It has long been recognized that the insights of Russian thought are more often to be found in literature and literary criticism, than in technical philosophy. Simon Frank, however, is a twentieth-century Russian emigre who demonstrates considerable agility in the labyrinths of philosophical inquiry. In The Unknowable, first published in 1939, his basic thesis is that philosophy achieves its ultimate when it recognizes the limits of the rational. It is precisely the transrational, the "unknowable" in rational terms, which is most (...) important to man. Hence, true philosophy inevitable leads into the religious dimension. (shrink)

The United States Sentencing Commission’s guidelines for the sentencing of organizations found guilty of violating federal laws recently became effective. Dramatically increased penalties are possible under these gudelines, but so too is a substantial reduction in the penalties imposed on organizations that have an effective program in place to prevent and detect violations. This provides corporations with a tremendous new incentive in inaugurate organizational ethics audits both to avoid violations in the first instance and to reduce the penalty imposed in (...) the event that a violation occurs. We argue, however, that there have always been very good reasons for organizations to conduct such audits, which emphasize the identification of the organizational factors that create incentives for unethical behavior. Corporate ethics programs initiated without reference to such factors cannot reasonably be expected to be effective in improving a company’s internal ethical environment. (shrink)

A collection of Plato's work showing the unsurpassed power of his writing, which ultimately lies in the fact that he was as much a literary as a philosophic genius.

Many journals in the physical sciences require authors to submit assurances of compliance with human subjects and other research ethics standards. These requirements do not cover all disciplines equally, however. In this paper we report on the findings of a survey of perceptions of ethical and managerial problems from journal editors in political science and related disciplines. Our results show that few journals in political science require assurance statements common to journals for other scientific disciplines. We offer some reasons for (...) this as well as some recommendations for implementing ethical assurance safeguards for political science. (shrink)

Millennials are a powerful workforce group and are quickly becoming established business leaders, consumers, and investors. Yet, millennials are often described as a uniformly homogeneous generation, despite mounting evidence of variances across their private and workplace behaviors, attitudes and preferences, and personal values. This article examines the personal value orientations of millennials in the Unites States, reporting consistencies, variations, and contrasts based on a large sample drawn from seven diverse universities. Results of this article suggest more similarities across a national (...) population of millennials than differences, suggesting a national identity among American millennials. Practical implications of our findings and future research are discussed. (shrink)

Kevin Hill presents a highly original study of Nietzsche's thought, the first book to examine in detail his debt to the work of Kant. Hill argues that Nietzsche is a systematic philosopher who knew Kant far better than is commonly thought, and that he can only be properly understood in relation to him. Nietzsche's Critiques will be of great value to scholars and students with interests in either of these philosophical giants, or in the history of ideas generally.

Kevin Hill presents a highly original study of Nietzsche's thought, the first book to examine in detail his debt to the work of Kant. Hill argues that Nietzsche is a systematic philosopher who knew Kant far better than is commonly thought, and that he can only be properly understood in relation to him. Nietzsche's Critiques will be of great value to scholars and students with interests in either of these philosophical giants, or in the history of ideas generally.

Kevin Hill's highly original new interpretation of Nietzsche's philosophy is the first to examine in detail his debt to Kant, in particular the Critique of Pure Reason, Critique of Practical Reason, and Critique of Judgement. Nietzsche, Hill argues, knew Kant far better than is commonly thought, and can only be thoroughly understood in relation to Kant.Nietzsche's Critiques maintains that beneath the surface of his texts there is a systematic commitment to a form of early Neo-Kantianism in metaphysics and (...) epistemology, ethics, and aesthetics, grounded in his reading of the three Critiques, Kuno Fischer's commentary on the first Critique, and Friedrich Lange's discussion of Kant in The History of Materialism. The book also documents the decisive influence Nietzsche's close reading of the Critique of Judgement had on the writing of the Birth of Tragedy, and offers a remarkably accessible interpretation of Kant's system, while clarifying such difficult issues as the interpretation of Kant's 'Transcendental Deduction' and his notion of reflective judgement.Lucid and thorough, Hill's work will be of great value to scholars and students with interests in either of these philosophical giants, or in the history of ideas generally. (shrink)

This paper examines social network size in contemporary Western society based on the exchange of Christmas cards. Maximum network size averaged 153.5 individuals, with a mean network size of 124.9 for those individuals explicitly contacted; these values are remarkably close to the group size of 150 predicted for humans on the basis of the size of their neocortex. Age, household type, and the relationship to the individual influence network structure, although the proportion of kin remained relatively constant at around 21%. (...) Frequency of contact between network members was primarily determined by two classes of variable: passive factors (distance, work colleague, overseas) and active factors (emotional closeness, genetic relatedness). Controlling for the influence of passive factors on contact rates allowed the hierarchical structure of human social groups to be delimited. These findings suggest that there may be cognitive constraints on network size. (shrink)

Kirby and Paris have exhibited combinatorial algorithms whose computations always terminate, but for which termination is not provable in elementary arithmetic. However, termination of these computations can be proved by adding an axiom first introduced by Goodstein in 1944. Our purpose is to investigate this axiom of Goodstein, and some of its variants, and to show that these are potentially adequate to prove termination of computations of a wide class of algorithms. We prove that many variations of Goodstein's axiom are (...) equivalent, over elementary arithmetic, and contrast these results with those recently obtained for Kruskal's theorem. (shrink)

: Catholic teaching has no moral difficulties with research on stem cells derived from adult stem cells or fetal cord blood. The ethical problem comes with embryonic stem cells since their genesis involves the destruction of a human embryo. However, there seems to be significant promise of health benefits from such research. Although Catholic teaching does not permit any destruction of human embryos, the question remains whether researchers in a Catholic institution, or any researchers opposed to destruction of human embryos, (...) could participate in research on cultured embryonic stem cells, or whether a Catholic institution could use any therapy that ultimately results from such research. This position paper examines how such research could be conducted legitimately in a Catholic institution by using an ethical analysis involving a narrative context, the nature of the moral act, and the principle of material cooperation, along with references to significant ethical assessments. It also offers tentative guidelines that could be used by a Catholic institution in implementing such research. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Of Body and Brush: The Grand Sacrifice as Text/Performance in Eighteenth Century ChinaR. Kent GuyOf Body and Brush: The Grand Sacrifice as Text/Performance in Eighteenth Century China. By Angela Zito. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1997. Pp. xix + 311. Hardcover $45.00. Paper $17.95.It may be best to think of the argument of Angela Zito's enormously stimulating book Of Body and Brush: The Grand Sacrifice as Text/Performance (...) in Eighteenth Century [End Page 623] China as a series of concentric circles. At its core is a careful and satisfyingly annotated translation of the chapters of the Comprehensive Rites of the Qing (Da Qing tong li) (1756) that concern the grand sacrifice, the most important ceremonial moment in the life of a Qing emperor. From her careful and original analysis of these materials, Zito is able to bring new life not only to the Qianlong Emperor himself but also to the worlds of which he was, or sought to be, the center. These included the officials who served him, the community of scholars and editors who wrote about ritual, and the people who looked to the state for models of the centering process. In so doing, she rescues the eighteenth century from the accusation that it was the "graveyard of modernity." But she also examines the nature of Chinese ritual itself, in a way that explodes Western assumptions and explores Chinese subjectivities.There are far too many implications of this book to deal with in a short review, and any choice of themes is somewhat subjective. Zito's suggestion that we refer to the community of Chinese officials as an "imperium" rather than a "bureaucracy" (à la Weber) is a convincing one that will certainly influence our narrative practice. I was most impressed, however, with what I found to be the triumphant demonstration that this book achieves of the vitality of ritual in the eighteenth century. We have always known, at some level, that ritual was important in China, but we have not always known what to do with this fact. Like contemporary undergraduates who respond with blank stares when asked if they have ever participated in a ritual (I have tried this), we have stood mute before the mountain of Chinese primary source materials dealing with ritual. In showing us a way to read ritual texts, Zito reminds us that these provided for the Chinese a way of "making manifest" (p. 79) the power of heaven in human affairs, and re-actualizing past words in present ceremonial. In short, eighteenth-century students of ritual texts were hardly antiquarians; they were actually optimists, pursuing the possibility that the realities of the golden age of the past could actually be recovered in the present. And they were not only this, of course, for Zito offers the fascinating suggestion that in a world where literacy was becoming more common, the analysts of ritual were attempting to recuperate their social and political positions as "interpreters and creators of authority" by reconnecting writing and obscure ancient ritual practice.This comment, however, is really an aside in an argument that is mainly concerned with how ritual was acted out in the eighteenth century. The details of the Grand Sacrifice—the various prostrations, placements, and profferings—are compellingly described and interpreted here. One waits—to say "breathlessly" may be a bit strong, but certainly with mounting anticipation—to see what historical associations or symbolic statements will come next in this most theatrical of imperial performances. One of the most interesting questions is whether the emperor sacrificed as a filial son—human, like the officials who surrounded him on the lower steps of the altar, or like a sage whose access to the heavenly realm was of a qualitatively different character than that of any other mortal. Of course the emperor was both, and it was the function of ritual, as Zito argues, to negotiate the differences between the two. [End Page 624]What is at stake in this volume is nothing less than an attempt to recover the mentality of those who were engaged in ritual practices. What did it mean when the emperor clothed his body in ceremonial... (shrink)

Background: Many people participating in dementia research may lack capacity to give informed consent and the relationship between cognitive function and capacity remains unclear. Recent changes in the law reinforce the need for robust and reproducible methods of assessing capacity when recruiting people for research.Aims: To identify numbers of capacitous participants in a pragmatic randomised trial of dementia treatment; to assess characteristics associated with capacity; to describe a legally acceptable consent process for research.Methods: As part of a pragmatic randomised controlled (...) trial of Ginkgo biloba for mild-moderate dementia, we used a consenting algorithm that met the requirements of existing case law and the exigencies of the new Mental Capacity Act. We decided who had capacity to give informed consent for participation in the trial using this algorithm and sought predictors of capacity.Results: Most participants with mild-moderate dementia in this trial were unable to give informed consent according to the legal criteria. When adjusted for confounding, the Mini Mental State examination did not predict the presence of capacity.Conclusion: Cognitive testing alone is insufficient to assess the presence of capacity. Researchers and clinicians need to be aware of the challenging processes regarding capacity assessment. We outline a procedure which we believe meets the ethical and legal requirements. (shrink)

The authors present a critical edition of the Quaestio de formalitatibus of John Duns Scotus. In the introduction to their edition, they examine the evidence of the manuscripts and the external and internal evidence to determine the authorship, place and date of the question. They conclude that the Quaestio was disputed by John Duns Scotus at Paris in the Franciscan studium sometime between 1305 and 1307. Chronologically, Scotus’ Quaestio, disputed at Paris, would seem to be his final, magisterial word on (...) the subject of the formal distinction. Finally, the authors examine the transmission of the text in each of the manuscripts in order to establish a stemma codicum and the principles that govern their edition. (shrink)

The US neutrino community gathered at the Workshop on the Intermediate Neutrino Program at Brookhaven National Laboratory February 4-6, 2015 to explore opportunities in neutrino physics over the next five to ten years. Scientists from particle, astroparticle and nuclear physics participated in the workshop. The workshop examined promising opportunities for neutrino physics in the intermediate term, including possible new small to mid-scale experiments, US contributions to large experiments, upgrades to existing experiments, R&D plans and theory. The workshop was organized into (...) two sets of parallel working group sessions, divided by physics topics and technology. Physics working groups covered topics on Sterile Neutrinos, Neutrino Mixing, Neutrino Interactions, Neutrino Properties and Astrophysical Neutrinos. Technology sessions were organized into Theory, Short-Baseline Accelerator Neutrinos, Reactor Neutrinos, Detector R&D and Source, Cyclotron and Meson Decay at Rest sessions.This report summarizes discussion and conclusions from the workshop. (shrink)