This is an interview with Edward S. Casey, conducted by Donald A. Landes.

Alzheimer's disease results from the degeneration of neurons. Degenerating nerve cells express atypical proteins, and amyloid is deposited. We suggest that some of these events are strongly influenced by genetic factors and age. Animal models should be useful in investigating the pathogenic mechanisms that lead to the brain abnormalities seen in this disease.

The Life of the Transcendental Ego presents essays by a number of distinguished writers in the continental tradition of philosophy. The essays include problems in transcendental philosophy, the nature of autobiography, the validity of existentialism, the possibilities of phenomenology, as well as focused discussions of concrete issues in aesthetics and ethics.

The study examines the relationship between the strength of an organizationÕs ethical climate and ethical problems involving human resource management. Data were collected through a survey of 1078 human resource managers. The results indicate a statistically significant negative relationship between the strength of an organization'ss ethical climate and the seriousness of ethical violations and a statistically significant positive relationship between an organization'ss ethical climate and success in responding to ethical issues. Thus, interventions that strengthen an organization'ss ethical climate may help (...) manage ethical behavior within organizations. (shrink)

This book is a rich blend of analyses by leading experts from various cultures and disciplines. A compact introduction to a complex field, it illustrates biotechnology's profound impact upon the environment and society. Moreover, it underscores the vital relevance of cultural values. This book empowers readers to more critically assess biotechnology's value and effectiveness within both specific cultural and global contexts.

Recovering Reason: Essays in Honor of Thomas L. Pangle is a collection of essays composed by students and friends of Thomas L. Pangle to honor his seminal work and outstanding guidance in the study of political philosophy. These essays examine both Socrates' and modern political philosophers' attempts to answer the question of the right life for human beings, as those attempts are introduced and elaborated in the work of thinkers from Homer and Thucydides to Nietzsche and Charles Taylor.

At the forefront of international concerns about global legislation and regulation, a host of noted environmentalists and business ethicists examine ethical issues in consumption from the points of view of environmental sustainability, economic development, and free enterprise.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Mismapping the Underworld: Daring and Error in Dante’s ‘Comedy’Edward Donald KennedyMismapping the Underworld: Daring and Error in Dante’s ‘Comedy,’ by John Kleiner; 182 pp. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1994, $32.50.Critics once emphasized the unity and apparent perfection of Dante’s Divine Comedy. In Mismapping the Underworld, John Kleiner emphasizes instead the imperfections, the inconsistencies, and inaccuracies in Dante’s work both to give a more accurate assessment of (...) Dante’s artistry and, as he remarks, to help readers “learn to enjoy” the imperfections (p. 2).The five chapters of the book are devoted to various cruces in the Vita nuova and the Comedy. The first chapter considers numerology in the Vita nuova: pointing out that scholars’ arguments for that work’s numerological symmetry have been flawed, Kleiner asks if Dante had as much “passion for order” as scholars have assumed. The second chapter, from which the title of the book is taken, considers earlier scholars’ attempts to draw accurate maps of Dante’s vision of Hell and inaccuracies and inconsistencies in that vision. Probably not many readers, for example, have realized that Satan, partially buried in the ice of Cocytus at the bottom of Hell, must be about 2,500 feet tall, if one calculates his height from the evidence Dante has given us, and even the part of his body extending above the ice must approximate “the height of the World Trade Center.” One must then ask how Dante, the narrator in the poem, is able to give such detailed descriptions of the tormented bodies of Cassius, Brutus, and Judas dangling from Satan’s mouth: “at their height they should be as insignificant a sight as a trio of deluded tourists waving from the top of the Empire State Building” (p. 44). One of the reasons why scholars have attempted to map the underworld so precisely is, as Kleiner points out, that Dante makes it seem so much more concrete than the “dreamlike” surface of earth. (Here C. S. Lewis may have taken a clue from Dante, in his notion that the concrete belongs to Heaven, that things on earth are only “shadowlands.”)The third chapter concerns Dante’s reputation as a student of classical literature. Here, focusing on two cantos of the Inferno and the Purgatorio, Kleiner considers Dante’s inaccurate citations from Virgil, Statius, and other [End Page 415] classical writers and his intentional use of “masterful distortions” to create the effect he wanted. In the fourth chapter, Kleiner discusses Dante’s use of scientific material, such as his precise description of the duration of a lunar eclipse that no one on earth would have been able to gauge and his design of an impossible experiment concerning reflected light. The final chapter associates Dante’s interest in Geryon, the monster who appears in Canto 16 of the Inferno, with the medieval fascination with the grotesque. Moreover, the Ovidian allusions in this canto, Kleiner believes, make the encounter with Geryon a meditation on poetry and show “fiction’s proximity to fraud, its perilous attractiveness, and its susceptibility to perversion” (p. 132). Thus the Geryon episode represents Dante’s concern with the dangers inherent in reading, dangers depicted earlier in the Inferno in, for example, the Francesca and Paolo episode of Canto V, in which the lovers had been seduced into committing adultery after reading the story of Lancelot and Guinevere. In such episodes, Dante reminds us of the power a writer has over his readers and of his duty not to use that power irresponsibly.Because of the post-Renaissance emphasis on the importance of unity in a work of art and the later emphasis on realism, earlier critics naturally emphasized the unity and consistency of Dante’s work. A great work, they assumed, had to have these qualities. As Kleiner’s book reminds us, however, earlier writers did not always prize them as highly as modern critics do, and some inconsistencies and errors (some deliberate, some not) seem to have been acceptable. Inaccurate citations of classical works are due in part to the fact that medieval writers often knew earlier works only from commonplace books and in part to... (shrink)

Book reviewed in this article: Ethics in Social and Behavioral Research. By Edward Diener and Rick Crandall The Ethics of Social Intervention. Gordon Bermant, Herbert C. Kelman, Donald P. Warwick.

As one of the most important ethicists to emerge since the Second World War, Alan Gewirth continues to influence philosophical debates concerning morality. In this ground-breaking book, Gewirth's neo-Kantianism, and the communitarian problems discussed, form a dialogue on the foundation of moral theory. Themes of agent-centered constraints, the formal structure of theories, and the relationship between freedom and duty are examined along with such new perspectives as feminism, the Stoics, and Sartre. Gewirth offers a picture of the philosopher's theory and (...) its applications, providing a richer, more complete critical assessement than any which has occurred to date. (shrink)

Based on responses from 1078 human resource (HR) professionals, this study concludes that there is not an ethical crisis in the work place. Seven of 37 situations were rated as serious problems by more than 25% of the respondents. HR reported that their organizations are serious about uncovering and disciplining ethical misconduct, top management has a commitment to ethical business conduct, personal principles are not compromised to conform to company expectations, and performance pressures do not lead to unethical conduct.

Winner of the 2014 Edward Goodwin Ballard Award for an Outstanding Book in Phenomenology, awarded by the Center for Advance Research in Phenomenology. -/- Merleau-Ponty and the Paradoxes of Expression offers a comprehensive reading of the philosophical work of Maurice Merleau-Ponty, a central figure in 20th-century continental philosophy. -/- By establishing that the paradoxical logic of expression is Merleau-Ponty's fundamental philosophical gesture, this book ties together his diverse work on perception, language, aesthetics, politics and history in order to establish (...) the ontological position he was developing at the time of his sudden death in 1961. Donald A. Landes explores the paradoxical logic of expression as it appears in both Merleau-Ponty’s explicit reflections on expression and his non-explicit uses of this logic in his philosophical reflection on other topics, and thus establishes a continuity and a trajectory of his thought that allows for his work to be placed into conversation with contemporary developments in continental philosophy. The book offers the reader a key to understanding Merleau-Ponty's subtle methodology and highlights the urgency and relevance of his research into the ontological significance of expression for today's work in art and cultural theory. (shrink)

Around the globe, economists affect markets by saying what markets are doing, what they should do, and what they will do. Increasingly, experimental economists are even designing real-world markets. But, despite these facts, economists are still largely thought of as scientists who merely observe markets from the outside, like astronomers look at the stars. Do Economists Make Markets? boldly challenges this view. It is the first book dedicated to the controversial question of whether economics is performative--of whether, in some cases, (...) economics actually produces the phenomena it analyzes.The book's case studies--including financial derivatives markets, telecommunications-frequency auctions, and individual transferable quotas in fisheries--give substance to the notion of the performativity of economics in an accessible, nontechnical way. Some chapters defend the notion; others attack it vigorously. The book ends with an extended chapter in which Michel Callon, the idea's main formulator, reflects upon the debate and asks what it means to say economics is performative.The book's insights and strong claims about the ways economics is entangled with the markets it studies should interest--and provoke--economic sociologists, economists, and other social scientists.In addition to the editors and Callon, the contributors include Marie-France Garcia-Parpet, Francesco Guala, Emmanuel Didier, Philip Mirowski, Edward Nik-Khah, Petter Holm, Vincent-Antonin Lépinay, and Timothy Mitchell. (shrink)

From his initial writings on imagination and memory, to his recent studies of the glance and the edge, the work of American philosopher Edward S. Casey continues to shape 20th-century philosophy. In this first study dedicated to his rich body of work, distinguished scholars from philosophy, urban studies and architecture as well as artists engage with Casey's research and ideas to explore the key themes and variations of his contribution to the humanities. -/- Structured into three major parts, the (...) volume reflects the central concerns of Casey's writings: an evolving phenomenology of imagination, memory, and place; representation and landscape painting and art; and edges, glances, and voice. Each part begins with an extended interview that defines and explains the topics, concepts, and stakes of each of area of research. Readers are thus offered an introduction to Casey’s fascinating body of work, and will gain a new insight into particular aspects and applications of Casey's research. -/- With a complete bibliography and an introduction that at once stresses each of Casey’s areas of research while putting into perspective their overarching themes, this authoritative volume identifies the overall coherence and interconnections of Edward S. Casey's work and his impact in contemporary thought. (shrink)

Edward R. Murrow's reputation began and grew with World War II. This analysis, focused on his radio reporting, concerns two reports filed after he accompanied a bombing mission over Germany. The two reports provide a unique analytic opportunity because their foundation is in a singular experience. It is an analysis of the decision process, with ethical questions central to the development of the story, it is an application of classical ethical theory to a historical object for the purposes of (...) creating an understanding of media heritage and the application of moral philosophy. (shrink)

G. E. Moore's fame as a philosopher rests on his ethics of love and beauty, which inspired Bloomsbury, and on his 'common sense' certainties which challenge abstract philosophical theory. Behind this lies his critical engagement with Kant's idealist philosophy, which is published here for the first time. These early writings, Moore's fellowship dissertations of 1897 and 1898, show how he initiated his influential break with idealism. In 1897 his main target was Kant's ethics, but by 1898 it was the whole (...) Kantian project of transcendental philosophy that he rejected, and the theory which he developed to replace it gave rise to the new project of philosophy as logical analysis. This edition includes comments by Moore's examiners Henry Sidgwick, Edward Caird and Bernard Bosanquet, and in a substantial introduction the editors explore the crucial importance of the dissertations to the history of twentieth-century philosophical thought. (shrink)

This chapter argues for the History of England’s importance in Hume’s overall achievement. The chapter describes the History’s genesis, reception, methods, and aims. In the role of historian, Hume shared with the ancients the assumption that history is an elevated genre functioning as the “Mistress of Wisdom.” Yet this long work is more notable for historiographical innovation. Like William Robertson and Edward Gibbon, Hume wrote conjectural or philosophical history. Like Machiavelli, Voltaire, and Montesquieu, Hume wrote civil or cultural history, (...) including detailed information on political events, law, commerce, and manners. In a larger sense, the History demonstrates a great philosopher leaving his study to deal with that practical, sometimes intractable world outside the study. A priori reasoning is tested against that a posteriori reality provided by historical evidence. Thus, in writing the History, Hume became an empiricist in an almost literal sense. (shrink)

Arthur O. Lovejoy conceived of the history of ideas as an interdisciplinary study, encompassing a variety of fields, including literary history, comparative literature, the history of folklore and ethnography, the history of language and the history of religious beliefs. This volume gathers together some of the most significant articles concerning the theory and practice of intellectual history, by Lovejoy himself and other scholars. Contributors: DONALD R. KELLEY, ARTHUR O. LOVEJOY, FREDERICK J. TEGGART, LEO SPITZER, THEODORE SPENCER, ABRAHAM EDEL, PAUL (...) O. KRISTELLER, PHILIP P. WIENER, JOSEPH A. MAZZEO, LEONARD KRIEGER, DANIEL J. WILSON, EDWARD P. MAHONEY, FRANCIS OAKLEY,JOHANN HUIZINGA, JOSEPH KATZ, CALVIN G. RAND, NILS B. KVASTAD, LESTER G. CROCKER and PATRICK H. HUTTON. (shrink)

If patriotism can thus be seen as an incentive or as an instigation even in such a recondite science as epistemology, how much more readily can it be seen to perform such functions in other studies more immediately or inextricably bound up with communal human life? I pass over instances that occur to me—for instance, the Victorian Jesuit, Father Hopkins, declaring that every good poem written by an Englishman was a blow struck for England--and profit instead, if I may, by (...) the presence among us of Edward Said. I do not know, and it is none of my business to know, what passport Said presents at the international frontier. But it is surely common knowledge among us that he has deep and feelingful and intimate allegiances to the state of Lebanon. Who of us has failed to connect this with his books Orientalism and The Question of Palestine? The point is that, having made this connection, none of us thinks the worse of Said. On the contrary, we recognize that he has a special stake in such topics and therefore speaks on them with a special authority. Unless I am mistaken, that stake and that authority are, in a perhaps extended sense, patriotic. And whatever our speculative objections to the idea and the principle of patriotism, in practice we recognize it and we honour it.What I am questioning, it will now be plain, is the principle of "disinterest." "The disinterested pursuit of knowledge"—it is what in our distinct disciplines all of us have paid lip-service to, and perhaps more than lip-service. But when we come right down to it, is it what we believe? The honest patriot declares an interest; and if we are wise, we take note of the declaration, making allowances and reserving doubts accordingly. But what are we to make of the scholar who declares no interest, who claims implicitly to be truly disinterested. Can we believe him? And if we cannot, what guidance do we have as to what reservations to make, what doubts to entertain? I am of one mind with my Marxist colleagues who, from a political position very far from mine, warn us to be especially suspicious of the scholar who claims to have no axe to grind. We, all of us, have axes to grind; the crucial distinction is between those who know this about themselves and those who don't.Let me make myself clear. When I urge that the terms "patriotism" and "patriotic" be reinstated in our discourse, and particularly in those forms of our discourse that may be called "interpretation," I do not imply that patriotism is a nobler, a more elevated instigation than sundry others, mostly ideological, of which we are more aware. The point is precisely that of these others we are aware because we share a vocabulary which acknowledges them, whereas "patriotic" has been banished from our vocabulary, and so the reality which the word represents is left out of our calculations. Let me admit for the sake of argument what I do not in fact believe-- that patriotism is a concept and a sentiment so besmirched by the unholy uses made of it that, if mankind is to survive, patriotism will have to be eradicated. Even if that were the case, it remains true that patriotic interest and incitement are very far from having been eradicated from the world that we in fact inhabit, and try to interpret, here and now; and if we try to work within a vocabulary that pretends otherwise, we condemn ourselves to producing interpretations that are drastically partial and perhaps disastrously misleading. The point is not whether patriotism is a good thing or a bad thing but simply that it is; it exists, as powerful factor which we all in our hearts acknowledge even as our vocabulary refuses to. And when we speak in this context of "the world," we certainly include in that world ourselves, who offer to interpret it. Every one of our interpretations is coloured by the fact that we, the several interpreters, are British or American, French or Italian or Russian or whatever. If we think otherwise, we deceive ourselves; and yet where, in any of our currently acceptable vocabularies, determined as all of them are by the glib rationalism of the Enlightenment, do we find that momentous fact about ourselves acknowledged? Where is it acknowledged, for instance, in the vocabulary of feminism that "woman," as conceived by an American writing about Italians, cannot help but be significantly different from "woman" as conceived by an Italian looking at Americans? Or again, an Italian woman may well, we must suppose, be an Italian patriot; but where, in the current vocabulary of feminists, is that dimension of her "woman-ness" allowed for? Let it be acknowledged only so as to be deplored; but let it in any event be acknowledged. At the moment, it isn't.Donald A. Davie, the distinguished poet, is Andrew W. Mellon Professor of the Humanities at Vanderbilt University and honorary fellow of Saint Catharine's College, Cambridge and of Trinity College, Dublin. He has edited The New Oxford Book of Christian Verse, and his Collected Poems 1950-1970 appeared in 1972. His latest publications are Dissentient Voice and These the Companions; Recollections. (shrink)