Clatterbuck et al. (Biol Philos 28: 577–592, 2013) argue that there is no fact of the matter whether selection dominates drift or vice versa in any particular case of evolution. Their reasons are not empirically based; rather, they are purely conceptual. We show that their conceptual presuppositions are unmotivated, unnecessary and overly complex. We also show that their conclusion runs contrary to current biological practice. The solution is to recognize that evolution involves a probabilistic sampling process, and that (...) class='Hi'>drift is a deviation from probabilistic expectation. We conclude that conceptually, there are no problems with distinguishing drift from selection, and empirically—as modern science illustrates—when drift does occur, there is a quantifiable fact of the matter to be discovered. (shrink)

After accounting for the festival as a philosophical theme across Heidegger’s early to later writings, this article summarizes the 1943 “Andenken” essay on Hölderlin’s “wedding festival” and 1959 “Hölderlin’s Earth and Heaven” essay on the “round dance.” It then explores how these motifs of the wedding festival and its round dance are in play in the 1936–1937 Contributions to Philosophy: Of the Event manuscript, especially in its philosophy of attunement, and notion of the “celebration of the last (...) god.”. (shrink)

Can theological virtues be integrated in a secular moral philosophy?In the early days of the revival of virtue ethics (in Germany and France since the beginning of the 20th century, in the Anglophone world since the 19-fifties) the ‘theological’ or ‘Christian virtues’ (faith, hope and charity) played an important role. In contemporary virtue ethics they seem to almost be forgotten outside of theology. The question is asked whether (and if: how) these virtues can be integrated in a secular moral philosophy. (...) This seems at first hand to be very problematic, because of their definition, which states among other things that these virtues are God-given and orientated towards God. However: hypothesizing that religious conceptions are related to general human experiences, it may be worth the effort to try and also interpret these theological virtues in a philosophical theory about what makes a human life flourishing. The suggestion is made that these virtues remind us of the importance of a certain passivity or receptivity and of an transcendental openness of our conceptions of happiness. (shrink)

Au iie siècle avant notre ère, Délos a vu se créer près de vingt-cinq fonds, par des hommes et des femmes, Déliens et étrangers, et, un cran plus haut dans la célébrité, par des rois hellénistiques ou leurs agents. Les chercheurs s’accordent à penser que ces fonds permettaient d’organiser des fêtes (surtout éponymes : Antigoneia, Eutycheia, Philonideia, Ptolemaieia, Stesileia, etc.), et se sont concentrés sur la motivation politique, sur les objectifs et les effets de la douzaine de cas royaux. Cet (...) article fait l’hypothèse que le grec des comptes déliens a été mal interprété ; les fonds ne finançaient pas des fêtes éponymes en soi, mais la récurrence modeste de rituels qui étaient établis à l’occasion d’événements familiaux importants, comme les mariages et les décès ; ce phénomène délien particulier a davantage à dire sur la véritable piété que sur la grande politique, et il offre davantage de points communs avec le culte familial hellénistique qu’avec la culture des fêtes. (shrink)

This study aims to understand scientific inference for the evolutionary procedure of Continental Drift based on abductive inference, which is important for creative inference and scientific discovery during problem solving. We present the following two research problems: (1) we suggest a scientific inference procedure as well as various strategies and a criterion for choosing hypotheses over other competing or previous hypotheses; aspects of this procedure include puzzling observation, abduction, retroduction, updating, deduction, induction, and recycle; and (2) we analyze the (...) “theory of continental drift” discovery, called the Earth science revolution, using our multistage inference procedure. Wegener’s Continental Drift hypothesis had an impact comparable to the revolution caused by Darwin’s theory of evolution in biology. Finally, the suggested inquiry inference model can provide us with a more consistent view of science and promote a deeper understanding of scientific concepts. (shrink)

Some feminists have criticized Judith Butler's theory of performativity for providing an insufficient account of agency. In this article I first defend her against such charges by appealing to two themes central to Hans-Georg Gadamer's hermeneutics. I compare her emphasis on the sociohistorical nature of agency with Gadamer's insistence on the historical nature of knowledge, and I examine the significance Butler assigns to repetition and note its affinities with Gadamer's conception of play. In the final part of the article I (...) argue that in spite of providing an adequate account of agency, Butler's theory of performativity provides no way to allow us to evaluate performances. I show how Gadamer's account of festival, which builds on his concept of play, is useful in helping us make sense of how we might delineate true from false performances, and thus identities. (shrink)

Amsterdam University Press is a leading publisher of academic books, journals and textbooks in the Humanities and Social Sciences. Our aim is to make current research available to scholars, students, innovators, and the general public. AUP stands for scholarly excellence, global presence, and engagement with the international academic community.

Se analizan las relaciones entre religión y nacionalismo en el marco de las conmemoraciones del Bicentenario de la República de Chile. Para ello observamos la fiesta de Ayquina, al interior de Calama. Prestamos atención a uno de los bailes, en este caso el Marinero que junto al baile Huaso simbolizan al nacionalismo. Recalcamos el doble elemento simbólico de este tipo de baile. Por un lado, representan la idea de una chilenidad, en este caso militar, y, por otro, siguen la lógica (...) andina de los santuarios del Norte Grande, en la que el bailar y cantar a la Virgen es lo fundamental. The relationships between nationalism and religion are analyzed in the context of Chilean republic’s bicentennial commemoration. To that purpose, the Ayquina festivity is observed. Attention is focused on el Marinero , a dancing expression which, together with the Huaso, symbolizes nationalism. The double symbolic element is stressed in this type of dance. On the one hand, it represents the idea of being a Chilean in the military forces and, on the other hand, it depicts the Andean logic of the Northern sanctuaries where dancing andsinging and paying tribute to the virgin are fundamental. (shrink)

This essay explores the nature and neurological basis of creativity in technical production. After presenting a model of expert technical cognition based in cognitive anthropology and cognitive psychology, the authors propose that craft production has three inherent sources of novelty — procedural drift, serendipitous error and fiddling. However, these are quite limited in their creative potential, which may help explain the virtual absence of innovation over the long millennia of the Palaeolithic. Innovation can be far more rapid and effective (...) via invention, which requires folk theories of causation and adequate working memory capacity, all fairly recent evolutionary developments. The neurological basis of expert technical cognition lies in well-known cortical and sub-cortical structures, but recent research has established a provocative role for the cerebellum in the formulation of novel arrangements. (shrink)

We review how leaky competing accumulators (LCAs) can be used to model decision making in two‐alternative, forced‐choice tasks, and we show how they reduce to drift diffusion (DD) processes in special cases. As continuum limits of the sequential probability ratio test, DD processes are optimal in producing decisions of specified accuracy in the shortest possible time. Furthermore, the DD model can be used to derive a speed–accuracy trade‐off that optimizes reward rate for a restricted class of two alternative forced‐choice (...) decision tasks. We review findings that compare human performance with this benchmark, and we reveal both approximations to and deviations from optimality. We then discuss three potential sources of deviations from optimality at the psychological level—avoidance of errors, poor time estimation, and minimization of the cost of control—and review recent theoretical and empirical findings that address these possibilities. We also discuss the role of cognitive control in changing environments and in modulating exploitation and exploration. Finally, we consider physiological factors in which nonlinear dynamics may also contribute to deviations from optimality. (shrink)

This article criticizes recent suggestions that the current ELSI research field should accommodate a new direction towards a ‘post-ELSI’ agenda. Post-ELSI research seeks to avoid the modernist division of responsibility for technical and social issues said to characterize ELSI research. Collaboration and integration are consequently the key terms of post-ELSI strategies that are to distinguish it from ELSI strategies. We argue that this call for a new direction relies on an inadequate generalized analysis of ELSI research as modern that will (...) affect the construal of post-ELSI strategies. We are concerned that the call for post-ELSI shift will exclude imaginative proposals and intellectual freedom by narrowing down the scope and methodologies of ELSI and thereby missing opportunities to play a critical and constructive normative role. Instead of framing current trends in ELSI research as a radical and progressive shift from ELSI to post-ELSI, we suggest an alternative story of expansion and diversification described in terms of a drift from ELSA 1 to ELSA 2, pertaining to acronyms in use in Europe. ELSI research has never been modern. It has been experimenting from the very start on ways to mesh the works of humanist, social and natural scientist in order to bridge and build alignments of emerging scientific and societal goals and matters of concern. The development from ELSA 1 to ELSA 2 expands in our account the range of intellectual and methodological capacities of analysis and engagement of complex and dynamic science-society relationships. We present three areas of ELSA expertise to illustrate that the expertise within the field builds on scholarly achievements within the humanities, social sciences as well as the natural sciences. The plurality of disciplinary background of ELSA researchers represents a valuable diversity that enables mutual criticism and formulations of complementary approaches that together constitute a viable ELSA field. (shrink)

The seminal work on Restorative Justice by one of the founders of the movement, now fully revised and updated. In a time of bitter differences and deep division, how should we as a society respond to wrongdoing? When a crime occurs or an injustice is done, what needs to happen? What does justice require? Howard Zehr is the father of Restorative Justice and is known worldwide for his pioneering work in transforming understandings of justice. Here he proposes workable Principles and (...) Practices for making Restorative Justice possible in this revised and updated edition of his bestselling, seminal book on the movement. Our legal system's approach to justice has some important strengths, but also some deep failings. Victims, offenders, and community members often feel that justice does not adequately meet their needs. Justice professionals--judges, lawyers, prosecutors, probation and parole officers, prison staff--are frustrated with the system's shortcomings, too. Many feel that the process of justice deepens the wounds and conflicts in our society rather than bringing healing and peace. Restorative Justice, with its emphasis on identifying the justice needs of everyone involved in a crime, is a worldwide movement of growing influence that is helping victims and communities heal, while holding criminals accountable for their actions. This is not a soft-on-crime, feel-good philosophy, but rather a concrete effort to bring justice and healing to everyone involved in a crime. In The Little Book of Restorative Justice, Zehr first explores how restorative justice is different from criminal justice. Then, before letting those appealing observations drift out of reach into theoretical space, Zehr presents Restorative Justice Practices. Zehr undertakes a massive and complex subject and puts it in graspable form, without reducing or trivializing it. This is a handbook, a vehicle for moving our society toward healing and wholeness. This is a sourcebook, a starting point for handling brokenness with hard work and hope. This resource is also suitable for academic classes and workshops, for conferences and trainings, as well as for the layperson interested in understanding this innovative and influential movement. (shrink)

Sender–receiver games, first introduced by David Lewis ([1969]), have received increased attention in recent years as a formal model for the emergence of communication. Skyrms ([2010]) showed that simple models of reinforcement learning often succeed in forming efficient, albeit not necessarily minimal, signalling systems for a large family of games. Later, Alexander et al. ([2012]) showed that reinforcement learning, combined with forgetting, frequently produced both efficient and minimal signalling systems. In this article, I define a ‘dynamic’ sender–receiver game in which (...) the state–action pairs are not held constant over time and show that neither of these two models of learning learn to signal in this environment. However, a model of reinforcement learning with discounting of the past does learn to signal; it also gives rise to the phenomenon of linguistic drift. 1 Introduction2 Dynamic Signalling Games with Reinforcement Learning2.1 Introducing new states2.2 Swapping state–action pairs3 Discounting the Past3.1 Learning to signal in a dynamic world3.2 An unexpected outcome: linguistic drift4 ConclusionAppendix: A Markov Chain Analysis. (shrink)

We propose a new method for the history of ideas that has none of the shortcomings so often ascribed to this approach. We call this method the model approach to the history of ideas. We argue that any adequately developed and implementable method to trace continuities in the history of human thought, or concept drift, will require that historians use explicit interpretive conceptual frameworks. We call these frameworks models. We argue that models enhance the comprehensibility of historical texts, and (...) provide historians of ideas with a method that, unlike existing approaches, is susceptible neither to common holistic criticisms nor to Skinner's objections that the history of ideas yields arbitrary and biased reconstructions. To illustrate our proposal, we discuss the so-called Classical Model of Science and draw upon work in computer science and cognitive psychology. (shrink)

This paper applies the conceptual toolkit of Evolutionary Developmental Biology (evo‐devo) to the evolution of the genome and the role of the genome in organism development. This challenges both the Modern Evolutionary Synthesis, the dominant view in evolutionary theory for much of the 20th century, and the typically unreflective analysis of heredity by evo‐devo. First, the history of the marginalization of applying system‐thinking to the genome is described. Next, the suggested framework is presented. Finally, its application to the evolution of (...) genome modularity, the evolution of induced mutations, the junk DNA versus ENCODE debate, the role of drift in genome evolution, and the relationship between genome dynamics and symbiosis with microorganisms are briefly discussed. (shrink)

The title of this essay is not to be taken literally: I will not be making the case that Marseille is actually the last working class city in France. My title is a reference to Chris Marker’s 1993 film The Last Bolshevik (Le Tombeau d’Alexandre), a film about Alexander Medvedkin, one of the pioneers of early Soviet cinema. Medvedkin was the inspiration for the Groupe Medvedkine, a film collective founded by Chris Marker and made up of French militant filmmakers who, (...) in December 1967, decided to document the labor unrest that had erupted in factories near Besançon by making experimental films that involved the active participation of the workers themselves. Marker first met Medvedkin at a film festival in Leipzig .. (shrink)

This text translated here (first published in Die Tat in May 1921) is an early elaboration of Rudolf Laban’s polyrhythmic ontology. The phenomenon of rhythm here takes shape through the manifold ways in which it resonates in the text (Ur-rhythm, Eu-rhythm, Kako-rhythm). Besides positing a fundamental co-dependency between rhythm, movement and space, Laban sees rhythm here also as the gateway to a socio-ethical dimension culminating in the Festival, or art of celebration.

Summary‘Among the fine arts, I clearly see something to say only about architecture, sculpture, painting. As for music, dance […], I see nothing’. Tocqueville's observation in the Rubish for the second volume of Democracy in America is not only startling, but theoretically important: it ratifies the liberal (and nowadays oft-assumed) separation between musical life and political constitution. This, however, should give us cause to wonder. While in America, Tocqueville and Beaumont had multiple occasions to hear music in public festivals and (...) private spaces. Though other European and highbrow observers also declared American music to be ‘in its infancy’, music nonetheless played a significant part in antebellum social and political life. Nor was Tocqueville insensitive to sound in his relation to others. Indeed, Tocqueville perhaps saw in the demise of music as the art of ‘making harmony’ a symptom of the democratic era. However, like Montesquieu, Tocqueville refused to consider music a constitutive principle of democratic regimes—including in the context of Ancient Greek political theory. In doing so, Tocqueville sharply dissociated himself from republican political theory, but failed to raise the question of music's contribution to the culture and exercise of freedom in the modern era. (shrink)

Wish-fulfilment as a singular means of satisfying ineluctable desire is a pivotal concept in classical psychoanalysis. Freud argued that it was the thread that united dreams, daydreams, phantasy, omnipotent thinking, neurotic and some psychotic symptoms such as hallucinations and delusions, art, myth, and religious illusions. The concept's theoretical exploration has been largely neglected within psychoanalysis since, but contemporary philosophers have recognised it as providing an explanatory model for much of the kind of irrational behaviour so problematic for psychiatry, social psychology (...) and the philosophy of mind. Although critically neglected in contemporary psychological and psychoanalytic thought, the concept remains clinically fundamental, under different labels: it encompasses the processes of omnipotent phantasy, symbolic or substitutive satisfaction, actualisation in transference and acting out, symptom formation and defenses such as projective identification. Wish-fulfilment can be shown to be a specifically psychoanalytic compartment of a common-sense psychological theory of action that illuminates not just clinical material but also the paradoxes of irrationality – such as weakness of will and self-deception – that preoccupy philosophers. The first half of this book develops a comprehensive and novel theory of wish-fulfilment, explores its radical implications for the structure of mind, and locates it against the backdrop of both contemporary psychoanalytic and philosophical thought. In the second half, the book applies the theory to illuminate important features of self-deception and delusion, religion, insanity defences, creative writing and the exclusion of mind and intention in the biological drift of modern psychiatry. The book will be essential to philosophers of mind, psychoanalysts, psychiatrists, psychologists, social theorists, and students in these disciplines; as well as readers interested in understanding how the mind works in mental illness, self-deception, religion, and creative writing. (shrink)

Meat abstinence, as is practiced in some religions, has a positive impact on reducing the damages that the process of meat production inflicts on the environment. The Ethiopian Orthodox Christians observe fasting by abstaining from meat for more than half a year, and this seems to do the environment and economy some good. Religion has been playing a regulatory role between ever-increasing meat demands and the country’s fast-growing meat and live animal exports. The article concludes that individuals' tendency to (...) class='Hi'>drift from religious life practices, coupled with a growing middle class that can afford to buy meat regularly, and the country’s need to maximize foreign currency through meat and livestock exportation, is likely to see Ethiopia introduce intensive livestock production in the not too distant future, to meet domestic meat demands and increase livestock export earnings. (shrink)

The paper presents a critique of Marcuse’s theory of “false needs”. It aims to clear the theoretical ground necessary to sketch out an immanent critique of the socio-economical dynamics that dictate the exhausting, and oft endless postponement of the satisfaction of a multiplicity of mass needs and desires. The paper focuses its attention on some paradoxes produced by Marcuse’s theory, correlated in particular with the critique of the wellbeing of the masses, and with the manipulative superpower ascribed to ideology. These (...) paradoxes are interpreted as expressions of a radical distance between critic and the social reality and of a paternalistic drift, which can both be overcome by the introduction of a immanent critique. -/- Il contributo presenta una critica della teoria dei “falsi bisogni” di Marcuse. Tale critica è volta a liberare lo spazio teorico necessario per impostare una critica immanente delle dinamiche socio-economiche che impongono un estenuante e spesso infinito differimento della soddisfazione di una molteplicità di desideri e bisogni di massa. Ci si sofferma su alcuni paradossi generati dalla teoria di Marcuse, correlati in particolare alla critica rivolta al benessere raggiunto dalle masse, ed allo strapotere manipolatorio attribuito all’ideologia. Tali paradossi vengono interpretati come espressione di un radicale distacco tra il critico e la realtà sociale, e di una sua deriva paternalistica, che possono essere superati attraverso l’adozione di una critica di tipo immanente. (shrink)

From its beginnings the phenomenological conception of intentionality has been marked by a fecund tension between the simile of directedness to an object and the image of a network of time-extended references, which are about the object and in their mutual remissions determine the significance the object acquires in our thought and practices. With the predominance of this second aspect we drift apart from a purely object-theoretical stance, in order to connect the presence of objects of all kinds to (...) a history of meaning-giving acts. Historical subjectivity, made by acts in which thought refers to what was already thought, and the renewed display of the world of objects in the present are thus seen as constituting the weave of conscious life. Nonetheless, when it comes to the study of inner time-consciousness which Husserl repeatedly undertakes, the essential coordination of perceptive acts and what happens in the world remains out of sight; without the latter the notion of time, and particularly that of now, are emptied of sense. This inner turn is motivated by the idea of a transcendental reduction. However, the study of subjective meaning of objectivations does not necessarily lead to conferring an ontological priority to interiority. Husserl himself wavers between an ontological and a sense-elucidating understanding of what he calls phenomenological reduction. The illegitimate priority given to inner time-consciousness is paralleled by Heidegger’s considering of intra-mundane time as improper and derivative. Both are pray to the lure of the Augustinian Noli foras ire: Don’t go out. (shrink)

This article is an email conversation between the artist Thomas Hirschhorn and the philosopher Jacques Rancière that took place from December 2009 to February 2010. The images of ‘The Bijlmer Spinoza-Festival’, an artwork by Thomas Hirschhorn that occurred in the outskirts of Amsterdam in 2009, portray the levels of engagement by the local participants and the interaction with invited speakers and performers. The interview with Jacques Rancière addresses the problem of classifying collaborative art projects within the conventional categories of (...) art and politics. It explores the vital function of artistic presence and the possibility of establishing a mode of aesthetic exchange that proceeds from the experience of equality. (shrink)

As a fundamental feature of our existence, melancholy is an inescapable characteristic of our ontological constitution. However, there is a distance between the clinical condition of melancholia and the human feeling, the capacity to feel sorrow and nostalgia. In this sense, melancholy and melancholia are similar but different. During the XIX century just few among philosophers have tried to described melancholy in terms of disorder, using philosophical tools rather than clinical definitions, drifting the accent from melancholy to melancholia. Hegel has (...) been one of them, one that has seen inside the depth of human being in order to understand and describe what is the “the nocturnal point of the contraction”: melancholia, in terms of clinical condition. The philosophical exploration of madness and its parameters is essentially an ontological project: this is how Hegel addresses “the Concept of derangement in general” and melancholia in particular, anticipating most of Freud’s consideration on this topic. (shrink)

The French public has a distinct taste for realist representations of public crisis. Citing figures from the Centre National de la Cinématographie et de l’Image Animée (CNC), Sarah Cooper has shown that interest in documentary film is steadily on the rise in France (9), as attested to by the growing number of documentary festivals and documentary films recently released in theaters. Within this context, Martin O’Shaughnessy links the popularity of the social documentary genre to a series of political developments in (...) France, such as the 1995 protests against the infamous “Plan Juppé,” which aimed to slash public spending, and the French electorate’s spurning in 2005 of the Constitution proposed by the European .. (shrink)

The Hybrid Constitution/Melez Anayasa defines the principles upon which a Hybrid Constitution between nature and technology is based. This is an artistic task, because nature and technology cannot inscribe their Magisteria as beings and rights inside a ‘Constitution’, but a beginning for a new utopic non-human-centred vision. The Hybrid Constitution is based on the assumption that best constitution is a mixed system, including human, nature, and low- and high-tech elements. This constitution distinguishes between human citizens, who had the right to (...) participate in the state, and non-citizens and Others, who had the right to be represented. The otherness. The Hybrid Constitution/Melez Anayasa is an artwork presented at the Amber Festival in Istanbul in 2011 and the argument of an essay published in the AUT AUT issue 361/2014 and titled La condizione postumana. (shrink)

Thomas Hirschhorn is an artist who has maintained an engaged approach to politics. His method of working is collaborative and speculative. It has a strong emphasis on community development and intellectual reflection. In this brief introduction I focus on the Bijlmer Spinoza Festival and his ongoing relationship and response to the ideas of the philosopher Jacques Rancière.

Dynamics of complex systems is often hierarchically organized on different time scales. To understand the physics of such hierarchy, here Brownian motion of a particle moving through a fluctuating medium with slowly varying temperature is studied as an analytically tractable example, and a kinetic theory is formulated for describing the states of the particle. What is peculiar here is that the (inverse) temperature is treated as a dynamical variable. Dynamical hierarchy is introduced in conformity with the adiabatic scheme. Then, a (...) new analytical method is developed to show how the Fokker–Planck equation admits as a stationary solution the Maxwellian distribution modulated by the temperature fluctuations, the distribution of which turns out to be determined by the drift term. A careful comment is also made on so-called superstatistics. (shrink)

This is an excerpt from the contentRecently older people have been the target of filmmakers and marketing campaigns; the concept of the “grey pound” has become a potentially significant attraction encouraging filmmakers to explore issues relating to age and ageing in mainstream films. The recent success of films such as Mamma Mia and The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel have made a significant impact on the box office, and Amour securing the 2013 Palm D’Or at the Cannes Film Festival, proved (...) that an older audience is eager to watch films with mature characters and about issues that are relevant and meaningful to them.Actor Dustin Hoffman chose the play, Quartet by Ronald Harwood, to make his directorial debut. Set in “Beecham House,” a residential home for retired musicians, Hoffman explores brilliantly the diversity of octogenarians. The home is under the threat of closure unless the residents raise a substantial amount of money to keep it open, and their cunning plan to do that is by organizing a charitable evening gala fea. (shrink)

E. D. Swinton's The Defence of Duffer's Drift: A Lesson in the Fundamentals of Small Unit Tactics, originally published in 1904, uses the device of a series of recurring but progressive nightmares to teach a set of tactical lessons that Swinton derived from his service in the Second Anglo-Boer War. Now a minor classic, The Defence of Duffer's Drift has had an enduring and international impact. The book's popularity has also led to the publication of several narratives inspired (...) by the original, many of them authored by serving members of the US Army. Although this subset of the ‘progeny’ of Swinton's work are focused on teaching tactical lessons, read together they provide a small but fascinating window into the evolution of the US Army's understanding of the ethics of armed conflict at the tactical level. The texts that are the focus of this paper span a period of 88 years, covering the post-First World War emphasis on positional warfare, through the shift to a focus on large-scale mechanized warfare that.. (shrink)

Th is microhistorical case-study of the role of the Antifascist Front of Women of Yugoslavia in popularising New Year celebrations in the Serbian municipality of Čačak aims to examine the internalisation of the communist discourse through ritual practices serving to infiltrate the private life of the local community and to expand the Party’s support basis. In the first post-war years, the new authorities not only tolerated, but tacitly approved and aided celebrations of Christian holidays. Yet this policy changed radically in (...) 1948, when local mass organisations were instructed to replace winter holidays with New Year festivities, based on the Soviet model. These events bore an observably ideologised character, since New Year’s Day was not only supposed to mark the calendar year’s end, but also to symbolise the new beginning as a ubiquitous simulacrum for a new socialist society. The primary agents of this novel collective identity practice were women, champions of the socialist emancipation project, whereas the main channel for dissemination were children, which embedded this measure within the farsighted project of tempering a “new man.”. (shrink)

Gli aspetti concreti e le ricadute pratiche della filosofia sono da qualche tempo al centro dell'attenzione sia degli specialisti - che si interrogano sulla portata e il significato della loro materia anche fuori dalle accademie - sia dei non filosofi - che affollano festival culturali e interrogano i filosofi sui media. Sulle diverse fogge assunte dalla filosofia di fronte alla pratica riflettono gli autori di questi saggi, facendo riferimento tanto a quelle contenute nel sapere consegnatoci in duemilacinquecento anni da (...) questa disciplina, quanto a quelle più recenti, volte a rinnovare il suo rapporto con la quotidianità - le cosiddette "pratiche filosofiche". Un ventaglio di sguardi diversi tra loro, che privilegiano ora la sapienza e la logica, ora la saggezza e la cura, che hanno però in comune l'interesse a pensare le sfide della contemporaneità e le conseguenze pratiche che la filosofia è in grado di offrire a ciascuno di noi, ma anche l'idea che la filosofia non sia una mera disciplina speculativa, ma sia invece indispensabile agli uomini - a tutti gli uomini - per dar senso alla loro vita. (shrink)

First published in 1951 to coincide with the British Festival, this book explores the developments in science which had occurred since the Great Exhibition of 1851. Covering the full range of scientific development which had emerged in that time – from fundamental physics to evolution and genetics, and from geology to medical surgery – this accessible collection of essays charts with impressive comprehension and clarity the momentous changes which had occurred in the pursuit of science since the mid-nineteenth century, (...) and ably demonstrates the appropriateness of citing the twentieth century as the advent of the scientific age. A Century of Science will appeal to those interested in the history of science, those wishing to ground their knowledge of specific scientific disciplines in a broader understanding of the subject, and also to the general reader who values scientific progress and the questions it continues to raise. (shrink)

The pavilion is here understood as a mirror in which we do not find Mies, but in which we do find the answer to the puzzle of those years of unrest between the wars. Architecture is the real battleground of the spirit. It is early afternoon in July in Barcelona; the temperature is in the low eighties. There is a warm breeze blowing across the city. Standing at the base of Montjuïc, the site for the 1929 International Exposition, I am (...) surrounded by Barcelona Harley Days 2012, Europe’s biggest Harley-Davidson festival. The event has attracted more than twenty thousand Harley bikes and three hundred thousand visitors. Less than a few hundred yards from the distinctive roar of competing Harley .. (shrink)

The following paper aims to explore the plausibility of considering movement and place part of the conventionality of social life and interactions from an ethnomethodological point of view and asks whether there is a conventionality to the very distinction between actions being ‘mobile’ and/or ‘inert’—if we can speak of this as, at least in part, conventional, then we can further ask, whether this conventionality plays a part in the social construction of space and the socio-spatial order more generally. After arriving (...) at this question by looking at Giddens and Garfinkel, the paper differentiates four types of movement: drifting, circling, mobility, and circulating. The latter is then used to show how a key aspect of social order is not simply experience of being ‘enclosed’ by a boundary or division of space, but that instead, most of the time, spatial order is simply taken for granted and movement is experienced and neither ‘here’ nor ‘there’. Circulation, then, helps us to account for our ability to move within a place without necessarily having to leave it. Circulation describes the process of accomplishing the interiority of a place and the paper will claim that this is achieved by glossing over particular borders and boundaries as we traverse space. (shrink)

This article aims at accounting for the difference between human and animal from a tension between two movements: an archi-movement which defines the way of being of the world and is life itself, and an archi-event of separation of the world from itself that affects life and is the source of living beings. Animal can be characterized by the fact that, in spite of being separated from the archi-life movement, the power of this movement prevails on the archi-event. This means (...) that the animal can be defined by an intimacy with the world, to such an extent that his movements are deeply inscribed in the world. Animal relates with the world by drifting and gliding within it: its existence is exodus. On the contrary, the human relationship with the world is dominated by a separation from rather than a drift within it, to such an extent that the human’s distinguishing feature is the fact that it has no place in the world and is, in this sense, characterized by an exile from this world. (shrink)

Originally published in 1944, this book presents the case for keeping examinations as part of the British school system. Brereton suggests potential reforms and argues that examinations have positive values in 'stimulating pupils and teachers generally, and in co-ordinating the work and aims of schools that might otherwise drift far apart'. This book will be of value to anyone with an interest in the debate surrounding the changing role of examinations in British education.