Do philosophic views affect job performance? The authors found that possessing a belief in free will predicted better career attitudes and actual job performance. The effect of free will beliefs on job performance indicators were over and above well-established predictors such as conscientiousness, locus of control, and Protestant work ethic. In Study 1, stronger belief in free will corresponded to more positive attitudes about expected career success. In Study 2, job performance was evaluated objectively and independently by a supervisor. Results (...) indicated that employees who espoused free will beliefs were given better work performance evaluations than those who disbelieve in free will, presumably because belief in free will facilitates exerting control over one’s actions. (shrink)

What does free will mean to laypersons? The present investigation sought to address this question by identifying how laypersons distinguish between free and unfree actions. We elicited autobiographical narratives in which participants described either free or unfree actions, and the narratives were subsequently subjected to impartial analysis. Results indicate that free actions were associated with reaching goals, high levels of conscious thought and deliberation, positive outcomes, and moral behavior (among other things). These findings suggest that lay conceptions of free will (...) fit well with the view that free will is a form of action control. (shrink)

Slurs are words with a well-known tendency to conjure up painful memories and experiences in members of their target communities. Owing to this tendency, it’s widely agreed that one ought to exercise considerable care when even mentioning a slur, so as to avoid needlessly inflicting distressing associations on members of the relevant group. This paper argues that this tendency to evoke distressing associations is precisely what makes slurs impactful verbal weapons. According to the ballistic theory, slurs make such potent insults (...) because they enable their users to maliciously inflict noxious associations on members of their target groups. To motivate this theory, I demonstrate its ability to explain a number of facts about slurs’ offensiveness that pose formidable difficulties for competing theories of slurs. I argue that the ballistic theory not only explains why slurs make such explosively impactful terms of abuse, but also why: uses of slurs can provoke offense even when they aren’t interpreted as expressions of the speaker’s racist attitudes; and why mentions of slurs are inoffensive in some contexts, but in other contexts, warrant a level of offense every bit as severe as that warranted by weaponized uses. I conclude with a brief discussion of a practical application of the ballistic theory. I demonstrate that the theory has an important consequence for legislative efforts to regulate and punish weaponized uses of slurs. (shrink)

This book focuses on Hegel's philosophy of spirit, his major concept and the core of his mature system. It does not so much define Geist as it does illustrate its many forms and manifestations.

From the early postwar period until his death at the turn of the century, Dwight Waldo was one of the most authoritative voices in the field of public administration. Through probing questions, creative ideas, and ever-developing arguments, he perhaps contributed more than any other single figure to the development of public administration as a discipline in the 20th century, equally in his classic, masterful debut The Administrative State as in his last unpublished writings. In this new deep dive into Dwight (...) Waldo's writing, editor Richard Stillman offers a representative selection of Waldo's most important works alongside introductory essays to help the seasoned public administration scholar and the novice student alike appreciate Waldo's contribution to public service as a crucial and colorful field of study. Selections have been chosen for their ability to speak to current and ongoing concerns in the field, their brevity, and their accessibility to those newer to the field. This anthology provides new generations of readers a fresh look at the work of this prolific, profoundly influential author, while offering experienced scholars/practitioners in the field renewed access to many of his hard-to-find works. In particular, selections of Waldo's previously unpublished magnum opus on democracy and bureaucracy are included. This book will be required reading for all those interested in public administration as a field of inquiry or practice. (shrink)

It is a core commitment of Epistemic Two-Dimensionalism that an utterance is 1-necessary iff it is a priori. But Jeff Speaks's Argument from Misclassification proves that, on a natural interpretation, E2D assigns necessary 1-intensions to many utterances that speakers deem a posteriori. Given that 1-intensions are meant to formalize a speaker's own understanding of the words she utters, this proof raises serious difficulties for E2D. In response, Elliott, McQueen, and Weber point out that the Argument from Misclassification presupposes a controversial (...) theory of reference-fixation for proper names and argue that E2Dists ought to reject this theory. They discuss three alternatives to the theory that render E2D immune to the Argument from Misclassification. I demonstrate here that each of these alternatives either replicates the faults of the original theory by assigning necessary 1-intensions to a posteriori utterances, or makes 1-intensions creatures of darkness. I argue that, although the A.. (shrink)

Erickson's conclusion that if basic tastes are not appropriate at one level, reference to labeled lines is inappropriate at any level, depends on matters of definition and scope. His population model mirrors Young's theory of color perception. However, there is evidence for distinct pathways to the cortex for two cone-opponent and one achromatic channel. Depending on the use made of key terms, sensory systems may display both across-fiber and labeled-line features.

For forty years, beginning with the publication of the first modern English translation of the Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems, Stillman Drake was the most original and productive scholar of Galileo's scientific work of our age. During that time, he published sixteen books on Galileo, including translations of almost all the major writings, and Galileo at Work, the most comprehensive study of Galileo's life and works ever written. His collection Discoveries and Opinions on Galileohas remained in print (...) since its appearance in 1957 and has become the most widely read of all books on Galileo. In addition to his books, Drake published about 130 papers, of which nearly 100 are on Galileo and the rest on related aspects of the history and philosophy of science. This three-volume collection includes eighty of those papers. Drake's papers are an essential supplement to his translations and other books because it was in his papers that he wrote his most detailed technical studies of Galileo's scientific work. There is hardly a subject in Galileo's science that is not considered. Perhaps the most important is the series on mechanics and motion, in which Drake analysed Galileo's manuscript notes recording the experiments by which he discovered and confirmed the law of the acceleration of falling bodies. There are also papers on the notes in which Galileo recorded his discovery of Jupiter's satellites and on other aspects of Galileo's astronomy, including his defence of the Copernican theory. Other papers consider Galileo's life and scientific work in general, exploring what Drake calls the 'scientific personality' of Galileo along with his scientific method and philosophy of science. In addition to the papers on Galileo, there are a number of papers on medieval and early modern science, principally on mechanics, and on the philosophers A.B. Johnson and J.B. Stallo, both of whom influenced Drake's own philosophy of science. (shrink)

The hardest part of replicating a genome is the beginning. The first step of DNA replication (called “initiation”) mobilizes a large number of specialized proteins (“initiators”) that recognize specific sequences or structural motifs in the DNA, unwind the double helix, protect the exposed ssDNA, and recruit the enzymatic activities required for DNA synthesis, such as helicases, primases and polymerases. All of these components are orderly assembled before the first nucleotide can be incorporated. On the occasion of the 50th anniversary of (...) the discovery of the DNA structure, we review our current knowledge of the molecular mechanisms that control initiation of DNA replication in eukaryotic cells, with particular emphasis on the recent identification of novel initiator proteins. We speculate how these initiators assemble molecular machines capable of performing specific biochemical tasks, such as loading a ring‐shaped helicase onto the DNA double helix. BioEssays 25:1158–1167, 2003. © 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. (shrink)