This article provides excerpts and highlights from the insights of twenty global leaders, business executives, and sustainability experts who gathered at the Esalen Institute in California for four days in March 2002 to discuss how to best leverage change toward an environmentally sustainable and socially equitable global economy. The conference topic was sparked by the path-breaking book Natural Capitalism, which outlines an expanded vision of capitalism suitable for the environmental era. The natural capitalism model is qualitatively different from industrial era (...) capitalism in that it counts both humanity and ecosystem services as valid sources of capital in addition to the traditionally recognized sources, financial and manufactured. One early adopter of natural capitalism, CEO of the Atlanta -based carpet tiling company, Interface, shared how increased efficiency and greater employee and customer satisfaction have resulted. Although some of the conference participants forecasted that globalization is likely to bring humanity face-to-face with a planetary-wide environmental, financial, and social crisis, the overall message of this gathering was positive. Through the imaginative implementation of evolutionary and biomimicry design models in the cultural, financial, and economic spheres, novel solutions to global problems already are being discovered, and, if such innovative and solutions-oriented design thinking can spread rapidly enough, humanity may be able to ameliorate-or even obviate-the deleterious effects of globalization. (shrink)

This is a book for scholars of Western philosophy who wish to engage with Buddhist philosophy, or who simply want to extend their philosophical horizons. It is also a book for scholars of Buddhist studies who want to see how Buddhist theory articulates with contemporary philosophy. Engaging Buddhism: Why it Matters to Philosophy articulates the basic metaphysical framework common to Buddhist traditions. It then explores questions in metaphysics, the philosophy of mind, phenomenology, epistemology, the philosophy of language and ethics as (...) they are raised and addressed in a variety of Asian Buddhist traditions. In each case the focus is on philosophical problems; in each case the connections between Buddhist and contemporary Western debates are addressed, as are the distinctive contributions that the Buddhist tradition can make to Western discussions. Engaging Buddhism is not an introduction to Buddhist philosophy, but an engagement with it, and an argument for the importance of that engagement. It does not pretend to comprehensiveness, but it does address a wide range of Buddhist traditions, emphasizing the heterogeneity and the richness of those traditions. The book concludes with methodological reflections on how to prosecute dialogue between Buddhist and Western traditions. (shrink)

"'Buddhist Ethics' presents an outline of Buddhist ethical thought. It is not a defense of Buddhist approaches to ethics as opposed to any other, nor is it a critique of the Western tradition. Garfield presents a broad overview of a range of Buddhist approaches to the question of moral philosophy. He argues that while there are important points of contact with these Western frameworks, Buddhist ethics is distinctive, and is a kind of moral phenomenology that is concerned with the ways (...) in which we experience ourselves as agents and others as moral fellows"--. (shrink)

The field of “business for peace” recognizes the role that businesses can play in peacebuilding. However, like much of the discussion concerning business in conflict zones, it has prioritized the view of multinationals, often overlooking the role of indigenous local firms. The economic, social, and intergroup dynamics experienced by local businesses in conflict zones are understudied, with the current paper beginning by positioning micro- and small enterprises in the peacebuilding debate, then engaging with multidisciplinary works to understand how they foster (...) peace. Through a case study set in north Lebanon, we conducted semi-structured interviews with twenty-three MSE owners in one industry who operate across sectarian divisions and with recently displaced Syrian refugees. Our findings indicate that local business activity can simultaneously promote peace and foster conflict, with peacebuilding improved when intergroup differences are reduced within the operating environment. Furthermore, the importance of economic development was elevated for local businesses, suggesting that peace through mechanisms such as social development, the rule of law, and training, is only achieved if economic needs are alleviated through these measures. We conclude by citing how contextual factors in conflict zones can enhance intergroup differences, and how resolving such factors can promote peacebuilding, with further empirical work needed in this area. (shrink)

Management of organizational tensions can facilitate the simultaneous advancement of economic, social, and environmental priorities. The approach is based on managers identifying and managing tensions between the three priorities, by employing one of the three strategic responses. Although recent work has provided a theoretical basis for such tension acknowledgment and management, there is a dearth of empirical studies. We interviewed 32 corporate sustainability managers across 25 forestry and wood-products organizations in Australia. Study participants were divided into two groups: those considered (...) effective at corporate sustainability and a status-quo group. Contrary to current theory, our findings showed that acknowledgment of organizational tensions was widespread in the Australian forestry and wood-products industry and not limited to those managers who are effective at managing corporate sustainability. What differed was the degree to which managers did something about the perceived tensions—with the effective group more consistently acting to manage and resolve paradoxical scenarios. Our findings suggest that existing theoretical constructs of tension management may not adequately capture the individual-level complexity involved with managing tensions in practice. (shrink)

A collection of essays on the ways in which the work of Wilfrid Sellars and the Buddhist philosophical tradition can illuminate each other.

We discuss the structure of Buddhist theory, showing that it is a kind of moral phenomenology directed to the elimination of egoism through the elimination of a sense of self. We then ask whether being raised in a Buddhist culture in which the values of selflessness and the sense of non-self are so deeply embedded transforms one’s sense of who one is, one’s ethical attitudes and one’s attitude towards death, and in particular whether those transformations are consistent with the predictions (...) that Buddhist texts themselves make. We discover that the effects are often significant, but not always expected. (shrink)

Anyone who is accustomed to the view that contradictions cannot be true, and cannot be accepted, and who reads texts in the Buddhists traditions will be struck by the fact that they frequently contain contradictions. Just consider, for example.

four ancestry, is that there are . A proposition may be true (and true only), false (and false only), both true and false, neither true nor false , ,.

In a recent issue of Philosophy East and West Douglas Berger defends a new reading of Mūlamadhyamakakārikā XXIV : 18, arguing that most contemporary translators mistranslate the important term prajñaptir upādāya, misreading it as a compound indicating "dependent designation" or something of the sort, instead of taking it simply to mean "this notion, once acquired." He attributes this alleged error, pervasive in modern scholarship, to Candrakīrti, who, Berger correctly notes, argues for the interpretation he rejects.Berger's analysis, and the reading of (...) the text he suggests is grounded on that analysis, is insightful and fascinating, and certainly generates an understanding of Nāgārjuna's enterprise that is welcome .. (shrink)

After having promoted and then tacitly abandoned the rhetoric of postmodernism, Zygmunt Bauman settled on the metaphor of a modernity that was growing more ‘liquid’ and ‘lighter’ than before. This essay explores the strengths and weaknesses of these metaphors, and attempts to contextualize Bauman’s insights in what has been called by the historian Yuri Slezkine the ‘Mercurian’ culture of diasporic Jewish life.

At least two recent collections of essays – Postmodernism and the Enlightenment and What’s Left of Enlightenment?: A Postmodern Question – have responded to postmodern critiques of Enlightenment by arguing that Enlightenment philosophes themselves embraced a number of post-modern themes. This essay situates Kant’s essay Was ist Aufklärung in the context of this recent literature about the appropriate characterization of modernity and the Enlightenment. Adopting an internalist reading of Kant’s Aufklärung essay, this paper observes that Kant is surprisingly ambivalent about (...) who might be Enlightened and unspecific about when Enlightenment might be achieved. The paper argues that this is because Kant is concerned less with elucidating his concept of Enlightenment and more with characterizing a political condition that might provide the conditions for the possibility of Enlightenment. This paper calls this political condition modernity and it is achieved when civil order can be maintained alongside fractious and possibly insoluble public disagreement about matters of conscience, including the nature and possibility of Enlightenment. Thus, the audience for the Aufklärung essay is not the tax collector, soldier or clergyman, but rather the sovereign. Kant enjoins and advises the prince that discord and debate about matters of conscience need not entail any political unrest or upheaval. It is in this restricted sense that the Enlightenment essay is Kant’s Machiavellian moment. (shrink)

We examine market reactions to the stock options backdating scandal in a slightly unusual way, but focusing on firms who were not perceived to have had a backdating concern, but were instead linked to firms who did have a backdating concern. These linkages can be found via board interlocks and the roles those directors perform. In addition we examine the linkages which occur from shared professional services firms, such as auditors and outside legal counsel. That these potential conduits are available (...) is not in question, but rather, do investors perceive the conduits are used to pass along information about backdating stock options? We then ask if affiliation with dominant audit and legal services firms ameliorates or exacerbates those investor market reactions. We find that firms linked to the scandalized firms also face negative reactions, which are worsened when they also are serviced by professional services firms who are themselves are also linked to the managerial practice. (shrink)

Trisvabh vanirdeśa (Treatise on the Three Natures) is Vasubandhu's most mature and explicit exposition of the Yogc c ra doctrine of the three natures and their relation to the Buddhist idealism Vasubandhu articulates. Nonetheless there are no extent commentaries on this important short test. The present work provides an introduction to the text, its context and principal philosophical theses; a new translation of the text itself; and a close, verse-by-verse commentary on the text explaining the structure of Yogacara/Cittamatra idealism and (...) comparing it to Western versions of transcendental idealism. In particular, I show how the doctrine of the three natures is used to make idealism coherent in a Buddhist context and how it sheds light on the structure and evolution of transcendental idealism in Europe. (shrink)

Those of us who are involved as teachers, scholars or practitioners with Buddhism in the West are— whether we wish to be or not—involved in a complex process of interaction between two cultures. Just as in the West Socrates urged that the most important task set for us in life is to know ourselves in the Buddhist tradition we are admonished to know the nature of our own minds as the key to awakening. In every Buddhist tradition, to know the (...) nature of the self and its objects is the fundamental prerequisite to cutting off the root of cyclic existence. (shrink)

In Hypatia's 3, issue, Xinyan Jiang describes a failed experiment in sexual equality conducted during the Chinese Cultural Revolution. She believes the lesson to be drawn from it is that males will continue to have an advantage in societies requiring much physical strength. In contrast, I argue here that this failed experiment shows that the Maoist attempt to force women into men's roles was not feminist. American pioneers are cited as a counterexample.

Mark Siderits’ contributions to Buddhist philosophy, and to the enterprise he likes to call “fusion philosophy,” are legion. We write this essay in celebration and warm appreciation of his career and his impact on the area.

ExcerptRecent advances in the functional power of artificial intelligence (AI) have prompted an urgent warning from industry leaders and researchers concerning its “profound risks to society and humanity.”1 Their open letter is admirable not only for its succinct identification of said risks, which include the mass dissemination of misinformation, loss of jobs, and even the possible extinction of our species, but also for its clear normative framing of the problem: “Should we let machines flood our information channels with propaganda and (...) untruth? Should we automate away all the jobs, including the fulfilling ones? Should we develop nonhuman minds that might eventually outnumber, outsmart, obsolete and replace us? Should we risk loss of control of our civilization?”2. (shrink)

It should come as no surprise that we will get three different answers to the same question since we have three lawyers on the panel. The law is a matter of policy, and there is usually no single “right” answer to these questions. Each lawyer will come to a question from a very different perspective and bring a different approach to the answer.

As a philosophical scholar of phenomenology, literature, art, and philosophy of the social sciences and humanities, John O’Neill’s (1933–2022) writings are translated into Chinese. As a sociological translator of Maurice Merleau-Ponty (1908–1961), O’Neill’s five phenomenal bodies culminate in the communicative body as an intermingling of material and spiritual relations. I distill by own version of three phenomenal bodies that I call the East Asian communicative body. This essay traces the communicative body through horizontal and vertical phenomenology on the way to (...) Merleau-Ponty’s brief interaction with Chinese philosophy. (shrink)

The author provides insights into his intellectual career as a founding member of the Frankfurt Institute of Social Research and includes remembrances of many of his former colleagues.

By the start of the Victorian period the school of British economists acknowledging Adam Smith as its master was in the ascendancy. 'Political Economy', a catch-all title which ignored the diversity of viewpoints to be found amongst the discipline's leading proponents, became associated in the popular mind with moral and political forces held to be uniquely conducive to the progress of an increasingly industrialised and competitive society. 'Political Economy' served in turn as the focus for critics of equally diverse moral (...) and political persuasions, who sought to challenge the materialism of contemporary society and offer their own assessments of the profound social changes of the time. In the introductory essay to the collection of readings from such 'critics of capitalism', the editors review the principles of the early economists, the way in which these principles were appropriated and applied by their Victorian successors and the contrasting modes which critics of popular economic ideas assumed. Subsequent extracts from the writings of the Owenite Socialist John Bray, Carlyle, Marx and Engels, J. S. Mill, Ruskin, Arnold, T. H. Green, William Morris and G. B. Shaw, demonstrate both the breadth of the possible grounds for ideological opposition to the prevailing philosophy and the shifting nature of the debate as 'Political Economy' itself was revealed as incapable of explaining or responding to the changing conditions of the 1870s. Headnotes to the extracts describe the genesis of individual debate and discuss distinctive stylistic features. Annotation in the form of footnotes and endnotes has been designed to gloss obscure allusions and arguments. In making more accessible the socio-economic writings of those authors now better known for their imaginative work, this volume will enable readers to reach a more profound appreciation of the central role such work played in developing the moral vision embodied in their more lastingly popular books and essays. (shrink)

The decolonization of African studies extends beyond content to ethical partnerships between the North and the African continent. One key component of realizing partnership is through publishing. African studies research published by Northern publishers is not often even minimally available in Africa; and this is despite scholars on the continent often being partners or facilitators in research undertaken by Northern scholars. Northern publishers have perceived no commercial gain, given small African markets, lack of purchasing power, and lack of distribution systems. (...) Conversely, African publishers have efficient distribution into the North through African Books Collective, owned and governed by them. But in suitable rare cases the African publisher can broker co-publications with Northern publishers who want the originating rights. In the light of these issues, African Books Collective launched an initiative to seek to break the deadlock. In partnership with the International African Institute, and with the active support of the African Studies Associations of the UK and the US, work is proceeding with publishers in the North and the South to broker co-publishing or co-editions to address this historic marginalization of Africa. (shrink)

La notion de compétence demeure singulièrement complexe à penser dans les dispositifs de formation. Généralement définie comme savoir-agir situé, elle est souvent réduite à son acception instrumentale, rendant flagrante l’opposition entre théorie et pratique dans la formation universitaire à visée professionnalisante. Cette conception de l’apprentissage interroge la place de la pratique dans les dispositifs de formation : simple redondance ou lieu d’un véritable apprentissage? Pour dépasser cette opposition entre théorie et pratique qui se niche dans les définitions mêmes de la (...) compétence, nous proposons une lecture pragmatiste de la notion de compétence, en menant l’enquête avec John Dewey. Nous serons ainsi invités à penser la compétence comme un processus appartenant au continuum de l’expérience et à interroger le principe même de l’enseignement d’une compétence éthique. (shrink)

It is often thought that considerations of practicality speak in favour of accepting the principle that if there is no practical alternative to something then that thing is not unjust. I present an argument which suggests that there are in fact practical costs to accepting such a principle, so that on grounds of practicality we perhaps ought to reject it. That argument does not assume that there are any demands of justice which it is impossible to meet, but only that (...) we are very fallible when it comes to knowing what the possibilities are. I then argue that rejecting that principle and embracing a notion of ‘impossible justice’ has positive practical benefits in respect of putting us in a position to respond appropriately to really necessary injustices if there are any. (shrink)

It is customary to begin essays of this kind with an arresting quotation from an eminent source, a practice that both displays the author's ostensible erudition and coverdy betrays his need to draw on an external authority to support the argument he is about to make. In order to remain true to this time-honored convention, I have chosen as my opening text for today the following passage from Theodor Adorno's Negative Dialectics, written in 1966: “All culture after Auschwitz, including its (...) urgent critique, is garbage. In restoring itself after the things that happened without resistance in its own countryside, culture has turned entirely into the ideology it had been potentially — had been ever since it presumed, in opposition to material existence, to inspire that existence with the light denied it by the separation of the mind from manual labor. (shrink)