Edith Wyschogrod presents the first full-length study in English of the important contemporary French philosopher Emmanuel Levinas. It is a revision of the author’s earlier study and includes discussions of his recent writings as well as current scholarship. Dr. Wyschogrod’s extensive discussion of Levinas's relation to Judaism, especially his use of literature from the Torah and other religious writings, will be of interest to religious scholars. The author compares Levinas’s thought with that of his contemporaries, most notably Jacques Derrida (...) and Husserl. (shrink)

This article studies anti-globalization activities in South Asia, and specifically the Indian subcontinent, and discovers that the common people have begun a new form of civil disobedience in the country, to counter the machinations of multinational corporations. Many of the eminent writers and activists at the forefront of the movement are Indian women, a fact that may come as a surprise to some, but is part and parcel of the movement's basis in sustainable development and resistance to patriarchal hegemony.

Coalitional games raise a number of important questions from the point of view of computer science, key among them being how to represent such games compactly, and how to efficiently compute solution concepts assuming such representations. Marginal contribution nets , introduced by Ieong and Shoham, are one of the simplest and most influential representation schemes for coalitional games. MC-nets are a rulebased formalism, in which rules take the form pattern → value, where “pattern ” is a Boolean condition over agents, (...) and “value ” is a numeric value. Ieong and Shoham showed that, for a class of what we will call “basic” MC-nets, where patterns are constrained to be a conjunction of literals, marginal contribution nets permit the easy computation of solution concepts such as the Shapley value. However, there are very natural classes of coalitional games that require an exponential number of such basic MC-net rules. We present read-once MC-nets, a new class of MC-nets that is provably more compact than basic MC-nets, while retaining the attractive computational properties of basic MC-nets. We show how the techniques we develop for read-once MC-nets can be applied to other domains, in particular, computing solution concepts in network flow games on series-parallel networks. (shrink)

The last decade has seen a rise in big data approaches, including in the humanities, whereby large quantities of data are collected and analysed. In this paper, we discuss long-form audio recordings that result from individuals wearing a recording device for many hours. Linguists, psychologists and anthropologists can use them, for example, to study infants’ or adults’ linguistic behaviour. In the past, recorded individuals and communities have resided in high-income countries (HICs) almost exclusively. Recognising the need for better representation of (...) all cultures and linguistic experiences, researchers have more recently started to collect long-form audio recordings in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). We aim to help researchers to collect, analyse and use these recordings ethically. To do so, we identify four main ethical challenges linked to research that relies on long-form recordings in LMICs. We provide recommendations to overcome these challenges. These considerations should be useful to researchers employing other big data techniques collected via wearables. (shrink)

Empathy and sympathy are feeling-acts which bring the self into direct encounter with other persons. In empathy a self grasps the affective act of another self; in sympathy x n persons apprehend a common object while immersed in similar feeling acts. Since touch is the paradigmatic sense for bringing what is felt into proximity with feeling, structural affinities between touch and these feeling acts can be shown. This relationship has been obscured by classical theories of touch in which it is (...) interpreted on analogy with the other senses. When the subject of touch is seen as the living body as a whole, the full range of its possible relationships to affective states can be explored. In this connection the theories of touch of Aristotle, Berkeley and Condillac are critically evaluated. While none recognizes the uniqueness of touch, each sees difficulties in incorporating touch in a general theory of sense. In the course of the exposition pity is distinguished from empathy and sympathy and a criticism of Nietzsche's ressentiment theory offered. CiteULike Connotea Del.icio.us What's this? (shrink)

We investigate the effect on the complexity of adding the universal modality and the reflexive transitive closure modality to modal logics. From the examples in the literature, one might conjecture that adding the reflexive transitive closure modality is at least as hard as adding the universal modality, and that adding either of these modalities to a multi-modal logic where the modalities do not interact can only increase the complexity to EXPTIME-complete. We show that the first conjecture holds under reasonable assumptions (...) and that, except for a number of special cases which we fully characterize, the hardness part of the second conjecture is true. However, the upper bound part of the second conjecture fails miserably: we show that there exists a uni-modal, decidable, finitely axiomatizable, and canonical logic for which adding the universal modality causes undecidability and for which adding the reflexive transitive closure modality causes high undecidability. (shrink)

There is an increasing recognition internationally of the critical impact of communication within healthcare. The link between ineffective communication, patient dissatisfaction and critical incidents is well established. Family Planning New South Wales has sought to address patient-centred care and communication in its policy platform. This article reports on research conducted within FPNSW, which analysed the discourse features that constituted effective doctor–patient1 communication in sexual and reproductive health consultations. The principal aim of the research was to understand how effectively messages were (...) conveyed and received and to what degree patients were active participants in their own sexual healthcare. Analysed consultations were characterised by extremely high levels of communicative competence on the part of the doctors who integrated medical expertise with the development of interpersonal relationships with patients, thus positioning patients as active contributors to the consultations and to decisions about their ongoing treatment. The detailed linguistic analysis identified characteristic features of patient-centred communication that are essential to patient-centred care. These interactions demonstrate that communicating care is just as important as delivering care and involves a drawing together of the medical and the interpersonal in consultations. The article details strategies for interweaving medical knowledge and establishing rapport that can inform practitioner communication practices across different healthcare contexts. (shrink)

In queste pagine è delineata la vicenda esistenziale e intellettuale di Edith Stein. Donna straordinaria, è stata capace di racchiudere nella sua persona molte "possibili" vite. Le ha realizzate come ebrea e cattolica, fenomenologa e filosofa cristiana, docente e monaca carmelitana, agnostica e santa. Si tratta di un processo vitale dagli apparenti salti qualitativi, i quali si volgono all'ascolto di un medesimo nucleo identitario. Questa viva "formazione di sé" ha condotto Edith Stein a una "donazione di sé", culminata (...) nell'Olocausto. Il Diario di Edith si sovrappone ai pensieri di Angela Ales Bello, in veste di narratrice d'eccezione. Con la sentita partecipazione della narratrice, e insieme mantenendo il distacco critico della studiosa, viene scoperta la storia di un'anima. Le emozioni e le conquiste intellettuali trovano una sintesi grazie al peculiare approccio ai "fenomeni" che Edith Stein aveva appreso alla scuola di Edmund Husserl, di Tommaso d'Aquino e di Teresa D'Avila. Sintesi mirabile di pensatori che "si danno la mano" al di là dello spazio e del tempo--Front flap. (shrink)

Out of the Margin is the first book to consider feminist concerns across the whole domain of economics. In recent years there has been a tremendous increase in interest on the relation between gender and economics. Feminists have found much of concern in the way the economics has written women out of its history, built its theories around masculinist values, failed to take proper account of women and their work when measuring the economy and ignored most of the policy issues (...) that press most heavily upon women. This book is a firm rejection of this marginalized position. Including contributions from leading feminist economists from the US and Europe, the book offers a richness of new insights in addressing the absence of women, both as subject and object, in the history of economic thought. Out of the Margin also explores the philosophical roots of rational economic man, power relations and conflicts within the family, the limitations of relying on secondary data, the need for new data and research, the policy implications of neo-classical economic models and the need for fundamental research in policy making. With its range and depth of coverage, this is not only an excellent introduction to the field but also indispensible for anyone looking for an in-depth analysis of gender and economics. (shrink)

Originally published: New York: Random House, 1972.

Karl Jaspers was one of the greatest European philosophers and humanists of the twentieth century. He demonstrated a broad range of philosophical thinking that makes his work relevant for the twenty-first century. Coming to philosophy from medicine and psychiatry, Jaspers's views encompass a vast and creative range of empirical, philosophical, social, historical, and poltical ideas. Hannah Arendt described Jaspers as one of the greatest interpreters of Kant in the German tradition. In the 1950s, Jaspers spoke of his "philosophy of reason" (...) and his debt to Nietzsche, Kierkegaard, Weber, and others. His philosophy, however, has often been misunderstood by Anglophone readers and interpreters, both with respect to his so-called existentialism, as well as to the originality, creativity, depth, and scope of this thinking and method. The contributors to this fascinating volume offer fresh expositions and interpretations of Jaspers's philosophy. All are prominent experts in Jaspers research from three continents. Six major parts reveal the significant contribution of Jaspers's thought to the philosophy of psychiatry and science, philosophy of history, metaphysics, philosophy of education, philosophy of humanity, philosophy of politics, philosophy of religion, and intercultural philosophy. Key concepts of Jaspers's philosophy are highlighted and interpreted from a fresh and timely perspective: "boundary situations," existential communication, existential truth, transcendence, philosophical faith, the axial age in world history, new politics and the role of a moral and political conversion, the idea of the university, and Jaspers's fascination with and interpretation of Asian thought. The accessible essays will help readers overcome the intimidation often felt when faced with the work of a major German philosopher. The editors introduce and summarize Jaspers's published works, while offering an overview of his basic themes and concerns. New readers and researchers alike will find this collection instrumental in understanding recent developments in the interpretation of Jaspers. (shrink)

“If anthropology and history once begin to collaborate in the study of … societies, it will become apparent that the one science can achieve nothing without the help of the other,” said Claude Levi-Strauss. This statement is so immediately sensible in a plain, common-sense way, that only an examination of historical and anthropological practices reveal that such a collaboration is neither as frequent nor as complete as it ought to be.Anthropologists traditionally studied preliterate societies, historians, literate ones. Preliterate societies lack (...) written documents (or such documents are rare and often unreliable since they are usually written by untrained observers from outside the culture) and anthropologists found themselves with only oral traditions from which to reconstruct the past. Oral traditions, myths, tales, legends and so on are part of every culture; but the value of such traditions as a source of historical information was considered doubtful by most anthropologists, and historians seemingly had no need of them. The functionalist school of anthropology contributed to our understanding by recognizing the value and importance of oral histories in terms of the functions such tales fulfill in a given society. (shrink)

Active at the time when the social sciences were founded, Max Weber's social theory contributed significantly to a wide range of fields and disciplines. Considering his prominence, it makes sense to take stock of the Weberian heritage and to explore the ways in which Weber's work and ideas have contributed to our understanding of the modern world. Using his work as a point of departure, The Oxford Handbook of Max Weber investigates the Weberian legacy today, identifying the enduring problems and (...) themes associated with his thought that have contemporary significance: the nature of modern capitalism, neo-liberal global economic policy, nationalism, religion and secularization, threats to legality, the culture of modernity, bureaucratic rule and leadership, politics and ethics, the value of science, power and inequality. These problems are global in scope, and the Weberian approach has been used to address them in very different societies. Thus, the Handbook also features chapters on Europe, Turkey, Islam, Judaism, China, India, and international politics. The Handbook emphasizes the use and application of Weber's ideas. It offers a journey through the intellectual terrain that scholars continue to explore using the tools and perspectives of Weberian analysis. The essays explore how Weber's concepts, hypotheses, and perspectives have been applied in practice, and how they can be applied in the future in social inquiry, not only in Europe and North America, but globally. The volume is divided into six parts exploring, in turn: Capitalism in a Globalized World, Society and Social Structure, Politics and the State, Religion, Culture, and Science and Knowledge. (shrink)

Mass death resulting from war, starvation, and disease as well as the vicissitudes of extreme poverty and enforced sexual servitude are recognizably pandemic ills of the contemporary world. In light of their magnitude, are repentance, regret for the harms inflicted upon others or oneself, and forgiveness, proferring the erasure of the guilt of those who have inflicted these harms, rendered nugatory? Jacques Derrida claims that forgiveness is intrinsically rather than circumstantially or historically impossible. Forgiveness, trapped in a paradox, is possible (...) only if there is such a thing as the unforgivable. "Thus, forgiveness, if there is such a thing," can only exist as exempt from the law of the possible. Does this claim not open the way for hopelessness and despair? More troubling for Derrida is his concession that forgiveness may be necessary in the realm of the political and juridical. If so, is not the purity of the impossibility of forgiveness so crucial for him, contaminated? In pointing to some of the difficulties in Derrida's position, I shall appeal to Vladimir Jankelevitch's distinction between the unforgivable and the inexcusable. I shall also consider the significance of repentance in the theological ethics of Emmanuel Levinas and Max Scheler. Forgiveness, I conclude, is vacuous without expiation, a position that can be helpfully understood in the context of Judaism's analysis of purification and acquittal in the Day of Atonement liturgy. I argue that what disappears is Derrida's assurance of the impossibility of forgiveness, a disappearance that allows for hope. (shrink)

"Any state exists only for the benefit of human beings. this basic tenet of Edith Stein's political thought rests on her conviction that humanity is fundamentally one community, precious beyond measure.

Electoral control refers to attempts by an election's organizer to influence the outcome by adding/deleting/partitioning voters or candidates. The important paper of Bartholdi, Tovey, and Trick [1] that introduces control proposes computational complexity as a means of resisting control attempts: Look for election systems where the chair's task in seeking control is itself computationally infeasible.We introduce and study a method of combining two or more candidate-anonymous election schemes in such a way that the combined scheme possesses all the resistances to (...) control possessed by any of its constituents: It combines their strengths. From this and new resistance constructions, we prove for the first time that there exists a neutral, anonymous election scheme that is resistant to all twenty standard types of electoral control. (shrink)