Presents a plethora of approaches to developing human potential in areas not conventionally addressed. Organized in two parts, this international collection of essays provides viable educational alternatives to those currently holding sway in an era of high-stakes accountability.

This essay argues that Confucian ritual propriety (li 禮) and Aristotelian habit (hexis, ἔξις) play analogous roles within their respective ethical systems and that we can come to appreciate important dimensions of each category by juxtaposing it with the other. Despite numerous and deep dissimilarities, both li and hexis work to organize and publicize emotions and dispositions, ground true moral quality in phenomenally-present activity, and (leveraging insights from Marcel Mauss) contribute to shaping and actualizing an agent’s body and behavior. The (...) essay unpacks several semantic subtleties of li and hexis, and attempts to respond to alleged disanalogies. Finally, the success of a such a li-hexis analogy reveals the ways in which Aristotle’s virtues are more socially contingent and Confucian morality is less particularistic than is often allowed; which in turn, I argue, lessens some of the distance between virtue-based and role-based ethical frameworks. (shrink)

By coincidence, it seems, the critical vocabulary and concerns that came to be known as postcolonial theory and methodology rose to be a dominant school of inquiry in the Anglo-American academy in the same years that the Soviet Union collapsed (notwithstanding that key theoretical texts by Frantz Fanon and others predated this moment by decades). Yet, oddly, postcolonialist terms were seldom applied to postsocialist and post-Soviet cases until the 2000s, and they have become more broadly utilized in these territories only (...) in the past decade. Further, it must be admitted that few results of these applications of postcolonial tools to postsocialist cases have made much of a mark among broader circles of postcolonial scholars and thinkers. Djagalov's book may help to correct this situation. Rather than work in the mode of “application”—applying a postcolonial framework to yet one more case—Djagalov reconstructs the history of a century of socialist anti-imperialism, as it was expressed in global cultural institutions and networks, and in so doing discovers the ignored or forgotten genealogy that links contemporary postcolonial thought to writers, activists, and theoreticians of the socialist world.Djagalov's book toggles between, on the one hand, chapters of institutional history that chronicle the global cultural institutions (such as the Afro-Asian Writers Association, the Tashkent Film Festival, and the Lotus Prize) that connected the Soviet Union with decolonizing countries and, on the other hand, chapters of synthetic cultural criticism that articulate typological analyses of common narrative forms that circulated in the fiction and film of the socialist world—recurring varieties of “solidarity narratives,” as Djagalov calls them. His work reveals how central the state-socialist political imaginary was for writers and filmmakers ranging from Nâzım Hikmet to Ngūgī wa Thiong'o, and how prominent their itineraries through Soviet institutions and networks were in their biographies. Ngūgī, for instance, finished his 1977 novel Petals of Blood during a residency in the Soviet Writers House in Yalta.In recovering the lost continent of anti-imperial socialist globality that bridged the “second” and “third worlds,” Djagalov has demonstrated not how postcolonial terms can be applied to postsocialist cases but how postcolonial theory and method are themselves postsocialist phenomena. Djagalov does not attempt to rectify the state-socialist prehistory of postcolonial thought with a critique of Soviet imperial habits or of the postcolonial contexts of contemporary Eastern Europe, the Caucasus, and Central Asia. At least, though, the challenges of thinking “postcolonial” and “postsocialist” together have now become clearer. From Internationalism to Postcolonialism leaves us with new research problems: what, for example, does it mean to be a postcolony of an anti-imperial empire? (shrink)

Carnap and Wittgenstein were always far apart on issues of fundamental importance, even on questions where one might have supposed them to be close. Specifically, I will try to show that beneath what at first sight could appear to be a philosophical difference over a mundane question regarding the nature of the propositions of logic, in fact exemplified a chasm between Wittgenstein’s and Carnap’s understanding of our relation to language and the world. After first laying out Carnap’s own understanding of (...) his difference between himself and Wittgenstein on the nature of tautology, I explicate Wittgenstein’s rejection of what would soon become Carnap’s metalogical stance in The Logical Syntax of Language. I do this in terms of Wittgenstein’s reception of Frege, the significance for Wittgenstein of the sign/symbol distinction, and his views of ordinary language and skepticism already at work in the Tractatus. I point out a connection between Heidegger and Wittgenstein on ordinary language that distinguishes them both from the dominant traditions in analytic philosophy of language and from much contemporary post-modernist views of language. Finally I bring out what was at stake personally and culturally for Wittgenstein in his difference from Carnap on logical syntax. (shrink)

In this article, we explore two related questions. First, under what conditions, if any, can a Black person trust a white person to be a reliable ally in the context of a society founded on racial slavery? Second, under what conditions, if any, can a Black person trust a white person to be a reliable ally in the context of a white supremacist society? We follow Karen Jones and Nancy Nyquist Potter in arguing that allies must not only be competent, (...) conscientious, and accurately self-assess their epistemic capacities, but they must also signal their trustworthiness in advance to those who would trust them. Furthermore, we argue based on our readings of the slave narratives of Mary Prince, Harriet Jacobs, and Frederick Douglass that allies must display social awareness of the social context that they share with those who would trust them and the power dynamics involved in that social context. (shrink)

Kevin M. Cahill reclaims one of Ludwig Wittgenstein's most passionately pursued endeavors: to reawaken a sense of wonder around human life and language and its mysterious place in the world. Following the philosopher's spiritual and cultural criticism and tying it more tightly to the overall evolution of his thought, Cahill frames an original interpretation of Wittgenstein's engagement with Western metaphysics and modernity, better contextualizing the force of his work. Cahill synthesizes several approaches to Wittgenstein's life and thought. He stresses (...) the nontheoretical aspirations of the philosopher's early and later writings, combining key elements from the so-called resolute readings of the _Tractatus_ with the "therapeutic" readings of _Philosophical Investigations_. Cahill shows how continuity in Wittgenstein's cultural and spiritual concerns informed if not guided his work between these texts, and in his reading of the _Tractatus_, Cahill identifies surprising affinities with Martin Heidegger's _Being and Time_--a text rarely associated with Wittgenstein's early formulations. In his effort to recapture wonder, Wittgenstein both avoided and undermined traditional philosophy's reliance on theory. As Cahill relates the steps of this bold endeavor, he forms his own innovative, analytical methods, joining historicist and contextualist approaches to text-based, immanent readings. The result is an original, sustained examination of Wittgenstein's thought. (shrink)

Volume 20, Issue 6, June 2020, Page 35-37.

In this book, Kevin M. Cherry compares the views of Aristotle and Plato about the practice, study, and above all, the purpose of politics.

Paul Roth claims that “interpretivists” in the philosophy of social sciences like Charles Taylor assume a positivist caricature of natural science to motivate their arguments against naturalism in the social sciences. Roth argues that not only is adopting the view of meaning relied upon by those he sometimes refers to as the “friends of understanding” unmotivated once the critique of positivism has been taken on board, he argues further that Quine has shown why this “meaning realism” is unavailable in principle. (...) Roth bolsters his use of Quine against interpretivists by referring to Kripke’s reading of Wittgenstein on rule-following. But McDowell has shown how Kripke overlooks an alternative reading of those remarks, which provides “interpretivists” with arguments against mainstream naturalism and which makes no use of anything resembling “meaning realism.” This opening for interpretivists is actually already present in Roth’s discussion of the distinction between “thin” and “thick” description. This suggests how mainstream naturalism itself might be rethought to accommodate interpretivism. (shrink)

The creation of new technologies that serve humanity holds the potential to help end global poverty. Unfortunately, relatively little is done in engineering education to support engineers’ humanitarian efforts. Here, various strategies are introduced to augment the teaching of engineering ethics with the goal of encouraging engineers to serve as effective volunteers for community service. First, codes of ethics, moral frameworks, and comparative analysis of professional service standards lay the foundation for expectations for voluntary service in the engineering profession. Second, (...) standard coverage of global issues in engineering ethics educates humanitarian engineers about aspects of the community that influence technical design constraints encountered in practice. Sample assignments on volunteerism are provided, including a prototypical design problem that integrates community constraints into a technical design problem in a novel way. Third, it is shown how extracurricular engineering organizations can provide a theory-practice approach to education in volunteerism. Sample completed projects are described for both undergraduates and graduate students. The student organization approach is contrasted with the service-learning approach. Finally, long-term goals for establishing better infrastructure are identified for educating the humanitarian engineer in the university, and supporting life-long activities of humanitarian engineers. (shrink)

In this analysis of the problem of freedom from a humanistic-Marxist perspective, philosopher Kevin M. Brien draws on the full chronological spectrum of Marx's writings to reconstruct the mature Marx's view of freedom under three broad categories: freedom as a mode of being, freedom as transcendence, and freedom as spontaneity. While recognizing that many students of Marx have noted two distinctly different perspectives in early and late Marx, Brien interprets Marx's philosophy as a coherent organic whole. He demonstrates that (...) Marx's thought is principally and systematically an elaborated philosophical-scientific theory of freedom. New to this second edition is an extended postscript in which Brien provides critical responses to a number of published reviews of the first edition of his book. In addition, Brien also presents a humanistic-Marxist interpretation of spirituality. In so doing he identifies a potential revolutionizing agency in the context of the 21st century. Finally, an addendum shows how humanistic Marxism and Buddhism converge on the same basic values and mutually complement each other. This comparison serves to emphasize the viability of projecting a nontheistic spiritual dimension and shows that there is a genuine moral basis for common social action among adherents of different perspectives. This rigorously argued and deeply thoughtful analysis reveals the continuing relevance and promise of Marx's thought in the 21st century. (shrink)

The practice of surgical trainees operating in developing countries is gaining interest in the medical community. Although there has been little analysis about the ethical impact of these electives, there has been some concerns raised over the possible exploitation of trainees and their patients. An ethical review of this practice shows that care needs to be taken to prevent harm. Inexperienced surgeons learning surgical skills in developing countries engender greater risk of violating basic ethical principles. Advanced surgical trainees who have (...) already achieved surgical competence are best qualified to satisfy these ethical issues. All training programs need to develop a structured ethical review for international electives to protect their trainees and their patients from harm. (shrink)

Gossip is a subject that has been studied by researchers from an array of disciplines with various foci and methods. We measured the content of language use by members of a competitive sports team across 18 months, integrating qualitative ethnographic methods with quantitative sampling and analysis. We hypothesized that the use of gossip will vary significantly depending on whether it is used for self-serving or group-serving purposes. Our results support a model of gossip derived from multilevel selection theory that expects (...) gossip to serve group-beneficial rules when rewards are partitioned at the group level on a scale that permits mutual monitoring. We integrate our case study with earlier studies of gossip conducted by anthropologists, psychologists, and management researchers. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:HAPPINESS: THE NATURAL END OF MAN? KEVIN M. STALEY St. Anslem Oollege Manchester, New Hampshire I AONG THE QUESTIONS the philosopher considers, none perhaps ris more important than that of ' the good life.' This question looks for the distinguishing marks of a. life which is fully human and which constitutes the actualization of one's uniquely human potential. For the ancient philosophers, such a life was considered the (...) highest good that one could achieve, the end and the raison d' etre of one's activity. This end was known as happiness. As a Christian theologian well versed in the writings of the ancients, Thomas Aquinas also had occasion to reflect on the nature of happiness. His inquiry possessed a dimension which was completely lacking to the ancients, namely, the belief that man is destined to enjoy the ' face to face ' vision of God. Thomas left no doubt that this, man's most ultimate end, was to be possessed after death through the gifts of grace. On the other hand, in his Sententia Libri Ethicorum he gives Aristotle his due, commenting with approval on many 0£ Aristotle's conclusions. In his discussion of happiness in the Summa Theo~ logiae, one can also find the Philosopher's doctrine of happiness, here distinguished from ·supernatural beatitude as imperfect from perfect beatitude. Are we to assume then that inquiry rinto the nature of happiness is twofold, admitting of a. theological and philosophical dimension? A philosopher would, on this showing, be concerned ·with the natural, albeit imperfect, end and the theologian with the supernatural end of man. Many philosophers within the Thomistic tradition have ~15 216 KEVIN M. STALEY been comfortable with this assumption. Recently, for example, John Finnis has stated, St. Thomas very plainly says, the task of ' considering and determining the ultimate end of human life and human affairs' belongs to the principle practical science; Aristotle called it ethics and Thomas moral philosophy.1 Others do not share Finnis' confidence in this regard. Alan Dona.gan, for example,,argues to the contrary that Thomas' final word on the end of man was that Aristotle was simply mistaken. According to Donagan, Thomas saved Aristotle's thesis that the ultimate end of human life is eudaimonia by two drastic amendments. First, he reinterpreted eudaimonia as what he called beatitudo: the total satisfaction of desires of an intellectual creature by a vision of God's essence.... Secondly, he denied that human beings could either attain beatitudo, or even learn what it really is, except by grace.2 If Donagan is correct, then the philosopher is clearly not competent to discuss the end o£ man, since the consideration of supernatural beatitude lies beyond the power of unaided.reason. Finnis recognizes the distinction between perfect and imperfect beatitude, and his position need only entail that it is the latter which is the concern of philosophy proper. However, although the notion of 'imperfect beatitude' served well Thomas' purpose of integrating the thought of the Philosopher within the framework of Christian theology, the fact remains that Thomas did not disengage this notion from its theological context. That is rto say, he did not carry out 'an explicit treatment of imperfect beatitude as the natural end of man. In itself, this need not imply that such an inquiry is impossible or ill-conceived. Nevertheless, the notion of ' imperfect beatitude ' (construed as some sort of natural end of man 1" Practical Reasoning, Human Goods, and the End of Man", Proceedings of the American Catholic Philosophical Society, v. 58, 1984, p. 26. 2 Human lilnds and Human Actions (Milwaukee: Marquette University Press, 1985), p. 38. HAPPINESS: THE NATURAL END OF MAN? 217 amenable to philosophical treatment), is still quite problematic ; and Finnis himself has recognized the difficulty. Happiness signified, even for Aristotle, a good which is perfect and in every way final.3 Finnis observes that "the 'perfect,' the 'fully satisfactory,' is what the concept of eudaimooia /bemitudo is about; an 'imperfect beatitude' is, by definition, a state which is not ' adequate to the aspira.tion of human nature '." 4 Thus, the very concept of ' imperfect happiness ' appears at best to be paradoxical, at worst self-contradictory -at least to the philosopher. This... (shrink)

Political theorists have recently emphasized the popular dimension of Aristotle’s political thought, and many have called attention to Aristotle’s assertion that certain multitudes should share in the city’s deliberations. In this article, I explore the “part of virtue and prudence” Aristotle believes necessary for a multitude to participate in political life. I argue, first, that military service helps citizens develop the “part of virtue” necessary for political participation and, second, that the “part of prudence” Aristotle has in mind is sunesis. (...) I argue, moreover, that military virtue helps citizens acquire sunesis and guides its exercise. Aristotle recognizes the limitations and potential dangers of military virtue and attempts to avoid these, in part by offering a new understanding of military virtue to offset the Spartan. Understanding the “part of virtue and prudence” citizens have helps understand their role in a polity but also points to how those citizens, and their regime, can be improved. (shrink)

My point of departure is the idea that Wittgenstein's work, especially his later work with its explicit emphasis on practices, seeks to engage a reader who is likely to come to philosophy with a certain cast of mind that includes unexamined commitments from a particular cultural context. I show how a substantial number of remarks by Wittgenstein in which he addresses cultural topics bring out the importance of the quite specific connections he saw between the philosophical problems with which he (...) grappled and the historical cultural context in which those problems have arisen. Not only is a grasp of this aspect of his writing integral to a proper understanding of Wittgenstein as a thinker, bringing out these connections serves to put these remarks into a coherent conceptual framework. In assessing the relation of Wittgenstein's cultural concerns to his engagement with metaphysics, I show how his development of Spengler's thought is an important connecting link. Particularly important for this analysis will be my discussion of Wittgenstein's understanding and employment of the concept of a Betrachtungsform , as well as a few closely related concepts. I then offer an interpretation of what I believe to be the significance of the connection in his later thought between his philosophical activity and his views about the modern West. (shrink)

Mr. A's physician recommends immediate dialysis. However, Mr. A is in the United States illegally, has no family living in the area, and is unemployed. The Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act requires the hospital not only to examine Mr. A, but to provide him with any needed stabilizing treatment without considering his lack of insurance coverage or ability to pay. The needed treatment to stabilize Mr. A is dialysis. Therefore, the physician admits him and starts dialysis. But Mr. A (...) will need to continue dialysis indefinitely. Because he has no insurance and is an illegal immigrant, he is not eligible for any outpatient dialysis units. He is also unable to afford any medical treatments. Once Mr. A is stabilized, should he be discharged? His physician and social worker turn to the hospital ethics committee for help. What should Mercy Hospital do? (shrink)

In his paper, “Was He Trying to Whistle It,” P. M. S. Hacker argues that the weight of what he terms the “internal” and “external” evidence shows that the kind of interpretation of the Tractatus put forth by Cora Diamond is wrong. The internal evidence is the Tractatus itself, while the external evidence consists of some of Wittgenstein’s other philosophical writings, letters, and records of his discussions about the book. This paper critically examines the way Hacker uses some ofthe external (...) evidence in building his case against Diamond and those sympathetic to her approach to the Tractatus. The main goal is not so much to defend the views that Hacker wants to attack, but to argue that given the nature of those views, the manner in which he attempts to use certain pieces of evidence against them is seriously misguided. (shrink)

Among the extra-physical aspects of team sports, the ways in which players talk to each other are among the more colorful but understudied dimensions of competition. To contribute an empirical basis for examining the nature of “trash talk,” we present the results of a study of 291 varsity athletes who compete in the top division among US universities. Based on a preliminary review of trash-talk topics among student-athletes, we asked participants to indicate the frequency with which they have communicated or (...) heard others talk about opposing players’ athleticism, playing ability, physical appearance, boyfriends, girlfriends, sexual behavior, parents, and home institution during competitions. Our three main findings are: Trash-talking is most commonly about the proximately important topic of playing ability while ultimately relevant topics such as physical appearance also appear to be common; Men appear to trash-talk significantly more than women, and consistently across topics; and contact sports such as football, hockey, lacrosse, and wrestling are associated with trash talk significantly more than other sports. We also examined whether the anonymity provided by face-masked helmets in “combat sports” was associated with more trash talk than contact sports played without a helmet and found no consistent association with face masks. Our findings highlight the ways in which competitors in physical sporting contests attempt to use language—often in ways that focus on players’ kin or reproductive interests—in pursuit of victory while establishing a baseline for future research into trash-talking. (shrink)

This meditation is a series of reflections about some milestones along my philosophical journey that concern universals, universal definitions, claims to universal moral principles, and universal dialogue. It begins with a focus on the Socratic search for universal definitions of general terms; and it continues with a look at the way my discovery of non-Euclidean geometries began to challenge my attitude toward the possibility of universal definitions of all general terms. Along the way I bring out how Wittgenstein’s notion of (...) “family resemblances” added to this challenge. The meditation continues with reflections on Kant’s attempts to make a case for a universal and unconditional moral imperative. Following this I sketch a counter-case that the concrete human being gets lost in a haze of Kantian abstraction. These reflections bring out the clear conceptual linkage between the “abstract universal” and the “external relation” as canons ofinterpretation.The meditation then makes a shift to some later milestones on my journey, beginning with reflection on the “concrete universal” and the “internal relation” as alternative canons of interpretation. I try to illustrate how Marx critically appropriated Hegel’s view of these canons via discussion of Marx’s notion of “praxis;” and then go on to adopt these canons of interpretation throughout the rest of the meditation. Employing these canons of interpretation, and with Aristotle’s very broad understanding of the term “politics” in mind, I construe universal dialogue to be a mode of discourse oriented toward the development of a new “politics of the global village” that could cultivate the practice of concretely relating to the other person as a person. Inasmuch as Aristotle construed “politics” as involving a developed ethics as well as a “science of society” , the meditation proceeds with a preliminary sketch of these two dimensions of a new “politics of the global village.”My meditation goes on to suggest a fundamental ethical principle that could be concretely and universally adopted by all people, and that could guide universal dialogue. The meditation continues with a sketch of a philosophical reconstruction of a humanistic Marxist “science of society,” and integrates the fundamental ethical principle with it. This sketch is basically a philosophical clarification of Marx’s theory of cultural evolution that brings into play the key role of the concrete universal and the internal relation as fundamental canons of interpretation. The meditation concludes with an argument that universal dialogue on the part of a very wide spectrum of ordinary people, as well as specialists, is the sine qua non for any hope of transforming the secular basis of human societies in the direction of social justice, as all of humanity faces the daunting crises that loom throughout planet Earth. (shrink)

This paper will open with a focus on alienated and unfree activity as it is presented by Marx in his famous Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844. My concern will be to bring out the most central dimensions of his view of such activity including: the alienated relation in such activity to other people, to one’s own activity, to the products of one’s activity, to the natural world, etc. Moreover, I will be especially concerned to bring out the mode of (...) reason that is embedded within alienated activity, as well as the kind of relation between cognition, conation, sensory experience, feeling, (etc.) that Marx projects as obtaining in such activity. Following this I will make a dialectical extrapolation from the analysis of alienated activity that Marx gives us, and go on to present a sketch of a humanistic-Marxist interpretation of unalienated and free activity. This will be seen to involve not only a very different structural relation to other people, to one’s own activity, and to the natural world than the one that obtains in alienated activity—but also a very different structural relation between cognition, conation, sensoryexperience, feeling, (etc.). Then I will give a sketch of a praxis-oriented interpretation of historical materialism, which will serve to bring out the historicity of reason, and the historicity of the modes of rationality that prevail at various stages in world history. The last section of this paper will argue: (1) that a transformation of reason is a real possibility; (2) that a transformation of reason in the direction of the kind of unalienated and free activity I have delineated earlier offers the best hope for a human future and a sustainable relation to the natural world; and also (3) that at this juncture in human history it has now become a practical necessity, if humankind is to lift itself out of the mounting world crisis—spiritual and otherwise—in which we are all enmeshed. (shrink)

This paper is aimed at a rethinking of the spiritual in relation to Marx. Drawing from Marx’s own formulations, it makes clear that Marx made an important distinction between religion and the spiritual, and that he did indeed speak of the spiritual in positive ways. Much of the discussion centers on Marx’s famous passage speaking about religion as “the opium of the people.” Therein Marx writes that: “Criticism has plucked the imaginary flowers from the chain, not so that man will (...) wear the chain that is without fantasy or consolation but so that he will throw it off and pluck the living flower.” This paper attempts to make clear whatMarx means by the “imaginary flowers” and also by the “living flower”; and in so doing helps to clarify what Marx means by “the spiritual”. (shrink)

This paper explores Marx’s mature method of dialectical explanation. Drawing from Marx’s formulations, the paper proceeds to philosophically elaborate what this method involves. It discloses that: a) all explanatory factors come from prior empirical inquiry; b) this method moves in stages from more ..

Latvia presents a unique and counterintuitive case in the history of postsocialist ethnic relations. Despite the USSR's having annexed Latvia by fiat and armed force in the 1940s—and despite the population transfers of so many Russians and other Soviet peoples to the region that Latvians themselves nearly became an ethnic minority in “their own” republic—there has been no ethnic violence between Latvians and Russians in the postsocialist era. Yet the events of summer 2014 have radically shifted the political imaginary of (...) this region, raising the specter of a loss of social cohesion and an eruption of violence. The essay examines one of the factors that has supported amity in Latvia for the past two decades: late-Soviet cosmopolitanism and its legacies in present-day Latvian cultural life. Analysis focuses on public art projects in Riga during the summer of 2014, in the shadow of the war in Ukraine. (shrink)

Accounting educators are in the midst of creating new opportunities for students to enhance their abilities to recognize ethical dilemmas, establish criteria by which to make ethical decisions, and establish support mechanisms and strategies to facilitate their ethical decision-making. CPA firms, professional organizations and state boards of accountancy are co-operating to increase requirements for ethics education for candidates taking the CPA exam. The current situation is confusing and sub-optimal regarding the use of precious learning time in college programs. A new (...) dialogue between the three stakeholders, creative learning approaches, and additional resources can lead to a more consistent and optimal learning paradigm regarding the ethics education of accountants. Research evaluating the effectiveness of various approaches is needed to effectively apply limited resources in an area critical to the reputation capital of the accounting profession. (shrink)

This paper is the second phase of a project that was begun more than three years ago. The first phase culminated in the publication of a paper working toward a critical appropriation of Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics.1 Therein Aristotle famously argues that human wellbeing (eudaimonia) is constituted by “activity of the soul in accordance with moral and intellectual virtue.”2 This earlier paper brought into focus all the main lines of Aristotle’s theoretical web in the N. Ethics: including the nature of the (...) soul, intellectual virtue, moral virtue, etc. That paper went on to give a developed critique of Aristotle’s theoretical web, and against that background it argued for a very different way of thinking about intellectual virtue, and it prepared the ground for different ways of thinking about moral virtue. This current paper explores the various conceptual understandings of “the mean” in Aristotelian and in Confucian thought. It begins with an explanatory sketch of “the mean” as understood in Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics, and then in a second section goes on to explore “the mean” as presented in classical Confucianism. The third section of this paper offers some reflections oriented toward a tentative formulation of a modified conception of “the mean” as it might be construed from a humanistic Marxist perspective. (shrink)

If political dialogue is to identify and redress existing forms of injustice, participants in the dialogue must be able to appeal to the concept of objectivity in order to exchange claims, attitudes, and background beliefs which distort or conceal various forms of injustice. The conceptions of objectivity traditionally employed in liberal democratic political philosophy are not well-suited to play this role because they are insufficiently sensitive to the social and ideological pluralism of modern societies. Some liberal political philosophers have recently (...) offered more context-sensitive and pluralistic conceptions of objectivity, requiring participants in political dialogue to frame their demands for justice in terms of a conception of justice acceptable to all participants in the dialogue. I argue that this conception of objectivity constitutes an improvement over traditional liberal conceptions. However, it is ultimately unacceptable because it does not take adequate account of the limited and distorted knowledge that members of dominant social groups tend to possess about the oppression experienced by members of subordinate and marginalized groups. As a result, this conception of objectivity wrongly deems the demands for justice voiced by members of subordinate and marginalized groups to be subjective simply because they seem unreasonable from the limited and distorting standpoint of dominant social groups. (shrink)

Long‐term potentiation and long‐term depression are thought to be cellular mechanisms contributing to learning and memory. Although the physiological phenomena have been well characterized, little consensus of their underlying molecular mechanisms has emerged. One reason for this may be the under‐appreciated complexity of the signaling pathways that can arise if key signaling molecules are discretely localized within the synapse. Recent findings suggest an unanticipated degree of structural organization at the synapse, and improved methods in cellular imaging of living tissue have (...) provided much‐needed information about the intracellular dynamics of Ca2+, thought to be critical for both LTP and LTD. In this review, we briefly summarize some of these developments, and show that a more complete understanding of cellular signaling depends on the successful integration of traditional biochemistry and molecular biology with the spatial and temporal details of synaptic ultrastructure. Biophysically realistic computer simulations can have an important role in bridging these disciplines. BioEssays 24:1130–1144, 2002. © 2002 Wiley‐Periodicals, Inc. (shrink)

Wittgenstein was centrally concerned with the puzzling nature of the mind, mathematics, morality and modality. He also developed innovative views about the status and methodology of philosophy and was explicitly opposed to crudely "scientistic" worldviews. His later thought has thus often been understood as elaborating a nuanced form of naturalism appealing to such notions as "form of life", "primitive reactions", "natural history", "general facts of nature" and "common behaviour of mankind". And yet, Wittgenstein is strangely absent from much of the (...) contemporary literature on naturalism and naturalising projects. This is the first collection of essays to focus explicitly on the relationship between Wittgenstein and naturalism. The volume is divided into four sections, each of which addresses a different aspect of naturalism and its relation to Wittgenstein's thought. The first section considers how naturalism could or should be understood. The second section deals with some of the main problematic domains—consciousness, meaning, mathematics—that philosophers have typically sought to naturalise. The third section explores ways in which the conceptual nature of human life might be continuous in important respects with animals. The final section is concerned with the naturalistic status and methodology of philosophy itself. This book thus casts a fresh light on many classical philosophical issues and brings Wittgensteinian ideas to bear on a number of current debates-for example experimental philosophy, neo-pragmatism and animal cognition/ethics-in which naturalism is playing a central role. (shrink)

Accounting educators are in the midst of creating new opportunities for students to enhance their abilities to recognize ethical dilemmas, establish criteria by which to make ethical decisions, and establish support mechanisms and strategies to facilitate their ethical decision-making. CPA firms, professional organizations and state boards of accountancy are co-operating to increase requirements for ethics education for candidates taking the CPA exam. The current situation is confusing and sub-optimal regarding the use of precious learning time in college programs. A new (...) dialogue between the three stakeholders, creative learning approaches, and additional resources can lead to a more consistent and optimal learning paradigm regarding the ethics education of accountants. Research evaluating the effectiveness of various approaches is needed to effectively apply limited resources in an area critical to the reputation capital of the accounting profession. (shrink)

The early nineteenth century was a time between empires in German-speaking lands, following the collapse of the holy Roman empire in 1806. This was also the time at which modern concepts of nations, nationalism, and the state entered theological discourse, bound together with emerging notions of world historical progress. From this time until the First World War, the task of conceptualizing national identity and the nature of the ‘Christian state’ became a pressing theological problem. This essay seeks to locate Schleiermacher’s (...) reflections on the Christian state within this developing problematic. Schleiermacher’s philosophical and theological works closely engaged emerging ideas of the nation, state, and historical progress. However, he departed from the more totalizing affirmations of national spirit and the Christian state of many of his contemporaries, arguing for a more limited conception of the state as a point of transition in the ongoing historical development of the reign of God. (shrink)