Dispositions are essential to our understanding of the world. _Dispositions: A Debate_ is an extended dialogue between three distinguished philosophers - D.M. Armstrong, C.B. Martin and U.T. Place - on the many problems associated with dispositions, which reveals their own distinctive accounts of the nature of dispositions. These are then linked to other issues such as the nature of mind, matter, universals, existence, laws of nature and causation.

Martin and Pfeifer (1986) have claimed "that the most typical characterizations of intentionality... all fail to distinguish... mental states from... dispositional physical states." The evidence they present in support of this thesis is examined in the light of the possibility that what it shows is that intentionality is the mark, not of the mental, but of the dispositional. Of the five marks of intentionality they discuss a critical examination shows that three of them, Brentano's (1874) inexistence of the intentional object, (...) Searle's (1983) directedness and Anscombe's (1965) indeterminacy, are features which distinguish T-intenTional/dispositional states, both mental and non-mental (physical), from non-dispositional "categorical" states. The other two are either, as in the case of Chisholm's (1957) permissible falsity of a propositional attitude ascription, a feature of linguistic utterances too restricted in its scope to be of interest, or, as in the case of Frege's (1892) indirect reference/Quine's (1953) referential opacity, evidence that the S-intenSional locution is a quotation either of what someone has said in the past or might be expected to say, if the question were to arise at some time in the future. (shrink)

This paper outlines a political liberal perspective on the issue of artificial intelligence in the workplace. Some criticisms, related to autonomy, domination, and alienation, are derived from political moralities unacceptable for the political liberal; however, they identify concerns that should be considered. Additionally, other perspectives could forbid trade-offs for workers that are permissible for a political liberal (or should be). I explain the typical arguments and explain how the concerns can be reconceived, rather than rejected, because they relate to the (...) moral powers, providing an acceptable justification for political acts with the caveat of permitting trade-offs. However, I explain that there are implications for the political liberal to recognise work, and its surrounding issues, can relate to the moral powers. I finally outline some political acts, such as a social minimum, support for worker voice and input, and the ability to co-own property, to permit a range of work options. (shrink)

This article analyses Ukraine’s language policies from 2002 to 2022 within a framework of liberalism, while avoiding making normative judgements or recommendations, updating the discussion raised in Kymlicka and Opalski’s Can Liberal Pluralism be Exported? The analysis takes into consideration Ukraine’s present and historic position, including the challenge that postcolonial nation building can pose for achieving liberalism and linguistic justice. The paper focuses on three main areas of language policy: education, businesses and media, and assesses if they can be described (...) as liberal orthodox, pluralist or illiberal. The article begins by defining liberalism and illiberalism, discussing the context of Ukraine’s linguistic diversity and postcolonial context, before outlining the language situation until EuroMaidan. Then, the main issue of language policy in the areas of education, business and media is analysed, before considering whether Ukrainian language laws might be considered liberal or illiberal. Finally, potential future trajectories are outlined. (shrink)

The purpose of this study was to compare working memory (WM), executive function, academic ability and problem classroom behaviors in children aged 8 to 11 years who were either identified via routine screening as having low WM, or had been diagnosed with ADHD. Standardised assessments of WM, executive function and reading and mathematics were administered to 83 children with ADHD, 50 children with low WM and 50 typically developing children. Teachers rated problem behaviors on checklists measuring attention, hyperactivity/impulsivity, oppositional behavior, (...) and difficulties associated with executive function in the classroom. The ADHD and low WM groups had highly similar WM and executive function profiles, but were distinguished in two key respects: children with ADHD had higher levels of rated and observed impulsive behavior, and children low WM had slower response times. Possible mechanisms for these common and distinct deficits are discussed. (shrink)

This longitudinal study examines changes in the moral identity of 48 emerging-adult U.S. college graduates in media-related fields from their first year after college to three years later as they progressed into early work life. Results from four moral psychology survey instruments reflect significant shifts in moral reasoning, relativistic thinking and idealism, coupled with stability in personality traits and character strengths. A fifth instrument found largely positive assessments of workplace ethical climate. The findings suggest that emerging adulthood is an important (...) time for the development of a robust professional moral self that is characterized by growing maturity in moral judgment that intersects with a foundation of character developed through a variety of influences before, during and after college. Findings have significant implications for young practitioners entering the workplace, media managers working with them, and media pedagogy. (shrink)

Martin and Pfeifer claim ‘that the most typical characterizations of intentionality’ proposed by philosophers are satisfied by physical dispositions. If that is correct, we must conclude either, as they do and as Mumford (this volume) does, that the philosophers are wrong and intentionality is something else or, as I do, that intentionality is what the philosophers say it is, in which case it is the mark, not of the mental, but of the dispositional; the intentionality of a disposition consists in (...) its being directed towards its future manifestations. Mumford objects that the notion of directedness is obscure and cannot in the light of Martin’s electro‐fink argument be elucidated by reference to what would happen if the conditions for its manifestation are satisfied. But Martin‘s argument rests on the mistaken assumption that causal conditionals, of which dispositional ascriptions are an instance, are of the form ‘If p then q’. (shrink)

This study explores the development of moral identity and value systems among entry-level media workers during the formative period of emerging adulthood. Thematic analysis of extensive “life story” structured interviews with newly minted graduates of five journalism and communications programs in the United States (N = 65) focused on responses to specific interview queries regarding ethical challenges. Key themes of challenges involved autonomous agency, transparency/honesty, fairness/justice, ethical cues and modeling, and professional norms and expectations. The analysis suggests patterns in participants’ (...) reliance on a mixture of past experiences, college lessons, and moral principles. These patterns also suggest participants reflected varying levels of moral self-efficacy. (shrink)

Public relations practitioners are uniquely positioned to promote ethical communication and practice. As Kruckeberg (2000) explained, “public relations practitioners-if they prove worthy of the task—will be called upon to be corporate—that is organizational—interpreters and ethicists and social policy-makers, charged with guiding organizational behavior as well as influencing and reconciling public perceptions within a global context (p. 37).” Public relations practitioners, however, may never take an ethics course as a student, receive on-the-job ethical training, or use the many professional codes of (...) ethics available to them. This lack begs the question: How are they tackling the various ethical decisions they face? This study examines how public relations professionals engage in ethical decision making and make meaning of deontological ethical models. Such inquiry regarding ethical decision making may assist public relations practitioners and scholars to better understand themselves, serve society, and advance the communication profession. (shrink)

Dispositions are essential to our understanding of the world. _Dispositions: A Debate_ is an extended dialogue between three distinguished philosophers - D.M. Armstrong, C.B. Martin and U.T. Place - on the many problems associated with dispositions, which reveals their own distinctive accounts of the nature of dispositions. These are then linked to other issues such as the nature of mind, matter, universals, existence, laws of nature and causation.

The purpose of this qualitative study is to answer calls to examine social media, ethical engagement, and marginalized publics. Findings suggest that strategic communication and public relations pr...

It is argued that conceptual analysis as practiced by the philosophers of ordinary language, is an empirical procedure that relies on a version of Garfinkel's ethnomethodological experiment. The ethnomethodological experiment is presented as a procedure in which the existence and nature of a social norm is demonstrated by flouting the putative convention and observing what reaction that produces in the social group within which the convention is assumed to operate. Examples are given of the use of ethnomethodological experiments, both in (...) vivo and as a thought experiment, in order to demonstrate the existence of otherwise invisible conventions governing human social behavior. Comparable examples are cited from the writings of ordinary language philosophers of ethnomethodological thought experiments designed to demonstrate the existence of linguistic conventions. (shrink)

This qualitative study explored how 54 U.S.-based public relations practitioners engaged in ethical listening. Findings of the study suggest that public relations professionals engage in ethical listening by drawing upon deontological concepts of dignity and respect, implementing care-centered concepts of empathy and inherent connection to others, modeling inclusivity and attentiveness to diverse perspectives, practicing accountability to ethical listening, and remaining humble. Models depicting organizational listening should consider inclusion of ethical values.

The writer's 1956 contention that "the thesis that consciousness is a process in the brain is ... a reasonable scientific hypothesis" is contrasted with Davidson's a priori argument in 'Mental events' for the identity of propositional attitude tokens with some unspecified and imspecifiable brain state tokens. Davidson's argument is rejected primarily on the grounds that he has failed to establish his claim that there are and can be no psycho-physical bridge laws. The case forthe empirical nature of the issue between (...) the identity thesis and interactionism is re-stated in tiie light of an analysis of the causal relations involved. The same analysis is also used to demonstrate the incoherence of parallelism and epiphenomenalism as alternatives to interactionism. (shrink)

Les deux auteures présentent une réflexion à plusieurs dimensions, composée d’analyses et de pratiques poétiques, sur la vocation et le travail de l’avocate pénaliste confrontée ici, d’une part, aux individuations extrêmes engendrées et révélées par les crimes sexuels et leurs sanctions, y compris capitales, et, d’autre part, aux déterminants globaux d’une culture collective du viol qui résiste et tend à perdurer, malgré les dénonciations et les démonstrations.

This is the one and only book by the pioneer of the identity theory of mind. The collection focuses on Place's philosophy of mind and his contributions to neighbouring issues in metaphysics and epistemology. It includes an autobiographical essay as well as a recent paper on the function and neural location of consciousness.

This is the one and only book by the pioneer of the identity theory of mind. The collection focuses on Place's philosophy of mind and his contributions to neighboring issues in metaphysics and epistemology. It includes an autobiographical essay as well as a recent paper on the function and neural location of consciousness.

Ullin Thomas Place died on 2nd January 2000 at the age of seventy-five. I had met him a little over three years earlier, in November 1996, during the annual 'Mind and Brain' symposium organized by Peter Fenwick and held at the Institute of Psychiatry in London. At that meeting Professor Place delivered a slightly shortened version of the paper reproduced here, in which he told his personal story — a pilgrim's progress? — recounting, as he put it, 'the history of (...) a thought process leading from an adolescent interest in mystical experience to an article entitled‘Is consciousness a brain process?’[Place, 1956] in which I argued for an affirmative answer to that question'. (shrink)

The analysis of mental concepts suggests that the distinctionbetween the mental and the nonmental is not ontologically fundamental,and that, whereas mental processes are one and the same things as thebrain processes with which they are correlated, dispositional mentalstates depend causally on and are, thus, ''''distinct existences'''' fromthe states of the brain microstructure with which ''they'' are correlated.It is argued that this difference in the relation between an entity andits composition/underlying structure applies across the board. allstuffs and processes are the same (...) thing as is described by a descriptionof their microstructure. In all cases where the manifestation of adisposition extends beyond the ''''skin'''' of the dispositional propertybearer, dispositions invariably depend causally on the structure,usually the microstructure, of the bearer. (shrink)

Dispositions are essential to our understanding of the world. _Dispositions: A Debate_ is an extended dialogue between three distinguished philosophers - D.M. Armstrong, C.B. Martin and U.T. Place - on the many problems associated with dispositions, which reveals their own distinctive accounts of the nature of dispositions. These are then linked to other issues such as the nature of mind, matter, universals, existence, laws of nature and causation.

Skinner has repeatedly asserted that he does not deny either the existence of private events or the possibility of studying them scientifically. But he has never explained how his position in this respect differs from that of the mentalist or provided a practical methodology for the investigation of private events within a radical behaviorist perspective. With respect to the first of these deficiencies, I argue that observation statements describing a public state of affairs in the common public environment of two (...) or more observers which those observers confirm as a correct description provide a far more objective and secure foundation for empirical knowledge than statements describing private events in the experience of a single individual. In the course of this argument, I also invoke Wittgenstein's (1953) demonstration — his 'private language argument' — of the incoherence of traditional subjective empiricism. Regarding the second deficiency, I argue that observation statements describing private events can serve as data for an objective study, provided that (a) the verbal behavior in which they consist and its context are objectively observed and recorded, and (b) an explanation is given of how this verbal behavior is generated by the events it reports. (shrink)

As interpreted here, Garfinkel's "ethnomethodological experiment" (1967) demonstrates the existence of a social convention by flouting it and observing the consternation and aversive consequences for the perpetrator which that provokes. I suggest that the hostility which behaviorism has provoked throughout its history is evidence that it flouts an important social convention, the convention that, whenever possible, human beings are treated as and must always give the appearance of being rational agents. For these purposes, a rational agent is someone whose behavior (...) is controlled by a logically consistent body of means-end beliefs ("rules" in Skinner's terminology) and complementing desires which between them provide a basis for predicting how the individual will behave and for suggesting what arguments will persuade the agent to modify his or her beliefs and the behavior based upon them. The behaviorist flouts this convention by suggesting that its fictional character makes it unsuitable for the purposes of scientific explanation of behavior. The hostility that this suggestion provokes is evidence of the importance attached by the verbal community both to preserving a consistent and rational connection between what is said and what is done and presenting it as part of the natural order of things. (shrink)

The alternative offered by Professor Stemmer to cognitivist theories of the process whereby general terms acquire their meaning is criticised in its turn on the grounds that it presents an oversimplified view of the complex processes involved in the acquisition of word meanings.