(1996). Educational policy in Poland in the period of transition. The European Legacy: Vol. 1, Fourth International Conference of the International Society for the study of European Ideas, pp. 674-679.

The content of dreams and changes to the self were investigated in students moving to University. In study 1, 20 participants completed dream diaries and memory tasks before and after they had left home and moved to university, and generated self images, “I am…” statements , reflective of their current self. Changes in “I ams” were observed, indicating a newly-formed ‘university’ self. These self, images and related autobiographical knowledge were found to be incorporated into recent dreams but not into dreams (...) from other periods. Study 2 replicated these findings in a different sample . We suggest that these data reflect a period of self-consolidation in which new experiences and self images are incorporated into autobiographical memory knowledge structures representing personal goals during sleep. (shrink)

Reflecting on a three year long exploratory research of ethics committees in the Czech Republic authors discuss the current role and identity of research ethics committees. The research of Czech ethics committees focused on both self-presentation and self-understanding of ECs members, and how other stakeholders (representatives of the pharmaceutical industry) view them. The exploratory research was based on formal and informal communication with the members of the ethics committees. Members of the research team took part at six regular voluntary meetings (...) of the ethics committees' members, organised by the Forum of Czech Ethics Committees, and at three summer schools of medical ethics. There were realised twenty-five semi-structured interviews as well as six focus group sessions and a participant observation of several regular meetings of three ethics committees. On the grounds of experience from the interviews a simple questionnaire survey was realised among the members of the ethics committees. The ethics committees comprise a community of members working voluntarily, without claims to remuneration or prestige; the unifying goal is protection of subjects of research. The principal working methods are dialogue and agreement. The members of the ethics committees thus, among other things, create an informal community, which can be to a certain extent seen as a Kantian ethical community in a weak sense. The phenomenon of ethics committees can also be described by terms of an epistemic community and a community of practice. These concepts, which are borrowed from other authors and areas, are used as a way how to think of ECs role and identity a bit differently and are meant as a contribution to the current international debate on the topic. (shrink)

The popularity of Fair Trade is increasing swiftly in many parts of the World. However, there is still a paucity of research analysing the northern fair trade actors outside the Anglo-American communities. This paper contributes by presenting a qualitative study of how the Finnish World Shop movements’ key actors understand the movement’s role and position in the rapidly changing operating environment. The study depicts the polyphonic nature of this particular democratic social movement and discusses how success, public trust and the (...) importance of different stakeholders become constructed in various ways within it. (shrink)

The transition of various countries to socialism is giving birth to a constantly increasing diversity of concrete forms of implementation of the functions of the socialist revolution. At the same time, historical experience shows that the socialist revolution is characterized by certain universal regularities, so that it is a matter of principle, of vital importance, that a revolutionary Marxist party allow for them. Among these, above all, is the need for power to be in the hands of the working (...) class in alliance with all others who labor, the need for abolishing the socio-economic dominance of the capitalist class, and for the new authority to have the capacity to overcome any form of resistance by the class opponents of socialism while uniting the masses of the workers at large in the struggle for the building of the new society. Without the organization and cohesion of the laboring masses headed by the working class, and without converting them into the determining political force, a transition to socialism is impossible: this is the most important conclusion of Marxism-Leninism. This conclusion has found precise expression, with room for all possibilities, in the theory of the dictatorship of the proletariat as the political essence of the transition from capitalism to socialism. (shrink)

The article investigates the evolution of views of a prominent Ukrainian philosopher S. Krymskyi proceeding from logics and methodology of science to philosophy of culture and spirituality.

EDITOR’S ABSTRACTIn this article, Huang discusses the process whereby the concept of democracy was translated into the Chinese context during the transitional period of modern China. He asserts that while democracy was rooted in a pessimistic conception of human nature and epistemology in the West, Chinese intellectuals rather tended toward an optimistic view of both, a fact that brought them closer to the Rousseauian tradition of democratic thought. However, Huang also sees signs of a Millianism with Chinese characteristics in (...) the thought of Yan Fu and Liang Qichao. (shrink)

ABSTRACTThis article argues that Anglophone works on Chinese democracy have tended to build their analyses on assumptions that tradition is either a premodern phenomenon unrelated to China’s democratization process, a hindrance that should be gotten rid of if China is to democratize, a static phenomenon that cannot but appear antiquated with regard to a dynamic, fast-paced modern China, or an object from which modern agents can freely draw. In order to challenge these assumptions, this article suggests that modernity and democracy (...) were translated into a Chinese milieu already ripe with Gadamerian prejudices: prejudices that not only modified the meaning of modernity and democracy, but also provided the very conditions without which modernity and democracy would not have been meaningful or understood at all. Max Ko-wu Huang’s work can contribute to our understanding of the role played by various traditions in the process of translating democracy during the transitional period of modern Chin... (shrink)

The reflection on the current period of transition in Serbian society indicates deep contradictions between the urge for European integration and the delay of institutional transformation that fuse with the indolence of a large part of the people. The crisis of values is conspicuous almost everywhere. Continuous changes have had hard consequences on Serbian society. During these changes moral patterns, values, spirituality were destroyed, rebuilt, and lost again. Hence, Serbian society now lies on the ruins of past 'traditions', (...) general values, collective identities, and a common purpose. In everyday life, it is noticeable very often as, for example, in the Belgrade 'park-scape' whose photos obviously illustrate these problems. Razmatranje tekuceg perioda tranzicije drustva u Srbiji otkriva duboku protivrecnost koja postoji izmedju imperativa integracije i upornog odlaganja institucionalnih promena povezanog s indolencijom velikog broja ljudi. Skoro svuda u drustvu primetna je kriza vrednosti. Stalne promene ideoloskih nacela ostavile su teske posledice na drustvo u Srbiji. U tim promenama ruseni su, iznova gradjeni, te opet gubljeni moralni uzori, vrednosti, duh tako da se drustvo u Srbiji sada nalazi na rusevinama proteklih tradicija opstih vrednosti, kolektivnog identiteta, zajednickog cilja. U svakodnevnom zivotu Srbije to je upadljivo veoma cesto, kao na primer, u jednom beogradskom parku cije fotografije i vizuelno ilustruju ove probleme. (shrink)

Processes of transitional justice deal with large-scale wrongdoing committed during extended periods of conflict or repression. This paper discusses three common moral objections to processes of transitional justice, which I label shaking hands with the devil, selling victims short, and entrenching the status quo. Given the scale of wrongdoing and the context in which transitional justice processes are adopted, compromise is necessary. To respond to these objections, I argue, it is necessary to articulate the conditions that make a compromise principled. (...) I defend three criteria that distinguish principled from unprincipled compromises. (shrink)

Many historians and philosophers emphasize the great importance of periodization for the study of history. There is no doubt that periodization is a rather effective method of data ordering and analysis, though it deals with exceptionally complex types of processual and temporal phenomena. For any periodization its basis is a very important point. One can choose different bases for periodization if he constantly uses the same criteria. According to the theory that we propose, the historical process can be subdivided more (...) effectively into four major stages. The transition from any of these stages into another one is the change of all basic characteristics of the respective stage. As the starting point of such a change we propose the production principle that describes the major qualitative stages of the development of the world productive forces. We single out four principles of production: Hunter-Gatherer; Craft-Agrarian; Industrial; and Information-Scientific. As an additional basis of our periodization, by means of which the chronology of the beginning of each respective stage may be worked out, we propose the threeproduction revolutions: the Agrarian or Neolithic Revolution; the Industrial Revolution; and the Information-Scientific Revolution. There are many traditional discussions in philosophy of history that have dealt with issues having to do with the relevance and suitability of the use of broadly psychoanalytic concepts in history (Certeau, 1995; Mudrovcic, 2003). In these discussions some have noted a number of very abstract connections between the concepts and techniques of historiography and those of psychoanalysis. In this text, however, I want to focus on a potential, more concrete point of contact considered only relatively recently: the analysis and treatment of historical testimonies by witnesses of “traumatic events”. (shrink)

The present volume is dedicated to the Wei Jin and Southern and Northern Dynasties (220â "589 AD), which is generally regarded as one of the most fascinating phases in Chinese history. The collection opens new theoretical and methodological pathways in sinological studies, bringing to the forefront a new idea of intercultural encounters based upon a culture of recognition. It highlights the significance of transition in the making of Chinese culture and history, revises prevailing historical approaches in the study and (...) research of China and develops and enhances existing theories or methodologies in this specific area of research. The wide diversity of contributions to the present volume reflects the multifaceted potential for creativity and renewal of this period. The focus is upon the interaction of ideas, researches and perspectives concerning a broad scope of relevant and significant issues in contemporary sinology. In order to understand this diversity, a wide range of cultural, theoretical and historical aspects are considered. The book reveals a new image of the period, thereby undermining the absolute authority and putative objectivity of common historical sources and interpretations. It shows that this was a period rich with political, economic, cultural and theoretical achievements that would prove decisive for the future development of Chinese culture and society. (shrink)

This is the third volume to appear in an edition that will be the first complete, critical, and annotated English translation of all of Nietzsche's work. The edition is a new English translation, by various hands, of the celebrated Colli-Montinari edition. The present volume provides for the first time English translations of all of Nietzsche's unpublished notebooks from summer 1872 to the end of 1874. The major works published in this period were the first three Unfashionable Observations: 'David Strauss (...) the Confessor and the Writer,' 'On the Utility and Liability of History for Life,' and 'Schopenhauer as educator.' Translations of the preliminary notes for these pieces are coordinated with the translations of the published texts printed in Volume 2: Unfashionable Observations. These notebooks represent important transitional documents in Nietzsche's intellectual development, marking, among other things, the shift away from philological studies toward unabashed cultural criticism. (shrink)

This is the third volume to appear in an edition that will be the first complete, critical, and annotated English translation of all of Nietzsche's work. Volume 2: _Unfashionable Observations_, translated by Richard T. Gray, was published in 1995; Volume 3: _Human, All Too Human _, translated by Gary Handwerk, was published in 1997. The edition is a new English translation, by various hands, of the celebrated Colli-Montinari edition, which has been acclaimed as one of the most important works of (...) scholarship in the humanities in the last half century. The present volume provides for the first time English translations of all of Nietzsche's unpublished notebooks from the summer of 1872 to the end of 1874. The major works published in this period were the first three _Unfashionable Observations_: "David Strauss the Confessor and the Writer," "On the Utility and Liability of History for Life," and "Schopenhauer as Educator." Translations of the preliminary notes for these pieces are coordinated with the translations of the published texts printed in Volume 2: _Unfashionable Observations_. The content of these notebooks goes far beyond the notes and plans for published and unpublished _Unfashionable Observations_, encompassing numerous sketches related to Nietzsche's major philological project from this period, a book on the pre-Platonic Greek philosophers. The ideas that emerged from Nietzsche's deliberations on these early Greek thinkers are absolutely central to his thought from this period and contribute in significant ways to the development of several of his major themes: the role of the philosopher vis-à-vis his age and the surrounding culture; the relationships among philosophy, art, and culture; the metaphorical nature of language and its relationship to knowledge; the unmasking of the modern drive for absolute "truth" as a palliative against the horror of existence; and Nietzsche's "unfashionable" attack on modern science and modern culture, especially on the Germany of the Bismarck Reich. These notebooks represent important transitional documents in Nietzsche's intellectual development, marking, among other things, the shift away from philological studies toward unabashed cultural criticism. (shrink)

This is the third volume to appear in an edition that will be the first complete, critical, and annotated English translation of all of Nietzsche's work. Volume 2: _Unfashionable Observations_, translated by Richard T. Gray, was published in 1995; Volume 3: _Human, All Too Human _, translated by Gary Handwerk, was published in 1997. The edition is a new English translation, by various hands, of the celebrated Colli-Montinari edition, which has been acclaimed as one of the most important works of (...) scholarship in the humanities in the last half century. The present volume provides for the first time English translations of all of Nietzsche's unpublished notebooks from the summer of 1872 to the end of 1874. The major works published in this period were the first three _Unfashionable Observations_: "David Strauss the Confessor and the Writer," "On the Utility and Liability of History for Life," and "Schopenhauer as Educator." Translations of the preliminary notes for these pieces are coordinated with the translations of the published texts printed in Volume 2: _Unfashionable Observations_. The content of these notebooks goes far beyond the notes and plans for published and unpublished _Unfashionable Observations_, encompassing numerous sketches related to Nietzsche's major philological project from this period, a book on the pre-Platonic Greek philosophers. The ideas that emerged from Nietzsche's deliberations on these early Greek thinkers are absolutely central to his thought from this period and contribute in significant ways to the development of several of his major themes: the role of the philosopher vis-à-vis his age and the surrounding culture; the relationships among philosophy, art, and culture; the metaphorical nature of language and its relationship to knowledge; the unmasking of the modern drive for absolute "truth" as a palliative against the horror of existence; and Nietzsche's "unfashionable" attack on modern science and modern culture, especially on the Germany of the Bismarck Reich. These notebooks represent important transitional documents in Nietzsche's intellectual development, marking, among other things, the shift away from philological studies toward unabashed cultural criticism. (shrink)

This paper seeks to chart a concept of historical experience that French Romantic writers first developed to describe their own relationship to historical time: the notion of the “transitional period.” At first, the term related strictly to the evolving periodic conception of history, one that required breaks, spaces, or zones of indeterminacy to bracket off periods imagined as organic wholes. These transitions, necessary devices in the new grammar of history, also began to attract interest on their own, conceived either (...) as chaotic but creative times of transformation, or, more often, as slack periods of decadence that possessed no proper style but exhibited hybrid traits. Their real interest, however, lies in their reflexive application to the nineteenth century itself, by writers and historians such as Alfred de Musset, Chateaubriand, Michelet, and Renan, who in their effort to define their own period envisioned the “transitional period” as a passage between more coherent and stable historical formations. This prospective self-definition of the “age of history” from a future standpoint is very revealing; it shows not just the tension between its organic way of apprehending the past and its own self-perception, but it also opens a window on a new and paradoxical experience of time, one in which change is ceaseless and an end in itself. The paper also presents a critique of the way the term “modernity” has functioned, from Baudelaire’s initial use to the present, to occlude the experience of transition that the Romantics highlighted. By imposing on the nineteenth-century sense of the transitory a heroic period designation, the term “modernity” denies precisely the reality it describes, and sublimates a widespread temporal malaise into its contrary. The paper concludes that the peculiarly “modern” mania for naming one’s period is a function of transitional time, and that the concept coined by the Romantics still governs our contemporary experience. (shrink)

In this paper, the nonsmooth compound transmission control protocol with the gentle random early detection system with the state-dependent round-trip delay is investigated in detail. Uniqueness of the positive equilibrium is proved firstly. Then, the closed approximate periodic solutions in this state-dependent delayed nonsmooth compound TCP with the GRED model are obtained by employing the harmonic balance and alternating frequency/time domain method. Then, we compare the results generated by numerical simulations with those of the closed approximate expressions obtained by HB-AFT. (...) It indicates that HB-AFT is simple, correct, and powerful for state-dependent delayed nonsmooth dynamical systems. Finally, we find the complicated dynamic: chaos. It is a grazing chaos with a hybrid property, i.e., where usually w oscillates at a very low frequency and q oscillates at a very high frequency. And, the route to chaos is a very rare route, i.e., the instantaneous and local transition of stable equilibrium to chaos. So, to the end of stability and good performance, we should adjust the parameters carefully to avoid the periodic and chaotic oscillations. (shrink)

I examine some of the main philosophical, conceptual and normative issues in Colleen Murphy’s recent book The Conceptual Foundations of Transitional Justice (2017). I am sceptical whether we need yet another theory of justice to fit particular ‘transitional circumstances’, as Murphy argues. Instead, before presenting an alternative normative, ‘moral’ theory, we need to re-examine the very concept of transitional justice. I examine particularly the following. Firstly, what we really mean by ‘transitional justice’ in various contexts; and I argue that transitional (...) justice is not, as Murphy argues, ‘a special kind of justice’ needed during certain periods of political and social change. Transitional justice is rather an escape route from difficult questions of justice that transitional societies must deal with to maintain the delicate balance between justice and peace. Currently, the concept of transitional justice refers most directly to the overarching and expanding ‘toolkit’ of various mechanisms and processes used in post-conflict reconstruction. It is not quite clear how this toolkit fits with current debates on global, international, regional and local justice. Indeed, I would have preferred that Murphy focus on the complex conceptual foundations of transitional justice, rather than build a theory that conceptually and foundationally remains complex and ambiguous. (shrink)

The paper seeks to analyse how two domestic courts decided criminal trials under circumstances of emotional mobilisation and political stress. Decisions from Argentina after 1983 and Romania after Ceausescu’s dictatorship illustrate how citizens’ affects influence courts’ choices within penal cases. Both cases show how the judiciary had to enter a dialogue with resentful and indignant claims for redress. However, while the Argentinean court filtered emotions through the strainer of equal respect and thus pushed the cause of democratic justice ahead, the (...) Romanian case serves as a cautionary tale about how not to correct injustices through criminal law. These two cases provide us with important lessons about the obstacles, but also the opportunities associated with public emotions during periods of radical political transformation. (shrink)

The aim of this analysis was to examine the effects on stature in two nationally representative samples of Polish 19-year-old conscripts of maternal and paternal education level, and of degree of urbanization, before and after the economic transition of 1990. Data were from two national surveys of 19-year-old Polish conscripts: 27,236 in 1986 and 28,151 in 2001. In addition to taking height measurements, each subject was asked about the socioeconomic background of their families, including paternal and maternal education, and (...) the name of the locality of residence. The net effect of each of these social factors on stature was determined using four-factor analysis of variance. The secular trend towards increased stature of Polish conscripts has slowed down from a rate 2·1 cm per decade across the period 1965–1986 to 1·5 cm per decade between 1986 and 2001. In both cohorts, mean statures increase with increasing size of locality of residence, paternal education and maternal education. The effect of each of these three social factors on conscript height is highly significant in both cohorts. However, the effect of maternal education has increased substantially while that of size of locality of residence and paternal education diminished between 1986 and 2001. These results imply that the influence of parental education on child growth cannot be due solely to a relationship between education and income, but is also perhaps a reflection of household financial management which benefits child health and growth by better educated parents, regardless of level of income. In addition they suggest that, irrespective of whether there are one or two breadwinners in the family, it is the mother, more so than the father, who is principally responsible for the extent to which such management best favours child health and growth. The asymmetry between the importance of maternal as against paternal education for child growth, clearly seen in the 1986 cohort, became more accentuated in 2001, after the abrupt transition from a command to a free-market economy in the early 1990s. (shrink)

The stereotype of slave-run latifundia being turned into serf-worked estates is no longer credible as a model of the transition from antiquity to the middle ages, but Chris Wickham’s anomalous characterisation of the Roman Empire as ‘feudal’ is scarcely a viable alternative to that. If a fully-articulated feudal economy only emerged in the later middle ages, what do we make of the preceding centuries? By postulating a ‘general dominance of tenant production’ throughout the period covered by his book, (...) Wickham fails to offer any basis for a closer characterisation of the post-Roman rural labour-force and exaggerates the degree of control that peasants enjoyed in the late Empire and post-Roman world. A substantial part of the rural labour-force of the sixth to eighth centuries comprised groups who, like Rosamond Faith’s inland-workers in Anglo-Saxon England, were more proletarian than peasant-like. The paper suggests the likely ways in which that situation reflected Roman traditions of direct management and the subordination of labour, and outlines what a Marxist theory of the so-called colonate might look like. After discussing Wickham’s handling of the colonate and slavery, and looking briefly at the nature of estates and the fate of the Roman aristocracy, I conclude by criticising the way Wickham uses the category of ‘mode of production’. (shrink)

This mixed-methods study examines the human rights and human rights education and training (HRET) perspectives and practices of law educators in Myanmar during the democratic transition that ended with the 2021 coup. “Contextual, Theoretical, and Methodological Framing” provides an overview of legal and human rights education in Myanmar, discusses the potential of human rights education in law schools during democratic transitions, addresses why educators’ human rights and human rights education perspectives and practices are important to examine, and presents the (...) research methodology. “Findings” presents findings based on the two phases of research during the transitional period: phase 1 (2015–2017)—law instructors’ perspectives and practices after participating in a multi-year HRET program; and phase 2 (2019–2020)—law instructors’ perspectives on the goals, challenges, and potential of HRET in Myanmar. The third section—“Discussion and Implications”—examines the contextual challenges and opportunities for human rights education as related to (1) critical human rights education, (2) practice-oriented HRET, and (3) administrative policies and practices for human rights and HRET within universities. (shrink)

Proteins are targeted to plastids by N‐terminal transit peptides, which are recognized by protein import complexes in the organelle membranes. Historically, transit peptide properties have been defined from vascular plant sequences, but recent large‐scale genome sequencing from the many plastid‐containing lineages across the tree of life has provided a much broader representation of targeted proteins. This includes the three lineages containing primary plastids (plants and green algae, rhodophytes and glaucophytes) and also the seven major lineages that contain secondary plastids, “secondhand” (...) plastids derived through eukaryotic endosymbiosis. Despite this extensive spread of plastids throughout Eukaryota, an N‐terminal transit peptide has been maintained as an essential plastid‐targeting motif. This article provides the first global comparison of transit peptide composition and summarizes conservation of some features, the loss of an ancestral motif from the green lineages including plants, and modifications to transit peptides that have occurred in secondary and even tertiary plastids. BioEssays 29:1048–1058, 2007. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. (shrink)

A growing number of young people with disabilities is pursuing university education. Available research on the impact of Information and Communication Technologies on this matter has mainly focused on assistive technologies and their compensatory role for the adjustment of this group of students to the tertiary setting. However, limited research has looked at the role played by digital technologies such as social media and mobile devices in the transition to university, a critical period of change for all students (...) but more challenging for those with impairments. This paper presents the findings of an empirical study that investigated the experiences of students with vision impairments aged 18 to 24 who were transitioning to a New Zealand university. The findings draw from observations, a researcher diary, focus groups, individual interviews, and data from social media. The study found that new technologies play several enabling roles that help students to manage diverse transition challenges. These roles not only include aspects such as impairment compensation, communication, information, and learning but also support arrangement, collaboration, and social connection and participation. By incorporating in the analysis the potential of digital tools, the article updates and expands the understanding of the role of ICTs in higher education from experiences and views of young people with vision impairments. (shrink)

The introduction of the concept of capital inCapital– with the words ‘we find’ – has provoked a great deal of discussion about the precise relation between the categories of simple circulation and the concept of capital. In this article, I argue that Marx derives the concept of capital by way of an analysis of the immanent contradictions of money, and that this dialectical derivation can be understood as a conceptual movement in which the concepts of money and capital progressively change (...) their modal status. Furthermore, I examine the development of this transition to capital throughout Marx’s writings from the period 1857 to 1872, arguing that the same arguments can be found in all the relevant writings. Finally, the article provides a critical review of the literature on the transition to capital. (shrink)

In case of that human civilization was viewed as an integrated organism, the Periodic Table of the Civilizations (PTOC in short) has been formulated and recommended based on the development level and periodicity of core elements of human civilization. It divides the frontier process of the human civilization from the birth of humankind to the end of twenty-first century into 4 periods and 16 stages, and in which four periods include that of primitive culture, agricultural civilization, industrial civilization and knowledge (...) civilization orderly, and each period includes four stages, that is, start, developing, maturing and transition stages sequentially. There are three approaches for the arrangements of the PTOC, that is, simple, vertical and horizontal tables. The big period of earth civilization refers to that from the primitive culture to the knowledge civilization, and then big period of space civilization will begin with the astronautic civilization. The first modernization witnesses the great changes and transformation from the traditional agricultural to the modern industrial civilization, and then second modernization from the modern industrial to the higher modern knowledge civilization. The periodic table, coordinate system and roadmap of human civilization and world modernization have been formulated to describe the relationship between them. (shrink)

This paper seeks to contribute to the field of transitional justice by adding new insights about the role that trials of victimizers can play within democratization processes. The main argument is that criminal proceedings affirming the value of equal respect and concern for both victims and abusers can contribute to the socialization of citizens’ politically relevant emotions. More precisely, using law constructively to engage public resentment and indignation can be successful to the extent that legality is not sacrificed. In order (...) to locate this argument within the rich literature on the pedagogical functions of transitional trials this paper enters a dialogue with three emblematic texts. Lawrence Douglas’s narrative jurisprudence approach, Judith Shklar’s critique of the limits of legalism, and Marc Osiel’s interest in ‘discursive solidarity’ represent starting points for a more complex conceptualization of the relationship between democracy, law and emotional education within transformational periods. (shrink)

In the Periodic Tables the transition from atoms to double-charged cations is accompanied by alterations in the composition of s and p blocks and reciprocal location of blocks, as well as by changes in the composition and length of periods. We have previously described the relationship between the atom properties and the total number of differentiating electrons. This paper demonstrates that, despite the above transition-related alterations, this relationship is also valid for the description of the properties of double-charged (...) cations. This can be exemplified by the dependence of the ionization energy on the total number of p electrons in p block, d electrons in d block, and f electrons in f block. Furthermore, a single periodic equation is sufficient for the description of properties of all of double-charged cations from each block. (shrink)

This article looks at what is genuinely new in the Buddhist transnationalism of the modern period. It examines the history of Buddhist councils and synods from the early gatherings after the demise of the Buddha to the Buddhist World Council in the twentieth century. These often international events followed a role-model, defined by the first three councils, of creating and handing down an authoritative version of the Buddha's teachings (dhamma) while they could also lead to a ?purification? of the (...) monks' order (sangha) if monks sticking to divergent textual traditions were expelled from the sangha. Despite their importance, however, councils have received rather little attention in scholarly literature. This article takes a fresh look at Buddhist synods with a focus on those convened since the mid-nineteenth century. It explores how the latter sought to comply with inherited forms and functions, while at the same time becoming innovative in order to adapt Buddhism to its modern environment. (shrink)

Counterfactual analysis is an interesting feature of thought experiments, because it requires the imagination of alternative states of the world (see also publications by Fearon, Lebow and Stein, Reiss, and Tetlock and Belkin, who suggest the same). In historical analysis, the use of imagination is often the focus of criticisms of such counterfactual analysis. In this article, I consider three strategies for constraining imagination: making limited counterfactual changes, limiting counterfactual changes to the decisions of important figures, and using evidence to (...) restrict the scope for imagination. Given the focus of this special issue, I will relate this discussion to Lewis’s and Woodward’s analyses of counterfactuals in the philosophy of science. I show that counterfactual analysis in historical cases has some resemblance to Lewis’s and Woodward’s analyses, but that what Lewis calls “transition periods” cannot be left entirely vague, as Lewis suggests, nor can counterfactual changes be seen simply as interventions, as Woodward suggests. I propose that efforts to limit imagination in historical counterfactuals are ultimately problematic, but that imagination can nevertheless play a useful role in counterfactual analysis. (shrink)

In its origin and early formation, philosophy was closely related with mythical disclosure of the world and the transcendent. During this early period of Greek history (sixth century B.C.) poets and sages filled the shoes of the theologians. With the arrival of the new thinkers, the poets lost their monopoly in all areas. Thus, their poetic narration about the gods and their teachings about conventional values were placed under heavy pressure and criticism. As a result, mythical meaning, with its (...) revered symbols and rituals gradually began to lose its validity as an authentic cultural force. To be sure, despite their differences, one should not overlook the fact that the boundaries between the poets and philosopher were not clearly differentiated. In this paper, I shall first show the continuity and discontinuity between the old and the new traditions and will point out how philosophy originated against the background of mythic culture. Second, I shall try to show Heraclitus’s role in the process of this transition. Third, I shall explore Heraclitus’s doctrine of the logos and demonstrate that his teachings constitute both a critique and an appropriation of mythical culture. I am convinced that his work is best approached if studied in the context of the struggle between the old and the new “scientific” tradition. In this connection, I shall advance the thesis that Heraclitus was one of the chief architects of the new school and yet, at the same time its strongest critic. Thus, we find in his work, mythic/ scientific “ways” sometimes clash and at times form unity. Heraclitus resembles Jean-Jacques Rousseau in one respect: on the one hand, he was one of the leading champions of the new age; and on the other hand, he was pretty much a child of the old culture. Thus, some of his teachings evolved from and were directed against both the old and new traditions. Heraclitus advocated rationalism and was the first one to warn against it. Keywords: Logos, I – It, I -- Thou, transcendent, immanent, flux, the one, ordained, identity of opposites. (shrink)