Since its publication in 1982, _Beyond Positivism _has become established as one of the definitive statements on economic methodology. The book’s rejection of positivism and its advocacy of pluralism were to have a profound influence in the flowering of work methodology that has taken place in economics in the decade since its publication. This edition contains a new preface outlining the major developments in the area since the book’s first appearance. The book provides the first comprehensive treatment of twentieth century (...) philosophy of science which emphasizes the issues relevant to economics. It proceeds to demonstrate this relevance by reviewing some of the key debates in the area. Having concluded that positivism has to be rejected, the author examines possible alternative bases for economic methodology. Arguing that there is no best method, he advocates methodological pluralism. (shrink)

Hayek's case for the limits of economic agents’ knowledge does not, as Greg Hill seems to suggest, imply that government should be in the business of engaging in countercyclical fiscal policy or paternalistic corrections of people's pursuit of “imaginary goods.” In the latter case, markets have corrective learning mechanisms for consumer mistakes. In the former, public‐choice and public‐ignorance problems plague government efforts to correct the business cycle. The problem of public ignorance is, in turn, Jeffrey Friedman's topic, but he is (...) unfair in condemning Hayek's abandonment of this problem in order to develop his thesis that a “planning mentality” was the source of the leftist ideas with which Hayek disagreed. Hayek was confronted by widely popular planning schemes that were endorsed by a great many of his colleagues, who were not ignorant of economics. (shrink)

This paper examines many similarities in the methodological and ontological views of George Soros and Friedrich Hayek.

In his biography of Karl Popper, Malachi Hacohen brilliantly reconstructs the development of Popper's ideas through 1946, correcting many errors regarding the sequence of their emergence. In addition he recreates Popper's Vienna and provides insights into Popper's complex personality. A larger goal of Hacohen's narrative is to show the relevance of Popper's philosophical and political thought for the left. Unfortunately this leads him to neglect and distort certain aspects of the story he tells, particularly when it comes to the relationship (...) between Popper and F.A. Hayek. (shrink)

The paper challenges Joseph Salerno’s recent revisionist account in “The Place of Human Action in the Development of Economic Thought” of the relationship between Friedrich von Wieser and F.A. Hayek and of their views on equilibrium theory. The paper argues, contra Salerno, that Wieser was not a proponent of general equilibrium theory, so could not have influenced Hayek in the manner Salerno suggests; that there was not a concerted effort by Schumpeter, Wieser, Mayer, and Hayek to advocate general equilibrium theory (...) in the prewar and inter-war years among the Austrians; and finally, that Hayek’s early attraction to what he called “equilibrium analysis” had causes independent of those alleged by Salerno.Cet article récuse l’interprétation révisionniste récente de Joseph Salerno dans son article “The Place of Human Action in the Development of Economic Thought” à propos des relations entre Friedrich von Wieser et Friedrich Hayek, et de leurs visions au sujet de l’équilibre. S’inscrivant en cela en opposition avec ce qu’avance Salerno, cet article suggère que Wieser n’était pas un partisan de la théorie de l’équilibre général et, en conséquence, ne peut avoir influencé Hayek comme le suggère Salerno ; qu’il n’y a eu aucun effort concerté entre Schumpeter, Wieser, Mayer et Hayek pour promouvoir la théorie de l’équilibre général parmi les autrichiens durant les années d’avant-guerre et celles de l’entre-deux guerres ; et enfin, que l’intérêt du jeune Hayek dans ce qu’il appelait “l’analyse de l’équilibre” avait des causes autres que celles évoquées par Salerno. (shrink)

Do our lives have meaning? Should we create more people? Is death bad? Should we commit suicide? Would it be better to be immortal? Should we be optimistic or pessimistic? Since Life, Death, and Meaning: Key Philosophical Readings on the Big Questions first appeared, David Benatar's distinctive anthology designed to introduce students to the key existential questions of philosophy has won a devoted following among users in a variety of upper-level and even introductory courses.

Friedrich Hayek (1899–1992) remains a controversial figure, applauded by those who support the late-twentieth-century turn to neoliberalism and criticized by those who see him as the poster-boy of...

In his reply to my critical book review, ?Don't Shoot the Messenger: Caldwell's Hayek and the Insularity of the Austrian Project,? Bruce Caldwell criticizes my account of Carl Menger's ?imaginary goods,? and rejects the line of reasoning I advanced in drawing Keynesian conclusions from Hayekian premises. But Caldwell's proposed methodology for assessing the significance of ?imaginary goods? in advanced market economies is ill conceived; and my pathway from Hayek to Keynes merely pursues a thoroughgoing subjectivism to (...) its inexorable conclusion, which is not, as Caldwell suggests, countercyclical fiscal policy. (shrink)

Readers looking for an articulate, well‐informed exposition of Hayek's multifaceted intellectual achievement will be pleased with Bruce Cald‐well's new book, Hayek's Challenge: An Intellectual Biography of F. A. Hayek. Readers interested in a more critical consideration of Hayek's ideas, or in their ability to withstand cross‐examination from the positions Hayek himself criticized, are less likely to be satisfied. But even for the latter group, Caldwell has performed a useful service, compressing the varied elements of Hayek's complex thought into (...) a lucid synopsis that should facilitate engagement with those outside the Austrian camp. (shrink)

Philosophers writing on the subject of human action have found it tempting to introduce their subject by raising Wittgenstein's question, 'What is left over if you subtract the fact that my arm goes up from the fact that I raise my arm?' The presumption is that something of particular interest is involved in an action of raising an arm that is not present in a mere bodily movement, and the philosopher's task is to specify just what this is. Unfortunately, such (...) an approach does not take us very far, since a person could properly be said to raise his (or her) arm while asleep or hypnotized even though he (or she) would not be performing an action in the sense of 'action' with which philosophers are particularly concerned. To avoid this kind of difficulty I shall approach the subject of human action is a more academic way: I shall expound some important rival theories of human action, and introduce the relevant issues by commenting critically on those theories. One of the issues I eventually introduce is a metaphysical one. A theory of action makes sense, I contend, only on the assumption that there are such 'things' as actions (or events). After considering some key arguments bearing on the issue I conclude that, as matters currently stand in philosophy, a metaphysically noncommittal attitude toward actions and events seems justified. (shrink)

Since the introduction of mathematical population genetics, its machinery has shaped our fundamental understanding of natural selection. Selection is taken to occur when differential fitnesses produce differential rates of reproductive success, where fitnesses are understood as parameters in a population genetics model. To understand selection is to understand what these parameter values measure and how differences in them lead to frequency changes. I argue that this traditional view is mistaken. The descriptions of natural selection rendered by population genetics models are (...) in general neither predictive nor explanatory and introduce avoidable conceptual confusions. I conclude that a correct understanding of natural selection requires explicitly causal models of reproductive success. *Received May 2006; revised December 2006. †To contact the author, please write to: Department of Philosophy, Kansas State University, 201 Dickens Hall, Manhattan, KS 66506; e‐mail: [email protected] . (shrink)

Gathering thoughts -- Teachers who inspired me -- What am I? : Montessori? Steiner? eclectic? : Is it important? -- Which comes first? : a philosophical framework, theory and research evidence : what do teachers and other practitioners need to bring out their best work -- Working with principles which are interpreted and embedded in articulated practice -- The importance of parent partnership and the development of moral values and self-discipline -- Play : a very complex thing -- Finding how (...) to position myself in relation to play -- Inclusion : commonalities, differences"fragmentation or wholeness?"-- Cultivating creativity -- Remaining a generalist rather than becoming a specialist within one area of early childhood education -- Changing political climates -- How best to train teachers of young children -- Remaining a Froebelian but still exploring why and wondering "will I always be one?". (shrink)

In their target article, “Proposed Principles for International Bioethics Conferencing: Anti-Discriminatory, Global, and Inclusive,” Jecker et al. (2024) highlight the growing international scope o...

The book examines what advocates of the law of karma mean by the doctrine, various ways they interpret it, and how they see it operating. The study investigates and critically evaluates the law of karma's connections to significant philosophical concepts like causation, freedom, God, persons, the moral law, liberation, and immortality. For example, it explores in depth the implications of the doctrine for whether we are free or fatalistically determined, whether human suffering can be reconciled with cosmic justice, the nature (...) of the self, and the character of moral experience. (shrink)

Researchers in all management specialties have discussed and investigated the important role values play in personal and organizational phenomena. However, because research on values has been performed in a wide range of social science disciplines and at different levels of analysis, much of thiswork has been uninformed by other work and is neither well integrated nor systematized, resulting in a great deal of confusion concerning the topic. This article attempts to add order and clarity to this area of research by (...) proposing a framework of values research based on level of analysis and by cataloguing and reviewing the vast theoretical and empirical research in light of this framework. It concludes with a critique of the extant literature and recommendations for further research. (shrink)

Did Beethoven and Mozart have more in common with each other than Clapton and Hendrix? The current research demonstrated the widely reported Mozart Effect as only partly significant. Event-related brain potentials were recorded from 16 professional classical and rock musicians during a standard 2 stimulus visual oddball task, while listening to classical and rock music. During the oddball task participants were required to discriminate between an infrequent target stimulus randomly embedded in a train of repetitive background or standard stimuli. Consistent (...) with previous research, the P3 and N2 ERPs were elicited in response to the infrequent target stimuli. Own genre preference resulted in a reduction in amplitude of the P3 for classical musicians exposed to classical music and rock musicians exposed to rock music. Notably, at the pre-attentive stage of processing beneficial effects of exposure to classical music were observed for both groups of musicians. These data are discussed in terms of short and long-term music benefits on both conscious and unconscious cognitive processes. (shrink)

Edouard Machery's paper, ‘The Folk Concept of Intentional Action: Philosophical and Psychological Issues, ’ puts forth an intriguing new hypothesis concerning recent work in experimental philosophy on the concept of intentional action. As opposed to other hypotheses in the literature, Machery's 'trade-off hypothesis' claims not to rely on moral considerations in explaining folk uses of the concept. In this paper, we critique Machery's hypothesis and offer empirical evidence to reject it. Finally, we evaluate the current state of the debate concerning (...) the concept of intentional action, and motivate skepticism toward the plausibility of any parsimonious account of the relevant data. (shrink)

Over the course of his work, Graham Oppy developed numerous important criticisms of versions of the cosmological argument. Here I am not concerned with his specific criticisms of cosmological arguments but rather with his claim that cosmological arguments per se are not good arguments, for they provide no persuasive reason for believing the conclusion that God exists and are embedded in theories that already affirm the conclusion. I explore what he believes makes an argument good, contend that cosmological arguments can (...) have functions within worldviews other than persuasion, and consider his recent modifications of the discussion that address competing worldviews. (shrink)

The version uploaded to this site is a late draft. The paper arises both from William L. Rowe's classic 1979 discussion of the problem of evil, argues that there exist instances of intense suffering which an omnipotent, omniscient being could have prevented without thereby losing some greater good or permitting some evil equally bad or worse, and also from Steven Wykstra's response, in the course of which he argues for the following Condition of Reasonable Epistemic Access (CORNEA): "On the basis (...) of cognized situation s, human H is entitled to claim 'It appears that p' only if it is reasonable for H to believe that, given her cognitive faculties and the use she has made of them, if p were not the case, s would likely be different in some way discernible by her." My paper discusses CORNEA, and proposes a replacement principle. (shrink)

Locates in Schelling a new understanding of our relation to nature in philosophy.

Published in 1916, Pragmatism and Idealism is an important contribution to the philosophical debates of the early twentieth century. Caldwell explores the relationship between these two major schools of thought, arguing that they are not mutually exclusive but rather complementary approaches to understanding the world. This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the "public domain in the United States (...) of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant. (shrink)

Recent evidence readily confirms that ethical conduct in human interaction has declined in the context of business, but also in virtually every phase of life. An alarming number of government leaders at all levels have demonstrated by their conduct that their primary goal is the pursuit of self-interest for themselves, their party, and their constituents - regardless of whether the choices they make are in the long-term best interests of those whom they are obligated to serve. Academic institutions and their (...) leaders similarly seem to be either tied to past assumptions and traditions that seem, or blatantly out of touch with the needs of their students and the communities that they serve. Increasingly, college and university academic programs are being taught by part-time and temporary faculty who are paid less than their elementary and high school counterparts who lack their educational preparation, level of knowledge, or responsibility in preparing students for their chosen careers. Non-governmental organizations also struggle to earn the respect of the public, and their trustworthiness has been called into question as chief executive officers and staff receive high salaries, but lack accountability for achieving results or acting with integrity. Those who work in the media are as a group no longer trusted to provide an objective and unbiased assessment of the news. Even religious institutions are under attack and their leaders are being asked to be accountable to the standards which their doctrines advocate. Implicit in ethical conduct is the responsibility to identify the far goals of human achievement - rather than short-term interests that undermine long-term value creation and outcomes that best serve society. Abraham Maslow has wisely noted that the pursuit of efficiency must be evaluated in terms of the specific goals intended to be achieved, but the ramifications of individual and collective actions often seem to be out of focus, misdirected, and short-sighted. (shrink)

An exploration of somatic awareness and embodied intuition and a guide to how conscious movement practices can help us be more present, be more grounded and intentional, and claim bodily autonomy.

Pairing bright, hilarious illustrations with witty one-liners that most people would never dare say out loud, each Co-edikit book is a celebration of the human experience and the kind of gift that ensures its reader will maintain a laughing perspective on life. "I don't like morning people...or mornings...or people." On those days when life gets on your last nerve, Sarcasm is the perfect pick-me-up!

Why do states who are committed to the principle of civilian immunity and the protection of non-combatants end up killing and injuring large numbers of civilians during their military operations? Bugsplat explains this paradox through an in-depth examination of five conflicts fought by Western powers since 1989.

« Ce guide offre aux étudiants en formation initiale à l'enseignement, au personnel enseignant en poste, à leurs formateurs et aux directions d'établissement scolaire les ressources nécessaires pour se frayer un chemin à travers les cadres éthiques et légaux complexes qui réglementent le quotidien de la pratique enseignante. ».