With an aim to bring caring back into economic theory, this work draws upon the work of Aristotle and Amartya Sen's notions of capability and commitment, to propose an alternative methodology to utilitarianism that is not normative.

In the last few decades, the study of terminology has undergone a cognitive shift that has led to the development of several approaches that study the social, linguistic, and cognitive dimension of terms, such as Communicative Theory of Terminology (CTT) and Frame-Based Terminology (FBT). CTT was developed in the early 1990s and argues that the study of terminology should be based on a communicative perspective, taking into account aspects such as the communicators and the context of communication. FBT has been (...) developed from 2007 and uses certain aspects of Frame Semantics to conceptualise specialised domains and create non-language-specific representations through the analysis of the domain event and on the study of the behaviour of the terminological units in texts. The two theories share many of the same premises and propose the representation of the concepts of a domain in an ontology. FBT also proposes a representation in frames. We explore how these two methods of domain representation can be used to represent the terminology of the domain of seafood in Germany and Spain. (shrink)

Priscian's _Institutiones Grammaticae_, which rely on Stoic and Neoplatonic sources, constituted an important, although quite neglected, link in the chain of transmission of ancient philosophy in the Middle Ages. There is, in particular, a passage where Priscian discusses the vexed claim that common names can be proper names of the universal species and where he talks about the ideas existing in the divine mind. At the beginning of the 12th century, the anonymous _Glosulae super Priscianum_ and the _Notae Dunelmenses_, which (...) heavily quote William of Champeaux, interpret the passage in the context of a growing interest in the problem of universals, raising semantic as well as ontological questions, and introducing a Platonic view on universals in the discussions on the signification of the noun. Moreover, this same passage will be used by Abelard to elaborate one of his opinions about the signification of universal or common names—that they signify "mental conceptions". (shrink)

Como consecuencia de la crisis económica, inmobiliaria y financiera experimentada en España en los últimos años, muchos deudores hipotecarios no pueden hacer frente a sus cuotas y corren el riesgo de perder sus viviendas, en ocasiones conservando una deuda imposible de afrontar. El sobrendeudamiento y la morosidad hipotecaria abocan así a ciertas economías domésticas a situaciones insostenibles que pueden llevar a una reordenación de los gastos y necesidades, entre los que las cuotas hipotecarias dejan de tener prioridad. La legitimación de (...) la condición de moroso que puede observarse en esos casos es un fenómeno con importantes implicaciones antropológicas, en la medida en que constituye un cuestionamiento de la obligación de devolver el préstamo. Desde el punto de vista de los deudores y de quienes les brindan apoyo, caer en el impago, lejos de constituir una transgresión moralmente reprobable, puede entenderse como un acto de responsabilidad que tiende al sostenimiento de la vida. (shrink)

An efficient assessment of reading and linguistic abilities in school children requires reliable and valid measures. Moreover, measures which include specific test forms for different academic grade levels, that are vertically equated, allow the direct comparison of results across multiple time points and avoid floor and ceiling effects. Two studies were conducted to achieve these goals. The purpose of the first study was to develop tests of reading and listening comprehension in European Portuguese, with vertically scaled test forms for students (...) in the fifth and sixth grades, using Rasch model analyses. The purpose of the second study was to collect evidence for the validity of these tests based on the relationships of test scores with other variables. The samples included 454 and 179 students for the first and second study, respectively. The data from both studies provided evidence for good psychometric characteristics for the test forms: unidimensionality and local independence, as well as adequate reliability and evidence of validity. The developed test forms are an important contribution in the Portuguese educational context as they allow for the assessment of students’ performance in these skills across multiple time points and can be used both in research and practice. (shrink)

The native language changes as a result of contact with a second language, and the pattern and degree of such change depend on a variety of factors like the bilingual experience or the linguistic level. Here, we present a systematic review and meta-analysis of works that explore variations in native sentence comprehension and production by comparing monolinguals and bilinguals. Fourteen studies in the meta-analysis provided information regarding the bilingual experience and differences at the morphosyntactic level using behavioral methods. Overall, we (...) observed that first language processing is subject to small transformations in bilinguals that occur in sentence comprehension and production. The magnitude of the changes depended on bilingual experiences, but only length of residence in an L2 setting predicted the degree of change, where shorter length of residence was associated with larger changes. Results are discussed and related to the cognitive processes that potentially cause the transformations in the first language. The present work reveals some limitations in the field that should be addressed in future studies to better understand the mechanisms behind language attrition. (shrink)

In the De cognitione angelorum and then in the Ordinatio, Gilles of Rome dedicates long chapters to angelic language. His starting point is a question from Thomas Aquinas about the “secrets of hearts” : they can only be known through corporeal signs, which unwillingly manifest them. Gilles uses Thomas’s postulate that the acts of will are not visible to others, to reject his definition of speaking as a thought voluntarily conveyed to others, and generalizes from his answer: thoughts need to (...) be made manifest through a sign. He develops a theory describing the different types of signs according to their addressees, and analyses them according to several criteria. In particular, from a careful analysis of the signs used by men, Gilles wonders whether the different types of signs used both by men and angels are natural or voluntary, from the point of view of both their composition and their meaning, basing his questioning on the reflections on language and signs in his earlier philosophical commentaries. This insistence on the need for signs will lead Gilles to give different answers to the classic questions about the difference between thought and language, the possibility of addressing a particular angel, and lying. (shrink)

Roger Bacon’s De signis is a major contribution to the history of semantics. However, we know from the author's summary given in the Opus tertium that it has come down to us in an incomplete form. It belongs to the third part of Bacon’s Opus maius, devoted to the “knowledge of languages”. The three sections of the summary in the Opus tertium enable us to understand its organization. The first section presents various arguments in favor of knowledge of languages. The (...) major part of the second section of the summary is related to the “power of words”, which was originally present in the section on mathematics and magic. The third section is not present is the edition of Opus maius III: it was devoted to the study of signs and signification, which corresponds to the De signis, and circulated independently, and to its application to theology, a section that has not been found. Just as the late Compendium studii theologiae, the De signis offers an original treatment of semantic and linguistic questions which are fully embedded in the sophisticated debates that took place in the faculties of arts in Paris and Oxford during the second half of the 13th century. Bacon’s linguistic analysis can be equally relevant for the study of the Bible and theology. (shrink)

The paper argues that the notion of Pareto efficiency builds on two normative assumptions: the more general consequentialist norm of any efficiency criterion, and the strong no-harm principle of the prohibition of any redistribution during the economic process that hurts at least one person. These normative concerns lead to a constrained and static notion of efficiency in mainstream economics, ignoring dynamic efficiency gains from more equal allocations of resources. The paper argues that a weak no-harm principle instead provides an endogenous (...) efficiency criterion, which shifts attention away from equilibrium analysis in hypothetically perfect markets towards an evolutionary analysis of efficiency in real-world, non-equilibrium markets. Moreover, such an evolutionary notion of efficiency would be less normative than the Paretian concept. (shrink)

Persoonlijk verslag van de zoektocht van de beroemde auteur naar de essentie van haar leven.

In the field of socio-legal studies or law and society scholarship, it is rare to find empirically rich and conceptually sophisticated understandings of actual legal practice. This book, in contrast, connects the conceptual and the empirical, the abstract and the concrete, and in doing so shows the law to be an irreducibly social, material and temporal practice. Drawing on cutting-edge work in the social study of knowledge, it grapples with conceptual and methodological questions central to the field: how and where (...) judgment empirically takes place; how and where facts are made; and how researchers might study these local and concrete ways of judging and knowing. Drawing on an ethnographic study of how narratives and documents, particularly case files, operate within legal practices, this book's unique and innovative approach consists of rearticulating the traditional boundaries separating judgment from knowledge, urging us to rethink the way truths are made within law. (shrink)

The Handbook of Economics and Ethics is a unique collection of 75 original entries on the intersections between economics and ethics.

No siendo «el otro del mundo» ni «el otro del pensamiento», el cuerpo, en Merleau-Ponty, mantiene y se beneficia de una relación ambigua con ambos: cuerpo-sensible y cuerposentiente, o cuerpo-visible y cuerpo-vidente. Dividido en dos secciones, este artículo tiene como objetivo traer el cuerpo a la reflexión, situarlo en y con relación al mundo que vive y percibe. En un análisis evolutivo de la noción de cuerpo, que va del plano de la fenomenología al plano de la ontología en el (...) pensamiento del autor, intentaremos mostrar también cómo, poco a poco, Merleau-Ponty se distancia de Husserl en lo que respeta a esta temática.  . (shrink)

Der »politische« Leibniz als großer Denker mit zukunftsweisenden Vorstellungen für die Gestaltung von Staat, Gesellschaft und Wissenschaft.

Evoquees par Augustin, les Categories d'Aristote, accompagnees de l'introduction de Porphyre, sont traduites et commentees par Boece. Deja exposee dans le monde arabo-musulman, cette oeuvre devait faire l'objet de nombreux commentaires dans le monde latin, sans interruption, du temps d'Abelard jusqu'a la fin du Moyen Age. De l'etude du langage a la theorie de l'etre, ouvrant sur la philosophie naturelle et la theologie, les interrogations que suscitent les Categories sont multiformes. Elles concernent le statut des categories, leur nombre, les differents (...) types de predication, ou la nature particuliere de certaines categories comme la relation ou la quantite. Le premier chapitre du traite, avec sa distinction entre equivoques, univoques et paronymes, suscite des reflexions sur les variations semantiques, les transferts de sens, et donne en meme temps naissance a la theorie de l'analogie de l'etant, aux implications metaphysiques et theologiques majeures. Les vingt deux essais de ce receuil explorent, a travers l'etude d'auteurs connus ou moins connus, les multiples facettes de cette riche tradition medievale de commentaires sur les Categories d'Aristote. (shrink)

This book disseminates practical solutions to the automation of open and distance learning. It discusses computational methods, algorithms, implemented prototype systems, and applications of open and distance learning. It also provides state-of-the-art research on the impact and general principles of ethical computer use in academics, while also emphasizing the cyber philosophical aspect of human-computer interaction.

This paper discusses Eric Wolf’s (1923–1999) analysis of power in his last monograph, Anthropology (Wolf 1964) and last book Envisioning Power (Wolf 1999). In Anthropology, Wolf (1964: 96) wrote that the “anthropological point of vantage is that of a world culture, struggling to be born.” What is worth studying is human experience in all its variability and complexity. His aim was to set the framework bridging the humanities with anthropology. He never gave up this quest, only expanding it. In the (...) new introduction to his 1964 monograph, thirty years later, he commented that such a synthesis had not occurred. Rather there were growing schisms in the field. In the preface to Envisioning Power, he held that human sciences were unable or unwilling to come to grips with how cultural configurationsintertwine with considerations of power. In 1990 he had addressed the American Anthropological Society, holding that anthropologists favored a view of culture without power, while other social sciences have advanced a concept of ideology without culture. He wrote that his aim in his last book was to explore the connection of ideas and power observed in streams of behavior and recorded texts. Since minds interpose a selective screen between the organism and environment, ideas have content and functions that help bring people together or divide them. While ideas compose the entire range of mental constructs, Wolf understands ideology as configurations or unified schemes to underwrite or manifest power. Power is, according to Wolf, an aspect of all relations among people. Within this framework Wolf analyzes three cases, the Kwakiutl, the Aztecs, and Nazi Germany. The comparisons are very revealing, both the wide differences and similarities in power configurations and in the role of imagination. (shrink)

This article considers what happened to American anthropology, which was initiated by the scientist Franz Boas, who commanded all fields of anthropology,physical, biological, and cultural. Boas was a brave field worker who explored Eskimo land, and inspired two famous students, Ruth Benedict and Margaret Mead, to cross borders in new kinds of studies. After this florescence, there was a general return to linear descriptive positivism, superficial comparisons of quantitative cultural traits, and false evolutionary schemes, which did not introduce us to (...) the personalities and inner worlds of the tribal peoples studied. The 1953 study by the philosopher David Bidney was a revelation. Bidney enunciated and clarified all my doubts about the paths of anthropology and his work became to some extent a model for a narration of the story of American anthropology. In many ways he envisaged a semiotics of culture formulated by Lotman. I try to illustrate the fallacies listed by Bidney and how they have been partially overcome in some later anthropological studies which have focused on symbolism, artistry, and subjective qualities of the people studied. I then try to give an overview of the school started by Lotman that spans all human behavior, that demonstrates the complexity of meaning and communication, in vast areas of knowledge, from art, literature, science, and philosophy, that abjured strict relativism and closed systems and has become an inspiration for those who want anthropology to encompass the self and the other, and Bahtin’s double meaning. This paper was inspired by Bidney as a call to explore widely all possible worlds, not to abandon science and reality but to explore deeper inner interrelations and how the aesthetic may be indeed be paramount in the complexities of communication. (shrink)

This article considers what happened to American anthropology, which was initiated by the scientist Franz Boas, who commanded all fields of anthropology,physical, biological, and cultural. Boas was a brave field worker who explored Eskimo land, and inspired two famous students, Ruth Benedict and Margaret Mead, to cross borders in new kinds of studies. After this florescence, there was a general return to linear descriptive positivism, superficial comparisons of quantitative cultural traits, and false evolutionary schemes, which did not introduce us to (...) the personalities and inner worlds of the tribal peoples studied. The 1953 study by the philosopher David Bidney was a revelation. Bidney enunciated and clarified all my doubts about the paths of anthropology and his work became to some extent a model for a narration of the story of American anthropology. In many ways he envisaged a semiotics of culture formulated by Lotman. I try to illustrate the fallacies listed by Bidney and how they have been partially overcome in some later anthropological studies which have focused on symbolism, artistry, and subjective qualities of the people studied. I then try to give an overview of the school started by Lotman that spans all human behavior, that demonstrates the complexity of meaning and communication, in vast areas of knowledge, from art, literature, science, and philosophy, that abjured strict relativism and closed systems and has become an inspiration for those who want anthropology to encompass the self and the other, and Bahtin’s double meaning. This paper was inspired by Bidney as a call to explore widely all possible worlds, not to abandon science and reality but to explore deeper inner interrelations and how the aesthetic may be indeed be paramount in the complexities of communication. (shrink)

Drawing on feminist philosophical accounts of reproduction and initial data acquired through research with migrant mothers in London, this article argues that the role and place of reproduction remains under-theorized within scholarly accounts of women's role in migration processes. Working with an expanded concept of reproduction that includes not only childbirth and motherhood, but also the work of reproducing heritage, culture and structures of belonging, it argues that feminist migration scholars can draw on valuable theoretical resources in order to tell (...) more complicated stories about the place of reproduction in migration, and challenge the often problematic gendered distinctions between travelling and staying put, change and repetition that continue to underpin some of the narrative structures operative in migration studies. (shrink)

Nous voici face à une oeuvre fondamentale qui se situe à une époque charnière de l'État ottoman: le règne de Mehmed II. Comme l'indique le sous-titre, le livre ne se limite pas à la biographie de Mahmud Pacha. L'auteur profite de l'occasion pour nous présenter une grande fresque de l'époque. Nous assistons au développement de la puissance militaire du jeune État ottoman qui se manifeste par d'innombrables conquêtes, mais aussi par le changement des mentalités. Un nouveau concept du pouvoir voit (...) le jour qui définit la position du sultan et instaure un appareil administratif complexe. A la mort de Mehmed II, le monde occidental a dû se rendre à l'évidence: il n'avait plus les moyens de stopper les visées expansionnistes de l'État ottoman. (shrink)

The commentaries on the Ethica nova and the Ethica vetus written by some masters of the arts – presumably operating in the Paris faculty – in the first half of the thirteenth century expound in an original way the doctrine of the virtutes consuetudinales which Aristotle, at the end of the first book of his Ethica (I 13), distinguishes into the two main classes of the “moral virtues” and the “intellectual virtues”. The present paper aims at highlighting the particularly important (...) task which is assigned to the intellectual virtues in these early commentaries: joining man to God directly, through a contemplation which becomes love. The masters of the arts maintain that the moral virtues, in spite of the definition given by Aristotle (habitus a quo quis bonus est et opus eius bene reddit), are not sufficient alone to bring man to perfection, but that other more perfect virtues, namely the intellectual ones, are needed in order to make him know and love the supreme good. Having no knowledge of the sixth book of the Ethica, in which Aristotle deals in particular with the intellectual virtues, our masters know only their general description and are concerned with clarifying their relationships with the moral virtues, compared to which they appear to be sometimes really distinct and sometimes united to them in sharing the recta ratio, so much that they may constitute a double virtue. Although the masters of the arts seem to be well-informed about the teaching of the theologians – which they often cite without opposing to it, albeit stressing their own philosophical point of view –, it is significant that no reference whatsoever is made by them to the theological virtues and that they have recourse to the themes of Avicennian mysticism such as the doctrine of the two faces of the soul. Besides presenting the commentaries on the Ethica vetus from a general point of view, I will focus on the Paris commentary in Ethicam veterem (Paris BN lat. 3804A, ff. 152ra-159vb, 241ra-247vb; Paris BN lat. 3572, ff. 226ra-235ra), of which I am preparing a critical edition. The Paris commentary contains in fact a special and original discussion of the doctrine of the virtutes intellectuales. (shrink)

Les études tentant de répondre à la question " Qu'est-ce que la justice? " et à cette autre, inséparable, " Qu'est-ce qu'une société juste? " sont assez nombreuses ces dernières années, mais elles ne sont pas toujours faciles d'accès, au contraire du livre d'Alain Durand. Par un discours systématique et structuré, il présente quelques réflexions occasionnées par des lectures ou par des événements et tendances de fond liés à l'actualité. L'auteur se confronte à de grands auteurs qui, depuis Aristote (...) jusqu'à John Rawls, sans oublier d'autres penseurs plus récents, ont substantiellement enrichi les approches de la justice sociale. Une attention particulière est accordée à l'apport du christianisme. La foi, en effet, ne cesse d'apparaître comme une force d'interrogations radicales pour l'élaboration d'une société plus juste. Et l'Eglise, qui doit être attentive aux priorités et aux dérives dans ce domaine, est ainsi conduite à des remises en question, tant en elle-même, que dans un monde devenu éthiquement pluraliste. La lecture de ce livre peut être faite assez librement, par les multiples portes d'entrée qu'il offre. (shrink)

Written by two of the leading figures in the field, this is a lucid and systematic introduction to semantics as applied to transformational grammars of the ...

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:When the Morally "Right" Thing to Do Is Difficult:Reflections on a True "Pastoral" Approach in John Paul II's Veritatis SplendorIrene AlexanderIn the moral life, there are situations in which it is difficult to know what is the right thing to do. On the other hand, there are types of moral actions in which no such intellectual difficulty exists, where the right thing to do is very clear, yet hesitation (...) or even rejection of the moral law arises because to persist in virtuous living seems too difficult. For example, as St. Augustine writes in his Confessions: "Lord, give me chastity, but not yet." Augustine is not unclear about what he ought to do, yet he perceives that there remains a real gap between the truth of the moral law and his own ability to live virtuously what love demands.Christian moral theology reveals that this "gap" is not at all unusual, nor even surprising. Given original sin and its effects on the human heart, man stands in genuine need of a redeemer. For this reason, the task of moral theology today cannot involve merely presenting the truth of the moral law, important as it is; it must empower the human heart to live it. I argue that, to inspire and transform hearts, moral theology must be presented within the biblical story of salvation and lead to a personal encounter with Christ. Indeed, this is precisely what the Second Vatican Council called for when it insisted that theologians take "special care" in the renewal of moral theology. The Council fathers insisted that, in its presentation, moral theology needs to be more deeply animated by Scripture, to integrate with dogmatic theology, and most of all, to find its place within the mystery of Christ.1 [End Page 333]In this paper, I would like to demonstrate how Pope John Paul II's insights in his 1993 encyclical Veritatis Splendor (VS) can aid in a pastoral approach to morally difficult situations.2 It is no secret that he wrote this encyclical to address the widespread dissent among Catholic moral theologians who dissented from the magisterium on difficult moral issues such as contraception, abortion, divorce, in vitro fertilization, and homosexuality by attempting to reinvent the foundational principles of morality, which led to a whole host of errors. Yet, even though one can prove demonstratively the truth of the moral law, there still remains the pastoral question: "But what am I to do, if remaining faithful is very difficult?" "What can I do when I cannot seem to rise to what love demands, or I am afraid of what love will cost me?" In this paper, I will share three key insights from his work that lead to an effective pastoral response: (1) to rediscover the purpose of living a moral life, (2) to recognize the missing human good in difficult circumstances, (3) to receive the fullness of sacramental grace. Whereas some theologians openly encourage dissent from the Church's moral teaching for "pastoral" reasons, John Paul II argues that there is nothing more "pastoral" than the power of sacramental grace.Rediscover Purpose: The Moral Life as a Call to Divine Intimacy and MissionIn his book Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action, Simon Sinek has powerfully argued that all great leaders lead by answering the most important question: why does this organization or company or rule exist? Great leaders inspire with the purpose. Not surprisingly, when it comes to the question "why should I follow the moral law?," Jesus Christ, in Matt 19, also leads the rich young man with the "why."In the encounter, Christ acknowledges the young man's predicament when he approaches him with the question, "Teacher, what good must I do to have eternal life?" Merely remaining obedient to the law as though it were nothing more than a checklist is not enough to satisfy the deep [End Page 334] longings of the young man's heart. John Paul II comments that "the young man's question is not so much about rules to be followed, but about the full meaning of life. This is in fact the aspiration at the heart... (shrink)