This issue of Ethical Perspectives is strongly illuminated by two themes: moral impulse and critical citizenship. Of course, these themes are related – without a critical faculty, the moral impulse is not possible, and impulse, conversely, can be seen as leading toward critique. This is no vicious circle, nor mere tautology – rather, they are both moments of the truly autonomous individual, where the autonomy of the individual is not seen as isolation, but rather as an individual responsibility to and (...) within a society. Hence, a moral impulse fuelled by the individual critic is not enough; criticism must be framed within critical citizenship.Since our schizophrenic age fears for desensitivity, a fear best expressed in our age’s various flavours of political correctness, while it actively or at least tacitly posits this very desensitivity in its canonization of a purely formal ‘freedom to,’ a canonization best exhibited in the extreme examples of reality television, these intertwined themes are of extreme importance, and thus deserve close explication and discussion.I will let the pieces below provide this discussion, but permit me at least to set the table. As Michael Hauskeller so clearly argues in these pages, moral disgust is the moral impulse towards formal ethics, in the sense that it is the initial and immediate moral reaction that normatively colours our comportment with the outside world. I may know or think I know that something is wrong, or right, without giving this impulse a reason. This is not the ethical certitude of Bradley, but it is close in that both Bradley and Hauskeller would argue that the initial feeling need not be explained away, but rather deserves due respect. Moral disgust can clearly be misplaced, and clearly it can fail to withstand ethical scrutiny, but as impulse, it shakes us out of mere consciousness and moves us toward some sort of normativity. In this sense, it is always morally relevant.Lisa Bortolotti joins this discussion by arguing that no moral justification exists for reserving rights to humans. The moral impulse must be widened. At first, her approach comes across as opting for the typical agenda of preference-satisfaction utilitarianism: she wishes to extend the realm of rights in the name of safeguarding the power of reason and autonomy of individuals, who, she argues, are not always human. But then she offers something atypical in this debate: the very safeguarding of the power of reason and autonomy also applies to those who are often seen as marginal humans and thus excluded from in other strands of preference utilitarianism.Co-authors T. Brian Mooney and Samantha Minett apply the question of moral disgust to the question of life-science art, a new form of expression that merges biotechnology with the aesthetic. Like most forms of art that have emerged in recent generations, life-science art sees its task in the questioning of assumptions, which, of course, is a break from past ideas of aesthetics. Mooney and Minett turn their attention to this nascent field and ask: are there good grounds to translate our putative moral disgust at the fanciful and aesthetic use of biotechnology, such as pigs with wings and glowing rabbits? Turning first to utilitarianism and then to Thomastic virtue ethics, they argue clearly: yes, there are.Christian Arnsperger then kicks off our second related theme by posing a simple but profound question: why do English speakers refer to anti-globalism, whereas French speakers refer to alter-mondalism ? This French viewpoint would seem to call for critical global citizens who do not shirk from the increasing interconnectivity of our world, but who also do not take its current form as the inevitable development of immutable laws. Instead, such critical citizenry is called to see the current capitalist framework as an ideology, and as such, as liable to change, a change that citizens themselves can effect.Moving from theory to practice, Andrew Fiala rounds off this issue by giving us an example of critical citizenry, which he sees in just war pacifism. He argues that citizens must not capitulate to political or military authority in judging the justness of war, either regarding ad bellum judgements, or in bello actions. Moreover, seemingly just ad bellum decisions also deserve close scrutiny, largely because once the fog of war descends, in bello actions quickly eclipse justice. For this reason, he argues, a critical citizen should anticipate war crimes and thus be strongly reluctant to authorize war – an authorization that, in democratic societies, ultimately lies in the hands of the citizens themselves through the electoral process.Thus, this number quite clearly furthers the mission of Ethical Perspectives, which is to promote the international dialogue between fundamental and applied ethics. Providing articles written on three separate continents and addressing three of the most characteristic aspects of our age on top of a background well painted by their companion theoretical pieces, our authors once again invite you to take stock of where our world finds itself today. And then, to take action. (shrink)

Asserting that humanitarian intervention is a highly ambiguous principle, Pasic and Weiss warn of the dangers of politically driven rescues that often force trade-offs between the pursuit of rescue and political order.

America is at war with terrorism. Terrorists must be brought to justice.We hear these phrases together so often that we rarely pause to reflect on the dramatic differences between the demands of war and the demands of justice, differences so deep that the pursuit of one often comes at the expense of the other. In this book, one of the country's most important legal thinkers brings much-needed clarity to the still unfolding debates about how to pursue war and justice in (...) the age of terrorism. George Fletcher also draws on his rare ability to combine insights from history, philosophy, literature, and law to place these debates in a rich cultural context. He seeks to explain why Americans--for so many years cynical about war--have recently found war so appealing. He finds the answer in a revival of Romanticism, a growing desire in the post-Vietnam era to identify with grand causes and to put nations at the center of ideas about glory and guilt.Fletcher opens with unsettling questions about the nature of terrorism, war, and justice, showing how dangerously slippery the concepts can be. He argues that those sympathetic to war are heirs to the ideals of Byron, Fichte, and other Romantics in their belief that nations--not just individuals--must uphold honor and be held accountable for crimes. Fletcher writes that ideas about collective glory and guilt are far more plausible and widespread than liberal individualists typically recognize. But as he traces the implications of the Romantic mindset for debates about war crimes, treason, military tribunals, and genocide, he also shows that losing oneself in a grand cause can all too easily lead to moral catastrophe.A work of extraordinary intellectual power and relevance, the book will change how we think not only about world events, but about the conflicting individualist and collective impulses that tear at all of us. (shrink)

In recent years, scholars have identified a political formation that mobilizes the emancipatory energies of feminism in the service of the expansion of the carceral state. ‘Carceral feminism,’ as it has come to be known, is often portrayed by these scholars as a product of feminist-conservative convergence. Here, I argue that the rise of the SlutWalk movement suggests a more complex genealogy for carceral feminism. By situating SlutWalk in the historico-theoretical context of feminism’s sex wars, I reveal the carceral–feminist impulses (...) roiling beneath its progressive ‘sex-positive’ surface. With its tendency to reduce sexual freedom to expressive freedom, valorize conventional forms of femininity and sexuality, and promote a fundamentally carceral paradigm of sexual freedom, the SlutWalk movement, I argue, is descended from anti-censorship/pro-sex feminism, a liberal-feminist hybrid that emerged out of the convergence of sex-radical feminism and liberalism during the sex wars. When viewed in this light, SlutWalk no longer appears as a sign that feminism’s ‘pleasure’ and ‘danger’ factions have negotiated a long-awaited ‘sex-détente.’ Rather, it stands as a testament to the extent to which feminism’s once radical aspirations in the domain of sexual politics have been supplanted by a tepid, heteronormative, and disquietingly carceral liberal project. (shrink)

After Second World War Hans Joachim Iwand reacts upon the experiences during the time of Nazi-Germany with a conception, which deals in a new way with the questions of political ethics. In this conception Iwand criticized the bipolar and traditional pattem of »State and Church« and explores »Society« as a selfcontained and autonomaus theme for political ethics. It is remarkable to see, how lwands approach to »theologia crucis« and the notions of the term »consciene« are now transformed in an pneumaticological (...) way, that opens the ethic for a conception of public responsibility. (shrink)

This article provides a contribution to the concept of a peace ethics which understands human peacemaking as a churchly practice accepting and joining in God's reconciling works. From a pacifist stance, the author argues that ecclesial ethics allows a forceful reframing of the just war tradition as it is developed in the largely unknown Reformed confessions of the l61 h century. A theological exploration of the peace church's pathos drives the author towards a rediscovery of the church's central worshiping practices, (...) such as eucharist, as distinctively peacemaking practices. Following John Calvin's and Karl Barth's ethical account, the mode of peacemaking is defined as a hastening that waits. (shrink)

We dwell in a world of physical things. When it comes to the environments that we live in, we usually become oriented to the place, and eventually feel at home in it. Facing death during war and pandemic are times of extreme disorientation, and we sometimes exhibit an impulse to flee. It is no wonder that in those desperate times, some with means and ability consider fleeing to a safer place. But are we morally obliged to act in ways that (...) would ask us to sacrifice our deepest personal commitments and projects for others to meet their commitments and projects? It is argued here that fleeing Bosnia and Herzegovina during wartime, like what happened in the 90s, and fleeing a city during a pandemic may be morally decent actions. However, it is also an issue of political decency and fractured friendships. In cases or war and pandemic, returning home to contribute to the well-being of those they left behind may be morally and politically decent, but the fractured friendships may contribute to normative ambiguity. Why would anyone trust them again and regard them as a loyal friend? Perhaps reestablishing those trusting friendships may require those who remained behind to do what is supererogatory, i.e., doing more than can reasonably be asked of them, which in this case amounts to forgiving those who fled and giving them a second chance by welcoming them back home. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:The Origins of War: A Catholic Perspective by Matthew A. ShadleJoyce Kloc BabyakThe Origins of War: A Catholic Perspective Matthew A. Shadle Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 2011.246pp. $29.95Matthew A. Shadle’s The Origins of War, in Georgetown University Press’s Moral Traditions series, makes a genuinely fresh contribution to contemporary scholarship on Christianity and war. This is not a work on the morality of war, just war theory, or (...) alternatives to that theory. Instead, Shadle directs our attention to Christian understandings of war’s origins. Through a rich and careful analysis of the early tradition’s treatment of the origin of war in light of its overall understanding of human existence, Shadle sets the stage for his examination of the decentering of Christianity in modernity and the implication of this for assumptions about humanity and human possibilities that became encoded in both political theory and Catholic writings on war. In the process, Shadle offers us not only a primer on international theory but also an account of the transition of fundamental liberal assumptions from their beginnings as anti-Christian to their twentieth-century embrace by Catholic theologians and a thoughtful new approach to understanding the causes of war today.Making his case serially, Shadle moves from biblical and early Christian thought on the origins of war to the Middle Ages and onward. He argues that the overriding context for a Christian understanding of the origins of war is the Christian worldview that sees human life in a theological framework (25), and he locates the impulse to war in the human struggle between sin and grace (5). With modernity, however, war has come to be seen as a result not of sin but of unresolved conflicts, clashes of interest and power—all viewed in materialist rather than transcendent terms. Moving into the twentieth century, he demonstrates that Roman Catholic writings on war, including church writings, have adopted a liberal framework for articulating positions on the causes of war. This liberal framework has in turn supported the hope that international institutions will be able to resolve the conflicts of interests that lead to war by fostering dialogue across divides but at the same time have also led away from the more fundamental Christian view that sees war as the result of sin.Shadle criticizes the liberal optimism that has infused Catholic writings with the hope that international structures will succeed at preventing war. Linking [End Page 215] that optimism to dominant versions of international relations theory, he argues instead for a new version of international relations theory known as “constructivism.” This theory challenges presumptions of earlier versions of international relations theory and sees war as the result of “a clash of the identities, interests, and norms of states... all of which are socially constructed by both domestic and international factors” (86). In Shadle’s view, constructivism is a theory that is more compatible with traditional Christian views on the origin of war as well as contemporary Catholic theology because it focuses on clashes in socially constructed (though not entirely relativistic) identities and values as causes of war. Avoiding war on this view will take more than relying on international structures such as the United Nations to resolve conflicts by translating conflicting interests into terms erroneously presumed to be accessible to all.The Origins of War: A Catholic Perspective deserves serious study. From its careful account of the biblical and early Christian understanding of the origin of war to its analysis of the ways that liberal assumptions came to undergird Catholic writings on war, it sheds new light on how assumptions about the origins of war influence all aspects of our thinking about war. And it is in the end provocative. Shadle’s historicist orientation reminds us that the liberal optimism that undervalued the role of sin as a cause of war was itself tempting because of the challenges of the time and dominant political theories. Yet Shadle’s preference for constructivism is no less historically shaped. Liberalism’s fit with Catholic understanding of human existence has certainly been strained, but it remains to be seen whether a historicist, constructivist set of assumptions can do... (shrink)

In this book, contributors who are atheists, believers, and anything in between debate the origins and nature of morality and the human impulse for good.

A guiding light to America’s Founding Fathers, Hobbes created the first truly modern political philosophy. In Leviathan, one of the greatest works of political philosophy of all time, English philosopher Thomas Hobbes created the idea of a “social contract” and set out to explicate a doctrine for the foundation of states and legitimate forms of government. In On Hobbes, Alan Ryan explains how Hobbes created the secular conception of the state and politics in one of the first truly modern works (...) of political philosophy. Inverting Aristotle’s view of politics, Hobbes argued that humans organize themselves into political communities not out of any sociable impulse to pursue the good life in common, but rather out of an unsociable fear of one another and for the sake of avoiding the greatest evil of all: death. Ryan explicates how modern notions of individual rights, sovereignty, representative government, and almost all liberal political theory find their foundation in the work of Hobbes. Excerpted here are: Leviathan, The Elements of Law. (shrink)

The browser wars case is a useful springboard for considering the principle of positive competition and the proper regulation of platform technologies. There are lessons to be culled about policy, the application of antitrust law, and the parameters of fair competition. We argue that despite Microsofts opportunistic exploitation of its proprietary code, policy makers should resist the temptation to mandate an open source code model. Vigilant anti-trust enforcement is a preferable alternative. But courts must refrain from using antitrust law to (...) favor small innovators or to constrain the economic protections inherent in intellectual property rights, since those rights are still needed to encourage innovation. On the other hand, despite the exigencies of competition, platform leaders should respect the norm of fair competition and refrain from the impulse to tilt the platform in their favor. Preservation of robust intellectual property rights, deft application of antitrust statutes, and principled competition represent the best prescription for social wealth in the New Economy. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:The Origins of War: A Catholic Perspective by Matthew A. ShadleJoyce Kloc BabyakThe Origins of War: A Catholic Perspective Matthew A. Shadle Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 2011.246pp. $29.95Matthew A. Shadle’s The Origins of War, in Georgetown University Press’s Moral Traditions series, makes a genuinely fresh contribution to contemporary scholarship on Christianity and war. This is not a work on the morality of war, just war theory, or (...) alternatives to that theory. Instead, Shadle directs our attention to Christian understandings of war’s origins. Through a rich and careful analysis of the early tradition’s treatment of the origin of war in light of its overall understanding of human existence, Shadle sets the stage for his examination of the decentering of Christianity in modernity and the implication of this for assumptions about humanity and human possibilities that became encoded in both political theory and Catholic writings on war. In the process, Shadle offers us not only a primer on international theory but also an account of the transition of fundamental liberal assumptions from their beginnings as anti-Christian to their twentieth-century embrace by Catholic theologians and a thoughtful new approach to understanding the causes of war today.Making his case serially, Shadle moves from biblical and early Christian thought on the origins of war to the Middle Ages and onward. He argues that the overriding context for a Christian understanding of the origins of war is the Christian worldview that sees human life in a theological framework (25), and he locates the impulse to war in the human struggle between sin and grace (5). With modernity, however, war has come to be seen as a result not of sin but of unresolved conflicts, clashes of interest and power—all viewed in materialist rather than transcendent terms. Moving into the twentieth century, he demonstrates that Roman Catholic writings on war, including church writings, have adopted a liberal framework for articulating positions on the causes of war. This liberal framework has in turn supported the hope that international institutions will be able to resolve the conflicts of interests that lead to war by fostering dialogue across divides but at the same time have also led away from the more fundamental Christian view that sees war as the result of sin.Shadle criticizes the liberal optimism that has infused Catholic writings with the hope that international structures will succeed at preventing war. Linking [End Page 215] that optimism to dominant versions of international relations theory, he argues instead for a new version of international relations theory known as “constructivism.” This theory challenges presumptions of earlier versions of international relations theory and sees war as the result of “a clash of the identities, interests, and norms of states... all of which are socially constructed by both domestic and international factors” (86). In Shadle’s view, constructivism is a theory that is more compatible with traditional Christian views on the origin of war as well as contemporary Catholic theology because it focuses on clashes in socially constructed (though not entirely relativistic) identities and values as causes of war. Avoiding war on this view will take more than relying on international structures such as the United Nations to resolve conflicts by translating conflicting interests into terms erroneously presumed to be accessible to all.The Origins of War: A Catholic Perspective deserves serious study. From its careful account of the biblical and early Christian understanding of the origin of war to its analysis of the ways that liberal assumptions came to undergird Catholic writings on war, it sheds new light on how assumptions about the origins of war influence all aspects of our thinking about war. And it is in the end provocative. Shadle’s historicist orientation reminds us that the liberal optimism that undervalued the role of sin as a cause of war was itself tempting because of the challenges of the time and dominant political theories. Yet Shadle’s preference for constructivism is no less historically shaped. Liberalism’s fit with Catholic understanding of human existence has certainly been strained, but it remains to be seen whether a historicist, constructivist set of assumptions can do... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Buddhist-Christian Studies 20 (2000) 127-150 [Access article in PDF] They Who Burned Themselves for Peace: Quaker and Buddhist Self-Immolators during the Vietnam War Sallie B. KingJames Madison UniversityNhat Chi Mai was a lay disciple of Thich Nhat Hanh and member of the Order of Interbeing, an Engaged Buddhist order founded by Nhat Hanh. On May 16, 1967, Vesak, the celebration of the birth of the Buddha, she burned herself (...) to death outside the Tu Nghiem Temple, a nunnery. An idealistic young student with much to live for, she sacrificed herself in an effort to bring the war to an end. In a letter to the U.S. government she wrote, I offer my body as a torch to dissipate the dark to waken love among men to give peace to Vietnam the one who burns herself for peace. 1In her farewell letter to Thich Nhat Hanh she wrote, "Thay, don't worry too much. We will have peace soon." 2On November 2, 1965, Norman Morrison, a devout Quaker and ardent pacifist, drove from Baltimore to Washington and burned himself to death at the Pentagon, at a spot estimated to be 40 to 100 feet from the window of Robert S. McNamara, then Secretary of Defense and one of the chief American prosecutors of the war. Shortly before his death, he wrote to his wife, "For weeks even months I have been praying only that I be shown what I must do. This morning with no warning I was shown.... Know that I love thee but must act...." 3 Morrison took his baby daughter, Emily, along with him and held her in his arms as he prepared for his act. Somehow--accounts differ as to how it happened--she was separated from her father before the flames engulfed him and she emerged entirely unharmed, though her clothing smelled strongly of the kerosene with which Morrison had soaked himself. 4There were others who burned themselves to death during the war in Vietnam. The venerable Buddhist monk Thich Quang Duc was the first. On June 11, 1963, [End Page 127] at a downtown crossroads in Saigon, he sat in the lotus posture and, in a state of meditative control, burned himself to death in protest of the Diem regime's repression of the Buddhist religion. Many Vietnamese Buddhist monks and nuns followed his example; I do not know all their names, or exactly how many they were.In America, to my knowledge, eight people burned themselves to death during the war. Two were Quakers: Norman Morrison and Alice Herz. Roger LaPorte, a former Trappist seminarian who had become a Catholic worker, burned himself to death one week after Norman Morrison. The others were: Hiroko Hayasaki, a Japanese-American Buddhist; Erik Thoen, a student of Zen Buddhism; another university student, George Winne; a high school student, Ronald Brazee; and Florence Beaumont, described as a "housewife." A number of others attempted self-immolation but survived. 5In this paper I will focus upon the self-immolations of Norman Morrison and Nhat Chi Mai. I will also have a few comments on Thich Quang Duc. My remarks are intended, however, to have relevance to all the Buddhist and Quaker self-immolators. 6Let us now consider in more detail some of the features of the self-immolations of Norman Morrison and Nhat Chi Mai, and some of the issues they pose to the Quaker and Buddhist communities, respectively. Precipitating Events While neither act was the result of a moment's impulse, we still would do well to ask what events most proximately precipitated the two self-immolations. In Norman Morrison's case, the precipitating events were two. The morning of the day he immolated himself he read a report of the American bombing of a village in Vietnam. Paris Match had published an interview with a French priest, recuperating in a Saigon clinic, who had witnessed and survived the bombing raid. The priest said, "I have seen my faithful burned up in napalm.... I have seen... (shrink)

This book, originally entitled _Why Men Fight_, is generally seen as the fullest expression of Russell's political philosophy. Russell argues that after the experience of the Great War the individualistic approach of traditional liberalism has reached its limits. Political theory must be based on the motivated forces of creativity and impulse rather than on competition. Both are best fostered in the family, in education, and in religion - each of which Russell proceeds to discuss. The ideas expressed in _Principles of (...) Social Reconstruction_ have greatly contributed to Russell's fame as a social critic and anti-war activist. The new introduction by Richard Rempel locates them in the context of Russell's other writings and show that neither his ideas nor his language have lost their force and topicality over the years. (shrink)

" The supreme principle, both in politics and in private life, should be to promote all that is creative, and so to diminish the impulses and desires that center round possession." This book, originally entitled Why Men Fight, is generally seen as the fullest expression of Bertrand Russell's political philosophy. Russell argues that after the experience of the Great War the individualistic approach of traditional liberalism had reached its limits. Political theory must be based on the motivated forces of creativity (...) and impulse rather than on competition. The ideas expressed in Principles of Social Reconstruction have greatly contributed to Russell's fame as a social critic and anti-war activist. The introduction by Richard Rempel locates them in the context of Russell's other writings and show that neither his ideas nor his language have lost their force and topicality over the years. (shrink)

This book, originally entitled _Why Men Fight_, is generally seen as the fullest expression of Russell's political philosophy. Russell argues that after the experience of the Great War the individualistic approach of traditional liberalism has reached its limits. Political theory must be based on the motivated forces of creativity and impulse rather than on competition. Both are best fostered in the family, in education, and in religion - each of which Russell proceeds to discuss. The ideas expressed in _Principles of (...) Social Reconstruction_ have greatly contributed to Russell's fame as a social critic and anti-war activist. The new introduction by Richard Rempel locates them in the context of Russell's other writings and show that neither his ideas nor his language have lost their force and topicality over the years. (shrink)

Friedrich Nietzsche war kein Anarchist. Trotzdem weckten seine Ideen ein starkes Interesse bei Schlusselfiguren der anarchistischen Bewegung ab den 1890er-Jahren. Gustav Landauer, Emma Goldman und andere reflektierten uber die Chancen und die Gefahren, die jene Ideen fur ihre Politik enthalten. Hitzige Deutungskampfe, etwa uber den Willen zur Macht oder den Status von Frauen in Nietzsches Werken, entlockten selbst den vehementesten Kritikern wie Peter Kropotkin noch produktive Impulse zur Weiterentwicklung der eigenen Theorien. In jungerer Zeit hat sich eine neuere Stromung, der (...) "Postanarchismus", auf Nietzsche berufen, ohne allerdings die historischen Varianten des "nietzscheanischen Anarchismus" zu berucksichtigen. Dies stellt das Innovationspotenzial des Postanarchismus infrage. Das Buch nimmt eine transnationale Perspektive ein und dokumentiert erstmalig die anarchistische Rezeption Nietzsches in Deutschland, Grossbritannien und den USA innerhalb ihrer jeweiligen historischen Kontexte. (shrink)

Der Band vereinigt 20 Studien zu Nietzsche von Werner Stegmaier, der in den vergangenen drei Jahrzehnten der internationalen Nietzsche-Forschung starke Impulse gegeben und zuletzt achtzehn Jahre lang, zusammen mit Günter Abel, die Nietzsche-Studien, das international führende Organ der Nietzsche-Forschung, geleitet und die Monographien und Texte zur Nietzsche-Forschung herausgegeben hat. Die Studien handeln von Grundfragen der Philosophie Nietzsches. Sie setzen ein (I) mit seiner Neubestimmung der Wahrheit und der Philosophie und (II) seiner Verzeitlichung des Denkens unter (III) Verzicht auf, die Vernunft' (...) bei der Bestimmung des Menschen, interpretieren von hier aus (IV) die Anti-Lehren von Nietzsches Zarathustra, umreissen (V) Nietzsches Ethik für, gute Europäer' und schliessen (VI) mit der Interpretation von Nietzsches Selbsteinschätzung als Schicksal der Philosophie und der Menschheit (Ecce homo, Warum ich ein Schicksal bin 1) und einer Einschätzung von Nietzsches Zukunft, die schon seit über einem Jahrhundert begonnen hat. Werner Stegmaier, Jahrgang 1946, war Gründungsdirektor des Instituts für Philosophie der Universität Greifswald nach dem Zusammenbruch der Sowjetunion und baute das Nord- und osteuropäische Forum für Philosophie auf, das Institute für Philosophie rund um die Ostsee neu miteinander ins Gespräch brachte und dort zu philosophischen Neuorientierungen beitrug. Er hat auf vielfältigen Gebieten gearbeitet, unter anderem zur Metaphysik und ihrem Grundbegriff der Substanz, zu grossen Philosophen von der Antike bis zur Gegenwart, zur philosophischen Aktualität der jüdischen Tradition, vor allem aber zur Philosophie Nietzsches. Dabei ging es ihm stets um Fragen der Ersten Philosophie, insbesondere die, was unsere Realität ausmacht, wie sie durch Zeichen und Kommunikation vermittelt wird, wie Begriffe in der Zeit existieren und womit man es beim Denken zu tun hat. Er führte den Begriff der Orientierung als elementaren Begriff der Philosophie ein und entwickelte eine umfassende Philosophie der Orientierung."--Publisher's website. (shrink)

As historian Henning Schmidgen notes, the scientific study of the nervous system would have been “unthinkable” without the industrialization of communication in the 1830s. Historians have investigated extensively the way nerve physiologists have borrowed concepts and tools from the field of communications, particularly regarding the nineteenth-century work of figures like Helmholtz and in the American Cold War Era. The following focuses specifically on the interwar research of the Cambridge physiologist Edgar Douglas Adrian, and on the technology that led to his (...) Nobel-Prize-winning research, the thermionic vacuum tube. Many countries used the vacuum tube during the war for the purpose of amplifying and intercepting coded messages. These events provided a context for Adrian's evolving understanding of the nerve fiber in the 1920s. In particular, they provide the background for Adrian's transition around 1926 to describing the nerve impulse in terms of “information,” “messages,” “signals,” or even “codes,” and for translating the basic principles of the nerve, such as the all-or-none principle and adaptation, into such an “informational” context. The following also places Adrian's research in the broader context of the changing relationship between science and technology, and between physics and physiology, in the first few decades of the twentieth century. (shrink)

Two of the principal roles or positions in the aesthetic/artistic situation are those of artist and aesthete. The former is obviously primarily a creative role, while the latter is obviously primarily an appreciative role. And these roles, as we know, are also interdependent: aesthetes would have little, or at any rate less, to appreciate without artists, while artists would have little, or at any rate less, creative motivation without appreciators, with aesthetes as the most important vanguard therein. But what, more (...) significantly, differentiates artist and aesthete? Do the basic impulses of the two tribes coincide, or are they rather in conflict? Is being an artist fully compatible with being an aesthete, or might there be a fundamental tension between those identities? Are the same talents, inclinations, and attitudes essential to being a successful artist those which make for a successful aesthete, or are they at some level at war with one another? These are some of the questions that are explored in this article. (shrink)

Der in Leipzig lehrende Philosoph und Theologe Christian August Crusius (1715-1775) ist bisher vorwiegend im Rahmen der Kant-Forschung berücksichtigt worden. Dabei war Crusius einer der ersten ernstzunehmenden Kritiker der Philosophie von Christian Wolff, der entscheidende Impulse von Christian Thomasius aufgriff, philosophisch vertiefte und bis in die zweite Hälfte des 18. Jahrhunderts wirkungsvoll tradierte. Der Sammelband nimmt die unterschiedlichen Aspekte des philosophischen und theologischen Schaffens von Crusius in den Blick und rekonstruiert die eigenständige Kontur eines Denkers, der einerseits auf allen Gebieten (...) der Philosophie tätig war und andererseits nach seiner Berufung zum Professor der Theologie ausschließlich an seinem theologischen OEuvre arbeitete. Auf der damit greifbaren Spannung zwischen Philosophie und Theologie liegt ein Hauptaugenmerk des interdisziplinären Sammelbandes. (shrink)

The article focuses on Kurt Vonnegut’s lesser-known and underappreciated 1987 novel Bluebeard, which is analyzed and interpreted in the light of Marianne Hirsch’s seminal theory of postmemory. Even though it was published prior to Hirsch’s formulation of the concept, Vonnegut’s novel intuitively anticipates it, problematizing the implications of inherited, second-hand memory. To further complicate matters, Rabo Karabekian, the protagonist-narrator of Bluebeard, a World War II veteran, amalgamates his direct, painful memories with those of his parents, survivors of the Armenian Genocide. (...) Both the novel and the theory applied to it centre on the problematics of historical and personal trauma, engendered by two genocides which are often the object of comparative analyses: the Armenian Genocide, also referred to as the Armenian Holocaust, and the Jewish Holocaust. The latter is central to Hirsch’s interdisciplinary work in the field of memory studies, encompassing literature, the visual arts and gender studies. In Bluebeard, Vonnegut holds to account a humanity responsible for the atrocities of twentieth-century history: two world wars and two genocides for which they respectively established the context. The article examines the American writer’s reflection on death and violence, man’s destructive impulse and annihilation. In a world overshadowed by memories of mass extermination, Vonnegut interrogates the possibility of a new beginning, pointing to women as agents of renewal and sociopolitical change. He also identifies the role that art plays in the process of potential reconstruction, the story of Karabekian, a failed artist and highly successful art collector, being a Künstlerroman with a feminist edge. (shrink)

In der Geschichtsschreibung der Philosophie und in der Tradition der Platon-Interpretation wird die eminente Rolle dieses Philosophen verstanden als eines der wichtigsten Phänomene einer Neuorientierung, als Ablösung von der vorsokratischen Denktradition. Diese Einschätzungen gehen wie selbstverständlich davon aus, dass sich der Innovationsschub allein aus der intellektuellen Leistung Platons erklärt, denn angeblich hatte er keine Vorbilder. Bei genauerer Betrachtung stellt sich allerdings heraus, dass Platon selbst eingebunden war in intellektuelle Strömungen mit Langzeittradition, die in die Ära der klassisch-griechischen Antike nachwirkten, sein (...) näheres Umfeld prägten und ihm wichtige Impulse für seine Orientierung vermittelten. Verbindungsstränge zwischen diesen Wirkungsströmen und vorgriechischen Kulturschichten sind in den letzten Jahren verstärkt erforscht worden. Die vorliegende Studie macht sich zur Aufgabe, die Einwirkung von Frauen - als Garanten traditionsorientierter Erfahrungswerte und Erziehungsideale - und von weiblichen Gestalten der griechischen Mythologie als Impulsgeber für Platons philosophisches Lehrgebäude auszuleuchten. Die feministische Forschung hat den Frauen im kreativen Schaffen Platons bisher lediglich Nischenplätze eingeräumt. In wichtigen Etappen für die Strukturierung von Platons Ideenwelt zeigt sich die Einflussnahme von Frauen mit hohem Bildungsniveau, wie der Philosophin Periktione, Platons Mutter, der Seherin Diotima, die Sokrates - Platons Protagonisten in vielen seiner Dialoge - zur Umstellung des philosophischen Diskurses auf die Dialogform motiviert, sowie auch von Themistokleia, der Orakelpriesterin von Delphi, deren Wirken über die Vermittlung von Pythagoras zum Tragen kommt. Diese Interaktion Platons mit weiblicher Intellektualität gilt es, im Kontext zu erschliessen und in ihrer Gesamtwirkung zu würdigen. Ohne die Aktivierung weiblicher Inspirationsquellen wäre Platons philosophisches Projekt Stückwerk geblieben. (shrink)

These essays are about education, learning, rational inquiry, philosophy, science studies, problem solving, academic inquiry, global problems, wisdom and, above all, the urgent need for an academic revolution. Despite this range and diversity of topics, there is a common underlying theme. Education ought to be devoted, much more than it is, to the exploration real-life, open problems; it ought not to be restricted to learning up solutions to already solved problems - especially if nothing is said about the problems that (...) provoked the solutions in the first place. There should be much more emphasis on learning how to engage in cooperatively rational exploration of problems: even five year olds could begin to learn how to do this. A central task of philosophy ought to be to keep alive awareness of our unsolved fundamental problems - especially our most fundamental problem of all, encompassing all others: How can our human world - and the world of sentient life more generally - imbued with the experiential, consciousness, free will, meaning and value, exist and best flourish embedded as it is in the physical universe? This is both our fundamental intellectual problem and our fundamental problem of living. As far as the latter is concerned, we are at present heading towards disaster - as our immense, unsolved global problems tell us: population growth, destruction of natural habitats and rapid extinction of species, vast inequalities of wealth and power around the world, pollution of earth, sea and air, our proclivity for war, and above all global warming. If we are to resolve our conflicts and global problems more intelligently, effectively and humanely than we have managed to do so far, then we have to learn how to do it. That, in turn, requires that our institutions of learning, our universities and schools, are rationally designed and devoted to the task. At present they are not. That is the crisis behind all the others. From the past we have inherited the idea that the basic intellectual aim of inquiry ought to be to acquire knowledge. First, knowledge is to be acquired; then, secondarily, it can be applied to help solve social problems. But this is dangerously and damagingly irrational, and it is this irrationality that is, in part, responsible for the genesis of our current global problems, and our current incapacity to solve them. As a matter of supreme urgency, we need to transform academia so that it becomes rationally devoted to helping humanity learn how to make progress towards as good and wise a world as possible. This would involve putting problems of living - including global problems - at the heart of academia, problems of knowledge and technological know-how emerging out of, and feeding back into, the central task to help people tackle problems of living in increasingly cooperatively rational ways. Almost every department and aspect of academia needs to change. We need a new kind of academic inquiry devoted, not just to knowledge, but rather to wisdom - wisdom being the capacity to realize what is of value in life for oneself and others, wisdom including knowledge and technological know-how, but much else besides. So, this is what these essays seek to provoke: a concerted effort to transform our institutions of learning so that they become rationally and effectively devoted to helping us learn how to create a wiser world. With these essays before me, I can see that there is one crucial element of learning about which they say nothing - or nothing explicit. The vital role of play in learning. All mammals - or at any rate almost all mammals - learn by means of play. Cats, tigers, foxes and other predators learn to hunt by means of endless mock fights when kittens and cubs. Deer, sheep and antelope learn to escape by means of playful leaps and bounds when young. We are mammals too. Almost certainly, we learnt how to be adult human beings by means of play during the millions of years we evolved into homo sapiens living in hunting and gathering tribes. Children today, out of school, learn by means of play. Learning by means of play is almost certainly fundamental to our makeup. Education needs to exploit it. Schools and universities need to become places of play. Successful problem solving is often likely to be playful in character. The youthful Einstein called doing physics "getting up to mischief". But our most serious problems of living are so grim, so imbued with suffering, wasted lives and unnecessary death that the idea of approaching them in a playful spirit seems sacrilegious. We need to keep alive tackling of intellectual problems so that playful capacities can be exercised - if for no other reason (and other reasons there are, of course, aplenty). There are two really worthy impulses behind all rational inquiry: delight and compassion. (shrink)

El papel de filosofía y humanidades en forjar un “ideal de humanidad” se refiere no sólo a las difíciles relaciones que éstas tradicionalmente han tenido con los poderes mundanos, sino, sobre todo, a su papel protagónico como guías de un ideal de humanidad y valores espirituales en tiempos de crisis. Kant defendió el papel de los ideales racionales de la “facultad de filosofía” a fines del s. XVIII, ante la teología, el derecho y la medicina. La reflexión de Fichte cuando (...) la nación alemana luchaba por su existencia luego de su derrota por los ejércitos napoleónicos a inicios del s. XIX, da un impulso decisivo a los valores del idealismo alemán. Un siglo después, ante la misma nación alemana, nuevamente derrotada en la primera guerra mundial y sin hallar respuestas a su aflicción en las ciencias exactas ni en su cultura determinada por la técnica, Husserl ve en “el ideal de Humanidad de Fichte” la respuesta a aquello que puede darle su ultima satisfacción: la producción teleológica de un mundo humano, en el que pueda realizarse un orden mundial moral, único fin, fundamento y valor absoluto de la humanidad. Hoy nos hallamos en otro momento de peligro: no sólo el del positivismo naturalista desplazando desde el s. XIX a la formación humanística. El mayor de los peligros es ahora la alianza de ese naturalismo con el mundo globalizado del presente, bajo el imperio de la estan-darización burocrática y corporativa al servicio de la producción desenfrenada de dinero.The role of philosophy and the human sciences in forging an “ideal of humanity” concerns not only the tensions that they traditionally have had with worldly powers. It mostly deals with their primal role as guides of an ideal of humanity and spiritual values in times of crisis. Kant defended the central role of the “Faculty of Philosophy”’s rational ideals by the end of the 18th century, as opposed to Theology, Jurisprudence and Medicine. Fichte’s reflection when the German nation was fighting for its survival after its defeat by the Napoleonic armies at the beginning of the 19th century, gives a decisive impulse to the values brandished by German Idealism. A century later, facing the same German nation newly defeated at World War I, and without any answers to its affliction either in exact sciences nor in its culture determined by technology, Husserl finds in “Fichte’s Ideal of Humanity“ the answer to that which can give it its lasting satisfaction: the teleological production of a human world, in which a world moral order may arise, as humanity’s sole goal, foundation, and absolute value. Today we find ourselves in another moment of danger: not only that of a naturalistic positivism displacing a humanistic education. The greatest of all dangers is currently the alliance of this naturalism with the Golden calf installed in the globalized world of today, under the empire of the bureaucratic and corporative standardization at the service of the frenzied production of money. (shrink)

Also published under the title of _Principals of Social Reconstruction_, and written in response to the devastation of World War I, _Why Men Fight_ lays out Bertrand Russell's ideas on war, pacifism, reason, impulse, and personal liberty. He argues that the individualistic approach of traditional liberalism has reached its limits and that when individuals live passionately, they will have no desire for war or killing. Conversely, excessive restraint or reason causes us to live unnaturally and with hostility toward those who (...) are unlike ourselves. This formidable work greatly contributed to Russell’s fame as a formidable social critic and anti-war activist. (shrink)

A common perception of Spinoza casts him as one of the precursors, perhaps even founders, of modern humanism and Enlightenment thought. Given that in the twentieth century, humanism was commonly associated with the ideology of secularism and the politics of liberal democracies, and that Spinoza has been taken as voicing a “message of secularity” and as having provided “the psychology and ethics of a democratic soul” and “the decisive impulse to… modern republicanism which takes it bearings by the dignity of (...) every man,” it is easy to understand how this humanistic image developed. Spinoza’s deep interest in, and extensive discussion of, human nature may have contributed to the emergence of this image as well. In this paper, I will argue that this common perception of Spinoza is mistaken and that Spinoza was in fact the most radical anti-humanist among modern philosophers. Arguably, Spinoza rejects any notion of human dignity. He conceives of God’s - and not man’s - point of view as the only objective perspective through which one can know things adequately, and it is at least highly questionable whether he allows for any genuine notions of human autonomy or morality. The notions of ‘humanism’ and ‘anti-humanism’ have been discussed extensively -mainly among continental philosophers - since the end of World War II. Because these notions carry a variety of historical, ideological, and philosophical meanings, it is important to provide at the outset at least a rudimentary clarification of my use of these two terms. By ‘humanism’ I mean a view which (1) assigns a unique value to human beings among other things in nature, (2) stresses the primacy of the human perspective in understanding the nature of things, and (3) attempts to point out an essential property of humanity which justifies its elevated and unique status. This definition of philosophical humanism has only little in common with the historical notion of Renaissance humanism, and seems to match quite well the common understanding of philosophical humanism suggested by current philosophical dictionaries and encyclopedias. This notion of humanism should be understood in contrast to two competing positions. On the one hand, in contrast to the theocentric position that considers humanity to be radically dependent upon God, humanism affirms at least some degree of human independence. On the other hand, in contrast to the naturalist position which endorses the scientific examination of human beings just like any other objects in nature, humanists affirm the existence of a metaphysical and moral gulf between humanity and nature. This gulf assigns a special value to humanity and does not allow us to treat human beings like any other things in nature. For many humanists the nature/humanity gulf does not allow the application of the methods of natural sciences to the disciplines of the humanities. Humanism does not begin with modernity. In order to see how far back we can trace this position, we may recall Protagoras’ saying: “Man is the measure of all things, of things that are, that they are, and of things that are not, that they are not.” In modern philosophy, the humanistic position had regained dominant status since the Renaissance, and variants of this position were vigorously argued for by prominent thinkers such as Pico della Mirandola, Descartes, Leibniz, Kant, Fichte, and finally, Hegel. In this paper, I will argue that Spinoza was a foe, and not a friend, of this tradition. I suggest that, in contrast to these humanist philosophers, Spinoza considers man as a marginal and limited being in nature, a being whose claims and presumptions far exceed its abilities. “To what length will the folly of the multitude not carry them?.... [T]hey imagine Nature to be so limited that they believe man to be his chief part.” Arguably, Spinoza locates the origin of our most fundamental metaphysical and ethical errors in a human hubris which not only tries to secure humanity an exceptional place in nature but also attempts to cast both God and nature in its own human image. (shrink)

The ancient theme of the metaphysical-theological extremes of being-human is revisited by asking about the condition for the readiness to engage in the form of violence which is nuclear war. Sartre’s analysis of the extreme form of anger which crosses a threshold resulting in a self-legitimating righteous indignation which admits of no superior mollifying standpoint is appropriated to account for the complacency with the institution of nuclear weapons. The god-like anti-God characteristics of extreme rage are put on ice but ready (...) to be thawed quickly in the three-quarter of a century old disposition to destroy the world in which all life that we know is lived. The parallels with the myth of Lucifer invite themselves. This raises the question of what there is in being-human which is the condition for the possibility of such Luciferian impulses. Features of being human explicated by Husserlian transcendental phenomenology serve as lures to the unique form of pride that here is called Luciferian. Here it is argued that these features can also be lures to a sense of pride, analogous to the ancient magnanimitas, as developed by Aquinas. (shrink)

Viele Unternehmen engagieren sich heute gesellschaftlich und übernehmen Verantwortung. Ein sinnvoller Schritt, denn so leisten sie einen Beitrag zur gesamtwirtschaftlichen Nachhaltigkeit, prägen ihr Image und generieren dabei gezielt Wettbewerbsvorteile. Ein wichtiger Schlüssel zum Erfolg liegt dabei in der Kommunikation. "Tue Gutes und sprich darüber" - es geht um die Kommunikation mit allen relevanten Dialoggruppen. Dieses Buch liefert einen fundierten, praxisbezogenen Überblick über die Kommunikationsinstrumente und -möglichkeiten sowie den Planungsprozess. Es ist ein Ideenkatalog und vermittelt zugleich auch das wissenschaftliche Hintergrundwissen. 16 (...) Praxisbeitrage aus verschiedenen Branchen zeigen wie die CSR-Kommunikation wirksam angewendet wird. Letztendlich soll es den Menschen, die sich mit CSR beschäftigen - ob auf Unternehmes-oder Beraterseite, ob als Newcomer oder als Experte - Orientierung, Impulse und Handlungsempfehlungen für die tägliche Praxis geben. Der Inhalt Grundlagen einer wirkungsvollen CSR-Kommunikation CSR als integrierter Bestandteil des Markenmanagements "Der ehrbare Kaufmann" als Strategie für die Zukunft Der Stakeholderansatz als Fundament der CSR-Kommunikation Strategien und Instrumente der CSR-Kommunikation CSR-Kommunikation in der Praxis Die Zielgruppen CSR- und Kommunikationsverantwortliche in Unternehmen, Institutionen und Verbänden Inhaber und Geschäftsführer von kleinen und mittelständischen Unternehmen Kommunikationsmanager in Agenturen und Berater CSR-Experten und -Newcomer Der Herausgeber Peter Heinrich ist geschäftsführender Gesellschafter von HEINRICH - Agentur für Kommunikation in Ingolstadt. Seit über zehn Jahren berät und begleitet der Kommunikationsfachmann und CSR-Experte mittelständische und grosse Unternehmen in Fragen der Public-Relations und CSR. Zuvor war der studierte Betriebswirt 20 Jahre als Geschäftsführer in einem mittelständischen, marktführenden Unternehmen mit über 500 Mitarbeitern tätig. Die Reihe "In der CSR-Managementreihe werden bestehende Ansätze durch neue Ideen und Konzepte ergänzt, um so dem Paradigma eines nachhaltigen Managements gerecht zu werden. Damit soll ein neuer Standard in der unternehmerischen Praxis sowie Managementliteratur gesetzt werden." (René Schmidpeter). (shrink)

Nothing is more definitive of war than its relationship with peace. But what is peace? This paper investigates the problematic nature of peace in the philosophical discourse on war, by investigating two key strands of thinking. Firstly, Hobbes and Foucault see peace as the place where the impulses that give rise to war can be re-directed and even satisfied, often in disguise. Another strand, in Kant and Levinas, different but not fully separable from the first, sees peace as what lies (...) beyond war, though war must be endured in order to reach it. These different accounts present war and peace not as binary opposites, nor even as fully distinguishable from one another. Instead, they are shown to be mutually dependant and entangled with one another. The paper ends with a brief analysis of the January 6, 2021 insurrection in the United States, in order to illustrate this complex entanglement between war and peace and reveal the obscure, even hallucinatory nature of the concept of peace. (shrink)

We use Homer and Sun Tzu as a background to better understand and reformulate confrontation, anger and violence in medicine, contrasting an unproductive ‘love of war’ with a productive ‘art of war’ or ‘art of strategy’. At first glance, it is a paradox that the healing art is not pacific, but riddled with militaristic language and practices. On closer inspection, we find good reasons for this cultural paradox yet regret its presence. Drawing on insights from Homer's The Iliad and The (...) Odyssey, we argue for better understanding of confrontation, anger, bullying, intimidation and violence in medicine in order to change the culture. For example, equating medicine with war is not a given condition of medicine but a convenient metaphor with historical origins and a historical trajectory. Other, non-martial metaphors, such as medicine as collaboration, may be more appropriate in an age of team-based care. Taking lessons from Homer, we suggest three key ways in which cold-hearted confrontation and anger in medicine can be transformed into productive, warm-hearted engagement: the transformation of angry impulse into reflection, moral courage and empathy. Thinking with Homer can offer an aesthetically and morally charged alternative to the current body of literature on topics, such as anger in doctors, and how this may be ‘managed’, without recourse to an instrumental economy where emotions are viewed as commodities, and emotional responses can be ‘trained’ through communication skills courses. (shrink)

In comparison with the buoyantly optimistic 1960s, the 1970s are often characterized as a pessimistic decade. The great hopes and ambitious ideas envisioned by the 1960s generation were replaced by a sense of doom and disappointment in modern society, with its unequal distribution of resources, environmental problems, and the threat of nuclear war.1 Among political radicals, the spontaneous movements of the 1960s grew into more organized and dogmatic forms of leftist political activity. However, as Blake Slonecker has argued, a utopian (...) impulse, reaching from the late 1960s to the communal living experiments of the 1970s, can be traced in the American counterculture movement.2 Many of the experiments of the 1960s... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:_Russell_ journal (home office): E:CPBRRUSSJOURTYPE2402\INDEXISS.242 : 2005-05-19 13:34
ibliographies, rchival nventories, ndexes INDEX TO RUSSELL’S THE IMPACT OF SCIENCE ON SOCIETY R H Summerfields, The Glade Escrick, York  , .. @.. he edition of the richly allusioned The Impact of Science on Society Tindexed here is that of George Allen and Unwin, published in London in . The pagination of Simon and Schuster’s edition (New York, ) is (...) different and spans pages – instead of the first British edition’s –. The very first edition of the book (New York: Columbia U. P., ) contained two paragraphs comparing Catholicism and Communism that were overlooked for the British and all subsequent editions. Russell regarded them as important, and Sir Stanley Unwin wrote him that they would be incorporated in the next printing. The next printing was not until , and the paragraphs were again overlooked. They belong just before the paragraph on page  beginning “Every fanatical creed” in Chapter , “Science and Values”. These paragraphs are not indexed.—Ed. I meet many people who think that the evils of Communism can be combated by Catholicism. This seems to me a dangerous error. What are the evils of Communism as it has developed? First, adherence to a rigid and static system of doctrine, of which part is doubtful and part demonstrably false. Second, persecution as a means of enforcing orthodoxy. Third, a belief that salvation is only to be found within the Church and that the True Faith must be spread throughout the world, by force if necessary. (These are the beliefs of Communists.) Fourth, that the priesthood, which alone has the right to interpret the Scriptures, has enormous power, physical east of the Iron Curtain and spiritual over the faithful in partibus. Fifth, that this power is used to secure an undue share of wealth for the priesthood at the expense of the rest of the population. Sixth, that bigotry, and the hostility that it engenders, is a potent source of war. Every one of these evils was exhibited by the Catholic Church when it had power and would probably be exhibited again if it recovered the position it had in the Middle Ages. It is therefore irrational to suppose that much would be gained if, in the defeat of Communism, Catholicism were enthroned in its place. (Pp. –) russell: the Journal of Bertrand Russell Studies n.s.  (winter –): – The Bertrand Russell Research Centre, McMaster U.  - _Russell_ journal (home office): E:CPBRRUSSJOURTYPE2402\INDEXISS.242 : 2005-05-19 13:34    Abraham  absolute monarchy  Adler, Alfred  adventure, impulse to ,  vs. rashness  aeroplanes  Africa cotton market  North, and Romans  age, average, in West – agriculture effects of  in history of man  integration into larger economy – wasteful of natural resources – see also soil conservation air power and governments  Alexander the Great and superstition  ambassadors, independence of  America see United States anaesthetics  anarchy  Anaxagoras ,  animals, and man  anthropology  apathy  Arab-Israeli conflict – Arabian Nights slaves of lamp in  Arabs and scientific technique  Archimedes , ,  Argentina agriculture  Arians  Aristotle  and causation – movement of heavenly bodies  armed forces and civil authorities  international, as concentration of power ,  perceptions of own/other nations’  in Russia –,  artillery  arts: authors and artists independence of –, –,  ascetic mentality  Asia: population and prosperity  astrology – astronomers Greek  prospects for life on earth  astronomical events indicating disaster  Atlantic Pact  atom bomb , , ,  atomic energy –, ,  Attica, history  Attlee, Clement  Augustine, Saint scientific argument against astrology – Auschwitz  Australia aborigines ,  agriculture  federal government  Austria: war with Prussia  Authority and the Individual (BR)  authority vs. observation –,  autonomy of physical world , – Aztecs and cannibalism  and infanticide  Babylonians and eclipses  Bacon, Francis and witchcraft  bacteriological war  Baltic–White Sea canal  barbarians, and late Roman Empire ,  Barbarossa (Frederick I)  , independence of  Bede, the Venerable on comets  belief(s) on basis of authority, as unscientific – science as determinant  in superstition  uncivilized peoples  benefits of scientific technique – _Russell_ journal (home office): E:CPBRRUSSJOURTYPE2402\INDEXISS.242 : 2005-05-19 13:34 Index to Impact of Science on Society  Bentham , ,  Bergson, Henri  Bible, false statements in  see also individual books of biological conditions of stability (of society) –, – biology technique(s) from – birth control and population , , – birth rate, low ,  Black Death , – Blimps, Col., Romans as  breeding, scientific – Bright, John  Britain, happiness in  British Empire... 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This article presents a new measure for intimate partner violence, the Gendered Violence in Partnerships Scale. The scale was developed in the Middle East with the aim to contribute to the global perspective on IPV by providing a contextual assessment tool for partner violence against women in violent-torn settings embedded in a patriarchal social structure. In an effort to generate a scale including IPV items relevant to the women of the population, a pragmatic step-wise procedure, with focus group discussions and (...) expert panels, was performed. The study’s analyses resulted in an 18-item checklist featuring four subscales of the GVPS that are based on a new typology of male-to-female partner violence presenting an alternative to the commonly used classification by type of abuse. Therein, dominating behaviors, existential threats, impulsive aggression, and aggravated physical assault were identified as reflective of the lived realities of women in the war-torn Middle East, which was confirmed in factor analysis. The scale’s psychometric properties were assessed with data from 1,009 displaced women in Iraq, and associations with measures of psychopathology were determined. Implications for IPV assessment and prevention possibilities in humanitarian contexts and beyond are discussed. (shrink)

From the late nineteenth to twentieth century, the Bhagavad-Gītā became a transnational text influenced and molded by British colonialism and Orientalism. In this article, I argue that a particularly influential western figure, Peter Brook, adapted and represented the Gītā for a transnational audience in ways that expanded a neocolonial and Orientalist interpretive horizon for its contemporary reception. This essay examines how Brook’s particular approach to and universalist representation of the Gītā reveal an important decolonial paradox: the extension of colonial relations (...) into artistic and scholarly exchanges when attempting to enhance a text’s cross-cultural intelligibility. I advance this argument by critically exploring Brook’s universalist claims and ethical reflections on war, showing how his neocolonial vision of order—along with his impulse for control and speedy consumption of “performance capital”—ultimately undercut his universalizing aspirations. Finally, this examination elucidates a positive strategy for addressing the decolonial paradox in a contemporary Indian setting. (shrink)

Originating as a proponent of U.S. exceptionalism during the Cold War, American Studies has now reinvented itself, vigorously critiquing various kinds of critical hegemony and launching innovative interdisciplinary endeavors. _The Futures of American Studies_ considers the field today and provides important deliberations on what it might yet become. Essays by both prominent and emerging scholars provide theoretically engaging analyses of the postnational impulse of current scholarship, the field's historical relationship to social movements, the status of theory, the state of higher (...) education in the United States, and the impact of ethnic and gender studies on area studies. They also investigate the influence of poststructuralism, postcolonial studies, sexuality studies, and cultural studies on U.S. nationalist—and antinationalist—discourses. No single overriding paradigm dominates the anthology. Instead, the articles enter into a lively and challenging dialogue with one another. A major assessment of the state of the field, _The Futures of American Studies_ is necessary reading for American Studies scholars. _Contributors._ Lindon Barrett, Nancy Bentley, Gillian Brown, Russ Castronovo, Eric Cheyfitz, Michael Denning, Winfried Fluck, Carl Gutierrez-Jones, Dana Heller, Amy Kaplan, Paul Lauter, Günter H. Lenz, George Lipsitz, Lisa Lowe, Walter Benn Michaels, José Estaban Muñoz, Dana D. Nelson, Ricardo L. Ortiz, Janice Radway, John Carlos Rowe, William V. Spanos. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Friends and Other Strangers: Studies in Religion, Ethics, and Culture by Richard B. MillerBill BarbieriFriends and Other Strangers: Studies in Religion, Ethics, and Culture Richard B. Miller new york: columbia university press, 2016. 416 pp. $60.00In his studies on casuistry, war and peace, pediatric ethics, and other occasional topics Richard B. Miller has for some time been a leading source of creative impulses in the field of religious (...) ethics, so it is a welcome event to have this volume organizing past essays of his into a thematically cohesive presentation. His book sets out a vision of the character and concerns of religious ethics that helps counter critics, such as Stanley Hauerwas, who have expressed skepticism about the field.The governing conception of Friends and Other Strangers is that the study of religious ethics is properly shaped by attending to how "our lives ineluctably oscillate between experiences of intimacy and otherness" (5). Accordingly, Miller seeks to guide the field beyond either a one-sided focus on matters of friendship and special relations or a preoccupation with alterity and heterology. To grasp how the dialectic of intimacy and alterity shapes the normative character of personal and public life, he recommends religious ethicists should employ "the category of culture as an organizing rubric" (6).In the book's initial section Miller elaborates on his view of the enterprise of religious ethics and its place in the broader intellectual landscape. In a discussion drawing on Ludwig Wittgenstein, Stanley Cavell, and James Gustafson, Miller first offers his account of the characteristic concerns and history of the field. He then presents the case for a "cultural turn" in religious ethics, arguing not only that practitioners would benefit from incorporating anthropology and cultural studies into their work but that they should extend their ambit to normative questions throughout the academy. Responding to the problems of ethnocentrism and the moral authority of outsiders in criticizing cultural practices, Miller rounds out the section by proposing constructive norms for nonchauvinistic social criticism in multicultural contexts.Among the remaining essays are several that showcase Miller's appreciation of Augustine as a principal source of ethical insight. In a chapter scrutinizing the case for replacing disembodied patterns of moral reasoning with an "ethics of empathy," he proposes that Augustine's ethics of love can sharpen our grasp of both the possibilities and pitfalls of empathy as a moral value. Writing on friendship and evil, Miller invokes the Augustinian "theocentric imaginary" as a guide to how intimacy and alterity are balanced in friendship. And taking [End Page 194] up the ethics and social psychology of war, he presents Augustine's writings on the morality of killing as a source for just war standards that can be applied in cross-cultural normative criticism. That Augustine's seminal reflections on time and memory do not appear in a further chapter on "the moral and political burdens of memory" is a slight disappointment, no doubt attributable to the chapter's origins as a review essay.Other topics tellingly subjected to Miller's characteristically nuanced and sharp analysis include indignation and solidarity, responsibilities to children, and democracy and public reason. A bonus chapter collects six lengthy reviews of recent books—five on topics related to Islam—touted by Miller as exemplary in their embodiment of a cultural turn in religious ethics.Given its endorsement of a "cultural turn" in ethics, the book would have benefited from deeper reflection on discrete meanings of "culture," "cultures," and their various cognates. In addition, the individual chapters, originating in diverse settings, are not all equally well integrated into the book's governing themes. Overall, however, Miller's book amply succeeds in its Geertzian task of presenting both a model of and a model for the field of religious ethics. A fine distillation of the thought of a leading figure in the guild, it is essential reading for serious students of ethics.Bill BarbieriCatholic UniversityCopyright © 2018 Society of Christian Ethics... (shrink)

Many of Hannah Arendt's readers argue that differences between her earlier and later work on judgment are significant enough to constitute an actual break or rupture. Of Arendt's completed works, the 'Postscriptum' to Thinking , the first volume of The Life of the Mind , and her Lectures on Kant's Political Philosophy are widely considered to be her definitive remarks on judgment. These texts are privileged for two primary reasons. First, they were written after Arendt's controversial text, Eichmann in Jerusalem (...) . It was Arendt's recognition of the role that Eichmann's inability to think played in his war crimes which motivated her to analyse more fully not only the 'mental activity' of thinking, but those of willing, and judging as well. Second, in The Life of the Mind and the Kant Lectures , Arendt treats judgment as a distinct mental activity; in her earlier work judgment is connected to both politics and thought. In this essay I argue that while Arendt does indeed reformulate her notion of judgment, she does not depoliticize it. I begin by calling into question Ronald Beiner's claim that Arendt's later work on judgment can stand in for the unwritten third volume of The Life of the Mind . I then consider two more specific claims, the first of which is that judgment is relevant only in 'rare' times of 'crisis'. I argue that a crisis as Arendt understands it is not necessarily and merely a 'rare' and short-lived phenomenon. The effects of what Arendt refers to as 'dark times' are long-term and pervasive and, moreover, the function of making judgments within such an expanded context is politically germane. Second, I problematize the idea that conceiving of judgment as a distinct mental faculty necessarily disconnects it from politics. I examine the nature of Arendt's relationship to Kant and argue that she appropriates and reconceptualizes his work in such a way that judgment, while a distinct faculty, nonetheless retains its political relevance. I conclude by suggesting that the impulse to systematize Arendt's unsystematic treatment of judgment ought to be resisted. (shrink)

Die Syntax als die Disziplin der Linguistik, die den Satzbau zum Gegenstand hat, ist heute in eine Vielfalt einzelner Schulen zerfallen, die sich oft radikal in ihren Zielen und Methoden unterscheiden. Diese Schulenvielfalt ist z.T. darauf zurückzuführen, daß traditionelle, strukturalistische und dependenzgrammatische Ansätze den in den sechziger Jahren einsetzenden Siegeszug der Generativen Grammatik überlebt haben, unter anderem, weil sie sich bei der Erstellung von nicht rein theoretisch orientierten Sprachbeschreibungen als handlicher erwiesen. Aber auch die interne Entwicklung der Generativen Grammatik trug (...) zur Schulenvermehrung bei, insbesondere die schon früh beginnende Propagierung von Modellen, die sich mehr oder weniger weit von dem an den Arbeiten Chomskys orientierten Standard-Modell entfernten. Hinzu kamen neue Schulen, die sich durch Methoden und Ergebnisse der Logik, der Pragmatik oder der Universalienforschung inspirieren ließen und denen gemeinsam ist, daß sie dem generativen Ideal einer autonomen Syntax die Forderung nach einer inhaltlich-funktionalen Fundierung entgegensetzten. Das Handbuch versucht, diese verschiedenen Auffassungen darüber, was die Syntax zu tun hat und wie sie es zu tun hat, möglichst vollständig zu dokumentieren, und zwar sowohl unter systematischen Gesichtspunkten als auch im Hinblick auf die wissenschaftshistorische Entwicklung, die von der Sprachforschung der Antike bis zu den aktuellsten Ausprägungen der erwähnten Theoriemodelle dargestellt wird, wobei auch Ausblicke in die indische und arabische Grammatiktradition gegeben werden. So werden zahlreiche Konvergenzen sichtbar, und so kann sich der Leser ein Urteil darüber bilden, ob und wo die Schulendiversifikation mit wissenschaftlichen Fortschritten verbunden war. - Dabei wurde jedoch die Aufgabe einer umfassenden Dokumentation der syntaktischen Theorienbildung nicht so interpretiert, daß alle Richtungen in gleichem Umfang vertreten sein sollen. Vielmehr waren bestimmte Gewichtungen unumgänglich. So wurde der Generativen Grammatik in ihren verschiedenen Spielarten besondere Aufmerksamkeit gewidmet, da von ihr die meisten Impulse ausgingen. Neben der Dokumentation der syntaktischen Schulen ist es Hauptaufgabe des Handbuchs, Materialien über die variierenden Ausprägungen syntaktischer Phänomene in den Sprachen der Welt sowie über Tendenzen der sprachhistorischen Veränderung des Satzbaus zur Verfügung zu stellen. Die Autoren haben sich bemüht, ihre Beiträge auch für nicht eingearbeitete Leser verständlich und instruktiv zu gestalten. Damit spricht das Handbuch nicht nur Sprachwissenschaftler, sondern auch andere Berufsgruppen an, die in ihrer Tätigkeit mit syntaktischen Fragen in Berührung kommen, etwa Psychologen, Lehrer, EDV-Fachleute, Übersetzer, Lektoren u.a.m. (shrink)

The article formulates some aspects concerning the nature and structure of scientific revolutions. As a reference example, the scientific (more precisely, natural-philosophical) revolution of the 16th-17th centuries (SR1) was taken, which in turn became part of the intellectual revolution of the Early Modern period. It is shown that SR1 is not at all monodirectional and not predetermined in its milestones process, when the break with the Aristotelian tradition automatically cleared the way to the new science and philosophy. In reality, there (...) was an intellectual war, the outcome of which was by no means known to any of the opposing sides in advance. In the article eight factors are noted that contributed to the SR1: 1) weakening ideological control on the part of the Church; 2) chaotization and fragmentation of intellectual space; 3) the redundancy of the intellectual resource for the emergence of innovative theories and practices; 4) the presence of intellectual reserve (the legacy of classical Antiquity and the Hellenistic era, as well as the scholastic method); 5) the flow of new information not embedded in traditional world picture and practices; 6) weakening the requirements for the validity of the hypotheses put forward and the rigor of reasoning, declining (delution) the rationality of cognitive activity and behavior; 7) local breakthrough (as seed impulse) in one of the areas of knowledge (heliocentric theory); 8) the possibility of developments a nd tendencies of the proper natural-philosophical revolution to develop in the tideway (in a shell) of innovative concepts, methodologies and practices that have arisen in unscientific spheres (culture, politics, economics, theology, etc.). (shrink)

Dreaming is a communicative activity between the most sensitive archive of the enregistered experience of life on the earth, the brain, and the most plastic medium for the discovery and practice of meaning, the mind or culture. Both love and war have been made on the basis of dreams, not to mention scientific discoveries. In ancient Greece dreams were medicinal parts of curative sleeping or "incubation" rites in the temple of Aesculapius, and many psychoanalytic physicians today still consider dreams as (...) possessing therapeutic potential. The ethnographic literature gives ample testimony to the great significance accorded to dreams by all of the world cultures. Dreams form a rich store of ethnographic evidence, and their indigenous interpretations can often illuminate the central issues and conflicts of a people otherwise hidden from obvious view. Given these facts, plus the physiological facts that the dream process itself involves deeply-rooted material brain functions, and that rapid eye movement, or REM, sleep, which is the key indicator of human dreaming, is shared by all mammals, it remains strange how little attention is given to dreaming as a formative aspect of human evolution and culture. -/- This essay addresses dreaming as a formative aspect of human evolution and culture by viewing dreaming as a borderland between biology and culture, a thoroughly social, yet private experience. Dreaming not only highlights the "cultic" roots of culture—the spontaneous impulse to meaning—but also illustrates one of the ways in which the technics of the biosocial human body itself form the primary source of culture. I show why dreaming, although private, is a thoroughly cultural, biological, communicative activity. -/- Culture and biology are often treated by social scientists as though they were oil and water, not to be mixed. I should inform the culture theorist at the start that I am fully aware of the assumed nature-culture dichotomy, and that I reject it. I do so not because I am a sociobiologist, quite the contrary, rather because I am a semiotician, and my studies of signs have led me toward a critical reconstruction of the concepts of nature and culture. In what follows I beg the reader's patience, since I will draw from diverse materials and project some speculative hypotheses in places in order to make my argument. -/- . (shrink)

Under the sign of Libitina, the Roman goddess of burials and funerals invoked in Horace's Ode 3.30, this essay provides a celebratory introduction to the work of the Polish Jewish poet Zuzanna Ginczanka, situating her within the cultural history of commemoration and consecration of the dead in Poland and the painful confrontation with the unburied dead of the Holocaust, of whom Ginczanka is one. Her best-known poem, a bitter parody of Juliusz Słowacki's “My Testament,” turns the Horatian notion of poetry (...) as the most precious and enduring legacy on its head by construing the author's meager household possessions, looted after her denunciation to the Nazis in wartime, as the only offering her fellow citizens will cherish, while the text itself was actually brought as evidence in a postwar trial of the Polish woman she accuses in the poem and contributed to a conviction for collaboration. Using historian Thomas Laqueur's terms necro-sociability and necronominalism as competing impulses in a seemingly intractable struggle, this essay argues that it is possible to find in Ginczanka's joyful defiance of traditional accounts of body and spirit the point of departure for a poetics that claims a new freedom of imagination in the attempt to transcend the most stubborn of memory wars. (shrink)

Debates over physician-assisted suicide comprise a small portion of broader culture wars. Their role in the culture wars obscures an under-acknowledged consensus between those who support PAS and those who oppose it. Drawing insights from personalism, this essay situates PAS within larger moral obligations of solidarity with the dying and their caregivers. The contributions of Roman Catholic personalism relocate debates over PAS and allow us to harness shared moral impulses.

Political Economy and the Novel: A Literary History of 'Homo Economicus' provides a transhistorical account of homo economicus (economic man), demonstrating this figure's significance to economic theory and the Anglo-American novel over a 250-year period. Beginning with Adam Smith's seminal texts - Theory of Moral Sentiments and The Wealth of Nations - and Henry Fielding's A History of Tom Jones, this book combines the methodologies of new historicism and new economic criticism to investigate the evolution of the homo economicus model (...) as it traverses through Ricardian economics and Jane Austen's Sanditon; J. S. Mill and Charles Dickens' engagement with mid-Victorian dualities; Keynesianism and Mrs Dalloway's exploration of post-war consumer impulses; the a/moralistic discourses of Friedrich von Hayek, and Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged; and finally the virtual crises of the twenty-first century financial market and Don DeLillo's Cosmopolis. Through its sustained comparative analysis of literary and economic discourses, this book transforms our understanding of the genre of the novel and offers critical new understandings of literary value, cultural capital and the moral foundations of political economy. (shrink)