In recent years, firms have greatly increased the amount of resources allocated to activities classified as Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). While an increase in CSR expenditure may be consistent with firm value maximization if it is a response to changes in stakeholders' preferences, we argue that a firm's insiders (managers and large blockholders) may seek to overinvest in CSR for their private benefit to the extent that doing so improves their reputations as good global citizens and has a "warm-glow" effect. (...) We test this hypothesis by investigating the relation between firms' CSR ratings and their ownership and capital structures. Employing a unique data set that categorizes the largest 3000 U. S. corporations as either socially responsible (SR) or socially irresponsible (SI), we find that on average, insiders' ownership and leverage are negatively related to the firm's social rating, while institutional ownership is uncorrelated with it. Assuming that higher CSR ratings is associated with higher CSR expenditure level, these results support our hypothesis that insiders induce firms to over-invest in CSR when they bear little of the cost of doing so. (shrink)

From the end of the 19th century until his death, one of history's most brilliant mathematicians languished in an asylum. The Mystery of the Aleph tells the story of Georg Cantor (1845-1918), a Russian-born German who created set theory, the concept of infinite numbers, and the "continuum hypothesis," which challenged the very foundations of mathematics. His ideas brought expected denunciation from established corners - he was called a "corruptor of youth" not only for his work in mathematics, but for his (...) larger attempts to meld spirituality and science. (shrink)

Demonstrating a relational, dialogic way of thinking and writing, this book offers an innovative perspective on the human potential for intersubjective engagement and on the nature of true encounter. The authors engage in creative, associative dialogues and trialogues inspired by psychoanalysis and Buddhism, poetry and religion, theory and case studies, academic and free styles of writing - each enriching the other. Reflecting on the essence of relating, they convey a flow between inner, private reveries and shared ones, and between individual (...) expressions of thought and evolvements of newly born thirds. Through this interdisciplinary, experimental setting, the authors explore the possibility to reach truths and meanings that each individual would not have achieved on their own. Offering new concepts and formulations that may nourish psychotherapists' thought and be usefully implemented in their practice, this book presents a pressingly unique and essential viewpoint for psychoanalysts and psychoanalytic psychotherapists in training and in practice. (shrink)

Research and practice of Voluntary Earnings Disclosure (VED) as a strategy are limited, notwithstanding its evidenced contribution to firm value. An emerging VED profile is identified, characterised and evaluated. Firms applying it regularly provide VED between quarterly earnings announcements. This profile is compared with the prevailing approach of issuing VED when warranted by events and/or when serving firm or management ad hoc interests. These firms' VEDs are found to be more regular, frequent, timely, and often with confirming content. Their VED (...) events, usually midquarter updates, are often prescheduled and specifically named using period-related terms. These controllable characteristics qualify it as a strategy, termed 'Period-Driven VED', in distinction from 'Event-Driven VED'. The period-driven VED strategy is found to improve a firm's information environment through a reduced information gap, measured by abnormal stock returns, lower analysts' forecast error and dispersion, and fewer surprises around earnings-release dates. The firm's improved information environment leads to lower cost of capital, as evidenced by prior theoretical and empirical research, enhancing firm value. (shrink)

Der muslimische Scholastiker Al-Ğuwaynī lebte und wirkte in der als -formative Phase des Islam- bekannten Zeit. Diese wurde gepragt durch eine enorme theologische Dynamik, die zur Herausbildung diverser Denkschulen fuhrte. Diese Arbeit zeichnet diese Entwicklung anhand der Ansatze Al-Ğuwaynīs nach und setzt diese in Bezug zu den Positionen der traditionalistischen und rationalistischen Stromungen. Weiter fuhrt sie in die Grundfragen fruh-islamischer Theologie ein, behandelt methodische Aspekte zur Hermeneutik der Offenbarung und vermittelt einen Eindruck islamischer Argumentation und Dialektik.".

Rabbi Shaul Yisraeli was one of religious Zionism’s greatest rabbis and adjudicators. He served for many years as the rabbi of Moshav Kfar Haroeh, sat as a judge in the supreme Rabbinical Court and was head of the Merkaz Harav yeshiva. The purpose of this study is to shed light on Yisraeli’s attitude towards work. Did he see work as a basic human obligation spelled out by the physical need for survival? Did he associate an ideological value with work, as (...) part of a worldview integrating religious values with extra-religious ones, similar to socialism? Or did he see work as a religious value, one that stemmed from his theology? (shrink)

Schelling's philosophy can be seen as perpetrating the philosophical fallacy known as the Myth of the Given, in that it takes rational activity to be affected by an experience which is not conceptually mediated. This is supported by Schelling's repeated claim that there is an experience which is indescribable, and which forces us to silence. In the first part of the paper it will be shown how different readings of Schelling result in this fallacy. In the second and third parts (...) an alternative reading will be developed which avoids the fallacy while still making room for unsayable experience. Finally, the proposed interpretation will enable us to interpret Schelling's claim that expressing the unsayable, conveying it to another, is possible after all. »The wish for intelligibility is a terrible one. It means that we are willing to reveal ourselves through the self 's betrayal of itself.« (Stanley Cavell, The World Viewed. (shrink)

This book investigates the role of humor in the good life, specifically as discussed by three prominent French intellectuals who were influenced by Nietzsche's thought: Georges Bataille, Gilles Deleuze, and Clément Rosset. Lydia Amir begins by discussing Nietzsche's reception in France, and she explains why and how he came to be considered a "philosopher of laughter" in the French academe. Each of the subsequent three chapters focuses on the significance of humor and laughter in the good life as advocated (...) by Bataille, Deleuze, and Rosset. These chapters also explore the complex relationship between the comic and the tragic, and of humor and laughter to irony, satire, and ridicule. The Legacy of Nietzsche's Philosophy of Laughter makes an invaluable contribution to recent interpretive work done on Bataille and Deleuze, and offers further introduction to the relatively understudied Rosset. It illuminates the philosophies of these three thinkers, their connection to Nietzsche, and, overall, the significant role that humor plays in philosophy. (shrink)

_An exploration of philosophical and religious ideas about humor in modern philosophy and their secular implications._.

This study examines an important part of Richard Swinburne’s case for the plausibility of Christianity, namely his Atonement theory. My examination begins by presenting Swinburne’s theory before alluding to the many criticisms it has attracted. I conclude with some lessons which can be learnt about philosophical theology and its use in interreligious dialogue. My main contention is that if philosophical theology is going to be used for inter-religious dialogue, then it should not be used with the expectation that disagreements will (...) be overcome. (shrink)

Based on the fact that Arabic words have roots from which they are derivated and their common meanings and there is a meaning relationship between words derivated from the same root Ibn Fāris tried to prove this theory in his dictionary. According to Ibn Fāris maqāyīs means the words that was derivated from a same root and have a common meaning. The purpose of writing this dictionary by Ibn Fāris is to determine the common meaning of words that was derivated (...) from a same root. This common meaning is called asl (origin) or miqyās (gauge). He tried to mention the most obvious expression of common meaning. Thus, the words with similar meanings can be gathered around the same expression. There are totally 4659 articles in al-Maqāyīs. Of these articles approximately 2175 articles have one common meaning, 355 articles have two common meanings, 68 articles have three common meanings and 15 articles have four common meanings. There are just 4 aricles they have five common meanings andonly one article has six common meanings. He characterized 222 articles with useyl. While explaning the articles he gaved a great importance to the testimony. He recorded in his dictionary approximately 5.000 poems and 858 rajazs. And there are 612 verses, 579 hadithes and nearly 390 proverbs in this work. While explaning these articles Ibn Fāris used some concepts. He generally recorded these concepts in the first line when he starts to explain an article. That’s why it’s not easy to understand the articles without understanding the recorded concepts in this work. This article was prepared to explain the concepts in al-Maqāyīs. In this way, it is aimed to understand this work better. In this article are explained 14 concepts and are given some articles in which these concepts are mentioned as examples. Ibn Fāris used the word of kalima wāhida (one word) in the meaning of meaning/content. The concept of binā is used in some articles in the meaning of root, in some articles in the meaning of meaning/content and somtimes is used in the meaning of common meaning. But the concept of harf (letter) is used for the roots which is given a little explanation. It is possible to say that this concept means word (kalima) and these articles are not suitable for common meaning. Also in some articles the author mentioned about the meaning inconsistency and the meaning distance between common meanings. He used terms like meaning dissimilarity (ademu inqiyās) and individual meaningful words for the roots which he could not find the common meanings. The author sometimes used the terms of difference (tafāwut), meaning similarity (taqārub) and interference (tadākhul) between origins and words. Although he accepts the existence of common words and auto-antonym (ezdād) in Arabic language, he states that there is a detail difference between the words which are considered to be synonym. The concept of muhmal means the neglected articles or the articles whose letters are incomatible. (shrink)

This book provides a historical and comparative study of logic in Arabic in Bosnia and Herzegovina, from the first texts, 16th century, to the end of the 19th ...

The book includes all 15 long forgotten articles on bioethics and ethics written by Jahr from 1927 to 1947 in English translation. (Series: Practical Ethics / Ethik in der Praxis - Studies / Studien - Vol. 37).

Sprinkled with humor, social psychology illuminates cognition in Wegner's beautifully written and cleverly crafted book. However, scantily exploiting such themes as psychopathology, development, and neural correlates of consciousness, Wegner's account does not fully project into cognitive neuroscience. Broaching the topic of self-regulation, we outline neurocognitive data supplementing the notion that voluntariness is perhaps more post hoc ascriptions than bona fide introspection.

This article offers an interpretation of Schelling's theory of ideas within his philosophy of identity, arguing that it should be understood as a theory of the intelligibility of being—that is, the capacity for the world to be meaningfully articulated in thought. By placing Schelling's ideas into dialogue with Wittgenstein's Tractatus Logico -Philosophicus, the author aims to show how Schelling's philosophy might provide valuable insights for contemporary analytic interpretations of German idealism. Schelling's notion of ideas encompasses three key features: (1) they (...) express the principle of identity as the foundation of reality, (2) they constitute totalities or self-contained universes, and (3) they are individuals that are unified within a single totality. The author explains these features and demonstrates how they jointly establish the conditions necessary for the possibility of meaning and coherent thought. (shrink)

Humans are capable of extracting recurring patterns from their environment via statistical learning (SL), an ability thought to play an important role in language learning and learning more generally. While much work has examined statistical learning in infants and adults, less work has looked at the developmental trajectory of SL during childhood to see whether it is fully developed in infancy or improves with age, like many other cognitive abilities. A recent study showed modality‐based differences in the effect of age (...) during childhood: While visual SL improved with age, auditory SL did not. This finding was taken as evidence for modality‐based differences in SL. However, since that study used auditory linguistic stimuli (syllables), the differential effect of age may have been driven by stimulus type (linguistic vs. non‐linguistic) rather than modality. Here, we ask whether age will affect performance similarly in the two modalities when non‐linguistic auditory stimuli are used (familiar sounds instead of syllables). We conduct a large‐scale study of children's performance on visual and non‐linguistic auditory SL during childhood (ages 5–12 years). The results show a similar effect of age in both modalities: Unlike previous findings, both visual and non‐linguistic auditory SL improved with age. These findings highlight the stimuli‐sensitive nature of SL and suggest that modality‐based differences may be stimuli‐dependent, and that age‐invariance may be limited to linguistic stimuli. (shrink)

Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI), such as ChatGPT, shows great promise and potential and is gradually being used in mental health care, but it also raises ethical concerns. These relate t...

In today's world, businesses are involved in several different initiatives to gain sustainable performance, which can discourse the expectations and demands of society. Emerging economics faces numerous challenges in terms of social, relational, governance, and financial, which made it necessary for firms to perform responsibly in order to make positive contributions toward sustainability. Therefore, this study based on upper-echelon theory constructs a comprehensive framework on responsible leadership, corporate social responsibility, and managerial discretion to provide the guideline for business sustainability. To (...) fulfill the study purpose, an empirical analysis was performed on 382 Pakistani respondents' data by using PLS-SEM through SmartPLS. Outcomes of the study indicated that responsible leadership entails enormous importance in corporations to influence their impact on society, environment, and economy, which leads to business sustainability. Moreover, the study provides insights into that more responsible and experienced leaders are better able to identify the concerns of their firm's stakeholders in the manners of relational, governing, and orientational perspectives, which help them in satisfying the stakeholders' and society's demands. Hence, responsible leadership enables the firm to better strive for sustainability by applying better CSR activities and directing the decisions by maintaining the compliance of the managers. Furthermore, the current study concluded that the managers and leaders of firms need to develop their business models in such a way that it supports the triple bottom line performance of the firm so that they can achieve sustainability. This study would help managers of firms to realize that they should reexamine their leadership practices and behaviors with the consideration of the triple bottom line framework and integrate the sustainable approach and CSR practice into their business strategy so that they can accomplish the goal of sustainability for business and fulfill the social demands and expectations. (shrink)

The topic of the thesis is the challenge that religious diversity poses to religious belief. A key issue to be resolved is whether a reasonable person may believe in the epistemic superiority of any one religious ideology in the light of religious diversity. -/- After introducing the issues, I examine Richard Swinburne’s, and then Alvin Plantinga’s, view on religious diversity. These two philosophers both advocate religious epistemic exclusivism, the view that only one religious ideology is true to the exclusion of (...) all others. I argue that the positions of Swinburne and Plantinga are unsatisfactory. -/- In Chapter ‎4 I list a number of objections to religious epistemic exclusivism. One of these objections, namely the religious ambiguity objection, will be important in this thesis. I explain what religious ambiguity is in more detail and distinguish between temporary religious ambiguity and permanent religious ambiguity. -/- Chapters ‎5 & 6 deal with responses to religious diversity in the light of permanent religious ambiguity. William Alston advocates that religious epistemic exclusivism is still reasonable given religious ambiguity. Alston appeals to faith to justify exclusivist belief but this gives rise to the objection that tentative belief is more appropriate. Conversely, John Hick rejects exclusivism in favour of another position altogether, called religious epistemic pluralism. In Chapter ‎7 I assess the impact of Hick’s response to religious diversity on the ideology of a traditionally minded Muslim. I argue that the Muslim is not obliged to accept Hick’s solution in full. (shrink)

Organs for transplantation are a scarce resource. Markedly, the transplant community’s primary challenge is the stark disparity between the number of patients awaiting deceased donor organ transplants and the rate at which organs become available. However, the allocation of a limited number of organs poses another constant challenge: maintaining an equilibrium between renal transplant utility and equity, that is, striking a balance between the utilitarian argument of medical efficiency and the principle of equity. In this comprehensive overview, the authors delve (...) into the challenge of maintaining an acceptable balance between equity and efficiency and elaborate on some of the factors that might inform a decisionmaker’s evaluation of the extent to which a given allocation scheme is efficient or equitable. (shrink)

Nowrouz is the Iranian New Year that is celebrated during Eid, the longest Iranian festival. During the festival, families construct a Nowrouz cloth upon which several symbolic items are placed to celebrate the new year. One of these items is a goldfish who is placed in a bowl and discarded at the conclusion of the holiday. Goldfish are viewed as objects to be purchased, used, and disposed of without serious moral consideration. Given both the principle of the Nowrouz holiday as (...) a celebration of peace as well as the current scientific evidence supporting the existence of pain in goldfish, the use of one in the Nowrouz is ironic and ethically inconsistent. (shrink)

O artigo trata dos conceitos de um teatro público e de um teatro privado, a partir do surgimento da burguesia capitalista. O capitalismo estabeleceu um conflito entre as manifestações públicas (festas dramáticas) e o teatro de recinto fechado. As fontes brasileiras para um teatro público são vistas pela restauração e recuperação das nossas origens mediterrâneas em oposição ao pensamento protestante da América do Norte e Europa.

Beyond their conventional concepts as some outcome of the system dynamics, Patterns and their Formation are regarded here as some substantial parts in description of the dynamics and flow of information in systems. Approach to a typical geometrical problem, for instance, comprises some sequential steps where the observed information of the system is rearranged, reorganized and reformulated to reach the final result. An algebra is introduced here to begin a systematic framework for sequential approaches to geometrical problems. The type of (...) the objects suitable for different kinds of the problems, the way the objects successively match to get a more detailed description of the problem, and the summation operator which combines simultaneous segments of the information of the system are discussed. Based on such abstract clarification for the sequential description of systems, we then switch to reformulate practical examples in various fields from network dynamics to molecular decomposition, relativity and embryogenesis, and demonstrate how different sequential implementation of symmetry could lead to proper description for the dynamics in each of these examples. (shrink)

In this paper we prove the independence of δ 1 n for n ≥ 3. We show that δ 1 4 can be forced to be above any ordinal of L using set forcing. For δ 1 3 we prove that it can be forced, using set forcing, to be above any L cardinal κ such that κ is Π 1 definable without parameters in L. We then show that δ 1 3 cannot be forced by a set forcing to (...) be above every cardinal of L. Finally we present a class forcing construction to make δ 1 3 greater than any given L cardinal. (shrink)

This article tells the story of an Israeli regulatory program aimed at luring back home Israeli companies listed only on U.S. stock markets, to facilitate dual listing of their stocks on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange. Beyond documenting a piece of Israeli political economy, this article provides several lessons of general relevance to small or emerging markets as well as to large ones. In this story, the regulator of the small market finds itself a regulatory price-taker. In a mirror image, (...) the U.S. market emerges as a global regulatory price-setter. This regulatory externality, or regulatory arbitrage, is disturbing because the standard with which Israeli regulation had to align is the watered-down version for non-U.S. issuers. Indeed, any effort to require an iota of additional disclosure beyond the American foreign issuer regime has failed due to vehement objections from the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange and business interest groups. The role of the stock exchange as regulator and the interplay between corporate law and securities regulation are also discussed in this context. This article thus casts some doubt on the desirability of piggybacking on foreign markets. Sometimes, it turns out, piggybacking can be a ride to the bottom. (shrink)

This Article analyzes the composition of the board of directors as a vehicle for state intervention in corporate governance. Such intervention is ubiquitous and often motivated by goals that stray from shareholder wealth maximization, or corporate governance more generally, to promote other national interests such as diversity. Regulating board composition thus is merely the continuation of politics by other means. After briefly discussing direct state ownership in business firms as a way to advance policy goals, the Article explicates the tensions (...) between boards’ dual responsibilities of monitoring and strategy-setting. These oftentimes conflicting missions curb the law’s ability to guide board members’ conduct through the conventional legal duties of loyalty and care or other injunctions. Although the two roles also may entail conflicting implications for board composition, regulation of board composition nonetheless may prove a superior means for promoting policy goals, especially with regard to the objective of the corporation. Composition regulation harnesses board members’ personal attributes — specifically, their values — to facilitate the attainment of these goals. Instead of telling board members what to do, the state may fare better by regulating who they are. (shrink)

Hovevei Zion is a collective name for several societies established in Eastern Europe in the 19th century, advocating immigration to the land of Israel, settlement of the land and agricultural work. This article examines the religious approach of several prominent thinkers from among Hovevei Zion and the First Aliya, who shared the perception of farming and settling the land as having religious and even messianic meaning. It was clear to them that the Torah is the foundation of the Jewish people's (...) existence, however, to this they added another value - work. These thinkers strived to change the identity of the exilic Jew, who was occupied only with spiritual religious life and to reinstate the identity of the biblical Jew, who combined a spiritual and a material religious life. The article examines the approach of Hovevei Zion in light of the general rabbinic approach to redemption, settlement and agriculture and the social changes in 19th century Europe.CONTRIBUTION: This article contributes to the journal's multidisciplinary theological perspective, particularly the notion 'historical thought', which covers the textual and oral history and hermeneutical studies, narratives and philosophies behind the Abrahamic religions as expressed in the Hebrew Scriptures and the Rabbinic literature. (shrink)

In this essay, I will try to elaborate the fundamental postulates of transdifferential ontology, developed through the inscription of some basic concepts of poststructuralist philosophy within the realm of general system theory. In this manner, a system/being will be conceptualized as set of elements which is organized as a functional whole, whose goal is not to establish a homeostasis but to menage and organize disruptive forces of lack/surplus, that represents non-mediated kernel of any system. Therefore, any system is fundamentally grounded (...) on imbalance and radical incompleteness as inherent conditions of its possibility. Among different kind of systems, the complex self - organizing systems based on feedback loops are governed by the principle of syntropy and its transdifferential organization of reality. In order to explicate the syntropic movement of systems, the concept of signifier is expanded beyond the boundaries of language, and the process of writing, as a permanent invention of in-vent, is interpreted in the manner of never ending sublation of the system and subversion of the subject. The interconnection between the general system theory and poststructuralist philosophy will provide us with a conceptual apparatus which overcomes both linguistic and entropic limitations of above mentioned domains, in order to conceive, interpret, predict and govern processes of becoming on different levels of organization of systems. (shrink)

A fundamental question in the psychological sciences is the degree to which culture shapes core cognitive processes — perhaps none more foundational than how we perceive the world around us. A dramatic and oft-cited “case study” of culture’s power in this regard is the Müller-Lyer illusion, which depicts two lines of equal length but with arrowheads pointing either inward or outward, creating the illusion that one line is longer than the other. According to a line of research stretching back over (...) a century, depending on the society you were raised in (and how much carpentry you were exposed to), you may not see the illusion at all — an ambitious and influential research program motivating claims that seemingly basic aspects of visual processing may actually be “culturally evolved byproducts”. This Cultural Byproduct Hypothesis bears on foundational issues in the science, philosophy, and sociology of psychology, and remains popular today. Yet, here we argue that it is almost certainly false. We synthesize evidence from diverse fields which demonstrate that: (1) the illusion is not limited to humans, appearing in non-human animals from diverse ecologies; (2) the statistics of natural scenes are sufficient to capture the illusion; (3) the illusion does not require straight lines typical of carpentry (nor even any lines at all); (4) the illusion arises in sense modalities other than vision; and (5) the illusion arises even in congenitally blind subjects. Moreover, by reexamining historical data and ethnographic descriptions from the original case studies, we show that the evidence for cultural variation and its correlation with key cultural variables is in fact highly inconsistent, beset by questionable research practices, and misreported by later discussions. Together, these considerations undermine the most popular and dramatic example of cultural influence on perception. We further extend our case beyond this phenomenon, showing that many of these considerations apply to other visual illusions as well, including similarly implicated visual phenomena such as the Ebbinghaus, Ponzo, Poggendorf, and Horizontal-Vertical illusions. We conclude by outlining future approaches to cross-cultural research on perception, and we also point to other potential sources of cultural variation in visual processing. (shrink)

Publication date: 31 January 2018 Source: Author: Amir Abbas Moslemi Ezra Pound’s Shi-Shu: Rats is read Foucauldianly to instantiate an interaction between Confucianism and Western schools of thought in response to the problem of evil. There is a review of Leibniz’s theodicy to clear up confusion, and also to pave the way for a succession of readings of a number of philosophers like Hume and James — foregrounding epistemic inclination of poets like Pope, Wordsworth and Burns. ‘Accidentality’ and ‘essentiality’ (...) are key philosophic terms, without which this problem cannot hold its logical structure, especially in terms of an answer. Epistemo-political ‘docility’ and literal ‘decency’ are employed together for the first time to be reintroducing ancient relationship between cruel politicians and carceral system. Utopia is taken as a mere dream so that ‘the problem’ would tend to keep its identity. What is new in this paper is a ‘gaze’-wise trace of mice in literature supporting the problem of evil in philosophy, based on an actual political background, within a broad sociological realm. (shrink)

Religious diversity is a key topic in contemporary philosophy of religion. One way religious diversity has been of interest to philosophers is in the epistemological questions it gives rise to. In other words, religious diversity has been seen to pose a challenge for religious belief. In this study four approaches to dealing with this challenge are discussed. These approaches correspond to four well-known philosophers of religion, namely, Richard Swinburne, Alvin Plantinga, William Alston, and John Hick. The study is concluded by (...) suggesting four factors which shape one’s response to the challenge religious diversity poses to religious belief. (shrink)

This study analyzed the content of questions in the quiz show Who Wants to be a Millionaire in the UK, the USA, Australia, Singapore, and India. A total of 1,823 questions were sampled. The topics of questions varied from country to country with programs in Australia and the UK over-representing language, the USA and Singapore over-representing light entertainment, and India over-representing history. The share of local themes was positively related to the country’s size of population. In all the countries, questions (...) that awarded higher prizes more frequently required academic knowledge, whereas pocket money questions more often called for popular everyday knowledge. Overall, the global quiz format appears to be sensitive to relatively small cultural differences. The hierarchy of knowledge it features is in line with western norms. (shrink)