The thoughts and writings of this important fifth century B.C. political and social thinker -- and formidable rival of the Confucianists -- are presented here in English translation.

In this study, we built and tested a theoretical model to determine how ethical leadership affects team creativity among teams composed of different characteristics. Following social learning theory and an antecedent–benefit–cost framework, we conducted analyses of multisource data from 50 team supervisors and 186 employees, which revealed an inverted U-shaped relationship between ethical leadership and team creativity. The teams exhibited more creativity when there was a moderate level of ethical leadership than when there were very low or very high levels. (...) Moreover, from an interactional perspective, we found that team faultlines significantly moderated the curvilinear relationship between ethical leadership and team creativity such that the inverted U-shaped relationship was more significant among teams with weak team faultlines. The theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed. (shrink)

This study empirically investigated the impact of ethical leadership on employee burnout, deviant behavior and task performance through two psychological mechanisms: developing higher levels of employee trust in leaders and demonstrating lower levels of surface acting toward their leaders. Our theoretical model was tested using data collected from employees of a pharmaceutical retail chain company. Analyses of multisource time-lagged data from 45 team leaders and 247 employees showed that employees’ trust in leaders and surface acting significantly mediated the relationships between (...) ethical leadership and employee burnout, deviant behavior and task performance. We discuss the theoretical and practical implications of our findings for understanding how ethical leaders influence employees’ attitudes and behavior. (shrink)

Discussion of issues related to theories of justice and statehood.

Given the paradoxical nature of unethical pro-organizational behavior (UPB), that it simultaneously involves sincere extraordinary efforts to help the organization but violates ethical norms, we examined its paradoxical psychological and behavioral outcomes in the workplace. We hypothesized that UPB generates simultaneous but conflicting feelings: On one hand, guilt (for having behaved unethically) and on the other, psychological entitlement (for having done something positive for the organization). In turn, these conflicting psychological states differentially affect two conflicting behaviors. Feelings of guilt motivate (...) customer service behavior but reduce self-serving cheating, whereas psychological entitlement does the opposite. We further hypothesized that moral identity centrality moderates the paradoxical effects of UPB. Data from three studies using experimental and field methodologies demonstrated support for all hypotheses. We discuss the theoretical and managerial implications of these findings. (shrink)

Health research has increased during the last decade, which has enhanced the importance of research ethics. However, little is known regarding the knowledge, awareness, attitudes, and practices of investigators in Myanmar. To assess awareness, knowledge, and attitudes of post-graduates regarding research ethics and research ethics committees (RECs) and their informed consent practices and to determine the association between their responses and certain independent factors. We conducted a cross-sectional study using a questionnaire that was distributed to a convenience sample of post-graduates (...) at the Defence Services Medical Academy in Myanmar. We used descriptive, t test, and chi-square statistics to analyze the data. Significance was set at p < 0.05. We obtained surveys from 204 participants, which included 177 MSc and 27 PhDs of whom 63.6% had performed research and 86.5% had prior ethics training. Regarding awareness, 92.2% were aware of an REC at their academy, but only 47.1% were “fully aware” of the functions of an REC and only 52.9% stated they were familiar with ethical principles that govern human subject research. More than 90% thought that research involving human subjects should be submitted to an REC and that post-graduates should have training on research ethics. However, several of their attitudes were sub-optimal; for example, 20.2% said that informed consent is only necessary from the community leader of a village rather than from the individual, 32.8% agreed it is acceptable to fabricate research data, and 33.0% believed that ethical review of research should be restricted to international collaborative research. Calculated mean total attitude scores were statistically significantly higher in post-graduates with PhDs compared with those with MSc and higher in those with knowledge of research ethics principles compared with those lacking such knowledge. Significant gaps exist among post-graduates regarding their knowledge, awareness, and attitudes regarding research ethics and RECs. We recommend that post-graduates receive further training in research ethics to ensure the ethical conduct of research. Further studies should be performed to determine the generalizability of our findings to other institutions in Myanmar. (shrink)

Photography: morally close or aesthetically removed? Can photographs make a contribution to the moral discourse? And, if so, what kind of contribution might that be? On the one hand, they are often used in morally laden contexts of communication such as media reports about wars etc. On the other, it is said that images are inherently ambiguous which seems to speak against the possibility to use them as a means to communicate focused moral judgements. The following article starts with a (...) critical analysis of Susan Sontag‘s theses regarding the above mentioned questions. Sontag claims that the “ethical content of photographs is fragile”. But what does this mean and is her claim justified? The discussion of her ideas will take us to a more basic question, namely what kind of information photographs can transfer in communicative contexts. Here, we will follow Patrick Maynard’s advice to think of photography as a “family of technologies” that can serve a variety of different purposes, amongst which depiction is but one possibility. (shrink)

Because of the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic, the traditional didactic teaching method that is practiced in Confucian culture, an Eastern cultural model, is being challenged by multiple alternative teaching modes. In Western cultures, the teaching behavior of teachers is dependent on their ability to influence the temperament of students; in contrast, teachers in Eastern cultures are influenced by changes in external environment. This phenomenon can mainly be explained by the tendency of students in Eastern cultures to adopt a passive learning (...) style because of Confucianism. On the basis of Confucian culture and literature review, we conducted a Chinese-language questionnaire survey of temperament scales and learning motivation, and 724 effective questionnaires were collected and used to explore the relationship between students’ temperament and learning motivation under three teaching modes, namely, online teaching, traditional offline classroom teaching, and online–offline mixed teaching. Conclusions drawn were as follows. In a Chinese Confucian cultural system, the passive learning style of students and its relationship with the surrounding collective culture creates the temperament characteristics of sanguinity and phlegmatism. Influenced by the traditional Confucian values of benevolence and honesty, students with a melancholic temperament do not focus on their learning motivations. Furthermore, changes in external information, to which such students are sensitive, cause them to give up opportunities easily. Similarly, students with a choleric temperament are sensitive and prone to fluctuating emotions, and they tend to be affected by changes in their external environment. Although students have a strong learning motivation under the traditional offline teaching mode, a paradox in individual cognition exists because of differences between Chinese and Western cultures. Therefore, students generally prefer the online–offline mixed teaching mode to the traditional single teaching mode. This study explored factors that influence students’ learning motivation, namely, individual temperament and educational environment, and provides a reference for the future development of post epidemic education. (shrink)

Collection of articles on humanism, neo-humanism, communism, etc. with special reference to India.

The pandemic in 2020 made online learning the widely used modality of teaching in several countries and it has also entered the spotlight of educational research. However, online learning has always been a challenge for disciplines that require hands-on practice. For art teaching or training, online learning has many advantages and disadvantages. How art teachers embrace and adapt their teaching for online delivery remains an unanswered question. This research examines 892 art teachers' attitudes toward online learning, using learning environment, need (...) satisfaction, mental engagement, and behavior as predictors. Structural equation modeling was used to explore the relationship between these four dimensions during these teachers' participation in an online learning program. The results reveal significant correlations between the learning environment, need satisfaction, mental engagement, and behavior. Moreover, this study reveals the group characteristics of art teachers, which can actually be supported by online learning programs. These findings provide insights into how art teachers view and use online learning, and thus can shed lights on their professional development. (shrink)

Wendet man sich der Frage nach den Quellen unseres Wissens zu, so muss man feststellen, dass wir zweifelsohne einen großen Teil unseres Wissens über die Welt aus dem Zeugnis anderer gewinnen. In der gegenwärtigen erkenntnistheoretischen Diskussion wird nicht in Frage gestellt, dass das Zeugnis anderer zur Genese unseres Wissens beiträgt. Umstritten ist dagegen,ob die Anführung des Ursprungs solcher Überzeugungen auch zu deren Rechtfertigung in hinreichendem Maße beiträgt. Dieses Buch bietet einen systematischen Einblick in die verschiedenen epistemologischen Positionen dieser Debatte – (...) sowohl klassische Ansätze als auch neuere Entwicklungen werden vorgestellt und kritisch diskutiert. Darüber hinaus wird der Zeugnisbegriff selbst – als epistemisch funktionaler Begriff – eingehend analysiert. Aufbauend auf den Untersuchungsergebnissen des systematischen Teils des Buches wird dann in einer Fallstudie zur Berichterstattung der Tagesschau ein Sonderfall des Zeugnisses anderer genauer in den Blick genommen, der in der bisherigen epistemologischen Debatte erstaunlicherweise nur eine untergeordnete Rolle gespielt hat: die mediale Berichterstattung. (shrink)

Neukantianismus, Phanomenologie und Kulturphilosophie: Die Forschungsinteressen Christian Mockels sind vielfaltig. Seine Arbeiten zu Max Adler, Edmund Husserl und Ernst Cassirer sowie seine editorische Tatigkeit als Herausgeber des Cassirer-Nachlasses haben dazu beigetragen, eine Vielfalt von Themenbereichen und philosophischen Kreisen miteinander zu verknupfen. Eine Philosophie der Kultur und der Gesellschaft als systematische Einheit auszufuhren und sie in der pragmatischen Richtung einer politischen Philosophie auszubauen: darin sieht Christian Mockel die Relevanz einer Philosophie, die sich zwar als Wissenschaft versteht, doch uber die theoretische Dimension (...) hinaus das Projekt der Aufklarung als Selbstverstandnis des freien Menschen zu verwirklichen anstrebt. In seiner jahrzehntelangen Tatigkeit als Hochschullehrer an der Humboldt-Universitat zu Berlin hat Christian Mockel viele Wissenschaftler*innen aus allen Kontinenten beraten und bei ihren Recherchen unterstutzt. Diese Festschrift greift die Themen seiner Forschung auf und zeigt zugleich die Diversitat der Interessen seiner Schuler*innen und Kolleg*innen, die ihm mit diesem Band Dank aussprechen und seine Arbeit wurdigen mochten. (shrink)

The Half-Causation Method is a metaphysical-epistemic model for developing industrialised technological inventions. It consists of five phases of reasoning through which methodological success is achieved. The Method is named after its first phase, which consists of a methodological idealisation of the causal process, by pinpointing half of a possible causal relation while ignoring everything else. Following this, the Method prescribes how the reasoning should proceed, which ultimately constructs a complete and novel causal process. Each phase terminates with an epistemic justification (...) which the inventor (or inventors) can share with other knowers and have them deliberated and scrutinised. As such, the entire process of developing industrialised technological inventions, including the early stages which are traditionally regarded as mysterious can be understood as a sequence of epistemic justifications. In this paper, the Half-Causation Method is presented as a detailed practical prescription for future projects which aim to develop industrialised technological inventions. Throughout the paper two case studies from the recent history of technology are used as exemplars, namely: the invention of the microwave oven and the invention of the centrifugal vacuum cleaner. First, a definition of the ‘technological invention’ is proposed. Following that, the prescription is presented as fifteen methodological instructions: three instructions that repeat at each phase. The prescription is supplemented by a set-theoretic diagram. Although this is a philosophy paper, it is spoken directly to the scientists and engineers who aim to direct part of their research towards the development of inventions. (shrink)

In the context of the digital wave sweeping modern education, securing the information safety of ideological and political education in universities is of paramount importance. Based on the comprehensive risk mechanism, this paper deconstructs the connotation of information security of ideological and political education in higher education in the digital age, divides it into two categories: ideological risk and technical risk, and constructs the influence model of information security level of ideological and political education. Data were collected via questionnaires and (...) a structural equation model was used to test hypotheses, revealing the complex influences of key factors such as educational quality and sustainable development education, informatization teaching environment, campus digitalization level, and the impact on the quality of education. The study finds that the quality of political education in universities lays the foundation of solid information security, whereas network governance capability directly affects it. In contrast, the informatization teaching environment and campus digitalization level play positive mediating roles at different levels. (shrink)

Data envelopment analysis is a popular mathematical tool for analyzing the relative efficiency of homogenous decision-making units. However, the existing DEA models cannot tackle the newly confronted applications with imprecise and negative data as well as undesirable outputs simultaneously. Thus, we introduce undesirable outputs into modified slack-based measure model and propose an interval-modified slack-based measure model, which extends the application of interval DEA in fields that concern with less undesirable outputs. The novelties of the model are that it considers the (...) undesirable outputs while dealing with imprecise and negative data, and it is slack-based. Furthermore, the model with undesirable outputs is proven translation-invariant and unit-invariant. Moreover, a numerical example is provided to illustrate the changes of the lower and upper bounds of the efficiency score after considering the undesirable outputs. The empirical results show that, without considering undesirable outputs, most of the lower bounds of the efficiency scores will be overestimated when the DMUs are weakly efficient and inefficient. The upper bound will also change after considering undesirable outputs when the DMU is inefficient. Finally, an improved degree of preference approach is introduced to rank the DMUs. (shrink)

The Mòzǐ is among the founding texts of the Chinese philosophical tradition, presenting China's earliest ethical, political, and logical theories. The collected works introduce concepts, assumptions, and issues that had a profound, lasting influence throughout the classical and early imperial eras. Mòzǐ and his followers developed the world's first ethical theory, and presented China's first account of the origin of political authority from a state of nature. They were prominent social activists whose moral and political reform movement sought to improve (...) the welfare of the common people and eliminate elite extravagance and misuse of power. -/- In this new translation, Chris Fraser focuses on the philosophical aspects of the writing and allows readers to truly enter the Mohists' world of thought. This abridged edition includes the essential political and social topics of concern to this vital movement. Informed by traditional and recent scholarship, the translation presents the Mohists' ideas and arguments clearly, precisely, and coherently, while accurately reflecting the meaning, terminology, and style of the original. (shrink)

This collection offers a new understanding of the epistemology of measurement. The interdisciplinary volume explores how measurements are produced, for example, in astronomy and seismology, in studies of human sexuality and ecology, in brain imaging and intelligence testing. It considers photography as a measurement technology and Henry David Thoreau's poetic measures as closing the gap between mind and world. -/- By focusing on measurements as the hard-won results of conceptual as well as technical operations the authors of the book no (...) longer presuppose that measurement is always and exclusively a means of representing some feature of a target object or entity. Measurement also provides knowledge about the degree to which things have been standardized or harmonized – it is an indicator of how closely human practices are attuned to each other and the world. (shrink)

In den Wissenschaften finden Bilder der unterschiedlichsten Art ihre Verwendung in unserem Streben nach Erkenntnis. Ein Merkmal vieler Arten wissenschaftlicher Visualisierungen besteht darin, dass sie bis dato nur theoretisch erfasste Entitäten sichtbar machen. Sie scheinen daher die Grenze zwischen Beobachtbarem und Unbeobachtbarem in entscheidender Weise zu verschieben. Vor diesem Hintergrund wird vielfach die konstruktivistische These vertreten, die Visualisierungen führten erst in ihrem Produktionsprozess zur Erschaffung des Forschungsobjekts, dieses existiere folglich nicht unabhängig von ihnen in der Welt. Mit dieser These setzt (...) sich der Beitrag kritisch auseinander, indem erstens nachgezeichnet wird, inwiefern konstruktivistische Deutungen in diesem Kontext naheliegen, und zweitens dieser Auffassung die Überlegungen des wissenschaftlichen Realismus als Alternative für die Interpretation der Rolle wissenschaftlicher Visualisierungen im Erkenntnisprozess gegenübergestellt werden. (shrink)

Without doubt, there is a widespread usage of visualisations in science. However, what exactly the _epistemic status_ of these visual representations in science may be remains an open question. In the following, I will argue that at least some scientific visualisations are indispensible for our cognitive processes. My thesis will be that, with regard to the activity of _learning_, visual representations are of relevance in the sense of contributing to the aim of _scientific_ _understanding_. Taking into account that understanding can (...) be regarded as an epistemic desideratum in its own right, I will argue that, at least in some instances, no understanding can be achieved without the aid of visualisations. Consequently, they are of crucial importance in this process. Moreover, to support this thesis we will make use of some findings in educational psychology. (shrink)

Visual representations (photographs, diagrams, etc.) play crucial roles in scientific processes. They help, for example, to communicate research results and hypotheses to scientific peers as well as to the lay audience. In genuine research activities they are used as evidence or as surrogates for research objects which are otherwise cognitively inaccessible. Despite their important functional roles in scientific practices, philosophers of science have more or less neglected visual representations in their analyses of epistemic methods and tools of reasoning in science. (...) This book is meant to fill this gap. It presents a detailed investigation into central conceptual issues and into the epistemology of visual representations in science. (shrink)