Business people often consider spirituality a means of increasing integrity, motivation and job satisfaction. Yet certain spiritualities are superficial and unstable. Religion gives depth and duration to a spirituality, but may also sew divisiveness. A spirituality's ability to develop good moral habits provides a positive test of the "appropriateness" of that spirituality for business. Many successful business executives demonstrate a spirituality that does develop good moral habits.

Das Verhältnis von Philosophie und Rhetorik wird in der Forschungsliteratur meist als eines der Entgegensetzung und des wechselseitigen Ausschlusses beschrieben. Dabei wird dem überzeitlichen Wahrheitsanspruch der Philosophie die kontextabhängige Wirkungsabsicht der Rhetorik gegenübergestellt. Während Philosophie auf sicheres Wissen und Erkenntnis ziele, gehe es der Rhetorik nicht um Wahrheit, sondern um die bloße Wahrscheinlichkeit und Meinung. Das kann allerdings nicht darüber hinwegtäuschen, dass Philosophie und Rhetorik auf grundsätzliche Weise aufeinander verwiesen bleiben. Denn allein in der Notwendigkeit, ihren Wahrheitsanspruch öffentlich durchsetzen zu (...) müssen und in der Frage nach der adäquaten Wahl der Ausdrucksmittel, muss sich Philosophie notwendig rhetorischer Verfahren bedienen. Entsprechend hinterfragt eine rhetorische informierte Philosophie das intellektualistische Ideal einer transparenten und selbstexplikativen philosophischen Sprache. Sie unterstreicht demgegenüber die Materialität, Literarizität, Performativität und Historizität philosophischen Sprechens. In diesem Sinne zielt das Handbuch Rhetorik und Philosophie auf ein Denken, das sich des paradoxen Verhältnisses von Philosophie und Rhetorik bewusst bleibt. (shrink)

The study reported in this article examines the relationships between nationality, gender, and religiosity and business ethics attitudes in four countries in the Asia-Pacific region. Using a survey approach, university business students in Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong, and Singapore were asked about their attitudes regarding business-related ethicality using a six-item scale of ethicality that was reported in the literature. Business students are appropriate for this study as they are “future business leaders.” For nationality significant differences emerged for only two (...) of the six items. There was no significant difference in total ethicality, and the values were positive in all countries. In general, females were reported being more ethical than males, particularly in New Zealand and Singapore. For religiosity, overall, there was a significant difference in ethicality where those respondents reporting being “very religious” also reporting being more ethical. For individual countries, significance did emerge for Australia and New Zealand. (shrink)

In Respect for Nature Paul W. Taylor argues that there is a moral obligation to respect all living things. I argue that there is no such obligation. Taylor presents three basic premises for his position. The first two are shown to be mistaken but not necessary for Taylor's argument. The third, that being a nonsentient teleological centre of life confers moral significance, while necessary, fails to be rationally compelling. I argue: (1) The relevant concept of teleology as readily applies to (...) inanimate objects as it does to nonsentient life forms. (2) The inanimate–nonsentient distinction (at the relevant molecular level) is founded upon a continuum which offes no basis sufficient to justify The Life Principle. (3) The concept of teleology, as used by Taylor, is too unclear and ill-founded to serve as the basis for a rationally compelling argument. (shrink)

:Three strategies for developing just and consistent global business practices are examined: 1) international treaties and agreements, 2) global codes of business conduct, and 3) voluntary self-restraint. International agreements investigated are: NAFTA, Global Warming Treaty, OECD Anti-Bribery Treaty and Infant Formula Agreement. The codes examined are the Caux Round Table’sPrinciples for Business, The Global Sullivan Principlesand The United NationsGlobal Compact with Business. Each of these three strategies is probed for its relative strengths and weaknesses, and its prospects for developing ethical (...) business practices—especially in the areas of improving the environment, human rights and working conditions. (shrink)

These essays by philosophers, philologists and historians exemplify both the pluralism and shared values of recent scholarship on Plato's dialogues and philosophy. They emphasise the interdependence of ideas, literary and dramatic elements, and the historical and cultural contexts.

I offer this essay not as a “reply to my critics,” but as a contribution to a conversation about the rule of law to which they have richly contributed. After a brief outline of key features of Law’s Rule, it considers whether it is committed to a “thin” or “thick” concept of the rule of law. It then explores the ideas of arbitrary power, accountability, and recourse; and it addresses the question whether the rule of law’s concern is restricted to (...) the exercise of governmental power. It concludes with consideration of a number of tensions that lie at the heart of the rule of law ideal. (shrink)

I INTRODUCTION - THE TOPIC EXPLAINED 1 GENERAL DIFFERENCES From its inception to the present, philosophy may be viewed as a series of struggles between ...

Under the title of ‘the axiom of existence’, hereafter, John R. Searle has reduced to compact dictum a view to which many philosophers subscribe: ‘Whatever is referred to must exist’. In this paper I shall offer two major arguments against adopting, at least on certain assumptions. There have been a number of defenses of, among them those arguing that it is fundamental to any systematic philosophy of language or logic. With the exception of discussing some of Searle's remarks in part (...) Ill of this paper I shall not comment on any of these defenses. (shrink)

Thomas Kuhn's thesis concerning the structure of scientific change was critically examined in relation to the historical problems of social science. The use and interpretation of Kuhn's ideas by psychologists was reviewed and found to center around the proliferation of theoretical views as paradigms, the viewing of theoretical differences as paradigm clashes, and efforts to affirm particular conceptions of psychology's past or future. Such use was seen as curbing discussion of fundamental issues, and to reflect a continuing neglect of the (...) foundational problems peculiar to social science. The relevance of Kuhn's work was seen to rest on a more critical view of his idea of “mature” science, better understanding of the type of social psychology upon which his thesis rests, and greater appreciation of his hermeneutic approach to social-historical analysis. (shrink)

Bruns lucidly depicts the distinctions and convergences between these two lines of thought by examining the works of Mallarme, Flaubert, Joyce, Beckett, and ...

From the psychic rat to the gorilla in the room, from British double-agent Kim Philby to comedian Steve Martin, The Incredible Shrinking Mind not only offers a provocative and entertaining critique, but also a profound and practical ...

Après Discours, figure (1971) qui montrait l’irréductibilité du visuel, Lyotard est saisi, en lisant Levinas, par une autre altérité à la logique du savoir : celle de l’obligation morale. Sa méditation rencontre le nouveau geste de sa philosophie ( Le Différend, 1983). En articulant l’obligation à la pensée du tort et du différend, dans un dialogue constant avec Levinas et Kant et leur épreuve réciproque, Lyotard achève le mouvement lévinasien de rupture avec toute philosophie de l’autonomie et procédure d’universalisation. Tandis (...) qu’il conduit la pensée lévinasienne à l’acuité de ses justesses et de ses impasses, il la décentre et inscrit le régime de l’obligation dans une configuration générale du différend constamment conflictuel entre plusieurs régimes de « phrases » jamais apaisées. L’éthique requiert l’aporie, l’absence de garantie, et, par là, la ressource du jugement. Il n’y a pas plus à chercher de relève dans un terme-refuge ou une autre instance et modalité de dernier recours : ni politique, ni esthétique. Le dénuement est le paradigme de la responsabilité. L’écriture, évasive par avance, en est « la trace toute vide ». (shrink)

La lecture de Kafka a grandement contribué à l’élaboration de la pensée de Lyotard. Dans son commentaire de Devant la loi, Derrida oppose à l’éthique lyotardienne de l’exercice libre et réfléchissant de la faculté de juger, la scène dramatisée et mélancolique de la Loi qui est différance, atermoiement indéfini, Loi du récit. Dans son propre commentaire de La Colonie pénitentiaire, Lyotard met l’accent sur la prescription comme préjudice fait à l’affect et au sensible et sur les opérations de détournement par (...) le politique de la Loi qui la transmuent en instance de commandement. La représentation kafkaïenne de la loi, terrifiante et sacrificielle, ne correspond guère, selon lui, à la loi juive qui est loi de vie. Dans son débat avec Hannah Arendt et en lisant Adorno, Lyotard se tourne ainsi vers un autre Kafka, au plus près de l’exister, exposé d’un seul tenant à la naissance et à la mort de l’improbable. Ici s’esquisse une autre figure de mélancolie plus proche de ce que représente le judaïsme : celle du Survivant, ressource intime, dans la solitude, du jugement comme de l’écriture. (shrink)

El artículo presenta el pelagianismo como creación sintética, sacada mayormente de las obras de San Agustín y de los teólogos individuales contra los que se sirigían las primeras. Los pelagianos nunca fueron un grupo unido por un común sistema de pensamiento.

Generally, anthropologists are not thought of as contributing to utopian thought and, really, there are few anthropological monographs or articles with even the word "utopia" in the title. As the late anthropological futurist Robert Textor pointed out, this is due to earlier orientations: cultural evolutionism and culture history in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and an emphasis on the "ethnographic present" in the mid-twentieth that tended to represent other people as existing in a "timeless" present. Nevertheless, anthropologists have explored (...) utopian possibility. Margaret Mead, for example, drew on her... (shrink)

_ One Another’s Equals _, by WaldronJeremy. Cambridge, Mass., and London: Harvard University Press, 2017. Pp. x + 264.

Book reviewed in this article: Science and Conscience. By Milton R. Wessel.