Many Western philosophers are poorly informed about the issues involved in nonduality, since this topic is usually associated with various kinds of absolute idealism in the West, or mystical traditions in the East. Increasingly, however, this topic is finding its way into Western philosophical debates. In this "scholarly but leisurely and very readable" (Spectrum Review) analysis of the philosophies of nondualism of (Hindu) Vedanta, Mahayana Buddhism, and Taoism, Loy extracts what he calls "a core doctrine" of nonduality of seer and (...) seen from these three worldviews and then applies the doctrine in various ways, including a critique of Derrida's deconstructionism. (shrink)

Tens of thousands of students have learned to be more discerning at constructing and evaluating arguments with the help of Patrick J. Hurley. Hurley’s lucid, friendly, yet thorough presentation has made A CONCISE INTRODUCTION TO LOGIC the most widely used logic text in North America. In addition, the book’s accompanying technological resources, such as CengageNOW and Learning Logic, include interactive exercises as well as video and audio clips to reinforce what you read in the book and hear in class. (...) In short, you’ll have all the assistance you need to become a more logical thinker and communicator. Important Notice: Media content referenced within the product description or the product text may not be available in the ebook version. (shrink)

Coherent, well organized text familiarizes readers with complete theory of logical inference and its applications to math and the empirical sciences. Part I deals with formal principles of inference and definition; Part II explores elementary intuitive set theory, with separate chapters on sets, relations, and functions. Last section introduces numerous examples of axiomatically formulated theories in both discussion and exercises. Ideal for undergraduates; no background in math or philosophy required.

Moving from a purely religious rebirth to works grounded in a personal philosophy or aesthetic vocation, the autobiographies considered in this book stand as episodes in a genealogy of conversion.

At least since Aristotle’s famous 'sea-battle' passages in On Interpretation 9, some substantial minority of philosophers has been attracted to the doctrine of the open future--the doctrine that future contingent statements are not true. But, prima facie, such views seem inconsistent with the following intuition: if something has happened, then (looking back) it was the case that it would happen. How can it be that, looking forwards, it isn’t true that there will be a sea battle, while also being true (...) that, looking backwards, it was the case that there would be a sea battle? This tension forms, in large part, what might be called the problem of future contingents. A dominant trend in temporal logic and semantic theorizing about future contingents seeks to validate both intuitions. Theorists in this tradition--including some interpretations of Aristotle, but paradigmatically, Thomason (1970), as well as more recent developments in Belnap, et. al (2001) and MacFarlane (2003, 2014)--have argued that the apparent tension between the intuitions is in fact merely apparent. In short, such theorists seek to maintain both of the following two theses: (i) the open future: Future contingents are not true, and (ii) retro-closure: From the fact that something is true, it follows that it was the case that it would be true. It is well-known that reflection on the problem of future contingents has in many ways been inspired by importantly parallel issues regarding divine foreknowledge and indeterminism. In this paper, we take up this perspective, and ask what accepting both the open future and retro-closure predicts about omniscience. When we theorize about a perfect knower, we are theorizing about what an ideal agent ought to believe. Our contention is that there isn’t an acceptable view of ideally rational belief given the assumptions of the open future and retro-closure, and thus this casts doubt on the conjunction of those assumptions. (shrink)

The problem : commerce and corruption -- Smith's defense of commercial society -- What is corruption? : political and psychological perspectives -- Smith on corruption : from the citizen to the human being -- The solution : moral philosophy -- Liberal individualism and virtue ethics -- Social science vs. moral philosophy -- Types of moral philosophy : natural jurisprudence vs. ethics -- Types of ethics : utilitarianism, deontology, and virtue ethics -- Virtue ethics : modern, ancient, and Smithean -- Interlude (...) : the what and the how of TMS VI -- The what : Sith's "practical system of morality" -- The how : rhetoric, audience, and the methods of practical ethics -- The how : the ascent of self-love in three stages -- Prudence or commercial virtue -- The challenge : from praise to prudence -- Educating the vain : fathers and sons -- Self-interest rightly understood -- The advantages and disadvantages of prudence -- Magnanimity or classical virtue -- The problems of prudence and the therapy of magnanimity -- Up from individualism : desert, praiseworthiness, conscience -- Modernity, antiquity, and magnanimity -- The dangers of magnanimity -- Beneficence or christian virtue -- Between care and caritas -- Benevolence and beneficence and the human telos -- The character and purposes of the wise and virtuous man -- Wisdom and virtue and Adam Smith's apology -- Epilogue: The "economy of greatness". (shrink)

This book launches a sustained defense of a radical interpretation of the doctrine of the open future. Patrick Todd argues that all claims about undetermined aspects of the future are simply false.

Most definitions of radical emergentism characterize it epistemologically. This leads to misunderstandings and makes it hard to assess the doctrine's metaphysical worth. This paper puts forward purely metaphysical characterizations of emergentism and property emergence. It explores the nature of the necessitation relation between base and emergent and argues that emergentism entails a Humean account of causation and related relations. Then it presents arguments against emergentism, both as a wider metaphysic and as an account of consciousness. These maintain that emergentism makes (...) implausible claims about how the world works. The paper also stresses the doctrine's contemporary relevance: most current property dualists endorse views effectively identical to classical emergentism less its historical commitment to novel emergent forces. (shrink)

It is widely accepted that there is what has been called a non-hypocrisy norm on the appropriateness of moral blame; roughly, one has standing to blame only if one is not guilty of the very offence one seeks to criticize. Our acceptance of this norm is embodied in the common retort to criticism, “Who are you to blame me?”. But there is a paradox lurking behind this commonplace norm. If it is always inappropriate for x to blame y for a (...) wrong that x has committed, then all cases in which x blames x (i.e. cases of self-blame) are rendered inappropriate. But it seems to be ethical common-sense that we are often, sadly, in position (indeed, excellent, privileged position) to blame ourselves for our own moral failings. And thus we have a paradox: a conflict between the inappropriateness of hypocritical blame, and the appropriateness of self-blame. We consider several ways of resolving the paradox, and contend none is as defensible as a position that simply accepts it: we should never blame ourselves. In defending this startling position, we defend a crucial distinction between self-blame and guilt. (shrink)

In a paper presented at a symposium on structuralism at the Johns Hopkins University in 1968, the historian Charles Morazé analyzed the issue of invention largely with reference to mathematics and the theory of Henri Poincare.1 Poincare, along with the physiologist Hermann von Helmholtz, was the first to put forward a theory of scientific discovery as occurring in discrete phases. In 1926, Joseph Wallas generalized this theory to apply to all creativity, positing phrases which closely resemble those of Morazé. While (...) both Poincare and Wallas use a four-phrase model of invention, Morazé reduces his to three phrases: information, cogitation, and intellection. In information, the inventor becomes familiar with the sign systems and knowledge, the "collective contributions of society," relevant to his field of problems. Cogitation assembles these materials and concentrates them until "a certain moment" when "a light breaks through." This "sudden illumination...forces us to insist upon the neurological character" of the inventive moment. Finally, in intellection, the inventor rationally evaluates the utility of his invention and thus, in a sense, steps outside of himself and rejoins society. The distinction which organizes Morazé 's entire account, as well as most of the discussion that followed his presentation, is between the "collective" support and control of the inventor and his own individual, or "neurological," act of synthesis or creation. · 1. See Charles Morazé 's "Literary Invention," in The Structuralist Controversy: The Languages of Criticism and the Sciences of Man, ed. Richard Macksey and Eugenio Donato, pp. 22-55. Loy D. Martin is an assistant professor of English at the University of Chicago. He has written The Language of Invention, a study of Robert Browning and the genesis of the dramatic monologue. "A Reply to Carl Pletsch and Richard Schiff" appeared in the Spring 1981 issue of Critical Inquiry. (shrink)

Management and Morality provides a comprehensive and accessible overview of the moral and ethical dimension to organizational and individual behavior, while adding an original, developmental perceptive. Management and Morality combines organizational theory and behavior with approaches to organizational and individual development. The first two sections of the book, Ethical Thinking and Management Practice, and Moral Issues in Organizations, provide a clear and thorough coverage of these areas relevant to ethical behavior in and of organizations. On this basis, the third section, (...) A Developmental Perspective, develops a new approach to ethical development of organizations and individuals concerned with the improvement of organizational structures, processes, and practices so as to allow for individual morality and individual moral behavior. Rich in its coverage of the field and variety of ideas, Management and Morality will be essential reading to students and academics in management, business and organizational ethics, organizational behavior and development, and organizational sociology. (shrink)

I argue that some perceptual experiences are vague. To do so, I identify a characteristic feature of vagueness and show that some perceptual experiences have this feature. These include blurry experiences, experiences of color under low lighting, and experiences of number, as in the case of the speckled hen. The conclusion that these experiences are vague has two noteworthy consequences. First, it presses us to see whether and how existing theories of vagueness can be extended to perceptual experience. Second, it (...) sheds light on several puzzles in the philosophy of perception. (shrink)

In information societies, operations, decisions and choices previously left to humans are increasingly delegated to algorithms, which may advise, if not decide, about how data should be interpreted and what actions should be taken as a result. More and more often, algorithms mediate social processes, business transactions, governmental decisions, and how we perceive, understand, and interact among ourselves and with the environment. Gaps between the design and operation of algorithms and our understanding of their ethical implications can have severe consequences (...) affecting individuals as well as groups and whole societies. This paper makes three contributions to clarify the ethical importance of algorithmic mediation. It provides a prescriptive map to organise the debate. It reviews the current discussion of ethical aspects of algorithms. And it assesses the available literature in order to identify areas requiring further work to develop the ethics of algorithms. (shrink)

The text includes fragments of his work that have never before been translated.

Remontant aux sources vives de la sagesse, Patrick Mandala a choisi de confronter les textes de l'Antiquité grecque et des sages de l'Inde. Les correspondances entre ces deux philosophies sont nombreuses, riches et fécondes. Le texte grec est mis en regard avec plusieurs textes indiens. A plusieurs époques, dans sa quête de la connaissance de soi, la pensée grecque a rejoint la sagesse indienne. Cette rencontre est un message intemporel et universel. Autant de textes qui amènent la réflexion et (...) la méditation la plus profonde qui répondent aux trois grandes questions de l'humanité : "D'où venons-nous? Qui sommes-nous? Où allons-nous?". (shrink)

L'économie politique, qui ose se constituer en science vers le milieu du XVIIIe siècle, n'a cessé de passionner Voltaire. S'il n'est pas un théoricien de l'économie, il en est un observateur attentif et critique, et un acteur même de l'économie pratique: financier avisé, il construit, au fil de sa longue vie, l'une des grandes fortunes du royaume. Patrick Neiertz présente ici la première étude d'ensemble des idées économiques de Voltaire en analysant l'application expérimentale qu'il fait des théories de son (...) temps (Melon, Quesnay, Turgot, Adam Smith...) dans sa propre pratique de consommateur, de gestionnaire de ses biens, enfin, d'entrepreneur. Se font jour les réactions du patriarche de Ferney aux conceptualisations économiques en formation: sur les finances publiques, sur la consommation des biens superflus, sur l'agriculture, sur l'avenir de l'industrie, sur la liberté du commerce. Il entretient auprès de ses correspondants ou lecteurs ce flux d'influence à sa manière d'écrivain, faite d'érudition et d'ironie, et à sa manière d'intellectuel engagé, en faveur de la liberté de faire comme de dire. Les idées de Voltaire sur la dette publique, sur l'assiette fiscale, sur le plein emploi, et sur le rôle de l'Etat ont une singulière modernité au siècle actuel. Son autorité n'est pas seulement celle d'un philosophe des Lumières. Elle est aussi celle d'un praticien de l'économie appliquée, 'chose qui n'est pas ordinaire aux gens de lettres'. (shrink)

Theological reflections on current moral and pastoral problems.

This research explored how (a) information regarding consequences and (b) personal information regarding the potential victim influences perceptions of moral intensity and ethical behavioral intent. An experimental vignette research design was used and 314 professional managers participated. The results of the study indicated that personal information impacted ethical behavioral intent through its influence on perceptions of proximity. In contrast, consequential information''s impact depended on the presence of personal information or prior knowledge. Implications for management and future ethical research are discussed.

This article uses interview data to examine changes over time in the cultural constructions of executive women's family responsibilities. The author delineates two gendered cultural structures: the family devotion schema and the work devotion schema. Respondents are caught in the conflict between each schema's competing vision of a worthwhile life. Older respondents are more likely to accept the devotion schema's definition of an irreconcilable conflict between work and family, prompting many to avoid marriage or childbearing. In contrast, many members of (...) the youngest cohort, who came of age after the early 1970s women's movement, are refashioning the family devotion schema by subcontracting out domestic responsibilities while maintaining demanding careers. Yet, the family devotion schema continues to haunt all cohorts, enduring in its cognitive, normative, and emotional power. Gender, as expressed in cultural models of family, remains a powerful constraint on the hearts and minds of even professionally successful women. (shrink)

Incompatibilism about responsibility and determinism is sometimes directly construed as the thesis that if we found out that determinism is true, we would have to give up the reactive attitudes. Call this "the consequence". I argue that this is a mistake: the strict modal thesis does not entail the consequence. First, some incompatibilists (who are also libertarians) may be what we might call *resolute responsibility theorists* (or "flip-floppers"). On this view, if we found out that determinism is true, this would (...) not be to find out that no one is responsible; instead, what this would suggest is that incompatibilism is after all false. Second, some incompatibilists may instead deny the claim that if we found out that no one deserves the reactiveattitudes, we would have to give up the reactive attitudes. Call this position *innocent incompatibilism*. I explore several different reasons why the fact that no one deserves the reactive attitudes likely does not translate into a requirement for us to give up the reactive attitudes. The upshot: incompatibilism may be practically irrelevant, even if true. (shrink)

We analyze investors’ perception and long-term effects of board gender diversity on firms’ stock market performance in an international setting. Our results, controlling for the endogenous nature of board compositions, indicate that female board representation neither improves nor reduces firms’ long-term stock performance. Hence, we argue that it is imperative to go beyond the conventional thinking in terms of the business case for gender diversity and broaden the perspective also to incorporate societal and ethical aspects in the strive to board (...) gender equality. Even more so, as our results show that it does not entail reduced shareholder value, which the literature on mandatory gender quotas commonly seems to suggest. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Philosophy 39.2 (2001) 292-294 [Access article in PDF] Secada, Jorge. Cartesian Metaphysics: The Scholastic Origins of Modern Philosophy. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2000. Pp. xii + 333. Cloth, $59.95. Descartes scholars can welcome this book. Secada supports trends in scholarship that criticize seeing Descartes as merely an anti-skeptical foundationalist, and he challenges many prominent interpretations of Descartes's metaphysics. In addition, Secada helpfully references (...) Scholastic sources to provide context for Descartes's views. This book is also valuable for philosophers in contemporary metaphysics and epistemology. Secada uses the tools and idiom of analytic philosophy to explain and defend Descartes, and he is sympathetic to Descartes's project, even if he grants that aspects of it "are difficult to articulate clearly and convincingly" (174).The book's central theme is the contrast between Descartes's "essentialism" and the "existentialism" of Scholastics. Secada explains the distinction as follows: "Essentialism (existentialism) is the doctrine, first, that one cannot know the existence (essence) of any substance without first knowing its essence (existence), and, secondly, that one can know the essence (existence) of some substance without knowing its existence (essence)" (8). Cartesian Metaphysics interprets Descartes's corpus as a defense of essentialism in the light of Scholastic existentialism.The first three chapters set the stage. Chapter One distinguishes essentialism from existentialism. Chapter Two provides historical background necessary to understand the role of Scholasticism in Descartes's thought. Chapter Three discusses the role of Christian Platonism in both Descartes and the Scholastics, especially their shared Augustinian presupposition that knowledge of essences is of "how things are in themselves" (56).The next three chapters discuss the metaphysical status of ideas. In Chapter Four, Secada contrasts Descartes's "immanent" theory according to which "the immediate objects of ideas must exist in the mind" (85) with the "realist Scholastic" theory that "takes mental acts to be immediately directed towards things" (83). In Chapter Five, this account is applied to an interpretation of the Second Meditation as a defense of intellectualist essentialism against Scholastics and empiricists. "Contrary to the Scholastics and other empiricists, Descartes attributed to the intellect and not to the senses the power to reach the world of substances existing outside of the inner theatre of the mind" (116). Through comparing Descartes with Suarez and Gassendi, Secada argues that all the proofs of existence in the Meditations, including for the cogito, argue from [End Page 292] knowledge of essence to knowledge of existence. Chapter Six turns to Descartes's proofs for the existence of God. According to Secada, even for a posteriori proofs, knowledge of God's existence depends on knowledge of his essence.The last three chapters examine Descartes's theory of substance. Chapter Seven reconstructs Descartes's distinction between substances and properties. A substance is something that "exists without inhering" and "exists uncaused" (185). Secada discusses the nature of substance, how substances other than God can be "uncaused," and the plausibility of Descartes's sharp distinction between substances and properties. The chapter ends by arguing that Descartes's doctrine about the relationship between substances and properties inadvertently "heralds Spinoza's pantheism" (185). Chapter Eight examines real and essential properties in Cartesian metaphysics in contrast to Suarez and Fonseca, and ends with a partial defense of Descartes's ontological argument. Chapter Nine offers a detailed discussion of two fundamental substances in Descartes's metaphysics: body and mind. Secada argues that Descartes offers no satisfactory explanations of body, mind, or the relationship between the two.As is clear from this brief summary, Cartesian Metaphysics is a rich book. It presents important historical details without endless irrelevant details (see especially the sketch of Descartes's Scholastic background on 27-33). The exegetical arguments make strong cases for new interpretations of Descartes. Secada effectively shows that Descartes is more concerned with metaphysics than with refuting skepticism. Comparisons with Suarez and Fonseca shed new light on Cartesian arguments. Reconstructions of Cartesian arguments even tempt one to take Descartes seriously in contemporary metaphysics. And the criticisms of Descartes are thought-provoking.Unfortunately, the... (shrink)

Este artículo expone la emergencia de expresiones de la espiritualidad no vinculadas a la experiencia religiosa y, en particular, aquella manifestación que pretende situar esta dimensión humana como un fenómeno natural, reconocible y, por ello, transformable desde el método de las ciencias de la Naturaleza. Se presenta un amplio marco que sitúa este fenómeno en el desarrollo de las teorías que establecen un continuo entre biología y cultura. Se ofrecen ejemplos de autores que han presentado propuestas de espiritualidad sin Dios (...) y algunas que responden al llamado «problema realmente difícil», de cómo dar cuenta desde la ciencia natural de este fenómeno de la consciencia. Se cierra señalando límites y remitiendo a la presentación de una propuesta de modelo antropológico con fundamentos clínicos y teóricos, que para dar cuenta del fenómeno de la espiritualidad precisa un marco teórico que supera los límites de la ciencia natural y acude, en este caso, al psicoanálisis. Este mismo modelo muestra también que la espiritualidad elaborada sobre la experiencia religiosa del sujeto es una de las vías de maduración humana. (shrink)

I want to suggest that it would be bad if compatibilism were true, and that this gives us good reason to think that it isn't. This is, you might think, an outlandish argument, and the considerable burden of this paper is to convince you otherwise. There are two key elements at stake in this argument. The first is that it would be ‐ in a distinctive sense to be explained ‐ bad if compatibilism were true. The thought here is that (...) compatibilism ultimately presents us with a picture on which, in principle, powerful manipulators can effectively guarantee that finite moral agents should become blameworthy. To my mind, this isn't just false ‐ though I think that it is ‐ it is also such that it would be bad (unfortunate, undesirable…) if it were true. The second is that the fact that it would be ‐ in this sense ‐ bad if true gives us reason to think that it isn't. It may be bad that there is no afterlife. But that, in itself, hardly gives us reason to think that there is an afterlife. That is true, but ‐ as others before me have suggested ‐ when the object of the relevant badness is morality itself, the inference seems secure. A more general aim of the paper is to investigate the nature of this very form of argument in itself, and I compare my argument (inter alia) to a recent argument from Sayre–McCord against the possibility of genuine moral dilemmas. (shrink)

En los años ochenta emergió la cuestión de la licitud moral de la mejora por relación a la terapia. Para presentar la problemática actual sobre el tema se ofrece el constructo denominado Práctica de Intervención del Cuerpo caracterizado por cinco parámetros: M o la materia de la transformación, CT o la tecnociencia disponible, A o las concepciones vigentes de lo natural y lo artificial, N o las visiones de la naturaleza humana culturalmente compartidas y V o las valoraciones éticas a (...) las que se apela para legitimar la transformación. Se apunta el nivel ontológico como necesario para comprender y debatir las diferencias existentes en criterio moral. El concepto de naturaleza humana como referente normativo está en crisis, pero su ausencia deja un vacío que hace urgente una deliberación para llegar a una instancia normativa común. (shrink)

Primeaux and Stieber clearly articulate that good ethics maximize profits. The authors show that in the long run business must operate within the value systems of a society.

Speakers often overspecify by encoding more information than is necessary when referring to an object (e.g., “the blue mug” for the only mug in a group of objects). We investigated the role of a partner's linguistic behavior (whether or not they overspecify) on a speaker's own tendency to overspecify. We used a director–matcher task in which speakers interacted with a partner who either consistently overspecified or minimally specified in the color/size dimension (Experiments 1, 2, and 3), as well as with (...) a partner who switched behaviors midway through interaction (Experiments 4 and 5). We found that speakers aligned with their partner's linguistic behavior to produce overspecific or minimally specific descriptions, and we saw little evidence that the alignment was enhanced by lexical or semantic repetition across prime and target trials. Time‐course analyses showed that alignment increased over the course of the interaction, and speakers appeared to track a change in the partner's linguistic behavior, altering their reference strategy to continue matching that of their partner's. These results demonstrate the persistent influence of a partner's behavior on speakers across the duration of an interaction. (shrink)

In Misconceiving Merit, sociologists Mary Blair-Loy and Erin A. Cech uncover the cultural foundations of a paradox. On one hand, academic science, engineering, and math revere meritocracy, a system that recognizes and rewards those with the greatest talent and dedication. At the same time, women and some racial and sexual minorities remain underrepresented and often feel unwelcome and devalued in STEM. How can academic science, which so highly values meritocracy and objectivity, produce these unequal outcomes? Blair-Loy and Cech studied more (...) than five hundred STEM professors at a top research university to reveal how unequal and unfair outcomes can emerge alongside commitments to objectivity and excellence. The authors find that academic STEM harbors dominant cultural beliefs that not only perpetuate the mistreatment of scientists from underrepresented groups but hinder innovation. Underrepresented groups are often seen as less fully embodying merit compared to equally productive white and Asian heterosexual men, and the negative consequences of this misjudgment persist regardless of professors' actual academic productivity. Misconceiving Merit is filled with insights for higher education administrators working toward greater equity as well as for scientists and engineers striving to change entrenched patterns of inequality in STEM. (shrink)

We investigate partner effects on spatial perspective taking behavior in listeners, comparing behavior with a human versus a computer partner (Experiments 1 and 2), and with computer partners of different perceived capabilities (Experiment 3). Participants responded to spoken instructions from their partner which could be interpreted egocentrically (from their own perspective) or othercentrically (from their partner's perspective). In contrast to earlier work, we found that participants were more egocentric with a computer than a human partner. Participants were also more egocentric (...) with a computer partner that appeared more modern and capable, compared to one that appeared outdated and limited in ability. Our results show that perspective taking behavior is sensitive to information about one's partner; in particular, listeners consider their partner's potential ability to collaborate, adjusting their egocentric tendencies accordingly. Moreover, we highlight what appears to be a shift in listeners' expectations regarding computers' collaborative capabilities, leading to greater willingness to push the burden of perspective taking onto a computer partner. (shrink)