The essays in this volume critically analyze and revitalize agrarian philosophy by tracing its evolution in the classical American philosophy of key figures such as Franklin, Jefferson, Emerson, Thoreau, Dewey, and Royce.
The Supreme Court frequently uses two tools to gather information about which cases to hear following a petition for writ of certiorari: the call for response and the call for the views of the Solicitor General. To date, there has been no empirical analysis of how the Supreme Court deploys these tools and little qualitative study. This Article fills in basic gaps in the literature by providing concrete answers to common questions regarding these two tools and offers detailed analysis of (...) how and why states, private parties, and the United States (through the Solicitor General) respond to petitions. In addition, the Article provides much-needed data for litigators and litigants to be able to estimate the probability of their case being heard by the Court, and provides insight on how to react when the Court calls for a response or calls for the views of the Solicitor General. To reach these conclusions, the Article relies on detailed, quantitative analysis of a novel, 30,000-petition dataset, as well as interviews with top Supreme Court litigators, former Supreme Court clerks, and former staff of the Clerk’s office. (shrink)
Up to David L. Thompson's Homepage Outline by Section: I INTRODUCTION II A COLOURED ILLUSTRATION III THE NATURE OF WORLDS #1. Generalization from colour to all perceived #2. Chess as a model world. #3. Worlds depend on supervenience #4. Supervenience #5. Supervenience applied to worlds #6. Five dependencies #6. Interrelationships between the five #7. The enactive approach to transformation #8. The transformation of worlds #9. A world is a condensed history #10. A shared world defined by individuals #11. (...) Summary VI ONTOLOGY #1. Are perceived objects duplicates of physical #2. Are objects in the world real or illusory? #3. Ontological status of worlds and objects #3. Ontological status of worlds and objects V. CONCLUSION ENDNOTES. (shrink)
Teachers White and Thompson allowed students to explore the primary-source readings from several philosophers in a 5th grade course called Apogee. The essay is written with a focus on Patience and other virtues.
Outline by Section: I. INTRODUCTION: METHOD OF PHENOMENOLOGY II. REDUCTION FROM DOGMAS III. EXAMPLES OF PHENOMENOLOGICAL DESCRIPTION OF A. SENTENCE B. MELODY C. DIAGRAM OF TIME IV. MODIFICATIONS AS MODES OF TEMPORAL STRUCTURE V. RETENTION VI. CONSTITUTION OF EXTERNAL TIME Time present and time past.
b>. Computational models of colour vision assume that the biological function of colour vision is to detect surface reflectance. Some philosophers invoke these models as a basis for 'externalism' about perceptual content (content is distal) and 'objectivism' about colour (colour is surface reflectance). In an earlier article (Thompson et al. 1992), I criticized the 'computational objectivist' position on the basis of comparative colour vision: There are fundmental differences among the colour vision of animals and these differences do not converge (...) on the detection of any single type of environmental property. David R. Hilbert (1992) has recently defended computational objectivism against my 'comparative argument;' his arguments are based on the externalist approach to perceptual content originally developed by Mohan Matthen (1988) and on the computationally inspired theory of the evolutionary basis for trichromacy developed by Roger N. Shepard (1990). The present article provides a reply to Hilbert with extensive criticism of both Matthen's and Shepard's theories. I argue that the biological function of colour vision is not to detect surface reflectance, but to provide a set of perceptual categories that can apply to objects in a stable way in a variety of conditions. Comparative research indicates that both the perceptual categories and the distal stimuli will differ according to the animal and its visual ecology; therefore externalism and objectivism must be rejected. (shrink)
Two twelve-year old boys, Jerry and David, break into a shed, just for the fun of it. Jerry steals a hammer. David takes a screwdriver. Afterwards, Jerry continues to steal things and ends up as a criminal, spending time in jail. David doesn't steal again but in contrast becomes an honest person. He pursues an academic career and ends up as a professor of philosophy.
Although business ethicists have theorized frequently about the virtues and vices of employee loyalty, the concept of loyalty remainsloosely defined. In this article, we argue that viewing loyalty as a cognitive phenomenon—an attitude that resides in the mind of theindividual—helps to clarify definitional inconsistencies, provides a finer-grained analysis of the concept, and sheds additional light on theethical implications of loyalty in organizations. Specifically, we adopt the psychological contract perspective to analyze loyalty’s cognitivedimensions, and treat loyalty as an individual-level construction of (...) perceived reciprocal obligations. Based upon this perspective, we present a three-tiered framework of loyalty that provides a psychologically informed definition of the concept, specifies the variety of obligation types that loyalty can imply, and anticipates the potential for asymmetrical loyalty configurations between employers and employees. We use the framework to articulate moral issues associated with both symmetrical and asymmetrical loyalty configurations and discuss the implications of the framework for theory and practice. (shrink)
Loyalty, whether moral duty or dangerous attachment, is a cognitive phenomenon — an attitude that resides in the mind of the individual. In this article, weconsider loyalty from a psychological contract perspective – that is, as an individual-level construction of perceived reciprocal obligations. Viewing loyalty in this way helps clarify definitional inconsistencies, provides a finer-grained analysis of the concept, and sheds additional light on the ethical implications of loyalty in organizations. We present a threetiered framework for conceptualizing loyalty which also (...) helps explain apparently intractable paradoxes of loyalty. (shrink)
Recent magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and pathological studies have indicated that axonal loss is a major contributor to disease progression in multiple sclerosis. 1 H magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS), through measurement of N -acetyl aspartate (NAA), a neuronal marker, provides a unique tool to investigate this. Patients with primary progressive multiple sclerosis have few lesions on conventional MRI, suggesting that changes in normal appearing white matter (NAWM), such (...) as axonal loss, may be particularly relevant to disease progression in this group. To test this hypothesis NAWM was studied with MRS, measuring the concentration of N -acetyl derived groups (NA, the sum of NAA and N -acetyl aspartyl glutamate). Single-voxel MRS using a water-suppressed PRESS sequence was carried out in 24 patients with primary progressive multiple sclerosis and in 16 age-matched controls. Ratios of metabolite to creatine concentration (Cr) were calculated in all subjects, and absolute concentrations were measured in 18 patients and all controls. NA/Cr (median 1.40, range 0.86–1.91) was significantly lower in NAWM in patients than in controls (median 1.70, range 1.27–2.14; P = 0.006), as was the absolute concentration of NA (patients, median 6.90 mM, range 4.62–10.38 mM; controls, median 7.77 mM, range 6.60–9.71 mM; P = 0.032). There was no significant difference in the absolute concentration of creatine between the groups. This study supports the hypothesis that axonal loss occurs in NAWM in primary progressive multiple sclerosis and may well be a mechanism for disease progression in this group. (shrink)
Intentionality, as Brentano originally introduced the term in modern philosophy, was meant to provide a distinctive characteristic definitively separating the mental from the physical.(1) Mental states have an intrinsic relationship to an object, to that which they are "about." Physical entities just are what they are, they cannot, by their very essence, refer to anything, they have no "outreach", as one might put it. Mental states have, as it were, an incomplete essence, they cannot exist at all unless they are (...) completed by something other than themselves, their object. Brentano's position is opposed to all theories which represent the mental as only extrinsically related to the world, that is, to all theories in which mental states are themselves self-sufficient for their own existence and only secondarily relate to the world by means of something external to their nature, e.g., neurological causation, divine intervention, or pre-established harmony. In these later cases, any mental act whatsoever could be related to any object, or indeed to none, for the relation is external to the nature of the act, it is superimposed on it by outside forces. Brentano's point is that a mental act has, by its very essence, an Intentional object without which it would not be a mental act. It would therefore appear that since causality is an external relationship which could in principle relate any two things regardless of their nature, the Intentional relation between an act and its object cannot be a causal relation. (shrink)
The Cambridge Handbook of Consciousness is the first of its kind in the field, and its appearance marks a unique time in the history of intellectual inquiry on the topic. After decades during which consciousness was considered beyond the scope of legitimate scientific investigation, consciousness re-emerged as a popular focus of research towards the end of the last century, and it has remained so for nearly 20 years. There are now so many different lines of investigation on consciousness that the (...) time has come when the field may finally benefit from a book that pulls them together and, by juxtaposing them, provides a comprehensive survey of this exciting field. An authoritative desk reference , which will also be suitable as an advanced textbook. (shrink)
About thirty years ago, I suffered from severe back pain. For some weeks I lay in a body cast, dazed by pain-killers and muscle-relaxants. When I was recovering, I decided one day that I needed exercise. Very gingerly I got on my bike and, feeling rather sorry for myself, rode slowly up Mundy Pond Road. I drew abreast of a group of boys going home from school for lunch. One of them was holding a stick, and he suddenly turned and (...) stuck it into the spokes of my front wheel. Since I was moving very slowly, I easily stopped before it threw me off or damaged the bike. Perhaps unwisely, I challenged them: "Do you think that's funny?" One of the boys stepped forward, laughed and brazenly relied, "Yes, I do!" Enraged, my hand reached out and slapped him across the face. (shrink)
The problem of universals arises when philosophy attempts to give an account of the relationship mind and objects, between language and the world. How do words succeed in being about things? In this paper I show how the problem of universals arises out of a particular theory about the relationship of words to things and that when an alternative theory is accepted the notion of universal dissipates and is replaced by the concept of meaning. Meaning, however, has its own problems. (...) In the end I conclude that there are no universals. (shrink)
Outline by Section: INTRODUCTION HUSSERL'S TRANSCENDENTAL POSITION Brentano's Notion of Intentionality Frege's Notion of Sinn Husserl's Transcendental Position Intentional Relations are not Causal. Realism is Wrong, Objects must be Meaningful Psychological States are Empirical. Meanings cannot be In-Themselves, but always for an Ego SEARLE'S THEORY OF INTENTIONALITY CONFRONTATION OF SEARLE'S THEORY WITH THE FOUR THESES Searle Intentionalizes or Trivializes Causation Searle is still a Realist Visual Experience is a Thing-In-Itself Intentional States Presented as Stopping Points CONCLUSION.
Richard Rorty and Edmund Husserl would appear to be poles apart, facing each other from opposite corners of the philosophical ring. Husserl is a rationalist searching for an absolute foundation for science which will guarantee its apodeictic truth. Rorty is a post-modernist for whom science is but one discourse among many, none of which corresponds with reality.
Social contract theory has been criticized as a “theory in search of application.” We argue that incorporating the nano, or individual, level of analysis into social contract inquiry will yield more descriptive theory. We draw upon the psychological contract perspective to address two critiques of social contract theory: its rigid macro-orientation and inattention to the process of contract formation. We demonstrate how a psychological contract approach offers practical insight into the impact of social contracting on day-to-day human interaction. We then (...) articulate several potentially testable propositions that emerge from this nano-level perspective. (shrink)
My aim is to give an overview of what minds are and how they came to be. Minds are a product of billions of years of evolution so it is a daunting task to summarize this history in 45 minutes. My attempt will involve vast oversimplifications, highly speculative and condensed “just so” stories, and a great amount of hand waving. In particular, I will presuppose the theory of evolution and will not attempt to either explain it or justify it.
"Human beings ought to respect nature. For too long we have thought of ourselves as above nature, destroying our own habitat and annihilating other species which have as much right to exist as we do. The earth is an organic system in which each species must play its part, but humans have used technology to artificially disturb the harmony of nature. We cannot continue to violate nature's laws with impunity. If we don't respect our environment there will be disastrous consequences: (...) nature will take her revenge and the human race will vanish from this planet.". (shrink)
My thesis is that modern neurological discoveries overthrow the classical dualism which assigns all the constitutive activity of perception to the mind and leaves the body a purely passive role. The paper is in four parts: first I will present the traditional theory, using Berkeley's concept of activity as the key; then I will summarize the relevant aspects of contemporary neurology; third, the incompatibility of these two approaches will be discussed; finally, I will propose that we must reject the materialistic (...) notion of the body and grant it a power of activity which was formerly held to be the monopoly of the mind. Throughout, I will take the spatialization of sensation as the prime example of a constitutive activity. (shrink)
Difference and sameness -- or identity -- are correlated concepts: to understand one is to understand the other. I will distinguish two accounts of sameness and difference: first, an essentialist account of sameness against which an understanding of difference is presented as derivative; secondly, a contextualist account which relates both sameness and difference to a more fundamental horizon or context. I will contrast two kinds of horizons, synchronic and diachronic, and within diachronic contexts I will discuss the biological horizon and (...) the cultural or moral horizon. (shrink)
"Imagination", says Aristotle, "is the process by which we say that an image is presented to us."1 While the OED accepts at least five other entries for the word -- including, for instance, poetic genius -- its first entry refers to the production of mental images. So in this paper, the one and only way I will use the term imagination is in reference to images.
The essays in this collection step back to ask: Do the complex components of Dennett's work on intentionality, consciousness, evolution, and ethics themselves ...
Intuition. Originally an alleged direct relation, analogous to visual seeing, between the mind and something abstract and so not accessible to the senses. What are intuited (which can be derivatively called 'intuitions') may be abstract objects, like numbers or properties, or certain truths regarded as not accessible to investigation through the senses or calculation; the mere short circuiting of such processes in 'bank managers intuition' would not count as intuition for philosophy. Kant talks of our intuiting space and time, in (...) a way which is direct and entirely free from any mediation by the intellect - but this must be distinguished from an alleged pure reception of 'raw data' from the senses; the intuiting is presupposed by, and so cannot depend upon, sensory experience. (shrink)
Darren, attributing this argument to Hume, tells us that Hume rejected step #4. So do I. I am a compatibilist: I accept the scientific worldview that everything can be explained by natural, causal laws, but I believe that human actions (and biological functions) can still be explained teleologically, by their ends – a precondition for freedom. This paper is one of a series of attempts to show how such campatibilism is possible, this time by focusing on the nature of explanation.
It is above all in virtue of the will, or freedom of choice, that I understand myself to bear in some way the image or likeness of God. For ... God's will ... does not seem any greater than mine when considered as will in the essential and strict sense. This is because the will simply consists in our ability to do or not do something; ... or rather, it consists simply in the fact that when something is put forward (...) for our consideration by the intellect, we are moved to affirm or deny it, or pursue or avoid it, in such a way that we feel we are not determined by any external force. For in order for me to be free, there is no need for me to be capable of moving both ways; on the contrary, the more I incline in one direction - either because I understand that reasons of truth and goodness point that way ... the freer is my choice. (Descartes, Fourth Meditation.). (shrink)
This article examines the moral theory of the American Revolutionary and Founding periods by focusing on two key concepts of that doctrine: the moral laws and the moral rights of nature. In particular, the article will examine several important questions from the perspective of Americas moral laws and rights descriptive, prescriptive, or both? What are the attributes and sanctions of natures laws and rights? And finally, how did Americas revolutionary mind and moral theory: the Declaration of Independence. The Declaration’s deepest (...) philosophic meaning is herein illuminated by also examining the broader, extant literature of the period. (shrink)
. This paper reports the preliminary results from a semester-long ethics project at an AACSB accredited, regional comprehensive undergraduate school. This project culminated in an Ethics Awareness Week, which highlight a case study (Part B of this Journal) of the controversial EverQuest® multi-player online game. Issues of project planning and design are outlined, the dynamics of a business program-wide approach to ethics are social responsibility are presented, student survey results are (...) presented and analyzed, and issues related to ongoing research are discussed. Nonparametric survey results indicate that the greatest effect in student’s self reported enhanced understanding and interest in issues of business ethics is present when multiple pedagogical methods, e.g., case studies, lectures, assignments, and an Oxford-style debate, are applied by a number of faculty members over an extended (semester) time period. The paper concludes with a discussion of future research issues as well as a series of prescriptions for planning, organizing, and implementing such an extended activity. (shrink)
Social contract theory has been criticized as a “theory in search of application.” We argue that incorporating the nano- or individual level of analysis into social contract inquiry will yield more descriptive theory. We draw upon the psychological contract perspective to address two critiques of social contract theory: its rigid macro orientation and inattention to the process of contract formation. We demonstrate how a psychological contract approach offers practical insight into the impact of social contracting on day-today human interaction.
We introduce a novel paradigm for studying the cognitive processes used by listeners within interactive settings. This paradigm places the talker and the listener in the same physical space, creating opportunities for investigations of attention and comprehension processes taking place during interactive discourse situations. An experiment was conducted to compare results from previous research using videotaped stimuli to those obtained within the live face-to-face task paradigm. A headworn apparatus is used to briefly display LEDs on the talker's face in four (...) locations as the talker communicates with the participant. In addition to the primary task of comprehending speeches, participants make a secondary task light detection response. In the present experiment, the talker gave non-emotionally-expressive speeches that were used in past research with videotaped stimuli. Signal detection analysis was employed to determine which areas of the face received the greatest focus of attention. Results replicate previous findings using videotaped methods. (shrink)
In one accessible, beautifully designed and illustrated volume, scholars have gathered the major theories and key ideas of world's greatest thinkers. The presentation of material sets this reference apart from other philosophy books by providing both the historical and cultural context of the ideas being explored, and by giving visual expression to the arguments and insights themselves through the artwork of the time. Immerse yourself in both Eastern and Western philosophy, spending time with Plato on knowledge, Aquinas on ethics, Marx (...) on religion, and Confucius on human destiny. Designed for maximum flexibility of use, all thinkers and issues are cross-referenced, enabling you to move within or across branches of philosophy and historical periods, to get either a broad overview of the whole world of philosophy, or a more detailed exploration of a particular thinker or approach. (shrink)
? We gratefully acknowledge the Center for Consciousness Studies at the University of Arizona, Tucson, which provided a grant for the support of this work. E.T. is also supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, and the McDonnell Project in Philosophy and the Neurosciences. 1 See David Woodruff Smith,.
For many years, emotion theory has been characterized by a dichotomy between the head and the body. In the golden years of cognitivism, during the 1960s and ’70s, emotion theory focused on the cognitive antecedents of emotion, the so-called “appraisal processes.” Some saw bodily events largely as by-products of cognition, and as too unspecifi c to contribute to the variety of emotion experience. Cognition was conceptualized as an abstract, intellectual, “heady” process separate from bodily events. Although current emotion theory has (...) moved beyond this disembodied stance by conceiving of emotions as involving both cognitive processes (e.g., perception, attention, and evaluation) and bodily events (e.g., arousal, behavior, and facial expressions), the legacy of cognitivism persists in the tendency to treat cognitive and bodily events as separate constituents of emotion. Th us, the cognitive aspects of emotion are supposedly distinct and separate from the bodily ones. Th is separation indicates that cognitivism’s disembodied conception of.. (shrink)
One of the outstanding problems in the cognitive sciences is to understand how ongoing conscious experience is related to the workings of the brain and nervous system. Neurodynamics offers a powerful approach to this problem because it provides a coherent framework for investigating change, variability, complex spatiotemporal patterns of activity, and multiscale processes (among others). In this chapter, we advocate a neurodynamical approach to consciousness that integrates mathematical tools of analysis and modeling, sophisticated physiological data recordings, and detailed phenomenological descriptions. (...) We begin by stating the basic intuition: Consciousness is an intrinsically dynamic phenomenon and must therefore be studied within a framework that is capable of rendering its dynamics intelligible. We then discuss some of the formal, analytical features of dynamical systems theory, with particular reference to neurodynamics. We then review several neuroscientific proposals that make use of dynamical systems theory in characterizing the neurophysiologi-. (shrink)
Book Information Women and Human Development: The Capabilities Approach. By Martha C. Nussbaum. Cambridge University Press. Cambridge/New York. 2000. Pp. xxi + 312.
Though the term “commodification” is used broadly, a theory of the processes by which goods become exchangeable and in fact objects of monetized exchange reveals a key site for technological politics. Commodities are goods that are alienable, somewhat rival, generally with low exclusion costs, and that are often consumed in use. Technological advances can affect all of these traits for certain goods, effectively bringing about a process of commodification by technological means. However, in order to function with specific contexts, technologies (...) are designed and manufactured according to technical standards, standards that in turn take on features of what David Grewal ( 2008 ) has called “network power.” As such, standard setting processes become the potential locus for political argument over the legitimacy of a commodification process. Theorists hoping to develop more democratic theories of technological governance should thus recognize the significance of standards and the role they play in either promoting or controlling social relations organized according to the norms of monetized exchange. (shrink)
In two experiments, we investigated how people interpret and reason with realistic conditionals in the form of inducements (i.e., promises and threats) and advice (i.e., tips and warnings). We found that inducements and advice differed with respect to the degree to which the speaker was perceived to have (a) control over the consequent, (b) a stake in the outcome, and (c) an obligation to ensure that the outcome occurs. Inducements and advice also differed with respect to perceived sufficiency and necessity, (...) as well as the degree to which these statements were perceived to be effective in changing the behaviour described in the antecedent of the conditional. Multiple regression analyses indicated that perceived control over the consequent, necessity, and sufficiency emerged as the best predictors of (a) the degree to which statements were perceived to be effective in changing the behaviour of the addressee, and (b) inference patterns on a conditional arguments task. (shrink)
Confucius Now: Contemporary Encounters with the Analects, edited by David Jones, is a stirring, thought-provoking anthology that invites reflection and soul searching. Other collections on Confucius and the Analects have appeared in recent years, but they have tended to focus narrowly on issues such as what we know about the Master, what in the Analects constitutes his original teachings, and the like. By raising imponderable questions about the Master’s identity and his fluctuating persona over time, and pursuing hypothetical philological (...) arguments, they have detracted from what is of interest in Confucius’ teachings as presented in the Analects while offering little in return.Drawing on several disciplines .. (shrink)
Universities are facing a critical challenge; university citizenship has steadily declined over the last few decades. As a self-governing entity, most of the foundational elements of a university community are within its own control. As a result, the health and future welfare of the institution depends greatly on the quality of its leaders and robustness of its governing structure. These in turn depend on the quality of those undertaking leadership roles and serving on governing bodies and on the degree to (...) which they reflect its values and aspirations. Maximising the probability that these desiderata will be achieved requires a broad-based faculty willingness to serve conscientiously on these bodies and to serve as administrators to be involved in selecting members, and to be involved on the myriad of sub-committees, task forces, departmental committees, and the like. It is not only an abdication of citizenship to leave governance and administration of the institution to a few willing faculty, it is dangerous and puts at risk the welfare of the institution. Even if these few were all able to place the welfare of the institution above their own particular agendas and their self-interest (not something on which to count), the process of self-selection could not be expected to result in a group that would adequately reflect, represent or understand the breadth and depth of the needs, aspirations and complex circumstances of the entire institution. The larger the pool of willing participants, the greater the probability that those selected will reflect best the institutional diversity. This paper draws out the rights and obligations of faculty citizens embedded in the structural arrangements common to universities in the western world. In part A we examine three fundamental components of those arrangements, components that collectively define certain rights and entail certain obligations of citizenship. These obligations flow in part from essential rights, and also in part from what is necessary to sustain the viability and vibrancy of the community. In Part B, we examine some of these essential obligations of citizenship. In Part C, we make recommendations about how to promote effective citizenship; these recommendations are collected after Part C under the heading “Recommendations.”. (shrink)
We show that at each type k ≥ 2, there exist c-irreducible functionals of c-r.e. degree, as defined in [Nor 1]. Our proofs are based on arguments due to Hinman, [Hin 1], and Dvornikov, [Dvo 1].
1. Each NABC member institutions should ensure that subject matter on ethical issues associated with food and agricultural biotechnology is systematically integrated into the curriculum of their institution. The pattern of implementation will vary a teach institution, but we expect that some combination of the following three strategies will be employed at most institutions. a) Modules Included in Basic and Applied Science Courses b) Modules Included in General Courses on Applied Ethics c) Special courses on Ethics and Food Biotechnology 2. (...) Each NABC member institution should develop an institutional mechanism for supporting faculty interest and research on ethical issues. Again, implementation will vary. In some institutions, an informal network of interested colleagues will fulfill this function, but in many places an annual workshop or a formal faculty/center will be needed to carry this out. (shrink)
'Critical Management Studies', or 'CMS', has emerged over the last ten years as the term to describe a diverse group of work that has adopted a critical or questioning approach to the traditional concerns of Management Studies. In this time, CMS has come to exert an increasing influence in Management and Management Studies, and while it has prompted fierce debate about its validity and use, there is no doubt that the rapidly growing interest in CMS has produced a vibrant and (...) exciting body of work. -/- Christopher Grey and Hugh Willmott, leading authorities in this area, have collected together seventeen readings which reflect these developments, and show why CMS has become an important field of research. The book is divided into four sections, 'Anticipating CMS', looking at some of the roots of CMS, 'Studying Management Critically', 'Critical Studies of Management', and 'Assessing CMS', examining some of the internal and external critical discussions of CMS. -/- Each reading and its significance is introduced by the editors, and in their introduction to the Reader, they reflect more broadly on the history of CMS. In particular, they consider its institutionalization, both in terms of its becoming an identifiable body of work or approach, and its institutional context within business schools, and indeed what it means to produce a Reader of critical work. -/- As an assessment of CMS, the Reader will be of interest to academics, researchers, and students of Management Studies. As an introduction to CMS, the book will prove invaluable to students taking courses requiring familiarity with the CMS literature. -/- Includes work by: -/- Paul S. Adler, Mats Alvesson, P. D. Anthony, James R. Barker, Loren Baritz, Stewart Clegg, Bill Cooke, Stanley Deetz, David Dunkerley, Christopher Grey, Heather Hopfl, David Knights, Richard Marsden, C Wright Mills, Martin Parker, Rosemary Pringle, Paul Thompson, Barbara Townley, Hugh Willmott, and Edward Wray-Bliss. (shrink)
I have learned a lot from Evan Thompson’s book–his scholarship is formidable, and his taste for relatively overlooked thinkers is admirable–but I keep stumbling over the strain induced by his self-assigned task of demonstrating that his heroes–Varela and Maturana, Merleau-Ponty and (now) Husserl, Oyama and Moss and others–have shattered the comfortable assumptions of orthodoxy, and outlined radical new approaches to the puzzles of life and mind. The irony is that Thompson is such a clear and conscientious expositor that (...) he makes it much easier for me to see that the ideas he expounds, while often truly excellent, are not really all that revolutionary, but, at best, valuable correctives to the sorts of oversimplifications that tend to get turned into mantras by sheer repetition, in the textbooks and popular accounts of these topics in the media. (shrink)
This paper is a response to the opening of new lines of research on CSR and SMEs (Thompson & Smith, 1991; Spence, 1999; Moore & Smith, 2006; Spence, 2007). It seeks to explore the business case for CSR in this corporate segment. The paper, which is based on four case studies of medium-sized firms in the automotive sector, took the distinctive approach of trying to understand the nature of CSR-like activities developed not by best-in-class CSR-driven companies but by purely (...) competitiveness-driven firms. The case studies provide explicit evidence that the CSR activities of SMEs and the notion of social capital are interrelated, turning social capital into a powerful instrument to better explain what academic literature has called silent CSR practices . The analysis that follows questions some of the basic tenets that underpin the branch of business ethics that deals with the nature of SMEs' approach to CSR. Four basic concerns, which take the form of propositions for further research, serve as the basis for this analysis: a) A definition of CSR that includes most of the actions taken by all companies in the territory contributes no academic value to the discipline b) Any study of the motivation behind these CSR actions must reflect their essentially pragmatic nature. Actions are linked to social values but also, more importantly, to the nature of the competitive environment c) Business ethics must seek common ground with other more sociological disciplines if it is to explain the reasons behind this type of action d) Any study of this kind of practice requires a dual approach: a) normative when using tools developed by CSR; and b) descriptive and instrumental using the notion of social capital. (shrink)
Cognitive control refers to the regulation of mental activity to support flexible cognition across different domains. Cragg and Nation (2010) propose that the development of cognitive control in children parallels the development of language abilities, particularly inner speech. We suggest that children’s late development of cognitive control also mirrors their limited ability to revise misinterpretations of sentence meaning. Moreover, we argue that for certain tasks, a tradeoff between bottom-up (data-driven) and top-down (rule-based) thinking may actually benefit performance in both children (...) and adults. Specifically, we propose that a lack of cognitive control may promote important aspects of cognitive development, like language acquisition and creativity. (shrink)
Cognitive science, as an interdisciplinary school of thought, may have recently moved beyond the bandwagon stage onto the throne of orthodoxy, but it does not make a favorable first impression on many people. Familiar reactions on first encounters range from revulsion to condescending dismissal--very few faces in the crowd light up with the sense of "Aha! So that's how the mind works! Of course!" Cognitive science leaves something out, it seems; moreover, what it apparently leaves out is important, even precious. (...) Boiled down to its essence, cognitive science proclaims that in one way or another our minds are computers, and this seems so mechanistic, reductionistic, intellectualistic, dry, philistine, unbiological. It leaves out emotion, or what philosophers call qualia, or value, or mattering, or . . . the soul. It doesn't explain what minds are so much as attempt to explain minds away. (shrink)
Previous assurance-theoretic treatments of testimony have not adequately explained how the transmission of warrant depends specifically on the speaker’s mode of address – making it natural to suspect that the interpersonal element is not epistemic but merely psychological or action-theoretic. I aim to fill that explanatory gap: to specify exactly how a testifier’s assurance can create genuine epistemic warrant. In doing so I explain (a) how the illocutionary norm governing the speech act proscribes not lies but a species of bullshit, (...) in an extension of Harry Frankfurt’s sense, (b) how that norm makes testimony fully second-personal, in Stephen Darwall’s sense, or bipolar, in Michael Thompson’s sense, and (c) how that species of second-personality or bipolarity is more fundamental than the practical species that Darwall and Thompson discuss. One attraction of this new Assurance View of testimony is that it allows us to reconceptualize the natures of normativity and responsibility more generally, viewing the assurance as implicating us in normative relations of recognition, and therefore of justice, that are not yet moralized with reactive attitudes. (shrink)
All representationalists maintain that there is a necessary connection between an experience’s phenomenal character and intentional content; but there is a disagreement amongst representationalists regarding the nature of those intentional contents that are necessarily connected to phenomenal character. Russellian representationalists maintain that the relevant contents are composed of objects and/or properties, while Fregean representationalists maintain that the relevant contents are composed of modes of presentation of objects and properties. According to Fregean representationalists such as David Chalmers and Brad (...) class='Hi'>Thompson, the Fregean variety of the view is preferable to the Russellian variety because the former can accommodate purported counterexamples involving spectrum inversion without illusion and colour constancy while the latter cannot. I maintain that colour constancy poses a special problem for the Fregean theory in that the features of the theory that enable it handle spectrum inversion without illusion cannot be extended to handle colour constancy. I consider the two most plausible proposals regarding how the Fregean view might be developed in order to handle colour constancy—one of which has recently been defended by Thompson (Australas J Philos 87:99–117, 2009)—and argue that neither is adequate. I conclude that Fregean representationalism is no more able to accommodate colour constancy than is Russellian representationalism and, as such, ought to be rejected. (shrink)
Cognitive science, as an interdisciplinary school of thought, may have recently moved beyond the bandwagon stage onto the throne of orthodoxy, but it does not make a favorable first impression on many people. Familiar reactions on first encounters range from revulsion to condescending dismissal--very few faces in the crowd light up with the sense of "Aha! So that's how the mind works! Of course!" Cognitive science leaves something out , it seems; moreover, what it apparently leaves out is important, even (...) precious. Boiled down to its essence, cognitive science proclaims that in one way or another our minds are computers, and this seems so mechanistic, reductionistic, intellectualistic, dry, philistine, unbiological. It leaves out emotion, or what philosophers call qualia, or value, or mattering, or . . . the soul. It doesn't explain what minds are so much as attempt to explain minds away. (shrink)
