Headteachers in the community schools are responsible for academic and administrative activities. They are considered role models for integrity practices. However, the situation is different on some occasions. For instance, political interest plays more important roles than qualifications, training, work experience, etc., in school affairs. In this context, a qualitative study was carried out in the purposefully selected two schools – an urban and a rural – to explore the elements that influence school integrity practices. Data collected from the schools (...) were analyzed and interpreted. The findings show that nepotism, unhealthy party politics, and impunity influence the school integrity practices in Nepal. (shrink)

The present study examined whether strategy moderated the relationship between visuospatial perspective-taking and empathy. Participants undertook both a perspective-taking task requiring speeded spatial judgements made from the perspective of an observed figure and the Empathy Quotient questionnaire, a measure of trait empathy. Perspective-taking performance was found to be related to empathy in that more empathic individuals showed facilitated performance particularly for figures sharing their own spatial orientation. This relationship was restricted to participants that reported perspective-taking by mentally transforming their spatial (...) orientation to align with that of the figure; it was absent in those adopting an alternative strategy of transposing left and right whenever confronted with a front-view figure. Our finding that strategy moderates the relationship between empathy and visuospatial perspective-taking enables a reconciliation of the apparently inconclusive findings of previous studies and provides evidence for functionally dissociable empathic and non-empathic routes to visuospatial perspective-taking. (shrink)

The Yogic literatures are replete with examples of several unique mystical experiences in deeper states of meditation. These experiences have nevertheless remained largely untouched by the scientific community, possibly because of the extreme inexplicability of such states and the lack of sophistication in evaluating them. More amenable to scientific research, however, would seem to be the simpler states of awareness in meditation such as that of inner light perception. While a few studies have attempted to explore this state by objective (...) means, the subjective experience of this state remains largely unexplored. The present study originates from an interesting sub-theme identified in an earlier study focused on interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA) of the experience of inner light perception among Vihangam Yogis. The original study found that the Yogis were very confident in differentiating their experience of inner light perception from other similar experiences. It was thus decided to use IPA to explore the clarity of the differences perceived by the Vihangam Yogis between these experiences. The present study reveals that the meditators could clearly differentiate the state colloquially termed "inner light perception" from (a) external light perception, (b) imagination and (c) dreams. The meditators gave detailed descriptions of their perception of the differences between these experiences, which suggests that the subjective state of inner light perception could be quite different from that of those experiences which the authors have termed differentials of inner light perception. The conclusion reached is that, in addition to further empirical study by means of the traditional modalities and measures, vigorous qualitative study of the subjective dimensions of the state of inner light perception is warranted, with this study indicating that IPA is especially effective in the latter regard. (shrink)

N. Oresme passe pour l'un des rares grand universitaire médiéval mathématicien. C'est ainsi que son grand traité De Configurationibus qualitatum et motuum est vu traditionnellement comme un traité de mathématiques et analysé comme tel. En fait, l'examen de ses Questiones super Physicam montre qu'Oresme est un philosophe de la nature original. Ses thèses sont souvent en opposition avec celles de Buridan et saméthode est différente: ses arguments empruntent fort peu à la logique et presque exclusivement à la philosophie naturelle.

This chapter examines the relation between Northumbrian and Irish churches during the period between 635 and 735. It suggests that the journeys of churchmen between Ireland and Northumbria were in some ways inextricably linked with those of their lay counterparts and that the development of major ecclesiastical establishments during the seventh and early eighth centuries added a new dimension to trans-Irish Sea contact. The chapter also explains why the trans-Irish Sea contact did not cease in 664 when formal links between (...) Lindisfarne on the one hand, and Iona and the Columban churches in Ireland, on the other, were terminated. (shrink)

Over the last 20+ years, multinational corporations (MNCs) have been confronted with accusations of abuse of market power and unfair and unethical business conduct especially as it relates to their overseas operations and supply chain management. These accusations include, among others, worker exploitation in terms of unfairly low wages, excessive work hours, and unsafe work environment; pollution and contamination of air, ground water and land resources; and, undermining the ability of natural government to protect the well-being of their citizens. MNCs (...) have responded to these accusations by creating voluntary codes of conduct which commit them to specific standards for addressing these issues. These codes are created at both the industry-wide and the individual company level. Unfortunately, these codes have generated little credibility and public trust because their compliance claims cannot be independently verified, and they lack transparency and full public disclosure. In this article, we present a case study of the voluntary code of conduct by Mattel, Inc., the world's largest toy company. The code, called the Global Manufacturing Principles (GMP), confronts the general criticism leveled against voluntary codes of conduct by (a) creating detailed standards of compliance, (b) independent external monitoring of the company's compliance with its code of conduct, and (c) making full, and uncensored public disclosure of the audit findings and company's response in terms of remedial action. We present a detailed account of how Mattel's voluntary code of conduct was created, implemented, and ultimately abandoned over 9 years. We provide an evaluative analysis of the company's GMP compliance throughout its life span, which suggests a bellshaped curve, where early top management commitments were met with pockets of resistance from operational groups, who were concerned about balancing GMP compliance efforts with traditional performance criteria. The early stage response from Mattel's top management was quick and supported with the requisite resources. As a result, the compliance process accelerated, becoming increasingly more robust and effective. The success of code compliance and increased transparency in public disclosure energized field managers with a sense of professional satisfaction and publicly recognized accomplishments.The decline in GMP compliance was equally steep. When all the easily attainable targets had been reached at the company-operated plants, addressing vendor plants' compliance presented a new set of challenges, which taxed corporate resources and management commitment. It would seem that value-based and ethicsoriented considerations, i. e., doing the right thing for the right reason, were no longer the driving force for Mattel's management. Mattel did not see any economic benefit from its proactive stance, when competitors did not seem to suffer adverse consequences for not following suit. The final contributing factor to the code's abandonment was a widely publicized series of product recalls which absorbed top management's attention. (shrink)

Theophrasti Characteres recensuit Hermannus Diels. Oxford Classical Texts. 1909. 3s. 6d. net. Pp. xxviii + .Θεοφρστου Xαρακτxs22EFρες. The Characters of Theophrastus. An English Translation from a Revised Text. With Introduction and Notes by R. C. Jebb, M.A. A new edition. Edited by J. E. Sandys, Litt.D. Macmillan. 1909. 7s. 6d. net. c. 23×14½. Pp. xvi+229.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Seventh International Buddhist-Christian Conference:"Hear the Cries of the World"Darnise C. MartinThe SBCS Seventh International Conference honoring the ongoing Buddhist-Christian dialogue was hosted by Loyola Marymount University, June 3–8, 2005. The campus provided a picturesque and temperate backdrop to conversations, workshops, worship experiences, musical performances, and academic sessions inspired by the theme, "Hear the Cries of the World." This focus shaped our time together as we discussed issues, both (...) old and new, that continue to polarize our world and ways in which we might heal and grow into more holistic ways of being.Loyola Marymount University was pleased to welcome more than 120 participants from close to home and around the world. In addition to representation from many parts of the United States, we also had guests from Japan, Belgium, Germany, Korea, and Sweden. With such a diverse group having a range of needs and concerns, I was heartened to receive positive feedback from all of our attendees, who expressed their satisfaction with the programming and events as well as the general logistics, organization, and staff accessibility throughout the conference.The conference got underway with bittersweet opening ceremonies. We began with words of welcome to our international group, as well as expressions of sadness at the loss of David Chappell, founding member of the Society for Buddhist-Christian Studies. David's memory was lifted up in the presence of his family, dear friends, and colleagues. The Society will carry on his work of dialogue, healing, and reconciliation.The conference had many highlights. One of the most notable features of the conference was the visually and musically stunning dance performance by Viji Prakash, [End Page 185] acclaimed international choreographer and dancer. Her dance troupe, Shakti Dance Company, performed "From Prince to Buddha: A Journey to Enlightenment," an energetic production based on the life of the Buddha. The audience was thoroughly enchanted and entertained by this performance.The academic sessions offered many and varied expressions of the theme, "Hear the Cries of the World." Scholars, activists, and clergy came together to present papers and personal experiences around issues of ecological healing, prison ministry, youth outreach, women's responses to poverty and injustice, as well as the traditional figures of compassion, the Virgin Mary, Kuan Yin, and the way of the Bodhisattva.In particular, our group was intensely moved through an evening presentation on prison ministry presented by two people working intimately in the area of bringing compassion to this field. One presenter was Fleet Maull, founder of the Prison Dharma Network and the National Prison Hospice Association, who has been in the prison system as an inmate himself. He shared the experiences that led to his incarceration as well as the dehumanizing ways in which people are treated as inmates. He spoke of meditation as a tool by which prisoners may develop awareness and regain their humanity, even if for only brief moments. These moments can maintain hope for people who otherwise would have none. Maull, who was ordained a Buddhist priest while in prison, began a ministry to provide hospice care to terminally ill inmates, a ministry that has continued after his release through a growing network of participating prisons.The second presenter, Beth Ross of First African Methodist Episcopal (FAME) Church in Los Angeles, also discussed her work as part of the church's prison ministry outreach. Ross spoke about ministering not only to the person in prison, but also to the family of the inmate. Each has particular needs. The church has responded to prisoners' needs to not feel abandoned and isolated by instituting a letter-writing campaign. She said this helps people stay connected to a community and begin to heal. The church also provides re-entry support as prisoners are released and need to find housing and employment. Ross advocates for these former inmates needing a second chance. Without help, she notes, they are destined to commit further crimes against society and return to prison. FAME hopes to be a beacon of hope to these former prisoners.This was a powerful session for everyone. Speaking for myself, I had often thought about how society permanently demonizes former inmates. What chance do... (shrink)

This article examines life assurance and the politics of ‘big data’ in mid-19th-century Britain. The datasets generated by life assurance companies were vast archives of information about human longevity. Actuaries distilled these archives into mortality tables – immensely valuable tools for predicting mortality and so pricing risk. The status of the mortality table was ambiguous, being both a public and a private object: often computed from company records they could also be extrapolated from public projects such as the census, or (...) clerical records. Life assurance more generally straddled the line between private enterprise and collective endeavour, though its advocates stressed the public interest in its success. Reforming actuaries such as Thomas Rowe Edmonds wanted the data on which mortality tables were based to be made publicly available, but faced resistance. Such resistance undermined insurers’ claims to be scientific in spirit and hindered Edmonds’s personal quest for a law of mortality. Edmonds pushed instead for an open actuarial science alongside fellow travellers at the Statistical Society of London, which was populated by statisticians such as William Farr as well as by radical mathematicians such as Charles Babbage. The article explores Babbage’s little-known foray into the world of insurance, both as a budding actuary but also as a fierce critic of the industry. These debates over the construction, ownership, and accessibility of insurance datasets show that concern about the politics of big data did not begin in the 21st century. (shrink)

This paper is an attempt at exploring the possibility of reconciling the two interpretations of biolinguistics which have been recently projected by Koster(Biolinguistics 3(1):61–92, 2009). The two interpretations—trivial and nontrivial—can be roughly construed as non-internalist and internalist conceptions of biolinguistics respectively. The internalist approach boils down to a conception of language where language as a mental grammar in the form of I-language grows and functions like a biological organ. On the other hand, under such a construal consistent with Koster’s (Biolinguistics (...) 3(1):61-92, 2009), the non-internalist version does not necessarily have to be externalist in nature; rather it is a matter of mutual reinforcement of biology and culture under the rubric of a co-evolutionary dynamics. Here it will be argued that the apparent dichotomy between these two conceptions of biolinguistics can perhaps be resolved if we have a richer synthesis that accounts for both internalism and non-internalism. (shrink)

When first published twenty years ago, The Logic of Medicine presented a new way of thinking about clinical medicine as a scholarly discipline as well as a profession. Since then, advances in research and technology have revolutionized both the practice and theory of medicine. In this new, extensively rewritten edition, Dr. Murphy includes changes to show how these different areas of scholarship may affect details of "the logic of medicine" without compromising its fundamental coherence. New to this edition are discussions (...) of the challenge of the flood of new empirical data, new ideas in genetics, molecular biology, homeostasis, pathogenesis, cancer, aging, and Alzheimer's disease. Murphy also comments on such new theoretical topics as dynamic systems, chaos, and fractals and their impact on the burgeoning fields of philosophy and practice of medicine. Written with medical students in mind, the book includes a glossary, many new examples, and problems for solutions with comments on each. An entirely new chapter deals with modeling. Clinicians and researchers will also find the principles thought-provoking and illuminating. (shrink)

Philosophy Bites brings together the twenty-five best interviews from this hugely successful website.

On 25th October 1946, in a crowded room in Cambridge, Ludwig Wittgenstein and Karl Popper came face to face for the first and only time. The meeting was a disaster, their loud and aggressive confrontation became the stuff of legend. This book tells what really went on in that room.

In this fantastical, semi-autobiographical book, Vishwa Prakash addresses these questions.

Twenty-seven of today's leading philosophers each introduce and explore ideas from one of history's greatest minds." -- Cover.

Modern Indian nationalist thought has dealt with political ideas such as freedom, equality, liberty, democracy, so on and so forth. The idea of freedom received enough attention on the part of most of the modern Indian political thinkers. However, the idea of freedom as envisaged by the nationalist thinkers did not receive positive response from the other stream of modern Indian thought. Dalit-Bahujan political thinkers questioned the narration of freedom as propagated by the nationalist thinkers. Nationalist thinkers aspired for universal (...) values and at the same time reaffirmed ancient religious principles. Such effort was questioned and doubted by the other thinkers of modern India. Thus, one can find different narrations of freedom, such as social, economic and political. The social categories such as caste, class and gender became bases for their narration on the idea of freedom. The ideas and arguments of B. G. Tilak, M. K. Gandhi, Pandita Ramabai, Jyotiba Phule, B. R. Ambedkar E. M. S. Namboodripad and others would help in larger understanding of the idea of freedom. (shrink)

There are many algorithm texts that provide lots of well-polished code and proofs of correctness. Instead, this book presents insights, notations, and analogies to help the novice describe and think about algorithms like an expert. By looking at both the big picture and easy step-by-step methods for developing algorithms, the author helps students avoid the common pitfalls. He stresses paradigms such as loop invariants and recursion to unify a huge range of algorithms into a few meta-algorithms. Part of the goal (...) is to teach the students to think abstractly. Without getting bogged with formal proofs, the book fosters a deeper understanding of how and why each algorithm works. These insights are presented in a slow and clear manner accessible to second- or third-year students of computer science, preparing them to find their own innovative ways to solve problems. (shrink)

This book focuses on moral and political education and critically engages with educational issues from a philosophical perspective. It engages with questions of moral education as well as questions about citizenship education, to address apprehensions on learning in a liberal democracy while parallelly invoking issues from within the curriculum, the school environment and teacher-student relationship. With contributions from renowned philosophers and educationists, this volume discusses themes like civic education and liberal democracy; toleration and freedom; Tagore's conception of the moral and (...) political self; key issues in moral education; cosmopolitanism, compassion, care ethics and moral purpose of schooling; to revisit and rethink some foundational questions related to education, curriculum and pedagogy. This volume will be essential reading for educationists and educators, and will be important for scholars and researchers of philosophy of education, education, teacher education and school education. (shrink)

La 4e de couverture indique : "Cet ouvrage est écrit à quatre mains et porte sur la relation entre création artistique et sciences de la cognition. L'ouvrage propose deux approches de l'expérience esthétique. Une approche en troisième personne mobilisant des modèles propres aux systèmes dits auto-organisateurs issus de la biologie dédiée à la réception des œuvres d'art et une approche en première personne rendant compte par auto-analyse d'une pratique artistique vécue qui s'appuie également sur de tels systèmes, systèmes eux-mêmes liés (...) aux concepts d'émergence et de complexité". (shrink)

Fields of enquiry. Rome Harré on What is social science -- Toby Miller on Cultural studies -- Lawrence Sherman on Criminology -- Jonathan Haidt on Moral psychology -- Robert J. Shiller on Behavioural economics -- Births, deaths and human population. Sarah Franklin on the Sociology of reproductive technology -- Ann Oakley on Women's experience of childbirth -- Sarah Harper on the Population challenge for the 21st century -- Steven Pinker on Violence and human nature -- Social science through different lenses. (...) Gregory Clark on Names -- Robin Dunbar on Dunbar numbers -- David Goldblatt on the Sociology of football -- Trevor Marchand on Craft -- Bruce Hood on the Supernatural -- Doreen Massey on Space -- Politics and social science. Craig Calhoun on Protest movements -- Danny Dorling on Inequality -- Kate Pickett on the Case for equality. (shrink)

An attempt to treat axiomatically the measurement of economic inequality.

Medical ethics in the Indian context is closely related to indigenous classical and folk traditions. This article traces the history of Indian conceptions of ethics and medicine, with an emphasis on the Hindu tradition. Classical Ayurvedic texts including Carakasamhita and Susrutasamhita provide foundational assumptions about the body, the self, and gunas, which provide the underpinnings for the ethical system. Karma, the notion that every action has consequences, provides a foundation for medical morality. Conception, prolongation of one's blood-line is an important (...) ethical aim of life. Thus a wide range of practices to further conception are acceptable. Abortion is a more complex matter ethically. At the end of life death is viewed in the context of passage to another life. Death is a relief from suffering to be coped with by the thought of an eternal atman or rebirth. Keywords: India, Hindu, karma, conception, death CiteULike Connotea Del.icio.us What's this? (shrink)