In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Persuasion and RhetoricThomas M. ConleyPersuasion and Rhetoric. Carlo Michelstaedter. Translated with an introduction and commentary by Russell Scott Valentino, Cinzia Sartini Blum, and David J. Depew : New Haven: Yale University Press, 2004. Pp. 178. $32.50, hardcover.Readers of this book will not find much in it about the "persuasion" and "rhetoric" they might expect to read about in this journal. Nor will they find in it the Appendici (...) Critiche that appear in the original text, Michelstaedter's thesis entitled I concetti di persuasione e rettorica [sic] in Platone e Aristotele, which he submitted to the Faculty of Letters in Florence in 1910. But the version printed here by the editors (hereafter "VBD," as there is no indication of who did what) will no doubt appeal to those who dislike Plato and Aristotle, have the idea that something better can be found in the Presocratics, and claim allegiance to such philosophers as Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, and the Heidegger of Being and Time; for this is a book about the problem of attaining a sort of existential "authenticity" and not, in my view, "one of the most trenchant and influential studies in modern rhetoric," as the liner notes claim. To be sure, Persuasione e rettorica has been the subject of decades of contentious scholarship in Italy. But most of that scholarship (and that displayed in the headnotes provided by VBD) concerns the sources of Michelstaedter's ideas and his true debt to the likes of Parmenides and Heraclitus, both of whom figure significantly in his worldview."Persuasione"—and I use the Italian here to avoid confusion—might best be understood to mean a sort of self-possession, being at one with oneself and with the world, or what I called before "authenticity." Michelstaedter himself never makes an effort to define it, for to do that would be to turn it into the sort of abstraction that Michelstaedter opposes. Defining things, as we learn from the Appendici, is the sort of thing philosophers like Aristotle and Hegel do in an act of bad faith or delusion. "Persuasione" is, by contrast, something lived, not understood—or, more precisely, it is a state to which true philosophers (Parmenides and Socrates, for instance) aspire with the full understanding that, like the limit approached asymptotically by an hyperbola (see 48, 109), it can never be attained. That understanding was replaced by the false consciousness represented by the "rettorica" taught by the Sophists and Plato (along with his disciple, Aristotle), and continues to the present day. This account is hinted at in the "Historical Example" allegory of the present text (77–84); but is more fully "documented" in a section of the long Appendix 2, "Note alla triste historia" (107–56 in the 1972 Raschini edition), entitled "La decadenza" (129–35). [End Page 170]"Rettorica," then, is the name Michelstaedter gives to the whole range of ingenious linguistic devices we use to convince ourselves that we are satisfied, fulfilled, secure in our selves and in the world—i.e., "persuaded"—when we are only suffering from a delusion created by language itself. It is rettorica that gives rise to "commonplaces" that masquerade as true understanding, to the impostures of "science" in the name of "objectivity" (see 89–95), to technology and machines, to "education" (110–11, 148–52), and indeed to every manifestation of bourgeois ideology (see the "dialogue" at 104–6, for instance). Rettorica is a kind of hypocrisy, deception, and (self-) flattery; an instrument of "the community of the wicked" (100, 143), a collection of "ornaments of the darkness" (e.g., 137, 139).The problem we face in acknowledging all this is, of course, that the attempt to articulate it has to be done in language; and language, by its very nature in all its semantic and syntactic elements (the point of Appendix 1, Raschini, 103–6), subverts true "persuasione." How can one "speak truth to authenticity," so to speak, when one begins by "giving a name to" its contrary, "rettorica"?"Trenchant," in any event, is hardly the right term to describe Persuasion and Rhetoric. "Mordant" or "plangent" might be closer to the mark. And as for its influence on "modern rhetoric... (shrink)

Perelman teaches us that, unlike demonstrations, arguments cannot be reduced to or understood as closed systems. In some particular--but telling-- ways, arguments are like jokes. Telling a joke requires close attention to, e.g., appropriateness as re gards subjects, length, the extent of shared knowledge of both particulars and stereotypes, and whether it is possible to be ironic without being misunderstood. Thinking along these lines points up the futil ity of reducing either the invention or the evaluation of arguments to formal (...) schemata. (shrink)

From high school cafeterias to the floor of Congress, insult is a truly universal and ubiquitous cultural practice with a long and earthy history. And yet, this most human of human behaviors has rarely been the subject of organized and comprehensive attention—until _Toward a Rhetoric of Insult_. Viewed through the lens of the study of rhetoric, insult, Thomas M. Conley argues, is revealed as at once antisocial and crucial for human relations, both divisive and unifying. Explaining how this (...) works and what exactly makes up a rhetoric of insult prompts Conley to range across the vast and splendidly colorful history of offense. Taking in Monty Python, Shakespeare, Eminem, Cicero, Henry Ford, and the Latin poet Martial, Conley breaks down various types of insults, examines the importance of audience, and explores the benign side of abuse. In doing so, Conley initiates readers into the world of insult appreciation, enabling us to regard insults not solely as means of expressing enmity or disdain, but as fascinating aspects of human interaction. (shrink)

Thomas Aquinas produced a voluminous body of work on moral theory, and much of that work is on virtue, particularly the status and value of the virtues as principles of virtuous acts, and the way in which a moral life can be organized around them schematically. Thomas Osborne presents Aquinas's account of virtue in its historical, philosophical and theological contexts, to show the reader what Aquinas himself wished to teach about virtue. His discussion makes the complexities of Aquinas's (...) moral thought accessible to readers despite the differences between Thomas's texts themselves, and the distance between our background assumptions and his. The book will be valuable for scholars and students in ethics, medieval philosophy, and theology. (shrink)

This volume comprises essays presented to Alvin Plantinga on the occasion of his 70th birthday.

RésuméMoore attribuah l'idéalisme de Berkeley à sa négligence de la distinction entre l'acte d'appréhension et son objet. Bien que Berkeley ait justement tracé cette distinction dans le premier Dialogue, et l'ait rejetée, peu s'en sont aperçu, et ceux qui l'ont remarqué lui reprochent habituellement de confondre l'acte d'appréhension avec une action. La thèse ici développée est que Berkeley n'est pas coupable de cette confusion et qu'il rejette la distinction, en fait, pour de bonnes raisons à caractére empiriste, qui ont à (...) voir avec ce que l'on tient pour son argument principal. (shrink)

'The Anthem Companion to Georg Simmel' offers the best contemporary work on Georg Simmel, written by the best scholars currently working in this field. Original, authoritative and wide-ranging, the critical assessments of this volume will make it ideal for Simmel students and scholars alike. 'Anthem Companions to Sociology' offer authoritative and comprehensive assessments of major figures in the development of sociology from the last two centuries. Covering the major advancements in sociological thought, these companions offer critical evaluations of key figures (...) in the American and European sociological tradition, and will provide students and scholars with both an in-depth assessment of the makers of sociology and chart their relevance to modern society. (shrink)

Can the phenomena of the human mind be separated from the practices of spiritual formation? Research into the nature of moral and spiritual change has revived in recent years in both the worlds of psychology and theology. Rooted in a year-long discussion held by Biola University's Center for Christian Thought (CCT), this volume bridges the gaps caused by professional specialization among psychology, theology, and philosophy.

" Our various cultures are symbolic environments or "spiritual ecologies" within which the Human Eros can thrive. This is how we inhabit the earth. Encircling and sustaining our cultural existence is nature.

Thomas Alexander shows that the primary, guiding concern of Dewey's philosophy is his theory of aesthetic experience.

I will argue that a desert-based justification for treating a person in a certain way is a justification that holds this treatment to be justified simply by what the person is like and what he or she has done, independent of (1) the fact that treating the person in this way will have good effects (or that treating people like him or her in this way will have such effects); (2) the fact that this treatment is called for by some (...) (justified) institution or practice; or (3) the fact that the person could have avoided being subject to this treatment by choosing appropriately, and therefore cannot complain of it. I will explore the implications of this understanding of desert for the role of desert-based justifications of blame, punishment, and economic reward. (shrink)

This paper is reprinted in the book Machine Ethics, eds. M. Anderson and S. Anderson, Cambridge University Press, 2011.

This article reports the results of a study of attitudes of future business executives towards issues of social responsibility and business ethics. The 455 respondents, who were MBA students during 1985 at one dozen schools from various regions in the United States, were asked to respond to a series of open-ended and closed-ended questions. From the responses to the questions the authors were able to conclude that future executives display considerable sensitivity, though to varying degrees, towards ethical issues in business. (...) Women, in particular, tend to evince strong feelings regarding such issues. (shrink)

growing up in new mexico, I was passionate about geology, specifically paleontology. It led, in one adventure, to me being arrested by monks. While on a picnic with my parents at Jemez Springs, I had followed a beautiful Permian stratum, rich with crinoids and brachiopod shells, onto private land owned by The Servants of the Paraclete, a retreat for "whiskey priests."1 I was detained while one brother admonished me, kindly, and let me go, and even let me keep my specimens. (...) But the passion for the history of the earth and natural history in general remained. I was one of those kids who came late to the idea that what was taught at school and what I found of interest had any points of intersection, but I did come to... (shrink)

Conceptions of acceptability-based moral or political justification take it that authoritative acceptability constitutes, or contributes to, validity, or justification. There is no agreement as to what bar for authoritativeness such justification may employ. The paper engages the issue in relation to (i) the level of idealization that a bar for authoritativeness, ψ, imparts to a standard of acceptability-based justification, S, and (ii) the degree of discursive purchase of the discursive standing that S accords to people when it builds ψ. I (...) argue that (i) and (ii) are interdependent: high idealization values entail low discursive purchase, while high degrees of purchase require low idealization values. I then distinguish between alethic conceptions of justification that prioritize ends that commit to high idealization values, and recognitive conceptions that favour high discursive purchase. On this basis, I argue for a moderately recognitivist constraint on idealization. To render the recognitive discursive minimum available to relevant people at the site of justification, S should set ψ low enough so that it is a genuine option for actual people to reject relevant views in ways that S recognizes as authoritative. (shrink)

This Element defends a version of the classical theory of divine ideas, the containment exemplarist theory of divine ideas. The classical theory holds that God has ideas of all possible creatures, that these ideas partially explain why God's creation of the world is a rational and free personal action, and that God does not depend on anything external to himself for having the ideas he has. The containment exemplarist version of the classical theory holds that God's own nature is the (...) exemplar of all possible creatures, and therefore that God's ideas of possible creatures are in some sense ideas of himself. Containment exemplarism offers a monotheism fit for metaphysics, insofar as it is coherent, simple, and explanatorily powerful; and offers a metaphysics fit for monotheism, insofar as it leaves God truly worthy of the unconditional worship which Christians, along with Jews and Muslims, aspire to offer to God. (shrink)

ABSTRACT:Many scholars and managers endorse the idea that the primary purpose of the firm is to make money for its owners. This shareholder wealth maximization objective is justified on the grounds that it maximizes social welfare. In this article, the first of a two-part set, we argue that, although this shareholder primacy model may have been appropriate in an earlier era, it no longer is, given our current state of economic and social affairs. To make our case, we employ a (...) utilitarian moral standard and examine the apparent logical sequence behind the link between shareholder wealth maximization and social welfare. Upon close empirical and conceptual scrutiny, we find that utilitarian criteria do not support the shareholder model; that is, shareholder wealth maximization is only weakly linked to social welfare maximization. In view of the dubious validity of this sequential argument, we outline some of the features of a superior corporate objective—a variant of normative stakeholder theory. In the second article, we will advance and defend our preferred alternative and then discuss some institutional arrangements under which it could be implemented. (shrink)

Can computer systems ever be considered moral agents? This paper considers two factors that are explored in the recent philosophical literature. First, there are the important domains in which computers are allowed to act, made possible by their greater functional capacities. Second, there is the claim that these functional capacities appear to embody relevant human abilities, such as autonomy and responsibility. I argue that neither the first (Domain-Function) factor nor the second (Simulacrum) factor gets at the central issue in the (...) case for computer moral agency: whether they can have the kinds of intentional states that cause their decisions and actions. I give an account that builds on traditional action theory and allows us to conceive of computers as genuine moral agents in virtue of their own causally efficacious intentional states. These states can cause harm or benefit to moral patients, but do not depend on computer consciousness or intelligence. (shrink)

This paper explores the idea of robust discursive equality on which respect-based conceptions of justificatory reciprocity often draw. I distinguish between formal and substantive discursive equality and argue that if justificatory reciprocity requires that people be accorded formally equal discursive standing, robust discursive equality should not be construed as requiring standing that is equal substantively, or in terms of its discursive purchase. Still, robust discursive equality is purchase sensitive: it does not obtain when discursive standing is impermissibly unequal in purchase. (...) I then showcase different candidate conceptions of purchase justice, and draw conclusions about the substantive commitments of justificatory reciprocity. (shrink)

By the mid-1600s, the commonsense, manifest picture of the world associated with Aristotle had been undermined by skeptical arguments on the one hand and by the rise of the New Science on the other. What would be the scientific image to succeed the Aristotelian model? Thomas Lennon argues here that the contest between the supporters of Descartes and the supporters of Gassendi to decide this issue was the most important philosophical debate of the latter half of the seventeenth century. (...) Descartes and Gassendi inspired their followers with radically opposed perspectives on space, the objects in it, and how these objects are known. Lennon maintains that differing concepts on these matters implied significant moral and political differences: the Descartes/Gassendi conflict was typical of Plato's perennial battle of the gods and giants, and the crux of that enduring philosophical struggle is the exercise of moral and political authority. Lennon demonstrates, in addition, that John Locke should be read as having taken up Gassendi's cause against Descartes. In Lennon's reinterpretation of the history of philosophy between the death dates of Gassendi and Malebranche, Locke's acknowledged opposition to Descartes on some issues is applied to the most important questions of Locke exegesis. Originally published in 1993. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905. (shrink)

ABSTRACT:Employing utilitarian criteria, Jones and Felps, in “Shareholder Wealth Maximization and Social Welfare: A Utilitarian Critique” (Business Ethics Quarterly23[2]: 207–38), examined the sequential logic leading from shareholder wealth maximization to maximal social welfare and uncovered several serious empirical and conceptual shortcomings. After rendering shareholder wealth maximization seriously compromised as an objective for corporate operations, they provided a set of criteria regarding what a replacement corporate objective would look like, but do not offer a specific alternative. In this article, we draw (...) on neo-utilitarian thought to advance a refined version of normative stakeholder theory that we believe addresses a major remaining criticism of extant versions, their lack of specificity. More particularly, we provide a single-valued objective function for the corporation—stakeholder happiness enhancement—that would allow managers to make principled choices between/among policy options when stakeholder interests conflict. (shrink)

Beginning with the well-knowncyber-rape in LambdaMOO, I argue that it ispossible to have real moral wrongs in virtualcommunities. I then generalize the account toshow how it applies to interactions in gamingand discussion communities. My account issupported by a view of moral realism thatacknowledges entities like intentions andcausal properties of actions. Austin's speechact theory is used to show that real people canact in virtual communities in ways that bothestablish practices and moral expectations, andwarrant strong identifications betweenthemselves and their online identities. Rawls'conception (...) of a social practice is used toanalyze the nature of the wrong and thestage-setting aspect of engaging in a practice. (shrink)

Contrary to some recent self-styled “linguistic pragmatists” who seek to dispense with the purportedly obsolete term “experience”. this essay attempts to show that pragmatism cannot cogently dispense with experience, understanding that term in its Deweyan sense as “culture” and not some sort of mentalistic perception or state. Focusing on Robert Brandom’s recent Perspectives on Pragmatism, I show how the very assumptions that Dewey meant to call into question with his “instrumentalist turn” in 1903 are enshrined in Brandom’s “new and improved” (...) form of pragmatism. Judged in terms of its pragmatic consequences, Brandom’s linguistic pragmatism returns to the well trodden paths and problems of analytic philosophy and not the radical approach that Dewey’s “cultural naturalism” (Dewey’s name for his philosophy) offers. The fundamental issue is not, I contend, between types of pragmatism at all but between conceptions of human nature and what a human life is. John Stuart Mill once said of Bentham that, for an empiricist, he had really very little experience, especially of human nature. I am afraid that the same judgment here is passed on those wishing to dispense with experience and somehow retain pragmatism. (shrink)

This paper examines some aspects of Spinoza's metaphysics of the essences of modes.2 I situate Spinoza's use of the notion of essence as a response to traditional, Aristotelian, ways of thinking about essence. I argue that, although Spinoza rejects part of the Aristotelian conception of essence, according to which it is in virtue of its essence that a thing is a member of a kind, he nevertheless retains a different part of such a conception, according to which an essence is (...) some structural feature of a thing which causally explains other, non-essential features. I go on to develop an account of Spinoza's metaphysics of essence, according to which essences, what he sometimes calls formal essences, are produced by the divine essence prior to and independent of the creation of finite modes, and according to which essences are the formal or exemplar causes of finite modes. I then argue that finite modes, in virtue of the formal essences which they actualize, are genuine causal relata. Finally, I offer some speculations about Spinoza's answer to the question, "Why, in a necessitarian cosmos filled with formal essences, should there be temporal finite modes at all?". (shrink)

Moral and political forms of constructivism accord to people strong, “constitutive” forms of discursive standing and so build on, or express, a commitment to discursive respect. The paper explores dimensions of discursive respect, i.e., depth, scope, and purchase; it addresses tenuous interdependencies between them; on this basis, it identifies limitations of the idea of discursive respect and of constructivism. The task of locating discursive respect in the normative space defined by its three dimensions is partly, and importantly, an ethical task (...) that is beyond constructivism. Interdependencies between these dimensions call into question the possibility of a plausible and coherent form of discursive respect that is deep, inclusive in scope, and rich in purchase. This does not mean that we should reject discursive respect, or constructivism, for that matter. But it suggests that the task of reconciling the dimensions of discursive respect may not allow for widely shareable results. This task needs to be addressed on non-constructivist grounds. Accordingly, we have reasons to concede that constitutive forms of discursive standing are less fundamental in the order of justification than weaker, “derivative” forms, and this is so especially if we take constitutive standing to mark an important good. (shrink)

Ward examines Scotus's arguments for his distinctive version of hylomorphism, the view that at least some material objects are composites of matter and form. It considers Scotus's reasons for adopting hylomorphism, and his accounts of how matter and form compose a substance, how extended parts, such as the organs of an organism, compose a substance, and how other sorts of things, such as the four chemical elements and all the things in the world, fail to compose a substance. It highlights (...) the extent to which Scotus draws on his metaphysics of essential order to explain why some things can compose substance and why others cannot. Throughout the book, contemporary versions of hylomorphism are discussed in ways that both illumine Scotus's own views and suggest ways to advance contemporary debates. (shrink)

This book argues that Plato's Charmides presents a unitary but incomplete argument intended to lead its readers to substantive philosophical insights.

Abstract:To date, our understanding of ethical decision making and behavior in organizations has been concentrated in the area of moral judgment, largely because of the hundreds of studies done involving cognitive moral development. This paper addresses the problem of our relative lack of understanding in other areas of human morality by applying a recently developed construct—moral approbation—to illuminate the link between moral judgment and moral action. This recent work is extended here by exploring the effect that organizations have on ethical (...) behavior in terms of the moral approbation construct. (shrink)

According to the “internal” conception (Quong), political liberalism aims to be publicly justifiable only to people who are reasonable in a special sense specified and advocated by political liberalism itself. One advantage of the internal conception allegedly is that it enables liberalism to avoid perfectionism. The paper takes issue with this view. It argues that once the internal conception is duly pitched at its fundamental, metatheoretical level and placed in its proper discursive context, it emerges that it comes at the (...) cost of public dogma. The paper examines this problem and argues that a plausible response to this problem is to go beyond the internal conception and adopt a more inclusive, dynamic conception. But this calls for a form of perfectionism. Thus, the internal conception of political liberalism, far from showing how liberalism can be had without perfectionism, effectively calls for perfectionism as a remedy for its problems. (shrink)

Three-dimensionalists , sometimes referred to as endurantists, think that objects persist through time by being “wholly present” at every time they exist. But what is it for something to be wholly present at a time? It is surprisingly difficult to say. The threedimensionalist is free, of course, to take ‘is wholly present at’ as one of her theory’s primitives, but this is problematic for at least one reason: some philosophers claim not to understand her primitive. Clearly the three-dimensionalist would be (...) better off if she could state her theory in terms accessible to all. We think she can. What is needed is a definition of ‘is wholly present at’ that all can understand. in this paper, we offer one. (shrink)

Internalism about epistemic justification (henceforth, ‘internalism’) says that a belief B is epistemically justified for S only if S is aware of some good-making feature of B, some feature that makes for B’s having positive epistemic status: e.g., evidence for B. Externalists with respect to epistemic justification (‘externalists’) deny this awareness requirement. Michael Bergmann has recently put this dilemma against internalism: awareness admits of a strong and a weak construal; given the strong construal, internalism is subject to debilitating regress troubles; (...) given the weak construal, internalism is unmotivated; either way, internalism is in serious trouble. I argue for two claims in this article. First, Bergmann’s dilemma argument is unmotivated: he’s given no good reason for accepting one of its crucial premises. And second, Bergmann’s dilemma argument is unsound: the crucial premise in question is false. (shrink)