Dans le livre VI de son commentaire sur le Parménide, Proclus rend compte des interprétations des « hypothèses » du Parménide proposées par ses devanciers. Le présent article étudie l’exégèse des hypothèses par le premier commentateur que Proclus examine, à savoir Amélius, le disciple de Plotin. Après une présentation des vestiges de son commentaire sur le Parménide, j’analyse trois aspects particulièrement intéressants de son exégèse : 1) à la différence de la plupart des commentateurs néoplatoniciens, Amélius distinguait non pas neuf, (...) mais huit hypothèses. Je soutiens que, en considérant la dernière section (Prm. 165e2-166c2) comme dépourvue de tout contenu positif, Amélius la fusionnait avec la précédente – lecture du texte qui n’a pas été reprise par les défenseurs modernes d’une division en huit hypothèses. 2) Amélius suppose que chaque hypothèse décrit une réalité, mais le sens précis de certaines identifications est difficile à saisir : quels sont les trois types de matière associés aux hypothèses 5-7? Ces trois matières correspondent probablement à trois entités qu’Amélius trouvait dans le Timée : la chōra/matière première, le niveau des éléments-traces et l’univers ordonné. 3) Sur un point au moins, l’exégèse d’Amélius contrevient à l’ordre hiérarchique descendant des sujets des hypothèses (procédant de la réalité la plus élevée jusqu’à la dernière), qui était un présupposé incontesté de l’interprétation de tous les commentateurs néoplatoniciens. Je soutiens que cela est dû à un autre principe exégétique, selon lequel la qualité négative d’une hypothèse (à l’exception de la première) signifie une sorte de dégradation de l’entité correspondante. Puisque, dans la deuxième partie du Parménide, les hypothèses négatives alternent avec les positives, ce principe supplémentaire entre en conflit avec la disposition linéaire descendante impliquée par le principe hiérarchique. Dans la conclusion de l’article, je montre comment l’analyse de l’exégèse d’Amélius permet de mieux comprendre le développement ultérieur de l’exégèse ancienne du Parménide. (shrink)

Growing detrimental effects on the bio-physical environment have been responsible for a large number of small firms to adopt a more strategic stance toward exploiting green-related opportunities. This article aims to shed light on how internal company factors help to formulate a green business strategy among small manufacturing firms, and how this, in turn, influences their competitive advantage and performance. Based on data received from 153 small Cypriot manufacturers, we propose and test a conceptual model anchored on the Resource-based View (...) of the firm. The findings underscore the critical role of both organizational resources and capabilities in pursuing a green business strategy. The adoption of this strategy was more evident in the case of firms operating in more harmful, as opposed to less harmful, industries. The implementation of a green business strategy was found to generate a positional competitive advantage, with this association becoming stronger under conditions of high regulatory intensity, high market dynamism, high public concern, and high competitive intensity. It was also revealed that this competitive advantage is conducive to gaining heightened market and financial performance. Our study makes a fivefold contribution: it injects a theoretical perspective into a relatively atheoretic field, underlines the role of organizational resources/capabilities as drivers of eco-friendly initiatives, highlights the often neglected strategic aspects of small firms’ ecological business activities, stresses the contingent role of external forces in moderating the positive impact of small firm green business strategy on competitive advantage, and focuses on the performance implications of the small firm’s engagement in environmental operations. (shrink)

n recent years, there has been a resurgence of academic interest in Adam Smith. As a consequence, a large number of PhD dissertations on Smith have been written by international scholars - in different languages, and in many diverse disciplines, including economics, women’s studies, philosophy, science studies, political theory and english literature: diversity which has enriched the area of study. In response to this activity, and in order to making these contributions more easily accessible to other Smith scholars, Leonidas Montes (...) and Eric Schliesser have edited this important new book. Of interest to Smith scholars and those interested in the history of economic thought in general, the contributions to this book are self-consciously interdisciplinary and skilfully employ many different methodologies. (shrink)

Widely chosen by students of society as an approach under which to labour, emancipatory, liberatory or, otherwise put, critical social thought occupies a position between knowledge and practical action whose coherence is taken for granted on account of the pressing nature of the issues it attempts to deal with. As such it is rarely subjected to scrutiny and the methodological, conceptual and moral challenges it faces are not properly identified. The contribution of this article is to raise these problems into (...) view clearly and unambiguously. This is undertaken via a careful examination of Alice Crary’s recent work, in which she attempts, firstly, to defend a left-Hegelian version of Critical Theory by relating it to the work of Peter Winch and, second, to issue a set of methodologically radical recommendations on employing the sensibility-shaping powers of the literary form. The article aims to deepen our understanding of the fundamental tensions between the Critical Theory and Wittgensteinian traditions, which Crary attempts to bring together and, ultimately, of those crucial features of our moral practices that frustrate the enterprise of critical social thought. (shrink)

Which practices count as resistance? Why, where, and how does resistance emerge? When is resistance effective, and when is it truly progressive? In addressing these questions, this book brings together novel theoretical and empirical perspectives from a diverse range of disciplinary and geographical locales"--Provided by publisher.

Dans la présente étude, nous livrons un premier aperçu des quelques monnaies restaurées provenant des fouilles réalisées dans la partie Nord‑Est de la province de Mégalopolis à la frontière avec la Laconie, région qui, dans l’Antiquité, relevait de la Belminatide (partie Nord du territoire de Lacédémone). Il s’agit de monnaies en bronze romaines datées du iie s. au troisième quart du ive s., d’Hadrien à Constant II, et qui sont ici replacées dans le contexte de la région, dont l’activité économique (...) tournée vers la vallée de l’Eurotas s’articulait au réseau de routes antiques et à des installations rurales et industrielles repérées par les fouilles menées dans la région ces trois dernières années. (shrink)

This article argues against ontology as an intelligible project for social theory. Ontological questions have proliferated in social thought in the past decades mainly as a way of recasting traditional sociological questions about individuals/society and structure/agency. Far from being an advance in our understanding, however, this form of reasoning has frequently brought confusion. This is demonstrated with detailed reference to a contribution from an ongoing debate, centred on the issue whether social structures are causally efficacious. I argue that the ontological (...) project is mainly fuelled by a misconception of language and that, once this picture is exposed as incoherent, ontology loses its intelligibility. (shrink)

This article attempts to evidence the idea that progress in social theory is impeded by central theoretical procedures embodying a host of conceptual mistakes. The article focuses on realist theorizing, examining both early realist work on science and contemporary critical realism, and demonstrates how conceptual procedures employed therein lead to error and confusion. The standard use of these procedures entails, among other things, that social theoretical debates tend to remain irresolvable and that understanding of what it takes to demonstrate a (...) theoretical scheme as superior remains poor. Alternative ways of proceeding are outlined, which lead to defensible social theoretical practice. (shrink)

Leonidas Montes presents a new reading of Adam Smith's legacy. The classical influences, the meaning of some key concepts, and what other authors were saying at the time, are fundamental to understand what Smith really said. Starting with the famous Das Adam Smith Problem, Montes investigates the causes and the context of the Problem, and proposes the importance of the moral triad of the supposed impartial spectator, propriety and self-command for understanding Smith's broad concept of sympathy. Smith's virtues are fundamental (...) to his moral thought, and the nature of the meaning of self-command and propriety have important philosophical implications, reflecting the relevance of moral autonomy in Smith's thought. The concluding chapter gives an example of the mistake of simply looking at a problem through the eyes of today. It questions the popular version of Smith as a forerunner or founder of general economic equilibrium theory by investigating the real nature of Smith's Newtonianism. (shrink)

Making use of the insights and practice of Ordinary Language Philosophy, understood as encompassing the work of Wittgenstein, Ryle, Austin and their followers, Clarity and Confusion in Social Theory reveals the profound logical flaws in some of the central methodological procedures often employed in social theory for dealing with concepts, offering alternative approaches to social scientists and philosophers for tackling the conceptual issues that have so bedevilled social science from its inception.

Despite of its formal precision and its great many applications, Shannon’s theory still offers an active terrain of debate when the interpretation of its main concepts is the task at issue. In this article we try to analyze certain points that still remain obscure or matter of discussion, and whose elucidation contribute to the assessment of the different interpretative proposals about the concept of information. In particular, we argue for a pluralist position, according to which the different views about information (...) are no longer rival, but different interpretations of a single formal concept. (shrink)

This article scrutinizes some theoretical procedures prevalent in the philosophy of social science. These procedures are exemplified in Elder-Vass’s critical realism, which promises to place the social sciences on a sound ontological footing. The article focuses on the way that Elder-Vass’s general emergentist ontology is constituted and on the methods through which it is applied to society. It is contended that the ontology is not and could not be grounded in science and that its philosophical use distorts what it is (...) applied to. The incoherent methods that social ontological projects constitutionally rely on entail that they cannot ground social scientific explanation. (shrink)

This article discusses the issue of the conceptual accuracy of descriptions of social life, which, although fundamental for the social sciences, has in fact been neglected. I approach this task via an examination of Paul Roth’s recent work, which recapitulates reflection in analytic philosophy of history and sets out a view of the past as indeterminate until retrospectively constructed in historical narratives. I argue that Roth’s position embraces an overly restricted notion of historical significance and underestimates how anachronistic descriptions vitiate (...) central historiographical tasks. I contend that the importance of conceptually accurate descriptions for history and the social sciences cannot be overstated. (shrink)

Children’s cognitive control and knowledge at school entry predict growth rates in analogical reasoning skill over time; however, the mechanisms by which these factors interact and impact learning are unclear. We propose that inhibitory control (IC) is critical for developing both the relational representations necessary to reason and the ability to use these representations in complex problem solving. We evaluate this hypothesis using computational simulations in a model of analogical thinking, Discovery of Relations by Analogy/Learning and Inference with Schemas and (...) Analogy (DORA/LISA; Doumas et al., 2008 ). Longitudinal data from children who solved geometric analogy problems repeatedly over 6 months show three distinct learning trajectories though all gained somewhat: analogical reasoners throughout, non-analogical reasoners throughout, and transitional – those who start non-analogical and grew to be analogical. Varying the base level of top-down lateral inhibition in DORA affected the model’s ability to learn relational representations, which, in conjunction with inhibition levels used in LISA during reasoning, simulated accuracy rates and error types seen in the three different learning trajectories. These simulations suggest that IC may not only impact reasoning ability but may also shape the ability to acquire relational knowledge given reasoning opportunities. (shrink)

La literatura especializada reconoce la influencia de Newton en la obra de Adam Smith. Pero la naturaleza de esta influencia no ha sido tratada con la debida atención. En este ensayo argumentaré que la metodología científica de Newton no necesariamente corresponde a lo que comúnmente llamamos newtonianismo. Después de analizar el enfoque metodológico de Newton, se estudiará cómo Smith entiende el newtonianismo. Adam Smith fue un sofisticado intérprete de Newton, pero el contexto de la Ilustración Escocesa juega un rol fundamental (...) en su comprensión del legado newtoniano. Si en general la tradición francesa interpretó a Newton como un precursor de una metodología axiomático-deductiva, la recepción e interpretación de Newton en Escocia durante el siglo XVIII nos ayuda a comprender la real naturaleza del Newtonianismo de Adam Smith. (shrink)

Greece's agricultural economy has undergone a gradual process of adjustment since World War II. While farm numbers have been reduced and average farm size has increased, the relative size of the farm population is still large by European standards. The slow rate of consolidation and adjustment in the agricultural sector of Greece is influenced by the following three factors: (1) lack of developed markets for long term capital; (2) multiple job holding among Greek farmers; and (3) protective agricultural policies.Greece's accession (...) into the European Economic Community in 1981 has shifted her trade patterns towards her European partners. In terms of agricultural trade, Greece exported considerably more agricultural goods to EEC members in 1987 than was imported from EEC countries. Greece's agricultural trade balance with all nations of the world is roughly one to one, i.e., agricultural imports equal agricultural exports in value. Since entry into the EEC, Greece has improved her degree of competitiveness or self-sufficiency in vegetables, citrus, and wine, but has reduced her self-sufficiency or competitiveness in meat and livestock products.Improved competitiveness of Greece's agricultural sector in the 1990s will require adoption of known production technologies, reduction in government bureaucracy, development of new technologies for improving product quality and minimizing plant diseases, reduction in production and marketing costs, and more effective domestic and export group marketing strategies. (shrink)

Can social scientific description capture the historically individual? Is the idea of an ethically committed social science morally defensible? This book offers a critical, historically-grounded perspective on these perennial methodological and ethical problems, in their current forms. It provides a series of in-depth examinations of recent work by prominent authors in sociology and philosophy. The book draws on the thought of Peter Winch to provide a coherent response to the core issues that underlie past and present debate in social science (...) and to provide a solid basis for future inquiry. The book will be of particular interest to social scientists, philosophers, and historians, and to anyone seeking a clear grasp of the demands made by historical understanding and ethics on the study of society. (shrink)

This article scrutinizes some theoretical procedures prevalent in the philosophy of social science. These procedures are exemplified in Elder-Vass’s critical realism, which promises to place the social sciences on a sound ontological footing. The article focuses on the way that Elder-Vass’s general emergentist ontology is constituted and on the methods through which it is applied to society. It is contended that the ontology is not and could not be grounded in science and that its philosophical use distorts what it is (...) applied to. The incoherent methods that social ontological projects constitutionally rely on entail that they cannot ground social scientific explanation. (shrink)

This book examines the characteristics of monetary institutions and the ways in which a clear understanding of money, and a sense of what we can know about money, can improve our comprehension on monetary policy. It establishes a link between abstract and theoretical aspects of monetary theory and the problems with money and banks we face today.

Focusing on Shannon information, this article shows that, even on the basis of the same formalism, there may be different interpretations of the concept of information, and that disagreements may be deep enough to lead to very different conclusions about the informational characterization of certain physical situations. On this basis, a pluralist view is argued for, according to which the concept of information is primarily a formal concept that can adopt different interpretations that are not mutually exclusive, but each useful (...) in a different specific context. (shrink)

Volume 51, Issue 3, July 2020, Page 278-280.

This volume is an attempt to rethink Niccolò Machiavelli, one of the most challenging political thinkers in the history of European political thought.

Ethical issues related the responsible conduct of research involve questions concerning the rights and obligations of investigators to propose, design, implement, and publish research. When a principal investigator transfers institutions during a grant cycle, financial and recognition issues need to be addressed to preserve all parties’ obligations and best interests in a mutually beneficial way. Although grants often transfer with the PI, sometimes they do not. Maintaining a grant at an institution after the PI leaves does not negate the grantee (...) institution’s obligation to recognize the PI’s original ideas, contributions, and potential rights to some forms of expression and compensation. Issues include maintaining a role for the PI in determining how to take credit for, share and publish results that involve his or her original ideas. Ascribing proper credit can become a thorny issue. This paper provides a framework for addressing situations and disagreements that may occur when a new PI continues the work after the original PI transfers. Included are suggestions for proactively developing institutional mechanisms that address such issues. Considerations include how to develop solutions that comply with the responsible conduct of research, equitably resolve claims regarding reporting of results, and avoid the possibility of plagiarism. (shrink)

Propriety and self-command are distinctive and complex Smithian concepts. This essay attempts to shed more light on the meaning and significance of propriety and the virtue of self-command. After a brief introduction on the recent reappraisal of The Theory of Moral Sentiments, a short analysis of Smith’s crucial idea of sympathy follows. Then the relevance of propriety is discussed and some connections between propriety and the virtue of self-command are explored. Finally, the importance of Smith’s self-command is reassessed, paying attention (...) to its origins and philosophical implications. It is noteworthy that, through self-command and propriety, TMS stresses the role of intentions and motivations. By doing so, Adam Smith opens up new threads to rethink personal liberty and its ethical importance for political economy. (shrink)

This paper is a presentation and an interpretation of Murray Rothbard’s views on the relation between the fiscal necessities brought by war and interventionism in Money and Banking as read from his book A History of Money and Banking in the United States.

This book analyzes such symbolic designs of the modern troubled imagination as the conspiracy theory of society, deterministic concepts of identity and order, antisemitic obsessions, self-hatred, and the myth of the loss of roots. It offers, among other things, the unique East-Central European materials incorporated in a broad, imaginative synthesis and critique of contemporary social analysis.

This article presents a long overdue analysis of the idea of an ethically committed social science, which, after the demise of positivism and the deeming of moral neutrality as impossible, has come to dominate the self-understanding of many contemporary sociological approaches. Once adequately specified, however, the idea is shown to be ethically questionable in that it works against the moral commitments constitutive of academic life. The argument is conducted with resources from the work of Peter Winch, thus establishing its continuing (...) relevance and critical importance for the social sciences, sociology in particular. Special reference is made to heretofore unappreciated aspects of Winch’s work, including within the groundbreaking The Idea of a Social Science and Its Relation to Philosophy, but focusing specifically on his later contributions to ethics. (shrink)

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work. This work is in the public domain (...) in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant. (shrink)