The most famous paradox in chinese philosophy, Kung-Sun lung's "white horse not horse" has been taken as evidence of platonism, Aristotelian essentialism, Class logic, Etc., In ancient chinese thought. I argue that a nominalistic interpretation utilizing the notion of "stuffs" (mass objects) is a more plausible explanation of the dialogue. It is more coherent internally, More consistent with kung-Sun lung's other dialogues, And the tradition of chinese thought which is usually regarded as nominalistic. The interpretation is also strongly suggested by (...) striking parallels between all chinese classificatory nouns and english mass nouns. (shrink)

Wicked problems’ are tricky to solve because of their many interconnected components and a lack of any single optimal solution. At the science–policy interface, all problems can look wicked: research exposes the complexity that is relevant to designing, executing and implementing policy fit for ambitious human needs. Expertise in philosophical research can help to navigate that complexity.

In addition to facing the known competitors in the formal economy, entrepreneurs must also be concerned with rivalry emanating from the informal economy. The informal economy is characterized by actions outside the normal scope of commerce, such as unsanctioned payments and gift-giving, as means of influencing competition. Scholars and policy makers alike have an interest in mitigating the impacts of such informal activity in that it might present an obstacle for legitimate commerce. Received theory suggests that country institutions can enable (...) and constrain productive activity, and, in doing so, influence competitive obstacles in a country. Leveraging 13,670 responses from entrepreneurs distributed across 59 countries, we provide evidence that two particular types of enabling institutions, countries’ property rights regulations and cooperative actions, are useful for lowering the obstacles presented by informal activity. We also find evidence that two constraining institutions, economic and financial regulations lead to more obstacles presented by informal activity. We describe implications for entrepreneurs, policy makers, and future researchers stemming from these findings. (shrink)

__Improving Education Together _offers a step-by-step guide to Labor-Management-Community (LMC) collaboration, an intervention that has successfully improved student outcomes in a wide variety of school districts across the country._ The authors illustrate how a culture of collaboration between labor, management, and community stakeholders can be built using readily available tools for needs assessment, root-cause analysis, team norms, brainstorming, consensus-building, and long-term planning. _Improving Education Together _offers detailed examples of how districts across the country—including Massachusetts, Maryland, and Illinois—have successfully implemented the (...) LMC approach, along with resources and strategies employed and lessons learned from obstacles and setbacks encountered along the way. Timely, useful, and accessible, this guide will appeal to a broad audience of school leaders, board members, and community leaders eager to learn more about how to collectively lead and manage school district change that is sustainable and results in improved teaching and learning. (shrink)

Political corruption imposes substantial costs on shareholders in the U.S. Yet, we understand little about the basic factors that exacerbate or mitigate the value consequences of political corruption. Using federal corruption convictions data, we find that firm-level economic rents and monitoring mechanisms moderate the negative relation between corruption and firm value. The value consequences of political corruption are exacerbated for firms operating in low-rent product markets and mitigated for firms subject to external monitoring by state governments or monitoring induced by (...) disclosure transparency. Our results should inform managers and policymakers of the tradeoffs imposed on firms operating in politically corrupt districts. (shrink)

Compersion ist ein affektiver Zustand, der häufig im Zusammenhang mit Polyamorie und allgemein nicht-monogamen Beziehungen diskutiert wird. Er wird in der Regel als eine positive emotionale Reaktion darauf beschrieben, dass die*der Partner*in Zeit und/oder Intimität mit anderen genießt, gewissermaßen als ‚das Gegenteil von Eifersucht‘. Wir argumentieren dafür, dass eine buddhistische Perspektive dazu beitragen kann, die Natur dieser bislang schlecht verstandenen Emotion zu erschließen. Indem wir eine buddhistische Perspektive auf Compersion einnehmen, die auf den sogenannten ‚vier göttlichen Verweilzuständen‘ basiert, d. h. (...) auf nicht-egozentrischen Zuständen, die Buddhist*innen zufolge ein gelingendes Leben erlauben, beschreiben wir (auch moralpraktisch) wichtige Facetten dieser Emotion, die sonst leicht übersehen werden. Ein solcher Ansatz, so argumentieren wir, bereichert nicht nur unser Verständnis von Compersion, sondern trägt auch zum Gelingen aller Arten von Beziehungen bei. (shrink)

La distinction entre les crimes qui impliquent un mal en soi et les crimes qui sont mauvais parce que la loi les désigne ainsi a longtemps intrigué les théoriciens. Le présent article soutient que cette distinction, bien qu’elle touche une différence réelle, est fondée sur une erreur. Cette erreur est commise tant par ceux qui considèrent le mal moral comme une condition nécessaire de la criminalité que par ceux qui croient que le simple fait de rendre une chose illégale suffit (...) à la rendre criminelle. Aucune de ces positions n’est correcte. Plutôt, ce qui rend un acte criminel, c’est le fait que cet acte implique la violation d’une loi qui a été justifiée en termes de «raison publique». (shrink)

En réponse à l’affirmation (ou l’accusation) d’un dualisme trop rigide tel qu’il est interprété à partir du Phédon, l’ouvrage de C. Jorgenson entend faire justice d’un ensemble de problèmes relatifs à l’âme incarnée, principalement dans la République, le Timée et le Philèbe. Peut-on envisager une analyse du composé âme-corps sur un autre mode que celui de la condamnation du corps? L’A. fait le choix d’un parcours en « questions » en sept chapitres afin de montrer que l’intérêt de cette quest...

This ambitious book presents a new interpretation of Chinese thought guided both by a philosopher's sense of mystery and by a sound philosophical theory of meaning. That dual goal, Hansen argues, requires a unified translation theory. It must provide a single coherent account of the issues that motivated both the recently untangled Chinese linguistic analysis and the familiar moral-political disputes. Hansen's unified approach uncovers a philosophical sophistication in Daoism that traditional accounts have overlooked. The Daoist theory treats the imperious intuitionism (...) that alienates critical thinkers as a feature of Confucianism alone. Freed from the view that Confucianism is the core of Chinese thought and from myopic Confucian interpretations, Chinese thinkers emerge as unmistakably philosophical. (shrink)

We present three experiments that explore the robustness of the _authentic-apparent effect_—the finding that participants are less likely to attribute knowledge to the protagonist in apparent- than in authentic-evidence Gettier cases. The results go some way towards suggesting that the effect is robust to assessments of the justificatory status of the protagonist’s belief. However, not all of the results are consistent with an effect invariant across two demographic contexts: American and Indian nationalities.

In this chapter, I make the case for platonic realism, the thesis that there are properties that lack spatial locations. After criticizing the one-over-many argument for realism and Lewis's argument for realism, I endorse a modal argument that derives the existence of platonic properties from considerations involving necessary truth. I then defend this argument from various objections. Finally, I argue that epistemic considerations and considerations of parsimony favor a weak form of platonic realism on which there are platonic properties, but (...) each property could have had an instance, and would have been located in its instances if it had any. (shrink)

Self-defining memories are touchstones in individuals’ narrative identity. This is the first SDM study to compare college students from the mainland People’s Republic of China to American college students. It examined SDMs, Big Five personality traits, and memory function in 60 students from each country. Participants rated their memories for affect, recall frequency, and importance. Chinese students recalled their most positively rated memories more frequently and with greater importance, while American students did not show this pattern. American students who scored (...) higher in Openness were more likely to recall negative memories. Memory content coding revealed that Chinese students recalled significantly more guilt/shame events than American students. Further analysis indicated that these memories were particularly focused on academic performance and parental expectations. The discussion suggests that follow-up studies look at differing emotion regulation strategies in the two countries, as well as at how the two different educational systems are affecting late adolescent identity formation processes. (shrink)

Scripture: early convictions -- Being taught: the Bible and the Reformed Scripture principle -- Dominus illuminatio mea: the school of the biblical witness -- Dominus et vivificantem: biblical witnesses as children of God.

This article responds to Gavan Duffy's critique of AnalogiesatWar in his recent essay on the agent-structure debate in the JJPS (2001, 2: 161giving structure its duestructure” with process, perceptual, and personality variables; (3) misinterprets my assumptions while neglecting the findings of recent works that corroborate the findings of AnalogiesatWar; and (4) fails to demonstrate one of his key suggestions, i.e. the importance of showing how agents and structures are mutually constitutive. The article concludes by discussing some pointers raised by the (...) exchange for furthering the agent-structure debate. (shrink)

In this book, Chad Jorgenson challenges the view that for Plato the good life is one of pure intellection, arguing that his last writings increasingly insist on the capacity of reason to impose measure on our emotions and pleasures. Starting from an account of the ontological, epistemological, and physiological foundations of the tripartition of the soul, he traces the increasing sophistication of Plato's thinking about the nature of pleasure and pain and his developing interest in sciences bearing on physical (...) reality. These theoretical shifts represent a movement away from a conception of human happiness as a purification or flight of the soul from the sensible to the intelligible, as in the Phaedo, towards a focus on the harmony of the individual as a psychosomatic whole under the hegemonic power of reason. (shrink)

Sackris and Beebe (2014) report the results of a series of studies that seem to show that there are cases in which many people are willing to attribute knowledge to a protagonist even when her belief is unjustified. These results provide some reason to conclude that the folk concept of knowledge does not treat justification as necessary for its deployment. In this paper, we report a series of results that can be seen as supporting this conclusion by going some way (...) towards ruling out an alternative account of Sackris and Beebe’s results—the possibility that the knowledge attributions that they witnessed largely stem from protagonist projection, a phenomenon in language use and interpretation in which the speaker uses words that the relevant protagonist might use to describe her own situation and the listener interprets the speaker accordingly. With that said, we do caution the reader against drawing the conclusion too strongly, on the basis of results like those reported here and by Sackris and Beebe. There are alternative possibilities regarding what drives the observed knowledge attributions in cases of unjustified true belief that must be ruled out before, on the basis of such results, we can conclude with much confidence that the folk concept of knowledge does not treat justification as necessary for its deployment. (shrink)

This thesis is guided by the following question: what, if anything, makes a life meaningful? My answer to this question is asymmetric welfarism about meaning in life. According to asymmetric welfarism, the meaning of a life depends upon two factors. First, a life is conferred meaning insofar as it promotes or protects the well-being of other welfare subjects. Second, a life is made meaningless insofar as it decreases or minimises the well-being of other welfare subjects. The meaning of a life (...) is determined by the net balance between these two factors; the more the good outweighs the bad, the more meaningful a life that is. I argue that asymmetric welfarism is the most plausible theory about meaning in life. To do this, I show how such a view captures a variety of intuitions about meaning in life while defending it from objections. This is the business of chapters 1, 2, and 3. Specifically, chapter 1 lays the groundwork, chapter 2 advances the case in favour of asymmetric welfarism, while chapter 3 defends asymmetric welfarism from objections. But some objections cannot be so easily overturned by a mere argument. Such objections do not just count against asymmetric welfarism, but also support competing theories. In order to overcome both, I show how such objections, and the theories they motivate, are best understood as tracking a different, but related, evaluative dimension a life can have. This is the business of chapters 4, 5, and 6. Specifically, chapter 4 argues that subjective theories are best understood as being about fulfilment, chapter 5 argues that purpose theories are best understood as being about purpose, and chapter 6 argues that differing views about the role of morality confuse morality and significance with meaning. These other evaluative dimensions which stand alongside meaning in life are fulfilment, purpose, significance, morality, and prudential value. (shrink)

Explores the embodied aspects of ownership and private property as these emerge in a range of American literary texts across the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century.

Explores the embodied aspects of ownership and private property as these emerge in a range of American literary texts across the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century.

The standard conception of God is that of a necessary being. On a possible worlds semantics, this entails that God exists at every possible world. According to the modal realist account of David Lewis, possible worlds are understood to be real, concrete worlds—no different in kind from the actual world. Some have argued that Lewis’s view is incompatible with classical theism (e.g., Sheehy, 2006). More recently, Ross Cameron (2009) has defended the thesis that Lewisian modal realism and classical theism are (...) in fact compatible. I argue that this is not the case. Modal realism, I argue, is equipped to accommodate necessary beings in only one of three ways: (1) By way of counterpart theory, or (2) by way of a special case of trans-world identity for causally inert necessary beings (e.g., pure sets), or else (3) causally potent ones which lack accidental intrinsic properties. However, each of these three options entails unacceptable consequences—(1) and (2) are incompatible with theism, and (3) is incompatible with modal realism. I conclude that (at least) one of these views is false. (shrink)

Positively re-assesses the relationship between body and soul in Plato's later dialogues, focusing on the harmony between them.

We present experimental results that support the claim that the folk concept of knowledge how is an epistemological hybrid, encompassing both intellectualist and praxist elements.

Pinillos’ Why We Doubt presents a powerful critique of such global skeptical assertions as “I don’t know I am not a brain-in-a-vat (BIV)” by introducing a cognitive mechanism that is sensitive to error possibilities and a Bayesian rule of rationality that this mechanism is designed to approximate. This multifaceted argument offers a novel counter to global skepticism, contending that our basis for believing such premises is underminable. In this work, we engage with Pinillos’ adoption of Bayesianism, questioning whether the Bayesian (...) principle that he invokes truly does fail to generate the verdict that we don’t we aren’t BIVs, contrary to what Pinillos asserts. Furthermore, we argue that Pinillos’ empirical argument is not empirical enough; we need a lot more empirical work if we are going to counter global skepticism and win over neutral bystanders. (shrink)

I propose a taxonomy of arguments for the existence of God and survey those categories of arguments I identify as nontraditional. I conclude with two general observations about theistic arguments, followed by suggestions for going forward.

Rose and Schaffer (forthcoming) argue that teleological thinking has a substantial influence on folk intuitions about composition. They take this to show (i) that we should not rely on folk intuitions about composition and (ii) that we therefore should not reject theories of composition on the basis of intuitions about composition. We cast doubt on the teleological interpretation of folk judgments about composition; we show how their debunking argument can be resisted, even on the assumption that folk intuitions have a (...) teleological source; and we argue that, even if folk intuitions about composition carry no weight, theories of composition can still be rejected on the basis of the intuitions of metaphysicians. (shrink)