This article looks into the process of searching for new forms of legitimacy among firms through corporate discourse. Through the analysis of annual sustainability reports, we have determined the existence of three types of rhetoric: (1) strategic (embedded in the scientific-economic paradigm); (2) institutional (based on the fundamental constructs of Corporate Social Responsibility theories); and (3) dialectic (which aims at improving the discursive quality between the corporations and their stakeholders). Each one of these refers to a different form of legitimacy (...) and is based on distinct theories of the firm analyzed in this article. We claim that dialectic rhetoric seems to signal a new understanding of the firm's role in society and a search for moral legitimation. However, this new form of rhetoric is still fairly uncommon although its use is growing. Combining theory and business examples, this article may help managers and researchers in the conceptualization of how firms make sense of their role in society and what forms of differentiation they strive for through their rhetoric strategies. (shrink)

This article examines Peter Singer’s animal ethic’s theory and argues that the utilitarian calculus’ inherent process of abstraction and homogenisation is epistemically violent because it erases animals’ singularities. I also argue that considering the sentience we can know of as the only characteristic that marks animals as worthy of moral considerability, as Singer does, can lead to violent actions towards animals because this logic erases all the violence that escapes sentientist logics. I show that key to this critique is Singer’s (...) misunderstanding of human sovereignty, and the relationship between human sovereignty and subjectivity. Further, I examine Singer’s conception of the “I”, and find that it is a lifeless and static one that leads his theory to foreclose ethical judgements. This article shows that animals’ irreducibility, vulnerabilities and otherness are sufficient to regard animals as worthy of moral considerability. Finally, I examine some practical implications of the arguments I advance. (shrink)

In this article, I explore whether domesticated animals (DAs) of different species belonging to the same community participate in authoring and sustaining, what I call, the fabric of zoodemocracy. The fabric refers to a set of activities, social norms, and values that together sustain our democracies (e.g. cooperation, protest, and helping one’s neighbour). I explore this by situating my intervention within systemic theories of democracy and the political turn in animal rights theory. Specifically, I situate my work within Donaldson and (...) Kymlicka’s zoopolitical project, arguing that animals are owed rights to participation in decision-making as community members. Some, however, challenge the idea that DAs can actually sustain democratic communities because they do not have, for example, the rational capacities to control themselves. Others suggest that there are conceptual and normative problems with the concept of co-authorship advanced by Donaldson and Kymlicka. This article addresses these debates by (1) identifying some of the key elements needed to sustain the fabric of democratic communities; and (2) empirically testing whether DAs have the necessary capacities to sustain such communities. I do this by analysing the data I collected while conducting a multispecies ethnography at VINE sanctuary, Springfield, Vermont, US, for 8 weeks.*. (shrink)

The purpose of this critical study is to examine the young Hugo von Hofmannsthal’s theory of form departing from the characterization that Kurt Breysig provides of his poetry as Treibhauskunst, that is, greenhouse art. It aims also to illustrate how Hofmannsthal finds in the theoretical developments of Gottfried Semper the most precise expression of his own concept of form. The main point of the paper is to show that, at the turn of the twentieth century, the metaphorization and the figuration (...) of the greenhouse derives from its architectural features both formal means and aesthetic attributes closely linked to moral values. (shrink)

El trabajo se ocupa de la sección de las Glosas a la Isagogé de Porfirio de Pedro Abelardo dedicada a las tres cuestiones sobre los universales. La parte “destructiva”, en la que Abelardo somete a crítica las doctrinas realistas de Guillermo de Champeaux no tiene un sentido meramente negativo, sino que busca llegar al punto de partida de la propia posición de Abelardo: las cosas no sólo difieren por sus formas (accidentes), sino también por sus materias (esencias). Al hablar de (...) la imagen correspondiente al nombre universal, Abelardo no se detiene a explicar la formación del concepto universal a partir de la cosa, sino que más bien se refiere a la significación intelectual de los términos, en tanto “generan intelecciones”. Esta omisión puede explicarse por el hecho de que, para Abelardo, la inteligencia humana rara vez o nunca llega a captar las esencias de las cosas. (shrink)

Reseña del llibro La Generación del 14. España ante su modernidad inacabada, editado por Hugo Aznar, Elvira Alonso y Manuel Menéndez.

Critical and comparative analysis on the philosophical thoughts of ʻAlī Sharīʻatī and Sir Muhammad Iqbal, 19th and 20th centuries Muslim philosophers.

Scholars are divided over the question of whether managerial aspirational talk that contradicts current business practices can contribute to corporate social responsibility (CSR). In this conceptual article, we explore the rhetorical dynamics of aspirational talk that either impede or foster CSR. We argue that self-persuasive CSR rhetoric, as one enactment of aspirational talk, can attract attention and scrutiny from organizational members. Continued adherence to this rhetoric, however, creates and perpetuates tensions that lead to a vicious circle of disengagement. A virtuous (...) circle, by contrast, requires a shift toward an agonistic rhetoric that transcends tensions by rearticulating aspirations in concurrence with situated understandings of responsible corporate practice. Our arguments contribute to a better understanding of how communication becomes constitutive of CSR and address the debate on decoupling between talk and action. (shrink)

The aim of our study is to show the ways in which family members coordinate their minds, bodies and language in a functional and goal-oriented manner when they are jointly remembering shared events that they had experienced together as a group. So far, little attention has been paid to the influence that the interplay of multiple behavioral channels have in collaborative remembering in small groups. Our goal is to specifically examine the central role that direct questions have when they act (...) as embodied reminders through the interanimation of multiple behavioral channels in family interactions. The video data for analysis comes from an ongoing project on how collaborative remembering takes places among small groups of Argentinean Spanish speakers as each group recalls a vacation taken together several years ago. (shrink)

Bakhsh-i avval. Akhlāq-i Islāmī -- Bakhsh-i duvvum. Ādāb-i ijtimāʻī.

A predominant assumption in studies of deliberative democracy is that stakeholder engagements will lead to rational consensus and to a common discourse on corporate social and environmental responsibilities. Challenging this assumption, we show that conflict is ineradicable and important and that affects constitute the dynamics of change of the discourses of responsibilities. On the basis of an analysis of social media engagements in the context of the grand challenge of plastic pollution, we argue that civil society actors use mobilization strategies (...) with their peers and inclusive-dissensus strategies with corporations to convert them to a new discourse. These strategies use moral affects to blame and shame corporations and solidarity affects to create feelings of identification with the group and to avoid disengagement and polarization. Our research contributes to the literature on deliberative democracy and stakeholder engagement in social media in the collective constructions of discourses on grand challenges. (shrink)

This paper develops a media theoretical extension of the communicative view on corporate social responsibility by elaborating on the characteristics of network societies, arguing that new media increase the speed and connectivity, and lead to higher plurality and the potential polarization of reality constructions. We discuss the implications for corporate social responsibility of becoming more polyphonic and sketch the contours of “communicative legitimacy.” Finally, we present this special issue and develop some questions for future research.

El trabajo se ocupa de la concepción acerca de la función y los límites de la enseñanza en el diálogo De magistro de Agustín de Hipona y en la undécima de las Cuestiones disputadas sobre la verdad de Tomás de Aquino. Explorando los límites del lenguaje y de la comunicación, Agustín concluye que el maestro propiamente no enseña, a lo sumo, advierte al discípulo para que pueda reconocer la verdad iluminado por el Maestro Interior. Para Aquino, el maestro propiamente puede (...) enseñar, pero con ello no hace más que asistir al discípulo para que efectúe con su razón el mismo recorrido que hace la razón humana al derivar las conclusiones de la ciencia a partir de los principios del conocimiento humano. A pesar de sus diferencias, ambos coinciden en que la enseñanza es cualquier cosa menos una “transferencia del saber”. (shrink)

Robert Ranisch’s and Stefan Lorenz Sorgner’s Post- and Transhumanism. An Introduction provides a broad background for anyone interested in the societal and philosophical repercussions of new technologies. As the title suggests, the volume specifically centers on the trans- and posthumanism debate, which, over the past two decades, has been focusing on the way our highly technological societies raise an entirely new set of questions that urge to be answered and discussed. Of particular importance to this debate is the necessity for (...) new understandings about what it means to be human in a world where the traditional distinctions between human and non-human, technology and biology, as well as nature and culture, are becoming increasingly ambiguous.The book’s self-announced aim is to address the concepts of trans- and posthumanism, exploring their ‘common foundations, topics, and resources of influence’ , as a means to help clarify a ‘widespread conceptual confusion’ . This is a .. (shrink)

Cosmology and the development of human society.

The power of the digital platforms and the increasing scope of their control over individuals and institutions have begun to generate societal concern. However, the ways in which digital platforms exercise power and organize immaturity—defined as the erosion of the individual’s capacity for public use of reason—have not yet been theorized sufficiently. Drawing on Bourdieu’s concepts of field, capitals, and habitus, we take a sociosymbolic perspective on platforms’ power dynamics, characterizing the digital habitus and identifying specific forms of platform power (...) and counterpower accumulation. We make two main contributions. First, we expand the concept of organized immaturity by adopting a sociological perspective, from which we develop a novel sociosymbolic view of platforms’ power dynamics. Our framework explains fundamental aspects of immaturity, such as self-infliction and emergence. Second, we contribute to the platform literature by developing a three-phase model of platform power dynamics over time. (shrink)

Influence of social culture change to the human development in Vietnam.

Study on the contributions of Vācaspatimiśra, fl. 976-1000 and Vijñānabhikṣu, 16th cent., commentrators and philosophers to Sankhya and Yoga philosophy.

Islamic ethics -- Early works to 1800. ; Kāshifī, Ḥusayn Vāʻiẓ, -1504 or 150; Akhlāq-i Muḥsinī.

Sanskrit text, with Sanskrit commentary of Anantaśaktipāda and English explanation on Śaivism, and Hindu philosophy.

Conservation scholarship and policies are concerned with the viability of idealized ecological communities constructed using human metrics. We argue that the discipline of conservation assumes an epistemology and ethics of human sovereignty/dominion over animals that leads to violent actions against animals. We substantiate our argument by deconstructing a case study. In the context of recent bushfires in Australia, we examine recent legislation passed by the parliament of New South Wales, policy documents, and academic articles by conservationists that support breaking communities (...) of horses and/or killing 4,000 horses in Kosciuszko National Park, NSW. Theoretically framing our deconstruction against human sovereignty over animals and anthropocentrism, we affirm an intersectional, ecofeminist approach that values animals as relational and vulnerable agents. We uncover first the epistemic violence of categorizing horses as “pests,” and the anthropocentric nature of recently passed legislation in NSW. We analyze next the deficient ethics of NSW's government, and the argument that killing animals is justifiable when they suffer from starvation and dehydration. We close with a realistic proposal that does not involve breaking horses’ communities and/or killing horses, and a plea to the government of NSW and conservationists not to harm any horses in KNP. (shrink)

In addition to thin concepts like the good, the bad and the ugly, our evaluative thought and talk appeals to thick concepts like the lewd and the rude, the selfish and the cruel, the courageous and the kind -- concepts that somehow combine evaluation and non-evaluative description. Thick concepts are almost universally assumed to be inherently evaluative in content, and many philosophers claimed them to have deep and distinctive significance in ethics and metaethics. In this first book-length treatment of thick (...) concepts, Pekka Väyrynen argues that all this is mistaken. Through detailed attention to the language of thick concepts, he defends a novel theory on which the relationship between thick words and evaluation is best explained by general conversational and pragmatic norms. Drawing on general principles in philosophy of language, he argues that many prominent features of thick words and concepts can be explained by general factors that have nothing in particular to do with being evaluative. If evaluation is not essential to the sort of thinking we do with thick concepts, claims for the deep and distinctive significance of the thick are undermined. The Lewd, the Rude and the Nasty is a fresh and innovative treatment of an important topic in moral philosophy and sets a new agenda for future work. It will be essential reading to anyone interested in the analysis and the broader philosophical significance of evaluative and normative language. (shrink)

Esta investigación analiza la presencia del discurso eurocéntrico en los manuales de Historia del Arte de Bachillerato desde una dimensión sociogenética. La muestra se compone de ejemplares pertenecientes a editoriales españolas de alcance nacional (Anaya, ECIR, Ediciones Ruiz, SM, Teide y Vicens Vives) en una cronología que comprende los distintos periodos por los que ha atravesado la materia entre 1953 y 2006. El estudio deriva de la aplicación de un guion de análisis documental que contempla, entre sus variables, la construcción (...) de identidades. Los resultados muestran la presencia y resistencia sociohistórica del discurso eurocéntrico en los manuales de Historia del Arte analizados, tendiéndose con ello a la construcción, reproducción y esencialización de identidades etnocéntricas. De este modo, para ahondar en la formación de una ciudadanía crítica, se hace necesario replantear los enfoques y las finalidades que fundamentan el relato de la Historia del Arte escolar en recursos como el que nos ocupa en este trabajo. (shrink)

En el presente trabajo presentamos la exposición de Meister Eckhart de la estructura metafísica del mundo creado a través del relevo de algunos pasajes nucleares de su obra, centralmente en el Comentario al Evangelio de Juan. Para ello, en primer lugar buscamos trazar paralelismos entre su argumentación y la presente en el Liber de Causis I.1-I.11 para señalar la impronta de este texto en el pensamiento eckhartiano. En segundo lugar, exponemos el modo abstracto de acceso al orden jerárquico que se (...) edifica entre el esse, el vivere y el intelligere. Finalmente, presentamos el modo concreto, señalando sus particularidades y su distinción respecto al modo abstracto. (shrink)