guidance on: - Philosophical and historical context - Key themes - Reading the text - Reception and influence - Further reading. (shrink)