This study investigated attitudes toward the use of deception in negotiation, with particular attention to the distinction between deception regarding the informational elements of the interaction (e.g., lying about or misrepresenting needs or preferences) and deception about emotional elements (e.g., misrepresenting one's emotional state). We examined how individuals judge the relative ethical appropriateness of these alternative forms of deception, and how these judgments relate to negotiator performance and long-run reputation. Individuals viewed emotionally misleading tactics as more ethically appropriate to (...) use in negotiation than informational deception. Approval of deception predicted negotiator performance in a negotiation simulation and also general reputation as a negotiator, but the nature of these relationships depended on the kind of deception involved. (shrink)

Pancreatitis is a complex, progressively destructive inflammatory disorder. Alcohol was long thought to be the primary causative agent, but genetic contributions have been of interest since the discovery that rare PRSS1, CFTR and SPINK1 variants were associated with pancreatitis risk. We now report two associations at genome-wide significance identified and replicated at PRSS1-PRSS2 and X-linked CLDN2 through a two-stage genome-wide study. The PRSS1 variant likely affects disease susceptibility by altering expression of the primary trypsinogen gene. The CLDN2 risk allele (...) is associated with atypical localization of claudin-2 in pancreatic acinar cells. The homozygous CLDN2 genotype confers the greatest risk, and its alleles interact with alcohol consumption to amplify risk. These results could partially explain the high frequency of alcohol-related pancreatitis in men. © 2012 Nature America, Inc. All rights reserved. (shrink)

Of the many accounts of the Battle of the Milvian Bridge ina.d.312 written soon after the conflict, only those of Eusebius of Caesarea have Maxentius cross the Tiber on a bridge of boats to face the forces of Constantine. This detail, it is here argued, suggests that Maxentius may be seen as a latter-day Xerxes, the Persian emperor who, in preparation for his invasion of Greece in 480b.c., famously spanned the Hellespont with a pair of boat-bridges. The article first reviews (...) the seminal accounts of Xerxes’ feat in Aeschylus’Persiansand Herodotus’Histories, and next discusses the story's long afterlife in subsequent Greek (and Latin) authors, including those of Late Antiquity. Close analysis of Eusebius’ battle narratives in hisEcclesiastical History(9.9.3–8) and in hisLife of Constantine(1.38) reveals that their vocabulary echoes the distinctive language used by Aeschylus, Herodotus and later writers in reference to Xerxes’ achievement. The article concludes by exploring the implications of this identification of Maxentius with Xerxes. It exemplifies two venerable tactics in Roman political propaganda: that of portraying a native rival as a foreign enemy and that of mapping the Persian Wars onto contemporary events. As Xerxesrediuiuus, Maxentius is cast as the quintessential barbarian tyrant, an Eastern despot resident in Rome. (shrink)

This article seeks to explore the European debate on commercial nobility at the beginning of the Seven Years War in the light of the intense reform debates over French absolutism in the 1730s and 1740s and Montesquieu's rigid refutation of noble trade in The Spirit of the Laws. In early 1756, Montesquieu's position against noble trade had come under severe attack by Gabriel François Coyer's Noblesse Commerçante. Claiming that the royal absolutist system had transformed the nobles into an idle class (...) without any political, economic, or military function that stood in sharp contrast to the dynamism of modern commercial society, Coyer perceived noble enterprises in maritime, wholesale, and even retail trade as a necessary means to help France compete with commercially more advanced states such as England and Holland. Coyer's pamphlet roused heated controversies in Paris and beyond and soon engaged the leading minds of the time in debates over the actual and desired role of the hereditary aristocracy in monarchies. Coyer's strongest opponents, like the Chevalier d’Arc, vehemently defended Montesquieu's contention that the upkeep of the non-commercial status of the nobility was a political necessity. Yet they, too, conceded that the nobility had to undergo severe reforms not to hamper France's military standing and future economic success. The article finally turns to Johann Heinrich Gottlob von Justi, the most interesting commentator on the debate in Germany, who, by October 1756, had translated Coyer's and d’Arc's texts into German and written an own treatise on the same issue. Justi's pamphlet reveals that his political theory was deeply shaped by the debate and thus disproves the long-held assumption in the literature that German cameralism, with Justi as its main representative, was an allegedly isolated current of thought that neither received significant external influences, nor exerted any considerable impact beyond the boundaries of the Germanic world. (shrink)

What does it look like when an organization tentatively steps away from an exclusively rules-based regime and begins to attend to both rules and principles? What insights and guidance can ethicists and ethical theory offer? This paper is a case study of an organization that has initiated such a transition. The American Institute of Certified Public Accountants has begun a turn toward the promotion of ethical principles and best practices by adding a “conceptual framework” to its existing Code of Professional (...) Conduct. This conceptual framework calls upon its members to intentionally increase their awareness of significant threats to their compliance with its rules of conduct and to establish safeguards to offset or eliminate those threats. To this end, each member is required to regard every questionable situation, circumstance, transaction or relationship by attempting to view it through the eyes of an imagined reasonable third party. This paper examines this protocol theoretically and practically. First, we frame this analysis within the principles and ethical concepts that inform the professional ethics of accountants. Second, we critique the AICPA’s long-standing rules-based approach to its Code. Third, we examine the new conceptual framework with a view toward its potential for the promotion of a more principles-based approach to the professional ethics of the accounting profession. Fourth, we give attention to the notion of the “reasonable and informed third party,” which has been embedded in the new conceptual framework, and consider how two schools of thought—Adam Smith’s modernist “impartial spectator” concept and Emmanuel Lévinas’ postmodern phenomenology in regard to “the Other”—may offer theoretical support and clarity for this epistemic exercise. Finally, we point out several ways in which the AICPA’s commitment to its new conceptual framework could be strengthened and enhanced. (shrink)

Batman has been one of the world’s most beloved superheroes since his first appearance in issue #27 of Detective Comics in 1939. Clad in his dark cowl and cape, he has captured the imagination of thousands of fans with his acrobatic fighting skills, high-tech crimefighting gadgets, and swift but often violent brand of justice. But why has he enjoyed such long-lived popularity as a character? And why have his actions caused debate among fans and philosophers? Based on four decades (...) of comic book storylines, Batman and Ethics explores the concepts and contradictions of the ethical and moral code of the Dark Knight. From the logic behind his aversion to killing, to the implication of his use of torture, to the moral status of vigilantism in the pursuit of justice, Batman’s ethical precepts are both compelling and deeply flawed. Starting with the character-defining work of Denny O'Neil and Neal Adams in the early 1970s, through the revolutionary era of the reimagined superhero comic in the 1980s and 1990s, to the new directions in the modern works of Grant Morrison, Ed Brubaker, Scott McDaniel, and ending with the release of the New 52, Batman and Ethics explores the developments of Batman's most troubling ethical dilemmas. It is a thought-provoking and entertaining journey through four decades of Batman's struggles and triumphs - a perfect way for readers to approach the complex questions of ethics and moral philosophy through one of the most popular canons in comic book history. (shrink)

This study examined within-person co-occurrence of self-focus, negative affect, and stress in a community sample of adolescents with or without emotional disorders. As part of a larger study, 278 adolescents were interviewed about emotional disorders. Later, they completed diary measures over three days, six times a day, reporting their current thoughts, affect, and levels of stress. Negative affect was independently related to both concurrent stress and self-focus. Importantly, the association between negative affect and self-focus was stronger among participants with a (...) recent unipolar mood disorder, compared to those with an anxiety disorder, comorbid anxiety and depression, or those without an emotional disorder. The implications of these findings to theories of self-focus and its role in emotional disorders are discussed. (shrink)

“Smallpox was always present, filling the churchyard with corpses, tormenting with constant fear all whom it had not yet stricken, leaving on those whose lives it spared the hideous traces of its power, turning the babe into a changeling at which the mother shuddered, and making the eyes and cheeks of the betrothed maiden objects of horror to the lover.” In 1848, British historian T.B. Macaulay first captured the picture of the devastation smallpox wreaked on its victims, but the “King (...) of Terrors,” as it was dubbed by future president John Adams, had already decimated populations in the ancient world from Greece to Egypt to China. Smallpox had no respect for authority: the earliest identified victim, Pharaoh Ramses V was but the first in a long line of monarchs and rulers who succumbed,. including the Hittite king Suppiluliumas I, Aztec Emperor Cuitlahuac, and Queen Mary II of England. (shrink)

“Smallpox was always present, filling the churchyard with corpses, tormenting with constant fear all whom it had not yet stricken, leaving on those whose lives it spared the hideous traces of its power, turning the babe into a changeling at which the mother shuddered, and making the eyes and cheeks of the betrothed maiden objects of horror to the lover.” In 1848, British historian T.B. Macaulay first captured the picture of the devastation smallpox wreaked on its victims, but the “King (...) of Terrors,” as it was dubbed by future president John Adams, had already decimated populations in the ancient world from Greece to Egypt to China. Smallpox had no respect for authority: the earliest identified victim, Pharaoh Ramses V was but the first in a long line of monarchs and rulers who succumbed,. including the Hittite king Suppiluliumas I, Aztec Emperor Cuitlahuac, and Queen Mary II of England. (shrink)

Humans can learn complex functional relationships between variables from small amounts of data. In doing so, they draw on prior expectations about the form of these relationships. In three experiments, we show that people learn to adjust these expectations through experience, learning about the likely forms of the functions they will encounter. Previous work has used Gaussian processes—a statistical framework that extends Bayesian nonparametric approaches to regression—to model human function learning. We build on this work, modeling the process of learning (...) to learn functions as a form of hierarchical Bayesian inference about the Gaussian process hyperparameters. (shrink)

Young children judge that violations of ordinary, causal constraints are impossible. Yet children’s religious beliefs typically include the assumption that such violations can occur via divine agency in the form of miracles. We conducted two studies to examine this potential conflict. In Study 1, we invited 5- and 6-year-old Colombian children attending either a secular or a religious school to judge what is and is not possible. Children made their judgments either following a minimal prompt or following a reminder of (...) God’s extraordinary powers. Irrespective of their education, and whether or not they had been reminded of God’s extraordinary powers, children systematically judged violations of ordinary, causal constraints to be impossible. In Study 2, we asked if more extensive reminders of God’s special powers would prompt religious children to say that the impossible can happen. Five- and 6-year-old Colombian children attending either a secular or a religious school were presented with narratives in which the protagonist desired an ordinarily impossible outcome. In half the stories, the protagonist prayed to God for the desired outcome. Irrespective of education and of whether the protagonist prayed, children systematically concluded that the desired outcome would not occur and justified that conclusion by reference to ordinary causal constraints. Nevertheless, in a minority of their replies children did assert that violations of ordinary causality are possible. Overall, irrespective of their religious education, young children judge that events rarely deviate from their natural course; only occasionally do they acknowledge exceptions. (shrink)

Recent progress in artificial intelligence (AI) has drawn attention to the technology’s transformative potential, including what some see as its prospects for causing large-scale harm. We review two influential arguments purporting to show how AI could pose catastrophic risks. The first argument — the Problem of Power-Seeking — claims that, under certain assumptions, advanced AI systems are likely to engage in dangerous power-seeking behavior in pursuit of their goals. We review reasons for thinking that AI systems might seek power, that (...) they might obtain it, that this could lead to catastrophe, and that we might build and deploy such systems anyway. The second argument claims that the development of human-level AI will unlock rapid further progress, culminating in AI systems far more capable than any human — this is the Singularity Hypothesis. Power-seeking behavior on the part of such systems might be particularly dangerous. We discuss a variety of objections to both arguments and conclude by assessing the state of the debate. (shrink)

Bodily privacy, understood as a right to control access to one’s body, capacities, and powers, is one of our most cherished rights − a right enshrined in law and notions of common morality. Informational privacy, on the other hand, has yet to attain such a loftily status. As rational project pursuers, who operate and flourish in a world of material objects it is our ability control patterns of association and disassociation with our fellows that afford each of us the room (...) to become distinct individuals. Privacy, whether physical or informational, is valuable for beings like us. Establishing the truth this claim will be the primary focus of this article. Providing reasons, evidence, and support for this claim will take us into the historical and cultural dimensions of privacy. (shrink)

We all know that Google stores huge amounts of information about everyone who uses its search tools, that Amazon can recommend new books to us based on our past purchases, and that the U.S. government engaged in many data-mining activities during the Bush administration to acquire information about us, including involving telecommunications companies in monitoring our phone calls. Control over access to our bodies and to special places, like our homes, has traditionally been the focus of concerns about privacy, but (...) access to information about us is raising new challenges for those anxious to protect our privacy. In _Privacy Rights,_ Adam Moore adds informational privacy to physical and spatial privacy as fundamental to developing a general theory of privacy that is well grounded morally and legally. (shrink)

Given its non-invasive nature, there is increasing interest in the use of transcutaneous vagus nerve stimulation across basic, translational and clinical research. Contemporaneously, tVNS can be achieved by stimulating either the auricular branch or the cervical bundle of the vagus nerve, referred to as transcutaneous auricular vagus nerve stimulation and transcutaneous cervical VNS, respectively. In order to advance the field in a systematic manner, studies using these technologies need to adequately report sufficient methodological detail to enable comparison of results between (...) studies, replication of studies, as well as enhancing study participant safety. We systematically reviewed the existing tVNS literature to evaluate current reporting practices. Based on this review, and consensus among participating authors, we propose a set of minimal reporting items to guide future tVNS studies. The suggested items address specific technical aspects of the device and stimulation parameters. We also cover general recommendations including inclusion and exclusion criteria for participants, outcome parameters and the detailed reporting of side effects. Furthermore, we review strategies used to identify the optimal stimulation parameters for a given research setting and summarize ongoing developments in animal research with potential implications for the application of tVNS in humans. Finally, we discuss the potential of tVNS in future research as well as the associated challenges across several disciplines in research and clinical practice. (shrink)

"Provides a definition and defense of individual privacy rights. Applies the proposed theory to issues including privacy versus free speech; drug testing; and national security and public accountability"--Provided by publisher.

In order to enhance the “structural competency” of medicine—the capability of clinicians to address social and institutional determinants of their patients’ health—physicians need a theoretical lens to see how social conditions influence health and how they might address them. We consider one such theoretical lens, fundamental cause theory, and propose how it might contribute to a more structurally competent medical profession. We first describe fundamental cause theory and how it makes the social causes of disease and health visible. We then (...) outline the sorts of “fundamental interventions” that physicians might make in order to address the fundamental causes. (shrink)

Given its non-invasive nature, there is increasing interest in the use of transcutaneous vagus nerve stimulation across basic, translational and clinical research. Contemporaneously, tVNS can be achieved by stimulating either the auricular branch or the cervical bundle of the vagus nerve, referred to as transcutaneous auricular vagus nerve stimulation and transcutaneous cervical VNS, respectively. In order to advance the field in a systematic manner, studies using these technologies need to adequately report sufficient methodological detail to enable comparison of results between (...) studies, replication of studies, as well as enhancing study participant safety. We systematically reviewed the existing tVNS literature to evaluate current reporting practices. Based on this review, and consensus among participating authors, we propose a set of minimal reporting items to guide future tVNS studies. The suggested items address specific technical aspects of the device and stimulation parameters. We also cover general recommendations including inclusion and exclusion criteria for participants, outcome parameters and the detailed reporting of side effects. Furthermore, we review strategies used to identify the optimal stimulation parameters for a given research setting and summarize ongoing developments in animal research with potential implications for the application of tVNS in humans. Finally, we discuss the potential of tVNS in future research as well as the associated challenges across several disciplines in research and clinical practice. (shrink)

Monica Colvin-Adams,1 Nonyelum Harcourt,1 Robert LeDuc,2 Ganesh Raveendran,1 Yassir Sonbol,3 Robert Wilson,1 Daniel Duprez11Cardiovascular Division, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN, USA; 2Division of Biostatistics University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN, USA; 3Cardiovascular Division, St Luke's Hospital System, Sugar Land, TX, USAObjective: Arterial elasticity is a functional biomarker that has predictive value for cardiovascular morbidity and mortality in nontransplant populations. There is little information regarding arterial elasticity in heart transplant recipients. This study aimed to characterize small and large artery elasticity in heart (...) transplant recipients in comparison with an asymptomatic population free of overt cardiovascular disease. A second goal was to identify demographic and clinical factors associated with arterial elasticity in this unique population.Methods: Arterial pulse waveform was registered noninvasively at the radial artery in 71 heart transplant recipients between 2008 and 2010. SAEs and LAEs were derived from diastolic pulse contour analysis. Comparisons were made to a healthy cohort of 1,808 participants selected from our prevention clinic database. Multiple regression analyses were performed to evaluate associations between risk factors and SAE and LAE within the heart transplant recipients.Results: LAE and SAE were significantly lower in heart transplant recipients than in the normal cohort. Female sex and history of ischemic cardiomyopathy were significantly associated with reduced LAE and SAE. Older age and the presence of moderate cardiac allograft vasculopathy were also significantly associated with reduced SAE. Transplant duration was associated with increased SAE.Conclusion: Heart transplants are associated with peripheral endothelial dysfunction and arterial stiffness, as demonstrated by a significant reduction in SAE and LAE when compared with a healthy population. Furthermore, cardiac allograft vasculopathy is associated with a significant reduction in SAE, suggesting a potential use in screening heart transplant recipients at risk for developing this complication.Keywords: heart transplant, endothelial function, arterial elasticity, cardiac allograft vasculopathy. (shrink)

Grounded in what Alan Wertheimer terms the nonworseness claim, it is thought by some philosophers that what will be referred to herein as better-than-permissible acts —acts that, if undertaken, would make another or others better off than they would be were an alternative but morally permissible act to be undertaken—are necessarily morally permissible. What, other than a bout of irrationality, it may be thought, would lead one to hold that an act (such as outsourcing production to a sweatshop in a (...) developing country) that produces more benefits for others than an act that is itself morally permissible (such as not doing business in the developing country at all) with respect to those same others, is not morally permissible? In this article, I argue that each of the two groups of philosophers that are most likely to accept the nonworseness claim—consequentialists and non-consequentialists—have reason to reject it, and thereby also have reason to reject the belief that better-than-permissible acts are necessarily morally permissible. (shrink)

Volume 1 presents the texts in new translations by the authors, and these are accompanied by a philosophical and historical commentary designed for use by all readers, including those with no background in the classical world. With its glossary and indexes, this volume can stand alone as an independent tool of study.

Current models of autobiographical memory suggest that self-identity guides autobiographical memory retrieval. Further, the capacity to recall the past and imagine one’s self in the future can influence social problem solving. We examined whether manipulating self-identity, through an induction task in which students were led to believe they possessed high or low self-efficacy, impacted episodic specificity and content of retrieved and imagined events, as well as social problem solving. Compared to individuals in the low self efficacy group, individuals in the (...) high self efficacy group generated past and future events with greater specificity, positive words, and self-efficacious statements, and also performed better on social problem solving indices. A lack of episodic detail for future events predicted poorer performance on social problem solving tasks. Strategies that increase perceived self-efficacy may help individuals to selectively construct a past and future that aids in negotiating social problems. (shrink)

ABSTRACTIs offering hazard pay ethically permissible when the pay premium is the only reason that a dangerous job is accepted? Robert C. Hughes argues that it is not. Central to his argument is the claim that in such cases, workers intend the foreseeable risks of harm as a means to the pay premium. Herein I question the plausibility of this claim and then develop a conception of the concept of means sufficient to make it plausible. By so doing, I provide (...) support for Hughes’s stringent position. (shrink)

Some rights are so important for human autonomy and well-being that many scholars insist they should not be waived, traded, or abandoned. Privacy is a recent addition to this list. At the other end of the spectrum is the belief that privacy is a mere unimportant interest or preference. This paper defends a middle path between viewing privacy as an inalienable, non-waivable, non-transferrable right and the view of privacy as a mere subjective interest. First, an account of privacy is offered (...) that clarifies the concept and demonstrates how privacy is directly related to human health and well-being. Second, along with considering and rejecting several accounts for why privacy might be considered an inalienable right, an argument is offered for why it is morally permissible to waive, transfer, abandon, or alienate privacy. (shrink)

Though he is known primarily for his mathematics, John Wallis was also a prominent natural philosopher and experimentalist. Like many experimental philosophers, including his colleagues in the Royal So­ciety, Wallis sought to identify the mathematical laws that govern natural phenomena. However, I argue that Wallis’s particular understanding of the laws of nature was informed by his reading of a thirteenth–century optical treatise by Robert Grosseteste, De lineis, angulis et figuris, which expresses the principle that “Nature doth not work by Election.” (...) Wallis’s use of this principle in his Discourse of Gravity and Gravitation helps to clarify his understanding of natural laws. According to Wallis, since nature cannot choose to act one way or another, natural phenomena are unfailingly regular, and it is this that allows them to be predicted, generalized, and described by mathematical rules. Furthermore, I argue that Wallis’s reading of Grosseteste reveals one way that medieval scholarship contributed to the “mathematization of nature” in the early modern period: historically–minded scholars like Wallis found insightful philosophical principles in medieval sources, and they transformed and redeployed these principles to suit the needs of early modern natural philosophy. (shrink)

In this book, Adam D. Danél examines the philosophical and rhetorical foundations of Machiavelli's thought. There are few thinkers whose writings have intrigued more scholars and have been subjected to more diverse and conflicting interpretations, than Machiavelli. One may thus concur with Pitkin's comment that, "Machiavelli's thought is as problematic as politics itself, presenting a different face to each observer." Although many scholars have acknowledged Machiavelli's multifaceted work, only few have suggested—and none has explicated—its rationale. The search for the (...) cause of this problem underlies this work. Contents: Fortune as a River: Formulating the Problem; Fortune as a "Woman": Truth as a Matter for Creative Perspective; Virtue Between Causa Sui and Amor Fati; Fors, Ferre, Fortuma; Civitas Terrena: Politics as the Reign of Virtue; The Glorious, the Good, and the Bad: Machiavelli's Critique of Morality; God, the Good, and the Bad: Machiavelli's Critique of Religion; Final Remarks; Bibliography. (shrink)

In this article I argue that the proper subjects of intangible property claims include medical records, genetic profiles, and gene enhancement techniques. Coupled with a right to privacy these intangible property rights allow individuals a zone of control that will, in most cases, justifiably exclude governmental or societal invasions into private domains. I argue that the threshold for overriding privacy rights and intangible property rights is higher, in relation to genetic enhancement techniques and sensitive personal information, than is commonly suggested. (...) Once the bar is raised, so‐to‐speak, the burden of overriding it is formidable. Thus many policy decisions that have been recently proposed or enacted – citywide audio and video surveillance, law enforcement DNA sweeps, genetic profiling, national bans on genetic testing and enhancement of humans, to name a few – will have to be backed by very strong arguments. (shrink)

In these essays, we are concerned with virtue in journalism and the media but are mindful of the tension between the commercial foundations of publishing and broadcasting, on the one hand, and journalism's democratic obligations on the other. Adam outlines, first, a moral vision of journalism focusing on individualistic concepts of authorship and craft. Next, Craft attempts to bridge individual and organizational concerns by examining the obligations of organizations to the individuals working within them. Finally, Cohen discusses the importance (...) of resisting the powerful corporate logic that pervades the news media in the United States and calls on journalists to be courageous. (shrink)

In this article I address the tension between evaluative surveillance and privacy against the backdrop of the current explosion of information technology. More specifically, and after a brief analysis of privacy rights, I argue that knowledge of the different kinds ofsurveillance used at any given company should be made explicit to the employees. Moreover, there will be certain kinds of evaluativemonitoring that violate privacy rights and should not be used in most cases.

In this article I address the tension between evaluative surveillance and privacy against the backdrop of the current explosion of information technology. More specifically, and after a brief analysis of privacy rights, I argue that knowledge of the different kinds ofsurveillance used at any given company should be made explicit to the employees. Moreover, there will be certain kinds of evaluativemonitoring that violate privacy rights and should not be used in most cases.

This volume analyses the moral and legal foundations of privacy, security, and accountability along with the tensions that arise between these important individual and social values.

The beliefs, feelings, and thoughts that make up our streams of consciousness would seem to be inherently private. Nevertheless, modern neuroscience is offering to open up the sanctity of this domain to outside viewing. A common retort often voiced to this worry is something like, ‘Privacy is difficult to define and has no inherent moral value. What’s so great about privacy?’ In this article I will argue against these sentiments. A definition of privacy is offered along with an account of (...) why privacy is morally valuable. In the remaining sections, several privacy protecting principles are defended that would limit various sorts of neuro-surveillance promised by advancements in neuroscience. (shrink)

Merleau-Ponty spent the summer of 1960 in the small French village of Le Tholonet writing Eye and Mind. His choice of location was no accident. Le Tholonet was the physical and emotional epicenter of Paul Cezanne’s late painting, the ultimate proving ground of his relentless quest to reveal the truth of landscape in art.It makes perfect sense that Merleau-Ponty wrote Eye and Mind in Le Tholonet. The essay is a philosophical meditation on vision and painting. But it also is a (...) meditation on place, in the deeply saturated sense that encompasses the landscape, its natural and human history, and the history of the painter who brought this part of Provence to universal visibility in his art. Le Tholonet is the terroir of Eye and Mind, the site and soil of this final, extraordinary expression of Merleau-Ponty’s thinking. Merleau-Ponty passa l’été 1960 dans le petit village français de Le Tholonet en écrivant L’OEil et l’Esprit. Le choix de ce lieu n’est pas accidentel. Le Tholonet était l’épicentre physique et émotionnel de la dernière peinture de Paul Cézanne, le terrain d’essai final de sa quête incessante pour arriver à révéler la vérité du paysage dans l’art. C’est tout à fait sensé que Merleau-Ponty ait écrit L’OEil et l’Esprit à Le Tholonet. L’essai est une méditation philosophique sur la vision et sur la peinture. Mais c’est aussi une méditation sur le lieu, sur le sens profondément saturé qui entoure le paysage, sur son histoire naturelle et humaine, et sur l’histoire du peintre qui porta, par son art, ce coin de la Provence à la visibilité universelle. On pourrait alors dire que Le Tholonet est le terroir de L’OEil et l’Esprit, le site et le sol de cette expression finale et extraordinaire de la réflexion de Merleau-Ponty. Merleau-Ponty trascorse l’estate del 1960 nel piccolo villaggio francese di Le Tholonet, dedicandosi alla scrittura de L’occhio e lo spirito. La scelta di questo luogo non fu casuale. Le Tholonet fu infatti l’epicentro fisico ed emotivo della pittura dell’ultimo Cézanne, il campo di prova finale del suo tentativo instancabile di rivelare la verità del paesaggio nell’arte. È del tutto coerente che Merleau-Ponty abbia scritto L’occhio e lo spirito a Le Tholonet. Il saggio costituisce una riflessione filosofica sulla visione e sulla pittura, ma rappresenta anche una meditazione sul senso di un luogo, secondo un’accezione densa che comprende il paesaggio, la sua storia naturale e umana, e la storia del pittore che attraverso la sua arte ha portato questa parte della Provenza a una visibilità universale. Le Tholonet è il terroir de L’occhio e lo spirito, il sito che ospita e il terreno che nutre quest’ultima straordinaria espressione del pensiero di Merleau-Ponty. (shrink)

As the expansion of the Internet and the digital formatting of all kinds of creative works move us further into the information age, intellectual property issues have become paramount. Computer programs costing thousands of research dollars are now copied in an instant. People who would recoil at the thought of stealing cars, computers, or VCRs regularly steal software or copy their favorite music from a friend's CD. Since the Web has no national boundaries, these issues are international concerns. The contributors-philosophers, (...) legal theorists, and business scholars, among others-address questions such as: Can abstract ideas be owned? How does the violation of intellectual property rights compare to the violation of physical property rights? Can computer software and other digital information be protected? And how should legal systems accommodate the ownership of intellectual property in an information age? Intellectual Property is a lively examination of these and other issues, and an invaluable resource for librarians, lawyers, businesspeople, and scholars. (shrink)