Contemporary scholarship tends to view Albert Camus as a modern, but he himself was conscious of the past and called the transition from Hellenism to Christianity “the true and only turning point in history.” For Camus, modernity was not fully comprehensible without an examination of the aspirations that were first articulated in antiquity and that later received their clearest expression in Christianity. These aspirations amounted to a fundamental reorientation of human life in politics, religion, science, and philosophy. Understanding the nature (...) and achievement of that reorientation became the central task of _Christian Metaphysics and Neoplatonism_. Primarily known through its inclusion in a French omnibus edition, it_ _has remained one of Camus’ least-read works, yet it marks his first attempt to understand the relationship between Greek philosophy and Christianity as he charted the movement from the Gospels through Gnosticism and Plotinus to what he calls Augustine’s “second revelation” of the Christian faith. Ronald Srigley’s translation of this seminal document helps illuminate these aspects of Camus’ work. His freestanding English edition exposes readers to an important part of Camus’ thought that is often overlooked by those concerned primarily with the book’s literary value and supersedes the extant McBride translation by retaining a greater degree of literalness. Srigley has fully annotated _Christian Metaphysics_ to include nearly all of Camus’ original citations and has tracked down many poorly identified sources. When Camus cites an ancient primary source, whether in French translation or in the original language, Srigley substitutes a standard English translation in the interest of making his edition accessible to a wider range of readers. His introduction places the text in the context of Camus’ better-known later work, explicating its relationship to those mature writings and exploring how its themes were reworked in subsequent books. Arguing that Camus was one of the great critics of modernity through his attempt to disentangle the Greeks from the Christians, Srigley clearly demonstrates the place of _Christian Metaphysics_ in Camus’ oeuvre. As the only stand-alone English version of this important work—and a long-overdue critical edition—his fluent translation is an essential benchmark in our understanding of Camus and his place in modern thought. (shrink)

"In association with the Eric Voegelin Society.".

"Albert Camus' Critique of Modernity presents the decisive vision of that ultimate project: to critique Christianity, modernity, and the relationship between them and also to restore the Greek wisdom that had been eclipsed by both ...

This paper responds critically to Ronald Srigley’s groundbreaking 2011 study Albert Camus’ Critique of Modernity. Srigley’s book reasserts Camus’ credentials as a deeply serious thinker, whose literary and philosophical oeuvre was dedicated to rethinking modernity on the basis of critical reassessments of the West’s entire premodern heritage. Yet we challenge whether Camus was ever, even in his final writings, so uncompromisingly anti-modern as Srigley contends. Srigley’s attempt to present Camus as committed to a return to (...) the Greeks, on the basis of a total critique of modernity as deleteriously post-Christian, forces him to occlude important distinctions in Camus’ thought: those between unity and totality, rebellion and revolution. By contrast, we compare Camus’ defence of modern rebellion with Blumenberg’s argument in The Legitimacy of the Modern Age: finding justification for this rebellion in the deep problem faced by Christian theology of resolving the ‘problem of evil’. Finally, we suggest that Srigley overplays the extent of Camus’ ‘Hellenic’ critique of the Christian heritage, in contrast to Christian theodicy and eschatology, which serve to rationalize avoidable suffering. (shrink)

The genetically-modified-organism (GMO) experience has been prominent in motivating science, industry, and regulatory communities to address the social and ethical dimensions of nanotechnology. However, there are some significant problems with the GMO-nanotech analogy. First, it overstates the likelihood of a GMO-like backlash against nanotechnology. Second, it invites misconceptions about the reasons for public engagement and social and ethical issues research as well as their appropriate roles in nanotech research, development, application, commercialization, and regulatory processes. After an explication of the standard (...) GMO-Nanotech analogy, these two problems are discussed in turn. (shrink)

Humans are complex social beings. To understand human behaviour, an integrated perspective is required - one which considers both what we regularly do and what motivates us. Personality, Values, Culture uses an evolutionary perspective to look at the similarities and differences in personality and values across modern societies. Integrating research on personality and human values into a functional framework that highlights their underlying compatibilities, Fischer describes how personality is shaped by the complex interplay between genes and the environment, both over (...) the course of human evolution and within the lifespan of individuals. He proposes a gene-culture coevolution model of personality and values to explain how and why people differ around the world and how genes, economics, social conditions, and climate jointly shape personality. (shrink)

The present research was guided by the important need for a diversion from an economistic to a humanistic management perspective of sustainability. It concentrates on the current importance of digital strategic communication, particularly regarding the concept of corporate sustainability in the context of the conflict arena of the oil industry. The focus is on the comparison of the persuasive effectiveness of the framings of corporate versus activist NGO website communications and their impacts on the perception of the triple pillars of (...) sustainability and, corporate greenwashing with respect to a proposed bituminous oil pipeline in Canada. The results of these pro and con messages were analyzed within the Elaboration Likelihood Model demonstrating a “non expert” peripheral route to a positive persuasion from exposure to the corporate communication versus an “expert” central route to a negative persuasion from the activist NGO communication. Subsequent exposure to the opposite website communication further emphasized the predominance of a negative persuasion based on both groups now being motivated as “expert” viewers of these strategic communications, leading to an important perception of greenwashing by participants resulting from vague claims, visual and linguistic contents of the corporate communication versus the mainly verifiable factual ones in that of the activist NGO. (shrink)

This research examines the relationship between corporate social responsibility (CSR) and company stock valuation across three regions of the world. After a brief introduction, the article gives an overview of the evolving definition of CSR as well as a discussion of the ways in which this construct has been operationalized. Presentation of the potential impact of corporate social performance on firm financial performance follows, including investor characteristics, the rationale behind their choices, and their influence on the marketplace for securities worldwide. (...) The unique method used to select socially responsible investments is then provided that also includes a description of the quantitative techniques employed in the analyses. Results are offered subsequently, and the close describes implications for global enterprises as socially responsible investments. (shrink)

This paper examines the relation of social media to political discourse in light of Bruno Latour’s notion of political discourse being (innately and positively) “crooked” (se courber) in his book, An Inquiry into Modes of Existence: An Anthology of the Moderns. In this book, Latour argues for a geometry of political rhetoric and its claims to truth that is the reverse of the Western philosophic tradition’s. This article looks at that geometry from the aspect of rhetorical strategies of fragment and (...) punctuation, empowered by the form and use of social media. It examines such in the presidential campaign of Donald Trump in the United States of America during 2015-2016. Contrasts and connections to earlier, ‘old media,’ mediums and technologies, such as that of modern journalism and radio are made. (shrink)

ABSTRACT:The notion of stakeholder salience based on attributes (e.g., power, legitimacy, urgency) is applied in the family business setting. We argue that where principal institutions intersect (i.e., family and business); managerial perceptions of stakeholder salience will be different and more complex than where institutions are based on a single dominant logic. We propose that (1) whereas utilitarian power is more likely in the general business case, normative power is more typical in family business stakeholder salience; (2) whereas in a general (...) business context legitimacy is socially constructed; for family stakeholders, legitimacy is based on heredity; and (3) whereas temporality and criticality are somewhat independent in general-business urgency, they are linked in the family business case because of family ties and family-centered non-economic goals. We apply this theoretical framework to position and integrate the contributions to this special section ofBusiness Ethics Quarterlyon “Stakeholder Theory, Ethics, Corporate Social Responsibility, and Family Enterprise.”. (shrink)

‘New media’ information technologies were recently thought to be so intrinsically different from ‘old,’ mass media, technologies that fascism would no longer be possible. Through new media information and communication technologies, the political ‘mass’ was supposedly replaced by the ‘crowd’ or the ‘swarm,’ and an old mass media replaced by a new media serving individual ‘information needs.’ However, extreme right-wing political populism and encroaching fascism today are world-wide phenomena in developed countries, not only despite new media, but partly because of (...) it. How is this possible? (shrink)

Today, I will discuss aspects of my project on the Spirit of Information. I will present part of a chapter of a new book that I am working on documentation and expression, where I discuss information as an attempt to break away from documentation during modernity and today. AARON SWARTZ E O ESPÍRITO DA INFORMAÇÃOResumo Hoje vou discutir aspectos do meu projeto sobre "O espírito da informação". Irei apresentar parte do capítulo de um novo livro em que estou trabalhando sobre (...) documentação e expressão, onde discuto a informação como uma tentativa de romper com a documentação durante a modernidade e hoje. (shrink)

This article was delivered as a public lecture at the Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, March 24, 2015. It discusses normative information and library ethics and then formal and critical information and library ethics, the latter being the preconditions to the existence of information access and user’s choices. Information professionals have strong responsibilities in creating the possibilities for information, and therefore, for truth and rights to truth, by their choices in constructing and making available or not information. Professional formal (...) and critical ethics are, thus, preconditions to information access and choices by users. ÉTICA INFORMACIONAL: AS PERSPECTIVAS NORMATIVA E CRÍTICA ResumoEste artigo foi apresentado como conferência pública na Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, em 24 de março de 2015. Discute regras referentes à informação e a ética biblioteconômica e, daí, critérios formais e críticos para a informação e a ética biblioteconômica, a última como precondição para existência do acesso à informação e escolha dos usuários. Os profissionais da informação têm grande responsabilidades na criação de possibilidades para informação e, daí, à verdade e ao direito à verdade, a partir de suas escolhas na construção e no fazer acessível ou não a informação. Critérios formais e ética crítica são, então, precondições para o acesso e escolha de informações pelos usuários. (shrink)

ABSTRACT:The notion of stakeholder salience based on attributes (e.g., power, legitimacy, urgency) is applied in the family business setting. We argue that where principal institutions intersect (i.e., family and business); managerial perceptions of stakeholder salience will be different and more complex than where institutions are based on a single dominant logic. We propose that (1) whereas utilitarian power is more likely in the general business case, normative power is more typical in family business stakeholder salience; (2) whereas in a general (...) business context legitimacy is socially constructed; for family stakeholders, legitimacy is based on heredity; and (3) whereas temporality and criticality are somewhat independent in general-business urgency, they are linked in the family business case because of family ties and family-centered non-economic goals. We apply this theoretical framework to position and integrate the contributions to this special section ofBusiness Ethics Quarterlyon “Stakeholder Theory, Ethics, Corporate Social Responsibility, and Family Enterprise.”. (shrink)

The present research was guided by the important need for a diversion from an economistic to a humanistic management perspective of sustainability. It concentrates on the current importance of digital strategic communication, particularly regarding the concept of corporate sustainability in the context of the conflict arena of the oil industry. The focus is on the comparison of the persuasive effectiveness of the framings of corporate versus activist NGO website communications and their impacts on the perception of the triple pillars of (...) sustainability and, corporate greenwashing with respect to a proposed bituminous oil pipeline in Canada. The results of these pro and con messages were analyzed within the Elaboration Likelihood Model demonstrating a “non expert” peripheral route to a positive persuasion from exposure to the corporate communication versus an “expert” central route to a negative persuasion from the activist NGO communication. Subsequent exposure to the opposite website communication further emphasized the predominance of a negative persuasion based on both groups now being motivated as “expert” viewers of these strategic communications, leading to an important perception of greenwashing by participants resulting from vague claims, visual and linguistic contents of the corporate communication versus the mainly verifiable factual ones in that of the activist NGO. (shrink)

Aesthetic appreciation of landscape is by no means limited to the sensuous enjoyment of sights and sounds. It very often has a reflective, cognitive element as well. This sometimes incorporates scientific knowledge, e.g.,geological or ecological; but it can also manifest what this article will call 'metaphysical imagination', which sees or seems to see in a landscape some indication, some disclosure of how the world ultimately is. The article explores and critically appraises this concept of metaphysical imagination, and some of the (...) roles it can play in our aesthetic encounters. (shrink)

Husserl has finally begun to be recognized as the precursor of current interest in intentionality — the first to have a general theory of the role of mental representations in the philosophy of language and mind. As the first thinker to put directedness of mental representations at the center of his philosophy, he is also beginning to emerge as the father of current research in cognitive psychology and artificial intelligence.

In the following comments, I will raise no major objection to Furtak’s main line of argument. My questions are essentially requests for clarification. They focus on three key expressions: first, the “unified” character of emotional agitation and intentionality; second, the unique “mode of cognition” claimed for emotions; and third, the “emotional a priori.”.

This book explores questions surrounding material memory, culture and technology, and examines the active and constitutive role that technical artefacts play in our practices of memory. Interdisciplinary in nature, the book’s argument includes themes unusual in memory studies, such as the production of technology and the concept of nature.

This paper presents an algorithm for analyzing social situations within a robot. We contribute a method that allows the robot to use information about the situation to select interactive behaviors. This work is based on interdependence theory, a social psychological theory of interaction and interpersonal situation analysis. Experiments demonstrate the utility of the information provided by the situation analysis algorithm and of the value of this method for guiding robot interaction. We conclude that the situation analysis algorithm offers a viable, (...) principled, and general approach to explore interactive robotics problems. (shrink)

Over the last twenty-five years, philosophers have offered increasingly more sophisticated accounts of the nature and wrongness of racism. But very little in this literature discusses what is distinctive to anti-Asian racism. This gap exists partly because philosophy, like much of U.S. culture, has been influenced by civic narratives that center anti-black racism in ways that leave vague anti-Asian racism. We discuss this conceptual gap and its effects on understanding anti-Asian racism. In response to this problem, we offer an account (...) of anti-Asian racism not beholden to the black-white binary. In our view, xenophobia, as a form of civic ostracism, plays a distinctive role in anti-Asian racism and admits of a complexity that is worth philosophical study. We also begin an exploration of a correlated phenomenon, namely xenophilia. It has a peculiar, often pernicious, presence in anti-Asian racism and sexism, but it is morally more complex than xenophobia. (shrink)

§1. Intentionality; §2. Husserl's Phenomenological Conception of Intentionality; §3. The Distinction between Content and Object; §4. Husserl's Theory of Content: Noesis and Noema; §5. Noema and Object; §6. The Sensory Content of Perception; §7. The Internal Structure of Noematic Sinne; §8. Noema and Horizon; §9. Horizon and Background Beliefs.

This edited collection examines the intersections between career guidance, social justice and neo-liberalism. Contributors offer an original and global discussion of the role of career guidance in the struggle for social justice and evaluate the field from a diverse range of theoretical positions. Through a series of chapters that positions career guidance within a neoliberal context and presents theories to inform an emancipatory direction for the field, this book raises questions, offers resources and provides some glimpses of an alternative future (...) for work. Drawing on education, sociology, and political science, this book addresses the theoretical basis of career guidance's involvement in social justice as well as the methodological consequences in relation to career guidance research. (shrink)

The Minos is one of thirty-five dialogues that ancient editors and commentators regarded as one of the authentic works of Plato. Although it is now regarded as spurious, in both the classical and modern eras, the Minos was treated as a suitable problematic introduction to Plato's Laws. The co-authors (Houlgate and Hathaway) believe that it is still an excellent introduction to the Laws. It has philosophical significance whether or not it is authentic. It is the philosophical significance that is discussed (...) in this article. (shrink)

Managers in ethnic businesses are confronted with ethical dilemmas when taking action based on ethnic ties; and often as a result, they increase the already vulnerable positions of these businesses and their stakeholders. Many of these dilemmas concern the capital that is generated through variations in the use of ethnic stakeholder social ties. The purpose of this paper is to suggest a stakeholder-based model of social capital formation, mediated by various forms of ethnic ties, to explore the duality of ethnicity: (...) it can aid and hinder an ethnic business. Drawing upon the social capital/economic development, stakeholder salience, ethnic businesses literatures, and on social identity theory, we develop a cyclical model of relationships among ethnic business stakeholder attributes and social capital, as mediated by three-way Simmelian bonding and bridging ties, which then, in turn, affects the ethnic stakeholder attributes. We argue that the development of bridging yet strong ties through this cyclical process is relevant for the improvement of the positions of ethnic businesses in terms of both economic success and social responsibility. Specifically, we suggest that, given the duality of ethnicity in business, managers can prioritize stakeholder relationships based upon how these stakeholder ties affect social capital. (shrink)

How far is it true that the aesthetic appreciation of nature obscures, rather than illuminates, its objects? Do we not humanise nature, read our own subjectivity into it, sentimentally distort it, in our aesthetic – as distinct from scientific – approaches? I argue that not all humanising falsifies, and that we can respect nature as well as annex its forms and expressive qualities in our aesthetic appreciation. Respecting/humanising are explored as two of the chief key concepts for an understanding of (...) the complexity of aesthetic attitudes to nature. (shrink)

First, I briefly characterize Dretske’s particular naturalization project, emphasizing his naturalistic reconstruction of the notion of representation. Second, I note some apparent similarities between his notion of representation and Husserl’s notion of intentionality, but I find even more important differences. Whereas Husserl takes intentionality to be an intrinsic, phenomenological feature of thought and experience, Dretske advocates an “externalist” account of mental representation. Third, I consider Dretske’s treatment of qualia, because he takes it to show that his representational account of mind (...) succeeds in naturalizing even the “subjective” features of experience. I claim that Dretske's argument for his account of qualia turns on an ambiguous characterization of qualia. I conclude that he succeeds in naturalizing qualia only if qualia are understood as nonphenomenological features of experience and that he therefore has less to say than he thinks about the subjective life of beings such as us. (shrink)

Ronald W Hepburn; Art, Truth and the Education of Subjectivity, Journal of Philosophy of Education, Volume 24, Issue 2, 30 May 2006, Pages 185–198, https://doi.

In the first section of my paper, I want to consider the “paradoxes of complementarity” between polarised notions such as the quantum concepts of “wave” and “particle.” I will argue that if we treat this topic with all the “gravity” it deserves, we will be able to understand once and for all why this debate can never be completely resolved. In the second section, I want to consider the notion of “parody.” At the end, astute readers must determine forthemselves whether (...) I can be trusted to mean what I say, or whether this is all merely ironic, a post-modern hoax, one that undercuts the very boundaries it installs. (shrink)