PHILOSOPHY IN FRAGMENTS: CULTIVATING PHILOSOPHIC THINKING WITH THE PRESOCRATICS

Abstract: This article presents a strategy for introducing Presocratic thought to students in a manner that is both engaging and relevant. The first section addresses students' reactions to the claim that the Presocratics were the first philosophers. The second section considers how the fragmentary state of Presocratic thought does not hinder its comprehension. The third section proposes a classroom exercise for testing the scientific merits of each of the Presocratic theories. The final section proposes the use of a mock trial as a means of applying the materialist approach introduced by the Presocratics to contemporary debates about free will and determinism.     

HOW BROADLY DOES EDUCATION CONTRIBUTE TO JOB PERFORMANCE?

This study looks at the effects of education level on job performance in 2 ways. First, it provides a meta-analysis on the relationships between education level and 9 dimensions of job behaviors representing task, citizenship, and counterproductive performance. Results here show that, in addition to positively influencing core task performance, education level is also positively related to creativity and citizenship behaviors and negatively related to on-the-job substance use and absenteeism. Second, we investigate the moderating effects of sample and research design characteristics on the relationships between education and job performance. Significant results were found for gender, race, job level, and job complexity. The article concludes with implications for future research and the management of an increasingly educated workforce.     

Is there a Moral Case for Nationalism?

ABSTRACT Recent writings by philosophers such as David Miller and Yael Tamir have undertaken to provide nationalism with a normative foundation, a task which has been all but ignored by post-War English-language political philosophy. I identify and criticise three lines of argument which have been deployed in their writings. First, it is argued by Miller that the universalism and abstraction of rationalist moral theories have made them suspicious of 'particularisms' such as nationalism, but that they stem from a faulty metaethics. Against this I argue that abstraction and universality need not be grounded in a universalist metaethics, but can be derived pragmatically from the ethical needs of multicultural societies. Second, it is argued that liberal policies such as taxation and material redistribution, restrictions on immigration, as well as liberal concepts such as political obligation, presuppose the validity of the nationalist point of view. Against this I hold that nationalism never provides the strongest moral grounds for these policies and concepts, and that, in the specific case of distributive justice, it can even undermine them. And third, I examine the argument that the historical excesses of which nationalists have been guilty are actually the product of a narrow, 'ethnic'nationalism, in contrast to which we can articulate a categorically distinct, open, 'civic'nationalism, which would be broadly compatible with liberal political morality. I argue that the concept of civic nationalism is unstable, and that under fairly plausible and widespread empirical conditions, it either collapses back into a form of ethnic nationalism, or else becomes devoid of any recognisably nationalist content.     

Personnel Managers and the Stigmatized Employee

This article reports on a program that researched the interplay between personnel managers and employee stigmatization.     

THE PARTICULARITY OF JESUS AND THE TIME OF THE KINGDOM: PHILOSOPHY AND THEOLOGY IN YODER

John Howard Yoder's work, while appreciated in many respects, is not generally read in a philosophical register. This essay attempts to alter this situation by proposing a relation between his theology and a philosophy of particularity. The project articulates a logic of Jesus that is independent from and antagonistic towards the Powers. This logic is resolutely secular, revolutionary, and creative. I contend that Jesus' “equality with God” amounts to a radical affirmation of history and temporality. Yoder's work is presented as a zone of interference, a particular vantage from which a simultaneous practice of philosophy and theology becomes possible.     

Distinguishing between Personal Preference and Conception of the Preferable in the Measurement of Values

Parallel sets of value scales were constructed: one with items expressing like and want; the other expressing ought and should. No empirical distinction was found between preferences and conception of the preferable.     

THE RELATIONSHIPS OF AGE WITH JOB ATTITUDES: A META-ANALYSIS

Although organizational research on age has largely focused on the age–performance relationship, the relationships between age and job attitudes have received less attention. Guided by socioemotional selectivity theory, this paper provides a comprehensive meta-analysis of the relationships of chronological age with the 35 job attitudes most frequently studied as its correlates. Results of meta-analyses from more than 800 articles indicate that the relationships between chronological age and favorable attitudes (and/or to less unfavorable attitudes) toward work tasks, colleagues and supervisors, and organizations are generally significant and weak to moderate in strength. Moderator analyses also revealed that organizational tenure, race, gender, education level, and publication year of study moderate the relationships between age and job attitudes. Based on these findings, we make recommendations for future theory development and empirical research on age in organizational settings. We also discuss the implications of our findings for practice.