La seriedad que ha dominado la lectura de la obra de Platón en nuestra tradición no es ajena al temprano protagonismo que adquirió la interpretación neoplatónica de la obra del filósofo ni a la importante presencia que el neoplatonismo adquirió en el largo proceso de elaboración doctrinal del cristianismo a partir del siglo II. Este olvido del recurso al humor condicionaría con frecuencia y de modo significativo la recta comprensión de los diálogos. Al leer la obra de Platón, descubrimos, por (...) otro lado, que el recurso al humor no se reduce a la muy comentada ironía socrática, sino que encontramos también bromas entre los personajes, juegos de palabras, imitaciones paródicas de hombres ilustres, chascarrillos graciosos, burlas y comedia de situaciones; encontramos, en resumen, un extenso y variado repertorio de recursos cómicos puestos al servicio de la eficaz transmisión de contenidos serios. Porque, no lo olvidemos, el humor en Platón está sometido a la expresión eficaz de lo que el filósofo entiende que debe ser tanto el modo de transmisión filosófica como los propios contenidos filosóficos. Con la intención de descifrar las claves que permitan comprender mejor el uso de los recursos humorísticos en los diálogos platónicos presentamos este volumen colectivo en el que once autores abordan distintos aspectos de la cuestión. (shrink)

This indispensible collection brings together feminist theory and cultural studies, looking at issues such as pop culture and the media, science and technology, ...

There are certain remarks in Culture and Value in which Wittgenstein writes about Jews and about what he describes as their ‘Jewish mind’. In these remarks he appears to be trying to make a distinction between two different spiritual forces which operate in Western culture and which give rise to two different types of artists and works of art. On one side of the divide are Jews and works of art imbued with Jewish spirit. On the other side are men (...) of culture and works of art which exhibit a non-Jewish spirit. Among the various remarks made in this context, he offers the following thoughts about the spiritual nature of Jews, their mentality, character and artistic achievements: ‘You get tragedy when a tree, instead of bending, breaks. Tragedy is something un-Jewish’ . Following Renan he writes: ‘The Semitic races have an unpoetic mentality, which heads straight for what is concrete’ . This, he explains, is because Jews are attracted by ‘pure intellectualism’. ‘I think it would be possible now to have a form of theatre played in masks. The characters would simply be stylized human types.’ ‘Masked theatre is anyway the expression of an intellectualistic character. And for the same reason perhaps it is a theatrical form that will attract only Jews’ . ‘The Jew is a desert region, but underneath its thin layer of rock lies the molten lava of spirit and intellect’ . ‘It is typical for a Jewish mind to understand somebody else's work better than that person understands it himself.’ But intellect, it seems, is not a mental attribute providing for genius and true creative powers. ‘Amongst Jews “genius” is found only in the holy man. Even the greatest of Jewish thinkers is no more than talented. … It might be said that the Jewish mind does not have the power to produce even the tiniest flower or blade of grass; its way is rather to make a drawing of the flower or blade of grass which has grown in the soil of another's mind and to put it into a comprehensive picture. We aren't pointing to a fault when we say this and everything is all right as long as what is being done is quite clear. It is only when the nature of a Jewish work is confused with that of a non-Jewish work that there is any danger, especially when the author of the Jewish work falls into the confusion himself, as he so easily may. ’. (shrink)

Recent developments in science and technology point to the need to unify, and extend, the definition of memory. On the one hand, molecular neurobiology has shown that memory is largely a chemical process, which includes conditioning and any form of stored experience. On the other hand, information technology has led many to claim that cognition is also extended, that is, memory may be stored outside of the brain. In this paper, we review these advances and describe the increasingly accepted extended (...) definition of memory. This definition is largely accepted in neuroscience but not explicitly stated. In the extended definition, memory is the capacity to store and/or retrieve information. Does this new definition of memory mean that everything is now a form of memory? We stress that memory still requires incorporation, that is, a corpore. It is a relationship -- where one biological or chemical process is incorporated into another, and changes both in a permanent way. Looking at natural and biological processes of incorporation can help us think of how incorporation of internal and external memory occurs in cognition. We further argue that, if we accept that there is such a thing as the storage of information outside the brain -- and that this organic, dynamic process can also be called “memory” -- then we open the door to a very different world. The mind is not static. The brain, and the memory it uses, is a work in progress; we are not now who we were then. (shrink)

La scommessa che anima il volume a c. di Sara Guindani e Alexis Nuselovici, come esplicitato nella prefazione, è la ricezione critica di un’eredità o – se così si può parafrasare – la messa in opera di un lascito. Notoriamente, “messa in opera” è espressione atta a evocare reminiscenze heideggeriane. Tuttavia, il più delle volte non si tiene in conto che Heidegger rende con “essere in lavorazione” – dunque in corso d’opera – l’ἐνέργεια aristotelica; v. il § 26 g dei (...) suoi Concetti fondamentali... (shrink)

A distanza di quasi trent’anni dalla prima edizione garzantiana (marzo 1992), Castelvecchi ripubblica un classico di Garroni, Estetica. Uno sguardo-attraverso, arricchito da un’introduzione di Stefano Velotti. I principali temi affrontati nel testo in esame possono essere schematicamente divisi in due punti-chiave: il «dover essere del senso» e l’estetica come filosofia critica. Il «dover essere del senso», su cui molto insiste Garroni, riprende espressamente l’intuizione carabellesiana del «...

The paper examines the connection between art and poiesis, moving from Aristotle’s Metaph. A 1 and Z 7-9. In particular, the analysis of those passages suggests dividing the genesis of artworks into noesis and poiesis. The noesis is the phase in which the artist plans in his mind the eidos (aspect) of the work that he is going to produce; the poiesis is the realization which actualizes – through its extrinsecation – the “aspect” mentally planned by the artist. After the (...) exposition of Aristotle’s theory, the related conceptual elements are developed, also having recourse to musical examples, in order to show the strict link between speculation and artistic praxis. The term enopé occurs in this part of the work as a metaphor which renders the peculiar form of presence of the work of art, whose essence emerges in the course of production. Moreover, a specific section is devoted to illustrating that ready-mades can be conciliated with the poietic nature of art. Finally, the paper focuses on performing (called «re-productive») arts, such as music; those forms of art include two poietic phases: the poiesis of the author (e. g., the composer) and the poiesis of the interpreter. The last paragraph considers the musical avant-gardes and explains that they confirm the poietic foundation of art, instead of denying it. (shrink)

Different theoretical approaches highlight the growing relevance of corporate reputation as strategic factor. Among these approaches the arguments of the Resource-Based View are special worthwhile (Grant, 1991, California Management Review33(3), 114–135; Barney, 1999, Sloan Management Review Spring, 137–145). Nevertheless, this topic poses several methodological problems (Barney et al., 2001), as the unavailability to identify and measure this organizational factor, that is “socially complex” and intangible in its nature. In this work, using the findings of our empirical research on Spanish biotechnology (...) firms, we carry out an identification and measurement of corporate reputation, highlighting its two key components: “business reputation” and “social reputation”. (shrink)

This article presents the ethical concept of service as a way of specifying higher ethical principles in business practice. We set out from the work of a number of scholars who have found some shared ethical principles for doing business in a context of cultural diversity. Love, benevolence, consideration, and other related concepts are considered to be important guiding concepts for business but it is not clear how they are to be operationalized. We argue that the ethical concept of service (...) can act as a bridge for bringing those higher principles into business practice. The article explains and refines the ethical concept of service, which has received little attention. In particular, we address the ethical ambiguity implicit in the common meaning of service, explain how service shows love in business, and offer an account of how service provides ethical growth through virtue. Finally, this work presents a variety of examples from business which illustrate how the ethical concept of service can be put into practice. To achieve the aim of this study we draw inspiration from Catholic social teaching. This source provides useful insights into service and can be understood and accepted without requiring that particular faith. (shrink)

This book demonstrates how and why vitalism—the idea that life cannot be explained by the principles of mechanism—matters now. Vitalism resists closure and reductionism in the life sciences while simultaneously addressing the object of life itself. The aim of this collection is to consider the questions that vitalism makes it possible to ask: questions about the role and status of life across the sciences, social sciences, and humanities and questions about contingency, indeterminacy, relationality and change. All have special importance now, (...) as the concepts of complexity, artificial life and artificial intelligence, information theory, and cybernetics become increasingly significant in more and more fields of activity. (shrink)

This article explores two examples of non-visibility as a way of describing the specificity of contemporary surfaces of visualization. The two cases are the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, the scheduled passenger flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing, which lost contact with air traffic control on 8 March 2014 at 01:20 MYT, and the 276 Nigerian girls who went ‘missing’ at about the same time. The analysis is developed through an exploration of these examples in terms of the patterning (...) of vision produced in recursive relations, or relations of feedback with the environment. We argue that changes in the organization of this feedback, which we describe as ‘rendition’, equip contemporary observers with both the capacity to see ‘close up at a distance’ and the capacity to be situated adjacent, next to or ‘beside from above’. (shrink)

_The Dead Mother_ brings together original essays in honour of André Green. Written by distinguished psychoanalysts, the collection develops the theme of his most famous paper of the same title, and describes the value of the dead mother to other areas of clinical interest: psychic reality, borderline phenomena, passions and identification. The concept of the 'dead mother' describes a clinical phenomenon, sometimes difficult to identify, but always present in a substantial number of patients. It describes a process by which the (...) image of a living and loving mother is transformed into a distant figure; a toneless, practically inanimate, dead parent. In reality, the mother remains alive, but she has psychically 'died' for the child. This produces a depression in the child, who carries these feelings within him into adult life, as the experience of the loss of the mother's love is followed by the loss of meaning in life. Nothing makes sense any more for the child, but life seems to continue under the appearance of normality. _The Dead Mother_ is a valuable contribution to literature on psychoanalytic and psychotheraputic approaches to grief, loss and depression. (shrink)

Ciencia e ideología: reportaje a Gregorio Klimovsky.--Grupo de Estudio sobre Ciencia y Subdesarrollo. Ciencia dependiente en la Argentina.--Varsavsky, O. Ideología y verdad. Ciencia y estilos de desarrollo.--Simpson, T.M. Irracionalidad, ideología y objetividad.--García, R.V. Ciencia política y concepcíon del mundo.--Schvarzer, J. La ideología de un científico puro.

Klimovsky, G. Notas preliminares sobre convención y modalidad.--Orayen, R. Comentario del trabajo del profesor G. Klimovsky "Notas preliminares sobre convención y modalidad".--Klimovsky, G. Respuesta al Comentario del profesor Raúl Orayen.--Orayen, R. Acerca de la adecuación de los modelos formales de la explicación científica.--Klimovsky, G. Comentario del trabajo del profesor Raúl Orayen, "Acerca de la adecuación de los modelos formales de la explicación científica".--Orayen, R. Respuesta al Comentario del profesor G. Klimovsky.

What intelligent person has never pondered the meaning of life? For Yuval Lurie, this is more than a puzzling philosophical question; it is a journey, and in this book he takes readers on a search that ranges from ancient quests for the purpose of life to the ruminations of postmodern thinkers on meaning. He shows that the question about the meaning of life expresses philosophical puzzlement regarding life in general as well as personal concern about one’s own life in particular. (...) Lurie traces the emergence of this question as a modern philosophical quandary, riddled with shifts and turns that have arisen over the years in response to it. _Tracking the Meaning of Life _is written as a critical philosophical investigation stretching over several traditions, such as analytic philosophy, phenomenology, and existentialism. It maps out a journey that explores pivotal responses to this question, drawing especially on the thought of Tolstoy, Wittgenstein, Sartre, and Camus and exploring in depth the insights these thinkers offer regarding their own difficulties concerning the meaning of life. In the book’s four sections, Lurie discusses Tolstoy’s challenge to experience the religious and transcendental meaning of life by choosing a simple, hardworking existence; Wittgenstein’s focus on ethics and discovering the sense of the world, his conclusion that the question of the meaning of life makes no sense, and his turning to experience the mystical aspect of the world; Sartre’s positing of freedom as the basis of human life, stipulating a personal answer to the question of the meaning of life; and Camus’ view of the absurdity of life, unalleviated by any personal meaning. Guided by these views, Lurie imparts new insight to ideas that underlie our concern with life’s meaning, such as the difference between attitudes toward life and beliefs and opinions about life, the meaning of words versus the meaning of events, shared meanings versus personal meanings, and the link between ethics and personal identity. _Tracking the Meaning of Life_ is no mere dry philosophical study but a journey that dramatically illustrates the poignancy of the quest for meaning, showing that along the way it gradually becomes more obvious how personal meaning may be found in the pulsations of everyday life. The book offers stimulating reading not only for scholars in philosophy but also for general readers who wish to see how their personal concerns are echoed in modern philosophical thought. More than a description of a journey, it is a map to anxieties and puzzlements we all face, pointing to ideas that can guide readers on their own search for meaning. (shrink)

We explore offshore outsourcing through the lenses of Catholic Social Teaching (CST). First, we review the outcomes of the 30-year debate in business ethics on issues related to offshore outsourcing. We then cluster authors into two groups—the justice-centered approach and the welfare-centered approach—corresponding to different perspectives on the ethical challenges of offshoring. In the second part, we present and apply the four fundamental principles of the CST (human dignity, subsidiarity, solidarity and the common good) to offshoring, in dialogue with the (...) previous debate. The unity and interconnection among the CST’s fundamental tenets provide a cohesive framework that integrates the points made by the justice-centered and welfare-centered approaches, while introducing the principle of solidarity, more focused on the worker as a person and their flourishing. CST also stresses the need to initiate processes oriented toward structural changes for the sake of human dignity and the common good. (shrink)

BackgroundThe Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) provides access to unreleased government records that can be used to enhance the transparency and integrity of biomedical research. We characterized FOIA requests to Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) agencies, including request outcomes, processing times, backlogs, and costs.MethodsUsing HHS FOIA annual reports, we extracted data on the number of FOIA requests received and processed by HHS agencies between 2008 and 2017, as well as request outcomes. Processing times were reported in three time (...) increments, < 1–20, 21–60, or 61+ days, and trends in backlog status were also described. Information about costs and fees collected were aggregated.ResultsBetween 2008 and 2017, 69.6% of 530,094 HHS FOIA requests were received by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), 18.9% by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and 11.6% by all other HHS agencies. During this period, CMS processed 374,728 requests, FDA 114,938, and other HHS agencies 61,890. CMS and FDA reduced backlogged requests by 9396 (89.7%) and 4289 (65.3%), respectively, leaving backlogs of 1081 and 2279 requests at the end of 2017. CMS fully or partially granted 60.3% of requests whereas FDA fully or partially granted 72.4%. Of all requests to CMS, 82.0% were considered simple and 18.0% complex; 82.2% of simple requests and 54.9% of complex requests were processed in 20 days, and 5.6% and 29.9% were processed in 61+ days. In contrast, 60.2% of requests to FDA were considered simple and 39.8% complex; 28.8% of simple requests and 9.0% of complex requests were processed in 20 days, and 58.3% and 81.5% were processed in 61+ days. The costs to HHS associated with FOIA requests totaled $446.4 million ($809 per processed request), increasing from $28.1 million ($423 per request) in 2008 to $53.3 million ($1544 per request) in 2017. In total, HHS collected $8.5 million in fees (1.9% of total costs).ConclusionsFOIA is frequently used to obtain information about HHS and its agencies. With growing costs, minimal fees collected, and lengthy processing times, HHS agencies’ FOIA programs might be made more efficient through greater proactive record disclosure. (shrink)

Business Ethics: A European Review, EarlyView.

Wittgenstein on the Human Spirit provides a new understanding of Wittgenstein’s discourse as an insightful philosophy of culture, pursued through self-reflection. It offers an edifying perspective on the conceptual underpinnings of culture as a shared expressive spiritual form of life. The ideas investigated in it are highly relevant for discussions in philosophy, aesthetics, anthropology, and cultural studies. The book embraces three studies: The Spirit of Jews, The Spirits of Culture and Civilization, and The Common Spirit of Human Beings. The first (...) discusses Wittgenstein's remarks about Jews, focusing on their place within his philosophical thinking, self-reflection, and European discourse about culture and Jews. It shows how overcoming the anti-Semitic attitude implicit in them set off the major change in his philosophy. The second discusses Wittgenstein’s reflections on the “deterioration of culture” in the modern period, showing how they are related to his remarks about following rules. The third discusses Wittgenstein’s insights regarding the symbolic nature of myth, magic and religion. It suggests that modern human beings and those of ancient cultures possess a common expressive spiritual nature. This enables us to understand expressive practices in other cultures without interpretation. Nonetheless religious belief during the modern period is problematic. (shrink)

How has the storage of information shaped human cognition? We bring together current advances in cognitive science, the neurobiology of memory, and archaeology to explore how storage of information affects consciousness. These fields strongly suggest that the increase in storage of information in the environment – which we call exosomatic storage of information – may have led to changes in human consciousness and human neurophysiology over time. To bring these findings together conceptually, we develop what we call a dialectical model (...) of the relationship between storage of information and the development of human consciousness. Using the system of dialectic philosophy, we put forward that (a) environmental changes, consciousness, and neurophysiology develop together, (b) these changes were irreversible, (c) quantitative increases in exosomatic storage of information may have led to qualitative changes in human consciousness and neurophysiology, (d) these changes in turn affected how we see ourselves. Indeed, our capacity to store information exosomatically distinguishes us from other animals, and may be a key attribute of our self-awareness and therefore self-consciousness. Because metaphors are central to human thought and can help structure scientific inquiry, we illustrate our model using a metaphor of drops of silver on the back of a glass, eventually making a mirror—where successive quantitative change leads to an irreversible qualitative development in human consciousness. The dialectic model can offer new insights into the co-evolution of material culture and human beings through its broader philosophical foundations and explanatory power. (shrink)

In A Philosophy of Luxury Lambert Wiesing offre una trattazione originale del concetto di lusso in una prospettiva meramente estetica. Avendo escluso ogni relazione con concetti sociali, quali prestigio, ostentazione, status, Wiesing dichiara che per lusso si deve intendere un’esperienza estetica di tipo particolare. Poiché solo l’uomo indulge nel lusso, ciò che va analizzato è la relazione che intercorre tra un soggetto e un dato oggetto, prescindendo dalle qualità estetiche proprie di quest...

This article addresses the service of financial companies to society from the perspective of the Catholic Social Teaching (hereinafter CST), specifically regarding conflicts of interest between banks and their customers. The article begins with a case based on interviews with professionals in the financial sector, which provides the context for the CST’s contribution. The analysis of the aforementioned conflicts points to an apparent disconnect between service to society and service to customers. Thus, the bank would set aside the customer’s interests (...) in exchange for a better service to society through good results. This article presents the CST’s normative framework to analyze this matter through some of the CST’s principles: the centrality of the person, the respect for her dignity, and the orientation to the common good. These principles and the CST’s ethical concept of service provide guidance in assessing these conflicts of interest. From an ethical point of view and according to CST, there cannot be a true service to society if the dignity of the client is not respected. It is necessary to review the organization’s incentive policy and level of awareness about the importance of customer service. We end with recommendations related to conflicts of interest with clients. (shrink)

When organized into functional categories, the set of texts found in the Ugaritic archive in the “Maison du prêtre-magicien” manifests a clear raison d’être as a collection. Of the twelve main categories of texts from this deposit, the most significant serve to justify various forms of magical praxis and detail how to carry them out. Almost the entire collection of Ugaritic offering texts is found here, since all include a purification rite of the king, the responsibility of the magician priest (...) as mḥll, whose function is stated in KTU 1.119. This fact had been ignored up to now. In addition, the main texts setting out the royal ideology were entrusted to this magician priest, thus reflecting their magical-cultic nature. Additional texts belong to the realm of scribal training, another responsibility of this public official. The adjacent library with a wide variety of Akkadian texts was of fundamental value in this latter connection. (shrink)