The publication includes an essay by the late Bohumil Fiser "The policy from the perspective of a naturalist," which examines the relationship between natural and social laws in the past and present. The publication also contains a legal essay by Zdeněk Koudelka "Repeal of Constitutional Law by the Constitutional Court", which deals with the events of the abolition of the constitutional law on the reduction of the term of office of deputies in 2009.

This book argues that ethical business behavior can be enhanced by taking fuller account of human nature, particularly with respect to the need for creating relatively small communities within the corporation. Timothy Fort discusses this premise in relation to the three predominant theories of business ethics--stakeholder, virtue, and contract. Drawing heavily from philosophy, he analyzes traditional business ethics and legal theory. Overall, his work provides a good example of how to integrate normative and empirical studies in business ethics, a (...) task that often receives substantial discussion in academic journals. (shrink)

En este trabajo pretendo mostrar las prestaciones reflexivas que hacen posible el juicio de imputación en la teoría kantiana sobre la filosofía práctica. En particular, se busca mostrar cuales son los requerimientos reflexivos en virtud de los cuales una acción es pensada como libre y no meramente como una causa.Este momento del juicio de imputación es decisivo ya que permite distinguir las acciones que son libres de las que no lo son y, por tanto, las que pueden ser objeto de (...) imputación y las que no. (shrink)

This paper argues that business can be helpfully conceived of as a mediating institution. Drawing upon neo-conservative theology, the author argues that mediating institutions serve a vital function in a free society to provide social justice out of an expanded civil society and provide a framework for a flourishing free market. Such institutions also nourish the attitudinal orientation of solidarity in applying the principle of subsidiarity by which self-interest becomes fulfilled through concern for others.The author further argues that businesses also (...) be conceived of as mediating institutions and thereby be held to criteria of meeting associationalneeds. In addition to normative reasons for revising the social contract so that businesses do serve the role of mediating institutions, contemporary management theories demonstrate that businesses can also meet their social obligations of creating wealth while meeting associational needs. (shrink)

Objectives: This study attempts to analyse the ethical dilemmas arising from the microallocation of scarce health care resources, in terms of deontology and utilitarianism.Methods: A group of 395 people were interviewed in the region of Diadema, greater San Paulo, Brazil, while visiting patients in the only state hospital in town. Each interviewee was given a list of eight simulated emergencies . In each of the eight cases the interviewee had to choose which of the two patients described, both of whom (...) suffered from exactly the same problem, should receive the only hospital bed currently available. The differences between the hypothetical patients were as follows: age, gender, family dependency, and lifestyle. Each interviewee was asked to justify one of their responses. These responses were then analysed.Results: The results pointed to the co-existence of deontological and utilitarian orientations among the people interviewed. A tendency to give priority to the destitute was revealed throughout the research, contradicting the idea that society, valuing only productive people, wishes only such people to receive the most resources, thus maximising the benefits to be gained from resources. The results showed that people’s disapproval of the alcoholic was stronger than that of the nicotine abuser. (shrink)

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

With an overall estimated 5-year survival rate of 67 percent, bone marrow transplant is a potential cure for patients with primary immune regulatory diseases. Given that Sa...

El presente libro es un estudio de la teoría kantiana del conocimiento centrado muy especialmente en el papel de la reflexión en la producción de conocimiento. A lo largo de este trabajo se ha pretendido poner en el centro de la teoría kantiana de la experiencia al concepto de reflexión, que ha sido a menudo dejado al margen de los procesos estrictamente cognitivos. De este modo, se ofrece una lectura comprensiva de Kant de acuerdo con la cual se pueden ver (...) los procesos de mediación categorial dentro del marco reflexivo que los hace fértiles. Por ello mismo, y desde estos presupuestos, se estudia en este trabajo con especial énfasis el concepto kantiano de hipótesis y trata de mostrar como en dicho proceso las estructuras categoriales, junto con elementos de jurisprudencia empírica, hacen posible el genuino conocimiento. Este estudio pretende, en definitiva, defender una lectura abarcadora de los textos que constituyen la teoría del conocimiento de Kant, en la que los modos de producir conocimiento se constituyen como modos de producir unidades de conciencia. *** Das vorliegende Buch ist eine Untersuchung der kantischen Erkenntnistheorie, die sich insbesondere auf die Rolle der Reflexion im Prozess des Erkennens konzentriert. Im Verlauf des Texts stellt der Autor die 'Reflexion', die beim Thema der streng kognitiven Prozesse oft unbeachtet bleibt, in den Mittelpunkt der kantischen Erfahrungstheorie. Auf diese Weise wird eine umfassende Lesart Kants angestrebt, bei der die Prozesse der kategorialen Vermittlung in dem reflexiven Rahmen gesehen werden können, der sie fruchtbar macht. Aus diesem Grund, und ausgehend von diesen Prämissen, widmet sich diese Arbeit mit besonderem Nachdruck dem kantischen Begriff der Hypothesen und versucht zu zeigen, wie in diesem Prozess die kategorialen Strukturen, zusammen mit Elementen der empirischen Jurisprudenz, echtes Erkennen ermöglichen. Auf den Punkt gebracht vertritt diese Studie eine allumfassende Lesart der Texte Kants, in der die Wege der Erkenntnisproduktion als Handlungen der Produktion von Bewusstseinseinheiten verstanden werden. (shrink)

En este trabajo se desarrolla un examen de lo que Polo llama “devolución del abstracto a la realidad” y lo que Kant denomina “esquematismo”. El objetivo de este análisis es mostrar la razón de ser de las inconmensurables divergencias entre los planteamientos epistemológicos del filósofo madrileño y del filósofo alemán. A raíz de esta diferencia fundamental entre ambos autores aludiré a las diferencias presentes en el modo en que ambos abordan la cuestión de la relación entre lenguaje y realidad.

Este trabajo intenta hacer una propuesta, basándose en los trabajos del Kant precrítico, para entender uno de los puntos más importantes en la filosofía crítica: el deber: El principal objetivo de este trabajo es mostrar la relación entre este concepto y la noción de espontaneidad, entendida como una nota de los conceptos intelectuales. T.

Con este trabajo se pretende mostrar el pensamiento de FriedrichWilhelm Nietzsche. Para ello considero vital ponerlo en relación con elhegelianismo y, muy interesante, dividir su pensamiento de la mismamanera que Don Leonardo Polo lleva a cabo en su obra “Nietzsche comopensador de dualidades”, esto es, por un lado, desarrollando la Parsdestruens, en este caso centrándonos en la obra de Nietzsche “Sobreverdad y mentira en sentido extramoral” y, por otro lado, indagando en el concepto del símbolo, intentando sacar a la luz (...) la importancia capital de dicho concepto en la filosofía del célebre pensador alemán. (shrink)

En este trabajo se pretenden mostrar algunas similitudes entre el planteamiento metafísico de Suárez y el desarrollado por Kant en sus lecciones de metafísica. En particular, se busca mostrar cómo ambos autores pensaron los conceptos de unidad discreta y continua. El objetivo de este trabajo es encontrar ciertos puntos de acuerdo en lo que concierne al tratamiento de la unidad en el pensamiento de ambos autores. Esos puntos serán, por un lado, la íntima conexión entre los conceptos de discreto y (...) continuo, así como, por otro lado, la relevancia que tiene la acción del entendimiento en el establecimiento de dicha pareja de conceptos. (shrink)

This volume collects and translates Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe’s studies of Heidegger, written and revised between 1990 and 2002. All deal with Heidegger’s relation to politics, specifically through Heidegger’s interpretations of the poetry of Hölderlin. Lacoue-Labarthe argues that it is through Hölderlin that Heidegger expresses most explicitly his ideas on politics, his nationalism, and the importance of myth in his thinking, all of which point to substantial affinities with National Socialism. Lacoue-Labarthe not only examines the intellectual background--including Romanticism and "German ideology"--of Heidegger's (...) uses and abuses of poetry, he also attempts to reestablish the vexed relationship between poetry and philosophy outside the bounds of the Heideggerian reading. He turns to Walter Benjamin and Theodor Adorno, as well as Paul Celan, arguing for the necessity of poetry as an engagement with history. While Heidegger's readings of Hölderlin attempt to appropriate poetry for mythic and political ends, Lacoue-Labarthe insists that poetry and thought can, and must, converge in another way. Jeff Fort provides a precise translation capturing the spirit and clarity of Lacoue-Labarthe’s writing, as well as an introduction clearly situating the debates addressed in these essays. (shrink)

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

Característica crucial da obra de Platão é a abertura dialética: sem o movimento do diálogo, sem a abertura para o outro que, corajosamente, apresenta o seu lógos ao escrutínio dialético, não há filosofia. Tampouco há posições definitivas e acabadas que não possam, em algum momento, serem retomadas e repensadas.

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

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

ResumoO artigo apresenta um estudo sobre as aplicações feitas por Leibniz de sua arte combinatória ao campomusical. Elucidamos inicialmente alguns conceitos fundamentais, bem como alguns procedimentos dacombinatória leibniziana, e mostramos os usos musicais sugeridos por Leibniz para esses procedimentos.Em seguida, discutimos o alcance geral da abordagem combinatória em música e concluímos que Leibnizantecipa, na Dissertatio, a introdução de procedimentos vinculados à música contemporânea.Palavras-Chave: Combinatória. Música. Pensamento Simbólico. Leibniz.Abstract.The paper presents a study on Leibniz’s applications of his combinatorial art to the (...) musical field. First, weelucidate some fundamental concepts, and some procedures of Leibnizian combinatory, and we show themusical uses suggested by Leibniz for these procedures. Then, we discuss the general scope of the combinatorialapproach in music, and we conclude that Leibniz anticipates, in Dissertatio, the introduction ofsome procedures related to contemporary music. (shrink)

Blanchot often evoked the silence required for literary writing, a silence which he says must “be imposed” on a pre-existing and indistinct murmur of language. Likewise, he evokes this murmur itself as an originary ground of all speech, including literary speech. Less often recognized are the ways in which he also locates this murmur in the realm of public speech and everyday language, the rumor of speech spoken by no one and by everyone, a realm which he in turn links (...) with the exigencies of publication and publicity that bear on the literary work within modern societies marked by mass media and technically mediated communication. Blanchot himself thus points to an unexpected convergence, in these sonic images of impersonal murmuring flows of language, between literary language per se, and a language that is traditionally considered inauthentic, empty, superficial, a chattering nullity. This essay attempts to press on this border by showing Blanchot’s anxious, and probably futile, attempts to maintain the distinction he so profoundly and rigorously effaces. As literature is threatened by the indistinction of language from which it originates, it reveals an unexpected convergence with the leveling modes of language marked by mass media and by technicity in general. (shrink)

“A great story, full of twists and turns.... Careers made and ruined, departments torn apart, writing programs turned into sensitivity seminars, political witch hunts, public opprobrium, ignorant media attacks, the whole ball of wax. Read it and laugh or read it and weep. I can hardly wait for the movie.” —Stanley Fish, _Think Again, New York Times_ “In such a difficult genre, full of traps and obstacles, French Theory is a success and a remarkable book in every respect: it is (...) fair, balanced, and informed. I am sure this book will become the reference on both sides of the Atlantic.” —Jacques Derrida “The Atlantic Ocean has two sides, and so does French Theory. Reinvented in America and betrayed in its own country, it has become the most radical intellectual movement in the West with global reach, rewriting Marx in light of late capitalism. Breathtakingly moving back and forth between the two cultures, Francois Cusset takes us through a dazzling intellectual adventure that illuminates the past thirty years, and many more decades to come.” —Sylvere Lotringer During the last three decades of the twentieth century, a disparate group of radical French thinkers achieved an improbable level of influence and fame in the United States. Compared by at least one journalist to the British rock ‘n’ roll invasion, the arrival of works by Michel Foucault, Jacques Derrida, Jean-François Lyotard, Jean Baudrillard, Gilles Deleuze, and Félix Guattari on American shores in the late 1970s and 1980s caused a sensation. Outside the academy, “French theory” had a profound impact on the era’s emerging identity politics while also becoming, in the 1980s, the target of right-wing propagandists. At the same time in academic departments across the country, their poststructuralist form of radical suspicion transformed disciplines from literature to anthropology to architecture. By the 1990s, French theory was woven deeply into America’s cultural and intellectual fabric. French Theory is the first comprehensive account of the American fortunes of these unlikely philosophical celebrities. François Cusset looks at why America proved to be such fertile ground for French theory, how such demanding writings could become so widely influential, and the peculiarly American readings of these works. Reveling in the gossipy history, Cusset also provides a lively exploration of the many provocative critical practices inspired by French theory. Ultimately, he dares to shine a bright light on the exultation of these thinkers to assess the relevance of critical theory to social and political activism today-showing, finally, how French theory has become inextricably bound with American life. François Cusset, a writer and intellectual historian, teaches contemporary French thought in Paris at the Institut d’Etudes Politiques and at Columbia University’s Reid Hall. His books include Queer Critics and La Décennie. Jeff Fort is assistant professor of French at the University of California, Davis. He has translated works by Maurice Blanchot, Jean Genet, and Jean-Luc Nancy. (shrink)

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

O presente artigo tem por objetivo demonstrar a fundamentação da tese da ontonegatividade da política, desvelada pelo filosófo brasileiro José Chasin, no pensamento de Marx, a partir da análise da ontologia do ser social. Com base na determinação do ser do homem, demonstra-se que a política não é um atributo inerente a essa forma do ser.

The great majority of phenotypic characteristics are complex traits, complicating the identification of the genes underlying their expression. However, both methodological and theoretical progress in genome‐wide association studies have resulted in a much better understanding of the underlying genetics of many phenotypic traits, including externally visible characteristics (EVCs) such as eye and hair color. Consequently, it has become possible to predict EVCs from human samples lacking phenotypic information. Predicting EVCs from genetic evidence is clearly appealing for forensic applications involving the (...) personal identification of human remains. Now, a recent paper has reported the genetic determination of eye and hair color in samples up to 800 years old. The ability to predict EVCs from ancient human remains opens up promising perspectives for ancient DNA research, as this could allow studies to directly address archaeological and evolutionary questions related to the temporal and geographical origins of the genetic variants underlying phenotypes. (shrink)

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