The growth of U.K. business ethics education has been charted at the course or 'micro' level by Mahoney and Cummins using postal questionnaires. These surveys, normally restricted to elite providers, have not revealed the relative importance of business ethics in the business school curriculum. In the 2000-2001 subject review of business and management programmes conducted by the U.K. Quality Assurance Agency for higher education, 164 business and management programmes were required to summarise their aims and objectives. Examination of this data (...) using QSR-N6 software shows that only 14 made explicit reference to ethics. Church Colleges of Higher Education were disproportionately represented, indicating the importance of institutional context to curriculum development. An analysis of espoused aims in relation to business ethics suggests that cognition in business ethics is largely conceived as part of a broad contextual comprehension of the business environment rather than an understanding of theoretical constructs. The expression of aims in business ethics is more frequently characterised by affective or attitudinal verbs/nouns with a close link to the promotion of value positions, such as multiculturalism and environmentalism. It is concluded that business ethics occupies a more marginal position within the curriculum than previous studies have suggested. (shrink)

This book, sure to become a standard reference work, is a comprehensive, lucid, and systematic commentary on Kant's practical philosophy. Kant is arguably the most important moral philosopher of the modern period. Using as nontechnical a language as possible, Professor Sullivan offers a detailed, authoritative account of Kant's moral philosophy - including his ethical theory, his philosophy of history, his political philosophy, his philosophy of religion, and his philosophy of education - and demonstrates the historical, Kantian origins of such important (...) notions as 'autonomy', 'respect for persons', 'rights', and 'duties'. An invaluable resource, this book will be extremely useful to advanced undergraduates, graduates, and professional philosophers alike. (shrink)

It is often supposed that in order to refute the view that laws of nature are necessary truths it is sufficient to appeal to Hume's argument from the conceivability of to the possibility of their being false. But while Hume's argument does present the necessitarian with insuperable difficulties it needs to be made clear just what these are. The mere appeal to Hume is quite insufficient for what he says can be interpreted in more than one way. And if it (...) constitutes an argument rather than a mere assertion Kneale has given reason to suppose that it is at least not obviously valid. The upshot of this article is that Hume's argument may be seen as a direct challenge to the notion that there could be propositions whose modal value is necessarily "opaque to the human intellect". (shrink)

Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646-1716) was one of the seventeenth century's most important thinkers. A philosopher, mathematician and scientist, his work is comparable in scope and importance only to that of Newton and Descartes. His work dominated German philosophy until Kant, and was revived in the early part of this century when his important work on logic was re-discovered. This four volume set contains 97 of the most important essays ever written about Leibniz's work. The selection has been made to bring (...) out the scope of Leibniz's work in all the areas he wrote upon, as well as its importance to contemporary philosophy and the history of philosophy. It will be an essential reference work for anyone concerned with seventeenth century philosophy and science, as well as to all Leibniz specialists. (shrink)

This book grew out of previously published papers of mine composed over a period of years; they have been reworked (sometimes beyond recognition) so as to form a reasonably coherent whole. Part One treats of informative inference. I argue (Chapter 2) that the traditional principle of induction in its clearest formulation (that laws are confirmed by their positive cases) is clearly false. Other formulations in terms of the 'uniformity of nature' or the 'resemblance of the future to the past' seem (...) to me hopelessly unclear. From a Bayesian point of view, 'learning from experience' goes by conditionalization (Bayes' rule). The traditional stum bling block for Bayesians has been to fmd objective probability inputs to conditionalize upon. Subjective Bayesians allow any probability inputs that do not violate the usual axioms of probability. Many subjectivists grant that this liberality seems prodigal but own themselves unable to think of additional constraints that might plausibly be imposed. To be sure, if we could agree on the correct probabilistic representation of 'ignorance' (or absence of pertinent data), then all probabilities obtained by applying Bayes' rule to an 'informationless' prior would be objective. But familiar contra dictions, like the Bertrand paradox, are thought to vitiate all attempts to objectify 'ignorance'. BuUding on the earlier work of Sir Harold Jeffreys, E. T. Jaynes, and the more recent work ofG. E. P. Box and G. E. Tiao, I have elected to bite this bullet. In Chapter 3, I develop and defend an objectivist Bayesian approach. (shrink)

There are predicates that I call “stubbornly distributive” based on what happens when they are combined with plural count noun phrases. I will use these stubbornly distributive predicates to identify and analyze a certain subset of mass nouns which I call “multi-participant nouns”. Traffic and rubble are multi-participant nouns but furniture and luggage turn out not to be. Importantly, ‘typical’ mass nouns like water are multiparticipant nouns.

A multi-disciplinary study of the house that the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein built for his sister in Vienna between 1926 and 1928, this book weaves together ideas taken from a number of disciplines_sociology, political science, aesthetics, architecture, urban planning, and philosophy_to develop a complex, multifaceted interpretation of the purpose and design of the house, which, in turn, is used to ground a new interpretation of Wittgenstein's philosophical works emphasizing their mystical nature and practical purpose.

This book recalls, for nonscientific readers, the history of quantum mechanics, the main points of its interpretation, and Einstein's objections to it, together with the responses engendered by his arguments. We point out that most popular discussions on the strange aspects of quantum mechanics ignore the fundamental fact that Einstein was correct in his insistence that the theory does not directly describe reality. While that fact does not remove these counterintuitive features, it casts them in a different light."--page vi.

W. V. Quine was quite simply the most distinguished analytic philosopher of the later half of the twentieth century. His celebrated attack on the analytic/synthetic tradition heralded a major shift away from the views of language descended from logical positivism. His most important book, Word and Object, introduced the concept of indeterminacy of radical translation, a bleak view of the nature of the language with which we ascribe thoughts and beliefs to ourselves and others. Quine is also famous for the (...) view that epistemology should be naturalized, that is conducted in a scientific spirit with the object of investigating the relationship between the inputs of experience and the outputs of belief. The eleven essays in this volume cover all the central topics of Quine's philosophy: the underdetermination of physical theory, analycity, naturalism, propositional attitudes, behaviorism, reference and ontology, positivism, holism and logic. (shrink)

Reid thought that testimony possesses positive epistemic value. Epistemic autonomy is not necessarily the royal road to truth; nor is credulity a systematic epistemic fault and indeed, it can be an intellectual virtue. Even though the notion of epistemic virtue does not explicitly appear in Reid’s epistemology, it seems inherent to his views that what will give a heteronomous agent exercising the social operations of the mind the best chance to acquire and develop true beliefs is the epistemic virtues that (...) permit her to recognize reliable authorities. This is why it seems to me possible to associate Reid with to the virtue epistemology tradition. (shrink)

A-t-on le droit de croire en l'existence de Dieu? Non, répondent ceux qui veulent des preuves. Oui, affirme ce livre, car nous avons le droit de croire même sans justification épistémologique. Cela n'a rien d'intellectuellement honteux, contrairement à ce que disent certains philosophes, en parlant d'une éthique des croyances Une nouvelle question se pose alors : a-t-on le droit de croire avoir reçu une révélation et prétendre connaître ainsi la vérité? Non, répondent ceux pour lesquels la vérité ne peut pas (...) être donnée par Dieu dans la Bible. Oui, affirme ce livre, et, qui plus est, une épistémologie peut défendre la rationalité de notre croyance à la révélation. Dès lors, peut-on faire comme si les affirmations du Credo étaient des fictions? Est-il vrai que la religion est avant tout une affaire pratique et une forme de vie? Non, répond ce livre : les arguments en faveur d'une conception non réaliste de la religion sont faibles ; en revanche, le réalisme théologique peut être défendu. Renouvelant ainsi la traditionnelle question de la relation entre foi et raison, ce livre discute aussi bien les thèses de saint Thomas, de John Locke, du cardinal Newman et de Ludwig Wittgenstein, que celles de philosophes analytiques contemporains de la religion comme Alvin Plantinga, Richard Swinburne, Peter van Inwagen ou Linda Zagzebski. (shrink)

This article presents a quantitative way of modeling the interim decisions of clinical trials. While statistical approaches tend to focus on the epistemic aspects of statistical monitoring rules, often overlooking ethical considerations, ethical approaches tend to neglect key epistemic dimension. The proposal is a second-order decision theoretic framework. The framework provides means for retrospective assessment of interim decisions based on a clear and consistent set of criteria that combines both ethical and epistemic considerations. The framework is broadly Bayesian and addresses (...) a fundamental question behind many concerns about clinical trials: What does it take for an interim decision (e.g., whether to stop the trial, or continue) to be a good decision? I provide simulation illustrating the modeling of interim decisions counterfactually using the framework. (shrink)

Does economics hold the key to everything or does the recent financial crisis show that it has failed? This book provides an assessment of modern economics that cuts through the confusion and controversy on this question. Case studies of the creation of new markets, the Russian transition to capitalism, globalization, and money and finance establish that economics has been very successful where problems have been well defined and where the world can be changed to fit the theory, but that it (...) has been less successful in tackling bigger problems. The book then offers a historical perspective on how economists have, since the Second World War, tried to make their subject scientific. It explores the evolving relationship between science and ideology and investigates the place of heterodoxy and dissent within the discipline. (shrink)

This volume brings together eleven essays that address a range of issues extending from broader questions of social justice to the sexual intimacy that bears the mark of our fleshly existence. Collectively, these essays extend the reach of Paul Ricoeur’s early to late works by taking up some of the major social, political and religious challenges facing us in a postmodern, ultrapluralistic world.

This book gathers a variety of illuminating essays by an internationally known scholar of religion and ecology. New writings on technology, facing death, and an intellectual autobiography continue Gottlieb’s unique ability to connect collective struggles for a just and caring society with personal strivings for wisdom and compassion.

Deconstructing life -- Playing games with death -- The hollow crown -- The challenging void -- Waiting for God -- Static chaos -- Knots -- Can these dry bones live? -- Frankenstein -- Whirlwinds -- A very human chaos.

Looks at the ways that photography can change the course of a life by sharing personal stories while reflecting on the history of photography.

Grâce aux œuvres, qui amplifient notre expérience du monde, des êtres et des choses qui le peuplent, nous découvrons que notre attention n'est pas uniforme dans ses accueils et ses inflexions, mais qu'elle se constelle autour de foyers. Certains de ces foyers sont établis, partagés. D'autres sont singuliers, labiles, résultats d'une élaboration subjective qui opère par rapprochements et découpages au sein des catégories artistiques, esthétiques, historiques. Le présent essai porte sur l'un de ces foyers, que le néologisme « intranquillité » (...) est venu nommer, autour duquel se groupent les écrits du poète portugais Fernando Pessoa et de ses « hétéronymes », une série de dessins réalisés par Tatiana Trouvé, la pensée poéthique selon Jean-Claude Pinson et le Monsieur Hulot de Jacques Tati. Il s'attache à restituer l'enquête menée auprès de ce foyer, afin d'éclairer les raisons de sa formation, et d'en dégager un sens susceptible, à son tour, d'être partagé. (shrink)