Montre, à partir de l'étude de ce que sont le commencement, l'avenir et la fin du monde dans les mythes cosmogoniques grecs et chez les philosophes présocratiques, que l'idée d'une création ex nihilo n'existe pas dans la pensée grecque ancienne.

SCIENTISM AND 'SCIENTIFIC EMPIRICISM' WHAT IS SCIENTISM? Scientism is the belief that science, especially natural science, is much the most valuable part of ...

This is a book about Hobbes's philosophy as a whole, viewed through the lens of his philosophy of science. Political philosophy is claimed to have a certain autonomy within Hobbes's scheme of philosophy and science as a whole, and in particular, a kind of autonomy in relation to natural sciences. Hobbes's moral and political philosophies guide action --of both individual subjects and sovereigns. They have a role in a special kind of rhetorical product called counsel. In natural science Hobbes probably (...) exaggerates the explanatory powers of mechanics --the theory of matter in motion-- including by an attempted assimilation of geometry to the sciences of motion. (shrink)

"The well-known moral and political doctrines of Leviathan have tended to overshadow Hobbes's speculations in other fields. In this book doctrines familiar from the treatises on 'Policy', as well as less familiar empirical and metaphysical theories, are given balanced consideration against the background of his philosophy of science."--Bookjacket.

This is a reprinted excerpt from Sorell and Hendry, Business Ethics (Butterworth Heinemann, 1994).

This book is available either individually, or as part of the specially-priced Arguments of the Philosphers Collection.

Deux nécropoles ont été mises au jour, au cours de fouilles d'urgence, à Helléniko (site présumé de l'ancienne Eua de Thyréatide), à quelques kilomètres d'Astros, sur la route Astros-Tripolis. Fouillées par le Service archéologique grec, 41 tombes ont livré un matériel abondant : tandis que quelques tombes romaines du IIe s. après J.-C. contenaient surtout des objets en verre, la plus grande partie des trouvailles de céramique date du ive s. avant J.-C. et du début du ine s. Or, par (...) leur pâte, par le caractère très particulier de leur forme et de leur décoration, ces vases paraissent en général être une production régionale, très proche de la production argienne ; de plus, leur chronologie peut souvent être précisée grâce aux contextes très restreints fournis par les tombes. Ainsi, ces découvertes contribuent-elles à mieux définir- ce que furent les fabrications du Nord-Est du Péloponnèse au ive s. et surtout à mettre en lumière leur importance dans l'approvisionnement régional dès la fin de l'époque classique. (shrink)

This chapter is divided into three parts. In the first, I ask whether there is a human right to be spared extreme poverty. The answer is ‘Not necessarily’ if a human right is a legal right, and I argue that ‘human right’ either means a right in international law and associated policy, or else the term has an unacceptably wide sense. In the second section I consider microcredit as a poverty-alleviating mechanism, distinguishing between extreme and relative poverty in developing countries. (...) I argue that credit may not be a good way of alleviating extreme poverty, and that methods of collecting debt used by microcredit providers may have moral drawbacks. In the third section I consider the fit between the class of agents currently involved in offering financial services to the poor, and the class of agents recognized as duty-bearers by human rights law and policy. Unless states become highly involved in microcredit, it is not clear that microfinance providers are or can be human rights duty bearers. (shrink)

Rene Descartes had a remarkably short working life, yet his contribution to philosophy and physics have endured to this day. He is perhaps best known for his statement, "Cogito, ergo sum," the cornerstone of his metaphysics. Descartes did not intend the metaphysics to stand apart from his scientific work, which included important investigations into physics, mathematics, and optics. In this book, Sorell shows that Descarates was, above all, an advocate and practitioner of the new mathematical approach to physics, and that (...) he developed his philosophies to support his discoveries in the sciences. (shrink)

Georges Sorel's Study on Vico is a revelatory document of the depths and stakes of French social thought at the end of the 19th century. What brought Sorel to the 18th century Neapolitan theorist of history? Acute awareness of the limitations of Marxist thought in his day, a profound concern with the material underpinnings of language, law, and culture, and the imperative to understand the possibilities of revolutionary change. We find here a different Sorel, one who speaks (...) in surprising ways to the 21st century. The translation is accompanied by an introduction and by a set of notes which situate the text both in Sorel's overall intellectual trajectory and in the fin de siècle debates from which it emerged. (shrink)

First Published in 2004. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

`Modern' philosophy in the West is said to have begun with Bacon and Descartes. Their methodological and metaphysical writings, in conjunction with the discoveries that marked the seventeenth-century scientific revolution, are supposed to have interred both Aristotelian and scholastic science and the philosophy that supported it. But did the new or `modern' philosophy effect a complete break with what preceded it? Were Bacon and Descartes untainted by scholastic influences? The theme of this book is that the new and traditional philosophies (...) have more in common than the orthodox account suggests. In two survey articles and thirteen essays on individual philosophers, the contributors show that the rise of modern philosophy was much more complicated and much more interesting than is usually thought. They consider not only metaphysics and the sciences but also claims of Machievelli, Hobbes and Spinoza to have invented `modern' ethics and politics. These two aspects of `modernity' in philosophy are connected for the first time. The book offers a broad view of the early modern philosophers, covering not only the much-studied major figures but also relatively neglected writers: Mersenne, Gassendi, White, and Sergeant. (shrink)

L'étude des timbres de potiers italiques trouvés à Argos par l'École Française d'Archéologie permet quelques remarques. Leur petit nombre et leur caractère généralement tardif révèlent que la situation économique difficile de cette ville à la fin de l'époque hellénistique se prolongea pendant une partie du Ier siècle après J.-C. L'histoire des sigillées occidentales se trouve enrichie par la détermination d'un approvisionnement homogène, au moins du Sud de la Grèce, et l'appréhension d'un groupe de potiers tardifs qui a entretenu des liens, (...) dont la nature exacte nous échappe encore, à peu près exclusifs avec cette région, à une époque où l'on supposait cette production « asphyxiée ». Le processus d'extinction des sigillées italiques est donc à revoir. (shrink)

Στίς ἀνασκαφές τῶν Θερμῶν τοῦ Ἄργούς βρέθηκαν θραύσματα ἑνός ἀνοικτοῦ ἀγγείου με εκτυπη διακόσμηση πού ἀποδείχτηκε πώς ἦταν γαλατικῆς κατασκευῆς. Παρά τήν ἔλλειψη ὑπογραφῆς μποροῦμε, μέ βάση τά διακοσμητικά στοιχεῖα, νά ἀποδώσουμε τό ἀγγείο στό γαβαλικό ἐργαστήριο τοῦ BIRAGILLVS στή πόλη la Graufesenque ἤ σέ μία συγγενική ὁμάδα ἀγγγειο- πλαστῶν καί νά τό χρονολογήσουμε μέ ἀκρίβεια μεταξύ 80 καί 90 μ. Χ. Τά θραύσματα αὐτά θέτουν τό πρόβλημα τῆς παρουσίας γαλατικῶν ἀγγείων στήν Ελλάδα. Ἕνας σύντομος κατάλογος τῶν δημοσιευμένων εὑρημάτων δείχνει (...) ὄχι μόνο τόν ἐλάχιστο ἀριθμό τους, ἀλλά καί τήν ἔλλειψη ἐργαστηρίων εἰδικευμένων στήν ἐξαγωγή πρός τή χώρα αὐτή. Ἐνῶ ἡ Αἴγυπτος, παραδείγματος χάριν, εἶναι μιά σημαντική ἀγορά γιά τούς γαλάτες ἀγγειοπλάστες, ἡ Ἑλλάδα φαίνεται νά μένει ἔξω άπό αὐτό τό ἐμπορικό ρεῦμα : τά εὑρήματα πού σημειώθηκαν δέν εἶναι παρά προσωπικές εἰσαγωγές. (shrink)

Contributors examine the ethical issues surrounding microfinance, including questions about exploitation, human rights, and efforts to promote global justice.

We ask whether it is reasonable to delay or refuse to take COVID-19 vaccines that have been shown in clinical trials to be safe and effective against infectious diseases. We consider two kinds of vaccine hesitancy. The first is geared to scientifically informed open questions about vaccines. We argue that in cases where the data is not representative of relevant groups, such as pregnant women and ethnic minorities, hesitancy can be reasonable on epistemic grounds. However, we argue that hesitancy is (...) not reasonable if a vaccine has passed well-conducted clinical trials. The second kind of hesitancy is to do with beliefs about the institutions offering a successfully trialled vaccine and the justifiability of cooperating with those institutions. For example, in the UK, distrust of the UK Government or the National Health Service is identified as a factor in the vaccine hesitancy of minority ethnic populations. We ask whether this sort of hesitation is reasonable given normative requirements of fair co-operation, both with those institutions and the wider population. We suggest that the answer is not straightforward. Sometimes the hesitation is unreasonable but understandable. -/- . (shrink)

No single text could be considered more important in the history of philosophy than Descartes' Meditations. This unique collection of background material to this magisterial philosophical text has been translated from the original French and Latin. The texts gathered here illustrate the kinds of principles, assumptions, and philosophical methods that were commonplace when Descartes was growing up. The selections are from: Francisco Sanches, Christopher Clavius, Pierre de la Ramee, Francisco Suárez, Pierre Charron, Eustachius a Sancto Paulo, Scipion Dupleix, Marin Mersenne, (...) Pierre Gassendi, Jean de Silhon, François de la Mothe le Vayer, Charles Sorel, and Jean-Baptiste Morin. (shrink)

Thomas Hobbes might seem an unlikely source for a theory of emergency powers applicable to liberal democracies in our own day. He advocated the concentration of political, judicial, economic and military authority, and was in favour of great latitude for a monarch or assembly in the choice of means to security. His theory demands absolute submission to law on the part of citizens, with no constitutional limitations on what laws can require. 1 The same theory demands preventive measures against sedition, (...) and has a very expansive conception of seditious behavior. What is more, the concentration of power with wide discretion is supposed to be politics as usual. (shrink)

Hobbesian resources can remedy limitations in the standard classification of serious crimes due to Jareborg and Von Hirsch. In particular, they can help the standard theory to accommodate serious crime in the form of undermining valuable public institutions. Examples of such crimes are bribery of judges and large-scale fraudulent claims on welfare state provisions.

This collection marks the 350th anniversary of the publication of Leviathan with a collection of original papers by the leading Hobbes scholars in the world.

The two ideals referred to are the ideal of the just state and the ideal of responsible agency. The view of Kant was that not every civil state could rightfully take the life of those that commit murder because not every civil state recognises the freedom, equality, and independence of citizens in the idealised civil state envisioned by Kant. The question is whether the death penalty can be justified in a properly constituted state even if most of the civil states (...) in the world that apply the death penalty are guilty of injustice. Kant's argument does not support the death penalty for even the worst crimes if it is unjustly legislated or unjustly administered. These arguments add weight to arguments against the death penalty. The more severe the penalty, the stronger the safeguards ought to be against its wrongful imposition. In addition to the just state, the ideal of responsible agency impinges on the death penalty. People are able to satisfy the ideal of responsible agency only if they rise above the threshold for being minimally responsible or if they rise above the threshold for being able to be held responsible. They must be able to take --by claiming-- responsibility. The ideal of responsible agency governs not only the execution of intention, but also deliberation before and after the action. A willingness to take the consequences is necessary for full-blown responsible agency. The worldly ideal does not rule out the death penalty because even in an imperfect world it does not cancel out the force of the ideal of responsible agency. (shrink)

This volume is an exploration of the ethical issues raised by health insurance, which is particularly timely in the light of recent advances in medical research and political economy. Focusing on a wide range of areas, such as AIDS, genetic engineering, screening and underwriting, new disability legislation and the ethics of private and public health insurance, this comprehensive and sometimes controversial book provides an essential survey of the key issues in health insurance. Divided into two parts, the first considers the (...) ethics of underwriting, risk assessment and the acceptance and refusal of insurance risk by insurers. Discussing the unjust treatment of high-risk applicants, the authors identify sources of unfairness to both parties of the insurance contract, indicating how reasonable trade-offs can be made. The second part considers the argument for a mix of public and private insurance for acute and long-term care, offering recommendations for changes in the balance of social insurance, and discussing the shift toward long-term contracts in private health care and pension insurance. (shrink)

This volume is an exploration of the ethical issues raised by health insurance, which is particularly timely in the light of recent advances in medical research and political economy. Focusing on a wide range of areas, such as AIDS, genetic engineering, screening and underwriting, new disability legislation and the ethics of private and public health insurance, this comprehensive and sometimes controversial book provides an essential survey of the key issues in health insurance. Divided into two parts, the first considers the (...) ethics of underwriting, risk assessment and the acceptance and refusal of insurance risk by insurers. Discussing the unjust treatment of high-risk applicants, the authors identify sources of unfairness to both parties of the insurance contract, indicating how reasonable trade-offs can be made. The second part considers the argument for a mix of public and private insurance for acute and long-term care, offering recommendations for changes in the balance of social insurance, and discussing the shift toward long-term contracts in private health care and pension insurance. (shrink)

Caracterización de un grupo de comités de ética en investigación en Colombia Caracterização de um grupo de comitês de ética em pesquisa na Colômbia In the last decades, controlled clinical trials sponsored by the pharmaceutical industry have increased considerably. This has led to the need for greater control and assistance by regulators and ethics committees to ensure appropriate compliance with established ethical standards and good clinical practices in general. In Colombia, the National Food and Drug Surveillance Institute, the regulator in (...) the country, controls and monitors the operation of clinical research with drugs. In 2008, this entity issued Resolution 2378, which provides and regulates research actors in Colombia, including ethics committees. After being in force for several years, it is necessary to know whether research ethics committees in Colombia operate in accordance with this regulation and to determine the status of implementation of the requirements therein. For this purpose, a survey was designed to be voluntarily answered and a response was obtained from 25 of the 69 certified committees in Colombia. Twenty-two of them could be analyzed because their information was complete. Compared with previous studies, favorable changes in development and organization were observed in accordance with the current proposed regulation. Para citar este artículo / To reference this article / Para citar este artigo Suárez-Obando F, Reynales H, Urina M, Camacho J, Viteri M. Caracterización de un grupo de comités de ética en investigación en Colombia. pers. bioét. 2018; 22: 303-318. DOI: 10.5294/pebi.2018.22.2.8. (shrink)

It is possible to defend the death penalty for aggravated murder in more than one way, and not every defence is equally compelling. The paper takes up arguments put forward by two very distinguished advocates of the death penalty, Mill and Kant. After reviewing Mill's argument and some weaknesses in it, I shall sketch another line of reasoning that combines his conclusion with premisses to be found in Kant. The hybrid argument provides at least the basis for a sound defence (...) of execution for the most serious murders. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Insight and Inference: Descartes's Founding Principle and Modern PhilosophyTom SorellMurray Miles. Insight and Inference: Descartes's Founding Principle and Modern Philosophy. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1999. Pp. xviii + 564. Cloth, $120.00.This book reopens the question of the correct interpretation of 'cogito, ergo sum,' and considers the significance of Descartes's first principle for Western philosophy up to and including the twentieth century. The gist of Miles's interpretation is (...) captured in the first three words of his title. The cogito is both insight and inference. How is it an inference, exactly? In the course of a process of selective attention to elements of thought, the cogito brings each person to the explicit knowledge of the fact of his or her existence (49). We have an implicit grasp of what the cogito makes explicit; and the passage from implicit to explicit knowledge amounts to a kind of inference. It is like an Aristotelian induction (cf. chapter 20).Inference is the topic of Part Three. Part Two concerns certainty. The cogito is certain in Meditation Two not in the light of the thought that God is veracious, but in the light solely of reflection on one's actually occurring thoughts (47). As for what Cartesian thoughts are, Miles seems to suggest that they are rather like what Husserl gets out of his phenomenological reduction: "intentionally-structured or object-directed acts of thinking" that are the sole immediate objects of consciousness (45). Miles rejects, correctly I think, the attribution to Descartes of any of the usual forms of representationalism.The diagnosis in Part Two of the certainty of the cogito seemed to me to be plausible on its face. It is in line with, although much more elaborate than, some reasonably familiar "psychologistic" interpretations clearing Descartes of the charge of circularity in the reasoning from clarity and distinctness to God's existence and nature and back again. (See A. Kenny, Descartes: A Study of his Philosophy [New York: Random House, 1968], chapter 8, and J. Tlumak, "Certainty and Cartesian Method" in M. Hooker, ed., Descartes: Critical and Interpretive Essays [Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1978], 40-73. See also L. Loeb's article on the Cartesian Circle in J. Cottingham, ed., The Cambridge Companion to Descartes [New York, Cambridge University Press, 1992], 200-235.) To the extent that Miles departs from these interpretations, it seems to be by trying to base the authority of the cogito on the immutability of God (215-18). But this move seems ill-advised. Not only does it land Descartes in difficulties over the interpretation of pieces of scripture in which God changes his mind; it may also be in tension with the idea of omnipotence. On the whole, however, there is much in Part Two to admireófrom the interpretation of the simple natures (chapter 10), to the differences between scientia, persuasio, and notitia (chapter 11).Part One is less satisfactory, because Miles seems intent on reading Descartes through Husserl. Although he does not evade the objection that this approach is anachronistic (91-93), Miles does reinforce the impression, already created in the 55-page introduction, that he is unsure which interpretive perspective to use to control the book. Is he writing primarily as a twentieth century reader attracted to phenomenology, or is he someone who is keen to penetrate the seventeenth century and earlier and let the meanings of the early modern period infuse the text? Miles leaves the reader uncertain. In Part One we have a Husserlian Descartes. In the Introduction, the sixteenth and seventeenth century perspectives supply the preferred interpretation of [End Page 122] Descartes's metaphysics as something more or less traditional—concerned with the most certain, most universal, and the highest kind of being, the kind of being studied by theology.It is hard not to be put off by Miles's very swift dismissals of mainstream Anglo-American interpretations of Descartes's metaphysics as having some special connection with his physics (27ff). Can this line of interpretation really be refuted by quoting passages in which Descartes says that metaphysics is more basic and more certain than physics? Surely not. In choosing the formulation... (shrink)

There is something intuitively correct about singling out emergency workers for legal protection, and for criminalizing not just assault, but obstruction. Moreover, at least one sophisticated theory of right and wrong – Scanlon’s—indicates some deep reasons for endorsing these intuitions. After applying Scanlon’s theory in the relevant way, I want to argue that the same grounds it provides for recent Scottish legislation and UK sentencing guidelines can also be given for punishing more seriously offences that current English law trivialises.

First Published in 2004. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

This paper seeks to identify the distinctive moral wrong of stalking and argues that this wrong is serious enough to criminalize. We draw on psychological literature about stalking, distinguishing types of stalkers, their pathologies, and victims. The victimology is the basis for claims about what is wrong with stalking. Close attention to the experiences of victims often reveals an obsessive preoccupation with the stalker and what he will do next. The kind of harm this does is best understood in relation (...) to the value of privacy and conventionally protected zones of privacy. We compare anti-stalking laws in different jurisdictions, claiming that they all fail in some way to capture the distinctive privacy violation that stalking involves. Further reflection on the seriousness of the invasion of privacy it represents suggests that it is a deeply personal wrong. Indeed, it is usually more serious than obtrusive surveillance by states, precisely because it is more personal. Where state surveillance genuinely is as intrusive as stalking, it tends to adopt the tactics of the stalker, imposing its presence on the activist victim at every turn. Power dynamics —whether rooted in the power of the state or the violence of a stalker —may exacerbate violations of privacy, but the wrong is distinct from violence, threats of violence and other aggression. Nor is stalking a simple expression of a difference in power between stalker and victim, such as a difference due to gender. (shrink)

This is an introduction to a special number of Midwest Studies discussing the 2008 global financial crisis and the ethical issues it raised. The immediate origins of the crisis are discussed, as are some of the exotic financial instruments involved, and some of the strategies for valuing and trading these instruments. This is necessary background for attributions of moral responsibility and blame to both individuals and institutions in the American financial system and its counterparts elsewhere in the developed world.

Patients have not been entirely ignored in medical ethics. There has been a shift from the general presumption that ‘doctor knows best’ to a heightened respect for patient autonomy. Medical ethics remains one–sided, however. It tends (incorrectly) to interpret patient autonomy as mere participation in decisions, rather than a willingness to take the consequences. In this respect, medical ethics remains largely paternalistic, requiring doctors to protect patients from the consequences of their decisions. This is reflected in a one–sided account of (...) duties in medical ethics. Duties fall mainly on doctors and only exceptionally on patients. Medical ethics may exempt patients from obligations because they are the weaker or more vulnerable party in the doctor–patient relationship. We argue that vulnerability does not exclude obligation. We also look at others ways in which patient responsibilities flow from general ethics: for instance, from responsibilities to others and to the self, from duties of citizens, and from the responsibilities of those who solicit advice. Finally, we argue that certain duties of patients counterbalance an otherwise unfair captivity of doctors as helpers. (shrink)

Values such as respect for autonomy, safety, enablement, independence, privacy and social connectedness should be reflected in the design of social robots. The same values should affect the process by which robots are introduced into the homes of older people to support independent living. These values may, however, be in tension. We explored what potential users thought about these values, and how the tensions between them could be resolved. With the help of partners in the ACCOMPANY project, 21 focus groups (...) were convened in France, the Netherlands and the UK. These groups consisted of: older people, informal carers and formal carers of older people. The participants were asked to discuss scenarios in which there is a conflict between older people and others over how a robot should be used, these conflicts reflecting tensions between values. Participants favoured compromise, persuasion and negotiation as a means of reaching agreement. Roles and related role-norms for the robot were thought relevant to resolving tensions, as were hypothetical agreements between users and robot-providers before the robot is introduced into the home. Participants’ understanding of each of the values—autonomy, safety, enablement, independence, privacy and social connectedness—is reported. Participants tended to agree that autonomy often has priority over the other values, with the exception in certain cases of safety. The second part of the paper discusses how the values could be incorporated into the design of social robots and operationalised in line with the views expressed by the participants. (shrink)

This paper offers an ethical framework for the development of robots as home companions that are intended to address the isolation and reduced physical functioning of frail older people with capacity, especially those living alone in a noninstitutional setting. Our ethical framework gives autonomy priority in a list of purposes served by assistive technology in general, and carebots in particular. It first introduces the notion of “presence” and draws a distinction between humanoid multi-function robots and non-humanoid robots to suggest that (...) the former provide a more sophisticated presence than the latter. It then looks at the difference between lower-tech assistive technological support for older people and its benefits, and contrasts these with what robots can offer. This provides some context for the ethical assessment of robotic assistive technology. We then consider what might need to be added to presence to produce care from a companion robot that deals with older people’s reduced functioning and isolation. Finally, we outline and explain our ethical framework. We discuss how it combines sometimes conflicting values that the design of a carebot might incorporate, if informed by an analysis of the different roles that can be served by a companion robot. (shrink)

Most academic papers on ethics in pandemics concentrate on the duties of healthcare professionals. This paper will consider non-professional healthcare workers: do they have a moral obligation to work during an influenza pandemic? If so, is this an obligation that outweighs others they might have, e.g., as parents, and should such an obligation be backed up by the coercive power of law? This paper considers whether non-professional healthcare workers—porters, domestic service workers, catering staff, clerks, IT support workers, etc.—have an obligation (...) to work during an influenza pandemic. It uses data collected as part of a study looking at the attitudes of healthcare workers to working during a pandemic to suggest the philosophical arguments explored. These include: being in a position to do good, the ethics of work, competing obligations to family members and in particular to children and the obligations of citizens in a state of national emergency. We also look at whether compulsory measures are justified to support a national health service during a health emergency. We conclude that even if they are, compulsion should not be restricted to non-professionals who happen to be working in the health service at the time. Rather, compulsion involving a larger pool of people with the relevant skills and abilities is more equitable. (shrink)

Telecare is often regarded as a win/win solution to the growing problem of meeting the care needs of an ageing population. In this paper we call attention to some of the ways in which telecare is not a win/win solution but rather aggravates many of the long-standing ethical tensions that surround the care of the elderly. It may reduce the call on carers' time and energy by automating some aspects of care, particularly daily monitoring. This can release carers for other (...) caring activities. On the other hand, remote and impersonal monitoring seems to fall short of providing care. Monitoring may be used to help elderly users retain independence. But it may also increase the amount of information which flows from users to carers, which can result in a form of function-creep that actually undermines independence. (shrink)

Business Ethics is intended for business practitioners and students of business at all levels and is written in a lively and accessible style. It redresses the balance of buisness ethics writing which, up to now, has been weighted heavily in favour of American cases. There are numerous references to real businesses - from multi-national chains to French restaurants, from manufacturing giants to driving schools. Ethically 'hot' topics such as the social chapter of the Maastricht Treaty, the new EC directives, entry (...) of the countries of the former Soviet Union into the world market economy, privatization and the 'green' environment are just some of the more general issues discussed. Companies covered in the book are: Allied Lyons, Apple Corporation, Avon, Bank of Credit and Commerce International, Barlow Clowes, Benetton, Body Shop, British Airways, British Rail, Cadbury-Schweppes, Ecology Building Society, Fiat, Gateway Foodmarkets, Grand Metropolitan, Guinness, ICI, John Lewis, Kingfisher, Ladbrokes, Lloyds Bank, Management Week, Marks & Spencer, Mirror Group Newspapers, Nestle, Polly Peck, Price Waterhouse, Scott Bader, Securicor, Traidcraft, United Biscuits, Virgin, Worldwide Fund for Nature...and many more. Packed with excellent examples from many international companies Written in a lively and accessible style. (shrink)

Philosophy written in English is overwhelmingly analytic philosophy, and the techniques and predilections of analytic philosophy are not only unhistorical but anti-historical, and hostile to textual commentary. Analytic usually aspires to a very high degree of clarity and precision of formulation and argument, and it often seeks to be informed by, and consistent with, current natural science. In an earlier era, analytic philosophy aimed at agreement with ordinary linguistic intuitions or common sense beliefs, or both. All of these aspects of (...) the subject sit uneasily with the use of historical texts for philosophical illumination. In this book, ten distinguished philosophers explore the tensions between, and the possibilities of reconciling, analytic philosophy and history of philosophy. Contributors: M. R. Ayers, John Cottingham, Daniel Garber, Gary Hatfield, Anthony Kenny, Steven Nadler, G. A. J. Rogers, Tom Sorell, Catherine Wilson, Yves Charles Zarka. (shrink)

Contemporary experimental philosophers sometimes use versions of an argument from the history of philosophy to defend the claim that what they do is philosophy. Although experimental philosophers conduct surveys and carry out what appear to be experiments in psychology, making them methodologically different from most analytic philosophers working today, techniques like theirs were not out of the ordinary in the philosophy of the past, early modern philosophy in particular. Or so some of them argue. This paper disputes the argument, citing (...) important differences between early modern philosopher-scientists – Descartes, Hobbes and Boyle – and their supposed modern counterparts. Although there is some continuity between early modern philosopher-scientists and the contemporary experimentalists, it is mostly a continuity of interest in empirically informed philosophy, not a distinctively experimental philosophy. (shrink)

Contemporary experimental philosophers sometimes use versions of an argument from the history of philosophy to defend the claim that what they do is philosophy. Although experimental philosophers conduct surveys and carry out what appear to be experiments in psychology, making them methodologically different from most analytic philosophers working today, techniques like theirs were not out of the ordinary in the philosophy of the past, early modern philosophy in particular. Or so some of them argue. This paper disputes the argument, citing (...) important differences between early modern philosopher-scientists – Descartes, Hobbes and Boyle – and their supposed modern counterparts. Although there is some continuity between early modern philosopher-scientists and the contemporary experimentalists, it is mostly a continuity of interest in empirically informed philosophy, not a distinctively experimental philosophy. (shrink)