Figurativity has attracted scholars' attention for thousands of years and yet there are still open questions concerning its nature. Figurativity and Human Ecology endorses a view of figurativity as ubiquitous in human reasoning and language, and as a key example of how a human organism and its perceived or imagined environment co-function as a system. The volume sees figurativity not only as embedded in an environment but also as a way of acting within that environment. It places figurativity within an (...) ecological context, and approaches it as a phenomenon which cuts across bodily, psychological, linguistic, social, cultural and natural environments. Figurativity and Human Ecology will appeal to those interested in the analysis of the all-encompassing creativity of the human mind and in the methodological difficulties associated with the study of cognition. (shrink)

This article argues that the citizens of Hegel's state cannot maintain themselves as politically free because they are susceptible to mutual enslavement. I demonstrate this by focusing on the Roman republican background of Hegel's constitution, the potential trajectory of its dissolution and the accompanying means of its cyclical fortification through courage. Hegel, by integrating aspects of the Roman mixed constitution also adopts the idea of decadence within his conception of civil society. After locating the source of decadence in the contractual (...) relations of peace and the bourgeois inability to overcome the fear of death, I go on to argue that war for Hegel provides a theatre where freedom may be regenerated through courage. However, I also show that modern wars do not provide sufficient means of perpetuating Hegel's constitution. To demonstrate this, I distinguish three forms of war: colonial, limited and total war, arguing that only the latter offers a solution to decay of political disposition and loss of freedom, but that—by being itself susceptible to decadence—it cannot salvage Hegel's state from dissolution and reduction to contractual relations. (shrink)

This article discusses the Bulgarian response to the Covid-19 pandemic. The Bulgarian case is characterized by an ineffective constitution of the individuals as subjects of responsibility for the health of the population, which resulted in a vaccine coverage considerably lower than the European average. The article argues that the fragile responsibilization is an effect of the response to the pandemic that, building on older post-socialist regulations of the access to healthcare, instead of restricting the circulation of bodies in general, tried (...) to differentiate between economically productive and unproductive circulation and to limit only the latter by progressively increasing its differential costs (both in terms of time and efforts and in terms of risks). An analysis of the legal actions against quarantine violators, however, suggests that such a strategy stimulated the public to respond to the pandemic by calculating risks, and if the social actors nevertheless behaved irresponsibly, it was often because they took into account not only the risks posed by the virus but also smaller-scale risks affecting their social support networks. The authorities, however, tried to repair the unreliable responsibilization by articulating an ad hoc right to health defined at the level of the population. That biopolitical right to health was crucial to the implementation of certificate requirements. It was harmonized with individual rights by opening up fields of choice such as the choice between vaccination and daily testing. However, since the differential costs of the higher-risk options seemed irrational, the constellation of individual rights and right to health left a growing residue of irresponsible conducts justifying a further intensification of control. (shrink)

The paper presents a cross-country analysis of the second generation of currency boards introduced in three East European countries: Bulgaria, Estonia and Lithuania. We focus on their institutional, legal and political characteristics which are closely associated with the operation of the automatic mechanism of currency boards. The presence of an automatic mechanism within the framework of the currency board is often cited as a major counterpoint to the “discretion and subjectivity” of a classical central bank. Since there is no precise (...) definition of automatic mechanisms in the literature, we define it as: “the presence of a positive cointegration relationship between the balance of payments and the reserve money and absence of discretionary variables in the model.” When discretionary variables are present in the model in one form or another, we may speak of a “mechanism for adjustment through discretion – conscious or unconscious.” Within the framework of the second generation of currency boards, we reduce the channel of discretion to the presence of atypical balance sheet items and employment of a number of monetary policy instruments. We seek in this article to compare currency board automatic mechanism in Bulgaria, Estonia and Lithuania.L’article procède d’une analyse transversale par pays de la deuxième génération des “bureaux d’émission” introduits dans trois pays de l’Europe de l’Est. L’accent est mis sur les caractéristiques institutionnelles, juridiques et politiques qui sont étroitement associées à l’opération du mécanisme automatique des bureaux d’émission. L’existence d’un mécanisme automatique dans la structure d’un bureau d’émission est souvent mise en avant comme l’argument majeur à l’encontre de la “discrétion” et la “subjectivité” d’une banque centrale classique. Parce qu’il n’existe aucune définition précise du mécanisme automatique dans la littérature, nous la définissons comme “la présence d’une relation positive de cointégration entre la balance des paiements et les réserves monétaires et l’absence de variables discrétionna- ires dans le modèle”. Quand des variables discrétionnaires sont présentes dans le modèle sous une forme ou une autre, nous pouvons parler d’un “mécanisme d’ajustement discrétionnaire – conscient ou inconscient”. Au sein de la structure de la deuxième génération des bureaux d’émission, la discrétion se réduit à la présence de postes atypiques dans le bilan et à l’emploi d’un certain nombre d’instruments de politique monétaire.L’article propose une comparaison du mécanisme automatique en Bulgarie, Estonie et Lithuanie. (shrink)

In the XVII-XVIII centuries. socio-political contradictions in the Russian empire led to the separation from orthodoxy of a number of communities, commonly known as "spiritual Christians," or the old Russian sectarianism. Declaring the doctrine of Orthodoxy authoritarian, they advocated the profession of faith "in the spirit and in the truth," for a spiritual interpretation of Scripture. All spiritual Christians are characterized by: the rejection of the Orthodox Church and the whole institute of the church hierarchy, the basic Orthodox dogmas, sacraments, (...) the cult of the saints, icons, as well as the belief in the incarnation of the Holy Spirit in living people, the "spiritual" baptism which is the teaching of the word of God, human self-communication with God. They declared the whole world spiritual, condemned luxury, preached severe asceticism. (shrink)

The roots of charismatic doctrines go back to the distant past. Their basic ideas of direct spiritual communion with God, of so-called "spiritual enlightenment," were characteristic of ancient Montanism. Over time, these ideas and the cult associated with them passed through the doctrines of medieval hezichasts and religious entities such as Swans, convulsions, Quakers, Shekkers, Hristovers, Eunuchs, Scribes, and others. They are characterized by the belief that God, in the form of some invisible all-pervading spirit, can instill in any worthy (...) person. (shrink)