Aristotle on agency, habits and institutions

2016 ◽  
Vol 12 (4) ◽  
pp. 867-884 ◽  
Author(s):  
RICARDO F. CRESPO

AbstractThis paper introduces Aristotle's conception of agency, habits and institutions as a way of contributing to some current discussions about the definition, nature and theory of institutions. Aristotle developed a theory of human action, where we can find a place for ‘agency’. His views on habits are linked to his theory of virtue and art (skill). Concerning institutions, Aristotle provides a sound social and political philosophy that encompasses the nature and role of institutions. The paper will subsequently present Aristotle's ideas on these three notions – agency, habits and institutions – and will finally establish which of the current accounts of institutions involved in the discussion sparked by Hindriks and Guala's recent paper (2005a) he would support. Given that some realities tackled in the paper are nowadays radically different from Aristotle's times, the paper tries to keep an ‘Aristotelian-minded’ point of view – that is, analysing current topics based on Aristotelian concepts.

1990 ◽  
Vol 28 ◽  
pp. 223-237
Author(s):  
Peter Winch

So is this it: I must recognize certain authorities in order to make judgments at all? (OC, 493)I want in this paper to consider Wittgenstein's great posthumous work On Certainty in a different perspective from the usual: from the point of view of certain deep questions in political philosophy. These questions concern the nature of the state's authority and the citizen/s obligation to it; the notion of legitimacy and the role of consent in this context. Such issues have many dimensions; but they arise in part out of difficulties in reconciling the application of such concepts with our understanding of human rationality, especially practical rationality. I think it has been, and remains, characteristic of the main tradition of discussion of such issues to leave certain important questions about the nature of practical rationality unasked. I believe that these questions are asked, though in a different context, in Wittgenstein's On Certainty.


Author(s):  
Gerald Lang

Strokes of Luck offers a large-scale treatment of the role of luck in our judgements about blameworthiness and responsibility, in moral philosophy, and in principles of distributive justice, in political philosophy. It takes an ‘anti-anti-luckist’ stance on these matters, and is opposed to the influential ‘anti-luckist’ views which hold that judgements of blameworthiness, or distributive relations, should be adjusted to annul or neutralize differential luck. It provides a new reading of Bernard Williams’s famous essay ‘Moral Luck’ which emphasizes the dissimilarity of Williams’s aims from the aims of Thomas Nagel and his intellectual descendants. It contends that luck egalitarianism is a structurally flawed programme, and it argues for a revised understanding of John Rawls’s justice as fairness that interprets Rawls’s hostility to factors that are ‘arbitrary from a moral point of view’ in a novel way stationed more closely to his contractarian apparatus, and less closely to luck egalitarian concerns.


Author(s):  
Dawid Bródka ◽  
Andrzej Jędruchniewicz

The aim of the article was to assess the circular flow model from the point of view of the theory of the Austrian School. The article discusses the theory of capital and the production structure model of this school. The issues discussed were related to the circular flow model that dominates the mainstream of economics. This model is criticized by the Austrian School because of too much simplification. The main allegations relate to the omission of: the creative nature of human action, the problems of imperfect knowledge and entrepreneurship that is associated with risk, the role of time in action and the production process, the vertical nature of production in the economy, linking savings and investments. The Austrian School also points to the aggregation of economic categories going too far in the circular flow model.


Author(s):  
Dawid Bródka ◽  
Andrzej Jędruchniewicz

The aim of the article was to assess the circular flow model from the point of view of the theory of the Austrian School. The article discusses the theory of capital and the production structure model of this school. The issues discussed were related to the circular flow model that dominates the mainstream of economics. This model is criticized by the Austrian School because of too much simplification. The main allegations relate to the omission of: the creative nature of human action, the problems of imperfect knowledge and entrepreneurship that is associated with risk, the role of time in action and the production process, the vertical nature of production in the economy, linking savings and investments. The Austrian School also points to the aggregation of economic categories going too far in the circular flow model.


Author(s):  
Raymond Plant

Political philosophy developed as a central aspect of philosophy generally in the world of ancient Greece, and the writings of Plato and Aristotle made a basic and still important contribution to the subject. Central to political philosophy has been a concern with the justification or criticism of general political arrangements such as democracy, oligarchy or kingship, and with the ways in which the sovereignty of the state is to be understood; with the relationship between the individual and the political order, and the nature of the individual’s obligation to that order; with the coherence and identity of the political order from the point of view of the nation and groups within the nation, and with the role of culture, language and race as aspects of this; with the basis of different general political ideologies and standpoints such as conservatism, socialism and liberalism; and with the nature of the basic concepts such as state, individual, rights, community and justice in terms of which we understand and argue about politics. Because it is concerned with the justification and criticism of existing and possible forms of political organization a good deal of political philosophy is normative; it seeks to provide grounds for one particular conception of the right and the good in politics. In consequence many current controversies in political philosophy are methodological; they have to do with how (if at all) normative judgments about politics can be justified.


2005 ◽  
Vol 3 (3) ◽  
pp. 260-270 ◽  
Author(s):  
José Antonio Caride Gómez

The proclamation of the Decade of Education for Sustainable Development by the United Nations has placed education in general, and environmental education in particular, at the front of a future full of important and uncertain meanings. On the one hand, those inviting a conceptual, theoretical and praxiological revision of the education–environment–development relationship appeal to the role of education in the construction of ‘sustainability’ and lifestyles that will make it possible. On the other hand, there are those that anticipate new and different readings of the environmental educative task. They range from the questioning of its historic entity and identity (more than 30 years of initiatives, plans and programmes across the world) to the firm demand for its proposals to provide an ‘education’ that is essential for the renewal of human action and thought. The article subscribes to the latter position, arguing in favour of the necessity of an environmental education that does not contradict itself, neither in its critical-reflexive discourses nor in its emancipative practices, as a fundamental pillar of any development that aims at being ‘human’ and ‘sustainable’ from a pedagogical, ecological and social point of view.


Author(s):  
N.V. Belov ◽  
U.I. Papiashwili ◽  
B.E. Yudovich

It has been almost universally adopted that dissolution of solids proceeds with development of uniform, continuous frontiers of reaction.However this point of view is doubtful / 1 /. E.g. we have proved the active role of the block (grain) boundaries in the main phases of cement, these boundaries being the areas of hydrate phases' nucleation / 2 /. It has brought to the supposition that the dissolution frontier of cement particles in water is discrete. It seems also probable that the dissolution proceeds through the channels, which serve both for the liquid phase movement and for the drainage of the incongruant solution products. These channels can be appeared along the block boundaries.In order to demonsrate it, we have offered the method of phase-contrast impregnation of the hardened cement paste with the solution of methyl metacrylahe and benzoyl peroxide. The viscosity of this solution is equal to that of water.


2009 ◽  
pp. 4-27
Author(s):  
A. Cohen ◽  
G. Harcourt

The article written by the well-known theorists and historians of economic thought contains a detailed overview of the Cambridge capital controversy, which had raged from the mid-1950-s through the mid-1970-s. The authors track the origins of the controversy and cover arguments of both sides in chronological order. From their point of view, the discussion hasnt been resolved, and its main underlying aspects were ideological beliefs and fundamental methodological controversies on the nature of equilibrium and on the role of time in economic theory. The article is published with comments written by other leading theoreticians.


2019 ◽  
pp. 22-29
Author(s):  
Н. В. Фрадкіна

The purpose and tasks of the work are to analyze the contemporary Ukrainian mass culture in terms of its value and humanistic components, as well as the importance of cultural studies and Ukrainian studies in educational disciplines for the formation of a holistic worldview of modern youth.Analysis of research and publications. Scientists repeatedly turned to the problems of the role of spirituality in the formation of society and its culture. This problem is highlighted in the publications by O. Losev, V. Lytvyn, D. Likhachev, S. Avierintsev, M. Zakovych, I. Stepanenko and E. Kostyshyn.Experts see the main negative impact of mass culture on the quality approach, which determines mass culture through the market, because mass culture, from our point of view, is everything that is sold and used in mass demand.One of the most interesting studies on this issue was the work by the representatives of Frankfurt School M. Horkheimer and T. Adorno «Dialectics of Enlightenment» (1947), devoted to a detailed analysis of mass culture. Propaganda at all socio-cultural levels in the form is similar in both totalitarian and democratic countries. It is connected, according to the authors, with the direction of European enlightenment. The tendency to unify people is a manifestation of the influence of mass culture, from cinema to pop. Mass culture is a phenomenon whose existence is associated with commerce (accumulation in any form – this is the main feature of education), in general, the fact that it exists in this form is related to the direction of the history of civilization.Modern mass culture, with its externally attractive and easily assimilated ideas and symbols, appealing to the trends of modern fashion, becomes a standard of prestigious consumption, does not require intense reflection, allows you to relax, distract, not teach, but entertains, preaches hedonism as the main spiritual value. And as a consequence, there are socio-cultural risks: an active rejection of other people, which leads to the formation of indifference; cruelty as a character trait; increase of violent and mercenary crime; increase in the number of alcohol and drug addicts; anti-patriotism; indifference to the values of the family and as a result of social orphanhood and prostitution.Conclusions, perspectives of research. Thus, we can conclude that modern Ukrainian education is predominantly formed by the values of mass culture. Namely, according to the «Dialectic» by Horkheimer and Adorno, «semi-enlightenment becomes an objective spirit» of our modern society.It is concluded that only high-quality education can create the opposite of the onset of mass culture and the destruction of spirituality in our society. It is proved that only by realizing the importance of cultivating disciplines in the educational process and the spiritual upbringing of the nation, through educational reforms, humanitarian knowledge will gradually return to student audiences.Formation of youth occurs under the influence of social environment, culture, education and self-education. The optimal combination of these factors determines both the process of socialization itself and how successful it will be. In this context, one can see the leading role of education and upbringing. It turns out that the main task of modern education is to spread its influence on the development of spiritual culture of the individual, which eventually becomes a solid foundation for the formation of the individual. Such a subject requires both philosophical and humanitarian approaches in further integrated interdisciplinary research, since the availability of such research will provide the theoretical foundation for truly modern educational and personal development.


2020 ◽  
pp. 75-79
Author(s):  
R. M. Gambarova

Relevance. Grain is the key to strategic products to ensure food security. From this point of view, the creation of large grain farms is a matter for the country's selfsufficiency and it leading to a decrease in financial expense for import. Creation of such farms creates an abundance of productivity from the area and leads to obtaining increased reproductive seeds. The main policy of the government is to minimize dependency from import, create abundance of food and create favorable conditions for export potential.The purpose of the study: the development of grain production in order to ensure food security of the country and strengthen government support for this industry.Methods: comparative analysis, systems approach.Results. As shown in the research, if we pay attention to the activities of private entrepreneurship in the country, we can see result of the implementation of agrarian reforms after which various types of farms have been created in republic.The role of privateentrepreneurshipinthedevelopmentofproduction is great. Тhe article outlines the sowing area, production, productivity, import, export of grain and the level of selfsufficiency in this country from 2015 till 2017.


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