Thought, including conscious perception, is representation. But perceptual representation is uniquely direct, permitting immediate acquaintance with the world and ensuring perception's distinctive phenomenal character. The perceptive mind is extended. It recruits the very objects perceived to constitute self-referential representations determinative of what it is like to perceive.

This research examines how the fit between employees moral development and the ethical work climate of their organization affects employee attitudes. Person-organization fit was assessed by matching individuals' level of cognitive moral development with the ethical climate of their organization. The influence of P-O fit on employee attitudes was assessed using a sample of 304 individuals from 73 organizations. In general, the findings support our predictions that fit between personal and organizational ethics is related to higher levels of commitment and (...) job satisfaction and lower levels of turnover intent. Ethical P-O fit was related to higher levels of affective commitment across all three ethical climate types. Job satisfaction was only associated with ethical P-O fit for one of the three P-O fit variables and turnover intentions were significantly associated with two of the ethical P-O fit variables. The most consistent effect was found for the Conventional - Caring fit variable, which was significantly related to all three attitudes assessed. The weakest effect was found for the Preconventional - Instrumental fit variable, which was only predictive of affective commitment. The pattern of findings and implications for practice and future research are discussed. (shrink)

According to the prevalent 'sum view' of stuffs, each portion of stuff is a mereological sum of its subportions. The purpose of this paper is to re-examine the sum view in the light of a modal temporal mereology which distinguishes between different varieties of summation relations. While admitting David Barnett's recent counter-example to the sum view, we show that there is nonetheless an important sense in which all portions of stuff are sums of their subportions. We use our summation relations (...) to develop, as an alternative to the sum view, an analysis of stuffs that distinguisher between the ways in which different sorts of stuffs are sums of their subportions. (shrink)

The dissertation involves an examination of recent work in Social Epistemology. In particular, I am concerned with the question of how one's social position could affect judgments regarding evidence and confirmation. To answer this question I undertake an investigation of feminist epistemology and philosophy of science. Feminist epistemologists have raised criticisms of the traditional analysis of knowledge by arguing against the primacy of the individual and for a more thorough-going analysis of the community in accounts of knowledge. This shift, in (...) my view, is an important contribution toward a more complete theory of knowledge. Yet feminist epistemology is a controversial contributor to the area of social epistemology generally construed. Thus, in the first chapter I offer a defense of the contributions of feminist epistemology to analytic philosophy, against its various critics. ;In Chapters Two and Three I examine feminists' reliance on Naturalistic models of theory-choice such as Quinean Holism or the later Wittgenstein's Social Constructivism. I argue that the reliance on these models is a tactical mistake for feminists since these models are based on problematic accounts of meaning and truth. Alternatively, I advocate the adoption of a realist meaning theory along the lines proposed by Katz, as well as a rationalized epistemology in the service of explaining deductive and inductive inference. My argument involves showing how realism and rationalism entail the kind of strong program of justification and rational censure which is required if feminists want to successfully condemn existing biased practices. ;Consequently, I propose a reformulation of the distinction between a context of discovery and context of justification. My reformulation differs from the past positivist distinction in that "discovery" rather than being wholly random and subjective, is instead reflective of patterns of social experience. "Justification" is conceived of as more sensitive to the epistemic privilege of varying social standpoints. However, a separation is still maintained between how one comes to arrive at a belief and the methods for justifying that belief. My conclusion is that a partnership between rationalized epistemology and feminist theory can provide rich possibilities for both disciplines. (shrink)

Metaphors are expressions in artificial, contrived, alien languages, and we understand metaphors by constructing translation schemes linking our natural, literal languages to these theoretically contrived metaphorical languages. The relation between a literal natural language and a metaphorical contrived language is like the relationship between a natively known language and a system of subsequently acquired languages etymologically emerging from that basic natural language. This model for understanding metaphorically contrived language is kin to the familiar model explaining how speakers of a language (...) such as Latin may come to decipher a language like Spanish through projecting to Spanish what they know of Latin without the aid of a translation manual. A metaphor is, thus, seen as a sentence in a nonnatural language, itself derived from and at least partially translatable with the natural, literal language of the metaphor's author or audience. (shrink)

This fascinating study explores the difficulties faced by modern Westerners in their search for a meaningful life. It sheds light on this enduring cultural dilemma through a close reading of four popular film and television narratives: Pixar's animated feature film, Toy Story; Christopher Nolan's Batman Begins and The Dark Knight; the television romantic comedy, Sex and the City; and, finally, the mobster drama, The Sopranos. The readings are guided by a number of inter-related questions. First, in what ways do these (...) popular stories speak to the modern West's meaning dilemma? What do they have to say about contemporary culture, and its capacity to illuminate the fundamental human? What are the core problems faced by the central characters and how are they resolved? Finally, and perhaps most importantly, do the four stories that come into focus suggest hope or despair in the modern West's search for meaning? (shrink)

Is de vrije wil een noodzakelijke voorwaarde voor morele verantwoordelijkheid? Dit stuk gaat over enkele van de argumenten die voor een ontkennend of bevestigend antwoord op die vraag pleiten.

Research on justice climate demonstrates a consistent effect on workgroup outcomes such as job satisfaction, commitment, and performance. However, little research considers how justice climate affects these outcomes and when the relationship is stronger or weaker. In an effort to extend the literature on justice climate, we draw on research on other types of organizational climate to suggest justice climate influences the fair behavior of coworkers. Specifically, we propose fair coworker behavior mediates the relationship between justice climate and outcomes. Further, (...) we examine the influence of workgroup structure on this mediated relationship. We examine these relationships in two studies and find support for the mediating effect of fair coworker behavior and the proposed moderated mediation model. Implications of these results for justice and climate research are considered. (shrink)

The European refugee crisis is an important topic on media, political, and public agendas. Due to its scope and impact, its continuing prevalence on the media-agenda and the divisiveness of public debate, new research is needed to understand the media’s framing of the issue. This study inductively analyzes framing of the refugee crisis of 2015–2016 by two Dutch newspapers. Portrayal of the refugee crisis consists of ten different frames and counter frames. The frames are communicated on the level of the (...) refugee, on the level of the crisis as an event, and on a societal level. Results show that recent reporting on the refugee crisis is relatively nuanced and portrays the crisis from a variety of perspectives. Framing changes following certain transitory events, but only slight differences were found between popular and quality papers. (shrink)

This article argues that traditional, regulative principles of research ethics offer insufficient guidance for research in the narrative study of lives. These principles presuppose an implicit epistemology that conceives of research participants as data sources, a conception that is argued not tenable for narrative research. The case is made by drawing on recent discussions of research ethics in the qualitative and narrative research literature. This article shows that narrative ethics is inextricably entwined with epistemological issues--namely, issues of narrative ownership and (...) the multiplicity of narrative meaning. Finally, practical recommendations are made for the ethical treatment of research participants in narrative research. The article concludes by situating our approach with respect to the broad range of contemporary perspectives on research ethics. (shrink)

Human life is operationally defined by the onset and cessation of organismal function. At postnatal stages of life, organismal integration critically and uniquely requires a functioning brain. In this article, a distinction is drawn between integrated and coordinated biologic activities. While communication between cells can provide a coordinated biologic response to specific signals, it does not support the integrated function that is characteristic of a living human being. Determining the loss of integrated function can be complicated by medical interventions that (...) uncouple elements of the natural biologic hierarchy underlying our intuitive understanding of death. Such medical interventions can allow living human beings who are no longer able to function in an integrated manner to be maintained in a living state. In contrast, medical intervention can also allow the cells and tissues of an individual who has died to be maintained in a living state. To distinguish between a living human being and living human cells, two criteria are proposed: either the persistence of any form of brain function or the persistence of autonomous integration of vital functions. Either of these criteria is sufficient to determine a human being is alive. (shrink)

Alfred Marshall was the most retiring and unworldly of all the great economists. Yet, he used his reign as Professor of Political Economy at Cambridge to construct for himself an overbearing economic orthodoxy not just around his own theories but also around his vision of the economics of the future. Dr Maloney's study of the Marshallian establishment sheds much light on how, and why, early in the twentieth century, one set of economic ideas came to exert a dominant influence (...) which has persisted. It will prove essential reading for historians of economics and for those interested more generally in the history of ideas. (shrink)

An account of the contents of the propositional attitudes is fundamental to the success of the cognitive sciences if, as seems correct, the cognitive sciences do presuppose propositional attitudes. Fodor has recently pointed the way towards a naturalistic explication of mental content in his Psychosemantics (1987). Fodor's theory is a version of the causal theory of meaning and thus inherits many of its virtues, including its intrinsic plausibility. Nevertheless, the proposal may suffer from two deficiencies: (1) It seems not to (...) provide an adequate explanation of misrepresentation. (2) It may also fail, as a species of empiricism, to provide a correct explication of the content of observational concepts and those non-observational concepts whose meaning is to be traced to their causal connections with observational concepts. (shrink)

This article establishes itself first in a kind of slough, a lack of inspiration, and transvalues this via Fred Wah’s poem “Ikebana” and Roland Barthes’s celebration of haiku as a form that “lacks inspiration.” Following Barthes on “the minimal act of writing that is Notation,” this article explores and theorizes the status of the notational in and for poetics. The article registers and sustains the ambiguity in notatio, notationis and suggests that the notational points to a conceptual dialectic between condensation (...) and dilation. Poets Tonya Foster and W. S. Graham offer key cases, as do the author’s own poems. The article moves from haikus and other short forms (including the imagist poem) to haibuns (a mixed form of verse and prose) to questions of accent as a mode of differentiation from the surround. Drawing on Claudia Rankine and Jacques Rancière (as well as on classical rhetoric), the article also shows how the notational as censure might register antagonisms and not only accents or gestures (as notational forms are typically glossed). Alert to the enmeshment of notational forms with other media—such as the novel and photography—the article suggests in its final turn that a notational poetics can also vivify the (sometimes latent) diegetic aspect of short, minimal, “uninspired,” supposedly “immediate” notational forms and practices, as we see in the dance of notation and annotation, or in the unfolding of haiku within mixed forms such as the haibun. (shrink)

Christopher Maloney offers an explanation of the fundamental nature of thought. He posits the idea that thinking involves the processing of mental representations that take the form of sentences in a covert language encoded in the mind. The theory relies upon traditional categories of psychology, including such notions as belief and desire. It also draws upon and thus inherits some of the problems of artificial intelligence which it attempts to answer, including what bestows meaning or content upon a thought (...) and what distinguishes genuine from simulated thought. (shrink)

The debate on whether insurance companies should be allowed to use results of individuals’ genetic tests for underwriting purposes has been both lively and increasingly relevant over the past two decades. Yet there appears to be no widely agreed upon resolution regarding appropriate and effective regulation. There exists today a gamut of recommendations and actual practices addressing this phenomenon ranging from laissez-faire to voluntary industry moratoria to strict legal prohibition. One obvious reason for such a variance in views and approaches (...) is that there are competing bases for evaluating the outcomes of restricting insurers’ use of such information. For example, an outright ban on the use of genetic test results may seem the best method for protecting against unfair discrimination, while allowing their use may seem to be the best way to foster efficiency in the market for insurance. However, there is also a lack of understanding about how restricting the use of genetic information would play out in the market through the so-called phenomenon of adverse selection. Using economic analysis, we discuss how the type of adverse selection that occurs in insurance markets affects various arguments both in favour and against an outright ban on insurers’ use of genetic tests for pricing insurance. We review arguments based on moral principles . Practical concerns from the insurance industry based on actuarial principles and economic efficiency are also compared. Each perspective is shown to lead to a range of conflicting recommendations about how genetic information should be regulated and these conclusions depend critically on whether one conducts the analysis from the ex ante temporal perspective , from the interim temporal perspective , or from the ex post temporal perspective. (shrink)

Mereological principles are sometimes used to support general claims about the structure and arrangement of objects in the world. I focus initially on one such mereological principle, the weak supplementation principle (WSP). It is not obvious that (WSP) is prescribed by ordinary thinking about parthood. Further, (WSP) is not needed for a fairly strong formal characterization of the part–whole relation. For these reasons, some arguments relying on (WSP) might be countered by simply denying (WSP). I argue more generally that there (...) is no reason to assume that one core mereology functions as a common basis for all plausible metaphysical theories. (shrink)

J. Christopher Maloney argues that free will is compatible with necessary laws of science and immutable history. For free will emerges from an akratic will that asymptotically approaches the ability to choose to act otherwise than it willfully does.

Ce recit de la vie d'Aristote montre assez bien que, même s'il est connu comme un des plus grands philosophes de tous les temps, il etait un veritable homme de science, au sens moderne du mot, un penseur, chercheur et professeur. Sous forme d'autobiographie, le present recit nous rappelle du même souffle, grâce à des reperes historiques bien definis, tout ce que nous devons à la culture grecque : l'academie, l'ethique, les sculptures d'Aphrodite, le theâtre, les sciences, sans oublier les (...) bases servant à l'etude de nos systemes politiques. Vingt-quatre siecles avant nous, Aristote s'etonnait dejà de tout. Ami du conquerant Philippe de Macedoine, il a ete un professeur d'Alexandre dit Le Grand et il connaissait de pres Demosthene, que l'on donne lui aussi, avec le Romain Ciceron, comme l'un des deux plus grands orateurs de l'Antiquite. Cette biographie s'en tient strictement à des faits verifiables anterieurs à l'annee 322 avant notre ere, date de la mort d'Aristote. L'auteur, qui utilise un vocabulaire aussi pres que possible de sa source, ne pose aucun jugement sur sa personnalite ou sur ses oeuvres. Mais le portrait qui se degage de cette vie fera consensus : Aristote etait heureux. (shrink)