The late 1980s and early 1990s opened up Russian philosophy to the reader at large. The works of N.A. Berdyaev, S.N. Bulgakov, LA. Il'in, L.P. Karsavin, N.O. Losskii, V.V. Rozanov, G.P. Fedotov, P.A. Florenskii, S.L. Frank, and Lev Shestov are now published and republished in runs of many thousands. This is a wonderful circumstance, and one can only welcome it. Despite forced emigration and severance from its national roots, Russian philosophy at the beginning of the century held its ground in (...) the intellectual quests and disputes of the twentieth century. A vivid and instructive "Russian imprint" is obvious in existentialism, in structuralism, and in philosophical hermeneutics. (shrink)

Features of threatening cues and the associated context influence the perceived imminence of threat and the defensive responses evoked. To provide additional knowledge about how the directionality of a threat (i.e. directed-towards or away from the viewer) might impact defensive responses in humans, participants were shown pictures of a man carrying a gun (threat) or nonlethal object (neutral) directed-away from or towards the participant. Cardiac and electrodermal responses were collected. Compared to neutral images, threatening images depicting a gun directed-towards the (...) participant induced sustained bradycardia and an increased electrodermal response, interpreted as immobility under attack. This defensive immobility reaction is evoked by high perceived threat and inescapable situations and indicates intense action preparation. Pictures of guns directed-away from the participant induced shorter bradycardia and no significant modulation of the electrodermal response compared to neutral pictures, which might be consistent with the perception of a less threatening situation. The results show that the directionality of threat stimuli is a key factor that prompts different patterns of defensive responses. (shrink)

Time, of course, will provide the opportunity for a deeper and fuller contemplation of the historical significance of the June 1983 Plenum of the Central Committee of the CPSU. But even now it is clear that it went far beyond the mere examination of current questions of the ideological and general political work of the party, above all because the speech of the General Secretary of the Central Committee of the CPSU, Comrade Iu. V. Andropov set forth the most important (...) theoretical positions having to do with the preparation of the new version of the program of the CPSU, positions which over the long term will determine the activity of the party and the nation and the development of Soviet society. The importance of the plenum also consisted in the fact that its proceedings brought to light the full scope of the tremendous role played by ideology, by the ideological struggle, and by ideological activity in today's world. There is a struggle going on between two polar opposite world outlooks, two political courses, socialism and imperialism, which is unprecedented throughout the entire postwar period as regards its intensity and ascerbity. There is a struggle taking place for the hearts and minds of billions of people on the planet. The future of mankind depends to no little degree on the outcome of this ideological struggle. Finally, the importance of the Plenum of the Central Committee of the CPSU also lay in the fact that it posed a whole series of extremely important practical tasks in the area of ideological activity, including scientific activity, and the task of intensifying the influence of ideology on solving economic, social, political, and educational problems. (shrink)

The title of this presentation may suggest that the subject is homocystinuria. It is not. Rather, the subject is how our epistemology influences our concept of disease, which in turn determines our ability to help patients.

Every expansion of power, economic or any other, must find a justification, a principle of legitimacy. All concepts and formulas, expressions and slogans that serve this purpose evidence that all human activity, including politics and imperialism, is by its very nature intellectual and cultural. Carl Schmitt clearly demonstrates that American imperialism corresponds to the legitimating principles and justifying forms of “modern” imperialism. It is in this sense that we must understand his statement: “American imperialism is certainly an economic imperialism; but, (...) as such, it is no less intensively imperialistic.”. (shrink)

Celebrated and castigated as the “Hobbes of the twentieth century” and even a modern Machiavelli. Carl Schmitt (1888–1984) is undoubtedly the most controversial legal and political theorist of the twentieth century. He greatly influenced the thinking of such political scientists and political philosophers as Hans J. Morgenthau, Franz Neumann, Otto Kirchheimer, Leo Strauss, and Julien Freund. But Schmitt always spoke and wrote as a jurist. He grounded his thinking in jurisprudence and was the teacher in the wider sense of such (...) jurists as Ernst‐Wolfgang Böckenförde and Ernst‐Rudolf Huber. (shrink)

“Who are you? Tu quis es?” The interrogator was the German philosopher and pedagogue Eduard Spranger. The subject was Carl Schmitt. The place: Berlin. The time: summer of 1945. The question was “precipitous,” as Schmitt acknowledged in Ex Captivitate Salus, the book he completed following his release from Nuremberg in 1947. “Who are you?” Who, but one of the most highly acclaimed and esteemed jurists and political thinkers of the Weimar Republic, whose writings captured the attention of Georg Lukács, Karl (...) Korsch, Felix Gilbert, Leo Strauss, Ferdinand Toennies, and whose concepts significantly influenced Walter Benjamin, Herbert Marcuse, Otto Kirchheimer, Franz Neumann, Karl Mannheim and many other intellectuals and writers on the Left and the Right? (shrink)

“Spy and Scholar.” “Party Functionary and Social Scientist.” The association of the professions or callings is surely intriguing because seemingly incongruous. In an age in which the two primary meanings of intelligence have been blurred in the persons and activities of certain individuals, however, the incongruity has been submerged in intrigue. But whereas the persons and activities of scholars and social scientists are not the stuff of myth, those of spies and party functionaries have attained mythic proportions. Richard Sorge was (...) not posthumously made a “Hero of the Soviet Union” by the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR on November 5,1964 because he was a “scholar” and “social scientist”. (shrink)

Title: Föderalismus und Europäische Gemeinschaften Unter Besonderer Berücksichtigung von Umwelt und Gesundheit, Kultur und BildungPublisher: Duncker & HumblotISBN: 3428078934Author: Detlef Merton Title: Die Deutschen Länder im Prozess der Europäischen Einigung: Eine Analyse der Europapolitik Unter Intergrationspolitischen GesichtpunktenPublisher: Duncker & HumblotISBN: 3428072790Author: Doris Fuhrmann-MittlmeierTitle: Föderalismus und Integrationsgewalt: Die Bundesrepublik Deutschland, Spanien, Italien, und Belgien als Dezentralisierte Saaten in der EG, Schriften zun Europäischen Recht, vol. 7Publisher: Duncker & HumblotISBN: 3428071131Author: Hermann-Josef BlankeTitle: Europa der Regionen: Aktuelle Dokumente zur Rolle und Zukunft der (...) Deutschen Länder im Europäischen IntegrationsprozessPublisher: Duncker & HumblotISBN: 3428074777Author: Joachim Bauer. (shrink)