The European emigration on the other side of the Atlantic was a complex phenomenon. The areas inhabited by Romanians got acquainted to this phenomenon towards the end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth. Therefore, starting with the year 1895, a certain mixture of causes led to a massive migration to America, especially of the Romanians from the rural areas. The purpose of our study is to explore the causes of the Romanian emigration across the ocean up (...) to the First World War to present the Romanian emigrants' features (occupation, age, gender, social status, religious affiliation, the way they were distributed across the North-American territory) and to bring forth essential aspects of the way they embraced the assimilation process. From a methodological standpoint our analyses are based upon official data of the US Census. This data is being interpreted in the light of some reference papers referring to the period that makes the object of our study. A certain amount of information presented here relies on our research activity in the Metropolitan Archives of Sibiu, where the ecclesiastic correspondence of that time provides very interesting data.  . (shrink)

The relation between Christianity and nation is a very old but also a permanent theme within the Ecumenical Movement. Our aim is to explain why this relation is so important for us, the Europeans, because Europe is in fact, a continent of nations that have to be known by their traditions and by the reciprocal manifestations which, unfortunately, are sometimes conflicting. This is why it is not very easy to speak or to write about it. From the Orthodox point of (...) view, the ideal of the nation can be completely integrated in the Christian ideal. Such an ideal makes possible the development of a nation’s natural qualities. It does not lead to a uniformity of nations, on the contrary, it leads to their growth within the unity of the Christian faith. (shrink)

v. 1. Reflection & mystery -- v. 2. Faith & reality.

In this paper, I will attempt to formulate some observations about the limits of a traditional ontology that is in its essence a judicative one. The main goal is to explore the possibility of constructing a pre-judicative ontology; in other words, to describe the cognitive and affective elements that are “under” the main ontological judgments, related naturally to being. The arguments in favor of a pre-judicative ontology offer a new perspective on judicative ontology itself. This pre-judicative ontology is nevertheless a (...) kind of judicative ontology that covers a nonspecific realm of values. The paper has three parts: 1) a description of the main characteristics of traditional ontology from a judicative perspective; 2) the formulation of some logical conditions of possibility for a pre-judicative ontology; and 3) the outline of a pre-judicative ontology as an ontology of values. (shrink)

Bd. 1. A-B -- Bd. 2. C-F -- Bd. 3. G-Inn -- Bd. 4. Ins-Loc.

In the following paper, I suggest an interpretation of Petrovici’s and Merleau-Ponty’s philosophy, both of them structured in accordance with the concept of unity of existence (the world), itself given in a close relation with the idea about an existential subject. Each philosophy includes a representation of the unity of existence, founded, the first, in a spiritual conviction (noetic belief), and the second, in a perceptual faith. This representation is in the same time a privileged kind by which a subject (...) enters the world. Also, I will suggest arguments in order to legitimate the idea that each representation and its construction let themselves be led by the regulativity of a model of philosophizing: the philosophy of life (in the context of a metaphysics) – Petrovici; the existential philosophy (in a phenomenological context) – Merleau-Ponty. (shrink)

New mechanistic philosophy has not examined explanations in ecology although they are based extensively on describing mechanisms responsible for phenomena under scrutiny. This chapter uses the example of research on the shrub Lonicera maackii (Amur honeysuckle) to scrutinize individual-level mechanisms that are generally accepted and used in ecology and confronts them with the minimal account of mechanisms. Individual-level mechanisms are for a phenomenon, are hierarchical, and absent entities play a role in their functioning. They are distinguished by the role played (...) by properties in determining activities and organization. The chapter also considers the experimental methods for discovery of individual-level mechanisms, the possibility of group-level mechanisms in ecology, and suggests further research problems. (shrink)

In Teoria cunoștinței (Theory of knowledge), the author N. Bagda­sar enunciated the following idea: the metaphysics is conditioned by the theory of knowledge, since the first is a knowledge placed from the beginning under rules. After I will emphasise the Kantian sense of this idea and depict the manner in which the author explains Auguste Comte’s positivism in relation with the meaning of ‘positive’ (given) in that context, I will put into discussion two theories about the unknowability of a “fact” (...) that is in its possibility an object of knowledge. The first, belonging to Mircea Florian, can be deemed as “ontologically negative” and privileges the idea of a suspen­sion of knowledge in the front of the given (an object to be known, in its possibility). The second, belonging to J.-L. Marion, which can be labelled as “cognitively negative”, suggests the idea of negative certitudes – in connection to the recognizing, in some situations, of the unknowability of the given (an object to be known, in its possibility). Both theories condition the “power” of knowledge by the nature of object of knowledge, also assuming that this power, when questions its own possibilities, can produce unknow­ability. In this perspective, the two theories discussed here and Comte’s positive philosophy draw similar conclusions. The references to a possible relation between metaphysics and theory of knowledge will be maintained in the following, but the formal privilege that the last has towards the first in Bagdasar’s view will be relativized. (shrink)

James Woodward offers a conception of explanation and mechanism in terms of interventionist counterfactuals. Based on a case from ecology, I show that ecologists’ approach to that case satisfies Woodward’s conditions for explanation and mechanism, but his conception does not fully capture what ecologists view as explanatory. The new mechanistic philosophy likewise aims to describe central aspects of mechanisms, but I show that it is not sufficient to account for ecological mechanisms. I argue that in ecology explanation involves identification of (...) invariant and insensitive causal relationships and descriptions of the mechanistic characteristics that make these relations possible. †To contact the author, please write to: Department of Philosophy, University of Dayton, 300 College Park, Dayton, OH 45469‐1546; e‐mail: [email protected]. (shrink)

The Simple Counterfactual Analysis (SCA) was once considered the most promising analysis of disposition ascriptions. According to SCA, disposition ascriptions are to be analyzed in terms of counterfactual conditionals. In the last few decades, however, SCA has become the target of a battery of counterexamples. In all counterexamples, something seems to be interfering with a certain object’s having or not having a certain disposition thus making the truth-values of the disposition ascription and of its associated counterfactual come apart. Intuitively, however, (...) it would seem that, if all interferences were absent, the disposition ascription and its associated conditional would have the same truth-value. Although this idea may seem obvious, it is far from obvious how to implement it. In fact, it has become widely assumed that the content of qualifying ceteris paribus clauses (such as ‘if all interferences were absent’) cannot be specified in a clear and non-circular manner. In this paper, I will argue that this assumption is wrong. I will develop an analysis of disposition ascriptions, the Interference-Free Counterfactual Analysis, which relies on a clear and non-circular definition of the notion of interference and avoids the standard counterexamples to SCA while vindicating the intuition that disposition ascriptions and counterfactual conditionals are intimately related. (Please note that an erratum has been issued for the published version of this paper. It is recommended to read the self-archived version of the paper.). (shrink)

To Serve With Honor should be required reading for all members of the officer corps of the United States military. Beyond that, it should be made required reading for all United States military academies, ROTC and officer candidate programs. This treatise on military ethics goes a long way in bridging the gap between the military and society's understanding of the military's ethical dilemma. It is a must for the student of military affairs. International Social Science Review To Serve With Honor (...) is the first book by an American to focus on the validity of current standards of military ethics in more than a century. This thoughtful study begins with the premise that the military profession is qualitatively different from any other profession. Author Richard Gabriel uses this assumption to address such vital questions as What are the limits of military obedience? and When does a soldier have an obligation to resist the orders of his superiors? (shrink)

This discussion of pride, shame, and guilt centers on the beliefs involved in the experience of any of these emotions. Through a detailed study, the author demonstrates how these beliefs are alike--in that they are all directed towards the self--and how they differ. The experience of these three emotions are illustrated by examples taken from English literature. These concrete cases supply a context for study and indicate the complexity of the situations in which these emotions usually occur.

This important collection of lectures and essays was regarded by Gabriel Marcel as the best introduction to his thought.

Is the Smartphone (SP) an extension of consciousness or just an (other) externalization of the mind and an extension of the social? The concept of externalizing the mind more appropriately describes a series of processes that tend to be considered extensions of the mind. The human mind has evolved concurrently with various externalizations, such as utensils and language, as contributions to the development of the common environment of humanity: culture and civilization. Externalizations indicate the appearance of the human mind while (...) the extensions take into account the possibility of passing to another level (the singularity of consciousness). SP is a handy tool that mediates the personal relationship with the world, benefiting from a level of integration into the global workspace of the mind. Externalization called the SP could be a bridge from the externalization of the mind to its extensions, making the ontological leap from the utensil status to that of "part of the mind". SP is a mediator of an environment: it mediates between the mind and a special social environment called the Internet (mediates access to cognitive support provided by society through the virtual world), which is gradually becoming another reality. SP is part of the extension of human society by introducing tools into the network of personal relationships. Not the mind is expanded, but the social network, increasing the number of entities with which the human can create and maintain relationships. SP may be an extension of the social rather than an extension of the mind because it mediates an increase in the complexity of social relations that can lead to the emergence of "collective minds" (causing a change in the ontological status of society). Changing cognitive demands is a feature of the world's progress. Progress brings along with it cognitive costs of integration, technical solutions like SP, aimed at reducing these costs, generating an evolutionary advantage in the new social context. From an evolutionist perspective, the world means precisely this kind of modification of cognitive demands necessary for survival, SP joining the set of tools that mediate the cognitive progress of the world in which the human is inserted. We propose the use of an evolutionary cognitive economy principle, based on avoiding unnecessary costs, reducing losses and optimizing cognitive gains. (shrink)

I respond to Karin de Boer, Thomas Land, and Claudio La Rocca’s comments on Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason and the Method of Metaphysics (CUP 2023). I first provide a quick outline of some of the main claims I make in the book. I then directly address their criticisms, which I group into three categories. The first group of comments raises doubts concerning my characterization of the central tasks of the critique of pure reason. The second targets the fact that (...) I downplay faculty analysis as an essential characteristic of the critique. The third has to do with my claim that the Critique of Pure Reason aims to show that metaphysics is capable of architectonic unity, where this unity is only achievable when we construe metaphysics according to the worldly concept of philosophy. (shrink)

The volume deals with the history of logic, the question of the nature of logic, the relation of logic and mathematics, modal or alternative logics (many-valued, relevant, paraconsistent logics) and their relations, including translatability, to classical logic in the Fregean and Russellian sense, and, more generally, the aim or aims of philosophy of logic and mathematics. Also explored are several problems concerning the concept of definition, non-designating terms, the interdependence of quantifiers, and the idea of an assertion sign. The contributions (...) concerned with Wittgenstein's investigations into the philosophy of logic and mathematics pursue issues relating to logical necessity, the undeniability of the law of the excluded middle, and the source of self-evidence, often characterized in the literature as the "rule-following considerations". Additionally, they examine Wittgenstein's attitudes towards the very idea of set-theory as a possible foundation for arithmetic. The volume also includes a number of contributions on specific issues concerning Wittgenstein's views on moral and religious judgements. (shrink)

Philosophers of science have examined The Theory of Island Biogeography by Robert MacArthur and E. O. Wilson (1967) mainly due to its important contribution to modeling in ecology, but they have not examined it as a representative case of ecological explanation. In this paper, I scrutinize the type of explanation used in this paradigmatic work of ecology. I describe the philosophy of science of MacArthur and Wilson and show that it is mechanistic. Based on this account and in light of (...) contributions to the mechanistic conception of explanation due to Craver (2007), and Bechtel and Richardson (1993), I argue that MacArthur and Wilson use a mechanistic approach to explain the species-area relationship. In light of this examination, I formulate a normative account of mechanistic explanation in ecology. Furthermore, I argue that it offers a basis for methodological unification of ecology and solves a dispute on the nature of ecology. Lastly, I show that proposals for a new paradigm of biogeography appear to maintain the norms of mechanistic explanation implicit in The Theory of Island Biogeography. (shrink)

Philosophers suggested that usual picture perception requires the simultaneous occurrence of the perception of the surface and of the depicted object. However, there are special cases of picture perception, such as trompe l'oeil perception, in which, unlike in usual picture perception, the object looks like a real, present object we can interact with, of the kind we are usually acquainted with in face-to-face perception. While philosophers suggested that usual picture perception and trompe l'oeil perception must differ with respect to the (...) perception of the surface, nobody has ever proposed a final explanatory account for such a difference. Here, I propose such an account. I consider the two possible options as candidates for the explanation of the illusory power of trompe l'oeil perception. The first is that, with trompe l'oeils, we perceive the surface unconsciously. The second is that, with trompe l'oeils, we cannot perceive the surface at all, that is, we cannot perceive it either consciously or unconsciously. I show that the second option is the unique plausible option, as it is in line with vision science, and with our received view about the nature of usual picture perception. (shrink)

Famously, in the essay Inquiry Concerning the Distinctness of the Principles of Natural Theology and Morality (Prize Essay), Kant attempts to distance himself from the Wolffian model of philosophical inquiry. In this respect, Kant scholars have pointed out Kant’s claim that philosophy should not imitate the method of mathematics and his appeal to Newton’s “analytic method.” In this article, I argue that there is an aspect of Kant’s critique of the Wolffian model that has been neglected. Kant presents a powerful (...) attack of the idea that philosophy should proceed through the analysis of concepts and argues that we should give up the aim of arriving at “complete” concepts as one of its fundamental desiderata. Importantly, this attack of philosophy conceived as conceptual analysis is distinctive and original if one compares it with Kant’s critique of analysis in the Critique of Pure Reason, which rests on the idea that analysis is insufficient to ground substantial metaphysical truths. I also make an additional point: Scholars have debated whether the appeal to Newton’s analytic method involves a form of empiricism. I submit that this debate is ill-conceived because Kant uses a notion of “given concepts” that is indeterminate with respect to their a priori or a posteriori status. (shrink)

There is a whole discussion around the genuine/non genuine appurtenance of the Fractal Art to the Art (Ken Keller, Tad Boniecki, Noel Huntley a.o.). Fractal Art is a new way to manipulate shapes, colors and light. It is a subclass of the visual digital art that could describe as that art form produced using a computer (PC, Mac), fractal and graphical software and output devices (monitors, plotters, printers etc.) or using fractal rules and traditional painting techniques (example: Pollock) as essential (...) tools in the creative process. It is crucial to understand that the use of a computer is not a sine qua non condition, even most of the fractal artworks were digitally realized. Fractal Art is an experimental art, engaging in a new way the relations between Creator and Work. Fractal Art has a genuine equilibrium between “pragmatic” and “theoretic”. It is rather about “discovering” than “manufacturing”, rather “evocation” than “mimesis”. The conclusion has to be: Fractal Art is a genuine art form. (shrink)

The changing of our way of being, toward homo sapiens digital, is also responsible for the transformation of the learning/teaching in the 21st century. In K12 education we could speak about “Digital Natives/Digital Immigrants” “herding”, “digital multipliers” etc. In Academe, the focus has to be on creativity and digital wisdom.

We are living in the transmodern era. Now we could detect beyond the similarities and the differences between the modernism and the postmodernism the common search for the human integrality. Only this time we are not beginning with the proclaimed human unity, but with the human diversity. The Human Being has a non generic universality. The unity is purpose before being ground.

We are experiencing a new phase of the crisis of the universality in the transmodern era. In the XXIst century there is room for the common search for the human unity starting from the acceptance of our fundamental diversity and the experiencing of an insular, local universality in the Digital Realm of the Net. There are good reasons to consider the Human Being has a ground non generic universality, inviting us to search the human integrality as a process, not as (...) a result and to accept that the digital natives are naturally adapted to the Transmodern Era. (shrink)

A number of ecologists have put forward various proposals that ecology has laws, yet they have not explicated what role laws play in ecological explanations. Marcel Weber (1999), Lev Ginzburg and Mark Colyvan (2004) correct this deficiency and also make their case for laws of ecology: the principle of competitive exclusion and Malthus's law of exponential growth respectively. According to Weber, the principle of competitive exclusion explains phenomena (1) by direct application, or (2) by describing a default state from which (...) observed phenomena deviate and mechanisms are called to account for the discrepancy. Independently of Weber, Ginzburg and Colyvan articulate a role similar to (2) for Malthus's law. I argue that Weber's proposition of explanation by direct application is not consistent with Gause's account of ’bottle experiments’ that he uses to support it and does not do justice to ecologists' explanatory practice. To address these problems, I articulate an alternative account of explanation by direct application—the covering-law model—based on a proposal by Elgin and Sober (2002) and show that even in this proposal mechanisms play a key explanatory role. I also demonstrate how the covering-law model accounts for how Malthus's law can explain by direct application and for its role of descriptor of a default state. Finally, I argue that the views on laws as components in covering-law model explanations or as descriptors of default states do not give sufficient attention to the prominent explanatory role of mechanisms and to the demanding task of identifying and describing them, and ought to be corrected. (shrink)

Philosophers suggested that usual picture perception requires the simultaneous occurrence of the perception of the surface and of the depicted object. However, there are special cases of picture perception, such as trompe l'oeil perception, in which, unlike in usual picture perception, the object looks like a real, present object we can interact with, of the kind we are usually acquainted with in face-to-face perception. While philosophers suggested that usual picture perception and trompe l'oeil perception must differ with respect to the (...) perception of the surface, nobody has ever proposed a final explanatory account for such a difference. Here, I propose such an account. I consider the two possible options as candidates for the explanation of the illusory power of trompe l'oeil perception. The first is that, with trompe l'oeils, we perceive the surface unconsciously. The second is that, with trompe l'oeils, we cannot perceive the surface at all, that is, we cannot perceive it either consciously or unconsciously. I show that the second option is the unique plausible option, as it is in line with vision science, and with our received view about the nature of usual picture perception. (shrink)

Public reason liberalism is defined by the idea that laws and policies should be justifiable to each person who is subject to them. But what does it mean for reasons to be public or, in other words, suitable for this process of justification? In response to this question, Kevin Vallier has recently developed the traditional distinction between consensus and convergence public reason into a classification distinguishing three main approaches: shareability, accessibility and intelligibility. The goal of this paper is to defend (...) the accessibility approach by demonstrating its ability to strike an appealing middle course in terms of inclusivity between shareability and intelligibility. We first argue against Vallier that accessibility can exclude religious reasons from public justification. Second, we use scientific reasons as a case study to show that accessibility excludes considerably fewer reasons than shareability. Throughout the paper, we connect our discussion of accessibility to John Rawls’s model of public reason, so as to give substance to the accessibility approach and to further our understanding of Rawls’s influential model. (shrink)

By using the general investigation framework offered by the cognitive science of religion (CSR), I analyse religion as a necessary condition for the evolutionary path of knowledge. The main argument is the "paradox of the birth of knowledge": in order to get to the meaning of the part, a sense context is needed; but a sense of the whole presupposes the sense (meaning) of the parts. Religion proposes solutions to escape this paradox, based on the imagination of sense (meaning) contexts, (...) respectively closures of these contexts through meta-senses. What is important is the practical effectiveness of solutions proposed by religion, taking into account the costs of faith and the costs of the absence of religious belief. The hypothesis has the following consequences: religion is a necessary condition for the initial evolution of knowledge and the emergence of religion is determined by the evolution of knowledge. The continuation of the solving of paradox is a Bayesian one, using explorations: a sense of the whole allows cognitive arrangements of the parties, which in turn open the possibility of a rearrangement of the whole. The contribution of religion to the emergence of sense (meaning) could be governed by the rule: any map of the world is more useful than no map; any meaning (of life) is better than no meaning. The human mind fills the perceptual and cognitive gaps, some (religious) filling solutions being true vault keys of the entire cognitive construction called the world. Knowledge is conditioned by the existence of an organized context, as the cosmos created by religion by means of explanatory meta-theories supports knowledge by closing the cognitive context and using meaning networks. The proposed analysis is consistent with a redefinition of rationality from the perspective of evolution: the importance and relevance of knowledge is determined by its practical outcome - survival. In the context of useful fictions, it does not matter what God actually does, but what we have done by believing in God. Existence has provided a pragmatic verification of the cognitive solutions that underlie the survival strategies promoted by religions. (shrink)

The primary objective of this book is to open space for rethinking the relationship between art and politics. It seeks to combat one of the fundamental assumptions that has plagued many of the previous debates on this issue: that art and politics are distinct entities definable in terms of common properties, and that they have privileged points of intersection, which can be determined once and for all in terms of an established formula. This common sense assumption is rooted in a (...) transcendent illusion according to which there are more or less fixed characteristics that unify our terms, concepts, and practices in such a way as to guarantee their meaning. Against this substantialist approach, Radical History & the Politics of Art argues for a praxeological account that begins the other way around by analyzing specific cultural practices without presupposing a conceptual unity behind them. Such an orientation is radically historicist in the sense that it recognizes that all of our practices—be they linguistic, theoretical, aesthetic or political—are historically constituted and that they are necessarily part of a temporal dynamic. Hence the contingent nature of the labels used to classify various practices or even identify ‘practice’ as such. Radical history thereby proposes a significant departure from the extant debates on art and politics by maintaining that there is no ‘art’ or ‘politics’ in general, nor a singular relation between them. There are only historically constituted practices in various conjunctures, some of which have been labeled, through practical acts of denomination, as ‘artistic’ or ‘political.’ Instead of proposing one more response to the oft-repeated question ‘what is the relationship between Art and Politics?’ this book seeks to overcome the presuppositions that plague such a question. It thereby changes the very nature of the investigation by asking: ‘how do the diverse aspects of practices identified as ‘aesthetic’ and ‘political’ overlap, intertwine and sometimes merge in precise socio-historical force fields of action? (shrink)

El objetivo principal de este trabajo es exponer las características de lo que llamo el (o un) tiempo barroco, tratando de poner de relieve cómo el barroco se vincula con esta categoría en oposición tanto a su percepción actual y «popular» como a sus interpretaciones teóricas más relevantes, permeadas por una especie de lectura espacio-visual del mismo. Por ello, se presentan esquemáticamente tres análisis significativos (de Benjamin, Maravall y Bal) en los que cabe encontrar un intento, más o menos sólido, (...) de establecer un vínculo de este tipo, a contracorriente de la concepción espacio-visual dominante del barroco. Con el objetivo de mostrar la especificidad de la temporalidad del barroco en el seno de la modernidad en su conjunto, se incidirá en que estos análisis no lograron, por diferentes razones, ofrecer un punto de partida positivo para abordar esta cuestión. (shrink)

Interpretations of Kant’s account of the forms of “taking-to-be-true” (Fürwahrhalten) have generally focused on three such forms: opinion (Meinung), belief (Glaube), and knowledge (Wissen). A second distinction that has received comparatively less attention is that between conviction (Überzeugung) and persuasion (Überredung). Kant appears to use the distinction between the subjective and the objective sufficiency of a taking-to-be-true to characterize all of these forms. However, it is impossible to account for the differences between them by relying on this latter distinction alone. (...) In turn, this makes it difficult to fit all of these forms into a single classification of taking-to-be-true. In this chapter, I propose a new approach to conviction and persuasion that dissolves these problems. Conviction and persuasion are not single forms of taking-to-be-true with distinctive characteristics, yet it is not useful to treat them as “classes” of taking-to-be-true either. Rather, they are “operators” that determine whether a taking-to-be-true is apt or inapt, depending on whether it rests on a correct evaluation of the grounds we have. (shrink)

The social virtues are not discussed thematically in the Socratic writings of Plato and Xenophon, but they are on display everywhere. Taking Aristotle's accounts of these virtues as a touchstone, this paper explores the portrait of Socrates as a model of good humour in Xenophon's Symposium. While Xenophon is addressing the same issues as Aristotle, and shares some of his red lines, his conception of the ideal humourist and of virtue in general differs from Aristotle's not only in detail but (...) also in general conception. While he never actually violates the rules Aristotle sets down for eutrapelia, Xenophon's Socrates strives not to avoid opposites but to combine them. It is the careful combining of the spoudaion and the geloion that redeems Xenophon's otherwise outrageous portrait of Socratic humour. This suggests a broader paradigm in which virtuous behaviour is a combination of opposites rather than a middle path. (shrink)

This article locates Bourdieu’s sociology within the lasting controversy concerning the nature of causal explanation and interpretative understanding in the social sciences, with a special focus on the classical problem surrounding the alleged compatibility between these procedures. First, it is argued that Bourdieu’s praxeological and relational perspective on the social universe leads him not only to join the ‘compatibility field’ of the debate, but to sustain, more radically, the identity between explanation and understanding. Second, the article defends the view that (...) this methodological proposal is tied to a distinction often ignored among the commentators of Bourdieu’s oeuvre, namely that between objectivism, a mode of knowledge of the social which he intends to integrate and overcome in his structural praxeology, and determinism, adopted by the author as a fundamental scientific principle and, at the same time, a potentially emancipatory ethico-political tool bequeathed by his reflexive sociology. While basically sympathetic to Bourdieu’s perspective, the article concludes in a more critical vein, by defending the need to bridge the gap between the ‘pessimism of the intellect’ that marks his portrayal of the reflexive capabilities of the lay agent, on the one hand, and the ‘optimism of the will’ infused in the critical program of reflexive sociology, on the other. (shrink)

From mass murder to genocide, slavery to colonial suppression, acts of atrocity have lives that extend far beyond the horrific moment. They engender trauma that echoes for generations, in the experiences of those on both sides of the act. Gabriele Schwab reads these legacies in a number of narratives, primarily through the writing of postwar Germans and the descendents of Holocaust survivors. She connects their work to earlier histories of slavery and colonialism and to more recent events, such as South (...) African Apartheid, the practice of torture after 9/11, and the "disappearances" that occurred during South American dictatorships. Schwab's texts include memoirs, such as Ruth Kluger's _Still Alive_ and Marguerite Duras's _La Douleur_; second-generation accounts by the children of Holocaust survivors, such as Georges Perec's _W_, Art Spiegelman's _Maus_, and Philippe Grimbert's _Secret_; and second-generation recollections by Germans, such as W. G. Sebald's _Austerlitz_, Sabine Reichel's _What Did You Do in the War, Daddy?_, and Ursula Duba's _Tales from a Child of the Enemy_. She also incorporates her own reminiscences of growing up in postwar Germany, mapping interlaced memories and histories as they interact in psychic life and cultural memory. Schwab concludes with a bracing look at issues of responsibility, reparation, and forgiveness across the victim/perpetrator divide. (shrink)

This article aims to offer a fresh analysis of two passages in the extensive necromancy episode in Lucan's Bellum Ciuile: the ritual to reanimate the dead soldier's corpse (6.667–73), and the surgical procedure Erichtho then proceeds to undertake (6.750–7), resembling the practice of a vivisection. The study will focus mostly on the strong connection of magic to medical traditions in antiquity, with a commentary on, and analysis of, these verses through the lenses of medical vocabulary, themes and motifs. It ultimately (...) concludes that Lucan was familiar with the language and characteristics of the medical tradition, enriched his report with them, and was playing with his audience's knowledge of the same. (shrink)

In this article, by professional immunity we refer to limitation of liability to the specific pandemic context, respectively to the concrete possibilities of diagnosis, treatment, care and too few degrees of professional freedom still available. The relevance of one or another of the limitation measures of professional liability depends on the specific legal context of each community. Our thesis is that, regardless of the form of transposition into practice, a form of health professionals protection, such as professional immunity is necessary. (...) From the multitude of possible protection measures, each state can select the appropriate ones. The need for specific measures for professional immunity is not identical in each state, depending on the specifics of the legal system, social values, measures characteristics taken to combat the pandemic, the degree of transparency of each healthcare system, the level of bioethical principles influence. However, this need doesn`t start from "no measure", the appropriate minimum level of protection seemingly to constitute a patient compensation no-fault model, plus the characteristics of the professional immunity, designed to adapt liability to specific conditions. The main problem in the absence of professional immunity is the risk of transferring the cost of ignorance, visible, in the inadequate expectations of medical science, on healthcare professionals, the limits of scientific knowledge risking to be reinterpreted as medical fault. The COVID-19 pandemic has somehow forced an additional step towards broadening discussions on universal human rights, being forced to consider ways of putting them into practice in the context of limited resources. Assuming that the increase in social complexity increases the risks of such events, we approach these problems from the perspective of creating rapid mechanisms to adapt to such changes, the lessons learned now being applied in the future to other similar cases. (shrink)