Plato on Knowledge and Forms brings together a set of connected essays by Gail Fine, in her main area of research since the late 1970s: Plato's metaphysics and epistemology. She discusses central issues in Plato's metaphysics and epistemology, issues concerning the nature and extent of knowledge, and its relation to perception, sensibles, and forms; and issues concerning the nature of forms, such as whether they are universals or particulars, separate or immanent, and whether they are causes. A specially written (...) introduction draws together the themes of the volume, which will reward the attention of anyone interested in Plato or in ancient metaphysics and epistemology. (shrink)
The Peri ide^on (On Ideas) is the only work in which Aristotle systematically sets out and criticizes arguments for the existence of Platonic forms. Gail Fine presents the first full-length treatment in English of this important but neglected work. She asks how, and how well, Aristotle understands Plato's theory of forms, and why and with what justification he favors an alternative metaphysical scheme. She examines the significance of the Peri ide^on for some central questions about Plato's theory of forms--whether, (...) for example, there are forms corresponding to every property or only to some, and if only to some, then to which ones; whether forms are universals, particulars or both; and whether they are meanings, properties or both. Fine also provides a general discussion of Plato's theory of forms, and of our evidence about the Peri ide^on and its date, scope, and aims. While she pays careful attention to the details of the text, she also relates it to contemporary philosophical concerns. The book will be valuable for anyone interested in metaphysics ancient or modern. (shrink)
Nanomedicine applications are an extension of traditional pharmaceutical drug development that are targeting the most pressing health concerns through improvements to diagnostics, drug delivery systems, therapeutics, equipment, surgery and prosthetics. The benefits and risks to the individual have been extrapolated to include broader societal impacts of nanomedicine with concerns extending to inequitable distribution of benefits accruing to developed, or North countries, rather than developing, or South countries. Analysis reveals a great deal of overlap between the North and South's most serious (...) health priorities which kill millions each year. A significant amount of nanomedicine research activity is also underway for the most pressing South country-specific health concerns. Nanomedicine development promises profound breakthroughs for both North and South countries; however, the existing inequities in pharmaceutical drug development, patenting, access and delivery remain significant barriers for South countries. (shrink)
Philospher, mathematician, and general man of science, Alfred North Whitehead was a polymath whose interests and generous sympathies encompassed entire worlds.
Roger North's The Musicall Grammarian 1728 is a treatise on musical eloquence in all its branches. Of its five parts, I and II, on the orthoepy, orthography and syntax of music, constitute a grammar; III and IV, on the arts of invention and communication, form a rhetoric; and V, on etymology, consists of a history. Two substantial chapters of commentary introduce the text, which is edited here for the first time in its entirety: Jamie Kassler places his treatise within the (...) broader context not only of North's musical and non-musical writings but also their relation to the intellectual ferment of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and Mary Chan describes physical and textual aspects of the treatise as evidence for North's processes of thinking about musical thinking. (shrink)
In Process and Reality and other works, Alfred North Whitehead struggled to come to terms with the impact the new science of quantum mechanics would have on metaphysics.This ambitious book is the first extended analysis of the intricate relationships between relativity theory, quantum mechanics, and Whitehead's cosmology. Michael Epperson illuminates the intersection of science and philosophy in Whitehead's work-and details Whitehead's attempts to fashion an ontology coherent with quantum anomalies.Including a nonspecialist introduction to quantum mechanics, Epperson adds an essential new (...) dimension to our understanding of Whitehead-and of the constantly enriching encounter between science and philosophy in our century. (shrink)
How to communicate with "the other" who is culturally different from oneself is one of the greatest challenges facing North-South relations. This paper builds on existential-phenomenological and poststructuralist concepts of alterity and difference to strengthen the position of Latina and other subaltern speakers in North-South dialogue. It defends a postcolonial approach to feminist theory as a basis for negotiating culturally differentiated feminist positions in this age of accelerated globalization, migration, and displacement.
This essay examines mountaineering narratives in the light of recent eco-critical scholarship to assert that their tales of intense awareness and connection reveal a more fundamental integration between human subject and natural object than our culture has imagined. North American climbing narratives show three primary modes of imagining nature: first, as an object to conquer; second, as a picturesque setting to admire; third, as the extension of a self whose identity is shaped by the interpenetration of the human and the (...) natural. The third of these modes motivates my study because this interpretation offers a lived example of the type of human connection to the natural world philosophers theorize is possible, and ecologists insist is necessary. (shrink)
Abstract The strength of a discipline is reflected in the development of a set of concepts relevant to its practice domain. As an evolving professional discipline, nursing requires further development in this respect. Over the past two decades in North America there have emerged three different approaches to concept analysis in nursing scholarship: Wilsonian-derived, evolutionary, and pragmatic utility. The present paper compares and contrasts these three methods of concept in terms of purpose, procedures, philosophical underpinnings, limitations, guidance for researchers, and (...) ability to contribute to nursing knowledge and disciplinary advancement. This work extends prior criticisms of concept analysis methods, especially as formulated by Morse and colleagues, by promoting further critical discussion regarding the direction and effectiveness of nursing efforts to meet the basic needs of disciplinary development. Its central thesis is that nursing concept analysis must advance beyond the Wilsonian-derived methods of Walker and Avant by devoting greater attention to understanding the domain of concepts to be analysed and deriving features from these contexts. (shrink)
The influence of culture and sociohistorical change on all aspects of the psyche and on psychoanalytic theory is the missing dimension in psychoanalysis. This dimension is especially relevant to clinicians in the mental health field--whether psychoanalyst, psychologist, psychiatrist, social worker or marriage counselor--to enable them to understand what is at stake in working with those from various Asian cultures in North America and European societies. It is even more relevant than most clinicians realize to working with those from one's own (...) culture. Cultural Pluralism and Psychoanalysis explores the creative dialogue that the major psychoanalysts since Freud have had with the modern Northern European/North American culture of individualism; and tries to resolve major problems that occur when psychoanalysis, with its cultural legacy of individualism, is applied to those from various Asian cultures. Alan Roland first examines the theoretical issues involved in developing a multicultural psychoanalysis. He then looks at the interface between Asian-Americans and other Americans, discussing the frequent dissonances, miscommunications, and misunderstandings that result from each coming from vastly different cultural and psychological realms. Finally, Roland examines the various ways in which culture enters the space of psychoanalytic work with Asians in America, illustrating his clinical theory with case vignettes of immigrants and second and third generation patients in the United States. (shrink)
This survey of major developments in North American philosophy of science begins with the mid-1960s consolidation of the disciplinary synthesis of internalist history and philosophy of science (HPS) as a response to criticisms of logical empiricism. These developments are grouped for discussion under the following headings: historical metamethodologies, scientific realisms, philosophies of the special sciences, revivals of empiricism, cognitivist naturalisms, social epistemologies, feminist theories of science, studies of experiment and the disunity of science, and studies of science as practice and (...) culture. A unifying theme of the survey is the relation between historical metamethodologists and scientific realists, which dominated philosophical work in the late 1970s. I argue that many of the alternative cognitive naturalisms, social epistemologies, and feminist theories that have been proposed can be understood as analogues to the differences between metamethodological theories of scientific rationality and realist accounts of successful reference to real causal processes. Recent work on experiment, scientific practice, and the culture of science may, however, challenge the underlying conception of the field according to which realism and historical rationalism (or their descendants) are the important alternatives available, and thus may take philosophy of science in new directions. (shrink)
The objective of this article is to show that Whitehead had a very important philosophy of education both on the formal level. The consistency found is well worth noting. I researched many of Whitehead's major works for his formal views and Lucian Price's Dialogues of Alfred North Whitehead. In my opinion Price's book is the best available for the purpose of getting Whitehead's candid informal view of education. The paper is divided into sections according to the particular subject matter. Since (...) Whitehead describes education as the study of life and all of its manifestations . It is appropriate to cover some of these areas: the purpose of education, the role of science and speculation, education and civilization, and both the process of education and process education are reviewed. Whitehead's philosophy of education is sweeping in scope. In his philosophy we find the importance of experience, imagination, speculation, generalization, factual knowledge, specialization, relevance, intuition, novelty, curiosity, theory, practice, pleasure, harmony, freedom, discipline, technical and liberal education and unification. He, in fact, unifies all these seemingly different areas into a coherent philosophy of education. (shrink)
Encyclopedia entry for the British mathematician and American Philosopher Alfred North Whitehead. Usefully summarizes his life and work for non-specialists and, more especially, interested persons outside of the philosophical disciplines per se.
The objective of this article is double: first, to analyze, using a descriptive analysis, the main differences in the level and components of social behaviour between European and North American firms and, second, to contrast empirically, using a multiple linear regression model, whether the motives behind corporate social behaviour are different depending on the region or country of the firm. With this aim, an indicator of social behaviour (termed effort in sustainability) has been constructed by aggregating the firm's social effort (...) with customers, employees, community and environment for a sample of the 40 European and North American companies most highly reputed in the years 2003 and 2004. The results obtained indicate that the region or country of the firm influences the level, components and motivation of its social behaviour. (shrink)
Alfred North Whitehead published no book or article strictly on aesthetics. Nonetheless, in his philosophical writings he mentions several times that aesthetic experience is the key to his metaphysics. In fundamental places of his philosophical system, moreover, he uses expressions like ‘aesthetic experience’, ‘aesthetic fact’, ‘aesthetic unity’, and ‘aesthetic order’. These expressions do not, however, refer to human conscious experience alone, but to all entities of the universe. That has led some scholars to the conviction that these terms are used (...) in a purely technical sense and therefore do not refer to the sphere of aesthetics. The author of the current article seeks to demonstrate that these terms do refer to the sphere of aesthetics. The argument set out here consists in three steps. In the first, the author presents Whitehead’s philosophical method of imaginative generalization. In the second step, the author presents the fundamental ontological unit (the actual occasion) of Whitehead’s philosophy, and points out that Whitehead describes it using aesthetic terms that are employed in a broad sense. In the third step the author presents Whitehead’s view of aesthetic understanding. At the end of the article, it is demonstrated that although Whitehead did not develop his analysis of aesthetic understanding into a consistent theory, it forms the background to all his metaphysical books. (shrink)
This article reviews the practices and differing sets of attitudes North Americans have taken with respect to fairness in international trade and proposes a set of common considerations for ongoing debates about these matters. After reviewing the asymmetrical relations between Canada, the United States, and Mexico and the impact of multilateral trade agreements on bilateral trade between these countries, the article looks at four typical normative views with respect to trade held by North Americans. These views variously emphasize concerns for (...) protectionism, liberal fair play, distributive justice, and dissent in the name of the environment or the working classes. Acknowledging that the debates over what is fair are not likely to be easily resolved, we call for open political processes that allow these debates to proceed, and we identify five common points of reference that might usefully inform these debates. These comprise (1) respect for flexibility, (2) the importance of institutions, (3) greater attention to the commutative justice principles for fair exchanges and corresponding guarantees so that all countries possess basic power to bargain on their own behalf, (4) the need to find fitting balance between local, national, regional, and international trade, and (5) more concern for the ways false pricing and abusive transfer pricing distort international trading relations. (shrink)
Aesthetics is not a subject usually associated with North Korea in Western scholarship, the usual tropes being autocracy, counterfeiting, drugs, human-rights abuse, famine, nuclear weapons, party-military dictatorship, Stalinism, and totalitarianism. Where the arts are concerned, they are typically seen as crude political propaganda. One British museum specialist writes that North Korean visual art is an "art under control," and one Russian historian insists that North Korean literature is devoid of the "beauty of language."1 As the short turns of phrase and (...) value judgments indicate, there has been no real attempt in English to engage the North Korean aesthetic on descriptive terms.North Korea is not a liberal .. (shrink)
Although many challenges remain, business ethics is flourishing in North America. Prominent organizations give annual business ethics awards, investments in socially screened mutual funds are increasing, ethics officers and corporate ombudspersons are more common and more influential, and new ideas are being tested in practice. On the academic side, two major journals specializing in business ethics are well-established and other major journals often include articles on business ethics and new organizations emphasizing ethics have been initiated. Within business schools, the number (...) of endowed chairs is growing and the ethics curriculum is expanding. Canada is a major player in the business ethics discipline while business ethics in Mexico is just beginning to emerge as a focus of interest in both the business and academic communities. (shrink)
When assessing North American students' oral participation in classes, should all students be subject to the same evaluation criteria or should teachers make reasonable allowances for Asian students practicing humility? How do we weigh the promotion of 'courage' through character education initiatives with traditional Asian dispositions? Viewing Asian humility in Western classrooms and as it rubs up against liberal principles of equality or justice, and a virtue ethic raises a number of philosophical questions around authenticity, polyvalence, and relativity. I approach (...) first through the lens of liberal philosophy as the 'dilemma of diversity' meets a boundary with communitarianism, and then through the contextualist lenses of Wittgenstein, Heidegger, and Foucault. Drawing on Tully's political philosophy, I inspect humility as embedded in language-games and then open it to revision through comparative history, inviting participants in the teacher's game of assessment to renegotiate the rules: a process complicated by their reticence to speak up. I also use Medina and Scheman's political reading of Wittgenstein to discuss how teachers can discern humility as performative silence within the classroom, distinguishing between genealogical accounts that show how comportments could be otherwise from perspicuous inspection of interconnected language-games in current educational settings. (shrink)
Debates over the future of agriculture in North Americaestablish a dialectical opposition between conventional,industrial agriculture and alternative, sustainable agriculture.This opposition has roots that extend back to the 18th century inthe United States, but the debate has taken a number ofsurprising turns in the 20th century. Originally articulated as aphilosophy of the left, industrial agriculture has utilitarianmoral foundations. In the US and Canada, the articulation of analternative to industrial agriculture has drawn upon threecentral themes: the belief that agriculture is, in some (...) way, tiedto democracy; the belief that complex bureaucratic organizationsare inherently opposed to human interests; and the belief thatthe family farms characteristic of 19th century North Americatend to produce people of superior moral character. It has proveddifficult to weave these themes into a coherent vision ofagriculture for the 21st century. Often, risk and health-basedconcerns are the basis for public criticism of conventionalagriculture, but these do not conflict with the utilitarianorientation of the industrial model, and are easily incorporatedinto it. If there is to be a philosophical debate over the futureof agriculture, we must find some way to rehabilitate thequasi-Aristotelean view of agriculture that emerges from thethree critical themes noted above. (shrink)
This study examines the ethical attitudes and practices of securities analysts and portfolio managers from four Pacific Rim countries – Hong Kong, Japan, Singapore and Thailand – and compares the findings to a similar study of North American investment professionals to identify significant differences. The findings show that many differences exist due to cultural differences and differences in the regulatory environment between the Pacific Rim countries studied and North America.
Efforts to reform medical education have emphasized the need to formalize instruction in medical ethics. However, the discipline of medical ethics education is still searching for an acceptable identity among North American medical schools; in these schools, no real consensus exists on its definition. Medical educators are grappling with not only what to teach (content) in this regard, but also with how to teach (process) ethics to the physicians of tomorrow. A literature review focused on medical ethics education among North (...) American medical schools reveals that instruction in ethics is considered to be vitally important for medical students. Agreement by medical educators on a possible core curriculum in ethics should be explored. To develop such a curriculum, deliberative curriculum inquiry by means of a targeted Delphi technique may be a useful methodology. However, the literature reveals that medical curricular change is notoriously slow. General implications for medical ethics education as a discipline are discussed. (shrink)
The North American wolf became extinct east of the Appalachians by 1800. To colonial legislators, uniform, colony-wide wolf bounties, as incentives to wolf-extermination, seemed the simplest solution to a perceived threat to livestock and European settlements. To local taxpayers, considerations of parsimony and fraud loomed just as large. This tension led to wolf extermination policies that were costly and often counterproductive. The bounty laws, as enacted, amounted to a fight against the abstract wolf, instead of against individual predators. Its eventual (...) 'success' brought about new troubles. Absent wolves, the eastern seaboard's ecosystem re-adjusted, allowing new predators and pests to flourish. (shrink)
Douglass North is a pivotal figure in the development of the ?new? economic history as well as the ?new? institutional economics. However, the relationship between these two aspects of his thinking remains undeveloped in previous critical assessments of North's work. The relationship is clarified here. The evidence presented indicates that three distinct phases can be distinguished in his writings between the 1950s and the 2000s. The paper relates these changing views to the shifting mainstream within economics and the effects that (...) this shift has in turn had on economic history research. Economic history has adapted to economic research by abandoning some practices associated with the earlier cliometric literature. Furthermore, North is unique to the extent that his recent writings represent something of a convergence with ?old? institutionalism. (shrink)
Using 15 years of data (1995–2009) from literature reviews, survey questionnaires, personal interviews, and desktop research, the authors examine North American (Canada, Mexico, and the United States of America) regional trends in business ethics research, teaching and training. The patterns indicate that business ethics continues to flourish in North America with high levels of productivity in both quantity and quality of teaching, training and research publication outputs. Topics/themes that have been covered during the time period are treated with an acknowledgement (...) of the concomitant marginal impact on improving ethical business behavior and contexts—as recurring domestic and global scandals attest. Major North American business ethics challenges/issues to be addressed in the future are identified. (shrink)
The importance of religious cosmology for environmental ethics is explored in a case-study of enchanted and disenchanted world-views in the Sert o of North-east Brazil. Popular Catholicism is shown to have retained an enchanted world-view of humans interacting with saints, souls and animist spirits. In order to differentiate themselves from Catholics, evangelical Protestants pursue a disenchanted view of the natural environment but hold a highly supernatural view of human society. Afro-Brazilian cult members are Catholics who graft an enchanted view of (...) human society on to an enchanted view of nature, producing a hyper-enchanted world-view. The relationship between religious world-view, agricultural modernisation, deforestation and social disparity is evaluated, showing how the process of disenchantment has been highly uneven with the selective elimination of certain enchanted beliefs alongside the persistence of others and their re-adaptation to the contemporary needs of the local population. (shrink)
A generation ago, Barber and Rifkin [The North Will Rise Again: Pensions, Politics and Power in 1980s (Beacon Press, Boston)] envisioned a new strategy for American Labor that would make extensive use of the capital in multi-employer and public pension plans. They argued that organized labor could influence how these funds were invested in order use this capital as both a weapon in struggles with recalcitrant management and as a tool to generate new union jobs. A number of union officials (...) took this advice seriously, to make labor-connected individuals and organizations were among the most determined and successful investor activists of the 1990s. It is, however, hard to find evidence that this activism has effectively met the goals of organized labor, leading to the ironic conclusion that the innovations of labor's investor activist will do more to assist the investment community than the American labor movement. (shrink)
In recent years, major disasters have figured prominently in the media. While corporate response to disasters may have raised corporate philanthropy to a new level, it remains an understudied phenomenon. This article draws on comparative research on corporate social responsibility (CSR) and corporate philanthropy to explore the geography of corporate philanthropic disaster response. The study analyzes donation announcements made by Fortune Global 500 firms from North America, Europe and Asia to look for regional patterns across three recent disasters: the South (...) Asian Tsunami, Hurricane Katrina, and the Kashmiri earthquake. The results reveal inter-regional differences in the overall likelihood of donations and in their cash value, in addition to the identification of home-region- and local presence effects. Implications for researchers and practitioners are discussed. (shrink)
Zusammenfassung Dieser Bericht enthält zunächst eine Skizze der Entwicklung der Wissenschaftsgeschichtsschreibung in den USA und Canada. Sodann werden die Aktivitäten der History of Science Society of North America besonders vorgestellt. SchlieÃlich betrachtet der Bericht besonders wichtige Publikationen im einzelnen.
This article is organized by issues of cruelty and mercy in connection with freedom and oppression in the formation of an exceptional North American cultural diversity. The two leading questions are: How might we address such issues as we live together in our profound and frequently mis-attuned differences with other people? Are there ways to mitigate the multiple cruelties of oppression in the amalgamation and clash of cultures in a country of borderlands? There are four major sections: “How Might We (...) Think of Cultural Boarders and Questions of Freedom and Oppression?,” “How Should We Respond to Practices and Values that Are Abhorrent to Us?,” “How Might We Evaluate the Choices Like Those I Have Highlighted?,” and “Borderland Experiences.”. (shrink)
This paper explores the social, legal, and political issues Wal-Mart faces in each of the three North American countries and suggests reasons for the quite significant differences. It also issues a call to Business and Society scholars to add prescriptive work to the already large body of descriptive work that has been collected.
Society is increasingly impacted by natural hazards which cause significant damage in economic and human terms. Many of these natural hazards are weather and climate related. Here, we show that North Atlantic atmospheric circulation regimes affect the propensity of extreme wind speeds in Europe. We also show evidence that extreme wind speeds are long-range dependent, follow a generalized Pareto distribution and are serially clustered. Serial clustering means that storms come in bunches and, hence, do not occur independently. We discuss the (...) use of waiting time distributions for extreme event recurrence estimation in serially dependent time series. (shrink)
Models of the work-to-family and family-to-work interface were tested in two heterogeneous samples of workers, one from North America ( N = 408) and one from China ( N = 442), using the same measures translated from English to Chinese using back translation. Consistent with proposed differences in the centrality of work and family, tolerance of work demands, and the availability of family support, work-to-family spillover effects tended to be stronger in the North American sample, whereas family-to-work spillover effects tended (...) to be stronger in the Chinese sample. However, some inconsistencies across cultures did not conform to this generalization. Results point to asymmetric differences between North America and China in the work–family interface. Theoretical implications for resource scarcity and expansionist perspectives are discussed, as well as those for the applicability of work–family interventions across North America and China. (shrink)
This paper utilizes concepts from the works of Paulo Freire and other Latin American philosophers of liberation to formulate a philosophy of liberation in a North American context. Since many North Americans experience a double consciousness, that is, both oppressor and oppressed consciousness, our liberating task is quite complex. This study offers both a philosophical framework and an example of the process of demythologizing one aspect of North American consciousness, the consciousness of privilege.
The influence of externally focused organizational capabilities on the generation of proactive environmental strategies was examined under contingenteffects of uncertainty in the general business environment in 134 North American and European ski resorts. Capabilities of strategic proactivity and continuous innovation were found to be associated with proactive environmental strategies. Managerial perceptions of uncertainty in the general business environment were found to moderate the deployment of the capability of continuous innovation at all levels of uncertainty and stakeholder engagement at low and (...) average levels of uncertainty. The study contributes to the resource-based view by illuminating an important contingency under which these capabilities are likely to be deployed to generate such a strategy. (shrink)
The paper offers a reading of “The Narrow Road to the Deep North” and related writings by the famous Japanese haiku poet of the 17 century, Basho. Employing the Heideggerian distinction between earth and world, the interpretation of Basho suggests that prose narrative, represented by Basho’s travelogue or account of his journey by foot through Japan, inserts nature (earth) within the scope of everyday human concerns (world). The reading suggests that it is in the poetic interludes, the haiku pieces that (...) interrupt the story of the trip with pristine word images of a natural object or scene, that nature unfolds on its own terms, i.e. as a world unto itself. (shrink)
The mathematical background and content of Greek philosophy, by F. S. C. Northrop.--The one and the many in Plato, by R. Demos.--An introduction to the De modis significandi of Thomas of Erfurt, by S. Buchanan.--Truth by convention, by W. V. Quine.--Logical positivism and speculative philosophy, by H. S. Leonard.--The nature and status of time and passage, by P. Weiss.--Causality, by S. Kerby--iller.--The compound individual, by C. Hartshorne.--The good, by O. H. Lee.
There has been much discussion concerning whether or not some of Sartre's views on morality may be understood as endorsing Kant's views. Perhaps the most controversial issue has been whether in various places in his corpus Sartre invokes Kant's “universalizability principle.” Indeed, Sartre's frequent use of Kantian language, including the idea of universalizability and “kingdom of ends,” strongly suggests that there is some appreciable convergence between his views and those of Kant. While it is true that Sartre borrows Kant's language (...) and expressions, he does not, I argue, use them in the same sense as Kant does. (shrink)
Time’s arrow is necessary for progress from a past that has already happened to a future that is only potential until creatively determined in the present. But time’s arrow is unnecessary in Einstein’s so-called block universe, so there is no creative unfolding in an actual present. How can there be an actual present when there is no universal moment of simultaneity? Events in various places will have different presents according to the position, velocity, and nature of the perceiver. Standing against (...) this view is traditional common sense since we normally experience time’s arrow as reality and the present as our place in the stream of consciousness, but we err to imagine we are living in the actual present. The present of our daily experience is actually a specious present, according to E. Robert Kelly (later popularized by William James), or duration, according to Henri Bergson, an habitus, as elucidated by Kerby (1991), or, simply, the psychological present (Adams, 2010) – all terms indicating that our experienced present so consists of the past overlapping into the future that any potential for acting from the creative moment is crowded out. Yet, for philosophers of process from Herakleitos onward, it is the philosophies of change or process that treat time’s arrow and the creative fire of the actual present as realities. In this essay, I examine the most well known but possibly least understood process cosmology of Alfred North Whitehead to seek out this elusive but actual present. In doing so, I will also ask if process philosophy is itself an example of the creative imagination and if this relates to doing science. I conclude Whitehead's process philosophy falls short of allowing for the actual creative spontaneity of a dynamic (eternal) present. (shrink)
At the end of Republic 5, Plato distinguishes epistêmê from doxa, knowledge from belief. In Posterior Analytics 1.33, Aristotle provides his own distinction between epistêmê and doxa. I explore his way of distinguishing them and compare it with Plato's.
This is the editors' introduction to a new anthology of commissioned articles covering the various branches of philosophy of physics. We introduce the articles in terms of the three pillars of modern physics: relativity theory, quantum theory and thermal physics. We end by discussing the present state, and future prospects, of fundamental physics.
The Oxford Handbooks series is a major new initiative in academic publishing. Each volume offers an authoritative and state-of-the-art survey of current thinking and research in a particular area. Specially commissioned essays from leading international figures in the discipline give critical examinations of the progress and direction of debates. Oxford Handbooks provide scholars and graduate students with compelling new perspectives upon a wide range of subjects in the humanities and social sciences. Plato is the best known, and continues to be (...) the most widely studied, of all the ancient Greek philosophers. The twenty-one newly commissioned articles in the Oxford Handbook of Plato provide in-depth and up-to-date discussions of a variety of topics and dialogues. The result is a useful state-of-the-art reference to the man many consider the most important philosophical thinker in history. Each article is an original contribution from a leading scholar, and they all serve several functions at once: they survey the lay of the land; express and develop the authors' own views; and situate those views within a range of alternatives. This Handbook contains chapters on metaphysics, epistemology, love, language, ethics, politics, art and education. Individual chapters are are devoted to each of the following dialogues: the Republic, Parmenides, Theaetetus, Sophist, Timaeus, and Philebus. There are also chapters on Plato and the dialogue form; on Plato in his time and place; on the history of the Platonic corpus; on Aristotle's criticism of Plato, and on Plato and Platonism. (shrink)
This project continues our interdisciplinary research into computational and cognitive aspects of narrative comprehension. Our ultimate goal is the development of a computational theory of how humans understand narrative texts. The theory will be informed by joint research from the viewpoints of linguistics, cognitive psychology, the study of language acquisition, literary theory, geography, philosophy, and artificial intelligence. The linguists, literary theorists, and geographers in our group are developing theories of narrative language and spatial understanding that are being tested by the (...) cognitive psychologists and language researchers in our group, and a computational model of a reader of narrative text is being developed by the AI researchers, based in part on these theories and results and in part on research on knowledge representation and reasoning. This proposal describes the knowledge-representation and natural-language-processing issues involved in the computational implementation of the theory; discusses a contrast between communicative and narrative uses of language and of the relation of the narrative text to the story world it describes; investigates linguistic, literary, and hermeneutic dimensions of our research; presents a computational investigation of subjective sentences and reference in narrative; studies children’s acquisition of the ability to take third-person perspective in their own storytelling; describes the psychological validation of various linguistic devices; and examines how readers develop an understanding of the geographical space of a story. This report is a longer version of a project description submitted to NSF. This document, produced in May 2007, is a L ATEX version of Technical Report 89-07 (Buffalo: SUNY Buffalo Department of Computer Science, August 1989), with slightly.. (shrink)
As a contribution towards clearing the ground for a new phenomenological evaluation of the essence of science, in this paper I present a critique of Heidegger''s argument in Being and Time for the priority of Zuhandenheit to Vorhandenheit. I argue that Heidegger''s notion of presence-at-hand is incoherent, conflating Husserl and Descartes, and that this general analysis has serious phenomenological flaws. Contrary to Heidegger, I maintain that there is a form of exploratory, theoretical activity including causal inquiry which is prior to (...) the type of practical activity entailed by readiness-to-hand. Consideration of this exploratory activity points us in the direction of an alternate conception of the genesis and essence of theory. (shrink)
The paper applies insights from Axel Honneth's recent book, The Struggle for Recognition , to the South African situation. Honneth argues that most movements for justice are motivated by individuals' and groups' felt need for recognition. In the larger debate over the relative importance of recognition compared with distribution, a debate framed by Taylor and Fraser, Honneth is presented as the best of both worlds. His tripartite schema of recognition on the levels of love, rights and solidarity, explains how (...) concerns for equality and difference are two separate needs, even though both must be satisfied. Past and ongoing struggles in South Africa can be understood as struggles for recognition. The African Renaissance itself, to be successful, must address economic and recognition issues simultaneously. Key Words: African Renaissance • recognition • social movements. (shrink)
The need to maintain the public trust in the integrity of the accounting profession has led to increased interest in research that examines the moral reasoning abilities (MRA) of Certified Public Accountants (CPAs). This study examines the MRA of CPAs practicing in small firms or as sole practitioners and the factors that affect MRA throughout their working careers.The results indicate that small-firm accounting practitioners exhibit lower MRA than expected for professionals and that age, gender and socio-political beliefs affect the moral (...) reasoning abilities of small-firm practitioners. We also find that completion of an ethics course in college has a positive impact on MRA. Also, the survey respondents indicate overwhelming support for including ethics courses within the business curriculum. Finally, the fact that those accountants with the lowest MRA are the least supportive of ethical training may indicate the need for mandatory, rather than optional, training in ethics both in university and Continuing Professional Education courses. (shrink)
: Simone de Beauvoir offers an important contribution to discourse on universal human rights. Her descriptive ontology of persons as free, interdependent, and sit-uated in a world that offers resistance brings the discussion of human rights to a new level that also converges with some African perspectives. I claim that Beauvoir is able to defend universal human rights and, moreover, justify moral action against human rights abuses by showing the existential priority of ontological freedom.
Introductory Remarks Why Paradigm Variation is Ensuant upon Contradiction How Externalistic Warrant Parries the Threat of [Truth] Relativism Why Not to Ward Relativism off by Means of Foundationalistic Justification Defending a relativistic View of Warrant A Transcendental Argument against [Truth] Relativism Towards [Partial] convergence A Gradualistic Paraconsistent Way to Convergence 7.1. - Perspectivism and Non Copulative Paraconsistent Logics 7.2. - The Strength and Weakness of Two Copulative Approaches to Paraconsistent Logic 7.3. - The Logic of Contradictorial Gradualism 7.4. - Implementing (...) the Notion of Relative Truth Bibliographic References.. (shrink)
