The current study investigated the relationship of the Dark Triad with peer reporting, which occurs when an employee informs management that another coworker has engaged in counterproductive work behavior (CWB). We hypothesized that low organizational commitment would strengthen the negative relationships between each Dark Triad trait and peer reporting. Data from 281 employees suggested that low organizational commitment indeed strengthened the negative relationships between (a) narcissism and the base rate of peer reporting CWBs and (b) psychopathy and the base rate (...) of peer reporting CWBs. Our findings thus extended Dark Triad research to the topic of peer reporting. (shrink)

This study develops a Heideggerian thesis on the significance of Dasein's bodiliness. In Grundbegriffe der aristotelischen Philosophie , Heidegger claims that bodiliness secures the ground for the full being of the human. I situate this thesis squarely within die Sache selbst for Heidegger. Die Sache selbst concerns the issue of how being itself is engendered in human understanding . From as early as 1921, Heidegger explicitly understands his central topic in terms of ki&d12;nh siv . That is, the emergence of (...) being in conjunction with the ontological structure of the human being is ultimately intelligible as a kind of movement. The 1924 thesis makes sense ultimately insofar as bodiliness itself is understood as the ontological movement---the original being-moved or pa&d12;qov ---that allows entities to appear within the domain of human concerns. After examining Heidegger's retrieval of several key Aristotelian concepts , I interpret bodiliness as the always already operative being-pulled-out-ahead-of-itself by its own essential lack. Entities are first able to be present to Dasein because Dasein is opened in this way. Thus, bodiliness on my reading is die Sache selbst. My interpretation of Heidegger's thesis also forms the interpretive starting point for a rereading of Geworfenheit and Gewesenheit as concepts of bodiliness. As Dasein's original pa&d12;qov , bodiliness in Sein und Zeit would go by the name die gewesene Geworfenheit: the a priori or always already operative thrown-open-ness that first allows being to emerge to human understanding. (shrink)

Nietzsche's perspectivism can be seen as a two-leveled cure for dogmatism. On the one hand, perspectivism amounts to the dismissal of the metaphysical world and the acknowledgement of the esential incompleteness of all knowledge insofar as knowledge is only and always perspectival. On the other hand, perspectivism is an affirmation of the central role the affects play in all interpretations of the world; consequently, it presents itself as a summary rejection of the notion of disinterested contemplation or knowledge. Nietzsche's theory (...) of interpretation results in a transcendental-experimental philosophy able to liberate humankind from the stagnating, destructive effects of dogmatism. A perspectival account of knowledge implies not only an aesthetic aspect, but also a therapeutic one. (shrink)

The Czech philosopher Jan Patocka has been called “a teacher of the stature of a Merleau-Ponty” by none less than Paul Ricoeur. In Body, Community, Language, World, Patocka substantiates Ricoeur’s assessment both by presenting an insightful overview of the positions of his philosophical predecessors and by forging his own original phenomenological thought.

Is there a crisis of sense in the world? Does it even make any sense to talk of either “sense” or a “world” that does or does not have any sense? According to Jean-Luc Nancy in The Sense of the World, it is no longer possible to speak of a “crisis of sense.” Such a way of formulating the problem of the sense of the world belongs to the past. “Today, we are beyond this: all sense has been abandoned”. A (...) crisis of sense implies a loss of sense in the world that can be regained or replaced, whereas an abandonment of sense rejects this entire setup. In this brilliant and exciting work, Nancy endeavors to elaborate this abandonment, which is not only an abandonment of sense, but also and at the same time an exposure to sense. In over thirty short but extremely insightful sections, Nancy articulates the double meaning of this abandonment through reflections on a number of thinkers and topics. He not only gathers up and focuses the strands of the respective problematics he is engaging, but he also inaugurates new, fruitful strands along which to pursue the questions and problems of sense facing us in our concrete existence. (shrink)

Derek Parfit's “reductionist” account of personal identity (including the rejection of anything like a soul) is coupled with the rejection of a commonsensical intuition of essential self-unity, as in his defense of the counter-intuitive claim that “identity does not matter.” His argument for this claim is based on reflection on the possibility of personal fission. To the contrary, Simon Blackburn claims that the “unity reaction” to fission has an absolute grip on practical reasoning. Now David Lewis denied Parfit's claim that (...) reductionism contravenes common sense, so I revisit the debate between Parfit and Lewis, showing why Parfit wins it. Is reductionism about persons then inherently at odds with the unity reaction? Not necessarily; David Velleman presents a reductionist theory according to which fission does not conflict with the unity reaction. Nonetheless, relying on the distinction between person level descriptions of first-person states and the first-person perspective itself, I argue that Velleman's theory does not eliminate fission-based conflict with the unity reaction. Footnotesa * Earlier versions of this paper were presented at the philosophy departments at Rutgers University and Bowling Green State University. I am indebted to many members of these audiences, and to the other contributors to this volume, for their comments—especially Frank Arntzenius, Michael Bradie, David Copp, John Finnis, Jerry Fodor, Brian Loar, Barry Loewer, Colin McGinn, Fred Miller, Mark Moyer, David Oderberg, Marya Schechtman, David Schmidtz, David Sobel, and Sara Worley. Special thanks to David Sanford. I am also grateful to graduate students in my seminar at Bowling Green during the spring of 2003, for urging me to take seriously the grip of the unity reaction; I am especially grateful for the comments of Nico Maloberti, Jonathan Miller, John Milliken, Robyn Peabody, Jennifer Sproul, Jessica Teaman, and Sherisse Webb. (shrink)

All major western countries today contain groups that differ in their religious beliefs, customary practices or ideas about the right way in which to live. How should public policy respond to this diversity? In this important new work, Brian Barry challenges the currently orthodox answer and develops a powerful restatement of an egalitarian liberalism for the twenty-first century. Until recently it was assumed without much question that cultural diversity could best be accommodated by leaving cultural minorities free to associate (...) in pursuit of their distinctive ends within the limits imposed by a common framework of laws. This solution is rejected by an influential school of political theorists, among whom some of the best known are William Galston, Will Kymlicka, Bhikhu Parekh, Charles Taylor and Iris Marion Young. According to them, this 'difference-blind' conception of liberal equality fails to deliver either liberty or equal treatment. In its place, they propose that the state should 'recognize' group identities, by granting groups exemptions from certain laws, publicly 'affirming' their value, and by providing them with special privileges or subsidies. In Culture and Equality, Barry offers an incisive critique of these arguments and suggests that theorists of multiculturism tend to misdiagnose the problems of minority groups. Often, these are not rooted in culture, and multiculturalist policies may actually stand in the way of universalistic measures that would be genuinely beneficial. (shrink)

"Brian Orend's The Morality of War promises to become the single most comprehensive and important book on just war for this generation. It moves far beyond the review of the standard just war categories to deal comprehensively with the new challenges of the conflict with terrorism. It thoughtfully reviews every major military conflict of the past few decades, mining them for implications of the evolving tradition of just war thinking. It concludes with a critical engagement with the major alternatives (...) to just war thinking: pacifism and 'realism.' It is, in short, the most comprehensive and thoughtful assessment of all aspects of just war since Michael Walzer's classic Just and Unjust Wars." - Martin L. Cook, United States Air Force Academy. (shrink)

Is your mind the same thing as your brain, or are there aspects of mind beyond the brain's biology? This is the mind-body problem, and it has captivated curious minds since the dawn of human contemplation. Today many insist that the mind is completely reducible to the brain. But is that claim justified? In this stimulating anthology, twenty-five philosophers and scientists offer fresh insights into the mind-brain debate, drawing on psychology, neurology, philosophy, computer science, and neurosurgery. Their provocative conclusion? The (...) mind is indeed more than the brain. (shrink)

A User's Guide to Capitalism and Schizophrenia is a playful and emphatically practical elaboration of the major collaborative work of the French philosophers Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari. When read along with its rigorous textual notes, the book also becomes the richest scholarly treatment of Deleuze's entire philosophical oeuvre available in any language. Finally, the dozens of explicit examples that Brian Massumi furnishes from contemporary artistic, scientific, and popular urban culture make the book an important, perhaps even central text (...) within current debates on postmodern culture and politics.Capitalism and Schizophrenia is the general title for two books published a decade apart. The first, Anti-Oedipus, was a reaction to the events of May/June 1968; it is a critique of "state-happy" Marxism and "school-building" strains of psychoanalysis. The second, A Thousand Plateaus, is an attempt at a positive statement of the sort of nomad philosophy Deleuze and Guattari propose as an alternative to state philosophy.Brian Massumi is Professor of Comparative Literature at McGill University. (shrink)

In _What Animals Teach Us about Politics_, Brian Massumi takes up the question of "the animal." By treating the human as animal, he develops a concept of an animal politics. His is not a human politics of the animal, but an integrally animal politics, freed from connotations of the "primitive" state of nature and the accompanying presuppositions about instinct permeating modern thought. Massumi integrates notions marginalized by the dominant currents in evolutionary biology, animal behavior, and philosophy—notions such as play, (...) sympathy, and creativity—into the concept of nature. As he does so, his inquiry necessarily expands, encompassing not only animal behavior but also animal thought and its distance from, or proximity to, those capacities over which human animals claim a monopoly: language and reflexive consciousness. For Massumi, humans and animals exist on a continuum. Understanding that continuum, while accounting for difference, requires a new logic of "mutual inclusion." Massumi finds the conceptual resources for this logic in the work of thinkers including Gregory Bateson, Henri Bergson, Gilbert Simondon, and Raymond Ruyer. This concise book intervenes in Deleuze studies, posthumanism, and animal studies, as well as areas of study as wide-ranging as affect theory, aesthetics, embodied cognition, political theory, process philosophy, the theory of play, and the thought of Alfred North Whitehead. (shrink)

This study employs a qualitative approach to investigate the factors influencing engagement in Irish employee wellbeing programmes. Two stages of data collection were conducted, involving 52 employees completing open-ended questionnaires in Stage 1 and 23 participants interviewed in Stage 2. Three themes emerged from the thematic analysis of the data: (1) communicating wellbeing initiatives; (2) creating and maintaining interest in wellbeing; and (3) challenges to employee wellbeing. The three themes and their subthemes provide qualitative evidence from employees on the barriers (...) to and drivers of workplace wellbeing initiative utilisation through the lenses of Resource utilisation Theory and Culture of Health. The findings underscore the importance of supportive environments and effective design in enhancing programme utilisation, along with the need to offer targeted initiatives addressing secondary and tertiary wellbeing issues. By addressing shortcomings in Irish workplaces, this research contributes to advancing the effectiveness and impact of workplace wellbeing initiatives at multiple levels: organisational, individual, and governmental. (shrink)

Color coded terror alerts, invasion, drone war, rampant surveillance: all manifestations of the type of new power Brian Massumi theorizes in _Ontopower_. Through an in-depth examination of the War on Terror and the culture of crisis, Massumi identifies the emergence of preemption, which he characterizes as the operative logic of our time. Security threats, regardless of the existence of credible intelligence, are now felt into reality. Whereas nations once waited for a clear and present danger to emerge before using (...) force, a threat's felt reality now demands launching a preemptive strike. Power refocuses on what _may_ emerge, as that potential presents itself to feeling. This affective logic of potential washes back from the war front to become the dominant mode of power on the home front as well. This is ontopower—the mode of power embodying the logic of preemption across the full spectrum of force, from the “hard” to the "soft". With _Ontopower_, Massumi provides an original theory of power that explains not only current practices of war but the culture of insecurity permeating our contemporary neoliberal condition. (shrink)

Concerned about widespread incompetence among voters in democratic societies, epistocrats propose quasi-democratic electoral systems that amplify the voices of competent voters while silencing (or perhaps just subduing) the voices of those deemed incompetent. In order to amplify the voices of the competent we first need to know what counts as political competence, and then we need a way of identifying those who possess the relevant characteristics. After developing an account of what it means to be politically competent, I argue that (...) there is no way for the epistocrat to identify such persons. Therefore, epistocracy cannot be implemented. (shrink)

The notion that visual attention can operate over visual objects in addition to spatial locations has recently received much empirical support, but there has been relatively little empirical consideration of what can count as an `object' in the ®rst place. We have investi- gated this question in the context of the multiple object tracking paradigm, in which subjects must track a number of independently and unpredictably moving identical items in a ®eld of identical distractors. What types of feature clusters can (...) be tracked in this manner? In other words, what counts as an `object' in this task? We investigated this question with a technique we call target merging: we alter tracking displays so that distinct target and distractor loca- tions appear perceptually to be parts of the same object by merging pairs of items (one target with one distractor) in various ways ± for example, by connecting item locations with a simple line segment, by drawing the convex hull of the two items, and so forth. The data show that target merging makes the tracking task far more dif®cult to varying degrees depending on exactly how the items are merged. The effect is perceptually salient, involving in some conditions a total destruction of subjects' capacity to track multiple items. These studies provide strong evidence for the object-based nature of tracking, con®rming that in some contexts attention must be allocated to objects rather than arbitrary collections of features. In addition, the results begin to reveal the types of spatially organized scene components that can be independently attended as a function of properties such as connectedness, part struc- ture, and other types of perceptual grouping. q 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved. (shrink)

After first noting that I seek to broaden the definition of science fiction to a little more loosely defined speculative fiction, this essay explores four different ways in which fiction can work together with both the sciences and the philosophy of perception. This cooperation is needed because there is much about the sensory worlds of humans and non-human animals of which we continue to be ignorant. First, speculative fiction can be a source of hypotheses about the nature of the senses. (...) Second, it can help us understand the inner worlds of beings different from us. Third, speculative fiction often pushes us to investigate the ethical and social dimensions of sensory difference. Finally, speculative fiction can play an important role in reconciling our scientific understanding of the senses with a more commonsense understanding of same. (shrink)

Scott Davison has raised an epistemic challenge to the doctrine of petitionary prayer. Roughly, the challenge is that we cannot know or have reason to believe that a prayer has been answered. Davison argues that the epistemic challenge undermines all the extant defenses of petitionary prayer. I argue that it does not.

In arguing against the likelihood of consciousness in non-human animals, Descartes advances a slippery slope argument that if thought were attributed to any one animal, it would have to be attributed to all, which is absurd. This paper examines the foundations of Thomas Willis’ comparative neuroanatomy against the background of Descartes’ slippery slope argument against animal consciousness. Inspired by Gassendi’s ideas about the corporeal soul, Thomas Willis distinguished between neural circuitry responsible for reflex behaviour and that responsible for cognitively or (...) consciously mediated behaviour. This afforded Willis a non-arbitrary basis for distinguishing between animals with thought and consciousness and those without, a methodology which retains currency for neuroscience today. (shrink)

This essay traces the phenomenon of revelation beginning with the humblest, to the most personal, to the most exalted. Through this analysis, we discover several qualities of revelation: it reveals itself from itself, reveals a new world to me, and reveals another me to myself and to others. Turning to divine Revelation, a further set of concepts is uncovered: the witness who encounters a Revelation without understanding it, a resistance to the testimony of the witness, and a paradox that provokes (...) this resistance by exceeding expectations. These qualities make Revelation both more intelligible and meaningful. For, while holding an exceptional privilege, divine Revelation nonetheless remains in continuity with phenomenality in general and, in arriving from elsewhere by its own initiative, it opens my eyes to the unfolding of its unseen reserves. (shrink)

January 6th, 2013 at Kyoto University. Organizer: Hisashi Nakao.

Brian Skyrms applies adaptive dynamics (of cultural evolution and individual learning) to social theory, investigating altruism, spite, fairness, trust, division of labor, and signaling. Correlation is seen to be fundamental. Spontaneous emergence of social structure and of signaling systems are examined in the context of learning dynamics.

Corporate concentration in the United States has been on the rise in recent years, sparking a heated debate about its causes, consequences, and potential remedies. This article examines a facet of public policy that has been neglected in the debate: corporate taxation. Developing the first empirical mapping of the effective tax rates of nonfinancial corporations disaggregated by size and broken down by jurisdiction, the article reveals a striking tax advantage for big business at home and abroad. The analysis goes on (...) to show how persistent regressivity in the tax structure is bound up with the increasing relative power of large corporations within the corporate universe, as well as a shift in firm-level power relations. As large corporations become less disposed to investments that may indirectly benefit ordinary workers, they become more disposed to shareholder value enhancement that directly benefits the asset-rich. What this means is that the corporate tax structure is connected not only to rising corporate concentration but also to widening household inequality. (shrink)

This chapter focuses specifically on the case of pain. Despite traditional opposition to the representational thesis, the latter has won widespread assent. The most important early proponents of the representational thesis were David Armstrong and George Pitcher, both of whom held that pain is a form of perception. Following Armstrong and Pitcher, intentionalists have traditionally held that the experience of pain has a content with roughly the following form: there is a disturbance with such-and-such features at location L. Since the (...) internal states associated with the experience of pain arguably track local physical properties of disturbances, it seems that the tracking intentionalist must identify the pain qualities represented by pain experience with these physical properties. But there are at least two important objections to the identification of pain qualities with local physical properties of disturbances. (shrink)

This chapter explores a way in which visual processing may involve innate constraints and attempts to show how such processing overcomes one enduring challenge to nativism. In particular, many challenges to nativist theories in other areas of cognitive psychology have focused on the later development of such abilities, and have argued that such development is in conflict with innate origins. Innateness, in these contexts, is seen as antidevelopmental, associated instead with static processes and principles. In contrast, certain perceptual models demonstrate (...) how the very same mental processes can both be innately specified and yet develop richly in response to experience with the environment. This process is entirely unmysterious, as shown in certain formal theories of visual perception, including those that appeal to spontaneous endogenous stimulation and those based on Bayesian inference. (shrink)

Rational self-interest is often seen as being at the heart of liberal economic theory. In _The Power at the End of the Economy_ Brian Massumi provides an alternative explanation, arguing that neoliberalism is grounded in complex interactions between the rational and the emotional. Offering a new theory of political economy that refuses the liberal prioritization of individual choice, Massumi emphasizes the means through which an individual’s affective tendencies resonate with those of others on infra-individual and transindividual levels. This nonconscious (...) dimension of social and political events plays out in ways that defy the traditional equation between affect and the irrational. Massumi uses the Arab Spring and the Occupy Movement as examples to show how transformative action that exceeds self-interest takes place. Drawing from David Hume, Michel Foucault, Gilles Deleuze, Niklas Luhmann and the field of nonconsciousness studies, Massumi urges a rethinking of the relationship between rational choice and affect, arguing for a reassessment of the role of sympathy in political and economic affairs. (shrink)

A central concern of nearly every environmental ethic is its desire to extend the scope of direct moral concern beyond human beings to plants, nonhuman animals, and the systems of which they are a part. Although nearly all environmental philosophies have long since rejected modernity’s conception of individuals as isolated and independent substances, few have replaced this worldview with an alternative that is adequate to the organic, processive world in which we find ourselves. In this context, Brian G. Henning (...) argues that the often overlooked work of Alfred North Whitehead has the potential to make a significant contribution to environmental ethics. Additionally inspired by classical American philosophers such as William James, John Dewey and Charles Sanders Pierce and environmental philosophers such as Aldo Leopold, Peter Singer, Albert Schweitzer, and Arne Naess, Henning develops an ethical theory of which the seminal insight is called “The Ethics of Creativity.” By systematically examining and developing a conception of individuality that is equally at home with the microscopic world of subatomic events and the macroscopic world of ecosystems, _The Ethics of Creativity_ correctly emphasizes the well-being of wholes, while not losing sight of the importance of the unique centers of value that constitute these wholes. In this way, _The Ethics of Creativity_ has the potential to be a unique voice in contemporary moral philosophy. (shrink)

Since its publication in 1965, Brian Barry's seminal work has occupied an important role in the revival of Anglo-American political philosophy. A number of ideas and terms in it have become part of the standard vocabulary, such as the distinction between "ideal-regarding" and "want-regarding" principles and the division of principles into aggregative and distributive. The book provided the first precise analysis of the concept of political values having trade-off relations and its analysis of the notion of the public interest (...) has also been significant. (shrink)

[Brian P. McLaughlin] In recent years, some philosophers have claimed that we can know a priori that certain external world skeptical hypotheses are false on the basis of a priori knowledge that we are in certain kinds of mental states, and a priori knowledge that those mental states are individuated by contingent environmental factors. Appealing to a distinction between weak and strong a priority, I argue that weakly a priori arguments of this sort would beg the question of whether (...) the skeptical hypothesis under assessment is true, and that the prospect of a sound strongly a priori argument of this sort seems dim. \\\ [David Owens] Contemporary discussion of scepticism focuses on the possibility that most or all of our beliefs might be false. I argue that the hypothesis of massive falsity and the associated 'problem of the external world' are inessential to the scepticisms of Descartes and Hume. What drives Cartesian and Humean scepticism is the demand for certainty: any possibility of error, however local, must be ruled out before we can claim either justified belief or knowledge. Contemporary philosophers have ignored this form of scepticism because they doubt that the demand for certainty can be motivated. But Descartes provides a sound motivation for this demand in the Meditations. (shrink)

I defend the view that Cicero writes the Academica from the perspective of an aspirationalist radical skeptic. In section 2 I examine the textual evidence regarding the nature of Cicero’s skeptical stance in the Academica. In section 3 I consider the textual evidence from the Academica for attributing aspirationalism to Cicero. Finally, in section 4 I argue that while aspirationalist radical skepticism is open to a number of philosophical objections, none of those objections is decisive.

Expectations and possibilities for employee loyalty are shifting rapidly, particularly in the for-profit sector. I explore the natureof employee loyalty to the organization, in particular, those elements of loyalty beyond the notion of the ethical demands of employeeloyalty. I consider the moral significance of loyalty for the employee and whether the development of ties of loyalty to the workorganization is in fact a good thing for the employee or for the employer. I argue that employees have a natural inclination to (...) extendloyalty to the organization and that organizations consequently have an obligation to make clear to employees the degree to which theorganization will recognize and reward employee loyalty. (shrink)

We provide a conceptual framework and a case study of how an organization links its mission and espoused values with its operating practices. Conceptually, we locate this mission integration theme within Simons’ management accounting and control framework, and then adapt Schatzki’s site ontology of social practice to develop general research expectations for case studies of espoused values/practice linkages. Empirically, we apply the conceptual framework to a case study of linkages among an actual company’s espoused values, human resource practices, and financial (...) management during its 40-plus year history. The concluding section summarizes the study and discusses its implications, limitations, and opportunities for future research. (shrink)