This article studies the underinvestigated but fascinating issue of the sociological determinants of accounting misbehavior while focusing on an allegedly illicit accounting practice (i.e., restatement) in family- vs. nonfamily-controlled corporations. Under the framework of institutional anomie theory, we examined whether sociological structures (i.e., legal forces and cultural values) influence accounting errors inducing restatements. By applying a multivariate regression analysis to a sample of restating firms listed in 23 countries during the 2006 to 2014 period, we found that legal forces and (...) cultural values significantly moderate the severity of accounting errors. The results of this study suggest that investors, managers, and policymakers should more fully consider the sociological structures of societies when debating the feasibility of corporate misbehaviors, as combining firm-level and country-level analyses could help to predict a firm’s accounting misbehaviors, such as more severe accounting errors. (shrink)

The ageing society poses significant challenges to Europe’s economy and society. In coming to grips with these issues, we must be aware of their ethical dimensions. Values are the heart of the European Union, as Article 1a of the Lisbon Treaty makes clear: “The Union is founded on the values of respect for human dignity…”. The notion of Europe as a community of values has various important implications, including the development of inclusion policies. A special case of exclusion concerns the (...) gap between those people with effective access to digital and information technology and those without access to it, the “digital divide”, which in Europe is chiefly age-related. Policies to overcome the digital divide and, more generally speaking, e-inclusion policies addressing the ageing population raise some ethical problems. Among younger senior citizens, say those between 65 and 80 years old, the main issues are likely to be universal access to ICT and e-participation. Among the older senior citizens, say those more than 80 years old, the main issues are mental and physical deterioration and assistive technology. An approach geared towards the protection of human rights could match the different needs of senior citizens and provide concrete guidance to evaluate information technologies for them. (shrink)

The ageing society poses significant challenges to Europe’s economy and society. In coming to grips with these issues, we must be aware of their ethical dimensions. Values are the heart of the European Union, as Article 1a of the Lisbon Treaty makes clear: “The Union is founded on the values of respect for human dignity…”. The notion of Europe as a community of values has various important implications, including the development of inclusion policies. A special case of exclusion concerns the (...) gap between those people with effective access to digital and information technology and those without access to it, the “digital divide”, which in Europe is chiefly age-related. Policies to overcome the digital divide and, more generally speaking, e-inclusion policies addressing the ageing population raise some ethical problems. Among younger senior citizens, say those between 65 and 80 years old, the main issues are likely to be universal access to ICT and e-participation. Among the older senior citizens, say those more than 80 years old, the main issues are mental and physical deterioration and assistive technology. An approach geared towards the protection of human rights could match the different needs of senior citizens and provide concrete guidance to evaluate information technologies for them. (shrink)

My review of Cornelius Castoriadis' book Crossroads in the Labyrinth ended with the apt reference, I now see, to the emperor being naked. In Joel Whitebook's second review, largely irrelevant to my criticisms of Castoriadis, he fears, though he doesn't know me personally, that only the lack of psychological counseling can explain my uncontrolled anger against Castoriadis. Let me dignify his long distance psychoanalysis by passing over it in silence. Silence is also the best remedy for Whitebook's transcendental deduction that (...) I have a “pluralistic, localistic, discontinuous ontology.” Even if I knew what that was I find it amazing that he located it in a 10 page review. Perhaps Whitebook just “feels” the presence of this ontology along with evidence of my mental problems. (shrink)

Contemporary Continental Philosophy steps back from current debates comparing Continental and analytic philosophy and carefully, yet critically outlines the tradition’s main philosophical views on epistemology and ontology. Forgoing obscure paraphrases, D’Amico provides a detailed, clear account and assessment of the tradition from its founding by Husserl and Heidegger to its challenge by Derrida and Foucault. Though intended as a survey of this tradition throughout the twentieth century, this study’s focus is on the philosophical problems which gave it birth and (...) even now continue to shape it.The book reexamines Husserl as an early critic of epistemological naturalism whose grasp of the philosophical importance of the theory of meaning was largely ignored. Heidegger’s contrasting effort to revive ontology is examined in terms of his distinction between ontic and ontological questions. In contrast with many earlier studies, the author outlines confusions engendered by the misappropriation of the distinct philosophical agendas of Husserl and Heidegger by such famous figures as Sartre and Merleau-Ponty. The book is also original in its emphasis on how social externalism in epistemology, inspired by Karl Mannheim, influenced this tradition’s structuralist and Marxist phases. The philosophical defenses of a theory of interpretation by Gadamer and Habermas are closely examined and assessed and the study concludes with a a probing yet balanced account of Foucault and Derrida as critics of philosophical autonomy. The book concludes by reassessing this century-long divide between the analytic and Continental traditions and its implication for the future of philosophy. (shrink)

This chapter deals with the ways in which entrepreneurships driven by industrial design and the strategies for interconnecting design for innovation are articulated. In the first instance, current practices are recognized in order to analyze the different processes that entrepreneurial dynamics go through. This analysis is carried out from a systemic perspective, at three levels of abstraction: designer, entrepreneurship and ecosystem. The theoretical and conceptual framework will be structured based on the innovations driven by design, which occur around the designer, (...) his personal projects, and the possible interactions and singularities offered by living spaces. The objective of this work is to unravel the eventual relationships of the entrepreneurial designer in the ecosystem and to highlight the potential added by emerging connections, which allow for the projection of synergistic actions with other actors to create value(s). In this way, other possible views of the entrepreneurial process are provided, where the cultural and philosophical dimension that characterizes industrial designers allows them to achieve a higher quality of life, designing and producing collectively (in) their environment. (shrink)

Este artículo analiza el contexto en el que surge la Universidad en el occidente latino medieval y en ese marco la teorización y profesionalización de la filosofía. Por otra parte, expone de qué manera esta profesionalización impone su propia negación como la filosofía en lengua vulgar y los saberes no universitarios. Finalmente, reflexiona sobre la Universidad hoy.

La metafisica de Nicolás de Cusapresentada, por primeira vez, en su obra capitalDe docta ignorantia presenta como una desus nociones fundantes la ldea de Máximo absolutosegún la cual la maximldad, por ser tal,carece de toda relación. Así pues, el Máximoabsoluto debe ser concebido en coincidencia consu opuesto, el mlnimo absoluto - coinc:identiaoppositorum - y, al mismo tiempo, puesto quenada se le opone, co-irnplicando en sí mismotodas las cosas - complicatio absoluta - sln sernlnguna de ellas de modo singular. De estamanera, (...) el Máximo resulta la forma única universalde todo lo real y lo posible. las ideas en e!Lógos divino, noción que atraviesa diversasexpresiones dei neoplatonismo cristiano, aparecenaqui unificadas e igualadas en una únicaesencia, que es el mismo Logos, que "corre" portodas las cosas y es su quididad absoluta. Estapresentación nos conduce necesariarnente a lapregunta por la constitución de la singularidad ypor la predicación universal acerca de estoasingulares. A la primera pregunta respondeNicolás con la doctrina de la "contracción"; a lasegunda debemos responder nosotros reconstruyendola idea cusana de des-velarniento deimuno que lleva a cabo la humana mens a partirdei entramado nocional de géneros y especies.Esta construcción nocional llevará al Cusano allamar al hombre "segundo dios". (shrink)

At the end of World War II Karl Popper, at the time a little known philosopher of science, published The Open Society and Its Enemies. He dedicated the book to the victims of both Hitler's and Stalin's camps and called it his “war effort.” The book had an enormous impact and spawned both imitators, such as Hannah Arendt's The Origins of Totalitarianism, and a great deal of debate. Whatever else it accomplished Popper's work politicized the history of ideas. Against the (...) devastation of the war Popper refused to grant either innocence or quietude to the history of philosophy. He argued that ways of thinking and talking had terrible consequences; that philosophers legitimated terrible damage in their seemingly abstract inquiry. (shrink)

In response to "‘Counting As’ a Bridge Principle: Against Searle Against Social-Scientific Laws," Elijah Weber distinguishes two sorts of physical open-endedness and claims our article appeals to the wrong sort. We clarify that Searle’s notion of physical open-endedness is neither of the notions Weber introduces, thus our original reply to Searle is not targeted by Weber’s objections. Also, Weber’s lengthy example concerning counterfeit currency appears to build-in the extremely contentious assumption that scientific laws are impossible if and when relevant conditions (...) do not happen to obtain. (shrink)

Title: The Common Mind: An Essay on Psychology, Society, and PoliticsPublisher: Oxford University PressISBN: 0195106458Author: Philip PettitTitle: Republicanism: A Theory of Freedom and GovernmentPublisher: Oxford University PressISBN: 0198296428Author: Philip Pettit.

La diffusion du mythe de la monarchie universelle au début du XVIe siècle est strictement liée à l’ampleur des territoires possédés par Charles Quint. Pour le chancelier impérial Mercurino Gattinara, les idées universalistes et messianiques, qui accompagnaient la symbolique de l’Empire, devaient servir à légitimer une politique visant à donner une structure plus rationnelle aux territoires de Charles Quint et à garantir aux Habsbourg une influence prépondérante dans l’ensemble de l’Europe. Gattinara imaginait une sorte de monarchie supranationale organisée selon le (...) modèle mythique de l’Empire romain, capable de garantir la paix sous l’égide du christianisme. (shrink)

This volume contains an essay by Martha Nussbaum in defense of world citizenship or “cosmopolitanism,” as opposed to patriotism, which she defines as any view treating “national boundaries as morally salient,” together with a series of brief supportive (Anthony Appiah and Amartya Sen) and critical (Benjamin Barber, Gertrude Himmelfarb, Hilary Putnam, Immanuel Wallerstein, and Michael Walzer, et al.) comments. The essay originally appeared in The Boston Review in 1994 and led to bringing together the “usual suspects” for a bit of (...) popular edification and policy-making. Such posturing by what passes today for public intellectuals is rarely successful and not always…. (shrink)

This article concerns the metaphysics of disease. Is disease a fixed feature of the world or a social value or preference? I argue that disease is not a value-laden concept and thus debates concerning it differ fundamentally from debates concerning health, harm, or suffering where evaluative judgements are central. I show how the so-called social constructionist view of disease has been motivated both by ethical concerns with medical practices and general theoretical doubts about scientific naturalism. If I can show that (...) ethical concerns about medical treatment can be answered without adopting social constructionism, that leaves only the broader theoretical question of naturalism. I cannot completely answer those theoretical doubts, but I show that the theoretical motivation is less convincing when it is separated from the moral challenge often accompanying it. I conclude that a convincing defense of the non-naturalistic conception of disease is rarely attempted and proves more difficult and counter-intuitive than its proponents assume. (shrink)

, Lawrie Reznek argues that disease is not a natural kind term. I raise objections to Reznek's two central arguments for establishing that disease is not a natural kind. In criticizing his a priori, conceptual argument against naturalism, I argue that his conclusion rests on a weaker argument that appeals to the empirical diversity in the symptoms and manifestations of disease. I also raise questions about the account of natural kinds which Reznek utilizes and his point that conventions for classification (...) are excluded by there being natural kinds. Keywords: Disease, natural kind, value judgement CiteULike Connotea Del.icio.us What's this? (shrink)

A critical account of the case for historicism from Popper to Foucault, this volume, originally published in 1989, shows the viability of an historicist account of knowledge by replying to traditional objections and the need for defenses of realism and reference at the heart of most alternatives to historicism. The book provides insights to those in philosophy as well as literary criticism, intellectual history, history of science, and cultural criticism.

The proportionality standard demands a meaningful link between the severity of crimes and the punishments received for them. This article investigates the compatibility between this philosophical demand and the practical means most commonly associated with criminal justice provision: governmental decision making. In so far as criminal justice systems require the coordination of real human and physical resources, certain forms of knowledge and incentives are required to calculate, produce, and distribute outputs proportionately. Whereas markets rely upon pricing mechanisms to generate and (...) coordinate information and incentives across diverse stages of complex production processes, governmental decision making often lacks a calculation mechanism comparable to market prices through which knowledge about societal needs and demands can be conveyed and may thus inevitably result in some forms of punitive disparity. (shrink)

This writer who has warned us of the “ideological” function of both the oeuvre and the author as unquestioned forms of discursive organization has gone quite far in constituting for both these “fictitious unities” the name (with all the problems of such a designation) Michel Foucault. One text under review, La Volonté de Savoir, is the methodological introduction of a projected five-volume history of sexuality. It will apparently circle back over that material which seems to have a special fascination for (...) Foucault: the gradual emergence of medicine as an institution, the birth of political economy, demography and linguistics as “human sciences,” the invention of incarceration and confinement for the control of the “other” in society (the mad, the libertine, the criminal) and that special violence that lurks beneath the power to control discourse. (shrink)

A general framework by which dynamic interactions within a protein will promote the necessary series of structural changes, or “conformational cycle,” required for function is proposed. It is suggested that the free‐energy landscape of a protein is biased toward this conformational cycle. Fluctuations into higher energy, although thermally accessible, conformations drive the conformational cycle forward. The amino acid interaction network is defined as those intraprotein interactions that contribute most to the free‐energy landscape. Some network connections are consistent in every structural (...) state, while others periodically change their interaction strength according to the conformational cycle. It is reviewed here that structural transitions change these periodic network connections, which then predisposes the protein toward the next set of network changes, and hence the next structural change. These concepts are illustrated by recent work on tryptophan synthase. Disruption of these dynamic connections may lead to aberrant protein function and disease states. (shrink)

Spreading the universal monarchy myth in the early 16th century was closely linked to the magnitude of the territories controlled by Charles V. For the imperial chancellor Mercurino Gattinara, universal and messianic ideas, which were integrated into the symbolism of the Empire, were to legitimate a policy that aimed at giving a more rational structure to Charles’ territories and at securing a prominent influence for the Habsburg family in the whole of Europe. Gattinara imagined a kind of supranational monarchy, organised (...) in accordance with the mythical model of the Roman Empire, which would be able to guarantee peace under the aegis of Christianity. (shrink)