This volume brings together flux essays by an eminent scholar on the origins, development, and import of Kant's philosophy, chiefly in its metaphysical aspects. Four of these were separately published between 1924 and 1926, but until now have been difficult to obtain, despite great demand. Their appearance here will be welcomed. The thesis emerging from these studies is that the critical philosophy originates in metaphysical probings concerning the nature and presuppositions of being, and issues in doctrines which, despite psychological, epistemological, (...) and ethical presentation, are intended to have definite ontological import. --L. K. B. (shrink)

On one view of ethical development, someone not yet virtuous can reliably progress by engaging in what meaningfully resembles virtuous conduct. However, if the well-intended conduct is psychologically demanding, one's character, precisely because one is not yet virtuous, may worsen rather than improve. This risk of degradation casts doubt on the developmental view. I counter the doubt through one interpretation and one application of the Mengzi. In passage 2A2, invoking the image of a farmer who “helped” the crop grow by (...) pulling the sprouts, MENG Ke cautions, “do not help it grow.” I defend a novel interpretation: do not advance with a naïve negligence about your psycho-physiological constitution. I also show how to advance with realistic care by pointing out an overlooked application of a much-discussed cultivation technique illustrated in Mengzi 1A7: ethical reflection can conciliate one with one’s ongoing or past advanced action, lowering the action’s risk of degradation. (shrink)

(No abstract is available for this citation).

The Rising Sun Battlefield Journal published by the East-Is-Red Commune of the Beijing Institute of Light Industry devoted as many as six pages to an all-out attack of "On Family Background" in a long and despicable article titled "The Big Poisonous Weed ‘On Family Background’ Must Be Torn Up by the Roots." In their own words, the appearance of this article was inevitable at a time when the Cultural Revolution reached the stage of great alliance [of mass rebel organizations] and (...) the great power seizure [from capitalist-roaders within the Party]. (shrink)

The study examines the relationship between the strength of an organizationÕs ethical climate and ethical problems involving human resource management. Data were collected through a survey of 1078 human resource managers. The results indicate a statistically significant negative relationship between the strength of an organization'ss ethical climate and the seriousness of ethical violations and a statistically significant positive relationship between an organization'ss ethical climate and success in responding to ethical issues. Thus, interventions that strengthen an organization'ss ethical climate may help (...) manage ethical behavior within organizations. (shrink)

In December of last year, a few clowns appeared on the grand and spectacular stage of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution. These clowns were the reincarnated ghosts from the Capital Red Guard West City, East City, and Haidian Districts Pickets. They viciously attacked Chairman Mao's revolutionary line, engaged in slander on the Central Cultural Revolution Group, called dear Comrade Jiang Qing names, and sabotaged the organizations under the proletarian dictatorship. They provoked violence, created chaos, searched and confiscated the possessions of (...) revolutionary organizations, and spread reactionary declarations. The crimes they committed are simply too numerous to mention. These clowns were none other than the "Capital Red Guards United Action Committee.". (shrink)

Editor's Note: Over a long period of time, the evil bourgeois reactionary line has created antagonism between two groups of students in schools—antagonism on the basis of one's family background. This antagonism became very obvious during the initial stage of the Cultural Revolution, and has lasted to this day. It has prevented further criticism of the bourgeois reactionary line and hindered further development of the Cultural Revolution.

Recognition that the Principle of Respect for Autonomy fails to work in family-centric societies such as Singapore has recently led to the promotion of relational autonomy as a suitable framework within which to place healthcare decision making. However, empirical data, relating to patient and family opinions and the practices of healthcare professionals in Confucian-inspired Singapore, demonstrate clear limitations on the ability of a relational autonomy framework to provide the anticipated compromise between prevailing family decision-making norms and adopted Western led atomistic (...) concepts of autonomy. Evidence suggests that despite a growing infusion of Western influence, there is still little to indicate any major shift to individual decision making, particularly in light of the way society and healthcare are structured. Similarly, the lack of employing a shared decision-making model and data that discredit the notion that the complex psychosocial and cultural factors that affect the decision making may be considered “content neutral” not only prevents the application of relational autonomy but questions the viability of the values behind the Principle of Respect for Autonomy. Taking into account local data and drawing upon a wider concept of personhood that extends beyond prevailing family-centric ideals along with the complex interests that are focused upon the preservation of the unique nature of personhood that arises from the Ring Theory of Personhood, we propose and “operationalize” the employing of an authoritative welfare-based approach, within the confines of best interest decision making, to better meet the current care needs within Singapore. (shrink)

An attempt to clarify and establish systematically foundations for a "formal" science of axiology, relating it to the social sciences and humanities as mathematics is related to the natural sciences.--L. K. B.

A reprint of Freud's lectures of 1910. In his philosophically critical preface, Allers briefly but effectively points up logical and scientific weaknesses in Freud's theories, attributes their peculiar success to the appealing ambiguity of approach as between the scientific and the historical, then finds their chief merit in furthering the recognition of man's "historicity."--L. K. B.

This book professes to give a semantic analysis of the main concepts of classical and quantum physics. The author holds that the task of philosophy of science is to explicate the meanings of scientific theories, laws, and hypotheses by formal reconstruction; semantic rules are a necessary part of such a reconstruction. Beginning with an extremely, indeed fatally, simplified treatment of the required concepts of logical syntax and semantics, he proceeds to discuss in non-technical language the concepts of the chief physical (...) theories, and concludes with a description of the methodology of theory construction and confirmation. His only unusual thesis is that, contrary to what physicists tell us, models still essentially underlie all physical theories and constitute the link between theory and experiment on which must be based the semantic rules needed to supplement attempts at formal reconstruction. The strength of the book lies not in its semantic emphasis but in its stress on the hypothetico-deductive character of modern exact science, as opposed to the inductive accounts imputed to empiricists. --L. K. B. (shrink)

A rewritten version, following the same plan and theme, of the author's earlier work of the same title. New chapters are added on Unamuno's ideas of fiction and of reality. The bibliographical appendix, with brief comments, is brought up-to-date. The unifying stress is on the "incessant fluctuation" between opposites, such as reason and the irrational, as the source of Unamuno's originality. Sympathetically expository rather than critical, this brief sketch deliberately sacrifices precision and analysis for the sake of "interiorizacion"--probably the most (...) profitable introductory approach to such a thinker.--L. K. B. (shrink)

Is the virtue of the good citizen the same as the virtue of the good man? Aristotle addresses this in Politics 3.4. His answer is twofold. On the one hand, (the account for Difference) they are not the same both because what the citizen’s virtue is depends on the constitution, on what preserves it, and on the role the citizen plays in it, and because the good citizens in the best constitution cannot all be good men, whereas the good man’s (...) virtue is uniform. On the other hand, (the account for Identity) the two virtues are identical in the good men in the best constitution, in which all are good citizens, each possessing the ability for ruling and for being ruled. This nuanced answer can be seen as Aristotle’s synthesis of a Periclean view (contribution to state blots out personal wrongs) and a Socratic view (no good citizen is without justice). Its nuances reflect the extent to which Aristotle’s conceptions of good citizenship and the best constitution accommodate deviations of what is probable from the human ideal set out in his ethical writings. In the present chapter, I will first address three puzzles regarding the nuances of Aristotle’s answer. Second, I will consider one question about its implication: Does Aristotle’s account for Difference turn out to entail something ultra-Periclean: that no one can simultaneously be a good man and a good citizen in any constitution other than the best? I shall argue the negative. (shrink)

In a refreshingly direct paper and two critical replies, these writers try to work out a practicable criterion for the ethical judgments pressed upon scientists by the far-reaching effects of their work.--L. K. B.

A critique of modern empiricism, pressed ploddingly but capably from a renovated pragmatist standpoint. In Part I the author argues that a rigid distinction between the analytic and synthetic is presupposed by empiricism and yet leads to a conventionalism out of touch with experience. Part II attacks various attempts to base knowledge on of perceptual experience. The constructive position developed in Part III stresses the concept of experience as a plurality of contextual happenings, always involving formal and nonformal elements; the (...) formal structure is held to rest on conventions which should remain flexible, varying according to purposes. Though often clumsy, cluttered, and over-abstract, the discussion is informed and perceptive.--L. K. B. (shrink)

A dry record, without argument, of conclusions reached on a wide variety of topics through fifty years of scholastic philosophizing.--L. K. B.

A remarkably condensed statement of the main features of Ortega's philosophy, organized "biographically" around three stages of his intellectual development, termed "objectivism," "perspectivism," and "ratio-vitalism," with chief attention given to the last. The presentation is marked by a soberness unusual in writers on Ortega. As a result, a certain fairness and balance are achieved, yet not at the cost of any adequacy to the vitality of Ortega's own thought.--L. K. B.

This presentation of scientific methodology tries to avoid metaphysical issues without being unphilosophical. Drawing from a wide range of material, the book describes clearly but rather generally what empirical scientists are concerned with, how they proceed, what they accomplish. The five parts deal with the roles in science of definitions, physical laws and theories, induction, and the interplay of reason and immediate experience. Despite the slant indicated by the many quotations from St. Thomas and Aristotle--peculiarly but pleasantly combined with passages (...) from Einstein, Schrödinger, de Broglie, Eddington, etc.--a rather objective presentation is achieved.--L. K. B. (shrink)

Part I aims at the constructive establishment of a concept of the self to undergird the theologically indispensable concept of the soul. It begins with a judgment theory of cognition, from which a "substantival" subject is extracted. Having a creative power constituting it a free and responsible agent, this subject is related through moral consciousness and will to an objective moral order. Part II, concerned with the problem of God and the objective validity of religious belief, begins in religion as (...) such, where theism is held to recommend itself strongly under a symbolic interpretation, then develops a metaphysical support for the central tenets of this creed. The guiding methodological convictions are revealed in a major emphasis on introspection, a firm rejection of the sensationalist conception of experience, and an insistence on the primacy of thought over words. Professor Campbell has here carried on the tradition of British Idealism and Rationalism with insight and ingenuity, in dignified and deliberate defiance of the prevailing empiricist and linguistic dogmas. Despite its high rank among similar efforts, however, this work does not represent a real advance beyond the recent impasses, nor a resolution of the genuine epistemological and methodological enigmas plaguing contemporary philosophy. --L. K. B. (shrink)

On the basis of a re-examination of the status of laws, evidence, confirmation, prediction and explanation in sciences, social as well as physical, in which the reasoning processes are not fully formalized-this informative, pioneering monograph sketches a new epistemological orientation. It emphasizes the development of specifically predictive instrumentalities, regarding which new possibilities are explored and further areas of research suggested.--L. K. B.

A philological examination of the text of the Pensées.--L. K. B.

A metaphysical scheme which is both a philosophy and a personal religion, presented confessionally in four terse and lyrical essays. The basic concepts are authenticity, solitude, heroism, act, life and death. God is conceived as finite and multiple, engendered through history, "the fundamental meaning toward which converge the most intense fibres of the heroism which forms our history." --L. K. B.

A notably successful presentation of the great religions, Hinduism, Buddhism, Confucianism, Taoism, Islam, Judaism, and Christianity, as universally and concretely significant world-views. Though not quite suitable as a basic university text, the work is a masterpiece of teaching which will be found of value by scholar and student.--L. K. B.

Within evolutionary biology, life-history theory is used to explain cross-species differences in allocation strategies regarding reproduction, maturation, and survival. Behavioral scientists have recently begun to conceptualize such strategies as a within-species individual characteristic that is predictive of behavior. Although life history theory provides an important framework for behavioral scientists, the psychometric approach to life-history strategy measurement—as operationalized by K-factors—involves conceptual entanglements. We argue that current psychometric approaches attempting to identify K-factors are based on an unwarranted conflation of functional descriptions and (...) proximate mechanisms—a conceptual mix-up that may generate unviable hypotheses and invites misinterpretation of empirical findings. The assumptions underlying generic psychometric methodology do not allow measurement of functionally defined variables; rather these methods are confined to Mayr’s proximate causal realm. We therefore conclude that K-factor scales lack validity, and that life history strategy cannot be identified with psychometrics as usual. To align theory with methodology, suggestions for alternative methods and new avenues are proposed. (shrink)

In Mengzi 6A4, Gaozi states that “yì 義 (propriety, rightness) is external, not internal.” In 6A5, Meng Jizi says of yì that “...it is on the external, not from the internal.” Their defenses are met with Mengzi’s resistance. What does he perceive and resist in these statements? Focusing on several key passages, I compare six promising interpretations. 6A4 and a relevant part of 2A2 can be rendered comparably sensible under each of the six. However, what Gaozi says in 6A1 clearly (...) is evidence to Mengzi that, of the six views, Gaozi holds three although he does not convey them in his statement. As for Meng Jiz’s defense of his statement, Meng Jizi cites a special occasion where one is required to act one way even though one would feel a different way. Mengzi’s response has been traditionally interpreted as boiling down to a dissenting opinion about empirical psychology, that the agent on that special occasion would in fact feel the same way as they ought to act. But on a more charitable reading, the point Mengzi makes is conceptual: Though the satisfaction of yì may not require that the feeling and the act align perfectly in this case, cases where the alignment obtains are conceptually prior. This not only refutes Meng Jizi’s statement but also enables a more elegant explanation of why the Mengzi rightly has no record of Mengzi affirming that yì is internal. I conclude that 6A5 itself uniquely favors one interpretation, as far as Meng Jizi’s position is concerned: How one feels is irrelevant to whether one satisfies yì. (shrink)

A collection of thirty essays and reviews published previously over the past twenty-five years, marked by Nagel's characteristic ease and clarity of style. Submitted as on the whole expressing a consistent philosophical outlook, as illustrating a sound method of philosophical analysis, and as outlining "the essential rationale for the logic of contextualistic naturalism," these essays and reviews provide a historical perspective on the development of American naturalism and analytic philosophy.--L. K. B.

This well-translated and slightly revised edition of El Hombre en la Encrucijada approaches the problem of social crisis and creative integration of conflicting strains into higher "forms of material and spiritual life" with Spanish intimacy and terseness and with wide erudition in unusual combination with a sense of reality. Part II treats the modern period as a series of crises, roughly describable as the inception, spread, and ultimate failure of secular, scientific intellectualism. This work combines the usual "cultural heritage" and (...) "crisis" themes with striking success.--L. K. B. (shrink)

A disciple's exposition of the semi-mystical system of Msgr. Mario Sturzo, drawing solely on the latter's La Filosofia dell' Avvenire. Supposedly a critical re-thinking of the system, the author proposes with an air of daring to alter some of Sturzo's verbal formulas. --L. K. B.

A comparative methodological examination of neo-positivism and analytic philosophy, phenomenology, and existentialism. These are interpreted as springing from the cultural and existential crisis of our time, each responding to a genuine element of this crisis, and thus tending toward integration into a unified method by which modern thought can extricate itself from the crisis--a recognition of the logical analysis of language, tempered by phenomenology and an historical orientation, as the methodological basis of modern philosophy. Speculative metaphysics and cosmology are much (...) too lightly dismissed.--L. K. B. (shrink)