In 2017, Barth and Barber released the third edition of their textbook “Hospitality Law: Managing Legal Issues in the Hospitality Industry.” This review focuses on the scope and depth of the legal areas it covers. It examines whether the book strikes the right balance between practicality, feasibility, and conventions within the hotel industry. The authors aim to provide guidance to hospitality students and hospitality managers in developing legal literacy for their professional lives. The review finds that Barth and Barber have (...) successfully compiled a comprehensive and relevant compilation of legal issues within the hospitality industry. They support and illustrate their explanations with authentic case law and relevant examples, demonstrating the practicality of the work. While there may be some criticism regarding the depth of legal argumentation, it should be pointed out that this criticism should be viewed in light of the book's intended purpose. The primary goal was not to create an exhaustive analysis of the multi-faceted nuances in legal discourse within hospitality law. Instead, it aimed to sensitise and assist hospitality students and professional hospitality managers in the United States with their everyday decision-making processes. We suggest that the textbook could further benefit from integrating recent insights from applied (legal) linguistics and legal semiotics. It is concluded that the book remains a valuable resource for teaching hospitality law to non-legal professionals but also for researchers interested in the intersection of language and law in the hospitality industry. (shrink)

In 2021, a second updated edition of Eschig’s and Pircher-Eschig’s translation of the Austrian Civil Code (ABGB) (Allgemeines bürgerliches Gesetzbuch für die gesammten deutschen Erbländer der Oesterreichischen Monarchie (ABGB 1811). (as amended), 2023) was released. This edition holds particular relevance due to its potential applicability across a spectrum of players operating at the intersection of language and (civil) law, including legal professionals, the hospitality industry, and mediators. We find that this comprehensive translation may not only serve as a valuable resource (...) for (legal) practice but also holds significance for research in diverse fields, including (applied) legal linguistics, lexicography, translation studies, and comparative law. Moreover, this translation alleviates the challenges faced by practitioners inside and outside of law when dealing with legal concepts and lexis, along with their interdependencies in continental civil law discourse. We suggest that the work is particularly useful for legal departments of international companies, but also for hotel chains and/or mediation offices, seeking insights into the specifics of the Austrian legal-linguistic landscape. While computer-assisted translation and machine translation cannot be denied their utility, they should not be seen as capable of entirely replacing human expertise. Indeed, machine translations may not be able to capture the subtle multi-faceted interplay of emerging legal, linguistic, and/or cultural contexts when dealing with the legal concepts and interrelated terminology of the ABGB. In conclusion, we acknowledge the significance of high-quality legal translations, as the one under review, that have been thoroughly reviewed by human experts, thus contributing to saving time and resources. (shrink)

The New Rhetoric is founded on the idea that since “argumentation aims at securing the adherence of those to whom it is addressed, it is, in its entirety, relative to the audience to be influenced,” says Chaïm Perelman and L. Olbrechts-Tyteca, and they rely, in particular, for their theory of argumentation on the twin concepts of universal and particular audiences: while every argument is directed to a specific individual or group, the orator decides what information and what approaches will achieve (...) the greatest adherence according to an ideal audience. This ideal, Perelman explains, can be embodied, for example, "in God, in all reasonable and competent men, in the man deliberating or in an elite.” Like particular audiences, then, the universal audience is never fixed or absolute but depends on the orator, the content and goals of the argument, and the particular audience to whom the argument is addressed. These considerations determine what information constitutes "facts" and "reasonableness" and thus help to determine the universal audience that, in turn, shapes the orator's approach. /// The adherence of an audience is also determined by the orator's use of values, a further key concept of the New Rhetoric. Perelman's treatment of value and his view of epideictic rhetoric sets his approach apart from that of the ancients and of Aristotle in particular. Aristotle's division of rhetoric into three genres–forensic, deliberative, and epideictic–is largely motivated by the judgments required for each: forensic or legal arguments require verdicts on past action, deliberative or political rhetoric seeks judgment on future action, and epideictic or ceremonial rhetoric concerns values associated with praise or blame and seeks no specific decisions. For Aristotle, the epideictic genre was of limited importance in the civic realm since it did not concern facts or policies. Perelman, in contrast, believes not only that epideictic rhetoric warrants more attention, but that the values normally limited to that genre are in fact central to all argumentation. "Epideictic oratory," Perelman argues, "has significant and important argumentation for strengthening the disposition toward action by increasing adherence to the values it lauds.” These values are central to the persuasiveness of arguments in all rhetorical genres since the orator always attempts to "establish a sense of communion centered around particular values recognized by the audience.”. (shrink)

Al-Fārābī's lost commentary on Aristotle's Ethica Nicomachea is without doubt one of the most sorely missed lost works of the Islamic falāsifa. In part, this is because the commentary was in some respects a scandal, and scholars accordingly believe it may hold the key to resolving present-day disagreements on how to interpret al-Fārābī's views as expressed in his independent treatises. Perhaps al-Fārābī's most shocking or scandalous statement is that preserved by the Hispano-Muslim philosophers Ibn Bājja, Ibn Ṭufayl, and Ibn Rushd. (...) According to them al-Fārābī says in his commentary on Aristotle's Ethica Nicomachea that happiness is to be achieved only in this life, not in the afterlife; that there is no happiness but political happiness; and that union with the active intellect – generally considered the highest goal of human existence by the philosophers – is impossible. This paper addresses the following questions: What exactly is the debate about? Why is the question of immortality or conjunction related to Aristotle's Ethica Nicomachea? And why was it so controversial to say, in the context of the Ethica Nicomachea, that there is no happiness but political happiness? Although the bulk of al-Fārābī's commentary is still lost, I have discovered two quotations of it in Hebrew manuscripts. As I will argue in this paper, these newly-discovered quotations – which are included with an English translation in the appendix – can shed light on the mysteries concerning al-Fārābī's commentary. Résumé Le commentaire perdu d'al-Fārābī à l’ Ethique à Nicomaque d'Aristote est sans conteste, parmi les ouvrages perdus de philosophes islamiques, l'un de ceux dont on regrette le plus l'absence. Cela s'explique notamment par le caractère à certains égards scandaleux de ce commentaire, dont les spécialistes attendent dès lors qu'il recèle la clé pour résoudre les désaccords actuels quant à l'interprétation à donner aux idées formulées par cet auteur dans ses traités personnels. La thèse peut-être la plus choquante ou scandaleuse d'al-Fārābī est celle qui est préservée par les philosophes hispano-islamiques Ibn Bājja, Ibn Ṭufayl et Ibn Rushd: selon eux, il affirme, dans son commentaire à l’ Ethique à Nicomaque, que le bonheur ne saurait se réaliser qu'en cette vie et non dans l'au-delà, qu'il n'y a pas de bonheur autre que le bonheur politique, et que l'union à l'intellect agent – généralement tenue par les philosophes pour être la fin suprême de l'existence humaine – est impossible. Cet article traite les questions suivantes: quel est exactement l'enjeu de ce débat? Pourquoi les questions de l'immortalité et de la conjonction sont-elles liées à l’ Ethique à Nicomaque? Et en quoi était-il si problématique d'affirmer, en référence à cette œuvre, qu'il n'y a pas de bonheur autre que le bonheur politique? Même si le corps du commentaire d'al-Fārābī est encore perdu, j'en ai découvert deux citations dans des manuscrits hébreux. Comme je le soutiens ici, ces citations récemment découvertes – données dans l'appendice avec leur traduction anglaise – font un peu de lumière sur les mystères du commentaire d'al-Fārābī. (shrink)

Substantial research demonstrates that ethical leaders improve a broad range of outcomes for their employees, but considerably less attention has been devoted to the performance and success of the leaders themselves. The present study explores the extent to which being ethical relates to leaders’ performance and promotability. We address this question by examining ethical leadership from the two ethical perspectives most common in Western traditions—i.e., the “right” and the “good”—and whether one might be more closely associated than the other with (...) performance and promotability evaluations. Results from 117 employee-supervisor-manager triads show that supervisors with a deontological outlook are more likely to be seen as ethical leaders and that utilitarian leaders are more likely to earn higher performance evaluations. We discuss the implications of these findings for research on ethical leadership. (shrink)

This book discusses the justifications and limits of cultural nationalism from a liberal perspective. Chaim Gans presents a normative typology of nationalist ideologies, distinguishing between cultural liberal nationalism and statist liberal nationalism. Statist nationalisms argue that states have an interest in the cultural homogeneity of their citizenries. Cultural nationalisms argue that people have interests in adhering to their cultures and in sustaining these cultures for generations. Gans argues that freedom- and identity-based justifications for cultural nationalism common in literature can (...) only support the adherence thesis, while the historical thesis could only be justified by the interest people have in the long-term endurance of their personal and group endeavors. The Limits of Nationalism examines demands often made in the name of cultural nationalism, such as claims for national self-determination, historical rights claims to territories and demands entailed by cultural particularism as opposed to cultural cosmopolitanism. (shrink)

Difference and Disability in the Medieval Islamic World: Blighted Bodies. By Kristina L. Richardson. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2012. Pp. ix + 158. $110, £65 ; $40, £24.99.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy and Rhetoric 36.3 (2003) 189-206 [Access article in PDF] First Philosophies and Regressive Philosophy Chaïm Perelman "As a crystal reconstitutes itself from one of its particles, all philosophy creates itself from the idea of an open dialectic, and carries, in itself, the same dialectical character." —Ferdinand Gonseth A number of metaphysicians, including Bergson and Heidegger, consider metaphysics the only knowledge of consequence and use the word to refer (...) to their own philosophies. But a large number of eminent metaphysicians, among them Descartes, Spinoza, Kant, Fichte and Hegel had only disdain for metaphysics and used the word to discredit the philosophy of their adversaries. D'Alembert (602-604) once noted that those referred to as metaphysicians had little regard for one another. "I have no doubt," he added, "that this title will soon be an insult to our great minds, just as the name sophist which, although it meant wise, was debased in Greece by those who bore it and rejected by the true philosophers."The preceding remarks should, I think, convince the few who would still doubt it that declaring oneself an adversary of metaphysics does not mean that one does not do metaphysics. On the contrary, the very fact of opposing a certain conception of metaphysics presupposes that one advocates another conception of metaphysics; this needs to be made explicit, if it is only implicit. In a very interesting study, Mr. Everett W. Hall has recently analyzed the metaphysical assumptions of four types of positivism (Mach, Comte, Watson, Carnap). Even without this analysis the conclusion is predictable; he who is opposed to a certain manner of treating a problem remains himself within the same problematic. Indeed, such oppositions produce a continuous expansion and dialogue about the meaning of the word "metaphysics." This happens not through an automatic and necessary dialectic, but through the dialectic directed by the philosopher's concerns.The first metaphysicians set forth a particular philosophy of being [être]; those opposed advocated a different philosophy of being. By expanding its meaning, Aristotle gave metaphysics its first dialectical movement and identified it as the study of being as being and ontology. Kantian criticism treats dogmatic metaphysics with disdain, and shows that all theories [End Page 189] of being must be preceded by a theory of knowledge: the first principles of philosophy would be those of epistemology and not those of ontology. Since Kant, and for more than a century, metaphysical debates would be about the primacy of ontology or epistemology, and the opposition to their variants, realism and idealism. Then, at the end of the nineteenth century, the debate broadened. Under the influence of pragmatism, the philosophy of values, and Bergsonism, a strong current of philosophical thinking developed, which integrated the theory of knowledge into a general theory of action. It proclaimed the primacy of a philosophy of action, philosophy of life, and philosophy of values. It is within a metaphysics broadened by these various developments that different conceptions of metaphysics will struggle to establish the primacy of their principles. But, despite their differences, all of these metaphysics can be considered first philosophies.Aristotle wrote a treatise on first philosophy, the first to be called metaphysics. First philosophies refer to any metaphysics that purports to determine first principles such as the fundamentals of being (ontology), of knowledge (epistemology), or of action (axiology). First philosophies position first principles as absolute and that they underlie all philosophical questions. The word "first" informs the argumentation used to establish the primacy of first philosophies. A principle is first when it comes before all others in a temporal, logical, epistemological or ontological order; the insistence on this point serves to emphasize its primacy or axiologic pre-eminence. That which is first or basic, that which precedes or presupposes all the rest, is also first in order of importance.As systematic metaphysics, first philosophies establish an interdependence among ontology, epistemology, and axiology. The course taken by first philosophies is determined by a starting point constituted by a necessary reality, a self-evident concept, or an absolute value before which one can... (shrink)

Titel oversat: Islamisk, medicinsk etik i det tyvende århundrede.

The legitimacy of the Zionist project--establishing a Jewish homeland in Palestine--has been questioned since its inception. In recent years, the voices challenging the legitimacy of the State of Israel have become even louder. Chaim Gans examines these doubts and presents an in-depth, evenhanded philosophical analysis of the justice of Zionism.

This book comprises a series of studies devoted to an analytic examination of reasoning in the field of conduct. The first is analysis of the idea of justice undertaken in a spirit of positivism; the series continues in a different vein necessitated by compelling obligation the author found himself under to work out a logic of value judgments. This logic is in fact the Rhetoric and Topics of antiquity: the author's "Traité de l' Argumentation gave this new life, and the (...) present work demonstrates its philosophical importance. (shrink)

This book examines the central questions concerning the duty to obey the law: the meaning of this duty; whether and where it should be acknowledged; and whether and when it should be disregarded. Many contemporary philosophers deny the very existence of this duty, but take a cautious stance toward political disobedience. This 'toothless anarchism', Professor Gans argues, should be discarded in favour of a converse position confirming the existence of a duty to obey the law which can be outweighed by (...) values and principles of political morality. Informed by the Israeli experience of political disobedience motivated by radically differing moral outlooks, the author sets out the principles which should guide our attitude to law and political authority even amidst clashing ideologies and irreconcilable moralities. This book will be of interest to students and scholars of law, philosophy and politics, and anyone concerned with the individual's responsibilties toward his or her political community. (shrink)

Can states' immigration policies favor groups with whom they are culturally and historically tied? I shall answer this question here positively, but in a qualified manner. My arguments in support of this answer will be of distributive justice, presupposing a globalist rather than a localist approach to justice. They will be based on a version of liberal nationalism according to which individuals can have fundamental interests in their national culture, interests which are rooted in freedom, identity, and especially in ensuring (...) the meaningfulness of their endeavor. The prevalent means for protecting these interests is the right to national self-determination. Many believe that this right should be conceived of as a right to a state. I shall show that this conception of self-determination implies purely nationalist immigration policies. I shall present reasons for rejecting such policies, reasons which together with other reasons form a strong case against the statist interpretation of the right to self-determination. They form a strong case in favor of understanding self-determination as a bundle of privileges to which nations are entitled within the states dominating their homelands. Some of these privileges have to do with immigration policies. I shall argue for three principles which should regulate these immigration privileges and discuss the relation between them and Israel's Law of Return. (shrink)

While the practice of Western medicine is known today to doctors of all ethnic and religious groups, its standards are subject to the availability of resources. The medical ethics guiding each doctor is influenced by his/her religious or cultural background or affiliation, and that is where diversity exists. Much has been written about Jewish and Christian medical ethics. Islamic medical ethics has never been discussed as an independent field of ethics, although several selected topics, especially those concerning sexuality, birth control (...) and abortions, have been more discussed than others. Islamic medical ethics in the 20th century will be characterised on the basis of Egyptian fatawa (legal opinions) issued by famous Muslim scholars and several doctors. Some of the issues discussed by Islamic medical ethics are universal: abortions, organ transplants, artificial insemination, cosmetic surgery, doctor-patient relations, etc. Other issues are typically Islamic, such as impediments to fasting in Ramadan, diseases and physical conditions that cause infringement of the state of purity, medicines containing alcohol, etc. Muslims' attitudes to both types of ethical issues often prove that pragmatism prevails and the aim is to seek a compromise between Islamic heritage and the achievements of modern medicine, as long as basic Islamic dogma is not violated. (shrink)

Positivism and, especially, Max Weber's vision of the modern disen chantment of the world are incoherent because they separate human culture from the environment in which human agents pursue their life- projects. The same problem is manifested, more blatantly, in current social studies of science, which take the project of disenchantment further by disenchanting science itself. A different image of science is traced to classical empiricism, whose paradigm of learning is belief and, more specifically, the practical nature of the believer's (...) experience of the environment of his or her actions. The believer's ecological imagery of the world, as it was elaborated by classical empiricism, provides the means to transcend the disenchanted image of the world and its prob lems. (shrink)

La interpretación jurídica consiste en descubrir la solución en los supuestos dados con arreglo al derecho vigente. La interpretación es siempre necesaria porque no existen casos claros y a quien incumbe la tarea de decidir la interpretación del derecho es a los jueces y funcionarios, al resolver los casos que se presentan a su consideración. Una característica destacable de la interpretación judicial es la búsqueda de una solución basada en la equidad. Otra de las tareas de la interpretación es la (...) solución de conflictos y, en este sentido, el recurso a los principios y a la lógica de lo razonable suministra la solución aceptable. Esta dialéctica entre el legislativo, los jueces, la doctrina y la opinión pública constituyen la vida del derecho, conciliando de este modo la estabilidad y el cambio. (shrink)

IntroductionResponsive neurostimulation is an evolving therapeutic option for patients with treatment-refractory epilepsy. Open-loop, continuous stimulation of the anterior thalamic nuclei is the only approved modality, yet chronic stimulation rarely induces complete seizure remission and is associated with neuropsychiatric adverse effects. Accounts of off-label responsive stimulation in thalamic nuclei describe significant improvements in patients who have failed multiple drug regimens, vagal nerve stimulation, and other invasive measures. This systematic review surveys the currently available data supporting the use of responsive thalamic neurostimulation (...) in primary and secondary generalized, treatment-refractory epilepsy.Materials and MethodsA systematic review was performed using the following combination of keywords and controlled vocabulary: OR ) OR [responsive neurostimulation AND thalamus AND ]. In addition, a search of the publications listed under the PubMed “cited by” tab was performed for all publications that passed title/abstract screening in addition to manually searching their reference lists.ResultsTen publications were identified describing a total of 29 subjects with a broad range of epilepsy disorders treated with closed-loop thalamic neurostimulation. The median age of subjects was 31 years old. Of the 29 subjects, 15 were stimulated in the anterior, 11 in the centromedian, and 3 in the pulvinar nuclei. Excluding 5 subjects who were treated for 1 month or less, median time on stimulation was 19 months. Of these subjects, 17/24 experienced greater than or equal to 50%, 11/24 least 75%, and 9/24 at least 90% reduction in seizures. Although a minority of patients did not exhibit significant clinical improvement by follow-up, there was a general trend of increasing treatment efficacy with longer periods on closed-loop thalamic stimulation.ConclusionThe data supporting off-label closed-loop thalamic stimulation for refractory epilepsy is limited to 29 adult and pediatric patients, many of whom experienced significant improvement in seizure duration and frequency. This encouraging progress must be verified in larger studies. (shrink)

Postmortem examinations have recently become common practice in Western medicine: they are used to verify the cause of death and to obtain additional scientific information on certain diseases, as well as to train medical students. For religious people of the monotheistic faiths postmortems present several ethical questions even though the advantages attributed to postmortems in the West are also acknowledged by Jews, Christians and Muslims. The Islamic way of dealing with such questions will be surveyed via contemporary fatawa (legal opinions) (...) issued primarily by Egyptian scholars; Islamic law, which was formulated in the eighth to ninth centuries, did not speak of postmortems. I will therefore depict the means whereby contemporary scholars approach postmortems in the absence of clear legal reference. The difficulties that postmortems create for Muslims at present will be weighed against some shar i instructions which may help circumvent them. While the ethical and religious debate continues, postmortems seem to be accepted but not, however, without certain reservations. (shrink)

Modern science has undoubtedly become one the principal engines of economic growth, even though the epistemological status of scientific knowledge has been continuously contested. Leaving the philosophical problem of knowledge aside, this paper examines how scientific discovery contributes to the production of wealth. The analysis focuses on a recent achievement at the crossroads of chemistry, immunology and biotechnology: antibody catalysis. For this purpose, we develop a model of entrepreneurial work to explain how the discovery of natural products and processes generates (...) new economic opportunities. The proposed model is based on the assumption that scientists believe that the natural environment is a repository of 'natural capital'. Natural capital includes goods that are not made by humans but can be used to produce other goods and services. The belief in natural capital induces scientists to search for and identify a natural property that, in the specific cultural context of their work, is recognized as a valuable resource. The selection of such a property forms the initial phase of the discovery process. Certain research methods are then deployed to create novel empirical conditions within which the selected property is transformed into a specific good. The discovery of natural capital thus comprises a historically accountable entrepreneurial endeavour. (shrink)

This interdisciplinary study brings together research on audiences’ participation in the media, and an up-close exploration of communicative entitlement of and for such participation. Viewing visitor books as situated, public media, the study asks two related questions: how museums and institutions that employ this medium frame participation of ‘ordinary’ people in the public sphere, and how, in return, visitors variously articulate their participation. The article first examines the context in which visitor books mediate participation, and how museums frame them so (...) as to invite ‘authentic’ expressions by ‘ordinary’ visitors. The analysis depicts a taxonomy of participation, evincing five types of entitlements found in visitor book texts. These entitlements shed light on how participation in the public sphere is both understood and pursued. The article responds to calls for empirically rich studies on mediation practices and processes. It adds to the literature on communicative entitlements by examining an under-researched hitherto public medium and by illuminating a shift from talk-in-interaction to the context of text-in-interaction. (shrink)

In the past generation, restitution law has emerged as a global phenomenon. From its Oxbridge home, restitution migrated to the rest of the Commonwealth, and ongoing Europeanization projects have brought the common law of restitution into contact with the Romanist concept of unjust enrichment, further internationalizing this movement. In contrast, in the United States, scholarly interest in restitution, in terms of books, articles, treatises, symposia and courses on restitution, is meager. Similarly, while restitution, equity and tracing cases receive considerable treatment (...) at the highest levels of the English judiciary, US courts seem uninterested in these issues, rarely producing the theory-laden opinions that have become quite common in the House of Lords. The situation is particularly curious because restitution is generally thought to be the invention of late nineteenth-century American scholars. This article explains this divergence. I argue that the Commonwealth restitution discourse is largely a product of pre- or anti-realist legal thought which generates scepticism within the American academic-legal establishment. The article identifies the two dominant camps in American private law thought—left-leaning redistributionalists and the centre-right legal economists—and shows that neither has any use for the Commonwealth's discourse. I conclude by analysing the emerging drafts of the Restatement of Restitution and forecast the future of American restitution law. (shrink)

Bakhtin famously argued that language-as-used is essentially dialogic. One pragmatic implication concerns how dialogicity is established in various contexts. In political discourse, polemic polyphony emerges from the juxtaposition of adversarial voices of political actors: a dialogue in which different voices index different ideological orientations. Polyphonic ensembles establish discoursal scenes and make them recognizable, enabling distinctions such as those between ‘us’ and ‘them’, and between heroes and villains. Overall, they assist speakers in the semiotic mediation of political relations.

The article examines how practices of inscription and structures of addressivity at a symbolic site provide implicit indexical means for establishing subjectivities and agencies. By examining a visitor book located in a national commemoration site in Jerusalem, Israel, the article first argues that inscribing practices themselves can function as implicit indexical mechanisms. In ritualized environments, inscribing assumes the function of a non-referential indexical because discourse is materially engraved unto a surround. These environments are also characterized by prescribed addressivity structures. The (...) article goes on to discern between a number of addressivity structures, evinced in visitors' aesthetisized entries. These structures serve as contextualizing cues and evince the ways visitors establish subjectivities and participation in national commemoration. Addressivity structures are shown to construct different types of social actors, and the spaces and temporalities within which they operate. Building on previous research on performance, the article shows how addressivity and inscription together supply the prerequisites for situated performances of identities and selves on inscribed and symbolic stages. (shrink)

Selecting the sex of a fetus has been a desire of parents in many different cultures. Modern Muslim religious scholars have identified advantages and disadvantages of this practice, permitting it in certain cases while forbidding it in others. In general, they do not appear to desire that selection of sex become a common practice, yet they are willing to allow it for personal reasons. This case-by-case approach exemplifies a key aspect of Muslim ethical discourse. After an overview of justifications for (...) fetal sex selection in different cultures, I turn to a discussion of authoritative Islamic sources. I then analyze the reasoning of several modern authorities who deal with the issue. In the absence of a clear religious text on the subject, scholars seem inclined to legitimize sex selection, and in so doing they appear strongly influenced by social attitudes. (shrink)