O direito público contemporâneo é pensado a partir do tratamento impessoal dos cidadãos por autoridades e funcionários que agem dentro da moldura jurídica que delimita sua competência e orienta a sua ação ao interesse público. Se a soberania for compreendida a partir do instituto da propriedade (dominium), a relação entre o Estado e o cidadão acaba por espelhar a forma da relação entre senhor e escravo, em que os súditos se encontram submetidos à vontade privada do soberano. Uma tal modalidade (...) patrimonial de Estado mostra-se incompatível com a caracterização do direito público moderno. Neste artigo, identificamos na obra de Jean Bodin o contraste entre, de um lado, o caráter público do exercício da soberania nos regimes legítimos e, de outro, a natureza patrimonial dos regimes despótico e tirânico. No pensamento de Thomas Hobbes, observamos a evolução de uma concepção meramente patrimonial da soberania presente em Elements of law e De cive para uma distinção formal entre a vontade privada e a vontade pública do soberano no Leviathan. Nossa conclusão é que ambos os autores acabam por fornecer, cada um à sua maneira, um aparato conceitual apto para lidar com as características do Estado moderno acima apontadas, cuja repercussão pode ser notada na Filosofia Política dos séculos subsequentes. (shrink)

Há um discurso teórico que denuncia a igualdade formal presente no ideal de Estado de Direito como um manto ideológico a serviço do conservadorismo. Por debaixo desse manto, as profundas desigualdades sociais e relações de opressão seriam legitimadas como se fossem simplesmente fruto da aplicação imparcial das regras jurídicas a que todos estariam igualmente submetidos. Embora essa crítica sirva quando direcionada ao modelo de Estado de Direito defendido por Hayek, que apresenta falsamente as regras oriundas dos costumes e dos precedentes (...) como isentas de posições políticas, ela não atinge da mesma maneira o modelo de Estado de Direito centrado na supremacia da legislação. Apesar de todas as limitações que podem ser reconhecidas no ideal de igualdade formal, a sua recusa parece antes permitir novas e mais graves formas de opressão do que as suprimir. (shrink)

Researchers are required to seek consent from Indigenous communities prior to conducting research but there is inadequate information about how Indigenous people understand and become fully engaged with this consent process. Few studies evaluate the preference or understanding of the consent process for research with Indigenous populations. Lack of informed consent can impact on research findings. The Picture Talk Project was initiated with senior Aboriginal leaders of the Fitzroy Valley community situated in the far north of Western Australia. Aboriginal people (...) were interviewed about their understanding and experiences of research and consent processes. Transcripts were analysed using NVivo10 software with an integrated method of inductive and deductive coding and based in grounded theory. Local Aboriginal interpreters validated coding. Major themes were defined and supporting quotes sourced. Interviews with Aboriginal leaders were facilitated by a local Aboriginal Community Navigator who could interpret if necessary and provide cultural guidance. Participants were from all four major local language groups of the Fitzroy Valley; aged 31 years and above; and half were male. Themes emerging from these discussions included Research—finding knowledge; Being respectful of Aboriginal people, Working on country, and Being flexible with time; Working together with good communication; Reciprocity—two-way learning; and Reaching consent. The project revealed how much more there is to be learned about how research with remote Aboriginal communities should be conducted such that it is both culturally respectful and, importantly, meaningful for participants. We identify important elements in community consultation about research and seeking consent. (shrink)

In several avenues of contemporary research, much attention is devoted to the contrast between the real authority of institution and their formal power, in the analysis of institutional funtionings; also in the study of the relationships between institutions on the one hand, rules, principles or norms on the other hand. Such a contrast appears to be based on familiar observations: the capacity of institutions to get their preferred outcomes is sometimes loosely connected with the hierarchical prerogatives of the considered institutions. (...) More particularly, current studies of the „migration authority” bring out possible shitts in real authority while there is no changein the formal structure of power. This article will partly consist in the explanation of recent results of common reaserch in project „Delicom”, in which a formal treatment of the distinction has been put foward. This approach will be set against the background of recent contributions in political science or economics. The revelance of the problematic for the study of competence delegation among institutions will be stressed all along. (shrink)

In the late 1930s networks of amateur observers across Britain were collecting data on birds , aircraft and society itself . This paper concentrates on birdwatching practice in the period 1930–1955. Through an examination of the construction of birdwatching's subjects, the Observers, and their objects, birds, it is argued that amateur strategies of scientific observation and record reflected, and were part-constitutive of, particular versions of ecological, national and social identity in this period. The paper examines how conflicts between a rural, (...) organicist Britishness and a modern, planner-preservationist Britishness were elaborated and contained within the figure of the birdwatcher and within the institutional epistemologies of the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds and the British Trust for Ornithology. Such conflicts are shown to be embedded in the structuring of visual perception in different strategies of bird and aircraft identification, particularly between analytic and gestalt methods; the paper examines, using the related ‘field-science’ of aircraft recognition, the importance of identificatory processes in the construction of the Observer, and concludes by examining whether tensions between organicist and scientific discourses were in any sense resolved by the end of this period. (shrink)

Philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein had an enormous influence on twentieth-century philosophy even though only one of his works, the famous Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, was published in his lifetime. Beyond this publication the impact of his thought was mainly conveyed to a small circle of students through his lectures at Cambridge University. Fortunately, many of his ideas have survived in both the dictations that were subsequently published, and the notes taken by his students, among them Alice Ambrose and the late Margaret Macdonald, (...) from 1932 to 1935. These notes, now edited by Professor Ambrose, are here published, and they shed much light on Wittgenstein's philosophical development. Among the topics considered are the meaning of a word and its relation to common usage, rules of grammar and their relation to fact, the grammar of first person statements, language games, and the nature of philosophy. This volume is indispensable to any serious discussion of Wittgenstein's work. (shrink)

The notion of “relational” autonomy—as described by feminist scholars such as Susan Sherwin and Anne Donchin—has been the subject of a significant body of literature over the last few years and has recently generated some interest within the field of bioethics. Although the focus of this interest has been the autonomy of ordinary moral agents, the analysis of relational autonomy can usefully be extended to apply to the autonomy of professionals, not only as individual moral agents, but in their roles (...) as professionals as well. In this paper, I argue that professional autonomy, rightly understood, is relational in nature. This understanding of professional autonomy stands to improve our understanding of professional ethics, as well as providing a particular, concrete example of what we mean when we call autonomy “relational” and “socially embedded. (shrink)

This volume explores the ethical dimensions of a wide selection of philosophical and theological topics in Aquinas's texts.

What is introspective know ledge of one’s own intentional states like? This paper aims to make plausible the view that certain cases of self-knowledge, namely the cogito-type ones, are enough like perception to count as cases of quasi-observation. To this end it considers the highly influential arguments developed by Sydney Shoemaker in his recent Royce Lectures. These present the most formidable challenge to the view that certain cases of self-knowledge are quasi-observational and so deserve detailed examination. Shoemaker’s arguments are directed (...) against two models of ordinary perception, the “object perception model” and the “broad perceptual model”. I argue that the core theses that Shoemaker associated with them are either dubious in their own right or applicable to certain cases of self-knowledge. Overall the aim is to show that there is such a variety of patterns in each case that simple analogies or disanalogies are unhelpful. (shrink)

The paper is an introduction to geometric algebra and geometric calculus for those with a knowledge of undergraduate mathematics. No knowledge of physics is required. The section Further Study lists many papers available on the web.

In this article, I take my own position within an ongoing debate about what place (if any) Christian theology should have within the secular university. Against both “secularists” and “sectarians,” I argue that we can and should locate the study (teaching and learning) of theology squarely within the secular university, once we cease to demand that all academic study within the secular university be framed by a narrowly defined and overly constrictive “secular perspective.” Freed from the controlling dogma of the (...) “secular perspective,” theology in the secular university can proceed unhindered in its quest for knowledge, following the classical method of “faith seeking understanding,” while still remaining remarkably inclusive of, and respectful toward, those who do not share specific theological commitments. (shrink)

Chapter One The most plausible arguments for the identity of mind and body that have been advanced in this century have been for the identity of mental ...

In this paper, we examine critically the notion of “Triple Bottom Line” accounting. We begin by asking just what it is that supporters of the Triple Bottom Line idea advocate, and attempt to distil specific, assessable claims from the vague, diverse, and sometimescontradictory uses of the Triple Bottom Line rhetoric. We then use these claims as a basis upon which to argue (a) that what issound about the idea of a Triple Bottom Line is not novel, and (b) that what (...) is novel about the idea is not sound. We argue on bothconceptual and practical grounds that the Triple Bottom Line is an unhelpful addition to current discussions of corporate social responsibility. Finally, we argue that the Triple Bottom Line paradigm cannot be rescued simply by attenuating its claims: the rhetoric isbadly misleading, and may in fact provide a smokescreen behind which firms can avoid truly effective social and environmental reporting and performance. (shrink)

Self-knowledge is the focus of considerable attention from philosophers: Knowing Our Own Minds gives a much-needed overview of current work on the subject, bringing together new essays by leading figures. Knowledge of one's own sensations, desires, intentions, thoughts, beliefs, and other attitudes is characteristically different from other kinds of knowledge: it has greater immediacy, authority, and salience. The contributors examine philosophical questions raised by the distinctive character of self-knowledge, relating it to knowledge of other minds, to rationality and agency, externalist (...) theories of psychological content, and knowledge of language. Together these original, stimulating, and closely interlinked essays demonstrate the special relevance of self-knowledge to a broad range of issues in epistemology, philosophy of mind, and philosophy of language. (shrink)

This paper examines the cultural antagonisms of Martial's Apophoreta 170–82, a unique series of epigrammatic gift-tags for artworks to be given away during the Saturnalia. In these poems, I argue, Martial thematizes and enacts Rome's transformative appropriation of cultural capital from Greece and elsewhere. First, he adopts the Hellenistic trope of the ekphrastic gallery tour in order to evoke the “museum spaces” of the Flavian city, where artworks became testaments to the power and culture of Rome. While evoking these masterpiece (...) collections, however, the epigrams in fact describe miniatures changing hands at a banquet. Martial thus tropes a second Roman practice of appropriation, namely the widespread consumption of transmedial miniature copies. Third and finally, the epigrams dramatize the vulnerability of plundered objects by reevaluating their significance within the Roman frameworks of Latin literature and the Saturnalia. In this miniature ekphrastic series, then, Martial's apophoretic poetics converge with Roman forms of appropriation both imperial and domestic, concrete and conceptual. (shrink)

Wayne Norman and Chris MacDonald launch a strong attack against Triple Bottom Line or 3BL accounting in their article “Gettingto the Bottom of ‘Triple Bottom Line’” (2004). This response suggests that, while limitations to 3BL accounting do exist, the critique of Norman and MacDonald is deeply flawed.

A reprint of the Routledge edition of 1935.

A debate has been raging in the philosophy of mind for at least the past two decades. It concerns whether the mental can make a causal difference to the world. Suppose that I am reading the newspaper and it is getting dark. I switch on the light, and continue with my reading. One explanation of why my switching on of the light occurred is that a desiring with a particular content (that I continue reading), a noticing with a particular content (...) (that it is getting dark), and a believing with a particular content (that by switching on the light I could continue reading) occurred in me, and these events caused my switching on of the light. This explanation works by citing the intentional contents of mental phenomena as causes of that action. It is because the intentional causes have the contents that they do, and because those contents play a causal role in bringing about my action, that my action is causally explained. (shrink)

This volume provides an introduction to and review of key contemporary debates concerning connectionism, and the nature of explanation and methodology in cognitive psychology. The first debate centers on the question of whether human cognition is best modeled by classical or by connectionist architectures. The second centres on the question of the compatibility between folk, or commonsense, psychological explanation and explanations based on connectionist models of cognition. Each of the two sections includes a classic reading along with important responses, and (...) concludes with a specially commissioned reply by the main contributor. The editorial introductions provide a comprehensive survey and map through the debates. (shrink)

Current discussions of business ethics usually only consider deontological and utilitarian approaches. What is missing is a discussion of traditional teleology, often referred to as virtue ethics. While deontology and teleology are useful, they both suffer insufficiencies. Traditional teleology, while deontological in many respects, does not object to utilitarian style calculations as long as they are contained within a moral framework that is not utilitarian in its origin. It contains the best of both approaches and can be used to focus (...) on the individual''s role within an organization. More work is needed in exposing students and faculty to traditional teleology and its place in business ethic''s discussions. (shrink)