Responding to Randall and Gibson''s (1990) call for more rigorous methodologies in empirically-based ethics research, this paper develops propositions — based on both previous ethics research as well as the larger organizational behavior literature — examining the impact of attitudes, leadership, presence/absence of ethical codes and organizational size on corporate ethical behavior. The results, which come from a mail survey of 149 companies in a major U.S. service industry, indicate that attitudes and organizational size are the best predictors of ethical (...) behavior. Leadership and ethical codes contribute little to predicting ethical behavior. The paper concludes with an assessment of the relevant propositions, as well as a delineation of future research needs. (shrink)

This book candidly reports the experiences of one middle school principal for 160 consecutive days with little or no editing. The material is much more than the typical case study. The events are presented in context; the results of actions taken are seen in the daily lives of all affected.

This book provides an integral exploration of God, Jesus, and the Bible that provides a new unifying framework for Christian consciousness in our contemporary world. The bigger, closer, and more human God of Jesus hidden behind the traditional Trinity is God-beyond-us, God-beside-us, and God-being-us: divine consciousness in all its modes.

When people encounter potential hazards, their expectations and behaviours can be shaped by a variety of factors including other people's expressions of verbal likelihood. What is the impact of such expressions when a person also has numeric likelihood estimates from the same source? Two studies used a new task involving an abstract virtual environment in which people learned about and reacted to novel hazards. Verbal expressions attributed to peers influenced participants’ behaviour toward hazards even when numeric estimates were also available. (...) Namely, verbal expressions suggesting that the likelihood of harm from a hazard is low yielded more risk taking with respect to said hazard. There were also inverse collateral effects, whereby participants’ behaviour and estimates regarding another hazard in the same context were affected in the opposite direction. These effects may be based on directionality and relativity cues inferred from verbal likelihood expressions. (shrink)

1 Evidence-based policy requires researchers to provide the answers to ecological questions that are of interest to policy makers. To find out what those questions are in the UK, representatives from 28 organizations involved in policy, together with scientists from 10 academic institutions, were asked to generate a list of questions from their organizations. 2 During a 2-day workshop the initial list of 1003 questions generated from consulting at least 654 policy makers and academics was used as a basis for (...) generating a short list of 100 questions of significant policy relevance. Short-listing was decided on the basis of the preferences of the representatives from the policy-led organizations. 3 The areas covered included most major issues of environmental concern in the UK, including agriculture, marine fisheries, climate change, ecosystem function and land management. 4 The most striking outcome was the preference for general questions rather than narrow ones. The reason is that policy is driven by broad issues rather than specific ones. In contrast, scientists are frequently best equipped to answer specific questions. This means that it may be necessary to extract the underpinning specific question before researchers can proceed. 5 Synthesis and applications. Greater communication between policy makers and scientists is required in order to ensure that applied ecologists are dealing with issues in a way that can feed into policy. It is particularly important that applied ecologists emphasize the generic value of their work wherever possible. (shrink)

In Pagans & Christians in the City, Steven D. Smith argues that in contrast to ancient Rome, ancient Christianity, following Judaism, located the sacred outside the world, desacralizing the cosmos and everything in it—including the political order. It thereby introduced a political dualism and potentially contending allegiances. Although Smith’s argument is right so far as it goes, it underplays the role of Christianity’s immanent dimension in subverting the Roman empire and the sacral pattern of antiquity. This division of (...) authority not only undermined the Roman empire and antique sacral political order more generally—it also subverts the modern state, which, in the work of Hobbes and Rousseau, sought to remarry what Western Christianity divorced. (shrink)

We report the identification of a recurrent, 520-kb 16p12.1 microdeletion associated with childhood developmental delay. The microdeletion was detected in 20 of 11,873 cases compared with 2 of 8,540 controls and replicated in a second series of 22 of 9,254 cases compared with 6 of 6,299 controls. Most deletions were inherited, with carrier parents likely to manifest neuropsychiatric phenotypes compared to non-carrier parents. Probands were more likely to carry an additional large copy-number variant when compared to matched controls. The clinical (...) features of individuals with two mutations were distinct from and/or more severe than those of individuals carrying only the co-occurring mutation. Our data support a two-hit model in which the 16p12.1 microdeletion both predisposes to neuropsychiatric phenotypes as a single event and exacerbates neurodevelopmental phenotypes in association with other large deletions or duplications. Analysis of other microdeletions with variable expressivity indicates that this two-hit model might be more generally applicable to neuropsychiatric disease. © 2010 Nature America, Inc. All rights reserved. (shrink)

Scientific authorship serves to identify and acknowledge individuals who “contribute significantly” to published research. However, specific authorship norms and practices often differ within and across disciplines, labs, and cultures. As a consequence, authorship disagreements are commonplace in team research. This study aims to better understand the prevalence of authorship disagreements, those factors that may lead to disagreements, as well as the extent and nature of resulting misbehavior. Methods include an international online survey of researchers who had published from 2011 to (...) 2015. Of the 6673 who completed the main questions pertaining to authorship disagreement and misbehavior, nearly half reported disagreements regarding authorship naming; and discipline, rank, and gender had significant effects on disagreement rates. Paradoxically, researchers in multidisciplinary teams that typically reflect a range of norms and values, were less likely to have faced disagreements regarding authorship. Respondents reported having witnessed a wide range of misbehavior including: instances of hostility, undermining of a colleague’s work during meetings/talks, cutting corners on research, sabotaging a colleague’s research, or producing fraudulent work to be more competitive. These findings suggest that authorship disputes may contribute to an unhealthy competitive dynamic that can undermine researchers’ wellbeing, team cohesion, and scientific integrity. (shrink)

Authorship is commonly used as the basis for the measurement of research productivity. It influences career progression and rewards, making it a valued commodity in a competitive scientific environment. To better understand authorship practices amongst collaborative teams, this study surveyed authors on collaborative journal articles published between 2011 and 2015. Of the 8364 respondents, 1408 responded to the final open-ended question, which solicited additional comments or remarks regarding the fair distribution of authorship in research teams. This paper presents the analysis (...) of these comments, categorized into four main themes: disagreements, questionable behavior, external influences regarding authorship, and values promoted by researchers. Results suggest that some respondents find ways to effectively manage disagreements in a collegial fashion. Conversely, others explain how distribution of authorship can become a “blood sport” or a “horror story” which can negatively affect researchers’ wellbeing, scientific productivity and integrity. Researchers fear authorship discussions and often try to avoid openly discussing the situation which can strain team interactions. Unethical conduct is more likely to result from deceit, favoritism, and questionable mentorship and may become more egregious when there is constant bullying and discrimination. Although values of collegiality, transparency and fairness were promoted by researchers, rank and need for success often overpowered ethical decision-making. This research provides new insight into contextual specificities related to fair authorship distribution that can be instrumental in developing applicable training tools to identify, prevent, and mitigate authorship disagreement. (shrink)

Judgments of direct comparisons, probabilities, proportions, and ranks can all be considered referent-specific judgments, for which a good estimate requires a target to be compared against...

This volume explores the role of some of the most prominent twentieth-century philosophers and political thinkers as teachers. It examines what obstacles they confronted as teachers and how they overcame them in conveying truth to their students in an age dominated by ideological thinking.

This collection of essays, offered in honor of the distinguished career of prominent political philosophy professor Clifford Orwin, brings together internationally renowned scholars to provide a wide context and discuss various aspects of the virtue of “humanity” through the history of political philosophy.

This collection of essays, offered in honor of the distinguished career of prominent political philosophy professor Clifford Orwin, brings together internationally renowned scholars to provide a wide context and discuss various aspects of the virtue of “humanity” through the history of political philosophy.

Introduction, W G Runciman Social Evolution in Primates: The Role of Ecological Factors and Male Behaviour, Carel P van Schaik Determinants of Group Size in Primates: A General Model, R I M Dunbar Function and Intention in the Calls of Non-Human Primates, Dorothy L Cheney & Robert M Seyfarth Why Culture is Common, but Cultural Evolution is Rare, Robert Boyd & Peter J Richerson An Evolutionary and Chronological Framework for Human Social Behaviour, Robert A Foley Friendship and the Banker?s Paradox: (...) Other Pathways to the Evolution of Adaptations for Altruism, John Tooby & Leda Cosmides The Early Prehistory of Human Social Behaviour: Issues of Archaeological Inference and Cognitive Evolution, Steven Mithen The Emergence of Biologically Modern Populations in Europe: A Social and Cognitive ?Revolution??, Paul Mellars Responses to Environmental Novelty: Changes in Men?s Marriage Strategies in a Rural Kenyan Community, Monique Borgerhoff Mulder Genetic Language Impairment: Unruly Grammars, M Gopnik, J Dalalakis, S E Fukuda, S Fukuda & E Kehayia The Emergence of Cultures among Wild Chimpanzees, Christophe Boesch Terrestriality, Bipedalism and the Origin of Language, Leslie C Aiello Conclusions, John Maynard Smith. (shrink)

This is a contribution to a Book symposium on The Limits of Free Will: Selected Essays by Paul Russell. Russell provides replies to three critics of The Limits of Free Will. The first reply is to Robert Wallace and focuses on the question of whether there is a conflict between the core compatibilist and pessimist components of the "critical compatibilist" position that Russell has advanced. The second reply is to Angela Smith's discussion of the "narrow" interpretation of moral (...) responsibility responsibility (as defended by R. Jay Wallace) and how best to respond to it. The third and last reply is concerned with Christopher Bennett's criticism of Russell's views concerning "motivational scepticism" and the possibility of pure practical reasons. (shrink)

R. Scott Smith argues that it is only theism, and not naturalism, that can deliver us knowledge. In this brief essay, I focus on the phenomenon of intentionality as articulated and developed by Smith and explore implications of his thesis for metaphysics, philosophy of religion, and philosophical theology.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:"The Fittest Man in the Kingdom":Thomas Reid and the Glasgow Chair of Moral PhilosophyPaul Wood (bio)Paul Wood Paul Wood is at the Department of History, University of Victoria, PO Box 3045, MS 7381, Victoria BC V8W 3P4 Canada. email: [email protected] August 1996Revised January 1997Notes. An earlier version of this paper was delivered at a plenary session of the 23rd International Hume Conference held at the University of (...) Nottingham. For comments and/or references, the author wishes to thank Roger Emerson, Carol Gibson-Wood, Knud Haakonssen, Ian Simpson Ross, Stephen Snobelen, M. A. Stewart, and the anonymous Hume Studies referees. For permission to cite and quote from manuscripts, he is grateful to the Keeper of the Manuscripts of Scotland as well as to the Librarians of Aberdeen University Library, Edinburgh University Library, Glasgow University Archives and Business Records Centre, Glasgow University Library (Department of Special Collections), the Mitchell Library Glasgow, and Dr. Williams' Library.1. Although little information survives regarding Law's teaching, we do know that he discussed Pufendorf in his classes; see Christine Mary King [Shepherd], "Philosophy and Science in the Arts Curriculum of the Scottish Universities in the Seventeenth Century," (Unpublished Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Edinburgh, 1974), 177. Carmichael's edition of Pufendorf first appeared in Glasgow in 1718, and a second edition was published in Edinburgh in 1724 while Hume was still a student there.2. The surviving correspondence between the two men from this period is to be found in The Letters of David Hume, ed. J.Y.T. Greig, 2 vols. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1932), I 32-35; 36-40; 45-48 (hereafter abbreviated as HL).3. The first detailed discussion of the 1745 election appeared in the introduction to David Hume, A Letter from a Gentleman to His Friend in Edinburgh, edited by Ernest C. Mossner and John V. Price (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1967). This account has recently been challenged in Roger L. Emerson, "The 'Affair' at Edinburgh and the 'Project' at Glasgow: The Politics of Hume's Attempts to become a Professor," in Hume and Hume's Connexions, edited by M. A. Stewart and John P. Wright (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1994), 1-22; and M. A. Stewart, The Kirk and the Infidel (Lancaster: Lancaster University Publications Office, 1995). For historically sensitive contextual analysis of Hume's philosophical relations with Hutcheson, see inter alia James Moore, "Hume and Hutcheson," in Stewart and Wright, 23-57, and M. A. Stewart, Warmth in the Cause of Virtue (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, forthcoming).4. In January 1752, "Mr. Smith read an Account of some of Mr. David Hume's Essays on Commerce" to the Society, and Hume was elected a member in 1753; see Notices and Documents Illustrative of the Literary History of Glasgow, During the Greater Part of Last Century, edited by W. J. Duncan (Glasgow: T. D. Morison, 1886), 132-133. Hume's failed candidacy is discussed in Emerson, "The 'Affair' at Edinburgh," 14-16, and Ian Simpson Ross, The Life of Adam Smith (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1995), 112-113. Smith's Glasgow colleague from 1751 to 1755, William Cullen, was also sympathetic to Hume's philosophy, as was John Millar, who was elected Professor of Law in 1761. On Cullen and Hume see J.R.R. Christie, "Ether and the Science of Chemistry: 1740-1790," in Conceptions of Ether: Studies in the History of Ether Theories 1740-1900, edited by G. N. Cantor and M.J.S. Hodge (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981), 90-96.5. David Hume to William Strahan, 26 October 1775, HL II 301.6. See, for example, The Works of Thomas Reid, D.D., edited by Sir William Hamilton, 4th ed. (Edinburgh: Maclachlan and Stewart, 1854), 30n; James McCosh, The Scottish Philosophy, Biographical, Expository, Critical, from Hutcheson to Hamilton (London: Macmillan, 1875), 36; James Veitch, "Philosophy in the Scottish Universities," Mind 2 (1877): 207-234 (209).7. John Rae, Life of Adam Smith (London and New York: Macmillan, 1895); William Robert Scott, Francis Hutcheson: His Life, Teaching and Position in the History of Philosophy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1900); idem., Adam Smith as Student and Professor (Glasgow: Jackson... (shrink)

This paper explores one facet of Paul Russell’s unique “critical compatibilist” position on moral responsibility, which concerns his rejection of R. Jay Wallace’s “narrow construal” of moral responsibility as a concept tied exclusively to the Strawsonian reactive attitudes of resentment, indignation, and guilt. After explaining Russell’s critique of Wallace’s view, the paper considers a Wallace-inspired challenge based on the idea that questions of moral responsibility raise distinct issues of “fairness” that apply only to a narrow subset of the Strawsonian (...) reactive attitudes. The paper offers a defense of Russell’s view against this challenge. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:"The Fittest Man in the Kingdom":Thomas Reid and the Glasgow Chair of Moral PhilosophyPaul Wood (bio)Paul Wood Paul Wood is at the Department of History, University of Victoria, PO Box 3045, MS 7381, Victoria BC V8W 3P4 Canada. email: [email protected] August 1996Revised January 1997Notes. An earlier version of this paper was delivered at a plenary session of the 23rd International Hume Conference held at the University of (...) Nottingham. For comments and/or references, the author wishes to thank Roger Emerson, Carol Gibson-Wood, Knud Haakonssen, Ian Simpson Ross, Stephen Snobelen, M. A. Stewart, and the anonymous Hume Studies referees. For permission to cite and quote from manuscripts, he is grateful to the Keeper of the Manuscripts of Scotland as well as to the Librarians of Aberdeen University Library, Edinburgh University Library, Glasgow University Archives and Business Records Centre, Glasgow University Library (Department of Special Collections), the Mitchell Library Glasgow, and Dr. Williams' Library.1. Although little information survives regarding Law's teaching, we do know that he discussed Pufendorf in his classes; see Christine Mary King [Shepherd], "Philosophy and Science in the Arts Curriculum of the Scottish Universities in the Seventeenth Century," (Unpublished Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Edinburgh, 1974), 177. Carmichael's edition of Pufendorf first appeared in Glasgow in 1718, and a second edition was published in Edinburgh in 1724 while Hume was still a student there.2. The surviving correspondence between the two men from this period is to be found in The Letters of David Hume, ed. J.Y.T. Greig, 2 vols. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1932), I 32-35; 36-40; 45-48 (hereafter abbreviated as HL).3. The first detailed discussion of the 1745 election appeared in the introduction to David Hume, A Letter from a Gentleman to His Friend in Edinburgh, edited by Ernest C. Mossner and John V. Price (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1967). This account has recently been challenged in Roger L. Emerson, "The 'Affair' at Edinburgh and the 'Project' at Glasgow: The Politics of Hume's Attempts to become a Professor," in Hume and Hume's Connexions, edited by M. A. Stewart and John P. Wright (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1994), 1-22; and M. A. Stewart, The Kirk and the Infidel (Lancaster: Lancaster University Publications Office, 1995). For historically sensitive contextual analysis of Hume's philosophical relations with Hutcheson, see inter alia James Moore, "Hume and Hutcheson," in Stewart and Wright, 23-57, and M. A. Stewart, Warmth in the Cause of Virtue (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, forthcoming).4. In January 1752, "Mr. Smith read an Account of some of Mr. David Hume's Essays on Commerce" to the Society, and Hume was elected a member in 1753; see Notices and Documents Illustrative of the Literary History of Glasgow, During the Greater Part of Last Century, edited by W. J. Duncan (Glasgow: T. D. Morison, 1886), 132-133. Hume's failed candidacy is discussed in Emerson, "The 'Affair' at Edinburgh," 14-16, and Ian Simpson Ross, The Life of Adam Smith (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1995), 112-113. Smith's Glasgow colleague from 1751 to 1755, William Cullen, was also sympathetic to Hume's philosophy, as was John Millar, who was elected Professor of Law in 1761. On Cullen and Hume see J.R.R. Christie, "Ether and the Science of Chemistry: 1740-1790," in Conceptions of Ether: Studies in the History of Ether Theories 1740-1900, edited by G. N. Cantor and M.J.S. Hodge (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981), 90-96.5. David Hume to William Strahan, 26 October 1775, HL II 301.6. See, for example, The Works of Thomas Reid, D.D., edited by Sir William Hamilton, 4th ed. (Edinburgh: Maclachlan and Stewart, 1854), 30n; James McCosh, The Scottish Philosophy, Biographical, Expository, Critical, from Hutcheson to Hamilton (London: Macmillan, 1875), 36; James Veitch, "Philosophy in the Scottish Universities," Mind 2 (1877): 207-234 (209).7. John Rae, Life of Adam Smith (London and New York: Macmillan, 1895); William Robert Scott, Francis Hutcheson: His Life, Teaching and Position in the History of Philosophy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1900); idem., Adam Smith as Student and Professor (Glasgow: Jackson... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:THE MUNUS OF TRANSMITTING HUMAN LIFE: A NEW APPROACH TO I-IUMANAE VITAE JANET E. SMITH University of Dallas Irving, Texas 'TIRE ONLY ACQUAINTANCE 1bhat most rea;ders have with the Latin of Humanae Vitae is the tit1le. It is likey that fow laymen and perhaps eV'en fow schofars make ire:ferenoe to the Latin text; indeed, it is ireported that I-Iumanae Vitae was originally composed in ltalian, and it seems (...) that aH available translations of the text al'e based primarily on the Italian V'ersion. But since the official text of Humanae Vitae is in Latin and since translations are necessa11ily deficient, we shouild not be surprised that the ava:ilahle translations fail to convey a:M the nuances of the official text. (Latin, of course, is tihe langua:ge in which all official documents of the Church are written.) This study seeks to show that attenti¥eness to certain words fa the Latin text, most particularly the word munus, uncovers important eonnections between Humanae Vitae and pe['spect[ves of the Church, perspectives particularly highlighted in the documents of Vatican II. It also seeks to show that the La.tin provides greater philosophical precision for certain key teaohings of the text, most particularly section 11: "each and every maritail act must remain open to proc11eation." It is ii.mportant to note that some of the crucial Latin words of the document cal'ry connotations tihat cannot possibly be captured ihy 1any one English word. Indeed, some of the words convey concepts and attitudes that are quite foreign to speak:iers of modern English; to convey the meaning of some terms requires a. fairly lengthy expl,ication of notions not immed :iate1ly and directly graspaible hy ail readers. Even to the reade[' of Latin, the text does not 'easily ~eld its secrets. The 385 386 JANET E. SMITH Latin of the document has no identifiahle souTee of reliabJe deoipherment; it is a kind of " modern " 0 1 r " Church " Latin, which is an odd comhinat~on of elassical Latin and the lang1uage the Ohurch ha:s deve1oped oveil.' the centuries. The method of translation employed here has invo1 lved consultation of classical and medieval dictionaries, reference to arguably rep-!l1esentative classical and medieval 1 authors, tracing of the word 'being ioonsidered through t1he documents of Vatican II, con- 'sideration of 1appearance of the word in other Church documents, cross-reference to other uses of the word within Huma,nae Vitae itself, and reference to the Italian" 1 original." 1 l In preparation for this article reference was made to six English translations : (a) the translation done by the NC News Service, made widely available by the Daughters of Saint Paul, Of Human Life (Boston, Mass.: Daughters of St. Paul, 1968), hereafter referred to as the "usual translation" and designated by HY; (b) the translation by the Catholic Truth Society printed in John Horgan, Humanae Vitae and the Bishops (Shannon, Ireland: Irish University Press, 1972), 33-53; this translation was modified and reprinted in (c) The Pope Speaks 13 (1969): 329-346, and in (d) the Vatican Press Office translation, " Encyclical Letter on the Regulation of Births " in Vatican II: More Post-Conciliar Doauments, ed. Austin Flannery, O.P. (Northport, N. Y.: Costello Publishing Company, 1982), 397-416; (e) the translation by Rev. Marc Calegari, S.J., Humanae Vitae (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1978), which has undergone a further, as of yet unpublished, revision. 'There is one translation (f) that was made entirely from the Latin, by Rev. A. J. Durand, Humanae Vitae: A New Translation (Bethlehem, Pa.: Catechetical Communications; no date given); it is, though, not widely available. Rev. Calegari, in private communication with this author, noted that the document was originally written in Italian, though the Latin text is the official text. He also stated that the modern language versions were made from the Italian text. My comparisons of the translations of Humanae Vitae with the Italian and the Latin versions indicate that Rev. Calegari is correct in saying that most modern versions are based on the Italian, though a few, most notably that by the Catholic Truth Society, have clearly made reference to the... (shrink)

This book is the authorized political biography of Kenneth Waltz. The theoretical work of Kenneth Neal Waltz (June 8, 1924 - May 12, 2013) during the last half of the twentieth century in international relations theory is known by virtually everyone in this scholarly field. He is among the few likely still to be cited in the last half of the twenty-first century. Then, as now, he no doubt has followers within the realist camp who see him as an earlier (...) luminary as well as his critics drawn to the lightning-rod quality of his work. Paul Viotti identifies the intellectual sources and experiences leading to the ideas that underlie Waltz's theoretical work. Viotti has been granted unfettered access to Waltz's files at Columbia, in his residences in Manhattan and Maine, and in archives at Oberlin, and uses these documents to paint a thorough, insightful biography bolstered by some of Waltz's previously-unexplored work. Through a series of interviews with Waltz about his life-starting with his German great-grandparents' immigration to the US in the 19th century-this biography produces personal insights into the development of his theoretical and policy-based contributions. (shrink)

There have been a number of attempts to apply mechanism-related concepts to the notion of extended cognition. Such accounts appeal to the idea that extended cognitive routines are realized by mechanisms that transcend some salient border or boundary. The present paper describes some of the challenges confronting the effort to develop a mechanistic account of extended cognition. In particular, it describes five problems that must be resolved if we are to make sense of the idea that extended cognition can be (...) understood via an appeal to extended mechanisms. These problems are intended to guide the philosophical effort to develop a mechanistic account of extended cognition. (shrink)

Professor Kai Nielsen is one of the most forceful proponents of the view that theological assertions have no factual reference because they are compatible with any empirical state of affairs; no evidence, it is alleged, is allowed to count as falsification of such assertions, and therefore they spuriously purport to be what they are not. In this he follows the well-known essay by Professor Antony Flew in which the same argument was advanced, and Nielsen's own most recent contribution on the (...) subject in Religious Studies should be read against the background of his earlier controversy with Professors John Hick and George Mavrodes in The Canadian Journal of Theology. In this latest article he broadens the canvas to question the significance of applying language and concepts appropriate to the realm of empirical observation to anything that is held to transcend it; and this is the substance of Part II of his paper, in which he engages in debate with Professor Ian Crombie, treading well-worn ground that has been the subject of innumerable philosophical discussions. The rest of the paper, however, is a restatement of his earlier contention, and it is with this more limited issue that I shall be concerned in what follows. For I believe that Nielsen is wrong in two quite fundamental respects: he is mistaken in supposing that theological assertions are compatible with any empirical state of affairs: he bases his critique of theological assertions on a far too uncritical appraisal of the principles of verification and falsification in the case of ordinary factual statements. If I am right, the larger questions raised in Part II will still remain open, but it is high time that the ‘verification-falsification argument’ should be shown to be unfounded. (shrink)

"Evidence of a flight from reason is as old as human record-keeping: the fact of it certainly goes back an even longer way. Flight from science specifically, among the forms of rational inquiry, goes back as far as science itself... But rejection of reason is now a pattern to be found in most branches of scholarship and in all the learned professions."--from the introduction In the widely acclaimed Higher Superstition: The Academic Left and Its Quarrels with Science, Paul R. (...) Gross and Norman Levitt offered a spirited response to the "science bashers," raising serious questions about the growing criticism of scientific practice from humanists and social scientists on the academic left. Now, in The Flight from Science and Reason, Gross and Levitt are joined by Martin W. Lewis to bring together a diverse and distinguished group of scholars, scientists, and experts to engage these questions from a wide variety of perspectives. The authors take on critics of science whose views range from moderate to extreme, from social constructivists to deconstructionists, from creationists and feminists to Afro-centrists. They discuss the rise of "alternative medicine" and radical environmentalism (here skewered as "ecosentimentalism"). They explain why the "uncertainty principle" does not work as a metaphor for ambiguity, and why "chaos theory" cannot be invoked without an understanding of mathematics. Throughout, they grapple with the paradox inherent in arguing with opponents who contend that reason itself, and thus logic, is suspect. Distributed for the New York Academy of Sciences. (shrink)

Der Autor zeigt auf, dass die Idee der Freiheit fur Karl Jaspers die Grundlage seines politischen Denkens und seiner politischen Ethik darstellt. Jaspers beschreibt, dass der Mensch aus Freiheit und Verantwortung heraus handeln soll, wobei die Motivatoren dafur Vernunft und Liebe seien. So kann der unbedingten Forderung entsprochen werden. Auch in der Politik soll diese Maxime umgesetzt werden. Dementsprechend ist Ethik in Freiheit die Grundlegung von Jaspers' politischem Denken. -Der Autor hat uns mit diesem Buch Karl Jaspers und seine Idee (...) der Freiheit neu nahe gebracht. Moge es viele Fruchte der Freiheit tragen und verbreiten!- "O. Univ.-Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. Manfried Welan (Universitat fur Bodenkultur Wien)" -Der Aufgabe, eine politische Ethik bei Jaspers zu rekonstruieren, hat sich Paul R. Tarmann in vorbildlicher Weise unterzogen.- "O. Univ.-Prof. Dr. Norbert Leser + (Universitat Wien)"". (shrink)

Using astrology as a case study, this paper attempts to establish a criterion for demarcating science from pseudoscience. Numerous reasons for considering astrology to be a pseudoscience are evaluated and rejected; verifiability and falsifiability are briefly discussed. A theory is said to be pseudoscientific if and only if (1) it has been less progressive than alternative theories over a long period of time, and faces many unsolved problems, but (2) the community of practitioners makes little attempt to develop the theory (...) towards solutions of the problems, shows no concern for attempts to evaluate the theory in relation to others, and is selective in considering confirmations and disconfirmations. This criterion has the interesting consequence that a theory can be scientific at one time but pseudoscientific at another. (shrink)

This book presents Robert S. Hartman’s formal theory of value and critically examines many other twentieth century value theorists in its light, including A.J. Ayer, Kurt Baier, Brand Blanshard, Paul Edwards, Albert Einstein, William K. Frankena, R.M. Hare, Nicolai Hartmann, Martin Heidegger, G.E. Moore, P.H. Nowell-Smith, Jose Ortega y Gasset, Charles Stevenson, Paul W. Taylor, Stephen E. Toulmin, and J.O. Urmson.

This article explores the notion of the Web-extended mind, which is the idea that the technological and informational elements of the Web can sometimes serve as part of the mechanistic substrate that realizes human mental states and processes. It is argued that while current forms of the Web may not be particularly suited to the realization of Web-extended minds, new forms of user interaction technology as well as new approaches to information representation do provide promising new opportunities for Web-based forms (...) of cognitive extension. In addition, it is suggested that extended cognitive systems often rely on the emergence of social practices and conventions that shape how a technology is used. Web-extended minds may thus depend on forms of socio-technical co-evolution in which social forces and factors play just as important a role as do the processes of technology design and development. (shrink)