We consider emergence from the perspective of dynamics: states of a system evolving with time. We focus on the role of a decomposition of wholes into parts, and attempt to characterize relationships between levels without reference to whether higher-level properties are “novel” or “unexpected.” We offer a classification of different varieties of emergence, with and without new ontological elements at higher levels. -/- Submitted to a volume on Real Patterns (Tyler Milhouse, ed.), to be published by MIT Press.

The authors present a collection of brand-new essays on important topics at the intersection of philosophy and linguistics.

Companies offer ethics codes and training to increase employees' ethical conduct. These programs can also enhance individual work attitudes because ethical organizations are typically valued. Socially responsible companies are likely viewed as ethical organizations and should therefore prompt similar employee job responses. Using survey information collected from 313 business professionals, this exploratory study proposed that perceived corporate social responsibility would mediate the positive relationships between ethics codes/training and job satisfaction. Results indicated that corporate social responsibility fully or partially mediated the (...) positive associations between four ethics program variables and individual job satisfaction, suggesting that companies might better manage employees' ethical perceptions and work attitudes with multiple policies, an approach endorsed in the ethics literature. (shrink)

In this study, we examine the influence of senior leadership on firms’ corporate social responsibility. We integrate upper echelons research that has investigated either the influence of the CEO or the top management team on CSR. We contend that functional experience complementarity between CEOs and TMTs in formulating and implementing CSR strategy may underlie differentiated strategies in CSR. We find that when CEOs who have predominant experience in output functions are complemented by TMTs with a lower proportion of members who (...) have experience in output functions, there is a pronounced effect on the community, product, and diversity dimensions of CSR. In turn, when output-oriented CEOs are complemented by output-oriented TMTs, we observe an effect on the employee relations dimension of CSR. Interestingly, we find no influence of CEO-TMT complementarity on the environment dimension of CSR. In general, our empirical results support the relevance of the interaction between CEOs and their TMTs in defining their firms’ CSR profile. (shrink)

Standard attempts to defend Russell's Theory of Descriptions against the problem posed by incomplete descriptions, are discussed and dismissed as inadequate. It is then suggested that one such attempt, one which exploits the notion of a contextually delimited domain of quantification, may be applicable to incomplete quantifier expressions which are typically treated as quantificational: expressions of the form AllF's, NoF's, SomeF's, Exactly eightF's, etc. In this way, one is able to retain the plausible claim that such expressions ought to receive (...) their usual quantificational analyses. The conclusion tentatively drawn is that perhaps definite descriptions arenot amenable to a (Russellian) quantificational analysis. (shrink)

This study assesses the relationships among unethical corporate values, bullying experiences, psychopathy, and selling professionals’ ethical evaluations of bullying. Information was collected from national/regional samples of selling professionals. Results indicated that unethical values, bullying, and psychopathy were positively interrelated. Psychopathy and unethical values were negatively associated with moral intensity, while moral intensity was positively related to ethical issue importance. Psychopathy and unethical values were negatively related to issue importance, and issue importance and moral intensity were positively related to ethical judgment. (...) Finally, ethical judgment and moral intensity were positively linked to ethical intention; psychopathy was negatively associated with ethical intention. (shrink)

This study explored several proposed relationships among professional ethical standards, corporate social responsibility, and the perceived role of ethics and social responsibility. Data were collected from 313 business managers registered with a large professional research association with a mailed self-report questionnaire. Mediated regression analysis indicated that perceptions of corporate social responsibility partially mediated the positive relationship between perceived professional ethical standards and the believed importance of ethics and social responsibility. Perceptions of corporate social responsibility also fully mediated the negative relationship (...) between perceived professional ethical standards and the subordination of ethics and social responsibility. The results suggested that professions should develop ethical standards to encourage social responsibility, since these actions are associated with enhanced employee ethical attitudes. (shrink)

In his classic paper, “Delusional thinking and perceptual disorder,” Brendan Maher (1974) argues that psychiatric delusions are hypotheses designed to explain anomalous experiences, and are “developed through the operation of normal cognitive processes.” Consider, for instance, the Capgras delusion. Patients suffering from this particular delusion believe that someone close to them—such as a spouse, a sibling, a parent, or a child—has been replaced by an impostor: by someone who bears a striking resemblance to the “original” and who (for reasons unknown) (...) is intent on passing herself off as that individual. On Maher's view, the “Impostor Hypothesis” is the response of a rational agent to the anomalous experience it is invoked to explain. Recently, a number of philosophers have argued that Maher's analysis of delusion doesn't work when applied to the Capgras delusion. In this paper, I defend Maher's analysis against these arguments. However, my aim is not merely to defend Maher's analysis, but also to draw attention to some of the methodological problems that have led to its hasty dismissal. (shrink)

A body of work in ethics and epistemology has advanced a collectivist view of virtues. Collectivism holds that some social groups can be subjects in themselves which can possess attributes such as agency or responsibility. Collectivism about virtues holds that virtues are among those attributes. By focusing on two different accounts, I argue that the collectivist virtue project has limited prospects. On one such interpretation of institutional virtues, virtue-like features of the social collective are explained by particular group-oriented features of (...) individual role-bearers that are elicited by institutional structures or goals. On another account of groups as moral agents unbound by formal institutional constraints, to the extent that group characteristics meet the collectivist requirement, they fail to stand up as virtues in the substantive sense of a character trait. These two positions’ respective drawbacks and insights support a non-collectivist conclusion: Where there is a substantive virtue of some social group, it consists only in certain group-specific attitudes and motives of individuals qua members of that group. I end by outlining some risks in adopting collectivism about virtues as an explanatory or normative doctrine, and suggesting that we can abandon it without embracing an equally undesirable individualism in virtue theory. (shrink)

The Principle of Sufficient Reason (PSR) holds that, for everything that exists or occurs or holds true, there is a reason why that is the case. I consider three possible ways of relating physics to the PSR: past states as reasons for present states, reasons why the laws of physics take the form that they do, and reasons why there is anything at all. In each case I suggest that the PSR is not the best way of thinking about how (...) and why physics works. -/- Invited reflection for The Principle of Sufficient Reason (Oxford Philosophical Concepts), Eds. F. Amijee and M. Della Rocca (forthcoming 2024). (shrink)

Does Keith Donnellan's referential/attributive distinction have ‘semantic significance’? Howard Wettstein has claimed (in several papers) that it does; Nathan Salmon has responded (in several papers) that it does not. Specifically, while Wettstein has claimed that definite descriptions, used referentially, function semantically as demonstratives, Salmon has responded to Wettstein's claims by defending a unitary Russellian account of such expressions, according to which they invariably function as quantifiers. This paper involves a critique of the debate between Wettstein and Salmon, and offers a (...) tentative resolution of that debate: one that favors Wettstein's ‘ambiguity’ account over the unitary Russellian account defended by Salmon. (shrink)

Why is the human mind able to perceive and understand the truth about reality; that is, why does it seem to be the mind's specific function to know the world? Sean Kelsey argues that both the question itself and the way Aristotle answers it are key to understanding his work De Anima, a systematic philosophical account of the soul and its powers. In this original reading of a familiar but highly compressed text, Kelsey shows how this question underpins Aristotle's (...) inquiry into the nature of soul, sensibility, and intelligence. He argues that, for Aristotle, the reason why it is in human nature to know beings is that 'the soul in a way is all beings'. This new perspective on the De Anima throws fresh and interesting light on familiar Aristotelian doctrines: for example, that sensibility is a kind of ratio, or that the intellect is simple, separate, and unmixed. (shrink)

Although many studies have linked job attitudes and intentions to aspects of in-role and extra-role job performance, there has been relatively little attention given to such job responses in the context of employees’ ethical/unethical behavior. The purpose of this study was to investigate a possible relationship between positive job response (conceptualized as job satisfaction and intention to stay) and behavioral ethics. Ninety-two matched manager-employee pairs from a regional branch of a large financial services and banking firm completed survey instruments, with (...) each employee providing information about his or her job attitudes and intentions and each manager assessing the ethical/unethical performance of his/her employees. Respondents also provided additional information required for our analyses. The results indicated that positive job response among subordinates was associated with higher supervisory ratings of the subordinates’ ethical job performance. The managerial implications of the findings for managing ethical behavior are explored. (shrink)

Goldstein and Gigerenzer (2002) [Models of ecological rationality: The recognition heuristic. Psychological Review, 109 (1), 75–90] found evidence for the use of the recognition heuristic. For example, if an individual recognizes only one of two cities, they tend to infer that the recognized city has a larger population. A prediction that follows is that of the less‐is‐more effect: Recognizing fewer cities leads, under certain conditions, to more accurate inferences than recognizing more cities. We extend the recognition heuristic to group decision‐making (...) by developing majority and lexicographic models of how recognition information is used by groups. We formally show when the less‐is‐more effect is predicted in groups and we present a study where three‐member groups performed the population comparison task. Several aspects of our data indicate that members who can use the recognition heuristic are, not in all but in most cases, more influential in the group decision process than members who cannot use the heuristic. We also observed the less‐is‐more effect and found that models assuming that members who can use the recognition heuristic are more influential better predict when the effect occurs. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: * The Universe We Know * Theories of Creation * Why This Universe? * The Multiverse and Fine-Tuning * Accounting for the World * God as a Theory * Note * References * Further Reading.

This paper argues against the sufficiency of Alvin Plantinga’s free will defense, as presented in God, freedom, and evil as a response to the logical problem of evil. I begin by introducing the fundamental issues present in the problem of evil and proceed to present Plantinga’s response. Next, I argue that, despite the argument’s wide acceptance in the field, a central notion to the defense, transworld depravity, is internally inconsistent and that attempts to resolve the problem would result in an (...) abandonment of the original terms of the discussion. Finally, I consider some potential alternatives for a free will defense beyond the one presented by Plantinga and conclude that the logical problem of evil may have more worth as a philosophical topic than has been thought in recent years. (shrink)

Frege's theorem says that second-order Peano arithmetic is interpretable in Hume's Principle and full impredicative comprehension. Hume's Principle is one example of an abstraction principle, while another paradigmatic example is Basic Law V from Frege's Grundgesetze. In this paper we study the strength of abstraction principles in the presence of predicative restrictions on the comprehension schema, and in particular we study a predicative Fregean theory which contains all the abstraction principles whose underlying equivalence relations can be proven to be equivalence (...) relations in a weak background second-order logic. We show that this predicative Fregean theory interprets second-order Peano arithmetic. (shrink)

In a recent paper Herman Cappelen and Ernie Lepore challenge an assumption that they rightly claim is pervasive among contemporary philosophers of language. According to this assumption (MA), an adequate semantic theory T for a language L should assign p as the semantic content of a sentence S in L if and only if in uttering S a speaker says that p. I claim that the arguments of Cappelen and Lepore are based upon an uncharitable interpretation of MA. If ‘saying’ (...) is understood in a roughly Gricean sense, MA emerges as an eminently plausible assumption. (shrink)

Modern ethical perspectives toward the environment often emphasize the connection of humans to a broader biotic community. The full intimacy of this connectedness, however, is only now being revealed as scientific findings in developmental biology and genetics provide new insights into the importance of environmental interaction for the development of organisms. These insights are reshaping our understanding of how organism-environment interaction contributes to both consistency and variation in organism development, and leading to a new perspective whereby an “organism” is not (...) solely viewed as the adaptive product of evolutionary selection to an external environment over generations, but as continuously being constructed through systems of interactions that link an organism’s characteristics developmentally to the physical and social influences it experiences during life. This newfound emphasis on “interaction” leads to an interdependency whereby any change to an “environment” impacts the interacting “organism,” and an alteration to the “organism” eventually affects its “environment.” The causal reciprocity embedded within this organism-environment interdependency holds implications for our moral obligations to environments, given their compulsory role in shaping all organisms including ourselves. (shrink)

This work discusses philosophical problems of perceptual content, the content of deomonstrative thoughts, and the unity of proposition. By demonstrating a connection between phenomenology and analysis, Kelly suggests ways in which they can be fruitfully pursued.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy in the School Music ProgramBennett ReimerWho is philosophy of music education for? Several groups of people immediately spring to mind. First, it is for those of us in music education who produce it and consume it as a major or important responsibility in our work—people like members of our Special Research Interest Group at MENC. Second, teachers of music education courses at the undergraduate and graduate levels who (...) deal with it either in a full course or series of courses or seminars devoted to philosophy, or as one part of courses devoted to other topics (as I believe is most often the case.) Third, school music teachers, many of whom have taken or are taking such courses (and many who have not) who are expected to have some level of acquaintance, however rudimentary, with philosophical issues so as to be able to cope with them, as when writing curriculum guides, or explaining to other teachers, administrators, school boards, and parents why music education is valuable and deserves support. If we stretch it, we might include among those who need to be involved with philosophy of music and music education all educational professionals, since all, in one way or another, exert some sort of influence on the fortunes of music education. But that begins to strain a bit at the edges.No doubt there are other constituencies that can be identified. But one that has not been conceived as requiring substantive encounters with philosophical issues of music is that of students in schools, K-12. We all assume that philosophy can and should play a major role in determining what is most valuable for students to learn in their study of music. But seldom has it been argued, to my [End Page 132] knowledge, that philosophical issues should be addressed in all programs of music education intended to produce people who are, in any convincing sense, musically educated.My premise is that philosophical reflection relating to music and to the teaching and learning of music should be foundational in school music programs. Further, philosophy needs to be present in our programs in three distinctive ways, reflecting common practices of education in America and all over the world. That is, as integral in the general music education of all students, as a component of all elective offerings, and as one particular, focused offering among the electives available to all students.My position is that what we call "general music" (which, as we know, goes by a variety of names around the world including just "music") is not complete; in fact is invalid, if it does not provide philosophical challenges of the same level of complexity, and the same degree of authenticity, as everything else we believe all students should know and be able to do in music. What we call the "music elective program," or the "music specialization program," is incomplete, in fact is invalid, if philosophical matters are not addressed as they relate to the particularities of each elective offered. And, in addition, philosophy needs to be a standard elective offering, taught with the same level of expertise by specialist teachers as we now routinely make available in performance and in the meager smattering of other electives we manage to offer.What? Philosophical thinking for all children, even in the primary grades, and as electives starting perhaps at the middle school or high school level? Electives taught by music educators whose specialization is the teaching of philosophy of music to youngsters? Am I serious? After all, even those of us who are devoted to it as a major aspect of our professionalism are constantly at the edges of our competence given the deep challenges philosophy presents to our intellect. And I expect children—all children—to be able to deal with it authentically?Well, we could ask precisely the same questions about, say, mathematics, and science, and history, and social studies, all the ways of thinking which constitute the basic learnings in all grades of our schools. As educators we know better than to conceive the nature of those subjects as only apparent at the level of professional work in them. We recognize the obvious: while at... (shrink)

This article posits that Christians, while being in the world, are not of this world. This duality confronts them with the twofold need to be fully compliant with the demands of their faith and its calling to evangelise this world, on the one hand; and to live fully as fellow citizens of this world, and to cooperate with them in search of solutions for this world's challenges, on the other hand. Lessons are drawn from cultural anthropology theories to underscore dynamic (...) processes of change, that start from non-threatening positions of working together inclusively, thus building trust, and advancing progressively, paving ways for dialogically sharing the Gospel. These developments are at the end argued and justified theologically, and then concluded with pragmatic examples drawn from live ministries born out of the co-author's initiatives. (shrink)

Dans cet article, je compare les perspectives de Bonhoeffer et de Tillich sur la souffrance divine et suggère que Bonhoeffer et, dans une moindre mesure, Tillich, par leur concept d’une souffrance vicariale à la fois humaine et divine, reformulent la théorie anselmienne de l’expiation «légale», selon laquelle le Christ assume la condamnation de l’humanité déchue et meurt à notre place pour satisfaire la justice divine.

In many parts of sub-Saharan Africa, mothers impacted by the genetic condition of albinism, whether as mothers of children with albinism or themselves with albinism, are disproportionately impacted by a constellation of health-related stigma, social determinants of health, and human rights violations. In a critical ethnographic study in Tanzania, we engaged with the voices of mothers impacted by albinism and key stakeholders to elucidate experiences of stigma. Their narratives revealed internalized subjective stigma, social stigma such as being ostracized by family (...) and community, and structural stigma on account of lack of access to SDH. An analysis of health systems as SDH revealed stigmatizing attitudes and behaviours of healthcare providers, especially at the time of birth; a lack of access to timely quality health services, in particular skin and eye care; and a lack of health-related education about the cause and care of albinism. Gender inequality as another SDH featured prominently as an amplifier of stigma. The findings pose implications for research, policy, and practice. A concrete avenue to de-stigmatization of mothers impacted by albinism exists by the application of principles of human rights, particularly equality and non-discrimination; contextual analysis of cultural dynamics including relevant ontology; meaningful participation of rights-claimants, such as peer groups of mothers; and accountability of governments and their obligation to ensure access to health information as a key social determinant of the right to health. (shrink)

The article presents and analyzes fragments of the story of Saint Praxedes, leader of a domestic church in 1st century in Rome, and their resignification over the centuries, mainly under Pope Paschal I, in the context of church and women history. The research is based on hagiographic stories written in the 5th and 13th centuries, in visualities built in the 9th and 13th centuries, and in commentaries of theorists of the areas of theology, history, and ancient and medieval arts. Exegetically (...) and hermeneutically, it weaves "continuity webs" between Saint Praxedes' ecclesial functions as a missionary-deacon and the diaconal and apostolic missionary leadership of women in Rom 16.1-16. It contextualizes historically the reconstructions of Saint Praxedes' images, of the imagination and devotion of holy martyrs into political religious fights and conflicts, both internal and external. It elaborates and actualizes considerations about sanctity and spirituality of Christian socio-ecclesial ministries and praxis, demonstrating the indispensable participation and leadership of women. (shrink)

The notion of ecological rationality implies that the accuracy of a decision strategy depends on features of the information environment in which it is tested. We demonstrate that the performance of a group may be strongly affected by the decision strategies used by its individual members and specify how this effect is moderated by environmental features. Specifically, in a set of simulation studies, we systematically compared four decision strategies used by the individual group members: two linear, compensatory decision strategies and (...) two simple, noncompensatory heuristics. Individual decisions were aggregated by using a majority rule. To assess the ecological rationality of the strategies, we varied (a) the distribution of cue validities, (b) the quantity, and (c) the quality of shared information. Group performance strongly depended on the distribution of cue validities. When validities were linearly distributed, groups using a compensatory strategy achieved the highest accuracy. Conversely, when cue validities followed a J-shaped distribution, groups using a simple lexicographic heuristic performed best. While these effects were robust across different quantities of shared information, the quality of shared information exerted stronger effects on group performance. Consequences for prescriptive theories on group decision making are discussed. (shrink)

This study considered representations of divine and human others in the self-understanding of monotheists from three religions. Self-understanding was conceptualized on the basis of semantic and episodic knowledge in narrative response data. Given the importance of social context in the formation of cognitive schemas, the project emphasized self-understanding in a comparative religious design. The sample included sixty nominated religious exemplars who responded to a structured interview. Schemas were subsequently mapped for Jews, Muslims, and Christians by comparison of self and other (...) representations in a computational model known as latent semantic analysis (LSA). Findings indicated that representation of the divine is far removed from parents in cognitive schemas for all participants. Unlike Jews and Christians, Muslims appear to represent human others on the basis of self-understanding which principally references the divine. When considered in a computational semantic space, exemplars generally represent the self in a manner corresponding with divine and peer figures. (shrink)