We study 944 shareholder proposals submitted to 343 U.S. firms on climate change issues during 2009–2022. We use logistic and two-stage regression to estimate the propensity for a firm to be targeted or subjected to a vote at the annual general meeting and, for voted proposals, the determinants of that vote. We also examine whether climate-related proposals affect investor returns and how they relate to firms’ future environmental performance and greenhouse gas emissions. Compared to a matched sample, we first find (...) that activists target larger, more carbon-intensive, and less R&D-active firms. Second, voting likelihood is higher for firms with repeated and operations-related proposals and lower pre-proposal environmental ratings. By contrast, disclosure-related proposals are likelier to be negotiated and withdrawn. Third, repeated and operations-related proposals receive higher votes in favor, whereas votes on carbon-intensive firms do not. Fourth, building on the theory that investors act as if they distinguish among the different shareholder proposals based on the expected cost to the firm, we find evidence to support this idea. We find that investors respond negatively to ex-ante costlier proposals, such as those that relate to emissions reduction and target carbon-intensive firms. Fifth, targets’ future environmental performance rating is almost twenty percent higher after a proposal than before compared to the matched sample, whereas emissions do not budge appreciably. (shrink)

Information can be public among a group. Whether or not information is public matters, for example, for accounts of interdependent rational choice, of communication, and of joint intention. A standard analysis of public information identifies it with (some variant of) common belief. The latter notion is stipulatively defined as an infinite conjunction: for p to be commonly believed is for it to believed by all members of a group, for all members to believe that all members believe it, and so (...) forth. This analysis is often presupposed without much argument in philosophy. Theoretical entrenchment or intuitions about cases might give some traction on the question, but give little insight about why the identification holds, if it does. The strategy of this paper is to characterize a practical-normative role for information being public, and show that the only things that play that role are (variants of) common belief as stipulatively characterized. In more detail: a functional role for “taking a proposition for granted” in non-isolated decision making is characterized. I then present some minimal conditions under which such an attitude is correctly held. The key assumption links this attitude to beliefs about what is public. From minimal a priori principles, we can argue that a proposition being public among a group entails common commitment to believe among that group. Later sections explore partial converses to this result, the factivity of publicity and publicity from the perspective of outsiders to the group, and objections to the aprioricity of the result deriving from a posteriori existential presuppositions. (shrink)

Ned Block argues that the higher-order (HO) approach to explaining consciousness is ‘defunct’ because a prominent objection (the ‘misrepresentation objection’) exposes the view as ‘incoherent’. What’s more, a response to this objection that I’ve offered elsewhere (Weisberg 2010) fails because it ‘amounts to abusing the notion of what-it’s-like-ness’ (xxx).1 In this response, I wish to plead guilty as charged. Indeed, I will continue herein to abuse Block’s notion of what-it’s-like-ness. After doing so, I will argue that the HO approach accounts (...) for the sense of what-it’s-like-ness that matters in a theory of consciousness. I will also argue that the only incoherence present in the HO theory is that generated by embracing Block’s controversial notion of what-it’s-like-ness, something no theorist of any stripe ought to do. Block is famous for (among other things) having introduced the notion of ‘phenomenal consciousness’ into contemporary philosophy of mind (Block 1995). This term is widely employed in the philosophical literature and it even appears in the empirical literature. But wide-speared usage has brought about divergent interpretations of the term. We can distinguish a ‘moderate’ and a ‘zealous’ reading of ‘phenomenal consciousness’. On the moderate reading, ‘phenomenal consciousness’ just means ‘experience’. Many people have embraced this sense of the term and use it to roughly pick out conscious experience involving sensory quality (states like conscious visual experiences or conscious pains, for example).2 On the zealous reading, however, phenomenal consciousness is held to be ‘distinct from any cognitive, intentional, or functional property’ (Block 1995: 234). That is, any explanation of phenomenal consciousness in exclusively cognitive, intentional, or functional terms will fail to capture, without remainder, what is really distinctive about phenomenal consciousness. Block, of course, is fully clear about embracing the zealous reading; indeed, his initial introduction of the notion is in those terms. The same ambiguity occurs with the much-used (and abused) idea of ‘what-it’s-like-ness’.. (shrink)

There is a credibility decay on positive knowledge among the social scientists and particularly among the psychologists. Certainly different prejudices dwell upon this phenomenon. First and principal the usually made identity of positive and natural knowledge. This belief is also fed by many others such as that one which assumes that every quantification, which is a consequence of positive knowledge,follows the model of the Physical Sciences. We consider that all these prejudices do not keep in mind the work done in (...) the last decades on the Theories of Measure. We consider also that psychophysical methods which have been introduced by Stevens present a stimulating program for the behavioral sciences and they open a new frontiere to the positive knowledge. (shrink)

There is a credibility decay on positive knowledge among the social scientists and particularly among the psychologists. Certainly different prejudices dwell upon this phenomenon. First and principal the usually made identity of positive and natural knowledge. This belief is also fed by many others such as that one which assumes that every quantification, which is a consequence of positive knowledge,follows the model of the Physical Sciences. We consider that all these prejudices do not keep in mind the work done in (...) the last decades on the Theories of Measure. We consider also that psychophysical methods which have been introduced by Stevens present a stimulating program for the behavioral sciences and they open a new frontiere to the positive knowledge. (shrink)

Telling a patient that the outcome of his illness is not good, or even hopeless, requires sensitivity and the ability to communicate with him in the setting of a hospital which is an unnatural environment divorced from family and friends. It is a task which must be taught and learned by doctors and nurses.

Nietzsche's critique of the modern subject is often presented as a radical break with modern philosophy and associated with the so-called ‘death of the subject’ in 20th century philosophy. But Nietzsche claimed to be a ‘psychologist’ who was trying to open up the path for ‘new versions and sophistications of the soul hypothesis.’ Although there is no doubt that Nietzsche gave expression to a fundamental crisis of the modern conception of subjectivity, it is open to debate whether he wanted to (...) abandon the very idea of subjectivity or only to pose the problem of subjectivity in new terms. The volume includes 26 articles by top Nietzsche scholars. The chapters in Part I, “Tradition and Context”, deal with the relationship between Nietzsche's views on subjectivity and modern philosophy, as well as with the late 19th century context in which his thought emerged; Part II, “The Crisis of the Subject”, examines the impact of Nietzsche's critique of the subject on 20th century philosophy, from Freud to Heidegger to Dennett, but also in such authors as Deleuze, Foucault, Derrida, or Luhmann; Part III, “Current Debates - From Embodiment and Consciousness to Agency”, shows that the way in which Nietzsche engaged with such themes as the self, agency, consciousness, embodiment and self-knowledge makes his thought highly relevant for philosophy today, especially for philosophy of mind and ethics. (shrink)

The existential analysis -- The death of dasein -- The timeliness of dasein -- The derivation of time -- The time of being.

The achievements of the textile industry in Roman Britain are often underestimated as a result of the meagreness of our available evidence. The Edict on maximum prices issued by Diocletian in A.D. 301 shows that British capes commanded high prices on the markets of the Empire, and that in the late third century A.D. British rugs were the best in the world. In view of the competition from the traditional centres of rug manufacture in the East, this is an astonishing (...) achievement. (shrink)

The received translation and interpretation of many of the technical terms current in the textile industry of the Roman Empire are inaccurate, because lexicographers have either fought shy of being precise, or have thought that they recognized in the ancient world technical processes which originated at a much later date. The evidence is often equivocal or insufficient, but may still yield details that have been overlooked. The textile expression scutulatus, to take an example, deserves more attention than Blümner has devoted (...) to it. When it refers to the appearance of a garment, Lewis and Short, s.v. scutulatus, translate ‘diamond or lozenge-shaped, checkered’. It seems worth while to attempt a more precise translation, and, if possible, to estimate the significance in context of the goods so designated. (shrink)

Living out of silence, out of a fully functioning, lovingly attentive mind, and not just out of thought, out of a partially functioning mind, is requisite for depth or profundity in living or relating. A fully attentive, truly silent or meditative mind sees that there is real dualism of time and the timeless and that time and the timeless each has its own unique value. The timeless, or real silence, that which alone can make for depth in one's living and (...) relating, can be there only when, in one's awareness, time and all that is related to time, have come to an end. An examination of a wide variety of statements made by writers, both past and present, shows that these understandings are seldom there in contemporary writings, just as they were not there in writings that have come down to us from the past. 'Living beyond the One and the Many' invites readers to consider the possibility that what is presented in it can bring deep meaning to one's way of living in the world"--Publisher's description, back cover. (shrink)

If the world itself is metaphysically indeterminate in a specified respect, what follows? In this paper, we develop a theory of metaphysical indeterminacy answering this question.

Nietzsche's metaphor of the spider that spins its cobweb expresses his critique of the metaphysical use of language - but it also suggests that ‟we, spiders‟, are able to spin different, life-affirming, healthier, non-metaphysical cobwebs. This book is a collection of 12 essays that focus not only on Nietzsche's critique of the metaphysical assumptions of language, but also on his effort to use language in a different way, i.e., to create a ‟new language‟. It is from this viewpoint that the (...) book considers such themes as consciousness, the self, metaphor, instinct, affectivity, style, morality, truth, and knowledge. The authors invited to contribute to this volume are Nietzsche scholars who belong to some of the most important research centers of the European Nietzsche-Research: Centro Colli-Montinari (Italy), GIRN (Europhilosphie), SEDEN (Spain), Greifswald Research Group (Germany), NIL (Portugal). In 2011 João Constâncio and Maria João Mayer Branco edited Nietzsche on Instinct and Language, also published by Walter de Gruyter. The two books complement each other. (shrink)

Jeffrey Collins’ new book aims to presents Locke’s views on religious toleration in the light of Thomas Hobbes’ political philosophy. At first blush, Hobbes seems an unusual choice as a point of co...

O artigo é uma reflexão sobre o modo como, na "Genealogia da Moral", Nietzsche repensa "o problema estético" a partir da oposição entre a concepção kantiana do belo como predicado de um juízo "desinteressado" e a concepção stendhaliana do belo como efeito de uma "cristalização" e uma "promessa de felicidade". A chave do pensamento de Nietzsche neste contexto está no conceito de "embriaguez" , por um lado, como termo-chave para designar a "pré-condição fisiológica" da arte, mas, por outro, como um (...) processo de espiritualização dos instintos ou das pulsões que as interioriza e intensifica. Esta espiritualização distingue-se da contemplação desinteressada porque não nos des-afecta e porque é, em grande medida, uma espiritualização da sexualidade, mas não deixa, por isso, de implicar uma reavaliação dos valores e uma ampliação do horizonte do humano. É por isso que a arte pode ser pensada como um "contra-movimento" que afirma a vida e combate o "ideal ascético" e o "niilismo europeu". The present article is a reflection on the way how, in "Genealogy of Morals", Nietzsche rethinks "the aesthetic issue" based on the opposition between Kant's conception of beauty as a predicate of a "disinterested" judgment and the stendhaliana conception of beauty as the effect of a "crystallization" and a "promise of happiness". The key to the thought of Nietzsche's in this context resides on the concept of "intoxication" on the one hand, as a key-term to designate the "pre-physiological condition" of art, but on the other hand, as a process of spiritualisation of the instincts or of the drives, which internalizes and intensifies them. This spiritualization is distinguished from disinterested contemplation for it does not dis-affects us, and because it is by large a spiritualization of sexuality, without renouncing to imply a revaluation of the values and a widening on the horizon of the human. That is why art can be thought of as a "counter-movement" that affirms life and fights the "ascetic ideal" and the "European nihilism". (shrink)

The article is divided in three main parts. The first part shows that the first three chapters of the second essay of On the Genealogy of Morality give a genealogical account of the emergence of reason in human history, and that this account involves the claim that reason is a development of human engagement with social rules: Nietzsche understands the emergence of reason as the emergence of a normative space of reasons. The second part interrogates Nietzsche’s conception of value, purpose, (...) and meaning in order to show that he is not a proponent of any version of “bald naturalism”: he does not equate what is “really real” with a natural world of causation devoid of value, purpose, and meaning. The third part of the article shows that, although Nietzsche’s perspectivism does not assign to the space of reasons the status of a purely autonomous realm of justification, he does not dismiss rational normativity, or the space of reasons, as merely illusory. Nietzschean genealogy is shown to be a reflective questioning of our values that investigates the reasons behind our deeper normative commitments. (shrink)

O perspectivismo de Nietzsche defende que o mundo como um todo é “absurdo”, não tem uma meta, um valor, uma finalidade, um sentido, mas não defende que a condução de uma vida humana possa ser outra coisa que não um reger-se por metas, valores, fins, sentidos. Esta distinção é fundamental para que se compreenda que, por um lado, Nietzsche aceita a “verdade do niilismo” — aceita que o mundo é em si mesmo “absurdo”, o mundo não pode ser racionalmente justificado (...) —, mas, por outro, entende que, num determinado tipo de cultura humana, o mundo pode ser justificado “enquanto fenómeno estético”. É esta possibilidade de uma justificação estética do mundo que faz do pensamento de Nietzsche uma “luta contra o niilismo”, na qual não se trata de reduzir todas as metas, valores, fins e sentidos a ilusões subjectivas, mas sim de ousar pensar uma “transvaloração de todos os valores”. (shrink)

Resumo O artigo é uma tentativa de explorar a hipótese controversa de que possa haver uma profunda afinidade - até agora não identificada - entre a concepção de "luta por reconhecimento" [Kampf um Anerkennung] em Hegel e a concepção da dinâmica da "vontade de poder" [Wille zur Macht] em Nietzsche. Esta hipótese diz respeito ao modo como a luta e a dominação estão implícitas na noção hegeliana de reconhecimento, isto é: diz respeito à dinâmica intersubjetiva das formas falhadas de reconhecimento. (...) A luta e a dominação são conceitos fundamentais na concepção do reconhecimento em Hegel - mas, ainda assim, conceitos meramente operacionais na obra de Hegel, enquanto em Nietzsche se tornam temáticos, porque o conceito de "poder" se torna temático. O que o artigo procura mostrar é que a hipótese nietzschiana da "vontade de poder" é relevante no debate contemporâneo sobre "reconhecimento e poder" porque permite uma descrição adequada das dinâmicas intersubjetivas em que o reconhecimento recíproco não é alcançado e o que subsiste nelas são relações de luta e dominação, ou seja, vontade de poder qua vontade de dominação. Mas isso só é assim porque a hipótese nietzschiana da "vontade de poder" implica uma "doutrina dos afetos" e, por isso, uma concepção de "poder" [Macht] em termos de "ação à distância", i.e. de influência intersubjetiva mediada por percepções, interpretações e perspectivas. Esta concepção de "poder" implica atribuir ao desejo e à vontade humanas uma natureza "recognitiva", e está longe de implicar a dissolução das relações de poder em processos transsubjetivos de dominação. Daí a afinidade entre Hegel e Nietzsche que o artigo procura evidenciar.The article is an attempt to explore a controversial hypothesis, which can be stated like this: there is a deep affinity - hitherto largely unnoticed - between Hegel's conception of struggles for "recognition" [Anerkennung] and Nietzsche's conception of the dynamics of "will to power" [Wille zur Macht]. This hypothesis concerns the ways in which struggle and domination are implicitly involved in the Hegelian notion of recognition, that is: it concerns the intersubjective dynamics of failed-recognition. Struggle and domination are crucial concepts in Hegel's whole conception of recognition - but they are for him operative concepts, whereas in Nietzsche they become thematic, because the concept of "power" becomes thematic. What the article tries to show is that the Nietzschean hypothesis of "will to power" is relevant for the contemporary debate on "recognition and power" because it enables an adequate description of the intersubjective dynamics in which reciprocal recognition is not achieved and relationships of struggle and domination persist, i.e., what persists is "will to power" qua will to domination. However, this is only so because the Nietzschean hypothesis of "will to power" entails a "doctrine of the affects", and hence a conception of "power" [Macht] in terms of "action at a distance", i.e., in terms of intersubjective influence mediated by perceptions, interpretations, and perspectives. This conception of "power" entails a "recognitive" conception of human desire and human will, and, therefore, it would be wrong to claim that Nietzsche's "will to power" involves the dissolution of power-relations in trans-subjective processes of domination. Hence the affinity between Hegel and Nietzsche which the article tries to evince. (shrink)

The volume offers various considerations of Nietzsche s attempt to connect language to the instinctive activity of the human body. In focusing on how Nietzsche tries to dissolve the traditional opposition between instinct and language, as well as between instinct and consciousness and instinct and reason, the different papers address a great variety of topics, e.g. morality, value, the concept of philosophy, dogmatism, naturalization, metaphor, affectivity and emotion, health and sickness, tragedy, and laughter. Among the authors: Scarlett Marton, Werner Stegmaier, (...) Patrick Wotling, and many others.". (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Nietzsche-Studien Jahrgang: 43 Heft: 1 Seiten: 298-305.

O artigo tentar mostrar três coisas: primeiro que, embora Nietzsche rejeite alguns dos aspectos mais importantes da famosa metafísica da vontade que se encontra no centro de toda a filosofia de Schopenhauer, tal metafísica não deixa por isso de ser o ponto de partida da sua análise do “facto fundamental da vontade humana” na Genealogia da Moral ; depois, que o modo como Schopenhauer entende o ascetismo e a “negação da vontade” tem uma importância crucial para a compreensão da concepção (...) nietzschiana do “ideal ascético” e de uma “vontade do nada” como vontade ascética; por fim, que a interpretação daquilo a que Nietzsche chama “niilismo” na Genealogia e, em geral, na sua obra não pode dispensar a reflexão sobre o modo como Nietzsche e Schopenhauer pensam o ascetismo e a ideia de uma “vontade do nada”. Este último ponto implica a revisão crítica de importantes interpretações do niilismo em Nietzsche, como a de Stegmaier e a de van Tongeren. (shrink)

Doctors’ strikes are legally permissible in the UK, with the situation differing in other countries. But are they morally permissible? Doug McConnell and Darren Mann have systematically attempted to dismiss the arguments for the moral impermissibility of doctors’ strikes and creatively attempted to provide further moral justification for them. Unfortunately for striking doctors, they fail to achieve this. Meanwhile, junior doctors’ strikes have continued in the UK through 2023 and have now extended into 2024. In this response, which focuses on (...) the UK situation and specifically junior doctors’ strikes in the National Health Service (NHS) in England, I will demonstrate a central problem with their arguments—namely that they underplay the harms caused by prolonged doctors’ strikes by ignoring the harms to patients with cancer. This weakens their conclusion that strikes are morally permissible in terms of the conditions and thresholds they set. I then provide a psychological critique of their justification for strikes in terms of the interests of the public. It follows that invoking the controversial concept of supererogatory action is ungrounded but also absurd when you consider time-critical cancer care. If those representing striking doctors wish to maintain a modicum of moral respectability, they should mitigate for patients with cancer and negotiate reasonably and with urgency. (shrink)

Stereological techniques allow biologists to create quantitative, three-dimensional descriptions of biological structures from two- dimensional images of tissue viewed under the microscope. For example, they can accurately estimate the size of a particular organelle, the total length of a mass of capillaries, or the number of neurons or synapses in a particular region of the brain. This book provides a practical guide to designing and critically evaluating stereological studies of the nervous system and other tissues. It explains the basic concepts (...) behind design-based stereology and how to get started. Also included are detailed descriptions of how to prepare tissue appropriately, perform pilot studies and decide on the appropriate sampling strategy, and account for phenomena such as tissue shrinkage. Numerous examples of applications of stereological methods that are applicable to studies of the central system and a wide variety of other tissues are explained. The book is therefore essential reading for neurobiologists and cell biologists interested in generating accurate representations of cell and tissue architecture. (shrink)

Volume 20, Issue 8, August 2020, Page 27-29.

In the Critique of Judgment, Kant claims that genius is a talent for art, but not for science. Despite his restriction of genius to the domain of fine art, several recent interpreters have suggested that genius has a role to play in Kant’s account of cognition in general and scientific practice in particular. In this paper, I explore Kant’s reasons for excluding genius from science as well as the reasons that one might nevertheless be tempted to think that his account (...) allows room for the scientific genius. I then argue that Kant’s concerns are not only epistemic, but also moral, and together, they give us good reason for resisting the veneration of genius. (shrink)