In shifting from nationalist/statist to neoliberal economic policies, states seek out and build alliances with other advocates—especially large capital—and work to disorganize political opponents—including small business. This article examines the politics of the private sector's involvement in trade liberalization in the developing world through a study of Mexico's proposal, negotiation, and ratification of the 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement. The article identifies three instruments that the Mexican state used to construct politically crucial support for NAFTA on the part of (...) domestic business: control over political representation, material concessions to potential critics, and careful strategic framing. (shrink)

THE PROTAGONISTS David Sedley The primary object of this historical introduction1 is to enable a reader encountering Hellenistic philosophy for the first ...

Résumé: Dans ce dialogue, deux personnages principaux, Philopolis et Éleuthérios, proposent la position communautarienne et la position contractualiste libérale comme fondements de la théorie politique. Le débat se déroule, comme tout bon débat devrait le faire, autour d’une bouteille de Chardonnay.

How ought we to behave? More importantly, how are we to defend whatever answer we give? Concerning the second question, most people presuppose unsupported metaphysics. In contrast, Morals and Consent grounds our notion of morality in natural evolution, and from that basis, Malcolm Murray shows why contractarianism is a far more viable moral theory than presently credited. The scope of Morals and Consent has two main parts: theory and application. In the theory part, Murray defends contractarianism by appeal to (...) evolutionary game theory and metaethical analyses. The main idea is that we are not going to find morality as an objective fact in the world. Instead, we can understand morality as a reciprocal cooperative trait. From this minimal moral architecture, Murray derives his innovative consent principle. The application of the theory, detailing what contractarians can--or ought to--say about moral matters, takes up the greater percentage of the work. Murray offers a trenchant examination of what moral constraints we can claim concerning death (abortion, euthanasia, and capital punishment), sex (pornography, prostitution, and sexual assault), beneficence (toward present and future people, animals, and the environment), and liberty (genetic enhancement, organ sales, and torture). Murray's Morals and Consent is a serious and utterly unique advance in the field of applied ethics. By focussing on the epistemic justification of our moral claims--or the lack thereof--Murray's evolutionary contractarianism fills a welcome niche in the field of applied ethics. (shrink)

In this paper I argue that the stretch of dialogue from 385 b 2–d 1 in the Cratylus does not belong where it is found in the MSS. , but fits rather between 387 c 5 and 387 c 6. I suggest further that at any rate my negative thesis receives some measure of support from the fragments of Proclus' commentary on the dialogue.

Ronald Preston found Alasdair MacIntyre's analysis of plurality and incommensurability unconvincing, holding that, ultimately, a common rationality enabled disparate perspectives to achieve shared positions. This commitment made Preston sceptical of theologies which drew on MacIntyre to deny the possibility of meaningful dialogue with economics but he ignored the argument that shared liberal roots might constrain his own critique of market institutions. Preston's theological conversation with economics assumes a state-based capitalism, political dominance over economics and a thin plurality. Globalisation challenges such (...) foundations severely but MacIntyre's focus on communities of tradition offers only a weak challenge to global economic power. Preston's understanding of the significance of finitude in economics and MacIntyre's focus on the problems of plurality and the communitarian response are both important in any response to contemporary globalisation. This article explores whether the respective virtues of Preston's and MacIntyre's approaches can coalesce in a theology adequate to the global era. (shrink)

This essay explores Aristotle’s treatment of imagination. It argues that Aristotle need not be charged with the radical inconsistency in his treatment of phantasia diagnosed by Hamlyn. Although a conceptual link can be made between imagination and a use of ‘appears’, the link is not as close as the connection between phantasia and phainesthai, nor does ‘appears’ provide the natural entree to the study of imagination which phainetai provides to that of phantasia. A little lexicography will show that the syntactic (...) behaviour and semantic range of phantasia are different from those of imagination. (shrink)

The relation between the opening section of Plato’s Laws and Xenophon’s Constitution of the Lacedaemonians usually goes unnoticed. This paper draws attention to its importance for understanding Plato’s project in the dialogue. It has three sections. In the first, it will be shown that the view proposed by Plato’s Athenian visitor that Lycurgus made virtue in its entirety the goal of his statecraft was anticipated in Xenophon’s treatise. It has to be treated as an interpretation of the Spartan politeia, alternative (...) to that advanced by Cleinias and Megillus, and accepted by Aristotle, which Plato could expect or at any rate hope to be taken seriously as such. In the second, the argument will focus on the contents of the legislative programme the Athenian says he had hoped to hear Cleinias ascribe to the Cretan and Spartan lawgivers. The case will be made that Plato can expect recognition by the reader that the programme is properly Spartan and Cretan by virtue of its echoes of the programme attributed to Lycurgus by Xenophon. Finally, the third section will argue that in making law primarily concerned with fostering the proper development, conduct, and treatment of human beings at every stage of the life cycle, above all by provision for sound customary practices and the like, Plato adopts the approach to law making taken by Xenophon’s Lycurgus. (shrink)

This article traces the circumstances, which led to Plato becoming a great philosopher. Gradual unraveling of the article brings out more of young Plato and how he became a part of Socrates' circle. Doing philosophy meant trying to understand how to live the life of a just person: getting rid of illusions about what we know or what we think we want, and coming to see what living well really consists of. That is the manifesto Socrates enunciates in his speech (...) to the jurors in the Apology. That is the theme Plato makes him elaborate and defends on a massive scale in the Republic, the longest and most complex of all his works. Fundamental in what he took from Socrates is the idea that philosophy is an inquiry, and inquiry best pursued in conversation with someone else. (shrink)

Hegel's often-echoed verdict on the apolitical character of philosophy in the Hellenistic age is challenged in this collection of essays, originally presented at the sixth meeting of the Symposium Hellenisticum. An international team of leading scholars reveals a vigorous intellectual scene of great diversity: analyses of political leadership and the Roman constitution in Aristotelian terms; Cynic repudiation of the polis - but accommodation with its rulers; Stoic and Epicurean theories of justice as the foundation of society; Cicero's moral critique of (...) the traditional political pursuit of glory. The volume as a whole offers a comprehensive guide to the main currents of social and political philosophy in a period of increasing interest to classicists, philosophers and cultural and intellectual historians. (shrink)

Burnet's text should be emended or repunctuated at three points. At d I we should follow Moreschini and with BT omit Proclus' γε: the unanimous voice of our best manuscripts must be allowed to drown the unreliable Neoplatonist. At e 2, as I shall argue, should be excised. And at e 2–3 the clause is to be attributed to Aristoteles, as Brumbaugh advocates. This attribution gives a better and more typical question and answer sequence, although I can find no other (...) example where Aristoteles ventures sua sponte. (shrink)

It is arguable that the student of the deductions which make up the second part of Plato's Parmenides is today better placed than any of his predecessors, save Aristotle, Speusippus, and other immediate associates of Plato, to understand and evaluate those forbidding pages. Ways of looking at and handling the matter of the text are available to him which were not open to those who lived before the rise of critical philological scholarship in Europe in the last century, and of (...) analytical philosophy in the English-speaking world in this. He has to hand, too, some pioneering work on the dialogue of recent date. (shrink)

Thirteen lessons introducing novice language-learners to major grammatical concepts in classical Sanskrit, using example texts from actual philosophical, poetic, and epic texts. Includes lessons on reading commentaries, working with Sanskrit in translation, and poetic meter and figures of speech. -/- .

The paper undertakes macroeconomic analysis of Universal Basic Income (UBI). It focuses on issues of paying for and the funding of universal basic income. A number of proposals are examined and the limitations of borrowing and money creation for the funding of UBI are indicated. It is generally argued that funding of UBI should be examined in terms of funding through taxation. The effects of UBI on employment and national output and the macroeconomic limits on the scale on UBI in (...) terms of work force participation and tax rates are investigated. (shrink)

This book, in the series Just Sustainabilities, consists of twelve case studies from around the globe as indicated by the wide geographical range of the chapters, “that bring together both the lens...

This study aimed to see if context in the form of priming can alter a participants thinking style based on their level of implicit association with either a religious or paranormal belief. This was based on the theory of alief, when a person’s explicit belief and behaviour are mismatched. This was also linked to dual process theory, with alief being analogous to type one thinking styles (fast and automatic). One hundred and seventy-two participants were recruited from the University of Derby (...) and social media. Implicit association was measured using a modified Brief Implicit Association Test that looked at paranormal and religious belief. Explicit supernatural belief, cognitive reflection, metacognition, and confidence were also measured. A hierarchical multiple regression revealed that a lower belief in the supernatural (apart from psychokinesis), a religious prime and high confidence predicted reflective thinking. Common paranormal perceptions, religious prime and confidence were significant predictors in the model. It was concluded that the prime worked on a moral level and influenced someone with an already open mind to different beliefs to be more analytical, positive, and confident. This study does not support the theory of alief, however, it indicates certain beliefs are susceptible to a certain prime, and that a person can be influenced to be more analytical. (shrink)

Platonic Conversations, by McCabeMary Margaret. Oxford : Oxford University Press, 2015. Pp. 416.