The encounter between Socrates and Thrasymachus in Republic I is notoriously baffling. Most of what is said seems straightforward, and the issues at stake are ones of common concern, but the argument remains elusive. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the nature and grounds of this elusiveness, and to show that some of it can be dispelled by a sufficiently free-ranging exegesis that bears in mind the general character of Plato’s writing.

Of the platonic theory that four qualities make up the whole of virtue. I show that aristotle's repudiation of this scheme is more apparent than real.

Nelson Goodman equates expression with metaphorical exemplification. That is, a character C in a symbol system expresses a property P if three conditions are fulfilled: C has P ; C exemplifies P ; and C has P metaphorically. Two points are emphasized. The first point is that a character actually is what it metaphorically is: sad music really is sad, really does express sadness, just as loud music really is loud. The decision to apply to works of art language that (...) is literally applicable only to persons is arbitrary, in that no reason can be given for it other than its felt aptness; but, once the decision to use the terminology has been made, decisions about which terms are applicable to which works are no more arbitrary than any other decisions about the applications of terms. The second point is that there is no intimate connection between the concept of expression as thus defined and the concepts of emotion or feeling. The latter merely furnish one common set of metaphors. (shrink)

F. E. Sparshott; IV—Avowals and their Uses, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Volume 62, Issue 1, 1 June 1962, Pages 63–76, https://doi.org/10.1093/arist.

Recognizing the growing interdependence of the European Union and the importance of codes of conduct in companies’ operations, this research examines the effect of a country’s culture on the implementation of a code of conduct in a European context. We examine whether the perceptions of an activity’s ethicality relates to elements found in company codes of conduct vary by country or according to Hofstede’s (1980, Culture’s Consequences (Sage Publications, Beverly Hills, CA)) cultural constructs of: Uncertainty Avoidance, Masculinity/Femininity, Individualism, and Power (...) Distance. The 294 individuals, who participated in our study, were from 8 Western European countries. Their responses to our 13 scenarios indicate that differences in the perceptions of ethicality associate primarily with the participants’ country as opposed to their employer (i.e., accounting firm), employment level, or gender. The evidence also indicates that these country differences associate with Hofstede constructs of Individualism and Masculinity. (shrink)

The internal paradoxes in the quantum measurement scheme related to violation of conservation laws, changes in entropy, absence of a dynamic description of collapse, Wigner's friend, as well as the paradox of violation of causality in the EPR experiment are shown to be partially circumvented in the measurement scheme of stochastic quantum mechanics.

The Presbyterian and Reformed tradition, as one representation of Biblical theology and ethics, has considerable application to physical health. This perspective is effectively embodied in the Westminster Confession of Faith which includes “the moral law,” especially as illustrated in the Larger Catechism Questions and Answers on the Ten Commandments. The WCF has many Biblical principles that promote health and prevent disease, for example, the Seventh Commandment can be “extensively demonstrated empirically” that violations promote morbidity and mortality. This result markedly contrasts (...) with the evolutionary and politically correct foundation of modern medicine that essentially promotes disease and death. Sexual “freedom” has become “slavery” to its disastrous results. Further, the modern attempt to define and treat “mental illness” does not begin to address the needs of patients and their families. By excluding the spiritual dimension of men and women, psychology and psychiatry has no moral answers by the naturalistic fallacy, and thus their various cognitive and pharmaceutical approaches mostly make “mental” problems worse. In this essay I present what the Bible claims through the WCF, and using modern medicine’s own “evidence-based medicine,” demonstrate how this approach has a strategic advantage in promoting health over contemporary medical ethics and practices. (shrink)