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Human dignity is a crucial concept in international and domestic human rights law. It is understood to be the foundation of human rights, and while we know what human rights are, the nature, content, and grounds of human dignity remain unclear. The aim of this chapter is to propose scientific grounds for human dignity. In this context, the author will explore contemporary evolutionary biology and evolutionary psychology, where it is claimed that human nature is constituted by tendencies to cooperate (Tomasello, 2009), or under a different formulation, by narrow altruism and imperfect prudence (Załuski, 2009). Evolutionary psychology holds that we have basic tendencies to cooperate with one another and to behave altruistically in order to achieve a common good. This means that our basic evolutionary default and scientifically proven mode of being are optimistic and can be labelled as morally good. The author argues that this human nature constitutes scientific grounds for human dignity. The author’s argument holds that since human dignity comprises the inherent worth of every human being, this positive moral fact about the scientifically understood human nature is human dignity. The author then present this issue within two broader philosophical frameworks of analytic philosophy – namely, naturalism (especially methodological naturalism) and metaphysical realism. Following this, the author contends that references to natural sciences in debates on the foundations of human dignity and human rights argue against the strongest objection to human rights – the objection of Western ethnocentrism.

In this paper, I compare Theodore Schatzki’s practice theory, the existential phenomenology of Martin Heidegger upon whom Schatzki drew in its formation, and my own theory of institutional logics which I have sought to develop as a religious sociology of institution. I examine how Schatzki and I both differently locate our thinking at the level of practice. In this essay I also explore the possibility of appropriating Heidegger’s religious ontology of worldhood, which Schatzki rejects, in that project. My institutional logical position is an atheological religious one, poly-onto-teleological. Institutional logics are grounded in ultimate goods which are praiseworthy “objects” of striving and practice, signifieds to which elements of an institutional logic have a non-arbitrary relation, sources of and references for practical norms about how one should have, make, do or be that good, and a basis of knowing the world of practice as ordered around such goods. Institutional logics are constellations co-constituted by substances, not fields animated by values, interests or powers.

Because we are speaking against “values,” people are horrified at a philosophy that ostensibly dares to despise humanity’s best qualities. For what is more “logical” than that a thinking that denies values must necessarily pronounce everything valueless? Martin Heidegger, “Letter on Humanism” (2008a, p. 249).

The purpose of this paper is to critique the metaphor of “shadow organizing” in relation to researchers’ allegedly ontological commitment to processual metaphysics.

The paper focuses on the association of “shadow organizing” with post-epistemologies that are grounded in process ontology. The investigation examines aspects of relational thinking and is guided by John Dewey and Arthur Bentley’s genealogical reconstruction of modes of inquiry.

Inquiry is construed in either substantialist or relational ways by researchers. By using the metaphor of “shadow organizing,” the relational aspects of organizational phenomena are prioritized for explorative purposes. Other research objectives are aided by substantialist modes of inquiry. It is the argument of the paper, however, that relational research approaches need not make commitment to process ontology, and that the relational ambitions imbued in the metaphor of shadow organizing are in fact better honored for their methodological virtues.

The paper’s original contribution consists in critiquing post-epistemological attempts to ground organization studies in ontological first principles of process metaphysics. The paper argues that the metaphor of “shadow organizing” is a promising concept that is better appreciated as a methodological move than an ontological commitment.

Creativity and innovation are interrelated, and indeed often conflated, concepts. A corollary to this distinction is two different perspectives or types of entrepreneurship and entrepreneurs. The purpose of this paper is to explore the distinction between creativity and innovation on the basis of their relationship to history and implications for understandings of entrepreneurship.

This paper is a theoretical exploration of entrepreneurship understood in relation to a proper distinction between creativity and innovation. Creativity and innovation differ from the perspective of their relationship to what has already happened in history vs the radical novelty of a particular discovery or invention.

Creativity can be understood as what human beings do in connection with the fundamental givenness of things. Innovation, on the other hand, can be best understood as a phenomenon related to the historical progress of humankind. Innovation is what human beings discover on the basis of what has already been discovered. Entrepreneurs can be seen as those who discover something radically new and hidden in the latent possibilities of reality and creation. Or entrepreneurs can be seen as those who develop new, and even epochal, discoveries primarily on the basis of the insights and discoveries of those who have come before them in history.

This paper provides a helpful conceptual distinction between creativity and innovation, and finds compatibility in these different perspectives. A holistic and comprehensive understanding of entrepreneurship embraces both its creative and innovative aspects, its metaphysical grounding as well as its historicity.

This paper extends our understanding of the concept and global practice of political economy.

The paper sets out the limits of conceptual analysis regarding political economy. It then applies Heidegger’s theory of metaphysics to the cultures of China and the West.

It is possible to construct an account of Confucianism metaphysics which contrasts with modern western metaphysics. The paper suggests some implications of the contrast.

The paper is exploratory and broad-brush. It suggests the potential of further systematic enquiries.

National and business leaders seek to understand the global business environment. This requires insights into the nature of culture and the foundations of cultures. The paper provides a way to make sense of national aspirations and global political/business responses to changed circumstances.

The paper continues a research programme which seeks to explicate Chinese decision-making and relate it to the western decision-making. It is the first paper to use Heidegger’s concept of metaphysics in relation to Confucianism.

This paper explores the role of institutional objects in the constitution of institutional logics. Institutional objects depend for their objectivity on the goods produced through those objects, such as economic models, passports, or sacred texts. The authors theorize institutional logics as grammars of valuation that institutionalize goods through institutional objects. The authors identify four value moments through which goods are objectified: institution, the instituting of a good, a belief and an imagination of its objective goodness; production, how the good is produced, what practices are productive of the good; evaluation, how good is the good, the practices and objects through which worth in terms of that good is determined, and territorialization, the domain of reference of the good, to what objects and practices a good can and does refer in its instantiations. The authors assess the adequacy of our model through an institutional object based on the good of “market value” – i.e., an options pricing model. The authors discuss the implications of these findings for institutional logical theory and the sociology of valuation.

Concepts equip the mind with thought, provide our theories with ideas, and assign variables for testing our hypotheses. Much of contemporary research deals with narrowly circumscribed concepts, termed simple concepts herein, which are the grist for much empirical inquiry in the field. In contrast to simple concepts, which exhibit a kind of unity, complex concepts are structures of simple concepts, and in certain instances unveil meaning going beyond simple concepts or their aggregation. When expressed in hylomorphic structures, complex concepts achieve unique ontological status and serve particular explanatory capabilities. We develop the philosophical foundation for hylomorphic structures and show how they are rooted in dispositions, dispositional causality, and various mind–body trade-offs. Examples are provided for this emerging perspective on “Big concepts” or “Big Ideas.”

In this chapter, I respond to the thoughtful and insightful critical discussions of my book, The Politics of Our Selves, offered by Colin Koopman, Johanna Meehan, and Christopher Zurn. After distinguishing between the interpretive, conceptual, and practical–political aims of the book, I defend my interpretive claims vis-a-vis Foucault and Habermas against criticisms raised by Koopman and Zurn, clarify my understanding of the conceptual aim of the book in response to Koopman's critique, and indicate how my approach to the practical–political questions about overturning gender subordination raised by Zurn and Meehan can be developed further.