When firms face crisis, the instant and open channels of social media communication create a double-edged sword. While corporations can more quickly communicate with stakeholders, any missteps will have drastic and nearly immediate repercussions. What are the relationships among social media, subjective norms, attitudes, and intentions during corporate crisis? We explore this phenomenon via a study of a crisis faced by Lowe’s, an international home improvement store, and how current and potential customers reacted. By utilizing a structural equations model to (...) examine an integrated model of multiple constructs, we find that Facebook usage is associated with behavioral intent, perceptions of ethicality, and attitudes toward the organization. Counter intuitively, we find that an increase in participant Facebook usage is negatively related to felt subjective norms. Our findings indicate that beyond the traditional relationships examined by the Theory of Reasoned Action (e.g., norms, attitudes, and behavioral intent), that social media and subjective norms have a strong relationship with general attitudes and ethical attitudes toward an organization. (shrink)

The Anthropocene is a radical reconceptualisation of the relationship between humanity and nature. It posits that we have entered a new geological epoch in which the human species is now the dominant Earth-shaping force, and it is rapidly gaining traction in both the natural and social sciences. This article critically explores the scientific representation of the concept and argues that the Anthropocene is less a scientific concept than the ideational underpinning for a particular worldview. It is paradigm dressed as epoch. (...) In particular, it normalises a certain portion of humanity as the ‘human’ of the Anthropocene, reinserting ‘man’ into nature only to re-elevate ‘him’ above it. This move promotes instrumental reason. It implies that humanity and its planet are in an exceptional state, explicitly invoking the idea of planetary management and legitimising major interventions into the workings of the earth, such as geoen-gineering. I conclude that the scientific origins of the term have diminished its radical potential, and ask whether the concept's radical core can be retrieved. (shrink)

Multilingual dictionary of philosophical terms.

Concept of Avidyā in the Vedānta philosophy of Śaṅkarācārya; a study.

On philosophy; transcript of the 1978-1979 Śāradā-vyākhyāna-mālā lecture, under the auspices of Sri Lal Bahadur Shastri Rashtriya Vidyapeeth, New Delhi.

This essay defends a reading of Hegel as a metametaphysical antirealist. Metametaphysical antirealism is a denial that metaphysics has as its subject matter answers to theoretical questions about the mind-independent world. Hence, on this view, metaphysical questions are not, in principle, knowledge transcendent. I hold that Hegel presents a version of metaphysical antirealism in the Science of Logic because he pursues his project by suspending reference to all supposed objects of metaphysical theory as practiced before him. Hegel introduces reference in (...) his theory only by the self-reference of thought to itself in the Doctrine of the Concept. I motivate the relevance of Hegel’s approach to metaphysics by comparing it to Kit Fine’s concept of ‘naïve metaphysics’. I argue that Hegel’s theory results from a comprehensively naïve metaphysics. (shrink)

Festschrift in honor of S.A. Shaida; contributed research papers.

S. A. Lloyd proposes a radically new interpretation of Hobbes's Leviathan that shows transcendent interests - interests that override the fear of death - to be crucial to both Hobbes's analysis of social disorder and his proposed remedy to it. Most previous commentators in the analytic philosophical tradition have argued that Hobbes thought that credible threats of physical force could be sufficient to deter people from political insurrection. Professor Lloyd convincingly shows that because Hobbes took the transcendence of religious and (...) moral interests seriously, he never believed that mere physical force could ensure social order. Lloyd's interpretation demonstrates the ineliminability of that half of Leviathan devoted to religion, and attributes to Hobbes a much more plausible conception of human nature than the narrow psychological egoism traditionally attributed to Hobbes. (shrink)

v. 1. Indii︠a︡ -- v. 2. Blizhniĭ i Sredniĭ Vostok -- v. 3. Kitaĭ.

Study of Yogasūtra of Patañjali with Yogabhāṣya of Vyāsa and philosophy of Osho on Yoga philosophy.

Первое российское энциклопедическое издание, посвященное философии буддизма, является самым полным в отечественной литературе сводом знаний о буддийской философии. Его главная цель - описать философское кредо буддизма в контексте разнообразия школ.

Next SectionBackground: Physicians face ethical difficulties daily, yet they seek ethics consultation infrequently. To date, no systematic data have been collected on the strategies they use to resolve such difficulties when they do so without the help of ethics consultation. Thus, our understanding of ethical decision making in day to day medical practice is poor. We report findings from the qualitative analysis of 310 ethically difficult situations described to us by physicians who encountered them in their practice. When facing such (...) situations, the physicians sought to avoid conflict, obtain assistance, and protect the integrity of their conscience and reputation, as well as the integrity of the group of people who participated in the decisions. These goals could conflict with each other, or with ethical goals, in problematic ways. Being aware of these potentially conflicting goals may help physicians to resolve ethical difficulties more effectively. This awareness should also contribute to informing the practice of ethics consultation. Objective: To identify strategies used by physicians in dealing with ethical difficulties in their practice. Design, setting, and participants: National survey of internists, oncologists, and intensive care specialists by computer assisted telephone interviews (n = 344, response rate = 64%). As part of this survey, we asked physicians to tell us about a recent ethical dilemma they had encountered in their medical practice. Transcripts of their open-ended responses were analysed using coding and analytical elements of the grounded theory approach. Main measurements: Strategies and approaches reported by respondents as part of their account of a recent ethical difficulty they had encountered in their practice. Results: When faced with ethical difficulties, the physicians avoided conflict and looked for assistance, which contributed to protecting, or attempting to protect, the integrity of their conscience and reputation, as well as the integrity of the group of people who participated in the decisions. These efforts sometimes reinforced ethical goals, such as following patients’ wishes or their best interests, but they sometimes competed with them. The goals of avoiding conflict, obtaining assistance, and protecting the respondent’s integrity and that of the group of decision makers could also compete with each other. Conclusion: In resolving ethical difficulties in medical practice, internists entertained competing goals that they did not always successfully achieve. Additionally, the means employed were not always the most likely to achieve those aims. Understanding these aspects of ethical decision making in medical practice is important both for physicians themselves as they struggle with ethical difficulties and for the ethics consultants who wish to help them in this process. (shrink)

Collection of fundamentals text of the six systems of Hindi philosophy.

Background: In 2014, companies began covering the costs of egg freezing for their employees. The adoption of this benefit was highly contentious. Some argued that it offered women more reproductive...

In this study, I surveyed students' evaluative perceptions of instructor behavior and their possible influence on academic dishonesty. Slightly over 20% of 1,369 student respondents admitted to academic dishonesty in at least 1 class during 1 term at college. Students who admitted to acts of academic dishonesty had lower overall evaluations of instructor behavior than students who reported not committing academic dishonesty. Implications for student learning and the enhancement of academic integrity in the classroom are discussed.

Background: Ethics support services are growing in Europe to help doctors in dealing with ethical difficulties. Currently, insufficient attention has been focused on the experiences of doctors who have faced ethical difficulties in these countries to provide an evidence base for the development of these services.Methods: A survey instrument was adapted to explore the types of ethical dilemma faced by European doctors, how they ranked the difficulty of these dilemmas, their satisfaction with the resolution of a recent ethically difficult case (...) and the types of help they would consider useful. The questionnaire was translated and given to general internists in Norway, Switzerland, Italy and the UK.Results: Survey respondents ranged in age from 28 to 82 years, and averaged 25 years in practice. Only a minority reported having access to ethics consultation in individual cases. The ethical difficulties most often reported as being encountered were uncertain or impaired decision-making capacity , disagreement among caregivers and limitation of treatment at the end of life . The frequency of most ethical difficulties varied among countries, as did the type of issue considered most difficult. The types of help most often identified as potentially useful were professional reassurance about the decision being correct , someone capable of providing specific advice , help in weighing outcomes and clarification of the issues . Few of the types of help expected to be useful varied among countries.Conclusion: Cultural differences may indeed influence how doctors perceive ethical difficulties. The type of help needed, however, did not vary markedly. The general structure of ethics support services would not have to be radically altered to suit cultural variations among the surveyed countries. (shrink)

Exhaustive study on verbal epistemology in philosophy and Sanskrit grammar.

Classical verse work, expounding the early Vedantic approach in Hindu philosophy; Sanskrit text with Hindi translation and exhaustive introduction.

This chapter suggests that the state of nature is a continuum notion that lies in a segment along a larger continuum of the scope of private judgment, as does the continuum notion of civil authority. Jean Hampton saw Thomas Hobbes's state of nature as a “presocietal” condition of “isolated asocial individuals,” “stripped of their social connections.” There is plentiful evidence against Hampton's interpretation of the state of nature as an “asocial” condition in Hobbes's insistence across all his political writings that (...) men care deeply about their relative social standing and reputations, and that this is a major source of conflict in a state of nature. A potentially more promising way of understanding the state of nature is as a lawless condition. Societies exhibiting a high degree of consensus among private judgments may be able to tolerate incomplete removal from the mere state of nature, without threat to their stability. (shrink)

S. A. Lloyd - Liberty, Rationality, and Agency in Hobbes's Leviathan - Journal of the History of Philosophy 40:3 Journal of the History of Philosophy 40.3 397-398 Book Review Liberty, Rationality, and Agency in Hobbes's Leviathan David van Mill. Liberty, Rationality, and Agency in Hobbes's Leviathan. Albany: The State University of New York Press, 2001. Pp. xii + 253. Cloth, $59.50. Paper, $19.95. David van Mill's provocative book is an ambitious and thoughtful argument by an author well-versed in Hobbes's writings (...) and the secondary literature on them, intended to revolutionize our understanding of Hobbes's theory of rational agency. It is a shame that the text is marred by such egregious copy-editing that its unrelenting misprints, misquotes, inaccurate references, and grammatical infelicities so distract from van Mill's.. (shrink)

In an international survey of rationing we have found that European physicians encounter scarcity-related ethical difficulties, and are dissatified with the resolution of many of these cases. Here we further examine survey results to explore whether ethics support services would be potentially useful in addressing scarcity related ethical dilemmas. Results indicate that while the type of help offered by ethics support services was considered helpful by physicians, they rarely referred difficulties regarding scarcity to ethics consultation. We propose that ethics consultants (...) could assist physicians by making the process less difficult, and by contributing to decisions being more ethically justifiable. Expertise in bringing considerations of justice to bear on real cases could also be useful in recognising an unjust limit, as opposed to a merely frustrating limit. Though these situations are unlikely to be among the most frequently referred to ethics support services, ethics consultants should be prepared to address them. (shrink)

В монографии рассмотрены философские аспекты научно-инновационной деятельности: общие закономерности ее развития, структура научно-инновационной деятельности, ее категориальная основа, методы и условия эффективности. Для магистров, аспирантов.

Context: The term “second-order cybernetics” was introduced by von Foerster in 1974 as the “cybernetics of observing systems,” both the act of observing systems and systems that observe. Since then, the term has been used by many authors in articles and books and has been the subject of many conference panels and symposia. Problem: The term is still not widely known outside the fields of cybernetics and systems science and the importance and implications of the work associated with second-order cybernetics (...) is not yet widely discussed. I claim that the transition from cybernetics to second-order cybernetics is a fundamental scientific revolution that is not restricted to cybernetics or systems science. Second-order cybernetics can be regarded as a scientific revolution for the general methodology of science and for many disciplines as well. Method: I first review the history of cybernetics and second-order cybernetics. Then I analyze the major contents of von Foerster’s fundamental revolution in science and present it as a general model for an alternative methodology of science. Subsequently, I present an example of practicing second-order socio-cybernetics from within. I describe some consequences of doing science from within, and I suggest some new horizons for second-order cybernetics. Results: Second-order cybernetics leads to a new foundation for conducting science and offers important contributions for a new way of organizing science. It expands the conception of science so that it can more adequately deal with living systems. Implications: Second-order cybernetics extends the traditional scientific approach by bringing scientists within the domain of what is described and analyzed. It provides models of research processes for when the scientist is within the system being studied. In this way it offers a new foundation for research in the social sciences, in management science, and in other fields such as the environmental sciences or the life sciences. Keywords: Epistemology, general scientific methodology, cybernetics, social sciences, action research, Heinz von Foerster. (shrink)

Commentary on Śārīrakamīmāṃsābhāṣya of Śaṅkarācārya, work on Vedanta philosophy.

On the philosophy of death in Hindu traditions; study based on Mr̥tyupurāṇa of Svāmī Mr̥tyujayānanda.