Saichō 最澄, one of the most prominent of Japanese Buddhist innovators, is the renowned ninth-century founder of the Tendai School, the first Japanese Buddhist sect with its own system of temples and monasteries, ordinations, practices and philosophy. It was in the goal of founding and maintaining an authentic Buddhist monastic institution that, for better or worse, influenced his thinking, and structured his philosophy. Although Saichō’s identity as founder is beyond dispute, this accomplishment was initially made possible through what we might (...) call modes of self-displacement, essentially establishing his legitimacy as founder by tracing the origins of Tendai beyond himself to founders even more prominent in the minds of his contemporaries. It is through our participation in this initial displacement of Saichō that the meaning of his contributions to Japanese Buddhism will begin to unfold. (shrink)

Steven Heine’s latest book on the history of kōans, Like Cats and Dogs: Contesting the Mu Kōan in Zen Buddhism, is his second monograph dedicated to a single kōan case record. The author’s first such offering, Shifting Shape, Shaping Text: Philosophy and Folklore in the Fox Kōan, focused on the second case record of the thirteenth-century Gateless Gate collection. Published at the end of the 1990s the text was a response, in many ways, to the two authors who dominated the (...) field of Zen studies during that decade, Bernard Faure and William Bodiford, particularly in regard to the historical relation between monastic Chan/Zen and popular forms of supernatural belief and practice... (shrink)

This research investigates the degree to which there are differences in the moral reasoning ability of business top, middle, and first-line managers in selected industries. This study considered the influence of three independent variables: reported organizational ethical climate, locus of control, and selected demographic and institutional variables on managers reasoning ability. This researcher relies on Kohlberg's theory of moral development, Victor and Cullen's ethical work climate theory, and Rotter's theory of internal-external locus of control. A short form of Rest's (...) DIT instrument measured the moral reasoning abilities of the participants. Selected demographic and institutional variables were also measured. A survey questionnaire was sent to 400 managerial and executive level employees at a random sample of Fortune 500 firms throughout the United States: Dun & Bradstreet provided the researcher with a proportional stratified random sample of these 400 managerial and executive level employees at a variety of organizations. Interestingly, women exhibited insignificant higher mean I-E scores and higher mean "P" score than men. Statistically significant relationship between age and perceived organizational ethical climate types and between management levels and organizational ethical climate were also found. (shrink)

“For what tomorrow will be, no one knows,” writes Victor Hugo. This dialogue, proposed to Jacques Derrida by the historian Elisabeth Roudinesco, brings together two longtime friends who share a common history and an intellectual heritage. While their perspectives are often different, they have many common reference points: psychoanalysis, above all, but also the authors and works that have come to be known outside France as “post-structuralist.” Beginning with a revealing glance back at the French intellectual scene over the (...) past forty years, Derrida and Roudinesco go on to address a number of major social and political issues. Their extraordinarily wide-ranging discussion covers topics such as immigration, hospitality, gender equality, and “political correctness”; the disordering of the traditional family, same-sex unions, and reproductive technologies; the freedom of the “subject” over and against “scientism”; violence against animals; the haunting specter of communism and revolution; the present and future of anti-Semitism and the hazardous politics of criticizing the state of Israel; the principled abolition of the death penalty; and, to conclude, a chapter “in praise of psychoanalysis.” These exchanges not only help to situate Derrida's thought within the milieu out of which it grew, they also show more clearly than ever how this thought, impelled by a deep concern for justice, can be brought to bear on the social and political issues of our day. What emerges here above all, far from an abstract, apolitical discourse, is a call to take responsibility—for the inheritance of a past, for the singularities of the present, and for the unforeseeable tasks of the future. (shrink)

Since manager's decisions impact organizational goals and organizational ethical behavior, this researcher investigated the degree to which there are differences in the moral reasoning ability of business managers of selected industries and whether there are significant differences between top, middle, and first-line management levels. To determine the relationship between managers' locus of control and their moral reasoning ability, this study considered three independent variables: reported organizational ethical climate, locus of control, and selected demographic and institutional variables. For a foundation, this (...) researcher relied on Kohlberg's theory of moral development, Victor and Cullen's ethical work climate theory, and Rotter's theory of internal—external locus of control (which evolved from Carl Jung). The short form of Rest's DIT instrument measured the moral reasoning abilities of the participants. The selected demographic and institutional variables (age, work tenure, education, gender, management level and industry category) provided the useful information to investigate these relationships of moral reasoning ability of individual managers. A survey questionnaire was sent to 400 managerial and executive level employees at a random sample of Fortune 500 firms throughout the United States: Dun and Bradstreet provided the researcher with a proportional stratified random sample of these 400 managerial and executive level employees at a variety of organizations. Interestingly, women in this study exhibited slightly higher (more external) mean I—E scores and (more principled) higher mean “P” score than men. While both of these results were anticipated, neither was significant. However, one major finding of this study was the statistically significant relationship between age and perceived organizational ethical climate types (Caring, Law and Code, Rule, Instrument, and Independence). Another major finding revealed a statistically significant relationship between management levels and organizational ethical climate. (shrink)

Peut-être l’un des mots les plus forts pour résumer les politiques mises en place pour combattre la crise du subprime aura-t-il été celui prêté à l’ancien dirigeant Mikhaël Gorbatchev. Analysant en 2008 cette profusion d’interventions publiques pour sauver des grandes banques en faillite, tandis qu’on laissait les surendettés se faire expulser..

Cette contribution s’intéresse à la position problématique des arts mécaniques dans les systèmes médiévaux du savoir. Remplaçant la position secondaire assignée aux arts mécaniques du début du Moyen Âge, les solutions proposées par Hugues de Saint-Victor et Gundissalinus eurent une influence forte durant le XIIIe s. Alors que l’intégration des arts mécaniques dans le système de connaissance de Saint-Victor trahit leurs positions encore accessoires vis-à-vis de la considération des arts libéraux, Gundissalinus propose deux principales nouveautés. D’un côté (...) il place les arts mécaniques aux côtés de l’alchimie et des arts de prédiction et de magie. D’un autre côté cependant, utilisant la théorie avancée par Avicenne, il subordonne ces « sciences naturelles » à la philosophie naturelle elle-même, établissant ainsi une architecture du savoir plus vaste et plus organisée hiérarchiquement. Notre contribution examine les implications découlant de ces développements ainsi que leur réception à Paris durant le XIIIe s., soulignant la pertinence des solutions proposées par Gundissalinus dans les discussions qui ont suivi, concernant la structure de la connaissance humaine. (shrink)

Rotter’s theory of internal-external locus of control evolved from Carl Jung’s work. In Psychological Types (1923), Jung defined two opposing tendencies in personality introversion and extroversion. While both tendencies are present in all individuals, one tends to dominate the other. The internal–external control construct was conceived as a generalized expectancy to perceive reinforcement either as contingent upon one’s own behaviors (internal control) or as the result of forces beyond one’s control, such as chance, fate, or powerful others (external control) (Lefcourt, (...) 1981, p. 15). Locus of control refers to those causes to which individuals attribute their successes and failures. Individuals are responsive to some external motivators (e.g. better jobs, promotions, higher salaries), but the more powerful are internal pressures (the desire for increased job satisfaction, self-esteem, and quality of life). Research indicates that an individual’s internal–external locus of control impacts their ethical behavior in an organization. Rotter’s I–E Scale (1966, Psychological Monographics 80(1), 1–28), a 29 item forced choice instrument, is the most widely used instrument to measure the degree of internality versus externality. Each respondent’s score for this scale had a potential range from 0 to 23. As there are six filler items used to mask the intent of the questionnaire a score of 23 being extremely external in nature and a score of zero being extremely internal in nature. The I Scale (Internal Scale) measures the extent to which people believe that they have control over their own lives; the E Scale (External Scale) measures the extent to which people believe that they do not have control over their own lives. This study utilized the I–E Scale. Jones (Unpublished Doctoral Dissertation) and Deflumeri (Unpublished Doctoral Dissertation) investigated the likelihood of an individual to engage in unethical behavior in an organization. This research suggests that when employees perceive that locus of control resides internally they themselves decide what is appropriate behavior, but with an external locus of control, employees will look at others to decide appropriate behavior. The researcher in this study investigated the relationship between managers’ locus of control and their moral reasoning. (shrink)

In this article I argue that there are two different types of understanding: the understanding we get from explanations, and the understanding we get from unification. This claim is defended by first showing that explanation and unification are not as closely related as has sometimes been thought. A critical appraisal of recent proposals for understanding without explanation leads us to discuss the example of a purely classificatory biology: it turns out that such a science can give us understanding of the (...) world through unification of the phenomena, even though it does not give us any explanations. The two types of understanding identified in this paper, while strictly separate, do have in common that both consist in seeing how the individual phenomena of the universe hang together. Explanations give us connections between the phenomena through the asymmetric, ‘vertical’ relation of determination; unifications give us connections through the symmetric, ‘horizontal’ relation of kinship. We then arrive at a general definition of understanding as knowledge of connections between the phenomena, and indicate that there might be more than two types of understanding. (shrink)

My aim in this paper is to illustrate the significance of hope (elpis, elpizein) in Plato’s Philebus and to indicate topics under this heading that invite further investigation. Even though there is some scholarship treating the issue of hope in the Philebus, there is no study solely devoted to this topic. By providing such a study I intend to fill this lacuna and to show that examining this topic is valuable because it develops our understanding of the good life. In (...) this essay I maintain that the Philebus defines hope as (1) a pleasure of the soul that (2) anticipates pleasure as certain, (3) may be true or false, (4) may be pure or impure, and (5) involves memory. I proceed chronologically through the Philebus’s discussions of hope and make every effort to treat each of the aforementioned components of the definition separately. In so doing I explain why certain topics, such as the relationship between pure intellectual hope and philosophical activity, invite further investigation. (shrink)

Some children living with life-shortening medical conditions may wish to attend school without the threat of having resuscitation attempted in the event of cardiopulmonary arrest on the school premises. Despite recent attention to in-school do-not-attempt-resuscitation (DNAR) orders, no assessment of state laws or school policies has yet been made. We therefore sought to survey a national sample of prominent school districts and situate their policies in the context of relevant state laws. Most (80%) school districts sampled did not have policies, (...) regulations, or protocols for dealing with student DNARs. A similar majority (76%) either would not honor student DNARs or were uncertain about whether they could. Frequent contradictions between school policies and state laws also exist. Consequently, children living with life-shortening conditions who have DNARs may not have these orders honored if cardiopulmonary arrest were to occur on school premises. Coordinated efforts are needed to harmonize school district, state, and federal approaches in order to support children and families' right to have important medical decisions honored. (shrink)

In this paper, I argue that unification is neither necessary nor sufficient for explanation. Focusing on the versions of the unificationist theory of explanation of Kitcher and of Schurz and Lambert, I establish three theses. First, Kitcher’s criterion of unification is vitiated by the fact that it entails that every proposition can be explained by itself, a flaw that it is unable to overcome. Second, because neither Kitcher’s theory nor that of Schurz and Lambert can solve the problems of asymmetry (...) and accidental generalizations, it follows that unification is not sufficient to ground explanation. Third, some good explanations are disunifying, which entails that unification is not necessary for explanation either. (shrink)

Argues that many claims by theists are based on their misunderstanding of science. He looks at the specific parameters and shows that plausible reasons can be found for the values they have within the existing standard models of physics and cosmology.

Se trata en este artículo de aclarar la especificidad del análisis de la Escritura propuesto por Spinoza en el Tratado Teológico Político. Se parte de la distinción entre los diferentes niveles de interpretación que Spinoza aplica al texto sagrado, y que pueden resumirse en dos: el histórico-filológico y el filosófico. A continuación, se intentan determinar las relaciones entre estos diferentes niveles, y asimismo las diferencias de la propuesta spinoziana frente a otras propuestas interpretativas, en particular, la Philosophia S. Scripturae Interpres (...) de Lodewijk Meyer. (shrink)

Cybernetic governmentality weakens the capacity of resistant subjectivities to struggle against neoliberal rationality because digitalized subjectivation processes are constantly pushed towards the logics of the market and into codifications of competitive evaluation. Despite the potential for new forms of collectivity contained in the concept of virtuality, technological evolution has disseminated a systemic form of digitality that operates not through collective procedures but through subjective-individualistic ones. Hence arises a danger that was indicated by Deleuze decades ago: that of confusing the virtual (...) with the possible. By constructing a genealogy that is built around Pierre Levy’s optimistic representation of cyberspace, Bernard Stiegler’s work on the contemporary disenchantment of the computerized world, Baudrillard’s metaphysics of code and Antoinette Rouvroy’s analysis of algorithmic governmentality, we will demonstrate that digitality is between us and that this amounts to an irreversible fact entailing a critical confrontation with its current manifestation. (shrink)

La complessa storia della Poetica aristotelica nella cultura arabo-islamica. Alcune vistose discrepanze tra il testo greco e i commenti arabi e, al tempo stesso, l'originalità della lettura proposta dai falāsifah.

Scriven’s paradox of predictability arises from the combination of two ideas: first, that everything in a deterministic universe is, in principle, predictable; second, that it is possible to create a system that falsifies any prediction that is made of it. Recently, the paradox has been used by Rummens and Cuypers to argue that there is a fundamental difference between embedded and external predictors; and by Ismael to argue against a governing conception of laws. The present paper defends a new diagnosis (...) of the roots of the paradox. First, it is argued that the unpredictability has to be understood in the light of Turing’s famous results about computability, in particular his proof that there is no solution to the ‘halting problem.’ This allows us to see that previous analyses of the paradox were either mistaken or not fully adequate. Second, the sense of paradox that nevertheless remains is traced to the idea that rational behaviour is not dependent on contingent environmental circumstances: that it is always up to us to engage in activities such as rational prediction or rational belief. The paradox of predictability teaches us that this idea, natural though it may be, is mistaken. (shrink)

In the paper below the authors describe three super-tasks. They show that although the abstract notion of a super-task may be, as Benacerraf suggested, a conceptual mismatch, the completion of the three super-tasks involved can be defined rather naturally, without leading to inconsistency, by means of a particular kinematical interpretation combined with a principle of continuity.

The theme of the pleasure of knowledge is central in Averroes’ aesthetical reflection of Aristotle’s Poetics, regardless whether we side with the logical or with the moral interpretation. The first one stresses the continuity between Averroes and previous commentators in his attempt to reconstruct the Poetics as an integral part of the Logic itself, whereby poetic discourse is conceived as a form of reasoning based on syllogisms. According to the latter perspective, however, pleasure is central in that poetry is a (...) tool towards the pursuit of happiness: in this perspective it is necessary to bear in mind some common themes present in other works by Averroes. The pleasure of contemplative knowledge must go hand in hand with the pursuit of communal happiness and therefore with the good and proper order of c... (shrink)

Il contributo intende ricostruire il dibattito storiografico intorno all’eredità di Averroè a partire dalla sua nascita, con la riscoperta di Averroè da parte dell’orientalismo francese arrivando fino agli intellettuali arabo-musulmani contemporanei, che hanno fatto del filosofo di Cordoba un rappresentante dell’illuminismo ante litteram. Scopo del saggio è dunque quello di ripercorrere brevemente la storia di questo dibattito per mettere in luce l’uso esplicitamente politico e ideologico di un autore medievale e, in ultima analisi, sottolineare che ogni storia delle filosofia porta (...) con sé uno sguardo orientato e mai neutro sulla propria tradizione. This paper aims to outline the historical debate about the Averroes’ heritage since its beginning, with the revival of Averroes by French Orientalism coming up to contemporary Arab-Muslim intellectuals, who made this author an Enlightenment’s representative before its time. The aim of the contribution is therefore to recall briefly the history of this debate to highlight the political and ideological utilization of a medieval author and, ultimately, to emphasize that every history of philosophy implies a view oriented and never neutral on its tradition. (shrink)

This commentary begins by analyzing two textual selections about death in the Gorgias in order to expand upon Ewegen’s portrayal of Socrates. I close by briefly giving voice to another, perhaps more familiar side of Socrates’ rhetorical approach in the dialogue in order to provide some further perspective about Ewegen’s claims.

In 2002, Conflict in Jenin scholars talked about the impact of Palestinian‐Israeli tensions and conflict on the West Bank town of Jenin. Among the topics they addressed were the role the media played in the conflict, reporting on incidents of violence, and the varying perspectives on events in the Middle East. Following their remarks, they answered questions from the audience.