Kant: Human, Animals, and Empathy Essay

Immanuel Kant remains one of the most influential thinkers in history. Part of Kant’s appeal is his ability to provide incredibly unique insights into the human condition. One of the more interesting works by Kant was his writing that looked into human interrelations with animals. From his examinations, Kant essentially shows that how humans treat animals is indicative of how they will treat other people. This ties very heavily into the notion that the human-animal relationship is linked heavily with empathy. Kant makes a very sobering point in his analysis of human relationships with animals. Much of Kant’s analysis is realistic and this realistic insight notes the darker side of human nature. Kant understands that not all human/animal relationships are harmonious. The sad fact remains that there are those who are cruel to animals. Many sociopathic individuals display enormous cruelty to animals. Granted, the number of those individuals is limited in comparison to those who have harmonious relationships. But, these individuals do exists. There numbers – while low – are still significant enough that there are laws on the books designed to punish their cruel behavior. Kant understands this because he looks at the relationship from a common sense perspective. After all, how could a person who tortures animals show empathy towards humans? A lack of empathy against any living this is indicative that the person possesses NO empathy. Kant also points out that a child who possesses such cruel behavior will likely develop into a cruel adult. That is the path such a malformed development of relationships will lead the child when he/she blossoms into adulthood. Of course, not all of Kant’s writing deals with the negative aspects that can come to light when examining the relationship between humans and animals. The inverse is also presented as well. That is, the good qualities of a person become visible when examining how a person treats their loving animals. A person who cares for a dog when it is sick, gives it food when it is hungry, and provides shelter when the animal needs protection is clearly a person who understand the concept of giving to those in need. Such actions will eventually re-emerge in their relationships with other humans. Now, does that mean that simply because a dog owner is angelic with his pet that the owner will be devoid of cruelty towards others? No, of course not; such an assessment would be absurd. However, if a person does treat an animal with kindness and respect then empathy is present. Simply put, all good treatment of animals is synonymous with empathy. You can not have one without the other. Granted, the actual volume of empathy may vary. That is, a person may show empathy towards family and friends but may possess aberrant or destructive traits as well. A person who loves his family selflessly may also possess racial animosity. However, if one were to look at reducing or eliminating racial animosity (or any other personality aberrancy), a person with a capacity for empathy will be more than likely to repent as opposed to a sociopath who lacks empathy. Keep in mind, empathy is not a minimal â€Å"touchy-feely† emotion. Empathy goes to the core of who we are and what we are capable of. That is why it is critical to understand how beings react to others since this gives an insight into their empathic nature. A clear examination of human-animal relationships provides this insight. Or, at least, this is the hope.

JROTC Builds Character and Leardership

Junior ROTC can be a four year of your life with new experiences that builds character and leadership. Im a freshman and i joined JROTC when the school stared , and i wasn't sure what to expect about JROTC and the class mates. Throughout my six-months being a cadet, i was challanged emotionally, mentally , and physically. However i was able to learn about how to work in teams and how to become a leader. JROTC teaches character, leadership, personal responsibility, healthy lifestyles etc. It teaches responsibility, discipline and personal accountability. You do not have to go into the military if you join.If you are lacking in responsible adults in your life that teach you life lessons then JROTC can be really good. Or just if you need a new crowd of people to hang around with who will be positive influences. JROTC has taught me what I would not have learned in any other class in high school. Junior ROTC is unique because it gives us the independence to make decisions that impact us d irectly and we are free to make the organization our own. The goal is attained by mutual cooperation and behavior. They also teach us to build character and leadership by giving us guidence and putting the cadets in a position that we are not used to do.This helps us adapt to new things. The best leaders are those who can lead and direct without misuse of their power. They must be able to inspire others in a greater good. They must have honesty, confidence, communication, and commitment. JROTC brings us out the best in cadets because of the higher level of maturity expected of them from the teachers and the vast of students involvement in running the program. JROTC it is a great program that teaches leadership to students and is a worthwhile investment in one’s future. I love JROTC because it’s a place that im with friends that respect me for who I am .

Young Emiratis Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Young Emiratis - Essay Example There was an explosion of in immigrants and population increased, with corresponding increasing in number of vehicles accompanied by rapidly expanding road construction projects. The pattern of behavior rapidly changed, with behaviors rooted in traditional cultures mixed with that of western. This led to increased number of road traffic accidents with fatalities and casualties challenging the probability of living (El-Sadig, 2012, p. 67). Currently, road traffic accident is a major problem faced by security agencies in the United Arab Emirates and the public as well. Therefore, road accidents represent the number of deaths and injuries, and the effect of accident on social life. In addition, traffic accident causes material losses in terms of property damaged, which is a cost to the economy. According to traffic statistic released by Ministry of Interior in 2012, 6454 accidents occurred resulting in a 758 injury and 628 people died (International Business Publications, 2012 p. 14). M ajor car accidents occur because of irresponsible behaviors of drivers such as not abiding to speed limit, maintaining a short distance between cars, neglecting the importance of safety belts, and making a call while driving. Young Emiratis is the major contributor and cause of road traffic accident in UAE (Martin, 2010, p. 46). ... Male young Emiratis appears to thrive on the risk and in most cases do not abide by traffic and safety rules as compared to female young Emiratis. Early driving is also pointed as the cause of car accidents. According to the study, young Emiratis claim that they started driving surreptitiously or with permission from their parents before they attain legal age of 18 years, 8years to be precise. This is a major determinant of accidents, which result in great loss to the society and the economy. With regard to reckless driving, many young Emiratis engages in risky driving practices including exceeding the speed limit, overtaking using wrong lane, intruding to force way and tailgate (Hutchinson, 2004 p.100). Safety measures that drivers are encouraged to observe, even though they are not legally binding, are not in style to young Emiratis. Others go to an extend of eating and drinking while driving, do not use indicators to show direction, and do not use hand free set when answering or m aking calls. Expression of superiority consumes young Emiratis while driving. This is a behavioral pattern that scientist call ‘territoriality’. It refers to the attempt by individual to occupy, define and defend what he considers his own territory. While driving, young Emiratis mostly overtakes the car in front if the driver of that car is an expatriate or from another Emirate (Martin, 2010, p. 89). When a road accident occurs, there are tangible and intangible cost incurred. It results in fatality. Young Emiratis drives recklessly which result in road traffic accidents. They over-speed and overtake on a wrong lane and fail to observe basic driving rules, which result in unexpected collisions. This causes death to driver, occupants, and those in the surrounding such as passengers

Oracle Corporation Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Oracle Corporation - Essay Example Furthermore, chances of improving my career and skills is high, because the company values and rewards hard work. This is through motivational policies that encourage an individual to embark on learning of new skills. Oracle Corporation mainly relies on the principles of information technology to develop softwares and hardwares. The company technological products operate under the brand name of Oracle. These softwares and hardwares are mainly referred as Oracle projects, financials, procurements, HRMS, etc. Oracle creates, markets, hosts and supports various middleware software, database, hardware systems, cloud infrastructure, and other related services all over the world. The company further provides hardware and software systems and other related services aimed at managing IT environments, and also deploying services in cloud software (Zheng and Zhang, 2014). Oracle also offers software’s for purposes of mobile computing, and middle ware as well as databases software that can help to manage business applications for small as well as large business organizations. Jones (2010) further explains that oracle provides software applications for talent management, human capital, financial management, and human relationship management. The company was founded by Larry Ellison in the year 1977, and he became the chairman of the board of directors from the year 1990, to the year 2004Another founder of the company is Bob Miner who is the architect of the oracle database. He was in charge of leading the production and design of this database from the year 1977, to the year 1992 (Jones, 2010). He later on became a member of the board of directors. Another founder is Ed Oates, and he retired from the company in the year 1996. The current chairman of the company is Jeff Henley, who took over in the year 2004, from Larry Ellison. Jeff played an instrumental

Financial instruments and markets Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Financial instruments and markets - Essay Example This paper computed the above ratios with a view to assessing the capital of Fortescue Metals Group (FMG). According to1, these ratios are used to measure the entitys capital structure, and they show the extent to which the business has borrowed to finance its assets and other resource acquisitions for it to efficiently carry out its normal operations. From Table 1 above, the debt to total equity ratio of Fortescue Metals Group improved in 2014 as $1 of equity had $1.99 of debt from $2.90 in 2013. This was largely attributable to the fall in the amount of the total debt from $15,578M in 2013 to $15,111M in 2014, as well as an increase in the equity from $5,289M in 2013 to $7,583M in 2014. This implies that the capital structure of Fortescue Metals Group improved as it increased the proportion of the equity fund in financing its assets and operations and reduced the debt amount. This improvement was also evidenced in its debt ratio, which indicated that for every $1 of asset financing , the debt amount was $0.67 in 2013 from $0.75 in 2013. Further results showed that Fortescue Metals Group’s debt servicing capacity improved in 2014, compared to 2013. The firms times interest cover increased to 6.25 times from 5.15 times, indicating that the company had no difficulties in generating enough cash flows to pay its interest expenses and even increased in 2014. This paper went further ahead to establish the liquidity position of Fortescue Metals Group using liquidity ratios, which measure an entitys ability to meet its short-term maturing obligations as and when they fall due.

Fire & the Built Environment Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words - 1

Fire & the Built Environment - Essay Example It also seeks to create awareness to the public regarding the laws, regulations and various behavior modes found in the building and the environment around. The paper further helps in enhancing the knowledge as well as necessary skills of the researcher in solving problems, analysis of data and information, working as a team and establishing independent working mind. Since time immemorial, fire has been causing several accidents though fire explosions. Sometimes, they are quite horrible as well as devastating. Fire accidents have been causing a lot of damage to property as well as several loses of peoples lives. In several incidences, fire accidents have been leading to loss of millions assets and even affect the countries economy. In spite of the dangers posed by fire accidents, fire has been so crucial to human being life and hence can not be avoided. Fire is essential in cooking, domestic uses and even for leisure. Most fire accidents occur as a result of human carelessness as well as natural disasters. Although most of the fire accidents starts as small mistakes by different people, the fire spreads out quickly as a result of lack of the most appropriate preventive measures which can be employed in containing the situation(Fire Precautions, 2008). There is therefore the need to educate as well as find the best approaches of dealing with fire. There is also the need of use of the best measures to avoid much damage in case the fire occurs. Ignorance to understand these measures as well as the necessary experience, as witnessed in several cases that fire have happened and caused damages, are the major concern which the fire prevention departments need to explore further. The safety measures and precautions needed in buildings and their environment are usually referred to as fire safety. They are employed to help prevent or if possible reduce the potential damage that

Laws, tactics and imprisonment surrending cyber crimes in the UK Literature review

Laws, tactics and imprisonment surrending cyber crimes in the UK - Literature review Example Initially, the Act contained the three criminal offences of unauthorised access to computer and computer material, illegal; access with intent to commit and/or facilitate the commission of further offences and unauthorised modification of computer material. Later, in 2006, the Police and Criminal Justice Act amended the Computer Misuse Act. This amendment added a new section dealing with the offences of making, supplying and obtaining articles for use in computer misuse. To make the Act more effective, there is a proposal for the Act to be amended to target hackers that instigate serious attacks on computers on critical infrastructure with life imprisonment. This Act details all the offences associated with hacking and all the malware used in breaching computer systems. Regrettably, the Act is not encompassing enough to deal with cyber attacks that threaten national security. Currently, it addresses issues of unauthorised access to computer material or another persons user ID and password and further crimes upon gaining unauthorised entry into another person’s computer (www.gov.uk, 2014b). In this context, the Act addresses crimes such as stealing money or data and information from another’s computer system, spreading viruses and deleting files (Brenner, 2007). The maximum sentence for these offences is ten years. Fortunately, the Queen proposed the Serious Crime Bill, which will add a new offence of unauthorised acts causing serious damage in the Computer Misuse Act. The new offence encompasses more heinous cyber attacks on sensitive and essential systems of power supply, communications, and food or fuel distribution. Also addressed in the proposed Act are cyber crimes that would result in loss of life, social disruption or damage to the economy, environment or national security and serious injury (Brenner, 2007). The proposed Act’s

Manitoba unemployment rate forecast Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words - 1

Manitoba unemployment rate forecast - Essay Example By the year 2010, the province’s economy experienced a 2.4% growth per year. Manitoba’s economy remained unchanged amid the slowdown in the country’s economy. The province also registered a 2.4% increase in labor income. In addition, the economy has experienced an increase in employment levels due to increased demand for skilled laborers. Consequently, the unemployment levels have gradually reduced over the years. However, there are minimal changes in the unemployment rate in the province since 2010. The province has registered various changes in the overall labor force (Marcil, n.p.). Employment in an economy represents a number of eligible individuals who are willing to work and can be engaged in full time or part-time labor at prevailing wage rates. This is because the economy needs human capital where individuals play a part in the manufacture of goods and services for the economy. At this level, the economy experiences full employment where all available labor resources are utilized in an economically efficient way. On the other hand, unemployment is the number of individuals in an economy who are ready and capable to work, but cannot find a job. Therefore, the jobless individuals who are unwilling to work in an economy are not classified in the unemployment category. Unemployment is a key measure of economic health of a region or country. There are three types of unemployment namely frictional, structural, and cyclical unemployment (Kennedy 37). The frictional unemployment is a short-run unemployment resulting from the process of searching for a new employme nt by individuals. Structural unemployment represents a persistent lack of jobs whenever the incomes in employment markets do not match up the supply and demand. Finally, cyclic unemployment refers to the short-term unemployment related to the vicissitudes of the market. The unemployment rate determines the levels of unemployment in an economy (Kennedy 37).

Beat Generation Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2250 words

Beat Generation - Essay Example The concluding edition was not published till six years after Kerouac wrote it in one extended paragraph in 1951. In 1957, the Beat poem â€Å"Howl† (by Kerouac’s friend Allen Ginsberg) had gained unsavory reputation; the newly published â€Å"On the Road â€Å"was proficient to ride the wave of attention in the Beats as well as make Kerouac an immediate celebrity â€Å"On the Road’s† cross-continental journeys are about Kerouac’s trips, mostly by car and bus and often accompanied by his friend Neal Cassady, the frenetic, charismatic, independent scholar from the West. Cassady’s name in the novel is Dean Moriarty. The novel begins with Dean and Sal Paradise (Kerouac) meeting in New York City and progresses through four mostly fast-paced trips, back and forth amid New York and California, up and down the Eastern Seaboard, along the Gulf Coast, and downs into Mexico, with notable stopovers in Denver and New Orleans, the latter to visit Old Bull Lee (William 3). The open road, poverty, drugs, alcohol, jazz, hunger, sex, speed, and characters met along the way create intense situations that allow the travelers to observe, react, and consider while becoming more familiar with their own identities. The novel’s two principal characters are the narrator, Sal, and his companion and hero, Dean Moriarty thinly veiled versions of Kerouac and his friend Neal Cassady. The book unfolds as a loosely connected series of episodes that document the pair’s adventures during a drunken and drug-ridden odyssey through the United States. Along the way, they meet and befriend an unforgettable gallery of American types: jazz singers, drug addicts, hitchhikers, and drifters. Their journey culminates in a revealing and darkly humorous stay in Mexico (Challi p 10). Much of â€Å"On the Road† is barely disguised autobiography, a document attesting to the

Communicating Effectively with Someone Who is Deaf or Hard-of-Hearing Essay

Communicating Effectively with Someone Who is Deaf or Hard-of-Hearing - Essay Example Barnett (2002) states that effective communication is essential and will undoubtedly lead to good outcomes in assisting patients. Effective communication will lead to better management in healthcare. There are important skills that could significantly facilitate communicating with patients who are deaf or hard-of-hearing, and these skills will be discussed in this essay. B. Skills that contribute to effective hearing According to Power and Power (2004, p. 350), acquisition of communication skills enables students to work effectively as healthcare providers. Skills required to deal with particular patients depend on the individual and will vary with age. Steinberg et al. (2006, p. 262) add that the majority of those with hearing issues are elderly. They report poor health as compared to general population, an issue which is attributed to communication. Effective communication helps the deaf and those hard-of-hearing to give their medical history and have appropriate intervention. The health care provider is required to assess the deaf or hard-of-hearing person’s background, language knowledge and level of education to select the best skills to use in communication (Samady et al., 2008, p. 480). Barnett (2002) notes that the deaf or hard-of-hearing use sign language, especially if they grew up with the challenge from childhood. Some learn to use visual language such as reading of lips. Those who become deaf or hard-of-hearing in adulthood experience hardships in mastering communication skills. However, they have the advantage of having been able to speak; therefore, it becomes easier to communicate in the same language. Power and Power (2004, p. 350) reveal that a combination of verbal and non-verbal skills is required for effective communication with deaf or hard-of-hearing patients. These skills include speech reading or lip reading; writing; listening to speech; mastering a system of visual language; and visual aids or using an interpreter. For effectiv e communication, a combination of one, two or more of the skills may be necessary. Speech reading is common with people who are deaf or hard-of-hearing. They learn as they grow, depending on the common language used. The major challenge with speech reading is that not all speech sounds are represented on the lips during speech. For speech reading to be successful, there should be a distance and enough light to see the lips of the speaker. The conversation should not be done in a hurry. Avoid sounds that may cause discomfort (Meador & Zazove, 2005, p. 219). Lezzoni et al. (2010, p. 356) claim that visual aids have been successfully used and can be used in the healthcare context. Healthcare providers can use diagrams, pictures or charts to make clarifications and show medical terminology. Those who can only hear will listen and only give gestures as a reply. They may nod, smile, shake hands and use other gestures to communicate. The gestures will vary depending on the community where they live. O’Hearn (2006) adds that visual aids should be clear and correctly labeled. When they are used, they should be placed close to the speaker so that eye contact is maintained. Visual language is

Best War Ever Essay Example for Free

Best War Ever Essay The Causes of World War II History 1302 In the book The Best War Ever: America and World War II by Michael C.C. Adams, Adams discusses the misconceptions about world war two that America had and still has today. Through the title, one can assume that Americans came out of the five year war with a positive view. This was due to the way theatre and television portrayed it to the public, and like naà ¯ve children America ate it up. Television and other media didn’t want America to see the true horror that actually took place overseas, but what they didn’t know was how mislead America was going to become. This essay will discuss the argument Adams creates in chapter 6 about how sugar coating the war for America, was in a sense best for them, but for small businesses, immigrants and teens it was a different story. Before World War II became the center of attention in America, people lived their everyday lives. Most were small business owners that were just trying to make a living. As the war went on overseas, Pearl Harbor was attacked, which led to the U.S. joining the war. Do to this sudden need to protect our country, America became â€Å"obsessed† and young men volunteered to fight for the country they loved. Everyone including women and children had this attitude of supporting the troops and doing everything they could to help out, by women working jobs in factories that were originally created for men. As these factories like Ford, Coca-Cola, and Wrigley’s grew, â€Å"World War II undermined the world of the small producer in business and agriculture, completing the triumph of large corporations†¦Ã¢â‚¬  (The Best War Ever: America and World War II, 1994)1. Small businesses closing down wasn’t the only cause of America joining the war but also, families losing their homes, farms, towns, and well basically their lives. These people had to move to bigger cities where factories that were being recognized, due to the war, were the o nly jobs available. While factories grew, violence towards immigrants grew as well. Due to Pearl Harbor being attacked by the Japanese, Japanese-Americans were seen as a threat and removed from their homes and put into detention centers. â€Å"More  than two-thirds of the Japanese who were interned in the spring of 1942 were citizens of the United States.† (Japanese Relocation Centers: During World War II, nearly 120,000 Japanese Americans were under lock and key, 2007)2. President Roosevelt felt that they were a threat to America and that anyone of them could be a spy. African-Americans were facing hard times as well, though racism was still going strong, many African-Americans were being attacked and miss treated because of mixed work environments as Adams states in his book (1994) â€Å"A white man in a wildcat strike at a Packard plant said ‘I’d rather see Hitler and Hirohito win the war than work beside a nigger on the assembly line.’†3 Wives of African-American men in the army were also treated as lower class while the American women would get preferred treatment. Another race that was targeted were American-born Hispanics. Teen Hispanics began to form gangs and â€Å"challeng[e] the traditional restraints of their behavior†. They did this by wearing zoot Suits. Because of this new fashion trend amongst Hispanics, military men began to harass and ended up creating a riot known as the â€Å"Zoot Suit Riot† . In this riot military and Hispanic men attacked each other but only the Hispanic teens got arrested for the violence. As immigrants were mistreated, young American teens were feeling a sense of freedom, this was due to the lack of parental control. â€Å"More girls got pregnant. And the venereal disease rate rose : between 194 and 1944, New York City’s VD rate among girls aged fifteen to eighteen years old increased 204 percent.† (The Best War Ever: America and World War II, 1994)4. Teens were getting into trouble cutting school and joining gangs. It was hard for schools to maintain a strong education among the youth and so a decline in intellectual quality began in young Americans. Media also had a small part to play in this lack of education. Mass entertainment was trying to win over the youth through T.V. and movies and because of this the armed services saw that students in this generation weren’t as prepared as generations before them, they lacked skills learned in high school. But one reason that as a main factor were the number of jobs that were available. Teens were able to get a job as young as thirteen years old, even though the job wasn’t helping out the war, money made the youth feel free like they could do anything they wanted, which they did. In conclusion, World War II in a sense was the best war ever but for small businesses, immigrants and teens, it was a war that ended up changing tradition into trends and  violence. Americans w ere blinded and lied to and through this it brought grave consequences . â€Å"†¦ it is the danger of arrogance and hubris – that is, the danger of going to war because a nations leaders are convinced of their own righteousness, or have persuaded themselves and the public that a foreign country should be attacked because its government or society is not merely alien, hostile or threatening, but evil.(The Good War Myth of World War Two, 2008)5. Bibliography Michael C. C. Adams, The Best War Ever: America and world War II (Baltimore: The John Hopkins University Press, 1994) Japanese Relocation Centers: During World War II, nearly 120,000 Japanese Americans were under lock and key, 2007 http://www.infoplease.com/spot/internment1.html The Good War Myth of World War Two, May 24, 2008 http://www.ihr.org/news/weber_ww2_may08.html

Rise And Rise Of Dhirubhai

Rise And Rise Of Dhirubhai Dhirubhai once said: Our dreams have to be bigger, our ambitions higher, our commitment deeper and our efforts greater. This is my dream for Reliance. In fact, this is my dream for India. Indeed Dhirubhai has been successful in bringing his dream to reality. From a humble beginning, Dhirubhai Ambani was successfully able to build up the largest Business conglomerate in India in a span of just 25 years. Today, the turnover of Reliance Industries forms 3% of the entire GDP. This tremendous growth in such a small time is the result of the large amount of hard work, dedication and excellence that Dhirubhai Ambani brought in to the culture of Reliance Industries. As they say, there are two sides of the coin. While there is no doubt that Dhirubhai Ambani was a highly intelligent and dedicated manager, he was not perfect, in the right sense. For a long time Dhirubhais ethics have been a matter of debate. While some consider him as a shrewd businessman, the others dont approve of certain things he did. History Dhirajlal Hirachand Ambani was born on 28th December 1932, in Chorwad Gujarat into a Modh family of moderate means. He was the second son of a school teacher. Right from childhood Dhirubhai was precocious and highly intelligent. He was highly impatient of the oppressive grinding mill of the school classroom. Chose work that used his physical ability to the maximum rather than cramming school lessons. At the age of 16, Dhirubhai moved to Aden, Yemen. He worked there as a clerk for A. Besse Co. For two years. Later he was promoted to manage the companys oil filling station at the port of Aden, when A. Besse became the distributors for Shell. Ten years later, Dhirubhai returned to India and started a business Reliance Commercial Corporation with a capital of Rs. 15000.00. The primary business of Reliance Commercial Corporation was import polyester yarn and export spices. The business was setup in partnership with Chambaklal Damani, his second cousin who was also there with him in Aden. The first office of Reliance Commercial Corporation was set up in Narsinathan Street at Masjid Bunder. It was a 350 sq. Ft room with a telephone, one table and three chairs. Initially they had two assistants to help them in their business. In 1965, Chambaklal Damani and Dhirubhai Ambani ended their partnership and Dhirubhai started on his own. It is believed that both had different temperament and a different take on business. While Mr. Damani was a conscious trader and did not believe in building yarn inventories, Dhirubhai was a known risk taker and he considered that building inventories with anticipating a price rise and making some profit is good for growth. During this period, Dhirubhai and his family used to stay in a one bedroom apartment in Bhuleshwar. In 1968, he moved from the chawl to an upmarket apartment at Altamount Road, in South Mumbai. His first car was a premier Padmini. In 1970s he bought a white Cadillac car. Dhirubhai started his first textile mill in Naroda in the year 1966. Textiles were manufactured using polyester fibre yarn. Dhirubhai started the brand Vimal, named after his nephew. Extensive marketing of the brand in the interiors of India made Vimal a household name. Franchised retail outlets were started to sell only Vimal brand of textiles. In the year 1975, a technical team from the World Bank, visit this unit and certified it as excellent even by developed country standards. Banks and financial institutions repeatedly turned him down when he needed money the most. He was just not in the same league as other businessmen of his time. This made him an out of the box thinker. Dhirubhais first public offering of 28.2 lakh equity shares in the then Reliance Textiles in November 1977 was oversubscribed nearly seven times. The issue fetched him Rs 3 crore, a big sum by the standards of those days. Between 1979 and 1982, Reliance made four debenture issues. In 1979 it was for a worsted mill; in 1980, for modernising its textile mill; in 1981, to manufacture polyester filament yarn at Patalganga. In 1982, he topped it all with a record Rs 50-crore issue for expansion and diversification. Dhirubhai treated his shareholders like family members. Such royal treatment endeared him to his investors, says Kisan Ratilal Choksey, Chairman of KR Choksey Shares and Securities, a leading Mumbai brokerage firm. Dhirubhai understood the power of equity funding for his mega projects, says Devesh Kumar, Managing Director of Centrum Broking. In that sense, he was a visionary, way ahead of his times, and an out-of-the-box thinker, he adds. He always made sure that the investors got returns commensurate their investments. Marriages, businesses, studies abroad of the investors have been said to be financed by Reliance. He coined the term Mega Issue. His faith in retail investor also gave a leg up to BSE and its 30-share sensitive index, Sensex. Lured by Reliances power to deliver dividends and higher stock prices, thousands flocked to the market. Dhirubhai was a visionary, because he looked at the future a future he knew he may not even be around to enjoy. But that what propelled him and his stakeholder benefited from his search for a better future. In 1982 Ambani began the process of backward integration, setting up a plant to manufacture Polyester filament yarn. He subsequently diversified into chemicals, gas, petrochemicals, plastics, and power and telecom services. RIL bought IPCL from the government of India to become Indias largest petrochemical player.   After the launch of the refining arm of reliance, Reliance achieved a huge cashflow position and has never looked back. Mukesh Ambanis statement that RIL will be like a makoda where even if a few legs are hurt, the organism will be hale and hearty and not stop its march forward. Behind the Scenes Despite his affability, some of his old colleagues describe Dhirubhai as a dark character-not just because of the darkish skin he inherited from his father-but for the ambition and risk taking he hardly concealed. He exported spices, often at a loss, and used replenishment licenses to import rayon. Later, when rayon started to be manufactured in India, he exported rayon, again at a loss, and imported nylon. Ambani was always a step ahead of the competitors. With the imported items being heavily in demand, his profit margins were rarely under 300 percent In the 1950s the Yemini administration realized that their main unit of currency Rial was in disappearing. After investigating the matter it was realized that all Rials were routed to the Port City of Aden. There a young man in twenties was placing unlimited buy orders of Yemini Rials. During those days the Yemini Rial was a pure silver coin and was much in demand at the London Bullion Exchange. Young Dhirubhai would buy Rial, melt it in pure silver and sell it to bullion traders in London. Reliance expanded its equity base through frequent rights and bonus issues to shareholders, while financial institutions converted 20 per cent of their loans into equity in September 1979. But the use of convertible debentures catapulted Dhirubhai Ambani into the big league in the capital markets. Dhirubhai had anticipated the governments policy with regards to the convertible debentures and the Series I issue of partially convertible debentures by Reliance in October 1979 raised Rs 70 million. Although Reliance was not alone in trying the long disused instrument but from late 1980 the issues of partially convertible debentures coming from Reliance in quick succession, raising Rs 108 million in September from its Series 11 and Rs 240 million from its Series 111 the next year, and Rs 500 trillion from Series IV in April 1982. Dhirubhai capped that by obtaining from Sen Gupta clearance to do what should normally be legally impossible: converting the non-convertible portions of the four debenture issues into equity. This proved to be a master stroke. By this method, dubbed a brilliant and unconventional move by many, Dhirubhai-Reliance was able to chop Rs 735 million off its debt book in 1983, and turn it into comparatively modest equity of Rs 103 million, while reserves were raised by Rs 632 million. Instead of an annual interest bill of Rs 96.5 million on debentures, the dividend burden from the extra equity was only around Rs 36 million. This transmutation allowed Reliance to continue raising more quasi-debt, with its E Series of partially convertible debentures in October 1984 which raised another Rs 800 million. This reduced the debt equity ratio and further increased the attractiveness of the Reliance stock which was becoming an outperformer on the Indian Stock exchanges. Reliance always used to persuade the regulators with respect to its debenture issues. This did not mean that all its issues were approved without any hurdles. All questions being raised were not disposed of by Reliances policy of SALAM. On one occasion, the regulator rejected the premium that Reliance was seeking to put on an issue, on the ground that projected profitability had not been indicated. Without a pro-forma balance sheet for the current year-an extension of results to date-it could not be accepted. In 1982, Dhirubhai created waves in the stock markets when he took on a Kolkata-based cartel of bear operators that had sought to hammer down the share price of Reliance Industries. The cartel badly underestimated the Ambani ability to fight back. Not only did Dhirubhai manage to ensure the purchase of close to a million shares that the bear cartel offloaded, he demand physical delivery of shares. The bear cartel was rattled. In the process, the bourses were thrown into a state of turmoil and the Bombay Stock Exchange had to shut down for a couple of days before the crisis was resolved. After this incident many questions were raised by the press. People could not understand that how; a yarn trader till a few years ago was able to raise such a huge cash flow in the time of crisis. The answer stood in a story detailed how companies registered in the tax haven, Isle of Man, with ridiculous names like Crocodile Investments, Iota Investments and Fiasco Investments had purchased Reliance shares at one-fifth their market prices. Curiously, most of these firms were controlled by a clutch of non-resident Indians who had the same surname, Shah. Yet another article detailed how the group had been the beneficiary of a loan mela a number of banks had loaned funds to more than 50 firms that had all purchased debentures issued by Reliance Industries In 1993, Reliance was in the bidding for several oilfields in the Arabian Sea. The government oil search corporation had discovered the fields but did not have the funds to build the huge production rigs, gas compressors and pipelines that were needed. Several contacts among rival bidders were alleging that the tender was being rigged in favour of Reliance. Indian politicians and bureaucrats are masters at tilting an open and transparent tender into a one-horse race, by techniques such as keeping the weighting of bidding factors uncertain or secretly promising later concessions to compensate for underbidding. In the event, Reliance swept the field, and a director with one of the losers told me: We were shafted, and for the wrong reasons. Corporate Rivalry Reliance frequently, routinely, put any criticism or opposition to its actions down to motives of envy or a desire to pull down anyone achieving success. Throughout every crisis caused by exposure of alleged manipulations, its publicity took on a self-pitying Why is everyone always picking on us? tone. But the record tends to show that it was Dhirubhai and Reliance who often made the first move to put a spoke in a rivals wheels, whether it was Kapal Mehra of Orkay Silk Mills, Nusli Wadia of the Bombay Dyeing Group or, latterly, the Ruias of the Essar group. Coincidentally with disputes with Reliance, various rivals were hit with government inspections, tax problems, unfavourable press reports and physical attacks. The mid-eighties were a period during which the Reliance group got locked in a bitter turf battle with Bombay Dyeing headed by Nusli Wadia. The two corporate groups were producing competing products Reliance was manufacturing purified terephthalic acid (PTA) and Bombay Dye ing, di-methyl terephthalate (DMT). Wadia lost the battle and reportedly became the source of information for many of the articles against the Ambanis that subsequently appeared in  The Indian Express. In 1985, the Mumbai police accused a general manager in a Reliance group company of conspiring to kill Wadia, a charge that was never established in a court of law. Many years later, a newspaper owned by the Ambanis would accuse Wadia of illegally holding two passports and played up the fact that he was Mohammed Ali Jinnahs grandson. Year 1986 was a crucial one for Dhirubhai. He suffered a stroke in February that year. A few months later, the  Express  began publishing a series of articles attacking the Reliance group as well as the Indira Gandhi regime for favouring the Ambanis. These articles were co-authored by Arun Shourie who, ironically, later as Union Minister for Disinvestment in the Atal Behari Vajpayee government, presided over the sale of 26 per cent of the equity capital of the former public sector company, Indian Petrochemicals Corporation Limited (IPCL), to the Reliance group. By gaining managerial control over IPCL, the Reliance group would now be able to dominate the Indian market for a wide variety of petrochemical products. Ramnath Goenka, once a friend of Dhirubhai, and owner of The Indian Express was also considered to be close with Nusli Wadia. On many occasions, Ramnath Goenka tried to intervene between the two warring factions and bring an end to the enmity. As the days passed by The Indian Express carried a series of articles against Reliance Industries and Dhirubhai in which they claimed that Dhirubhai was using unfair trade practices to maximise the profits. As Reliance had a close relationship with The Indian Express, Ramnath Goenka did not use his staff at the Indian Express to investigate the case but assigned his close confidant, advisor and chartered accountant S. Gurumurthy for this task. Apart from S. Gurumurthy, another journalist Maneck Davar who was not on the rolls of Indian Express started contributing stories. The end to the tussle came only after Dhirubhai Ambani met with a stroke. While Dhirubhai Ambani was recovering in San Diego, his sons Mukesh Ambani and Anil Ambani managed the affairs. The Indian Express had turned the guns against Reliance and was directly blaming the government for not doing enough to penalise Reliance Industries. The battle between Wadia Goenka and Ambanis had become so big that it became a national crisis. It was not as if Indian politicians had not helped other industrialists in the past. However, the difference in the business-politics nexus at that time lay in the fact that by the time the Reliance groups fortunes were on the rise, the Indian economy had become more competitive. Thus, it was not enough for those in power to promote the interests of a particular business group. It became necessary to simultaneously put down the competition. Managing the Environment Dhirubhai, more than many of his fellow industrialists, understood and appreciated the importance of managing the environment, a euphemism for keeping politicians and bureaucrats happy. Ideas are no ones monopoly. Those who criticise me and Reliances growth are slaves to tradition, if not to outright conservatism and complacency; the criticisms were put down to jealousy. But the same Man also felt you have to sell your ideas to the government. Selling the idea is the most important thing, and for that Id meet anybody in the government. I am willing to salaam anyone. His willingness to salaam anyone and his cultivation of junior staff and newcomers had by the early 1980s created a huge network of friends in politics, government ministries and financial circles. Earlier, goodwill had been cemented by gifts of the famous suit-lengths of material. After the float of Reliance in 1977, Dhirubhai was able to allocate parcels of shares or debentures from the promoters quota of any issue, wit h a profit virtually guaranteed by the gap between issue and market prices or by the prospect of conversion. He made no secret of the fact that he did not have an ego when it came to paying obeisance before government officials be they of the rank of secretary to the Government of India or a lowly peon. It is hardly a secret that Dhirubhais support base would easily cut across political lines. Very few politicians have had the gumption to oppose the Ambanis, just as the overwhelming majority of journalists in the country preferred not to be critical of the Reliance group. The Indian media, most of the time, has chosen to lap up whatever has been doled out by the groups public relations executives. The bureaucracy too has, by and large, favoured the Ambanis, not merely on account of the fact that many  babus have got accustomed to receiving expensive hampers on the occasion of  diwali. Indira Gandhis return to power opened a golden period for Dhirubhai Ambani. In 1979, his company barely made it to the list of Indias 50 biggest companies, measured by annual sales, profits or assets. By 1984, Reliance was in the largest five. Dhirubhai himself had become one of the most talked and written about persons in India, gaining a personal following more like that of a sports or entertainment star than a businessman. It was also the period when Dhirubhai made the most rapid part of his transition, in the bitter words of a senior non-Congress politician in 1996, from supplicant-the most abject kind of supplicant-to influencer and then to controller of Indian politics. Dhirubhai A legend People close to Dhirubhai said that there were three Dhirubhai Ambanis. One was unique, larger than life, a brand name. He was one of the most talked about industrialists, and for Gujarati people he has tremendous emotional and sentimental appeal. He is their ultimate man, and has inspired many emulators. The second Dhirubhai Ambani is a schemer, a first-class liar, who regrets nothing and has no values in life. Then there is the third Dhirubhai Ambani, who has a more sophisticated political brain, a dreamer and a visionary, almost Napoleonic. People always getting the three personalities mistaken. Dhirubhai was one man who tried to look beyond the obvious, who dared to dream and dared to achieve his dream. He did not let anything stop him. No restriction was strong enough to stop Dhirubhai Ambani. Whether what Dhirubhai has been claimed to do, he actually did or not, there is certainly no denying the fact that there is no businessman in India who attracted as much adulations as he did. He was more than a legend in his lifetime. He successfully convinced 4 million middle class households to invest their hard earned savings in Reliance Industry Groups. He fondly referred to his shareholders as family members and conducted annual shareholder meetings in the atmosphere of large melas attended by hordes. Dhirubhai Ambani was different man to different people. To his millions of investors, who had seen their share prices multiply, he was a business messiah. To one writer, he was a Frankensteins Monster created by Indias experiments with close government control of the economy. The strictly controlled import licences given to registered exporters of textiles, allowing import of raw materials worth a certain percentage of their export earnings. Like many others, Dhirubhai realised that these import or replenishment licences (known as REPS) were as good as money, even though some of them were officially not transferrable and imports had to be made by the actual user of the materials. By paying higher margins than any other traders, Dhirubhai soon became the main player in the market for REP licences. The margins were tiny in the trade itself but his dominance also put him in the position of being able to turn on and off much of the supply of yarn into the Indian market. Conclusion Dhirubhai Ambani built his company through outstanding abilities and drive on many fronts: as an innovative financier, an inspiring manager of talent, an astute marketer of his products, and as a forward-looking industrialist. The energy and daring that showed itself in his early pranks, practical jokes and trading experiments developed into a boldness and willingness to live with risk that few if any other Indian corporate chiefs would dare to emulate. His extraordinary talent for sustaining relationships, and sometimes impressing men of standing, won him vital support from both governments and institutions. The dark side of his abilities was an eye for human weakness and a willingness to exploit it. This gained him preferential treatment or at least a blind eye from the whole gamut of Indian institutions at various times.

Impact Of Internet Journalism In West Africa Media Essay

Impact Of Internet Journalism In West Africa Media Essay Communication studies, according to Wikipedia(2011),is an  academic field  that deals with the processes of  communication commonly defined as the sharing of  symbols  over distances in space and time. Hence, a communication study encompasses a wide range of topics and contexts ranging from face-to-face conversation  to speeches to mass media outlets such as  television broadcasting. Communication studies, as a discipline, are also often interested in how audiences interpret information and the political, cultural, economic, and social dimensions of speech and language in context. Journalism is one of the branches of communication studies which have to do with proper or in depth investigating and reporting of events and issues to a large (broad) audience. Journalism like other discipline is guided by some ethics; the idea behind journalism is to accurately inform the masses or citizenry on an event or issue that concerns them. According to Wikipedia (2011), in modern society, news media has become the chief purveyor of information and opinion about public affairs; but the role and status of journalism, along with other forms of mass media, are undergoing changes resulting from the Internet, especially Web 2.0. Still on the Wikipedia (2011), the Internet carries a vast range of information resources and services, such as the inter-linked hypertext documents of the World Wide Web (WWW) and the infrastructure to support electronic mail. Most traditional communications media including telephone, music, film, and television are reshaped or redefined by the Internet, giving birth to new services such as Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) and IPTV. Newspaper, book and other print publishing are adapting to Web site technology, or are reshaped into blogging and web feeds. Although, internet journalism was practiced by some journalists which made little or no impact on the audience, but the September 11 attack on the US world trade centre brought it to limelight. Thus, this made internet journalism the most effective in the communication industries. According to Allan (2002), Journalism after September 11 examines how the traumatic attacks of that day continue to transform the nature of journalism, particularly in the United States and Britain. In Nigeria, it brings together an internationally respected group of scholars and media commentators to explore journalisms present and future by engaging with such pressing issues as trauma, free speech, censorship, patriotism, impartiality and celebrity. Journalism after September 11  raises vitally important questions regarding what journalism can and should look like today. In providing answers, it addresses topics such as: journalism and public life at a time of crisis; the role of sources in shaping the news; reporting by global news media, such as CNN; current affairs broadcasting; news photography and trauma; the emotional well-being of reporters; as well as a host of pertinent issues around news, democracy and citizenship. In her article, Bunz (2009), said journalists are coming to terms with the internet changing the way they research, organise their workflow and distribute their content. The biggest publications all over Europe have, for example, Twitter channels, led by the UK with nearly 70% and followed by nearly 40% in the Netherlands. 35% use blogs to research stories and 13.5% even have their own independent blog. In Nigeria, Some media organizations have already established a strong presence in the internet. For example, The Guardian Newspapers (www.ngrguardiannews.com), The Thisday Newspaper group (www.thisdayonline.com), The Independent Newspaper group (www.independentng.com), New Age Newspaper (www.newage-online.com) and so on have continued to be veritable sources of news and information to both Nigerians at home and abroad. However, the speed and spread of internet network in Nigeria are still not in comparable to that of the developed countries. The unstable state of the internet in Nigeria is another great challenge facing the masses which makes it difficult for an average Nigerian to log in the above websites in search of news. The Nigeria internet providers like mtn, glo, celtel, starcomm etc continue to maintain or work on their net to make sure they satisfy their customers in terms of making it more efficient and faster. Though these internet providers work hard to maintain their network, it can be said that they are not there yet. With this inefficiency in the internet, the journalists will find it difficult to communicate through. Few people who can afford a laptop or computer will be reluctant to pay their monthly subscription from the internet providers, then an average Nigerian who pay an exorbitant amount in a cyber cafe for an airtime to browse the internet will be disappointed because of the slow or inconsistency of the network. The media were and are still facing a lot of challenges which will definitely take years to overcome. In his book, Agbese (2006), said the commonest forms of communication technologies in the 1990s were fax machine, pagers, personal computer and Telephone. These technologies helped with communication and production. However these technologies were not readily available to everyone in Nigerian media houses. Most times only top staffs and owners had access to or owned form of communication technology. In the early to mid-1990s, computers were not available to all members of the staff. Most media had just one computer which only the typist had access to, to prepare stories for the publication. Lately, according to Nworah (2011), it can be said therefore that the Nigerian media are measuring up with their counterparts in other parts of the world by maintaining strategic presence on the information super highway. But any such attempt at rubbing shoulders with the western media stops just with the internet sites which some Nigerian media organisations have managed to set up as other facilities and resources are still largely unavailable to Nigerian journalists. For example, company sponsored laptop computers with mobile internet access, digital recording devices, open access mobile telephones and salaries that take into consideration global trends, market prices and national inflation rates. Again, for internet journalism to sway or be successful in Nigeria, the concepts of the popularised FAN (free readers association of Nigeria) need to be eradicated. The acronym is used to refer to the practice where people cluster around newspaper vendors stand to read newspapers and maga zines without actually buying any one. This in a sense show or reflect the socio-economic situation which an average Nigerian finds himself or herself into. An average Nigerian cannot afford a laptop and going to the cyber cafe to pay for an air time to listen or read news amidst the huge amount paid for the air time and the inconsistency of the internet is unthinkable. This in a large extent affects internet journalism among the media organization in Nigeria. Nworah (2011), also opined that The matter of indifference among the Nigerian masses is largely compounded by the fact that Nigerian advertisers have not yet started taking advantage of the opportunities presented by the internet, to advertise their products and services in the websites of some of these media organisations, only a few advertisers are doing this at the moment, it was hoped that such advertisements may actually increase to a height so that the free news now readily available on the internet can be subscribed for and also to make up for the shortfall from the hard copy sales. Nevertheless, the advent of internet may permit readers to log on to the websites and then freely read any newspaper or magazine of their choice, but this obviously will have a huge negative impact on revenues as less hard copies will be bought and the great lost will be on the media organization. The fear definitely deters media organization from using internet journalism as the lost from hard copy will negatively affect them. Looking at the way internet journalism has affected communication and the masses of the developing country like Nigeria, can this be said of other countries in West Africa? This research proposal will explore the impact of internet journalism so far in Nigeria and the effects on the media organizations and the masses. RESEARCH AIM: The aim of this research proposal is to evaluate the effects and impacts of internet journalism in West Africa, thus using Nigeria as the country to be studied. RESEARCH QUESTIONS: This research proposal will base its questions on the following: How effective has internet journalism proven among the journalists in Nigeria? What impacts have internet journalism on the masses (audience) of Nigeria? Has the non stability of internet helped the Nigerian journalists in accessing stories efficiently? How often an average Nigerian does has access to the internet? RESEARCH HYPOTHESIS: (a)(i).This research will consider the null that Internet journalism has proven effective among the journalists in Nigeria. (a)(ii).The alternative hypothesis is that the internet journalism has not proven effective among the journalists in Nigeria. (b)(i).This research will consider the null that the internet journalism has impacts on the masses (audience) of Nigeria. (b)(ii).The alternative hypothesis is that the internet journalism has no impacts on the masses (audience) of Nigeria. (c)(i).The research will consider the null that the non stability of the internet has not helped the journalists to access stories efficiently. (c)(ii).The alternative hypothesis is that the non stability of the internet has helped the journalists to access stories efficiently. (d)(i).The research will consider the null that an average Nigerian does not have access to the internet. (d)(ii).The alternative hypothesis is that an average Nigerian does have access to the internet. Deliverables: As it has been described in the objectives of the research project, the main purpose of this study is to evaluate the effects and impacts of internet journalism in Nigeria, West Africa. The final product of this research project will be a report, containing the effects of Internet Journalism in Nigeria, West Africa. Research Methodology: Different 150 internet news readers in Nigeria will be approached to collect the data. There are two kinds of data. Primary data Secondary data Primary data includes the information from the respondents. This also includes responses by the different age groups and geographical locations in the country. Secondary data will tell about the impact of Internet journalism in Nigeria. To collect the data, different newspaper companies will be contacted. Similarly, to assess the changes in internet journalism, their website users views will also be found out. The tools to collect this data will be the surveys. For this, website users and newspaper customers will be interviewed, where as to know the views of customers, different questionnaires will be prepared to ask them different questions. To analyze the collected data, different statistical techniques will be used. Resources: The most important thing to carry out any research project is to know the background, research objectives, and research methodology of the research project. For this literature is searched out. The University Library will be the primary source to review the literature. Books in hard and soft form will be obtained from the library. Similarly, different research journals and articles in the library will be valuable assets to prepare a comprehensive research report. To prepare the questionnaires, surveys done by the newspaper companies to know views of customers, will be used. Similarly new questionnaires, depending on the situation, will also be prepared. Project Plan: The project is divided into three stages. Literature review Interviews of newspaper customers Report writing Literature Review: To carry out any research project, a research must be able to review the literature. This makes researcher aware of work, done by other people in the respective field. The main source of literature is the journals, in which different researchers publish their findings of problems. Interviews of newspaper customers: In order to know the effects and impacts of internet journalism in Nigeria, West Africa, the users of different newspaper websites will be interviewed. They will be asked about the positive and negative points of internet journalism. Similarly, customer views will be taken through the interviews. Considering all these views, suggestion to improve the internet journalism will be advised. Report writing: The final product of the research project will be a written report. The structure of my report will be divided in following categories, Introduction: In the introduction, history of internet journalism will be discussed and how different newspapers implement internet journalism will be discussed. Aims and objectives: In this part of report, purpose of the research project will be stated very clearly; what are the aims of the study and what are the problems, which will be discussed in the report. Research methodology: This is the core part of the report. After stating the problem, different research methodologies will be explained to gather the data. The primary source will be the interviews of the customers and internet news readers. From these interviews, impact of internet journalism in Nigeria, West Africa will be assessed. The questions asked to customers will be provided in the appendix of report. Conclusions: After describing the problems and research methods, suggestion will be advised to eliminate or solve the highlighted problems. Risk: In order to carry out any research project, it is very important to study all the aspects of the project. One of the main aspects regarding any project is the risks involved. There are also some risks involved, regarding the research project under consideration. One risk can be privacy. Newspaper companies employees can be duty-bound and show reluctance to give information about their websites. Impact and Beneficiaries of Research: The main objective of this research activity is to investigate the effects and impacts of internet journalism in Nigeria, West Africa. This research can be very helpful for the information sector

Probabilist - Deductive Inference in Gassendis Logic Essay -- Philoso

‘Probabilist’ Deductive Inference in Gassendi's Logic* ABSTRACT: In his Logic, Pierre Gassendi proposes that our inductive inferences lack the information we would need to be certain of the claims that they suggest. Not even deductivist inference can insure certainty about empirical claims because the experientially attained premises with which we adduce support for such claims are no greater than probable. While something is surely amiss in calling deductivist inference "probabilistic," it seems Gassendi has hit upon a now-familiar, sensible point—namely, the use of deductive reasoning in empirical contexts, while providing certain formal guarantees, does not insulate empirical arguments from judgment by the measure of belief which we invest in their premises. The more general point, which distinguishes Gassendi among his contemporaries, is that the strength shared by all empirical claims consists in the warrant from experience for those claims we introduce in their support. In Book IV (On method) of his Institutio Logica, Pierre Gassendi proposes an unusual venue for probable and nondeductive inference in empirical reasoning: demonstrative syllogism. Thus, in 'resolution'—the seeking of a thing's causes given the evidence of its effects—he recognizes the critical role of inferring general claims from the particulars of empirical data, not least from what he calls 'the evidence of signs'. And intriguingly, he construes resolution-based claims as merely probable, though we attain them through classically deductive syllogism, because they represent merely possible claims among a field of alternatives—perhaps in the manner of Descartes's method. In the preceding book (On the syllogism), Gassendi presents a relatively tradit... .... Garber, Daniel. "Descartes and Experiment in the Discourse and Essays," in Stephen Voss, Essays on the Philosophy and Science of Rene Descartes. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993. Gassendi, Pierre. Institutio Logica, 1658. Hacking, Ian. The Emergence of Probability. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985. Hatfield, Gary. "Science, Certainty, and Descartes", in PSA 1988: Proceedings of the Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association. Volume Two. 249-262. East Lansing, Michigan: Philosophy of Science Association, 1988. Hintikka, Jakko. "Aristotelian Induction," in Revue Internationale de Philosophie 34 (1980): 422-40. Milton, J. R. "Induction before Hume," British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 38 (1987): 49-74. Urbach, Peter. Francis Bacon's Philosophy of Science. La Salle, Illinois: Open Court, 1987.

The Success of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) :: Business Economics

The Success of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) On January 1, of 1994 a new approach to trade amongst North American countries took effect. With the aid of the United States Congress, President Bill Clinton was able to form a contract between The North American Countries of Canada, Mexico, and The United States of America. This contract, known as the North American Free Trade Agreement (or Nafta for short) was designed with many economic results in mind. Hopes were that not only would trade be easier, cheaper, and more abundant for all countries evolved, but economic wealth and growth would follow. Support for Nafta was split among most citizens of this country. One side seeing the proposal as having the potential for great economic success in each country involved. The other announcing that this plan would prove to be terribly detrimental to United States employment. Nearly six years after coming into effect the question still remains Is Nafta in the best interest of the United States? And what can we expect of it in the fu ture? Since the implication of free trade between the three countries of North America back in 1994 the effects of that agreement are just now becoming apparent, both short term and long term. There was little doubt as to how both Canada and most definitely Mexico would benefit from Nafta. What was yet to be seen was the impact it had on previous concerns of the United States.(Contesting Globalization) Most economists and even ordinary citizens could understand Canada and Mexico’s enthusiasm when free trade, destroying tariffs, was proposed. After all, the United States has long been the major consumer of exported goods in both countries. No longer having to pay taxes on goods imported into the United States meant larger sales and more profits for all Canadian and Mexican businesses. These profits were foreseen as perpetual economic boosts in their respective country. These boosts created opportunities for more workers to be hired, lowering unemployment and helping to improve t he quality of life of citizens in both countries. Not only did removing the tariffs make it possible for companies and manufacturers of Canada and Mexico to increase profits it also lowered to price of foreign goods. These new lower prices were now able to compete with the domestic products in the United States.

The Canterbury Essay -- Canterbury Tales Literature Essays

The Canterbury The Canterbury Tales begins with the introduction of each of the pilgrims making their journey to Canterbury to the shrine of Thomas a Becket. These pilgrims include a Knight, his son the Squire, the Knight's Yeoman, a Prioress, a Second Nun, a Monk, a Friar, a Merchant, a Clerk, a Man of Law, a Franklin, a Weaver, a Dyer, a Carpenter, a Tapestry-Maker, a Haberdasher, a Cook, a Shipman, a Physician, a Parson, a Miller, a Manciple, a Reeve, a Summoner, a Pardoner, the Wife of Bath, and Chaucer himself. These travelers, who stop at the Tabard Inn, decide to tell stories to pass their time on the way to Canterbury. The Host of the Tabard Inn sets the rules for the tales. Each of the pilgrims will tell two stories on the way to Canterbury, and two stories on the return trip. The Host will decide the best of the tales. They decide to draw lots to see who will tell the first tale, and the Knight receives the honor. The Knight's Tale is a tale about two knights, Arcite and Palamon, who are captured in battle and imprisoned in Athens under the order of King Theseus. While imprisoned in a tower, both see Emelye, the sister of Queen Hippolyta, and fall instantly in love with her. Both knights eventually leave prison separately: a friend of Arcite begs Theseus to release him, while Palamon later escapes. Arcite returns to the Athenian court disguised as a servant, and when Palamon escapes he suddenly finds Arcite. They fight over Emelye, but their fight is stopped when Theseus finds them. Theseus sets the rules for a duel between the two knights for Emelye's affection, and each raise an army for a battle a year from that date. Before the battle, Arcite prays to Mars for victory in battle, Emelye prays to Diana that ... ...ld speak the language of humans and could sing beautiful. When the white crow learns that Phoebus' wife was unfaithful, Phoebus plucks him and curses the crow. According to the Manciple, this explains why crows are black and can only sing in an unpleasant tone. The Parson tells the final tale. The Parson's Tale is not a narrative tale at all, however, but rather an extended sermon on the nature of sin and the three parts necessary for forgiveness: contrition, confession, and satisfaction. The tale gives examples of the seven deadly sins and explains them, and also details what is necessary for redemption. Chaucer ends the tales with a retraction, asking those who were offended by the tales to blame his rough manner and lack of education, for his intentions were not immoral, while asking those who found something redeemable in the tales to give credit to Christ.

Chronology in ‘A Rose for Emily’ Essay

William Faulkner takes into account the ever-complicated concept of time in â€Å"A Rose for Emily†. It is a manifestation his contemplation on the nature of time. It lacks a standard chronology. Faulkner ensnare almost three quarters of century in a few page story. He does it superbly by avoiding a proper chronological order. Faulkner skillfully put the story up to demonstrate the indefinable and intangible character of time. He constructs it in such a subtle manner that it is hard to detect any chronological order of the plot. Time does not flow in a linear direction but take a circular direction with the progress of story. Fault consciously or unconsciously does not concern himself with specific dates. A handful of explicit dates are cited in the story. But these indications reveal as plenty of information about the linear chronology of the vents. For example, it is quite clear that remittance of Emily’s taxes by Colonel Sartoris takes place in 1894. It is further provided that he is dead for the last ten years and this the time Emily meets the new aldermen. Story further discloses that Emily died at 74. This hint capacitates us to construct a linear chronology of the events. The linear sequence of events in Emily’s life is as follow; Section 4 illustrates her birth during civil war. Section 2 describes a joint ride with her father in an old wagon. Her father dies. Homer Barron appears on the scene and an amorous affairs starts with Emily in section 3. She purchases male lavatory set and outfits for him in section 4. We are again forced to revert back to section 3 when town people degrade him and reverted back and summon her cousin. Section 4 is marked with the arrival of cousins and departure of Homer from the town. He returns back after the exit of her cousins. We again slip back to section 3 where Emily purchase poison from a local vendor and Homer disappears in the next section. Section 2 illustrate stink from her house indicating his death and four aldermen are shown sprinkling water on her grave. Faulkner has used a novel narrative technique as story starts with Emily’s funeral (the end) and concludes with the finding of Homer’s rotten dead body. Faulkner’s concept of time and its effective utilization does not weaken the story but it is the most obvious strength of its plot, construction and thematic expressions. Although presentation of time in this manner is mostly related is subject to philosophical orientation of the author but it had deep impact on the plot. He merges past into present and present into past and this feature of the story captivates the reader. â€Å"Faulkner gives the story a chronology, but as with so many of his stories, we have to sort it out† (McGlynn 461); Furthermore, it hinders the formulation of reader’s judgment about Emily till the end. The effects of this non-linear chronology on the story are beautifully summed up by McGlynn (1969). He says that â€Å"A chronology of ‘A Rose for Emily’ is useful for at least two reasons: it makes the plot more easily comprehensible, and it helps clarify the function of time in the story† (461). By evading a clear and linear chronological order of events, Faulkner attempts to provide his reader a riddle comprised of various bits. However, he provides clues to facilitate this puzzle-solving. The motive behind this exercise seems to involve his reader more deeply in the story. So above-mentioned arguments and supported evidence clearly suggest that time is not present in a simple chronological way in the story but it is manifested in random manner and plot flows with the flow of the consciousness of the narrator and does not follow the rules and principle of chronological time. Works Cited Faulkner, William. 1970. A rose for Emily. Columbus; Merrill. McGlynn, Paul D. 1969. William Faulkner: An Interpretation; â€Å"The Chronology of ‘A Rose for Emily,†Ã¢â‚¬Ëœ Studies in Short Fiction. 6.

Best Business Tips

When producing minutes for a business meeting it is required that formal language is used. This is because minutes are records that are stored for business use. Minutes could be later used by an employee, as evidence to show a meeting has taken place or used in another discussion with other professionals. Formal language makes minutes of a meeting clear and make sense. The tone required for meeting minutes must be serious and formal. They do not need to be persuasive or intriguing, as they are a set record of the discussion within a meeting so they just need to be clear and understandable. The image of a set of minutes should include in the organisations set logo, colours and themes. This is so that it is easily recognisable as the organisations document. The presentation of a set of minutes must be structured into different agenda items, which may be in a table or just simple paragraphs so that the document is clear and people can easily navigate the parts they need to read.When writing an email, the language should be formal. This only tends to vary when the audience changes. For example, if an employee was to email another colleague, they may be friendlier and slightly informal. Formal language should be used to internal and external business people, so that it gives a good impression of the sender as an individual and shows professionalism of the company they work for. The tone required for emails are dependent on the recipients. For instance, when writing a sales email, a more persuasive tone will be used. When writing a complaint response, a more sympathetic and helpful tone will be used. However, a professional tone should be maintained in emails to keep up an organisations reputation and professionalism. The image of an email should have the organisations particular style of font and email signature to make it easily identifiable by other companies. It also makes the email look more professional to make people take the company seriously. The presentation of an email is required to be structured into paragraphs with a professional greeting and closing message. When integrating images into documents it's important to use the format and theme to use that is the same as the businesses. It is important to think about what the business needs to accomplish and what impression needs to be given to the reader. Whilst creating the image of the document that we want to reflect well on the business, it is also important to make sure copyright laws are not being breached. Therefore images and themes should be checked to make sure it is not that of another brand or business. A good image has to be unique and professional as it will be used often for all kinds of documents being sent to external customers and internal workers.An image can be inserted into a word document or PowerPoint by attaching an image saved onto the computer by clicking on the insert tab and pressing pictures. To easily locate the desired picture it is best to save it somewhere and name it something memorable. Another way of integrating images into documents is to copy and paste them by right clicking on the image and pressing the copy function, then right clicking where the image needs to be copied to and pressing paste. This is the quickest option however sometimes it doesn't always work and we have to save images to the computer instead. Corporate identity allows documents to have their own trademark. Corporate identity makes a businesses documents look professional, draws in more customers and makes them easily recognisable. This includes the company's logo, header and footer styles, theme colours, personalised document templates and font choice. When this is changed and updated it could affect previous documents with the outdated corporate identity by making them not recognisable as that company. It is important the corporate identity is only amended slightly and still maintains it's unique theme so it is always recognisable. It's also important to notify all staff members of these changes so that everyone is using the same corporate identity to avoid confusion. To avoid breaking copy right laws, a company must ensure they have their own corporate identity that is not the same as another company. To avoid breaking copy right laws, a company must ensure they have their own corporate identity that is not the same as another company. When designing or creating a document you must follow corporate identity by using the businesses fonts, logos and themes etc. If another businesses fonts, logos or themes are used in your businesses documents, it could appear as though your business is stealing another businesses identity. This looks like your business is trying to commit fraud or frame another business. In regards to the Data Protection Act, it is important that a persons personal information isn't included in letters or emails unless permission is given by that person. Data stored on documents about a person must be stored safely and securely and only accessed by permitted persons. Documents including data with someones personal information must not be shared with any one other than permitted persons and must be kept strictly confidential, else this is a breach of the act. To avoid breaching the Copyright laws, a company must not use images, ideas, or work etc. that is copyright protected. A document producer must check this before integrating images or information on to their documents. The same goes for intellectual property. Any original idea owned by someone or a company cannot be used by another person when protected by copyright.Intellectual property is something unique created by an individual or a group. To avoid breaching intellectual property legislations when producing business documents, it is important to make sure other peoples creations, e.g. names or brands are not included in the documents. This means documents must be strictly the creation of the company itself and not copied from another company's. Version control is when changes that are made to a file are traced with the details of who changed them, when they traced them, why they did and any problems enhanced or resolved when the change was made. Organisations do this to ensure that previous versions of a document are accessible as well as current ones to follow up problems occurring or to compare them. Organisational procedures for version control are that employees must always record their name, the date and what changes they have made to a document so that other employees are aware. This is crucial for tracing back to old documents and comparing them to recent versions. Other organisational procedures for version control is that old documents must be maintained in case newer versions may contain errors or having missing information. Security requirements for documents are having set passwords to gain access into a file so that only particular people have access to it. Other requirements are read only settings so that the author only has permissions to make changes to the document so that other people cannot edit and make unwanted changes to it. A document created for external use needs to have the recipient checked if any personal data is included within it to prevent breaching the data protection act if the email was to be sent to the wrong recipient. If personal data included on a document is being sent by mail, it is important the mail is stamped with ‘private and confidential' on the front to ensure safe delivery.

Technology and Organizational Structure

Technology and Organizational Structure Wanda Armour University of Phoenix Technology and Organizational Structure This paper represents the research on how technology interacts with organizational structure. Two companies will be identified to compare and contrast their organizational structures. A matrix will be included to summarize the findings. Introduction Organizational structure in today’s complex multi-dimensional organizations is the connection that holds the infrastructure together to achieve the organizations goals.It is the patterns or arrangement of groups of jobs within an organization. It is also a process that requires organizational re-structuring as the company grows. Historically industry has shifted from the job-shop manufacturing to mass production, with innovative pioneers such as Frederick Taylor, Henri Fayol, and Max Weber ((Dristelzweig & Droege, n. d. ). These early pioneers were very different thinkers in terms of their principles to determine how t o structure organizations for maximum productivity.However, they all had a common view that it was like a machine and that power was in the position, not in the individual holding the position; clearly a vertical bureaucratic structural hierarchy ((Dristelzweig & Droege, n. d. ). This ‘one best way’ mindset gradually disappeared as concerns that the traditional organizational structure may hinder, rather than help promote creativity and innovation (Dristelzweig & Droege, n. d. ). Today, pressures in U. S. business structures to compete globally calls for a variety of organization structures.There is no ‘one fit all’ organizational structure that has proven effective in contributing to business success. Organizations operate in different environments with different opportunities, products, tasks, risks, strategies, constraints, strengths and weakness, and different organizational structures to meet those challenges (Reference for Business, n. d. ). There are two types of organizational structures found in business environments; centralized and decentralized. Centralized organizational structures rely on one individual to make decisions and provide direction or the company; decentralized organizations rely on a team environment at different levels of the business (Vitez, n. d. ). Organizational Structure Overview of Two Company’s Two very successful companies have been identified with different organizational structures; Toyota Motor Corporation and The Watson’s Creative Company. These two companies are on the opposite end of the spectrum in terms of organizational structure. Toyota, a Japanese, multinational corporation, has a centralized matrix organizational structure (the combination of two or more different structures-organic/mechanistic) with a bureaucratic infrastructure.The Watson’s Creative Company, a New York based adverting agency, has a small-decentralized organic organizational structure (organizations that are flexible and effectively adapt to change) (Dorf & Byers, 2008). Toyota is considered by some as the world’s largest maker of automobiles, trucks, buses, and robots. Toyota has factories all around the world, that manufacture and assemble vehicles for local markets (Taneja, Pryer, & Sewell, 2012). Toyota has an interesting blend of mechanistic, organic and bureaucracy in a centralized organizational structure, which allows them to accommodate their versatile product line.This structure develops a workforce who believes in the company’s products, image, and vision; along with placing a high value on the welfare of its employees (Taneja et al. , 2012). A recent SWOT analysis shows that intense competition could pose a threat resulting in lower price pressures. A recent massive product recall (10 million worldwide) which could hurt the company’s brand image and sales ((Toyota, 2012). Toyota is a company that has a reputation for reliability; the challenge n ow is rebuilding the emotional ties of customers.A bureaucratic organizational structure could be the flaw as hindered information sharing, miscommunication; along with delayed response time to quality and safety issues have been sighted as the root cause of the recall (Taneja et al. , 2012). One of the disadvantages to a matrix organizational structure is keeping communication channels clear so that potential conflicts do not arise and hinder organizational functioning (Reference for Business, n. d. ). As corporations become worldwide the process of restructuring is inevitable, as they must respond to challenges on a global level.The foundation of Toyota is respect of its people and continuous improvement through the ‘Toyota Way’ which is summarized by five keywords; â€Å"Challenge,† â€Å"Kaizen,† â€Å"Genchi Genbutsu,† â€Å"Respect† and â€Å"Teamwork† (â€Å"The Toyota Way,† n. d). The Watson’s a Creative Company, is an ad agency. They have a decentralized organic organizational structure that is simple and low in formalization. All parts of the organization need each other as an interdependence relationship improves functioning.As an organic organization they need to stay flexible in dealing with customers and in creating concepts for television commercials and print advertisement (Field, n. d. ). I recently visited the Watson’s ad agency and I found a confortable informal environment with a small staff and their dogs. It seemed quite remarkable that a company with such clients as ‘Whole Foods’, ‘Metropolitan Home Magazine’ and many others could work as a community. However it is in line with their mission statement of building lasting relationships between great companies and the audiences they benefit (â€Å"The Watson’s,† n. . ). Their core competency is in their knowledge management and creativity. An organic organization such as The Watsonà ¢â‚¬â„¢s is a knowledge-based organization. Tacit knowledge is exchanged through interaction with other knowledge workers. This interaction facilitates the development of a knowledge culture within the organization, supporting decision making of various knowledge workers through collaboration (Hosnavi & Ramezan, 2011). How Structure Affects the use of Technology and Technology Decisions Technology plays a crucial role in today’s organizational structure.Toyota understood that the traditional understanding of centralization in organizational structure would fail to capture its vision of technological development, and value in the employee in the face of new challenges and demands. Toyota adopted a matrix organizational structure to facilitate technology decisions ((Hosnavi & Ramezan, 2011). The Watson’s on the other hand believe that technology decisions are based the decentralization of power and control and a higher level of informality and a organic organizational st ructure was the best fit for their company.Toyota’s superior technology was not enough in light of the recent recalls. As a result they had to reduce their organizational structure, which is no easy task. My observation is that Toyota could have closed a blind eye but instead decided to restructure and fix the problem without deviating from their core competency and mission. The Watson’s interaction with technology is equally exciting as visual displays of artistic genius are created and displayed through a variety of avenues. Technology gives expression to the endless possibilities of the mind and allows them to make decisions based on whatever idea they can dream of.Working on something they believe in helps them to focus on the effectiveness of their products and services. TECHNOLOGY AND ORGANIZATION STRUCTURE| Inquiry| Toyota Motor Corporation| The Watson’s a Creative Company| Organizational Structure| Centralized Matrix Organizational Structure| Decentraliz ed Organic Organizational Structure| Environment| Stable, highly efficient and orderly. | Constant change, simple, low formalization. | Control| Hierarchic| Network community. | Internal Communication| Vertical, between superior and subordinates. Lateral between people. | Core Competency| Lean Manufacturing Tools, Supply Chain Management, Product Development Technology, Branding| Creative Advertising /Knowledge worker| Core Technology| Conventional and Hybrid Vehicles, Hybrid Systems, Safety and Environmental Technologies. | Web based advertising systems, HTML, XML, SVG and Flash, Communications protocols, Video and audio technology. | Enabling Technologies| Toyota Technology Institute, Toyota InfoTechnology Center, Home Living Assistant Robotics, Personal Mobility. R&D product portfolio. iAd mobile app, Ad tracking, Banner Ads, Rich Media Ads, Tradeshows, Commercial Emails, Poster Ads, Social Media| Organizational Members| Task Oriented| People Oriented| Control-Stability and predi ctability. | High| Low| Flexibility-Quick response to changing conditions| High| High| Knowledge Management| Reinforcement of hierarchy| Anywhere in the company| Technology Interaction with Organizational Structure Based on these comparisons I believe that the interaction of technology must be accompanied with the right fit of the organizations structure to achieve sustainability.Toyota works on a technological scale far beyond that of the Watson’s. It uses manufacturing technology that is the cutting edge of science (Taneja et al. , 2012). It is doing an amazing work with its robotic technology that will help the handicapped, as well as the individual. Taneia et al. , (2012 believes that Toyota’s research and development accomplishments are making groundbreaking strides in the area of defense against energy starvation. The Watson’s Creative Company is using the Internet to extend their market reach far beyond what was once thought possible through conventional channels.According to Behboudi, Hanzaee, Koshksaray, Khirkhani Tabar, & Taheri (2012), â€Å"Creative advertising can provide a competitive edge for a brand, add to its value, and give it an advantage over its rivals in terms of more positive market response†(p. 140). The Watson’s advertising agency has achieved sustainability with their creative and innovative ads through the technology of the Internet. In comparison mechanistic and organic organizational structures are like two musicians, one who plays’ by ear and the other who has to read music; both however deliver a beautiful arrangement of music.Toyota is continuously focused on increasing its technological capabilities, while The Watson’s are continuously looking for more ways to use technology to create ads that are an experience for the consumer. Both are making contributions that will add value to organizational learning, and technological capabilities. References Behboudi, M. , Hanzaee, K. , Ko shksaray, A. , Khirkhani Tabar, M. , & Taheri, Z. (2012). A Review of the Activities of Advertsing Agencies in Online World []. International Journal of Marketing Studies, 4(1), 138-149. Retrieved from Ebscohost Dorf, R.C. , & Byers, T. H. (2008). Technology Ventures (2nd ed. ). New York, NY: McGraw-Hill. Dristelzweig, H. , & Droege, S. B. (n. d. ). Organizational Structure. Retrieved from http://law-journals-books. vlex. com/vid/organizational-structure-51758780 Field, R. (n. d. ). Organizational Effectiveness, Structure and Technology. Retrieved from http://apps. business. ualberta. ca/rfield/Organizational%20Effectiveness,%20Structure,%20and%20Technology. h Hosnavi, R. , & Ramezan, M. (2011). Intellectual Capital and Organizational Organic Structure How are these

Relevance of Sociology for the study of Law Essay

If societies are based upon agreed upon laws, then they are very much interrelated subjects. They are symbiotic, interwoven, interconnected. When someone commits a crime against another person or their property, they will have to face the consequences in a court of law. Or reduce it to a smaller group such as a tribe. Even amongst members of a tribe, there are laws that may only be verbal, or perhaps not even as formal as that. They are followed because children see them in the form of examples as they grow up. Within each tribe, culture or society, some form of punishment is enforced when a cultural norm is broken. Law can be analyzed sociologically as a method of doing something. Law can be studied as a social process, instrumented by individuals during social interaction. Sociologically, law consists of the behaviors, situations, and conditions for making, interpreting and applying legal rules that are backed by the state’s legitimate coercive apparatus for enforcement. The sociology of law (or legal sociology) is often described as a sub-discipline of sociology or an interdisciplinary approach within legal studies. While some socio-legal scholars see the sociology of law as â€Å"necessarily† belonging to the discipline of sociology, others see it as a field of research caught up in the disciplinary tensions and competitions between the two established disciplines of law and sociology. Yet, others regard it neither as a sub-discipline of sociology nor as a branch of legal studies and, instead, present it as a field of research on its own right within a broader social science tradition. For example, Roger Cotterrell describes the sociology of law without reference to mainstream sociology as â€Å"the systematic, theoretically grounded, empirical study of law as a set of social practices or as an aspect or field of social experience†. The sociology of law became clearly established as an academic field of learning and empirical research after the Second World War. After World War II, the study of law was not central in sociology, although some well-known sociologists did write about the role of law in society. In the work of the Talcott Parsons, for instance, law is conceived as an essential mechanism of social control. In response to the criticisms that were developed against functionalism, other sociological perspectives of law emerged. 1. Critical sociologists developed a perspective of law as an instrument of power. 2. However, other theorists in the sociology of law, such as  Philip Selznick, argued that modern law became increasingly responsive to a society’s needs and had to be approached morally as well. 3. Still other scholars, most notably the American sociologist Donald Black, developed a resolutely scientific theory of law on the basis of a paradigm of pure sociology. 4. Equally broad in orientation, but again different, is the autopoietic systems theory of the German sociologist Niklas Luhmann, who sees law as normatively closed, but cognitively open system. The essential insight underlying all sociological approaches to law is that law is a social phenomenon that should, therefore, be studied sociologically. Beyond this core unifying orientation, sociology and law, otherwise known as the sociology of law, or law and sociology, consists of a variety of different approaches, assumptions, and attitudes. This internal proliferation of approaches is the product of diversity at two different levels. 1. First: sociology and law are contrasting bodies of knowledge. Sociology is a social science focused on the study of society, and like all such disciplines its overarching goal is the gathering of knowledge. Law, in contrast, is a practical activity that focuses on completing certain fundamental tasks, including promulgating and enforcing rules, responding to disputes, and maintaining order. 2. Second: each of these contributing bodies of knowledge is in its own way internally driven, with sociology divided among various competing schools of thought and law divided among practitioners and theorists (adhering to competing schools of thought). When sociology and law are brought together, the differences between them, and the internal divisions that characterize each, are manifested in the combination of the two. In the United States, the primary academic influences in bringing sociology to law were philosophical pragmatism, sociological jurisprudence, and legal realism; the key figures were Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., Roscoe Pound, and Karl Llewellyn. These schools of thought and figures were leaders in the critique of formalistic approaches to the law that dominated at the end of the nineteenth century and early twentieth century. Under formalist views, law was a gapless, logically coherent self-contained system that could be discovered and applied exclusively through cons ideration of legal concepts, principles, and rules, without regard to social context or consequences. The figures identified above argued, to the contrary, that law was the product of social forces, that it was neither gapless nor  systematic, that one could not move mechanistically from principle to application (choices had to be made), and that judges were influenced by the social background in their interpretation and application of law. Most important: they argued that law, far from being autonomous and self-standing, was above all else an instrument to serve social needs. An important social-political influence on their thought was the social programs of the New Deal, which resorted to law as the key mechanism for implementing social policy. It follows this cluster of views that the efficacy of law, and its social consequences, must be carefully evaluated. Hence the call for the application of sociology to law. The early agenda for sociology ranged from studying the gap between â€Å"law in the books† and â€Å"law in action,† to discovering the social influences on the making, the application, and the interpretation of law, to learning whether law is effective in achieving social policy, and how it can be made more effective when it is not. Many sociological studies of law, from the study of crime to influences on judicial decision-making, were conducted to meet this call. Under the influence of sociologist E. A. Ross, law came to be understood as a mechanism of social control, and the thrust of many studies was to make law more efficient and effective in accomplishing this task. A backlash against this jurisprudence-dominated agenda gradually developed from the sociological standpoint, which decried the instrumental use of sociology as a â€Å"handmaiden to law.† As the science of society, the application of sociology to law, it has been argued, should take place in the context of general theories about society, with proper attention paid to epistemological and methodological concerns. The classical sociological theories about law—famously including 1. Émile Durkheim’s view of law as the essential element integrating modern society, 2. Max Weber’s ideal-type analysis of the kinds of law found relative to kinds of societies, and 3. Karl Marx’s characterization of law as determined by economic forces, serving the dominant class all possessed these qualities. 4. A modern sociological theory of this type of law is Donald Black’s view, which assumes a positivistic stance of measuring law in quantitative terms, and articulates a series of â€Å"laws† of legal behavior based upon patterns he observes relating to factors like degree of social stratification. A different current source of criticism of the  jurisprudence-influenced approach to sociology and law comes from critical schools of sociolegal theory, including â€Å"critical empiricists† and â€Å"post-empiricists,† which reject positivism and many of the epistemological underpinnings of classical sociology (including the fact/value distinction). Adherents criticize sociology and law as currently practiced as a conservative tool that serves to preserve the status quo by enhancing the efficiency of law and by failing to scrutinize and reveal the institutional structures and ideological beliefs about law circulating in society which perpetuate (class-based, gender-based, and/or race-based) oppression and domination. Sociological approaches to law, according to this view, must reject the agenda set by jurisprudence, and instead seek to expose all forms of domination perpetuated through law. Sociology and law thus encompasses divergent perspectives on law. Despite significant internal schisms, a growing community of scholars and body of discourse has developed around the combination of sociology and law, united by the shared commitment to view law as a social phenomenon that must be examined in sociological terms. Functions of law * Social control * Dispute resolution * Social change Social control: There are two basic processes of social control: 1. the internalization of group norms and 2. control through external pressures. In Chtonic societies, social control is ensured by the fact that socializing experiences are very much the same for all members. Even in larger societies, social control rests largely on the internalization of shared norms. Formal social control is characterized by: (i) explicit rules of conduct, (ii) planned use of sanctions to support the rules, and (iii) designated officials to interpret and enforce the rules, and often to make them. Law does not have a monopoly on formal mechanisms of social control. Control through law is usually exercised by the use of negative sanctions and not by positive rewards. A person that obeys the law does not receive an award. Mechanisms of social control through law: (i) Criminal sanctions, (ii) civil commitment, and (iii) administrative licenses. Criminal sanctions: the purpose of sanctions: Retribution (denounce unlawful conduct) Deterrence (both specific and general), Rehabilitation of the offender. Civil commitment: medicalization of social problems, such as drug abuse, alcoholism, etc. Administrative law: administrative regulations is used as a means of social control. Dispute resolution: Types: By the parties themselves: physical violence, family feud, lumping it, avoidance, etc. By adjudication: ADR: negotiation (without the help of any third party), mediation (third party helps disputants), and arbitration (third party makes a final and binding decision, which is enforceable). Hybrid resolution processes: rent a judge (like arbitration, but with a retired judge), med-arb (issues not solved by mediation are sent to arbitration where the mediator becomes arbiter), and mini trial (if there is no settlement before the â€Å"sentence† the adviser gives her opinion about the likely outcome if the dispute were litigated). Adjudication: a formal method of conflict resolution, where a third party –the courts- intervenes –even if not wanted by the parties- and renders a decision which is enforceable. Social change Law is both a dependent and an independent variable, i.e., an effect and a cause of social change. The question is not whether law changes society or whether social change alters law, but rather, what level or under what circumstances change is produced. Examples of social changes as causes of legal changes: Soviet Union, China, and other radical revolutions. Examples of legal changes as causes of social changes: adultery, sexual assault, etc. Problems of interaction between sociologists and lawyers Sociologists study everything about the law, except for rules –institutional structures, processes, behavior, personnel, and culture. Lawyers and sociologists don’t speak the same language. There is a special rethoric of law. It has its own vocabulary, an arcane writing style, and a form of irritating citation. There are also differences in professional culture. Lawyers are advocates. They are concerned with the identification and resolution of the problems of their clients. Sociologists consider all evidence on a proposition and approach the problem with an open mind. Lawyers are guided by precedents and past decisions control current cases. In contrast, sociologists emphasize empirical research. Lawyers and law professors tend to believe that they have a monopoly over law. This is as if physicians thought that they had a monopoly over the bodies. The pronouncements of law are predominantly prescriptive: they tell people how they should behave and what will happen to them if they don’t. In sociology, the emphasis is on description, on understanding the reasons why certain groups of people act in a certain way in specific situations. The law reacts to problems most of the time. The issues and conflicts are brought to lawyers by their clients outside the legal system. In sociology, issues and concerns are generated within the discipline on the basis of what is considered intellectually challenging, timely, or of interest to funding agencies. These differences are due in part to the different methods they use.