De nos jours, la cote de l'imaginaire est en hausse. Sensibles au mouvement des idees, les historiens se sont mis a la tache. Leurs contributions dans ce domaine ne se denombrent plus. Mais chaque historien affine sa problematique particuliere. Les ponts sont rares entre les epoques et les cultures, et encore plus rares entre les axes differents de recherche. Il existe des imaginaires historiques plutot qu'une veritable histoire de l'imaginaire.Une telle histoire - batie essentiellement sur les structures de l'imaginaire - (...) serait-elle possible? Lucian Boia le croit et essaie de le prouver. Son but est d'identifier certains principes susceptibles d'offrir un minimum de coherence a un domaine pour le moment eclate. Tout en tenant compte d'un large eventail de contributions, ce travail repose en grande partie sur les propres recherches de l'auteur. Il y est question de l'imaginaire scientifique, de l'espace, des humanites autres, des visions apocalyptiques, des millenarismes, des mythes fondateurs, ces mythologies totalitaires. C'est la premiere fois qu'un historien tente de rassembler dans un panorama cette diversite deroutante de manifestations en vue de definir les structures et la dynamique propres a l'imaginaire et de saisir ainsi sa logique particuliere.L'histoire de l'imaginaire: une des histoires de demain? (shrink)

Lucian Boia, The Scientific Mythology of Communism Bucharest, Humanitas Publishing House, 2005.

All these extracts are linked by his general epistemology, especially his distinction between two types of knowledge: ‘paradisiac’ or Type 1, which is that of everyday awareness and the current methods, concepts and presuppositions of the sciences of nature and humanity, plus mathematics and philosophy, and accumulates in ‘plus knowledge’ and resolves problems in standard ways; and ‘Luciferican’ or Type 2, which opens up the ‘mysteries’ of new realms of reality which do not fit the current methods, concepts and presuppositions, (...) and so results in ‘minus’ knowledge, the awareness that there are things which at the moment we cannot understand. For these ‘mysteries’ new methods, concepts and presuppositions are required, which ‘abyssal’ categories can supply, ones below those we normally employ and may be aware of. It is part of man’s role in the cosmos to reveal such mysteries.. (shrink)

This essay deals with metaphilosophical issues, i.e., different ways of “doing philosophy” and their possible applications for the formulation of a properly Brazilian philosophy. The arguments are drawn from questions that constitute the instigating and pertinent book by Gonçalo Palácios entitled De como fazer filosofia sem ser grego, estar morto ou ser gênio. In order to problematize the increasingly explored question of whether there is a Brazilian philosophy, firstly, I interact with some problems raised in the mentioned work, such as (...) academic philosophical practice, its attachment to the exegesis of works consecrated by tradition, and the consequent subdivision between history of philosophy and “philosophizing” through specific problems of national reality. Next, I articulate some elements that allow us to characterize a specifically Brazilian philosophy. To carry out this characterization, it is essential to critically articulate the relationship between philosophy teaching, in both school and academic level, with the philosophical tradition and its adjacent concepts. (shrink)

'you'll find another man to harvest, Glycerion: let this one go' The Greek satirist Lucian was a brilliantly entertaining writer who invented the comic dialogue as a vehicle for satiric comment. His influence was immense, not only in the Greek world, but on later European writers such as Rabelais and Swift. His dialogues puncture the pretensions of pompous philosophers and describe the daily lives of Greek courtesans; they are peopled by politicians, historians and ordinary citizens, as well as by (...) gods and mythic figures. This selection provides a cross-section of Lucian's styles and satirical targets, from serious polemic to lighter squibs and character portrayals. It includes How to Write History and his most famous piece, A True History, a fabulous tale of space travel and a monstrous whale which prefigures the fantasies of Jules Verne. This lively new translation is both accurate and idiomatic, and the introduction highlights Lucian's importance in his own and later times. ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more. (shrink)

As forças pessoais/de caráter são as características psicológicas positivas que se refletem nos pensamentos, sentimentos e comportamentos. Esse artigo objetivou descrever as forças pessoais/de caráter mais prevalentes em 60 profissionais de Tecnologia da Informação e comparar quatro grupos distintos nos cargos de Atendimento e Suporte Técnico, Desenvolvedor de Software, Gestor e Líder Técnico em um Parque Tecnológico do Sul do Brasil. Estudo com delineamento quantitativo, descritivo, comparativo e transversal com aplicação online de um Questionário Sócio Demográfico e Laboral e da (...) Escala das Forças de Caráter. As forças mais prevalentes são a imparcialidade, a curiosidade, a bondade, o pensamento crítico e o amor ao aprendizado. As forças com menor prevalência são a apreciação do belo, a espiritualidade, o perdão, a inteligência social e a sensatez. As implicações práticas sugerem que as características psicológicas positivas sejam fortalecidas em processos de desenvolvimento pessoal e profissional dos trabalhadores de TI no âmbito organizacional. (shrink)

There is an interesting historical detour in the dissemination of one of the seventeenth century’s most praised discoveries: the reception of Harvey’s account of the circulation of the blood is closely intertwined, especially in the Low Countries, with Descartes’ account of the origin of the heartbeat. Descartes was one of the first figures to support the circulation of the blood and to give credit to Harvey for it, although he presumably arrived at the same conclusion independently through his own anatomical (...) experiments. He did so while vocally rejecting Harvey’s views on the muscular nature of the heart and his explanation of cardiac motion, to promote his own mechanistic solutions instead. Although Descartes’ .. (shrink)

Although David Mitrany’s international thought is not usually associated with the concept of the international anarchy, I argue that his analysis actually compares two forms of anarchical order. The first form is the order associated with the relations between states, while the second is his functional alternative to this order. The functional approach is anarchical in the sense that it remains an order without an orderer. In first analysing the dynamics and failings of the inter-state order, and then suggesting pragmatic (...) process-orientated solutions to those failings, I argue that Mitrany follows a similar approach to his classical realist contemporaries. (shrink)

The article discusses the beginning and the end of the »age of secularisation«: Differening from other definitions it argues for a late beginning after the Second World War and an early end by the mid-1980s. The age of secularisation is characterised by an open relationship of the churches to secular society - the exact character of which, however, was much disputed among reformers and conservatives within the churches. By the mid-1980s this openness began to be replaced by a more self (...) concerned attitude of the churches, which today causes some problems for the interreligious dialogue. (shrink)

The Hermotimus is Lucian’s longest piece of writing, surpassing even the two books of the True Tales, and at the same time his most successful effort to recreate the style and atmosphere of a Platonic dialogue, filled with a new—and for Lucian uncharacteristically serious—content, namely a sustained attack on “dogmatic” philosophical schools (the “haireseis” of its subtitle) and, inversely, a ringing endorsement of the tenets of Pyrrhonian Scepticism.... (review at BMCR).

As Roger Ariew shows, one of the most fascinating challenges for the authors trying to create a Cartesian complete course on philosophy was coming up with a Cartesian Logic based on the existing texts of the master. Were the few simple rules from the Discourse on Method the "logic" of Descartes? Were the Rules for the Direction of the Mind "logic"? How can we even have a logic without syllogism? When looking at the authors studied by Ariew one finds that (...) the best that they could come up was adding some Cartesian elements on what remains basically a traditional Aristotelian Logic. It seems that there was no Cartesian Logic after all.I want to show here that Cartesian Logic is something else, not exactly... (shrink)

In “On the Abolition of All Political Parties,” Simone Weil poses the hypothetical predicament of a person who is intent on solving highly complex mathematical problems but is flogged every time the answer he arrives at is an even number. The person will oscillate between his genuine desire for the truth and the painful cries of his body. “[I]nevitably,” Weil writes, “he will make many mistakes—even if he happens to be very intelligent, very brave and deeply attached to the truth.” (...) She then asks: “What should he do?” Weil’s answer may surprise many readers, even though she claims it is “simple.” If possible, “he must run away” from those who wield the whip. It would have been best, she avers, had he avoided these associations in the first place. Elsewhere in her writings, Weil openly endorses the argument for the lesser evil, justifying active, potentially violent, resistance instead of a pacifist ethic of refusal. This essay analyses the tension between Weil’s ethic of “running away” and her acceptance of the lesser evil. (shrink)

These manifestos for the future of world thought offer a uniquely global outlook by incorporating forceful examples from both western and non-western regions and placing important movements of western and non-western societies into a theoretical dialogue.

Special issue of the Journal for Early Modern Studies (4.1., Spring 2005) Guest Editor: Lucian Petrescu. -/- .

This article argues for the establishment of a new, "annalistic" model of history and historical investigation. This implies a new concept of historical event: instead of being seen as an element within a historical narrative, the historical event is defined as the common reference point of many narratives that can be told about it. The annalistic model also implies a new concept of historical change: instead of being defined as the change of an "object" within a set of given historical (...) parameters, historical change has to be perceived as the change of parameters related to a given historical object. A new concept of history follows from the annalistic model: instead of history being a metaphysical unity of space and time , in which everything is linked to everything, it is instead the product of historical judgment carried out by those who design stories about their own past, present, and future. To the "annalist" a world is imaginable in which no history has existed, exists, or will exist. The article analyzes three aspects of the concept of historical time: it demonstrates the huge variety of temporal structures in history; it argues for the foundation of the representation of historical time in linguistic concepts; and it discusses the relationship of fictionality and reality in historical discourse. Finally, the annalistic model is compared to the traditional concept of history established by historicism in the nineteenth century. (shrink)

This collection uses economic analysis to study some of the most pressing issues in corporate law. The last decade has brought certain corporate transactions and arrangements to the forefront of public attention and public debate. At the same time, a new mode of corporate law analysis has been developed - one that uses the tools of economics to identify the consequences and desirable features of corporate law rules. By bringing together work at the frontier of this method of analysis, the (...) volume provides a good picture of the power, current state, and future direction of the economic analysis of corporate law. Written by some of the most prominent contributors to the field, many of the chapters focus directly on the corporate control transactions that have recently attracted the most interest and controversy - corporate takeovers, buy-outs, recapitalizations, and reorganizations. (shrink)

Sandu Frunza, Filosofie şi Iudaism (Philosophy and Judaism) Ed. Limes, Cluj-Napoca, 2006.

The widespread opinion among conceptual historians is that political concepts are always contested in their actual usage. Religious concepts in modernity are also not only contested; they are constructed on an ontological contradiction. They imply that the object to which they refer exists, and at the same time that it does not. I demonstrate this idea using four religious concepts: _religion, God,_ the _beyond,_ and _spirit._ I conclude with discussion on the reality status of religious concepts in modern historiography and (...) religious studies. (shrink)

Due to some unknown informants who offered illegally attained bank data on tax evaders to the German authorities, a fierce dispute has arisen as to whether or not the authorities are entitled to purchase these data. Now, the set of arguments in the dispute can be neatly subdivided into the two groups pro and contra, the former being consequentialist and the latter deontic. Hence, to solve the problem, one has to take a look at the conflict between consequentialist and deontic (...) systems. Here, the conflict will be cast into a social choice paradox showing the impossibility of Paretian ethical decisions which is akin to Sen’s Liberal Paradox and which can be generalized to a paradox asserting the impossibility of Neutral ethical decisions. Because of the fundamental character of the conflict, all solutions will be in some way defective. But, as is argued in the last section, for instance the idea of voluntary declaration provides a strategically convincing solution, if it is combined with the threat of disclosing relevant information. Hence, an ethically insoluble problem may well have a strategic solution. (shrink)

This paper presents Duns Scotus’s theory of mixture in the context of medieval discussions over Aristotle’s theory of mixed bodies. It revisits the accounts of mixture given by Avicenna, Averroes, and Thomas Aquinas, before presenting Scotus’s account as a reaction to Averroes. It argues that Duns Scotus rejected the Aristotelian theory of mixture altogether and that his account went contrary to the entire Latin tradition. Scotus denies that mixts arise out of the four classical elements and he maintains that both (...) the elemental forms and the elemental qualities are lost in the mixture. Consequently, he denies the distinction between the process of mixture and that of substantial change through generation and corruption. The reassessment of Scotus’s account modifies the current historical representation of this discussion, inherited from Anneliese Maier. (shrink)

In Aesthetic Legacies, Lucian Krukowski traces the influence of three nineteenth-century theories of art through twentieth-century modernism and into the postmodernist present. Following the theories of Kant, Schopenhauer, and Hegel, Krukowski first discusses how each philosopher locates the aesthetic within the framework of the philosophical system. He then identifies each theory through a dominant theme and traces the transformations of these themes into later thought and practice. The Kantian legacy originates in the theme of beauty and continues through an (...) examination of aesthetic taste into the modernist concern with artistic form. Schopenhauer's legacy moves from the dynamics of will into the themes of creative expression and artistic intentionality. Hegel's identification of art as a symbol of spirit's evolution is traced through the themes of artistic progress and cultural criticism. Krukowski interprets late modernism as a period in which the continuing transformation of aesthetic themes is arrested and congeals into dogma. This precipitates the reaction we now call postmodernism. The author first examines postmodernism through its various rejections of modernist dogma and, in the book's concluding section, evokes the alternative ideologies and practices that characterize present-day art. (shrink)

"Previously unpublished images from glass-plate negatives taken by Walter Schneider capture the years of transition from agrarian to industrial society in America and beyond.

A few months before his death, Leibniz wrote to Des Bosses, My doctrine of composite substance seems to be the very doctrine of the Peripatetic school, except that their doctrine does not recognize monads. But I add them, with no detriment to the doctrine itself. You will hardly find another difference, even if you are bent on doing so.1 It is tempting to take Leibniz’s profession of Aristotelian orthodoxy as circumstantial: the entire correspondence he had with the Jesuit Father Bartholomew (...) Des Bosses is based on a project of reconciliation between his “system” and the dogmas of the Catholic Church, mediated by Aristotelian philosophy.2 But even so, this circumstantial... (shrink)