An account of the virtues of limitation management: intellectual virtues of adapting to the fact that we cannot solve many of the problems that we can describe. I argue that the best response to many problems depends not on the most rationally promising solution, but on the most likely route to success. I argue against techniques that assume that one will fulfil ones intentions, and distinguish between failures of rationality and failures of intelligence. I describe the trap of supposing that (...) one will be capable of following the plan that would best exploit ones limited resources. (shrink)

_A Philosopher’s Story_ is the autobiography of a prominent philosopher whose interactions with other leading thinkers and experiences at major institutions of higher learning over a period of time of more than fifty years make this an informative introduction to the intellectual life of late twentieth century America. During his academic career, Morton White has been involved in a number of controversies that have raised profound issues. One concerned the role of religion at Harvard in the 1950s; another was (...) precipitated by the student rebellion at Harvard in the 1960s; and a third surrounded the question of academic governance at the Institute of Advanced Study during the 1970s. Throughout his academic career he has been an intellectual bridge-builder who has tried to avoid the pitfalls off wooliness and obscurity while uniting his widely spread interests. This is a professor’s story with many distinguishing features. Like other examples of the author’s writing, it reflects many different aspects of American thought and society during the twentieth century. (shrink)

This paper extends Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) scholarship to focus on issues of sexual harassment and sexual violence. Despite a significant body of work on gender and CSR from a variety of feminist perspectives, long-standing evidence of sexual harassment and sexual violence in business, particularly in global value chains, and the rise of the #MeToo movement, there has been little scholarship focused specifically on these issues in the context of CSR. Our conceptual paper addresses this gap in the literature through (...) two key contributions. First, we extend the theoretical base of CSR scholarship by drawing upon and explicating radical feminist theory, a resource that has been underutilized in the field to date. This theoretical perspective is well placed to offer insights around the issues of sexual harassment and sexual violence, and to explain the centrality of these concerns to the gender equality agenda in business and in CSR. Second, building upon insights from radical feminism, and from research on CSR and human rights, we explicate a business and human rights approach to sexual harassment, sexual violence and CSR. We point to ways in which this approach might be more effective in addressing these issues than previously adopted strategies and suggest directions for future research arising from our analysis. (shrink)

A criticism of Dorothy Edgington's attempt to make Gibbard's problem for indicative conditionals apply to counterfactuals.

Demonstrates the way in which the principles of analytic philosophy can be used in solving problems in contemporary American life.

Although corporate social responsibility practice increasingly addresses gender issues, and gender and CSR scholarship is expanding, feminist theory is rarely explicitly referenced or discussed in the CSR literature. We contend that this omission is a key limitation of the field. We argue that CSR theorization and research on gender can be improved through more explicit and systematic reference to feminist theories, and particularly those from feminist organization studies. Addressing this gap, we review developments in feminist organization theory, mapping their relevance (...) to CSR. With reference to six major theoretical perspectives in CSR scholarship, we note feminist research relating to each. Drawing upon FOS theory and CSR theory, we then develop an integrated theoretical framework for the analysis of gender issues in CSR. Our framework enables us to identify research strengths in the gender and CSR literature, as well as gaps therein, to open new conversations and to posit future research directions for this emerging area of scholarship. Our paper illustrates how a better grounding of CSR in feminist theory can contribute to CSR research more broadly. (shrink)

The corporate social responsibility literature has increasingly explored relationships between civil society and social movements, including non-governmental organizations, and corporations, as well as the role of NGOs in multi-stakeholder governance processes. This paper addresses the challenge of including a plurality of civil society voices and perspectives in business–NGO relations, and in CSR as a process of governance. The paper contributes to CSR scholarship by bringing insights from feminist literature to bear on CSR as a process of governance, and engaging with (...) leaders of women’s NGOs, a group of actors rarely included in CSR research. The issues raised inform contributions to the CSR literature relating to the role of women’s NGOs with regard to the gender equality practices and impacts of corporations, and with respect to defining the meaning and practice of CSR. The paper frames marginalized NGOs as important actors which can contribute to pluralism, inclusion and legitimacy in CSR as a process of governance. It identifies several key barriers to the participation of women’s NGOs in CSR, and concludes by making suggestions for future research, as well as practice. (shrink)

This is a reply to de Sousa's 'Emotional Truth', in which he argues that emotions can be objective, as propositional truths are. I say that it is better to distinguish between truth and accuracy, and agree with de Sousa to the extent of arguing that emotions can be more or less accurate, that is, based on the facts as they are.

Zusammenfassung: Die für diesen Schwerpunkt ausgewählten Beiträge setzen sich aus sachlich, methodologisch sowie disziplinär vielfältigen Perspektiven mit dem Thema der Grenze, der Grenzziehung und des Grenzregimes auseinander. Während Grenzen in der normativen politischen Philosophie und Theorie kaum als eigenständiges Problem behandelt bzw. zumeist traditionell, d. h. als für territorial verankerte staatliche Zuständigkeitsbereiche konstitutive statische Trennlinien begriffen werden, wird in den hier versammelten Texten der Versuch unternommen, diese präziser und detaillierter in ihrer gegenwärtigen Gestalt und Wirkungsweise zu bestimmen, um auf dieser (...) Grundlage alternative grenztheoretische Modelle zu entwickeln. Im Zentrum steht dabei die Frage, in welcher Weise sich die zunehmende Beweglichkeit von Grenzen – eine Beweglichkeit, die nicht nur neu konfigurierten politisch-rechtlichen Maßnahmen und Institutionen, sondern auch neuen Kontrolltechnologien geschuldet ist – auf das Verständnis von staatlicher Souveränität, von demokratischer Legitimität oder von Menschenrechten auswirkt. In dieser Einleitung werden zum einen einige maßgebliche rezente Grenzziehungsphänomene erörtert, die im Licht der Covid-19-Pandemie in besonderer Deutlichkeit zutage treten; zum anderen werden Grundzüge eines veränderten politiktheoretischen Nachdenkens über Grenzen skizziert. Daneben werden die sieben Beiträge des Schwerpunkts überblicksartig vorgestellt. (shrink)

In jüngerer Vergangenheit haben sich Flucht und Vertreibung als wichtige neue Herausforderungen sowohl für liberale politische Ordnungen als auch für liberales politisches Denken erwiesen. Dies ist nicht allein darauf zurückzuführen, dass die Zahl der Flüchtlinge und Vertriebenen weltweit auf über 70 Mio. angestiegen ist und sich damit innerhalb der letzten Dekade verdoppelt hat. Zu diesem quantitativen Faktor kommt hinzu, dass sich selbst in vermeintlich gefestigten liberal-demokratischen Ordnungen gewisse qualitative Veränderungen beobachten lassen, die in Zusammenhang mit diesen Migrationsbewegungen stehen, ja sich (...) in unmittelbarer Reaktion auf diese einstellen: So sind es zuwanderungsskeptische bzw. -feindliche Positionen, die z. B. in den Vereinigten Staaten, in Großbritannien, Ungarn oder Italien im Zentrum neuer Populismen stehen und unter der Wählerschaft erhebliche Resonanz erzeugen. (shrink)

This volume traces the ways in which Heidegger’s philosophical thinking has been taken up, critically re-appropriated, and disseminated in literary and poetic writing since the middle of the 20th century.

Journal of Political Philosophy, EarlyView.

I argue that folk psychology does not serve the purpose of facilitating prediction of others' behaviour but if facilitating cooperative action. (See my subsequent book *The Importance of Being Understood*.

Political Revolution Revolutions are commonly understood as instances of fundamental socio-political transformation. Since “the age of revolutions” in the late 18th century, political philosophers and theorists have developed approaches aimed at defining what forms of change can count as revolutionary as well as determining if and … Continue reading Political Revolution →.

Focuses on distinguished quotations representing the best thinking in philosophy, psychology, and artificial intelligence from classical civilization to ...

Concentrating on the legacy of David Hume, I discuss the impact of his psychologism on his two most important sharp distinctions: (1) between statements about the relations of ideas and those about matters of fact; and (2) between what is and what ought to be. I argue that his concept of relations of ideas is subject to difficulties like those attending the concept of synonymy in twentieth-century discussions, and also that his psychologism should lead him to say that (1) is (...) not a sharp distinction. I then raise the more difficult question of whether Hume would have said, as Quine does, that normative epistemology is an empirical science but that normative ethics is not. Finally, I discuss the difficulty of presenting naturalistic support for the claim that a scientific theory ought to predict successfully, be comparatively simple, and respect older truths in some degree. (shrink)

A Quake in Being: An Introduction to Hyperobjects Part I. What Are Hyperobjects? Viscosity Nonlocality Temporal Undulation Phasing Interobjectivity Part II. The Time of Hyperobjects The End of the World Hypocrisies The Age of Asymmetry.

Machine generated contents note: ARISTOTELIAN AND CARTESIAN LOGIC AT HARVARD -- by Rick Kennedy -- I. Introduction --II. Religiously-Oriented, Dogmatically-Inclined Humanistic Logics from the Renaissance to the Seventeenth Century -- A. Melanchthon and Aristotelianism 01 -- B. Richardson and Ramism 16 -- C. Aristotelianism, Ramism, and Schematic Thinking 25 -- D. Puritan Favoritism From Ramus to Descartes 32 -- E. Cartesian Logic and Christian Skepticism 37 -- F. The Religious and Dogmatic Orientation of The Port-'Royalfogic 42 -- G. Cartesian Logic (...) in British Textbooks 52 -- III. Charles Morton and c A; logick System -- A. Charles Morton 62 -- B. Morton's cAfogick System 78 -- IV. William Brattle and the Compendium of logick -- A. Intellectual Reform in the Puritans' Collapsing World 91 -- B. The Compendium ofJogick 93 -- c. Brattle: Tutor and Unofficial Professor of Divinity 108 -- V. Epilogue: Later Constituencies of Religious Logics and 133 -- The Separation of Logic and Divinity at Harvard. (shrink)

The view of teleology sketched in the above remarks seems to me to offer a piece of candy to both the critics and guardians of teleology. The critics want to defend against a number of things: the importation of unverifiable theological or metaphysical doctrines into the sciences; the idea that goals somehow act in favor of their won realization; and the view that biological systems require for their study concepts and patterns of explanation unlike anything employed in the physical sciences. (...) An important part of their defense has been the contention that teleological language can be eliminated without loss from the sciences. I have argued that this is true: any phenomenon that can be described in teleological language can be described otherwise.On the other hand, eliminability does not mean translatability. I have suggested—I do not see how to prove it—that the teleological character of a sentence is so fundamental that it would be preserved under translation. Teleological character is conferred on a sentence by the manner in which it fits into a conceptual scheme designed for the description of certain classes of systems possessing net-like organization. The elimination of teleological language thus involves a conceptual shift, and involves a different method of classifying the elements of a system.The guardians of teleology—myself among them—have insisted that teleological language is perfectly legitimate. This conclusion is plain if my account of “appropriateness” is correct. Indeed, the development of conceptual schemes which render functional ascriptions appropriate is seen to be just a special case of a general scientific procedure: the designing of languages aimed at bringing to light those causal relations which are most interesting to us. (shrink)

Planning allows us to coordinate our actions over time, and the ability to plan is crucial in many areas of our lives. I argue that while planning is deeply embedded in contemporary societies, not all individuals have equal access to the structures that support such planning. This article explores how external planning-support structures are essential to our capacity to plan and how inequality in access to these structures can impact an individual's ability to deliberate and pursue long-term plans. I conclude (...) by suggesting that we need to think more deeply about unequal access to the structures that support planning directly, not just inequality in resources. (shrink)