According to Aristotle, wisdom orchestrates all other virtues and therefore leads to eudaimonia, which can be translated as flourishing or psychological well-being. Wisdom guides people to take the morally right course of action in concrete situations to benefit themselves and others. If Aristotle’s theory is correct, then wisdom should be related to different moral virtues and wisdom, rather than individual virtues, should predict eudaimonic well-being, establishing wisdom as the driving force behind human flourishing. Survey data were collected from 230 undergraduate (...) students (M = 21 years, median age = 20 years) attending five different classes in the social sciences at a university in the Southeast of the United States at the beginning and end of the fall semester in 2016. Bivariate correlations, regression analyses, and a structural equation model were utilized to analyze the data. Three-dimensional wisdom (3D-WS) at the beginning of the semester (T1), consisting of the average of cognitive, reflective, and compassionate personality qualities, was significantly positively related to gratitude, forgiveness, morality/fairness, modesty, greed avoidance, and sincerity at T1. Wisdom at T1 predicted flourishing at the end of the semester (T2), assessed by self-acceptance, mastery, purpose in life, and orientation toward personal growth. Among the virtues, only gratitude at T1 significantly predicted flourishing at T2. It appears that Aristotle was correct! Wisdom, at least as measured by the 3D-WS, seems to orchestrate moral virtues and result in human flourishing. This implies that cultivating the development of wisdom will lead to a better and more flourishing life. (shrink)

The aim of this article is to point out the basic areas of judgment made by employees considering the ethical or unethical behaviour of employers in the workplace. The authors analyse this subject from three perspectives: The first one is labour legislation in Poland; the second is the perspective of employers, especially codes of ethical standards created by contemporary organizations, and the third perspective is the point of view of employees. The conclusions in this area have been made on the (...) basis of research in two Polish insurance companies. The authors attempted to create a ranking of ethical elements significant for employees. Such knowledge could be very useful for creating proper personnel policy in any organisation. (shrink)

In his Metaphysics of Morals (particularly in the Doctrine of Virtue), but also in other late works, Kant extends and refines the content of his earlier works on ethics (Groundwork and Critique of Practical Reason) to a considerable extent. These revisions and extensions not only show the limitations of an exclusive interpretation of Kants ethics as a deontological ethics of principles. His thoughts are also relevant for a large number of questions of theoretical morality currently under discussion. Thus, the distinction (...) drawn in the Doctrine of Virtue between perfect and imperfect obligations informs the problem of the solvability of moral conflicts and the role of supererogatory actions. Kant goes further into the question of what it means to be a good person, what moral significance is contained in close human ties such as friendship, and what role is played by happiness and the so-called obligations towards oneself. The papers each discuss Kants central ideas in the context of his earlier writings, but also within the context of our contemporary ethical debates. Thus attention is drawn to the significance and possible extent of an ethics of virtue understood in the Kantian sense. (shrink)

Comparative genomicists seem to be convinced that the unit of measurement employed in their studies is a gene that drives the function of cells and ultimately organisms. As a result, they have come to some substantive conclusions about how similar humans are to other organisms based on the percentage of genetic makeup they share. I argue that the actual unit of measurement employed in the studies corresponds to a structural rather than a functional gene concept, thus rendering many of the (...) implications drawn from comparative genomic studies largely unwarranted, if not completely mistaken. †To contact the author, please write to: Department of Philosophy, University of Utah, 215 South Central Campus Drive, Carolyn Tanner Irish Humanities Building, 4th Floor, Salt Lake City, UT 84112; e‐mail: monika.piotrowska@utah.edu. (shrink)

Wspołcześnie filozoficzne studia nad ludzką tworczością nie zamykają się jedynie na opisie życiorysow geniuszy i na estetycznych analizach oryginalnego wytworu. Wraz z poszerzeniem granic pojęcia creatio, rozumianego obecnie często jako uniwersalna ludzka potencjalność tworzenia (kreatywność), rozszerzyło się też pole możliwych analiz do podjęcia w ramach kiełkującej dopiero dziedziny filozofii tworczości. Pojawiły się też jednocześnie nowe dylematy do rozwiązania.W niniejszym tekście pokazuję ową rożnorodność i problematyczność wspołczesnych badań nad fenomenem tworczości poprzez (1) wymienienie głownych opozycyjnych głosow w dzisiejszych analizach, a także (...) (2) przez opisanie obecnie wiodących kierunkow studiow podejmowanych wokoł tego zagadnienia. Podniesione zostaną tutaj m.in. takie problematyczne kwestie jak: egalitarność vs. elitarność tworczości, miejsce świadomości i racjonalności w procesie tworczym, natura tworczości naukowej, perspektywa międzykulturowa w badaniach nad kreatywnością, naturalizowanie ludzkiej tworczości czy też rola wyobraźni oraz dziecięcej zabawy w udawanego w kształtowaniu zdolności tworczych człowieka. (shrink)

Actions expressing emotions pose a notorious challenge to those concerned with the rational explanation of action. The standard view has it that an agent's desires and means‐end beliefs rationally explain his actions, in the sense that his desire‐belief conglomerates are seen as reasons for which he acts. In light of this view, philosophers are divided on the question of whether actions expressing emotions fall short of being rational, or whether the standard model simply needs to be revised to accommodate them (...) as rational. In this paper, I will show that a core class of actions expressing emotions can be explained as rational, yet not within the framework of the standard model. Instead, such actions can be thought of as grounded in reasons provided by the evaluative perspective that an agent has acquired over time, and by which he has come to identify himself. What moves him to act expressively is the fact that he faces rational pressure to revise or re‐affirm his ongoing evaluative perspective in light of changes in his environment that call that very perspective into question. Such expressive actions serve the function of helping the agent re‐adapt to the environment and re‐establish coherence within his evaluative perspective so as to avoid inner division. (shrink)

Our daily lives unfold continuously, yet our memories are organised into distinct events, situated in a specific context of space and time, and chunked when this context changes (at event boundaries). Previous research showed that this process, termed event segmentation, enhances object-context binding but impairs temporal order memory. Physiologically, peaks in pupil dilation index event segmentation, similar to emotion-induced bursts of autonomic arousal. Emotional arousal also modulates object-context binding and temporal order memory. Yet, these two critical factors have not been (...) systematically studied together. To address this gap, we ran a behavioural experiment using a paradigm validated to study event segmentation and extended it with emotion manipulation. During encoding, we sequentially presented greyscale objects embedded in coloured frames (colour changes defining events), with a neutral or aversive sound. During retrieval, we tested participants’ memory of temporal order memory and object-colour binding. We found opposite effects of emotion and event segmentation on episodic memory. While event segmentation enhanced object-context binding, emotion impaired it. On the contrary, event segmentation impaired temporal order memory, but emotion enhanced it. These findings increase our understanding of episodic memory organisation in laboratory settings, and potentially in real life with perceptual changes and emotion fluctuations constantly interacting. (shrink)

The relationship between teacher and student is an important element of school education and as such irreplaceable: If we want schools to be good places for those who teach and learn there, we must make sure that the educational relationships between teachers and students are good, too. In research about school education, surprisingly little attention is paid to the normative dimension of the relationship between teacher and student. This lacuna points to a desideratum in the philosophy of education: More should (...) be said about the normative structure of the teacher-student relationship, its role in teaching and learning, and its final value for teacher and student. Answering these fundamental philosophical questions is the core of this book. It offers a normatively rich concept of a good teacher-student relationship that is based on the analysis of two major relationship goods: trust and care. Moreover, the book explains the instrumental value of a good educational relationship for the student’s achievement of epistemic aims of school education as well as the final value of such a relationship for teacher and student. (shrink)

"Im Zentrum von Javier Cercas’ Anatomia de uninstante steht eine Geste: Adolfo Suárez, der zu Beginn des Putsches inmitten von Schüssen zu seinem Sessel zurückkehrt, sich hinsetzt und zurücklehnt, umgeben von leeren Sesseln. Am Beispiel von Cercas’ Nacherzählung eines Kippmoments des Postfranqismus wird die Rückkehr zum Ereignis als historische Heuristik wissens- und medienhistorisch beleuchtet. Dabei werden Charakteristiken einer Geschichtsschreibung herausgearbeitet, die sich seit 1970 für die exzessive Beschreibung eines Mikromomentes interessiert. Javier Cercas’s novel Anatomia de un instante is centered upon (...) a gesture: Adolfo Suárez, returning to his chair at the beginning of the coup in the midst of shots, sits down and leans back, surrounded by empty armchairs. Using the example of Cercas’s recounting a tipping moment of Postfranqism, the paper illuminates the return to the event as historical heuristics in the light of knowledge and media histories. Furthermore, it sketches the characteristics of a historiography, which, since 1970, has been interested in the excessive description of a micromoment. ". (shrink)

What does it mean to be human? This question has made a meteoric career for itself, becoming a focal point of almost every thread of the transhumanist debate. Significant as it is, the question eludes any definitive answer, since it directly engenders an array of related queries. This Special Issue questions our notions of the human being, human subjectivity, superiority and uniqueness, which tend to be underpinned by simplistic and simplifying dichotomies entrenched in western philosophy, science and art. Eclipsed by (...) the hierarchical vision of the world and dualistic metaphysics, the concept of the nonhuman (regardless of its biological form or ontological status) has always been dependent on its paring element (the human) losing its own significance and independent status. By articulating the problems we face in understanding and defining the human and the nonhuman, this Special Issue offers an insight into the current transhumanist discourse. Crossing the boundaries of disciplines and definitions, the contributors propose an assemblage of methodological and conceptual scaffoldings to build on in this project. They seek new ways and analytical strategies to advance the notions of ‘being one and many’ and ‘being-with’, and in doing so, they envision a new world where forging relations and co-existence with nonhuman agents lie at the core of human experience. The editorial gives some insight into the studies and concepts of this issue. (shrink)

Comprehensive study of the Vākyapadīya of Bhartr̥hari, work on semantics and philosophy of Sanskrit grammar.

L'histoire du sanctuaire de l'« Établissement des Poseidoniastes de Bérytos » à Délos continue de faire l'objet de discussions, notamment à propos du nombre et de la succession des phases, ainsi que de la fonction des quatre celhe. L'auteur, à la faveur d'un réexamen du bâtiment, propose une nouvelle lecture de l'histoire de la construction. Ainsi, lors de l'agrandissement du sanctuaire dans la deuxième phase, aucune des pièces de la première phase, à savoir deux cellae pour les theoi patrioi de (...) l'association et une pièce secondaire, n'est demeurée inchangée. Trois pièces du nouveau sanctuaire abritaient le culte de la déesse Rome et des theoi patrioi, la quatrième faisant office de pièce secondaire (« sacristie »). Les quatre pièces ont subi une deuxième transformation : renouvellement des pavements, des bases des statues et des images de culte. Il est désormais certain que la statue de Rome et sa base n'ont pas été dressées dans la cella originelle, mais seulement dans celle de la troi- sième phase. Contrairement à l'opinion en vigueur jusqu'à présent, on ne peut pas prouver que la statue et sa base — dont on propose ici une nouvelle reconstitution — furent détruites (en 88 av. J.-C. par les troupes de Mithridate hostiles à Rome), ni qu'elles furent réparées. (shrink)

Although collegial relationships are among the most prevalent types of interpersonal relationships in our lives, they have not been the subject of much philosophical study. In this paper, we take the first step in the process of developing an ethics of collegiality by establishing what qualifies two people as colleagues and then by determining what it is that gives value to collegial relationships. We argue that A and B are colleagues if both exhibit sameness regarding at least two of the (...) following three features: the same work content or domain of activity; the same institutional affiliation or common purpose; and/or the same status or level of responsibility. Moreover, we describe how the potential value of collegial relationships is grounded in the relationship goods that two colleagues have reason to generate qua colleagues, namely, collegial solidarity and collegial recognition. Two interesting conclusions that can be drawn from our analysis are that one has to be proficient at one’s work if one is to be considered a good colleague and that we are also more likely to be better colleagues if we regard the work we do as valuable. Finally, we draw special attention to the working conditions that are conducive to the generation of good collegial relationships and suggest some policies to promote them. (shrink)

In the digital age, the use of advanced technology is becoming a new paradigm in police work, criminal justice, and the penal system. Algorithms promise to predict delinquent behaviour, identify potentially dangerous persons, and support crime investigation. Algorithm-based applications are often deployed in this context, laying the groundwork for a ‘smart criminal justice’. In this qualitative study based on 32 interviews with criminal justice and police officials, we explore the reasons why and extent to which such a smart criminal justice (...) system has already been established in Switzerland, and the benefits perceived by users. Drawing upon this research, we address the spread, application, technical background, institutional implementation, and psychological aspects of the use of algorithms in the criminal justice system. We find that the Swiss criminal justice system is already significantly shaped by algorithms, a change motivated by political expectations and demands for efficiency. Until now, algorithms have only been used at a low level of automation and technical complexity and the levels of benefit perceived vary. This study also identifies the need for critical evaluation and research-based optimization of the implementation of advanced technology. Societal implications, as well as the legal foundations of the use of algorithms, are often insufficiently taken into account. By discussing the main challenges to and issues with algorithm use in this field, this work lays the foundation for further research and debate regarding how to guarantee that ‘smart’ criminal justice is actually carried out smartly. (shrink)

This book provides a detailed commentary on the classic monograph by Alfred Tarski, and offers a reinterpretation and retranslation of the work using the original Polish text and the English and German translations. In the original work, Tarski presents a method for constructing definitions of truth for classical, quantificational formal languages. Furthermore, using the defined notion of truth, he demonstrates that it is possible to provide intuitively adequate definitions of the semantic notions of definability and denotation and that the notion (...) in a structure can be defined in a way that is analogous to that used to define truth. Tarski’s piece is considered to be one of the major contributions to logic, semantics, and epistemology in the 20th century. However, the author points out that some mistakes were introduced into the text when it was translated into German in 1935. As the 1956 English version of the work was translated from the German text, those discrepancies were carried over in addition to new mistakes. The author has painstakingly compared the three texts, sentence-by-sentence, highlighting the inaccurate translations, offering explanations as to how they came about, and commenting on how they have influenced the content and suggesting a correct interpretation of certain passages. Furthermore, the author thoroughly examines Tarski’s article, offering interpretations and comments on the work. (shrink)

Actions expressing emotions (such as caressing the clothes of one's dead friend in grief, or tearing apart a photograph out of jealousy) pose a notorious challenge to action theorists. They are thought to be intentional in that they are in some sense under the agent's control. They are not thought to be done for a reason, however, because they cannot be explained by considerations that favor them from the agent's point of view. This seems to be the case, at least, (...) if one subscribes to the Davidsonian standard model of action explanation. So far, philosophers have had three different reactions to this challenge. Rationalists insist that such actions can be rationalized by re-interpreting them. Arationalists insist that there simply is no reasoning process moving agents in emotional states to act. A third reaction questions the intentionality of such actions altogether. All three reactions, however, share the assumption underlying the standard account: if an agent is thought to act for a reason - and hence acts intentionally - he must entertain a desire and some means-end belief reflecting his reasoning process about how to attain what he desires by acting. In this paper, I try to show that this reflective reasoning mechanism is only one way to rationalize an action. Another way is by tracing an action to an unreflective valuing stance respresenting reasons the agent has from his point of view. Emotions are attitudes that help to grasp reasons the agent has. Since emotions come with a strong motivational potential they move the agent to act expressively. But the agent typically allows himself to do so, thereby monitoring the way in which he does it. To the extent that the agent unreflectively acts on a motive that is itself representative of his point of view, his expressive actions can be regarded as rationalizable. (shrink)

Humans have a fundamental need to belong. This, need, as Kimberley Brownlee argues in her book Being Sure of Each Other grounds the human right against social deprivation. But in addition to having a human right against social deprivation, we also have a right to associational freedom, which is grounded in our right to autonomy. We cannot be forced into relationships; we are free to choose our friends and loved ones.? In this paper I discuss what our right to associational (...) freedom morally permits us to do when are already in an intimate relationship and, relatedly, what our relationship-dependent duties require of us in such cases. What exactly are the constraints on our right to associational freedom? And what is the content and scope of our relationship-dependent duties, given that our right to associational freedom conflicts with the fulfillment of these duties?? After providing some clarifications as to how we should understand intimate relationships that have ended, I will first highlight what relationship-dependent duties are and how they correlate with a right to associational control. I will then discuss several break-up scenarios, the aim of which is to determine the conditions that justify constraints being imposed on the right to associational freedom and to delineate the scope of relationship-dependent duties. (shrink)

The notion of empathy has been explicated in different ways in the current debate on how to understand others. Whereas defenders of simulation-based approaches claim that empathy involves some kind of isomorphism between the empathizer’s and the target’s mental state, defenders of the phenomenological account vehemently deny this and claim that empathy allows us to directly perceive someone else’s mental states. Although these views are typically presented as being opposed, I argue that at least one version of a simulation-based approach—the (...) account given by de Vignemont and Jacob—is compatible with the direct-perception view. My argument has two parts: My first step is to show that the conflict between these accounts is not—as it seems at first glance—a disagreement on the mechanism by which empathy comes about. Rather, it is due to the fact that their proponents attribute two very different roles to empathy in understanding others. My second step is to introduce Stein’s account of empathy. By not restricting empathy to either one of these two roles, her process model of empathy helps to see how the divergent intuitions that have been brought forward in the current debate could be integrated. (shrink)

The Consulate General of the Republic of Poland in Sydney is one of the thirty-seven consulates that function in Australia. The scope of duties and work of the consulate is set up by the rules and directives of the Polish Foreign Policy Strategy for 2017–2021 and is determined by the Consular Law and other regulations.

Some studies involving informal caregivers of oncology patients noted that family assessment is associated with their mental health. The objective of this study is to demonstrate such a dependency in relation to informal caregivers of oncology patients receiving home-based palliative care. This study is concerned with the dependency between family assessment (family cohesion, family flexibility, family communication, and satisfaction with family life) and perceived emotions, including stress. It comprised 109 Polish informal caregivers (34 men and 75 women) of patients receiving (...) palliative care at home. The study found that satisfaction with family life was a crucial predictor of positive emotions. This means that interventions aimed at improving satisfaction with family life may simultaneously affect the psychological functioning of informal caregivers of palliative oncology patients. Such interventions may serve to improve the quality of home-based palliative care both in regard to patients and caregivers. (shrink)

Avatars are virtual representations of users. Creating a virtual representation can be considered an important element of the identity formation process in modern adolescents and the choice of avatar’s gender and skin color is crucial; however, the number of such studies is very limited. The first aim of this study is to check whether adolescents choose their avatar gender and skin color in line with their own. As its second goal, the study examines the relationship between adolescent identity styles and (...) the consistency of the avatar’s gender with the user’s gender and the consistency of the skin color with the user’s skin color. In this study, 130 adolescents played the Characterium computer game and they underwent an assessment of their identity styles. The vast majority of the study participants created avatars according to their gender. About a third of adolescents chose their skin color for the avatar: almost half of the girls and a few boys. No relationship was found between the adolescents’ identity styles and two variables: gender consistency and skin consistency. I consider this study to be a step forward in understanding the relationship between forming identity in adolescents and their virtual representations – avatars. (shrink)

Siphonous seaweeds, which constitute a vital component of coral reefs, are structurally simple, single‐celled coenocytic macroscopic green algae. Kim et al.1 have recently shown the extraordinary wound‐repair and propagation mechanism of one such siphonous green alga—Bryopsis plumosa. Nucleocytoplasmic aggregates, which are released after injury to this plant, are membraneless structures that can survive in seawater for 10–20 minutes, before they are surrounded by a gelatinous envelope. Subsequently, a cell membrane and cell wall are synthesized around each of these aggregates and (...) the resulting individual cells, so formed, develop into new plants. This report represents a significant advance in our understanding of wound response and, more significantly, is probably the first example of transient survival of life without a cell membrane! BioEssays 24:588–590, 2002. © 2002 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. (shrink)

Willing and Understanding elucidates a variety of issues in and approaches to debating the will-intellect interplay in the late Middle Ages. Authored by prominent scholars in the field, the contributions offer different perspectives on the development of late medieval theories of the will. Charting a dense map of voluntarist and epistemological ideas - entrenched leitmotifs of late medieval philosophy, seminal insights sparking original trends, and ephemeral novelties - the volume is a testimony to the conceptual multidimensionality and ethical complexity of (...) the past and present iterations of the debate on the will. Contributors are Pascale Bermon, Magdalena Bieniak, Michael W. Dunne, Riccardo Fedriga, Giacomo Fornasieri, Tobias Hoffmann, Severin V. Kitanov, Monika Michałowska, Riccardo Saccenti, Sonja Schierbaum, Michael Szlachta, Łukasz Tomanek, and Francesco Omar Zamboni. (shrink)

The paper presents the thesis that, in contrast to the conventional claim, capitalism is not characterized by virtualization, but by objectification and materialization. As materialized forms of industrial capitalism, warehouses are investigated with regard to their epistemic productivity. Central for the argument is the emergence of a new body of knowledge concerning commercial and economic sciences, which figures decisively in the practice of warehousing. After the worldwide economic crisis of 1920/21, stockpiling is called into question and a new era of (...) warehouse sciences begins, the consequences of which are also addressed in the formulation of trade cycle theories. German Der Text geht von der These aus, dass nicht, wie oft behauptet, eine Virtualisierung, sondern eine Vergegenständlichung und Materialisierung den Kapitalismus auszeichnet. Dabei werden Warenlager als materialisierte Form des industriellen Kapitalismus hinsichtlich ihrer epistemischen Produktivkraft untersucht. Im Zentrum steht dabei die Entstehung eines neuen handelswissenschaftlichen und volkswirtschaftlichen Wissenskorpus, das in die Praxis der Warenlagerung interveniert. Nach der Weltwirtschaftskrise von 1920/21 wird die Vorratshaltung in Frage gestellt und es beginnt eine neue Epoche der Warenlagerwissenschaften, deren Folgen auch bei der Formulierung von Konjunkturtheorien thematisiert werden. (shrink)

Adam Noga, in his review of the theory of entrepreneurship, distinguishes 24 different types of goals which make entrepreneurs establish, run and develop their enterprises. He emphasizes that the maximization of profits, sales volume, satisfactory profits, flow and value were the goals enterprises strived for until the 1970’s. However, entrepreneurship, according to Noga, consists of discovering new targets and objectives which accompany the process of enterprise creation and development, including the growth in the usefulness of human, intellectual and social assets. (...) In order to meet such expectations, appropriate social and or-ganizational conditions need to be ensured. One of these essential conditions is a suitable organizational culture, to a large extent depending on the owners and top rank managers, which con-firms that, today, growth is determined by social capital, human capital, man-agement and organizational culture. This subject is important both from the scientific and practical point of view. It shows that when it comes to management, economy lacks knowledge concerning the cultural context, as well as knowledge related to the assessment of social welfare, in which too little attention is paid to the qualitative elements of social and economic development. The aim of this paper is to answer the ques-tion whether an organizational culture which facilitates undertaking non-business activities exists. In order to answer this question, the notions of non-business activities and organizational culture have been defined. Characteristic features of an organizational culture have been presented and the culture which theoretically facilitates undertaking non-business activities has been indicated. In the empirical part, the theoretical assumptions have been verified and an organizational culture which attempts to achieve not only business goals has been identified. (shrink)

The west-centrism in approaching the knowledge systems of east has been sufficiently highlighted and problematized. This paper argues that the attempts have often been restricted to a framework of colonial gaze that prevents the Indian classical philosophy from gaining a vantage of its own. The approach to the classical traditions have been largely fragmented, catering to the pressure of proving its “relevance” either as a knowledge system or as texts with useful resources and answers to contemporary problems. This “problem solving” (...) framework at the very outset de-recognizes the capacity of an entire philosophical tradition of problem identification and formulation, unsettling terrains of knowledge by asking new questions. The article presents a case for theorizing relevance as a prerequisite to resolving some of these issues. (shrink)

ETH-Bibliothek, the main library at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich's, is holding in its Image Archive vast collections of photographs. Among them is the complete, and so far only little examined, collection of ETH Zurich's own Photographic Institute throughout its existence as an independent service and research unit between 1886 and 1979. The new, third volume in the series Pictorial Worlds. Photographs from the Image Archive, ETH-Bibliothek documents both main aspects of scientific photography: servicing research in many disciplines (...) and being subject of basic research itself. A rich selection of images is presented, ranging from astronomical and micro photography to laboratory situations and carefully illuminated experimental installations. The introductory essay investigates the interplay between photography and the world of science and tells the story and changing role over the decades of ETH Zurich's Photographic Institute. (shrink)