Depressive symptoms are characterised by reduced cognitive control. However, whether depressive symptoms are linked to difficulty in exerting cognitive control in general or over emotional content specifically remains unclear. To better differentiate between affective interference or general cognitive control difficulties in people with depressive symptoms, we employed a non emotional (cold) and an emotional (hot) version of a task-switching paradigm in a nonclinical sample of young adults (N = 82) with varying levels of depressive symptoms. Depressive symptoms were linked to (...) greater difficulties in exerting cognitive control in complex situations (mixed-task blocks) compared to simple and semiautomatic situations (single-task blocks) in both task versions. Moreover, greater depressive symptoms were associated with longer latencies in the emotional version of the task across all trial types. Thus, the emotion-specific effect was not modulated by the degree of cognitive control required to perform the task. In sum, depressive symptoms were characterised by a general difficulty to exert cognitive control in both emotional and non emotional contexts and by greater difficulty in even simple attentional processing of emotional material. This study granted novel insights on the extent of cognitive control difficulties in emotional and non emotional contexts for people with depressive symptoms. (shrink)

Gravity and Grace was the first ever publication by the remarkable thinker and activist, Simone Weil. In it Gustave Thibon, the priest to whom she had entrusted her notebooks before her untimely death, compiled in one remarkable volume a compendium of her writings that have become a source of spiritual guidance and wisdom for countless individuals.

In this paper, I shall argue that both emergence and downward causation, which are strongly interconnected, presuppose the presence of levels of reality. However, emergence and downward causation pull in opposite directions with respect to my best reconstruction of what levels are. The upshot is that emergence stresses the autonomy among levels while downward causation puts the distinction between levels at risk of a reductio ad absurdum, with the further consequence of blurring the very notion of downward. Therefore, emergence and (...) downward causation are not fit to each other vis-a-vis the concept of level. (shrink)

"What is required if men and women are to feel at home in society and are to recover their vitality? Into wrestling with that question, Simone Weil put the very substance of her mind and temperament. The apparently solid edifices of our prepossessions fall down before her onslaught like ninepins, and she is as fertile and forthright in her positive suggestions . . . she can be relied upon to toss aside the superficial and to come to grips with (...) the essential and the profound." -- Time Literary Supplement. (shrink)

The complexity of current social and environmental grand challenges generates many conflicts and tensions at the individual, organization and/or systems levels. Paradox theory has emerged as a promising way to approach such a complexity of corporate sustainability going beyond the instrumental business-case perspective and achieving superior sustainability performance. However, the fuzziness in the empirical use of the concept of “paradox” and the absence of a systems perspective limits its potential. In this paper, we perform a systematic review and content analysis (...) of the empirical literature related to paradox and sustainability, offering a useful guide for researchers who intend to adopt the concept of “paradox” empirically. Our analysis provides a comprehensive account of the uses of the construct - which allows the categorization of the literature into three distinct research streams: 1) paradoxical tensions, 2) paradoxical frame/thinking, and 3) paradoxical actions/strategies - and a comprehensive overview of the findings that emerge in each of the three. Further, by adopting a system perspective, we propose a theoretical framework that considers possible interconnections across the identified paradoxical meanings and different levels of analysis (individual, organizational, systems) and discuss key research gaps emerging. Finally, we reflect on the role a clear notion of paradox can have in supporting business ethics scholars in developing a more “immanent” evaluation of corporate sustainability, overcoming the current instrumental view. (shrink)

The pathologies of the democratic public sphere, first articulated by Plato in his attack on rhetoric, have pushed much of deliberative theory out of the mass public and into the study and design of small scale deliberative venues. The move away from the mass public can be seen in a growing split in deliberative theory between theories of democratic deliberation (on the ascendancy) which focus on discrete deliberative initiatives within democracies and theories of deliberative democracy (on the decline) that attempt (...) to tackle the large questions of how the public, or civil society in general, relates to the state. Using rhetoric as the lens through which to view mass democracy, this essay argues that the key to understanding the deliberative potential of the mass public is in the distinction between deliberative and plebiscitary rhetoric. (shrink)

Nicola Gennaioli and Andrei Shleifer’s A Crisis of Beliefs is a rich, elaborate and ambitious book. It relies on more than twenty years of the authors’ work on fields as different as financial econ...

This introduces a series of articles in a themed section entitled City of Potentialities: Race, Violence and Invention. The section concerns how we might think more specifically about how to act in domains where complexity is both a resource for the imagination and an impediment to action. What kinds of dilemmas do residents face and what kinds of practices do they engage in in order to continuously gather up the tools and possibilities to endure in volatile urban conditions, where volatility (...) seems a critical force in the simultaneous undoing and remaking of life, as well as in providing assets and opportunities to inhabitants? How does violence obscure the various manoeuvres and practices that keep things together or apart? (shrink)

Introducing the Selected Works of Simone Weil Some of Simone Weil's most important thinking was done through the medium of her notebooks. She used them in several inter-related ways. First, she used them to note things she had read and was researching. Far more often, they were workbooks where she worked through her ideas. Many of the ideas in her completed essays can first be found in her notebooks, and thus the notebooks are invaluable for adding context and (...) nuance along with a sense of development to the reading of those later essays. Finally, her notebooks simply contain Weil's aphoristic writing at its best in its most striking presentation. For that reason alone, the last two notebooks, which she wrote while in New York and London in 1942-43, published in French as "La Connaissance surnaturel" have been read as books of great wisdom. This volume also includes her first notebook from the year 1934, not long after her time in the factory and its subject matter reflects this period in her life. (shrink)

Epigenetic and transcriptional variability contribute to the vast diversity of cellular and organismal phenotypes and are key in human health and disease. In this review, we describe different types, sources, and determinants of epigenetic and transcriptional variability, enabling cells and organisms to adapt and evolve to a changing environment. We highlight the latest research and hypotheses on how chromatin structure and the epigenome influence gene expression variability. Further, we provide an overview of challenges in the analysis of biological variability. An (...) improved understanding of the molecular mechanisms underlying epigenetic and transcriptional variability, at both the intra- and inter-individual level, provides great opportunity for disease prevention, better therapeutic approaches, and personalized medicine. Epigenetic and transcriptional variability mediate phenotypic plasticity, enabling adaptation to changing environments. In this review, we describe the sources of inter- and intra-individual variability and discuss epigenetic regulators of gene expression variability, including DNA methylation and chromatin structure. Understanding these molecular mechanisms will improve therapeutic approaches and personalized medicine. (shrink)

Although developmental dyslexia (DD) is frequently associate to a phonological deficit, the underlying neurobiological cause remain undetermined. One prominent hypothesis suggests a specific deficit in magnocellular-dorsal (M-D) pathway. Here we investigated the visual M-D and parvocellular-ventral (P-V) pathway in dyslexic and in chronological age and IQ-matched normally reading children by measuring dynamic (frequency doubling illusion) and static stimuli sensibility, respectively. A specific deficit in M-D task was found. Importantly, the M-D deficit was selectively shown in poor phonological decoders. M-D deficit (...) appears to be frequent because 75% of poor pseudo-word readers were at least 1 SD below the mean of the controls. Finally, a replication study by using a new group of poor phonological decoders and reading level controls suggests a possible role of M-D deficit in DD. These results showed that a M-D deficit might impair the sub-lexical mechanisms that are critical for reading development. The possible link between these findings and the oscillatory “temporal sampling” framework is discussed. (shrink)

In Intimations of Christianity Among the Ancient Greeks , Simone Weil discusses precursors to Christian religious ideas which can be found in ancient Greek mythology, literature and philosophy. She looks at evidence of "Christian" feelings in Greek literature, notably in Electra, Orestes, and Antigone , and in the Iliad , going on to examine God in Plato, and divine love in creation, as seen by the ancient Greeks.

A distorted representation of one's own body is a diagnostic criterion and core psychopathology of both anorexia nervosa (AN) and bulimia nervosa (BN). Despite recent technical advances in research, it is still unknown whether this body image disturbance is characterized by body dissatisfaction and a low ideal weight and/or includes a distorted perception or processing of body size. In this article, we provide an update and meta-analysis of 42 articles summarizing measures and results for body size estimation (BSE) from 926 (...) individuals with AN, 536 individuals with BN and 1920 controls. We replicate findings that individuals with AN and BN overestimate their body size as compared to controls (ES= 0.63). Our meta-regression shows that metric methods (BSE by direct or indirect spatial measures) yield larger effect sizes than depictive methods (BSE by evaluating distorted pictures), and that effect sizes are larger for patients with BN than for patients with AN. To interpret these results, we suggest a revised theoretical framework for BSE that accounts for differences between depictive and metric BSE methods regarding the underlying body representations (conceptual vs. perceptual, implicit vs. explicit). We also discuss clinical implications and argue for the importance of multimethod approaches to investigate body image disturbance. (shrink)

Un uomo in cappa e cilindro di fronte a voi promette: “muoverò la materia con la sola forza del pensiero”. Scettici aspettate la prova. Ed ecco che, mirabilmente, egli alza un braccio. Un braccio, il suo braccio! Un pezzo di materia, dotato di massa, carica elettrica, proprietà magnetiche e quant’altro, si è mosso solo grazie alla sua volontà di alzarlo. Con la sola forza del pensiero il braccio si è sollevato! Per quanti sforzi retorici faccia, nessuno riterrà particolarmente sorprendente l’esperimento. (...) Il fatto è che diamo per scontato che la materia possa essere mossa con la sola forza del pensiero se quella materia siamo noi. I viaggi nel tempo, o il trasferimento istantaneo di informazioni, quelli sì sarebbero davvero una sorpresa. Eppure, mentre per questi si sono in un certo senso raggiunti risultati teorici o sperimentali interessanti, ed esistono teorie che spiegano in base a quali leggi fisiche questi fenomeni possano avvenire, per quanto riguarda la nostra capacità di agire intenzionalmente ci troviamo ancora sommersi da difficoltà teoriche enormi, e il terreno rimane ancora pieno di difficoltà concettuali. Uno dei problemi più cruciali è che entrambe le opzioni metafisiche generali, il monismo e il dualismo, sono radicate nel senso comune come nella nostra tradizione culturale, e talvolta in modi davvero curiosi. Possiamo trovare richiami teologici al monismo, mentre sarebbe ragionevole pensare a una adesione esclusivo a una forma di dualismo, e derive dualiste nelle indagini di neurofisiologi contemporanei. Come esempio del primo caso voglio menzionare la procedura di pesatura delle anime che si può veder raffigurata in alcune chiese (la Cattedrale di Torcello e San Pietro a Spoleto) e che si basa sull’idea che le proprietà etiche degli individui siano riscontrabili nelle proprietà fisiche, il peso delle loro anime. Certo, si può pensare che le bilance per anime siano in effetti sensibili a proprietà non fisiche, nondimeno esse parteciperebbero di una struttura nomologica tipica delle scienze fisiche, di contro a quanto solitamente segna il confine tra regno della natura – nomologico - e regno della mente - normativo. Di contro, un recente numero di Nature (luglio 2006) apriva con un richiamo a caratteri cubitali in copertina: Trasformare il pensiero in azione [Turning thought into action]. L’uso del verbo “trasformare” dà adito all’idea che le proprietà di un dominio siano state cambiate e modificate così da divenire proprietà di un dominio diverso. Ma come notavo in apertura, non c’è nulla di sorprendente nell’idea che i nostri pensieri diventino azioni, e dobbiamo pensarla proprio così se vogliamo giustificare l’idea che le nostre azioni siano nostre, ossia risultato dei nostri atti deliberativi. In questo lavoro cercherò di offrire una risposta al problema della causalità mentale, ossia a come la nostra mente possa interagire con gli eventi del mondo fisico e da essi esserne modificata. Un problema classico, quindi assai vasto, sia per ciò che attiene la letteratura sia per quanto riguarda le questioni da affrontare. La bussola adottata è stata la seguente: se il problema è il rapporto del mentale con il mondo fisico allora va tenuto nel massimo rispetto il modo in cui il problema generale della causalità è stato affrontato entro il mondo fisico. La mia impressione è che nella letteratura filosofica non venga dedicata una sufficiente attenzione a questo aspetto, e uno degli intenti che perseguirò sarà porvi rimedio. Il libro è diviso in quattro capitoli. Nel primo si evidenziano le radici del problema mente corpo da un punto di vista più concettuale che storico. I due domini sono sempre stati tratteggiati tramite proprietà all’apparenza differenti, così da rinforzare la ragionevolezza di un approccio più o meno dualista. Emerge già qui che il problema, nella specifica declinazione causale nella quale viene qui considerato, diventa tale solo se si assume un modello di causalità adeguato alle discipline fisiche, anche se assai più controverso negli altri casi. Questo modello era nelle pagine di Leibniz, e costituiva la sua schiacciante obiezione a Descartes. Tuttavia, nell’attuale dibattito non sempre ha giocato un ruolo altrettanto cruciale. Penso sia il tempo di rimetterlo al centro della scena. Sosterrò quindi che in effetti il problema della causalità mentale e del generale rapporto tra mente e corpo è una conseguenza, piuttosto che il punto d’avvio, di un modello generale di causalità. Tale modello è da identificarsi nella teoria secondo la quale tra causa ed effetto c’è un trasferimento di una quantità conservata, una teoria sulla quale si è acceso un intenso dibattito. Nel capitolo successivo il modello di causalità fisica del trasferimento viene combinato col più generale approccio fisicalista che in questi anni si sta diffondendo. Ci sono modi assai diversi per caratterizzare il fisicalismo, che comportano conseguenze molto divergenti tra loro. Analizzerò diverse varietà di fisicalismo e la loro compatibilità sia con il modello della causalità come trasferimento, cui si faceva riferimento, sia con il dominio del mentale. Sosterrò che il principio metafisico della chiusura causale del mondo fisico può essere integrato con la visione della causalità difesa nel primo capitolo, il tutto accettando l’idea che la causalità sia una relazione tra eventi. L’ipotesi è che sussista uno spazio di manovra per la causalità mentale a condizione che le proprietà mentali, elementi cardine della relazione causale, siano identificate con le proprietà fisiche, una teoria oggi non più di gran moda. Il terzo capitolo è dedicato alla difesa della teoria dell’identità dei tipi dalle due note obiezioni: la teoria delle identità necessarie di Kripke e l’argomento della realizzabilità multipla nelle sue diverse varianti. La strada per rispondere alle obiezioni e difendere la teoria dell’identità passa attraverso una teoria delle sensazioni che metta in luce il carattere intrinsecamente causale e, in certa misura, esternistico di questi stati, combattendo così l’intuizione che le sensazioni si risolvano nelle proprietà fenomeniche di tipo qualitativo, nel cosa si prova ad averle. A supporto di questa visione verranno schierate anche un certo numero di prove empiriche, facenti capo alla letteratura medica. Nondimeno, la tesi di identità richiede che essa sia condizionata, ossia che venga vincolata a condizioni locali, un tema perseguito nell’ultimo capitolo. Il quarto capitolo è dedicato a mostrare che non c’è un’enorme distanza tra la teoria dell’identità e il funzionalismo nella sua versione di primo ordine. In questo contesto giocano un ruolo chiave i generi naturali, che soddisfano i requisiti per una teoria dell’identità senza per questo condurla nelle maglie delle critiche che l’hanno condannata. Così costruita, la teoria dell’identità è il portato dell’incontro tra analisi concettuale e ricerca empirica e un simile connubio ha tra le sue conseguenze l’abbandono dell’immagine per cui la realtà è costituita da diversi strati ontologici di complessità crescente. Di contro, l’incontro tra il piano concettuale e quello empirico che porta all’identità consente di accordare pieni poteri causali alle proprietà mentali, un desiderata al quale non è possibile rinunciare. Solo che esse vanno individuate nel mondo fisico, senza che ciò comporti la rinuncia alla forza epistemica ed esplicativa delle medesime. Alcuni possono vedere in questa posizione un’abdicazione della filosofia alla scienza. Non credo che sia compito della filosofia avocarsi regioni del sapere. Se è la scienza a dovere risolvere il problema della causalità mentale, la filosofia non può mettersi di traverso. A quest’ultima spetterà il compito di mostrare che la distanza tra le nostre intuizioni, per quanto fallimentari e confuse siano, e le descrizioni scientifiche è colmabile da una ricerca comprensibile e razionale. Frutto comunque delle nostre intuizioni. (shrink)

For Christian theology, the survival of the soul after the death of the body is a matter of fact. However, its philosophical explanation is probably the most peculiar issue of Thomas Aquinas’ radically Aristotelianaccount of body-soul. For both Augustine and Avicenna – who, together with Aristotle, can be considered the main sources of thirteenth century philosophy – the certainty of the immaterial soul’s ability to survive independently from the body was so strong that, coining their very own notions of human (...) spiritual substance, they described it as only partially implied in the act of the body’s information. This account was able to mediate between Aristotle’s idea of the soul as a form of the body and the Neoplatonic theory of the soul as an independent substance.... (shrink)

In the late 1950s the North-Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) made a major effort to fund collaborative research between its member states. One of the first initiatives following the establishment of the alliance's Science Committee was the creation of a sub-group devoted to marine science: the Sub-committee on Oceanographic Research.This paper explores the history of this organization, charts its trajectory over the 13 years of its existence, and considers its activities in light of NATO's naval defence strategies. In particular it shows (...) how the alliance's naval commands played a key role in the sub-committee's creation due to the importance of oceanographic research in the tracking of enemy submarines. The essay also scrutinizes the reasons behind the committee's dissolution, with a special focus on the changing landscape of scientific collaboration at NATO. The committee's fall maps onto a more profound shift in the alliance's research agenda, including the re-organization of defence research and the rise of environmentalism. (shrink)

Scholars, policymakers and organizations in the EU, especially at the level of the European Commission, have turned their attention to the ethics of (trustworthy and human-centric) Artificial Intelligence (AI). However, there has been little reflexivity on (1) the history of the ethics of AI as an institutionalized phenomenon and (2) the comparison to similar episodes of “ethification” in other fields, to highlight common (unresolved) challenges.Contrary to some mainstream narratives, which stress how the increasing attention to ethical aspects of AI is (...) due to the fast pace and increasing risks of technological developments, Science and Technology Studies(STS)-informed perspectives highlight that the rise of institutionalized assessment methods indicates a need for governments to gain more control of scientific research and to bring EU institutions closer to the public on controversies related to emerging technologies.This article analyzes how different approaches of the recent past (i.e. bioethics, technology assessment (TA) and ethical, legal and social (ELS) research, Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI)) followed one another, often “in the name of ethics”, to address previous criticisms and/or to legitimate certain scientific and technological research programs. The focus is on how a brief history of the institutionalization of these approaches can provide insights into present challenges to the ethics of AI related to methodological issues, mobilization of expertise and public participation. (shrink)

Die Forderungen nach naturgemäßem Leben, Einfachheit und Askese werden im antiken Denken oftmals in Verbindung gebracht. Vor dem Hintergrund der Frage, was naturgemäß leben im Rahmen verschiedener Ansätze bedeutet, wird untersucht, wie jeweils eine Verknüpfung mit Konzeptionen einfachen Lebens und damit verbundener Askese erfolgt. Ausgehend vom Naturbegriff der frühgriechischen Denker wird anhand von Textbeispielen dargestellt, wie die genannte Verbindung in der Ethik des 5./4. Jahrhunderts v. Chr. begründet und in den hellenistischen Schulen fortentwickelt wird. Gezeigt wird, dass Einfachheit und Askese (...) nach antiker Vorstellung die Verwirklichung der menschlichen Natur zum Ziel haben und, anders als im heutigen Denken, nicht etwa den Schutz natürlicher Ressourcen. (shrink)

Perception, corps et mouvement. L’esthétique anthropologique del’expression dans l’inédit Le monde sensible et le monde de l’expression de Maurice Merleau-PontyL’article se consacre à une analyse ponctuelle du manuscrit inédit de Merleau-Ponty sur Le monde sensible et le monde de l’expression, aujourd’hui conservé à la Bibliothèque Nationale de France, et qui correspond au cours du philosophe au Collège de France durant l’année académique 1952-1953. L’analyse exclusive de l’inédit suit des perspectives bien précises : il s’agit de reconstruire, à partir d’une définition (...) merleau-pontienne originale de l’espace culturel comme espace anthropologique, ce qui pourrait ressembler à une nouvelle esthétique de l’expression d’origine anthropologique ; suivant le fil des analyses de La structure du comportement et de la Phénoménologie de la perception – non sans un remarquable sens critique vis-à-vis de ces textes des années quarante – cette analyse reconsidère la notion d’expression à la lumière de celle de mouvement. Les recherches merleau-pontiennes des années cinquante donc, – resquecontemporaines de La prose du monde et qui partagent avec celle-ci l’idée d’une origine saussurienne de la diacriticité des signes linguistiques – donnent naissance, selon nous, à une véritable esthétique du mouvement expressif, solidement fondée sur une philosophie de la biologie et sur une anthropologie philosophique. Au cours de l’article, de façon contextuelle et spontanée, on relie, de manière hypothétique, la pensée merleau-pontienne de ces années-là et celle de certains « auteurs fondamentaux » que Merleau-Ponty cite explicitement ou dont il reproduit la dynamique théorique : Helmuth Plessner, Aldolf Portmann, Jakob Von Uexküll, Friedrik J.J. Buytendijk, et en particulier – en raison de leur parenté philosophique évidente – Vicktor Von Weizsäcker, celui du Der Gestaltkreis et des écrits autobiographiques Anonyma.Perception, Body, and Movement. The Anthropological Aesthetics of Expression in Merleau-Ponty’s UnpublishedThe Sensible World and the World of ExpressionThe article is devoted to a point by point analysis of Merleau-Ponty’s unpublished manuscript on The Sensible World and the World of Expression, which is currently found in Bibliothèque Nationale de France, and which corresponds to the course he taught at the Collège de France in the academic year 1952-53. The analysis, exclusively of this unpublished course notes, follows some very precise directions. What is at issue is to reconstruct, on the basis of a definition, which is original with Merleau-Ponty, of cultural space as anthropological space; this definition could resemble a new aesthetic of expression which would have an anthropological origin. Then following the thread of analyses found in The Structure of Behavior and the Phenomenology of Perception – not without a noticeable critical stance in relation to these texts from the 1940s – my analysis considers the notion of expression in light of that movement. Merleau-Ponty investigations during the 1950s therefore – nearly contemporaneous with The Prose of the World and which share with it the idea of a Saussurean origin of the diacriticity of linguistic signs – give birth, in my view, to a genuine aesthetics of expressive movement, solidly grounded on a philosophy of biology and on a philosophical anthropology. Over the course of the article, in a way contextual and spontaneous, we reread, in a hypothetical way, Merleau-Ponty’s thought during this time period, and the thought of “fundamental writers” who Merleau-Ponty had cited explicitly or whose theoretical dynamism he had reproduced: Helmuth Plessner, Aldolf Portmann, Jakob Von Uexküll, Friedrik J.J. Buytendijk, and, in particular – because they are clearly related philosophically – Vicktor Von Weizsäcker, his Der Gestaltkreis and his autobiographical writings called Anonyma. (shrink)

Teacher education has sought to combine the practice of teaching with the practice of thinking and most popularly through reflective practice. This refers to reflection on and in action that leads to thoughtful practical doing; praxis. In spite of its intention to develop teachers’ practical wisdom, reflective practice has become instrumentalised for the efficient achievement of educational ends without questioning whether the means of achieving them are conducive to living a good, meaningful life. Standardised modes of thinking have all the (...) more estranged teachers from thinking Being and from exploring meanings of who they are as teachers. To address this issue, this paper explores possibilities offered by poetic thinking and metaphorical thinking with reference to the thoughts of Heidegger and Arendt. The analysis of the problem of the abandonment of thinking Being by philosophical traditions as well as Aristotle’s notion of praxis and poesis have been originally addressed by Heidegger. Poesis, the act of making and bringing something forth has also been discussed by Arendt in her thoughts about metaphorical thinking and its potential for becoming something new. I argue that poetic forms of thinking enrich the debate about the relation between philosophy and teaching and are insightful for doing philosophy for teachers. They encourage teachers to make use of language in an original way to bring themselves forth as unique Beings. To practically explore the poetic possibilities in teachers’ quests for meaning, I refer to a student teacher’s writing as an example of how Being teacher can be poetically revealed. (shrink)

In recent times, Evans’ idea that mental states could have non-conceptual contents has been attacked. McDowell (Mind and World, 1994) and Brewer (Perception and reason, 1999) have both argued that that notion does not have any epistemological role because notions such as justification or evidential support, that might relate mental contents to each other, must be framed in conceptual terms. On his side, Brewer has argued that instead of non-conceptual content we should consider demonstrative concepts that have the same fine (...) grainess of non-conceptual contents while having conceptual structure. In what follows I will argue that, first, that the notion of demonstrative concept is not viable and, second, that there is an epistemological role for non-conceptual content. (shrink)

In this article we discuss what are the implications for improving the design of corporate ethics programs, if we focus on the moral motivation accounts offered by main ethical theories. Virtue ethics, deontological ethics and utilitarianism offer different criteria of judgment to face moral dilemmas: Aristotle's virtues of character, Kant's categorical imperative, and Mill's greatest happiness principle are, respectively, their criteria to answer the question "What is the right thing to do?" We look at ethical theories from a different perspective: (...) the question we ask is "Why should I do the right thing?" In other words, we deal with the problem of moral motivation, and we examine the different rationale the main ethical theories provide. We then point out the relation between moral motivation and the concept of rationality in the different approaches - is acting morally seen as an expression of rational behavior? Our analysis of moral motivation provides a useful framework to improve the understanding of the relationships between formal and informal elements of corporate ethics programs, emphasizing the importance of the latter, often overlooked in compliance-focused programs. We conclude by suggesting that the concept of moral imagination can provide a unifying approach to enhance the effectiveness of corporate ethics programs, by providing an intangible asset that supports the implementation of their formal components into management decision making. (shrink)

In this essay I address the debate between Pierre Chanet and Marin Cureau de La Chambre on animal instinct, analyzing and connecting it to the question of the relationship between God and secondary causes. While Chanet considers instinctive actions as the result of direct intervention by God, that would conduct his creatures beyond their natural limits, Cureau places them in the cognitive structure that God has given to the animals, doing of instinctive actions natural actions in the strict sense. Starting (...) from that, Cureau can introduce a bizarre analogy between animal’s innate capability to act in the environment beyond any previous experience and the innate knowledge of angels. This comparison is strongly criticized by Chanet and probably persuades Cureau to change his presentation of the soul in his late masterpiece, "Le Systéme de l’âme". My conclusion is that both Chanet’s and Cureau’s accounts for animal instinct are functional to an anthropocentric metaphysics that keeps the human soul as an intellective, individual and separable substance; but they also provide - especially with Cureau - a good example of a compromise between hylomorphism, dualism and mechanism. (shrink)

This is the first collection of essays bringing together Deleuzian Philosophy and postcolonial theory. Bignall and Patton assemble some of the world's leading figures in these fields to explore rich linkages between two previously unrelated areas of study.

This paper aims to consider the main features of the philosophy of linguistics proposed by Deleuze and Guattari, which emerges from the criticisms directed at what in A Thousand Plateaus they call ‘postulates of linguistics’. The paper focuses on the transition from the Saussurean concept of system and from the connected notion of structure to Deleuze and Guattari's concept of machine. More precisely, the purpose of the paper lies, on the one hand, in showing in which sense Deleuze and Guattari (...) claim that language is not a ‘structure’ but a ‘machine’ and why, accordingly, they maintain that the mentioned ‘postulates of linguistics’ must be refused; on the other hand, the paper represents an attempt at placing Deleuze and Guattari's position in the context of contemporary linguistics. (shrink)

The paper discusses Iris Marion Young's idea of asymmetric reciprocity that rethinks typical understandings of gift giving. Iris Marion Young's proposals for asymmetric ethical relationships have important implications for democratic contexts that seek to take differences seriously. Imagining oneself in the place of the other or expecting from the other what one expects from oneself levels out differences between people and hinders possibilities of interaction. The conditions of asymmetry and reciprocity of Iris Marion Young's communicative ethics, as well as that (...) of the unexpected as understood within situations of gift giving, bring about new readings of learning and teaching situations. The paper discusses issues of power and knowledge that have important ethical implications for how the relationships between the teacher and student could be imagined and how the teacher and student imagine themselves. Following Derridean underpinnings to Young's notion of asymmetric reciprocity the paper questions pedagogic attempts that seek to minimize the asymmetric positions of the teacher and the student and challenges educational practices based on the reproduction of knowledge and reproduction of persons. The paper follows Young's arguments against Derrida's reading of asymmetry as being one sided. It argues that such a reading does away with the idea of teaching and learning altogether as teaching necessarily involves acts of responding. It continues to argue that Young's conceptualizations of gift giving as reciprocal and asymmetrical open up alternative understandings of the pedagogic relationships between teachers and students. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to clarify the role of the distinction between belief and opinion in the light of Dennett's intentional stance. In particular, I consider whether the distinction could be used for a defence of the stance from various criticisms. I will then apply the distinction to the so-called `paradoxes of irrationality'. In this context I will propose that we should avoid the postulation of `boundaries' or `gaps' within the mind, and will attempt to show that a (...) useful treatment of the paradoxes can be obtained by revising the rationality assumption. (shrink)

While discourse and deliberation cannot replace voting, bargaining, or compromise, Chambers argues, it is important to maintain a background moral conversation in which to anchor other activities.