Philosophy and leadership are not generally held in close association. By contrast, this paper is a call to action for the academy and organisational practitioners to reflect on the potential contribution to leadership of a practice of philosophy as a way of life. In this, we explore what this might entail with an illustrative focus on Stoicism because of its explicit attention to working in radical uncertainty. Recent literature has also identified the potential merits of Negative Capability in this regard, and we discuss how this capacity is closely related to many Stoic practices. We challenge dominant leadership discourses at a fundamental level and argue that there is a need to consider approaches to leadership education and development that go beyond merely gaining new knowledge, skills and techniques. The requirement, which is also an opportunity, is nothing less than a transformation at the level of being and of one's vision of the world. The theoretical contribution of the paper is supported by empirical evidence from a study with ten organizational executives who were introduced to Negative Capability through an arts-based methodology. This study provides insight into the potential contribution of ideas from Stoic philosophy to the development of a capacity to work with uncertainty. However, a core argument of this paper is that working in radical uncertainty requires more than a 'quick fix' and practitioners must learn to develop their own practice of philosophy as a way of life.

This is a practical chapter looking at the design and delivery of large modules with diverse contexts and students. It gives illustrations and covers the major considerations of clarity, simplicity and building a community of practice within the teaching team for both delivery and marking. It is based on three principles. First, in order to ensure the teaching team and the students can understand the learning requirements, we have given careful attention to principles of design and delivery communicated through detailed guidance and resources. Second, to maintain the smooth running of the module, we work with an ongoing awareness of processes of sensemaking, the impact of emotion and the maintenance of confidence levels, with a focus on socially situated practice. This involves managing both staff and student expectations, with a strong emphasis on ensuring that the teaching team remains 'on message'. Third, considerable efforts are made to ensure that assessment marking and feedback is consistent and of high quality.

This chapter considers caring leadership through the twin prisms of Negative Capability and Care of the Self, arguing that an aspiration to practise caring leadership involves a commitment to the development of self-knowledge and the capacity to be without. It presents an example of leadership in the prison service to illustrate how a phenomenological inquiry into one’s experience of self may serve to heighten the quality of attention that leaders give in complex situations. In a sector increasingly dominated by systems and driven by targets and performance indicators, this case reveals a dedication to re-humanising leadership by challenging the organisation to recognise that being human matters. This means developing a capacity for courage, trust and care in order to make decisions that are not driven by personal agendas, universal regulations of so-called best practice, or the fear of failure.

Bion’s theory of groups is used to explore the dynamics of learning on a leadership development programme. The dynamic of a group is influenced by the capacity of its members to negotiate, consciously and unconsciously, the tension between the opposed tendencies of attention and distraction, which is related to the tension between a desire to learn and a hatred of the process of development. Bion’s model of work-group and basic-assumption mentalities, which we equate with the dynamics of attention and distraction, is used to reflect on a two-month period of a development programme in a UK public service organisation. In related literature there is a tendency to focus on the pathology of basic-assumption mentality with limited interest in the healthy functioning of workgroup mentality. Basic-assumption mentality contributes to understanding a group that is distracted from its purpose, but a focus on this, without comparable attention to work-group mentality, can lead to an inappropriately negative view of group process. This is contrary to Bion’s essential optimism about the powerful psychological structure of work-group mentality. The article demonstrates the importance of combining an analysis of both attention and distraction to fully appreciate the complex dynamic of groups engaged in a developmental process.

Aristotle's Ethica Eudemia ( Eth. Eud. ) and Ethica Nicomachea ( Eth. Nic. ), as is well known and much discussed, contain three books in common ( Eth. Eud. 4–6 = Eth. Nic. 5–7). Less well known, at least until Dieter Harlfinger alerted scholars to the fact in 1971, is that some of the manuscripts of Eth. Eud. do, contrary to the then prevailing consensus, contain the text of these common books. Even less well known is that Harlfinger's discovery was anticipated some 50 years before by Walter Ashburner, who had uncovered this fact about Eth. Eud. MSS in the Laurentian library of Florence. Ashburner's anticipation of Harlfinger, however, is not the real value of his article. Its value rather is that it contains collations of readings for the common books, and thereby gives us an excellent resource for examining the text of the common books as this text is contained in exclusively Eth. Eud. MSS. The Eth. Eud. tradition of the common books has hitherto received little attention. Modern editions of Eth. Eud. do not include these books, and editions of Eth. Nic. have other MSS for the purpose. Ashburner's collations are the more valuable because they are taken from (among others) the one MS that, in Harlfinger's learned stemma, appears as the archetype for all the rest.

Previous articleNext article No AccessBook ReviewJohn P. Safranek. The Myth of Liberalism. Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2015. Pp. xvii+270. $39.95.Peter SimpsonPeter SimpsonCollege of Staten Island Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUSFull Text Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by American Political Thought Volume 6, Number 3Summer 2017 Published in association with the American Political Thought organized section of the American Political Science Association and the Jack Miller Center Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/692580 Views: 57Total views on this site For permission to reuse, please contact [email protected]PDF download Crossref reports no articles citing this article.

This response to critics of Political Illiberalism does not take and answer each critic in turn, but follows rather a thematic order as indicated by the several subheadings. The order starts with some general criticisms and proceeds, as occasion offers, to more particular ones. However, for ease of reference, the names of the critics whose remarks are dealt with in each case are added in parentheses to the subheadings (though note that frequency of mention does not equate to degree of importance or attention given). The point of this procedure is the same as the point of the Symposium, to keep the thesis of the book and its several parts most in focus while nevertheless not hiding the author or object of the criticisms. A drawback of thus not responding to each criticism of each critic in turn is that some criticisms will be missed. But trying to cover everything, apart from being almost impossible to achieve, would make the article long and unwieldy and run the risk of hiding the wood for the trees. My aim instead was to respond to what seemed most relevant for the clarification and defense of my thesis, so that as little doubt as possible would be left about what the thesis really amounts to, and so that a fair acceptance or rejection of it, whether in whole or in part, might the more easily be reached.

In this follow up to The Eudemian Ethics of Aristotle, Peter L. P. Simpson centers his attention on the basics of Aristotelian moral doctrine as found in the Great Ethics the definition of happiness, the nature and kind of the virtues, pleasure, and friendship. This work's authenticity is disputed, but Simpson argues that all the evidence favors it. Unlike the Nicomachean and Eudemian Ethics, Aristotle wrote the Great Ethics for a popular audience. It gives us insight less into Aristotle the theoretician than into Aristotle the pedagogue. For this reason, the Great Ethics has distinct advantages as an introduction to Aristotelian ethical thinking: it is simpler and clearer in its argumentation, matters such as the intellectual virtues are made suitably secondary to the practical focus, the moral virtues come through with a pleasing directness, and the work's syllogistic formalism gives it a transparency and accessibility that the other Ethics typically lack. Arius' Epitome, which relies heavily on this work, helps confirm its value and authenticity. Because the Great Ethics is generally neglected by scholars, less has been done to clear up its obscurities or to expose its structure. But to ignore it is to lose another and more instructive way of approaching and appreciating Aristotle's teaching. The translation is prefaced by an analytic outline of the whole, and the several sections of it are prefaced by brief summaries. The commentary supplies fuller descriptions and analyses, sorting out puzzles, removing misunderstandings, and resolving doubts of meaning and intention. This book is a fresh rendition of the work of the preeminent philosopher of all time.