Although theory refers to organizational culture as an important variable in corrupt organizations, only little empirical research has addressed the characteristics of a corrupt organizational culture. Besides some characteristics that go hand in hand with unethical behavior and other features of corrupt organizations, we are still not able to describe a corrupt organizational culture in terms of its underlying assumptions, values, and norms. With a qualitative approach, we studied similarities of organizational culture across different corrupt organizations. In this study, we (...) performed content analysis on interviews of 14 independent experts about their experience with corrupt organizations. With this approach, we gained insights about different corrupt organizations spanning different branches (e.g., government, foreign trade, pharmacy, sports, building industry). We found that corrupt organizations perceive themselves to fight in a war, which leads to their taken-for-granted assumption that “the end justifies the means”. This assumption inspires many values and norms of the organizational culture. An important value in a corrupt organization is “security”, and an important norm is punishment of deviant (i.e., non-corrupt) behavior. Furthermore, managers and employees differ in their perception of organizational culture. While the management endorses values, such as success, results, and performance, and implements these values in their norms of goal setting, employees make use of rationalization strategies and endorse values of security and team spirit. (shrink)

The essay defines two different modes of filmic violence: sublime and drastic pictures of violence. Based on the definitions of the sublime by Edmund Burke and Immanuel Kant, I argue that the sublime has the tendency to detach the viewer from possible affective end empathetic response to pictures of bodies in pain on the screen. By contrast, the drastic mode has potential to evoke empathetic reactions. Both modes are grounded in specific ways of showing violence: the sublime mode diminishes the (...) bodies on the screen, the drastic mode shows us the faces in close-up and tries to immerse the viewer in the violence.Both definitions are informed by phenomenological film theory, which positions the body of the viewer at the centre of film reception. Nevertheless, the somatic experience is not the only scope of film reception. Films not only show us a filmic world but also suggest a more or less specific way of seeing the world outside the cinema.To this effect, both ways of staging violence have ideological implications. The sublime violence allows the viewer to experience himself as strong and invulnerable, while drastic pictures of violence tend to victimize the viewer.These assumptions are tested on two exemplary instances: the helicopter scene in Francis Ford Coppolas war movie Apocalypse Now and the shower scene in Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho. (shrink)

Most commentators agree that Leibniz advocates some version of a doctrine of the ideality or reducibility of relations, but there is considerable disagreement about what exactly this doctrine means. I argue that Leibniz’s views on relations are more complex than has been previously appreciated, and that, despite some ‘reductionist’ strands in Leibniz’s position, it is seriously misleading to describe him as a reductionist about relations without adding some important qualifications. The complexity of Leibniz’s views on relations tends to be obscured (...) by the common assumption that they can be captured in one unified thesis, or a small number of closely related theses, and by the widespread neglect to take Leibniz’s division of reality into several ontological levels into consideration. I disentangle ten Leibnizian theses about relations, extrinsic denominations, and their relation to intrinsic denominations. Some of these theses express a kind of dependence of extrinsic denominations on intrinsic ones, and some of them can even be counted as articulations of a form of reductionism. But, overall, the general tenor of Leibniz’s position on extrinsic denominations remains non-reductionist. (shrink)

The World According to Kant offers an interpretation of Immanuel Kant’s critical idealism, as developed in the Critique of Pure Reason and associated texts. Critical idealism is understood as an ontological position, which comprises transcendental idealism, empirical realism, and a number of other basic ontological theses. According to Kant, the world, understood as the sum total of everything that has reality, comprises several levels of reality, most importantly, the transcendental level and the empirical level. The transcendental level is a mind-independent (...) level at which things in themselves exist. The empirical level is a fully mind-dependent level at which appearances exist, which are intentional objects of experience. Empirical objects and empirical minds are appearances, and empirical space and time are constituted by the spatial and temporal determinations of appearances. On the proposed interpretation, Kant is thus a genuine idealist about empirical objects, empirical minds, and space and time. But in contrast to other intentional objects, appearances genuinely exist, which is due both to the special character of experience compared to other kinds of representations such as illusions or dreams, and to the grounding of appearances in things themselves. This is why, on the proposed interpretation, Kant is also a genuine realist about empirical objects, empirical minds, and empirical space and time. This book develops the indicated interpretation, spells out Kant’s case for critical idealism thus understood, pinpoints the differences between critical idealism and ‘ordinary’ idealism, such as Berkley’s, and clarifies the relation between Kant’s conception of things in themselves and the conception of things in themselves by other philosophers, in particular, Kant’s Leibniz-Wolffian predecessors. -/- PS from the author: I maintain a list of errata plus corrections on my website (which can easily be found by googling my name). If you discover additional errors, typos, or unfortunate formulations, I would be grateful to hear from you. -/- . (shrink)

What is the wrong behind the widely criticized presentist bias of democracies? In this paper I argue that it is not that future generations are excluded from present-day democratic decision-making quite generally. Rather, I claim that due to the unique risks associated with representing future generations and the limitations on affecting future generations both institutionally and causally, the focus ought to be on including them on a more specific, narrower, set of issues, namely only those that threaten to lead to (...) their domination. I identify such issues as those that may end up being purpose-determining: that may subject future generations to previous generations’ will by forcing them to exert a substantial amount of their energies on dealing with problems caused by their predecessors. I conclude by reflecting on the extent to which political representation together with providing avenues of contestation can minimize the risk of intergenerational domination. (shrink)

Wittgenstein famously criticizes the philosophical practice of analyzing the meaning of words outside their ordinary use in everyday language, whereby often self-made pseudo-problems arise. In order to shed further light on Wittgenstein’s critique, this article makes use of the Remarks on the Philosophy of Psychology. First, starting from the remark in Vol. I, §52, his criticism of the philosophical method of selection and generalization is explained in detail. Next, I give a brief outline of Wittgenstein’s own way of philosophizing by (...) reference to a selection of comments concerning the use of psychological words in everyday language, which will also further elucidate his critique. Finally, I enter into the question which significance everyday language according to Wittgenstein has for philosophy. (shrink)

When the first publication of Hans-Georg Gadamer's magnum opus Wahrheit und Methode came to life in I960, the work was initially received with a slight sense of puzzlement and yet concurrently acknowledged as monumental. The title, in English, Truth and Method, was regarded by the philosophical community both in Germany and abroad as being somewhat obscure, as Gadamer himself would later admit, but the ingeniousness of the book's content could hardly be debated. Since its initial publication, Truth and Method has, (...) respectively helped to expand and light up the horizon of modern hermeneutics by provoking, at once, a reconsideration of the phenomenon of understanding while, at the same time, enlivening the debate over scientific methodology and its exclusive claim to truth. The central aim of the present thesis has been to focus on Part I of Truth and Method, concentrating primarily on the 'guiding humanistic concepts' and the experience of truth in art, to clarify Gadamer's understanding of truth and to shed new light as to how the experience of tmth is to be grasped in relation to the human sciences, i.e. the humanities. The humanistic concepts, I believe, are vital to understanding the experience of truth. One reason, which leads me to this conclusion, is that in Truth and Method Gadamer begins his philosophical undertaking with the elucidation of the humanistic concepts rather than with a direct exposition of truth. By opening with the humanistic concepts, Gadamer seems to demonstrate subtly the phenomenological and ontological nature of knowledge and understanding. The outcome of this manoeuvre is that one comes to realise that truth does not simply belong to method and that it is not something which can be defined solely as 'absolute certainty'. Moreover, in my interview with Professor Gadamer, the humanistic concepts, he explained to me, are the most 'natural' and 'original' concepts. By natural and original he means that these concepts are intrinsic. They evolve from life as well as being a part of life, i.e. a way of living. Thus these concepts, he affirmed, represent 'a way of life' and a way to truth. Consequently, insofar as comprehending the phenomenon of truth, I believe any and every investigation of the concept of truth must begin with the understanding of the humanistic tradition. The following thesis however does not end simply with the humanistic concepts. It also devotes to examining the truth-claim or the 'truth-experience' of art. This part of the inquiry centres on two important questions: How are we to understand art? What does it mean to experience art? The challenge here has been to show how Gadamer overcomes Kant's subjectivation of the aesthetic experience and to demonstrate how and why Gadamer considers the experience of art as the 'self-presentation' of being. In surveying the various works of criticism I have tried to draw attention to what seem to me to be the most insightful comments and analyses. If 1 have failed in any way to supply proper acknowledgement to ideas, which might seem close to other critical works, I offer my apologies. As I am sure those in the research business know well, in reflection ideas often interfuse with one's own, making it difficult sometimes to discriminate between one's own ideas from another's. However, I have tried my best to keep from that error. (shrink)

It is surprisingly difficult to determine what modal strength Leibniz wants to ascribe to his principle of the identity of indiscernibles (PII). I consider this question by examining (i) some direct textual evidence, (ii) Leibniz's main arguments for PII, (iii) Leibniz's presumable response to a prominent contemporary defense of the necessity of PII against Max Black style counterexamples, and (iv) Leibniz's views about the possibility of primitive haecceities. I conclude that Leibniz probably takes PII to be necessary.

Contrary to popular belief, I argue that Leibniz is not hopelessly confused about motion: Leibniz is indeed both a relativist and an absolutist about motion, as suggested by the textual evidence, but, appearances to the contrary, this is not a problem; Leibniz’s infamous doctrine of the equivalence of hypotheses is well-supported and well-integrated within Leibniz’s physical theory; Leibniz’s assertion that the simplest hypothesis of several equivalent hypotheses can be held to be true can be explicated in such a way that (...) it makes good sense; the mere Galilean invariance of Leibniz’s conservation law does not compromise Leibniz’s relativism about motion; and Leibniz has a straightforward response to Newton’s challenge that the observable effects of the inertial forces of rotational motions empirically distinguish absolute from relative motions. (shrink)

This article aims to serve as an introductory discussion of the European Continental tradition of pedagogics, specifically from a North American perspective. It begins with an overview of the Continental tradition and its main figures. Here, we find a philosophical and, thus, language-sensitive attitude toward the human, the child; and a specific pedagogical terminology, i.e., descriptions and interpretations about the reality of education, such as educational practices, goals, norms, and organizational forms of educational institutions. John Dewey's educational theories exemplify the (...) North American perspective on Continental pedagogics and its study of the fundamental nature of knowledge, reality, and existence. Dewey's writings diverge notably from this tradition, as he integrated into his work American pragmatism and an interest in the scientific method, an interest that plays a role in today's policy trends in the United States and elsewhere. Then again, Dewey took a critical stand toward instrumentalizing pedagogics for political aims. On this point, the German-born political philosopher Hannah Arendt agreed with him. As Arendt can be seen as an example of a Continental perspective on philosophy that includes a strong warning to separate politics and education, she relates to Dewey's argument against instrumentalization. Thus, this article also features some of her work. The overall intention is to contribute to a renewal of a language for pedagogics by delineating a historical-philosophical perspective on this specific field of professional practice. (shrink)

Kant attacks the Leibnizians on various fronts but the objection that occurs most frequently in his writings is that they are committed to an untenable conception of the relation between sensible and intellectual representations. They regard the difference between intellectual and sensible representations as a merely ‘logical’ difference that concerns their form, namely, their different degrees of distinctness, while in truth it is a difference in kind that concerns their nature, origin, and content. In the first part of this essay, (...) I provide a detailed reconstruction of what exactly this objection amounts to, and show why Kant takes this misconception to be so significant that he keeps coming back to it over and over again. The misconception is so significant because virtually all of the other mistaken doctrines of the Leibnizians can be traced back to it. Several commentators have argued that Leibniz is not guilty of the confusion of sensible and intellectual representations that Kant accuses him of. But this does not automatically clear him from all the other errors that Kant takes to be closely connected with this confusion. In the second part of this essay, I take a look at Leibniz's theory of confused perceptions and examine whether he is committed to one of these errors, namely, the view that we could learn something about things in themselves by experience if our senses were acute enough or our powers of 'disfusing' perceptions were strong enough. (shrink)

This paper investigates how a performative understanding of a woman’s right to care can become part of a feminist politics which is able to transcend the well-worn dichotomies we find both within and without feminist literature, such as difference versus equality, difference versus repronormativity, and rights as freedom versus rights as domination. Drawing on my own research, I argue that claiming the right to care does not simply push women more deeply into motherhood resulting in even more control and regulation (...) of their lives, but that claiming care rights enables women to speak for themselves. Following the work of Linda Zerilli this paper argues that claiming women’s rights should, above all, be viewed as performative activities which contribute to democratic practices. (shrink)

In this article, we address the problem of the potential crisis in people’s life’s meaning due to massive automation-driven technological unemployment. Assuming that the problem of (re)distribution of economic resources to the whole of society in such a scenario will be solved (e.g. through provision of a Universal Basic Income), the question arises concerning the meaning of people’s lives in a world in which almost everyone does not have to (or even could not) work in order to live. Here, we (...) side with many current proposals that paid work is not the only possible source of meaning and hence, that a meaningful life could indeed be led in a post-work society. We especially focus on one of the most developed accounts, Danaher’s Virtual Utopia (Danaher, 2016, 2019, 2022). According to him, living immersed in playful virtual worlds where new, expanded and personalized possibilities of personal and collective experiences and actions, could not only be perfectly meaningful lives, but furthermore, “be the utopia we are looking for” (Danaher, 2019, p. 270). However, our analysis will suggest that although it is a very well thought and carefully articulated position, it suffers from various important problems. Our criticism will be based on an alternative framework to think about life’s meaning and the conditions for leading a good life in general. This alternative is based on the philosophy of buen vivir (“good living”). This notion has its roots in common aspects of various Latin American indigenous cultures regarding a community-centered way of life where humans, society and nature are taken to be deeply interconnected and interdependent, and where the notions of respect, harmony and balance are at the core of this interrelationship (Gudynas, 2011; Acosta, 2008; Beling et al., 2021). Buen vivir has many facets, but we will focus on three: the importance of healthy human communities, the human-nature relationship, and the intrinsic value of nature. Based on these, we argue that the Virtual Utopia is not a good candidate for human’s post-work utopia because i) it unnecessarily augments the environmental damage that is already involved in massive labor automation; ii) it entails an unnecessary and detrimental dependence on technology for human relationships; and iii) increases the severance of the link between humanity and nature. We conclude that the buen vivir approach is a promising candidate for an alternative utopian project, but one that needs further construction. (shrink)

Ancient treatise on Sankhya philosophy; Sanskrit text with English and Oriya translation and interpretation.

Introduction to Sexology [Vvedenie v seksologiiu] by I. S. Kon has finally been published after having made the rounds of publishing houses for many years. This is the first Soviet publication devoted to a description and an analysis of the genesis, development, and state of a new branch of scientific knowledge about man-sexology-which affects every one of us. To be sure, General Sexual Pathology [Obshchaia seksopatologiia], a textbook for physicians edited by G. S. Vasil'chenko, which came out in 1977, has (...) an extensive introductory chapter on sexology, but it is limited to medical problems. Kon's book is an example of an interdisciplinary approach that provides an idea of the most essential components of sexology; it is thus addressed not only to the medical profession, but also to sociologists, philosophers of culture, psychologists, pedagogues, etc. The book takes into account the latest publications in this area of science. (shrink)

This research explored the feasibility of using multidimensional scaling (MDS) analysis in novel combination with other techniques to study comprehension of epistemic adverbs expressing doubt and certainty (e.g., evidently, obviously, probably ) as they relate to health communication in clinical settings. In Study 1, Australian English speakers performed a dissimilarity-rating task with sentence pairs containing the target stimuli, presented as “doctors' opinions.” Ratings were analyzed using a combination of cultural consensus analysis (factor analysis across participants), weighted-data classical-MDS, and cluster analysis. (...) Analyses revealed strong within-community consistency for a 3-dimensional semantic space solution that took into account individual differences, strong statistical acceptability of the MDS results in terms of stress and explained variance, and semantic configurations that were interpretable in terms of linguistic analyses of the target adverbs. The results confirmed the feasibility of using MDS in this context. Study 2 replicated the results with Canadian English speakers on the same task. Semantic analyses and stress decomposition analysis were performed on the Australian and Canadian data sets, revealing similarities and differences between the two groups. Overall, the results support using MDS to study comprehension of words critical for health communication, including in future studies, for example, second language speaking patients and/or practitioners. More broadly, the results indicate that the techniques described should be promising for comprehension studies in many communicative domains, in both clinical settings and beyond, and including those targeting other aspects of language and focusing on comparisons across different speech communities. (shrink)