The central project of the Critique of Pure Reason is to answer two sets of questions: What can we know and how can we know it? and What can't we know and why can't we know it? The essays in this collection are intended to help students read the Critique of Pure Reason with a greater understanding of its central themes and arguments, and with some awareness of important lines of criticism of those themes and arguments.

We argue that Néron and Norman’s article stops short of the point where it would truly advance our understanding of corporate citizenship. Their article, in our view, fosters normative confusion and displays significant gaps in logic. In addition, the large and useful literature on business-government relations has for the most part been overlooked by Néron and Norman, even though their article ends with an enthusiastic call for scholarly attention to this subject.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:American Journal of Philology 124.2 (2003) 317-320 [Access article in PDF] Julia T. Dyson. King of the Wood: The Sacrificial Victor in Virgil's Aeneid. Oklahoma Series in Classical Culture 27. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2001. xii + 264 pp. Paper, $19.95. In this interesting study, Julia Dyson argues that the cult of Diana Nemorensis constitutes a crucial intertext for the interpretation of Aeneas' killing of Turnus (...) at the end of Virgil's Aeneidand the politico-religious order his action founds, namely, the Roman Empire. The project takes its bearings from the current renewal of scholarly interest in religion and sacrifice in Roman literature (e.g., Denis Feeney, Literature and Religion at Rome: Cultures, Contexts, and Beliefs [Cambridge, 1998] and Philip Hardie, The Epic Successors of Virgil[Cambridge, 1993]). In the first part of the book, "Sacrificial Victory," Dyson revisits the much-discussed scenes in which sacrifice, both literal (Laocoön's rites in Troy, Aeneas' in Thrace) and symbolic (the deaths of Laocoön, Palinurus, Misenus, etc.), are described. In the second part, "The Ghastly Priest," Dyson breaks new ground by focusing on specific details of the ritual in Diana's Arician grove and their evocation in the Aeneid, rather than appealing to an abstract concept of "sacrifice," to document a systematic pattern of allusion to the cult throughout the poem. The resulting work advances our understanding of Virgil's use of an important cult in Roman religion to give thematic coherence to his poem.Each part comprises six chapters. Part 1 examines the poem's various sacrifice-scenes, which have received considerable attention in the scholarly literature—e.g., C. Bandera, "Sacrificial Levels in Virgil's Aeneid" (Arethusa14, 1981, 217-39) and J. J. O'Hara, Death and the Optimistic Prophecy in Vergil's Aeneid(Princeton, 1990). Dyson is particularly concerned, however, to demonstrate that sacrifice fails consistently in the poem in order to develop the argument that Aeneas' death is demanded as the final sacrifice in the sequence. In her first chapter, "The Piaculaof Aeneas," she shows that Aeneas repeatedly fails to conduct sacrificial rites correctly, a failure that necessarily entails the gods' unceasing demand for further sacrifices. Chapter 2, "Tiber and Numicus," explores Virgil's allusions to the sacrificial fate of Aeneas—implied in the two divergent traditions of his end (either drowned or translated to heaven and deified while offering sacrifice on the banks of the river Numicus)—through the association, on the one hand, of Tiber with Numicus and, on the other, of Aeneas with Palinurus and other "sacrificial" victims.In chapter 3, "The Unburied Dead," Dyson develops her thesis further by demonstrating that such sacrificial deaths—often at sea and involving lack of burial—proliferate in the poem (Palinurus, Orontes, Leucaspis, Misenus, Caieta, Priam, Tarquitus) and thereby, she argues, prefigure the ultimate fate of Aeneas. Chapter 4, "Victor and Victim," examines instances of role-reversal in which sacrificer is transformed into sacrificial victim, not only in overtly religious contexts (as, e.g., Laocoön) but also, indeed primarily, on the battlefield in combat scenes which Virgil frequently invests with sacrificial detail. The diverse themes of rivers, sacrifice, and victory come together [End Page 317] in chapter 5, "Aeneas and Turnus," where Dyson analyses Aeneas' killing of Turnus (who is characterized, she argues, by association with the Tiber) in the final duel as a sacrifice that "both foreshadows and necessitates the sacrifice of Aeneas" (112). The last chapter in Part 1, "Juno's Honores," argues that Jupiter's promise to his consort that the Romans will outdo other nations in honoring her (Aen. 12.838-40) must be interpreted against Juno's demand for proper honors (i.e., sacrifices) at the poem's outset (1.46-49), a demand that can only be satisfied by further sacrifices—including that of Aeneas himself.Part 1 contains much interesting and innovative discussion of sacrifice along with some inevitable rehearsal of well-trodden ground, but it certainly establishes Dyson's thesis that Virgil alludes throughout the Aeneidto Aeneas' sacrificial... (shrink)

In this book, Allen Wood investigates Kant's conception of ethical theory, using it to develop a viable approach to the rights and moral duties of human beings. By remaining closer to Kant's own view of the aims of ethics, Wood's understanding of Kantian ethics differs from the received 'constructivist' interpretation, especially on such matters as the ground and function of ethical principles, the nature of ethical reasoning and autonomy as the ground of ethics. Wood does not hesitate (...) to criticize and modify Kant's conclusions when they seem inconsistent with his basic principles or fail to make the best use of the resources Kantian principles make available. Of special interest are the book's treatment of such topics as freedom of the will, the state's role in securing economic justice, sexual morality, the justification of punishment, and the prohibition on lying. (shrink)

The formation of the modern state, the rise of capitalism, the Renaissance and Reformation, the scientific revolution and the Age of Enlightenment have all been attributed to the “early modern” period. Nearly everything about its history remains controversial, but one thing is certain: it left a rich and provocative legacy of political ideas unmatched in Western history. The concepts of liberty, equality, property, human rights and revolution born in those turbulent centuries continue to shape, and to limit, political discourse today. (...) Assessing the work and background of figures such as Machiavelli, Luther, Calvin, Spinoza, the Levellers, Hobbes, Locke and Rousseau, Ellen Wood vividly explores the ideas of the canonical thinkers, not as philosophical abstractions but as passionately engaged responses to the social conflicts of their day. (shrink)

Thomas Reid is now recognized as one of the towering figures of the Enlightenment. Best known for his published writings on epistemology and moral theory, he was also an accomplished mathematician and natural philosopher, as an earlier volume of his manuscripts edited by Paul Wood for the Edinburgh Reid Edition, Thomas Reid on the Animate Creation, has shown. The Correspondence of Thomas Reid collects all of the known letters to and from Reid in a fully annotated form. Letters already (...) published by Sir William Hamilton and others have been reedited, and roughly half of the letters included appear in print for the first time. Writing in 1802, Reid's disciple and biographer Dugald Stewart doubted that Reid's correspondence &"would be generally interesting.&" This collection proves otherwise, for the letters illuminate virtually every aspect of Reid's life and career and, in some instances, provide us with invaluable evidence about activities otherwise undocumented in his manuscripts or published works. Through his correspondence we can trace Reid's relations with contemporaries such as David Hume and his colleagues at both King's College, Aberdeen, and the University of Glasgow, as well as his engagement with the most controversial philosophical, scientific, and political issues of his day. If anything, the letters assembled here serve as the starting point for understanding Reid and his place in the Enlightenment. (shrink)

This volume collects for the first time in a single volume all of Kant's writings on religion and rational theology. These works were written during a period of conflict between Kant and the Prussian authorities over his religious teachings. His final statement of religion was made after the death of King Frederick William II in 1797. The historical context and progression of this conflict are charted in the general introduction to the volume and in the translators' introductions to particular texts. (...) All the translations are new with the exception of The Conflict of the Faculties, where the translation has been revised and re-edited to conform to the guidelines of the Cambridge Edition. As is standard with all the volumes in this edition, there are copious linguistic and explanatory notes, and a glossary of key terms. (shrink)

The concept of corporate social responsibility (CSR) is being supplanted by a new term—corporate citizenship (CC). For many reasons, it’s not a bad idea to replace the CSR term. But the core content of CSR is also gradually being replaced in a significant portion of the literature by a narrower, voluntaristic concept of corporate community service. This is not a viable replacement for the broad ethics-based and problem-solving norms of social reciprocity that are represented by CSR. A more legitimate successor-term (...) is needed so that corporate community relations and philanthropy take their rightful place among the larger set of rights, duties, stakeholder relationships, and opportunities accruing to business organizations.Therefore, we develop a working theory of business citizenship (BC), a more palatable term, and a concept designed to capture the core moral and social content of CSR. In this article we extract and synthesize several key ideas about individual citizenship that have evolved over several thousand years. We then transpose these ideas from the level of individual members of a polity to the level of organizations within society. In a companion article, we extend the business citizenship concept from its single-polity boundaries to the institutional and global levels of analysis. This approach allows a view of business citizenship that accommodates strong moral guidance, structural and institutional realities, and the flexibility necessary to respond to the structures and dynamics of particular company-stakeholder relationships. (shrink)

At the turn of the century Martin Buber arrived on the philosophic scene... The path to his maturity was one long struggle with the problem of unity- in particular with the problem of the unity of spirit and life; and he saw the problem itself to be rooted in the supposition of the primacy of the subject-object relation, with subjects "over here," objects "over there," and their relation a matter of subjects "taking in" objects or, alternatively, constituting them. But Buber (...) moved into a position which undercuts the subject-object dichotomy and initiates a second "Copernican revolution" in philosophical thought. (shrink)

Interpretation of the classics in political theory seems to go in waves. For a while we had John Locke, the bourgeois thinker. Now we seem to be in a Locke-as-radical-democrat phase. Locke-the-bourgeois had problems of its own, but a radically democratic Locke -- not just the old Locke as liberal democrat but Locke as quasi-Leveller -- strains the interpretative imagination more than most; yet in recent years, several different kinds of argument have been advanced in support of it, both textual (...) and contextual. The most effective argument has proceeded by situating Locke in the context of radical Whig politics in the 1670s and '80s, the struggles over religious toleration and the royal succession, in particular the �Exclusion Crisis� of 1679-81. This contextual argument has been accompanied by various textual interpretations having to do with Locke's conceptions of property, consent, representation, the right of revolution and natural law. Among other things, these are supposed to show that while Locke had nothing explicit to say about the extent of the franchise, the weight of evidence suggests that he would have supported a fairly wide franchise, perhaps even something like the (almost) manhood suffrage advocated by the Levellers (at least according to some, and probably the most convincing, interpretations of their ideas). Most recently, in these pages, Martin Hughes, building on the work of James Tully and Richard Ashcraft in particular, has pushed the argument as far as it can probably go. His argument on taxation and suffrage has provided a motivation here for a wider exploration of Locke's views on representation, consent and the franchise. (shrink)

Kant was not a very knowledgeable historian of philosophy. He came to the study of philosophy from natural science, and later the fields of ethics, aesthetics, politics and religion came to occupy his central concerns, but his approach to philosophical issues never came by way of reflection on their history. He was well acquainted, of course, with the recent tradition of German philosophy: Leibniz, Wolff, Baumgarten and Crusius, and he seems also to have had knowledge of eighteenth century French philosophy, (...) and of as much of Anglophone philosophy as had been translated into either French or German. But like many modern philosophers, he had an inadequate appreciation of the scholastic tradition, and his knowledge of classical Greek philosophy was mostly at second hand. (shrink)

Kant was among the first[i] to break decisively with the eudaimonistic tradition of classical ethics by declaring that the moral principle is entirely distinct and divergent from the principle of happiness (G 4:393, KpV 5:21-27).[ii] I am going to argue that what is at issue in Kant’s rejection of eudaimonism is not fundamentally any question of ethical value or the priority among values. On the contrary, on these matters Kant shares the views which led classical ethical theory from Socrates onward (...) to embrace eudaimonism. Instead, where Kant breaks with classical ethics is in the conception of human nature. Kant’s conception of human nature so altered the application of moral principles that it forced a change in the way happiness was conceived, leading to a reversal of what had earlier been thought about the relation of the principle morality to the pursuit of happiness. (shrink)

Background:The belief that we can control our thoughts is not inevitably adaptive, particularly when it fuels mental control activities that have ironic unintended consequences. The conviction that the mind can and should be controlled can prompt people to suppress unwanted thoughts, and so can set the stage for the intrusive return of those very thoughts. An important question is whether or not these beliefs about the control of thoughts can be reduced experimentally. One possibility is that behavioral experiments aimed at (...) revealing the ironic return of suppressed thoughts might create a lesson that could reduce unrealistic beliefs about the control of thoughts. Aims: The present research assessed the influence of the thought suppression demonstration on beliefs about the control of thoughts in a non-clinical sample, and among individuals with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). Method: In Study 1, we assessed the effect of the thought suppression demonstration on beliefs about the control of thoughts among low and high obsessive individuals in the non-clinical population (N= 62). In Study 2, we conducted a similar study with individuals with OCD (N= 29). Results: Results suggest that high obsessive individuals in the non-clinical population are able to learn the futility of suppression through.. (shrink)

In een vruchteloos debat van een filosoof en een bisschop komen vele vragen aan de orde, die de zoekende mens vanaf de oudheid hebben beziggehouden, waaronder het wezen God, de rechtvaardiging van het kwaad in de wereld en hoe dit te rijmen is met de goddelijke liefde.

First published in 1999. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

THE PLATONIC DIALOGUES are not treatises in disguise. They are protreptic and proleptic instruments, positioning the reader dispositionally and providing hints for the work of completing the direction of thought by attending to "the things themselves," the phenomena to which human beings, properly attuned, have native access. Plato, I would contend, is a protophenomenologist whose dialogues yield significant coherent results when approached from that point of view.