Dejó dicho Jean Cocteau que su pesimismo no era sino una variedad de su optimismo. Se acordaba uno de este aforismo mientras atendía a las intervenciones de Javier Gomá y Alain Finkielkraut en el Institut Français de Madrid.1 Acaso el optimismo del español llegaba a desazonar un tanto más que el pesimismo del francés. Las diatribas de Finkielkraut, defensor acérrimo de la educación republicana francesa, dirigidas al periodo que abarca las últimas cuatro décadas, encontraban en Gomá, apólogo de la (...) ejemplaridad2 como método pedagógico y del cosmopolitismo ilustrado —“Ser español es la manera más práctica de ser contemporáneo”, subrayó aquel día—, respuesta en forma de pregunta: “¿En qué otra época preferirías vivir?”. Pregunta que resulta ciertamente tramposa cuando de lo que se trata es de analizar la deriva de las democracias liberales de un tiempo a esta parte, considerando a lo que se tendía ayer y pensando donde, en efecto, estamos hoy... (shrink)

Effective public policy to mitigate climate change footprints should build on data-driven analysis of firm-level strategies. This article’s conceptual approach augments the resource-based view of the firm and identifies investments in four firm-level resource domains to develop capabilities in climate change impact mitigation. The authors denote the resulting framework as the GISTe model, which frames their analysis and public policy recommendations. This research uses the 2008 Carbon Disclosure Project database, with high-quality information on firm-level climate change strategies for 552 companies (...) from North America and Europe. In contrast to the widely accepted myth that European firms are performing better than North American ones, the authors find a different result. Many firms, whether European or North American, do not just “talk” about climate change impact mitigation, but actually do “walk the talk.” European firms appear to be better than their North American counterparts in “walk I,” denoting attention to governance, information management, and systems. But when it comes down to “walk II,” meaning actual Technology-related investments, North American firms’ performance is equal or superior to that of the European companies. The authors formulate public policy recommendations to accelerate firm-level, sector-level, and cluster-level implementation of climate change strategies. (shrink)

Las empresas forman parte esencial del sistema económico global, y contribuyen significativamente a su crecimiento sostenido, propiciando el desarrollo por medio de la generación de empleo y creación de riqueza. En este sentido, la presente investigación tuvo como objetivo diseñar un modelo teórico de transformación empresarial con enfoque en recursos estratégicos, conducente a la mejora competitiva.La investigación engloba un estudio de nivel puro, incluye un diseño descriptivo, explicativo y de relación; dirigido a 127 empresas del sector agroexportador de la Región (...) de Tacna, Perú. El modelo teórico propuesto desglosa diferentes dimensiones que explican la competitividad en sus diversas fases. (shrink)

This concise and accessible book is the perfect introduction to Badiou’s thought. Responding to Tarby’s questions, Badiou takes us on a journey that interrogates and explores the four conditions of philosophy: politics, love, art and science. In all these domains, events occur that bring to light possibilities that were invisible or even unthinkable; they propose something to us. Everything then depends on how the possibility opened up by the event is grasped, elaborated and embedded in the world – this is (...) what Badiou calls a ‘truth procedure’. The event creates a possibility but there then has to be an effort – a group effort in the case of politics, an individual effort in the case of love or art – for this possibility to become real and inscribed in the world. As he explains his thinking on politics, love, art and science, Badiou takes stock of his major works, reflects on their central themes and arguments and looks forward to the questions he plans to address in his future writings. The book concludes with a short introduction to Badiou’s philosophy by Fabien Tarby. For anyone wishing to understand the work of one of the most widely read and influential philosophers writing today, this small book will be an indispensable guide. (shrink)

Infinite Thought brings together a representative selection of the range of Alain Badiou's work, illustrating the power and diversity of his thought.

Corruption involves greed, money, and risky decision-making. We explore the love of money, pay satisfaction, probability of risk, and dishonesty across cultures. Avaricious monetary aspiration breeds unethicality. Prospect theory frames decisions in the gains-losses domain and high-low probability. Pay dissatisfaction (in the losses domain) incites dishonesty in the name of justice at the individual level. The Corruption Perceptions Index, CPI, signals a high-low probability of getting caught for dishonesty at the country level. We theorize that decision-makers adopt avaricious love-of-money aspiration (...) as a lens and frame dishonesty in the gains-losses domain (pay satisfaction-dissatisfaction, Level 1) and high-low probability (CPI, Level 2) to maximize expected utility and ultimate serenity. We challenge the myth: Pay satisfaction mitigates dishonesty across nations consistently. Based on 6500 managers in 32 countries, our cross-level three-dimensional visualization offers the following discoveries. Under high aspiration conditions, pay dissatisfaction excites the highest- (third-highest) avaricious justice-seeking dishonesty in high (medium) CPI nations, supporting the certainty effect. However, pay satisfaction provokes the second-highest avaricious opportunity-seizing dishonesty in low CPI entities, sustaining the possibility effect—maximizing expected utility. Under low aspiration conditions, high pay satisfaction consistently leads to low dishonesty, demonstrating risk aversion—achieving ultimate serenity. We expand prospect theory from a micro and individual-level theory to a cross-level theory of monetary wisdom across 32 nations. We enhance the S-shaped Curve to three 3-D corruption surfaces across three levels of the global economic pyramid, providing novel insights into behavioral economics, business ethics, the environment, and responsibility. (shrink)

In this dialogue, Alain Badiou shares the clearest, most detailed account to date of his profound indebtedness to Lacanian psychoanalysis. He explains in depth the tools Lacan gave him to navigate the extremes of his other two philosophical "masters," Jean-Paul Sartre and Louis Althusser. Élisabeth Roudinesco supplements Badiou's experience with her own perspective on the troubled landscape of the French analytic world since Lacan's death--critiquing, for example, the link (or lack thereof) between politics and psychoanalysis in Lacan's work. Their (...) exchange reinvigorates how the the work of a pivotal twentieth-century thinker is perceived. (shrink)

En el último tiempo, han alcanzado especial popularidad en Argentina los tratamientos estéticos mínimamente invasivos, como las inyecciones de ácido hialurónico y toxina botulínica para rellenar y modelar diferentes partes del rostro. También aparece extendido, entre lxs médicxs y las clínicas estéticas, el uso de la plataforma Instagram para la promoción de estos servicios. Así, esta red social se convierte en un espacio donde lxs profesionales muestran, describen, explican y alientan este tipo de procedimientos. Nuestra investigación tiene por objetivo analizar (...) los sentidos que giran en torno a estos tratamientos, enfocándonos en la concepción del cuerpo que subyace en estas prácticas, los criterios estéticos que se ponen en juego, las formas de interpelación a las mujeres en tanto principales consumidoras de estos servicios y las transformaciones que prometen. A partir del análisis de cuatro cuentas de Instagram orientadas a la promoción de tratamientos estéticos en Mendoza y de cuatro entrevistas en profundidad a lxs médicxs responsables de estas cuentas, analizamos, en primer lugar, la concepción del cuerpo como un proyecto continuamente perfectible y las relaciones de tensión y complementariedad entre criterios estéticos clásicos y criterios contemporáneos; en segundo lugar, describimos la noción del alma como proyecto asintótico, con anclajes psíquicos y afectivos particulares y ciertas tensiones paradojales. Concluimos que los tratamientos estéticos se construyen como tecnologías de yo, convergentes con una est/ética propiciada por el ethos neoliberal. (shrink)

The object of this paper is to retrace the steps that led Buchanan from marginal cost pricing to clubs. We claim that the idea individuals could form clubs to finance public goods can be traced back to his first works on public finance, at the end of the 1940s, and relates to the financing of highways and the pricing of their construction and of their use. Very early in his career Buchanan adopted Knut Wicksell’s proposal to use a marginal cost (...) pricing rule even for public goods. The many criticisms raised against this rule led him to replace it with club pricing. (shrink)

"To think with Nietzsche against Nietzsche." Thus the editors describe the strategy adopted in this volume to soften the destructive effects of Nietzsche's "philosophy with a hammer" on French philosophy since the 1960s. Frustrated by the infinite inclusiveness of deconstructionism, the contributors to this volume seek to renew the Enlightenment quest for rationality. Though linked by no common dogma, these essays all argue that the "French Nietzsche" transmitted through the deconstructionists must be reexamined in light of the original context in (...) which Nietzsche worked. Each essay questions the viability of Nietzsche's thought in the modern world, variously critiquing his philosophy of history as obsessed with hierarchy, his views on religion and art as myopic and irrational, and his stance on science as hopelessly reactionary. Contending that we must abandon the Nietzsche propped up as patron saint by French deconstructionists in order to return to reason, these essays will stimulate debate not just among Nietzscheans but among all with a stake in modern French philosophy. Contributors are Alain Boyer, André Compte-Sponville, Vincent Descombes, Luc Ferry, Robert Legros, Philippe Raynaud, Alain Renault, and Pierre-André Taguieff. (shrink)

À l'exception de trois études portant sur d'autres sujets ­ un article d'histoire de la religion grecque relatif au rapport entre identité culturelle et religions étrangères, deux notes de lecture : l'une sur un passage du Banquet de Platon, l'autre sur un fragment hésiodique ­ ce numéro d'Itaca, revue catalane d'études classiques, présente cinq contributions, en castillan, catalan et français, centrées sur le thème des « mères des Grecs » et présentées lors d'un séminaire de la Sociét...

The purpose of this article is making a critical revision of the field of communication –understood as a field of research and reflection– and the way its existence has been tried to be legitimated since the postwar period. Our stance holds that, even though it is possible to find relatively linear and continuous narratives to understand communication, what is regarded here is reaching comprehension of the fragmentation and language games brought together in it. Besides, the core problem does not rely (...) on the consolidation of a linear and scientific epistemological narrative, but on the manner discourse is articulated, giving place to such narratives turning around their political charges and not the supposed scientific value attributed to them. (shrink)

Goal: To assess public knowledge and attitudes towards the family’s role in deceased organ donation in Europe. -/- Methods: A systematic search was conducted in CINHAL, MEDLINE, PAIS Index, Scopus, PsycINFO, and Web of Science on December 15th, 2017. Eligibility criteria were socio-empirical studies conducted in Europe from 2008 to 2017 addressing either knowledge or attitudes by the public towards the consent system, including the involvement of the family in the decision-making process, for post-mortem organ retrieval. Screening and data collection (...) were performed by two or more independent reviewers for each record. -/- Results: Of the 1482 results, 467 studies were assessed in full-text form, and 33 were included in this synthesis. When the deceased has not expressed any preference, a majority of the public support the family's role as a surrogate decision-maker. When the deceased expressly consented, the respondents' answers depend on whether they see themselves as potential donors or as a deceased's next-of-kin. Answers also depend on the relationship between the deceased and the decision-maker(s) within the family, and on their ethnic or cultural background. -/- Conclusions: Public views on the authority of the family in organ donation decision-making require further research. A common conceptual framework and validated well-designed questionnaires are needed for future studies. The findings should be considered in the development of Government policy and guidance regarding the role of families in deceased organ donation. (shrink)

Pacifism is routinely criticized as sectarian, incoherent, and preoccupied with moral purity at the expense of responsibility. The author contends that the pacifism of John Howard Yoder is vulnerable to none of these charges and defends this claim by establishing parallels between Yoder's analysis of killing and Augustine's analysis of lying. Although, within the terms of his own argument, Augustine's rejection of all lying as unjust is consistent with his condoning of some killing as just, the author shows that given (...) a different conception of the defining characteristic of God , Augustine's theological argument against lying would become an argument against violence. The author therefore suggests that Yoder's rejection of killing is no more sectarian, incoherent, or irresponsible than Augustine's rejection of lying. (shrink)

The literary friendship between Alain Robbe-Grillet and Roland Barthes lasted 25 years. Everything attests to their deep and mutual intellectual esteem: their private correspondence, their published texts, their conversations - notably in the famous dialogue which gives its name to this work. Robbe-Grillet freely said he had very few true friends but, next to the publisher Jérôme Lindon, he always cited the name of Roland Barthes. In 1980, he wrote his own ‘I love, I don’t love’, published here for (...) the first time, thinking about his friend. In 1985, he predicted: ‘It is his work as a writer which will remain’. Ten years later, in 1995, he imagined him as an impatient, blithe novelist, merrily rewriting - ‘euphorically, with inexhaustible happiness’ - The Sorrows of Young Werther. This small collection of conversations and short texts by Robbe-Grillet is like the deferred echo of those that Roland Barthes dedicated to him in his Critical Essays in 1964. It offers fresh insight into the development of Robbe-Grillet’s own work as well as that of Barthes, and is a unique testimony to one of the most important literary friendships of our time. (shrink)

The Politics of Belonging represents an innovative collaboration between political theorists and political scientists for the purposes of investigating the liberal and pluralistic traditions of nationalism. Alain Dieckhoff introduces an indispensable collection of work for anyone dealing with questions of identity, ethnicity, and nationalism.

The current study investigated the influence of morphological structure on the earliest stages of Arabic reading acquisition. More specifically, we aimed at examining the role of root and pattern units in beginners from Grade 1 to 3. A first set of reading tasks evaluated the presence of a morphology facilitation effect in word and pseudoword reading by manipulating independently the familiarity of roots and patterns. The second one pursued to examine the contribution of morphological awareness to reading performance. The results (...) suggest that reading ability is early influenced by the awareness of morphological composition. Children read faster and more accurately pseudowords composed of familiar morphemes. Furthermore, regression analyses revealed, for every reading measure, a significant contribution of one morphological test in addition to grapheme knowledge. Results are discussed taking into account the differences obtained depending on lexicality and morpheme type (root or pattern). (shrink)

The purpose of this article is to describe the process through one person or individuals from a particular group applies violence –psychological or physical– to another person in a small dosage with the intention of unbalancing and making him to be uncertain about his owns thoughts and affections. By this way such person destroys, denies and erases the another ones identity. This behaviour has as objec- tive to get that the victim can not to think or understand in order to (...) avoid the conflict, keeping her/him at the disposal of the aggressor and transferring to her/him the aggressor ideas. This process intends that the victim becomes morally perverted, as well as to get a perfect crime through a slowly destruction. The victim is eliminated by suicide induction or physical violence. We call to this behaviour “moral harassment” and we define it as each abuse behaviour –verbal or non verbal– that attends by its frequency and repetition against the dignity or psychological or physical integrity of one person. (shrink)

The article analizes the several times of Proclus‘s reception by Nicholas of Cusa’s thought. The direct reading of Proclus can be established because Expositio in Parmenidem Platonis –Cod.Cus. 186– and Elementatio theological –Cod.Cus.195– (Moerbeke’s translation) and De theologia Platonis Libri VI –Cod.Cus.185– (Petrus Balbus’s translation) are in his Library in Bernkastel-Kues with his marginalia. The assimilation of doctrines can be considered assuming that the implicits and explicits references to Plato’s Diadochus, especially in the last works.

At head of title: Saberes emergentes. Collection of essays by prominent Dominican intellectual, humanist and educator noted for his contributions to psychology, scientific method, epistemology and the philosophy of science.

Focusing on Pasolini’s written work, the article tries to bring out a kind of minor language, the embodied language of popular, archaic and peasant worlds. For if Pasolini attempts the representation of reality by reality in his films, it can also be noted that in his poems, novels and stories, he was already on the track of reality itself. Consequently, Pasolini’s love for this world predating industrial and consumer devastation is first of all a love for the languages that reveal (...) it through a system of inter-expression, placing the bodies at the center and making the spoken language itself into an element of reality - unlike official Italian, which bears witness to the loss of reality through consumerist standardization. (shrink)