In this chapter, we explore Xenophon’s philosophy of management and identify nine dimensions of business management, as well as the competencies that good management requires. The scientific contribution of this chapter does not only consist in the fact that this is the first publications in which Xenophon’s philosophy of management is systematically analyzed. Historical analysis can also help to question the self-evidence of our contemporary conceptualization of management. Xenophon’s philosophy of management (...) enables us to criticize the contemporary focus on profit maximization and to articulate an intrinsic relation between business and society; to criticize the contemporary disconnectedness of business management and to develop a broader set of individual competencies and know-how that is required for business managers; to criticize the contemporary focus on management and control; and to rehabilitate the role of business management as ability and capacity that involves know-how, actual engagement, and virtuous competencies. Finally, this concept of management challenges contemporary conceptualizations of the differences between private and public management in political philosophical debates. (shrink)

In this article, we philosophically reflect on the nature of business management. We move beyond the political paradigm of the conceptualization of management in order to lay the ground for a philosophy of business management. First, we open-up the self-evident conceptualization of business management in contemporary management practices by comparing ancient and contemporary definitions of management. Second, we develop a framework with six dimensions of the nature of business management that can guide (...) future philosophical and empirical work on the nature of business management: management control, people management, asset management and entrepreneurial action, management as participation, management as responsive action and management as constituting meaning. (shrink)

The philosophy of science has traditionally assumed that knowledge should be organized in the form of theories. From theories propositions can be deduced that can be tested in experiments. Most propositions deduced from theories take the form of if-then statements. For example, if variable A increases, what happens to variable B, assuming that all other variables are held constant? However, an alternative way of organizing knowledge, in the form of producer-product relationships, was proposed by the philosopher E.A. Singer, Jr. (...) and advocated by two of his students, C. West Churchman and Russell L. Ackoff. Whether to structure knowledge in the form of theories or methods is related to the question of whether there is a fundamental difference between the natural and the social sciences. As opposed to Karl Popper’s doctrine of the unity of method, this paper argues that structuring knowledge in the form of methods is appropriate in applied fields, particularly in management where a large part of the task is to achieve agreement among a group of knowing subjects on an appropriate set of actions. (shrink)

Ethnobiology has become increasingly concerned with applied and normative issues such as climate change adaptation, forest management, and sustainable agriculture. Applied ethnobiology emphasizes the practical importance of local and traditional knowledge in tackling these issues but thereby also raises complex theoretical questions about the integration of heterogeneous knowledge systems. The aim of this article is to develop a framework for addressing questions of integration through four core domains of philosophy -epistemology, ontology, value theory, and political theory. In each (...) of these dimensions, we argue for a model of “partial overlaps” that acknowledges both substantial similarities and differences between knowledge systems. While overlaps can ground successful collaboration, their partiality requires reflectivity about the limitations of collaboration and co-creation. By outlining such a general and programmatic framework, the article aims to contribute to developing “philosophy of ethnobiology” as a field of interdisciplinary exchange that provides new resources for addressing foundational issues in ethnobiology and also expands the agenda of philosophy of biology. (shrink)

Scholars have emphasized that decisions about technology can be influenced by philosophy of technology assumptions, and have argued for research that critically questions technological determinist assumptions. Empirical studies of technology management in fields other than K-12 education provided evidence that philosophy of technology assumptions, including technological determinism, can influence the practice of technology leadership. A qualitative study was conducted to a) examine what philosophy of technology assumptions are present in the thinking of K-12 technology leaders, b) (...) investigate how the assumptions may influence technology decision making, and c) explore whether technological determinist assumptions are present. The research design aligned with Corbin and Strauss qualitative data analysis, and employed constant comparative analysis, theoretical sampling, and theoretical saturation of categories. Subjects involved 31 technology directors and instructional technology specialists from Virginia school districts, and data collection involved interviews following a semi-structured protocol, and a written questionnaire with open-ended questions. The study found that three broad philosophy of technology views were widely held by participants, including an instrumental view of technology, technological optimism, and a technological determinist perspective that sees technological change as inevitable. The core category and central phenomenon that emerged was that technology leaders approach technology leadership through a practice of Keep up with technology (or be left behind). The core category had two main properties that are in conflict with each other, pressure to keep up with technology, and the resistance to technological change they encounter in schools. The study found that technology leaders are guided by two main approaches to technology decision making, represented by the categories Educational goals and curriculum should drive technology, and Keep up with Technology (or be left behind). As leaders deal with their perceived experience of the inevitability of technological change, and their concern for preparing students for a technological future, the core category Keep up with technology (or be left behind) is given the greater weight in technology decision making. The researcher recommends that similar qualitative studies be conducted involving technology leaders outside Virginia, and with other types of educators. It is also recommended that data from this or other qualitative studies be used to help develop and validate a quantitative instrument to measure philosophy of technology assumptions, for use in quantitative studies. (shrink)

Applied technological developments are represented by (1) genetic engineering as management tools of biological evolution and (2) socio-economic engineering as management tools of civilizational and socio-cultural development. This binary structure logically follows from the postulated three-module organization of the sustainable evolutionary strategy of the sentient human being. Naturphilosophy once again acquires the status of the basis of the theory of evolution in an explicit way. There is a system of metaphysical postulates and ontological categories derived from the anthropic (...) principle of participation. For modern neoliberal political democracy, bio-power and biopolitics look like the most effective technology for stabilizing the scenarios and trends of the global evolutionary process that are optimal within this ideological system. Conclusions.Transbipolitics in our understanding is a political problematic related to the rationalization of the global evolutionary process. In the coming decades transbipolitics will become the carrier element of the global process of evolution of the noosphere with the consequent complication and increase of cohesion between the individual socio-cultural types that are part of the system of modern globalizing civilization. (shrink)

Like any social science, management and organization sits astride two literary and epistemic disciplines; the empirical and the conceptual. I argue that emphasizing the former to the detriment of the latter, as is often the case in management and organization research, creates a conceptual blindness that compromises progress in the field. I show how adopting a more philosophically attuned methodology buttresses the conceptual tools of management and organization research via deduction, induction, normative grounding, and overcoming the illusion (...) of unanimity. (shrink)

The Philosophy of Information is a new area of research at the intersection of philosophy and computer science [4]. It concerns (a) the critical investigation of the conceptual nature and basic principles of information, including its dynamics (especially computation), utilization (especially computer ethics) and sciences; and (b) the elaboration and application of computational and information-theoretic methodologies to philosophical problems. Past work by members of our group has concentrated on (a), and in this paper we explore (b). In a (...) nutshell, we ask what computer science can do for philosophy, rather than what the latter can do for the former. -/- . (shrink)

The philosophy of science has traditionally assumed that knowledge should be organized in the form of theories. From theories propositions can be deduced that can be tested in experiments. Most propositions deduced from theories take the form of if-then statements. For example, if variable A increases, what happens to variable B, assuming that all other variables are held constant? However, an alternative way of organizing knowledge, in the form of producer-product relationships, was proposed by the philosopher E.A. Singer, Jr. (...) and advocated by two of his students, C. West Churchman and Russell L. Ackoff. Whether to structure knowledge in the form of theories or methods is related to the question of whether there is a fundamental difference between the natural and the social sciences. As opposed to Karl Popper’s doctrine of the unity of method, this paper argues that structuring knowledge in the form of methods is appropriate in applied fields, particularly in management where a large part of the task is to achieve agreement among a group of knowing subjects on an appropriate set of actions. (shrink)

The article analyzes the views on the philosophy of Azerbaijan Enlightenment, the famous Azerbaijani historian of philosophy of the XX century, Enver Mirzekulievich Akhmedov (1920-1984). E.Akhmedov was one of the first scientists who studied the Azerbaijan philosophy of enlightenment in stages and systematically. He briefly referred to the legacy of almost every author, thoroughly studied by him during the period of Azerbaijan Enlightenment. E.Akhmedov managed to create a general philosophical picture of the era of enlightenment in Azerbaijan, (...) which was formed from the beginning of the XIX century and went through a difficult path of development until the 20s of the XX century. Despite the fact that in his works on the history of philosophy he tried to preserve scientific objectivity as much as possible, there is an ideological line of that time in his legacy, which is observed among most of our scientists who conducted research in the field of social sciences during the Soviet period. This moment makes it impossible, without a critical approach, to comprehend within the framework of the modern scientific paradigm, the rich legacy of E.Akhmedov and other historians of philosophy of the Soviet era. The obligatory Marxist-Leninist line of the Soviet era, the search for materialism and atheism in every period and thinker of the history of philosophy, unfortunately, undermines the scientific objectivity of research at this stage. The interpretation of such factors in the legacy of E.Akhmedov and our other scientists, based on scientific and philosophical critical analysis, allows the works of our historians of philosophy of the Soviet period to remain relevant in our time. (shrink)

The critical reflection of the aspects of emotional intelligence can be put on account of the different epistemological perspectives, reflecting a maturity of the concept. There is a need to find consistent empirical evidence for the dimensionality of emotional intelligence and to develop appropriate methods for its correct and useful measurement. A concern of researchers is whether emotional intelligence is a theory of personality, a form of intelligence, or a combination of both. Many studies consider emotional intelligence to be a (...) personal factor associated with competence. But most researchers consider emotional intelligence as an emotional awareness of oneself and others, in addition to professional efficiency and emotional management. DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.19339.11045. (shrink)

MacIntyre argues that management embodies emotivism, and thus is inherently amoral and manipulative. His claim that management is necessarily Weberian is, at best, outdated, and the notion that management aims to be neutral and value free is incorrect. However, new forms of management, and in particular the increased emphasis on leadership which emerged after MacIntyre’s critique was published, tend to support his central charge. Indeed, charismatic and transformational forms of leadership seem to embody emotivism to a (...) greater degree than do more Weberian, bureaucratic forms of management; hence, MacIntyre’s central contention about our emotivistic culture seems to be well founded. Having criticised the details but defended the essence of MacIntyre’s critique of management, this paper sketches a MacIntyrean approach to management and leadership by highlighting the affinities between MacIntyre’s political philosophy and Greenleaf’s concept of servant leadership. (shrink)

In this paper, we argue that the Anthropocene is relevant for philosophy of technology because it makes us sensitive to the ontological dimension of contemporary technology. In §1, we show how the Anthropocene has ontological status insofar as the Anthropocenic world appears as managerial resource to us as managers of our planetary oikos. Next, we confront this interpretation of the Anthropocene with Heidegger’s notion of “Enframing” to suggest that the former offers a concrete experience of Heidegger’s abstract, notoriously difficult, (...) and allegedly totalitarian concept. In consequence, technology in the Anthropocene cannot be limited to the ontic domain of artefacts, but must be acknowledged to concern the whole of Being. This also indicates how the Anthropocene has a technical origin in an ontological sense, which is taken to imply that the issue of human responsibility must be primarily understood in terms of responsivity. In the final section, we show how the Anthropocene is ambiguous insofar as it both accords and discords with what Heidegger calls the “danger” of technology. In light of this ambiguity, the Earth gains ontic-ontological status, and we therefore argue that Heidegger’s unidirectional consideration concerning the relation between being and beings must be reoriented. We conclude that the Anthropocene entails that Heidegger’s consideration of the “saving power” of technology as well as the comportment of “releasement” must become Earthbound, thereby introducing us to a saving Earth. (shrink)

We undeniably live in an information age—as, indeed, did those who lived before us. After all, as the cultural historian Robert Darnton pointed out: ‘every age was an age of information, each in its own way’ (Darnton 2000: 1). Darnton was referring to the news media, but his insight surely also applies to the sciences. The practices of acquiring, storing, labeling, organizing, retrieving, mobilizing, and integrating data about the natural world has always been an enabling aspect of scientific work. Natural (...) history and its descendant discipline of biological taxonomy are prime examples of sciences dedicated to creating and managing systems of ordering data. In some sense, the idea of biological taxonomy as an information science is commonplace. Perhaps it is because of its self-evidence that the information science perspective on taxonomy has not been a major theme in the history and philosophy of science. The botanist Vernon Heywood once pointed out that historians of biology, in their ‘preoccupation with the development of the sciences of botany and zoology… [have] diverted attention from the role of taxonomy as an information science’ (Heywood 1985: 11). More specifically, he argued that historians had failed to appreciate how principles and practices that can be traced to Linnaeus constituted ‘a change in the nature of taxonomy from a local or limited folk communication system and later a codified folk taxonomy to a formal system of information science [that] marked a watershed in the history of biology’ (ibid.). A similar observation could be made about twentieth-century philosophy of biology, which mostly skipped over practical and epistemic questions about information management in taxonomy. The taxonomic themes that featured in the emerging philosophy of biology literature in the second half of the twentieth century were predominantly metaphysical in orientation. This is illustrated by what has become known as the ‘essentialism story’: an account about the essentialist nature of pre- Darwinian taxonomy that used to be accepted by many historians and philosophers, and which stimulated efforts to document and interpret shifts in the metaphysical understanding of species and (natural) classification (Richards 2010; Winsor 2003; Wilkins 2009). Although contemporary debates in the philosophy of taxonomy have moved on, much discussion continues to focus on conceptual and metaphysical issues surrounding the nature of species and the principles of classification. Discussions centring on whether species are individuals, classes, or kinds have sprung up as predictably as perennials. Raucous debates have arisen even with the aim of accommodating the diversity of views: is monism, pluralism, or eliminativism about the species category the best position to take? In addition to these, our disciplines continue to interrogate what is the nature of these different approaches to classification: are they representational or inferential roles of different approaches to classification (evolutionary taxonomy, phenetics, phylogenetic systematics)? While there is still much to learn from these discussions—in which we both actively participate—our aim with this topical collection has been to seek different entrypoints and address underexposed themes in the history and philosophy of taxonomy. We believe that approaching taxonomy as an information science prompts new questions and can open up new philosophical vistas worth exploring. A twenty-first century information science turn in the history and philosophy of taxonomy is already underway. In scientific practice and in daily life it is hard to escape the imaginaries of Big Data and the constant threats of being ‘flooded with data’. In the life sciences, these developments are often associated with the socalled bioinformatics crisis that can hopefully be contained by a new, interdisciplinary breed of bioinformaticians. These new concepts, narratives, and developments surrounding the centrality of data and information systems in the biological and biomedical sciences have raised important philosophical questions about their challenges and implications. But historical perspectives are just as necessary to judge what makes our information age different from those that preceded us. Indeed, as the British zoologist Charles Godfray has often pointed out, the piles of data that are being generated in contemporary systematic biology have led to a second bioinformatics crisis, the first being the one that confronted Linnaeus in the mid-18th century (Godfray 2007). Although our aim is to clear a path for new discussions of taxonomy from an information science-informed point of view, we continue where others in the history, philosophy, and sociology of science have already trod. We believe that an appreciation of biological taxonomy as an information science raises many questions about the philosophical, theoretical, material, and practical aspects of the use and revision of biological nomenclatures in different local and global communities of scientists and citizen scientists. In particular, conceiving of taxonomy as an information science directs attention to the temporalities of managing an accumulating data about classified entities that are themselves subject to revision, to the means by which revision is accomplished, and to the semantic, material, and collaborative contexts that mediate the execution of revisions. (shrink)

In recent years, Nietzsche’s views on (natural) science attracted a considerable amount of scholarly attention. Overall, his attitude towards science tends to be one of suspicion, or ambivalence at least. My article addresses the “Nietzsche and science” theme from a slightly different perspective, raising a somewhat different type of question, more pragmatic if you like, namely: how to be a Nietzschean philosopher of science today? What would the methodological contours of a Nietzschean approach to present-day research areas (such as neuroscience, (...) astrophysics, synthetic biology or climate studies) amount to? In other words, my paper reflects a shift of focus from author studies to extrapolation. The design of my article is as follows. I will start with the question (already widely discussed in the expert literature) to what extent Friedrich Nietzsche (a classical philologist by training) managed to familiarise himself with the natural sciences of his epoch. Subsequently, I will outline some basic methodological and conceptual ingredients of Nietzsche’s philosophy of science, focussing on core issues such as “genealogy”, “interpretation”, “enhancement” and “truth”. Next, I will elucidate Nietzsche’s genealogical methodology with the help of three case studies (three representative samples if you will) taken from Nietzsche’s writings and dealing with physiology, astronomy and neuro-psychology respectively. Finally, I will present the methodological contours of a Nietzschean understanding of contemporary technoscience. (shrink)

Crime is a serious social problem, but its causes are not exclusively social. There is growing consensus that explaining and preventing it requires interdisciplinary research efforts. Indeed, the landscape of contemporary criminology includes a variety of theoretical models that incorporate psychological, biological and sociological factors. These multi-disciplinary approaches, however, have yet to radically advance scientific understandings of crime and shed light on how to manage it. In this paper, using conceptual tools on offer in the philosophy of science in (...) combination with theoretical work represented in this special volume of Psychology, Crime and Law, I provide some perspective on why explanatory progress in criminology has remained elusive and evaluate some positive proposals for attaining it. -/- . (shrink)

Childhood looms large in our understanding of human life as it is a phase through which all adults have passed. Childhood is foundational to the development of selfhood, the formation of interests, values and skills and to the lifespan as a whole. Understanding what it is like to be a child, and what differences childhood makes, are essential for any broader understanding of the human condition. The Routledge Handbook of the Philosophy of Childhood and Children is an outstanding reference (...) source to the key topics, problems and debates in this exciting subject and is the first collection of its kind. Comprising over thirty chapters by a team of international contributors the Handbook is divided into five parts: ¿ Being a child ¿ Childhood and moral status ¿ Parents and children ¿ Children in society ¿ Children and the state. Questions covered include: What is a child? Is childhood a uniquely valuable state, and if so why? Can we generalize about the goods of childhood? What rights do children have, and are they different from adults¿ rights? What gives people a right to parent? What role, if any, ought biology to play in determining who has the right to parent a particular child? What kind of rights can parents legitimately exercise over their children? What roles do relationships with siblings and friends play in the shaping of childhoods? How should we think about sexuality and disabilility in childhood, and about racialised children? How should society manage the education of children, and what values should inform such practices? What is a good school? How are children¿s lives affected by being taken into social care? The Routledge Handbook of the Philosophy of Childhood and Children is essential reading for students and researchers in philosophy of childhood, political philosophy and ethics as well as those in related disciplines such as education, psychology, sociology, social policy, law, social work, youth work, neuroscience and anthropology. (shrink)

Goethe carried out an enormous number of experiments before criticizing Newton's theory of light and colours in the Farbenlehre (1810). He managed to show that Newton's reasoning is based on a rather narrow choice of experiments, in which parameters such as the distance between the prism and the screen are fixed arbitrarily: Newton's famous spectrum (with its green centre) occurs only at a specific distance. Once you reduce the distance, the green centre disappears, and you see the two border spectra (...) instead. Newton can of course explain these border spectra; but things can be explained just as well the other way around: Then you start with a theory based on the two border spectra in order to derive the Newtonian spectrum. Both accounts fit many data (available in Newton and Goethe's days) equally well. Thus by insisting that the step to theory is not forced upon us by "reason and experiments" alone (as Newton would have it), Goethe revealed our own free, creative contribution to theory construction. And surprisingly, his theory of the prismatic colours seems no worse off than Newton's, even taking into account additional criteria of theory choice, such as simplicity or elegance. (shrink)

Sumantra Ghoshal’s condemnation of “bad management theories” that were “destroying good management practices” has not lost any of its salience, after a decade. Management theories anchored in agency theory (and neo-classical economics generally) continue to abet the financialization of society and undermine the functioning of business. An alternative approach (drawn from a more classic institutional, new ecological, and refocused ethical approaches) is reviewed.

This paper shows that during the first half of the 1960s The Journal of Philosophy quickly moved from publishing work in diverse philosophical traditions to, essentially, only publishing analytic philosophy. Further, the changes at the journal are shown, with the help of previous work on the journals Mind and The Philosophical Review, to be part of a pattern involving generalist philosophy journals in Britain and America during the period 1925-1969. The pattern is one in which journals controlled (...) by analytic philosophers systematically promote a form of critical philosophy and marginalise rival approaches to philosophy. This pattern, it is argued, helps to explain the growing dominance of analytic philosophy during the twentieth century and allows characterising this form of philosophy as, at least during 1925-1969, a sectarian form of critical philosophy. (shrink)

Meanings are present everywhere in our environment and within ourselves. But these meanings do not exist by themselves. They are associated to information and have to be created, to be generated by agents. The Meaning Generator System (MGS) has been developed on a system approach to model meaning generation in agents following an evolutionary perspective. The agents can be natural or artificial. The MGS generates meaningful information (a meaning) when it receives information that has a connection with an internal constraint (...) to which the agent is submitted. The generated meaning is to be used by the agent to implement actions aimed at satisfying the constraint. We propose here to highlight some characteristics of the MGS that could be related to items of philosophy of information. (shrink)

This editorial sketches the relevancy and urgency of philosophical reflection on issues in ecological management. It subsequently provides a research agenda for future research on ecological management in the field of philosophy of management. Finally, it introduces the three articles that are part of this special issue.

Risk communication has been generally categorized as a warning act, which is performed in order to prevent or minimize risk. On the other side, risk analysis has also underscored the role played by information in reducing uncertainty about risk. In both approaches the safety aspects related to the protection of the right to health are on focus. However, it seems that there are cases where a risk cannot possibly be avoided or uncertainty reduced, this is for instance valid for the (...) declaration of side effects associated with pharmaceutical products or when a decision about drug approval or retirement must be delivered on the available evidence. In these cases, risk communication seems to accomplish other tasks than preventing risk or reducing uncertainty. The present paper analyzes the legal instruments which have been developed in order to control and manage the risks related to drugs – such as the notion of “development risk” or “residual risk” – and relates them to different kinds of uncertainty. These are conceptualized as epistemic, ecological, metric, ethical, and stochastic, depending on their nature. By referring to this taxonomy, different functions of pharmaceutical risk communication are identified and connected with the legal tools of uncertainty management. The purpose is to distinguish the different functions of risk communication and make explicit their different legal nature and implications. (shrink)

Turning away from entities and focusing instead exclusively on ‘structural’ aspects of scientific theories has been advocated as a cogent response to objections levelled at realist conceptions of the aim and success of science. Physical theories whose (predictive) past successes are genuine would, in particular, share with their successors structural traits that would ultimately latch on to ‘structural’ features of the natural world. Motives for subscribing to Structural Realism are reviewed and discussed. It is argued that structural retention claims lose (...) their force if one gives up merely historical readings of the transition from Galilean-relativistic classical mechanics to the ‘special’ theory of relativity, heeding instead basic requirements that lead to their common derivation. Further cause for scepticism is found upon realising that the basic mathematical framework of quantum theory essentially reflects its predictive purpose, without any necessary input, be it of a ‘structural’ kind, from the physical world. (shrink)

The literature is predominated by studies seeking to clarify the extent of the availability, functionality, accessibility and/or utilisation of library materials in schools at various levels. The extent of principals' management of library resources and their contribution to the lesson preparation activities of teachers seems to have been under-researched. In bridging the gap, the current study was designed to assess the extent and contribution of principals’ management of library resources to teachers’ lesson preparation practices. Six specific objectives were (...) of interest to the researchers. The quantitative research method, following the ex-post facto research design, was adopted. The stratified proportional random sampling technique was used to choose a sample of 743 respondents from a population of 1,857 secondary school teachers in Ikom Education Zone, Cross River State, Nigeria. An instrument named "Management of Library Resources and Teachers' Lesson Preparation Questionnaire" (MLRTLPQ) was used to gather data. The quantitative content validity method was used to assess the degree to which the items in the instrument were clear, relevant, and represented a wide range of the anticipated content based on the views of domain experts. One sample t-test and hierarchical regression analyses were used for data analyses. Four stepwise hierarchical linear models were specified and fitted accordingly. It was found that teachers’ lesson preparation practice is significantly low generally; there is a significantly low extent in principals’ management of textual, auditory, visual and audio-visual library resources; there is a significant composite contribution of principals’ management of library resources on teachers’ lesson preparation practices in public secondary schools in model 3 and model 4. Based on these findings, practical implications are discussed, with recommendations made for a better library management practice in secondary schools for quality lesson preparation practices. (shrink)

In the first months of the COVID-19 pandemic, we created and implemented from November 2020 to February 2021 a monthly educational pilot program of philosophical management of stress based on Science, Humanism and Epicurean Pragmatism, which was offered to employees of 26 municipalities in the Prefecture of Attica, Greece. The program named “Philosophical Distress Management Operation System” (Philo.Di.M.O.S.) is novel and unique in its kind, as it combines a certain Greek philosophical tradition (Epicurean) that concurs with modern scientific (...) knowledge. The program was designed to be implemented in a period of crisis; therefore, it used a fast-paced, easy to learn and practice philosophical approach to stress management, based on cognitive psychotherapy. The philosophical approach to stress management has the advantage that it can be offered to most people, regardless of age and educational level. The pilot program was effective in achieving its objectives, shown by statistical comparisons of the trainees’ responses to anonymous questionnaires before and after the month-long training. The successful Philo.Di.M.O.S. program, thus, based on a solid scientific and philosophical basis, offers a paradigm of stress management during crises and could be useful in Greece and internationally. (shrink)

This study focuses on the differences in the perception of business ethics across two groups of management students from France and Romania (n = 220). Data was collected via the ATBEQ to measure preferences for three business philosophies: Machiavellianism, Social Darwinism, and Moral Objectivism. The results show that Romanian students present more favorable attitudes toward Machiavellianism than French students; whereas, French students valued Social Darwinism and Moral Objectivism more highly. For Machiavellianism and Moral Objectivism the results are consistent with (...) the literature and our hypotheses. However, contrary to our expectations, we find that Social Darwinism is more important in France than Romania. The results indicate that religious practice does not influence preferences for the three business philosophies. In terms of gender differences, women have less favorable attitudes toward Machiavellianism and more favorable attitudes toward Moral Objectivism than men. (shrink)

For academics and students, Education Management in Managerialist Times offers a critical guide to existing educational management texts and makes a strong case for redefining educational management along more socially and politically informed lines. The book also offers practitioners alternative management strategies intended to contest, rather than support, managerialism, while being realistic about the context within which those who lead and manage schools currently have to work.

The purpose of this work is to investigate the main philosophical underpinnings of major research paradigms using Positivism and Interpretivism as examples. It would also explain and give crucial interrelationships with ontology, epistemology, methodology, and method. The study followed a literature review approach and was mostly supported by secondary research, which included the incorporation and consideration of many peer-reviewed academic papers relevant to the issue as well as other sources such as books. Researchers might examine the fitness of every model (...) based on the nature and context of their study. This work will assist scholars in developing a better grasp of both positivist and interpretivist perspectives. The interpretivist paradigm might allow researchers to go deeper by seeking perceptions and experiences of a specific social context. The positivist paradigm, on the other hand, will allow researchers to rely more on statistics and generalization, resulting in the formation of universal rules and discoveries. -/- . (shrink)

Humans are cognitive entities. Our ongoing interactions with the environment are threaded with creations and usages of meaningful information. Animal life is also populated with meaningful information related to survival constraints. Information managed by artificial agents can also be considered as having meanings, as derived from the designer. Such perspective brings us to propose an evolutionary approach to cognition based on meaningful information management. We use a systemic tool, the Meaning Generator System (MGS), and apply it consecutively to animals, (...) humans and artificial agents [1, 2]. The MGS receives information from its environment and compares it with its constraint. The generated meaning is the connection existing between the received information and the constraint. It triggers an action aimed at satisfying the constraint. The action modifies the environment and the generated meaning. Meaning generation links agents to their environments. The MGS is a system: a set of elements linked by a set of relations. Any system submitted to a constraint and capable of receiving information can lead to a MGS. Animals, humans and robots are agents containing MGSs dealing with different constraints. Similar MGSs carrying different constraints will generate different meanings. Cognition is system dependent. Contrary to approaches on meaning generation based on psychology or linguistics, the MGS approach is not based on human mind. We want to avoid the circularity of taking human mind as a starting point. Free will and self-consciousness participate to the management of human meanings. They do not exist for animals or robots. Staying alive is a constraint that we share with animals. Robots ignore that constraint. We first use the MGS for animals with “stay alive” and “group life” constraints. The analysis of meaning and cognition in animals is however limited by our un-complete understanding of the nature of life (the question of final causes). Extending the analysis of meaning generation and cognition to humans is complex and has some true limitations as the nature of human mind is a mystery for today science and philosophy. The natures of our feelings, free will or self-consciousness are unknown. Approaches to identify human constraints are however possible, where the MGS can highlight some openings [3, 4]. Modeling meaning management in artificial agents is rather straightforward with the MGS. We, the designers, know the agents and the constraints. The derived nature of constraints, meaning and cognition is however to be highlighted. We define a meaningful representation of an item for an agent as being the networks of meanings relative to the item for the agent, with the action scenarios involving the item. Such meaningful representations embed the agents in their environments and are far from the GOFAI type of representations. Cognition, meanings and representations exist by and for the agents. We finish by summarizing the points presented here and highlight possible continuations . [1] “Information and Meaning” [2] “Introduction to a systemic theory of meaning” [3] “Computation on Information, Meaning and Representations. An Evolutionary Approach” [4] “Proposal for a shared evolutionary nature of language and consciousness”. (shrink)

Non-epistemic values pervade climate modelling, as is now well documented and widely discussed in the philosophy of climate science. Recently, Parker and Winsberg have drawn attention to what can be termed “epistemic inequality”: this is the risk that climate models might more accurately represent the future climates of the geographical regions prioritised by the values of the modellers. In this paper, we promote value management as a way of overcoming epistemic inequality. We argue that value management can (...) be seriously considered as soon as the value-free ideal and inductive risk arguments commonly used to frame the discussions of value influence in climate science are replaced by alternative social accounts of objectivity. We consider objectivity in Longino's sense as well as strong objectivity in Harding's sense to be relevant options here, because they offer concrete proposals that can guide scientific practice in evaluating and designing so-called multi-model ensembles and, in fine, improve their capacity to quantify and express uncertainty in climate projections. (shrink)

The overall objective of the study was to examine the pros and cons of the participatory approach adopted in natural resource management in the ecologically protected areas of the Sundarbans mangrove of Bangladesh. A comparative study was done between the people who are involved and non-involved in this approach. Empirical data was collected through personal interviews with a structured questionnaire. The Gini coefficient was measured first and then embedded with the Lorenz curve to draw a line between perfect equality (...) and inequality vis-a-vis. The study revealed that the co-management built awareness in favor of biodiversity conservation and the efficient use of natural resources. Contradictorily, a segment of different hierarchical committees was involved in destructive activities like poisoning the wetlands for fishing. Therefore, a mixed outcome was found. The findings will help the policymakers in identifying the pitfalls and bottlenecks rooted in co-management. Hence, the study recommends revising the approach to ensure the community’s active participation on an equal basis and take action against them who degrade those resources. Exploring profitable alternative income-generating activities is warranted to narrow down the dependency on the Sundarbans mangrove’s natural resources. In order to address the tragedy of the commons, the study advocates for the unity of all knowledge ranging from science to humanistic scholarship for sound policymaking. (shrink)

Many have tackled the question ‘What (if anything) is analytic philosophy?’ I will not attempt to answer this vexed question. Rather, I address a smaller, more manageable set of interrelated questions: first, when and how did people begin using the label ‘analytic philosophy’? Second, how did those who used this label understand it? Third, why did many philosophers we today classify as analytic initially resist being grouped together under the single category of ‘analytic philosophy’? Finally, for the (...) first generation who described themselves as analytic philosophers, what was their intended contrast class? Relatedly, when did ‘continental philosophy’ become the standard opposition? Some evidence I present justifies received answers to these questions; other evidence supports surprising and unorthodox answers to these questions. (shrink)

Anxiety is a main contributor to human psychological sufferings. Its evolutionary sources are generally related to alert signals for coping with adverse or unexpected situations [Steiner, 2002] or to hunter-gatherer emotions mismatched with today environments [Horwitz & Wakefield, 2012]. We propose here another evolutionary perspective that links human anxiety to an evolutionary nature of self-consciousness. That approach introduces new relations between mental health and human mind. The proposed evolutionary scenario starts with the performance of primate identification with conspecifics [de Waal (...) 1998, 2008]. It is assumed that the evolution of that identification brought our ancestors to represent themselves as entities existing in the environment, like conspecifics were represented as existing in the environment. We consider that this process has implemented in the mind of our ancestors some first elements of self-consciousness [Menant 2014a]. But the same process has also produced new sufferings coming from identification with suffering or endangered conspecifics. In addition, the emerging performance of self-focus brought in the new feeling of being a suffering entity. We consider that all these new sufferings have created in the mind of our primate ancestors a huge anxiety increase, unbearable if not limited. Among the options available to limit that anxiety increase we focus on two of them that may have taken place. The first was a withdrawal from the process. Some primates may have simply rejected the evolution of identification (and with it self-consciousness). This may have led them to an ecological niche resulting in our today great apes. The second option was about limiting the causes of sufferings and taking advantage of possible resulting evolutionary benefits. This may have been achieved by developing performances like imitation, communication, simulation, synergy and ToM. Added to a positive feedback on identification these performances may have initiated an evolutionary engine that has accelerated the evolution toward human self-consciousness. That option is characterized by an early build up of anxiety limitation processes in an evolutionary nature of our human self-consciousness. This option corresponds to a human specificity and introduces anxiety management and self-consciousness as sharing a same evolutionary story. The build up of these anxiety management processes is now buried in the evolutiony story of our human mind. But these processes are still present in our minds at an unconscious level and participate to many of our human mental states and behaviors. Such positioning of anxiety management as part of the nature of human mind is new and makes available entry points for new understandings of human emotion, motivations and mental disorders. The proposed evolutionary scenario has been introduced in philosophy of mind [Menant 2011, 2014a, b] but it has not been so far explicitly part of primatology nor of psychology/psychiatry/ethics. We present here a drawing of the scenario with highlights on corresponding key points. More work is needed on these new evolutionary links between human mind and anxiety management. References: de Waal, F B.M. (1998). No imitation without identification. Behavioral and Brain Sciences (1998) 21:89. http://cogweb.ucla.edu/Abstracts/deWaal_98.html de Waal, F B.M. (2008). Putting the Altruism Back into Altruism: The Evolution of Empathy. Annu. Rev. Psychol. 2008, 59. http://www.life.umd.edu/faculty/wilkinson/BIOL608W/deWaalAnnRevPsych2008.pdf Horwitz, A. V. and Wakefield, J. C. (2012). All We Have to Fear: Psychiatry’s Transformation of Natural Anxieties into Mental Disorders. Oxford Univ. Press. 2012. Menant, C. (2011). Computation on Information, Meaning and Representations. An Evolutionary Approach. https://philpapers.org/rec/MENCOI Menant, C. (2014a). Proposal for an evolutionary approach to self-consciousness. https://philpapers.org/rec/MENPFA-3 Menant, C. (2014b). Consciousness of oneself as object and as subject. Proposal for an evolutionary approach. https://philpapers.org/rec/MENCOO Steiner, T. (2002). The biology of fear- and anxiety-related behaviors. Dialogues Clin Neurosci. 2002 Sep; 4(3): 231–249. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3181681/. (shrink)

This study focuses on the differences in the perception of business ethics across two groups of management students from France and Romania (n = 220). Data was collected via the ATBEQ to measure preferences for three business philosophies: Machiavellianism, Social Darwinism, and Moral Objectivism. The results show that Romanian students present more favorable attitudes toward Machiavellianism than French students; whereas, French students valued Social Darwinism and Moral Objectivism more highly. For Machiavellianism and Moral Objectivism the results are consistent with (...) the literature and our hypotheses. However, contrary to our expectations, we find that Social Darwinism is more important in France than Romania. The results indicate that religious practice does not influence preferences for the three business philosophies. In terms of gender differences, women have less favorable attitudes toward Machiavellianism and more favorable attitudes toward Moral Objectivism than men. (shrink)

This monograph contributes to the scientific misconduct debate from an oblique perspective, by analysing seven novels devoted to this issue, namely: Arrowsmith by Sinclair Lewis (1925), The affair by C.P. Snow (1960), Cantor’s Dilemma by Carl Djerassi (1989), Perlmann’s Silence by Pascal Mercier (1995), Intuition by Allegra Goodman (2006), Solar by Ian McEwan (2010) and Derailment by Diederik Stapel (2012). Scientific misconduct, i.e. fabrication, falsification, plagiarism, but also other questionable research practices, have become a focus of concern for academic communities (...) worldwide, but also for managers, funders and publishers of research. The aforementioned novels offer intriguing windows into integrity challenges emerging in contemporary research practices. They are analysed from a continental philosophical perspective, providing a stage where various voices, positions and modes of discourse are mutually exposed to one another, so that they critically address and question one another. They force us to start from the admission that we do not really know what misconduct is. Subsequently, by providing case histories of misconduct, they address integrity challenges not only in terms of individual deviance but also in terms of systemic crisis, due to current transformations in the ways in which knowledge is produced. Rather than functioning as moral vignettes, the author argues that misconduct novels challenge us to reconsider some of the basic conceptual building blocks of integrity discourse. (shrink)

‘Attempted negligence’ is a category of criminal offense that many jurists and philosophers have law have deemed conceptually incoherent. In his Attempts: In the Philosophy of Action and the Criminal Law, Gideon Yaffe challenges this dismissal, anchoring his argument in cases of what he calls ‘mental self-management’ in which agents plan to bring about that they perform unintentional actions at a later time. He plausibly argues that mental self-management-type attempted negligence is possible. However, his account raises the (...) question whether such attempts can be successful: whether, in other words, attempts to perform unintentional actions at a later time could issue in actions that are, indeed, unintentional. Intuitively, at least, it would seem that we should answer in the affirmative. However, that answer poses problems for a plausible and widely-held account of intentional action. Al Mele, responding to Yaffe’s account, has pointed out this problem without, I think, providing a satisfactory resolution. I propose another way of vindicating the possibility of successful attempted negligence with small, if significant, revision to the standard view of intentional action. In these cases, I argue, agents fail to act intentionally because they render themselves, through their acts of self-management, unaware that they are successfully executing their intentions. Moreover, I argue that these agents’ intentions to bring about that they perform unintentional actions do not commit them to acting intentionally because of the nature of intentions to bring about actions. I offer an account of the intention to bring about that one A’s and defend it against some objections. (shrink)

This paper argues that many so-called digital technologies can be construed as notational technologies, explored through the example of Monegraph, an art and digital asset management platform built on top of the blockchain system originally developed for the cryptocurrency bitcoin. As the paper characterizes it, a notational technology is the performance of syntactic notation within a field of reference, a technologized version of what Nelson Goodman called a “notational system.” Notational technologies produce abstracted entities through positive and reliable, or (...) constitutive, tests of socially acceptable meaning. Accordingly, this account deviates from typical narratives of blockchains, instead demonstrating that blockchain technologies are effective at managing digital assets because they produce abstracted identities through the performance of notation. Since notational technologies rely on configurations of socially acceptable meaning, this paper also provides a philosophical account of how blockchain technologies are socially embedded. (shrink)

A Correction to this paper has been published: doi 10.1007/s40926-021-00177-x.

The increased complexity of health information management sows the seeds of inequalities between health care stakeholders involved in the production and use of health information. Patients may thus be more vulnerable to use of their data without their consent and breaches in confidentiality. Health care providers can also be the victims of a health information system that they do not fully master. Yet, despite its possible drawbacks, the management of health information is indispensable for advancing science, medical care (...) and public health. Therefore, the central question addressed by this paper is how to manage health information ethically? This article argues that Paul Ricœur’s ‘‘little ethics’’, based on his work on hermeneutics and narrative identity, provides a suitable ethical framework to this end. This ethical theory has the merit of helping to harmonise self-esteem and solicitude amongst patients and healthcare providers, and at the same time provides an ethics of justice in public health. A matrix, derived from Ricœur’s ethics, has been developed as a solution to overcoming possible conflicts between privacy interests and the common good in the management of health information. (shrink)

This important edited collection addresses ethical issues associated with solar radiation management (SRM), a category of climate engineering techniques that would increase the planet’s reflectivity in order to offset some of the impacts of anthropogenic climate change. Such techniques include injecting sulfate aerosols into the stratosphere or brightening marine clouds with seawater. Although SRM has the potential to cool the planet by reducing the amount of incoming solar radiation absorbed by the planet, it raises a wide array of difficult (...) and interesting ethical issues. Engineering the Climate makes an important contribution to addressing many of these issues. (shrink)

A familiar dialogue is taking place in the professional literature of records and information management. Since the early 1990s, the theoretical foundation of a records management theory has been constructed on convergence (Pemberton & Nugent, 1995; Walters, 1995; Zawiyah M Yusof & Robert W Chell, 2002). While certain concepts are shared across disciplines, arguably the most foundational definition is the most divergent: a record. Each discipline (Archival Science, Library Science, Computer Science) defines the term record in its own (...) way. Records managers at all levels have difficulty espousing a universal definition of the term, while claiming sole responsibility for the authority, organization, authenticity, and sustainability of records. (shrink)

A review of a collection of essays one meta-philosophy by fifteen philosophers, including Rorty, Castañeda and Putnam. It is a stimulating collection, useful reading for those who want to go beyond the caricatures of today's philosophy in America, for those interested in the discussion on the origins of the split between continental philosophy and Anglo-American philosophy and for the philosopher who does not disdain a moment of "self-consciousness". The editors, both teaching at Tel-Aviv University, have proved (...) able to manage this small transoceanic enterprise with originality; it is a symptom, like those represented by many other books of Israeli philosophers published in recent years in German and much more in English, of the vitality and openness to the outside world of this small philosophical community. (shrink)

Is the history of philosophy primarily a contribution to PHILOSOPHY or primarily a contribution to HISTORY? This paper is primarily contribution to history (specifically the history of New Zealand) but although the history of philosophy has been big in New Zealand, most NZ philosophers with a historical bent are primarily interested in the history of philosophy as a contribution to philosophy. My essay focuses on two questions: 1) How did New Zealand philosophy get to (...) be so good? And why, given that is so good (a point I am at pains to establish), has it apparently had so slight a cultural impact within New Zealand itself? Did we get the wrong Anderson – the uninspiring William, who was Professor at Auckland, rather than his talented younger brother John, who had such a huge cultural influence as Professor of Philosophy at Sydney? Perhaps but that can only be part of the story since we managed to attract even bigger stars, (notably Karl Popper) as well as breeding bigger talents of our own (Prior, Baier, Bennett, Mulgan, Hursthouse, Waldron and many more). Do we export our best talent? Sometimes – but the stars that stay and the stars who arrive don’t seem to have much impact in New Zealand itself however brightly they shine in the international philosophical firmament. Is it too esoteric? Perhaps, but esoteric philosophy can still have a cultural impact, witness, Moore, Popper and the younger Anderson. Is it, like many of New Zealand’s cultural products (from romance novels to movies), primarily intended for an international audience? That’s a large part of the answer but only a part. Another part of the answer is that philosophy HAS had a cultural impact but that impact is not readily apparent. For NZ philosophers have been less keen to push their ideological barrows and more keen to produce critical thinkers, and critical thinkers don’t all think alike. The logician George Hughes was apparently a life-changing teacher not because he had a nostrum but because he taught people to think. As one of his students said ‘the only ism you believe in is the syllogism’. On the whole the history of New Zealand Philosphy is a ‘From Log Cabin to White House’ tale, ‘From colonial obscurity through struggle and adversity to philosophical excellence’. But there are shadows in the picture. Some departments have nearly come to grief through bureaucratic and political misadventures, and it is hard to resist the suspicion that there is often an element of hostility to philosophers on the part of both university bureaucrats and fellow-academics. I speculate as to why this is the case (we are too argumentative and don’t confine our argumentative tendencies to the cloister) but conclude with some upbeat reflections. on the future of New Zealand Philosophy. (shrink)

Scientific management introduced a novel way of organizing work and measuring productivity into the modern workplace. With a stopwatch and a clever method of analysis, Frederick Winslow Taylor is either acclaimed or reviled, depending on the audience, for giving industrial/organizational consultancy a groundbreaking tool: the efficiency study. What is less well known is that the American pragmatist John Dewey criticized scientific management for its dualistic assumptions, for treating workers as pure doers or “muscle” and management as pure (...) thinkers or “brains” in an efficient, though inhumane, work process. The first section of this paper examines the similarities and differences between Dewey’s and Taylor’s respective conceptions of science and management. In the second section, I consider Dewey’s critique of scientific management in his book Democracy and Education. The paper concludes with some thoughts about the implications of Dewey’s critique of Taylorism for organizational theory and industrial relations today. (shrink)

A planetary panic and almost deserted cities, fear of food shortages, and the growing threat of an invisible virus that does more damage day by day. In the time of the COVID-19 pandemic, many believe that science fiction has now been overtaken by reality. In these times of adversity, what does it take to survive when the world comes crashing down? How do humans stay resilient, manage their growing stress, and somehow navigate through the crisis? More specifically, how do humans (...) cope with isolation and loneliness in the light of a global outbreak? What does science fiction have to tell us about this? For the bewildered population, science fiction has been recognized as an ingredient to understand an unexpected reality. In this article I explain, through the philosophical eye of Francis Lawrence’s movie I Am Legend (2007), how a coping skill such as imagination, in the age of pandemics and social distancing, can mutate into a “Second Reality” that fills the gap left by the former (pre-outbreak) reality. (shrink)

Some types of solar radiation management (SRM) research are ethically problematic because they expose persons, animals, and ecosystems to significant risks. In our earlier work, we argued for ethical norms for SRM research based on norms for biomedical research. Biomedical researchers may not conduct research on persons without their consent, but universal consent is impractical for SRM research. We argue that instead of requiring universal consent, ethical norms for SRM research require only political legitimacy in decision-making about global SRM (...) trials. Using Allen Buchanan & Robert Keohane's model of global political legitimacy, we examine several existing global institutions as possible analogues for a politically legitimate SRM decision-making body. (shrink)

Representing oneself as an existing entity and having intense fear of the unknown are human specificities. Self-consciousness and anxiety states are characteristics of our human minds. We propose that these two characteristics share a common evolutionary history during which they acted in synergy for the build-up of our human minds. We present that perspective by using an evolutionary scenario for self-consciousness in which anxiety management plays a key role. Such evolutionary background can introduce new relations between philosophy of (...) mind and psychology. The proposed evolutionary scenario starts at the Pan-Homo split time (about 6my ago) when our pre-human ancestors were able to manage representations while also being able to partly identify with their conspecifics. These identifications allowed our ancestors to merge the representations they had of parts of themselves with the corresponding representations they had of their conspecifics. The scenario proposes that such merger has led our ancestors to progressively build up a representation of their own entity as existing in the environment, like conspecifics were represented as existing. This evolutionary process is considered in the scenario as the source of an ancestral form of self-consciousness. The same process has also produced identifications with suffering or endangered conspecifics which have created in the minds of our ancestors some new anxieties coming in addition to the animal ones. The resulting psychological sufferings had to be limited for evolution to continue. The tools developed to that end by our ancestors (caring, collaboration, communication, ToM, ...) have also procured significant evolutionary benefits with positive feedbacks on identifications. Overall, the evolutionary scenario proposes that the combination of the anxiety management processes with the evolution toward self-consciousness has created an evolutionary engine that has accelerated the coming up of our human self-consciousness. As a result, our today human minds contain important anxieties interwoven with an evolutionary nature of self-consciousness. Such perspective brings to consider that many of our mental states may be unconsciously guided by these evolutionary sourced anxieties (which are still to be clearly understood). Corresponding anxiety management processes are then key contributors to our human feelings and motivations, and to our interpersonal relationship. For instance, the role of Pascalian type diversions can be understood as keeping consciousness away from psychological sufferings produced by too anxious mental states. Also, part of our human sexuality developed during human evolution can be considered as a multidimensional escape and refuge from anxiety. This also brings to look at our psychological well-being and to our mental health as much more related to anxiety management than assumed so far. Dis-functioning of anxiety management processes can then be source of mental disorders and illnesses. On that subject the evolutionary scenario proposes that avoidances of too anxious mental states can lead to evil behaviors. These subjects need more developments. Possible continuations are introduced. (shrink)