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A collection of essays by a social economist seeking to balance economics as a science of means with the values deemed necessary to man′s finding the good life and society enduring as a civilized instrumentality. Looks for authority to great men of the past and to today′s moral philosopher: man is an ethical animal. The 13 essays are: 1. Evolutionary Economics: The End of It All? which challenges the view that Darwinism destroyed belief in a universe of purpose and design; 2. Schmoller′s Political Economy: Its Psychic, Moral and Legal Foundations, which centres on the belief that time‐honoured ethical values prevail in an economy formed by ties of common sentiment, ideas, customs and laws; 3. Adam Smith by Gustav von Schmoller – Schmoller rejects Smith′s natural law and sees him as simply spreading the message of Calvinism; 4. Pierre‐Joseph Proudhon, Socialist – Karl Marx, Communist: A Comparison; 5. Marxism and the Instauration of Man, which raises the question for Marx: is the flowering of the new man in Communist society the ultimate end to the dialectical movement of history?; 6. Ethical Progress and Economic Growth in Western Civilization; 7. Ethical Principles in American Society: An Appraisal; 8. The Ugent Need for a Consensus on Moral Values, which focuses on the real dangers inherent in there being no consensus on moral values; 9. Human Resources and the Good Society – man is not to be treated as an economic resource; man′s moral and material wellbeing is the goal; 10. The Social Economist on the Modern Dilemma: Ethical Dwarfs and Nuclear Giants, which argues that it is imperative to distinguish good from evil and to act accordingly: existentialism, situation ethics and evolutionary ethics savour of nihilism; 11. Ethical Principles: The Economist′s Quandary, which is the difficulty of balancing the claims of disinterested science and of the urge to better the human condition; 12. The Role of Government in the Advancement of Cultural Values, which discusses censorship and the funding of art against the background of the US Helms Amendment; 13. Man at the Crossroads draws earlier themes together; the author makes the case for rejecting determinism and the “operant conditioning” of the Skinner school in favour of the moral progress of autonomous man through adherence to traditional ethical values.

This chapter informs current research and practice in organization development and change (ODC) with an actionable knowledge of the social science philosophies. It adds value to the scholarship of ODC by charting the progression of philosophies of social science, by showing how researchers in ODC structure their inquiry based on the inherent philosophical dimensions, and by offering useful and actionable knowledge for research and practice. The aim of the chapter is to reflect on the practice of ODC as a social science and to consolidate its social science philosophies so to provide solid philosophical and methodological foundations for the field.

This paper aims to fill the existing gaps in literature which deal with both the application of a socially oriented philosophy to the theme of strategic corporate social responsibility (CSR) integration and to the systematic analysis of the processes of strategic CSR management, and to create a connection between social management philosophy and the dynamic approach to CSR integration based on the strategic management processes. In particular, this study aims at creating a conceptual model to highlight, in a structured and organic way, the dynamic relationships, based on a social management philosophy, characterizing the integration of CSR in the different strategic management processes: formulation and implementation of both intended and emergent strategies. In relation to these goals, the following research questions are formulated: What are the most important strategic management processes in which to integrate CSR following a social management philosophy? How does integration (strategic CSR) based on social management philosophy impact these processes? How do strategic CSR processes based on social management philosophy determine strategic change? Which are the management tools which support integration based on social management philosophy?

The work is a conceptual paper. The paper has been developed as follows: the identification of the theoretical gaps; the definition of the research objectives; the literature review about both CSR integration and strategic management in a dynamic perspective; the formulation of the research questions; the conceptual analysis, based on social management philosophy, of the relevant propositions related to the dynamic approach to CSR integration; the building of the conceptual model based on the propositions; and the description and the analysis of the model.

In this model, three circles of change that are able to describe the integration of CSR into strategic management have been identified: A, the circle for achieving the strategic intent; B, the circle for formulating the strategic intent; and C, the circle of bottom-up innovations.

From a managerial perspective, it is possible to point out the following implications related to the integration of CSR into strategic management and the achievement of a strategic CSR: as for change dynamics which are linked to the formulations of the intended strategy, it is fundamental to develop a social management philosophy; to achieve the strategic intent, it is necessary to incorporate CSR actions into core activity of value chain; to favour the socially oriented bottom-up innovations, it is necessary to define a favourable organizational context; the strategic CSR must be supported by integrated tools and methodologies that make the rationalization of processes of change possible; and the application of tools and processes, even sophisticated ones, which are not based on social management philosophy may lead, in the long run, to negative tensions among stakeholders, as well as to serious repercussions on the firm’s management and its performance.

It is possible to pinpoint other implications for the society: the circle for achieving the strategic intents, with the aim of improving the execution phase, increases the positive externalities and reduces the negative externalities of the economic activities; the circle for formulating strategic intents allows to identify a win–win solution for CSR issues; and the bottom-up entrepreneurship increases the chances to find innovative solutions which combine social aspects and competitive aspects.

The analyses provide an integrated approach, connecting strategic management and CSR in a dynamic perspective.

This chapter undertakes one re-evaluation of Louis Althusser’s philosophical legacy for modern Marxism. While Althusser self-consciously undertook to defend the scientific character of Marxism and so permanently establish it on a firm footing, many of his closest followers eventually exited the Marxian paradigm for a post-structuralism post-Marxism. We will argue that this development was rooted in Althusser’s initial procedure as he attempted to ground Marxism’s scientificity in an epistemological argument whose main referent was Marxism itself. This initiated a circularity which was ultimately to prove fatal to Althusser’s project. Less remarked upon, however, is a further legacy of the Althusserian oeuvre, the critical realist conception of Marxism initiated by Roy Bhaskar. Bhaskar found part of his inspiration in Althusser’s successful posing of the question of Marx’s science. On the one hand, Althusser’s work can legitimately be seen as a bridge into the post-modern challenge to Marxism. On the other hand, it can be seen as clearing the ground and establishing some of the foundation for critical realism’s successful recuperation of the scientific character of Marxism.

Economics and political philosophy tend to lead separate existences in separate university departments. This paper argues that there are gains to be had in the understanding of the teaching of economics if the intellectual divide between these disciplines is bridged. The history of economic thought owes its evolution in part to responses at particular points in time to the enduring questions of political philosophy. A more deep‐seated understanding of economics and of HET is therefore available if considered in conscious alliance with the history of political philosophy (HPP). In short, the argument of this paper ‐ which considers five dimensions of the interdependence of HET and HPP ‐ is the reverse of Scott Gordon’s conclusion that economists have little or nothing to learn from philosophers.

An assessment of Axel Honneth’s reception and appropriation of Hegel’s theory of normative reconstruction as presented in his Freedom’s Right (Columbia University Press, 2014).

A comparative assessment of Honneth’s and Hegel’s approach to normative reconstruction focusing on three basic issues: general methodology, understandings of the logic and program of the Philosophy of Right, and analyses and assessments of modern market societies as detailed in Hegel’s account of civil society (bürgerliche Gesellschaft).

For Honneth, normative reconstruction consists in reworking modes of social rationality already realized in modern institutions. By contrast, Hegel is shown to advance an approach to reconstruction in which an account of social rationality is properly fashioned only in the reconstruction process itself. In this way Hegel is also shown to proffer an approach to normative reconstruction that is at once more robustly reconstructive and more robustly normative than is the case with Honneth.

The paper demonstrates the ongoing value of Hegel’s thought for social and political theory. It illuminates Hegel’s uniquely dialectical approach to immanent social critique, dedicated not only to explicating existing tensions and “bifurcations” (Entzweiungen) but – with the help of a distinctive account of Bildung (cultivation or formation) – to engaging those tensions and bifurcations in order to delineate the conditions for their constructive supersession. It also elucidates different ways in which critical social theorists, committed to notions of “immanent transcendence,” draw on the resources of market societies to mount normative challenges to the aporias of those societies.

To discuss systemic thinking in relation to the naturalistic and anti‐naturalistic position in the philosophy of social science. To develop the theme in two parts: I and II.

A cybernetic approach is taken and a discussion on what is the foundation for the philosophy of social science for systemic thinking is developed.

The findings for Part I are that the rationalistic view of knowledge is based on reflection and reason. The empirical viewpoint on knowledge based on observations. The realistic view of knowledge is based on the link between the rationalistic and the empirical point of view. The systemic viewpoint is based on the realistic view of knowledge.

Provided assistance to social scientists who study social systems from the systemic or cybernetic point of view. Gives researchers studying problems/phenomena in social systems a systemic viewpoint.

It positioned systemic thinking in relation to the philosophy of social science.

This essay is a review of the recent literature on the methodology of economics, with a focus on three broad trends that have defined the core lines of research within the discipline during the last two decades. These trends are: (a) the philosophical analysis of economic modelling and economic explanation; (b) the epistemology of causal inference, evidence diversity and evidence-based policy and (c) the investigation of the methodological underpinnings and public policy implications of behavioural economics. The final output is inevitably not exhaustive, yet it aims at offering a fair taste of some of the most representative questions in the field on which many philosophers, methodologists and social scientists have recently been placing a great deal of intellectual effort. The topics and references compiled in this review should serve at least as safe introductions to some of the central research questions in the philosophy and methodology of economics.

Concepts such as “the social,” “sociality,” and even “society,” must be viewed “in time and space,” simultaneously as malleable, as representing national and regional differences, and as reflective of concrete sociohistorical conditions. Importantly, particular societal and historical circumstances exert specific kinds of gravity on efforts to clarify the meaning of the above concepts in general and for specific contexts, and to deploy them for purposes of both illuminating and examining the social phenomena they refer to, and their concrete content and form. It is also necessary to establish how and to what extent such efforts themselves are bound to be symptomatic and expressive of the distinctive features (social, political, cultural, economic, geographic, climatic, etc.) they are intended to illuminate and examine. In the United States, related challenges are especially pronounced, for a range of reasons, including the fact that as a comparably “young” nation that was created under very unique conditions, the character of “the social” and the historical foundations of sociality are discernibly different from other societies on Earth. For this reason, as far as social theory is concerned, before it is possible to assess the status and character of “the social,” of “sociality,” and of “society,” in general and abstract terms, it is important to circumscribe what is unique or “exceptional” about a particular society in whose context the status and nature of “social” is being assessed and characterized. Against the neoliberal trend of pitting the social sciences and humanities against each other, and the natural and engineering sciences against both, the former must learn to collaborate and complement each other in ways that secure the independence and autonomy of the social dimension of increasingly complex and contradictory, yet seemingly cohesive societal reference frames.

Argues that there exists, at least at the level of social practices, a type of social or public philosophy that identifies and gives meaning to the values dynamizing social interactions. That is, the “public philosophy” consists of a continuous discourse about the “good”. It is to this level of public philosophy that social economics adverts to its research field. When this is done we understand that the social economy, expressed in metaphors and symbols of “wellbeing” and “well‐living” in fact consists of the resources and social organizations that make it possible for groups and communities to manage their own affairs. Uses the example of micro‐business and micro‐enterprise to show the interaction of the “public philosophy” (as a set of expectations) and social economy. Concludes by arguing that attention to non‐instrumental dimensions of the social economy raises a new set of questions about the meaning of economy and the human good.