I describe an ethic for business administration based on the social tradition of the Catholic Church. I find that much current thinking about business falters for its conceit of truth. Abstractions such as the shareholder-value model contain truth - namely, that business is an economic enterprise to manage for the wealth of its owners. But, as in all abstractions, this truth comes at the expense of falsehood -namely, that persons are assets to deploy on behalf of owners. This last is (...) "wrong" in both senses of the word - it is factually wrong in that persons are far more than business assets, they are supernatural beings, children of God; and it is morally wrong in that it is an injustice to treat them as the former when they are the latter. I draw upon the social tradition of the Catholic Church to recognize that the business of business is not business, but is instead the human person. Following Church teachings, I describe a person-centered ethic of business based upon eight social principles that both correct and enlarge the shareholder-centered ethic of much current business thinking. I discuss implications of this person-centered ethic for business administration. (shrink)

Lloyd E. Sandelands unites the metaphysics of Aristotle and Aquinas and the social teachings of the Catholic Church to describe how business leaders can help people in their organizations become more truly and fully human. Being at Work is a much-needed marriage of metaphysical philosophy and managerial common sense.

The target article speaks loudest about what it cannot see – that man exists in God. Its claim that supernatural beliefs are “evolved errors” rests on unwarranted assumption and mistaken argument. Implications for evolutionary study are considered.

I ask why an increasing number of business scholars today are drawn to an idea of “positive business” that they cannot account for scientifically. I answer that it is because they are attracted to the real mystery of positive business which is its incomprehensible and unspeakable divinity. I begin by asking why the research literature has yet to speak of positive business plainly and with one voice. I find that it lacks for the right words because it comes to human (...) being in business as a science attuned to its objects rather than as a religion attuned to its spirit. Next, I say what I can about the real mystery of business, keeping in mind that we can say about it only what we can say about God. This brings me at last to the Christian insight that human being, in business and everywhere else, is the mystery of Jesus Christ in whom we are reconciled to God. Business is positively human as it invites us to be as Christ, to be a fully human person in joyful communion with others in God. This, in sum, is how to speak plainly and with one voice of the positive business that our hearts desire but our science cannot say. (shrink)

I am a typical late middle-aged professor of business. I ask whether or not I have taken people seriously in my work as a researcher and teacher. I discover I have not. I explain how—by following the canons of administrative science in my research and by following the norms of instruction in my teaching—I have been encouraged to ignore the spiritual being of people that is their essence and better part. I conclude with ideas about how I can mend my (...) ways. (shrink)

I ask why an increasing number of business scholars today are drawn to an idea of “positive business” that they cannot account for scientifically. I answer that it is because they are attracted to the real mystery of positive business which is its incomprehensible and unspeakable divinity. I begin by asking why the research literature has yet to speak of positive business plainly and with one voice. I find that it lacks for the right words because it comes to human (...) being in business as a science attuned to its objects rather than as a religion attuned to its spirit. Next, I say what I can about the real mystery of business, keeping in mind that we can say about it only what we can say about God. This brings me at last to the Christian insight that human being, in business and everywhere else, is the mystery of Jesus Christ in whom we are reconciled to God. Business is positively human as it invites us to be as Christ, to be a fully human person in joyful communion with others in God. This, in sum, is how to speak plainly and with one voice of the positive business that our hearts desire but our science cannot say. (shrink)

This book is a work of philosophy concerning how we should think about social life. Whereas social science has traditionally been a study of social physics it must become a study of social life.

This paper reclaims the idea that human society is a form of life, an idea once vibrant in the work of Toennies, Durkheim, Simmel, Le Bon, Kroeber, Freud, Bion, and Follett but moribund today. Despite current disparagements, this idea remains the only and best answer to our primary experience of society as vital feeling. The main obstacle to conceiving society as a life is linguistic; the logical form of life is incommensurate with the logical form of language. However, it is (...) possible to extend our conceptual reach by appealing to alternative symbolisms more congenial to living form such as, and especially, art. (shrink)

Human society is unique in the animal kingdom in the degree to which it depends upon its members reflective awareness of self and society. Whereas much has been learned about the sense of self, little is known about the sense of society. This paper develops three points about the human sense of society: First, this sense is a feeling of life, what German writers have called Lebensgefuhl. The paper begins by defining feeling as a psychical moment or‘phase’of bodily activity. The (...) paper later develops die idea mat what is felt of society is always an embodiment of its vital form; its social life. Second, die sense of society is a feeling of society, as distinct from a feeling in society and from a feeling of self. The middle third of die paper distinguishes these concepts and links die feeling of society to writings of Freud and Durkheim in which elements of this feeling are found. And third, feelings of society prominently include participation, love, and play. These feelings, which are embodiments of vital social form, are illustrated and discussed in die penultimate section of die paper. Having registered these three points, die paper concludes with a brief summary and discussion of implications for expanding die scope of inquiry in social science. (shrink)

ABSTRACTA “thin spot” in thinking about business endangers our human being. This article traces a change in business thinking over the last generations to note how, under the spell of the scientific method and the thrall to utilitarian values, our understanding of our self has grown harder, more determined, and less sympathetic. Bringing together ideas about the meaning of self from the study of semiotics and from the author's own religious faith, this article describes how we can reclaim our human (...) being by grounding thinking about business in faith that reaches to God. (shrink)

This book speaks to the need for God in business today. Together, the chapters of this book build toward a comprehensive ethic of business administration. God and Mammon finds that business today needs to serve the human person, who is a creative being in the image of God.

Behavior, language, development, identity, and science—all of these phenomena are commonly characterized as 'social' in nature. But what does it mean to be 'social'? Is there any intrinsic 'mark' of the social shared by these phenomena? In the first book to shed light on this foundational question, twelve distinguished philosophers and social scientists from several disciplines debate the mark of the social. Their varied answers will be of interest to sociologists, anthropologists, philosophers, psychologists, and anyone interested in the theoretical foundations (...) of the social sciences. (shrink)

"An account of the central tradition in the history of philosophy, Platonism, along with the class of philosophical positions collectively known as Naturalism and the 'anti-Platonism' of Naturalism both in antiquity and in contemporary philosophy"--.

In this paper, I examine the problem of the so-called Mathematical Objects within the context of the Divided Line. I argue that Plato believes that there are such objects but their distinctness and the mode of cognition relative to them can only be understood in relation to the superordinate, unhypothetical first principle of all, the Idea of the Good. The objects of mathematics or διάνοια are, unlike the objects of intellection or νόησις, cognized independently of the Good.

The most comprehensive collection of Neoplatonic writings available in English, this volume provides translations of the central texts of four major figures of the Neoplatonic tradition: Plotinus, Porphyry, Iamblichus, and Proclus. The general Introduction gives an overview of the period and takes a brief but revealing look at the history of ancient philosophy from the viewpoint of the Neoplatonists. Historical background--essential for understanding these powerful, difficult, and sometimes obscure thinkers--is provided in extensive footnotes, which also include cross-references to other works (...) relevant to particular passages. (shrink)

Hylomorphism is almost universally claimed to be a staple doctrine of Aristotle. In this paper, I discuss a wide range of texts from the dialogues of Plato that straightforwardly display hylomorphism. Both Plato and Aristotle rest their cognitive realism on their hylomorphism. The crucial difference between Aristotle’s hylomorphism and Plato’s is that Aristotle believes that hylomorphism supports and is supported by essentialism whereas Plato does not. Plotinus presents arguments against Aristotle’s essentialism at the same time as he defends Platonic hylomorphism (...) and his cognitive realism. (shrink)

Among the concepts central to Plato's metaphysical vision are those of identity, sameness, and difference. For example, it is on the basis of a claim about putative cases of sameness among different things that Plato postulates the existence of separate Forms. It is owing to the apparent sameness between instances of Forms and the Forms themselves that Plato is compelled somehow to take account of potentially destructive vicious infinite regress arguments. Further, in reflecting on the Forms and their relations among (...) themselves, it is their self-identity that seems to be threatened or at least compromised. And in providing an account of the possibility of cognition in Timaeus, Plato evidently sees the need to incorporate principles of identity and difference into the soul's very fabric. In this paper, I propose to explore some of the systematic connections between these concepts. Translators have sometimes obscured the fact that there are such connections. The Greek terms taujtovn, e{teron, and o{moion (ajnovmoion) are variously rendered, often in ways that obscure the metaphysics. For example, taujtovn is most commonly rendered in English as "same," which, predictably, leads o{moion to be translated as "like" or "similar." This has suggested to some that if two things are "like" or "similar," then they are not "the same." But "like" and "similar" are not, as I shall show, well-formed or perspicuous metaphysical concepts. There is no justification for foisting them on Plato; rendering the terms thus often leads scholars to miss the force of Plato's arguments. In addition, translating taujtovn as "same" threatens to trivialize a fundamental concept in Plato, leading to complaints that to say that something is "the same as itself" is to say nothing at all. (shrink)

At first glance, Plotinus’ arguments for the immortality of the human soul, principally in Ennead IV 7 (2), constitute a straightforward defense of Plato against Peripatetic and Stoic attacks. And yet, his close reading of his predecessors, especially Aristotle and Alexander of Aphrodisias, led him to confront the following deep problem. The best arguments for immortality rest upon the immateriality of intellect and hence its immunity from destruction along with the body. But, following Aristotle, Plotinus maintains that the nature of (...) intellection is such that the contents of the objects of intellection both identify the agent of intellection and further will be identical for every disembodied intellect. For this reason, it is not clear what it would mean to insist on the personal immortality of anyone. Without personal immortality, though, the ethical dimension of Platonism is, for Plotinus, severely undermined. In the light of this difficulty Plotinus developed an apparently original doctrine that was repudiated by virtually all his successors. He argued that there are Forms of individuals, that is, of individual intellects, and that, since they are eternal Forms, they are ‘undescended’. He argued that the personal identity of any human soul is found paradigmatically in an undescended intellect. (shrink)

All those who profess ancient philosophy will no doubt have received from students requests for a reliable introductory monograph on Plato. It is a request that many—myself included—find somewhat embarrassing. For it is extremely difficult to think of an introductory book on Plato in English that is at once accessible to beginners, reasonably comprehensive, exegetically accurate, and philosophically sophisticated. But if these four desiderata are not met, any recommendation may actually do more harm than good. It is not difficult to (...) show that the introductions by Andrew Mason, J. C. B. Gosling, G. M. A. Grube, and A. E. Taylor fall short according to one or more of these... (shrink)

This book is a version of a D.Phil. thesis done at Oxford under the direction of Richard Swinburne and Basil Mitchell. Its basic premise is one shared by both these philosophers, namely, the putative inadequacy of traditional deductive and inductive arguments in philosophical theology. The central argument of the book is that the alternative proposed by Mitchell is superior to the one proposed by Swinburne. Roughly half the book is devoted to supporting this claim. Particular attention is given to showing (...) that Bayes' theorem as used by Swinburne is inadequate for assessing the probability of a theistic hypothesis. Other chapters are devoted to informal reasoning in philosophical theology, criteria of explanatory adequacy within a nondeductive framework, causality, and God as a logically necessary being. In these chapters the author attempts to develop further Mitchell's work. A final chapter undertakes to defend the book's basic thesis against some positions that in various ways contradict the author's approach. It includes replies to two attacks on the very idea of philosophical theology by J. L. Mackie and Stewart Sutherland, a response to John Hick's most recent attack on the personhood of God, and a criticism of the version of Thomistic philosophical theology held by E. L. Mascall. (shrink)

The thesis of this book is that the problem of individuation is a central concern in Plato's dialogues. The author argues that in the dialogues of the middle and later periods Plato develops a distinctive account of individuation, one which can be fruitfully viewed in sharp contrast to that of Aristotle. By "the problem of individuation" McCabe means roughly the criteria for the countability of something and its having a unified history.

The central theme of this book is that "Plato's written discourses were intended by their author to serve primarily as teaching instruments, modeled after the live conversations in which Plato himself participated with the historical Socrates, and that the right way to read the dialogues, accordingly, is not as repositories of philosophic doctrine, but rather as interactions with a master philosopher that are carefully shaped to guide the attentive reader in a personal pursuit of philosophic understanding". The correct reading of (...) the dialogues will enable "conversation to progress in a fruitful direction". (shrink)

Earlier editions have title : Introduction to jurisprudence.