Oracles and philosophy -- Oracles, allegory and mystery cults -- Debating oracles: pagan and Christian perspectives -- Debating oracles: Porphyry's letter to Anebo and Iamblichus' De mysteriis -- Divination, rationality and ritual in neoplatonism -- Divination inspiration, possession and contact with the gods in Iamblichus' De mysteriis -- Divination and theurgy in Iamblichus' De mysteriis -- Manifesting the gods: oracles as symbola.

"Does God Take Naps? answers questions such as Does God live in a house? Does God have a family? How can I talk to God? Does God have a nickname? How does God talk to me? How old is God? Does God go to church?"--Amazon.com.

A child sees all the things God has made, but wants to see God in person.

With concerns regarding climate change rising, companies and policy makers seek to understand the precursors to environmentally-friendly consumer choice. Decision modes are the qualitatively different psychological processes employed to arrive at decisions. Across six studies, the present project establishes (a) which decision modes are employed by consumers to decide between electricity plans that differ in environmental impact, and (b) how employed decision modes affect those choices. We demonstrate that consumers are most likely to use Calculation Modes when facing such choices. (...) Importantly, we find that Affect or Role Modes promote more environmentally-friendly choices, while Calculation Modes decrease environmentally-friendly choices. Experimentally promoting use of a Role Mode over a Calculation Mode increases selection of environmentally-friendly alternatives, and the relative degree of employing the Role Mode mediates this effect. Our findings provide insight into how decision mode usage can alter environmental decisions, and suggest mechanisms and tools for marketers and policy makers to influence consumer choice. (shrink)

In “Racism and Bioethics: the myth of color blindness” Braddock convincingly argues that a “color blind” approach to triage and resource allocation in the setting of the COVID-19 pandemic pe...

Can the intellect or the intellectual faculty be its own object of thought, or can it not think or apprehend itself? This book explores the ancient treatments of the question of self-intellection - an important theme in ancient epistemology and of considerable interest to later philosophical thought. The manner in which the ancients dealt with the intellect apprehending itself, took them into both the metaphysical and epistemological domains with reflections on questions of thinking, identity and causality. Ian Crystal traces (...) the origins from which the concept of self-intellection springs, by examining Plato's account of the epistemic subject and the emergence of self-intellection through the Aristotelian account, before the final part of the book explores the problem of how the intellect apprehends itself, and its resolution including Plotinus' reformulation and the dilemma raised by Sextus Empiricus. Crystal concludes that Plotinus recasts the metaphysical structures of Plato and Aristotle in such a way that he casts the concept of self-intellection in an entirely new light and offers a solution to the problem. (shrink)

Long-term memory manages its contents to facilitate adaptive behaviour, amplifying representations of information relevant to current goals and expediting forgetting of information that competes with relevant memory traces. Both mnemonic selection and inhibition maintain congruence between the contents of long-term memory and an organism’s priorities. However, the capacity of these processes to modulate affective mnemonic representations remains ambiguous. Three empirical experiments investigated the consequences of mnemonic selection and inhibition on affectively charged and neutral mnemonic representations using an adapted retrieval practice (...) paradigm. Participants encoded neutral cue words and affectively negative or neutral associates and then selectively retrieved a subset of these associates multiple times. The consequences of selection and inhibitory processes engaged during selective retrieval were evaluated on a final memory test in which recall for all studied associates was probed. Analyses of memory recall indicated that both affectively neutral and negative mnemonic representations experienced similar levels of enhancement and impairment following selective retrieval, demonstrating the susceptibility of affectively salient memories to these mnemonic processes. These findings indicate that although affective memories may be more strongly encoded in memory, they remain amenable to inhibition and flexibly adaptable to the evolving needs of the organism. (shrink)

_A many-faceted exploration of spoken eloquence: how it works, how it has evolved, and how to tap its remarkable power_ We all know eloquence when we hear it. But what exactly is it? And how might we gain more of it for ourselves? This entertaining and, yes, eloquent book illuminates the power of language from a linguistic point of view and provides fascinating insights into the way we use words. David Crystal, a world-renowned expert on the history and usage (...) of the English language, probes the intricate workings of eloquence. His lively analysis encompasses everyday situations as well as the oratory of great public gatherings. Crystal focuses on the here and now of eloquent speaking—from pitch, pace, and prosody to jokes, appropriateness, and how to wield a microphone. He explains what is going on moment by moment and examines each facet of eloquence. He also investigates topics such as the way current technologies help or hinder our verbal powers, the psychological effects of verbal excellence, and why certain places or peoples are thought to be more eloquent than others. In the core analysis of the book, Crystal offers an extended and close dissection of Barack Obama’s electrifying “Yes we can” speech of 2008, in which the president demonstrated full mastery of virtually every element of eloquence—from the simple use of parallelism and an awareness of what _not_ to say, to his brilliant conclusion constructed around two powerful words: _dreams_ and _answers_. (shrink)

Wordsmiths and Warriors explores the heritage of English through the places in Britain that shaped it. It unites the warriors, whose invasions transformed the language, with the poets, scholars, reformers, and others who helped create its character. David and Hilary Crystal drove thousands of miles to locations throughout Britain, David providing the descriptions, Hilary the full-colour photographs. Their book reflects the language's history starting with Anglo-Saxon arrivals and ending in London with apps for grammar. In between lie encounters with (...) places associated with Chaucer, Shakespeare, Wordsworth, Wycliffe, Tyndale, Johnson, Murray, and numerous others. Among its many joys are the unexpected discoveries the authors make at every stage of their epic journey. (shrink)

This research demonstrates that interpersonal emotion regulation—attempts to manage others’ feelings—influences consumer perceptions during sales and service interactions impacting brand trust and loyalty. Building on previous research linking interpersonal emotion regulation to improved outcomes between people, across five experiments, we demonstrate that antecedent-focused interpersonal emotion regulation strategies result in enhanced brand loyalty and brand trust compared to response-focused interpersonal emotion regulation strategies. Analysis of mediation models reveals this effect is explained by changes in the consumer’s emotions, which in turn influence (...) evaluations of the service interaction and subsequently impacts brand outcomes. We identify reactance as a moderator of this effect, such that customers with low reactance to interpersonal regulation attempts exhibit more favorable brand trust and loyalty evaluations. Further, we demonstrate that the visibility of interpersonal emotion regulation represents an important boundary condition. These findings support the process model of interpersonal emotion regulation and generate important insights for both theory and practice. (shrink)

This article is currently available as a free download on ingentaconnect.

This article is currently available as a free download on ingentaconnect.

This research extends our understanding of ethical decision making on the part of leaders by merging social role and self-construal perspectives. Interdependent self-construal is generally seen as enhancing concern for justice and moral values. Across two studies, we tested the prediction that non-leading group members’ interdependent self-construal would be associated with lower levels of unethical decision making on behalf of their group but that, in contrast, this relationship would be weaker for leaders, given their social role. These predictions were experimentally (...) tested by assigning participants to the role of leader or non-leading group member, and assessing the association between their interdependent self-construal and their unethical decision making. Across both studies, interdependence predicted less unethical decision making on behalf of one’s group for non-leading group members. However, the leader role was shown to weaken, and even reverse, this relationship. This research demonstrates that self-construal influences group-based ethical decision making, but that the nature of this influence is moderated by social role. (shrink)

This paper analyzes perceptions of responsible leadership in eight Asia-based firms during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic. The focal firms were a mixture of multinational corporations (MNCs), large-sized enterprises, and small and medium enterprises (SMEs). In all eight focal firms, we found that the responsible decision-making of leaders during the pandemic was perceived to be guided by five main moral principles. These comprised equity-based justice for employees, meeting employees’ basic needs, ethics of care for employees, concern for non-employee (...) stakeholders, and interactional justice for employees. We developed a conceptual map of how these principles related to aspects of four ethics-oriented leadership theories. Our analysis also identified four types of responsible leadership policies and practices. These comprised prioritizing the health and safety of stakeholders, flexible work arrangements, meeting employees’ and customers’ special needs, and financial and psychological support for employees. (shrink)

In this paper, I argue that Plotinus offers us a new and interesting account of self-intellection. It is an account which is informed to some extent by a dilemma that Sextus Empiricus raised about the intellect being to apprehend itself. The significance of Sextus' dilemma is that it sets out the framework within which such a cognitive activity is to be dealt with, namely the intellect must apprehend itself qua part or qua whole, both of which according to him are (...) impossible. Plotinus, I think, successfully gets around this dilemma and is able to explain how the intellect can think itself qua whole. In the process of doing so, he offers an account of self-intellection in which the thinking subject or thinker becomes active in terms of generating its intellectual content, namely itself; a move which is a break from the traditional Platonic/Aristotelian account of the intellect. The paper itself is set up as follows. I start by mentioning the dilemma which Sextus raises about self-intellection. Then I attempt, through an analysis of the noetic intellect's structure, to show how Plotinus is able to offer an account of self-intellection in terms of whole apprehending whole. I conclude with Plotinus' analysis of the light analogy as a means of explaining how this intellectual process works. (shrink)

Crystal Cordell - Metaphysics and Method in Plato's Statesman - Journal of the History of Philosophy 46:1 Journal of the History of Philosophy 46.1 168-169 Muse Search Journals This Journal Contents Reviewed by Crystal Cordell University of TorontoÉcole des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, Paris Kenneth Sayre. Metaphysics and Method in Plato's Statesman. Cambridge-New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006. Pp. xii + 265. Cloth, $75.00. In his most recent book on Plato, Kenneth Sayre argues that the Statesman is, (...) first and foremost, a dialogue on dialectical division, the aim of which is to produce better dialecticians . The author guides the reader through a rigorous analysis of several dialectical instruments deployed in Plato's late dialogues ,.. (shrink)

ABSTRACT : This paper explores two interconnected themes that reoccur throughout the Laches: reworking the role of the father and the harmony of one’s words with their actions, the Dorian mode. These two themes, in addition to the discussion of courage, will turn out to be directly relevant to the nurturing of the souls of the sons. The question then arises whether any of the interlocutors present are adequate father figures who might be able to nurture the souls of the (...) boys in a manner that is adequate. Judging by the conclusion of the dialogue, the only possible candidate is Socrates. (shrink)

This Article discusses the transplantation and harmonization of company law legislation in the British Empire in the early 20th century and in Palestine in particular. It describes the displacement of Ottoman law and its replacement by British company law in Palestine, particularly through the Palestine Companies Ordinance 1929. The Article suggests that the transplantation of British company legislation into Palestine was neither straightforward nor all-encompassing. The Article discusses some specific areas of transplantation difficulty in the case of mandatory Palestine, viz. (...) private companies, foreign companies, branch registers, and limits on land acquisition. (shrink)

One of the most significant trends within linguistics in the 1970s has been the move away from the formalised models of language introduced by Chomsky towards an account of language that incorporates functional premises. As Charles Fillmore put it, in a 1972 paper, the emphasis on formalisation needs to be balanced by a consideration of what exactly it is that linguists want to formalise. Putting this another way, a contrast can be drawn between the stress laid in the 1960s on (...) the specification in formal terms of the common factors that underlie utterances and the stress laid in the 1970s on the specification in functional terms of the differences between language forms, as captured by such notions as dialect, style, level, etc. (shrink)

As zoos have developed more successful captive breeding programs, they now face a question of what to do about “surplus” animals. One strategy used by European zoos in recent years has been to allow animals to breed freely, then kill unwanted offspring. I argue that this strategy wrongs the animals in question and that the justifications that have been offered for the practice are inadequate. I provide background on the practice, discuss the moral status of animals and potential grounds for (...) the prima facie duty not to kill, and then examine and ultimately dismiss justifications for killing in this case. (shrink)

As research focusing on stress-related growth proliferates, links between religion and growth are increasingly reported. However, little research has focused on the role that religious coping plays in subsequent growth from major stressful life events. Findings from three longitudinal studies that examined aspects of religiousness as determinants of stress-related growth, as well as the potential mediation by religious coping, are presented. Results suggest that the influences of religiousness on growth vary by sample and by type of stressor. Further, religious coping (...) was found to mediate influences of religious orientations on growth for students and for older adults dealing with a variety of problems, but was unrelated to growth following bereavement in a second sample of students. Together, these studies provide support for the notion that religiousness influences growth in complex ways, only some of which are mediated through religious coping. Future research considerations are discussed. (shrink)

This book offers an opportunity for an anti deficit and positive examination of Black/Black-multiracial culture and its role in creating educational efficacy among academics of color. Through personal narrative, educational and learning theory, and creative writing/poetry, this hybrid text examines the cultural path to the doctorate.

One of the more controversial uses of preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) involves selecting embryos with a specific tissue type so that the child to be born can act as a donor to an existing sibling who requires a haematopoietic stem cell transplant. PGD with HLA tissue typing is used to select embryos that are free of a familial genetic disease and that are also a tissue match for an existing sibling who requires a transplant. Preimplantation HLA tissue typing occurs when (...) parents select embryos that are not at risk of a familial genetic disease to be a match for an existing sibling who requires a transplant. In Victoria, Australia, applications to use PGD with HLA tissue typing are reviewed by the Infertility Treatment Authority on a case by case basis. Preimplantation HLA tissue typing is prohibited prima facie because the embryo to be tested would not be at risk for a genetic abnormality or disease. Arguments for or against the use of PGD/HLA tissue typing are based on several key issues including the commodification and welfare of the donor child. This essay aims to show that that the same arguments apply to both PGD with HLA tissue typing and Preimplantation HLA tissue typing, and that the policy distinction between the two procedures is therefore ethically inconsistent. (shrink)