Social positioning theory, in defending a general social ontology, is a particular extension of critical realism. It is a theory of social constitution that clarifies how items including human bein...

I propose a theory aimed at advancing scholarly research in social entrepreneurship. By highlighting the key trade-off between value creation and value capture and explaining when situations of simultaneous market and government failure may arise, I suggest that social entrepreneurship is the pursuit of sustainable solutions to neglected problems with positive externalities. I further discuss the situations in which problems with externalities are likely to be neglected and derive the central goal and logic of action of social entrepreneurs, (...) in contrast to commercial entrepreneurs. Overall, this article provides a conceptual framework that allows understanding the growing phenomena of social entrepreneurship and its role in the functioning of modern society. (shrink)

Social ontology is the study of the nature and basic structure of social reality. It is a rapidly growing field at the intersection of philosophy and social science that has the potential to greatly assist social researchers of all kinds. One of the longest running projects in social ontology has developed over the better part of the last four decades through the work of Tony Lawson and the Cambridge Social Ontology Group. Cambridge social ontology has its origins in an assessment (...) that the widespread explanatory failure of modern mainstream economics, as well as in the social sciences more generally, is due to sustained ontological neglect and the resulting use of research methods that are inappropriate given the nature of social material. The Cambridge project's aim has been to rectify this neglect through conducting explicit and sustained inquiry into the nature of social material with a view to elaborating an explanatorily power conception of social ontology. The result is social positioning theory. This book is an introduction to the key features of social positioning theory, provides context as to the theory's development, and illustrates how social positioning theory can clarify the natures of phenomena such as gender and the corporation. Cambridge Social Ontology is for social scientists, philosophers and all readers interested in gaining a better understanding of the nature of social phenomena. (shrink)

The article addresses the emerging framework of ‘positioning theory’, which has become influential in educational theory. We will present the central concepts and ideas of ‘positioning theory’ and subsequently how they are being used to contribute to educational theory. We will focus on an article by Svend Brinkmann where he uses ‘positioning theory’ as the foundation for moral education. Seemingly, Brinkmann uses ‘positioning theory’ rather uncritically in an attempt to ‘strengthen’ the educational process by (...) introducing fixed categorisations and concepts to it. Contrary to this approach, we will use the educational theories of Knud Grue-Sørensen and Gert Biesta to emphasise how we instead should recognise what is here defi ned as the ‘weakness’ of educational theory, and how we have to consider both the adaptive element of education as well as the emancipatory element of it. (shrink)

This paper makes use of a new development in social psychology, Positioning Theory, the study of the way rights and duties are ascribed, attributed and justified to and by individuals in local social groups. It links this theory with a generally Vygotsky inspired approach to understanding the means by which people are brought into terrorist networks. Focusing on the use of the Internet as a device to bring mentor and novice together, the unique role of chat rooms and (...) personal conversations made possible by the Internet in this psychological process is revealed. Examining Vygotsky's ideas about the influence of a collective identity on the development of individual identities by psychological symbiosis in the Zone of Proximal Development sheds new light on the positioning of terrorist recruits. Incorporating Wittgenstein's concept of hinges into understanding the groundings of individual positions explains how the jihadist form of life turns on the unexamined grounding of beliefs about the non-believers. (shrink)

Why is it important for people to agree on and articulate shared reasons for just laws, rather than whatever reasons they personally find compelling? What, if any, practical role does public reason play in liberal democratic politics? We argue that the practical role of public reason can be better appreciated by examining the confluence of normative and positive political theory; the former represented here by liberal social contract theory of John Rawls and others, and the latter by (...) rational choice or game theory. Citizens in a diverse society face a practical as well as a moral problem. How can they have confidence that others will reciprocate their commitment to supporting governing principles that depart from their own ideal conceptions of truth and value in order to be reasonable to all? Citizens face a practical problem of mutual assurance that public reason helps them solve, and solve as a matter of common knowledge. The solution, on both views, requires citizens’ reciprocal commitment to basing law on a system of shared reasons. Both views place public reason at the core of liberal democratic politics in conditions of diversity, and for quite similar reasons. Our argument illustrates the complementary roles of positive and values-based analysis in constitutional design. (shrink)

This article sets out the basic principles of a new theory of intellectual interventions centred round the notion of positioning. Intellectual interventions are seen as ways in which intellectuals locate themselves in the socio-political and intellectual field, thereby also positioning others. The existing contributions to the study of intellectuals often take the self-concepts or dispositions of intellectuals to be fixed, and they tend to focus on the causes and motivations behind intellectual interventions. Challenging this perspective, the theory proposed (...) substitutes a vocabulary of effects for the existing vocabulary of intentions and causes: rather than speculating on the sociological determinants or purposes that underlie an intellectual intervention, this theory explores its effects for the symbolic and institutional recognition of the author(s) and for the diffusion of the ideas propagated. (shrink)

While it is well known that Roland Barthes consecrated his last lecture series at the Collège de France to the theme of the preparation of a novel, it is less known that his first writings on literature focused on the same question, but from a less individual point of view. The interrogation that motivates Le Degré zéro de l’écriture (1953) and many of the essays in Essais critiques (1964) is the question of how to write, of what procedures one can (...) follow in preparing a literary work of art. At the two ends of Barthes’s career one finds the same themes of writing as action and of the writer’s possibilities and motivations in writing. The article explores the hypothesis that there is ground for a positive theory of the author in Barthes’s work. It seeks to discover similarities between writings from the early and the late period that concern three themes: (1) writing as action, (2) the deferral of its achievement, and (3) writing as representation. The article ends with a discussion on the relationships between Barthes’s positive theory of the author and related important issues that have been discussed recently in literary criticism. (shrink)

While it is well known that Roland Barthes consecrated his last lecture series at the Collège de France to the theme of the preparation of a novel, it is less known that his first writings on literature focused on the same question, but from a less individual point of view. The interrogation that motivates Le Degré zéro de l’écriture (1953) and many of the essays in Essais critiques (1964) is the question of how to write, of what procedures one can (...) follow in preparing a literary work of art. At the two ends of Barthes’s career one finds the same themes of writing as action and of the writer’s possibilities and motivations in writing. The article explores the hypothesis that there is ground for a positive theory of the author in Barthes’s work. It seeks to discover similarities between writings from the early and the late period that concern three themes: (1) writing as action, (2) the deferral of its achievement, and (3) writing as representation. The article ends with a discussion on the relationships between Barthes’s positive theory of the author and related important issues that have been discussed recently in literary criticism. (shrink)

ABSTRACTIn this article I examine Axel Honneth’s positive theory of recognition. While commentators agree that Honneth’s theory qualifies as a positive theory of recognition, I believe that the deeper reason for why this is an apt characterisation is not yet fully understood. I argue that, instead of considering only what it is to recognise another person and what it means for a person to be recognised, we need to focus our attention on how Honneth pictures (...) the practice of recognition as a whole, which according to him works to make societies into places of greater freedom. This conception of recognition as a freedom-enhancing practice is supposed to provide a solution to a key problem of Frankfurt School critical theory, namely of how to determine the emancipatory practice in which critical theory is rooted, which becomes apparent as soon as one turns to the context in which Honneth originally develops his theory of recognition. At the end of the article, I offer a few reasons for doubting the overly positive picture of the practice of recognition that Honneth provides us with. (shrink)

While it is well known that Roland Barthes consecrated his last lecture series at the Collège de France to the theme of the preparation of a novel, it is less known that his first writings on literature focused on the same question, but from a less individual point of view. The interrogation that motivates Le Degré zéro de l’écriture (1953) and many of the essays in Essais critiques (1964) is the question of how to write, of what procedures one can (...) follow in preparing a literary work of art. At the two ends of Barthes’s career one finds the same themes of writing as action and of the writer’s possibilities and motivations in writing. The article explores the hypothesis that there is ground for a positive theory of the author in Barthes’s work. It seeks to discover similarities between writings from the early and the late period that concern three themes: (1) writing as action, (2) the deferral of its achievement, and (3) writing as representation. The article ends with a discussion on the relationships between Barthes’s positive theory of the author and related important issues that have been discussed recently in literary criticism. (shrink)

While it is well known that Roland Barthes consecrated his last lecture series at the Collège de France to the theme of the preparation of a novel, it is less known that his first writings on literature focused on the same question, but from a less individual point of view. The interrogation that motivates Le Degré zéro de l’écriture (1953) and many of the essays in Essais critiques (1964) is the question of how to write, of what procedures one can (...) follow in preparing a literary work of art. At the two ends of Barthes’s career one finds the same themes of writing as action and of the writer’s possibilities and motivations in writing. The article explores the hypothesis that there is ground for a positive theory of the author in Barthes’s work. It seeks to discover similarities between writings from the early and the late period that concern three themes: (1) writing as action, (2) the deferral of its achievement, and (3) writing as representation. The article ends with a discussion on the relationships between Barthes’s positive theory of the author and related important issues that have been discussed recently in literary criticism. (shrink)

In positive theories, we have an axiom scheme of comprehension for positive formulas. We study here the “generalized positive” theory GPK∞+. Natural models of this theory are hyperuniverses. The author has shown in [2] that GPK∞+ interprets the Kelley Morse class theory. Here we prove that GPK∞+ + ACWF and the Kelley-Morse class theory with the axiom of global choice and the axiom “On is ramifiable” are mutually interpretable. This shows that GPK∞+ + (...) ACWF is a “strong” theory since “On is ramifiable” implies the existence of a proper class of inaccessible cardinals. (shrink)

We generalise the properties $\mathsf {OP}$, $\mathsf {IP}$, k- $\mathsf {TP}$, $\mathsf {TP}_{1}$, k- $\mathsf {TP}_{2}$, $\mathsf {SOP}_{1}$, $\mathsf {SOP}_{2}$, and $\mathsf {SOP}_{3}$ to positive logic, and prove various implications and equivalences between them. We also provide a characterisation of stability in positive logic in analogy with the one in full first-order logic, both on the level of formulas and on the level of theories. For simple theories there are the classically equivalent definitions of not having $\mathsf {TP}$ (...) and dividing having local character, which we prove to be equivalent in positive logic as well. Finally, we show that a thick theory T has $\mathsf {OP}$ iff it has $\mathsf {IP}$ or $\mathsf {SOP}_{1}$ and that T has $\mathsf {TP}$ iff it has $\mathsf {SOP}_{1}$ or $\mathsf {TP}_{2}$, analogous to the well-known results in full first-order logic where $\mathsf {SOP}_{1}$ is replaced by $\mathsf {SOP}$ in the former and by $\mathsf {TP}_{1}$ in the latter. Our proofs of these final two theorems are new and make use of Kim-independence. (shrink)

This paper addresses the application of positioning theory, a new emerging theoretical scheme on the issue of cultural stereotyping. First, a critical conceptual analysis of the words‘cultural stereotype’is presented. Secondly, the basic tenets of positioning theory are outlined. Finally, it will be demonstrated how the framework of positioning theory can be used to analytically refine the concept of cultural stereotype. The main upshot of the article is that within social psychology, the concept of cultural stereotype is used (...) in a conceptually vague and blurred way and that, with the necessary conceptual refinements, other research-agendas on stereotypes will have to be tackled if social psychologists want to contribute anything to the societal efforts of changing stereotypes. (shrink)

An interesting positive theory is the GPK theory. The models of this theory include all hyperuniverses (see [5] for a definition of these ones). Here we add a form of the axiom of infinity and a new scheme to obtain GPK∞+. We show that in these conditions, we can interprete the Kelley‐Morse theory (KM) in GPK∞+ (Theorem 3.7). This needs a preliminary property which give an interpretation of the Zermelo‐Fraenkel set theory (ZF) in GPK∞+. (...) We also see what happens in the original GPK theory. Before doing this, we first need to study the basic properties of the theory. This is done in the first two sections. (shrink)

While it is well known that Roland Barthes consecrated his last lecture series at the Collège de France to the theme of the preparation of a novel, it is less known that his first writings on literature focused on the same question, but from a less individual point of view. The interrogation that motivates Le Degré zéro de l’écriture (1953) and many of the essays in Essais critiques (1964) is the question of how to write, of what procedures one can (...) follow in preparing a literary work of art. At the two ends of Barthes’s career one finds the same themes of writing as action and of the writer’s possibilities and motivations in writing. The article explores the hypothesis that there is ground for a positive theory of the author in Barthes’s work. It seeks to discover similarities between writings from the early and the late period that concern three themes: (1) writing as action, (2) the deferral of its achievement, and (3) writing as representation. The article ends with a discussion on the relationships between Barthes’s positive theory of the author and related important issues that have been discussed recently in literary criticism. (shrink)

In a recent issue of the Journal of Business Ethics, Filipe M. Santos posits that social entrepreneurs maximize not on value capture, but on value creation, only satisficing on value capture to fuel operations, reinvesting in growth, whatever the specific combination of institutional means is deemed appropriate. No doubt the analytical framework of value creation and value capture casts new light on the phenomenon of social entrepreneurship, but we think Santos is asking too much by advocating a shift in focus (...) away from the organization. On the contrary, we maintain that by refocusing the theory on the organizational level and away from the system it is possible to understand that not all organizational solutions available to social entrepreneurs are able to create value and not all value capture strategies can serve a social goal. Indeed, there is only one form of organization that fulfills the criteria of maximizing on value creation, while satisficing on value capture and that is the social enterprise. (shrink)

This paper assesses James M. Buchanan's claim of following a positive approach in stark contrast to the normative approach to public finance of Richard A. Musgrave. The goal of this paper is to shed light on the foundations of modern American public finance by analysing one aspect of the methodology of its two most prominent fathers. I show (1) that it is difficult to distinguish Musgrave's and Buchanan's theories of public goods along the positive/normative dividing line and (2) (...) that Buchanan's theory can also be considered normative. In the first three parts, I follow the Weberian methodological tradition in looking for value judgements in the theories, and by reflecting on the nature of ideal types. In the last part, I propose a broader interpretation of Buchanan's methodological stance within the academic context of the 1960s. (shrink)

The idea of the positive theory is to avoid the Russell's paradox by postulating an axiom scheme of comprehension for formulas without "too much" negations. In this paper, we show that the axiom of choice is inconsistent with the positive theory $GPK^+ \infty$.

This article is the text of a commentary on a talk delivered by Mark Textor entitled 'Brentano's Positing Theory of Existence' at King's College London in December 2015. It contains ideas on implementing Textor's Neo-Brentanian theory of existence in a natural deduction proof system for negative free logic.

In Part 1 of this wide-ranging interview, Tony Lawson discussed his role in, and relationship to, Critical Realism as well as various defences of mathematical modelling in economics. In Part 2 he t...

In Part 1 of this wide-ranging interview Tony Lawson first discusses his role in the formation of IACR and how he relates to the generalized use of the term ‘Critical Realism’. He then provides com...

“The Nature of Belief Systems” sets forth a Hobson's choice between rule by the politically ignorant masses and rule by the ideologically constrained—which is to say, the doctrinaire—elites. On the one hand, lacking comprehensive cognitive structures, such as ideological “belief systems,” with which to understand politics, most people learn distressingly little about it. On the other hand, a spiral of conviction seems to make it difficult for the highly informed few to see any aspects of politics but those that confirm (...) the cognitive structures that organize their political perceptions. This is a troubling situation for any consequentialist democratic political theory, according to which what is crucial is the electorate's (and subsidiary decision makers') ability to make informed policy judgments, not their possession of willful but uninformed political “attitudes.” Any political theorist who does not take democracy to be an end in itself (regardless of its consequences) should be concerned about Converse's findings. (shrink)

We continue the analysis of foundations of positive model theory as introduced by Ben Yaacov and Poizat. The objects of this analysis are $h$-inductive theories and their models, especially the “positively” existentially closed ones. We analyze topological properties of spaces of types, introduce forms of quantifier elimination, and characterize minimal completions of arbitrary $h$-inductive theories. The main technical tools consist of various forms of amalgamations in special classes of structures.

Recent debates in psychopathy studies have articulated concerns about false-positives in assessment and research sampling. These are pressing concerns for research progress, since scientific quality depends on sample quality, that is, if we wish to study psychopathy we must be certain that the individuals we study are, in fact, psychopaths. Thus, if conventional assessment tools yield substantial false-positives, this would explain why central research is laden with discrepancies and nonreplicable findings. This paper draws on moral psychology in order to develop (...) tentative theory-driven exclusion criteria applicable in research sampling. Implementing standardized procedures to discriminate between research participants has the potential to yield more homogenous and discrete samples, a vital prerequisite for research progress in etiology, epidemiology, and treatment strategies. (shrink)

In the social science literature, conspiracy theories are commonly characterized as theories positing a vast network of evil and preternaturally effective conspirators, and they are often treated, either explicitly or implicitly, as dubious on this basis. This characterization is based on Richard Hofstadter’s famous account of ‘the paranoid style’. However, many significant conspiracy theories do not have any of the relevant qualities. Thus, the social science literature provides a distorted account of the general category ‘conspiracy theory’, conflating it with (...) a subset of that category that encourages unfairly negative evaluations of conspiracy theories. Generally, when evaluating theories, one should focus on the most plausible versions; the merit of a theory is independent of the existence of less plausible versions of it. By ignoring this and glossing over important distinctions, many academics, especially in the social sciences, have misclassified many conspiracy theories and in doing so have contributed to an epistemically unfair depiction of them. Further, even theories that genuinely fit the description of ‘the paranoid style’ cannot be completely dismissed on that basis. All conspiracy theories ought to be judged on the totality of their individual merits. (shrink)

This paper presents arguments that challenge what I call the fact/value separability thesis: the idea, roughly, that factual judgements can be made independently of judgements of value. I will look at arguments to the effect that facts and values are entangled in the following areas of the scientific process in economics: theory development, economic concept formation, economic modelling, hypothesis testing, and hypothesis acceptance.

We develop positive model theory, which is a non first order analogue of classical model theory where compactness is kept at the expense of negation. The analogue of a first order theory in this framework is a compact abstract theory: several equivalent yet conceptually different presentations of this notion are given. We prove in particular that Banach and Hilbert spaces are compact abstract theories, and in fact very well-behaved as such.

This paper is a general introduction to Positive Logic, where only what we call h-inductive sentences are under consideration, allowing the extension to homomorphisms of model-theoric notions which are classically associated to embeddings; in particular, the existentially closed models, that were primitively defined by Abraham Robinson, become here positively closed models. It accounts for recent results in this domain, and is oriented towards the positivisation of Jonsson theories.

Summary This article approaches post-war debates about the relationship between normative political theory and empirical political science from a French perspective. It does so by examining Raymond Aron's commentaries on a series of articles commissioned by him for a special issue of the Revue française de science politique on this theme as well as through an analysis of his wartime dialogue with the neo-Thomist philosopher, Jacques Maritain. Following a consideration of Aron's critique of contemporary approaches to this issue in (...) France, we discuss his own distinctive attempt to draw normative theory and empirical science into the same orbit by tracing the interaction of these two elements in his work from the late 1930s to the mid-1960s. (shrink)

A growing body of empirical evidence suggests that positive emotions, engagement, relationships, meaning, and accomplishments may be a robust framework for the measurement, management and development of wellbeing. While the original PERMA framework made great headway in the past decade, its empirical and theoretical limitations were recently identified and critiqued. In response, Seligman clarified the value of PERMA as a framework for and not a theory of wellbeing and called for further research to expand the construct. To expand (...) the framework into organizational contexts, recent meta-analyses and systematic literature reviews showed that physical health, mindset, physical work environments and economic security could be seen as essential contextually relevant building blocks for work-related wellbeing and are therefore prime candidates to expand the PERMA framework for use within organizational contexts. Through expanding the original PERMA framework with these four factors, a new holistic approach to work-related wellbeing and work performance was born: the PERMA+4. As such, the purpose of this brief perspective paper is to provide a conceptual overview of PERMA+4 as holistic framework for work-related wellbeing and work performance which extends beyond the predominant componential thinking of the discipline. Specifically, we aim to do so by providing: a brief historical overview of the development of PERMA as a theory for wellbeing, a conceptual overview of PERMA+4 as a holistic framework for work-related wellbeing and work performance, empirical evidence supporting the usefulness of PERMA+4, and charting a course for the second wave of positive organizational psychological research. (shrink)

This paper is a follow-up to [4], in which a mistake in [6] was corrected. We give a strenghtening of the main result on the semantical nonconservativity of the theory of PT−with internal induction for total formulae${$, denoted by PT−in [9]). We show that if to PT−the axiom of internal induction forallarithmetical formulae is added, then this theory is semantically stronger than${\rm{P}}{{\rm{T}}^ - } + {\rm{INT}}\left$. In particular the latter is not relatively truth definable in the former. Last (...) but not least, we provide an axiomatic theory of truth which meets the requirements put forward by Fischer and Horsten in [9]. The truth theory we define is based on Weak Kleene Logic instead of the Strong one. (shrink)

The main purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between flow experience and goal orientation theory, as well as, the differences in flow experience based on the orthogonal model of goal orientation theory. Two hundred and seventy eight athletes completed the Task and Ego Orientation Sport Questionnaire based on how they usually feel. The Flow State Scale was completed thirty minutes after an important competition, along with the challenge-skill ratings, based on how athletes felt during the (...) particular competition. The results indicated that the athletes’ task orientation may be the critical factor for attaining flow in competitive sport, feeling more skillful and estimating the upcoming competition as challenging, while ego orientated athletes lack these elements, which are important for them to get into flow. Additionally, the balance between athletes’ goal orientation preferences seems important for the formation of flow experience. (shrink)

This book offers an interpretation of the work of Theodor Adorno. In contrast to the conventional view that Adorno's is in essence a critical philosophy, Yvonne Sherratt traces systematically a utopian thesis that pervades all the major aspects of Adorno's thought. She places Adorno's work in the context of German Idealist and later Marxist and Freudian traditions, and then analyses his key works to show how the aesthetic, epistemological, psychological, historical and sociological thought interconnect to form a utopian image. The (...) book will be eagerly sought out by students and specialists in philosophy, social and political theory, intellectual history, literary theory and cultural studies. (shrink)

An integrative explanation proposes that culture and gender interact to produce fundamentally different patterns of association between positive and negative emotions. People in independent-based cultures (e.g. the United States) experience emotions in oppositional (i.e. bipolar) ways, whereas people in interdependent-based cultures (e.g. China) experience emotions in dialectic ways. These patterns are stronger for women than men in both cultures. In support of the theory, Study 1 showed that positive and negative emotions are strongly correlated inversely for American (...) women and weakly correlated inversely for American men, but strongly correlated positively for Chinese women and weakly correlated positively for Chinese men. In Study 2, findings for Koreans, although mixed, were closer to the results for Chinese. (shrink)

Unethical pro-organizational behaviors are unethical, but prosocially-motivated, acts intended to benefit one’s organization. This study examines the extent to which employees are willing to perform UPB to benefit a liked leader. Based on social exchange theory, we hypothesized that LMX would mediate the association of interpersonal justice with UPB willingness. Moral identity and positive reciprocity beliefs were examined as moderators. Higher LMX was significantly and positively related to UPB willingness, and the indirect effect of interpersonal justice on UPB (...) via LMX was significant and positive. These findings suggest that LMX and interpersonal justice could have a previously-unexplored dark side. Moral identity had a negative direct relationship with UPB, but it did not moderate the relationship of LMX with UPB. Thus, LMX facilitates UPB willingness even when employees are high in moral identity. LMX is associated with many positive outcomes, but our results show that high LMX may also increase willingness to perform unethical behaviors to benefit one’s leader. These results contribute to the literature by identifying a potential negative outcome associated with high LMX. (shrink)

ABSTRACT People tend to be unable to evaluate themselves accurately in many areas. One such area is their own and others’ morality. The current research explores the self–other moral valuation difference in the context of moral foundation theory. We propose that people generally have a moral positive illusion. Specifically, people overestimate their own morality and underestimate the morality of others. Two studies provide converging evidence that individuals underestimate the average moral valuations of others on the five dimensions of (...) moral foundation theory. In particular, we demonstrate three moderators for moral positive illusion: moral foundation type, gender, and political identity. Specifically, compared with the binding foundations, people have greater moral positive illusions based on the individualizing foundations; compared to men, women have greater moral positive illusions; and compared with liberals, conservatives have greater moral positive illusions based on the binding foundations. (shrink)

This is the first full-length presentation of a republican alternative to the liberal and communitarian theories that have dominated political philosophy in recent years. The latest addition to the acclaimed Oxford Political Theory series, Pettit's eloquent and compelling account opens with an examination of the traditional republican conception of freedom as non-domination, contrasting this with established negative and positive views of liberty. The first part of the book traces the rise and decline of this conception, displays its many (...) attractions, and makes a case for why it should still be regarded as a central political ideal. The second part of the book looks at what the implementation of the ideal would imply for substantive policy-making, constitutional and democratic design, regulatory control and the relation between state and civil society. Prominent in this account is a novel concept of democracy, under which government is exposed to systematic contestation, and a vision of relations between state and society founded upon civility and trust. Pettit's powerful and insightful new work offers not only a unified, theoretical overview of the many strands of republican ideas, but also a new and sophisticated perspective on studies in related fields including the history of ideas, jurisprudence, and criminology. (shrink)

Although a growing body of research has shown the positive impact of ethical leadership on workplace deviance, questions remain as to whether its benefits are consistent across all situations. In this investigation, we explore an important boundary condition of ethical leadership by exploring how employees’ moral awareness may lessen the need for ethical leadership. Drawing on substitutes for leadership theory, we suggest that when individuals already possess a heightened level of moral awareness, ethical leadership’s role in reducing deviant (...) actions may be reduced. However, when individuals lack this strong moral disposition, ethical leadership may be instrumental in inspiring them to reduce their deviant actions. To enhance the external validity and generalizability of our findings, the current research used two large field samples of working professionals in both Turkey and the USA. Results suggest that ethical leadership’s positive influence on workplace deviance is dependent upon the individual’s moral awareness—helpful for those employees whose moral awareness is low, but not high. Thus, our investigation helps to build theory around the contingencies of ethical leadership and the specific audience for whom it may be more influential. (shrink)

This book argues that Plato's Charmides presents a unitary but incomplete argument intended to lead its readers to substantive philosophical insights.

ABSTRACT ABSTRACT: Nietzsche, we are often told, had an account of 'self' or 'mind' or a 'philosophical psychology', in which what he calls our 'drives' play a highly significant role. This underpins not merely his understanding of mind, in particular, of consciousness and action. but also his positive ethics, be they understood as authenticity, freedom, knowledge, autonomy, self-creation, or power. But Nietzsche did not have anything like a coherent account of 'the drives' according to which the self, the relationship (...) between thought and action, or consciousness could be explained; consequently, he did not have a stable account of drives on which his positive ethics could rest. By this, I do not mean that his account is incomplete or that it is philosophically indefensible: both would leave open, misleadingly, the possibility of a rational reconstruction of Nietzsche’s views; both would already assume more unity and coherence than we find in his texts. Specifically, as I show through detailed analysis, Nietzsche provides varied and inconsistent accounts of what a 'drive' is, how much we can know about drives, and the relationship between drives and conscious deliberations about action. I conclude by questioning the hunt for a Nietzschean theory: is this the best way to be reading him? (shrink)