The author points out that there is an essential difference as well as correspondence between the idea of the absolute in Fichte’s philosophy and that of the emptiness in Mahayana Buddhism. Both ideas treat the origin of the subject which goes beyond the relation of subject and object. In this point they are in agreement. But if we pay attention to the point that the absolute in Fichte’s philosophy is completely closed and therefore includes no negation in itself, it becomes (...) clear that it is, however, different from the Buddhist emptiness which consists in selfaffirmation through selfnegation. According to the author, the consciousness which works as a creator of the world in Fichte’s system remains out of the absolute. In this sense, Fichte’s idea of the absolute is insufficient as a principle of philosophy.Der Verfasser weist darauf hin, dass es zwischen dem Begriff des Absoluten bei Fichte und dem der Leere im Mahayanabuddhismus neben einer Übereinstimmung auch einen wesentlichen Unterschied gibt. Beide Begriffe stimmen darin überein, dass es ihnen um den Ursprung des Subjekts geht, der über die Relation von Subjekt und Objekt hinausgeht. Wenn man aber die Aufmerksamkeit darauf richtet, dass das Absolute bei Fichte als ein in sich Geschlossenes keine Negation in sich enthält, wird deutlich, dass es sich von der buddhistischen Leere unterscheidet, die in Selbstaffirmation durch Selbstnegation besteht. Bei Fichte hingegen bleibt das Bewusstsein als Weltschöpfer noch außer dem Absoluten. In diesem Sinne ist das Fichtesche Absolute als Prinzip der Philosophie unzureichend. (shrink)

Das Absolute oder die Wahrheit öffnet sich der Dimension des philosophischen Wissens, das seinerseits nur als Zuwendung zur Wahrheit seinen Standpunkt erlangt. Die Frage, ob das Absolute dem Wissen gegenüber in Erscheinung tritt, -- dieser Schatten des Skeptizismus -- kommt im Bezirk des deutschen Idealismus nie auf.

Das Absolute oder die Wahrheit öffnet sich der Dimension des philosophischen Wissens, das seinerseits nur als Zuwendung zur Wahrheit seinen Standpunkt erlangt. Die Frage, ob das Absolute dem Wissen gegenüber in Erscheinung tritt, -- dieser Schatten des Skeptizismus -- kommt im Bezirk des deutschen Idealismus nie auf.

The author points out that there is an essential difference as well as correspondence between the idea of the absolute in Fichte’s philosophy and that of the emptiness in Mahayana Buddhism. Both ideas treat the origin of the subject which goes beyond the relation of subject and object. In this point they are in agreement. But if we pay attention to the point that the absolute in Fichte’s philosophy is completely closed and therefore includes no negation in itself, it becomes (...) clear that it is, however, different from the Buddhist emptiness which consists in selfaffirmation through selfnegation. According to the author, the consciousness which works as a creator of the world in Fichte’s system remains out of the absolute. In this sense, Fichte’s idea of the absolute is insufficient as a principle of philosophy.Der Verfasser weist darauf hin, dass es zwischen dem Begriff des Absoluten bei Fichte und dem der Leere im Mahayanabuddhismus neben einer Übereinstimmung auch einen wesentlichen Unterschied gibt. Beide Begriffe stimmen darin überein, dass es ihnen um den Ursprung des Subjekts geht, der über die Relation von Subjekt und Objekt hinausgeht. Wenn man aber die Aufmerksamkeit darauf richtet, dass das Absolute bei Fichte als ein in sich Geschlossenes keine Negation in sich enthält, wird deutlich, dass es sich von der buddhistischen Leere unterscheidet, die in Selbstaffirmation durch Selbstnegation besteht. Bei Fichte hingegen bleibt das Bewusstsein als Weltschöpfer noch außer dem Absoluten. In diesem Sinne ist das Fichtesche Absolute als Prinzip der Philosophie unzureichend. (shrink)

オリンピック招致問題、部活絶対主義、スポーツへの逃避、無気力試合...... スポーツにかかわる問題の解決に求められている姿勢とは?スポーツに関して、自分の意見に会わない人や新しい情報に接し、自分とは違う考えを取り入れることが、スポーツを理解する素晴らしいヒントになる。複雑な真 実から目をそらさず、学びを止めない姿勢が、今、求められている。.

A 'sensed presence' often accompanies hypnagogic and hypnopompic hallucinations associated with sleep paralysis. Qualitative descriptions of the sensed presence during sleep paralysis are consistent with the experience of a monitoring, stalking predator. It is argued that the sensed presence during sleep paralysis arises because of REM-related endogenous activation of a hypervigilant and biased attentive state, the normal function of which is to resolve ambiguities inherent in biologically relevant threat cues. Given the lack of disambiguating environmental cues, however, the feeling of (...) presence persists as a protracted experience that is both numinous and ominous. This experience, in turn, shapes the elaboration and integration of the concurrent hallucinations that often take on supernatural and daemonic qualities. The sense of presence considered here is an 'other' that is radically different from, and hence more than a mere projection of, the self. Such a numinous sense of otherness may constitute a primordial core consciousness of the animate and sentient in the world around us. (shrink)

Identifies the roots of Nazism in the philosophical ideas of the worship of unreason, demand for self-sacrifice, and elevation of society over the individual, and argues that these ideas are present in America today.

ABSTRACT The Daodejing (DDJ) is an ancient Chinese text traditionally taken as a representative Daoist classic expressing a distinctive philosophy from the Warring States Period (403–221 BCE). This essay explicates the ethical dimensions of the DDJ paying attention to issues related to war and peace. The discussion consists of four parts: (1) “naturalness” as an onto‐cosmological argument for a philosophy of harmony, balance, and peace; (2) war as a sign of the disruption of the natural pattern of things initiated by (...) the proliferation of desire; (3) defensive war and appropriate war conduct required when one has to be involved in warfare; and (4) the natural and spontaneous way of living that would prevent war from happening in the first place. This essay attempts to show that what makes the DDJ different from other military texts, or what is called the “art of war corpus” in China is that the discourse of war and warfare in the DDJ is presented via its unique understanding of peace at the personal and social levels. The DDJ is meant to be an inquiry into an effective method to prevent war from happening amid a world full of selfish interests and excessive desires. It proposes that peace is not only a condition in which there is freedom from war and overt violence, but a state of harmony that marks human life and its betterment. (shrink)

ABSTRACTThe Daodejing is an ancient Chinese text traditionally taken as a representative Daoist classic expressing a distinctive philosophy from the Warring States Period . This essay explicates the ethical dimensions of the DDJ paying attention to issues related to war and peace. The discussion consists of four parts: “naturalness” as an onto‐cosmological argument for a philosophy of harmony, balance, and peace; war as a sign of the disruption of the natural pattern of things initiated by the proliferation of desire; defensive (...) war and appropriate war conduct required when one has to be involved in warfare; and the natural and spontaneous way of living that would prevent war from happening in the first place. This essay attempts to show that what makes the DDJ different from other military texts, or what is called the “art of war corpus” in China is that the discourse of war and warfare in the DDJ is presented via its unique understanding of peace at the personal and social levels. The DDJ is meant to be an inquiry into an effective method to prevent war from happening amid a world full of selfish interests and excessive desires. It proposes that peace is not only a condition in which there is freedom from war and overt violence, but a state of harmony that marks human life and its betterment. (shrink)

In nearly all aspects of life, humans are crossing lines of no return. Modern science is leading us into vast uncharted territory—far beyond the invention of nuclear weapons or taking us to the moon.Today, in labs all over the world, scientists are performing experiments that threaten to fundamentally alter the practical character and ethical color of our everyday lives. In The End of Life as We Know It, bestselling author Michael Guillen takes a penetrating look at how the scientific community (...) is pushing the boundaries of morality, including: • Scientists who detached the head of a Russian man from his crippled, diseased body, and stitching it onto a healthy new donated body. • Fertility experiments aimed at allowing designer babies to be conceived with the DNA from three or more biological parents. • The unprecedented politicization of science – for example, in the global discussion about climate change that is pitting “deniers” against “alarmists” and inspiring Draconian legislation, censorship, and legal prosecutions. • The integration of Artificial Intelligence into communications and the economy. The End of Life as We Know It takes us into labratories and boardrooms where these troubling advances are taking place and asks the question no scientists seem to be asking: What does this mean for the future of humanity? (shrink)

Given the ominous shadow cast by Alcibiades over Socrates' trial, the scholarly assessment of Alcibiades Major deserves to be revisited. The aim of this article is to critically review the various treatments of Alcibiades Major among ancient, modern and contemporary scholars. It also seeks to highlight modern and contemporary themes the dialogue anticipates, such as feminism and, to a lesser extent, multiculturalism. The review will also show that it was in the nineteenth century that objections were first raised about the (...) dialogue's structural features and authenticity. Such objections preoccupied most modern commentators of the dialogue, but from all reasonable evidence, commentators from the ancient world had no such qualms about the dialogue's structural features or about attributing the authorship of Alcibiades Major to Plato. (shrink)

When are psychologists entitled to call a certain theoretical construct "consciousness?" Over the past few decades cognitive psychologists have reintroduced almost the entire conceptual vocabulary of common sense psychology, but now in a way that is tied explicitly to reliable empirical observations, and to compelling and increasingly adequate theoretical models. Nevertheless, until the past few years most cognitive psychologists and neuroscientists avoided dealing with consciousness. Today there is an increasing willingness to do so. But is "consciousness" different from other theoretical (...) entities like "working memory" or "mental imagery"? Some argue that under no circumstances can empirical science speak of consciousness as such, while others claim that the scientific goal is "knowing what it is like to be a bat" --- to share an organism's conscious experience . The Bat Criterion is ominously reminiscent of the protracted debate on the consciousness of ants and amoebas that caused so much uneasiness in psychology around 1900. It seems to demand that we first solve the mind-body problem as a condition of doing sensible science, and thereby creates the risk of endless, fruitless controversy. The endless philosophical debate about consciousness helped trigger the Behaviorist revolution about 1913, which threw out the baby of consciousness with the bathwater of perennial, circular debate. We've been that way; let's not go back to it. This paper maintains that the position of behavioristic denial is far too restrictive, but that the Bat Criterion is far too demanding --- that in fact, we only need to specify comparable pairs of psychological phenomena that differ only in the fact that one member of any pair is conscious, while the other is not. This "method of contrastive analysis" is a generalization of the experimental method, with consciousness as a variable whose interaction with other psychological and biological phenomena can be assessed in standard ways. As usual in science, this strategy is pragmatic: If it appears to yield sensible results, it can be a stepping-stone toward further understanding . This paper describes five sets of well-established pairs of phenomena that meet these criteria. Others are presented elsewhere, with more of a theoretical interpretation . Here I simply want to show that any adequate theory of conscious experience must satisfy these demanding but achievable empirical constraints. (shrink)

How the new conspiracists are undermining democracy—and what can be done about it Conspiracy theories are as old as politics. But conspiracists today have introduced something new—conspiracy without theory. And the new conspiracism has moved from the fringes to the heart of government with the election of Donald Trump. In A Lot of People Are Saying, Russell Muirhead and Nancy Rosenblum show how the new conspiracism differs from classic conspiracy theory, why so few officials speak truth to conspiracy, and what (...) needs to be done to resist it. Classic conspiracy theory insists that things are not what they seem and gathers evidence—especially facts ominously withheld by official sources—to tease out secret machinations. The new conspiracism is different. There is no demand for evidence, no dots revealed to form a pattern, no close examination of shadowy plotters. Dispensing with the burden of explanation, the new conspiracism imposes its own reality through repetition and bare assertion. The new conspiracism targets democratic foundations—political parties and knowledge-producing institutions. It makes it more difficult to argue, persuade, negotiate, compromise, and even to disagree. Ultimately, it delegitimates democracy. Filled with vivid examples, A Lot of People Are Saying diagnoses a defining and disorienting feature of today's politics and offers a guide to responding to the threat. (shrink)

Due to the novel coronavirus pandemic, the lockdown engendered has had a vicious impact on the global economy. This analysis’ prime intention is to evaluate the impact of the United States’ economic and health crisis as a result of COVID-19 on its financial stability. Additionally, the investigation analyzed the spillover impact of the worldwide economic slowdown experienced by COVID-19 on the United States’ financial volatility. The study applied an autoregressive distributed lag model and discovered that the economic and health crises (...) that occurred in the United States portentously upset the future expectations of its investors. Conspicuously, the health crisis in Spain and Italy were ominous spillovers of the United States’ financial instability in the short-run. Likewise, an economic crisis ensued in the United Kingdom because of COVID-19 causing spillover for the United States markets’ financial instability. The examination evaluated that Asian and African nations’ economic crises perilously affects the United States’ financial stability. The study determined that financial instability occurred in the United States due to its own economic and health crises persisted for a longer period than financial disequilibrium that occurred in other nations. The analysis suggested some strategies of smart lockdown that the government of the United States and other nations should follow to restart the economic cycle through tighter controls to minimize losses by following the steps of preparing a lockdown checklist, monitoring completion of lockdown tasks, and complete a close-down stock take or count. (shrink)

In what must be ranked as a foremost classic of twentieth-century political philosophy, George Santayana, in the preface to his last major work prior to his death, makes plain the limits as well as the aims of Dominations and Powers: "All that it professes to contain is glimpses of tragedy and comedy played unawares by governments; and a continual intuitive reduction of political maxims and institutions to the intimate spiritual fruits that they are capable of bearing." Completed at midpoint in (...) the century, but serving as his final masterpiece, Santayana's volume offers an ominous account of the weakness of the West, and its similarities in substance if not always in form with totalitarian systems of the East. Few analyses of concepts, such as government by the people; the price of peace and the suppression of warfare; the nature of elites and limits of egalitarianism; and the nature of authority in free societies, are more comprehensive or compelling. This is a carefully rendered statement on tasks of leadership for free societies that takes on added meaning after the fall of communism. (shrink)

As a way to address both ominous and ordinary threats of artificial intelligence, researchers have started proposing ways to stop an AI system before it has a chance to escape outside control and cause harm. A so-called “big red button” would enable human operators to interrupt or divert a system while preventing the system from learning that such an intervention is a threat. Though an emergency button for AI seems to make intuitive sense, that approach ultimately concentrates on the point (...) when a system has already “gone rogue” and seeks to obstruct interference. A better approach would be to make ongoing self-evaluation and testing an integral part of a system’s operation, diagnose how the system is in error and to prevent chaos and risk before they start. In this paper, we describe the demands that recent big red button proposals have not addressed, and we offer a preliminary model of an approach that could better meet them. We argue for an ethical core that consists of a scenario-generation mechanism and a simulation environment that are used to test a system’s decisions in simulated worlds, rather than the real world. This EC would be kept opaque to the system itself: through careful design of memory and the character of the scenario, the system’s algorithms would be prevented from learning about its operation and its function, and ultimately its presence. By monitoring and checking for deviant behavior, we conclude, a continual testing approach will be far more effective, responsive, and vigilant toward a system’s learning and action in the world than an emergency button which one might not get to push in time. (shrink)

What I find particularly valuable in the juxtaposition of these three essays on my book is the triangulation made possible by their different versions of much the same story. I present my view as a product of cognitive science, but all three express worries that it may involve some sort of ominous backsliding towards the evils of behaviorism. I agree with Baars and McGovern when they suggest that philosophy has had some baleful influences on psychology during this century. Logical positivism (...) at its best was full of subtle softenings, but behaviorist psychologists bought the tabloid version, and sold it to their students in large quantities. George Miller's account of those dreary days is not an exaggeration, and the effects still linger in some quarters. (Philosophers are often amused--but they should really be disconcerted--to note that the only living, preaching logical positivists today are to be found in psychology departments.). (shrink)

What I find particularly valuable in the juxtaposition of these three essays on my book is the triangulation made possible by their different versions of much the same story. I present my view as a product of cognitive science, but all three express worries that it may involve some sort of ominous backsliding towards the evils of behaviorism. I agree with Baars and McGovern when they suggest that philosophy has had some baleful influences on psychology during this century. Logical positivism (...) at its best was full of subtle softenings, but behaviorist psychologists bought the tabloid version, and sold it to their students in large quantities. George Miller's account of those dreary days is not an exaggeration, and the effects still linger in some quarters. (Philosophers are often amused--but they should really be disconcerted--to note that the only living, preaching logical positivists today are to be found in psychology departments.). (shrink)

This article examines the rise of meta-commentary in US media, and considers the consequences it has for the social construction and the performance of intellectual expertise. Media meta-commentary is defined as critical reflection about media practices and performances, in which the primary basis for criticism is the comparison of different media formats. Meta-commentary began to emerge with the differentiation of the aesthetic sphere and the development of a new kind of expert, the cultural critic. Cultural criticism led to a proliferation (...) of expert performance styles, including a type of counter-performance that rejects the somber and serious nature of traditional intellectual practices. By the 1980s, these new styles of intellectual performance were being reinforced by important institutional and regulatory changes within the media industry, and ultimately by the proliferation of new digital technologies and DIY culture. By the twenty-first century, media meta-commentary had become a distinctive and peculiar form of expert discourse, which legitimates the act of criticism while also relativizing it. The current environment suggests two possible outcomes: a hopeful one that encourages greater reflexivity, and a more ominous one that points toward populism. (shrink)

Rousseau’s account of the “legislator” or “lawgiver” is commonly regarded as one of the most far-fetched, ominous, and baffling parts of his teaching in the Social Contract. In brief, Rousseau’s lawgiver seems to be a proto-totalitarian figure whose self-appointed mission is to found a political community by “denaturing” people at a single stroke and who may be a mere figment of Rousseau’s overheated imagination. Accordingly, this part of the Social Contract threatens to make a mockery of Rousseau’s claim to be (...) “taking men as they are and laws they can be,” as well as his claim that the combination of “ freedom and equality” is “the greatest good” in the civil state. Following and extending Rousseau’s own method of teaching by examples, however, this essay argues that Benjamin Franklin’s influence over the American republic—especially through his posthumous Autobiography—offers a prosaic example of the apparently fantastical phenomenon sketched by Rousseau. In fact, I argue that Franklin’s case corresponds more fully to Rousseau’s description than do any of Rousseau’s own examples (such as Moses, Lycurgus, and Numa) and that Franklin showed in practice what Rousseau suggested in theory: that a lawgiver can succeed without relying on coercion and without undercutting the equality that underlies a just society. Franklin’s denaturing influence, I suggest, has been crucial for the durability of republicanism in the United States, given the country’s size and diversity. (shrink)

In public debate over agricultural biotechnology, at issue hasbeen its self-proclaimed aim of further industrializingagriculture. Using languages of ’risk‘, critics and proponentshave engaged in an implicit ethics debate on the direction oftechnoscientific development. Critics have challenged thebiotechnological R&D agenda for attributing socio-agronomicproblems to genetic deficiencies, while perpetuating the hazardsof intensive monoculture. They diagnosed ominous links betweentechnological dependency and tangible harm from biotechnologyproducts.In response to scientific and public concerns, theEuropean Community enacted precautionary legislation for theintentional release of genetically modified organisms (GMOs). (...) Inits implementation, choices for managing and investigatingbiotechnological risk involve an implicit environmental ethics.Yet the official policy language downplays the inherent valuejudgments, by portraying risk regulation as a matter of’objective‘ science.In parallel with safety regulation, thestate has devised an official bioethics that judges where to’draw the line‘ in applying biotechnological knowledge, as ifthe science itself were value-free. Bioethics may also judge howto ’balance‘ risks and benefits, as if their definition were notan issue. This form of ethics serves to compensate for theunacknowledged value-choices and institutional commitmentsalready embedded in R&D priorities.Thus the state separates’risk‘ and ’ethics‘, while assigning both realms to specialists.The risk/ethics boundary encourages public deference to theexpert assessments of both safety regulators and professionalethicists. Biotechnology embodies a contentious model of controlover nature and society, yet this issue becomes displaced andfragmented into various administrative controls. At stake arethe prospects for democratizing the problem-definitions thatguide R&D priorities. (shrink)

In the pathbreaking essays collected here, Neumann and Kirchheimer demonstrate that the death of democracy and the rise of fascism during the first half of the twentieth century suggest crucial lessons for contemporary political and legal scholars. The volume includes writings on constitutionalism, political freedom, Nazism, sovereignty, and both Nazi and liberal law. Most important, the Frankfurt authors point to the continuing efficacy of the rule of law as an instrument for regulating and restraining state authority, as well as ominous (...) evidence of the rule of law's fragility in modern liberal democracy. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:On the NoseDavid F. Bell (bio)I recently underwent a COVID test. As the technician inserted the rather ominous cotton-tipped probe into my nostril, she told me that it was going to feel as if she were tickling my brain. Indeed… This experience, shared by many during the past three years, and likely multiple times, prompted me to think about my nose. Not since cocaine reentered American mainstream culture in (...) the 1970s and '80s—and found its way into countless movies that reflect the trend—has the nose been so central to a certain state of public life. It's difficult to find a film dealing with American culture from that period and beyond, from Scarface to The Wolf of Wall Street, in which there is not a scene depicting characters snorting the obligatory line or spoon of cocaine. Yes, snorting, sniffing, sneezing, ingesting the line through the nose and finishing leftover dust by collecting it with a moist finger, rubbing it lovingly against the front gum of the mouth. Freud's "Über Coca" looms ominously in the background, the work of a phase in Freud's professional career complicated by his obscure relationships with Parke-Davis (now a subsidiary of Pfizer) and Merck, pharmaceutical companies that supplied him with early samples to tickle his nose (Freud; Merkel). The Sacklers of the moment. In our day, Pfizer wants to transform our noses into defenses against the virus rather than conduits toward mind-altering dreams. In the wake of the Freud and William Halsted cocaine addictions chronicled by Howard Merkel, the irony of the contemporary link between Pfizer and the nose is patent.The nose: that orifice through which the virus creeps, the first stage in breathing, the first filter for air-borne pollutants. Recently, important immunological analyses of COVID have focused on the question of viral load, how much virus is necessary to overcome the nose's filtering function and reach the deeper airways leading to the lungs. The processes triggered by any of the major vaccines prepare antibody blueprints and actual antibodies that can be dispatched to the linings of the nose to counter the virus as soon as the body detects its presence. The Delta, Omicron, and subsequent variants remind us that the virus has mechanisms to challenge this response, namely, increased viral load that intensifies transmissibility and the potential to overwhelm antibodies. It seems, however, that [End Page 231] so-called breakthrough infections are still well controlled by the body's vaccinated immune system. Hysteria about the dangers of such incursions is partially a product of biased and often incorrect or incomplete media coverage of the COVID vaccine, which has terrified the vaccinated and fueled the skepticism of the unvaccinated.The virus tries to overpower and confuse the filtering nose in another way, more immediately apparent to our conscious selves. As many as eighty-five percent of COVID infections result in the loss of smell, generally recovered in about two to three weeks in sickened people who overcome the infection. About five percent of COVID victims, however, have not recovered their sense of smell six months or more after they have shed the virus.1 What might it mean to lose one's sense of smell? In our vision-oriented culture, both sound (the ear) and smell (the nose) have been less recognized as primary defense mechanisms than in other cultures. When one hears a sound, the first reaction is to prepare for a threat, before the sonic source is seen or understood. Orientation in the world, knowing from which direction the sound emanates, is key to preparing the body for an encounter with an unknown phenomenon: "To sound (an alarm) means to warn. Isn't any emerging sound understood as a warning? Any unexpected sonic occurrence is seen as an indication of something that is to come and that must be clarified rapidly" (Deshays 34). By the same token, to sample surroundings by sniffing what is in the air signals whether one should inhale or somehow try to hold one's breath in search of cleaner, more palatable air. Without olfaction, we are at potentially heightened risk of asphyxiation. We are more likely to... (shrink)

Elie Wiesel, plucked from the ashes of the Holocaust, became a Nobel Peace laureate, an activist on behalf of the oppressed, a teacher, an award-winning novelist, and a renowned humanist. He moved easily among world leaders but was equally at home among the disenfranchised. Following his Nobel Prize, Wiesel established the Elie Wiesel Foundation for Humanity; one of their early initiatives was the founding of the Elie Wiesel Ethics Essay Contest. The reflections in this volume come from judges of the (...) contest. They share their personal and professional experiences working with and learning from Wiesel, providing a glimpse of the person behind the public figure. At a time when the future seems ominous and chaotic at best, these reflections hold on to the promise of an ethically and morally robust possibility. The students whose essays prompt this sense of hope are remarkable for their insight and dedication. The messages embedded in the judges’ reflections mirror Wiesel’s convictions about the importance of friendship, the need to interrogate (without abandoning) God, and the power of remembrance in order to fight indifference. (shrink)

Open peer commentary on the target article “Arguments Opposing the Radicalism of Radical Constructivism” by Gernot Saalmann. First paragraph: Gernot Saalmann freely admits that what he presents “as ‘radical constructivism’ is necessarily simplified and distorted, as there are considerable differences amongst the authors, who, in addition, have changed their opinions in the course of time.” (§3). This is an ominous opening. Conflating the critique of the different views of individual constructivists makes it difficult for individuals to respond. Given that Saalmann (...) refers thirty-eight times to Wendel, Maturana/ Varela, Rusch, and myself, and only sixteen times to four other delinquents, it would have made things easier, if he had dealt with the four principal ones individually. (shrink)

In 1807 Hegel published thePhenomenology of Spiritwhich calmly asserted that philosophy had, at long last, ceased to be merely the love of knowing and had finally consummated its lust for truth, giving birth to ‘strenge Wissenschaft’ in logic and the system (Hegel, 1807: 3). In 1944, Max Horkheimer and Theodor Adorno circulated mimeographed copies ofDialectic of Enlightenment, ominously asserting that the same process of reason's self-clarification which Hegel described brings us, not, as he claimed, to truth and freedom, but to (...) barbarism. Somehow critical reflection's efforts to liberate humanity from superstition, darkness, and oppression has lead instead to Auschwitz.A crucial aspect of Horkheimer and Adorno's critique of enlightenment is the notion that enlightenment and its seeming antithesis, myth, are inextricably linked. In thePhenomenologyHegel had already investigated the underlying link between the rationality of the Enlightenment period and faith, its ostensible arational other, in Chapter VI. In various places Horkheimer and Adorno acknowledge the influence of Hegel, and they make suggestive passing references to thePhenomenology. Obviously, their connecting of enlightenment and myth bears more than a family resemblance to Hegel's pairing of enlightenment and faith. Just as Hegel disclosed that enlightenment and faith have more in common than usually thought, Horkheimer and Adorno aim to show that there is an important aspect of enlightenment already in myth and further, that enlightenment has itself fallen back into the essential features of myth it purports to be have overcome. (shrink)

Even with the passage of time, the misguided motivations of highly educated, physician-participants in the genocide known as the Holocaust remain inexplicable and opaque. Typically, the physician-patient relationship inherent within the practice of medicine, has been rooted in the partnership between individuals. However, under the Third Reich, this covenant between a physician and patient was displaced by a public health agenda that was grounded in the scientific theory of eugenics and which served the needs of a polarized political system that (...) relied on this hypothesis to justify society’s racial hygiene laws. As part of the National Socialist propaganda, Adolf Hitler ominously argued that the cultural decline of Germany after World War I could largely be based on interbreeding and a “resultant drop in the racial level.” This foundational premise defined those who could be ostracized, labeled and persecuted by society, including those who were assimilated. The indoctrination and implementation of this distorted social policy required the early and sustained cooperation and leadership of the medical profession. Because National Socialism promised it could restore Germany’s power, honor and dignity, physicians embraced their special role in the repair of the state. This article will explore the imperative role, moral risks and deliberate actions of physicians who participated in the amplification process from “euthanasia” to systemic murder to medically-sanctioned genocide. A goal of this analysis will be to explore what perils today’s physicians would face if they were to experience the transitional and collective behaviors of a corrupted medical profession, or if they would, instead, have the fortitude and courage necessary to protect themselves against this collaboration. Our premise is that an awareness of history can serve as a safeguard to the conceit of political ascendency and discrimination. (shrink)

Idea integracji europejskiej nie jest wymysłem naszych czasów. Jest to proces złożony, który dojrzewał na przestrzeni kilku wieków i który w naszym stuleciu zaczął nabierać wyrazistych kształtów. Społeczeństwa europejskie znużone bezsensem wzajemnie wyniszczających wojen, zaczęły poszukiwać takiej formy koegzystencji, która umożliwiłaby im wspólne decydowanie o polityce, gospodarce czy kulturze. W roku 1950 francuski minister spraw zagranicznych Robert Schuman zadeklarował gotowość rządu francuskiego do współpracy z rządem niemieckim w sektorze węgla i stali, w celu zagwarantowania pokoju na kontynencie. Plan Schumana urzeczywistnił (...) się z chwilą podpisania w Paryżu 18 kwietnia 1951 r. przez sześć państw zachodnioeuropejskich: Niemcy, Francję, Włochy, Luksemburg, Belgię i Holandię, układu o Europejskiej Wspólnocie Węgla i Stali. Kolejne dwa traktaty o utworzeniu Europejskiej Wspólnoty Gospodarczej oraz Europejskiej Wspólnoty Energii Atomowej podpisane w Rzymie 25 marca 1957 r. miały na celu rozszerzenie współpracy gospodarczej na inne sektory, takie jak rolnictwo, rybołówstwo, komunikacja, handel zagraniczny oraz utworzenie wspólnego rynku gospodarczego. Aby cel ten został osiągnięty, państwa członkowskie zdecydowały się na kolejne kroki integracyjne, jakimi były unia gospodarcza i walutowa. Drogę do tego procesu otworzył podpisany 7 lutego 1992 r. w Maastricht Traktat o Unii Europejskiej. Ratyfikacja Układu z Maastricht stała się okazją dokonania pewnych zmian w niemieckiej konstytucji, do której wprowadzono nowy zapis w art. 23 o Unii Europejskiej. Unia stała się celem nadrzędnym państwa niemieckiego, a Bundestag i Bundesrat otrzymały jasne cele i zadania w sprawach dotyczących Unii Europejskiej. Fakt ten świadczy o ogromnym znaczeniu Unii dla Niemiec. Niemcy są jednym z najbogatszych państw piętnastki. Ich PKB przekracza 20 tys. ECU i jest jednym z najwyższych w Unii. Motorem niemieckiej gospodarki jest przemysł, a zwłaszcza prężnie rozwijający się przemysł samochodowy. Unia Europejska jest dla Niemiec ważnym rynkiem zbytu - 60% eksportu w ramach Unii Europejskiej zajmuje eksport niemiecki. Poziom, który Niemcy osiągnęli w przeciągu 50 lat od zakończenia drugiej wojny światowej, nie byłby możliwy bez ścisłej współpracy pozostałych państw europejskich. Zniesienie ceł oraz wszelkich barier gospodarczych stworzyło ogromne możliwości handlowe i nie tylko. Ważnym krokiem w intensyfikacji wzajemnych stosunków było utworzenie unii gospodarczej i monetarnej, mającej na celu wprowadzenie do 2002 wspólnej waluty EURO. Wraz z postępującą integracją wewnątrz Unii Europejskiej pod koniec lat osiemdziesiątych dokonały się w Europie ważne zmiany historyczne. Europa Środkowa i Wschodnia uwalnia się, w wyniku reform przeprowadzanych w Związku Radzieckim przez Michaiła Gorbaczowa, spod totalitarnych rządów komunistycznych. W roku 1991 wybucha w Moskwie pucz, który wykorzystują republiki radzieckie, ogłaszając swoją niepodległość. W Polsce i na Węgrzech odbywają się obrady okrągłego stołu, w wyniku których komuniści oddają władzę opozycji. Do ostrych konfliktów dochodzi natomiast w Czechosłowacji i Rumunii, gdzie oddanie władzy nie odbywa się bez przelewu krwi. Zmiany polityczne nie ominęły również NRD. W nocy z 9 na 10 listopada 1989 r. runął mur berliński, a 3 października 1990 r. dokonuje się zjednoczenie obu państw niemieckich. Wraz ze zjednoczeniem NRD staje się członkiem Unii Europejskiej. Proces ten odbywa się jednak na innych zasadach, niż przewidują to unijne procedury mówiące o przyjęciu nowych członków w swoje szeregi. W dniu zjednoczenia Wschodnie Niemcy przejmują prawo pierwotne oraz 80% prawa wtórnego Unii. Poza tym otrzymują znaczną pomoc w ramach funduszy strukturalnych. Wiele państw Europy Środkowo- Wschodniej chętnie podzieliłoby los NRD i szybko zintegrowałoby się z zachodnioeuropejskimi strukturami. Dlatego też od początku lat dziewięćdziesiątych zauważamy intensywne starania tych państw o przyjęcie w struktury Unii Europejskiej. W roku 1991 Polska i Węgry podpisały jako pierwsze państwa byłego Bloku Wschodniego Układy Europejskie. W ślad za nimi poszły Bułgaria, Litwa, Łotwa, Estonia, Rumunia, Słowenia, Słowacja i Czechy. Od 1994 r. kraje te wystąpiły oficjalnie o członkostwo w Unii Europejskiej. Przystąpienie do Unii spotyka się w społeczeństwie z wieloma negatywnymi reakcjami. Polacy coraz bardziej sceptycznie odnoszą się do spraw Unii Europejskiej i do przyszłego w niej członkostwa, choć z pewnością można by liczyć na wiele. Chociażby na ustabilizowanie gospodarki, młodej demokracji oraz stosunków polsko-niemieckich. Przeszkodą i problemem na drodze do integracji jest sytuacja polskiego rolnictwa, kwestia wykupu ziem polskich przez Niemców oraz utraty tożsamości narodowej. Również Niemcy obawiają się rozszerzenia. Politycy natomiast wydają się być motorem integracji europejskiej. Helmut Kohl, były kanclerz Niemiec, postawił sobie nawet za cel zintegrowanie krajów środkowoeuropejskich ze strukturami zachodnimi do 2002 r., podając za powód swej decyzji utrzymanie stabilności gospodarki i pokoju w tym regionie. Jego następca Gerhard Schröder nie jest już takim optymistą. Podczas niemieckiego przewodnictwa w Radzie Unii Europejskiej ma zamiar zająć się w pierwszej kolejności interesami niemieckimi oraz sprawami dotyczącymi wewnętrznych problemów Unii Europejskiej. Kwestia rozszerzenia zeszła na plan dalszy. Czy jest to słuszna koncepcja - pokaże czas. (shrink)

Maternity is a ghastly and frightening proposition in Sophocles’s Antigone. This paper probes this startling motif, which unravels the “unhappy girl, child” of Oedipus through the psychoanalytic framework of Julia Kristeva’s theories of the symbolic, the semiotic, and the chora. The significance of a Kristevan reading of Antigone is twofold: Kristeva’s theory of the relationship between maternity and melancholia solves the mystery of Antigone’s irreparable sadness and unflinching affiliation with the dead. Second, Kristeva’s notions of the dual modalities of discourse, (...) the symbolic and the semiotic, and the importance of the chora, focus on evaluating the ominous consequences of the subjugation and destruction of the maternal body in the tragedy. (shrink)

Wallace, Max This paper poses a paradox: the post-Gonski situation appears uncertain for mainly low socio-economic status government schools as the apparent government- in-waiting, the Coalition, have made a number of ominous statements as to whether they will follow through on the Gillard government's embrace of the Gonski funding reform.

Humanity seems to have a bright future, i.e., a non-trivial chance of expanding to fill the universe with lasting life. But the fact that space near us seems dead now tells us that any given piece of dead matter faces an astronomically low chance of begating such a future. There thus exists a great filter between death and expanding lasting life, and humanity faces the ominous question: how far along this filter are we?

Historical chronology is the discipline that establishes the dates of events and reconstructs the calendars used in ancient, medieval, and early modern times. Traditional accounts state that Joseph Scaliger (1540-1609) created this field by combining philological with astronomical data and techniques. But the celestial phenomena most relevant to chronology are solar and lunar eclipses. From antiquity onwards, astrologers saw these as ominous and connected them to great events on earth. Though Scaliger used dated eclipses in his work, it was a (...) number of relatively obscure sixteenth-century astronomers and scholars who realized that one could date events by eclipses and began doing so in a systematic way, without assigning them any ominous force. (shrink)

Both Bakhtin and Vygotsky, as we have seen, responded directly or indirectly to the challenge of Freud. Both attempted to account for their data without resorting to postulating an unconscious in the Freudian sense. By way of contrast, it is instructive here to recall Jacques Lacan—who, among others, has been a beneficiary of Bakhtin’s “semiotic reinterpretation” of Freud.17 Lacan’s case is intriguing, for he retains the unconscious while at the same time submitting Freudian psychoanalysis to rigorous criticism along the lines (...) of Bakhtin. By focusing attention on the dialogic word, he encourages a rereading of Freud in which the social element is crucial. As Lacan opens his essay “The Empty Word and the Full Word”:Whether it sees itself as an instrument of healing, of formation, or of exploration in depth, psychoanalysis has only a single intermediary: the patient’s Word….And every word calls for a reply.I shall show that there is no word without a reply, even if it meets no more than silence, provided that it has an auditor: this is the heart of its function in psychoanalysis.18The word is conceived as a tool not only in the external world but also of an autonomous internal world as well. And what emerges, it would seem, is a reinterpretation of the role of dialogue in the painful maturational process of the child. For Vygotsky, the child’s realization of his separateness from society is not a crisis; after all, his environment provides both the form and the content of his personality. From the start, dialogue reinforces the child’s grasp on reality, as evidenced by the predominantly social and extraverted nature of his earliest egocentric speech. For Lacan, on the contrary, dialogue seems to function as the alienating experience, the stade du miroir phase of a child’s development. The unconscious becomes the seat of all those problems that Bakhtin had externalized: the origin of personality, the possibilities of self-expression. The je-moi opposition in the mirror gives rise to that permanent for “a locus where there is constituted the je which speaks as well as he who has it speak.”19 And consequently, the Word takes on an entirely different coloration: it is no longer merely an ideological sign but a potent tool for repressing knowledge of that gap, the face in the mirror, the Other. Lacan’s celebrated inversion of Saussure’s algorithm, with the line between signifier and signified representing repression, created a powerful but ominous new role for language. The child is released from his alienating image only through discovering himself as Subject, which occurs with language; but this language will inevitably come to him from the Other. Thus speech is based on the idea of lack, and dialogue, on the idea of difference. 17. See Ivanov, “The Significance of M. M. Bakhtin’s Ideas,” p. 314.18. Jacques Lacan, “The Empty Word and the Full Word,” in Speech and Language in Psychoanalysis, ed. and trans. Anthony Wilden , p. 9.19. Lacan, from “La Chose freudienne” , quoted in Wilden, “Lacan and the Discourse of the Other,” in Speech and Language in Psychoanalysis, p. 266. Caryl Emerson, assistant professor of Russian literature at Cornell University, has translated The Dialogic Imagination, Problems of Dostoevsky’s Poetics . She is currently at work, on a study of Boris Godunov in Russian cultural history. (shrink)

This paper presents an alternative interpretation of what Milan Kundera tells us about the contents of the ostriches’ speech, which does not involve a satirical puncturing of the ominous atmosphere. Their talk sounds like human talk earlier in the book because they are being turned into parrots.

In The Birth of Tragedy, Nietzsche employs the dichotomy of Apollonian and Dionysian to explain artistic phenomena. The film Joker shows the origin story of the Joker, a comic-book supervillain. This paper offers a reading of Joker through Nietzsche’s ideas from The Birth of Tragedy. By doing so, it aims to achieve three things: first, to demonstrate the relevance of Nietzsche’s aesthetic theory in analyzing culture; second, to reveal the political dimension of Nietzsche’s thought in The Birth of Tragedy; and (...) third, to shed light on the ominous implications of Joker’s popularity. (shrink)